I Don't Meet Cheech

For all of you people I stood up tonight: I spent the evening NOT meeting Cheech Marin of Cheech and Chong. I thought I was, but I didn't.

Cheech Marin has backed an art an art show featuring paintings from East LA artists-actually prints from originals in his private collection. 26 of these prints (each from a different artist) are now hanging in the Riverside Municipal Museum, or what ever it's called. I got in on a special VIP reception, featuring a documentary on the exhibit. The film included interviews with Cheech and the artists.

But the significant detail that no one followed up on was whether or not Cheech would actually be there.

We discovered that he would not. He was in New York directing a play called The Chicanologues. First, Chong has his Marijuanalogues, and now this.

But, the evening was festive, once you got past the speeches from all of the dignitaries.

The show was good enough, considering I don't know squat about art. My main criticism was that, rather than one painting each by 26 artists, I would have liked to see a broader representation of each artist so that I could develop an opinion about their work. I ran to in an art teacher I knew who is also a working artist and he said that the reason for the narrow selection was that the show was more about selling these prints than introducing art lovers to these artists. Cheech stood to make serious cabbage off of this deal.

My friend Hlav and I spent about ten minutes analyzing one painting that didn't really merit that much analysis. But I learned that I could apply my knowledge of literary analysis to art. So maybe I don't need to know anything about art. My BS potential is as broad as it is deep.

There were a couple of the prints that I really liked: one depicting the Zoot Suit Riots, another showing a vato looking dreamily at the night's sky.

Outside, there were dancers from the Riverside Ballet de Folklorico. The choreographer explained the dances, so I expanded my knowledge of traditional mexican dance.

I know a couple of my students dance in this style, so now I have something new to talk to them about.