Art, Schmart

So Joanne and I are standing in one of those small art galleries that dot West LA and we're looking at pictures of lawyers.

Hip people mingle around and munch on some sort of pulped animal spread on some sort of multi-grain cracker. There's generic jazz fusion playing. And the walls are covered with pictures of lawyers.

They're acrylic on metal, mostly in black and white. Marcia Clark, Johnnie Cochran, Christopher Darden, Robert Shapiro. Even -- and I'm not making this up -- Colin Furgeson, the man who killed six people on a New York subway then defended himself in court. His jacket is painted red.

The pictures are about a foot or so square and almost exactly resemble the pictures that have appeared on the front page of the L.A. Times for the past few months -- same angles, same poses.

They cost $2,200 each.

We chat quietly back forth, Joanne and I, pointing out that anybody who buys one of these things obviously has more money than brains and should probably be forcibly restrained. We decide we'd forgive, say, Marcia Clark for buying her own, but if anybody else were to even express interest, they're either (A) a rich stalker or (B) a rich moron.

As we're talking a man in a suit and a brightly colored tie, probably the gallery owner, comes over to us and says, "This is an art show."

I turn to him -- I'm wearing a rain-soaked ski jacket and jeans; I've got mud all over my boots -- and say, "So we're crashing then."

He nods and says, "That's fine." He smiles. "As long as that big purse" -- he points to Joanne's purse -- "is filled with money!"

"Ha ha!" he adds.

And I wish I'd thought to say: "So this is an art show."

 



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