Some New York Times art critic called multi-media artist Matthew Barney the most important artist of our generation, and Los Angeles believed him.

Upper-crust art lovers - beautiful people in beautiful clothes - came out of the proverbial woodwork to Regen Projects Saturday night, where Barney’s new movie premiered in a small room next to an exhibition of accompanying drawings.

“It’s like everyone’s dirty little secret,” noted commercial director/ex-boyfriend Ben Weinstein. “We all love Matthew Barney.”

Ish. I wouldn’t call myself a fan, merely a curious observer. I snored my way through the Cremaster series, hoping for a pay-off that never came. I approach Barney’s work like those 3-D mind maps that if you stare at long enough, reveal a picture. It’s like, if I keep at it, something will come through.

I’m still waiting.

“People go to a Matthew Barney show hoping to be shocked or offended or violated or creeped-out,” explained Weinstein. “Even moreso than hoping to see Bjork.”

Oh yeah, Barney and Bjork are an item. They share a child and a similar sensibility that renders them hip, edgy and abstruse. The artist was nowhere in sight. I imagined him canoodling in a nearby zeppelin with his rock-star girlfriend and a big bowl of concord grapes.

His latest film, Guardian of the Veil, is, as far as I could tell, another lengthy, inchoate exploration into Barney’s incomprehensible mythology.

Weinstein, all dandied-up in black velvet with pink accents, gave my friend Nina and I the Cliff Note version of the new film complete with wildly gesticulated improvisation and colorful descriptions of a woman in “like, a hoodie, but with sixty hoods,” and a naked woman urinating.

“Was she really urinating?” I asked.

“Uh-huh,” he enthused, wide-eyed, grinning from ear-to-ear. “It was, like, the best part of the movie.”

Weinstein, an idiot-genius of sorts and a talented artist in his own right, loves Matthew Barney.

“It’s like couture meets The Chronicles of Narnia,” he riffed. “He does it so unapologetically without flinching. I don’t get it, but I can’t stop looking at it.”

He gushed enthusiastically about Barney’s mysterious, disassociative explorations of sex and violence and bodily fluids, and his ability to move freely, and deftly, between various media – sculpture, painting, drawing and film.

I gave it one last try, going nose-to-glass with the faint, chalky sketches that hung between a smattering of larger photographs of smashed cars. But, aside from a cute boy wearing a stripey scarf and holding tightly to the leash attached to his dog, there was nothing at Regen Projects to excite me.

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Anyone who made it out to the American Apparel Flea Market event last Sunday knows what I'm talkin' about when I say it was post-apocalyptic insanity- a flurry of t-shirts, tube socks, hoodies, tees, halter dresses and (the highly coveted) metallic disco dancewear....lines, lines and then more lines... too loud music.

But first, you had to get in. The main line snaked throughout the factory's gigantic parking lot, and when I got there -around 2 pm- the security at the gate told me it'd be at least a 2 hour wait.

Stand in line for two hours... for t-shirts? Yeah right. Still, I was there as much for the atmosphere as the deals. I decided to get out of my car and check out the scene, even if I never made it inside the promise-land.

As I zigged and zagged along it, it was just cool kid after cool kid anxiously punching their cellphones as they waited, looking so miserable. At least it was a beautiful day (check out the ultra-blue skies in my pics).

Shockingly this crew (below) were actually in pretty good spirits. They told me they had been there for 2 1/2 hours!

When I got to the end of the line, who did I see but AA's head honcho Dov Charney with his little dog "Headcase."

"I'm embarrassed," he said, when I asked what he thought of the turnout and endless wait time. "I had nothing to do with this. My staff put it together. Next time we'll be more prepared and organized."

Naughty ads and bad press aside, I actually found Charney to be charming and humble.
He posed for pics (no provocative AA-style poses though) with some shaggy dudes and this Cobrasnake-lookin kid.

The guy had on an ugly Dayglo windbreaker which Dov loved, so he gave it to him off his back. He may as well have said "open sesame." Dov directed one of his employees to let the kid and his posse have VIP entry through the exit into the sale, and we sneakily tagged along.

I was in. But it would end up being 2 hours anyway before I left with my purchases.

It was quite a sight: mounds and mounds of cotton crap (okay, there was a lot of cute stuff too... it just looked like crap the way it was piled on the ground) flying and flinging about as rabid hipsters pilfered and horded. No fights broke out, but some gals were a bit too aggressive for my tastes, especially when it came to those damn metallic leggings.

Then, ya had to deal with the lines to pay for the stuff. That's when I really realized what Dov meant about organization. Instead of paying for all purchases at one cashier, there was a line for each section, which meant if you picked out an assortment of styles, you waited in at least 4 different lines. Ugh!

I left with a couple hoodies, sweatpants, a dress that I've never seen online or in their stores and some baby onesies (including a couple of organic cotton ones)- all for under 50 bucks.

I put back some gold leggings so I wouldn't have to wait in another line. Metallics might be hot, but they aint worth that kinda hell.

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Oh boy oh boy!

1 Million (or as Dr. Evil would say, ONNE MILLLION) garments are supposed to be available for the pickin' this Sunday at the American Apparel Factory flea market downtown. Tanks, shorts, and leggings for holiday gifts? Maybe. Not sure if these are seconds or what, but for a buck to 10, who cares? Our pal Cobrasnake is also having a garage sale on the premises (a tee with his mug on it, now that's a gift!) and AA's new vintage shop will be hawking stuff as well. Too bad we hate '80's gear. There'll be bands, tacos, mariachis and more.

Anyhooo, cick here for all the info. See ya there.

Oh, and if you're determined to stay outta the mall this holiday season (we actually love the chaos) check back here for more hot tips on upcoming craft fairs, flea freakouts and sample sales.

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Another Day of the Ninja has come and gone, leaving us all a bit sad for its passing, as this holiday season can sometimes do.

Hundreds of budding young ninjas, cleverly disguised as 20-something nerds and geeks, converged on the El Rey Wednesday night for the first ever live performance of Ask A Ninja, a venerable day-job timekiller, dating all the way back to 2005.

Ask A Ninja co-creator Kent Nichols ran through the crowd letting dozens of folks pose their ninja questions rapid-fire, mimicing the internet episodes: "Why don't penguins fly?" It turns out they do, and soon the penguins will rise up against us. "What's the Ninja's favorite movie?" It's Casablanca. Who'd have guessed? "Why do Ninjas hate pirates again?" Because pirates are loud, have drinking problems, and it's a little pathetic the way they bury their treasure somewhere only to have ninjas find it and give it back to their owners.

Oh yeah - and lots of killing. While the questions went everywhere, the answers inevitably came back around to how the Ninja would kill his victims, and frequently the questioner. He plans to wipe out most people attending Coachella next year by the way. The Ninja was projected on a large screen on stage switching between several cameras filming him from different angles every couple of seconds. If it sounds like that would be annoying and headache-inducing, you're absolutely right. What works okay on a 3 inch box on your computer screen can get annoying very fast when it's 12 feet high.

The Ninja's biggest problem is that he just wasn't very funny. Patton Oswalt on the other hand, who went on before the Ninja, killed the audience in a way the Ninja can only dream about. In full-on computer geek mode, Oswalt dreamed about only communicating with the world through MySpace messages. YouTube, he said, allows us to act like demented Roman Emperors, demanding to see gay pandas and farting Republicans for our enjoyment.

Oswalt got the biggest applause of the night for announcing his desire to kill George Lucas with a shovel in 1992 before he could make the horrible Star Wars prequels, and he delivered crowd favorites on the KFC Famous Bowl, and their plans to introduce a massive chicken drumstick called the "Megaleg."

The show openers, Hard 'n Phirm reveled in their geekiness even more than Oswalt. The duo sang a song about pi, with a chorus that recites the number hundreds of digits out,
and a patriotic tribute to the American dinosaur, which, being American, couldn't have been green, but was red white and blue.

Through all of this, a crew from the cable network G4 roamed around the room pointing at people with a video camera topped with a blinding light. They were incredibly annoying and oblivious to the fact (or they just didn't care). So when they run the footage on G4, be sure to check out the annoyed shots of all of us shielding our eyes from their goons.

The Ninja can be funny though, when he has time to actually think out his answers. See below for his advice to the striking writers.

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