"Believe it or not, I can actually draw." -Jean-Michel Basquiat

I went to the MOCA opening tonight. Was also invited to a business acquaintance's party in Santa Monica, but got so caught up in the scene downtown, I never found myself on the 10 West.

It was a cool party, absolutely the place to be...Grandmaster Flash was the DJ, it was loud and crowded and a great mix of artists, patrons, hipsters, poseurs...and people like me, who really just wanted to see the work.

His paintings are complex, funny and sad. I stood in front of several of his pieces and laughed at his celebration of irony, then welled up in the face of his apparent despair. He loved jazz and Mark Twain. He looked forward to making films that portrayed African Americans as "regular people," not thieves and druggies. When asked what he'd do if he knew he only had 24 hours to live, he took a very long beat...then said he'd hang with his mother and his girlfriend. He was 28 when he died of an accidental drug overdose. We always say it's such a waste for an artist to die so young...but does that diminish the rich body of work he's left behind?

I ran into well-known LA painter acquaintance Joshua, who told me he'd gone to a Basquiat opening in 1983; we stood in front of one of the paintings Joshua had viewed while the artist was in the room. I observed Basquiat's regular use of halos, and wondered if he'd been seeing angels, or was just looking for them -- a thought that appealed to Joshua.

The line for the women's rest room was predictably long, and the men's line was non-existent; a common phenomenon. I stood with several women at the end of our line, one of whom had asked her boyfriend to scope out the men's room scene on her behalf. I suggested that it wouldn't matter if enough of us stormed the place. "A takeover?" asked the 20-something woman, just as her boyfriend emerged and advised us that he didn't think the men would mind. So, five of us strode past the manned urinals, and waited patiently for the stalls to empty. Mine was offered to me by a guy who said to all of us, "I not only put the seat down, I wiped it off, too! Chivalry is NOT dead!" And another cool guy said, "I love seeing all these pairs of high heels in the men's room stalls! Very sexy!"

I was just about to leave the gallery when a man with shoulder-length wild hair and shocking blue eyes approached me and said with an ivory smile, "You look so beautiful in all that blue, just beautiful, especially with your red hair." I'm always touched when a man goes out of his way with a sincere compliment. I wondered how many other men thought the same thing but chose not to say anything? Men really should speak up about such things. When it's a genuine offering, it makes women feel so good.