Dish-Houston

“Deux Amis -- Amenez s’il vous plaît votre chéquier,” (Two Friends -- Bring your check book please), a joint art exhibition featuring contemporary artist Justin Garcia and internationally renowned artist David Adickes closed Sunday, Nov. 11 as a resounding success.  

Visitors to the opening and closing receptions agreed that the two artists’ works – both focusing on architecture and travels -- were bold, vivid and complementary.

“We have enormous respect for each other’s work,” Garcia said. “We see eye-to-eye on a lot of the same things, which with artists, doesn’t happen often."

Adickes’ art career as both painter and sculpture spans six decades. The artist is well known for his grand-scale concrete sculptures of famous musicians, heroes and U.S. presidents. His paintings feature groups of figures, landscapes and still lifes.

Justin Garcia (left) and David Adickes (right). Photo courtesy of Cadence EnterpriseGarcia began painting murals at the age of 12 and developed his talent through the years to create his own signature style. His paintings combine oils, acrylics and textures on canvas to create evocative art. For the Deux Amis exhibit, Garcia completed a series of paintings inspired by Adickes’ sculptures, including the four statues, “A Tribute to American Statemenship,” located at the Main St. exit from I-10.

Garcia is represented by Wade Wilson Art, and his works have been exhibited in several galleries, as well as installed in numerous corporate and private collections.

For more information about David Adickes, CLICK HERE For more information about Justin Garcia, CLICK HERE.

God Bless and rest your soul, Farrah...We miss you!

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DISH is so excited to welcome Lori Geshay, the original Dating Diva as our newest contributing writer! She is loving, hilarious, crazy intelligent, hard working and always has a smile on her face and in her heart to share! To kick things off, we asked her to write a little blurb introducing herself to you! After reading it, we were even more impressed by her! She is a genius writer!!! She's not only full of great stories but she is also an amazing advice giver!! CLICK HEREto email her your dating dilemmas!! Make sure to check back under the Dating Diva DISH section often because her stories are hitting hard and often!!!

DISH Contributer: Lori Geshay

About 2 ½ years ago, I dreamt of Dating Diva Adventures, literally!  I awoke and quickly grabbed my Hermes journal next to my bed and sketched out the character image for the bathtub graphic that most associate the Dating Diva with today.  After 7 years of marriage and a recent end to 3 ½ year relationship/engagement, I realized that I needed to re-discover who I was, what I wanted and what I lacked in my life and so began writing a book---33 First Dates on Match.com, a Dating Diva Adventure.

I’m a girl that has “everything that she wants, and nothing that she needs”, i.e. LOVE.  I’ve had a successful IT sales career for over 15 years and travelled around the world.  However, I’ve paid too much attention to my job and not enough to my personal life.  Why you ask?  I believed that money would bring me happiness.  I believed that material things would make me whole as I grew up less than middle class in Georgia.  I’m here to set the record straight that after all the extravagant purchases, you feel good …for a moment… but then…not so much! Now don’t get me wrong, I love my Birkins, diamonds and anything with an inter-locking “CC” but….they don’t keep me warm at night!
 
So for those of you that are new to the adventures, I began with 3 BFF’s in-tow, and we created a Match.com account.  After over 3,286 hits in 30 days, I set out on a journey of self-discovery in hopes to learn about human behavior, my needs, my desires and basic human interaction.  During this process of 33 first dates, I met some incredible individuals and learned about common dating faux-pas and areas of opportunity that we all have!

My book and dating advice column, Dating Diva Adventures is meant to be light-hearted, fun and introspective.  It is not about the “hunt for a man”, nor is it about marriage…. or finding a rich, sugar daddy.  We’ll leave that to the experts!  I am a woman of substance, have my own financial means and don’t need a man for that, nor do you!

For I am a simple girl that has lived a thousand lifetimes in friendship, love, laughter and can only hope that you’ll enjoy the quest for true love as much as I do.  So guys and dolls, email me your dating dilemmas.   

As I always say, I’m not a dating expert; I’ve just dated more than most!

XOXO

Want more delicious Dating Diva Adventures?
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Houston's own son Patrick Swayze, the hunky actor who danced his way into moviegoers' hearts with "Dirty Dancing" and then broke them with "Ghost," died Monday after a battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 57.

"Patrick Swayze passed away peacefully today with family at his side after facing the challenges of his illness for the last 20 months,"

said a statement released Monday evening by his publicist, Annett Wolf. Swayze died in Los Angeles, Wolf said, but declined to give further details.

Fans of the actor were saddened to learn in March 2008 that Swayze was suffering from a particularly deadly form of cancer. He kept working despite the diagnosis, putting together a memoir with his wife and shooting "The Beast," an A&E drama series for which he had already made the pilot.

Swayze said he opted not to use painkilling drugs while making "The Beast" because they would have taken the edge off his performance. The show drew a respectable 1.3 million viewers when the 13 episodes ran in 2009, but A&E said it had reluctantly decided not to renew it for a second season.

When he first went public with the illness, some reports gave him only weeks to live, but his doctor said his situation was "considerably more optimistic" than that. Swayze acknowledged that time might be running out given the grim nature of the disease.

"I'd say five years is pretty wishful thinking," Swayze told ABC's Barbara Walters in early 2009. "Two years seems likely if you're going to believe statistics. I want to last until they find a cure, which means I'd better get a fire under it."

C. Thomas Howell, who co-starred with Swayze in "The Outsiders," "Grandview U.S.A." and "Red Dawn", said:

 "I have always had a special place in my heart for Patrick. While I was fortunate enough to work with him in three films, it was our passion for horses that forged a friendship between us that I treasure to this day. Not only did we lose a fine actor today, I lost my older `Outsiders' brother."

Other celebrities used Twitter to express condolences, and "Dirty Dancing" was the top trending topic for a while Monday night, trailed by several other Swayze films.

Ashton Kutcher — whose wife, Demi Moore, co-starred with Swayze in "Ghost" — wrote: "RIP P Swayze." Kutcher also linked to a YouTube clip of the actor poking fun at himself in a classic "Saturday Night Live" sketch, in which he played a wannabe Chippendales dancer alongside the corpulent — and frighteningly shirtless — Chris Farley.

And Larry King wrote:

"Patrick Swayze was a wonderful actor & a terrific guy. He put his heart in everything. He was an extraordinary fighter in his battle w Cancer." King added that he'd do a tribute to Swayze on his CNN program Tuesday night.

A three-time Golden Globe nominee, Swayze became a star with his performance as the misunderstood bad-boy Johnny Castle in "Dirty Dancing." As the son of a choreographer who began his career in musical theater, he seemed a natural to play the role.

Swayze performed and co-wrote a song on the soundtrack, the ballad "She's Like the Wind," inspired by his wife, Lisa Niemi. The film also gave him the chance to utter the now-classic line, "Nobody puts Baby in a corner."

Swayze followed that up with the 1989 action flick "Road House," in which he played a bouncer at a rowdy bar. But it was his performance in 1990's "Ghost" that showed his vulnerable, sensitive side. He starred as a murdered man trying to communicate with his fiancee (Moore) — with great frustration and longing — through a psychic played by Whoopi Goldberg.

Swayze said at the time that he fought for the role of Sam Wheat (director Jerry Zucker wanted Kevin Kline) but once he went in for an audition and read six scenes, he got it.

Why did he want the part so badly? "It made me cry four or five times," he said of Bruce Joel Rubin's Oscar-winning script in an AP interview.

"Ghost" provided yet another indelible musical moment: Swayze and Moore sensually molding pottery together to the strains of the Righteous Brothers' "Unchained Melody." It also earned a best-picture nomination and a supporting-actress Oscar for Goldberg, who said she wouldn't have won if it weren't for Swayze.

"When I won my Academy Award, the only person I really thanked was Patrick," Goldberg said in March 2008 on the ABC daytime talk show "The View."

Swayze himself earned three Golden Globe nominations, for "Dirty Dancing," "Ghost" and 1995's "To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar," which further allowed him to toy with his masculine image. The role called for him to play a drag queen on a cross-country road trip alongside Wesley Snipes and John Leguizamo.

His heartthrob status almost kept him from being considered for the role of Vida Boheme.

"I couldn't get seen on it because everyone viewed me as terminally heterosexually masculine-macho,"

he told the AP then. But he transformed himself so completely that when his screen test was sent to Steven Spielberg, whose Amblin pictures produced "To Wong Foo," Spielberg didn't recognize him.

Among his earlier films, Swayze was part of the star-studded lineup of up-and-comers in Francis Ford Coppola's 1983 adaptation of S.E. Hinton's novel "The Outsiders," alongside Rob Lowe, Tom Cruise, Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio, Emilio Estevez and Diane Lane.

Other '80s films included "Red Dawn," "Grandview U.S.A." (for which he also provided choreography) and "Youngblood," once more with Lowe, as Canadian hockey teammates.

In the '90s, he made such eclectic films as "Point Break" (1991), in which he played the leader of a band of bank-robbing surfers, and the family Western "Tall Tale" (1995), in which he starred as Pecos Bill. He appeared on the cover of People magazine as its "Sexiest Man Alive" in 1991, but his career tapered off toward the end of the 1990s, when he also had stay in rehab for alcohol abuse. In 2001, he appeared in the cult favorite "Donnie Darko," and in 2003 he returned to the New York stage with "Chicago"; 2006 found him in the musical "Guys and Dolls" in London.

Swayze was born in 1952 in Houston, the son of Jesse Swayze and choreographer Patsy Swayze, whose films include "Urban Cowboy."

He played football but also was drawn to dance and theater, performing with the Feld, Joffrey and Harkness Ballets and appearing on Broadway as Danny Zuko in "Grease." But he turned to acting in 1978 after a series of injuries.

Within a couple years of moving to Los Angeles, he made his debut in the roller-disco movie "Skatetown, U.S.A." The eclectic cast included Scott Baio, Flip Wilson, Maureen McCormack and Billy Barty.

Off-screen, he was an avid conservationist who was moved by his time in Africa to shine a light on "man's greed and absolute unwillingness to operate according to Mother Nature's laws," he told the AP in 2004.

Swayze was married since 1975 to Niemi, a fellow dancer who took lessons with his mother; they met when he was 19 and she was 15. A licensed pilot, Niemi would fly her husband from Los Angeles to Northern California for treatment at Stanford University Medical Center.

-AP

NOTE: DISH reprinted the AP obit because it was too difficult to actually write one. Every once in a while something hits home and makes it difficult to write or communicate clearly. This is one of those moments. We will be printing some of the memories people have been sending us of Partick soon.

God Bless your soul Patrick. Thank you for blessing ours while you were here.