More about yesterday morning

When we last spoke, it was three in the morning. Odd to be awake at that hour and not to be at a strip club.

Disregard that last comment. Anybody who reads TYOMP knows it's a tragicomedy. And a melodrama. And some other stuff, part of which is a compilation of a bunch of stuff that is completely untrue. I embody the literary device known as the unreliable narrator. I am, on these pages, unreliable. In real life, I'm like a rock. Here, less so. So if I write "Odd to be awake at that hour and not be at a strip club", the only reason for doing so is not to suggest that I habituate such places but, rather, because it is just what the machinery of my mind has manufactured. And off the assembly line it rolls. Then into a (metaphorical) truck, for delivery to you, dear reader. Sign here please.

Still, I dunno. A lot of people read this blog these days. If I could find the reverse delete key on the Mac I'd probably just start over. It would probably be the safest course of action. But, that said, it's not like I've never been to a strip club. I mean, they're a tax deduction for me, given my line of work.

A tax deduction?
Yeah.
For what. Entertaining clients?
No. Who would take a client to a strip club?
Then what?
Professional education.
Professional education? I'm so not buying that.
Here, take a look at "St. Joan Receives the Spirit of the Lord"....

Yowsers. I see what you mean.
Okay.
Wow, that seems like a really dirty picture.
It's not a dirty picture, you nitwit. It's an exploration of the fine line between spiritual and sexual ecstasy.
Do you think people really believe the shit you just fling around, willy-nilly?
I don't know. Does it matter?
Not to me. But I'll tell you this: I am so printing that picture out and taping it on the wall.
Where are you going to put it?
Either in the bathroom or next to my bed.
I'm not sure that's in keeping with the spirit in which the painting was created.
Do you think people really believe the shit you just fling around, willy-nilly?
I don't know. Does it matter?
Do you think there's a line to be drawn between your painting of St. Joan and your nascent Cheerleader with Banana series.
Yes, I do.
Does St. Joan have a banana?
That's a tasteless comment. You understand that the banana is a metaphor, right?
How can it be a metaphor if nobody in the painting actually has a banana?
Fair question. But if the title of the painting includes the word "banana" then, on some level, can't you say that there is a banana in the painting?
On some level, maybe. Just not on a legitimate one.
Hmmm. What if it's physically written on the surface of the painting, the way I write some of my titles across the top?
Hmmm.
What if I'm Jasper Johns and I'm writing the word "seven" on the surface of the painting? Or I'm Ed Ruscha writing the word "damage" on an otherwise unremarkable surface?
It's getting more complicated now. Can I get back to you?
Of course you can.

Anyway, when we last spoke, it was three in the morning. Suffice it to say, odd to be awake at that hour. I'm emailing one of my primary benefactors, the guy who lives in Thailand, about details of delivery of Big Rupert. At some point I suggest that he also buy Big Ben. He comes back at me with the notion of buying Big Ben and commissioning two companion pieces--portraits of Alan Greenspan and Jimmy Buffett. Or Warren. Whichever isn't the one with parrotheads.

And, if it is Warren, then the painting could, I suppose, then be referred to as the Warren Commission.

Anyway, even though he beat me down on price the way old women take a rug out back, sling it over a fence or a clothesline, and beat it with a stick (I mean, you could see the dust coming out of me)--I couldn't email the word "Sold" back to him fast enough.

Life is good. Life is also miserable. This is why this is a tragicomedy. Or a melodrama.

Anyway, I'm now sitting on, or in the middle of, four commissions. They would be: Christmas surprise guy; Erin Burnett; Alan Greenspan; and the Warren Commission. Regarding their respective degrees of difficulty, they will be, in order, hard, moderately hard, easy as pie and I'm not sure.

As I type this, I'm listening to Nils Lofgren singing "Shine Silently".

Life is good.

So you're saying the banana is a metaphor?
Exactly.
For what?
For the instruments through which we generate a fall from grace.
Oh.