Tooting My Own Horn

Something, people point out to me, that I'm rarely loathe to do.

Nonetheless, as I look at my Thanksgiving Top Ten I am filled with a sense of accomplishment, a re-energized belief that the act of insanity referred to in the popular culture as "The Year of Magical Painting, Seasons One and Two", might actually pan out.

Pan out isn't the right phrase. I'm not sure what the right phrase is. But I do have a vision--and one of the things guys like Tony Little (if that's the right guy) say is a key to success is to have a clearly defined vision of where you want to go.

What's your vision?
What's my vision?
Yeah. What's your vision? What did you think I said? You're talking about your vision. Asking you what it is seems like the most normal follow up question imaginable.

My vision is me, of course, standing in a sunny studio, the location of which isn't important, wearing pajama bottoms and a stained white wife-beater. My stomach is so big that the front of the wife-beater is pushed up so you can see my belly-button. Bits of either raisin bran or oatmeal (the vision is not completely clear on this) are stuck to the side of my cheek and chin, dribbled out of the corner of my mouth and then forgotten as my thoughts turned back to painting one more junkie cheerleader shooting up between her toes because she's wrecked all the veins in her arm. The studio is filled with paintings, most of which are mine, stacks of old New York Times, and a few sumptuous bits of furniture--carved from dark wood in baroque swirls, covered with deep green velvet, covered in turn with little bits of paint. The phone rings. It is either one of my daughters or the other--hard to tell just from the ring. The Jets have just won the Super Bowl. Life is good.

Man-that's a fucking vision!
Isn't it?