The fine art of self-destruction

I was discussing my thoughts about a painting titled "The Enunciation of Joseph" with my friend Eric the other day. He, it should be noted, like most of the readers of TYO... , is a heathen savage. Which he will live to regret ... although not exactly.

The concept is roughly this: Theo-historically speaking... Thistorically speaking...

Thistorically? Shit, I've made up my own word!
Pretty cool word, my friend.
I should notify the Vatican.
I'm sure they'll take your call.
I don't see why they wouldn't.

Anyway, thistorically speaking, the Enunciation of Joseph is when God sends an angel to tell Joseph that the reason his wife (Mary) is pregnant is a bit more complicated than his current working theory, and that he should remain calm.

So I'm envisioning a vertical painting--perhaps six by three (I can just peel CWB(FA)1 off its stretchers)--in which the bottom half depicts the heads of both the angel and Joseph (this would be Joseph getting The Word.) and the top half depicts, in a manner as yet undetermined, a combination of angel wings and the cosmos. Scrawled across some portion of this top half will be (specific typographical still TBD):

"Hey Joe. Where you goin' with that gun in your hand?"

At which point Eric blurts out, "Don't do it. It's a career killer!"

He said it's a career killer? Those exact words?
Yes.
Odd.
That's what I thought.
Did you tell him about the strippers?
Yes, as a matter of fact, I did.
And?
I don't think he fully got it.
Perhaps it would help if you explained.
Well, okay. I suppose that some of his concern is that, in this polarized world, I get characterized as a nutjob, a religious zealot, some combination of the two.
I think the cat may be out of the barn on item one.
Perhaps so. Anyway, given that this is, from a purely marketing standpoint, a legitimate concern, I've positioned my series of stripper paintings as what one might call an analog (analogue?) of a hedge fund, back when hedge funds were actually hedge funds.
A kind of yin-yang thing? Fathead Minnow as a renaissance man kind of a thing? A deep thinker? A deeeeeeep fucking thinker who explores, through his art, a wide range of things, not the least being the relationship between the theological and the secular in this complicated world? Something with that kind of a feel?
Exactly. Not so different from the intention behind that painting of St. Joan that you like so very much.
The one where she appears to be having a massive orgasm?
She's receiving the spirit of the Lord.
Oh.
So you can take down the copy you keep next to your bed.
I'm not comfortable talking about that. Besides, this isn't about me. I'm just the Greek chorus. What are you going to do?
Me? Well, nothing taps into my own personal set of disfunctions more than somebody telling me that what I'm about to do will kill my career. I'm heading for the studio.
Hallelujah, brother! And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.