The McCain/Grasso question

In the end, don't we all just paint the same shit over and over again? The answer is, of course, yes and no.

All that said, one anonymous wag offered this as a recent comment:

Is John McCain related to Dick Grasso? From there portraits, they could be brothers.

This was then seconded by another:

I agree with anonymous on the Grasso comment. I do not, however, agree with his spelling of "their."

I'm like Barack Obama in that I know a mandate when I see one. Thus, I am offering "Big Dick 1 (Hundred Million)"--the beer that, as they say, made Milwaukee famous--and a cropped, almost finished version of what became "The Annotated McCain 2... " for your consideration.

This, of course, is Grasso:



And this is McCain:



Interesting to look at these two paintings with an eye towards how I've changed as a painter. They were painted almost exactly two years apart.

And these, just for the record, are the eyes of Confederate General George Pickett. Look at his left (image right) eye and Grasso's. Extraordinary.





Life, my friend, is a series of circles. They say that Longstreet, who had opposed the now famous charge but nonetheless ordered it in obedience to Lee, sat on a fence watching Pickett's men charge across that long open field and wept openly.

This is Lee. By me:



In some circles, Lee is called Old Bobby Lee. In others, Bobby the Butcher.

I painted Lee in the kitchen of my father's house in Leesburg about a month before he died. It sold a long time ago but every time I look at it I miss it.

And here, of course, is the detail:



Looks a bit like Grasso. And McCain. Because, in the end, don't we all just paint the same shit over and over again?