A couple of updates...

First, "Waitress #5 (Reclining)" in her finished state:



I'm quite pleased. That said, let me quote from an early email from me to the Waitress herself:

I will give you one of them, but I get to choose which one you get (and there can be no bitching and moaning about my choice) and you may not get it (because it may not be done) for several months.

Later in the same message, I reiterated, for clarity:

Just to be clear--If I paint three paintings of you and one is unbelievably good and the other two are nice but not fabulous, you are going to end up with one of the nice but not fabulous ones.

So now here's my problem. I'm thinking about giving this one to her--because I am fond of her--but there is a part of me that is liking it so much that I'm thinking maybe to give her another.

That said, I can't really give her "Waitress #5 (Torso)" ...



because, were it you, wouldn't you want your face in the painting, as opposed to, say, your breasts? So that doesn't seem sporting, does it? Yet I'm not sure if I want to do a third. I mean, I've got John Thain I'm already working on...



... which, when finished, is to be called "The Enumerated Thain." This is a great freakin' photo, isn't it?

Inscribed will be a series of similarly constructed annotations. The first, for example, will read "Six wall sconces... $2,700." The list, which you can see below, will go on from there.

1) $2,700 for six wall sconces. 2) $5,000 for a mirror in his private dining room. 3) $11,000 for fabric for a "Roman Shade.” 4) $13,000 for a chandelier in the private dining room. 5) $15,000 for a sofa. 6) $16,000 for a "custom coffee table.” 7) $18,000 for a “George IV Desk.” 8) $25,000 for a "mahogany pedestal table.” 9) $28,000 for four pairs of curtains. 10) $35,000 for something called a "commode on legs.” 11) $37,000 for six chairs in his private dining room. 12) $68,000 for a "19th Century Credenza" in his office. 13) $87,000 for a pair of guest chairs. 14) $87,000 for an area rug in Thain's conference room. 15) $44,000 for another area rug. 16) $800,000 to hire celebrity designer Michael Smith to pull it all together.

And, as close readers can likely predict, the urge to close with something like ...

Doing your mea culpa on television and having people believe that January, 2007 really was "a different time" ... Priceless!

... is almost irresistible to a wag such as myself.

On a self-flagatory note, can you believe I didn't have the presence of mind to shoot the goddam thing once I got the tape off? What the fuck?

Anyway, the list continues. I just shot an exotic dancer (codename: Armagedon) and the hand shakes at the thought of painting Armagedon in all her glory.



This is all you'll see of that particular project. The mind reels with the sheer number of inappropriate puns.

And, of course, there's Vic Pandit:



We're holding him in abeyance, waiting for CitiGroup to simply blow the hell up. I figure if I can finish "The Annotated Citi" (above, almost done) and "The Annotated Fed 2" (a portrait of Tim Geithner, not even started), it'll be all I can do to wait until the weather's above 50. At which point I'm gonna march through Wall Street like Sherman's march through Buckhead (and the rest, presumably, of Georgia).

As for me, right now, as if this were Facebook, I am in a zen-like state, preparing for the Super Bowl. For you completists, I'm listening to "The Only Living Boy in New York" and, as I type, I have the Knicks/Indy game on pause (Knicks up by ten at the start of the 4th). The only reason I'm listening to Simon and Garfunkel (hey--as if I need a reason) is because earlier this evening, with red wine (and sausage and peppers plus brocolli from Pollio's), I watched the recap of the US Figure Skating Championship and Alissa Czisny, if that's even close to how you spell it, took her congratulatory skate to the soulful notes of "Bridge Over Troubled Water" and I just got the bug.

This is Ms. Czisny:



Can you even imagine? My vertical leap on skates, even back when I had one, had to be six inches, max. And I would have left the whole skating thing at that, but whenever I see an image on the web that says "Not for publication" I immediately publish it. Thus:



For the record, I can't imagine doing this either.

Actually, push comes to shove, I have a great deal to say about recent skating events but I want to watch the Knicks game. Besides, I thought we were talking about Waitress #5, weren't we? This is how her left eye (image right) turned out.



The arch above her eye and below her brow used to be darker. Plus I like how it seems to go with the tones of the mouth. After that, though, I started to feel like I was on a slippery slope and I just stopped screwing around.

For you completists, I'm now listening to "Graceland," from which I offer the following opening line:

The Mississippi Delta was shining like a National guitar.

Wow. If I could paint like that...