The Annotated Dodd

Now, if ever, is the time to paint Chris Dodd.

It is a toss-up between this image...



And this one...



I'm gonna call it either "The Annotated Dodd" or "My Double-Chin is Too Big to Fail". Both have merit, certainly.

On a more serious note: I like the top one best (that mouth!), but I'm also tangentially in love with the overall whiteness of Image 2. Chris Dodd is about the whitest guy this side of ... I don't know who.

Rand Paul?
Excellent choice.
Isn't it?

Talk about a guy who deserves to be painted! Paul's whiteness is so pervasive ... so beyond the pale (honk!) ... so metaphorically troubling (what with him not only being the whitest dude in Kentucky but, I'm thinking--one man's opinion--also the biggest racist in the state) ... I mean, the mind reels!

It will be interesting to see how he does in the fall. Libertarians are interesting in theory, but, bye and large, problematic in practice.

Note to self: Lets reduce the size of government by allowing the petroleum industry to monitor its own excellent self. I'm sure they will do fine.
You don't think that's a bit of an opportunistically cheap shot?
Yes and no. I mean, it certainly is ... but sometimes the great truths are best illustrated by gratuitous shots.
Plus, there's the overriding irony of the phrase 'gratuitous shot' with a candidate like this.
Is that a gun-control joke?
Yes it is.

People mumble about what Elena Kagan might or might not do on the bench of the Supreme Court. One has to wonder what Rand Paul's gonna do once he hits the Senate floor.

Thank God I'm not in a wheelchair.
I hear you.

Anyway, Dodd, with his whiteness, makes for an interesting painterly challenge. Somebody once told me he liked my portrait of Jimmy Cayne best of all my Wall Street images. And that one was, in fact, an exercise in light pinks and off whites.

At the same time, I love the weirdly asymmetrical hair on Image 1. Speaks on some level to a hair-based kinship with my boy Tim Geithner--another powerful man with strange hair.

You think Rand Paul is the biggest racist in Kentucky?
Naaaah. It was just my mind wandering. Poetic license. But he is a nut-job.
No question about that.
No. None.
Do you know what I like about poetic license in Kentucky?
No. What?
There's no waiting period before you can start hurling the gratuitous shots.
Is that a gun-control joke?
Yes it is.