Keeping Score, Volume 2: These are the times that try men's souls

Do you know that taste you get when you've taken a slug to the lung? When you've got a sucking chest wound and you can't keep the blood out of your mouth? That bitter, brassy taste that reminds you of the kind of beef bouillion you make with the cheap powder mixes?

It is also the taste of complete, utter, abject failure. And if you are tasting it right now I can only assume you, after years of reading The Year of Magical Painting, are experiencing an almost spiritual level of connectedness with me right now. For the first line of this paragraph describes how well my recent Goldman Sachs partners outreach program has gone.

I can only assume that my original assumption that I had penetrated 87 mailboxes was flawed. Because the response has been one of complete, utter, abject silence.

Maybe they got the message you sent them but didn't care to respond.
Perhaps. But a rough knowledge of simple statistics and a keen understanding of the human psyche tell me that somebody would have responded. If only to say fuck off and stop bothering me.
Perhaps. Or perhaps you attach too much value to the email--and by extension your work itself--and fail to see how, putting yourself in the shoes of a newly-minted GS partner, the number of other fish that required frying necessitated the lack of a response.
What?
You heard me.
Okay. But I discount your thesis entirely. Who doesn't want a portrait of Marcus Goldman?
87 people, apparently.
I discount your thesis entirely.
Okay.
A rough knowledge of simple statistics and a keen understanding of the human psyche tell me that somebody would have responded. If only to say fuck off.
You're repeating yourself.
I know. You've upset me.
Sorry. Didn't mean to, but I have a role to play on this blog just as you do.
I suppose.
And besides, what was it that Paul Tudor Jones said?
"I have only just begun to fight?"
Yes, roughly. But more vigorously. And without the question mark.
"I have only just begun to fight!"
Exactly!
It's a lost battle, not a lost war.
Nicely said. Cheers.
The day may be lost, but the future belongs to me.
Those, if I'm not mistaken, were Jackson Pollock's last thoughts as his Buick hurtled towards that tree.
Exactly!
Cheers.
Cheers.
I feel so much better now.
Me too.

Quick note to readers at home: If what you are experiencing is NOT related to an almost spiritual level of connectedness with me; that is to say, you have actually taken a bullet to the chest and the wound is making a horrible sucking noise and you can't seem to get the blood out of your mouth, try sealing the wound with Saran-Wrap, then wrapping tightly with something like an Ace bandage. Then call 911.