My Woody's Outside, Covered With Snow

I have to go take a shower; I'm covered with paint.

That said, and as the final post of 2012 and the 1888th post of The Year of Magical Painting, which this year welcomed its quarter millionth or hundred thousandth visitor -- depending on who you believe -- I offer this image stolen from the pages of the New York Times ...

It's by a guy named Tom Sachs, and, as you can see, it speaks directly to the sort of nonsense I spew off the end of my paintstick all the time.  Sometimes you look at an image and say, "Lord have mercy, I have got to paint that."

This happened to me at the Wine Bar Slash Confectionary last night.  I was sitting by myself, quietly reading The Times on my iPad and I saw this and was so struck I laughed out loud.  I ejaculated laughter, if you're comfortable with that usage.  People turned and looked.

Then I spent a period of time sipping my port and staring off into the distance, thinking about painting Neil Armstrong's spacesuit.  Just another day at the office.

There's something about the proportions of the thing.  Were it me, and it very well could be, I'd paint it large, perhaps 5x6, possibly using the obscured box technique, and dispense with the annotation.  Instead I'd scrawl the words: "I shot the Sheriff ... but I did not shoot the Deputy."  Then perhaps a number of those four-strokes-down-and-one-across-as-a-method-of-indicating-sets-of-five clusters.

Not too dissimilar to this in that regard ...



Because Basquiat never leaves us ...

And that man knew from chickens.  What a painting.  I can't be that messy.  If I could, I'd be unstoppable.  It's a failing, friends.  A failing.

This blog's pretty fucking messy.
Yes, I suppose it is.
That must count for something.
I suppose.

But enough with the negativity.  Happy New Year.

My goal for the new year is to erect at least one PeaceBall and have several others in the hopper.

ooh, ooh, ooh, ahh, ahh, ahh
My folks moved to New York from California
I should have listened when my buddy said "I warn ya" (warn ya)
"There'll be no surfin' there and no one even ca-a-ares"
(My woody's outside) covered with snow
(Nowhere to go now)
New York's a lonely town
When you're the only surfer boy around
From Central Park to Pasadena's such a long way
I feel so out of it walkin' down Broadway (Broadway)
I feel so bad each time I look out there and fi-i-ind
(My woody's outside) covered with snow
(Nowhere to go now)
New York's a lonely town
When you're the only surfer boy around
ooh, ooh, ooh, ahh, ahh, ahh, ahh
I feel so bad each time I look out there and fi-i-ind
(My woody's outside) covered with snow
(Nowhere to go now)
New York's a lonely town
When you're the only surfer boy around
ooh, ooh, ooh, ahh, ahh, ahh
ooh, ooh, ooh
ahh, ahh

Thank God I don't live in New York.  And it's not a Woody, it's the Batmobile.