Joe ~ May 4

 

Off to The Races

 

I am sitting here wondering what I’m going to write. I have been painting all day and I will be painting all night and through tomorrow into the wee hours of Monday when I will pack up my artwork that I have been laboring on for the past week and go over to my son’s house to borrow his van because my three paintings that will form this massive artwork will in no way fit into my Subaru and I must deliver them to Pennsylvania by 3:00pm or my hiking shoes will turn into pumpkins or eggplants that will make a lovely pie or Italian dish with lots of mozzarella and vodka sauce which will be eaten upon the successful hanging of said paintings which are still far from being complete and causing me such suffering and consternation allowing my blood pressure to rise to higher than the usual higher than it registers at and my Doctor has yet to come up with a sure fire way of controlling the scarlet flow pulsing through my once almost completely clogged arteries that are about to turn seventy years young and are showing signs of retiring and moving to Fiji where if all goes well I can paint and watch the Fiji national rugby club practice and play there matches on a pitch that is surrounded by lush women and naked palm trees which throw a lovely shade on my chaise lounge where I ponder life while sipping on a cool native aperitif brewed by the local witch doctor who lives in a grass hut on the side of a sleeping volcano that hasn’t erupted since Earnest Borgnine won his Oscar for “Marty”and that was a surprise because the studio execs didn’t want to cast him because he didn’t have that leading man looks and was pretty much an unknown commodity in Hollywood among the other luminaries that hung out in drug store soda fountains hoping to be noticed by some big hotshot producer who possibly would seduce them to fix them Eggs Benedict for brunch after a night of serious rounds of Parcheesi the game that made New Delhi famous just like the Milwaukee that was called Schlitz and was renowned for decades until it was bought out by a behemoth of a beverage company who fired all the German brewmasters and brought in ringers from Altoona, PA, located just 3 miles from the infamous horse shoe curve of the Pennsylvania Railroad that snaked up the mountain that came up from the rail yards below that housed the ever reliable railroad engineers and the conductors who conducted their symphonies of station calls and tickets please if you were fortunate enough to work at the dress factory in town and could go out to the local dive bar for a Rheingold and a pickled egg which I hear are good for your digestion but recommend you spend your post egg meditation by staying near the old commode because, c’mon, what is the most important function we must dutifully exercise and I’m not talking about sneaking in to the local sport stadium where you can pretend that you have amnesia and yell and scream and get yourself shot by the video camera and wave hi to your friends while being projected to a national TV audience while singing I’m a little teapot, short and stout and showing off that new belt buckle with the visiting teams logo proudly displayed above my navel which happens to be lint filled because I save the lint and use it to stuff small throw pillows with needlepoint emoji of musical instruments that I’ll never get to play no matter how hard I practice and study and tap my feet to the beet of Dave Brubeck before he took five and left for the coast where although the levy was dry and the seagulls were flying high watching over me while I go back to paint and paint and paint and maybe I’ll end this run-on sentence and thank you for your indulgence for letting me do my little dance while pondering my palette and staining my clothings with spatters of red, blue and chartreuse droplets that will continue to remind me that I read all your wonderful writings and have been remiss for not sending out any appreciative comments because I have to finish this painting which will go on and on until it is done and the Pope will leave me alone so I can humbly apologize for subjecting you to this bit of comic prose right before I paint and paint and paint…..