ON BEING A MID CAREER ARTIST

ON BEING A MID CAREER ARTIST. I ran into this old friend of mine the other day. We used to be like best friends but over the years we had pretty much stopped talking to each other all together. But there we were some twenty years later, two old kooks standing on the curb talking about the recent real estate boom, the price of a gallon of gas, and where we were going to move when we finally had had enough of the old neighborhood. The two of us completely oblivious to the young good-looking hipsters who were passing us by on the sidewalk, no doubt wondering how these old farts had the time of day to just be standing there and talking so long. They couldn't possibly know that we were sitting on the last affordable studios in the neighborhood and that they were at this minute packed to the rafters with fully ripened works of art. Anyway, my friend was telling me that he had finally come to terms with himself, that he was not going to be a big star in this game. But he was completely at ease with this knowledge and that now, finally, after all these years he felt free and liberated and excited about going to his studio; and that everyday seemed fresh and fun once again. He said he was happy and content and I suddenly remembered why it was that I stopped talking to this guy so many years ago, because he was a lying sack of shit and because he always managed to arrive everywhere in life at least two or three steps ahead of me.