Painting: Oil on Canvas.

Painted: 2020

Size: 20” X 16”

Owner: Personal Collection

Music Selection: “Rock Me Baby” by Steppenwolf

When I left home, I was like a monk gone to town. I embraced life with both arms extended in a giant hug. I tested the water and experimented with everything that was at my disposal. I basically grabbed two hands-full of life and climbed aboard that bucking bronco believing I was invincible. My experiences were not unique. Many young men have done the same thing. It was a time of testing. Sadly, not all young men escape this time of testing. Some follow it into adulthood and others do not survive it. During my wild days I met some unique people. Many of them were insane, and a few were certifiable psychopaths. In Spain men would run with the bulls, during my wild years I believed it was fun to run with the wild-eyed crazies.  We had good jobs so money was plentiful and there was always someone willing to sell you a little evil. Not every experience was dangerous. On normal days, we would hit the mountain and point our skis downhill. It felt like you were flying, or you could ride behind a speed boat moving full tilt boogie and lose it skipping across the water like a stone. One friend broke his back water skiing, but after a long hospital stay, he was back drinking, drugging, and pushing his limits once again on the water. Fortunately, there were more normal days than crazy ones. One time when things were really slow my friends and I found ourselves drunk out of our minds, sliding naked down Oak Creek in the dead of winter.  The chilly climb down to the creek should have sobered us up but it didn’t. We should have died from hyperthermia that day. Occasionally I partied with a violent paranoid drug dealer just to feel the electricity in the air. It was even more edgy when you brought someone, they didn’t know to the party just for grins. It was for the jazz or the rush of adrenaline. Alcohol and chemical substitutes were part of the madness, but for some… fear was their drug of choice. There were a few occasions, when things went south, and I found myself on my knees praying to God for help thinking I might not get out of this one. One by one my friends began to die from these experiences and in a few cases suicide, so I sobered up and walked away from that lifestyle. I had sowed my wild oats and lived to tell the tale. My friends turned away from me when I no longer shared the breakfast of champions. I never looked back. This painting is like a wound that never fully heals. When I need a reminder of how stupid I can be, I lift the bandage on this seeping wound and give it a poke.

The background of this painting looks like chaos. This time in my life is fragmented and blurred. The table looks like that of a gameboard, but the game I was playing had real consequences. The faces are the faces of so-called friends that were also trapped in this world. The viewer needs to look into the faces of these characters and see if their friends and family are sitting at the table. Did you live in this world? Did you lose friends? Are you still living in this world? Why?