Working for a living
I hate these snootocrats!
This fancy doofus comes in to my studio, all dressed up in more silk and feathers than I would be embarrassed to even own, let alone wear in public.
Says he wants a portrait of the most beautiful woman in the world, his "one and only" his "true love".
I tell him how much I charge and he goes all "pshaw" on me, money is no object.
You'd think I'd learn.
So the dame shows up, she's not ugly or anything, but the dude obviously has his rose-colored glasses on.
She also doesn't look too happy about the project
There's all this flumphing around about who and what and where is gonna be in the picture.
As if he knew what he's talking about.
He don't.
He wants to be in it, of course, with his silly hat and his spy glass looking at heaven or some damn thing
He wants some musician friend in the picture.
Whatever.
So I get it done, leaving out his most idiotic ideas.
Comes to pick it up, he starts griping about everything in the piece, color's wrong, she don't look right, this is too dark, that is too bright, shouldn't the lute be on the other side, blah, blah, what an idiot.
Yeah, you're right, he don't want to pay.
No dough, no show, pal.
So it sits in the back, nobody wants the thing.
Week or so later, his girlfriend dumps him.
What took her so long, I wanna know.
Guess whose fault that was?
He comes by and chucks a brick through my window.
It's the way these people are, privileged a-holes, the lot.
This fancy doofus comes in to my studio, all dressed up in more silk and feathers than I would be embarrassed to even own, let alone wear in public.
Says he wants a portrait of the most beautiful woman in the world, his "one and only" his "true love".
I tell him how much I charge and he goes all "pshaw" on me, money is no object.
You'd think I'd learn.
So the dame shows up, she's not ugly or anything, but the dude obviously has his rose-colored glasses on.
She also doesn't look too happy about the project
There's all this flumphing around about who and what and where is gonna be in the picture.
As if he knew what he's talking about.
He don't.
He wants to be in it, of course, with his silly hat and his spy glass looking at heaven or some damn thing
He wants some musician friend in the picture.
Whatever.
So I get it done, leaving out his most idiotic ideas.
Comes to pick it up, he starts griping about everything in the piece, color's wrong, she don't look right, this is too dark, that is too bright, shouldn't the lute be on the other side, blah, blah, what an idiot.
Yeah, you're right, he don't want to pay.
No dough, no show, pal.
So it sits in the back, nobody wants the thing.
Week or so later, his girlfriend dumps him.
What took her so long, I wanna know.
Guess whose fault that was?
He comes by and chucks a brick through my window.
It's the way these people are, privileged a-holes, the lot.
6 Comments:
Another good one, Lane. Lovely laid back writing.
(If you enlarge the picture you might change your mind about the "spyglass")
Love hurts and so does art.
Your portrait of an old man
as an artist is inspiring,
illustrating a mosaic of
creativity butted up against
marketing, against the absurdity
of making a living. You have
the scarred knuckles to attest
that one does what one must
to sustain life; only art projects
us to a plane beyond mere
sustenance.
This commissioning and then refusing to pay used to happen quite often I believe. It always seems to be the people with plenty of money who are loath to part with it too. I enjoyed your take on this :)
I loved the voice in this piece. You expertly carried it all the way through. Well crafted.
~Brenda
Hallo, Lane!
I won't be coming for a portrait or foto, but simply to blow up the air mattress and roll out the sleeping bag sometime very late in the evening of Thursday, 2 June.
The LL (& I) send best regards to you, Meredith, and Keth.
Tschüß (while I can still spell that properly on a German keyboard),
Anonomann
P.S. For Meredith: The LL thinks she has found sonmething about an archeological museum in Berlin and will send Meredith an E-mail about it sometime soon.
Enjoyable, ranconteurish work.
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