The Mug Shot Turns into Self Portrait

So many called it painting by numbers.  I basically traced the original off of my computer.  How I even found the damn thing I have no idea.  My sister is pretty savvy with uncovering all my dirty laundry via face book, so when she emailed it to me, I tried to play coy and make light of one of the saddest moments of my life by commenting how amazing my hair looked.  My sister said my eyes made her feel such pain.  Secretly I agreed.  It was hard for me to look at it.  So, like always, I  wanted to take something so painful and remorseful and turn it into art. Like art imitating life, life imitating art kind of thing.  But how?  I'm not a painter, I couldn't make it as an actor.  My unpublished manuscript lays collecting dust in a box in my glove compartment.  My mother looked at me like, oh here we go, another one of Robert's bright ideas on how to become super successful and be loved by the world.

But as I picked up the brush, something remarkable happened. For the first time in my history of working in the art field, I was letting myself go.  I wasn't being a critic, nor was I obsessing over how wonderful the piece was and how "Andy Warhol" I was going to become.  Yes, I did in fact live in the fantasy land of actually owning my own Silver Factory one day, but mine would be more successful than the king of pop art.  Imagine how delusional I was thinking that without a bad grey wig and black mock turtlenecks and a plethora of Campbell's soup cans that I could be bigger than the biggest.  I mean, what the fuck did I have to say anyhow.  Most of my artistic ramblings at that point in my downtown NYC nepotistic prerogative what I had to say was so right on that I didn't even know what it was yet.  Basically, I had guzzled too many Jack and Cokes and was too busy dancing to Portishead and Deeper and Deeper by Madonna.  Dancing actually did become my life.  Total Side Bar:  I remember my sister took me out dancing at this club called OM in Austin.  It was totally retro and every guy had one tattoo and some part of his face pierced delicately. Like, if he had to remove it quickly before a job interview while looking in the rear view mirror in his car, he could easily forget that he was new wave.  But that is neither here, nor there.  The club was fantastic.  I wore my dad's combat boots from his days in the Air Force.  I think I also wore them to a Guns and Rose's concert.  I totally fit in with that crowd.  NOT!  I remember turning to my sister as a doobie was passed by and said it smells like burning tires.  Burning tires my ass.  But OM was different.  The music thumped.  The girls were just like my sister, beautiful, stunning, a total original.  There is a Polaroid somewhere of my sister and her best partner in crime Kathy getting ready to go out "clubbing" circa 1995 that literally makes me feel so outrageously gleeful.  The two knockouts have obviously had about 40 Vodka drinks and their shining smiles reveal an anticipation for the night that literally makes me yearn for those points in my life that were filled with such awe, wonder, and anticipation.  Life is all about experiences.  We are new to this human body, this human experience and therefore everything is so damn scary, yet exciting, yet full of expectation, which ultimately can be our detriment.  My father always said, you should see the glass as half empty, that way when it shows up half full you can appreciate it.  I think I was too scared to have any feelings except those that entailed finding the nearest bathroom.  The thought of dancing in front of another living person sent me over the edge.  What the hell was I going to do with my arms?  Do I tap my toes?  Oh, Lord, the rhythm is most definitely gonna get me... Thanks Gloria Estefan!  

But then I digress...

But that night I danced.  A year later when I returned home to Texas from my first full year in NYC, my bast gay pal Diana and I went back to OM.  Somehow it wasn't as fun without my crazy sister in glittered go go boots.  But then depeche mode came on and I hit it.  Diana stood back, and her mouth dropped a couple of inches.  Holy Shit, Palmer, what have you been dancing this whole fucking year.  I played cool, but secretly, I totally was practicing.  Late at night when I was the only person riding the subway, I would slowly rise, and break it down.  My audience a schizophrenic black out drunk with no pants and covered in urine.  God Bless New York.  Best audiences in the world.  I didn't get a standing ovation ever on Broadway, but Diana's slack jaw I think is somehow better than what my expectation of a Broadway ovation truly is.  What do you think?