Tarot and Cowboys

The Star
Oil on Canvas
24 x 30
$1200


Just finished this painting and I love it. Prints will be available soon. The model is a very good friend of mine (though you might not think so if you ever heard us bantering back and forth). She's a pure pleasure. Plus, she let me paint her nude. This always moves you up higher on my friendship scale. Just a little something for you guys to remember.

This weekend, and for the next couple of days, I'm spending with my god son. So far, I've introduced him to A Fistful of Dollars and For A Few Dollars More, two of Clint Eastwood's best spaghetti westerns. And the good news...he likes them. I'll admit, there was some fear that he would find them boring or too old to be enjoyable or too goofy to take seriously. Well, semi-serious. Tonight, we'll start on Silverado and possibly Tombstone. 

I went through the desert on a horse with no name. He wasn't that dangerous.

When I was young I wanted to be a cowboy, just like 95% of all male children and approximately 12% of the females (these are actual numbers that I got from the Cambodian Census Organization of 1964. Legit!). I wanted to be the well-dressed cowboy. Like Doc Holliday. And yes, I love Val Kilmer's version. But my favorite was the Kirk Douglas version. I wanted to be the rogue, card-playing, gunslinger.

Check out my shiny vest. I'm a rogue! And I wear rouge!

I've imagined it a thousand times. Me, sitting in the saloon with a whiskey, a deck of cards, and a beautiful woman chatting me up (probably because I was paying for drinks. When I was a kid, I thought all women were shallow). The piano player would be giving us a gay tune on an out of tune piano. And then, some guys would wander in. Maybe they sauntered in. Perhaps more of a swagger in. Anyway, they came in and sat and we play some poker until the wee hours of the morning and I would be winning because what loser imagines themselves losing at poker??? 


Then, some asshole would come in hitting on my girl and calling me names like "dandy" or "cheat" or "moose-jawed ape." And I would say something slick like, "Ughhh, no. You are!"


Then the asshole would shove the table away, dumping poker chips and cash all over the place. The piano player would stop playing "Buffalo Gal."


I'd be cool. I wouldn't even get up. Just sit there and glare and the asshole would be breathing hard and slobbering and yelling things. Then, I'd stand and we'd stare at each other and the piano player would run out the door and my girl would take a step behind me and everyone else would have their heads down or whimper or whatever the townsfolk do when a gun fight is about to happen. 

Butt out o' my business! I taint scared!

Tension would mount, but I would wait. I'm no Han Solo. I let the asshole draw first. Don't worry, ladies. I'll be alright. I have a plan.

The asshole would grimace at me and I would wink or blow a kiss at him or stick my tongue out and waggle it. It would piss him off and he'd draw on me. But I would have a little derringer hidden in my sleeve and "BANG!"

Game over. The asshole would have a new opening in his forehead and everyone in the bar would be pleased because I was always the good guy. The girl would get the money off the floor, the others would straighten the table, the sheriff would pat me on the back and I'd call it a night because I was tired. Then, me and the girl would go upstairs and I'd try to get to second base. Maybe third base!

That would probably happen every night.

It was either be that, or an oil painter.

Geraud