Koolaids Read Free

painting. It was an epiphany. I had never thought of myself as being able to paint because my drawing skills were atrocious. Watching the grid, I realized maybe I did not have natural ability, but I sure could do that. More important, I watched Ben. Painting became a panacea for all that ailed him. His spirits were lifted. I was so impressed, I asked Ben to help me start painting.
    Ben was very helpful, but he was very confused by how I started to paint. My first paintings were like nothing he had ever seen and he made sure to tell me so. Whereas Ben was studying naked Asian boys, I was studying color. These paintings were formless, nothing more than color explosions. At that point I had very little interest in representation, while he thought naked Asian boys were what art was about. Let me elaborate a bit about Ben’s paintings. The originals he copied were very flat. They looked like color by numbers. Draw in a sky and fill it with paint, draw in the eye and fill it with paint. Ben’s were even worse. I once asked him if he thought the sky was all one color, cerulean blue. He had no idea what I was talking about. Whether it was sunset, sunrise, cloudy day, or sunny day, Ben’s skies were always cerulean blue.
    Ben and I got our first show together. It was a nonjuried show by the local gay bulletin board service to which we both belonged. I did not feel I was ready. I had been painting for about five months, but the show was done because of the notes which I uploaded to the BBS when I started painting. I could not back out. Ben, on the other hand, was ecstatic. People were about to see his genius! He entered one of his naked Asian boys and a copy his lover made of Léger’s La Lecture. He proudly told me nobody would be able to figure the Léger was a Léger copy since La Lecture had not been seen in the US since 1945. How can one explain that anybody can tell a Léger painting because of the style? It was then I realized he was simply artistically blind. Couldn’t see worth shit. It is said that Skinner taught pigeons to tell the difference between a Monet and a Matisse. Those pigeons could tell more about painting than Ben.
    Ben continued painting and produced one horrible painting after another. He thought they were all masterpieces. He gave them to friends. They never knew what to do with them. They hid them in closets and brought them out when he came to visit. He kept on painting. He kept on painting until he really couldn’t see worth shit due to CMV retinitis.
    Ben died this morning at 5:19 a.m . The world lost a bad painter and a great soul. I miss him already.
    â€¦
    I always thought if Beethoven could do it, so could I. The truth is I am not Beethoven. Hell, I am barely a John Tesh. When I started losing my eyesight, I could not paint anymore. I could not force myself. My dealer said she would be able to sell out a show if I came out with some new paintings. I could not. I destroyed all my paintings, even the 60 by 80s I kept for myself. My studio is deserted. If I could not see my paintings anymore, no one else would.
    I heard some collector sold one of my paintings to the Museum of Modem Art for five times what he paid for it three years ago. They must think I am dead or something.
    â€¦
    Georges was my introduction to bisexuality. He was bisexual. I wasn’ t. He porked both my cousin and me. That made him a bisexual. It also made him my hero.
    A big scandal erupted when it was found out he had deflowered my cousin. My stupid cousin arrived home with a smile on her face and blood on her panties. Her father threatened to blow off Georges’s head. She claimed he forced her. He claimed otherwise. They were both fourteen. Her father could not shoot Georges since he was so young. Many of my uncle’s friends suggested he would feel much better if he shot Georges anyway. My uncle settled on being miserable for the rest of his daughter’s life. My cousin, who was a