Sk: "God, that weed, man! That's why I don't smoke the shit anymore, they make that shit too good. It's just too damn strong... Ah, fuck!"
Ar: "What's the matter?"
Sk: "I don't know, I've had this pain in my side for as long as I can remember. It's like right here, on my left side. Right in there. What is that?"
Ar: "I don't know, your appendix? Or maybe your liver? I don't know."
Sk: "It's definitely getting worse. Fuck, man."
Ar: "You should probably get that checked out."
Sk: "Yeah, I know... Hey, you saw Ted Danson died right?"
Ar: "I did. Man, I really liked that guy."
Sk: "I know. I was really sad when I heard it. It's strange how these famous people get in our heads. Also, he was pretty tall, right. There's something about tall men dying, don't you think? Don't you feel that way?"
Ar: "Tall men dying?
Sk: "Yeah, don't you think it makes it sadder, like it's more of a thing?"
Ar: "I don't know. I've never really thought about it."
Sk: "Fuck, man, what were we talking about again?"
Ar: "We were talking about time there for a while but I was hoping we could go back to when you finally realized you could do it, when you finally started doing it?"
Sk: "Sure, yeah, but it was never really like that, ya know, not with me. There was never that Jackson Pollock moment or anything. I think most artists just get failed, ya know. People fail you, life fails you. You fail yourself. I wonder how many would be artists never arrive? I wonder what the percentages are? All I know is me, the way it worked for me, the way I worked my way through it. It could've just as easily not have happened. I always had this thing inside me ever since I was kid. I carried it around. For some reason, ya know, I expected people to understand. I expected them to see it, to value it. And I was a good person, I was a really good person. I was kind to people. I cared for them, mostly. This was my biggest problem, the one that took the longest to get over. This thing we have inside us if you're an artist, it has to be respected, it has to be allowed. You don't just protect it. Well, you DO protect it but you don't smother it, you don't let it rot away inside you. You've got to let it out of there and let it develop on its own. You, as the artist have to do this. You can't expect anyone else to. YOU have to do it. And it takes time. We're talking commodity, life. Few people are going to understand it. Life doesn't work that way. When people are in your life, they expect you to be present. The artist is seldom present. People have a hard time accepting this. It comes across as rudeness. They might understand eventually, you know, if you're able to see it through, if you're able to create something meaningful in your lifetime. But that's very rare. Yes, you have to do it regardless, at all cost. For whatever it's worth. No one can predict the outcome... Man, I'm fuckin' high. Sorry, this is all really basic shit, right? I mean, is this at all, you know, anything you're sort of after?"
Ar: "No, no, this is good, it's really good. Just keep going with it. Maybe you can talk a little more about your actual life? Like what you were doing at the time, you know, like when you had your first showing and stuff. When people started taking you seriously. I mean, that must've been something, right? All of a sudden, here you are getting all this recognition and all that money."
Sk: "I don't know. By the time it all happened, I was, you know, I was in my forties. I had been through a lifetime of shit. I just wanted to do the work, to keep it all going, to see where it took me. I had to be able to feed my family. That was it, that was the only demand I had given myself. I didn't care about anything else. Just my family and the work. I had given up on the world a long time ago. Something had happened that could never be taken back. We all knew it but we just kept pretending, we just kept going on ya know, business as usual."
Ar: "You're talking about 911?"
Sk: "Of course, sure. The thing with that is, well, it wasn't what had actually happened now, was it? Something else could have easily done it. And something else would have. It was a matter of time. The cracks were already there. It WAS pretty spectacular though, I must say. Pretty disturbing. Nothing would ever be the same again... Anyway, that's really around the time it all started, when I began to really do the work. When I finally allowed myself the work. (laughter)"
Ar: "What? What's so funny?"
Sk: "Oh, you know, I was just thinking about Helen (wife). God, we had some brawls back then (laughing again). We had been living in this tiny apartment in Brooklyn, in a bad part of Brooklyn. They called it east Williamsburg, but it was fucking Bushwick, man. We had Sam (child). I can't believe we lived there with him. Jesus. He was..., I don't know, like two and a half, maybe three. God, he was such a cute kid. So fuckin' sweet and smart. He used to break my fucking heart every day. Every day. I couldn't take it, ya know, I would just look at him and weep. I felt guilty. He didn't belong in this world. Anyway, you know, we were just so fucking poor. I worked part time, installing. And then I would help my buddy out. He was a woodworker and I would help him with his deliveries and installs or sometimes I would help sand or paint, you know, shit like that. Ya know, and Helen didn't work, she had to stay home with Sam. You know, and that was just terrible. She couldn't take him anywhere. It was too dangerous. They would just stay in that apartment while I worked. God, I get a stomach ache just thinking about it. It was fucking brutal, man. I felt like a total failure. We were always behind in the rent. The cable would get cut off, the phone. We were always borrowing money and shit. I even asked my father for a loan once (laughing)."
Ar: "What happened? He turn you down?"
Sk: "He said, something like, hey, look, you're a grown man. This is the life you chose. This is what you wanted. You wanted to be a painter (laughing, coughing)."
Ar: "Damn."
Sk: "God, the stress was just unbelievable. I can't believe I survived it. Anyway, you know, it was during that time that I finally started to just do the work, for the work's sake, ya know. I tried not to think about it too much or talk about it with anyone. I just did it. I did it all at night right there in the apartment while they slept. I had a headlamp. Hey, you have a headlamp?"
Ar: "No. I used to have one."
Sk: "Dude, you have to have a headlamp! Everyone has to have a headlamp! I'm gonna buy you a headlamp. That's it. Next time you come over here, I'm gonna have a headlamp for you."
Ar: "Hey, thanks, man!... So what happened when you finally showed that work and everything started selling like it did?"
Sk: "Well, that's the thing. All of a sudden we had all this money. I mean, I'm talking like within a year or two, some of my paintings were selling for like a quarter of a million dollars and shit! It was fucking crazy! Absolutely fucking crazy! Helen, you know, she wanted to buy an apartment, like a brownstone or something. She started bombarding me with all this shit, all these things we had to do. Life insurance, health insurance, school shit for Sam, investments... She always wanted to go somewhere. I didn't want to have anything to do with any of it. It was all distraction. People were always emailing me and calling me. People wanted interviews. They wanted me to write articles. I had to get an agent, an accountant. I mean, fuck, man. Other than the money, it was just an absolute nightmare. For a while I tried to talk Helen into moving out to Oklahoma (laughter). I'm serious. I went online and found this land out near where I grew up. I had this dream that we could just live out there and I could just do my work."
Ar: "But you ended up staying in New York right?"
Sk: "Yeah, well, the woman always makes those decisions right? In the end, I was glad we did. We still have that brownstone in Cobble Hill. We stay there all the time. If you ever need a place to stay down there..."
Ar: "Cool. Thanks. Hey, you want another beer?"
Sk: "Shit yeah."
(Inaudible)
Ar: "JESUS CHRIST!"
Sk: "What? What happened?"
Ar: "Holy shit! Motherfucker, that scared me (laughing)! Skeet! Come here! You gotta see this!"
Sk: "What is it?"
Ar: "Look, it's still out there, on that table out there. It's a Possum, right? God, it's so fucking ugly."
Sk: "Oh, yeah. I see her out there all the time. Last year she had a bunch of babies. Oh, man, you should've seen those fucking things... At least I think it's the same one."
Ar: "Yeah, how long do those things live?"
Sk: "Shit if I know, man. Oh, there it goes!"
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