What? Me Worry?
Check out the dude chillin in the LAX airport. Got his feet up on his suitcase, shoes off, got his hat tilted down over his eyes, got this little notebook and a pen. Goin home, goin home on the next flight out, finished with pitching his proposal for the biggest sheriff station in America, nice fat art budget, no telling if he won or lost.
You think he’s stressin, you’d be guessin. But you’d be wrong. The dude isn’t stressin, the dude is chillin, glad to leave sunny Southern California and its 10 lane freeways crawling 5 mph for 50 miles the day before. Which IS stress inducing when the dude wants to catch that next plane home with little room for delays at the car rental or the shuttle bus or the TSA line, any one of which would make him miss that flight with none until the following day.
What Joe Cool here knows — and you don’t — is these competitions are always crapshoots. The deck is stacked with jokers in hidden cards. A project you think you’ve won hands down goes to some dark horse. One you’re certain you lost lands in your lap. Joe’s been to this rodeo before. Joe doesn’t even mind mixing metaphors the way a blind bartender mixes drinks. Joe’s just glad to be chillin. Goin home. Getting the hell out.
If he wins the commission, swell. If he loses it, another will come along. The days when it seemed like life and death, succeed or get a minimum wage job, win or lose the farm, those are just memories gladly forgotten.
Oh, a small part of Joe Cool misses the tension, the excitement, the hunt. He misses the thrill of competing all-out. And he misses the elation of winning, but not the agony of defeat. He misses those but only a little. This is a blood sport, competing against other artists, some nationally known, but now he doesn’t bleed. He doesn’t even carry band-aids, not with ice water in those veins. Check him out, he’s chillin. He’s goin home. Later on he’ll find out if he’s a Loser…. But not right now.
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Tags: Art as a Blood Sport, Leaving L.A. Without Getting Killed or Caught