Because "The Hockney of the Harleys" Just Wouldn't Work

So Ray's famous artist is this guy who does airbrushed flames on lowriders. Presumably Ray discovered him on a cigarette break in the restrooms of the Houston Greyhound station.

I'm not really sure how this helmet art qualifies him as a painter of whimsy – Alice! The White Rabbit! The Mad Hatter! – but hey! mine is not to question why, mine is but to push this virtual shopping cart and mutter.

"So, whaddiya think?" says Ray. "Crazy, huh? This guy is good."

"I dunno, Ray," I say. "I'd like to see a little more cerebral spinal fluid leakage action around that hole in his skull. So. Does this guy have a life? Can you tell me about it?"

"I don't know, Pat," says Ray testily. "He's this guy. Why is that important?"

"Check! Mom was a truckstop hooker, little DeAngelo's been painting skulls since Emily Frazier first found him wandering barefoot amidst the broken syringes and human feces at the New Orleans Convention Center…"

Have I ever mentioned how much I loathe being called "Pat"? I mean, okay! I have an ethnic name. Really, it's not that hard to pronounce. Patrizia: "Puh-TREETS-ee-uh!" How hard is that?

Not as hard as it is to write a press release with no real information whatsoever. Here's what I came up with for the first line: He's famous throughout south Texas as the Chagall of the chopper, the Picasso of the Harley…

Did I really write that? I wondered when the fugue state had passed.

And was forced to retreat to my bedroom where I watched the first four hours of Brideshead Revisited back to back while drinking the last of the Christmas Laguvulin, despairing that now that Oprah's been burned, I will never be able to sell her my recovery memoir. Though there was that time when I goaded my then-boyfriend into following Clint Eastwood into the restroom. No, it wasn't in Houston.