......................

                             1 = Fuck
                             2 = Reagan
                             3 = Ronald
 

It started out with the two of us drunk on the couch at Clare de Loon’s café-- languishing in melancholy on account of finishing the last of Thee Tower of Guinness. Cecil (often a girl’s name) was looking at the marquee across the street on the North Park Theater rearranging the letters into amusing obscenities, like "I Hope I Crap." 

And then the Mullah said, “We should sit here and work on paint by numbers kits.” (We’ll explore what he meant later.) I abandoned the anagrams by drawing an amoebae-like blob, sectioned it and assigned numbers to each section. Instead of assigning colors to the numbers, I assigned words. The result proved almost  as amusing as mentally rearranging the sign. (see fig. 1)

I intuited from his suggestion that the poets we had been listening to were playing it too safe, mining for applause that, like a mine which had been played out,  yeilded no precious ore. The words often formed cliché, and seemed devoid of relevancy outside of the room. Not quite the inside jokes of the Orange County poetry scene, but preaching to the choir nonetheless.

My first thought had always been to lead by example: I read my own poetry, received my applause and from the stage found it difficult to tell whether or not I’d been presented with fool’s gold.

Meanwhile the host of the show, in his weekly email rundown acted once again more like a used car salesman, than an artist. Every reading was “Excellent!” Wowed!” and was purported to be the greatest thing since sliced bread (which we now know causes a terrible American bowel condition known as diverticulosis.) 

It was clear that the message was being distorted and that the “poets” trapped in open mic night would never grow. It was also clear from heartfelt reaction to my pamphlet, Open Mic Night What Good Is It? that they wanted to grow, and that self-effacing criticism was like the dietary fiber in bread, stolen in the name of immediate palatability. Progress has caused us all to forsake health for the mere pleasure of taste.

The grand vizier Mullah Cecil R. Hayduke and I decided to forsake the spoken word for a lesson. We would bring actual Paint-by-Number kits to Clare de Loon. I suggested signing up for the open mic and using our 5 minutes to paint. “If we can get four people to do it, it will be a movement.”

“No,” Cecil said. “Think subtle.” 

The Mullah had spoken.

Since neither of us have jobs, we couldn’t order our kits from amazon.com, so we went to the local thrift stores. We found 100’s of puzzles and old shoes, but not a single PBN kit.  Then we went to Pic n Sav which is a forgotten paradise of Paint-by-Numbers. The best kit in the bunch cost $3 (unfortunately $2.50 over-budget.) “Hey why don’t we just print the blank schematic from the internet. We’ll find Van Gogh-- everything we want.” 

Within five minutes of web surfing I had found the quintessential Paint-by-Number statement. Mondrian. And Cecil found himself a very traditional kind of Grandma Moses cottage. He called an elementary school teacher he’d been shagging and she brought two sets of watercolors and an easel to the door.

We learned that PBN had in fact risen from kitsch to artform with pieces hanging in the Smithsonian (Yes, I know that it is a museum of everything.) 

Just as the open mic began we set up our easel in the crowded cafe. Cecil began, and soon discovered that it wasn’t as easy as it looked. He started with brown (3) but I noticed he left a few 3’s unpainted. He painted four (5’s) the requisite green but left two (5’s) undone. 

Before his work was finished I started to criticize. “I think you should start with (1) paint all the (1’s) then move to (2).”

“Ha,” he scoffed, scrutinizing his work, brush in hand, sleeves rolled up. His black beret tilted toward his work with emphasis. “I’m not of that school.”

Already we had come to a rift in Paint-by-Numberism. One branch would follow Cecil painting helter-skelter, and another branch would follow me, rational, methodical, advancing step by step toward art.

The first person to ask what we were doing was a young girl, a poet (I know this because she slipped me a chap book.)

We had rehearsed what to say, we had sworn not to smile, not to betray our mischief. “He’s painting,” I said. Cecil worked on his cottage while the open mic continued behind us. He stepped back and tugged at his van dyke. Were a casual aesthetician to happen in from say, France, he might be duped into believing that a new renaissance of culture was blossoming in America, cool-looking people reciting poems, painting in public.

Eventually Cecil came to the end of The First Masterpiece of Paint-by Numberism (fig 2). His shack in the trees seemed almost inhabitable. He achieved succes where others are sluts.

I waited to unveil the blueprint of my Mondrian. Cecil spotted my usual craven desire for a small crowd. I knew the intermission was at hand. The intermission at open mic night, is like the bell decrying recess. The children shout with glee, they run for coffee, cigarettes and conversation. They rise from their stilted silence and stretch their atrophied limbs. It is usually the only, non-smoker, chance for interaction during the evening.
For Mondrian you need only three colors and black. I started with 1= yellow. I didn’t just dab the paint on, but attacked it. I was Jackson Pollack and a puzzled panther.

We stepped back and by taking interest in our art, attracted others. We were starting to enjoy it. Chris Vannoy, a poet on the scene, came up and asked, “Whacha doin’ Jimmy?”

I wish I had kept quiet, but I replied, “Painting-by-Numbers.” 

Then a righteous art student came into the cafe with flyers for a gallery show with complimentary vegan food. There was hardly a flap of skin on his face that wasn’t pierced. He handed us a flyer, looked at the easel and said, “So you’re the Paint-by-Numberists.” 

“Yeah, that’s probably the label they’ll try to put on us,” I replied. We both looked at the paper canvas and smiled. Cecil Hayduke had my back in case any of the poets suddenly caught on, took offense and tried to shiv me (it wouldn’t have been the first time.)

I continued painting, and realized that by reconstructing Mondrian (fig. 3) I was learning a few things about his technique, and gained new admiration for his skill. The paint dripped, my hand shook. I didn’t stay within the lines, in some ways my Mondrian was a failure, in others it was a departure. 

..............................................