I picked the wrong fuckin career

Everybody knows nobody -- save a few, a few lucky few -- can get rich doing what they love. This applies to reporters, photographers, street performers, chalk artists, squirt-gun aficionados and artists.

But not this fucking guy.

Ok, or THAT fucking guy. Me like the Cinderblock stuff.

On Thursday I visited an art gallery in Hayes Valley. I shot the shit with the owner -- says back 10 years ago, before the Central Freeway came down and the area was just like the Tenderloin, he used to go outside and give crack dealers/hookers/etc. $5 to go stand across the street -- and found out a little about this artist, Michalopoulos: lives in New Orleans, loves San Francisco, loves to come up here and paint, and has his very own rum line in N.O.

Awesome. Cool guy. I'm probably going to go to this gallery opening next Friday, just to taste some rum.

Here are some of his paintings.

Guess how much one costs?


That one of the pig? 8 grand. The one with the building? 13k.

The guy just spits these things out, too -- he paints around 120-130 pictures a year. Yeah. At 5k-15k a pop.

Ffffffffffffffffffuck....

This, and I've developed a case of tinnitus. If nothing was worse than being broke, being disillusioned and being painfully sober, it's hearing a constant EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE in one's brain for about 40 hours now -- and if the Internet is be trusted, I have about 40 years left.

EEEEEEEEEEEE fuck.