(½) “My father used to send me to Italy every summer. I...

(½) “My father used to send me to Italy every summer. I was just a kid. But I’d go to the museums and look at all those famous paintings, and think: ‘I could do this stuff.’ Even the Sistine Chapel. I’d never even heard of Michelangelo, but I looked up at that ceiling, and thought: ‘I could do that too.’ But it was just this feeling I had. I never pursued it. I played a little football. Went to business school at Rutgers. Then right after graduation, my godfather offers me a job at his barbershop. This was some old man shop with fifteen chairs. So I’m thinking: ‘This is gonna be easy. I’ll do it for a few weeks and get a real job.’ But we pulled up to the curb on my very first day, there were like thirty people lined up outside the door. This was 1982. The seventies were over. And short hair was coming back hard: flat top, Humphrey Bogart, old football player kind of stuff. Suddenly Astor Place Barbershop was the hottest shop in town. My job was to man the front desk. Every kind of person was walking through the door. It was like the United Nations of haircutters. And I’m just a kid from Jersey, so I couldn’t get enough. Everyone was coming here: the movie stars, the rappers, the musicians, the artists. Sometimes they would show me their latest work, and every time I’m thinking: ‘I could do that too.’ Keith Haring was a customer. Back when he was nobody. He showed me one of those little stick figure paintings, and I thought: ‘Now that I can definitely do. And two years later he’s huge. It’s like what the fuck? Could have been me. But  I didn’t have time for that shit. By then I’ve got a house. I’ve got kids. So thirty years pass by, just working at the barbershop. Then five years ago a customer came in. This guy is a stockbroker, but he’s showing me this book he wrote. And I said to myself. ‘That’s it. If this guy wrote a book, I’m going to start painting.’ And I swear on my mother. That very night. I walk outside the door and find a giant canvas leaning against the wall, with a unicorn painted on it. And a sign that said: ‘Free.’ I thought for sure it was a sign. I carried it to the backroom, rolled the whole thing white, and said: ‘Tomorrow I start.’”