September 2009 Issue

Making it in the arts is a wacko process. Last season's American Idol phenomenon, Adam Lambert, fell to a kid with one-tenth Lambert's talent. I saw some old friends on the super-finale of American Idol. Certainly you know one of them, Steve Martin, but I doubt you know the other, David P. Jackson, who played back-up bass for Martin.

Jackson stopped by my place in Pueblo West while doing minor gigs in Colorado a couple of weeks before that performance. He reminded me that Martin was a big fan of my art in the 60s when the three of us were Hollywood buddies struggling to make it. I told him that Martin admired one of my drawings but regretted that he couldn't afford it. If I'd known then what I know now, that Martin would become a superstar and a major collector of American art, I'd have wrapped that drawing in my own flesh and given it to him.