Career ?

     After having various "careers" with varying degrees of success, I started painting with a friend while I tried to figure out what I really  wanted to do. As it turned out I have had my own painting business for almost eighteen years with fairly favorable results. I have an excellent client base and I've never needed to advertise... brilliant career move? Nah, I was making decent cake and I was too lazy to look for another job... but anyways...   

     If there is one thing I've learned it's to try to limit the time I wear my painting whites when I'm out running errands. I just got tired of the questions. "Are you a painter?" No, I'm an electrician what does it look like ? "Listen I want to paint my deck at home what do you think I should do ?" I think you should blow it out your ass because my arms are full of groceries, I've had a long day and I really don't feel like giving you free painting advice (although I always do because occasionally it is nice to let people know how much smart you are... but why is she never cute ?) Do you just call a lawyer when you're having legal problems and expect them to advise you for nothing ? The worst is the the unemployed guy," Painter, eh ?  I've done some painting, eh. Youse guys hirin',eh? No we're good but thanks for coming out. The standard joke around  building trades is " What is the first job buddy gets when he's released from jail?" The answer being drywaller but I think painter can't be far behind.

    That being said, I really do love my job and it's been a great living for me but the one query that has haunted me over the years and I had never had a valid response to is," Why do painters wear white?" Initially I just told people that it looks professional, which is partly true if you've ever seen those "cowboys" wearing jeans or sweatpants painting... not good, fashion counts (plus Dickies make a pretty cool line of clothing including jackets, shorts, overalls, caps and pants, why wouldn't you want to wear them?) But I digress. I was never really satisfied with "it looks professional" as an answer. Recently somebody told me that back in the olden days the people on construction sites all wore different colours so you could distinguish the various trades. I'm not sure of the exact colours but plumbers would wear blue, electricians black, painters white (although you could probably tell the painter by the paint on him and the fact that he was painting) but you get the idea. That seemed to be a valid response for a while until I discovered Yahoo answers. You type in a question and it will give you an answer (what are the odds?) to almost any question, so I gave 'er the Googler (well Yahoo-er actually). The most popular response came back, "It's tradition stems from a time when 95% of all painting was in white. People wore white because the paint did not show up as much as when they wore blue denim. If you look at old pictures the houses were mostly white. Apparently white and red were the cheapest and easiest colours to produce in those days, so houses were painted white and barns traditionally red. You could paint your house red if you wanted but that was generally reserved for houses of ill repute."

     So there you have it, thank you interweb, I now have another piece of useless information I can pass along to my fellow human beings and remember, there is no such thing as stupid questions just stupid people.  

   The Honk If You're A Knob must have, desert island, lost in space classic album of the day is... 

   Elton John and Bernie Taupin peaked with this gem. A double album containing seventeen remarkable songs of which many are Pop/Rock standards... Bennie and the Jets, Saturday night's alright for fighting, Candle in the wind, the title track and quite possibly one of the greatest melodies ever written in Harmony.  If you haven't heard this in a while give it a spin. One of my favorite album covers too... exceptional artwork, liner notes and lyrics to get lost in. Backed by a great band  which often gets overlooked.