Your Daily Awesome

In the summer of 1955, my former boss Fred Baldwin invited himself to visit Pablo Picasso at his home in Cannes. “I don’t suppose that anybody felt less qualified or had less of an excuse than I did,” Fred remembers. He memorialized his reverent intrusion in Dear Monsieur Picasso, which has a pretty hilarious account of the trip and some great photos of the visit.

I went back to my car depressed and sat there for a while reviewing the situation. My money was almost gone, but if I conserved what remained, squeezing a meal out of a couple of pieces of bread, a square of cheese, and the remaining five swallows of wine, I could last one more day in Cannes. I decided to take the chance and try once more to see Picasso. Tomorrow morning would be the big final effort, and in the meantime I had to work on a new plan. The American journalist story was getting me nowhere. It had become a ridiculous idea even to me.

I spent the night again in my car parked just across from the villa on Picasso’s doorstep. I didn’t get much sleep. I kept waking up hearing little noises, half expecting to see Picasso’s face peering at me through the car window. The reliable laundry bag over my head only resulted in further breathing difficulties. I decided that neither sleep, inspiratrion, nor intervention was possible at Villa la Californie, so I went for a drive before dawn.

*I first met Fred in 1999; I never heard of this story until I stumbled across it online last week.