I feel quite a bit of sympathy for Hunter Biden.
He grew up in plenty of shadows, including those of his:
- Dead mother and
baby sister, killed a few days before Christmas in a car crash that
gravely injured him and his surviving brother when he was a toddler;
- Alpha father,
who may well be a kind and empathetic individual, but who didn't get to be
a U.S. Senator, the Vice President, and now the President without having a
ton of alpha drive in there, too;
- Perfect brother,
who wasn't just perfect in life, but who had an incredibly sad and tragic
ending by dying of brain cancer in his forties. Even the names: Beau to
Beautiful; Hunter the, well, hunter for some purpose and redemption in his
life.
Hunter
Biden's had a tough life, and I'm not saying that much of it wasn't of his own
making - the drug and alcohol abuse; some sordid aspects in his personal life;
the questionable professional choices that may not have been illegal but sure
appear to be borderline sleazy.
But along the way, he managed to get a good education. Oh, I'm sure he got the same admission's lift that plenty of others with famous parents get, but he did manage to graduate from Georgetown and Yale Law. And while neither of those accomplishments are anywhere near what they're cracked up to be, they ain't nothing, either.
He managed to raise three daughters who seem decent enough, and who seem to love and even like their father, many warts and all.
He
managed to write a more-or-less well-reviewed memoir focusing on his addiction.
(As so often happens with celebrity memoirs that receive hefty advances, it's
on the metaphorical remainder table.) Part of the redemption tour that now
has him settled in LA with a new wife, a new baby boy (named - gulp! - for his
brother Beau), and new career as an artist.
And, despite having become a serious artist at a relatively advanced age -Hunter Biden is 51 - and relatively recently, he's got a gallery showing (NY and LA) coming up in the fall. And the works are supposedly going to be priced at anywhere from $75K to $500K.
I'm not going to get into the plethora of ethics issues swirling around this one, what with some sort of "blind trust-ish" thang being put in place so that no one knows who's paying $75K to $500K for art from someone who seems to me to be more or less a Sunday painter. Skilled, sure. But...
Not that there's anything wrong with being a Sunday painter. I'm, more or less, a Sunday writer. And, not that I don't kick myself for not having pursued a career as a "real" writer, it does give me plenty of pleasure and satisfaction to be one. But the closest I'll ever come to writing greatness is having seen John Updike on the Red Line, and - just the other day - having Joyce Carol Oates retweet a comment I'd made on one of her tweets. (Be still my twittering heart.)
The art market is, of course, insane. (And the NFT-ing of the art market is making it even crazier.) Works go for astronomical amounts based as much on on South Sea Bubbles and Tulip Mania as they are on merit. But, hey, if someone's willing to pay.
And that goes for Hunter Biden, too.
If someone's willing to pay $75K for one of his works, well, okay. (And maybe someone will be. But I'm thinking his parents here.)
And I'm sure the "famous name" on the painting is worth something that most Sunday painters aren't able to command.
Still...
And here's why I feel quite a bit of sympathy for Hunter Biden the artist.
I understand that he's finding comfort and joy in his work. But I don't think he's a moron who's deluded enough to think that he's a great or original or breakthrough artist who's going to make a hefty living at his work. Or a hustling marketer like Banksy or Jeff Koontz who can parlay his talent into the big bucks.
Good luck to him.
I hope he gets his shit together. I hope he ends up living a decent life. And I hope he stops listening to anyone who's telling him that his works may bring in half-a-million bucks. That's way too much of a shortcut to fame and fortune for someone who in real life would probably be entering his work in an art show in a local park. And I don't think convincing yourself that you're an artistic genius is a really good way to keep working your way out of addiction. (I'm thinking he might make a good expressive therapist.)
As I said, good luck to Hunter Biden. I'll be rooting for him. But I really hope for his sake, let alone the sake of those in the White House, that no one's daffy enough to pay $500K for one of his paintings.
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