Glengarry Glen Ross - Don Reedy

In “Glengarry Glen Ross” there’s a scene where Alec Baldwin says over and over to the sales guys…..”Always Be Closing. A - Always. B - Be. C - Closing.”

He repeats that over and over. It’s a phrase most salespeople have heard and ignored over the years.

Closing, you see, means getting agreements, small ones that lead to medium ones that lead to the big one…buying.

And for most sales people closing isn’t easy to master. You need to put aside any doubt that your product isn’t what the potential customer needs. You need to make the potential customer see your view of the product through your eyes so that you can get an agreement that the product is worth what you’re asking.

And so, when I was diagnosed with Stage IV prostate cancer, the surgeon had to sell me on the idea of ripping out my prostate, giving me chemotherapy, shooting me up with hormones to remove my testosterone, and then turning me over to a radiologist whose only job is to find the metastasized cancer and kill it….with some collateral damage of course to the surrounding tissue.

Yes, that’s me. Not sure what was happening. Not sure what to do. Not confident. Not wanting to die. Not wanting to live with the side effects of treatment.

So as you read my posts, my thoughts, my views on life and our raison d’etre, just be aware that I completely understand what to do, understand death, am living confidently with the help of my faith, and living with most of the awful side effects of this kind of cancer…..with the help of some friends and this gift of painting.

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Buckle up. I hope you’ll enjoy conversing with me about art and cancer, about life and death, and about color….the color of not only my paintings, but the color of our souls.