The Upside of Failure

By Michael Willard

As a guitarist, I will never be a threat to the Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards, but, I’m a couple of years younger than Keith and have a better haircut.

As to painting, I’ve ripped off Van Gogh and Matisse in more than 300 canvases, and the legacy of neither is in danger. Their work will live forever while my slapping of paint will have the half-life of a fruit fly.

I’m a writer with 20 book titles behind me, but I’m no Faulkner or Hemingway, and my literary endeavors, compared to theirs, rises to the level of an…