Excerpt from C.V.J. by Julian Schnabel

One night, at a time when I was in the midst of a painting called "Jean Coming and Going," I came home late. I went to the bathroom, then went back to the studio forgetting to button my pants, got up on the ladder, and started to paint. As I was painting, I noticed my pants were falling down. They did. I couldn't pull them up because I had paint all over my hands, and they were my good pants. And I couldn't climb down because my pants were down around my ankles. I tried to pick them up with my elbows but it's hard to get your elbows down to your ankles when you're standing on a ladder. I still had my raincoat on and I remember standing there at four-thirty in the morning deciding whether to shoot myself or laugh. If there was a highlight to the summer of 1973, that was it.