At the time I did this painting the Army was looking for Saddam Hussein and the troops had gone into one of the palaces and found crisp new half burned one hundred dollar bills and cigar butts everywhere. They had some much money they were lighting their cigars with it. At the same time I released this painting in Maui. Everyone who saw it told me “you must have watched the news then painted this”. The two incidents, me painting this image and the discovery of the half burned cash were unrelated. The timing of it was very bizarre to me.
