02-07-2004, 08:42 PM | #1 (permalink) |
Junkie
Location: Sydney
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THE DOG WITH THE GOLDEN ARSE
Tug Dumbly's long-term ambition is to write the Great Australian Novel. This will follow hot on the heels of the Great Australian Play, Great Australian Poem and Great Australian Fart Joke. Some accuse Tug of being a comedian, others call him a poet. He doesn't much mind, and is content to describe himself either as a comic whose jokes rhyme, or a poet whose rhymes are a joke sometimes.
......................................................................................................... I had a dog named Dali, a bastard bag of bones, a smelly, slobbering, moulting, mobile flea retirement home. I only kept the hound around coz of Granny's will, he'd been hers and even dead she swore to watch him still. I cursed her for the ill bequest, the dog was worse than hives, a farting, puking, cat-composting bane on our lives. It ripped up lounges, barked and howled and bit the postman's arse, but the bottom line was when it dined on my prize book of art. Six centuries of masterpieces shredded on the spot, from Rembrandt through to Renoir it ate the friggin' lot. I chased the mongrel, screaming murder, half-way down the road, lobbing bricks and language blue till I was fit to explode. That evening the beast returned with slobbering idiot grin, slunk itself onto the porch and curled about the bin. But later on, come dinner time, we found to our dismay, on the dinning table he'd gone and struck again. A stinkin', steamin', festerin' turd spreadin' through the trifle, "that's it!" I screamed, "I've had enough!" reaching for the rifle. I put the barrel to it's brain and said "this ain't a bluff," 'till my brother cried "hey mate there's something in the stuff." "What stuff?" I says, "the shit" he says, "'ave a closer squiz," and sure enough there seemed to be this pattern in the biz. No word of a lie, strike me dead if I don't tell the truth, but in that pile of dogshit was etched a bowl of fruit - Grapes and peaches, plums and pears, not brilliant, but not bad, about at primary level, Dali's tail just wagged. "Jesus mate!" I stammered stunned and downed the gun unspent, "what are the odds of witnessin' such a freak event? "Okay dog, I'll let you off this time but one more slip, and no weird turd in all the world will save you from the tip." But in the days that followed the weirdness kept apace, each turd that Dali did seemed to contain a scene or a face. The works were no great shakes at first, etchings rough and crude, but gradually the lines grew strong, the complexity improved. He started dealing out Ken Dones in sunny diarrhoea, until a Jackson Pollock exploded from his rear. But the Brown Poles? That were nothin' to what he had rehearsed, one fine day a Monet came in a fragrant burst. He laid down Waterlilies outside the butcher shop, even as the butcher kicked his arse he had to stop. "Fuck me drunk!" the meat-man cried, "Ee's a clever little tyke, I don't know that much about art but I know what I like! The dog's a friggin' genius, with talent true and class, mark my words these are turds from a dog with a golden arse. Get the mutt a manager, you'll make a bleedin' killin', the dog deserves a tuckerbox, national treasure billin'." Well word got 'round about the hound with the golden arse, and agents flocked from everywhere to ascertain his class. Crapping for the cameras he shat a melting watch, other Dali's followed, each teaming turd top notch. Woolfing down a Vindaloo he siddled to the path, where to roars and loud applause he birthed a burning giraffe. Twelve turds exact in shape and size saw him on a roll when the crowd exclaimed as one "My God, he's done a Warhol!" His art found homes in galleries from Sydney down to 'Frisco, 'twas said his Sistine Kennel rivalled Angelo. Sotherbys and Christie's fought to auction of his works, and brought in record prices from Bengal down to Bourke. From Downing Street to Buckingham Palace, the Whitehouse, Kremlin onto Paris, the bids came thick and fast, to have a turdscape, big or small, preserved and mounted on the wall from the dog with the golden arse. But for all the acclaim and clamour Dali didn't go in for the glamour. He worked his art without a fuss and quietly made a mint for us, but I knew one day he'd quit the race and seek a stately change of pace, until one morning instead of a tiger or bird he shat what looked like, well, looked just like a turd ... just your ordinary, average, no-frills, garden-variety dog turd. Then I knew it had come to pass that finally the dog with the golden arse was putting up his paws at last and resting on his laurels, the muse had melted in his bowels, he preferred to sniff out gals of less than saintly morals. And yet the frenzy didn't abate, In fact the critics came to rate this as the statement of a major genius, renouncing his past to boldly embrace a new phase of Dogism. Huddling around each fresh deposit they'd say: "Surely this act of primitivism speaks of a quest for redemption in an essentially amoral void. The brutal intensity is a ritualistic severing of the umbilical cord connecting Modernism to Dogism, the work of an Auteur, shattering, as with an anvil the fractured singularity of the schismic leitmotiv of the fine de siecle zytgeist, a viciously satirical skewering of the materialistic squalor at the heart of arts existential crossroads ... Don't you see? The art in the beast, the beast in the art? Wheels within wheels, Russian Dolls, Freud's penis, pick up the washing, pay the phone bill, eggs, milk, bread, cheese ... Oh shit! That's my shopping list. But what I'm saying is that this is genius, sheer genius, surely you would have to agree?" And I'd look at the turd, then look at them and say "actually no, mate, it looks like shit to me." Well to walk the streets soon grew too hard so I kept Dali in the yard, but the artworld started crowding the fence in numbers growing and immense until I cracked and said "okay, would you like to see some art?" "Yes, yes!" they cried 'bring us the master, his work so gladdens the heart." So I pointed out one of Dali's turds glistening in the sun, and said "Watch this artwork carefully, I call it hit and run." And as they watched with baited breath I started up the mower, pointed it towards the turd and ran the damn thing over. It pureed in a slippery swirl and showered all in view, the critics howled "barbarian! What philistine are you?! How dare you vandalise genius what gives you the right?" (Although others were divided and argued into the night as to whether this destruction of great art was in fact in itself a great art happening). But now, thank Christ, the artworld's found itself a brand new flunkey, with the chance discovery of a vomiting Sumatran monkey. And our life is back to normal, unremarkable and quiet and I say to my bro "I don't know about shit, but I know what I like." And Dali? It's no problem that he's still ill-behaved, we bought him his own house to wreck with all the dough he made. He's free to rip up lounges and shit where it comes to pass coz the artworld bought some privileges for the dog with the golden arse. Tug Dumbly © 1999
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