Art Thieves Steal The Turd

mboldened by the recent broad-daylight swiping of legendary Norwegian artist Edvard Munch’s famous paintings The Scream and Madonnas from Oslo, Norway’s Munch Museum (which is a terrible place to wander into stoned, but a hilarious name for a museum regardless of whether you pronounce it “Munch� or “Munk�), thieves in New York this week made off with The Turd, a controversial piece of conceptual art that was until very recently housed in the Museum of Modern Art in downtown Manhattan.

Upon hearing that there had been a daring daylight heist at the MoMA, terrified museum officials initially feared the worst.

“I almost shit my pants,� admitted curator Vaughn Cammels. “They could have made off with a Van Gogh, Monet or Picasso, priceless artworks which never could have been replaced. Those first few seconds were like a mini-nightmare.�

The missing piece, valued by museum officials as “impossible to sell,� consisted of a white porcelain turd on a dinner plate. Some museum employees were relieved to find out that R.H. Hiddelstein’s obscure piece of protest art from 1982 had been stolen, rather than one of the museum’s many easier-to-appreciate masterworks. Though understandably distraught over the theft, many have been looking at the bright side, pointing out that they can finally clean that spot on the wall. For years, few had dared to move The Turd, because none could tell if it was really porcelain or just a real turd painted white.

When asked what police were doing to catch the crooks, police chief Harold Almney insisted that the case had been given appropriate priority and that the police would start at nothing to bring these crooks to justice.

“The Turd is a crucial piece in understanding the development of modern sculpture,� explained art historian Checky Brazelton. “Without it, we would never have been blessed with any of the several related masterpieces that followed, including Bradnell’s Lung Chunk or Dolenski’s Snot on Toast. This is a major loss for the art community.�

“The what?� queried a surprised Lindsay Sommers, an intern at the MoMA. “Somebody stole that thing? I was using it as an ashtray on my breaks.�

Irregardless of the opinion of some part-time art critics, the artist Hiddelstein has been distraught since learning of the theft, vowing not to rest and planning to leave work on his latest sculpture-in-progress, the man-sized Shithead, on hiatus until the bandits can be brought to justice.

“You cannot understand my pain unless you have ever lost a child,� explained Hiddelstein after this reporter suggested he could knock out another piece comparable to The Turd if given twenty minutes and a plate of bran muffins. When asked if he wasn’t just being pretentious, Hiddelstein answered with a piece of interpretive dance that was way over the commune’s head.

When asked why the thieves left numerous priceless works of art hanging on the walls while making off with Hiddelstein’s obscure piece, authorities speculate that the thieves may have been either huge Hiddelstein fans, complete art novices, or just absolute morons. Others have speculated that the thieves came for a Van Gogh or Monet, but panicked when the non-silent alarms went off and grabbed The Turd in a hurry on their way out the door, so as not to leave empty-handed. However, a thorough inspection of the dumpsters outside surrounding buildings failed to lend credence to this theory.

“This is the new face of modern art theft,� explained face of modern art theft expert Carson Faulkner. “It’s brash, in-your-face, and usually pretty stupid. No longer are we living in the days of your father’s art thief, a suave motherfucker squeezing in through some high window with suction cups sewn into his gloves, limboing his way through a maze of laser tripwires and slipping a priceless masterpiece out if its frame using a high-tech black-market silica spray. Now it’s just a couple of retards barging in with a shotgun and making off with whatever’s easiest to carry, even if it’s a worthless piece of modern shwag or the trashcan over by the men’s room. It’s sad, really.�

Until new leads materialize, local authorities are scanning art auction listings for mention of the sculpture, and keeping an eye on eBay in case the thieves get really desperate. While there are several turds currently for sale on the auction site, and liberal examples of bad modern art, none yet appear to be the missing piece.

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There is a new show on the Fox television network featuring puppets acting like real people once again. This is nothing new, it beckons back to the old days of vaudeville where wood-and-cloth dolls would make innuendos about getting laid frequently when they weren't performing. Much like Andrew "Dice" Clay during his fifteen minutes of popularity, before Ford Fairlaine.

Puppets are welcome to their shows and Church performances and whatever else they want, I just want them to stop perpetuating the myth they started long ago. It's ironic, if not embryonic, that these puppets pretend to be real during the program and then so much is made of human performers manipulating the puppets and doing its voice off-camera, when the real truth is in the program.

Yes, I say what you have all long suspected when I tell you: Puppets are real.

Once again the government and a close-knit Hollywood enclave have taken the truth and wrapped an entertainment ribbon around it, then perpetuate a lie because they feel America isn't ready for the truth. You'd be shocked and fall out of your seat, bumping your ass on your well-swept floor, if you knew how many movies in Hollywood are true stories disguised as fiction. The Truman Show? True, man. Show. Fight Club? True. Armageddon? True, except for the ridiculous dialogue. Apollo 13? Hang on to your ass, folks—it's true.

More devastating to the population as a whole may be the secret that all of the Muppet movies are real. The de facto Muppet movie, The Muppet Movie is the real story of how puppets became a large workforce in Hollywood. The frog, bear, etc. traveling to Hollywood to star in pictures, encountering several celebrities working mundane jobs along the way, it's all the true story with a few jokes dropped in, as well as a lot of talk of puppet unions and contract points left out. And the most important point: The American public must never find out puppets are human beings reincarnated in felt dolls.

The details escape me, I have misplaced the cocktail napkin I wrote them on, but suffice to say puppets are a major hidden force in Hollywood. Not only do they star in movies and television shows, they also hold powerful positions on the MPAA board and work as agents. When I visited two years ago I'm reasonably sure a puppet even parked my car when I visited Spago.

I'm not denouncing puppets, mind you; if anything, I'm encouraging them. Even if they are the dead brought back to life in the hideous form of a cloth toy creation, they deserve the same rights as anyone else. I'm not sure how they reproduce without visible sex organs, but maybe if there are puppets out there who are fans of the commune, they could e-mail me and let me know because I'm extremely curious. Just informative curious, not wanting to explore or anything.

This issue means a lot to me, if you haven't guessed by now. In fact, after looking through some old photo albums it may be possible I myself, Red Bagel, have some puppet blood running through me. It's a troublesome prospect, especially picturing some Bagel ancestor of mine engaging in sexual intercourse with a puppet. I'm not judging, I've had sex with dolls before myself, but they've never been animated in any sense and didn't seem to enjoy it as much as I did.

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I definitely need to hire out as a Fourth of July consultant. If you think you don't need a Fourth of July consultant, you've never experienced a Bricks Fourth of July, end of story.

It's about a month away, I know, but when you want to make it a memorable good time, you've got to plan well in advance. It's just not smart to put a houseful of fireworks and a truckload of Miller Genuine Draft together without more than a little planning. Now usually I'm a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of guy, even if the ass of the pants rips out and you get kicked out of the kid's birthday party, but hey, it's not like I knew the kid anyway—nothing ventured, nothing gained; but when it comes to Fourth of July, Omar Bricks turns into a rocket scientist of event planning.

It's more than just explosions and drunken fight after drunken fight—shit, if I didn't have that on a daily basis I'd hang up my hat and go home already. The way I see it, Fourth of July is the world's celebration of pure, uncut freedom, and for me there's nothing better worth celebrating. Hanging out with buddies, sipping beers, and trading swimming pool-building tips is like a fart in freedom's face. Omar Bricks don't fart in anyone's face unless they personally asked for it or take out those little opera glasses in public, which is the same as the former in my book.

It takes more than a month just to save up enough money to rent the arena. Why go through the trouble and expense of renting an arena? Well, you might as well ask what's the point in having a demolition derby—you can't hold it in your backyard, don't argue with that because I've tried. And the demolition derby is the big part of the Bricks Fourth of July gathering, and in the tight-money times I haven't been able to rent an arena I find an unguarded farmer field is a fantastic substitute. If you check with your friends who fake crop circles on the weekends they can probably tell you which places are frequently unsupervised and have the best tire traction.

Then you have to select the special car, I like to nickname it the "doom buggy". The best way, I've discovered, is to hold a little private lottery the night before—if you have one hundred ping pong balls, a giant hamster ball, and a tuxedo, have a little fun with it, it's like a party in itself. Then whatever number wins that's your car, since they'll all have numbers painted on them at the derby. I would recommend keeping it something only you know. Sure, you can let everybody in on the secret, but when most people find out the car's trunk is full of fireworks the volunteers to drive it dry up real fast.

No demolition derby is complete without a lot of beer, whether you're a spectator or a driver. Still, with luck you'll get flipped over by the car with the bulldozer prod welded on the front early and can get a seat right up front in time for the first explosion to hit the doom buggy. Man, that's Fourth of July. Our founding fathers would have been proud enough to piss themselves.

That's just my favorite part, of course. Some Bricks partygoers love shaving the heads of the derby losers. Others love the swimming pool full of Thunderbird, throwing flammable things on the bonfire, or the wrestle Lil Duncan contest. I'm not complaining, I love every part of it, even the swarming of S.W.A.T. team members to close the whole thing down gets me kind of misty-eyed. Like America, there's a little something for everyone. Bricks out.

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