I had an odd experience last week. I’ve just moved to Denver, and I spent the first couple of days here just wandering around at random. No plan, just a few days of driving around, turning left and right pretty much at random. And I came upon one of the weirdest things I’ve ever just randomly tripped across. Somewhere around the 16th St. Mall, I spotted this art gallery that had a very large painting in the window. The thing was about five feet tall and a couple of feet wide, and it was a portrait of George Washington. He’s in full federalist-era get up, with the knee breeches and powdered wig and everything. George also had a halo, which was colored blue, and was the seal of the president of the U.S. But where it gets interesting, and a little weird, is that in one hand, George was holding the severed head of Adolph Hitler, and in the other, the head of Josef Stalin. I’m pretty sure it was Stalin. Could have been Saddam Hussein, because it had a big mustache, and the two guys look a little bit alike.
I was amazed, and thrilled, and a little bit hungry, but I think that was just because I hadn’t had lunch yet, not because random human heads make me hungry. It was just such a freaking weird thing to come upon out of the blue, y’know? And I didn’t go in and ask the people inside what was up with it. Which I’m sad about, because now I can’t find the place. It has vanished, poof, gone. I spent an hour last week wandering around the area I think it was, and saw nothing that even slightly resembled it. The only thing I have to prove it wasn’t some kind of fever dream is a bad picture I took with my phone. That is a very odd thing to say out loud. Can you imagine saying that to someone from even five years ago? “I took a picture with my phone!” “I don’t think you understand how a phone works…”
What would have made the painting even neater, for me, is if George had been a zombie. That would have been great! Zombie Washington, rising from the grave to dig up the noggins of various enemies of America, and eat them! What’s cooler than that? My dad used to tell us that story every President's Day.
“Errr, Zombie Washington savored the delicate bouquet of Hitler’s braaaaaain! Zombie Washington is going to take Stalin’s head to the zombie poker game he has every Tuesday with Zombie Lincoln, Zombie Coolidge, and Zombie Nixon. Zombie Nixon’s a cheater! A fucking cheeeeeeeeater! Zombie Washington can’t wait ‘til the reanimated corpse of Clinton joins the game, because maybe then we’ll get some chicks! It’s been a zombie sausage party for too long! Tooooooooo looooooooong! Raaaaaaaaahrrrrrrrrr!”
Sometimes I worry about my brain.
I was a little worried about talking about this here, because this is supposed to be a family show, but then I remembered that mucking about with severed heads is actually quite biblical. Anybody know the story of John the Baptist? If you don’t know the story, Salome danced so well that King Herod gave her the head of John the Baptist. So, basically, John’s head was first prize in a dance contest. Which makes me wonder if Salome knew that was the prize before she started. Was she rubbing her hands, thinking, ‘I’m gonna get me a human noggin to take home tonight! Oh, yeah…” Or was it like, “Well done, young lady, and here’s your prize!” “Oh! How…nice. Really. Wonderful.” Granted, the head did come on a sliver platter, which is a bit disturbing in itself, but that means they didn’t just toss it her, at least. “Think fast!”
What could she have done with it? I mean, this was back in the day, in the Middle East, when you couldn’t even preserve the stuff you wanted to eat, and, suddenly, here’s ten pounds of random cranium. Sure, today you could do something with it, maybe freeze dry it, possibly encase it in Lucite, and put it on the mantel. Maybe Salome took it home and invented bowling. Who knows?
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