THE BALLAD OF THE MAD DOG

About one hundred thousand years ago... ...DOG YEARS... ...a two-legged creature stood at the edge of the Savannah looking into the star-filled sky, wondering at the fabulous creatures he saw up there. There were big and little bears, a hunter, a scorpion, a... suddenly a comet blazed across the firmament. AWESTRUCK, OUR HUMANOID ANCESTOR GLORIED AT THE WONDERS OF NATURE and the god who put them there, and a tiger ate him... so much for art. But then maybe thirty thousand TWO-LEGS years ago a strange fellow... who his pals called "MAD"... separated himself from his tribe and started hanging out with these smelly, slow, toothless and hairless babblers. "Well, why not? They're helpless and stupid and hang out around something that's red and glows and smarts the eyes and burns the nose. But after all they're a harmless lot, and they do throw great bones and other stuff into their trash bins. Besides I love them and they need ME." So, this four-ped took his old lady and kids and joined forces with those bi-peds, and from that day forth Man could sniff flowers, gaze at the stars, stare at a girl, paint on a wall and piss against a tree without the worry that a tiger could catch him unawares.

And so this is dedicated to my partner, GOOCHIE, without whom my art could not have been created.

Nat Finkelstein