Truant editor Tremain is new owner of historically ugly work of art
Reichsmarschall Lordy Tremain has caused a truly disgusting watercolor painting to be displayed in main offices of The Truant, to the horror of the rest of the editorial board, not to mention the art world.
A Brinks truck arrived at nine a.m. on Monday and six off-duty Los Angeles Police officers offloaded the small, unmarked crate to find a narrow pathway through the teeming media cordoned off, leading up to Truant headquarters. Logan City Police were called into action to keep hordes of far-right Christian protesters, opposed to the “satanic” work, from interfering with the transfer of ownership.
Inside, representatives from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and the Louvre in Paris were on hand to verify that the work Tremain won in a dice game was, indeed, the famed Dame du Peste, the ugliest painting in the world. After the experts attested that the work was genuine, Tremain invited them to remove their lead suits and join him for a drink in the employee lounge.
When Tremain told Head Editor in Charge Claire Chennault about the new painting he had won from Portland Trailblazers’ forward LaMarcus Aldridge, and asked where Chennault thought it would go best, Chennault’s reply was, “locked in an iron safe, at the bottom of the ocean.” However, Tremain elected to go with the mantle immediately above our receptionist, Wendy’s, desk. This has caused our loyal Wendy to quit and file a lawsuit against The Truant, LLC, for raping her eyes and defiling her mind.
Filling Wendy’s position has proved quite impossible, as the last two girls we hired asked pointedly if their desk was “right here, next to that” on their first day, and left in a huff when we answered honestly. Tremain, however, has become quite attached to the hideous Dame, and now takes all his meals kneeling before it.
Legends as to the origins of the Dame abound. A popular one has Claude Monet losing a contentious round of golf to his detested rival, Cardinal Richelieu, and making good on the debt with one of his watercolor portraits of the local townsfolk. Monet believed that the Cardinal had cheated on the 17th hole, using his foot wedge to get out of some brambles, and poured all his considerable skill into painting the most vile, horrifically banal image ever created, to place a curse on the Cardinal’s lineage. The joke was on Monet, however, as the very act of painting the Dame drove him irrevocably mad. The Cardinal was reminded of a scullery maid he used to screw by the painting, and he hung it in his office on the Isle of Saint Helena.
Other scholars believe that the Dame is one of the last remaining products of an ill-conceived government experiment to rehabilitate violent sex offenders using soothing art. Only a twisted mind such as that of Ed Gein or John Wayne Gacy could have used mauve in this nauseating manner, these experts argue.
Both sides are wrong. The Dame du Peste was painted in 1986 by Preston Bodily, a sophomore at Utah State who switched majors to accounting soon after painting the infamous Dame, when he received an F in his basic painting course. The bulbuos freak depicted in stark, mute terror is Preston’s aunt Sally Parker. She is wearing the hat she used to wear when the relief society would put on pioneer skits for the young women’s groups in the local wards, mormons are so fucking stupid. Bodily still insists that the work is a good likeness of his aunt, and that he could have been a great artist if that one professor hadn’t crushed his ambition.
We have been served with no fewer than 11 (Anti-Defamation League, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, American Jewish World Services, Farm Aid, Americares, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, Jimmy Fund, American Life League, Adopt A Platoon, and counting) lawsuits from various organizations since the Dame’s arrival in our office, most demanding that the offensive watercolor be put to the torch and that we pay hefty punitive damages. The ACLU refuses to defend us, saying, “even we know when something is in poor taste.” Benevolent Dictator for Life Nixon Dickhouse departs for The Hague on Saturday morning, for a preliminary hearing before a war crimes tribunal. Somewhat more disturbingly, the wall behind Tremain’s prized possession is blackened and smoldering, and Chennault’s beloved cat “Kittie” is tracking blood everywhere due to stigmata on her widdle paws.
What? Wendy quit? she never had a problem with raping and defiling the rest of her what makes doing it to her eyes and her mind so bad? Kittie’s stigmata isn’t because of the painting though, I was just really drunk that night. At the time I didn’t know cat stigmata fell into the satanic category, I thought we could pick up money and get famous like that peanut butter sandwich that whore mary showed up in. this does explain why my toilet keeps flushing the wrong way though.