Pigeon Christ

The column below was one I wrote when back at the other mag, probably about three years ago now. Or two. Something like that. It's being turning gradually yellow, stuck to the living room wall beneath a yellow fluffy duck who has been crucified on a couple of wooden spoons. The duck is known as Pigeon Christ, by those in the know. I hadn't read the column probably since sticking it to the wall. It's become part of the furniture and I've almost stopped seeing it. But I leaned closely and read it again after all this time, and it amused me. I thought I'd share.

Story behind it is that I was flat out trying to make Friday deadline. I was writing more than I probably should have and was starting to feel a little worried about this last job for the week because I had no ideas. Usually there's stacks, but not this time. I finished a pretty angry half page about violence in clubs because a couple of really sweet girls I knew had been bashed in a club I used to go to all the time. I was really angry and I vented (got fan mail for that one)... and then it was time to flick the switch and write some humour.

Nothing. Not good. Not time for nothing.

Then an email came in. It was from a good friend. I read the email and my whole mood changed because here was a gift, here was my column.

The opening few lines are straight out of her email. Somewhere into it I took over and together we produced a pretty damn silly last minute Acid Tongue column. It saved my arse.

Acid Tongue

by Grumpy Bird

I ran out of sleep juice at about half five this morning and I have been lying in bed thinking about nailing pigeons to skateboards and pushing them down a hill. But then it occurred to me that pigeons' feet are probably not the best for nailing, seeing as they are more toe than feet, and really, tying them on just wouldn't have the same effect. And then I thought, it's a bloody good thing Jesus wasn't a pigeon because they never would have been able to crucify him and the last 2000 years would have been so totally different. I mean I can't imagine the Spanish Inquisition happening over a pigeon that didn't get nailed to a plank of wood. And then I thought, maybe it isn't such a good job Jesus wasn't a pigeon... Pigeon Christ, when you think about it the world as we know it simply wouldn't be the world as we know it if Jesus had been a pigeon that wasn't nailed to a cross by some cranky Romans... in fact the symbolism of the cross would never have come about because trying to nail the pigeon to the cross would have made the Romans even crankier and one of them would have eventually suggested nailing the pigeon to some other shaped piece of wood... like cutlery. Yes, a wooden spoon nicked from the Last Supper... whoa - that's another one. If Jesus had been a pigeon nailed to a wooden spoon stolen from The Last Supper, what would Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper have looked like? How would he have managed to get the model pigeons to sit around the feeding bowl for long enough to paint them and... would the disciples have been pigeons too? Wait on... yes. Yes of course the disciples would have been pigeons, and so would Leonardo da Vinci and the cranky, kleptomaniac Romans, they would have all been pigeons. But what would all these pigeons be doing with spoons and what would they be doing trying to nail one of their own kind to cutlery designed by those nuisance humans. Clearly none of it could have happened because it just doesn't make sense. No sense at all... now a duck, on the other hand, is practically built for skateboard nailing.