by Bill Boggs
“I’ll have to think about it,” she says. “That’s it for today, everybody. Back to work.”
It takes Bud two more weeks to finally give it a try, after straining through daily arguments about ideas for “Spike at Noon.” During those weeks I’m mostly alone, bored, workin’ out, and listening to Bud complaining to Buffy or his friends or his mother about the crap he’s dealing with at work.
The next couple of times I go to the office, everybody’s nice to me except Erica—we’re givin’ each other the evil eye. Best thing I do is get up on her desk when no one’s around and empty her bottomless-fries bag. Bud’s calling what happened “The Canine Mutiny,” ’cause Erica’s blaming one after another for eating her fries. I’m innocently under Bud’s desk slowly releasing French fry gas while lookin’ at Susan’s red Diane B. shoes across the way.
The first “Spike at Noon” segment has a clown on a moped, a guy dressed in black with a painted white face calling himself a mime. There’s also Mario, a gnarly old Italian man wearing a bebop beret. He’s got a monkey gunfight act. They’re from a little one-ring circus that’s opening that night in Larchmont.
The mime is having problems, ’cause he’s not able to get through the air that’s right in front of him. He thinks there’s a wall and he’s pressing his hands against it, and I keep running up jumping through it letting him know nothing’s there. Stupid guy, dumb act. Next time I see him, he’ll be sitting on the street shaking an imaginary cup of coins.
I never been with monkeys, just saw ’em on the nature shows—up close the things stink. These two are wearin’ little cowboy outfits and have tiny cap guns in holsters. They’re on the street, standing back-to-back. They pace off, and when I bark, they whirl around and quick-draw shoot at each other. It works great, and Bud’s interviewing Mario when one of the monkeys jumps on my back and is screeching and waving his tiny cowboy hat like he’s on some big rodeo bull.
His ugly, smelly feet are clawin’ into my sides, so I start hoppin’ around, jumpin’ straight up in the air to shake him off, but his hairy little hands are clenched on my ears. I don’t get pissed off much, but I am now.
“OK, you little ape, cry ‘havoc’ and let slip the dogs of war,” I think. I start a full-speed run down Sixty-Seventh Street toward Second Avenue.
The mime gets through the wall and is chasin’ us. The clown takes off on the moped, and Mario’s screamin’ at Bud, “Your-a fuckin’ a-dog, he steal-a my monkey!”
Bud calmly looks into the camera. “It’s ‘Spike at Noon’ live, folks. I have a feeling The Wonder Dog is enjoying a little trip around the block with his new little friend.”
I make a wide left turn and dodge a couple of cars zooming at me down Second Avenue. The monkey’s having a screeching fit and pulling my ears to stop, but I’m sprinting up to Sixty-Eighth Street. People walking along transfixed on their phones actually look up. Kids in school uniforms are pointing, yelling, “A monkey’s riding a dog!”
I swing a hard left at the corner and hope he’ll fly off. No luck. I’m charging up the pavement on Sixty-Eighth Street headed to Third. People are scattering like a ballistic missile is locked in on them. I gotta hurdle a garbage container so I don’t knock down two little kids, whose mother’s not watching them ’cause she’s yelling at the maid over the phone.
Thirty feet straight ahead, there’s a cluster of terrified old people on walkers who are lookin’ at me like I’m a bowling ball. It takes deft paw work, but I weave through ’em. This is when I realize New York needs a special “really old people lane”—an ROP. They could totter along as slow as they want and not hold everybody up. Maybe all the slow-walkin’, mouth-breathin’, picture-takin’ tourists could pay a toll in that lane, too.
As I’m racing along considering a new career in city planning, the monkey stops screeching and puts his hands on my neck, and crouches down to ride me like a jockey would. All of a sudden, we’re in a rhythm together. I feel like he’s a tiny, dirty, hairy, smelly version of the Lone Ranger, and I’m his gleaming-white great horse, Silver—so I settle into a comfortable gallop.
This is cool! We make a left at the corner. We’re cruising along, but the monkey pulls on my ears to stop. The Lone Ranger’s voice in my head is sayin’, “Whoa, easy steady, big fella.” I let out a whinny as we pull up in front of Mariella Pizza. The monkey hops up, grabs two slices from the sidewalk counter. He puts one in my mouth, jumps back on, and we trot around the corner with him holding pizza in one hand and waving his hat at the cheering crowd with the other. I slip into the slow-motion walk, and I hear people say, “He looks like one of those Lipizzaner stallions.”
Bud’s announcing, “They’re coming back, and it looks like they stopped for pizza. Where’s my slice, Spike?”
The clown’s ridin’ right behind us, but the mime stopped to do his act for a crossing guard and two kindergarten children.
After the show, we’re all in Erica’s office and she’s yelling because Spike upset the monkey trainer. Bud’s lookin’ at her like she’s nuts, and even Goldfarb, who always agrees with her, is admitting, “That was pretty good TV.”
Bud knows exactly what to do, ’cause the clown on the moped got the whole thing on the GoPro camera on his bike. Andy puts it on our YouTube channel that night, giving “Spike at Noon” the worldwide attention it richly deserves. The next day I learn we had the highest-rated segment of the show all week.
The old Italian man offers me a job as a horse in his monkey cowboy act, but Bud says no. They send Erica a huge bunch of flowers thanking her for the PR, saying their entire New York state tour is sold out.
All she says is, “Bud, every detail of this stuff at noon with the dog will have to be cleared through me.” He just wants to blow things out of the water like he did in High Point, but he’s wasting a lot a time fightin’ to try to make it happen.
Right off, she won’t let us do one of our hits from the old show. She puts a veto on “Barked out of the Closet”—where I pick the gay person out of a lineup. Even though Bud’s somehow got dozens of gay people dyin’ to be outed on TV by a dog, she won’t let us do it.
“Not politically correct,” she says.
“I guess that’s why Amy Schumer and Sarah Silverman aren’t working much these days,” Bud shoots back.
But by using all his powers of charm and creativity, he wins a lot of arguments, and we do some pretty good TV a couple of times a week. He works with Teller, from Penn & Teller, who creates a hood to go over my head for a new bit called “Psychic Spike.” I can see through a slit, so I bark answers to all kinds of challenges and gain recognition for having mystical canine powers.
I’m doin’ my old hopping-around routine from WGHP but now with Alvin Ailey dancers, playin’ “To Tell the Toupe” usin’ my uncanny rug-guessing ability, running around the block with a camera on my head, meeting every animal who’s got a role in a Broadway show, and getting placed in a driverless car for a ride up Third Avenue with my paws on the wheel. This is my favorite bit, ’cause every time I do it, I freak out drivers by swerving around them while barking and honking with delight.
We have a judge from the Westminster Kennel Club show who’s putting me in competition against every breed in the terrier group, and a Yorkie beats me, which is like losing to a hair dryer. Bud gets a sponsor for “Spike at Noon”—The Little Lassies Learning Center, so every once in a while I get to fool around with some puppies who are the future leaders of our species.
Not everything works. One day they bring over a van of very old dogs whose owners are paying a fortune for them to live out their lives at Silver Tails Manor, a canine nursing home. The dogs thought they might be lucking out, hoping maybe the van was taking them somewhere to put them outta their misery. Instead, they’re huddled together on TV—trembling and drooling—with the audience going, “So sad, really sad, oh my, very sorry.”
A week later, Bud takes me to visit them at the center. I’m glad to see a few gray tails half w
agging while I prance around. But they’re an unhappy, miserable sight. I’m pondering, “Before I end up like them, I’ll finish myself off by swallowing ten Viagra pills and exploding.” Yet, maybe I wouldn’t? You only got one life, and ya never know what you might be thinkin’ at the end.
Soon, I’d learn.
12
Our Life
Even though I’m on TV twice a week and people on the street are waving at me and stopping Bud to talk about the show, Bud and me are not spending much time together. Don’t know why it takes way more people way more time up here to turn out the same-length show as in High Point, but it does.
Donna Hanover, who was hangin’ all over him drinkin’ martinis, turned out to be gay, which was OK with Bud, ’cause he didn’t want to go out with somebody he’d have to drag home every night as part of the deal. She tries to fix him up with dates a couple of times, but her idea of beauty is a woman who looks like she works in the logging industry.
Donna’s back from a secret seminar for football-sideline reporters where she picked up a lot of the cogent lingo men invented to describe the game.
Donna tells Bud she learned that as often as possible, it’s vitally important to offer shrewd insights like, “This is a football game!” or “This team came to play!” or, “They have to take care of the ball!”
“But my big breakthrough,” she explains, “was when they told me never bother speaking with adjectives, just use the word ‘some’ instead. I learned that ‘some’ can describe absolutely anything going on in sports.”
“That’s some kind of discovery,” Bud says.
Most days Donna walks me with Benny. Other times, Bud’s gotta figure out what to do with me in the daytime, ’cause the old neighbor on the other side of the wall’s complaining about me. The guy’s slidin’ messages under our door sayin’, “Stop your dogs from barking.”
Yeah, he thinks there’s more than one of me. I always say, “One dog, in his life, has many barks,” so by shifting my barking style, I confuse him into thinking I’m three dogs. To block me out, he starts blasting songs from some ninety-year-old singer named Marilyn Maye, but he’s got no idea how much I’m actually enjoying her swingin’ tunes and sultry ballads.
So, Bud decides to send me to a fancy free-range care center, where I figure I’ll be runnin’ around with chickens. But it’s just for dogs, so I get to frolic with my peers. All they do is complain about not spending time with their owners. I’m offering my sympathies until a worker spots that I’m not neutered, and he locks me in a cage for the day. On the street, I’m like the Coke Classic of dogs, “The Real Thing.” Here, I’m a prisoner of my own nuts.
Bud’s goin’ to a lot of parties, and sometimes he takes me. He doesn’t get it that at a cocktail party all I do is stand around. I enjoy lookin’ at the shoes and knees and all, but I get self-conscious when plates and drinks get piled on me when people think I’m an end table.
Bud hauls me to a President’s Day bash at Joy Behar’s apartment. By now, the New York people are letting Bud talk to them, ’cause they figure he qualifies as worthy by bein’ on TV and also, maybe he can do something for them. I’m facing the door hoping Cher’s gonna walk in so I can apologize, but no luck.
People are standing around, talkin’ loud while shovin’ food in their mouths from the trays bein’ passed. They use a different food-in-mouth technique than the NBC reporter did at Nello. She jammed a huge forkful of steak in her mouth midsentence. These people got the common decency to keep a big lump of food out of sight in one cheek, so they can talk and chew at same time. If I tried eating and barking like that, I’d choke to death.
There’s a guy playin’ the piano over in the corner. Must be a real inspiring job pounding those keys all night with nobody paying attention. I lie down for a couple of minutes to listen and see why—the guy stinks.
I get to sit on Whoopi Goldberg’s lap, and I’m enjoyin’ a slight contact high from licking whatever oil she rubbed on her arm. I bark to get her attention, ’cause she’s lookin’ the other way when the waiter’s offering a tray of food, and she gives me the compliment of sayin’ I’m smarter than Ted Cruz.
Regis Philbin’s making fun of Bud ’cause he’s got me as a date. “Bud, bad enough you didn’t take the goat show, but where’s the supermodel? You’re a TV star, not a ranch hand. People think you’re walking around with Babe the pig.” For that body shaming, Reege, I’ll chew the smallest of holes in the cuff of your pants.
We meet Drew Carey, who’s enjoyin’ a big beer, and Bud gets him to do a FaceTime call to his big fan Mrs. Smith in North Carolina. I see her beamin’ with joy, waving her wrinkled hand and Camel cigarette at Drew. She’s flashing two sparkling new front teeth that she bought with the money Bud gave her. Frosty Two is curled up with Mr. Smith watchin’ TV. Frosty’s probably gonna die young, ’cause of secondhand smoke, but right now, he’s experiencin’ domestic bliss in their little trailer.
There’s a woman who’s “had some work done” that makes her look like she might or might not be Barbara Walters. Joy says to her, “I’d like you to meet Bud and Spike; they’re on the noon show now.”
“Hello.” Long pause. “Spike…so you…must be Bud,” she says, looking at him like he’s ten feet away and not in front of her. “Someone in the Watergate break-in was named Bud.”
“Did I interview you on my show in High Point?” Bud asks.
“No, but have you interviewed Bud Abbott, Bud Wilkinson, or Bud Selig?”
“Er, n-n-not yet,” Bud stammers.
“I must go, Spike,” she tells him. “I haven’t seen Hugh Downs for days. Maybe he’s here.”
Bill Maher gets in a talk with Bud about good pot and bad politics. “President’s Day used to be, ‘I cannot tell a lie,’” he says. “Now it’s, ‘I can’t tell if I’m lying.’”
“Good one,” Bud says.
“If you ever write a book trashing Republicans, you’re welcome on my show,” Bill tells him.
“I’m sorry I never finished my term paper on William McKinley.”
“Well then, bring on the dog,” Bill Maher tells him. “I’ll sit him next to Mary Matalin; he looks like her husband.”
“That’ll be quite a beauty contest, but I gotta tell you, Bill, Spike’s a fan of Tucker Carlson. He likes the bow ties.”
“Forget it; I should kick him,” Bill says.
“But,” Bud says, “he growls big time at Hannity.”
“OK, he’s back on. See you guys later; I’ll be out on the terrace if you want to join me,” he says, winking at Bud.
I spot a good-looking guy with a great smile, and I’m thinkin’ he might be wearin’ a toupee and give Bud the “potential rug alert” bark. Bud shakes his head no and charges across the room to talk to him. I’m still studying the hair when Bud brings him over and says, “Spike, this is Seth. I think he has a message for you.”
And out of this guy’s mouth I’m hearing my all-time favorite TV star, Stewie from Family Guy, sayin’, “Hello, Spike, aren’t you bright and clean tonight. Have you been rolling around in a tub of Clorox, or perhaps using Gary Busey–sized Crest Whitestrips on your body?”
Then Peter Griffin says, “Oh, Stewie, you can’t talk to a pig like that. Save it for your sister, Meg.”
I’m freaked, so I jog to the terrace hearing Brian, the Family Guy dog, yellin’, “Come back, Spike, I got a couple of hot dogs here for you—and I think you know what I mean.”
Outside, Bill Maher’s havin’ a toke lookin’ at the sky. “Full moon, tonight, Spike. Weird things can happen.”
Four days later, they’re painting me green, because…
Bud meets a tall, handsome guy with a big shiny brown head named Alexis de Shoven. He’s wearin’ a long green robe covered with green and yellow stars.
“At first I thought you were gay,” he tells Bud with a beautiful booming voice. “You’re wearing black AG jeans, a cashmere purple-label Ralph Lauren blazer, an Eredi Pisano shirt,
a suede Balmain belt, and Bruno Magli loafers.”
“Is this a gay costume?” Bud asks him.
“In New York, on a single man with a good haircut, potentially—but then I saw the way you were looking at Brooke Shields’ ass over there.”
“Sorry to disappoint,” Bud says.
“Don’t be insulted just because I’m not trying to pick you up, but I do need a tiny favor, darling, just the smallest of favors.”
“What’s that?”
“I want to paint your Spike The Wonder Dog green.”
He explains that his latest fashion collection’s theme is “Green Is the New Orange, Which Used to Be the New Black.” During his runway show, all of the models will be wearin’ his new green designs and walkin’ on the green runway with green parrots on their shoulders.
All he has to do is sell Bud on my paint job, but I can tell Bud’s hoping to get away from this guy and go over to mingle with Uma Thurman and Brooke.
“It’ll be such fun. I’ll come out for my bows walking your macho, muscle-bound dog, who’ll be bright green. Standing ovation for me, brilliant PR for that always funny noon thing on your show, which I love, love, love, and you’ll be in the front row with Jaden and Willow, Barry and Diane, Jennifer Lopez, David Beckham—the biggest stars. Afterward, at the party, you’ll meet all the top models in the business. Straight men like you would donate an organ to get in,” Alexis says.
“Depends on the organ,” Bud says.
Beautiful women throwin’ themselves at him, more video for Wonder Dog TV on YouTube, press coverage, minglin’ with the A-list crowd, so Bud—’scuse the expression—green-lights the deal. Of course, there’s not one word of consultation with his loyal dog about undergoing a potentially life-altering experience.
