And, so, farewell to Gidget, the Taco Bell Chihuahua

I’m sorry if this offends anyone, but I think I’ll miss Gidget, the Taco Bell Chihuahua, more than I’m going to miss Michael Jackson.

Gidget — who even knew she had a name? — died today, at 15. She gained favorable notice for a series of TV ads that ran from 1997 to 2000, promoting the fast-food chain, a unit of YUM Brands that offers particularly unpalatable tortilla-wrapped food items. It regularly occurs to people who have been out late drinking and forgot to eat dinner that it might not be an entirely bad idea to stop at Taco Bell and pick up a couple of bean burritos. Gidget, with her appealing manner, and her passionate cry of “Yo quiero Taco Bell!” made it possible to imagine that such thoughts could be something other than a radically self-destructive impulse. This is by no means a tiny accomplishment.

Unlike Michael Jackson, Gidget completed her assignment on behalf of Pepsi-Cola (the former owner of Taco Bell) without managing to set her head on fire, and developing addictions to prescription analgesics as a consequence.

Alas, poor Michael

We discover, after her passing, that Gidget was a female who was assumed to be male; her dubbed voice was that of Carlos Alazraqui, the dialect comedian. Jackson’s gender issues were, of course, much more complex.

Chihauhuas average a litter size of three. Jackson was one of 10 children, including Brandon, who was stillborn. Four pounds is a decent weight for a chihauhua, and Gidget seems to have maintained an acceptable body mass index, despite the documented high prevalence of obesity among Americans of Hispanic extraction, and her employment promoting the caloric, fat-laden products of the Taco Bell organization. Jackson reportedly weighed 112 pounds at his death, which indicates that his endorsement must have applied mainly to the fructose-free version of Pepsi-Cola.

A 40-ounce cup of Pepsi, which is what they’ll offer to serve you at Taco Bell,  contains 500 calories. A pair of those bean burritos is going to come in at 700 calories. The cola will perk you up, and the heavy lunch will put you to sleep, potentially creating a cycle of dependence. Watch out for that.

A coroner’s report said Jackson suffered from alopecia, and wore a wig. Chihauhuas, which typically live 10 to 17 years, are sometimes known as Mexican Hairless dogs.

As for Gidget, she seems today like a groundbreaking entertainment industry figure, who bridged previously offensive media stereotypes with today’s common depiction of Hispanic-Americans as a diverse and vital component of a multicultural society. Some have argued that Jackson’s popularity in the 1980s paved the way toward greater understanding between the races, leading to the presidency of Barack Obama. That could be, but I don’t think I want this discussion to go there. Obama is leading the world to a safer, saner place; Jackson died too young; “Beat It” is a great tune. We can agree on all that.

Sally Field was the original television Gidget. She’s still on TV, in a real stinker of a weekly drama, and promoting that osteoporosis drug in a series of commercials that is just painful to watch. Gidget the dog never stooped (pardon the disease-specific joke) to endorsing prescripton drugs. For his part, Jackson didn’t need to push pills; he allegedly had 19 doctors happily writing up enough scripts to get him through his final mid-life crisis.

The best you can say about Gidget, the Taco Bell Chihuahua, is that, though she appeared mainly in commercials, and though she was undeniably a canine, she brought two distinctive and seldom-seen  characteristics to the human-dominated modern entertainment industry.

Talent. And dignity.

Puppies who paint: Roll over, Picasso, and tell Mark Rothko the news

The talented Ms. Chanda-Leah

I’ll admit to being fascinated by the art of Miss Chanda-Leah, a Canadian expressionist working in watercolors. While her execution and technique may seem unexceptional — if I may be allowed my keen critical judgment — allowances can and must be made, since the artist is a dog. This is not intended as a slight on the individual’s deportment or appearance. She really is a dog.

“Chanda Loves to Paint!,” it says on the web site devoted to her work. When applied to four-legged artistes, who would quibble that use of the exclamation point is ever unwarranted?

Her biographer elaborates: “By holding a brush in her mouth, Chanda is able to paint some very unusual abstracts. She uses different size brushes to achieve these ‘creative’ pictures.”

The site includes a portrait of the artist as a rather stout toy poodle. She’s photographed with a brush clamped within her jaws, poised before an easel; Georgia O’Keeffe, eat your heart out. Here’s Chanda pursuing her muse, rather than the usual things her species might chase, such as a cat, a mailman, or a speeding Buick.

Opus 64 demonstrates the evolution of Chanda's style

The Chanda collection numbers some 64 works, executed in 2005 and 2006. That may not be so impressive, adjusted for the usual measure of one dog year equaling seven human years. But, even so, go ahead and call that a prolific output. Most dogs never get around to painting a single opus, much as they might hang around outside Starbucks, trying to impress the opposite sex by yapping about their creative intentions. Let these art-school poseurs talk; Chandra’s a doer.

Audacious and vivid are two fitting adjectives for Miss Chandra’s canvases, which demonstrate a capricious abandon in the use of shape and color. That’s a puzzle, since dogs reportedly don’t see colors, or at least not the same colors as us humans. However, when the subject is canine art projects, mysteries abound. That’s something to remember while struggling to understand Chanda’s ability to sign her name to her works, both in a big looping human-like script, and with a tiny black paw-print. We may assume that Chanda’s owner, trainer, and intellectual-property manager, Mrs. Sharon Robinson of Hamilton, Ont., may have assisted in this regard.

Handy though she appears with a set of brushes, I couldn’t help but observe that Chadra’s thick, lustrous coat of fur might have offered an alternative means of applying paint to canvas. Given this advantage, along with the unrestrained enthusiasm typical to the poodle breed, we might ask what impulse held the artist back from using her very body to passionately slam pigment to board, a la Jackson Pollock. I’ve witnessed my own toy poodle engrossed in using her flipside to grind a potato into the carpet of my parents’ living room, and regarded it as an inspired form of performance art. Alas, Chanda is no longer in a position to offer career guidance to up-and-coming dog aesthetes.

The Canadian art scene was dealt a staggering loss on June 20, 2006, when Chanda-Leah died at age 12, “due to complications that led to heart failure.” Her unnamed 64th and final artistic creation was completed only four days before her death, imbuing that work, and her entire gallery, with a special poignancy.

It’s a sad occasion when any dog has her day — or any artist. There’s a scene in a novel I just finished reading wherein a dog is struck by a car and killed on a rain-slicked street-corner, and the guilt-stricken driver hands the dog’s owner a large stack of cash before driving off. The inconsolable owner sits on the curb, beside the lifeless form of his pet, and in his despair arranges the bills on the wet sidewalk to trace the outline of a dog’s body. This vignette, which occurs in a not-especially-good piece of fiction by a man named Connolly, seemed to me astonishingly moving and poetic. Likely Chanda has never attempted the art-form of creative writing, but I have, with unsatisfactory results, and I’ll tell you that one eye-popping passage surrounded by three hundred pages of forgettable prose is always going to be something to strive for.

When swingers swung: painter Bill 'n' politico Pierre

As much as I’m fond of dogs, I can’t manage the conclusion that it’s easier to lose an artist than a pet. For example, I was unexpectedly saddened to hear of the death of the Canadian painter William Ronald a decade back, although I never met the fellow, was put off by his television program, and didn’t think his art was up to much. I don’t know why I cared about the end of Bill Ronald. Life short; art long — something like that? Could be.

Upping the ante by a pawful of kibble: a famous vision by Cassius Coolidge (1844-1934)

If you love dogs, and art, and art that depicts dogs, and if you can put up with the company of human artists who will paint portraits of dogs playing poker, you still may not know what to make of art ostensibly created by a dog. I’m reminded of a stunt undertaken by another toy poodle once housed by my in-laws. A crafts-minded member of the household was hooking a rug, and the dog took the occasion of being left alone to deconstruct the effort, somehow undoing each stitch. Then the dog arranged each strand of wool into a separate pile, accurately sorted according to color. When the rug-hooker returned home, the dog could not have been more proud, glancing at the ruined handiwork, catching the eye of the artisan, and grinning the way nihilist poodles do. This strikes me as a more natural undertaking for the canine bent on creative expression. Anti-art is fringe, but art nonetheless, and in the right hands, or paws, it can be pure, strong and beautiful.