Rational thought has gone to the dogs!
Now I’m not saying that these three dogs registered to vote and cast ballots, but they clearly are wearing “I voted” stickers*. 🙂
They are also members of the 47% Club. They have never paid rent, are on food stamps and get feee medical care. You get three guesses on who they voted for.
The first two guesses don’t count.
All in jest, of course, but here’s hoping you voted today!
*They did not really register to vote nor did they cast a ballot. That would be illegal. Even in Ohio.
We filmed Zoey — our intern — for one full minute.
I’m sure there is a life lesson here, but I can’t see it. Can you?
A while back, a friend of mine asked me what I thought was the purpose of life. “To ensure the survival of our species, nothing greater,” was my reply. To him, that sounded incredibly sad but for me, it is incredible pragmatic with a sense of ultimate clarity of purpose.
I still believe that and believe also that it can be expanded out to cover the whole condition of the human animal with this simple formula:
Step one; create.
Step two; develop and nurture.
Step three; release, let go.
Step four; repeat.
Whether we’re talking about raising kids, writing a book, building a bridge, mentoring a protĂ©gĂ©, composing a song or any of the thousands of things human beings do, the formula remains the same. Create-nurture-release-repeat.
Where people get hung up (yeah, pun intended) is when they become scared of step four or hang too long onto step two and never pull the trigger on step three or never even start step one. Throughout season five of Mad Men, this has been the theme; the journey each character takes through each of these steps on the way to letting go and starting over, to sharing their creation with the rest of the species to ensure its survival. Some made it through the formula while others got caught up in the tentacles of one or more of the steps.
When Matt Weiner puts a two-second scene of two dogs humping out on the sidewalk, you bet we’re gonna notice. You bet we’re gonna write about it. While some have called the scene “completely unnecessary” and put in as a “cheap attempt at soliciting a reaction,” I disagree. Two seconds of airtime is just way too expensive to just “throw in a couple of dogs shagging each other” for the heck of it. I say the scene sums up the meaning of the season perfectly.
Hear me out.
It would be easy to say the humping dogs symbolizes that the old Don is back, but that is missing the mark. I think the dogs humping in the parking lot symbolizes nature’s way of forcing a species to start something that they will need to nurture (nurse), let go and repeat. Dogs do this in a care-free, almost matter-of-fact way. To a pair of dogs in a parking lot, the act of copulation is neutral; it has no moral value. Its only purpose is to ensure the survival of their species.
The activity will eventually result in a litter, which will be nursed along until the pups are ready to be nudged out on their own. The mother’s job will be over and they will go forth and be “successful” on their own without her. She will then repeat the process with another litter.
This is Don’s role. When he was younger, creating, nurturing, releasing and starting over was easy, especially when it was only him. But these days, the formula includes other people. As he is aging, he is also forming attachments that are harder and harder for him to let go. But in true Don Draper stoic style, he finds a way and when he does, he closes the door and moves on even as he cares deeply and honestly about everyone with whom he gets involved.
When Don watches Megan’s screen test, he is not going through the act of falling in love with her all over again or realizing she really is perfect for the part. What he is doing is realizing he has fallen in love with the two-dimension, celluloid version of Megan. The “real Megan” is far more complicated, far more damaged than stylized, acting Megan. In that moment of clarity, Don realized he had hung on to her too long. He realizes that for her to grow, he needed to let her go on without him. That light-headedness was not the smoke in the room, or the sadness in his heart, but relief. He does the right thing even if nobody will ever know he did, even if the right thing looked to the outside world like two dogs humping in a parking lot.
Real life has no happily ever after. It just has a never-ending cycle. But it is it’s purpose.
My buddy Neil Hedley wrote a blog post yesterday that I just had to comment on. That comment turned into a blog post for me. (yay!)
This came on the heels of a post by Bonnie Stewart on Salon.com about Klout. And here on her blog earlier. Neil Kramer penned this little rant today and Saxon Henry threw this out for discussion on her weekly Adroyt.com salon last month.
It occurred to me that perhaps the online community needed a dog to strap up and take the lead position in this runaway social media sled, so here goes. The Complete and Authoritative Guide to Social Media.*
Your Blog: This is where you live. This is yours, all yours. This is home. EVERYTHING happens here. You own it. Start here; end here.
Twitter: Random crap that pops into your brain during the day. A place to huck your stuff (like blog posts, new books, other writers’ new books, shout out to friends who got mentioned in the press.. except in the police blotter.. leave that out 🙂 )
Facebook: Ugh. Post as little as possible, push to blog, Comment rarely, never more than 2 responses deep. NEVER engage in an argument there.. ever.
LinkedIn: Only post what you want people with money to see. Only reply to posts in groups to establish your authority on a subject.
YouTube: Only to host your videos so you can embed them on your blog. Don’t spend any time customizing your “channel” and never, never care about comments there. Never.
Google Plus: Post for the purpose of smashing keywords into the Google search engine. Push folks to your blog. Comment rarely. No social goal, only SEO/SEM.
Foursquare: Check in if you have B2C clients or sponsors; need an alibi for the police; want to annoy your son who is a chef by checking into chain restaurants.
That’s it. You need nothing more social than that and probably never will. Ignore any other advice you get about social media.
For every other connection that is worth a damn, use the phone or email.
Would a dog lie to you?
*Not responsible for a drop in revenues, self-esteem or any other “in real life” assets you foolishly attached to any of your social media identities. If you ever want to know what is real, take your dog for a walk. Nothing else matters.
I was transferring some rather large iTunes libraries and one of those little buggers is bound to start playing in the background. Season one, Episode One Smoke Gets in your Eyes was the one that started playing.
By the time I figured out it was playing, it made it all the way to the scene where Don knocks on Midge’s door and she shows him the greeting card she is drawing for Grandmother’s Day. It was a puppy! I missed that scene.
Anyway, it got me thinking that if Mad Men started off with a puppy, there has got to be a ton of other puppy references throughout. So I am going to find them and add them here.
If anyone wants to join in on the project, just holler below in the comments and let me know which episodes you will be watching. Post the time dogs or puppies are referenced and we should have a list in short order.
Hey, it’s research!
Season 1, Episode 1, 3:42
We all got ourselves scared silly by the apocalyptic weather reporting around here and after obsessively checking to make sure the water dishes were full and the hammer to bust out a car window was safely stowed in the van, we just plumb ran out of things to do.
And then our minds started to wander.. And wonder.
Being the scientifically inquisitive dogs we are, we decided to test that myth of a sidewalk being hot enough to fry an egg.
The MythBusters Adam and Jamie would be so proud.
Enjoy our experiment.
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Take some time out and watch us.
I’d like to wax romantically about how I get my ideas strolling along on dog walks, but that would be a lie. I spend most of my time watching out for speeding cars, white reverse lights and kids on bicycles who think dogs know to move over to the right.. or left.. as they weave in and out along the sidewalk. Walks are for the vigilant. I spend most of my brain power strategizing on how to carry 200 pounds of dog should anything unfortunate happen.
So, dog walks are not really fertile idea grounds. Neither is the time spent mowing the lawn, shopping for groceries, strolling the mall, walking in the park, standing in the shower — all of those stereotypical settings people go on about. Sure, I get ideas in those places from time to time, but mostly not.
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We’re celebrating the first day of spring 2011 like the dogs we are. Enjoy!
Apparently there has been a big bruhaha over a Northwestern professor having a live demonstration of a sex act* performed for students as part of a human sexual psychology class.
Ok, so what.
Sex is part of nature. It’s primary function is for procreation. But, unlike animals, humans have the good fortune (or mis-fortune) of also having a brain with curiosity and a need for recreation attached to the same body as their genitals. When we deny that fact and refuse to study the psychology behind human sex, we’re not really exploring our entire humanity. What’s wrong with demonstrating a sex act as part of an academic exercise for the purpose of studying emotional and psychological reaction? Was it the practical application of a theory that upset people the most or was it just the fact that it was sex? Or maybe it was the modification of a perfectly good power tool?
Studying the psychology of human sexuality without a practical lab is like studying architecture and never building a bridge. Do you really want that guy in charge of the project?
Oh my god, dog, you are going to hell for those thoughts!
Actually, all dogs go to heaven, so I’m not really worried. And even if you believe God made you in His image, certainly He knew what He was doing when He gave guys danglies and women innies. He did it a lot so with your logic, He is either a genius or a pervert.
Secondly, sex acts are neutral. They are neither good nor bad. What makes them good or bad is all this morality and cultural crap we attach to them.
Thirdly, sex is a very large part of who we are (unless of course, you are married.) Why not study it more fully? Why would we not want to know everything about what makes us tick? Why does something like sex make us all giggly or nervous or outraged or ….
The rules of sex are not established by nature. They are established by the class of humans in power. Like every species in nature, the ones allowed to procreate are the ones best suited to advance the species. In the animal kingdom, we have the most cunning, the fastest, the most powerful, etc. In the human world, we have the class most willing and able to dominate the others. That class will use social norms, religion, laws, peer pressure, shame or any other means necessary to impose their will on others. Depriving the “weaker” classes of the means to procreate is the ultimate dominance one human can have over another. (Don’t even get me started on non-hetrosexual sex. I have no idea why anyone wants to prevent that or why they feel it threatens them. Maybe that deserves more study.)
Ever wonder why virginity is prized above all else in some cultures? There is no natural reason for it. It doesn’t destroy a woman or make her any less fit for companionship or procreation. Yet a “ruling class” gets that idea impregnated (pun intended) into a class (women) which prevents them from consenting to intercourse outside of a sanctioned union, i.e., marriage. When a women violates the rules, she is ostracized and in some cultures, killed. A population is now controlled by their own morality. Really simple crowd control, ain’t it? That statement is over-simplified, but you get the idea. You can apply the same kind of thinking to any type of sex. Attach a moral penalty to it and you control a population. Start from there and study outward.
Did you have a strong reaction to Professor Bailey’s demonstration? Why? Like him, do you eventually arrive at a logical, academic reason for not being curious about the psychological basis of sex-toy-induced orgasm? Did you recoil? Did you ever ask why you had that reaction? You probably should.
It seems an unfair symptom of our culture to know what sex is all about almost five decades into life rather than in the prime of youth. It not only robs you of some great interactions with other people, but also a deeper understanding of works of literature like The Awakening, The Scarlet Letter or Sister Carrie. Read them when you are young and intimidated by sex because of fear or confusion and you learn nothing. Read them when you are older and know a bit more and it produces anger and resentment. (Maybe I’m just projecting here.. sorry.) When we fail to give sex cultural or moral power it does not naturally posses, we also free ourselves from the power others wield over us.
And before you go on about “think of the children” and other such nonsense, I am not advocating sex awareness that is not appropriate for children. But as a parent, have you crafted your exit strategy on sex before your child turns 18? Why not; it’s your job. Why are parents getting involved with the class demonstration that happened at Northwestern? Didn’t you give your off-spring the skills to determine his or her own sexual choices? If not, shame on you. You had eighteen years!
Ok, your turn. I’ve already said my piece.
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*Apparently the sex act was a dildo attached to a modified reciprocating saw where the woman disrobed and consented to the man using the device to penetrate her vagina. I’m not sure what the class was studying, but if they were studying reactions to facsimiles of a penis during intercourse, I’m pretty sure they got some interesting ones. Does my saying penis and vagina upset you? Does my description of the act above? Why? Be honest with yourself, please, even if only in your head. It’s the only way we grow.
And the title? It was a tweet I received yesterday from a fan in response to my 140 opinion on this mater. I promised I’d write more today. It wasn’t really public sex; it was in a classroom, as an academic study with everyone in the room an adult and with full consent.
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At some point in my pursuit of an English degree at the University of Minnesota (it was the only college that let dogs in), I read the book The Ties that Bound: Peasant Families in Medieval England. It changed my perception of history and ultimately led me to a quest for the meaning of legacy.
I am still on that quest.
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On Monday, every blogger will turn into a marketing expert and analyze the ads from The Big Game* fifteen different ways in hopes that you won’t realize they don’t know crap about marketing or advertising. Several of them will actually know what they are talking about, but those people will be so non-confrontational that you probably won’t read them anyway.
Over here at the DogWalkBlog, we’re going to stick with what we know; dogs and dog-related accessories. Our entire criteria on judging the effectiveness of any Big Game ad is whether or not they have a dog in them. Then, we will list them further on down this page and tell you why we think they were cool or lame.
Fair enough?
Good.
*Super Bowl is a trademark of the National Football League (NFL) and DogWalkBlog did not pay any money for the rights to use it. So, we’re saying “The Big Game” (until the NFL clamps down on that one as well)
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Here are some “Winter and Dogs” photos taken during the storms of 2011, mostly because I have not posted photos in so long, but also because a crystal blue sky after a snow/ice storm is probably the most magnificent thing nature shows us.
Right behind a deeply colored rainbow in the summer after a rain storm.
It’s as if she is offering us an apology, which we always accept.
Dogs did not get a mention in the State of the Union address last night and boy are we miffed! Apparently, President Obama does not care about dogs, even though he has one of his own residing in the White House, a residence that we collectively pay for. Dogs should have gotten at least a mention.
And gun control. And African-Americans. And arts and literature education. And music. None of these things got mentioned either.
So we can conclude that the President of the United States does not care one little bit about dogs. It’s our position and we’re sticking to it, even though it makes us look petty and stupid.
Get a grip, people. The speech was 6,800 some words long. The president can’t cover every topic nor can he gab on for hours trying to cover everything without people grabbing for the remote or another beer.
That is all I have to say about that.
PS This is sarcasm. And media are plural.
Two dogs tearing up a fresh field of snow.