Episode 180: "My Dog Hates Me"

Date

August 15, 2014

Guests

Joshua Wolf Shenk

Origin of the episode title

The probable subtitle of a terrible article about how we should all feel bad about domesticating dogs centuries ago.

Discussed

Hi! This week's show is a great show. JOSHUA WOLF SHENK, author of THE POWERS OF TWO, a new book about creative duos, is here to talk to Julie about autonomy and collaboration! And it's truly fucking fascinating, daddy-o. Enjoy this chat about a kind of intimacy that is not in the service of romance, but instead, speaks to ART. This is a good talk that covers the bases of: the balance between being alone and being with others, the myth that ladies are all satisfied with the identity of "the woman behind the man," and the elusive nature of chemistry.

Also, Julie has an article about how we really screwed up by domesticating dogs! When whistling was sexy! Pauley Perrette's horrible Twitter hashtag she created to deal with the passing of Robin Williams! Avocado talk! And a controversial hunch about Koko the Gorilla.

Trivia

• Temple Grandin is a goddamn delight.
• Here's that weird-ass article about domesticated dogs

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Episode Link

Tippers

These are people who sent money through Paypal to klausnerama@gmail.com to help keep the show ad-free.

Monolgue Transcript

Hello. Hello. Hi. Hi everybody it’s Julie Klausner back for another episode of HWYW.

I have a new job I started this week so I am a little tired. Bear with, bear with. I am writing on a new TV show with some wonderful people. I just got home. It’s around, whatever; it doesn’t matter what time it is. I am a little tired bit who cares. So this week stinks huh? Worst shark week ever right? Look this week did not start out well. I had a weekend away. That was a bad idea. I thought it would be good for me to get out of town. It’s nice outside. I went somewhere in Pennsylvania that had a pool, friends of friends etc... I thought this will be a good idea.

It was not a good idea. I slept in a room with a cuckoo clock and a velour throw and I will never be the same. Penn Station is a nightmare. You should never go anywhere...You should never go anywhere period. I am ending the thought. Never leave.

It started out bad, and then it got really bad. Although I did have a nice experience my first day of work until Robin Williams died. Boy that was just shocking. I found out in a room full of comedy writers. Everybody got real quiet. Everybody checked their phones silently probably thinking, when am I going to kill myself? Will I make it to 63? I know I won’t have an Oscar, Jesus. Misery. The media is a couple of steps behind. They are just now figuring out that comedians are miserable which is the new women in comedy. By the way, I’m not one of these people who beats up on the media. Generalizations are good right? No, they’re bad.

I will say I don’t think there is any wrong or right way to react to this. Whether or not you loved Robin Williams he was always such an emotional actor. He was always so at ease going into an emotional place that was so truthful. I know he was in a million movies but it is hard for me to think of one that was just a broad comedy with a capital ‘C’, like Trading Places. I know he was in a million of them so don’t tell me comedies Robin Williams was in, don’t do that. Because he was such an emotional performer the notion of him having been miserable this whole time is very hard for people to accept because in a lot of ways they projected their own emotionally vulnerability onto him which is what performers are there for in a lot of ways. He was also very, very, very famous. It’s odd to think of the fact that you are never going to see him on a talk show again.

There are people who loved him and I don’t mean to play that down. He was an important cultural person. Like I said, there’s no right or wrong way, feelings are feelings. You can’t say how someone should feel. You are allowed to feel whatever you want to feel. What you should be tweeting... If I am the kind of person who is going to go through twitter and say, “Here are my top ten worst Robin Williams tweets.” Could you think of a worse person? Could you think of a worse person? I have gone ahead and curated the most embarrassing reactions to the tragic death of Robin Williams and look at these assholes. Look at these people making it about them. Look at these people telling me to get help or talk to someone if I need to. Look at these people tweeting numbers to charities and suicide hotlines. Aren’t they all assholes?

No! Most people are fine except for Shepard Smith, the cops in Ferguson, a lot of people who do not know how to talk about Israel and Gaza. Let’s say anti-Semitic people there and all of the hate crimes in Europe are just not fun to read about. They are not fun to read about when they happen in the present tense. Actually I do like reading about anti-Semitism in the past tense. It’s hopeful. It keeps me going. I don’t drink caffeinated coffee. It was a rough week.

Then Lauren Bacall died on Tuesday. All of my gay friends were going through what everybody else was going through Monday night. My twitter was oh my god this is the gay version of Robin Williams dying. They were posting photos. Look, none of us can look at Lauren Bacall Hard enough to absorb what she was serving in the 40s. It was pointy and soft at the same time. The sharpness of her nose would give you a paper cut and the softness of her hair would make you hungry for bread. She was gorgeous. She’s dead now.

Wednesday people were pretty focused on Ferguson which was good. They were starting to arrest people; well I guess they arrested every journalist they could. Now as I speak to you it is Thursday. What was today’s tragedy? That’s right Celine Dion said she’s quitting show business or she’s at least going on vacation. She and Rene are going to take more time for themselves in their private water park with their two weird babies. It is funny, well it’s not funny, but before Lauren Bacall passed away I was actually thinking when I was in, shudder, the woods on Sunday this weekend in fucking Pennsylvania, I was thinking about whistling. Maybe this is a half developed thought. I remember thinking whistling used to be more socially acceptable because people may have discovered it, or not that they discovered it but at the time whistling was in the popular imagination which I believe is sort of a pre-television being colorized development, like Mayberry and in the 50s they’d put out albums of people whistling. It was of rural origin. People had calls and bird whistles and so forth. It was a skill. It was an important skill that you needed if you were farming. It was an age before electronic music—thank god! Can we talk about this for a second? I fucking hate electronic music. I hate...this is why I didn’t dance in the 90s. The only place you could dance was a rave. Do you know what they played at those raves? The orb. We called it techno. We didn’t know any better. What was the other one? House. Oh! Spare me from house. I’d rather watch an episode of House than listen to House music, right Jimmy? Jimmy wants to play. Mommy’s been gone all day, working, making money for your kibbles and hair ties. I have been throwing hair ties at Jimmy Jazz. That’s all he wants to do is chase them. I go through two packages of elastics a week. Again, who cares?

Whistling, I remember thinking it was even weird that whistling was so socially acceptable that it could be considered sexy. Specifically I thought of that Lauren Bacall line, “If you need me just whistle. You know how to whistle don’t you? Just put your lips together and blow.” Whoa!! Yayayayiyiyiyee. Do you know what else you put your lips together and blow for? Well it’s a cock. But the word in that sentence means something different. It’s very sultry. When you want to fuck me, just whistle, whistle a happy tune, whistle while you work, whistle while you touch yourself. Yech! Whistling!

I don’t like whistling in any form unless you are trying to get an animals’ attention. I don’t like whistling in street harassments. I don’t like whistling along to a song on the radio. Do old people still do that? Do old be whistle along to things that they don’t feel like singing? How depressing. People can put their fingers in their mouths and get the attention of someone yards and yards and yards away? I’m not a fan. I don’t like how showy they are. Invariably they all have chain wallets. Or they are Frisbee playing lesbians that tend to keep their keys, again, on a chain. Again these are chain oriented types. These are all stereotypes because I am a hateful person, not hateful, I am hate filled.

I did want to say I am seeing a lot of Coco the gorilla in the news. As much as I love Coco the gorilla and as much as I am sad that Robin Williams is no longer alive, especially that he took his own life which is absolutely devastating, as much as I believe those two things that Coco is great and Robin William’s being dead is sad, I have to say Coco the gorilla does not miss Robin Williams. I’ve seen news stories of Coco the gorilla being told that Robin Williams was dead by her handlers and Coco apparently signed ‘Woman sad.” I think Coco was referring to the lab assistant who is female, being sad. Coco was just basically describing her environment. I cannot imagine that Coco, who is older than me, remembers meeting Robin Williams and they tickled each other. I couldn’t watch that clip. I don’t have that kind of emotional energy. I barely have the emotional energy to think about an elephant. It’s too much. I’ve become more sensitive as I’ve gotten older to matters o wildlife. There’s no way Coco the gorilla misses Robin Williams. The fact that again, the media is trying to spin it so we think that we think Coco misses Robin Williams is frankly a little disappointing. It’s just not true.

You know that Coco, who already understands the notion of death because some scientist had to explain it to Coco when Coco’skitten died. That scientist invariably was a lab assistant, probably an intern had to go in, talk to Coco about the fact that her kitten, All Ball-that was the kitten’s name, All Ball, Coco named her, never let a gorilla name a kitten, probably this 19 year old Haverford student had to go in and tell Coco that All Ball was dead and would never be coming back. There’s no way that lab assistant wasn’t thinking this wasn’t in the job description. I never thought I’d have to explain death to a gorilla. Now that Robin William’s has gone the same way as All Ball only by different method, sad, my point is that Coco now knows what death is. Does she remember who Robin Williams is. My opinion is no. Is that saying Robin Williams is forgettable? No, it’s not saying that. I’m just saying Coco is Coco.

If Coco were a chimp it would be a different conversation. If Coco were a chimp we would all be living under the Fourth Reich frankly. If we ever were foolish enough to teach a chimp how to sign language things we deserve the fate that we hath wrought upon ourselves. Nate sent me another animal thing.

By the way if you are still listening, if you haven’t gone to the birds, if you haven’t stopped listening I want to say that for those of you who ordered a HWYW T-shirt they are coming. They are on their way. Thank you for your patience. We had to order more. They are coming. Again, thank you for ordering T-shirts.

There’s an article that Nate sent me. There’s a man who’s an animal rights activist, as much as I love animals I can’t say the same about all animal rights activists because some of them are the sickest. Nobody hates people more. We’re both on the same side when it comes to animals. I’ll dwell on that, but in the meantime I want to mention there is a crazy person that has a website. I don’t know if he’s crazy. He seems like a loser to be honest with you. He wrote an article on his own blog because I have a feeling he had a hard time getting this published. I imagine he shopped it around. IT’s basically just a long paragraph so I think that was tough for editors. It is twenty words or fifty words? I can’t look at a paragraph and know how many words it has. I don’t count cards either. I don’t count things I don’t have to count honestly. This guy wrote an article. It’s called Wild Dogs have Better Lives; Domesticating Dogs was a Big Mistake [[1]] In this article, or long paragraph, he argues that we should never have domesticated dogs. If you were to ask dogs they would say, “Rip that article up and burn it because all dogs ever wanted was to live side by side with human beings. I know that I have told you to read Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin many times before. I am going to tell you to read it again because the ending where she talks about how humans have co-evolved with dogs will blow your fucking mind. A lot of more radical animal rights activists hate Temple Grandin because she works with meat people. It’s understandable that they find it to be hypocritical but it’s not ok to hate Temple Grandin because Temple Grandin is a goddamn delight.

This is the article this guy wrote,

In a NY Times article about the estimated 7,000 remaining wild dogs in Africa, Dr. Rosie Woodrofe, a researcher who has studied wild dogs for 20 years, says, “There is nothing so enthusiastic as a wild dog. They live the life domestic dogs wish they could live.” As a dog owner, I’m not at all surprised to read that. Wild dogs, who can act on their natural instincts all day long, have wildly productive lives.

Let me read that sentence again because it is a really funny sentence if you think about it.

Wild dogs, who can act on their natural instincts all day long, have wildly productive lives. Researchers say these “exceptionally social” and “civic-minded” dogs hunt, teach their young survival skills and care for the infirm. While one male and female in each pack breed, the remaining adults “serve as guardians, babysitters, even wet nurses for the alpha pair’s pups.” If our companion animals could talk,

This is when he gets crazy. This is when he says his own dog wishes he didn’t belong to him.

If our companion animal could talk would they tell us that we should have never domesticated them? I think so.

Your dog hates you dude. You just wrote an article about how much your dog hates you. Who has a dog that doesn’t like them? Who does their best and has a dog that’s like meh? That’s not what dogs do. Dogs love you. That’s the whole thing with dogs. Now he gets personal. He writes,

I have a rescue dog — a Chihuahua/pug mix. He’s one of the “lucky” ones. I don’t chain him to a fence in the cold, leave him in a hot car, neglect him or abuse him in any way.

Congratu-fucking-lations

I walk him four times a day; provide him with nourishment and medical care; play ball with him at least twice a day; and shower him with affection (I’ve been told to “get a room.”) Still, I think he’s bored and out of place.

This is the point in the article where he stops substantiating. Everything at the top about the wild dogs is from a New York Times article. At this point we’ve departed from all fact-based empirical objective information. Now it’s just all in this guy’s head.

Still I think he’s bored and out of place. I wouldn’t want his life. Domesticating animals for our pleasure was a big mistake, in my opinion, especially when you consider the rampant abuse, neglect and abandonment.

He didn’t finish that sentence. Of what? Of pet dogs? Ugh. There are children that are neglected and abused. That doesn’t stop us from having children and loving children right? Not that it’s the same. I don’t know. I’m very tired. I think this guy is a big ninny.

But companion animals are here to stay, and the burden is on us to make their lives as enriched as possible.

The end. That’s all he has to say about this. Wild dogs seem happier. We should all regret making dogs dog, my dog hates me by Donny Moss. Two comments on this: You must also factor in the domestic dogs live 2 to 3 time longer than their wild cousins. Yeah, they are being protected and fed morsels of chicken from their mother sat dinner as opposed to dying in the cold or by the jaws of a predator. Well that was what it was.

I want to read one more thing before we go to the interview portion of the show. This was brought to my attention on Monday. I was tweeted by…oh I was tweeted by Cher. Cher tweeted at me on Tuesday. That was amazing. I tweeted at Cher, “I wish we were friends.” And she wrote back, “We talk, exchange ideas, I go ballistic, am funny, bring strange info to you, try to make you aware of certain things. That’s friends.” Basically Cher tweeted me back and said I was her friend on Twitter. I’m still alive somehow.

I wanted to tell you about a hashtag that Megan Sampson brought to my attention. It is #fameisfatal. This is originated by, really the only enemy I have, that’s Pauly Perrette. Pauly Perrette, world’s oldest Goth who is allergic to her own hair dye decided on the day that Robin William sided to start tweeting about how dangerous it is to be a celebrity. Celebrities need special consideration because they face challenges that people who are not famous can’t really understand. Using the hashtag she invented, #famousisfatal, Pauly Perrette said the following, “Trust me. Fame is fatal. Celebrities are dead because if we are in crisis we don’t call 911 because it will be broadcast.” What an asshole, what a dumb asshole. Anyway, the only one who is dumber and stupider are her fans. “Thanks for being real with us.”

All right. That was fun, or was it? Did I tell you to be patient with the T-shirts? I did. Shark week, fine. Ferguson, devastating. The Knick. I saw The Knick this weekend, it was very bloody. It was about Clive Owen being a doctor and shooting heroine between his toes. There was a lot of steam punk equipment in the operating room. Blood was spurting into mason jars that would be used as mixers. You’d mix it in a glass with bitters and Compari and some shit in Williamsburg and say, “I’ll have that please.” That was The Knick. I think I’m done.

We have one guest…