Guard the Tree

[With the greatest of apologies to Tanya Donnelly and all the members of Belly]

This red squirrel I've stalked about
Broke into a run,
Scampered 'cross the ground.
Darned red rat ran up and out,
Hid among the leaves,
As I run around.

I smell all this and more ...

So take your smirk off
When you're mocking at me,
And stay there when I guard the tree.

This little squirrel I used to chase
Slammed a nut on my head.
It put scars on my teeth and face;
It laughed at me, she grinned and fled.

I smell all this and moooore.

So take your smirk off, boy,
When you're mocking at me
And be there when I guard the tree.

Take your smirk off, rat,
When you're mocking at me
And be there when I guard the tree.

The beagle that I used to be
Barked around, around, around the tree.
Fuzzy red rat, come to me.
I'll only bite you in my dreams ....

I smell all this and,
I snuff all this and,
I snort all this and more.

Take your smirk off
When you're mocking at me
And be there when I guard the tree.

Take your smirk off
When you're mocking at me
And be there when I guard the tree.

In a Big Back Yard

[In memory of the late Stuart Adamson of Big Country, it's time to put on your tartan and play that bagpipe-sounding guitar]

[Start of drum intro]: Arf!
[Big drum intro, guitar starts]: Come up howlin' ... Come up howlin' ... Arf!
[Bagpipe guitar]

You've never heard me sniff like this without a reason,
Another rabbit passes through, I think it's treason! Passed right by you!
[Arf!]
We always lick the food off the neighbor's toddler's face,
And that's a tasty way to think of someone who is still a child.

In a big back yard, we'll run and howl,
'til a biped's voice, shouts out "Keep it dooooooown".
What a clooooown!

I know that pig ear bones are things that really matter,
But I can't stay put with two dozen jerky treats scattered.

We'll bury pig ears in the flower beds, so easy!
Then we can bark and howl and run right through wintertime...

In a big back yard, we'll eat and chew,
'til a biped's voice, shouts out "It's kong tiiiiiime".
What a liiiife!

In a big back yard, we'll chase and stalk,
'til a biped's voice, shouts out "Let's go waaaaaaalk".
Round the blooooock!

Don't take that treat from me, it is too tasty.
Because I dropped it doesn't mean it's been discarded.
Wake up quick from that nap, come up howlin',
Bark loud for every treat you ever might have wanted.
I thought that squeaky toys were meant to be all tattered,
But I can't do that when there are seven crows to be scattered.

[Arf! Woof! Howl!]

I've just buried a steak bone in the flowers
And it will be good and dank and rancid come the wintertime.

In a big back yard, we'll dig in dirt,
'til a biped's voice, shouts out "What the heeeeeell!".
Run Pell Mell!

In a big back yard, we'll laze and sleep,
'til a biped's voice, shouts out "We are baaaaaaack!".
With a snaaaaack!

In a big back yard, dreams do come true,
'til a biped's voice comes out of the bluuuuuuue.
What'd I doooooo?

[Woof!]
[Arf-arf-arf-arf-arf!]

Fat Behind

[With sincerest apologies to Candlebox for horking around with such a great song as Far Behind]

Now maybe, I didn’t mean to eat so much,
But I did it anyway.

And not maybe: Some would say the food went bad,
But I ate it anyway.

And now maybe, I cannot stand to ignore all the crumbles
As they fall onto the ground.

And now maybe, I might try to run when treats are flying;
Oh they were flying oh so high.

And then one day bipeds look at me, at what they call the shape.
They watch me waddle, as they start to call me home.

But then I had to use a little time
To take a rest again so I could reach them,
‘Cause I have a fat behind.

Now may-ay-ay-be I didn’t mean to eat up all this food,

But I did it anyway.
Now maybe some would say we’re left with not a scrap,
But I couldn’t share the grub.
No, no, no.

Couldn’t share the grub and watch you eat it.

Now maybe, I might have made a big mistake,
'Cause I grew with what I’ve gnawed.

Yes maybe, I might one day slim down great
But won’t you look at how I’ve grown,
Take a look at where food’s gone.

But then supper comes, the kibble holds a smell of what I crave for now in my mind,

As I waddle up to dine

And so every day I lose control;

Shame this food is gone

So soon, I couldn't help it,

So now I've got a fat behind.

Now may-ay-ay-be I didn’t mean to eat up all this food,

But I did it anyway.
Now maybe some would say we’re left with not a scrap,
But I couldn’t share the grub.
No, no, no.

[HOWL SOLO]

Now may-ay-ay-be, now maybe I didn’t mean to eat up all this food,

But I did it anyway.
Now maybe some would say we’re left with not a scrap,
But I couldn’t share the grub.
I know time has changed my waist,

It grows as I eat the crumbles on the ground,

Look at this chow hound

Yeah I wolf it down

Wolf it down

Maybe now just maybe I didn't mean to eat like this,

Now I've got a fat behind.

Got a fat behind.

Got a fat behiiiiiii-yi-yi-yi-iiiind.

My Favorite Thing

[Beauregard and I were having a serious discussion last night while the bipeds were trying to sleep; slackers. We were comparing our adoption experiences from The Humane Society of Indianapolis and how we chose this particular family. I felt inspired to poetry again. So this morning I snuck down to the large male biped's computer while Beauregard created a minor distraction by jumping on the dining room table and running outside with the sausages. Luckily, the biped had kept iTunes running and Sugar’s “Your Favorite Thing” was playing, providing just the right inspiration for a beagle moved to aesthetics. So with sincerest apologies to Bob Mould:]

Tell me I’m your favorite thing;

You could say just anything.

I wouldn’t mind.

Licking your face till it’s night;

Take me to your home so right;

I wouldn’t mind. I wouldn’t mind;

Not at all.

Scratching on my head again;

Hoping that this never ends.

I wouldn’t mind.

It’s my yowls you can’t ignore,

Until you can’t stand anymore;

Hope you don’t mind. I wouldn’t mind.

Aw-roooooo, this wait is killing me.

I keep waiting, caged impatiently.

What do I need to do?

I’ll do anything you want me to.

I’ll chew every shoe that’s in your room

Along with all your other favorite things …

You’ve made me your favorite thing!
Let's see what the future brings!
I sure don't mind!

And I can't tell you how much love I feel.
I want to clap and bark like a seal.
I do not mind, if you don’t mind
Not at all

Awrooooo-ooooooo

Now that you’re my favorite thing,
Gimme what the food dish brings.

Getting belly-rubbed again,
Hoping that this never ends.

Now that I'm your favorite thing,
Let's see what treat bowl brings.

I don't know, I don't know ……

[Remember, folks, there are plenty of wonderful pets out there waiting to be adopted. If you do decide to add to your family, do try this option.]

Secular Religion

This is an increasingly secular age, the pundits often used to say. "We are living in a time of disbelief and cynicism" was a common cry from my youth. Was this really so? Some would argue that the situation has since reversed, that religion is making a comeback, that we are slouching back to the Dark Ages. I respectfully disagree. For one thing, religion and belief, while related, are not the same thing. While it is true that religion is a force in such insignificant cultural ghettos like Texas, Kansas, and the political circuit, this is probably more perception than anything. Religion never went away, it's just more in the open (if not in your face) than it was for a while.

Religion is still out there and doing well. You need only look at places like the Islamic areas of the Middle East and the tent-show revival part of the rural American South to see that. This may not be a golden age of religion, where a bishop's most minor utterances are ooh'ed and aah'ed over by all and sundry, but it takes a scandal like the one the Catholic Church endured earlier in the decade to make a true dent. Religion's cousin, belief, ie the acceptance of things unseen and unprovable, is as healthy and alive as ever, indeed it seems to flourish in spite of disproof. Take communism, a line of thinking that required belief and demanded blind acceptance as much as the harshest religion man has ever created. Indeed, communism had the hallmarks of a religion itself, and a harsh one: it made other religions illegal; it demanded complete faith and compliance from its followers, brooked no insolence; gave The People its saints and sinners, its temples and rituals. And like all religions, it was a house of cards, unable to stand up to empirical evidence. Worse, it was a complete failure in ways that seem almost unfathomable. For one thing, it made a nation of Germans lazy and dirty, which becomes more amazing the more you think of it. And given the speed with which peoples and nations abandoned it, you'd think the thing was made of radioactive maggots. (And you wouldn't be that wrong, actually.)

So obviously communism is dead, right? No, of course not. I have read that about one-third of mankind has an innate need to believe in something greater than themselves. I only question the seemingly low number, not the fact itself. There is a certain kind of believing mind that believes things will somehow get better if one just wishes hard enough for it; these are generally the most religious of people. Some, though, have rejected religion and believe that the best Santa Claus to fulfill this wishlist is The Government. This is pure poppycock, of course; the government couldn't even deliver the mail, with the addresses printed right on it, until they brought in a bunch of people from industry in the 90s. You may also notice how the government can't educate our kids, clean our streets, protect us from criminals, pave the streets, and stand up against corporate bribery ... all this according to the American mass media, who are not known as bastions of free market thinking and libertarianism. And yet, how do many believers propose we solve the problems in education? More government control. Crime? More government. Arabs who want to kill us faster than you can say "Allah Go Boom"? More government. Protect our children from Darwin and Chinese lead paint? More government interference.

Which naturally leads to the question: if government can't do any of this, why do we think it possesses magical, mystical powers that can change the weather? Although if it means we get to see Al Gore, Jr., do an authentic rain dance, I'm for it. I could use the laugh.

Art Carny

Has it ever been noted that true artists are, by and large, against the society in which they live? Surely someone has, though it's never come to my notice. Afterall, an artist is someone who has something to say, or at least someone who believes he has something to say. Afterall, a content and happy person does not feel the need to trumpet this from the parapets. It also explains why artists are more likely to be of foreign birth or background than the law of averages would suggest. Indeed, some of the greatest were such people. (Joseph Conrad leaps to mind.)

Even those who would be considered 'reactionary' and 'conservative' show this tendency. Saki cast a withering light England before World War I; Mencken deflated the dreams and aspirations of American society of the teens and twenties so well that his name was used to scare babies; P.G. Wodehouse preferred to write about a never-was England that had been found only on the stage; country and blues musics are purely American musics in tang and spirit, but were created by people so marginalized that they were outsiders in their own native lands.

Does this view hold up in modern America? It would certainly seem to. Most artists, or at least people with artistic pretensions, lean so far to the left that it's a wonder they can stand up straight. This should be no surprise, really, since these days most patronage of the arts is done by fleecing the taxpayer, who thinks Haydn was an olympic gold medal skater and Picasso a fetishist web site. Thus, the artist would be against people who work for a living and pay their own way through life and take care of their own family. They live their lives without the help of government timeservers ... indeed, in spite of these people. These people are the antithesis of modern leftist "thinking" which so many alleged artist embrace, so there may be something to this.

At the core, of course, artists are businessmen with wares to sell. Though the true artiste would create regardless, most who earn their living from their art cast a hard eye out for a dollar. If their patron is the government, they shall espouse government control, just as those in more imperial days glorified the empire which patronized them, and earlier American artists praised the millionaires who supported them or The People who tossed them nickels and dimes on the street. Today, to be a true artist, one would have to stand up and denounce government bureaucracy ... a likelihood on the order of finding a sensible political activist or an honest lawyer.