The dog days of March
From time to time, as a public service, I feel it my duty to inform readers of stories they might otherwise have missed while avoiding the depressing stuff that’s on TV. Not in the news, but truly terrible and horrifying things, like Steve Harvey’s “Little Big Shots.”
Such as the following item:
It was, by all accounts, the wedding of the year.
More than 5,000 guests attended. The bride was resplendent in a trendy, if non-traditional, yellow top and red pants, while the groom chose to wear mostly white. Guests ate traditional food and danced to music provided by a local DJ, and the happy couple exited by cur.
I mean “car.” The bride and groom are dogs.
I did not make this up. Sit. Stay.
The aforementioned exchange of vows took place according to Hindu traditions two weeks ago in the Pawara village of Kaushambi in Uttar Pradesh, India, the state that is home to the Taj Mahal. Before you start shaking your head at the questionable matrimonial practices of non-Americans, let me point out that in 2014, Grammy Award-winning singer John Legend hosted a wedding for his two dogs.
I was hoping that perhaps Legend is signed to the RCA Records label. At one time, RCA used a logo that depicted Nipper the Dog, his head cocked to one side, staring curiously into the horn of a gramophone, along with the tagline “His Master’s Voice.” For those too young to have seen the logo or know what a gramophone is, a brief history of popular music:
Long ago, before the playful gods hastened the deafening of mankind with the iPod and earbuds, people were required to sit in one place and listen to music reproduced at reasonable decibel levels by the gramophone or phonograph. These devices used a needle to channel the sounds captured on a wax cylinder or flat wax platter, through an inverted cone, to the ear. All was well.
Years later, with the world distracted by war, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller and other thugs organized roving “dance bands” and took over popular music charts. Good King Elvis ended their reign of terror in 1956 by kidnapping Goodman et. al, locking them in a dungeon at Graceland and gyrating suggestively until they promised to swing no more. This “Pax Pelvisum” continued until four long-haired lads from Liverpool recorded some catchy tunes while Presley was distracted by someone outside his bedroom window making peanut butter-and-banana-sandwich noises.
Skip ahead 35 years.
Compact discs were found in a secret chamber inside King Tut’s tomb. Game changer! But the discs were not compact enough for today’s weight-conscious listeners, who prefer to listen to music stored as an mp3. (Fun Fact: In Steven Spielberg’s original “Star Wars” script, MP3 was a distant cousin of C3PO!)
Then, in 2000 – the Year of the Hanging Chad (not the Hanging Chad and Jeremy, a failed British Invasion duo) – the Baha Men recorded “Who Let the Dogs Out?” Which brings us full circle to dog weddings and, coincidentally, to my point: We can’t roll over and play dead about them.
Now, don’t get me wrong: What consenting canines do in the privacy of their own kennel is of no matter to me. But I have to wonder – as must former senator Rick Santorum: If male and female dogs are allowed to marry, how long will it be before two dogs of the same sex are permitted to be joined in howly matrimony?
Then, make way for doggie divorce lawyers jumping on the gravy train, facilitating the shattering of litter units and undermining the values that the Founding Sires had in mind.
The mere thought raises my hackles.
Grrr!