If you participate in this please kill yourself.

As background I first urge you to read the following article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/09/fashion/09fitness.html?_r=1

I consider myself a pretty mainstream cynic.  I don’t like sushi and think people embrace the idea of sushi as much or more than they do the actual taste of raw fish.  Yoga is another one of these things – I think it can probably be relaxing for all those “spiritual” people who pay there $100 per month to go to their studio and pretend that they are not  daughters and wives of captains of capitalist industry, but rather, are at one with some sort of spiritual existence they don’t really believe in (although that sweaty yoga seems to be a pretty good workout – with more focus on sweating than getting in touch with breathing and oneness).  Wine bars seem to spring up more than pubs now.   The list goes on and on.  This facade of refined and spiritual existence seemed to be maxed out and then I saw the above linked article in today’s New York Times.

Close to two years ago I was doing some interviews at a job fair for the Bronx District Attorney’s Office.  One woman, who had the looks and demeanor of an aspiring actress (she had been in LA for 6 or 7  years in between undergrad and law school so I am guessing that was actually the case), had highlighted on her resume that she had started the first Dog Yoga class in LA.  I held in my laughter and thought “Only in LA.”  LALA land is supposed to be the place where shallow souls try to find some deeper meaning in celebrity culture.  Everyone is spiritual.  Religion would condemn a lot of the behavior, whereas atheism is the province of intellectuals and cynics so LA dwellers are left with the vague, guilt and thought free distinction of “spiritual.”  They manage to find meaning in nothing and everything simultaneously.  I am not sayng that there cannot be genuinely spiritual people (you know, like Scott Stapp of Creed), but I feel like it is a vapid cop out for a lot of people.   But even accepting all these things as realities, Dog Yoga seemed a little much.

But then today I saw that America’s overzealous love of dogs has finally combined with its search for spiritual bliss in the form of DOGA (you guessed it – dog + yoga).  From Seattle to Manhattan and everywhere in between where pretentiousness lurks these classes have sprung up.  If ever Michael Vick’s non-football skills were needed it is here, but instead of drowning the dogs I would like him and his boys to drown the owners of these dogs.

This is like the perfect storm of unhealthy American obsessions.  I feel like too many people treat their dogs like people – not by talking to them and caring for them – that is ok.  I am writing about people who say “excuse us” when they are walking with their dog.  It’s a fu-king animal.  You are the only person here that requires excusing.  Or people who brag about their dog being selected as valedictorian of their dog training class.  Get a fu-king life.  It’s ok if you do not want or cannot have kids, but dogs were not meant as God’s substitute for children.  Combine that increasing trend (I feel like I see at least as many dogs as I do children in my neighborhood) with our increasing desire to somehow absorb all the chic-ness of Asian culture while still maintaining our selfish American instincts.  The new philosophy seems to be “Give me Asian culture’s freedom from dogmatic religion coupled with their interesting food, stretching techniques and humming exercises, but without all their dedication to family (because rather than eat my dog I will treat it as a full-fledged human family member) and community and placing the whole above the self because that just wouldn’t be me.  And then let my dog do the same.”

Well it is time for me to go lift some weights and eat some cooked salmon.  How provincial of me.

Namaste or  Woof! (for all my dog readers).