Gerret Swirled

So just when you think The Gerret is never coming back, well here I am! Chillin' in my Christmas crib, celebrating the end of my 14th dog year in residence and marking the close of the second human year of this, my carelessly casual but occasionally compelling blog.

So for your collective Christmas creature comfort I've crafted a customized and comprehensively creative cinematic experience containing a congregation of local characters. I call it: "A Corny Copious Collection of Christmas Clips."

Oh, BTW, it snowed here yesterday. Not a common calamity.

Remember Slim?! The Snake?! The star of The Gerret's totally awesome movie "Snake on a Plain"? Well OMG, he's back!!! And this time he's got a girlfriend and he's being like just totally romantic! Ha!

You probly wonder, what's a romantic snake do? LOL! Well here's some dude named E. Mohrman on eHow to explain it all for you!

Female [snakes] are resistant to mating from the beginning and throughout the process. Male snakes must hold females down with their heads and coil their tails around the female's. The female will continuously try to slither off, dragging the male along as he attempts to line up their cloacas. When successfully aligned — an effort that can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days...

Anyway, you get the picture! "A few hours to a few days"???!!! Sheesh!!! And I totally don't want to even know what a "cloacas" is! ROFL!!! Anyway, here's my latest movie, starring Slim!!! Careful! It's hot! NSFW!!! Ha Ha Ha!!

Gotta run! CUL8R!!! And watch out for your cloacas!!!! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Maggie here! OMG, OMG, OMG!!!! You won't believe what I did! Literally! It was sooooo way too cool! Remember SawsyPaws?!! Yes! My sister!!! We're related! In fact, we always have been! We're like BFF&E!

ANYWAY! We went to visit Sawsy! She has a dog house on a really really REALLY big pond with really cool water and like a really cool boat! It was awesome!

Here we are on the boat, catchin' some rays! OMG we are just soooo cool! I wish that used-cat-litter-for-brains-fool that dumped us on the road last year as puppies could see us now! What a total Loser!

Here's The Gerret on the boat! Ha ha ha ha! Can you say Barf?!

But like actually, The Gerret is pretty cool, he's just not an Aquarius like us! More of a land-lubber! LOL!!!!

Anyway, here's how we roll!!!

Yes, been a long time between posts. That's because I'm a dog. And I work like one. Sometimes. I also sleep like one. And you know what they say about sleeping dogs. Especially The Gerret.

Anyway, that's a picture of Amy, who recently passed away. Why is this important? Well, because she was one-half of the comic duo Rufus and Amy, ("The Mallards") current residents of the pond. Around here we're kind of used to turnover in the resident duck pond population, but there's always a moment that's really annoying, and that's when you reach a point where there's only one duck left. As has now occurred.

There's nothing more pathetic than the last duck. Especially if it's a guy. He'll mope and pout and emote mournful semi-quacks and on and on and on. Rufus been all that in spades. He stares at his food, follows the chickens around, sleeps late, drops feathers all over the place and just generally sulks. Really no fun to be around.

So it was with some great sense of relief that Stump and Tweet came home with three new call ducks the other day. Call ducks look like regular ducks except they're smaller. Sorta like the Chihuahuas of the duck world. (Well, not THAT small. They'd probably eat one of them tea cup Chihuahuas. But imagine something that looks about like a pigeon except it has a bill and duck feet.)

So they put the call ducks in a pen and those ducks quack a few times and Rufus comes waddling up the hill. (You'd think he'd come flying up the hill, but no, he's too depressed to fly. Sheesh.) He sees the new ducks and you could see an immediate change in attitude. Best I can describe it is sorta like if there was a duck version of Enzyte, the once daily tablet for natural male enhancement, and Rufus was doing the TV commercial.

But still there was the problem of Rufus being on the outside and the call ducks being incarcerated. Of course the call ducks didn't know any better because they had always been in a pen. So Rufus spent the next day-and-a-half keeping a vigil and lobbying the governor for a pardon.

Finally this afternoon the word came down and they opened the gates. That actually didn't mean a whole lot to the call ducks who pretty much stayed put. So Rufus started talking and Rufus started walking and pretty soon the call ducks, sensing a ancient shared kinship, decided to throw their lot in with the big handsome dude with the green head and the corny sense of humor. (Two of the call ducks are girls, so there's definitely the makings of a reality TV show at work here.)

It was at that point that The Gerret, already in search of a subject for my next documentary, grabbed a camera and caught the drama.

The interesting part is that those call ducks didn't know a pond, or even a water feature, from a flat piece of dirt and the minute they hit the water and their feet didn't stop going down, they were totally panicked. But that only lasted a few seconds as they took to that pond like, well...

Okay, you see that dog? Not the one in the foreground, that's The Gerret. I mean the other one. In the movie. Up on the big screen. That's Marley, trying to teach his roommate how to go for a walk. Can the ridiculous get any more sublime? That dog is Marley and I'm here to tell you about him.

As you might surmise, today The Gerret is doing a review of the soon-to-be-released-on-DVD-internationally-acclaimed movie "Me and Marley," or, as it's referred to in various human venues, "Marley and Me."

Now why, you ask, would The Gerret be reviewing a soon-to-be-released-on-DVD movie? Simple. Some marketing dude named Scott sent me a free copy if I'd talk about it on my blog. I'm a dog. I'll do anything for a treat.

So here's the scoop. This movie deals with a dog named Marley, played as an adult by Clyde whom you might remember from his star turn as Fabian's dog in the 2002 TV mini-series "Dog Days."

Marley is basically a normal dog that does what normal dogs do. He chews things up, barks at strangers, greets friends with chest bumps, poops in the ocean, farts, runs joyfully all over when not restrained and hates lightning. No big deal. You've seen it a hundred times, right?

But what happens when this normal dog ends up living with two very neurotic, high-strung, undisciplined, unneutered humans? See? Now you have the makings of a searing story of drama and sacrifice.

The humans are played by relative newcomers Owen Wilson (the voice of Lightning McQueen in "Cars") and Jennifer Aniston (Jeannie Bueller in the TV series version of "Ferris Bueller"). Aniston is the meaner of two, as she tries throughout the movie to starve Marley to death, screaming at one point, "How many times have I told you not to leave anything edible where he [Marley] can get it?"

Unfortunately, there are long stretches of the movie that focus more on Wilson and Aniston than on our hero Marley. And because the two were never spayed and neutered they keep having babies, and of course anyone familiar with the Human Society literature knows what a terrible problem that creates.

But there are also moments of levity, and, dare I say, eroticism. This NSFW moment is why I'm not letting Maggie watch this until she's older, but hey, when you see that chemistry between Kathleen Turner and Marley it's hard to call it anything less than cinematic genius.

But I ramble. The bottom line is that this movie is great because it isn't based on a graphic novel and Clyde delivers an Oscar Mayer-worthy performance in the role of Marley right up to the end when he (***Spoiler Alert***) dies. (***Spoiler Alert over***) It could have been stronger if Marley had been given a love interest, but I guess the director was trying to avoid making a romantic comedy. At least we'll always have that tender moment of lust-in-the-sand with Kathleen Turner.

If you're looking for DVD extras, well this DVD has 'em. Of course there's some major Gag Reel stuff, which is typical of any movie with humans in it, but the coop-de-grass is the moment when Clyde, caught on camera, had just had it with the incompetent crew and pees all over the set. Shades of Christian Bale! A genuine DogTube moment!

In addition to the regular DVD movie, there's also a "Two-disc Bad Dog Edition," which I guess is longer than the first one, and even a "Three-disc Bad Dog Edition," which must be the 24-hour art-house version. And if you don't have electricity, there's the original book, or if you need something to keep that broken coffee table from falling over there's the hardcover book. And finally, if you're almost blind like Chigger, you can get the audiobook version, but I don't have a link for that. Click on the book link and you'll be able to track it down.

So what's the verdict? The Gerret, as always, easily impressed, just has to give "Me and Marley" four-and-a-half Gerrets.

Me and Marley:

The Gerret hasn't been writing much lately. I been going through one of those existential dark-night-a-the-soul things. Been listening to a lot of Nietzsche, Camus, Sartre, Snoopy et al. on audio books. Not much help. With the exception of Snoopy they all seem more concerned with human existence, and we all know how that turns out.

I was thinking it might be my mid-life crisis, but Chigger just snorted and said, "Keep going on like that and it'll be an end-of-life crisis for your sorry butt. It ain't a mid-life crisis you little turd, it's about a sixteenth-of-a-life crisis and that don't count for nothing." Then she farted one of those really bad old-dog farts. Gross.

So okay, maybe I'm just having some teen angst. Or maybe it's heartworms. But hey, at least I used to get just a little respect around here.

I mean look at The Gerret in that photo at the top - happy, relaxed and way cooler than doofus Maggie sitting next to me. That was last summer, when I pwn'd Maggie and she was basically my size. I ran, she followed. I barked, she cowered. I barfed, she licked it up.

Now look at this picture from just recently. It's like the doofus has been on DGH or something. It's a freak show. It's just not natural how big she is.

[Maggie: "To paraphrase Norman Desmond, 'I AM big. It's The Gerret that got small.'"]

How can I tolerate this humiliation? She eats my lunch. She drinks my milkshake. She knocks me over in front of guests. (And she still licks up my barf.) I even heard Chigger refer to us "Kip and Lafawndah" the other day.

Kip and LaFawndah! I mean when did Chigger ever sit through Napoleon Dynamite? She's like 86 in dog years. She's blind in one eye, she don't hear so good and she let's those terrible old-dog farts. And she's disrespecting me with Napoleon Dynamite references? Next thing you know she'll be writing "all your base are belong to us" in the mashed potatoes. Sheesh.

To be continued

Hi! It's me! Maggie! Again!!! It's like my birthday today! I'm a big girl now! No more puppy dog food for this teenager! And I'm sooooo super jazzed!!!! Because The Gerret is like soooo jealous and all up in my grill! What-evah! I used to think he was cool, but sometimes he's just soooo dorky!

Anyway, I've been like working on my first movie! Yes! Me making a movie! It's all done and it's totally awesome!!! It's called "Pup Fiction"!!! It's sorta like that other movie only different! Of course because I'm still the kid around here I had to use like the really really really old equipment. It soooo super sucks! It really blows chunks!!! So don't get all Ebert on me! Just chill out and enjoy it!! It stars yours truly and the other dog! And remember! It's my birthday!!!

Okay, so we got this new rooster named Wooster (or Worcester?) hanging around. He's still just a kid, and so young you'd have to get real up-close-and-personal to actually determine for yourself if he was a guy or a girl. But for some reason he's soooo important. You know how I know? Because he comes with his very own admonition. It goes something like this, "Ger-RET! Stop chasing the rooster!" There's often a couple of other words in front of "Gerret" that are repeated in front of "rooster" and that seem to be references to some human belief system that can provoke cosmic retribution, but they don't translate into dog so I ignore them.

In fact, at first I ignored the entire admonition because they never said "THE Gerret" so I assumed they were talking to some other Gerret. But when I politely inquired, "Are you talking to moi?" the answer was most demonstratively in the affirmative.

So that's where it stands right now. I chase, they admonish, Wooster (or Worcester?) runs like a chicken. I'm thinking that if I hold out they'll change their minds, because hey, it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks, right? Which segues nicely into the real theme of my post. The Gerret is officially post-puppytude! I'm now the old dog that doesn't have to learn new tricks! It's been pretty much seven dog years ago that Stump and Tweet came to the county lock-up, posted my bail and sprung me from the joint. (Yes, "Roscoe" was my prison name, but I was nobody's bitch. And I'll be getting to that "German Shepherd/Spaniel mix" stuff soon.)

And there ain't no way they're takin' me back. Now I got a warm place to sleep and one square a day. So who knows, maybe The Gerret will learn not to chase roosters. Just maybe. Cause I like it here. (But then I also like chickens. Fried chickens, barbeque chickens, roasted chickens, broiled chickens, boiled chickens, broasted chickens, original recipe chickens, stir-fried chicken, popcorn chickens, chicken tartar, chicken sushi, chicken nuggets, chicken casserole, chicken salad, chicken-fried steak and all those various wild animals that taste like chicken. Chicken aspic, not so much.)

It sometimes seems like Chigger is the only one around here who can stay focused. And these days she's verging on seriously grim. Today she wrote "35 human days until Barney vacates the Casa Blanca" in her dog food and then gave out one of those silent-but-deadly farts that only a dog who's been practicing for thirteen-and-a-half years can master. (It's a skill that The Gerret can only aspire to one day.) Yesterday she wrote "36 human days..." and the day before that it was "37 human days..." and on and on, like some sort of dog-autistic obsession.

So I says to her in a light-hearted fashion so as to brighten the surrounding atmosphere in which we both participated, "Hey Chigger, I didn't know you spoke Spanish."

Slowly she turned, step-by-step, inch-by-inch she approached me. She focused her one good eye on me in steely fashion, then squinted and coldly replied in a voice just barely louder than a whisper, "Don't get smug with me you little cat-turd eatin' mutt. I've lived through nearly 56 dog years of Barney this and Barney that. It's Barney-cams every Christmas and Barney-in-the-Rose-Garden every summer. Meanwhile football-player-induced dog-on-dog violence goes unchecked, foreign dog food is poisoning us, Presidential candidates are driving around with dogs on the roofs of their cars and a beagle wins the Westchester Dog Show. You hear me, a BEAGLE! Our entire species has become a laughing stock. It will take generations to undo the damage."

With that she pointed me to the following video and puked.

First I cleaned up the puke, a bold and boisterous gumbo of squirrel guts and roadside french fries with the delicate aftertaste of some kind of wild animal poop I just couldn't quite but my finger on. Then I watched the video.

(*"What You See Is What They Want You To See" from "Chiggerpedia")

Chigger is all over my butt to share this with y'all. She's gettin' on in years, especially dog years, and she normally doesn't get riled about much of anything excepting when The Gerret or Maggie gets too close to her food bowl before she's decided she's had enough. Other than that she likes to laze around and stare out the window with her good eye and bark at stuff that isn't there which gets me and Maggie all wound up and we blast outside through the dog door and bark like crazy and chase around the house a couple of times and stand out front and bark a couple more times for good measure just in case whatever Chigger saw is still within earshot and then we come racing back in and Chigger's curled up on the floor with what I swear is a smirk on her face and one of our dog chews between her paws.

Anyway, apparently she has some history with Barney, the White House dog. Not my problem, but you can see here and here and here that back in the day Chigger and Woody (rip) had a bit of an obsession.

Seems that recently Barney lost control and blew his cover. Yaaaawnnn. Just another boomer dog turning senile if you ask The Gerret. Chigger sees it all a bit more sinister-like. As she likes to say, "You can put lipstick on a Palin, but it's still a Palin."