SYNDICATED COLUMN: Every Dogi Has Its Day


Americans Lose Their Savings and their Minds

When the revolution comes, the tribunal will turn to two sources to determine who should be arrested: a list of the 500 highest-paid CEOs and the Styles section of The New York Times.

Real unemployment is over 20 percent. Millions of people are losing their homes to foreclosure. We’ve been at war for eight years, with nothing to show for it but a million-plus corpses and trillions in new debt. The United States, in the midst of full-on economic collapse, is teetering on the brink of political implosion. Which has driven some people to…doga.

“Nationwide,” an article in the April 9th Times Styles section explains, “classes of doga–yoga with dogs, as it is called–are increasing in number and popularity.”

Doga. The name alone inspires lovely fantasies of firing squads. Above the piece and above the fold are photos of dogs being levitated, stretched, and used as weights. Understandably, they generally look puzzled, if not mystified. The online version has a slideshow chronicling the torment of a yellow mutt, his hind quarters being yanked into the heavens by his ever-so-serious Spandex-clad owner. Downward-facing-dog gone wild. The poor beast wears that Admiral Stockdale look: who am I? why am I here?
Why are you doing this to me?

Times reporter Bethany Lyttle, who probably never dreamed she’d end up writing this sort of thing when the thought of becoming a journalist first crossed her mind, paints a grisly tableau in but 45 horrifying words: “In Chicago, Kristyn Caliendo does forward-bends with a Jack Russell draped around her neck. In Manhattan, Grace Yang strikes a warrior pose while balancing a Shih Tzu on her thigh. And in Seattle, Chintale Stiller-Anderson practices an asana that requires side-stretching across a 52-pound vizsla.” One wonders, will she have the animal put to sleep in the event of weight change? Will she buy an entire set of dogs, to cover the weight range as her fitness improves?

During the last few months Times political writers have been wondering aloud why Americans haven’t reacted to losing their jobs and houses by rioting. Here, just a dozen ever-shrinking pages away, is the answer. They’re freaking out, all right. But being Americans, they’re freaking out weirdly.

If you’ve read this far–and I wouldn’t blame you if you’d already thrown this down in disgust–you’d might as well know what doga is. Doga!

“Doga,” reports The Times (which doesn’t run comics or advice columns because those features aren’t serious enough), “combines massage and meditation with gentle stretching for dogs and their human partners. In chaturanga, dogs sit with their front paws in the air while their human partners provide support. In an ‘upward-paw pose,’ or sun salutation, owners lift dogs onto their hind legs. In a resting pose, the person reclines, with legs slightly bent over the dog’s torso, bolster-style, to relieve pressure on the spine.”

Ready! Aim! Fire! No need for caskets. A shallow grave will suffice. But there’s more.
Skeptics of doga, by taking the idea seriously, unintentionally provide the best quotes. “Doga runs the risk of trivializing a 2,500-year-old practice into a fad,” the paper quotes a yogi in, naturally, Portland (the one in Oregon, obviously). Ya think? “To live in harmony with all beings, including dogs, is a truly yogic principle. But yoga class may not be the most appropriate way to express this.” She thinks about this stuff. Me, I’m holding out for boga–yoga with bugs.

Doga is the perfect end-of-empire moment for a nation wallowing in self-indulgence. The Romans puked out their engorged guts in their vomitoria; we drop $20 a class to drape our yowling schnauzers over our flabby tummies. And as with every great American trend of mass idiocy, controversy swirls arounds doga.

Brenda Bryan, a 43-year-old dogi and yogi (doyogi? yodogi? bowwowwowyippiyagi?) in Seattle, has written the book on doga. “It’s a new field so there can be confusion about what doga is and isn’t,” she says. Why be confused? I know what doga is. Doga is stupid.

COPYRIGHT 2009 TED RALL

24 Comments.

  • Well sir maybe you never heard of having sex doga style. Or is this just another attempt to slam those poor doga faces? And lets not forget, it's not all fun and games in these classes. Have'nt you heard what happens in the lotus position when there is doga doo?

  • Doga? You too?

    Here:
    http://www.slowpokecomics.com/strips/doga.gif

    Ted, please don't lose your mind.

    Sincerely

    Y_S

  • Ted, surely you have heard of Bo, the new Presidential Dog of the Yokel-in-Chief? It's a mighty good distraction away from everything going to hell in a hand-basket.

    But, it's symptomatic of Obama's procrastination of style of presidency. He should have gotten his dog back in January.

  • I don't know whether to laugh or
    cry or shout oscenenties at the wall.

  • At least The One's dog is not a tax cheat like many of his appointees, including the current head of the Treasury Dept. The most brilliant minds in all the world and they can't even use TurboTax. Deadbeat libs.

  • This sounds like just one more thing that someone at Times decided was a trend because three people in the Village are doing it.

    "To live in harmony with all beings, including dogs, is a truly yogic principle.We live in perfect harmony with we cats. We buy their food, we feed them, and they run the house.

    But yeah, I kind of want to fire something at these people, even if it's just a $6 cupcake.

  • see also jen sorenson herethe little dogs are soooo cute…

  • Hey, needless spending bolsters the economy… There's more than one reason bush asked us to go to Disney World. (Though I would put going to Disney World on a par above doga…)

  • Nice column again, Ted.

    But one correction: the vomitoria were not places where Romans went to puke. Instead they the exits to theaters, through which crowds could "spew out" at the end of a performance.

  • I'm taking the opposite view here. I think that if we live in a country where we can think of stuff like Doga and have people willing to participate in it, things are going to get better. In a real failing country this sort of stuff wouldn't even be thought of, much less done. I might be wrong, but I think things are going to be okay. Plus, nothing could be more silly than an Animal Psychic.

  • Dammit Ted don't you know how economy works? All those new Doga customers will put alot of instructors in business which will provide much needed extra income to the bathroom merchandise retail, soap opera advertising and ass wax wholesale industries and all those extra revenues will trickle back to….China whom we borrow from constantly.

    Now if you don't mind I have to wrap this up because owww my balls will be premiering in a few minutes on the masturbation channel.

  • This is incredibly stupid, but is it any dumber than any number of other stupid trends?

    – Every year another weight-loss trend is revealed as the "best way to lose weight now". Every fucking year. Why? To sell more worthless shit. Does bovine America not understand that to lose weight you need to 1) eat right, and 2) exercise. Of course, that would not sell billions in books and videos, so we can't have that.

    – How about Twitter? Another bullshit trend that will be gone this time next year. "It's sooooo cooool because I'm telling my friends what I'm watching on TV right now! Cooooo-el!"

    – How about the Macarena? Need I say anything about that fucked-up white bread bullshit? The thought of Westchester housewives dancing that crap in their living rooms makes me shudder. It really does.

    I agree that "doga" is pretty high on the list of stupid, but the list goes on and on.

    We have a completely bankrupt culture, and have for some time.

  • I start every morning with an hour of doga and a bowl of low-fat dogurt.

  • Wow.

    Another article about a sign of the end.

    How unique.

    Needs more Nazi references.

    Keep up the good work.

  • Aaron Manton
    April 15, 2009 1:46 PM

    'Deadbeat libs', eh? What group of trophy wives and stay-at-home-sons are holding a protest that they pay taxes again? Get a job.

  • Yeah, idiots distracting themselves with vulgar and meaningless pursuits. Kind of how I feel about punk rock.

  • Ted, this is a better format – having the blog come up first – I like seeing your latest article without having to click to get to it.

  • I like the idea of boga, yoga with bugs, even though my first thought was that it meant yoga with bulls!

  • This is the only decent column Ted Rall has ever written. Maybe there is hope for recovery of all kinds….

  • 'Deadbeat libs', eh? What group of trophy wives and stay-at-home-sons are holding a protest that they pay taxes again? Get a job.This coming from someone who posts
    "Rutabega is a funny word. " in his blog?

  • Marion Delgado
    April 17, 2009 3:41 AM

    My dear boy, my son, I feel your surly anticorporate attitude could but improve with a week of stimulating doga with, say, a highly evolved boddhisatva among us in the form of a beige llaso apso!

    Was it not Krishna who said to Arjuna "the true victory is over oneself, and the true path rides the back of a Schnauser?"

  • John Madziarczyk
    April 17, 2009 9:42 PM

    Rich Seattleites are crazy, and need a 'correction' if you will. I make various forms of art among other things and folks seem to think that it's appropriate to bring their dog into a print shop where you have two kinds of acids for etching plus a host of other less than friendly chemicals, like paint thinner. They have to put signs at the front of grocery stores saying that bringing your dogs in is a health code violation and that it's not allowed.

  • Ted:

    This was simply your best article in ages and ages. You know why? It was funny and — for once — undisputably true.

  • Starving Dog Parents will eat children before giving up Oprah and Jack Daniels (these are pet names, by the way). Where's PETA in all this? Gagged on SSS. There's no justice. Precipice!

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