NBA.com Guest Column

Today I got the honor of standing in for the great David Aldridge on NBA.com.  Check it out.  http://www.nba.com/2012/news/features/08/27/morning-tip-guest-columnist-stuart-smith/index.html

Cats > Dogs

Yes, you read that title correctly.  Cats are better than dogs.  Here are a few reasons why.

Dog owners, like their beloved canine companions, are wildly insecure.  Ask dog owners what they love about their pet, and they go on and on about how the dog is waiting at the foot of the bed when they wake up in the morning, waiting at the door when they get home from work at night, always wagging that tail and happy to see them, always able to cheer them up at the end of a hard day... My thinking is, why do you need so much emotional reassurance from this creature that shits on your carpet twice a week?  Conversely, ask a dog lover what they have against cats, and he or she will act like cats are the most unpleasant, disagreeable and anti-social animals on the planet.  There's a widely accepted notion - propagated by the all-powerful Dog Lobbyists, no doubt - that cats simply dislike people.  Of course this is in no way based in reality, as most cats are very affectionate, and thoroughly enjoy human contact - is there a more satisfied, happy-sounding noise in the world than that of a cat purring while enjoying a good head scratch?  But because a cat has too much dignity, quite frankly, to go ape-shit crazy and start slobbering over any and everything it can get close to every time its owner so much as saunters through the door, they get labeled as cold.

Okay, fine, I'll grant that a dog's energy and constant playfulness make it more fun to have around for a day at the beach or the park.  But now let's go over a list of just a few of the many activities for which it would be much better to have a cat in the immediate vicinity than a dog:

• Cooking
• Cleaning
• Doing laundry
• Knitting
• Reading
• Building model airplanes
• Ice sculpting
• Decorating a Christmas tree
• Knife juggling
• Practicing ballet
• Defusing a bomb
• Playing that game where you race while balancing an egg on a spoon, and finally
• One word: Jenga.

You don't want a dog anywhere near any one of those activities.  They'll ruin everything.  You see, a cat will leave you the hell alone when you need to be left alone, while a dog can't stop trying to lick you to death no matter the situation.

That's my biggest problem with dogs - they are space invaders.  No, I don't mean they enjoy picking fights with aliens.  I'm talking about personal space.  For every well-behaved dog I've come across in my life, I've met ten more that jumped on me, licked me, put their dirty-assed paws all over me, pushed themselves up into my face, and just generally made me miserable every second I was around them.  I like dogs just fine if they're trained well enough to be respectful and allow you to pet them without going fucking crazy, but when you're sitting on your buddy's couch and there's some mutt trying to get at your face every four seconds?  Think about it.  If you're at your office Christmas party, and Stan from accounting has had a few too many to drink, and he gets a little touchy-feely, a little too much in your personal space, you're going to be wildly uncomfortable, desperately searching for a way out of the conversation.  We've all been in that situation, and it's nothing short of horrifying.  Yet it's perfectly acceptable for a filthy animal to engage in this very behavior?  Madness.

Why else are cats better than dogs?  Well, for one, they're incredibly clean.  This is an underrated quality cats have.  What other animal bathes itself so frequently?  That's really all cats do: eat, sleep, act incredibly hilarious whenever ping-pong is being played, and bathe.  And not only are they clean, they're potty-trained pretty much from birth.  I have no idea how this gets glossed over - or even ignored altogether - in the cats vs. dogs debate.  This is a huge deal!  So you're telling me this animal can do right out of the gate what it takes human beings like two fucking years to figure out?!  Wouldn't it be every parent's wildest dream come true if their newborn baby was exactly like cats, in this one respect?

Also, quietly, cats are bad-ass hunters.  I used to have a dog named Ginger who lived to chase squirrels.  It was not only her life's work; it was her passion as well.  And in seventeen years, having gone after no fewer than 32,000 squirrels, this dog may have caught three of them.  Why is this?  A dog's hunting technique is simple: see a squirrel, go bounding away after it with reckless abandon.  What's that you say?  The squirrel has a ninety-three yard head-start on me?  Don't care.  I'm going after that damn squirrel.  Meanwhile, cats are like snipers: once they make their presence known, it's already over.  Have you ever seen a cat attack an animal?  It's awesome!  When I was about eight, my brother and I were out playing in the yard when we noticed our cat Sparkles crouched motionless in the grass nearby.  We were puzzled at first, wondering why he was so still, but then we looked a few feet away* and saw a precious, frightened little bunny.  The rabbit was frozen in fear; Sparkles was as calm and steady as a champion poker player during a critical hand.  He stayed there, crouching, just staring the bunny down with an icy gaze.  It was a tense couple of minutes, a classic standoff.  Finally the bunny decided it had no choice but to try and make a run for it, but as soon as one leg muscle twitched, Sparkles was on him.  Don't worry; the bunny didn't suffer for very long.  Sparkles took him out brutally, but swiftly. 

Now, that should have been a traumatic event to witness as an eight-year-old boy, but honestly, I was impressed.  After it happened, my brother turned to me and said flatly, "That rabbit never had a chance."  Are you serious?!  That's like something out of an old Schwarzenegger movie.  Why do cats not get enough credit for being such bad-asses?  Or for all the other great qualities they possess?

Look, I could go on and on with this, but the point is I'm sick and tired of cats getting such a bad rap, while dogs are getting treated like god's greatest creation.  So to finish this off, on behalf of cats everywhere, I'd like to send the following message to all dogs:  Meow meow meow, meow meow, meow meow, bitches.

From These Pages IV

Time for another show!  We're doing this one as a fundraiser for the Union Street Theatre, in the midst of their second Summer Main Stage Season.  A lot of the usual suspects will be involved, with some fresh faces getting in on the action as well.  Should be a fun time.  Get tickets here. 

Let's go to the video tape!

Here's me reading the last poem I posted at From These Pages last Saturday.  Check it.

A Day at the Beach

Just a bit of background on this.  While in Europe, I visited several sites in the Normandy region of France where the D-Day invasion took place during World War II.  One of these sites was Omaha Beach, a 5-mile stretch of coastline where elements of the 29th and 1st Infantry Divisions assaulted Nazi forces.  My grandpa Smith was a member of the 1st Division, or Big Red One, and got his first combat experience at Omaha Beach on D-Day.  If you're familiar with the film Saving Private Ryan, that first twenty minutes or so is a depiction of the fighting that took place at Omaha Beach, where Allied casualties were higher than at any of the other five sectors of coastline (code names: Utah, Juno, Gold and Sword) attacked during the invasion.  


When I visited Omaha Beach, it was early December and the place was all but deserted.  I had a personal tour guide who showed me around the famous American cemetery, Pointe-du-Hoc, and a few other sites, but when we got down to the actual beach, he could see that I wanted some time alone, and left me to it.  It was very strange, walking on this quiet, tranquil beach and thinking how different it was for grandpa and all the other guys like him when they were there.  I wrote a poem from that context.  It's called, "A Day at the Beach."

I walked along the beach, once soaked in blood

Now pristine, now pretty, and peaceful

A few raindrops drizzled during the day

politely pelting my covered head

where artillery shells once lobbed and fell

where bombs and bullets left so many dead

The tide occasionally crept close to my feet

threatening to dampen the hem of my jeans

The same tide that took hundreds of lives

swallowed young soldiers struggling to climb

out of their 50-pound packs and sacks of ammunition

which pulled even strong swimmers down to perdition

I saw steep rises adorned with stairways

for safe passage from shoreline to ridge

These hills once lined with barbed wire, explosives

Impossible to climb, yet so many did

It was the greatest invasion the world has ever seen

Marvels of modern technology

Man’s mightiest machinations of death

brought to bear on this one shoreline

I cried

I kneeled down and cried

I cried for the fathers

I cried for the sons

I cried for the young men that died

so that you and I

could be here tonight

I cried

and I did the only thing I knew to do

I wrote a message in the sand

that said, simply

Thank you

On the Plane to Amsterdam

An entire row of seats, all to myself
a best friend across the aisle
Jokes, laughter, pangs of excitement
fluttering in my belly
A bustling of activity just behind me
flight attendants fiddling with fixtures
An announcement comes:
The water is not working
and with that, another announcement arrives
Slyly, this time, just for us
Sorry for the inconvenience
the drinks will be free
We will wait here for twenty, thirty minutes more
and that’s fine by me
Fumes of jet fuel filling the air
flooding the mind with memories of travels past,
of chartered buses to youth camps
and fourteen hour flights to the farthest reaches of the earth
of van rides across the country and back home
of the first time I ever road-tripped alone
Different travels and different modes of transportation
All sharing this moment,
The adventures of the voyage all wait ahead
as this potential energy is dying to become kinetic
Sitting in the back of the plane
my best friend across the way
I breathe it all in
and thank the cosmos for such a fine day
Such a fine day, here
On the plane to Amsterdam

Tuesday Night in Paris

For the next From These Pages, taking place next Saturday, I'm going to try my hand at reading some poetry.  I thought this would be fun, and a good thing to do as a writer - step outside my comfort zone and try something new.  I have no real background in poetry, so it's very much an experiment.  Here's one I wrote a couple of nights ago.  Enjoy.  And if any of you out there has some constructive criticism, holler at your boy. 

Tuesday Night in Paris

When first we met, I tried to impress
you with my broken, long-forgotten French
You smiled sweetly, spoke softly:
“C’est parfait, c’est magnifique”

Your English was no better than my French
I learned how truly overrated conversation is
There were no questions about your job
or where you grew up, went to school
No awkward moments, hands shifting beneath tablecloth
There was only music, the swaying of your hips
Only the sweeping touch of fingertips,
The damp loveliness of your lips

The alcohol sloshed in my belly
removing all regrets of past
all worry of future
There was only now
Only you, here, now

We embraced one last time
With drunken promises of tomorrow
But later, drinking red wine looking over this great city
I knew tonight was all there would be
and thought, with a smile, “C’est Paris.  C’est Paris.”