YOUR BULLDOG DRINKS CHAMPAGNE BUT CAN HE SURF? (Or, THE LORD OF DOGTOWN!)

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D-d-d-dog, dog, dog
D-d-dog is the word!

D-d-d-dog, dog, dog
D-d-dog is the word!

Do you know what “bulldogging” is?

Well, it’s an event you’d find in a rodeo but it does not involve bulls or dogs. (Google it.)

Do you know who “Bill Doggett” was?

He wasn’t a bulldogger, but he was damn good at what he did. (Google him.)

Do you know the song “Your Bulldog Drinks Champagne”? It’s extremely funny. (Google it, then get some champagne before New Year’s Eve arrives.)

Can you explain the term “hotdogging”?

It’s an old expression for someone who does a lot of fancy tricks while riding a surfboard.

Have you heard the instrumental “Surfdoggin’”?

It’s something Gary Hoey recorded for the surfing movie “Endless Summer II” in which I think he may have invented a new musical genre (a combination of surf guitar and country pickin’.)

Have you ever been to “Dogtown”?

That’s where I grew up in the 1970s. To be hyper-specific, Dogtown is that area of southern Santa Monica and northern Venice - pretty much where those two Los Angeles communities meet. I grew up right in the heart of it (in Santa Monica, two blocks from Venice) and there was a time when I used to ride my bicycle right down Rose Avenue to the beach, four or five days a week before work, just for the exercise. Ahh, those were golden days!

The Dogtown area was kind of symbolized by the abandoned, dilapidated (and now long gone) Pacific Ocean Park pier (or POP). As a teenager, I actually spent some nights guarding that pier from vandals while it was being dismantled.

In the mid-1970s, a group of young surfers in Dogtown - later known as The Z-Boys - started the whole skateboarding culture that eventually took the country by storm. My Brother and Sister went to school with one of them (Jay Adams) and my good friend Eric once shared a hospital room with one of them (Tony Alva), and Eric told me that the steady stream of hot girls coming to visit his roommate in that hospital was utterly unbelievable!

Several movies have been made about those dudeguys and the skateboarding craze that they started. One of those movies is titled “Lords Of Dogtown”.

This morning, my dear friend the Flying Aardvark sent me a link to a YouTube video that I absolutely love! I’ve watched it three times now and it has made me laugh every single time.

Maybe your bulldog drinks champagne, but can he surf? This video gives new meaning to the expression “Dogtown Surfer”. In fact, some commenter posted this:

Isn't this dog in ‘Lords of Dogtown’?

This might be the most entertaining video I’ve seen this year. My favorite parts are when the dog is on the skateboard. Watch him, he’s really groovin’ that board back and forth, he’s doin' some serious sidewalk surfin’! And his swaying on that skateboard is perfectly synchronized with the music.

So, I’m closing out 2011 at ‘STUFFS’ with a little gift for y’all: Some sun, sand ‘n’ surf on "a Winter’s day in a deep and dog December". This is where Simon & Garfunkel and The Beach Boys crash into each other, wipeout and meld.

Surfin´ Bulldog (Beach Boys - Surfin´ USA)



Link to the YouTube original:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqxTUxzOceE

~ Stephen T. McCarthy

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