(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Kitchen Table Kibitzing 6/11/2024: They're Good Dogs, Brent [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-06-11 Georgia O'Keeffe: Black Mesa Landscape, New Mexico / Out Back of Marie's II (1930) Good evening, Kibitzers! It looks like the west coast heat is supposed to moderate somewhat after today — that’s good! Those temperatures are headed here by later in the week, so far not as bad as you all have been having, but I hate heat so it’s still too much. However, summer on Earth in 2024 does involve a good bit of heat, so. (Summer hasn’t even officially started yet! That’s not until next Thursday afternoon. This is still spring!) In 2015, young Matt Nelson found that his first semester as a “golf management” major at a North Carolina college was not as absorbing as he’d expected. He had already been on Twitter for a while, and he was moved to create the now-famous account called WeRateDogs ("Your only source for professional dog ratings"). Here’s a short article of an interview with him by the San Diego Humane Society, talking about the account’s origins. In my personal, granny-like opinion, this kid would have been wasted managing a golf course, and it’s the world’s good fortune as much as his that he figured out a different path. At this point, his wildly successful creation has a presence on nearly all social media, including the YouTube channel that prompted this diary, and of course a website where merch can be purchased. WeRateDogs was a partner in creating the 15/10 Foundation, a tax-deductible charity that sponsors shelter dogs with care needs so expensive, they are unlikely ever to be adopted. By way of introduction, here’s Nelson explaining the organization. [4:19] While they do post “dogs of the week” videos, luckily, the YouTube channel presents an obvious path for someone looking for a way to narrow down its offerings: there’s a series of Dogs of [year] montage videos. It’s missing a couple of years, for whatever reason, but that’s fine too. Keeps me from having to decide among them, because THEY’RE GOOD DOGS, BRENT.* The Dogs of 2016. [3:53] The Dogs of 2018. [5:52] The Dogs of 2020. [6:27] The Dogs of 2021. [5:24] The Dogs of 2022. [4:26] The Dogs of 2023. [8:24] I’m adding this third-party slide show collection of WeRateDogs tweets, because it has an especially high concentration of the form “We only rate dogs. Please do not send...”, because those are clever and always crack me up. [2:56] * And now, it’s time for a short collection of dog songs. Add your favorites (or favorite WRD tweets, or whatever you like, really) in the comments! Leiber and Stoller wrote Hound Dog for Big Mama Thornton, and in 1952, she was the first to record it. This performance is at the American Folk Blues Festival in 1964. [2:36] Harry Nilsson: The Puppy Song. Adorable puppy pictures by The Internet. [2:39] Rufus Thomas: Walkin' the Dog (Sunday Night Live TV show, episode #208, 1989. Not Saturday night, mind you.) [5:49] Paul McCartney: Martha My Dear. This is nominally a Beatles recording, from the Abbey Road studio on Oct 4, 1968, but except for a guitar track by George Harrison, only McCartney was in the studio that day and he recorded piano, drums, bass, guitar, and vocals himself. George Martin, as usual, added brass and string arrangements played by studio musicians. Martha was McCartney’s Old English Sheepdog; she’s a name stand-in here for, apparently, Jane Asher, who had recently dumped McCartney by announcing as much on the BBC. [2:44] [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/6/11/2245911/-Kitchen-Table-Kibitzing-6-11-2024-They-re-Good-Dogs-Brent?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/