Landry's Column

Moonie is a magnificent beast with the ears of a champion. I always use this line in order to describe our family dog. When you read or hear the text it doesn’t tell you much. It does draw attention to his ears but it says nothing about his personality. The word “magnificent” is somewhat vague. I guess it means exceptional and in many ways Moonie is exceptional. For one, he looks vicious but is really kind. For another, he protects our house from harm. I’m not sure what these have to do with his personality though. You may now be wondering if he is exceptional, why would you include the word “beast”?

Well, he is very beast-like. He’s missing his tail, he has a broken canine tooth as well as brindle colouring in his fur which makes him look vicious in a pit-bull type manner and finally, he has gigantic ears which stand on alert. You could easily substitute Moonie with one of the creatures from “Where the Wild Things Are”. At the very least, you could design one of the creatures according to his likeness and achieve a perfect representation of a monster from Monster Island.

Did I mention that Moonie has a lot of friends? He does. All the kids in the neighborhood know him and he often gives toddlers a kiss in the form of a lick to let them know that they are down with his scene. I’m certain many of the kiddies and their parents would like to take Moonie home to live with them but it’s not going to happen as Moonie has established himself as an integral member of the nuclear family here in Marysville.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that Moonie is friendly and despite his rugged and vicious looking exterior; he manages to win people over with his friendly demeanor. He never uses sarcasm to make fun of others or argues with authority, he takes others seriously and appreciates their opinion. I have used this tactic in the past with police officers and other authority figures and let me be the first to tell you: it works.
I know it’s easy to become angry with security guards or other random pedestrians but this is only because they are judging a book by its cover. They take one look at an individual on a skateboard and they see irritating, immature, vicious, sadistic beasts and I’m here to tell you that it’s time we shatter this image with kind words and friendliness on the streets. Now you don’t have to give random people hugs or anything like that but you might want to try to listen and respond to others in a friendly manner. It’s a short cut to improved relations between the vicious beasts and the crazy humans and while the vicious beasts may never get their kennel (a New Line skatepark), we can definitely become included in the crazy human category
someday.

-Marc Landry