Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

Seein’ how tomorrow is Six Sentence Story day, (great installment from ‘the Case of the Missing Fig Leaf’), we thought, ‘Yeah, but one ignores the highest of all rogerian celebrations at their own peril!’

So here’s our Traditional T-Giving Post.

And ….and!! we’ve found the original Thanksgiving post! As a result, beginning this year we offer, (as the rogerian expression maintains), ‘The Unabashed Edition.’

Traditional Post (November 23, 2011)

Thanksgiving Day¹ is the holiday that, if we did not already know that there exists a personality type referred to as a roger, someone would have pointed it out to us. Perhaps the task would have fallen to an Art Professor in a land grant college somewhere in the Midwest. We can imagine the epiphany …in the middle of the night (during his sabbatical devoted to the study of the works of Norman Rockwell),
” My god!  Norman’s work is not just a robust and healthy celebration of paedophilia! He has been trying to tell us to transform our culture!  …for all good Americans to come forth and show their appreciation of patriotism, consumerism and child-abuse!!”

We have, from time to time, been accused of indiscriminate use of hyperbole in these pages, however, just consider the astounding level of pervasiveness of the  ‘Holiday of Thanksgiving’.  It is not enough to close the Post Office system and all other government agencies², no it is not. This Holiday actually attempts to compel normal, rational, adult people to sit in front of the television and watch a Parade involving giant balloon representations of out-of-print newspaper cartoon characters! Who the hell watches the Macy’s Day Parade on purpose?!?  Throughout the entire morning of Thanksgiving, you simply cannot escape the pageantry and spectacle,  broadcast live and has, as the ’emcees’,  News Anchors from the major networks morning news shows!  (“Thats right, Matt! That’s Kenny Chesney and Taylor Swift on the Snoop Dog float… it says here that her eye makeup took 12 hours and 6 pounds of aluminum foil chips to create!!” ). Like a  Hieronymus Bosch painting done in ‘live-action’, the whole country is exposed to hours and hours of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade… more than 3 hours of parade music and floats  (” … hey, Anne isn’t the next float from your hometown”?   “That’s right Al! it’s my old Alma mater, the East Clydesdale High School Marching Band playing a medley, ‘Straight outta Compton’, ‘Fuck tha Police’ and ‘Gangsta Gangsta’ )

Why do we say Thanksgiving is the most rogerian of all holidays?  Simply because Thanksgiving is about the how, not the why. As a cultural event, this particular holiday tells it’s participants exactly what to do; what to eat and how to cook it!  Taught from childhood, every member of our culture knows precisely how (and) where they are expected to spend the Holiday! Thanksgiving is about family! And if there is anything that rogers fake better than anyone, it is the joyful appreciation and celebration of the family.

But don’t just take our word for it! Following is an excerpt from a Post of the Wakefield Doctrine that was written over a year ago! (and nothing says credibility better than…age)

We all know that “the holidays” are experienced differently by each of the three (clarks, scotts and rogers) and therefore the demands of the celebrations are a very effective illustration of the nature of each. But if there was no Thanksgiving, a roger would have invented it! (Actually, they probably did). Think about it! A holiday celebration that is:

• based on a factual historical event (sort of)
• the protagonists (of the story) are religious refugees, persecuted and driven away, together, on boats
• food, specific food and a not-to-be-deviated-from Menu
• ritual menu and a full schedule of events
• shopping in herds, as the climax of the celebration (Black Friday)
• a moral taught to the young: we came here, those strangers who helped us were different, (…we had a feast and wiped out their culture)

I will be so bold as to suggest that there is no more rogerian a holiday than Thanksgiving!  And since we are on the subject of rogers and holidays, (sort of),  is there any human activity that is more one sided, over-hyped, ‘expectations-sure-to-fall short’, (not counting sex on the eve of a relationship breaking up), than Parades? I don’t care if you’re a trombone player in the middle of the herd or someone sitting in their living room watching it on TV, nothing says roger better than Parades!

 

* As a result of the popularity of (Zola’s) letter, even in the English-speaking world, J’accuse! has become a common generic expression of outrage and accusation against someone powerful

1)  the Day that the indigenous people of the North American continent made a gift of their lands and cultures and cuisine to their new European friends.

2)  you do know about the Post Office and rogers, don’t you?

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Original Thanksgiving post (November 24, 2010)

As everyone knows we are about to celebrate Thanksgiving here in Oceania. Once a single-day holiday, calendar-creep now has it starting on Wednesday and ending Sunday night (…”man, did you see the traffic on the interstate”?). We will make every effort to keep the Posts coming, even through such a distracting time of year. (This Post is as mixed and confused as the Holiday itself).
Second only to Christmas in it’s demands upon the members (of our) culture, Thanksgiving is shedding it’s historical camouflage and coming into it’s own in terms of proscribed ritual behavior. Of course, Thanksgiving has always laid claim to being a standalone, not-a-hand-me-down, genuine American holiday, unlike those twin imported festivals,  Christmas and Easter. As children we are not only taught the story of  The First Thanksgiving, we even had school-directed Thanksgiving lessons.¹  As a result, it is a holiday in which it is relatively simple to know how to act properly and  as such,  is clark-friendly.² I probably should resurrect/re-post something from the Doctrine archives that deal with the holidays, but hey! it’s Thanksgiving Week!! And we all know what that means!

…it means stress raised to levels otherwise experienced only on Wedding Days, (the day before) major Surgery, asking a girl out for the first time and/or giving birth; all delivered to every single member of your family unit in equal doses:

• the cook-person (usually the female, but not always) “hey get out of the kitchen, you’re in the way”!/”hey where did everyone go, why do I have to be stuck in the kitchen”?
• the children “why can’t we go outside, we hardly know those people”!/”I will try to get home at least for dinner, but I have a term paper that has to get laid”
• the relatives (old) “why I remember when you were just this tall”!/”don’t you remember when we all went to the shore, you were this this tall”
• the relatives (young) “why can’t we stay home and have dinner”/”there’s nothing on TV, they don’t have any video games at grandma’s house”!
• the invited friends “hey, you know what would be really exciting“?/”hey, your family are really nice people”!
• the turkey/the carving/the presenting of the food, “it’s over-cooked I just know I over-cooked it”!/”no, it’s just fine! It’s just that the knife is still too dull”!
• the desserts “hey, more than one desert at a single meal”!/”what the hell is a ‘Mince’ and why is it in a pie”?

We all know that “the holidays” are experienced differently by each of the three (clarks, scotts and rogers) and therefore the demands of the celebrations are very effective illustration of the nature of each. But if there was no Thanksgiving, a roger would have invented it! (Actually, they probably did). Think about it! A holiday celebration that is:

• based on a factual historical event (sort of)
• the protagonists (of the story) are religious refugees, persecuted and driven away together on boats
• food, specific food and a not-to-be-deviated-from Menu
• ritual menu and a full schedule of events
• shopping in herds, as the climax of the celebration (Black Friday)
• a moral taught to the young: we came here, those strangers who helped us were different, (…we had a feast and wiped out their culture)

I will be so bold as to suggest that there is no more rogerian a holiday than Thanksgiving!  If there was a St Roger, his feast day would so be in the last week of November.  (Saint Roger; Holy Mother Church’s only self-martyred Martyr. He died at the hands of the original Pilgrims and the Wampanoags;  records in Vatican archives tell us that St Roger’s suggestions throughout the day were accepted with good nature by all in attendance, i.e. “..don’t you think the deer is a little over-cooked”…”pumpkin pie? who would make a pie out of those things?”…”why is that construction-paper Indian’s head all folded”… But, as the story has it, the assembled party reached their limits when he was heard to say, “what do you mean, ‘no turkey’? the best part of the holiday is a cold turkey and pemmican sandwich at around 9:00pm’. His martyrdom is the subject of an up-coming Ken Burns documentary, “St. Roger…when enough is not nearly enough“)

And since we are on the subject of rogers and holidays, is there any human activity that is more one sided, over-hyped, expectations-sure-to-fall short, ( not counting sex on the eve of a relationship breaking up),  than parades? I don’t care if you are a trombone player in the middle of the herd or someone sitting in their living room watching it on TV…you are a roger. (…Someone tell me I’m lying.)

In any event, my own memories of (childhood)  Thanksgivings are all about the walnuts. (Among the several once-a-year foods) a bowl of nuts was put in the living room for the guests but the cool thing was that the nutcracker and those pointy-picking-something-out devices were included. I did not, and still do not like walnuts, but the chance to use the implements was the high point of the day. (…well that little memory-leftover has nothing to do with any of the rest of this trainwreck of a Post, lol)

1) such as pageants and plays and a whole bunch of shit that we were forced to make out of construction paper (using those rounded scissors and that white-paste-stuff that you could never keep off your fingers) and then the fuckin head of the Indians you so carefully crafted would get folded over and the whole thing still had to go up on the border around the blackboard of the classroom.

2) you really should not need this explained to you…about clarks…and holidays

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