clarkscottroger | the Wakefield Doctrine - Part 64 clarkscottroger | the Wakefield Doctrine - Part 64

I’m not just a Wakefield Doctrine progenitor, I’m also a client

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

(Here there is knowledge that you have forgotten that you wished that your parents had told you about when you were just young).

Here at the Wakefield Doctrine you will find (a blog) that is fun and useful, interesting and puzzling.  And yes, what you are beginning to suspect is true, this is one of those blogs.  You know,  the kind of blog that promises so much and seems simple and reasonable enough at first, but then gets all convoluted and stuff.
Well, not the Wakefield Doctrine! No sirree, Roberto! Here we have fun first and then we peer into the frickin soul of our: friend/ spouse/ enemy/soul-mate/ wife/ bff/ husband/ abuser/ parish priest/ teacher/ children and anybody else we may happen to encounter in the course of the day today.

New Reader? Congratulations on reading your first Post in the Wakefield Doctrine! At the Wakefield Doctrine blog ( ‘the Doctrine’ to the cognoscenti),  we all work really hard at trying to offer a ‘personality theory’ that is not only true ( “…oh man, you have got my Uncle Phil down to a ‘T”! How do you guys do that? “) but offers an insight into human behavior that is practical and reasonable. The Doctrine offers a whole new take on personality theory,  easy to ‘get’  while at the same time,  being a simple way to change your damn life for the better.

Like most personality theories, the Wakefield Doctrine has evolved from  years of observation and reflection.  Inspired by an appreciation of the complementary nature of the personality of three people and refined over the course of a lifetime,  the Wakefield Doctrine offers the curious Reader tantalizing insights into the way people react to common life situations. So stay awhile, read some Posts, listen to some music, hell you might even want to go into the ‘reference pages’ of this blog and get all clarklike on this shit. We try to have fun with this here Doctrine here, so come on in an set a spell.

(Before installation, please read the PREP AND INSTALLATION and WARRANTY sections. Improper assembly and/or installation may result in premature failure of this product. Also, please save your original sales receipt. No receipt, no warranty.)

That last part ( in italics?) that was a remnant of what this Post started out to be, oh around 3:30 am. Something about using those instructions that you get with new products…  “So you have a new Blender! Here is some information that will help you get the most from your new product!”  Something like that, it was way, way more cleverer before I got out of bed. Anyway…

As it always says at the start of these Posts,  Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine. Despite our jocularity, we are all totally serious about our little theory of personality. While maybe technically not a ‘Personality Theory’ in the sense of,  say the kind of personality theory you expect when you pay a therapist $150. an hour to use on you or even the kind of personality theory that the following intro was written for:

 …will analyse the dynamics of personality and critically evaluate theories of personality. This will be done in terms of their given strengths and weaknesses. The critique will examine the two main approaches of personality studies namely ‘nomothetic’ and ‘idiographic’. The writer will draw succinct conclusions on the basis of these theories and also demonstrate how the nature of learning is a contributing factor to the genetic construct of ones personality, and the traits they display. Yo.

(I added that ‘yo’ to the end… but the rest is an actual excerpt written by some roger ( no doubt with a scottian wife who is insisting that he needs to get himself made the head of the Department in the college he has been teaching at for the last 15 years. { Of course, she is also not telling him that she is sleeping with one of his grad students }). Thanks a bunch, haazel.

We do have one thing that none of those other empirically supported, statistically verifiable theories have, we have hats!  Yes, you have read that correctly. I did say that we have hats here at the Wakefield Doctrine.  All of the DownSprings have hats and many of the Friends of the Doctrine have their own damn hats. Hell, FOTD Mel, over at the Spatula not only has a WD hat, but he ran his first marathon1 wearing a Doctrine hat (on his damn head).

So  we are glad to have you visit. Stay a while. Read. Ask Questions. Write Comments. Request a (nearly free) hat (for your damn head).

1) Marathon (μάραθον) is the Greek word for fennel. It is believed that the town was originally named so because of an abundance of fennel plants in the area…(Wikipedia) …This is kinda funny if you read Mel’s blog. Which you should. After you finish the Doctrine, of course.

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How many steps must a man walk down, before they can see that he hears?

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

Today’s Post is a little different. Rather than lecture on how the Wakefield Doctrine is the best way for you to understand why the people in your life act the way that they do, we have decided to ask DownSpring glenn to talk to us. This should allow Readers to hear the Doctrine being discussed as it is understood  by one of the group of people who are the foundation of this blog. (If we were to have a Lesson of the Day, it would have said, simply enough, ‘look at the different view of this blog being espoused by glenn’. At some points he seems to be at odds with everything this blog has offered over the past 12 months, but then you realise nothing could be further from the truth. glenn is simply illustrating  the scottian view of the best way to present the Wakefield Doctrine, and thereby demonstrating how  the scottian view varies from the clarklike and the rogerian perspective.’) 

A little stem winding1and then we’ll bring out glenn.
A DownSpring of the original group, glenn has the distinction of having been an integral part of the post-classical development of the Wakefield Doctrine. Like a modern day Dr. Watson2, riding shotgun on the ‘trips to Wakefield’;  that glenn was the impetus that prompted the creation of  this blog is all the references the gentleman needs.

Clark: So 2010 is over, dude. what are “the high points” of the last year of the things we have written and done from, at least from your scottian perspective?
Glenn: Anything that was funny. All the comical stuff. And I liked that we got all these other people involved now.

Clark: Would you care to elaborate on that rather over-arching assertion? (Examples…)
Glenn: The funniest thing you wrote all year was that time you tried to channel me. It was all “fuck this” and “fuck that”. I laughed out loud at that.

Clark: Now what would you say are the low points?  I need you to be specific to the effect, (of what is getting written), on the group of Progenitors and DownSprings here. We know your thoughts on ‘shaking ’em up’, gettin their attention etc…later for that….we need you to talk about negative effects on the people we know are here…including our putative Readers…btw I notice that Studley don’t come around no mo.
Glenn: The low points? Easy—censoring a fucking genius like me. You didn’t do it often. You NEVER needed to do it. I know we disagree about this. But good stuff was lost. Too bad about Studley. He stuck around until the censoring started. Not saying it was causal—just time related.

Clark: So for 2010 overall what is your assessment…not so much from a ‘style influence’ but the increasing understanding of the Doctrine and from that, the implied utility of it.(you need that translated)?
Glenn: The Wakefield Doctrine sells itself. The blog set-up however seems to discourage and confuse new readers. You try to give an abbreviated explanation with every post. Not sure what the solution is.

Clark: Truth be told, you are as well-versed on the Doctrine as anyone and you have the perspective of a professional in the counseling field, or sport…you know, industry. You also were the catalyst to naming this the Wakefield Doctrine, you remember the the conversation that lead to this thing?  (about this not sounding serious enough for the real world)?
Glenn: I do remember that discussion. And many others before it in which I would encourage you to write a book, or a journal article. The blog was a perfect alternative—and it is now turning into a community. A weird one, a fun one, but it IS a clark at the helm. The blog mixes in some very appealing humor and lightness with some quite serious thought on the doctrine. The question then is what do YOU want? I like it as it is—an entertaining, light-hearted, fun place to visit. But that necessarily requires us to sacrifice some of the seriousness and gravity of a true psychological construct. The blog as it is will never lead to “serious” acceptance of the doctrine by scientists, researchers, etc.. It is not “evidence-based.” It is “intuition-based”. But, fuck all that science shit anyway. This is “folk science”. It is to formal science as folk music is to formal music. It is accessible. It is not obscure. The blog has some “jargon”, but the spirit of the blog is actually inviting readers to learn the jargon. Scientific writing actually ends up screening out lay people. It is intended to be undemocratic and not inclusive. If you don’t know the jargon—get the fuck out!

Clark: Are we getting any closer?  If the decision were made to take the Doctrine, have it printed professionally and go out on the road to whoever the fuck you sell new modalities to nowadays…(not counting academia)  You know counselor conventions.
Glenn: See, I’m not sure that’s a reasonable thing to pursue. At least, not along the “timeline” we’re in now. The WD is an entertainment concept now. Not a scientific or therapeutic one. And I think that’s fine. To pursue being taken seriously in the therapeutic community, you’d have to do research, testing, etc… All very dreary boring stuff—for what? To get some roger professors to like us? Fuck that. Let’s make it the best entertainment concept we can—and also include some therapeutic and real world applicability—without all that boring scientific discipline.  

Clark: Hey what do the hospitality suites at counselor conventions look like?  There gots to be guys selling services to people like the folks you work for…how do they pitch whatever they sell?
Glenn: Brochures. Pamphlets. Usually staffed by clinicians at the facility being advertised. I’d advise staying away from such contexts and continuing to use the web—in all of its’ various channels, to push the message.  

Clark: Heard you are a fan of the Secessionist Rag…what do you like the most about it? Hate the most?
Glenn: I like roger’s writing style. I like the mundane shit he writes about. He writes well about music,.

Clark: Anything you want to talk about that we have not covered and that you have not addressed in Comments?
Glenn: I guess nothing I haven’t said before. Beware of The Lenny Bruce Syndrome. At the end of his career, he was so consumed with his legal cases, he stopped being funny. He thought his legal cases, and the principles involved mattered to people. They didn’t. They bored people. He got booed off of stages because he wasn’t funny anymore. So my message is—enjoy the blog. Make it fun. Keep it fun. Be serious from to time, but never stop being interesting, amusing, fun, and accessible.  Aiight mutha fucka?

The Wakefield Doctrine is, quite simply, the most useful of tools for anyone interested in understanding the behavior of others. Simple in concept, easy to learn, this Doctrine will have you saying, “man, why did I never realise that all they were after was attention“? or “she has a need to belong to a group and the whole religious thing was just her way of believing that the universe followed rules and that being a good person meant following those rules” or even  “I am not different, I do not have to hide in plain sight, the world has a place even for me. Just knowing how those real people think and feel is the missing piece of the puzzle.”

Lets thank glenn for the time he gave to add to this thing of ours. I was thinking of going on and on and maybe include a contest or perhaps a vote on ‘should glenn do this or do that’ but that would be stupid. glenn has expressed his views directly and honestly, as he must, being a scott. And we appreciate having him be a part of this here blog here. So, lets just get some music and get on with the day….and DON’T FORGET! You will see rogers out there today, and then you will see scotts and, if you are still in any condition to do so, you can spot the clarks, before they scurry back into the undergrowth. Remember what you see today, don’t bother telling your friends, just come back here and tell us in a Comment what you think.

1) stem-wind·ing  adj. 1. Wound by turning an expanded crown on the stem.   2. Of, relating to, or characterized by rousing oration

2)  Watson is described as a crack shot and an excellent doctor and surgeon. Highly intelligent, if lacking in Holmes’s insight, he serves as a perfect foil for Holmes: the ordinary man against the brilliant,  emotionally-detached analytical machine. Conan Doyle paired two characters, different in their function and yet each useful for his purposes.
Watson is well aware of both the limits of his abilities and Holmes’s reliance on him:

      “ Holmes was a man of habits… and I had become one of them… a comrade… upon whose nerve he could place some reliance… a whetstone for his mind. I stimulated him… If I irritated him by a certain methodical slowness in my mentality, that irritation served only to make his own flame-like intuitions and impressions flash up the more vividly and swiftly. Such was my humble role in our alliance.”            – The Adventure of the Creeping Man   (Wikipedia, of course!)
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Rinji news o moshiagemasu! Daishkyu hinan shite kudasai!*

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

I will begin this Post by stating, without the slightest fear of contradiction that it is never dull here at the Doctrine! Self-referential, inside joke(y), semi-private conversation(al), maybe…but dull? No, no and no!
Can we help it that there are at present only about 6 ‘people’ who submit Comments, make suggestions, proffer criticism? Huh, can we? Yeah, you’re goddamn right we can’t! We are all doing our best to get the message out about the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers and while there may be some small, little, hardly-noticeable-amount of room for improvement to how we present this blog, we are quite proud of all our efforts here. Thank you. We have been hard at work at this blog for nearly a year and a half now ( damn! how many Posts is that?) and we see a lot of progress in most areas.
Except one.
Area.
That needs improvement.
We are talking about the number of Comments from Readers, maybe frequency of Comments is a better way to put it. In other words, how often there is a Comment from a person who is not either:

  1. a Progentior (3)
  2. a Downspring (5)
  3. a Friend of the Doctrine (10)

Not a very large number? No, no it is not. But it is about a Seventeen Hundreths Increase over the last 18 months. So I think it is safe to say we are all happy with that order of increase.
The Problem? Who said there was a problem? Oh, yeah! thats right. The reason for bringing the issue up now, at this particular moment? End of the year, of course…silly.

The End-of-the-Year Week is almost without exception full of Posts that strive for:

  • Introspection
  • Critical Reflection
  • Metric-centric Reflection on 4Q progressive Action Item Implementation

Can’t say with any real certainty that it is true in all cultures, but pretty sure that in (this) current Western Culture, the Last Week of the Year is traditionally the Week of Milestones and (past year’s) Accomplishments. We tend to get all, “so what have we accomplished in the last year? Newspapers run their, Stories of the Year or a Obituary of Famous People ( “Look Whos not Talking Now”! )
The Official Blog of the Wakefield Doctrine is no exception! In this final week of 2010 we are walking around asking ourselfs, “What did we do really well, what produced the most intense feeling of suckation and what do we hope to do next year”?
(Actually this last item is a Post in and of itself, customarily the much more, the Last Post of the Current Year. (Hold that thought, wait a minute!…thats what we need glenn to write a Post on! Damn. glenn!! yo!! NO! shit!! don’t answer outloud!  Do not look around your office, just keep reading this…act like nothing funny is happening…(ha ha) glenn, dude… look in your email after 1:00 pm this afternoon. Instructions to follow.)

What have we Done the Best? in this, the Year of the Pancreas? We have continued.
We’ve  had days of with very good, thought-provoking Posts and  well-written Discussion-inspiring Comments. We had months of a-post-a-day writing jag, producing some fairly odd Content. We had a new blog geek, hell we may have even changed the very look of the blog site itself!1
We have really had a busy year in 2010! What am forgetting? I know! Bullet Points!

  • the Wakefield Doctrine went out on it’s own, webhosting-wise. We left the shelter of the free, ‘no-you-can’t-do-that’  free blog hosting of WordPress.com
  • self-hosting and therefore independent a lot of potential became available to us, we immediately went with music videos with every Post!
  • got our first blog Consultant…which was helpful at first but then we got (client)down-graded and assigned to some whiney geek who tried to call us lame….goodbye!
  • got another Consultant…(have we done a Post yet on how clarks build others up beyond realistic expectations and then stand back and act surprised when they let us down)?
  • well, we do/she did/our fault/whatever
  • found a really good looking “theme’ (which is the overall style of the blog) called Branford…liked it a lot and, of course, had to change it! (jeez! they put us in charge of these things?)
  • Hats! (and) Right of Hat!! Joanne was the first and because of her initiative is the proud title-holder to the District of Columbia!  and Mel (part of “Michigan”) and DS#1…parts of EF EL AY

I could go an and on…and probably will, but I was trying to make a point at the beginning of this Post. What was it…oh yeah…Encouraging Readers to Comment.

Readers! Yes I mean you. We know you are out there. Do us a favor and let us know what you think of this here blog here. 
I know that facebook has little icons that show a ‘thumbs up’ to help people express their approval. Very clever. But since we don’t have any of those, what we need you to do is this:
at the bottom of this Post is a ‘Leave a Comment’ place, why don’t you go ahead and leave us a little Comment. No, this Post! It does not have to be well thought out, no you really shouldn’t need to think about it. There is not a test. Just put in your name and email and then write something to us. The email address? No one sees that except for me when (your Comment) comes in for “Moderation”. Thats the function that I control that glenn is such a big fan of…I look at everything that comes in and then hit: approve.

So, go ahead and do this for all of us here at the Doctrine. CY? Terri? Doung? Mel?, Jason? Ronin? Kino? all you FODs  come on guys we’re counting on you.

…’Kay Mr. B?…lets get these feets a-movin…

1. Have we mentioned anything about my little, really-not-such-a-big-thing, (don Juan thinks it is the way to go), problem with remembering the Past? Didn’t huh? Well, I kinda don’t bother paying attention to things after they happen. Actually an old habit, clouding one’s personal history it’s called. Totally believe in it! Has really helped in the last few years…but not so good when writing a Year-In-Review Post like this one!  Oh well. Whataya gonna do?

* Hey, figure it out yourselfs! Do I look like ‘the google’? I’ll bet the Progenitor roger gets it right away.  Alright, one hint: Blue Oyster Cult

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hey, hey we’re the Monkees, We may be comin to your Town

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

...clark...scott...roger

You don’t mind if we kinda just set aside the formality a little, do you?
Thanks. Ahh…feels good to type in comic sans after 12 months of Times New Roman, hold on…. hey  HEY!!! yeah!….ECHO…echo…echo… lol
   

Sorry, always wanted to do that. Today’s Post will be our Christmas letter from those of us here to all of you out there. Been a big year not only for the Doctrine, but for a lot of the Progenitors and DownSprings. Had a lot of fun and aggravation and those things that must happen to all family/hobby groups of people that find themselves drawn together by a common interest.
Speaking of common interests, I have a confession to make. While I write this Post I am also trying to channel my inner roger. I know, I know I should ‘be myself’  and ‘write what I enjoy’ but in the last few Posts the topic of communicating and writing style has surfaced and re-surfaced and no matter what I know is the right thing to do, I still am trying to write in a way that is not,  “self-referential” obscure and arcane.  (damn! did I or did I not just get self-referential with my attempt to not be self-referential?) Fuck it.
   

So it has been a busy Year around the Doctrine. DownSprings and Progenitors alike have found areas where they could develop new interests, express themselves in new and more creative ways.
Ms. AKH seems to have found her calling in the critical role of Pusher of the Doctrine; we have been without a geek for a number of months and the need to take the Doctrine to a wider audience has never diminished. AKH took it on herself to try and learn what we can do to get this thing in front of as many people as possible. That means a whole bunch of little things that do not necessarily show, links into and around and through the nexus-portico-server-thingie. Anyway, her efforts have been paying off! We have seen visitors from new parts of the world every day. One of the bigger (and sometimes aggravating things) she has done is convince me to write at a place called Hub Pages. It’s kind of a blog site for people not ready to host their own blogs and want to have a lot of company while they do…you know….clarks!
   

Speaking of rogers, the Progenitor roger launched his own blog, the death-by-Muffin, and being a roger it is taking off by its own damnself. (Remember as a kid building snow forts? And that one time you managed the perfect fort and on that one day, sun was out, cold-as-a-bastard with a steady wind and you sat in the fort looking out, shielded from the wind and the sun seemed actually warm on your face?) Something like, except different. You should go and visit him and leave Comments, which roger will promptly reply to, if you happened to be a scott. (Otherwise hey, you’re a clark…complaining would be…too..risky).   

DS#1 has spent the year working behind the scenes, writing, editing and doing various essential things for the Doctrine. Without her efforts this would be a way different year, which to her credit, she has found the time and energy to keep us on track, even as her own personal timeline continues it’s slow and graceful crash into the sea. Frickin clarks! If they could do for themselves, 1/10th of what they do for others, we…we…probably would lose ourselves the free-labor of one more clark.   

glenn…our little, naughty scott has been a central figure for much of the year, even when he is spending time in the corner (You know, those old ‘Dennis the Menace’ comics, sitting in that cute little rocking chair bitterly complaining to Ruff, “ya know, Ruff when I get bigger I ain’t gonna let anyone do this to me!! frickin frickers, I’ll frickin hit her so hard, it’ll knock her frickin fricks off”) But we enjoy glenn’s irreverent take on the Doctrine and say what you will about ‘one trick ponys’ he do know his country music. And, if you promise not to tell him, I think he is coming along just fine, evolutionarily speaking, that is.   

Phyllis has been quite active in the Doctrine this year, the worst thing that can happen to us, happened to her. Bella, the love of her life died this fall. But as awful as it is to have a loved one die, Phyllis was able to give Bella the perfect day, the perfect death. Accepting this incredibly difficult and painful responsibility, she gave back to Bella what Bella gave to her for 8 plus year, love without reservation, love without a hint of an expectation of pay back. The most amazing thing about that last day was not that everything was done the way that it was, but that Phyllis felt, and therefore gave off the emotion of calmness, acceptance and above all love for Bella. We should all get to die in such a way.   

Joanne (our Mistress of Metrics) was the first of all of us to claim some territory (by Right of Hat). She be the proud owner of what was called Washington DC. Not sure if J. will keep the name or maybe just require the residents to wear hats (on their damn heads) or what. But she did what is necessary to claim the place, sent in a photo of herself and her hat (on top of her damn head) in front of an easily identifiable landscape. That easy! Once she ‘broke the ice’ we had Mel claiming most of his home State, “Michigan”, and DS#1 grabbing Daytona (god bless #3!) and yours truly grabbin a big ole chunk ‘o Texas.   

Mel was in da house!! Our fellow blogger and most of the time role-model, Mel has continued his jeez-why-can’t-I-write-like-that blog, the Spatula in the Wilderness.  He had quite an eventful year, going indie on the blog, learning to run (“ruun, Mel,  ruuun!!!) marathons. And he did this thing while wearing a Wakefield Doctrine hat (on his damn head). We wish Mel and the family unit a good year coming up. ( Mel appears to have traded in the Spatula for a blackberry/blackberry-like PDA…good luck there and remember, just ’cause George Forman seems to be allowed to cook a roast in the living room, does not mean that you should prepare food in your office, yo)   

New Readers came by this year. Friends of AKH, CY and Doug and “mylife=adventure”  (yeah, we shore do gots some funny names ’round here). And don’t want to forget to mention MJ and Ms. Gracemount and Jason ( yo, Jay-son! get that damn blog goin, dude!)   

So, all and all it has been a good year. We have added to this Wakefield Doctrine thing of ours and we have lost parts of it, but I guess that is just how it is with families. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRu-oEwA0Ec

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all I ask for, all I pray

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

Contest today!

A nearly free hat (for your damn head) to the Reader who provides the best ‘single line definition’ of clarks or scotts or rogers.  (for example): a clark is a person who lives most of their lives inside their head, trying to figure out how they should act in the real world.
That sort of thing, nothing too complicated or too offensive or too personal. Of course that pretty much eliminates everyone! Be that as it may, the Contest runs through the weekend. Any and all entries will be included in a Post so that voting can be conducted in an open, fair and impartial manner. The Winner will be entitled to a nearly free1 Wakefield Doctrine hat (for their dam head).

Why? Why what? Why the Contest? Who wants to know? Well since you ask so politely. We will tell you. We wish to get some really catchy definitions so we can submit them to some online dictionaries. Which ones? What difference does it make? Will it make any difference which ones? When you send one in we will announce where we will want to place the definitions. We are getting tired of this ‘start with a W thing, now’. Won’t you just stop asking questions and send us what you got? Wonderful!

Enough with the ‘sperimental Writing 101. Today’s Contest is for real. All of us know what the goal of the Wakefield Doctrine blog. It (the goal) is to spread the awareness and understanding of the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers to as many people as possible. If enough people (probably the clarks ) ‘get’ this Doctrine thing and they tell their scottian friends who will in turn force all the nearby rogers to join in the game of find the clark, spot the scott, endure the roger in their own locality.

Attention Readers!! ( no, the person frickin standing behind you!…of course I mean you… ) It is being brought to my attention that you really only pay attention when it is a scott talking to you.  Or maybe a roger when you are in the mood for story-telling. But if a clark is talking you find it so, so easy to ignore.

Why is that?  Since we are in a Contest mode, lets add a Bonus Question!

For a totally free Wakefield Doctrine hat (for your damn head)  the best answer to the following Question:

Why do people listen to scotts before they listen to clarks and/or rogers. (and does it matter how little sense the scott is making?)

Come on down.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poiCzMOvkKk

Hey, Reader  let’s see that scott that you always turn and pay attention to just because they are barking so loud, go ahead and ask them to come up with something like this next vid…go ahead I double dare you!!

1) the nearly free part refers to the requirement that winners agree to send in a photo of their hat (with or without their damn head underneath) taken in front of a recognizable local landmark. Contestants are reminded that by power vested in the ‘right of hat’ they are empowered to lay claim to any part of the world that has not already been claimed.

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