the Wakefield Doctrine

   ‘ello.  Welcome to the Firstaversary (Post) of the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers).

Having been some days in preperation
A splendid time is guaranteed for all.
And tonight Mr. Kite is topping the bill!

Warning!, Warning! Warnung!  There is a Severe Cultural Reference Overload Warning in effect for the balance of this Post.  At the first indication of excessive use of common and overly-used cultural reference  please relay a warning to other readers, (in the preferred form: Danger!! Danger!! Will Robinson) and calmly scroll down to the bottom of the page, click on the (blog-lifted) music video and await the All Clear.  Or, if you would rather, get under your desks (if you have a laptop) and put your hands on top of your heads or whatever the hell the advice for us 1950s and 1960s school kids was so that we might survive the atomic bomb attack that was surely going to occur the next morning at school.  Go ahead, flash your severe weather watch!  chance of unpleasant tornado warnings all you want!  grew up at a time in our culture when it was considered good entertainment programming to have Ed Sullivan present the Beatles and then after the commercial Ed would spar with Topo Gigio (that little Italian mouse) and then, without warning Ed would say and now a special feature and BAM!  this animated featurette thing with the calming title: ”IN CASE OF ATTACK” , besides the under-the-desk survival advice, there would (and I swear I can still see in my mind) be this cartoon atomic bomb blast complete with animated kids flying to the left and then to the right (’cause of the blast wave then the vacuum, or was it the vacuum and then the blast wave?) …that was really not the way to have a goodnight sleep on a Sunday evening to go to school the next day, waiting for the “light of a thousand suns” to shadow-graph your friends heads on the wall of the yellow-damn-bus that you rode to school in, wondering who you would let into your bomb shelter (if you had one), which you didn’t, but there acutally were  ads in the newspaper for a bomb shelter store with all types of models, you really hoped that if your family bought one it would be the cool, totally underground one or at very least, the above ground model with a submarine door with those big wheel things on the front. Your biggest fear was that your family would do something with cinder blocks in the basement, without even a door (how could you shoot at the neighbors if you didn’t have a door, huh?) and those messed up port-a-pots toilets with a bag underneath, no way you would use one of those with your whole family in the same….

What?  Oh! sorry…got a little carried away.  Yes, of course the Firstaversay of the Wakefield Doctrine.  Who wouldn’t know? (Well, other than 99,999,950 blog readers)

So.  How to commemorate this milestone?  Probably best to go traditional, you know great moments/Posts/Comments in the last 12 months, shoutouts to friend of the Doctrine that sort of thing. (The Dickens’ references?  Can’t quite remember, but I trust it will all meld.)

Was going to do clips of Posts when certain events happened, first Comment from someone outside of the Progenitors and Downsprings, the first appearance of lasting characters and maybe even some favorite vids…but then I got to thinking…what the hell has the point of this thing been?  Why did we start and why are we still writing these Posts? (This is a multiple choice question):
a) to get famous, make money and eventually have a fanzine (based in the Philippines) that will run fotostories like “clarkscottroger caught bloglifting!!!”
b) take a creative expression of my clarklike nature and see if it can live (and flourish) outside of the dark, dank confines of my (damn) head
c) write posts, get invited to join groups of people who think I accounted for the whole thing myself one June morning, sort of Waynes World for blogs
d) see if what the theory (of clarks, scotts and rogers) holds for the potential to improve oneself is, in fact true and effective.

(Correct Answer at the bottom).

So big shout outs to Friends of the Doctrine:

Renaissance Ronin who back in the fall (starting October 26th, to be rogerian) did some commentation that gave us a sense of having a “stranger” talk to us about this thing.  It brought us out of the, “this is a cool club we have here, should we invite some other kids“? frame of mind.

Jason at the Enlightenment Project…actually was the first non PD Comment writer.  Jason’s blog demonstrates the kind of focus and discipline to produce content on a regular basis, content that has a freshness and ‘liveness’ that we strive for with each of these Wakefield Doctrine posts.

Mel Spatula in the Wilderness…what can we say?…early influence… with quality and fun found in the content of the Spatular. (To continue with the cultural references) Mel is, for those of us here at the Doctrine, sort of a combination of Wally and Eddie.  One of the first to have a WD hat (for his damn head), now that I say that, hey Mel! wheres them pictures of your hat in front of the Lake  at?. (btw Mel), when the time comes* for the screenplay, I got dibs on being Matt Damon! (lol sorry dude you gots to be Ben.)

(And though some of you might get a little nervous) I want to thank Janie Sullivan and Britney and Jimmy and Mr. B and Principle Clark for coming into existance in the course of the last year.  You have added immeasurably to the effort to bring the Wakefield Doctrine to the world.  And even though some of you will be Seniors next September (Summer School is still an option Jimmy) I know we will be hearing a lot from you in the coming year.  Thanks to the faculty and staff and students at Millard Fillmore High (motto: “we’re frickin imaginary, but we got Slovenian exchange students”)

(finally… courtesy of youtube and some person who uploaded this, totally with the permission of any and all owners, rights managers and whatnot….hey man the people made the festival, like it was a people who owns the rights and the tickets were kind of free so we should get into the movie theatre for free and besides I can hum the song in my head and hear the lyrics, mostly, except that fucked up falsetto section from the background singers…Free Arlo!!!)

Goodnight Slovinians, where ever ya are!

Answer: none of the answers ! (that’s right!  not ‘none of the above’, I said none of the answers.)  Now a quick quiz!  Serious this time!  Really!
(Match the type with the reaction):

clark: a) laughs; b) gets mad, decides to write a scathing response; c) gets mad, then laughs with grudging respect
roger: a) laughs; b) gets mad, decides to write a scathing response; c) gets mad, then laughs with grudging respect
scott:  a) laughs; b) gets mad, decides to write a scathing response; c) gets mad, then laughs with grudging respect

(Answer pt2 below)

* (before the end of the year for first rough draft)

Answer Pt2: jeez sure are gulible aren’t you?  None of the above, what am I the answer man?  Now that you mention it, I guess I sort of am.