Dorrier Underwood

Encouragement, that’s what I get from my dog every morning. Go ahead and get up, I can hardly wait, she says with her tongue. She has a way of licking my chin; cheek and ear that makes me feel devoured but not threatened. And then she usually slips in that deft little bite on the top of my ear, too gentle to properly be called a bite, more of a love nip that she slips in while I am busy doing my combination laugh-cringe-try-to-get-away move. It is an oral assault she mounts against my face, and finally I have to grab her head and push it gently away. Go ahead and get up, it’ll be great , her eager eyes say. The root of encouragement is courage. The courage to face the day. Why do I need that? And from a canine! Not even of my species and she somehow counteracts this dreadful weight of knowledge that wakes me up and makes me discouraged. It takes my courage away just to wake up into a world where cartoonists get assassinated for their political views and I know I am going to die with...

You don’t know squat. So I’m at the event to do my Elvis show. It’s on a stage and they’re going to open me up with these Vegas showgirls with feathers in their hair and bikini outfits and it seems like the perfect opportunity to showcase the King. But then, I walk in and realize the people aren’t really there for the show. They’re there to be with each other. There could be 100, 150 people there but there is nobody within 30 or 40 feet of the stage and as I begin to walk around through the crowd to touch people’s hands, nobody will really touch my hand. I get up on the stage and do my show. I do my dance. I do my songs. Nobody is really listening, nobody is clapping. Then I finish my first two songs and it’s time to do the special song that they requested that I do. They requested it. I didn’t even want to do it but I’m willing to do anything. As I was sitting in the back considering changing my show, I’m thinking, “I’m a good performer. I’m the kind of performer that tries to d...