If You Want a Friend...

This is for a friend of mine who just rescued a beagle named Snoopy. I heard this clip when it originally aired 2 years ago, and though I generally don't care too much about Martini Shot (a show about show business) this one really stuck with me. It's quite nice, especially to hear Rob Long deliver it. Click on the link below to listen.

This is Rob Long with Martini Shot on KCRW.

There---s an old saying in politics:-- if you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.-- Well, it---s often been said that Hollywood and Washington are similar, and that politics is just show business for ugly people,-- so in 1994, when I wanted a friend in Hollywood, I got a dog.

My friends Jen and Dave rescued a pregnant dog --- she was gorgeous and had one blue eye --- and the dog gave birth to nine puppies, and I got the one that was smart and brown and had a red nose.-- He looked like a cigar, so I called him Cohiba.-- And he was proud and poised and liked to sit in a Sphinx-like pose, with one paw tucked under.

One day we were zig-zagging our way home --- he was maybe 9 months old --- and my neighbors Harry and Judith drove by, stopped the car, and fell in love with him.-- Were there any other puppies, they wanted to know.

Just one, I said.-- And so Cohiba---s littermate --- they named him Victor --- moved in two doors down.--

Now,-- when you walk a dog, or let puppies play together, you get to know someone pretty well.-- Twice a day Harry or Judith or sometimes both of them and I would get together and let the dogs go wild on the grass, and we---d talk --- about people and politics and events and ourselves.-- If you want a friend in Hollywood, get a dog.

My friend Tim had a black Lab who loved the beach, and so one day he called me up and we drove up to El Matador --- back when you could---skirt---the leash laws --- and let our dogs run on the sand and chase birds and dive after tennis balls, get wet and muddy and totally exhausted.-- And when you drive up to Malibu with someone and watch two dogs run free, you get to know someone pretty well.--

So that---s Jen and Dave and Harry and Judith and Tim and his family---.all from one dog.-- Well, you know what they say about wanting a friend.

Here---s what we all say about dogs -- "Oh!-- They give us unconditional love!-- They just love us for us! But is that true?-- In the first place, what would it even mean to a dog to have "conditions" on love?-- I mean, what would those conditions even be?-- No, I think what we're trying to say is, we give THEM unconditional love, or come awfully close to it.-- Closer than we do with the people in our lives -- the ones we're really supposed to love without condition or strings or projection or expectation -- and for a brief moment we know what it's like to love something freely and then it's gone and we're stuck with our complicated, tied-up selves and wishing that we could see for just one last time the way that dog looked at us when we were at the beach, with a tennis ball in our hand.

But of course what we really should be remembering is the way we looked at the dog.

Cohiba died three weeks ago today.-- The friends I made through him and because of him have helped me enormously and this can be a lonely place to live and a very lonely business, but it---s like he provided his own first aid kit.-- When he left me, he left me heartbroken.-- But grateful.-- Because he left me lonely.-- But not alone.

That---s it for this week.-- Apologies for getting---.you know.-- Next week, back to business.-- For KCRW, this is Rob Long with Martini Shot.