 Here's going to be David Scheidermeyer, who is a specialist in palliative care and practices at the FEDA Care Palliative Care Program in Nina, Wisconsin. David maintains a compassionate doctor-patient relationship as a focus, and he champions effective teamwork and collaborative care. He's the author of Putting the Soul Back in Medicine, Reflection on Compassion and Ethics. And a couple of years ago, he gave what I thought was one of the most brilliant presentations we've ever heard at one of the McLean talks, where he combined narrative and storytelling, patient stories, poetry and music. And I think judging by the setup here, we're going to see something of that type of ilk here. And so David's going to talk about the Jack of Hearts. Thank you so much. Mark asked me to delve into this Dylan in the Jack of Hearts. I spoke the first verse for you using this blues riff backing, Muddy Waters type backing. Instead of the original sing-songy chords and melody, that's because I suspect Dylan didn't like the... He's saying this song only once in concert. Just for comparison, he's sung positively four-screet over a thousand times in concert. And no wonder with this stunning chord. But I'm not saying Dylan didn't like the words of the Jack of Hearts song, or that the song isn't important to him. I think it's one of his most important songs. He authorized two screenplays based on the story, but neither came to light. In fact, I think this song is the key to understanding Dylan's fascination with loving and leaving. But I admit that I'm going to tell you a bit of a shaky dog story. Suppose we started the Fox Valley Humane Association where, just to stay sane, my dad and I volunteer every Friday afternoon. Our job is matchmaking. We show our dogs and cats to potential adopters. Many of our animals are strayed, but most are surrendered. Over the years, we've learned that people have all kinds of reasons. No time is the most important and common reason, no time. Can't afford allergies, didn't get along with the other animals. When they're moved, can't take the dog, owner is sick, can't take care of the animal. And our policy, of course, is just to take the animal in and say, thank you. For the stray animals, of course, we have to think of a new name. The kennel staff favor epic names like floor or gone husky, low-key, a blue-eyed cat, a goose, a charming, but who would name a dog Hamlet? Only someone like Bob Dylan. Bob's dog Hamlet's supposed to be a purebred, but he became a rock and roll shaggy mutt, kind of a giant poodle shepherd mix. And here's where the story gets interesting. Dylan gave Hamlet as a gift to bass player Rick Danko and the band when he was recording with him at their house in Woodstock. But Hamlet was no gift. Bob didn't give him to the band. He had to get rid of him. Bob surrendered him. Bob left him. According to Barney Hoskins, who chronicles Dylan and the band in his book, Small Town Tales, Hamlet and Bob weren't getting along too well. He writes that Danko told him, I pulled up to Bob's one day. And it looked like Hamlet was trying to bite Bob in the ass. And Bob was trying to keep him in the ass. He writes that Danko asked, so the truth is, like the people who bring their dogs into our shelter, Bob had to part with his dog for both of their sakes. If he would have brought Hamlet into our shelter, maybe he would have told us, no time for the animal. And thankfully, like most of the dogs in our shelter, Hamlet actually had a happy ending. His new life with Danko and the band was reportedly a good one. He's in their best publicity photos. And it's obvious that he liked wearing top hats. In fact, he fit right into the dress style of Rockabilly 1967. And speaking of former ankle biters, I remember a shelter dog named Solo, a long-haired Chihuahua, and particularly a nasty little dude. When we passed by his kennel, he curled his teeth, and he growled. He kind of bared his lip. He was unadoptable, a ferocious little junkyard dog. Imagine the coincidence when I found that that Solo was my palliative care patient's dog. The man was dying of cirrhosis, and he had to surrender Solo a week or two earlier. The man's mother came into the shelter to adopt Solo. She was then reconciled to her son, whom she hadn't seen in years, so they asked her to bring Solo up to see him in the hospital. My patient was ecstatic to see that his mother had adopted his dog. Solo was a perfect little gentleman up in the hospital, surprising all of us. And then the next day, Solo died. The man never knew it. He died the same day, too. They were both knocking on heaven's door at the same time. What's special about our work in ethics, consultation, and palliative care is also what's special. You can't judge the heart of a person or a dog or cat by how they look, not the veins save. It's said they got off with quite a haul, darkness by the riverbed, it was back in town, but it couldn't go no further. The Jack of Hearts is not only the head of a bank robbing gang, he's a callous lover. At the shelter, the adopter, who is like the Jack of Hearts, is someone without the time for compassion or connection. The Jack of Hearts wants a pet who will please him or her right now. A perfect animal, a pet who will accept being left alone and lonely. A pet which won't need any help or extra love. I remember a funeral home director who wanted a dog. As he said, just to make my funeral home look homey. Not a bad idea, really, because Lord knows funeral homes lack that homey feeling. My dad and I brought him a dog with a crooked tail, which is just about as homey as it is. And, you know, it just wouldn't do. And it was a lovely dog, really. The nicest in the kennel. The kind of smart and gentle dog we see only once or twice a year. He left without a dog. The Jack of Hearts in Dylan's song leaves town without making any permanent connections. Two women, of course, Lily and Rosemary, a fallen corn, and Rosemary kills Jack, Jack's rival, who's called the King of Diamonds. Rosemary kills the King of Diamonds for him, and she hangs. Jack, or is it Bob, slips away and he needs his men, or is it the Bane, down by the river, riding off in the sunset. But, you know, he leaves Lily lonely. Lily was empty now, a sign set closed for repairs. Lily had already taken all the dye out of her hair. She was thinking about her father, who she very rarely saw, and she was thinking about Rosemary. So when he wrote this song, Dylan had already left Joan Baez, and then he left his wife, and he was living with his young Mr. Son in 88-year farm in Minnesota. He then left her as well. Much was going wrong. Talk about me, tangled up in glue. I said, I really don't blame him for surrendering, handling that. I only bring up this shaky dog story, because it's the key to understanding Lily, Rosemary, and the key to the song, and perhaps to Dylan's love life at the time, is to recognize what a drag it was to be Dylan's dog back then. It's a simple and complicated as well. He didn't bond with them. He left them, and he also left them. Now, Hamlet wasn't perfect either, but you show me a perfect dog, and I'll show you a perfect person. I've learned from working at the shelter that you don't love them and leave them. I want to talk to a perfect person or a perfect dog. You know, when you're family, you accept and deal with imperfections. You adapt. You keep. You're surprised by joy. Dylan, who's a true team of both lyrics and chords, well-deserving of the Nobel Prize, understands that this is the central tension of all of our lives, this accepting, dealing, staying versus dreaming, losing, leaving. He knows that for all of us, every evening's empire has returned into sand, vanished from our hands, left us blindly here to stand. Oh, and just one more thing. If you ever decide to adopt a dog, I can't let you. My advice would be, most often, once you get them home, you let them pee on this nice patch of grass instead of the concrete at the shelter. You sit them up on the couch with you and you watch a little TV and you feed them, you brush out his coat a bit. In other words, you show him that you love him, like really loved the Jack of Hearts. Well, you know, you'll find that a dog like him, like he's not so shaggy after all. And just maybe in the jingle-jangle of the next morning that I'm biting you in the ankle, maybe he'll come following you. This is a cigar box guitar that I made. Speaking of which, at the party, tonight we could sure use somebody that would play the piano a little bit for us and guitar if anybody has those skills, please come on down. So this is, it costs only a couple, maybe 20, 30 bucks to make you get yourself a cigar box and this is a hinge. These are doggie bones. My dog likes it. These are strings and my cat likes it. You know, you get what you pay for. Or do you, you know, cats are free at our shelter. And they are priceless to the person that loves them. Any questions or? How much do dogs cost? Dogs, we prorate them on how old they are. So I always adopt old dogs because as a palliative care doc I don't mind seeing them put to sleep. So I've adopted a 12-year-old that was, I think 80 bucks. The puppies we can get about 350 for. Kittens are also, I think they're 125. You get money for kittens, but not cats. I so appreciated this morning's, the early morning's talks and you know, there's a certain resonance of it, I don't mean to compare, but with the animals there's a certain resonance also. With feeding them we have, we too have a food drive at the shelter. Yes. Oh, sorry. Yes. No, what's, you know, this is a three string and I will reveal that I built one for Mark. And you know, if you start, I started with the one string. If you play the air guitar, you start with one. So Mark, I got a one string for you and we're gonna work you up. But three strings that's tuned GDG, so it's the resonance and. We're full deal, yeah. They actually need six strings, too.