I heard from MARC a bit or so ago, and the donations total is up to $15,000. Thank you wonderful generous souls for helping me turn a lot of sorrow into nothing but good. I think if Tunch knew that dozens upon dozens of cats and dogs and people are going to be able to rescue each other because of his passing, he’d be happy. Who am I kidding, he wouldn’t have given a shit at all. Regardless, I was mentally running the numbers and I will never know for sure, but it would not surprise me that Tunch’s visage and all the wonderful people who helped put up the Balloon Juice store and create the calendars and all you generous readers have raised something in the order of 50-70,000 dollars to help other animals. It’s just amazing.
Some cat. Some magnificent fat bastard. Bless him and you all. And yes, we will be turning this into a shirt.
BTW- I forgot to tell you something that made me laugh out loud. I was talking to JenJen last night about how much money you all had donated and Tunch had helped to raise, and she said “Somewhere, Sarah McLaughlin is yelling ‘WHO THE FUCK IS TUNCH?'”
raven
I have been telling people about this and they are dumbfounded.
PsiFighter37
Can you make sure you do a non-white version of the t-shirt so I don’t get egregious pit stains? Thanks.
P.S. That’s quite a showing by this community.
Litlebritdifrnt
I want that t-shirt.
Steeplejack (tablet)
Excellent! I am sending a little more when I get on the real computer. And I’ll be looking for this T-shirt–and, I hope, a mug.
Skerry
Looking forward to getting a shirt. I’m glad to play a small part in remembering the big guy and helping MARC.
Poopyman
No, he wouldn’t have given a shit. He was Tunch.
And I have yet to fire off a couple of bucks, so the total is still incomplete.
jnfr
Yay shirt!
ETA: I can’t send till Friday either, so the cash’ll keep on coming. Tell them to spend it wisely (I know they will).
Karen in GA (who really needs a better name)
Happy.
spudvol
I think Tunch is messing with the site, Ghostcat in the Machine-like. Maybe you can upload some virtual tuna and he’ll let us be.
Highway Rob
@PsiFighter37: I’m picturing a black version with a demon Tunch, in case there’s a Juicer who happens to play bass in a metal band.
Violet
What wonderful news. Just love that pic.
Poopyman
… And maybe this is quite sane and the rest of the horseshit that happens in the world is the insane stuff.
Just a thought.
John Cole
@Poopyman: Agreed.
BGinCHI
Trying to talk Mrs. BG into getting that as a tattoo.
She swore at me in Welsh and I’m pretty sure it was a lot of bad words.
ABL
That’s amazing. Wow. That’s going to help a lot of animals. You should be proud Tunch touched so many people (consensually.)
PsiFighter37
@Highway Rob: this sounds phenomenal
Pf37 +4
BGinCHI
@Highway Rob: I think Levenson plays bass in a Whitesnake cover band. Might be misremembering.
Violet
Sarah McLaughlin. That made me lol for real.
A Ghost To Most
@Highway Rob: this. I don’t do angels, and picture Tunch as more of a devil.
TaMara (BHF)
Wow. Amazing. But then, as someone who has hung out here since 2008, I am not surprised at all.
Can I make another request? Can the Tunch OBEY coffee mug be reissued, too. I love the angel wings, and will get that, but the OBEY is my favorite Tunch visage.
CaseyL
Yay! That’s a whole lot of meals, toys, and medical care.
I have more T-shirts than God. A tank top would be nice.
MoeLarryAndJesus
That’s the true grouchy cat experience. Years ago our old girl Jazz was at the vet recovering from injuries and my wife called and asked how she was doing. The attendant said she was doing fine and was “making friends.” My wife wasn’t fooled. “They’re lying to me, she doesn’t make friends.”
Never did, either.
rikyrah
It’s heartening to know that good can come from bad.
trollhattan
@Violet:
Yup, perfect. $15k ain’t beanbag, that’s an astonishing outpouring. I bet we get up to a thousand per pound for his Tunchitude.
O/T good news for Mazzy Star fans, their first album in forever is due this fall. Hope still brings it, sample song available here:
http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2013/07/mazzy-star-shares-california-from-forthcoming-seas.html?utm_source=PANL&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=130716
Yatsuno
@Violet: She lives in Vancouver. I volunteer to go enlighten her.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
And some day the donations will make it to $1/pound.
Aside: I initially typed 1$. I really do hate American/English punctuation. $1. That’s not how I say it A question mark at the end of a sentence only? I think Spanish has that correct. I also wanted to introduce using letters rather than commas when writing numbers: 299m792t458 so you can actually read the number from left to right.
/rant
JPL
What great news and I look forward to the t-shirt.
I can only access Balloon Juice on internet explorer. Both Chrome and firefox block the site. Is there anything I can do to fix it?
travis
I’ve never commented before but BJ is my first stop in the morning every day. I have felt Tunch’s death like one of my own and I just wanted you too know that the big guy was loved by many people that you will never meet.
trollhattan
@JPL:
I’d repeat the note two threads down. It’s a known thing and hopefully folks’ input might help suss it out.
muddy
I wanted to make mine ongoing, so I bought a FEED Tunch bag and I’m going to fill it every week for my local shelter. His stern visage will not let me slack!
geg6
So damn awesome!
Don’t forget to add in how Balloon Juice brought me the love of my life, my Koda. I have no idea what they donated to fly her to me (Jenna took care of all of that), but whatever it was, I could never repay it. Never ever. I am so grateful and I will never forget it. From now on, I’m telling the end of the story as Tunch flying her to me. Tunch is her guardian angel.
JPL
@trollhattan: Thanks.
Tracey Lincoln
Omg love it. Hahaha I want a T-shirt AND Sarah McLaughlin to acknowledge you . that was precious.
BethanyAnne
It feels so good to be able to do something, even small, about something. LIghting even a small candle makes me happy. :)
Libby's Person
@geg6: It made me happy to read how much you love Koda. Yours is one of my favorite BJ stories!
Pogonip
I propose also naming your abode “Floofering Heights” in his honor.
(But don’t change your name to John G. Heathcliff;always leave ’em wanting more.)
Yatsuno
@travis: Welcome to the fray! Coffee and cookies are on the refreshment table. :)
scav
And don’t forget there was also a movement toward making local donations so that only increases the floofiness to a still greater reach and impact.
Jennifer
Missed the last thread, John, but you might consider the following:
I have never adopted cats; I have instead been adopted by them. Whenever one of my lovelies passed on, I was always too grief-stricken to think about immediately adopting another. So what I did was…wait.
Inevitably, within 3 or 4 months, a cat would show up at the house in need of a home. Usually they would take a few days to a few weeks scoping out me and the digs, and then let me know they wanted to move in and stay. What’s been interesting about it is that they’ve all been so different, personality-wise. Roscoe was gregarious – he didn’t wander up to the house; I first met him at a party in an apartment complex when I was in college. Some guy at the party walked through the crowd with this cat draped around his neck, and the guy who was having the party told everyone that he was a great cat in need of a home – his owners had moved away and just left him there. When I got ready to leave that night and went out to the car, there was Roscoe sitting right by where I was parked. I said, “want to go home with me, kitty?” and he jumped into the car, then spent the whole trip home rubbing his face on mine. He was about a year old then and was with me until he died of cancer seven years later.
Then little Miss Ella wandered up one day a couple of months later and made clear that she was the sweetest cat ever and moved in right away. Again, about a year old. She got hit in the street when she was seven.
A few months after Ella died, I go out to the driveway one day and there’s a big orange tabby sitting on the hood of my car. It made to run away until I sweet talked it, then came back for some petting. Over the next couple of weeks she kept coming back until finally, she was pretty much living in the driveway. She had a tag so I called the owners – turned out they lived 2 doors down and said “I don’t know when she’s been over there because she’s here all the time,” which let me know she wasn’t getting much attention. The girl who owned her came down and got her; I found out she had recently married a guy with two dogs and the dogs had the run of the backyard, then she had gotten pregnant and started keeping the cat outside. Over the next several months, they kept having to come retrieve the cat, who by this time was spending a lot of time sleeping in the house. Finally the girl asked me if I wanted to keep her. I felt a little bad for her; Gabby had been her kitty for 8 years and she said “she likes you better than me.” I assured her that wasn’t the case – it was always clear to me that Gabby just preferred the set-up at my house – no kids or other pets. Gabby was looking for a retirement home, essentially. She died of natural causes 3 years later.
Now I have Eartha Kitty, who’s been here for 9 years. She showed up when she was about a year old and at first I thought she was just a neighborhood cat hanging out. She was terrified of everyone and would run off every time I or my neighbors would come outside. After a couple of weeks, she was hanging out around our houses all the time, but still running off whenever someone came out. Finally I noticed she was thinner and started putting food out for her; then one day she saw me putting it out and just ran up to me meowing and started rubbing on me. She moved in that day, after 6 full weeks of observing me and the house. She’s still afraid of pretty much everyone but me, which makes this the perfect quiet home she needs. Don’t know if she ran away from a house with little kids, was dumped, or what – but she had been someone’s kitty, because when I took her in to get her spayed, they called an hour later and said “we shaved her belly and your kitty has a scar.” She’s the sweetest and most well-mannered kitty I’ve ever known.
To bring my meanderings to an end, the point is, you don’t have to go looking for them – they will find you, when you’re ready. It’s like they have a homing device telling them “a cat lover lives here and currently has no cat.” Though it sounds like your process is similar – you let the cats at the shelter pick out you rather than the other way around. I’ve just never gone to the shelter for a cat yet, because I end up with one needing a home which keeps them out of the shelter, so the end result is pretty much the same – the main advantage is that I avoid the whole trying to figure out whether or not the new kitty can adapt to my home, because the cats do the picking and have already decided the situation meets their specs.
Whichever method you go with, I’m sure you’ll end up with a feline companion that you will love every bit as much, though probably differently, as the magnificent Tunch. How you’re going to top that name is going to be the harder task.
Goblue72
Tunch – excellent in pass protection AND saving kitties lives!
piratedan
ok, can you show us where on the blog did Tunch touch you? :-)
Joey Maloney
Thank you for my first laugh of the day.
Suzanne
I kinda want to make a new version of the “Angel” song that plays on all those commercials.
Maybe something like, “You’re in the paws of the Tunch-ster….may you fiiiiiiiiiiiind… some tuna heeeeeeeeere.”
Amir Khalid
I haz a confused. Who is “Sarah McLaughlin”?
MattR
I’m guessing the total number is closer to $20,000 when you also include donations made by readers to their local rescue groups in Tunch’s memory.
Pogonip
Sara mclachlan sings those adopt-a-pet-send-the ASPCA-money commercials on Animal Planet. She has a wispy Enya-type voice.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@Suzanne: Now THAT made me lol.
In The Name of the Tunchster, peace be upon him!
Parrotlover77
I keep getting 404 on all the Tunch pics as of late. :-(