Too much is never enough (btw- I just watched it, and I have no idea why, but it seems super loud, so you have been warned):
You know, I can honestly say that when I was 19 and raising hell at Dead concerts, with an active social life and everything ahead of me, if you told me that in twenty years I would be filming my cat chasing a laser with a shitty camera, and that hundreds of people would watch once I posted it on this thing called the “internet,” I probably would have had the decency to try to die young. Right now, though, I’m kinda happy with the way things have worked out.
Also, my tomato plants look amazing.
jeffreyw
My boy cat Toby still can get it up for the laser, but Bea, his sister, never did give a damn for the sport.
jeffreyw
None of my dogs can see it, far as I can tell.
valdivia
awww. love me some tunch. he is very active in this vid John. and still utterly cute. so no shame, the shame is ours. ;-)
Fulcanelli
Back when you were 19 the laser would have been the size of of a suitcase. Heeeere, kitty, kitty. But don’t feel bad John, when I was 19 it would have been the size of a small car.
Pets, Politics & the Dead. Gawd, I do love this place.
Has Tunch ever had ahhh, Humboldt catnip? You know, by accident?
jeffreyw
Heh, I can still remember Dan Rather remarking on the invention of the laser in one of his news reports. He was snide and dismissive.
PattyP
Very Tunchy!
tripletee (formerly tBone)
Huh. Tunch has less hair on his back than Lee Fisher. It’s a toss-up in the man-cans category, though.
Rosali
Speaking of tomato plants, has anyone here tried the Topsy Turvy plants shown in infomercials? I can’t grow plants because I’m lazy and because there are critters here that would eat them. Does the upside-down tomato planter really work?
Bad Horse's Filly
If it’s too loud, you’re too old. Who was that accompanying Tunch in play?
valdivia
@tripletee (formerly tBone): FTW.
Alan
I hope you’re armed with garden dust. My tomato plants looked awesome before the bugs got to them. I was trying to be too organic.
Alan
@Rosali:
Yes.
BTW, I also have cucumbers growing in one. They’ve been great.
Bad Horse's Filly
@Rosali: Yes they work – not the most attractive thing hanging on the patio, but works as well as a large pot on the ground. Not sure it’s worth $20, though.
Rosali
Twenty years ago I was dancing all night and shutting down clubs at 5:00am and and repeating it the next night. Now I’m happy when I get to bed at 10 and get a good night’s sleep.
Indylib
You were hanging at Dead concerts when you were 19.
How the hell did you ever become a Republican?
demimondian
Twenty years ago in the first week in July, FDDD and I took a vacation to DC because it would be the last before the baby arrived in September. I already had no life.
The “baby” just stuck his head into my office to bum five bucks off me to go to Denny’s for a milkshake with a friend. He took a twenty, promising to return 15.
I still have no life.
John Cole
@Indylib: I blame the army and my upbringing. I was going to county Republican meetings and TARS (teenage republican) camp when I was 14 (my friends all called it Hitler youth Camp). It just took a while to shake off.
SarahLoving
@Indylib
My thoughts exactly!
Patrick
Good Lord, The Dead?
This changes the entire complexion of this place.
kidkawartha
Rosali-
Yes, they do, and no, you don’t have to buy the kit. Just recycle a hanging planter basket, punch a hole in the bottom of it (not too big!) wind your tomato plant down through it, cover the root inside with dirt, etc, and hang it. You’ll get the hang of it real quick. My landlord does it with cherry tomatoes, which becomes like a hanging candy store for me in late summer.
AhabTRuler
@Bad Horse’s Filly: Here.
Louise
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Tunch move. He’s not a stuffed cat! Wow.
Fulcanelli
@John Cole: Hmmm… Garcia and Hunter had their first taste of LSQ courtesy of Uncle Sam via Army experiments in the very early 1960’s. They volunteered as guinea pigs and the rest, as they say, is history. I think there may be a pattern here…
gex
That is one fantastic cat.
I’ve heard that the upside down planters make for fantastic tasting vegetables too. You’ll have to let us know on that.
ninerdave
That’s not Tunch, that’s a look a like. Tunch doesn’t move. The kerning around his orange looks off.
Where’s his birth certificate, also.
Zuzu's Petals
I just wonder what Lily thinks of all this. Especially the music!
Indylib
@John Cole:
OK, I’ll rephrase my question.
You went to Teenage Republican Camp aka Hitler Youth Camps.
What the hell were you doing hanging at Dead concerts?
John Cole
@Zuzu’s Petals: Lily is in bed. Around 11 every night, she looks at me, and I know it is time for our bedtime pee. Then we come back, and she waits by the door for the harness to come off, and she walks directly to the bedroom, jumps in bed, and waits for me.
We are so in a routine already. I honestly feel like I have had this dog for 10 years. I go to bed every night excited because I know the next thing I will do is a three mile walk in the morning with my girl. Dogs rule, and if I had never had Tunch, I would never have gotten a dog.
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
I wasn’t planning on using my Topsy-Turvy this year, but I still have the hook in the corner of the garden. I guess I’m getting more soil this weekend.
Tunch is gorgeous. So is/was Justine Frischman.
John Cole
@Indylib: I’m Leon Festinger’s worst fucking nightmare. Trust me.
Genine
Yay! Tunch moved! (**claps**)
He also looks freshly furminated. Is he?
AhabTRuler
Who knew? I was right!
Eh, I blame the
blotterthe army.John Cole
@Genine: This morning. We brush every morning as part of the coffee ritual.
Both of us agree it is a better way to start the day than a virgin sacrifice. There just aren’t enough of them in West Virginia.
Zuzu's Petals
@John Cole:
It’s funny, I was talking with a friend with a new baby today, and we were agreeing how important a routine is to them. I know it must be the same for pets.
I have two kitties I’ve inherited over the years. Because my DiL is highly allergic, I think I’ll replace them with a dog when the time comes.
Which means I’d sure get a lot more exercise, just like you.
By the way, so glad all the Lily stuff is going so well. Next time, Lily in motion?
beabea
Oh yay! I love Tunch! And because I was too brain-fried to pay attention to the loud music warning, it was perfect for startling me out of my stupor.
And I too have reached the stage of life where I consider watching some guy’s cat chase a laser pointer on my computer, a nice reward after a long day’s work.
Spiffy McBang
I would like to take this time to point out that certain bands can never be too loud in the background of a video, and Elastica is one of those bands.
Foxtrot Tango Whiskey.
J. Michael Neal
@AhabTRuler: Who knew? I was right!
No, you weren’t. You have confused *homosexual* marriage with *heterospecies* marriage. These are not the same thing at all. John has married a woman.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
if you told me that in twenty years I would be filming my cat chasing a laser with a shitty camera […] I probably would have had the decency to try to die young.
Ha! Lord knows we might have been at some of the same shows, if you made it to any in Northern Cali.
You raise a good point, as funny as it may be. The only people more embarrassing to our teenage selves than our parents is our own middle-aged selves.
BethanyAnne
I have 2 topsy turvy’s and a big pot of normal tomatoes. The big pot is doing much better – you really have to stay on top of watering with the topsy ones, and I’m not so good with that.
Jim
There are a couple of ‘wingers who like to think having been to a few Dead shows gives them open-minded, free-spirited cred. Coulter’s the most notable, but not the only one, just the only one I can think of.
AhabTRuler
@J. Michael Neal: Look, I ain’t the confused one here!
John Cole
@Spiffy McBang: I concur. The only thing that makes me sad is that 90% of the people here have never listened to Elastica, and 99% of them have never listened to it at 3 am after a bottle of Maker’s Mark while the police are knocking on the door or you are being thrown out of the alternative bar because your date threw up through her nose.
I find that upsetting.
John Cole
@Jim: John Kasich is another.
I went to over 50.
John Hamilton Farr
Over 50! You might have been standing behind me at a Dead show somewhere in MD back in the Jurassic. I had a head full of mushrooms and couldn’t pee. There were 250 guys waiting at every urinal, and the room was REALLY bright. Finally someone behind me said real loud, “Looks like we got us a slow one!” This didn’t help. I can’t remember how I ever got out of there, so they probably killed me.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@John Cole: 99% of them have never listened to it at 3 am after a bottle of Maker’s Mark while the police are knocking on the door or you are being thrown out of the alternative bar because your date threw up through her nose.
John, you are truly a man of depths I did not suspect.
My wife and I have a concept of “As God Intended” that has mostly to do with the presentation of music and TV shows; for instance, watching the original Star Trek series on DVD seems wrong because it was meant to be watched on a vacuum-tube TV slurping it from the aether through rabbit-ears, nice and snowy. I gather that your scenario here is As God Intended for Elastica to be heard.
J. Michael Neal
@AhabTRuler: It’s pretty simple:
Man
Bitch
You may notice that they don’t look anything alike.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@Jim: Coulter’s the most notable, but not the only one, just the only one I can think of.
I count Tipper Gore, kinda.
Spiffy McBang
@John Cole: I’ve seen kids get their knees dislocated in a mosh pit (and carried them out of it), broken my own father’s toe in a heated game of Nerf kickball at the over-enthusiastic age of nine, spilt blood from my lip across a basketball court and seen more of it than any person should drain from various locales- mostly on my head- and yet I still find the concept of someone vomiting out of their nose particularly, dare I say uniquely, unsettling.
On the other hand, I never even knew it was possible to do that, so thank you for teaching me something brand new today.
I think.
ninerdave
The bars I go to (well not so much anymore since I got married), that’s grounds for another shot. You need to find diver places.
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
What, they would have let her stay if she had only thrown up through her mouth? Effete snobs.
J. Michael Neal
@John Cole: I have listened to Elastica. The difference is that I don’t care whether I ever do again. There’s nothing objectionable about it, so if it’s being played somewhere, I’m not going to leave. I won’t do anything to get to listen to it, though.
There’s something wrong with a punk band that inspires a reaction of, “Meh.”
J. Michael Neal
@Spiffy McBang: On the other hand, I never even knew it was possible to do that, so thank you for teaching me something brand new today.
It hurts like hell. Of course, maybe that’s only the case when you are vomiting due to excessive acid reflux, so feel free to experiment with it.
Zuzu's Petals
@John Cole:
I think I’ve only been to two Dead concerts, but both were memorable:
Altamont.
Bill Graham memorial concert, Golden Gate Park.
Fulcanelli
@John Cole: Impressive Mr. Cole. Over 75 here starting in 1973. Went to New Year’s in Oakland in 1982. Met Jerry briefly in Boston on a Garcia Band tour (Cats tour w/Keith and Donna). He had a laugh that would make you laugh just hearing it.
Don’t get me started on Dead show stories. I’m lucky to be alive.
wag
Republican youth in the ’80’s were all into the Dead. A form of rebellion while they snorted their coke in college on Daddy’s dime. I preferred my rebellion by the Dead Kennedys. Jello’s vision of the coming decades was scary and it was the true.
Shit, I can’t get the link to “we’ve got a bigger problem now” to go.
John Cole
@Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist: This kind of conversation always reminds me of PJ O’Rourkes How to Drive Fast on Drugs While Getting Your Wing-Wang Squeezed and Not Spill Your Drink, when he said the following:
He is right.
wag
never mind
John Cole
@wag: I can honestly say that of all the shit I saw at Dead shows, none of it happened with Republicans.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@John Cole: He is right.
Sounds good to me, but I was never that wild. I think I’ve been middle-aged since I was about 12.
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
Wait a second — is this Tunchcam 6 or Tunchcam 7? You’ve labelled it both ways.
Fulcanelli
@John Cole: No, John they were all out in the parking lot commodities trading, those little entrepreneurs. Got any whippets?
Lesley
I’m sure Tunch would be horribly offended by this, so don’t tell him he looks like an overgrown very adorable kitten.
Dulcie
@Zuzu’s Petals: I was at that concert too. My favorite moment: Aaron Neville singing Ave Maria. Gave me chills.
J. Michael Neal
@Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist: I wanted to be that wild, but I was too busy listening to female friends telling what jerks their boyfriends were for being that wild.
mr. whipple
whoa…take it easy, big guy. chasing a laser with such strenuous effort might make you lose a fematopound of fat.
Zuzu's Petals
@Dulcie:
Yeah I remember, what a moment.
The whole day was perfect, like the love-in I never got to go to. Lots of music, beautiful weather, people sitting in trees…and then a big Otis Spunkmeyer seaplane flies over, opens the bay doors, and out fall thousands of red carnations.
Whew.
Indylib
@John Cole:
Jeebus, that’s a lot of concerts. Did you go to any of them while you were in the Army? Your army issue buzz cut would have made you, uh, kinda, noticeable , no?
Actually I’m just poking at you with a sharp stick. My ex was a hell- raiser at 19. Sex, booze and rock ‘n roll and now he is the most uptight, anal, Conservative asshat I have the displeasure of knowing personally. I also have an old childhood friend who left home at 19 to go live in a Buddhist monastery in San Francisco , spent 1 year there, then spent the next 3 summers traveling cross country as a Deadhead, staying with friends wherever they landed and going back to the monastery during the winter. He is now an uptight, anal Yuppie who is not as unpleasant as my ex, but is terribly pretentious.
None of us are the same people we were at 19 (thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster), but I will say that I think you’ve got the right order down, getting more liberal as you get older.
mr. whipple
fat guy playing? check.
laser? check.
loud music(?)(?) check.
dude spinning in circles? check.
funky throw w/ersatz poncho look? check.
It *is* a dead concert.
CeriConversion
What I really get a kick out of with cats and laser pointers is the way they stare at the dot KNOWING it’s all a trick and there’s nothing there to catch, and then succumbing anyway.
John Cole
@Indylib: Just one at at the Frankfurt Festhalle and one at Wembley Arena on Halloween during the Without a Net Tour in 90 or 91. It was a fucking ordeal explaining to my platoon sergeant why I needed the time off. I want to say it was 1990, because it was right after Saddam invaded Iraq and we were not called up and all pissed off we were not the first unit sent, since we were Cav.
Wile E. Quixote
@Indylib
Hey, Ann Coulter is a deadhead.
Dan
I turned off my Bon Iver album to watch this shit, Cole.
Next time you better have live bait or something.
DaBomb
Ah.. good ole’ Elastica. I bought that album on tape, just so I can listen to that song only.
Gotta submit some pics of Rocket my cat.
Wile E. Quixote
@John Cole
That O.D. acid is some wicked bad stuff. I was a weekend user for about 13 years.
ninerdave
@John Cole:
And that piece is why I will always love O’Rourke.
John Cole
@ninerdave: Dude, Parliament of Whores was a classic. I remember buying like 7-8 copies of that just to give to my platoon buddies in germany. They probably never read it, but screw it. It was a great book.
Brick Oven Bill
Last week the guy was there who had found God and used to suck but didn’t suck anymore. Tonight he wasn’t there but the old partner from ten years back was. He has just been released from jail but also has gotten better with his guitar skills. And we made those people dance. Best time I have had in many moons.
The best part was some guy probably ten years younger than me had to set up, break down, and got yelled at by the owner for being late.
Oh, oh, oh, oh oh, where does the time go?
Indylib
@John Cole:
Well, hell, no wonder they didn’t call you up for Saddam invading his own damned country.
My husband was on his way to the Gulf on the USS Tarawa in Dec. of ’90.
thedavidmo
You know, I’m going to have to come out and say it: riling cats with a laser pen is mean and you shouldn’t do it. The problem is that cats don’t understand what it is: you’re playing with them, sure, but they don’t understand that it’s a game. To them, it’s some crazy bug or animal that puts them in high alert mode. It just totally stresses them out. This is *precisely* why lasers so consistently and universally get cats going–because, unlike when you play with them with a toy, they think the laser point is “real”.
I suppose if anyone responds to this, it will be to make fun of me. But I don’t care. I mean, suppose humans were kept as pets by highly advanced aliens who had the power to put us in a holideck-like environment–but that we were never able to figure out that this was happening. Wouldn’t that be cruel? How is this any different?
To me this is just the same as “playing” with a cat by, say, frightening it with loud noises. It’s just not very considerate, IMO.
Wile E. Quixote
@John Cole
O’Rourke has written an addendum in his new book Driving Like Crazy called How to Do Ditto While the Drugs Are Mostly Lipitor in which he reveals that he was in no way, shape or form the kind of wild and crazy guy he wrote about in HTDFODWGYWWSANSYD.
frigg
dat dum cat got its tail in yer butterscotch jar. did you spit some butterscotch candies on that fat cat’s back, too?
dat cat is so dumm.
elastica, really?
ninerdave
@John Cole:
Ah yeah, fantasic. Now I’m gonna have to dig out my copy and re-read it again. I’ve been reading tech books for too long.
Dunno why, but Catch-22 just popped into my head as another I need to re-read. Yossarian, censoring letters in the beginning of the book has always cracked me up to no end.
JGabriel
Patrick:
Really. As a hipster douchebag since 16 or 17, I may have to rethink my participation here. I mean, the Dead? When I was 19, in 1984, I was listening to the Replacements, Husker Du, The Avengers, REM, Laurie Anderson, The Smiths, et fucking cetera. None of that 60’s shit.
Well, ok, maybe Lou Reed. And Captain Beefheart. And Joni, but only the stuff from the 70’s, from Blue onward – none of that Circle Game / Big Yellow Taxi / Both Sides Now folkie shit. Well, ok, maybe Both Sides Now. But that’s it. And Van Morrison, but, again, nothing from the 60’s, except Astral Weeks. And the stuff Van did with Them. But that’s it. Oh, and maybe Pet Sounds. But that’s it. For real this time. I was a hipster douchebag punk – new wave – hardcore – avant garde fan. None of that 60’s shit. Except for…
.
Brick Oven Bill
Music is one of the seven Liberal Arts and is thus very valuable. If you compare those who partake in this Art and those who sit on the sidelines, you want to be grouped in with those who partake. You meet very few uninteresting musicians.
Music is very mathematical, but also very guttural. It is a combination of concords and discords, and somehow it is powerful enough to get females out of their seats. Women gyrate their crotches to this thing we call music.
I cannot explain it other than music is perhaps divine. Or it could be an evolutionary force to synchronize men’s actions similar to religion. This would explain why men used to walk into cannon fire with a fife.
JGabriel
J. Michael Neal:
Yeah, especially if it’s chunky.
.
JGabriel
Zuzu’s Petals:
If you remember them, you were doing it wrong.
.
J. Michael Neal
Where is asiangrrlMN? I have an important question to ask her.
Comrade Darkness
Right now, though, I’m kinda happy with the way things have worked out.
Well developed frontal lobe, dude. Well developed frontal lobe.
J. Michael Neal
@JGabriel: I miss Zelnorm.
JGabriel
That’s one step in the digestive tract too far …
.
Zuzu's Petals
@JGabriel:
Well to tell ya the truth, the main thing I remember about Altamont was riding there in a Hog Farm bus with my Prankster boyfriend, Wavy Gravy, and Stu Brandt. The music, not so much…except the Stones singing “Sympathy for the Devil,” of course.
By the time the Bill Graham concert came along, I was all grown up and paying attention.
Wile E. Quixote
I’m watching Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical for about the billionth time and once again I have to say “Holy Jesus H. Fuck, but Steven Weber and Neve Campbell can dance!”. Plus you have Kristen Bell ripping her shirt off. Kristen Bell dancing around in a dominatrix outfit. And then there’s this exchange between Jimmy (Christian Campbell) and Mary (Kristen Bell).
OK, maybe I’m the only guy who finds the idea of a dance contest for man crippled by polio to be blackly humorous.
ninerdave
@Brick Oven Bill:
You know BoB, you’re extremely oblique, but sometimes you actually hit the nail on the head.
freelancer
Okay, I didn’t want to comment until, again, I thought it might be a thing. I had mentioned I went on a date, and had gotten myself into a weird situation with a woman who liked me who was a Young Earth Creationist (Blech, OMG!!$#).
But yes, she does drink, she knows how to have a good time, and she’s already crow-barred herself beyond her parents’ rigid theology (aka God Hates Fags, Matthew Shepard is burning in hell).
She likes me enough that I feel my mere presence in her life, and her own rebellious spirit are enough to move her into the middle.
I almost thought about nicknaming her Wilma Flintstone when I referred to her here, but I don’t think that or her history will matter. She’s now taking a gauntlet of bio and chemistry classes to go from an accounting professional to focus on nursing. The evidence is right in her face, and I honestly don’t care if she’s an atheist or not, I just don’t want her ignoring the valid evidence that science works, that the world is Billions of years old. Last night, she was nodding and agreeing with me, that yeah, faith doesn’t require the denial of reality.
Damn do I sound naive or what?
Lesley
Came back to look at Lily and she’s saying a lot in that photo.
The expression in her eyes and position of her ears suggest passivity though she’s also holding herself somewhat rigidly (flight or fight habit, probably); but there’s something else there, something in her expression that makes her hesitate to spring.
Lily senses she’s in a safe place. Everything about her environment – though foreign and not what she’s habituated to – is kind and welcoming. The vibes are good. She may not be used to security and she may fear it’s a dream (not literally but in her psyche), and she may still be prepared for the worst, but after looking at the photo for awhile, I think I see the play of a smile around her jaw line.
Dogs, especially, are highly emotional creatures. It’s why we and they get along so well.
Zuzu's Petals
@Wile E. Quixote:
If you like Kristen Bell, check out Forgetting Sarah Marshall. She’s terrific.
Veronica Mars was one of my guilty pleasures.
LD50
You mean that’s not the case?
LD50
Am I going to have to be the one who asks the question, “What did the Deadhead say when the pot wore off?”
JGabriel
Nothing. If you’ve let pot* wear off, you’re obviously not a Deadhead anymore.
(*Is that what we’re calling acid now?)
.
J. Michael Neal
@freelancer:
You sound like you like her. Just roll with it. Forget trying to convert her, and just enjoy being with her. If that happens, it happens. If not, it doesn’t. Don’t let thinking about it get in the way of the relationship.
Indylib
@freelancer:
No, you’re not naive. People can change their attitudes on this stuff.
Don’t give up, it sounds like she’s on the brink of letting go of some of the last vestiges of the true magical thinking crap that goes along with this loony evangelical stuff.
I had a similar experience with the man who is now my husband. He’d been raised going to a Southern Baptist Church that is all about “Is Jeebus your personal savior?”. When he married his first wife they went to an crackpot megachurch and he bought into the whole nine yards until his then wife told him she wanted him to get rid of his video games because they were satanic. That was the first thing that made him question whether there was any rationality in what these people were telling him. By the time I re-met him (we’d known each other in high school) he was in the middle of a divorce and the church stuff had started to pall. Over the next couple of years I presented him with a lot opinions and some facts, a lot of which he had never heard in his entire life, using logic to point out to him how ridiculous taking the bible literally was, the incompatibility of much of what he believed about science (he’s a big astronomy geek) with what he believed about religion, etc. He was able, over time to let go of a lot of the really ridiculous religious magical thinking. He’s still believes in a personal God, but doesn’t feel that he has to convince anyone else that what he believes is true and he lives pretty happily with me and I’m agnostic
passerby
@freelancer:
Aw freelancer, I second what J. Michael Neal said. If it happens it happens. People can change. Naive? not hardly.
She’s shifting to nursing? Seems like her heart may be opening.
Best wishes–and you cracked me up with the Wilma Flintstone.
robertdsc
Tunch is perfect. Thanks, John.
Lupin
Wow! Tunch is just like our media. Ooo flashing light must chase.
passerby
@Brick Oven Bill:
This is fascinating commentary Bill.
I come down on the “guttural” side of music–math isn’t my thing.
C’mon, honey. When I gyrate to this thing we call music, it ain’t just my crotch…but I understand your focus on that area.
Bill, I think you’re more spoof than troll. Well done.
freelancer
Thanks guys.
like I’ve said before, I’m a nonbeliever.
However, I have no wish to evangelize atheism to her. Meet me 3 years ago, and you have a different guy, whose main goal was being an a-religiously bigoted a-hole.
I mentioned it to her last night when we went out to see a live show of a band called “Safetysuit“, that my issue wasn’t with personal beliefs. What bugged me was that her church had made her think that the only way to believe in Christ was to adhere to a 6k old universe, and that pissed her off too. So yeah, for right now, we’re perfect together, and I see the cracks that are already there.
I mean, I’m spending time with a sweet woman that shares my obscure, nerdy humor and finds me an attractive “gentleman” (her words), and the only hangup is a fractious, slowly eroding theology that I see passing the more I demonstrate that there are okay heathens that share similar values.
tess
Seeing a Tunch video after tossing around with insomnia this morning made me so happy. (Thanks, John!) And honestly, I was more dismayed when we redid our kitchen and I spent about an hour picking our door knobs for the cabinets. If I’d known *that* could happen back when I was a fairly sedate 19-year-old, I’d have had the decency to die young.
Our smarter cat figured out the laser pointer wasn’t something she could catch, and never really got into it after that. It was just as well, because the other one would beg and beg and beg for us to play with her with it, to the point that to end the game, we’d have to run the dot under the door of the hall closet and let her spend the next 20 minutes waiting for it to come out. (She’d doze off, and wake up forgetting why she’d been in the hall.)
We had to keep the pointer hidden or else she’d drive us nuts asking to play. She obviously knew, in a way, where the dot originated and that we controlled it, or else we wouldn’t have to hide the toy to go about our lives. If she’d been a cat who went outdoors, I’m not sure she’d have been as interested, but she loved to chase just about anything, and inside, she didn’t have so many options for it. Her happiest night was when a mouse got into the house.
sorry for the ramble–sleepy and chatty is always a bad combo. :-)
Bill E Pilgrim
@Brick Oven Bill:
After twenty years of my life spent as a professional musician, I heartily disagree.
Don’t get me wrong, I know lots of terribly fascinating musicians. I just know many who are as dull as dishwater also. One horn player I know was discussing some film someone was talking about doing about musicians and his comment was “God, I can’t think of a more dull and boring group of people to film. All I do is a stand in a closet-sized space and practice, all day long”.
I know a group of really great musicians whose main topic of discussion is golf. Others who couldn’t have a main topic of discussion because that would involve discussion. Others who are the most interesting and diverse people you’ll ever meet. But I’d say at about the same percentage of any other occupation.
Well, okay maybe a little higher percentage than bloggers.
I’m kidding.
Music is communication, by the way. Mostly it’s that. A kind of emotional speech. When it’s more than an inch deep anyway, it is.
passerby
@Bill E Pilgrim:
I think this is about right. Interesting people are interesting because they are interested. Period.
I think BOB was distinquishing between, say, accountants as compared to musicians.
I had a discussion with my flute instructor the other day about style. As an example, nouveau flamenco music, Ottmar Liebert’s (German) style is anchored by precision (mathematically prone ?) whereas, Oscar Lopez plays with natural heat, a perceptible warmth (guttural). I don’t know either of these two men but, I imagine I’d rather hang with Lopez.
But I do see your point. Dull as dishwater people can be found in any profession.
Thlayli
@Wile E. Quixote:
Explains a lot, actually. She’s clearly assuming the people she meets at Dead shows are the average Democrats.
***
@Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse:
Justine Frischmann = world’s greatest Scottish Jewish female lead singer.
J. Michael Neal
Hey!
Bill E Pilgrim
@J. Michael Neal:
But that’s what I’m disagreeing with. And actually someone else here agrees with me:
Hey it was you!
Just teasing.
What he said actually was that you rarely meet uninteresting musicians, and my thought was “er, speak for yourself.”
Of course, my perspective is skewed having been around musicians a lot more than accountants. I’ve talked to numbers people I found completely fascinating though, accounts who started in applied mathematics or etc. When I go to parties I vastly prefer talking to the guy studying quantum probability waves, say, and generally give any musicians I meet a wide berth. That’s now though, when I was learning music it was all I wanted to talk about, and I mean from eleven to early thirties or so.
Bill E Pilgrim
@J. Michael Neal:
Sorry, I replied to you instead of passerby. Meant for his/her comment, not yours.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Love his expression at the end. “Are we done now, I can get some motherfuckin’ sleep?”
Notorious P.A.T.
Two thumbs up for “Cat Chasing Laser to Music”!
AkaDad
In support of Iran, real Americans tease their cat with a green laser.
harlana pepper
Well, my weekend has officially been made now. I have witnessed Super Live Action Tunch. It’s all been worth the wait! Out of the 3, my tortie goes apeshit over flashlight beams and laser lights. The other two don’t seem to see it or just don’t care. Also appreciated the Lily pic, very nice. However, still looking forward to “ears up”! That’s coming.
harlana pepper
I was never a Dead fan, really. I always really really liked “Friend of the Devil” though. A foot-tapper. Beyond that, I really never understood the following phenom. I think the merchandise sure helps, tho.
Jim-Bob
Actually, if you were a Dead fan in the ’80s, I easily could have predicted that you’d be doing stupid stuff twenty years hence.
ps, John: I had a cat, Morty, who was marmalade, “generously proportioned,” and with a mostly white tail. Think he and Tunch got mixed up at the cleaners?
harlana pepper
What the hell is going to happen with health care now, btw? Somebody tell me. I’m so confused. One of you smarty-pants on here, give me some hope. I’m depressed about it right now.
Krista
@John Cole:
Awww…that is really sweet to see you so besotted. It doesn’t take long for them to completely own your heart, does it?
And as for throwing up through the nose — not recommended. It burns like hell. It’s also why I gave up drinking vodka & lime after my second year of university.
@demi: funny how you mentioned going on a last getaway before the baby arrives. We’re doing that next weekend — hubby’s taking me to a resort with a spa, bless his sweet soul. I cannot wait to get a nice massage and a pedicure for these swollen tootsies, followed by an obscene amount of time in the pool.
harlana pepper
@Jim-Bob:
Agreed. See Ann Coulter. Although there’s a big difference between generic stupid and evil stupid
Josh Hueco
@harlana pepper:
What did one Deadhead say to the other Deadhead when they ran out of weed?
“This music sucks!”
/badabing
Thank you, I’m here all week. Try your waitress and tip the veal.
harlana pepper
harlana pepper
@Josh Hueco: HEH
harlana pepper
btw, dated an Englishman who was a major Deadhead — he was the biggest, most hateful asshole I have ever dated in my life. Don’t know if that’s a really bad combo or just that the English are not as pleasant as we like to think. That said, I suppose I asked for it, just like everything else I get that I complain about. I asked for it, one way or another. heh. I won’t complain about affordable health care; however, but I have a feeling that’s one thing I’ve asked for that I won’t be getting.
Jim-Bob
Harlana Pepper@
Agreed. The generic stupid is much cheaper.
A Mom Anon
@harlana pepper:
I don’t think much that’s helpful is going to happen. Too many politicians owe too much to the powers that be, I fear.
I hope I’m wrong,or maybe I’m just cynical in my old age,but Congress honestly doesn’t seem to give a shit if we all curl up and die.
harlana pepper
@A Mom Anon: Honestly, that’s the way I feel right now. This debate has really deteriorated real fast. Very discouraged & disgusted, no energy to get mad. Hope you’re doing okay, btw.
harlana pepper
I know everybody probably gets sick of hearing me carp about Dean, but I sure would like to see him front and center on the health care debate. He wrote a book about it recently. Are any of the bobbleheads inviting him on the Sunday shows to discuss this? Sebelius lacks the passion. I realize that doesn’t disqualify her for the job, necessarily, but honest-to-god, these fucking health insurance lobbies – you need somebody with a fire in their belly. Not seeing the passion (oh, Teddy we need you so), not feeling encouraged or hopeful now. Congress doesn’t get it or doesn’t want to – jeebus, if they fuck this up, they are going to pay big. If they fuck this up, I give up on the political process altogether. Writing and threatening my congressman (republican) or senators (DeMint and Graham/nuff said), is pointless.
Tattoosydney
@AkaDad:
Hee.
A Mom Anon
@harlana pepper:
I’m ok,just a little freaked out by major dental bills that seem to have no freaking end. I just found two more cavities,this after going through having a bridge done(with no insurance coverage-we have insurance now,but it’s more like a coupon for a percentage off than actual insurance),which took FOREVER. Yay,fun.
I was hoping,beyond hope,we’d see some consensus on at least this. But I guess since Congress has their gold plated insurance they could care less about the rest of us. I saw my asshole(former Dr) congressasshole on teevee the other day lying his ass off about single payer and got so upset I ended up sitting in the garden crying for half an hour,lol.
patrick
@Indylib:
Jesus told Me to tell You, that you’re going to burn in Hades.
Some folks calls it Hell, I calls it Hades.
harlana pepper
@A Mom Anon: Oh fuck, a bridge – jeebus! I’m sorry – I sure feel your pain. Shit! Ok, I’m angry now. This is sickening. I want to puke on the courthouse steps or something. May your tears not be in vain, A Mom.
(and, oh yeah, just love these fucking doctor congressmen pissing and moaning about “socialized” medicine – I just want to see Dean go up and punch them in the face, fuckers can rot in hell)
GusThePrimate
…if you told me that in twenty years I would be filming my cat chasing a laser with a shitty camera, and that hundreds of people would watch once I posted it on this thing called the “internet”…
Yes, the internet really is a revolution.
Anyway, it’s all downhill after 23. Just enjoy the slide.
CynDee
@John, regarding your lead-in to this whole thread:
It looks like you’ve always known the secret of life, and now you’ve discovered that. What brought it out is that you have one hand on a dog and one on a cat, and the tomatoes are growing as they should (and you also have a tip on how to keep them safe from one of the many friends you have brought into your life). You’re a Real Man.
bedtimeforbonzo
Pilgrim: “Others who couldn’t have a main topic of discussion because that would involve discussion. ”
For some reason, I love that line.
Musicians have at least been romanticized to the extent that they all seem interesting. So I can see why BrickOvenBill said what he did.
You’d think car salesmen would be a boring lot. But my six years in the business has been shared with graphic storytellers and no-holds-barred commentary.
Watched “Into the Wild” on cable the other night, a movie that was good enough to make you not change the channel but was very depressing.
passerby
@J. Michael Neal:
Oops. Sorry about that, chief. I should’ve used an example from which I have firsthand knowledge–engineers! I grew up in a forest of engineers and they have a certain…mentality. That’s the word I’m looking for.
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Oh, why did I attempt to comment on BOB’s take on musicians. After all, to make his point, he used the words “crotches” and “cannons” in the same comment. That may have confused me. Pardon.
asiangrrlMN
@freelancer: I concur with the others. Just roll with you. You sound like a cool dude. She sounds like a pretty cool gal. People can change.
What the fuck? Who was I channeling there? Don’t tell anyone, but I’m not quite as cynical as I appear. It’s rare to meet someone with whom you have that kind of connection. It’s worth it to give it a chance.
@J. Michael Neal: Yo, I is here late. I pretty much slept away last night. My sleep schedule is fucked.
John, did you give Tunch nip before you took the video? I mean, he goes from zero to, like, five with impressive speed. Please keep posting pics/videos of him. As much as I am enjoying the blooming of the Lily, Tunch is the master of my domain.
bedtimeforbonzo
I second what passerby said about engineer’s having a certain “mentality” — they definitely speak a language of their own.
As a salesperson, you cringe when you find out your customer’s occupation is an engineer. Chances are, you won’t have a sale and, if you do, it won’t be easy. They anaylze, overanaylze, dissect, disassemble, all dispassionately.
My 10-year-old son has an engineer’s brain, so I am developing intimate knowledge about this.
In honor of Tunch, I leave with this English proverb that graced my page-a-day cat calendar yesterday: “The cat would eat fish, but would not wet her feet.”
The Saff
@bedtimeforbonzo:
I have that calendar, too. Only it referred to a tortoiseshell cat the other day (Tuesday, I think) as “he” instead of “she.”
Gus
I was pretty much the same until I discovered LSD and the Beatles that summer. Then I didn’t listen to anything newer than 1972 for about three years.
andrea
I think I still have a copy of Holidays in Hell lying around, even though I read most of the pieces when they originally appeared in Rolling Stone.
Chris Johnson
I love that last earflick :)
Zuzu's Petals
@freelancer:
Reminds me of this lovely Nick Cave song.
Nikolita
I have never seen Tunch in live action before, just in pictures. Thanks for sharing John! =) He’s a beautiful cat.