2:37 p.m. - 2006-03-17
neckties
Our two cats, Nettles and Puck, look great in neckties! In an effort to share their amazing cat fashion with the world, or at least two or three people, I'm putting a picture of one or both of them on the cover of my forthcoming solo cd, "Fob". Interestingly, they not only look fabulous, but seem very comfortable wearing neckties. Once not long ago I came home from orchestra wearing a necktie and as I peeled away my horrible orchestra-wear, I noticed Puck sitting on the bed, looking bored. On a whim, I slipped my still-tied tie over his head. To my surprise, he didn't panic or put up any resistance. This seemed like a breakthrough, since all my attempts over the years at getting the cats to wear tiny hats had failed due to their squirminess. Perhaps things would have turned out differently had I the foresight to install little earholes for the cats' comfort.
So far I've photographed Puck in three different ties: a dreary seventies tie with two shades of washed out gold and a kind of dirty blue with interlocking oblong patterns that I cut to cat length, a blue tie with lots of tiny elephants (Asian elephants, not GOP elephants), and a keyboard tie. Every musician has a keyboard tie in his closet that someone has given him. No musician has ever worn a keyboard tie. Maybe Billy Joel has, but that's it. The first tie is problematic on Puck, as it matches his coloring so well it's easy to not notice at all that he's wearing a tie:
The keyboard tie, its human length intact, stands out a lot more and appears to induce a subdued mood:
Whereas the first tie looks like that of a stressed-out businesscat, the keyboard tie gives him more the quality of the sensualist, a quiet confidence smoldering beneath his elegant attire and languorous posture. Make no mistake: if Puck were a person, he would own AND WEAR not one but several keyboard ties.
The photos of Nettles in the businesscat tie and Puck in the elephant tie haven't yet been developed, but the ones with Puck wearing the first two ties have. Preliminary polling shows a preference for the keyboard tie bedecked Puck. I sort of prefer the businesscat tie, however. Puck looks a little more edgy, a little more Willy Loman, frustrated in his ambitions, puzzled by a world that seems to be passing him by. Standing there in his dingy, long out of style tie, with the slumped posture and weary look, Puck seems the very emodiment of the age-old American archetype of thwarted striving. He started off with dreams, big dreams, and all the energy to see them through. But along the way, things just had a way of not working out. Opportunities missed, promotions passed over, wives divorced, endless glasses of cheap rye in two-bit motel rooms in tank towns. And all the lousy luck and bum leads that reduce you to selling shirt collars door-to-door in Scranton, PA. This is what I see when I look at the photo of Puck wearing the seventies tie.
Whichever photo graces the cd cover, when the cd is done and released unto the public the cats are sure to be vaulted instantly into celebrity. They'll have a lot to deal with: managers, percentages, TV movie offers. Cat food commercials. I just hope when they're out buying their new jewel studded celebrity cat food bowls that they'll remember who was feeding them back when they were just a couple of unknown tabbies with ears too big for their hats.
