Urban Tumbleweed
Like most people who have transplanted their lives to LA or New York from parts unknown, I too have a mother back home whom I check in with often and who constantly tries to relate her world to mine. It's not always an easy task. South Bend, Indiana and Hollywood, California don't have a lot in common except for strip malls and aliens...only there, the aliens work at blockbuster while out here, they are rockstars and actors.
One of the ways my mother tries to relate to me most often is to apply the wisdom of the Unity church of peace and their generalized laws of coping to my far removed experiences. She commonly utters phrases like, "...this or something better, Lord..." or "everything happens for a reason, although you may not know the grand plan." I guess this is a reasonable approach to making sense of the universe, although I have always subscribed to the notion that if I simply take everything a bit less seriously and roll with it, it'll all work out in the end. I do not need to know why. I just need to adapt. I'm definitely a Darwinian.
So a couple of years ago, upon the occasion of my adopting a cat, my mother was all about the clichés. The story of how I got my cat is a little odd (some say outrageous) so you'll have to take my word that it's true. It goes something like this:
Driving back from a location scouting trip for a film I was about to work on, I sped along at about 80mph on the 134 freeway. It was about 9am and the Southern Cal September sun was beating down. As a pickup passed me, I noticed that the back gate was down. Because I once had an accident where something fell off the back of a truck and hit my car, I instinctually readied myself for this possibility. The pickup looked like a work truck...the kind that always has a lawnmower and gas tank in the back and is driven by Mexican laborers. Sure enough, something fell off the back of the truck and as I swerved to miss it, I realized that what fell off was a cat who upon hitting the ground, somehow maintained its balance and was skating and scrambling along on it's extended claws. The car behind me swerved as well, and the cat, now come to a halt, raced to the side of the highway, jumping over the railing.
As if this fall were not enough, the very spot at which this went down was also on an overpass, so when the cat took its flying leap, it plummeted 30 feet to the asphalt below. As I was on the phone with my Dad at the time, I got off and stopped the car to investigate. In the back of my mind, I was already entertaining the thought of saving this cat. I am allergic to cats, by the way, so this thought made no logical sense, but that's what I remember thinking. To my dismay, when I looked over the railing, I saw a cat with a purple collar sprawled out on the pavement with its tongue sticking out...it was the prototypical image you think of when you envision "dead cat." I imagined x's for its eyes, even. So I got in my car and drove away.
Arriving at Hugo's in the valley, I ran into a friend and told her about the trauma of seeing another living creature fall to its death and she asked me "well, did you go check it out?"
"Yes," I replied.
"And was it breathing?"
Hmmm. I thought for a moment. I didn't really investigate that closely.
What if the cat was still alive? What if it was injured and another animal was terrorizing it looking to scavenge some flesh? Shit...
"I have to go." I said.
So I drove back to Glendale and looked for the exit, but since the swan dive happened where all the freeways converge, it was not as easy as it sounds. Driving the other way, it's almost impossible to identify the spot on the opposite highway, what with the elevated roadways and such. Finally after searching a bit I managed to find the exit where all this madness occurred. I found myself in a strange, barren underworld, like something out of MadMax. Thunderdome was just beyond the railroad tracks. I climbed a fence and came to the landing area, but there was no cat. Damn, I thought, I really would've liked to have rescued that cute cat. It had definitely been eaten. that cat disappeared like a Queen of Hearts at the Magic Castle. I decided to give the search a couple more minutes. I saw a tuft of fur in some weeds, but assumed that it was a dead squirrel or a bit of fluff that accumulates in corners and barren wastelands, an urban tumbleweed.
The fluff unfurled itself to reveal a kitten. It struggled to its feet and tried to stand, reaching out to me in the hot sun. Holy Shit!! It's Alive!! It's so small! How did it survive that fall?!! I picked it up and took it to my car. When I walked in the door with a cat in a box, my friend Bill, who rented me his guesthouse and had a strict "no pets" policy, looked at me like I had crapped on his front lawn. I was pushing the bounds of our relationship...but this was not the time to get into it. I quickly told him the story and he said, "Well you and that cat were meant to find each other." All of the sudden, the dry-witted cynic sounded like my mom.
To make a long story short, I kept the cat and named her Ocho in honor of the life I saw her lose. She has become something of a legend. Because of this cat I found a kick-ass apartment in the Hollywood hills and got a break on rent, made friends with a classic blues musician who incorporated her into the lyrics of one of his songs, and won the hearts of a number of women in LA who are absolute suckers for a story about a man and the pussy he rescued.
So when I think about Darwin, about how only the strongest are fit to survive, I think about my cat. My mom responded with something about "the Divine order of the universe" and that I am "ready to give love to another living creature." That's all fine and good, but the way this cat fits into my meaning of life is much more simple and less mystical than all that: I did what needed to be done.
At some point in each of our lives, we witness another creature in distress when no one else does. It is at that point that you have a choice...turn a blind eye or do something about it. If you see a kid getting beaten up, a motorist who has crashed a car, a women being raped, an animal who is has obviously strayed from home...whatever the case may be...it is your duty to respond. Believe it or not, I have actually encountered every one of these situations and I have always intervened. It may be naive, but I sleep well at night. If you do step in, you can claim to be a part of the human race; if not, you are simply civilized detritus rolling along in the wind.
One of the ways my mother tries to relate to me most often is to apply the wisdom of the Unity church of peace and their generalized laws of coping to my far removed experiences. She commonly utters phrases like, "...this or something better, Lord..." or "everything happens for a reason, although you may not know the grand plan." I guess this is a reasonable approach to making sense of the universe, although I have always subscribed to the notion that if I simply take everything a bit less seriously and roll with it, it'll all work out in the end. I do not need to know why. I just need to adapt. I'm definitely a Darwinian.
So a couple of years ago, upon the occasion of my adopting a cat, my mother was all about the clichés. The story of how I got my cat is a little odd (some say outrageous) so you'll have to take my word that it's true. It goes something like this:
Driving back from a location scouting trip for a film I was about to work on, I sped along at about 80mph on the 134 freeway. It was about 9am and the Southern Cal September sun was beating down. As a pickup passed me, I noticed that the back gate was down. Because I once had an accident where something fell off the back of a truck and hit my car, I instinctually readied myself for this possibility. The pickup looked like a work truck...the kind that always has a lawnmower and gas tank in the back and is driven by Mexican laborers. Sure enough, something fell off the back of the truck and as I swerved to miss it, I realized that what fell off was a cat who upon hitting the ground, somehow maintained its balance and was skating and scrambling along on it's extended claws. The car behind me swerved as well, and the cat, now come to a halt, raced to the side of the highway, jumping over the railing.
As if this fall were not enough, the very spot at which this went down was also on an overpass, so when the cat took its flying leap, it plummeted 30 feet to the asphalt below. As I was on the phone with my Dad at the time, I got off and stopped the car to investigate. In the back of my mind, I was already entertaining the thought of saving this cat. I am allergic to cats, by the way, so this thought made no logical sense, but that's what I remember thinking. To my dismay, when I looked over the railing, I saw a cat with a purple collar sprawled out on the pavement with its tongue sticking out...it was the prototypical image you think of when you envision "dead cat." I imagined x's for its eyes, even. So I got in my car and drove away.
Arriving at Hugo's in the valley, I ran into a friend and told her about the trauma of seeing another living creature fall to its death and she asked me "well, did you go check it out?"
"Yes," I replied.
"And was it breathing?"
Hmmm. I thought for a moment. I didn't really investigate that closely.
What if the cat was still alive? What if it was injured and another animal was terrorizing it looking to scavenge some flesh? Shit...
"I have to go." I said.
So I drove back to Glendale and looked for the exit, but since the swan dive happened where all the freeways converge, it was not as easy as it sounds. Driving the other way, it's almost impossible to identify the spot on the opposite highway, what with the elevated roadways and such. Finally after searching a bit I managed to find the exit where all this madness occurred. I found myself in a strange, barren underworld, like something out of MadMax. Thunderdome was just beyond the railroad tracks. I climbed a fence and came to the landing area, but there was no cat. Damn, I thought, I really would've liked to have rescued that cute cat. It had definitely been eaten. that cat disappeared like a Queen of Hearts at the Magic Castle. I decided to give the search a couple more minutes. I saw a tuft of fur in some weeds, but assumed that it was a dead squirrel or a bit of fluff that accumulates in corners and barren wastelands, an urban tumbleweed.
The fluff unfurled itself to reveal a kitten. It struggled to its feet and tried to stand, reaching out to me in the hot sun. Holy Shit!! It's Alive!! It's so small! How did it survive that fall?!! I picked it up and took it to my car. When I walked in the door with a cat in a box, my friend Bill, who rented me his guesthouse and had a strict "no pets" policy, looked at me like I had crapped on his front lawn. I was pushing the bounds of our relationship...but this was not the time to get into it. I quickly told him the story and he said, "Well you and that cat were meant to find each other." All of the sudden, the dry-witted cynic sounded like my mom.
To make a long story short, I kept the cat and named her Ocho in honor of the life I saw her lose. She has become something of a legend. Because of this cat I found a kick-ass apartment in the Hollywood hills and got a break on rent, made friends with a classic blues musician who incorporated her into the lyrics of one of his songs, and won the hearts of a number of women in LA who are absolute suckers for a story about a man and the pussy he rescued.
So when I think about Darwin, about how only the strongest are fit to survive, I think about my cat. My mom responded with something about "the Divine order of the universe" and that I am "ready to give love to another living creature." That's all fine and good, but the way this cat fits into my meaning of life is much more simple and less mystical than all that: I did what needed to be done.
At some point in each of our lives, we witness another creature in distress when no one else does. It is at that point that you have a choice...turn a blind eye or do something about it. If you see a kid getting beaten up, a motorist who has crashed a car, a women being raped, an animal who is has obviously strayed from home...whatever the case may be...it is your duty to respond. Believe it or not, I have actually encountered every one of these situations and I have always intervened. It may be naive, but I sleep well at night. If you do step in, you can claim to be a part of the human race; if not, you are simply civilized detritus rolling along in the wind.
posted by wally @ 7:03 PM
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