New Year, new stories. Or, maybe not.

 

 

Funny/Sad, the month of January has come and gone here in 2022. The big news headlines still shout COVID daily and its politicization polarizing the continent. This has been the news since I last blogged here and the US just passed 900,000 dead from this virus this past week. More COVID deaths in the USA than any other nation, which is a staggering statistic given that India and China both have more than 4 times the population numbers we have here in the land of nothing is for free. 

People here have just about had it with each other and the various hands that feed them over this pandemic with the many tragic outcomes the virus has produced from lost businesses, lost incomes  and lost family members. Neil Young threw down the gauntlet on misinformation regarding vaccines challenging the major streaming service of his songs, Spotify, to choose between himself and his catalog of songs to stream or Joe Rogan's podcast of lies, bigotry and vaccine phobias. Spotify has chosen Joe Rogan. We'll see how it all plays out. However, one thing not lost in all the publicity of Neil's laudatory actions regarding COVID vaccine information is the sad state of compensation artists actually see from the giant streaming services like Spotify, Apple, Pandora and others. This might be the bigger reason why Neil and many of his allies, who have now followed suit by pulling their songs, removed their catalogs from Spotify. 

Other recent articles from the music biz news world I read this past month covered the sales decline of new music titles while seeing the rise in popularity of older music titles. New songs < 2 years old. Catalog songs > 2 years old. This has been happening for awhile, but has accelerated during the pandemic years. What's old is new these days for a lot of us, young and old alike, and what's new isn't all that good, just retreading old waters with new computer programs and lifted beat signatures. 

In the big scheme of things maybe none of this matters. But, since you're swimming in my universe here, and we're all seeking the connections for the good stuff over the crap that fills up the landfills in the brains of too many people today, it argues for different approaches  to seek out the art and artists that allow us to connect as human beings with real human spirits again. That's what we're missing today, and that is what the headlines shout. 

 

 

Once upon a time, and not that long ago, there was no world wide web with file swaps, downloads or streaming, and business boomed. I'm a boomer born in the 1950s, and to me that just doesn't seem that long ago, but at the beginning of that decade less than 10% of the US population had a television set and there were only 107 stations throughout the nation. Within ten years 86% of the US population had a TV. The tax rate for the highest earners in the country was 90%. I guess it was a long time ago.

I bring up television because it truly transformed American consumerism and with it the music business, of which I was a microbe in the industry for many years.  It made Elvis Presley an international star in 1956. Heartbreak Hotel was Elvis's first Number 1 hit nationally. It was released during the last week of January in 1956, which was the same week Elvis first appeared on a national network show, CBS Stage Show, hosted by the Dorsey Brothers.

I still remember after all these years, the evening a little while later when Elvis appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show (Shoe). My parents, with jazz and classical backgrounds, watched and were not that impressed by the young man's musical chops but still found themselves mesmerized by the performances. I was allowed to stay up late (8 or 9 pm)  for that evening to catch the next big thing on the TV. They didn't buy Elvis records as it turned out, but did plunk down a big chunk of cash shortly thereafter for a top of the line stereo system, which my grandparents felt was a true waste of a healthy sum of money. That argument still reverberates in my skull all these years later. It was a crucible. 

I was hooked on music at an early age. My dad was a great freelance explorer on the piano who followed a melody for a few bars and then took off to the stars on it. My mom played from sheet music, but played well. As a young kid I listened to a lot of novelty tunes (Ray Stevens & Sheb Wooley come to mind) and classical music, mostly Russian and French composers (DeBussy, Ravel, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Rachmaninoff & Borodin). Elvis was more of a movie star celebrity rather than a pop star by the early 60s. Grammar school was coming to a close and an Ed Sullivan show again changed the world's scenery.

Eight years after Elvis, during February of 1964 The Beatles arrived in New York and played on the Ed Sullivan Show. The number of households watching this one show were incredible with all sorts of viewing records shattered and untold numbers of records to be sold in the near future. The greatest marketing campaign ever launched a British invasion of young rock acts that helped feed the pop music for 30 years. Saturate the markets of radio, television and print and you can sell the product. Everybody wanted in on the new beats, the new fashions, the new music, the new stories and all things youth. I had finally found something in common with girls.

 

 

We're a long way removed from those days, when a couple of start up paper rags (Creem Magazine & Rolling Stone Magazine) began covering all things rock in the pop music universe and helped create new publishing empires centered on the music business.  My friends and I, who all used to hang out and do the sports things of the day together on the various playgrounds, swapped the sports equipment for guitars, keyboards and drums. So many business sprang up and thrived selling the various accessories associated with the music we all thought it would never end. It's been a roller coaster of a ride for all these years, but the last couple of years has been the lowest I've ever seen the music industry in my lifetime. 

Ownership of music product has almost disappeared. There were roughly one billion CDs sold in year 2000 for roughly a $14 billion which was pretty much the size of the industry at that time. In year 2020 31.6 million CDs were purchased for a rough figure of $480 million out of a $12 billion industry. Subscription services  like Apple and Spotify today account for just about 70% of the dollars generated for the now $12 billion recorded music industry. Ownership, and not just for music is becoming an endangered species in this day and age, certainly here in the USA.

In the digital age of world wide webs with millions of channels and billions upon billions  of pages we seem to have everything in the way of information and entertainment at our disposal. All instantly available to peruse when we wish. And yet, we find ourselves living day-to-day on the lifeline of transmission methods we subscribe to at ever rising costs with almost no vested interest any longer in the offerings. What was once a cultural smorgasbord where pride of ownership with cars, books, art, fashion, albums, videos, silver, china, cards and whatever have all become relic equivalents of an archeological dig into the Bronze Age. Back in those 1950s days I mentioned a few paragraphs back, when television was brand new, the airwaves (the means of transmission) belonged to the public in the national best  interests. All citizens got all the same channels all the time Today we are a fractured fairy tale where way too many are priced out of both culture and vital honest information. 

We reach the end, which means we begin. 

Let's see where this takes us. Thanks for stopping by

What Happened?

                       A Blink Of An Eye And It All Went Bye                                  

                                                            

 

Sixty-eight years on the planet, and I find it tough recalling the early years most days. Gotta concentrate on images  and connections from those little long-ago snapshots in the brain to piece the memory-weave together to form some manner of context. One of the pictures that pops into the old noggin from time to time shows a modest cabin built upon a hillside with a big oak tree and swing arching over a screened front porch. The leaves gather on the slope as the swing glides over the precipice. A wooden carved signboard is affixed above the porch with the words Casa de Suena (House of Sleep). 

The cabin offered a great escape from the everyday for adults and kids of the two related families, who over the summer months would take the modest drives from Bakersfield to Breckenridge Mountain. My grandfather with my dad, and some paid skilled labor assistance from plumbers and carpenters they knew and hired, had built the cabin over a lengthy period of time from the late 1930s until its completion a couple of years after WWII.  It had a small gas generator to keep on a few lights, a radio and a small black & white television set.

Television in those by-gone days of the 1950s was a big deal, but with very limited choices. In Bakersfield we had three channels. At the cabin during our usual weekend stays I prayed for just one channel to actually come in on the little set. That was the CBS channel where Dizzy Dean and Pee Wee Reese would broadcast the usual Yankees versus the you-pick-the-team Tigers/Indians/Red Sox/Orioles/White Sox/Athletics/Senators- baseball game of the week. A lot of snow on the screen, a little sound with much antenna shuffling and maneuvering to try and catch the plate appearances of Mickey Mantle. "We didn't come up to this beautiful spot for you to watch TV", I can hear my mother say.

So most of the time was spent exploring the great outdoors along trails the original parcel owners of the land (a few of the mucky-mucks of Kern County in the 1920s and 1930s) had purchased and semi-developed with varying structures at the Breckenridge community.  Cattle grazed in some of the meadows, and a few little creeks meandered through the mountainside. Fools gold shone through these small waterways. Mining for real gold filled a kid's imagination along with adventures of the old west brought to life on dusty pathways with the potential of bandits and bears lurking everywhere. On one trip my cousin, Jim, and I discovered an archeological find....well, okay it was some poor cow's remains of bones in a bog that we dug up and laid out for the world to see. I think we got a couple of "attaboys" from the adults. 

Water was precious, and a large water tower had been installed to service the very small community of cabins that made up this old hideaway.  The cry from adult men and women alike all through the mountainside abodes was, "Don't drink the water!" And so, every adult I witnessed drank large amounts of beer, vodka, gin or bourbon to quench their thirst. Kids downed soda-pops. Although, there was a toilet with indoor plumbing in our cabin there was also a Marine toilet outhouse which everyone occasionally used. "Don't use too much water now."

Hunting rifles and pistols were common in most cabins I visited on the mountain. Our cabin had a deer head mounted over the fireplace. A trophy from one of my grandfather's hunting trips to Yosemite many years before. The synapses fire up old black and white photographs of my grandfather with men and women on horseback with a snowy background all holding some variety of rifle in a long lost Yosemite wilderness area ready for the hunt.

I learned how to fire a pistol and a rifle from my dad over many of our weekends we spent at the cabin. Learned how to clean and maintain guns. My father was actually quite a marksman. I stood next to him as he shot a rattlesnake at ten paces away when he stopped on one of our treks up the winding road from our home to the cabin.  Hit the snake right in the head. Lucky shot? I saw him take an old bb-gun and nail a mouse moving up our cabin wall from 20 feet away right between the eyes. The old man could shoot. My father collected an odd assortment of guns over his lifetime. Flintlock rifles, WWII M-1, an old Winchester 25-20, some shotguns and a few old pistols from the 1880s of differing calibers. Most of these were the artifacts of history and were a testament of his fondness for that "old west" period he just missed.  My dad got his talent from my grandfather's family with colorful and sad stories of mining, logging and craziness. Here are a couple of shots from long gone relatives of mine way back in the 1890s. AS you can see the women in our families always wore the pants. My gramps is the young "lass" second from the left. Old times, good times!

                  

 

                                                                

During my cabin years, so to speak, westerns were a big deal on the television networks. Shows like Wanted Dead Or Alive, Have Gun Will Travel, Gunsmoke, The Rifleman, Maverick, Bonanza, Cheyenne, The Lone Ranger, Bronco, Colt .45 along with many others from this dusty oft-used genre filled the evening schedules  to compete against the many variety shows and Perry Mason episodes. The western settings from a long ago America with a few major characters working out various moral questions or dramatic situations fit the evening bill from the late 1950s to mid 1960s. Guns and plots were pretty simple. It was a black and white world.

Thanks for stopping by to check in on a time and space snap shot from quite a few miles back. This was a favorite motto for those days.

                                                            





   

July 13, 1985 Live Aid Remembered

Back on the keyboard here in the blog palace of all things improbable to put a blast from the past together for your eyes only. The strain from all these recent shootings in America from Baton Rouge to Minneapolis to Dallas to pick any-city-in-our-nation wears on me to the point where I find myself looking for any escape from today's reality. I bunker in my little music room a lot of days burning LPs onto my hard drive and remember the occasions many of these records played in my everyday long ago.

A week ago a record I bumbled onto, and decided to pop on my USB line to the audio command module, was Tonic For The Troops by the Boomtown Rats. The Rats were fronted by Bob Geldof, who you may remember played Pink in the excellent movie adaptation of Pink Floyd's album, The Wall.  If you're really old you may also remember Bob was, also, the driving force in putting together  the greatest rock show and charitable event ever done in this or any other lifetime, Live Aid. As I burned my LP copy of Tonic For The Troops I remembered Midge Ure and his band Ultravox. I burned some Vienna, as well, and thought of these two Irish rockers going all balls for the greater good. The two of them with help from music business stalwarts formed Band Aid, created Live Aid all those years ago. 

A quarter of the world's population watched the broadcast on July 13, 1985 which translates to about three billion eyeballs and three billion ears witnessing a seminal event. It was Joey's On The Street that jogged my old brain to ponder that historic concert and wonder what day would mark the anniversary this summer.

Thirty one years is a long time in any life. A lot can happen. A lot can be forgotten. In July of 1985 the Soviet Union was in year 6 of their Afghan war and occupation, which would ultimately bankrupt the country and break it apart becoming the new Russia we know today. Ronald Reagan was in the first year of his second term in office with the Iran-Contra affair just about set to blow along with CIA drug trafficking allegations and the rise of the crack epidemic in major cities of the US. The Savings & Loan industry was reeling and a year away from total collapse. Boris Becker, now Novak Djokovic's coach, won Wimbledon at the age of 17 as an unseeded entry.  Africa was suffering from drought, war and famine at horrific levels that shocked the world. No Internet for the public, No cellular phones.

The biggest bands of the 1970s, The Eagles, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin were all defunct by the summer of 1985. Each group had been gone from the scene for 5 years. Robert Plant was on tour in the US in the summer of 1985 and in a hastily made decision went to Philadelphia to play with Jimmy Page while using Phil Collins on the drums. It did not turn out so swell.

Michael Jackson, Phil Collins, Prince and Bruce Springsteen ruled the charts. Of these 1980s heavyweights, only Phil Collins appeared on the stages of Live Aid. Jackson and Stevie Wonder boycotted the event over the lack of black artists. Prince sent a video clip. Springsteen's management thought the concert and broadcast was no big deal and declined Geldof's invitation. David Gilmour played for Bryan Ferry, who was minus Roxy Music, and was going solo. Sting had left The Police and appeared with Branford Marsalis, who would gain a wide audience as Jay Leno's bandleader on The Tonight Show from 1992 through 1995.  The Rolling Stones were in the throes of the Mick versus Keith grudge match, which is why Mick appears with David Bowie and Tina Turner in videos while Keith and Ronnie appear with Bob Dylan. Were the Stones through? This was a burning question in 1985. Seems funny that the guys are still touring in 2016. You can't make this shit up. 

All artists waived all their copyright titles and donated their time and talents. On that one July 13th day $80 million dollars was raised to combat hunger in Africa.  It helped that U2, Queen and Eric Clapton put on virtuoso performances that riveted the crowds and television viewers. It was a magical day for goodness in the modern world. The Concorde still flew and took Phil Collins from Heathrow to Philadelphia International while so many in the world watched him take off and land. Everything seemed possible. Nothing seemed impossible. Hope and best wishes held the day.

In 2005 I bought the DVD of Live Aid. I'm playing it here in Thrasher Condo-land this week. Geldof and Ure wanted the event to be forever a memory with the broadcast tapes destroyed. Some of the US footage was per the request, but fortunately the BBC and MTV saved a lot of the footage. 2005 also spawned Live 8. Another huge event of music to thwart misery in the world. Live 8 was a series of concerts done on July 2, 2005 targeting the G8 nations for more support to Africa. It will always be remembered as the final Pink Floyd concert where all four founding members played onstage together for the first time in 24 years and for the last time. A curiosity is that July 2 was to have been America's Independence Day. That's the day Congress voted to declare our independence from England. But, signing day on the 4th became our fireworks day.

I've ordered Live 8 this week, even though it suffered in the ratings here in North America at the time it happened a decade ago, because the US had replaced the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and our government was destroying the Middle East in Iraq, the event still shone through as a testament to humanity's better spirit. We should remember and celebrate the positives from time to time and hope that some young people today find a mechanism to move our culture away from guns, violence and death glorification to honoring peace love and happiness for all our communities.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope you enjoyed the trip from Memory Lane.

His Story -Row Row Row Your Boat Gently Down The Stream-

Welcome to a new chapter on  this blog outpost. The posts going forward will be small installments of his story, history from my addled point of view. If the legend is a better read than the fact I'll print it, but truth  always prevails eventually. I hope you'll enjoy the ride from my time machine which will focus on my ride through the pop culture landscape these 60 some odd years. Here is numero uno, a recent glimpse.

Seems like such a long time waiting to see the results of Colin Hanks' vision of the Tower Records history and legacy. I think the original genesis of this project was hatched back in 2008 if my memory still functions, but a little more than a month ago with my lady friend along for the event I sat watching a big part of what I lived unfold again for about 90 minutes as All Things Must Pass: The Rise and Fall of Tower Records sprang to life on the big screen at the Tower Theater here in Sacramento, CA. So fitting to find myself soaked in anticipation mixed with trepidation  among so many friends and comrades from days gone by at the corner of 16th and Broadway where Russ Solomon began the Tower adventure in his dad's drugstore so many years ago.

The title of the documentary comes from a small sign one of Paul Brown's employees at the Watt Avenue store (#113) put up on the outside reader-board when the sale and liquidation of all company assets was announced in 2006. There is a sad, and yet whimsical truth Paul delivers in the movie noting how this message of love and resignation went down, but after viewing this work I believe another George Harrison song, Photograph, which he wrote for Ringo on the only Beatle solo album where all four mop-tops perform (though never together on one song) serves as a better tune to mark where we all are today.



Whimsy mixed with attitude and bravado defined a lot of what Russ and Tower Records were all about for so long, and Colin Hanks captures that spirit expertly in this documentary. The film is not a Ken Burns treatment with details culled from varied players and historians looking at all sides of important dates and events. It is not a Michael Moore treatise of humor and pathos looking at a world and culture which has lost its ability to care for its citizens. Hanks and his team deliver a thoughtful and well constructed overview stamped with their own signature. The documentary covers many salient points marking the years with clips and comments from key figures concerning the changes and the end of Tower Records.

I expected more commentators from the Tower side, but the ones that were chosen were exceptional throughout with analysis, great humor and tears. Russ shines brightly with wit and insight over the entire film. How could he not? He was/is the star. David Geffen and Elton John are particularly eloquent with their comments, and it was a treat to see Bruce Springsteen, Dave Grohl and Chris Cornell all give their takes on the Tower Records experience. But, the Tower peeps steal the show with some expressed commentary which still blows me away from the force of the brutal familial honesty mixed with love and pain. 

It has taken weeks now for the experience of the documentary to settle and relax in my mind. My initial thoughts were a mad rush of exhilaration mixed with equal amounts of depression that nearly overwhelmed me at various moments, but time blended with vodka-cranberry along with chats among friends have helped soothe that brief turmoil  to give me a little better perspective and peace.

The corporate end of the line for such a magnificent and important cultural force, which Tower Records certainly was, still keeps its grip on so many of us who either toiled as employees or as partners from the various supply sides. People can quickly and easily forget many things in life, but I encourage any of you who stumble on this blog post to take a good look at people today in various aspects of business life and check out the wide variety of tattoos, piercings and studs proudly worn by American employees in every sector across this land, and note that none of this self expression in the work place came about until Tower Records broke the barriers with a staff of fashion anarchists who shone on a highly visible and global stage for the world to see and then adopt over time. Yes, the business side of Tower Records met its demise almost a decade ago, but the energy of Tower Records is alive and well in the diverse and full catalog world we inhabit today.

Tower Records was fashion, philosophy and art nestled in entertainment retail. The unique Tower formula of partnering with its suppliers to levels that never existed before, or since, where sales and marketing armies of labels, studios and publishers worked the various store floors as virtual retail staffs alongside the Tower labor force to assist customers all those many years allowed the company to prosper. When merger mania gripped the world by the late 1990s that business model weakened, and finally broke altogether by the new millennium.  

When I think of the end of Tower Records, which this fine documentary forces me to do, I think of the movie, The Perfect Storm. Wolfgang Petersen directed the film which was based on a best selling nonfiction book written by Sebastian Junger. Yes, the company expanded into Argentina in 1997 just one year prior to that country's disastrous economic collapse with a depression that lasted four years and wiped out the venture. Other markets had cooled in England, Canada and Mexico. Napster was on the scene and singles could not be had from the major vendor partners. Credit was becoming tight and record sales were flat or just beginning to decline in a $14 billion dollar industry at year end 2000. At the midway point in 2001 all these factors were still considered manageable by everyone in the company as Tower cleared a billion dollars in sales for fiscal year 2000. We all could have been wrong, and certainly as the film correctly highlights mistakes had been made. But for all that, it was when September 11, 2001 arrived and Tower Records became the retailer cast as the Andrea Gail where the company was pounded by the wave it could not have foreseen and could not withstand. That was the end. Deprived of the two best markets and many of the highest volume stores for the fall and holiday season of 2001 every bill came due in 2002 and saw the management decks all cleared.

 

Just sad, really. I still vividly recall sitting with my friend, Stan, in his office on that September morning. With nearly all the corporate office folks gone home, or gone elsewhere to witness this tragedy with family and friends, we watched some of the coverage for a time and realized the year was now financial toast, and that the company had sustained a mortal blow. When you become numb reality takes on a much sharper focus. Life, we both knew, would never be the same.  
    
Thank you, Colin Hanks for making this movie. Thank you, Russ, Stan, Randi, Jennifer, Bob, Bud, Tony, and everyone else at Tower and in the Biz where I worked with for 23 years for giving me the time of my life. This a high quality project brought to completion by many many small contributors from the Kickstarter community. It was quite moving to hear Colin Hanks acknowledge the Kickstarter family contributions as the key to getting his film funded. Truly, a marvelous magic lantern moving photograph "of all the places we used to go."

Thanks for the visiting. 
     





     

  

The Gift

California weather differs from the rest of the world's climates. When you live here you realize only two seasons, summer and winter, reside in this state. March and October serve as bridge months cycling in the new and phasing out the old.

I walked the American River's south side a week ago and felt the change in the air, just east of Gristmill. It was not the first time I had ventured into and along the nature paths since my move back to the region. I share it frequently with one of my best friends here in Northern California, Kathy. The experience of the walk along the trails with the crisp morning air, the sounds of scurrying wildlife and the fresh scents of the river trails after a recent rain shook me a week ago. I felt a presence, and a longing, gentle-powerful and bittersweet enveloping me.   

This spot on the map will always hold a special place in my mind and heart.This was the domain of King Putt, my beloved feline companion for 17 years. He went by a lot of names, most were very affectionate. Baudelaire was his given name, Bo Kitty, the most common. Bo, Putter, Turd, The Gift, The Big Guy, Bad Kitty Bo and That Cat all had their moments on any given day over the years. They all fit at any given time and place.

On Saturday morning I found out in an e-mail Bo Kitty had died. I guess it happened fairly quickly. So quickly that a call to me on the Thursday he passed was out of the question given the circumstances. The housemaid had come for the day, and Bo Kitty would normally vacate the interior for backyard calm at the maid service arrival. I learned The Big Guy was sprawled on the slate entry way when my ex got home. She tried moving him but he was in acute distress crying and growling in pain when touched or moved. He never growled the entire time I knew him, so I understood this was a terrible sign. The emergency vet gave the grim diagnosis and Vicky ended his acute agony.

So quickly life can change, or end.

The very toughest part of my moving back to the Sacramento area after ten years exiled in Bakersfield was not taking Putter back with me. I could not bear to force another move on my old warrior comrade into the totally inside quarters of condo life after he finally found happiness in a Bo Kitty friendly neighborhood at a house on Wood Lane in Bakersfield. And so, he stayed behind, and I cried when I hugged and kissed him for the last time in mid-March of this year.

He was 17 and deaf. He still looked good, except his inner eyelids were beginning to creep up and stick causing vision problems and disorientation for some lengthy moments during many days this past winter. He still had his appetite. He still cruised the grounds and slept in his favorite spots inside and out. He and I slept together on the couch and guest bed the last six months I lived there. 

I know everyone has, or has had, The Best Pet ever in their lifetime. And I'm sure they were the best pet ever for all of you, but they were not, and could never be Bo Kitty, The King Putt of the American River.

He was a gift to a young bride back in the day when love was still in bloom and life offered just the promises of happy days in soft blankets of wedded bliss. She wanted a pure bred kitten, a Maine Coon. She had done her research, as she always did, and found a highly reputable breeder. I can still visualize the house in unincorporated Sacramento near the Yolo County-Sacramento County border where we went on our search. The huge cages where the stunning 20-plus pound stud cats were housed, the cacophony of howls and barks from the many dogs and cats also on the property, and the quiet bedrooms where mommy cats of the breed looked after their recently born kittens.  It was in a small bedroom with three adorable little fur-balls and their mom we spied The Gift. My young lady conferred with me, but it was her choice, and he would be hers in a few weeks time. The breeder allowed us to see the kitten's father, Ice Man, in a closed off room. This was no cat to mess with, all balls and one of the most visually stunning silver mackerel marked cats I had ever seen.

I can't remember how much I spent to obtain Baudelaire, which is the name Vicky chose for her kitten. Maybe it was $500 to acquire this little pure bred Maine Coon, the only pure cat breed (by the way) originating in North America. It was a terribly small price when all is said and done. Since it was early April, The Gift, she assured me, would take care of both her birthday and wedding anniversary gifts for that year. A thoughtful gesture, and one I would remember over all these years.

He arrived with papers and restrictions from the breeder. He had to be neutered, which was no problem. He should be only a house cat and could not be let outside without a carrier or leash. Sure thing. He met our wonderful Sheltie,  Bosco, and they became fast friends from their first moment together when they rubbed noses. Bo lasted as an indoor cat for about two weeks. I made the mistake of carrying him out to our side lawn in the back yard away from the pool, and plunked him on the grass where he joyfully explored strange new sights and smells and was immediately stung by a hornet hovering near some clover.

Well, that did not go so swell. I was in the doghouse for a spell and the little kitty (unfazed by the sting after a short bit) no longer would ever be satisfied with staying inside. His will was indomitable. And so we put in a pet door, and Bo Kitty went to claim his kingdom.

As it turned out, he conquered me first. He chose me as his cat servant extraordinaire. He played me like a virtuoso plays the instrument of his choosing, and I loved every moment- even through all the worry, guilt, anxiety, and prolonged separations life dishes out to creatures both large and small when they find themselves inextricably bound together by the fates of choices made. And so it was after a time Bo Kitty had become my cat. It was not what I intended, but so much of life turns out to be a series of unintended consequences as I think about it. Choices made and outcomes result, and seldom do they go as planned. I think a Scottish poet a long time ago said it better.

Bo lived his first 6 years on a street right along the American River with Vicky and I and my two sons (hers  as well for a goodly period of time). He grew along with a few little orphan kitties Vicky nurtured and adopted and our precious Bosco pup. The houses across the street abutted the trails and levies coursing the river banks. The river and those banks became Putt's kingdom. Our home his castle.

I won't bore you with long stories of Bo's prowess I will only state a few facts. I've seen him jump off rooftops at nearly 30mph and jump over a seven foot fence like it was nothing while heading home when he was being chased. I've seen him leap off a couch cushion to land 12feet high on a living room window sill. I've seen him carrying on a small fence ledge a large jack-rabbit in his mouth while two rottweilers jumped, growled and barked at him below trying to knock him off his wooden perch path position. I've seen him carry in his mouth while crossing our street a live rattle snake, and kill it with one bite in my front yard. My neighbor at the time, Don, had come running over with his shovel to kill the snake and just looked at me in disbelief as he witnessed the end of the rattler's life. "Won't need this shovel after all', Don said. I can't count the number of rats, voles, birds and other game who all wandered into his kingdom and never made it out again. I have discovered on my old coffee table two fresh rabbit feet left as my gift. He was an amazing specimen of all that is feline.

But more than physical feats, the cat had a regal and serene quality to him that nearly every person who he encountered marveled at. Don and Taiko, Jake and Melissa, Howard and Mary Lee, Dean and Linda, Merle, Jerry and other passersby all paid homage to King Putt as he would sprawl on the top of any of our vehicles parked in our driveway as they walked past our home. "That is some cat." For those who came into our home for some parties, poker or a quiet get together and got to see him up close and personal on his cat tree or sprawled on his couches the refrain was the same. "That is some cat."

Yes, he was. He was still some cat after living in hell for six years on University Avenue. Events of family and business had forced a move from our home in Sacramento. Homes in Bakersfield were selling in seconds, (remember the boom before the eventual bust?) and I got the best one I could find at the time. But, it was no prize. Much busier through street, alleys, intense heat, very few trees and a not very cat friendly town conspired against us as daily reminders of this new opposite lifestyle we now all shared. But time skipped on by to its peculiar cadence, and Bo finally got a reprieve from the indoor prison.  He moved with us all to a place where his old frame and curiosity could enjoy. His last five years were spent examining nearly a third of an acre in cat friendly surroundings with his personal water tank, the pool again, too quench his thirst. It wasn't the river, but it would serve.    

As I sit and churn these memories for you on this evening, I am reminded of a November night some 15 years ago when it was pouring rain and Bo Kitty had been absent for a full day. I had been out  calling his name for hours. Some of the less complimentary names Bo has acquired over the years were certainly uttered. I'd gone through the river access walkway (a path Bo never took) looking for him several times. No luck. I told myself this last attempt would be the final time to check on him. And who do I see turning along the curb drenched to a point he was hardly recognizable? The Putt, looking like a shriveled dish rag trotting into my outstretched arms. He looked pathetic, a scrawny bony mass of hair matted tightly against his skin. I took him inside. Vicky and I toweling him off and tucking him onto our bed. Finding my side a little soggy through the comforter when we turned in for the night, I put a throw on the bed and placed the cat tucked behind my legs at just below the knee after I squirmed inside the covers.

 I felt his back pressed against my legs wriggling and tensed for quite awhile before I dozed into a decent sleep. I woke up, and miraculously Bo had transformed back into his regal self. He was there through the night like he had been on the couch for all these years. Calm, contented and quietly urging that I move quickly to the food station for treats and a meal. He was tweaking my big toe with the edge of his nails in that playful but insistent way only he possessed.

I miss you greatly, my dear old friend. Vicky promised me a thoughtful reminder of you with your paw imprint to go with my memories of our lives together. You remain always, The Gift.