While dining in a sidewalk cafe on Throckmorton Street in Ft. Worth yesterday, I saw these four creatures:
Yep. A rat sitting on a cat standing on a dog being led by a man. I said to my colleagues, "Hey, look, a dog and a cat and a rat." And they double-took. And one of them said to the guy at the next table, "Hey, did you see that rat on the cat on the dog..." and the guy said, "Oh, yeah, that dude's always walking around downtown. Crazy homeless dude."
Back at my hotel, I googled Ft. Worth+dog+cat+rat, and this vid came right up. The "homeless dude" doesn't seem crazy at all--he just prefers animals to people, sort of like Temple Grandin. And I'm actually more interested in the animal pyramid than I am in him--especially that cat, which didn't fall off when I saw the act live. The balance of a surfer, the restraint of an aikido master, and the bored expression of...a cat.
Now I'm home from Ft. Worth. There's nothing quite like this oddity here. But having seen their little promenade makes me want to pay closer attention to beautiful obsessive weirdness everywhere.
By the way, I also recently met Temple Grandin, which is a whole other story, involving a whole other hotel. And pig-stunning. Also: Throckmorton. Just wanted to say it again.
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4 comments:
Awesome!
You should hang out at Westport more. Lots of interesting people.
I used to see a guy down there who walked around with a snake around his neck and chicken on top of his head.
I saw a similar act in San Francisco last year, but it was a dog, cat, and bird combo. Maybe the bird ate the rat.
I'm reminded of the ol' group-sing-along song, There's a Hole at the Bottom of the Sea.
I seem to remember it began "There's a stump in the hole at the bottom of the sea.", each verse would add something on the last added item, sans "There's a branch on the stump, in the hole at the bottom of the sea." It was easy to sing and a real crowd pleaser, if the leader could keep building this pyramid higher, higher, more fantastic and exotic each verse.
All this singing recalls the fun time music of Mitch Miller who was quite popular during the 1960's with his singing groups and albums Sing-along with Mitch.
Time tends to obscure memories, I had trouble remembering if this song leaders name was Mitch or Scitch. Scitch sounds pretty classic and I'm still not sure.
Winter snow meant something as a kid and included doing something on the frozen streets which we called skitching. This meant to sneak up behind a stopped idling vehicle, grab it's bumper and ski along went it began to move,as in Ski/Hitching a ride.
I'd really like to see a Dog/Cat/Rat do that.
Throckmorton = best Basset Hound name ever.
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