Draw Blood!

I was in grad school in Pennsylvania, and hanging around my apartment one night, I tuned the radio to a local college radio station. It was featuring a performance by a performer I was not familiar with: Warren Zevon. His material hit a chord, and within a week I had bought a copy of his first album on cassette tape – This was the old days, folks.

That fall, I had moved out of the city to a suburb, and as the foliage fell, the new neighborhood lacked the urban thrum of the city. But inside the apartment, there was plenty of action.

Pretty soon, I was binge-listening to Zevon and dancing around the tiny apartment to Werewolves of London. But I wasn’t the only one in the apartment who was excited by Warren; my cat Clancy was too. Now, Clancy J. Bumps was a unique sort of guy. I’d brought him across the border on an epic road trip from Canada in which he’d savaged a customs agent, moused at a restaurant, and entertained bar customers that night till the final round. By turns charming or vicious, he was unique. And he decided that Warren Zevon was his taste in music.

Soon he was on the desk chair swatting at me as I danced about to the music. My cat loved to fight, and soon a new evening ritual was worked out: Warren on the tape player, the cat on the chair and him trying to bat at me while I tried to evade the claws. He put-up with the slower more sentimental music until the tempo picked up again.

All was not dancing around at grad school. I had to work once in a while, too. Clancy made his disgust clear when I chose work over a fight, listening to Zevon. I was a laggard, a slacker, and a bore. He bit down on my ankles.

Clancy became a sort of fanboy of Zevon’s ( fan-cat?). I’d bring home a new album, and he’d listen to it. The more I found out about the Zevon Lifestyle, the more I intuited why my cat may have liked him. Clancy was a rowdy, catnip-abusing, and boisterous cat. He loved a good party. Invite some friends over, put down a bowl of strong catnip tea for him, and he was ready to rock and roll. At that apartment house, we had a huge back lawn, and during the summer, we’d have several large bashes where the “Alumni” of the house would return to visit the old digs. Clancy loved these and got out to hang out with his buds.

So every once in a while, you’ll see me dancing around to Excitable Boy or Werewolves of London. I’ll try to entice my cats to party hardy, but they just look at me as if I were nuts.

HeckI think I’ll put Werewolves on now just for kicks.

Remember now, just like Clancy J, Bumps -“Bite Down!!”