Episode 1663 - Jackson Galaxy

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Lock the gate!

All right, let's do this.

How are you, what the fuckers?

What the fuck, buddies?

What the fuck, Nicks?

What's happening?

I'm Mark Maron.

This is my podcast.

Welcome to it.

How are you?

Are you okay?

Is everything all right?

I've been talking about this anxiety and just, I don't know,

I don't know what to tell you anymore.

You know, it just manifests

in weird ways, but God knows my cats have been part of my life for a long time, different sets of cats, and I just can never quite manage to relax.

around these goddamn cats and I assume that it's just a projection of my larger inability to feel like I have any sort of control over the world, over my life, over anything else.

I don't know.

I just get very,

I just wanted to,

why can't I just have normal, relaxing cats

ever?

So today I talked to Jackson Galaxy, you know, out of need more than anything else.

All right.

He's a cat behaviorist.

He was the host of the animal planet show My Cat from Hell and is the author of several books on cats.

And I've been hearing about him for years.

You know, people are like, you got to talk to Jackson.

You got to talk to Jackson.

He'll help you out.

You know, I want a fucking miracle, man.

Some people are getting on me saying that, you know, I can't, you know,

rehouse

Charles, Charlie Beans Roscoe, that, you know, it's my responsibilities.

My kid.

Someone wrote, he's not your wife.

He's a kid.

But like, I just, I'm starting to feel

like he would be happier in a single cat home with a lot of people.

He just likes people.

Yeah, I know he likes me.

He's very attached to me, but he doesn't give a fuck about the other cats.

And, you know, it's getting violent over here.

And I'm out in the world doing all this press and doing all this stuff.

Bad guys is opening on August 1st.

And my special comes out August 1st.

They just picked up Stick

for another season.

And I'm like,

I'm at the edge of a fucking nervous breakdown over here.

The show, this show is ending.

A lot of changes.

I'm sure that's having an effect.

I'm sure that, you know, I'm processing that or not

at a, you know, a fairly deep level.

But I just want some peace in my house.

And there's nothing but tension.

There's nothing but feline tension.

You know, and Charlie is violent towards Buster.

Like, you know, I don't know that cats kill each other, but they're both beat up pretty bad.

Charlie's got like a, you you know, a fucking gouge, a teeth gouge,

you know, on his arm.

And I feel little scabs on both of them.

And I just want peace in the fucking house, man.

I'm just,

I'm on edge.

And I know like people are like,

dude, they're just cats.

You know, kids, like, they're just cats.

You know, it'll resolve itself.

It's not.

You know, I gotta, I guess I gotta get more human contact.

I don't know, but, but, like, in, in my brain

and in my life,

there's just so much going on.

So much of it is overwhelming.

So much of it is scary.

And you just want the cats to be there.

I guess if I wanted something to love me unconditionally, I should have got dogs, but they're even more responsibility.

I just can't figure out

how to

ease this situation.

You want it to ease with time.

And it's just, I think all my cats

represent a different part of me.

You know, that again,

anthropomorphizing, maybe projecting.

I don't know.

But I think, you know, Buster is a pretty sensitive guy,

you know, kind of avoidant, but sensitive and, you know, wants love.

And Sam is kind of a doof.

You know, he doesn't, you know, quite know how to receive the love.

And I'm not sure he wants it, but occasionally he does.

And he's awkward.

And Charlie just, he loves people.

Anybody, anybody who walks into the house, he loves them.

But when I go away, it's just all shit and and hits the fan.

You know, he's not shitting all over the place, but I get back and they get into these fights where

Buster is screaming and pissing and shitting.

And it's like a fucking nightmare.

And I don't know if you people know my history with cats.

I imagine some of you do.

First cat I had was Butch,

female cat, butchy.

That was given to me by my second wife before we were married.

And I loved that kitten.

And I moved to LA with that kitten.

I drove that kitten in a car with a plant that it liked to sleep on.

I had a potted plant in the back because he liked to sleep on it like she gives a shit.

And we're staying in hotel rooms and we're going through all that anxiety of driving a cat across country with a truck that broke down in Pennsylvania an hour and a half outside of New York.

Oh God.

And we got the cat here and we thought we should get another cat for butch.

And so we went to this shelter and there were all these sad old cats at the shelter and I picked this one orange cat that seemed out of its mind that already had the name Boomer.

And I realize now, you know, in retrospect, having dealt with ferals, that it was just a feral that ended up at a shelter, so very difficult to socialize.

And he just, he became a problem.

He pissed all over everything when I moved into the house and eventually became an outdoor cat and eventually fucking disappeared, of course.

Very sad.

When I think about this, it's all sad.

And then there were the

alley cats of Astoria saved a ferr feral litter meanie hissy monkey lafonda the mom got them all fixed had them all in the house they destroyed the house somehow monkey and lafonda made the cut i gave away the other one the other one ran away i lived with them for years and they were half feral

but i remember when buster came in when buster showed up on the doorstep a few months old maybe two months

freaked out.

I think he was a kitten that got away.

I don't think it was a complete feral.

But there was a period there when Monkey was ailing, you know, and

LaFonda was LaFonda was a mean, crazy, unpredictable cat, but I loved her.

But Monkey was not doing well, and Buster, as a, like at the same age Charlie, would just try to beat the shit out of him.

So I guess it's a thing,

but it's very upsetting.

Then there was Moxie, who ended up with

my ex-wife, who she brought into the fold.

Very smart cat, that Moxie.

I don't know what happened to Moxie.

I think Moxie ended up in Seattle.

But, you know, Monkey and LaFonda, you know, ran their course, got kidney failure, and I had to put them down.

And then I had just Buster, and it was just me and Buster for a while, and that was great.

And then kid knew a woman that she worked with who's like, there was a litter at the grandparents, or whatever.

And then I ended up with stupid Sammy, who was a cute kitten.

And now he's still a pretty good cat.

He's got his own vibe.

And then somehow or another, some feral mother had a bunch of kittens next door over here and was moving them around.

And Charlie was under the steps, like two, three weeks old.

And I thought, like, I can change that cat's life.

And now I have.

And he's a spoiled little fuck.

But I love him.

He's a good guy when he's a good guy.

But I just, you know, you can't, there's no way to break up a fucking cat fight.

And it's just a goddamn nightmare.

If they're focused, if Charlie's locked in on Buster and I scare them apart and then he'll just go chase them down again, it's just too much, man.

And on top of that, you know, my brain is shredding.

Like I'm really not in a great place

mentally or emotionally for a lot of reasons that are probably, you know,

valid,

but nothing I'm unable to compartmentalize.

And all this shit's raining down on me all at once.

And it's like, it's crushing me.

I've been here before.

I've been through a lot of shit.

You all have been through this shit with me.

But God damn it.

It's just a drag.

But I guess life is like that, right?

And

my problems as a guy with no kids and a bunch of cats is pretty low on the scale of things to really worry about.

But

it all fucking, you know,

it all adds up.

Anyway, this is where I'm at today.

Where are you at?

I'm all right.

I'm spiritually sound.

I am,

what am I even saying?

What am I even saying?

My brain is on fire.

Got to play music later, been rehearsing.

That's been a pretty good thing.

You know, doing new things when you get to a certain age is...

a little daunting you know and i've been playing guitar a long time and playing with people on and off for the past few years but never feeling the confidence always choking on stage and And, you know, I just got to remember, dude, you got to put your hours in.

So I'm working with a new group of musicians this time, and we're actually rehearsing.

And we rehearsed last night for a few hours, and it felt pretty good just to do that process.

But it's just so kind of scary to embark on a creative thing that, like, look, I play by myself and it's fine and I'm okay.

But, you know, just to really do it and put the songs together and work them and, you know, make decisions around them and trying to get my voice so, I can sing

from my stomach with a certain amount of confidence.

It's just,

some people, it's just like, well, that sounds like a fun thing to do.

You know, it's not.

I want it to be fun, but it's not going to be fun until I feel confident doing it.

You know, it's the same thing when people tell me to play golf.

I mean, come on.

I mean, how much do you have to suck before you even get kind of good?

So at this age, you got to kind of gauge the amount of time,

if it's even possible to get to a place where it's fun because you're good enough at it.

I'm at odds with myself

and it happens.

And I guess it'll pass, but it's been a few weeks, you know, where I'm just consumed with this.

I can't get out from under the weight of the anxiety and the dread.

And I was okay for a while, but I also realized today that another thing is, is like outside of the podcast ending, you know, I just dumped an hour, 10-minute special.

I've just been working on that.

I've been working on that for years, year and a half.

And this is that feeling, you know, you're at fucking

square one with a new hour, and I never know where it's going to come from.

And I'm just sort of like, is that going to happen?

Oh, my God.

You know, there's just that part of you that's like, let's just fucking hang it up.

Just stop.

It usually comes, and I'm kind of, you know, I'm, I'm doing funny stuff.

I'm getting up there.

And I'll let you know how it goes.

I'm okay, man.

I'm okay.

And hopefully, you know, this talk with Jackson will level me off.

And maybe you can listen to it.

Maybe you need this kind of help.

I don't know.

But before I

bring him on, I'll be at the 92nd Street Y in New York City in conversation with Jim Gaffigan on Thursday, July 31st.

That's for the premiere.

We're going to be premiering a little day early,

the special.

So we'll watch the special and then Jim's going to talk to me.

That'll be nice to see Jim.

You can go to wtfpod.com slash tour for links to tickets.

And then August 1st is a big day.

That's when my special, Mark Maron Panicked, premieres on HBO, streaming on HBO Max.

And that's also the release date for the Bad Guys 2.

Also, the season finale of Stick is now streaming on Apple TV Plus.

Does it did that just make you anxious?

All that stuff?

I mean, the work is done.

Phew, still, then there's the wave of anxiety from that.

The special dropping.

All right, look, I'm not going to drag you guys down.

I'll be all right.

And it was fun talking to Jackson Galaxy.

You can check out his YouTube page and jacksongalaxy.com.

And this is me having a chat with the cat daddy.

So yeah, so I guess it's high time we met.

Yeah, man.

You're on those two?

What are you on?

I'm on anything.

I do a lot of nicotine.

Me too.

Tons of it.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, you got the Zin?

I've got breakers.

What are the breakers?

Oh,

that little dot.

Oh, yeah, I have, what, what milligram?

As far up as it goes, these are eight.

You do eight breakers?

Yeah.

Is that a lot?

Well, look, man, I've been a nicotine junkie my whole life and on and off, but you know, mostly on.

I haven't smoked cigarettes in years.

Yeah.

But, you know, these, I was on Real Snooze for a while from Sweden with the tobacco.

Yeah.

But these things seem to be the best thing.

And how much of that?

Just three.

Wow.

I don't know why.

I don't know if I've become

weak.

I was going to say, you want to see who's the worst addict in this room?

Like, so we got that, and then we got the gum.

Well, I've tried that, but that does nothing.

How many milgrams is that?

Six.

Oh, you got six milgrams.

No, no, I can't.

I only get the highest.

And so this is eight.

I'll probably put a piece of gum in my mouth, except I'm talking.

I vape.

I like.

You vape too.

I do.

Oh, so you're hardcore.

I am so hardcore.

I just find.

Well, I mean, I think, you know, we're both sober.

So, right?

So that, you know, you're going to need something.

That's what I'm saying.

You know what?

You know, in the rooms,

20 years on and off.

And

the mantra is don't fuck with my nicotine or my caffeine, and we'll get along just fine, you know, because I've given up everything else.

Yeah, you know, I've talked about it before with people that they don't seem to

understand.

Who was I talking to last night?

I mean, I'm coming up on, wow.

Next month, there'll be 26 in a row.

Fucking birthday.

It's crazy, dude.

That's amazing.

That's crazy.

I think you're just a little younger than me.

So, you know, we were at it.

Am I younger than you?

I'm 61.

I'm 59.

Yeah, I'll be 62 in September.

Right on.

But the nicotine thing, I'm just sort of surprised because it doesn't, I don't know what it does for you, but it's an interesting drug because it can go either way.

Some people get jacked, some people get dopey.

Like if I do a six, you know,

I got to sit down.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Oh, it doesn't touch me.

I mean, I don't know.

Really?

Yeah, no.

It's so funny.

My brain's so fucked up because now I'm thinking, like,

I got to get up there.

That's what we're doing.

Listen, if you would have come said, like, I got this from Sweden, it's a 24, I'd be like, I'm in.

Well, dude, I got some shit upstairs that I got from Kreischer, and he got it from,

what's that?

Who makes the breakers?

Lucy.

He got it from Lucy.

I've got a giant tin of about 500 of those.

Really?

And now I'm going to give them to you.

Thank you.

I'll take it.

Whatever.

I'll take it.

Anything.

And now, you know, everybody around me is, you know, the thing about all these years, about harm reduction.

Yeah.

And, you know, the thing

is.

I would say it out loud.

Normally, the Times just came off something the other day about heavy metals being in vapes.

Oh, really?

Yeah, I never did the vapes.

I don't want to smoke things.

I'll smoke a cigar now and again, and I've got strung out on those before.

I can't.

Look, I started smoking when I was, what, 13?

14, me.

Yeah.

Why, Keith Richards?

Most likely.

For me, it was Keith Richards.

Most likely.

Actually, I was thinking back.

I was like, was it him?

You could have taken your pick at that point.

I mean, look, I was at 13, yeah, because I thought I was going to be a rock star.

Of course.

Of course.

So, what,

what, where'd you grow up?

New York, New York.

Right in the city?

Yeah.

I'm from Upper West Sider, so that counts.

Yeah.

So like, what, what was, uh, what was the family situation?

Did your dad grow up there?

How do you end up in New York?

My dad was a Hungarian immigrant.

Really?

I'm first generation.

Yeah.

He, he escaped during the very brief revolution and

Holocaust survivor.

Really?

Mm-hmm.

And came to New York.

You live with the Holocaust survivor thing?

I mean, was he in a camp?

He was not in a, he was in a work camp.

A war camp.

And he had the divorce of both worlds because he had the Nazis, then liberated, then he got to be in a Russian camp.

Really?

Then escaped to Austria and made his way here.

So was he older when he had you?

My mom was really young.

My mom was like 19, 20, and then my dad was like 29, 30.

Oh, really?

Yeah, so he was a kid during the Holocaust.

He was.

And, you know, one one of the craziest things is when someone starts to bring forward memories that they've been like, I can't do this.

Yeah, sure.

He was in his 80s coming up with shit that would blow your head off.

It was awful.

Was he awful?

Was he fully cognizant in his 80s?

Or was it coming out in Frankfurt?

Oh, he was still.

I mean, he was crazy Hungarian.

Yeah.

And he just

was a yeller and

he was still

right there with me.

Yeah, before he was.

Oh, that's great.

But he was a little bit more.

Yeah,

the thing about the childhood came up.

Yeah, man.

Like, one quick thing.

So they grew up in kind of the projects in Benefest.

And so there were all the apartment buildings.

You have the common area.

And there was fighting happening there in the middle of this building development.

Yeah.

And

there was a well in the middle of the courtyard.

So that's where everybody needed to get water, but there was fighting happening.

They would send kids like him out with a a bucket because they assumed that they wouldn't shoot the kids.

Right.

But

did they shoot the kids?

They didn't shoot that kid.

He made it.

But I mean, stories like that, just crazy, crazy stories.

And then, you know, you're just an American kid going like, oh, I'm going to go down the village.

Yeah, totally.

I mean, I was.

I actually, because I was a big kid.

Yeah.

So by the time I was like 14, I was six feet.

Yeah.

And so I was playing clubs in like the West Village.

And I played CDs when I was like 16 because nobody was carding me.

And

what band were you in at 16?

I was in my own thing.

I started out as like, because what?

I was, this is like mid-70s, so I was like total singer-songwriter dude.

And then I discovered, you know, when the actual rock and roll thing happened, then I buy a strat.

So it was the mid-70s, so

CB's was kind of like, you know, New York punk was like happening.

Yeah, and by the time I got in there, so that was

that would have been 81.

So it was a little behind it.

Yeah, but it was still, I mean, the scene was really great back then.

But we got caught up in this thing where

there was, you know, the pay-to-play thing where they would tell you to come.

And the musicians union came down on us one time screaming at us in the street about how we're like ruining New York music because like we were going in there because they would do that thing where you go in, if you bring in 20, you know, 200 people,

you'll get a real gig that pays you money.

Yeah.

So we played them all.

I mean, I played,

what was that one?

Trax was the the one that, like, Trax was around for a long time.

I remember Brownies.

Brownies.

That was right on Avenue A, I think.

It might have been later.

You might have been done with it and gone.

I was in Upper West.

You were scared of the lower East Side.

Really?

But that's where it was all happening.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Now, by the time I was in college, then, you know, it was funny.

I can remember the day I discovered Sonic Youth, and I was like, oh, well, now I know how to play guitar.

Oh, right.

So that's what I was missing.

Four strings and one note.

Sure.

And

you invent your own tuning.

Oh, it was great.

But when you were a kid, it was mostly like just you and a guitar.

Yeah.

And just solo?

Yep.

And then I hooked up with another guitar player in high school who he actually became a pretty well-known jazz guitar player, which is when I knew that I would never be a good guitar player.

Yeah, but I struggle with that.

What does good mean?

Good means.

Well, you mean a virtuoso.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, like three.

Of course, Montgomery kind of shit.

Yeah, but I mean, were you trying to do that?

I was trying to figure myself out at that point, but the thing, what it did was it pushed me into being a really good lyricist and inventing tunings.

Because I mean, before Sonic Youth, it was Joni Mitchell.

Joni Mitchell's

tunings.

No, but I'm saying in terms of tuning.

There's a gap there for everyone else, but distortion.

But also, I mean, she led the way with like crazy tunings.

Yeah, I don't fuck with them too much.

I got that Les Fowl Jr.

tune to open G and the top strings off to do the key thing the key thing yeah but but i i never i you know i don't know man yeah i've been playing my whole life and i never really played with people so i kind of kept it a hobby but now i've been trying to learn how to play with people and it's it's a little event well no it's okay

but like i'm not disciplined and the idea of repetition like i like things like happen now you know it's okay if it's sloppy man we just got to own it but like i'm working with some real kind of like well we got to do it like on the record in terms of the structure and i'm like we do.

I mean, are they like real musicians?

Well, they're rock musicians.

And I've done, I've done, I've been supposed to be real musicians.

Well,

well, I mean, they're people that do the work, you know, like, and when you're, I'm good enough, but I'm not, I don't play with people all the time, but I know they're behind me.

They'll carry you.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, if you're messy, but I kind of want to, now that I'm kind of easing out of this, I'd like to spend more time playing music, but it's, if I don't like to,

like my craft is comedy, and my craft ultimately evolved as a conversationalist, but music has always been my hobby.

And once you got to put the hours in to, you know, to be proficient

in a real way,

at this age, it's sort of like, no, it's not, it's no fun.

I hear you.

And I, and I, for me, it was really weird because I remember my dad is the one who said it.

I was trying to pull

like the top of my show would say, I'm Jackson Galaxy.

I think it was like musician by night, Kathy Haviers by day or or whatever.

The thing is, I was- When was this?

That's the top of every show said that.

Way back, you were a cat guy?

Oh, no, I mean, way back.

No, I mean, like, when the show started, which was okay, so you were, you were, you were out once you became sort of popular as the cat guy, you're like, I'm going to do some music, too.

No, I was trying to make it as a musician before that.

And my dad was just like, listen, you're going to have to make a choice at some point.

You're either doing one of these things or the other.

And somehow that got into my head, and I didn't write another song after the show started.

And so now I'm still looking at, I'm doing the same thing you're doing.

I'm looking at my guitars.

Yeah.

It's haunting me.

Well, see, because I didn't have the dream, they don't haunt me.

Oh, that's good.

You know, I never, I never aspired to be a pro musician.

Oh, I was

all in.

From high school.

From the time I was nine years old.

I picked up a guitar at nine years old.

I was like, this is who I am.

So when does this start?

Like, so you're playing out, though?

Are you making a living?

Did you cut some demos?

Did you make a record?

You know, the great thing is, thank God it was all all before like band camp and all that shit because I don't want that music out there.

I mean, it was good.

It's just at this point kind of dated and whatever.

But yeah, no, I was living in Boulder for

wait a minute.

So how do you get from New York to Boulder?

Oh, it's so I went to.

When did you hit the wall?

What's that story?

I went from, I went to, it's like the slow 80 crawl.

So I went from New York, I went to college in Ohio.

Ohio?

Yeah.

I went to Oberlin College.

Oh, that's kind of a a groovy school, right?

It was totally groovy back then.

It was not as rich.

And then we went from that.

I went to grad school at University of Iowa.

That's fancy for what?

Theater.

Really?

Yep.

Go figure.

So, what did your old man do?

I mean, he did a lot of things that once the Sopranos came out, I was like, oh,

when you know that like every birthday present you ever had fell off the back of a truck, you're like, oh, that's right.

He's a connected guy.

He became that way.

I mean, he didn't speak any English when he first got here, but he wound up running a cookie factory.

Like he owned a cookie factory.

For the Russians?

I don't know who the hell for, but I'm telling you, he didn't know how to bake a cookie to save his life, you know?

But was it a legit cookie factory?

It was.

He actually, like, he provided all the cookies for like all those supermarkets up and down the East Coast.

Okay.

I don't know how it happened.

All I know is that he did what they had that saying about Hungarians that they're like the only people who can get into a revolving door behind you and come out ahead of you.

Oh, interesting.

That's him.

But so

you guys did all right.

Yeah, I mean, it depended because he was a cash guy.

Like, I think he paid for my college with cash.

I'm not even kidding.

And then,

and then some years

we didn't know.

But

so, from I went to Iowa, graduated there.

Well, so, what, but the theater dream.

So, you're you're doing music as a kid.

When do drugs get happen?

Yes.

I mean, I, I would, I mean, I was, I would say it was not until I was like 15 that I was starting to get high

and drinking.

Yeah.

But, you know, and I kept it,

whatever the word is

until

Iowa was when I started to spin out a little bit.

Yeah.

And then by the time I got to Boulder, which is after that, then all bets were off.

So what did you learn in theater school?

You did two years?

How not to wait tables.

I didn't, I had no theater dreams.

But you went to graduate theater school.

That's because, like, honestly, this is how it happened.

Like I

started in theater because I was writing music for theater.

Yeah.

And that was fun.

So musical kind of, like for music?

No, no, no, like scoring them.

Oh, yeah, okay.

I hate musicals.

And then so I did that.

And then one day somebody sees me walking across the stage and I'm big, whatever, and they grabbed me.

And I started doing that.

And then what, acting?

Yeah.

And then there came this moment where I, you know, some theater teacher in New York and Oberlin was like, you got what it takes.

We'll prep, you know, auditions so that you can get into grad school.

I didn't get in anywhere, but like two weeks before the school year started, a director friend of mine calls me.

She's like, I'm in Iowa City right now, which by the way, I didn't even know there was one.

And I was like, she said, we can get, come here and audition and get in.

free ride and

you know you're a TA and whatever.

But they needed people in the program?

Yeah, totally.

And so I got in and spent the next three years in Iowa.

They got a pretty heady, you know,

highbrow writer's program.

Yeah, man.

And their playwriting program was amazing.

That's all actors are in that place.

Doing the plays of the guys.

You might as well be keys on a typewriter, yeah.

Oh, right, right, right.

So you were doing a lot of workshopping

for new playwrights.

And then I was, but I was a huge rebel.

I decided I wanted to be a performance artist at that point, and we broke away.

There's three of us, we broke away from the program and made terribly subversive, terrible art and uh in iowa in iowa you didn't take it back to new york or i i wanted to like uh i mean my my you know my dream was uh to be you know part of like the whole scene with like literally comfort and

and will define the mama or at uh the worster group yeah the worster group man those guys were you know yeah seeing those guys live was

blew my head apart.

Was that the guy that had the theater on the on St.

Mark's Foreman?

He did all that crazy.

Yes.

And they were all kind of very rapid.

There was a lot of things going on.

What was his name?

Richard Foreman.

Yeah, I think it was Richard Foreman.

Was it Richard Foreman?

Yeah.

Those guys were crazy.

Crazy, man.

And I saw...

Annie Sprinkle when she was doing a lot of performance art, and she would like walk around.

I saw her too.

It was great.

When she'd invite the audience to view her

cervix,

speculum.

I saw Annie Sprinkle's cervix.

Yeah, she just sat there splayed open at the edge of the stage after the show.

She was brilliant.

I loved her.

She was brilliant.

It was great.

And that whole scene was just the most

primal form of expression.

And actually, when you think about it, it actually did

inform the rest of this, whether it was performance and music or whether it was performance art or the theater or whatever.

You learn the human condition

inside and out.

And then applying that to animals, for me, was pretty easy.

Really?

Yeah, it's just the same thing.

You're just.

When you sort of like, so after

you graduate in Iowa, when do you like, you know, hit the wall and stop using?

I got sober in Boulder.

Yeah.

So you go from Iowa to Boulder.

Why Boulder?

Well, because Boulder at that point actually had a halfway decent music scene.

Sure.

And the Fox Theater is in Boulder, which is an amazing place.

I played that place.

I like that.

God, it's amazing.

It's nice, right size.

And it's also, I don't know if you know this, the guy who designed the sound system there is the same guy who did the Dead's Wall of Sound.

So the whole stage is lined with subwoofers, and it's truly orgasmic when, like, you're playing on that stage, you don't even care about the audience.

It sounds so good.

Yeah, I mean, I feel, did I play the Fox in Boulder, or is it

a Boulder theater?

Yeah, Boulder Theater, too.

Yeah.

Beautiful old place.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's definitely a lot of stuff.

I feel like that's where I usually play.

Is that smaller?

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But it's, I mean, honestly, like, this, the scene there was great.

And between that, I was thinking there, Chicago or Austin and

Boulder's just.

Boulder.

And you're in, you know, you're in like mountains it's pretty i look i went there sight unseen yeah i had never seen it

were you running i yes i i was i was and and i and i knew that i could probably get away with whatever there

were your parents like concerned

yeah is your mom still around no she lost when i was 16.

um but uh no my mom who i was very close to my mom and she was my my like she was my world and

she was like, you know, when you know you hit bottom?

When your mom,

and we're talking Upper West Side Jewish mother flies to Boulder to sit you down and cut you off.

Yeah.

That's when you know that, and I still went on for another year after that.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, I mean, it was, it's as good a place as anywhere to have a breakdown and to get sober, you know?

Yeah, for sure.

Well, that's, well, that's interesting.

So they're, so they're concerned.

How Jewish did you grow up?

Oh, you know, like in New York, at least we call them submarine Jews.

We're like, you come up for Hanukkah, come back down again.

High holidays.

Yeah, totally.

Sure.

Fast if you want to.

But

yeah, that was it.

But I still went to like a Jewish day school.

I went to...

Bar Mitzford?

Yeah.

I was just telling a story the other day.

Me and my brother, my brother's four years younger, and at one point, I don't know.

Was it like two of you?

Yeah.

And maybe I was 10.

Yeah.

And he was six at the time.

And we had a serious discussion about it.

We'd be like, okay, we know what we're going to say.

We go into our parents' room.

they're laying in bed and we're like listen mom dad we have to tell you something we don't believe in god and my mom doesn't even skip a beat she goes that's fine you're still getting barbed

yeah yeah of course and that's that's that's new york man yeah so we went through all that and uh um it was i'm so glad that i grew up there oh yeah it's like you know everything's there i i i envied people because uh you know my my family's jews from jersey and we ended up in new mexico but i had wow all my relatives were in Jersey.

So, like, when I was 14, I'd go to, I'd spend a month at my grandma's, take the bus into Port Authority at 14

just to wander around.

And my mom was very much into art and she was an artist.

So, anytime there were big openings at MoMA, we'd go.

So, I always felt very connected to it and loved it.

But you do have a resilience when you grow up there.

I think that to grow up with that much diversity and that many people around and on top of you, and there is

a kind of beautiful

sort of shell you create.

And you know, the thing is, you're part of a shell.

And that's the thing.

It's so weird about New York is that we communicate by yelling.

Yeah.

We

can be gruff as hell.

Yeah.

And yet you feel protected.

You're walking down the street and you don't feel that threat.

Never.

And like, it's a, I've always noticed that about New York, and I've said it before, that like if something's going down, someone's going to step up and go, what's going on?

Yeah.

Yeah, right.

That guy's in trouble.

Does anyone know how to help this guy?

Right.

And it's dealt with.

Yeah.

And they could be saying, like, what was the thing someone said that, like, the difference between like New Yorkers and Angelinos is like the difference between nice and kind.

Like, you know, here, if like you fall on the street, somebody stops their car, are you okay?

And then they keep driving.

And in New York, they pick you up while they're calling you,

you know, a klutz and an asshole.

Yeah, right.

Right.

But they're, they make, you know, people step up in their, you know, in New York.

And I was always like appreciated that.

And I never felt safer

anywhere else in New York.

I mean, I because there's always someone right there.

And it doesn't,

my most favorite thing is just to get lost in New York.

Yeah.

Just to just walk.

You don't know where you're going.

Sure.

And,

you know, it was weird.

Last time I was home, I had one of those moments.

I was having a weird moment in my life.

Yeah.

I just walked and I wound up

near the Trade Center area.

Yeah.

And I hadn't.

You hadn't seen the memorial?

I hadn't seen the memorial and I hadn't seen any of the development.

Yeah.

All of the houses and stupid shops and whatever.

It's just the whole thing is unrecognizable.

If you would have dropped me there, I never would have known I was in New York.

Yeah, that memorial is pretty heavy.

I think they did a good job with that.

Totally.

I mean, it's like, it's kind of devastating.

It's powerful.

And the new Whitney's stunning.

Yeah.

Over on the water.

It's great.

And all those like little, have you seen, oh God, what was the name of the Something Island?

The looks like a Dr.

Seuss Island coming over.

Oh, Roosevelt Island.

Roosevelt Island Island Island Island.

On the other side.

That's the last thing from Dr.

Seuss.

No, it's off the west side, and it's called Something Island, and it looks like it's like an art piece.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I've seen that.

It's amazing.

It's such a great place.

Look, if I could have afforded it, I would have gone back and lived there.

So you get to Boulder.

And now,

in order to get sober, as we know, if you follow the rules, you have to put that first above anything else.

Now,

was the move to Boulder sort of like a bottom?

And you're like, you know, I've hit the wall.

No, I mean, I wasn't even aware that I was in a bottom until to be completely transparent, like I went to my first meeting because I was trying to get laid and she was like,

okay,

but I just want you to come to a meeting to see how I live.

And I went and then, you know, they had the check boxes in the back with the pamphlet.

Am I an alcoholic?

And every single one of them, except I hadn't gone to jail, and that was it.

And then you start to realize that you got a problem.

So it wasn't, I was in older people.

Did that person help you get sober?

Yes, Yes, and no.

I mean, she did, but she also was kind of crazy.

So, I mean, because a woman got me sober.

I mean, it's, it, it was helpful.

Because I wanted her.

There you go.

Oh, we share that story.

That's cool.

Yeah.

And she brought me in, and I held on.

You know, I was married, unhappy, left my wife, latched on to her and burned it down, you know, because you're not capable of fucking anything.

I mean, and

my first sponsor was like, you can't make her your higher power.

That's not, that's not who your higher power is.

Or just use them to, you know,

I understand that idea, but I don't know that I understood the nate the notion of a higher power.

I just, you know, you just lean on them too much.

Then all of a sudden your codependence

comes out and you just exhaust them with your fucking insanity.

And then you really get sober, you know?

Dude, dude.

I mean, the codependency and, you know,

you know, adult child business is like, those are the heavy ones.

I'm still working through that.

I mean, I'm almost 60 years old.

I fucked up, dude.

I mean, but I think that there's something to be said about saying that, you know, you're this overgrown child or whatever.

I'm okay with that.

Yeah.

It sometimes excludes you from making grown-up decisions, which I am learning.

I'm a childless man.

I'm 61, you know, and

I've been married twice and still no kids.

And like, you know, there's definitely something not

resolved or fixed.

Right.

But you know,

it just, I think it becomes

the effort is like, you know, try not to be a toxic fuck and don't hurt other people.

Totally.

You know, control yourself.

You know, learn.

I mean, as I get older and,

you know, with the program and stuff and whatever I learned in it, like, I don't go a lot, but it definitely fixed my brain in a lot of ways.

Yeah, totally.

And the same thing.

I mean, I don't, I have periods where I go, I need program

being programmed before something happens.

I mean, that's the thing is you've made it 26 years.

Yeah.

I mean,

I seem to break at 10 years.

Every time I'm at 10 years, I break.

Oh, yeah.

And

so now I've got, I'm just back to, what, a year?

Oh, really?

How long were you out for?

One night.

Oh,

dude, it was a hell of a night.

It was a long, crazy thought I was going to die at night.

Yeah.

Not worth it.

No, man.

It was the first time that I was

cognizant of the fact that, wait a minute, this isn't really, really

high and good.

I'm going to die.

Oh, yeah, right away, right?

Yeah.

Would you have an hour of good and then just I'm dying?

I had the second it hit me, I was like, okay, I'm in trouble.

Good times.

And so, yeah, no, I mean, I, but, but it's always there.

It doesn't, doesn't go anywhere.

Yeah, I don't know.

Like, I, I, I don't, I don't feel compelled.

You know, the weird thing is, is, like, if I feel compelled towards anything, I was sort of a Coke booze guy.

And,

you know, but the only thing that

is mildly compelling as I get older is like, there's so much weed around.

I know.

You know, I was just saying that, like, you go to the thing about avoiding New York in the summer is because it smelled like piss.

Now it just smells like piss and weed.

And it's weed is everywhere.

And here you just go to the store

and you just buy this weed that like when we were kids, that would have cost $300 for a bud that looked like that.

In Iowa, we were picking it out.

It was ditch weed.

We were picking it out of

all seeds and nothing else.

And like,

I am actually glad because there's so, it's such a consumer culture now, and I will buy things.

I know, I know.

You know,

I just, I can't go anywhere near that stuff.

No, no.

And like, I don't think about it.

I've been working around booze my whole life.

So when you're in Boulder, so you get sober the first time?

Yeah.

How do cats figure into this?

I mean, did you give up the other dream?

No.

I mean, I was there as a musician, and that means that I was broke all the time.

And so I'd worked a bunch of awful, shitty jobs.

And after the fifth awful, shitty job, I saw an ad

for an actual shitty job at the shelter, which was like picking up shit.

And

jumped on it.

And

it was within weeks, literally weeks, that like all of a sudden everyone was like, you know, the cats like you.

Yeah.

And they would, I would just stand there and they would just come to me.

I would eat my lunch.

They'd come up to me.

They started calling me cat boy, even though I knew nothing.

And I figured I should probably learn something.

Especially since we were in a really desperate place back then.

I mean, we were killing 10 to 12 million cats and dogs every year at that point.

When I met my girlfriend, she was working in the shelter here.

She's a big animal person.

And it just,

her heart couldn't take it.

She works here.

No, now she's at a doggy daycare, but

she was at Pasadena.

She was at Best Friends for a while.

She was, you you know, I mean, she was, she's an animal welfare person.

Right.

Right now she's got, you know, two kittens from a feral litter down the hall, and she's got, you know, three of her own cats, and now she's got a dog, and it's kind of crazy over there, but she lives for it.

And, but the shelter became too heartbreaking.

Yeah.

I mean, I don't know how I made it as long as I did.

I mean, I was at that shelter for 10 years.

Yeah.

And what did you learn?

When you said you wanted to learn, you know, how did you start?

I mean, look, there was nothing.

was there was yeah and it's you know to be completely honest it's still that way where the in terms of cat behavior away

no just cats period and i mean you know outside of like their bones and their organs right but i mean we we we spend all our time on dogs we spend all of our knowledge and wanting to know around dogs And so really, in terms of writing, me just getting a grip on, all I cared about was this.

I get a cat that comes into the shelter, they're scared or they're aggressive aggressive or whatever, we're going to kill them in about two hours.

What is it that I can do in the next two hours that will keep her alive till tomorrow so that I can keep something else going so that I can eventually get her adopted?

That's the problem.

So the deal was when you get a feral cat or

like any cat,

you knew that they were unadoptable because they were not socialized.

I knew because we were the ones who had to kill them.

So I knew if I couldn't put them on the adoption floor and we were

what determined that?

If we couldn't put them on adoption?

in terms of either they were like if you know that that cat is going to sit in that cage for months because they're not going to face their audience they're not going to come out they're not going to take those three steps to the front of the cage they're just going to hang out in the back

so that was reason enough back then right and um

and if they were you know there's two sides of the same coin they're both sort of cat anxiety.

One goes all the way back, one comes forward and tries to kick your ass every time you go through.

Both of those

ends of the spectrum would be plenty of reasons.

So the scared ones, assuming they weren't feral cats,

back then we were doing stuff that now is sort of codified.

We call it TNR now.

Back then

it was like, you're feral.

I'm putting you back out there.

You don't belong here.

Yeah, trap and release, you mean.

Right.

But back then it didn't have a name.

It was called me stealing cats and putting them out in the trailer park.

Right.

Yeah.

There's that.

They were neutered, though.

We got them neutered.

Well, yeah, no, you got to do that.

When my first batch of cats,

you know, I had

a lot of my radio voice was sort of developed around my journey with these feral litter from behind my apartment in Queens.

Right.

Because I didn't know they were feral.

And, you know, once they're eating on their own, you know, it's game over in a lot of ways.

So I trapped like four of them and brought them into my apartment

with a shoebox.

Holy shit.

And they just destroyed my apartment.

And then it just became this whole journey.

Like they just destroyed it.

And they were howling at their mother

in the window.

And like, I didn't know what to do because then like I couldn't get them out because I didn't know where to go.

And just became this like journey with these four monsters.

And, you know, I was reaching out to cat people to get them fixed and to get their shots.

And this was in New York.

It was in New York in an apartment in Astoria.

And I was on the mics at Air America.

And I was just, you know, having.

Yeah, and I was having to deal with this.

And, you know, I didn't know.

Like, I grew up with animals my whole life.

And I think at that point, had I had, did I have a butch yet?

I think I had already lost.

Like, I had a cat.

My first cat was given to me by that woman who got me sober, who I was involved with, and that had a congenital heart problem.

And I'd moved out here in 20, you know, 21, and it died, you know, less than two years old.

It was terrible.

And I had got, we got another cat, Boomer.

who came with that name from, you know, a no-kill shelter, but like, I thought he had the most personality in the shelter, but it turns out now I know he was, he's feral.

Yeah.

That's personality.

Yeah.

So, you know, I had him for years, but, but this was a different batch, and it just got very crazy.

You know, like I tried to find, you know, I got them all fixed and I gave one to the bodega or the

little store across the street.

They wanted a mouser, but it just disappeared immediately because it was crazy feral.

And then some person took another one, but I had two of those cats for 16 years.

Holy cow.

Did they ever tame up for you?

A bit.

You know, I think they did, but they're just a little twitchy.

But I've grown to realize that because I'm not innately, I think, you know, genetically a regular cat person, I'm kind of a brash.

And

I would always wonder, like, why are my cats always nervous and fucked up?

Because I'm talking to them, like, what's going on?

Yeah, yeah.

But, I mean, they were also feral cats.

And I think.

It was something that we still, I mean, people struggle with this constantly now in terms of like who is who and who should be outside and who shouldn't be outside and all that.

But back then it was just, it was really gorilla work, I mean, back then.

So it, I mean, we're talking, what, 93, 94?

So you're learning tricks?

And also just trusting myself.

I mean, this is where it came into me saying, I know how to watch people.

Make a world with these people and live in it.

And you can do the same thing with animals.

And I had that head start that the cats liked me.

And from there, it was just, you know, what can I do that's going to just make them braver?

And started working with a dog trainer because I had nobody else.

At the shelter?

She was a trainer who came to work in the shelter.

And I was like, listen, you got to teach me something because I got nothing.

And she taught me clicker training.

For cats?

Yeah.

Yeah.

How does that work?

It's the same as dogs.

What is clicker training?

So clicker training is like the way a lot of dogs or most at this point are trained.

So it's the idea that they do something you want them to do.

The click signals that something good's going to come, which is usually a treat.

And then it's like a Pavlovian thing pretty much after that.

It actually came from

first,

it was...

pioneered with chickens

and also carrier pigeons during the wars,

spy pigeons.

And then this woman, Karen Pryor, started using it at SeaWorld with the dolphins.

And then it went to dogs and then finally cats.

You can do that with cats.

You can do it with anybody.

You can do it with us.

I mean, if we're motivated to do something, we all learn the same way.

So, with the cats, it was, you know, I had a really good treat.

I wouldn't feed them for a little bit, so they were a little motivated.

And then teach them that taking this step is a good thing to do.

Turn around, it's a good thing to do.

The story that I always tell people is that the first one of them, I got her done within, I don't know, an hour.

Yeah.

Where she goes from her head to the back of the cage, head to the front of the cage, three steps to the front of the cage,

hand through the bars to do a high five through the cage.

So then when the adoption area opens and people come in, she's like trying to high five people.

Yeah.

First sucker is like, oh my God, she loves me.

She wants me.

She's calling to me.

And that was it.

You got her home.

Got her home.

And then it just became like, I think I had the advantage that I got to write my own book, literally, because because I just didn't have,

you know, strict rules to have to break.

So there was no, because look,

I've had, you know, cats, you know, another girlfriend of mine who was a painter, she like managed an entire feral community that she moved from one place to her new place.

And they just kind of came and wanted to say they wanted to.

And some of them were more social than others.

And, you know, she taught me some stuff, I guess.

But I've had cats cats a long time

and it's all kind of instinctual but now i've got you know these these issues like most of my cats kind of level off and they're all right i don't

you know like i didn't know that in order to to get them to be kind of warm you got to kind of put them on your lap and get them used to it i mean i mean and it depends and i think one of the things that i love about cats so much is that the rules only apply so much yeah i mean whatever

There is,

they,

in an evolutionary perspective, and to this day, make a choice every day how much they want to engage.

Yeah.

You know, they are self-domesticated.

We didn't do it.

Yeah.

You know, so it's like, in terms of our relationship to them, to me, it's a whatever works kind of thing.

Sure.

I mean, obviously they're, they're energetically, incredibly sensitive.

So they don't go for the like, and they're not going to take orders no matter what.

You know what I mean?

You could yell all day.

You could say sit all day.

It's never going to work.

Well, a lot of people are surprised that my cats know their names.

I guess some people have a problem with that, but all my cats know their names.

Yeah.

And your guys seem just like they are.

totally centered and present and out and about.

And I told you, like, I've got three cats, two of them you would never know exist.

Interesting.

When you first come over to the house.

But I just don't believe in, like, if you're a lab cat, you're a lap cat.

If you're like, I'm going to hang up by your toes at the end of the bed, I will be just as, you know, honored, you know?

Yeah.

I just don't want you being scared and small and under the bed.

That's my only thing.

Oh, yeah.

I don't, I've never really, I don't think I've had a cat like that until they get fragile.

But like, you know, Charlie, who is the current problem and all my cats, like Buster in my old house, he just showed up and started eating the food I was feeding the ferals outside.

And he was like maybe two and a half months old.

And, but he wasn't, he wasn't really feral.

I feel like somebody got him as a kitten and then he got away and was out there for a bit.

But then he ate some plant.

I knew about the, he ate a bouquet of plants when he was like a year or so old and went into renal failure.

Oh, wow.

And I don't, it wasn't, there wasn't lilies in the bouquet, but I think there must have been the pollens.

But I, you know, at that time, I'm like, what kind of idiot is going to spend 10 grand on a cat?

And there I was with this year old kitten,

you know, saving him at the emergency vet.

And now he's like nine, and I think he's only got one functioning kidney.

I found out, really.

Yeah.

I always wondered, but he's all right.

Yeah, he seems to me.

We didn't meet him yet.

Oh, he's the one who's the older one.

And then Charlie, the problem.

He's great.

He is great.

He's great.

But he's from a feral litter from next door.

Is he?

Yeah, and she was moving him around.

But he's the same thing.

He's completely like people who are.

I got him

They all ended up under my steps back here with the mother, and she was moving them again.

And she had moved them all except for him.

And she's probably coming back from him.

But I got him at like two and a half weeks.

And my girlfriend bottle-fed him.

Right.

And now that's what I got.

You know what?

Spoiled breath.

Spoiled.

Spoil.

Also,

and I say this because I think that there's people in the sort of more educated community who would like say I'm completely full of shit.

But I,

bottle babies,

and he's a bottle baby.

they have completely like they are so much more human than they are cat kind of right he is that yeah like he's a bottle baby yeah did he like did he do the thing where he like holds on to you does does or or her or like just like he needs to be touching he needs to be near you guys well he i like there was a bit of that and then sam the kind of dim one he came from a litter that she a friend of hers had you know knew you know it was a

i don't think it was a pharaoh litter but he wasn't wild either.

And he always looked nervous, and then he kind of turned into this very odd cat.

That's the weird thing about cats.

It's like they're only going to be who they are.

Who they are.

And then you're going to have to just deal with that.

You're going to make them the best version.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

That's it.

You got to figure out who they...

But here was the thing is that Buster was alone with me for a while because Monkey and LaFonda had passed, the

ferals from Queens.

And he used to beat up on Monkey when Monkey was sick.

Yeah.

You know, because he was this little kitten.

And then when I brought Sammy in before Charlie, Buster just beat the shit out of him, just made him a total punk.

And so like he's, they're like this, like, this gay couple.

And

Sammy's just totally all about Buster.

Yeah.

You know, he owns him.

Yeah.

And then I bring Charlie in, and Buster doesn't want to even deal with it.

Well, what makes Charlie an asshole?

Because he does, you know, he likes to start shit.

You know, I've got that catio out there, and if I'm going to close close it, he'll jump out there and he won't come in just to fuck with me.

Right, right.

But the bigger problem is he's an interesting cat because during the day he does a sing, you know, and then, you know, but he's pretty independent of the other cats too.

But at night, he'll always sleep with me and he'll get up in my face and everything.

That's the thing.

That's the bottle baby thing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He'll like, you know, fuck with my face.

Yep, yep.

But then during the day, he's like, you know, just, you know, you stay in your place.

I'll, I'll, you know, I'll let you know.

But he's always in my shit.

Here's the problem with Charlie.

and it's it's it's a real problem because i'm like problem with charlie yeah i'm locked in uh with these cats

is

when i go away uh you know he's gotten aggressive towards buster so there's three males in there yeah and my vet says that's weird because they usually all get along but this is not what's happening you know bust you know charlie is outside of those two and there's always a little spatting between them but when i go away he'll fucking he'll shit he shit all over the house once and he beats up on Buster to the point where I get home, and they're scared, there's hissing, and it's just a fucking nightmare.

And, you know, the vet was like, well, I'm going to, yeah, I usually prescribe Prozac.

So I tried that, but I couldn't take it.

I couldn't, like,

I don't like Prozac for me.

And when I put Charlie on it, you know, he just like turned into a different thing.

Yeah, yeah.

And I stuck with it for like two weeks.

So I'm like, I can't do it to him.

Well, I mean, I think.

Well, first of all, look, there's a place for psych meds with cats 100% as much as there is for humans.

There's that.

But with him, I mean, all he had to do was say like half of that.

And I'm like, oh, I know what's going on, you know?

And so he...

Separation anxiety.

Totally.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, it's just you leave and he loses his center.

Yeah.

And then he spends the rest of his time trying to find it.

And things like shitting on the floor, for instance, is I'm going to leave a mark here because I need proof that I exist.

You know what I mean?

That, that.

Well, he gets, he like he was getting colitis.

So it was, it was just like diarrhea everywhere.

Poor guy.

Yeah, that's just stress.

And that's not, and I think you, you know, not, I'm not throwing shade on anybody, but I mean, that's not what you would use Prozac for.

Yeah.

And I think we start to throw around psych meds because we just got to figure out how to get cats to live with us.

But it makes him a different cat.

Yeah.

And that's the thing.

I mean, ideally, it shouldn't.

I mean, the cats that I recommend medication for are mentally suffering.

You know what I mean?

Oh, mentally.

For real mentally suffering.

And he just, he's, he is.

Just my cat, yeah.

And I mean, do you have a sitter who comes over?

Yeah, she comes over, you know, and

feeds them, and they know her, and she'll play with them and stuff.

But the thing is, like,

I've tried a lot of stuff, you know, and usually he kind of, he kind of loses it three or four days in.

He starts beating up on Buster, which he does anyways.

But, like, I think I've been able to manage a shit problem with a probiotic, you know, a calming probiotic that I give him before.

And I got him on, now I got them on Zilken,

which I don't know if it really works.

I've got Felways all over the fucking house.

Those don't really work.

They don't work.

No.

And now I've got the music going.

I've got a timer because I'm preparing to go away.

Was that jazz I was having?

For a week?

No, it's like new classicals.

It's more ambient thing.

It's like, I don't want no George Winston shit in my head.

Too much.

Make me too anxious.

But I did get, you know, I did have her give me a script for Gabba Penton.

And I'm just going to tell the sitter to like, look, if he really starts to fucking, you know, if Buster, if there's hissing and it's like really fucked up, you know, just give him that in the morning.

I mean, I think that, when are you leaving?

Sunday.

Oh, it's about to happen.

Okay.

But I was just away, and now I've been home for a few weeks, and

they're totally fine.

And

I think I...

I seem to know what's going on.

I'm informed, and I was going to bring him with me.

But then it's like, you know, whether I drive or whether I have to walk him through fucking security, I've done all that shit before.

And then bring him to a new environment.

You got to take him out to TSA and all that.

Oh, God, dude.

I did a whole bit on that with the old cats because I never traveled.

And that was the feral one.

Yeah.

And I never saw that.

Oh, my God.

You had to travel with them.

TSA.

Yeah, I had to get them out here.

And one of them, LaFonda, was a fucking monster.

I mean, she was like scary cat.

And just to get her in the cage, like, I had to wear gloves or she was going to fuck me up yeah yeah and now i'm like a tsa and i didn't know the first time i did they're like you got to take her out and walk her through i'm like you guys don't even

know this cat is nice we're all in trouble you know yeah and they were it was almost like you know i i scared all of them the tsa everyone was like just stand back you know and like i got her out and i didn't realize

all she wanted all they wanted is get back in the box yeah so like she was like freaked out and i got her through i got her in the box it was fine oh you're so lucky what have you heard horror stories

yeah I mean, didn't you hear about the cat who wound up in the bowels of Kennedy for like, what, like three years?

Because it got away from someone walking?

I don't know if it happened during TSA, but it was just the cat wound up just in the bowels.

That shit happens all the time because all that had to happen while you were online was somebody behind you sneezes, makes a big noise, and she would have gone.

She would have been gone.

Now, what people don't know is that you can actually request a room.

You know, I heard that somewhere.

Yeah, I figured that out a couple of years ago, too.

But

I think that there's stuff, I would tell you that, like, look, if you got to do it this time, you got to do it this time.

But there's things that I think that you can do to pass.

It all depends on the person who stays here when you're not here.

Does she stay here?

Well, sometimes, but I mean, but usually it's just for a while, you know, and she's like

she works at the Humane Society.

I mean, she knows these cats.

And she'll try to tire them out a little bit and play with them.

And, you know.

But here's the test that I would say is that if she stays over,

when she stays over, does he raise hell or not right if he doesn't then we know what's going on what it's just he just he like i was telling you about the bottle baby thing he gets his center from human energy yeah and so without it he's trying to make the rules you know what i mean it suddenly turns into lord of the flies in his head because he just doesn't he he needs structure right that's dictated by you guys yeah and uh and i'm not like

I'm not dismissing your actual relationship yeah, but I do think that if you have routine, she picks up that routine and the baton.

She does exactly that.

You just try that for a couple of days

and it works, then at least we know.

And all he needs is somebody living here, and he doesn't need

fentanyl.

Right.

Interesting.

Yeah.

I mean, I think that there's it's amazing.

I figured that was it.

I didn't know how the territorialism worked, but the idea that if he's anchored to humans and then all of a sudden he's like, you know, I'm the guy now.

Yeah.

And I'm just going to like.

Like, if you think about the fact that like cats, you know, they, they, they define their well-being by,

you know, how satisfied the raw cat is in the back of their head, you know, the ancestors in the back of their head.

And ownership of territory is all of it.

So you are telling these guys, and especially him,

I own it.

Yeah.

Your kingdom too.

Yeah.

But I totally own it.

Yeah.

And he gets, he feels okay with that.

You leave and all of a sudden, I call it cat Napoleon syndrome where.

I don't own anything.

I'm freaked the fuck out because I don't own anything.

I'm going to overown anything.

I'm going to beat you up three times, even though you said, Uncle, I'm going to crap here, pee here, keep the barbarians at the gate.

I mean, I got a job to do here.

Right.

And that's why I think that, like, socially, I think it would help him.

Because, I mean, I meet him and he seems totally cool.

Oh, no.

Totally normal.

Yeah.

Like, friendly as hell.

Yeah.

Comes up.

He wants to just rub all over.

He's great, man.

But

that's the thing.

I mean, it's the paradox.

It's like,

you know,

I do say thank God for meds.

Meds are great.

Meds have saved so many lives.

And at the same time, then we cross over to this place where we're like, well, I want you to fit into my world.

Right.

So I'm going to medicate you.

That's the exact thing.

I can't do that.

You know, I tried it with him, but

I could feel that like it was almost like he knew he was being fucked with.

Yes.

And there's that other thing.

That's, you know, when we give cats things that sort of sedate them a little bit,

their historical job is to be on the job.

So they're pushing back.

And you go, put them off to one side.

They're going to fight twice as hard to get back.

Yeah, and be mad at you.

Yeah.

You meaning anything.

Yeah, and it can't, and it becomes impossible to give them medicine.

Yeah.

But yeah,

I felt that this was probably, you know, I kind of had a sense that this was the issue.

And I imagine if I drove him out.

It's a long drive, but I imagine like, you know, within a day, you know, he'd just be happy that I was there.

I think he seems to me to be a great travel cat.

Have you ever tried to train train anyone to a harness before?

No.

Oh, that'd be great for him.

What, like a walking?

Like a walking harness, yeah.

And then, you know, that way, first of all, whenever you take him out of TSA, you've got total control over him.

But the other thing is that he just seems like someone who would want to explore, but with you.

Sammy's like the dumb one seems to be the more adventurous spirit out of all of them.

Like the one that I can't figure out.

Like if I accidentally leave the door open, he's like, he doesn't bolt, but he'll just wander out.

He won't run.

But he's always the one that's sort of like, all right, so what's going on?

I'm not done.

It's an open door.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm just going to see what's on the porch.

I took him to the vet the other day, and it was kind of a shit show, you know, getting there.

But once, unlike the other two who were kind of skittish, you know, out of their element, you know, once he got in the examination room, he was like, no, this is okay.

That's great.

I mean, you can tell you're guys are well-adjusted.

I think that your experience of having to

compromise with a feral

being

for all those years

taught you that you have no control you know it's all it's all a complete illusion yes you are powerless you are powerless over cats and you know other things in life but that's why i think for me like cats still hold like this beauty and this this reverence for me because I will never have them figured out.

And they refuse to be.

And I think that that's one of the most beautiful things on the planet.

And what's interesting about cats is they're all so fucking different.

Yeah.

It's fucking crazy, dude.

Yeah.

I mean, I've had what now I've had,

butch, I've had Boomer, I had Moxie for a while, then I had LaFonda and Monkey, and now I've got these three.

Like, they're all different.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And they're all like, there hasn't, and I, I, I say this about all animals.

I mean, I got five dogs, too, and I, I,

they all, and I had chickens in the house and and and all that.

And I, I, I learned so much from them.

I mean, they force you to be humble.

Like, there's no room for hubris in the world of cats.

Yeah.

And there's just, you will get your shoe shit on if that's if you try to do that stuff.

Charlie, like, when he's fucking stressed or he gets the vibe that I'm splitting, he has,

for some reason, he likes to pee in sinks.

So I have to cover the sinks.

Yeah.

But like, he'll literally,

I saw him get into a frying pan while he was looking at me and pissing it.

Yeah, that's some stress, man.

That's hard.

I mean, I have one of my guys will pee in the suitcase.

Yeah.

You leave the suitcase open.

They know what that means.

Yeah.

And they just pee in the suitcase.

Oh, God.

Got to London.

I was flying to London.

Oh, you didn't know?

No.

And all of a sudden, I'm like...

Now, I know that can't be on my clothes.

You know, you have that little whiff of something, and I know there's no cats in this hotel room.

And you crack that thing open, and it's like, now you're running down to Prymark for suitcases before you have to leave.

So they made sure I knew they were still with me.

Well, so I guess I got to just figure it out.

Because I get so stressed when I'm waiting to hear back from who's watching.

I'm like, what happened?

Yeah, no, I mean, I think

there's some easy things I think that we can do to just make him.

The other guys aren't like that.

No.

Because they have each other.

They do.

You know what he would like?

What?

He would like a kitten.

Well, that's what Kit says.

And I'm like, they're not going to.

That's right.

But if you think about it the other way around,

it's a whole lot better to get his

stuff out than a laser toy.

Like, it's an actual live thing that he can go to town on and they'd be like, okay, what else?

You know, what else you got?

As opposed to the other guys who are like, back off.

I don't want you anywhere near me.

No, I mean, I think he would love a kitten.

And between me

and your girlfriend, like within 20 minutes, we can have a kitten here.

No, she's got one.

Oh, that's right.

She has one.

There's one that's unclaimed right right now.

Right now.

I know.

Oh, my God.

But you're going to be gone for a bit.

A week.

That's nothing.

No, I know.

How old is the kitten?

A kitten's like, I think the kitten's like two and a half months.

Perfect.

And then by the time you get back, it's almost four months.

I mean, these guys age fast.

So by four months old,

they have no agenda.

They have no like territorial bone to pick with anybody.

He just wants to have fun.

And he just, and he, I'm telling you,

trust me.

Yeah.

Oh, well, you're going to be like,

you'd call me up.

You'd be like, take a fucking kitten.

I got a kitten for you.

But I mean, and especially right now, I mean, we're having such a rough summer.

Really?

Oh, yeah.

I mean, kitten season is always rough, but LA is its own brand of.

It must be insane here because in New York, you have the winter.

And, you know, you'd see ferals.

And like, if after the winter, you see him again, you're like, holy shit, good job.

Good job.

How'd you make it?

Where the fuck were you?

I mean, it is great.

There's great rescue.

There's great organizations throughout the country that help out.

I mean, and that's all I'm doing now.

I mean, now that I have the time to devote back to it,

I'm just back to being a shelter guy.

So

you get a real view of what the national condition is.

Now's not a great time.

You know what I mean?

Like everyone's scared about their own self.

And then you're like, what, I got to save animals too.

Yeah, but it seems to be like if you're that person, like, I know it keeps my girlfriend sane.

Yeah.

You know, that animal welfare is a pretty pure form of service.

Yeah, true.

It really is.

And I think that we, you know, post-pandemic, animal welfare went back like 10, 20 years, you know,

and we're climbing out again.

Yeah.

And so for people like me who grew up in the system,

you get a lot of PTSD from it because all you have to do is walk away from a shelter where you were in charge of both life and death.

Yeah.

And you come back into that.

That is not something that you want want to be a part of.

But I also am aware of the fact that

I now have this sort of

whatever it is, standing or whatever it is,

and that I can do a lot with it.

And I'm happy as hell to do it.

I love shelter animals, but I love shelter people and rescue people.

And they're my sort of tribe.

And that I feel like there's like a karmic debt that I'll be

paying off.

But

yeah, I mean, I think right now it's one of those moments where, depending on where you live, in LA is just one of those places where it's actually worse for dogs right now than it is for cats.

Yeah, it's pretty bad for dogs.

So what is the most common problem that you have that you encounter with people and cats?

I mean,

I don't think I'd have a job without, you know, pee.

You know, I mean, pee will drive humans to very rash decisions very quickly.

And blood will do the same thing.

So it's like those hyper

cartoon cat-like behaviors that I think keep me in people's heads.

But also introducing cats, I think that that's something that arguments among cats seems to be something that people are always bringing me in for.

In fact,

it was really funny.

And I don't know, don't ask me why I did this, but early on, whenever, I don't Google myself ever, but if you did, like when the show first started and you type my name, you know how it finishes the thing, yeah, and it was like Jackson Galaxy Gay.

And I was like, okay, well, we'll take that for

now.

It's a little more regular.

Now you get to Jackson Galaxy Introductions.

So that, I think, has become more of a

thankfully people are more concerned with their cats' introductions, but introductions, blood and guts, pee and poop.

That pretty much keeps me,

you know.

But I think the cool thing is, I think one of the coolest things is that Gen Z-wise, men are the thing now.

That in terms of spending money on cats,

the male demographic is going up.

The new young generation?

Isn't that amazing?

What is Gen Z?

How old are they?

I mean, they're in their, the ones who,

they're all coming to me.

They're treating me like their cat grandpa, which is good and bad.

But yeah, early 20s, mid-20s.

And they are

it's amazing because, you know, that masculine thing that rejects all things feline,

they're crossing

that border, which is so great for rescue also.

Like we have a new audience who are going to going to get cats.

And I think that's amazing because we're breaking that stereotype.

So that's great.

That's good to hear.

Yeah, because I think I'm against the grain as far as a cat guy.

And

I definitely speak out for them.

And

I bust on dogs a little bit, even though I grew up with many.

But

I do find that

it takes a certain person

to deal with the cat's independence.

And for me, it's perfect because dogs with my life would be too high maintenance.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But now I've got Charlie's.

I think think it's basically, do you want to be obeyed or do you just want to live together?

I think that that's the thing that it comes down to.

And cats are just not for you if you want to be obeyed.

And I think it's, but I think, I know I'm being very blue sky and idealistic right now, but I think in terms of the human condition, if we are getting to a point, especially the males of the species, where we can accept the mysteries of the world a little bit better

and not think that we can actually actually orchestrate the show.

Yeah.

That's a really good thing.

Yeah.

And that's kind of what I feel is there.

Oh, good.

Well, that's good.

Hopefully.

I'll decide on a kitten later.

You mean tomorrow?

For me.

I'm not going to leave you alone.

I'm going to be stressed.

Oh, it's going to be great.

You have four of them.

Oh, it's going to be great.

Yeah.

Yeah, man.

I promise.

It's going to be amazing.

You didn't know you were in for this, huh?

You think I was just going to fix some peeing problems?

Well,

yeah,

I've had peeing problems.

I think I've dealt with almost everything that cats can dish out really.

But you know what we're dealing with now, though, and this is the only thing about getting a kitten, is that it's hard to look at a kitten and not think of your own mortality at our age.

Oh, yeah, that's true.

That's a tough one.

That's going to outlive you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That one's rough.

When you have to start making like living wills and shit because you're just like cats.

Yeah.

Because I mean,

yeah.

How many more kittens am I going to bring in my life?

I'll foster them.

Yeah.

I don't need to be reminded.

Yeah.

Every time I look at them.

Yeah, that they're going to live for maybe 20 years.

Yeah.

And what have we got?

I don't know.

Yeah, I know.

I don't know.

But yeah, no, I think

the kitten's a great idea.

All right, buddy.

Well, it was good talking to you.

It was great talking to you.

Thanks for doing it.

I'm so happy to finally be here.

There you go.

I think that was helpful.

You can check out Jackson's YouTube page and jacksongalaxy.com.

Hang out for a minute, folks.

Hey, listen, on Monday, I talked with director Ari Astor.

And for Fulmarin subscribers, I did a Mark on Movies bonus episode about all of Ari's films, Hereditary, Midsomer, Bo is Afraid, and Eddington.

There is something about, you know, the...

And because I'm going through it now, the executing

the full arc of anxiety fantasies.

And I think that in doing that in Bo, you know, I don't even know if you necessarily disarm them, but you can sort of splay out the kind of, you know, renegade, malignant imagination of an anxiety-ridden brain.

Yeah, it was like if you like you take those imaginary things that people catastrophize and make them all real, right?

So like he has this situation where he has to run out of the house, right?

Cause he feels like he's going to die from the medicine he just took, and he has no water.

So he runs over and he's trying to get the water.

And while he's getting the water, the entire neighborhood goes into his house to party.

No real reason, but they just get in there having a party.

And then he has to sleep on the fire escape while they're in there.

Like all of that stuff is presented in the movie as though it's really happening, even though it feels to us like, well, this must all be metaphorical, right?

This didn't actually happen.

Well, I think what it is, is that maybe, and I'll ask him, the experiment was to sort of like in any given moment of anxiety about something your mind is generating, why not just go for it?

Yeah.

And illustrate all of them.

You know what I mean?

Like, what is the worst thing that can happen?

What if someone breaks into my house?

What if many people breaks into my house?

What if they start spray painting and partying in my house?

How will I get them out of there?

What if when I

take a bath, there's a guy hanging above the bath?

Yeah.

It's like, yeah,

I think it was a sort of

a kind of poetic meditation on the horrors of anxiety.

Yes, to get that episode and every bonus episode we do twice a week, subscribe to the full Marin.

Just go to the link in the episode description or go to wtfpod.com and click on WTF Plus.

And a reminder before we go, this podcast is hosted by ACAST.

I just did some sloppy groove.

Here you go.

Boomer lives, monkey and the fond of cat angels everywhere.