In a world where cats are considered the highest life form (the world I’m speaking of is, of course, the internet) I am a pariah. Why? Because I just don’t like cats that much. I don’t endlessly coo over them, nor do I loathe them. To me, a cat is like a broken ottoman: It’s just there, serving no real purpose—but would take too much energy to throw it out of the house. I’m actually more annoyed by the people who adore cats. It’s hard to respect people who are happy being treated like shit by the animals they feed every day. THEREFORE, it is of little surprise that Blogtownies chose to send me to CAT STORIES II—a spoken word event (annoying enough on its own) that caters solely to cat lovers and the stories they mistakenly think are interesting.
WAS I SUFFICIENTLY DISCOMFORTED? Hit the jump and find out.
Did I mention this fucking event was at 10:30 in the morning on SATURDAY?? Just so you know, I have far more important things to do at such an early hour, such as… oh, I don’t know… being bailed out of jail. Unfortunately I failed to wind up in jail this particular weekend, and so I had ZERO excuses to duck out of this. “Cat Stories II” was held at Joe’s Cellar in the NW industrial district, which is actually a pretty great dive bar, filled with bottles and bottles of delicious, dark liquors—liquors I could not touch because of YOUR overly cruel ban on any Discomfort Zone drinking. Therefore I had already been discomforted TWICE, within three minutes of arrival.
I’m not sure why exactly there needed to be a “Cat Stories II”—especially after hearing one of the organizers say, “There are twice as many people here as last time!” There were ten people in the room. (Not counting the three old drunks at the bar loudly arguing over who was the better ball player, Ty Cobb or Hack Wilson.) Believe it or not, I was actually surprised by the lack of Cat Stories participants—there seem to be no end of them at my office, where the employees endlessly drone ON AND ON about how adorable Mr. Meowsers was while vomiting up a stomach full of grass and saliva on their favorite throw pillow.
I smiled inwardly, thinking that since there wouldn’t be many people to tell stories, I could possibly be outta there in under 15 minutes… and back to squirting cirrhosis into my liver within 30. What I didn’t bank on was THE BAND. There was a band there whose task was to provide musical accompaniment to the stories, and bragged that even if no one told any “tales” (HAW!!!) they had “literally hundreds of cat related songs to play.”
OH SWEET JESUS, NO.
On the upside, the band’s name was “Scab Harvest.” On the downside, they were one of those “indie rock dissonance bands” that equate noise and lack of ability with entertainment. On another upside, they did have some amusing lyrics about cats. On another downside, they had a “keyboardist” who just sat there plunking random keys, occasionally honking on a recorder, and looking bipolar. VERY CAT LIKE.
So they played a couple of dissonant obviously unrehearsed songs, asking now and then if any of the ten people (and three old baseball drunks) had any cat stories to share. Awkward silences ensued, and I suddenly felt like I was on the verge of being annoyed to death. Everything made me feel like I was a human pin cushion: WHAT AM I DOING HERE??? WHY IS THAT KEYBOARDIST ACTING SO WEIRD??? (NOTE: She’s probably a very nice person in real life. But this wasn’t real life.)
Anyway, eventually someone got up and told a rather short story about dissecting cats for a high school biology class which made her suffer a psychological breakdown. You could really tell she sincerely loved cats SO MUCH. Blech. That’s when I had the idea: No one ever tells the truth about cats—about how horrible and stupid they can be. THIS WAS MY OPPORTUNITY. I could get up there and tell everyone THE TRUTH… which would not only make them uncomfortable, it would make me uncomfortable, too (there’s nothing quite so awful as trying to communicate with an unreceptive audience—I should know… I’m the editor of the Mercury).
So at the next opportunity, I jumped up to the mic, and told the story of my cat—BABY SQUEAKS: An absolutely atrocious animal that has spread more evil and displeasure than Pol Pot, and at 14 years old staunchly refuses to die. (And did you know that vets refuse to euthanize animals on demand? I didn’t.) If you want to watch my story, Rich Brueckner of Overheard in PDX videotaped the entire thing (thanks Rich!), and my rant starts at the 11:30 mark.
ACK! Pretty discomfortable, huh? Purposefully speaking far too long, I would occasionally look out at the ten or so people there, and revel in the look of total disgust on their faces. (Happily the band joined me in making our audience as uncomfortable as possible. I’m pretty sure that wasn’t on purpose.) Anyway, after roughly ten interminable minutes, I sat down, confident in my continuing ability to ruin anything good in the world. And even better? That keyboardist gal got up right after me, nearly breaking down in tears during her cat story about… I’m sure I don’t know. I wasn’t listening, I was too busy gloating over my performance and maintaining my disinterest in the feelings of others. The point is that her unbridled emotion (following my callousness) made me feel like even more of a dick than before! Unfortunately, my never ending cynical speech didn’t drive the remaining people from the bar, and a few more people got up and told stories that, while not uncomfortable, wouldn’t make anyone drive a spike into their ears. And a couple were even pretty good. One was about a cat that was stuck in a heating vent, and the owners got him out BY CRANKING UP THE HEAT ALL THE WAY (blistering the kitty’s paws in the process). And people think I’M a monster? I SALUTE YOU, STORY-TELLER!
All in all, the thing lasted for an hour and registered about a 7.5 on my discomfortable meter. I normally run about a four. I am happy, however, that I was able to add my own modicum of discomfortability to the situation. To the cat lovers of the world? YOU’RE WELCOME.
THIS IS HOW YOU DO DISCOMFORT ZONE.
This is some kind of cult, isn’t it? Hope they didn’t get your credit card number. Maybe you should give it to me for safekeeping.
Well, I never can tell if Steve is being sincere or not. HOWEVER, at least he had the decency to make it appear as if he was genuinely “discomfortable.” Take note, Merc staff!! This is what your readership wants: real suffering, or failing that, the appearance of real suffering. Well done!
Nothing says professionalism like telling your bass player the chords to the song right before you start playing. Also, not tuning your guitar.
Best Discomfort Zone EVAR!
@Never Alone: AMEN! Maybe if this was renamed the Schadenfreude Zone they’d understand.
Stop promoting Joe’s goddamn it. Also those three arguing old men are ALWAYS THERE. ALWAYS.
Cobb and Wilson were both assholes, brutes, bullies, alcoholics, and racists. But there isn’t quite as much evidence of Wilson beating the hell out of women as there is with Cobb, so I give the slight edge to Wilson.
That, and Cobb couldn’t hit the long ball.
Is there any chance of Scab Harvest playing a show with the Gentlemen’s Club Band?
The only thing Hack Wilson has on Ty Cobb is homeruns, and his came in an environment where everyone was hitting them. They both played center field but it’s a reasonable assumption that Cobb was a far superior defender as he was a baserunner, and he was a much better hitter for average and, more importantly, had a vastly higher OBP. Taking everything into account, Cobb was twice the player Wilson was, and even Wilson’s absolute best season of 1930 was no match for what Cobb did year in and year out. The only way you could possibly argue that Wilson was a better player is if you have no concept of era and only look at HR and RBI when judging someone.
I told my cat about this. She purred and threw up in approval.
This is just freaking awesome. Can we get that keyboardist to play the next Blogtown Meetup? I use the ‘play’ here quite loosely.
This sets the Gold Standard for Discomfort Zone write-ups. The rest of you slackers are on notice!
Leave it to Steve to spread the discomfort throughout the whole crowd.
And yes, this is well done. But for the record, I definitely got the impression that Smirk and Erik were superiorly Discomforted in their respective Zones.
That idiot-zombie keyboardist is exactly the type of person I wish would move back to their home state. Guess what kiddo- You may as well try to be happy cause nobody gives a shit if youre not
I thought this would be like parents telling stories about their kids – annoying and uninteresting, yet tolerable. Oh, no no no. That video actually had a discomfort miasma that spread from my computer and infected my day. Kudos for braving it sober!
How could you forget to mention that there were cat haikus?!
can we get someone to autotune Steve’s story?
Is this the one Alison was going to…for fun?
Beautiful! Hands down the best entry yet.
Wow when is the next one ? I would so totally get laid.
First of all, the keyboard action in the first four minutes of the video is awesome. So you can all go to hell. Second of all, I now have a way to normalize the conversation if people ask me why I’m drunk at 1100am on a sunny saturday morning…
OH MAN IT MUST BE AMAZING TO BE SO UTTERLY SUPERIOR TO A GROUP OF PEOPLE THAT YOU SEE THE INHERENT FLAWS IN THE THINGS THEY ENJOY AND CAN DEMONSTRATE TO THEM THAT THE THING TO WHICH THEY ATTACH VALUE IS, INDEED, VALUELESS! HA HA THEY ARE SO STUPID AND THEIR ACTIONS SO DESERVING OF RIDICULE!