Favorites and Influences.

Previously posted on my Facebook Page.

FAVORITES. Middle distance running or 21-k marathons. Those years, me and my friends Duwi and Benjo would run a dozen times around the Quezon Memorial Circle in Manila 10 to 12 times an afternoon. That’d be an 1.23 mile/s elliptical road. So 12 miles each time. Then we decided to prolong the run towards the next district and back. Running “shorter” marathons is all about finishing, not winning. A sense of accomplishment, a pleasure of adrenaline high. 🤸🏃🤸‍♂️

INFLUENCES. The 1971 movie “Bless the Beasts and Children,” Stanley Kramer’s adaptation of the eponymous novel written by Glendon Swarthout. Six teenaged boys, each a misfit in one way or another, are ostracized by the other boys. After seeing a herd of bison selected for culling by hunters, they resolve to sneak away from the camp and set the penned bison free. I formed a similar group with high school classmates Arnel and Duwi, which we called Bredspays, later Harpy. 🧒🐂👦

FAVORITES. Blues Rock. A fusion genre that relies on the chords/scales and instrumental improvisation of blues. Mostly an electric ensemble-style music with instrumentation similar to electric blues and rock (electric guitar, electric bass guitar, and drums, sometimes with keyboards and harmonica). From its beginnings in the early to mid-1960s, blues rock has gone through several stylistic shifts and along the way it inspired and influenced hard rock and Southern rock. 🎸🎼🎸

INFLUENCES. James Clavell’s “Asian Saga,” a series of six novels written between 1962 and 1993. The novels all center on Europeans in Asia. The purpose of the series, according to Mr Clavell—descendant of a family long in service to the British Empire, and who was a prisoner of war of the Japanese during the Second World War—was to tell "the story of the Anglo-Saxon in Asia.” The novels: King Rat, Tai-Pan, Shōgun, Noble House, Whirlwind, and Gai-Jin. 📚🍎🎼

FAVORITES. Ramens and noodles. For some reason, noodles are different from spaghetti or pasta. Though some people debate where “noodles” or spaghetti came from: China or Italy. I don’t care since such an argument graduates to a Conservative versus Liberal caterwaul. No kidding. Silly, isn’t it. Just eat, guys! For me, “noodles” are the Filipino pansit, which is prepared in so many different ways. With broth, I prefer the dish that is bihon/canton mix. With broth, ma mon luk mami. 🍜🍜😋

INFLUENCES. The Nordic Model is described as a system of competitive capitalism combined with a large percentage of the population employed by the public sector. Some economists have referred to the Nordic economic model as a form of "cuddly capitalism,” with low levels of inequality, generous welfare states, and reduced concentration of top incomes, contrasting it with the more "cut-throat capitalism" of the United States, which has high levels of inequality. ⚒💴🛠

FAVORITES. Rice. Cultural conditioning. If I was born into corn, pasta or potatoes, I’d be regularly eating those instead. Anyhow, many people consider white rice an “empty” or “bad” carb since it loses nutrients when the bran and germ are removed. However, white rice is typically enriched with added nutrients such as iron and B vitamins. So while brown rice does have more nutrients than white rice, white rice is still considered nutritious. And I eat `em. Got a problem with that? LOL! 🥡🥄🍚

INFLUENCES. Grameen Bank is a microfinance specialized community development bank founded in Bangladesh. Small loans also known as microcredit to the impoverished without requiring collateral. Founded in 1976 by Muhammad Yunus and operated as an independent in 1983, Grameen Bank is jointly operated by borrower members and the government. The bank grew significantly between 2003 and 2007. Bank borrowers total nearly 9.5 million; 97 percent are women. 👩‍🦰💶👩‍🦳

FAVORITES. Hats. I never liked hats when I was in the Philippines. Too hot for the hat! And I always had long hair that I didn’t prefer “hidden.” These days, I have a collection of hats, mostly the inexpensive kinds. I don’t dig baseball hats though. My hats are either scored at Goodwill and thrift stores or gifts from BFFs, usually Cindyrella. I like old hats. Derby, wool felt, Peaky Gatsby, fedora, Panama, trilby, newsboy, Homburg, old Stetsons, and bowler. 🎩🧢🎩

INFLUENCES. Higher Education. A family imperative. Many downplay a university diploma. Yet a college experience ushers better financial opportunities via employment. The most educated ethnic grouping in America are Asians, hence they also earn the most per household income. For me, education is no brainer. The best that we could “leave” as “inheritance” to children is education. Then they carry on as individual initiatives, and gain their own “wealth.” (Art: 21K School.) 📚🧑‍🎓📚

Photo credit: Cartwright. Vintage North.

Songs and Memories and Friendships

Previously posted on my Facebook page. Or written years ago, unedited/not updated.

REMINISCING. Bittersweet memories as I listened to songs in my CD, songs that I wrote with friends when I was in my 20s to 30s. Very meaningful ones in my progression as a human being, like a chronicle of my journey before I crossed oceans to America... Due to copyright intricacies, I will have to work on legal issues first before I could properly market them though (especially via the internet). I can't download it on YouTube or Facebook either, but see me—I will hand you a copy. I hand out “friendly copies” for donations (to my community projects) each time there is a chance. 

       Besides the songs that I wrote with my band, Duane's Poetry—I also wrote a lot of songs with my bestfriend Duwi when we were very young, like 13 or 14 years old. Then some more with other friends in so many places—songs that I left on cassette tapes, lead sheets, notebooks (with scribbled music ledgers and stuff), and memories of those who heard them. 

MEANTIME, when I was in New York, “Awit kay Clarita,” an ode/sonata behind kneading strings and piano solo break about a slain tribal amazon in the Cordilleras back home, was interpreted by an Alvin Ailey dancer/teacher, Elena Colmenares, in an art exhibition opening in Soho's Puffin Gallery. The master copy was co-arranged with my best buddy Rolly Melegrito, Pearlsha Abubakar and the late Miguel Basilio (who also engineered the recording). 

       I rearranged “Pagano,” a statement vis a vis traditional/conventional religion and tribal faith, into a multi-percussion interplay and choral voices. “Mutya,” inspired by a Filipino poet/mentor Romulo Sandoval who died of cancer at 40, about the beauty of poetry in the backdrop of a cruel world, was sung by a Columbia Univ student and staff for The Indie as “gift” to the late Senator (and presidential hopeful) Raul Roco and his wife upon their visit in Manhattan in 2000. “Yakap” (“Embrace”), written with Pearlsha, was about a mother's endearing, undying love for her child.

I LEARNED that a very young group in Manila wants to record an old blues-rock broadside that I wrote with Rolly and Kay Conlu-Brondial, “Praise The Lord, I am Cool,” in reference to the Pope's visit in Manila that time. Then there's the old blues howler, “Mama, Don't Let Your Children Grow Up to be Politicians,” a piece that me and Rolly wrote for our little poetry/blues side-project, “Lightning Joe and The Bluesman.” The sad but closure-tinged “Looking for my Comrades” was my send-off song as I prepare to fly to New York City on my 38th birthday, it's about the surreal confusion of party/ideological-line ruin following the fall of the dictatorship, that we were still “fighting” after the so-called revolution. 

       “May Habilin ang Uhay” (“The Rice Sheaves' Message”) was an eligy to the protesting farmers who were shot at and perished in front of the presidential palace in early `90s. “My Daughter is Missing” talks about a summarily-executed or “salvaged” young activist, a desaparecido... 

OH, that song, “Ode to the Beauty Queen,” written with Ray Nunez, with the lines, “Now that you have a most desirable body / Sure bet to boost tourism in any country / And as computers check your vital stat / Tabloids scrutinize your most private parts... / Go on fair muse, sell that toothpaste smile / Neon gods whistle as you strut down desolated isles / And what have you got inside that lovely swimsuit / Have you traded your stars to a sequined fruit... / There goes your stairway, stairway to heaven / All you have to do is get a perfect ten.” Oh yes, at that early age, although I always watched beauty pageants with my four sisters and mom and aunts, I never agreed that awesome shapes and beautiful faces define “beauty” in a woman. 

       And my takes on love as a young man, “”Love is a Poison,” is warm song, written with Kai, based on The Little Prince and The Fox. Then a “harana” (serenade) that I'd like to rearrange and record one of these days, composed with Rolly, “Hindi Ito Panaginip” (“This Is Not a Dream,” that love is not idealized—but realized). 

TO think that, these are just little fraction of the many songs that I wrote in the past... What about my poems, plays, unproduced screenplays, paintings? There are so many to catch up on, retrieve and resurrect, while my little brain keeps on chugging along everyday, every minute, every second—even in my night dreams. It's not over until it is over, you reckon? 🎼🎹🎼

Make Me Smile, Plus a Poem.

Previously posted on my Facebook page. Or written years ago.

I WOKE up at around 4:15, almost an hour ago. I glanced at my laptop clock, it says I slept for about six hours... I feel I had enough sleep already, my mind is awake. I let Andres Segovia, the great flamenco guitar maestro, play with my early-morn rumination... Too early for Bee Gees or Led Zeppelin, I guess? LOL! 

       My immediate memory of hours gone by slides to Westville Pub in West Asheville early last night—when a young man approached me, soon after I settled on a booth. “Hey, Pasckie, man... I love your poems, man!” as he eagerly extends his hand to greet me. I don't know him but does that matter? He saw/heard me read few months ago in town and he remembered me for those poems... In my little town, or in those little towns in my huge journey, where I left a little imprint of myself—a poem, mostly—I received blessings such as a sweet reminder that, “You are the poet.” That's enough to make my day—makes me feel I am alive, worthy of life. 

       Years ago, one summer afternoon, as I nonchalantly walked on a Wilmington beach, a 7-year old girl stared at me with a smile and exclaimed, “You are the man me and my mom met in Asheville, you had dancing there at the park! Your...” I smiled back, “Bonfires for Peace.” Those random moments when someone sits beside me on a park bench, or someone recognizes me on an Earth Fare queue, or someone offers me a beer in a downtown bar, or someone stops on a street as I walk, and say, “I love your poems!” or “You are the journalist!” or “The Indie!” or “When is the next bonfire dancing in the park?” In my little town or in any other little town where I find my little me find himself—and that “himself” feels so huge. I feel like a rock star in just those little, random moments—and I'm not even Barry Manilow! 

       Yet that's enough to make me feel like I wanna write another poem, and then my life is alive again. Just like that. 🙂🙃😉

Favorites and Influences.

Previously posted on my Facebook Page.

FAVORITES. Bandanna handkerchiefs. Obligatory body implements. Never without one in my pants pocket. Cover the nose! Started when I was a boy, as I struggled with asthma, and then my lung got “damaged” as I grew older. I am fine now. Yet the square cotton thingy evolved as a personal “protection” vs. germs along with two-layers of socks, LOL! (I don’t allow my skin to “touch” a stranger’s skin so I don’t usually hug people.) Hence I maintain dozens of “hankies” and bandannas. 🧦🥹🧣

INFLUENCES. Kerala, a state in India that is managed as a social democratic welfare economy. From the 1990s, liberalization of the mixed economy allowed restrictions against capitalism and foreign direct investment to be lightened, leading to economic expansion and increase in employment. The state recorded 8.9 percent growth in enterprises from 1998 to 2005, higher than the national rate of 4.8 percent that time. The “Kerala Model” stays high in my book. 🍃🇮🇳🪜

FAVORITES. I am obsessed with dogs and cats. I wasn’t then although my family back home always had a pet dog. My father even had 12 dogs running around the yard then. These days, dogs and cats are my constant companions. An understatement to admit that without them, I wouldn’t be able to deal with depression (from being away from family and home-country). So I love Arrow, Ching and Fizz as my extended family. My own children. Not drama, just a fact and truth of my life. 🐈🥰🐕

INFLUENCES. Progressive Utilization Theory (or Prout) is a socioeconomic and political philosophy created by Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar (1921-1990). An economically progressive approach to social development, Prout exposes and overcomes the limitations of capitalism, communism and mixed economy. In 1955, Mr Sarkar also founded Ananda Marga, a spiritual and social organization that offers instruction in meditation and yoga. I edited Prout’s Manila newsletter in the 1990s. 📚🍎👫

FAVORITES. Old things. Antiques or vintage. Old books, old cars, old houses, old music, old clothes, old appliances, old foods, old ways. My obsessive attachment to/with The Old is heightened by the rapid surge of technological inventions, most of which are not needed. Computer/internet based writing offers many conveniences, sure. Like, we could easily google our name and voila! We didn’t forget our name! Soon, the AI homey will do the googling for us? ☎️📺📷

INFLUENCES. The Bible is a compilation of religious texts or Christian scriptures of a variety of forms, originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Koine Greek. These texts include instructions, stories, poetry, and prophecies. Believers in The Bible consider it to be a product of divine inspiration, but the way they understand what that means and interpret the text varies. I was born into Catholicism so The Bible is a major influence. But I am not selling Bibles. 📖✝️📖

FAVORITES. Souperman! A true story about me as a misbehaving little boy: Once on the dinner table, I couldn’t wait for my mom to serve my soup, so I pee’d on my soup bowl! Ha! Not celebrating that crazy story but obviously it isn’t TMI anymore. LOL! I used to get annoyed when my older bro shares that embarrassing mischief with my friends. Just saying that I love soups! But soup that is brothy, not the thick kind, like chili. Southeast Asian kind of soup. 🥣😋🥣

INFLUENCES. Galian sa Arte at Tula. A convergence of poets, writers and artists that started in the mid-seventies, during the Marcos dictatorship years in the Philippines. We mostly met in Odette Alcantara’s Heritage Art Gallery, and then in several spots in the University of the Philippines campus. Some of my mentors (“koyang”) have already passed away. I am proud to say that most of what I learned in writing I learned from our workshops in those days. ✍✍✍

FAVORITES. Watching sports. Basketball is the most popular sport in the Philippines. So everybody is into it: Watcher, player, organizer, entrepreneur, heckler. Boxing, chess, and billiards/pool are also widely followed sports back home. We had world champs in boxing, grandmasters in chess, and Filipinos are considered top pool players, globally. Anyhow, I simply love watching sports. Basketball and tennis mostly. These balance my mirth, madness, and moods. (Photo: MediaPost.) 🎱🥊🏀

INFLUENCES. The Beatles. Formed in Liverpool, England in 1960. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr. The most influential band of all time and were integral to the development of 1960s counterculture and recognition of popular music as an art form. Their music incorporated elements of classical music and traditional pop in innovative ways. Anyone who says he/she hasn’t heard or doesn’t recognize a Beatles song is lying. (Photo: CTTO.) 📚🍎🎼

Photo credit: Enmanscamera.

Compilation of short MORNING THOUGHTS.

Previously posted on my Facebook Page.

News: “Climate Protester Glues His Head to ‘Girl With a Pearl Earring’ Painting.” The artwork by Johannes Vermeer, exhibited in The Hague, was the latest artwork to be targeted by protesters. Seems like this is getting to be a fad or something. Juvenile fit. Why don’t they instead barricade a yacht, smear a golf course, or glue their head to a Lamborghini? Same message, right? Leave art alone. Activism should gain followers, rich and poor—not to push them away. 👎😾👎

Halloween time! Fun time for children, mostly. Trick or treatin’! Yet I read, again, lots of thumbs-downing since they believe this day is devil worship and thumbs-upping because they call themselves witches as sort of honor. So be it. Yet Halloween, and most other “holidays,” is essentially mom/dad’s quality moments with children. Nothing so heavy to intellectualize or politicize about. Halloween costumes to avoid The Immaculate’s sword of “correctness,” you know. 🧟‍♀️🧛‍♂️🧟

To deny the current economic murk, government apologists post memes that infer high inflation is global. Nope. Yet no way to justify an inept leadership, esp. when we talk of economics. Examples of fine inflation rates: China, 2.3 percent; Japan, 3 percent; Saudi Arabia, 3 percent; Russia, 2.9 percent; Ecuador, 0.13 percent. UAE and Bahrain are -2+ percent. Yet as the world recovers from Covid and struggles with high fuel prices, economies gasp. But it is not global. 🥹💵😟

Notice that Goodwill is short of shopping carts. What’s going on? Why, oh why? So I looked it up. Dmitry Orlov, in his book "The Five Stages of Collapse," posits that “lost shopping carts” is a result of the disintegration of society. Uh huh. Commercial collapse. “Commodities are hoarded, import and retail chains break down, and widespread shortages of survival necessities become the norm." Uh huh? I didn’t mean to overthink this, LOL!  I won’t ask again, okay? 

       How dire is the problem of “lost shopping carts,” I must continue. On Dmitry dude’s walk one dreary afternoon, he counted 11 abandoned grocery carts: Five clumped together as if the result of five separate trips; one behind a locked fence at the local rec center; one covered in vegetation in a weedy lot, as if being reclaimed by the Earth; one that seems to live at the bus stop; and one, incongruously, with a new car tire in it, wrapped in plastic, outside a school. Yup. Me, I saw one being playfully pushed by a dog with three cats riding. 🛒😒🛒

Jerry Lee Lewis, 87, was reported dead. He is alive… Careless journalism? Unforgivable is when a person is “reported” dead, with intent to hurt the person, who is alive. True story: A friend’s soon to be ex posted on FB that he committed suicide, when he was absent on Facebook for a day. Turned out the man took a break to be with their son to talk about the impending divorce. She knew it since she’s been texting with the son when he’s with dad. Reason to divorce, uh huh. 👎👎👎

“Model, 57, challenges taboos on female sexuality.” I read a lot of this kind of news that focuses on physical eye-candy or “non-standard, old-school” body shape per female sexuality. Women my age on 2-piece swimwear, full-bodied ladies on TV ads. I get the message. But can we now go back to accentuating attributes beyond figure endowments that equal market economics? What about talent, intelligence, grit. And health—chubby or thin, old or young. 🩱👙👗

Not a fan of Kanye West’s music. I don’t have to—to know that there is a Kanye in this world. He is high-profile for being him, “notoriously.” And so Ye is dropped by his corporate benefactors due to his “incorrect” mouth. I don’t really care what he said; many people say the same albeit non-famous personages. So a Fortune 500 dumped him because of what he said? Or because that’d affect their sales? How many Kanyes are there in your neighborhood? Tell me. 🗣👥🫂

I never shared my funk with my children when they were little. My relationships failed, jobs were hard etc. Those were mine. And despite my Leftist activism, I didn’t bring them to a protest rally, ever. My political angst, not theirs. Many say they do otherwise to protect their kids, prepare them for the future. Well, they will evolve and think for themselves as adults. Why don’t we guide for open-mindedness, not partisan hate. Let children enjoy their childhood. 👶👧🧒

I google words before typing `em up. Squeaky, queue etc. Correct spellings. I draft my longer “rants,” file them for days before I finally post them. Dig up more data. Yet I don’t claim whatever I post is it. Just my insight. I notice, when some don’t agree with an opinion, and run out of rudeness, they “correct” your grammar. LOL! We come from different cultural mindsets and English-delivery. So let it be. Don’t be so correct. Click/watch some dog videos, instead. 🧐🤨🤪

A lot of these “correctness” self-righteousness are deodorizing of indolence, laziness. They say blowers and weedeaters worsen noise pollution so rake them leaves and get Dollar Tree scissors to cut those brush, okay? Others lecture not to tidy up your yard or mow your lawn. Grow `em grass as habitat for anacondas, bears and zebras or turn your backyard into a rainforest? Buy disposable, recyclable plates than handwash your dishes with toxic soap. LOL! 🗣👥🫂

JUST talkin’ or rantin’ about stuff.

Previously posted on my Facebook page. Or written years ago, unedited/not updated.

APOLOGIES for hyperventilating. This pollen allergy could be the most irksome physical aggravation (ailment?) that I ever had since my hospital visits in Manila in 1995 and New Jersey in 2000. I'd rather muster a bad flu than this irritation. I couldn't really sleep and I had to contain my asthma almost every 20 minutes (thanks to the nebulizer!) To make this more depressing, my fantastical superhero/superhomey pretensions are now crumbling to pieces that I'm even misunderstood or some people don't really believe that I am this “sick.” It's not like I am about to die—but it also doesn't mean that I have both physical and mental energy to go out at all.

Days ago, I thought I was fine—so I accompanied Cindyrella to some errands (mostly I was in the car). But when I tried to walk inside the store, my faulty breathing scared me. Days ago, when I refused to see some friends to hang out, some thought I was making an alibi or “acting like a douchebag.” That it was my usual aloofness and indifference in meeting people. Not that, please.

I MUST admit however that irrelevant of this allergy, I've cut my so-called social life a considerable lot. Those who know me are aware of how insanely relentless my community activities were (whether it was in the Philippines or in the US). I led a life that seemed to run between rains, a bullet train on hyperkick (sic). Hence the twin near-death trips to the ER (mentioned above) weren't so surprising. Those were all wear-and-tear exhaustion that I ignored or neglected till it almost put me away.

       These days, it's more age catching up on me. Man, I will be 56 in July! I might as well be 96. I am mentally tired and physically exhausted—yet I still got huge energy to focus inward. Write. Create art. Teach. Read. Enjoy family. I still do travel for “non-partying” leisure and to read in support of my book/s and come out to see a good show or have dinner with few close friends—but I am not The Madman anymore who used to supervise two club shows a week, two all-day park concerts a month, edit and layout a fortnightly newspaper, travel to New York and Baltimore monthly, perform almost weekly for years. I don't know. But I tend to plan out my (outside) energy and time more these days. I enjoy reconnecting with longtime friends and talking with family on Facebook. I also got more than two dozens of TV series and shows to follow, LOL! Honestly though, being with friends and family albeit online keeps my peace and quiet realizable, pacifies my homesickness funk.

MEANTIME, I don't enjoy listening to advocacies and rants and ruminations anymore, philosophies and spiritualities that I sought out in four continents and many big city lights and small town barns and bars. It's not like I am ahead of others or I already “knew” too much. Not that. I just feel like I imbibed so much of life and the world that the only way to loosen up and calm down is to write them or translate all these into a more subdued flow (like being at home with the babedawg and koolcat or cooking for friends, gardening and doing housework, teaching younger people what I know about writing etc).

       Yet still I can say, I really don't know when my chakras will run berserk again. I had a self-imposed two-year hibernation, dividing my time between Candler NC and Athens GA, hoping that I could easy-down my fire and churn out a number of writing projects. I did yet I am still struggling to focus (yes and no thanks to Facebook distraction!) 

       As I said, I don't know. Those barbecue invites and gig hellos and partytime hugs will have to wait. For now, I gotta deal with this awful pollen (allergy) onslaught in my system. But I hope that some friends and relations will understand. This is not an alibi and I am not being a douchebag (I do hate that word). I am just indisposed as hell. Allergy is such a bitch! 🥹🙃😉

About Dogs and Cats and their Buddies. And some little jokes.

Previously posted on my Facebook Page.

WHY do cats knock down stuff. Experts (who are cats) say they simply want to play with the object. Cats are natural hunters who have a tendency to play with their prey. When they nudge a small object with their paw, they're performing the same behavior. As cruel as it may seem to us, they're not doing it for entertainment. Cats are weird, isn’t it? Okay, you may sweep the broken glass off the floor now. 🐈🫗🐈‍⬛

WHY do cats like to watch birds? It's all instinct. Whatever breed, temperament or age— all cats are born with strong hunting instincts. Cats naturally consider birds as prey, whether they want to play or are seeing the feathery friend as potential food, and their natural instincts kick in. Or maybe cats simply want to befriend birds and teach them to facebook (verb) aside from tweeting. “Less noisy,” says Fizz. 🐱🐦🐱

BEFORE a police officer can legally pull over a driver, he or she must have probable cause to do so. Maybe the vehicle has a broken taillight or the officer witnessed the driver run a red light. It could be the driver was speeding or swerving in and out of a lane. But then, if a cop recognizes you as his/her Facebook friend and just wants to say “Hi!” that’d be okay. Probably. 👮‍♀️🚖👮

EVEN dogs that have had hearty appetites can become picky eaters, sometimes overnight. Changes in eating habits can be temporary or permanent, caused by illness, injury, aging, or other factors. Or don’t worry too much. Maybe the cat has influenced the dog about wellness eating, and all that. 🐕🥘🐕

WHY do cats knock down stuff. Experts (who are cats) say they simply want to play with the object. Cats are natural hunters who have a tendency to play with their prey. When they nudge a small object with their paw, they're performing the same behavior. As cruel as it may seem to us, they're not doing it for entertainment. Cats are weird, isn’t it? Okay, you may sweep the broken glass off the floor now. 🐈🫗🐈‍⬛

CATS react to the emotion, not desire. That's why a cat comes back to continue doing the things you told them not to do. Like sew a nice winter sweater while you sleep, reconfigure the house wifi, or cook paella when you are out of the house, leaving the kitchen in a mess. 🙀😽😾

WHY are people rude these days? There can be many root causes for rudeness, such as insecurity or fear. People are often rude after being on the receiving end of rudeness. Researchers have found that “just like the common cold, common negative behaviors can spread easily and have significant consequences.” Or maybe some people are rude because they don’t have a cat or dog. Especially cat. Must be. 😤😠😓

WHY do cats disobey a lot? Cats don't have a pack mentality. In the wild, they tend to be solitary, so they're not hard-wired to obey. But domestic cats have been somewhat infantilized. Our cats remain kittens in certain respects, able to identify their humans as “mom” and “dad.” But mostly cats disobey because they can. That’s what Fizz explains to me though she’s a good girl. 😼😾😸

THE dog equivalent of singing is the howl. Dogs are so talented at joining into the sounds of song that they will raise their voices in howls. There are lots of funny videos on the internet of dogs howling along to the singing of their owners. There have even been Broadway performances based on the howling of dogs. Arrow howls, too, but she also does hiphop and rap. 🐕🧑‍🎤🐕

DOGS can be trained to recognize and respond to shapes and to words. It takes repetition, reinforcement, and patience. Some dogs go to school, literally, to learn to read. Arrow went to Harvard Law School for Dogs but she dropped out. She preferred to learn at home, with the help of Cyd then, and now Fizz and Ching. Cats are smart teachers. 🐕📜🐕