WE’LL MAKE GREAT PETS

Rita: Did you know that Lolita use to have a blind pigeon as a pet? She rescued it off the street. That was just one of the 56 birds she kept in her Cambridge apartment. She ended up having to give them all away because she developed the life-threatening bird lover’s lung. Lolita: But what about other people’s pets? Rita: Yeah, go ask people for stories about other people’s pets. Lolita: Sure, I’ll just text message some of my animal friends. OEDIPUS (x-WBCN): There is an adorable puppy at my Thai language school here in Bangkok with an extra paw on his foreleg. His name is Ang Pao, named after the red envelope of money given on Chinese holidays that symbolizes good luck and wards off evil spirits. *** CHRIS BRAT (the Throwaways/ the Acrobrats): My bandmate’s family’s dead cat is in the freezer in the basement. I don’t know that qualifies as something interesting about that particular pet, but it’s a real eye-opener when you’re drunkenly fishing around for a late-night snack. *** PETE DEGRAAF (Cleartheway/ Pete deGraaf Audio): My girlfriend’s cat would always invade any food that was on the table, which never made any sense to me because we eat vegan... Thanks, Lucy for standing in our cheeseless pizza! But we got some squirt guns and keep them next to the table. Every time Lucy tries to sample the food, we squirt her. I guess that cats hate being squirted with water more than they like vegan food. So nowadays she checks out the food from the top of the refrigerator. Now if we could just stop her from eating out of the garbage. *** CHANDLER “BUCK” TRAVIS (The Scott Bosley Philharmonic): My friend Tommy McGuirk had a dog named Grimes who could say “Colorado.” *** JOE COUGHLIN (the Noise): I have a friend with a three-legged pug named Bandit. He’s a great li’l pooch! *** STEVE BREMAN (Monique Ortiz): Monique Ortiz has a very sweet cat named Marlene (pronounced mer-leh-neh). She gets very jealous when we practice and often will waltz into our rehearsal demanding attention. We, of course, succumb to her jealousy, stop EVERYTHING and give her the love she needs before resuming our rehearsal. Hope that doesn’t destroy our hard-nosed rock rep (after all, she is an all-black cat). *** MERCY JAMES (Mercy James Gang): Our keyboard player Nixie has a cat that I am terrified of. It even killed a bat once. I don’t want to be next! *** RICK BERLIN (Rick Berlin): I knew this guy who had a cat named Harrison who could shit on command. He’d be playing poker in his kitchen and he’d brag to his friends about it. Nah. Bullshit, etc. So he’d get ’em to bet. Then he’d call the cat onto the linoleum and say “okay, Harrison... shit.” Harrison (a huge yellow tab) would stare at him cross-eyed, arch his big fat back, tighten his thin black lips and do it. One slender licorice turd onto the kitchen floor. Every time. My friend won every bet. Lolita: Wow. I’m speechless.