Tag: Animals

Buzz kill

~ Chris ~ 2 Comments

I try to prioritize my murderous impulses. I don’t kill much, and what I do snuff out tends to possess multiple legs, pincers and stingers, and the potential to bite me and make me very unhappy. Rashes, swelling, itching — don’t fuck with me. 

So this is wonderful: Numerous yellowjackets have found their way into the house. There’s a nest outside and the belligerent arthropods are zipping through a vent straight indoors, flying and buzzing and trying to find their way back out, which of course they can’t. 

The pests are a type of wasp, not a bee, and can sting repeatedly without dying, unlike the dumb, suicidal bumble bee whose guts pour out when it unleashes its stinger. Yellowjackets are also more aggressive and tenacious when in attack mode. They have nothing to lose. They’re winged terrorists, mini drones aimed directly at you. And they get pissed off easily. 

And so, when I spotted one banging against the window above the kitchen sink, I: 1) freaked, 2) swore, and 3) sprung into action. I slipped off a sneaker, zeroed in on my jittery, buzzy target, and smooshed it with heroic gusto. Twhack, plop. 

And yet. While the vibrating, yellow-striped beast quivered in its death throes, it sort of broke my heart. I adhere to no religion, including Jainism, which is dedicated to the non-injury of any living creature. A Jainist wouldn’t hurt a fly, literally. I would. I do. Flies are a pesky pestilence.

Despite the yellowjacket drama — a crime scene, really— killing bugs is not my thing. When I stumble upon a beetle, spider, cricket or other creepy crawler that belongs outside and not, say, in my bedroom, 99-percent of the time I’ll get a tissue and gingerly carry it first class to the front lawn where it hopefully gains its bearings and flies or waddles back into the verdant, perilous wild. (If it gets cute with me, it’s swirling down the toilet.)

I’m like the Saint Francis of Assisi of bugs, except I’m not from Italy, I’m not Christian and I don’t wear a brown habit with a rope tied around my waist, though that might make a fine fall fashion statement. Francis, among many things, is the patron saint of animals. Even now, World Animal Day, when all manner of creature and critter is blessed in churches on Frank’s behalf, is held on October 4. (I’d take Cubby the dog, but he doesn’t believe in that hocus-pocus either, even if they give him a cookie.)

I’m no fan of bugs, but I empathize and believe they deserve a shot in this big doomed world, which is as much theirs as ours. That’s why I feel bad about the yellowjacket I turned to gruel. It wasn’t his fault he winged his way inside, and he was plainly trying to get out. But he couldn’t, and he was too dangerous and elusive to snatch in a tissue and deposit outside. It’d be like trying to save an injured Great White in the ocean. Just don’t.  

Prozac for the pup

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

Last night, as the boom boom booms went off in the comfortable July 4th gloom, my brother and I sat on the patio, sipping whiskey and smoking Cuban cigars we paid $25 a piece for in Hong Kong last January, and listened to the brooding-funny music of Nick Cave and blew smoke rings and coughed and giggled.

Then the dog showed up.

Poor Cubby was terrorized by the hiss and bang of the nearby fireworks and needed a friend. Quivering and panting, he leaped on my lap, sitting upright, Sphinx-like, sporadically craning his neck back at me to make sure I hadn’t abandoned him in his spasm of fear and trembling. 

Cubby’s a smallish hound, but a whisper too big as a lap dog, especially when you’re wearing shorts and his nails dig into bare flesh. He was antsy as hell and we decided to slip him a Mickey, a harmless prescription doggie sedative. I would have shared my hooch and stogie, but he was having none of it. I am agitated and afraid, he seemed to be saying, and your vices are but futile distractions. Away with them!

At about age 10, the dog is becoming more and more neurotic, and it’s a bit of a pain in the ass. He pees on the rug when we vacate the house, leaving him alone. He barks at nothing in the same situation, as though crying for the humans’ return. His need for affection is amplified and his weird, random panting makes him a freak of nature. He’s been suffering stress-related diarrhea. He’s devolving into a nervous Nellie, unmoored and a little loopy.

Enter the doggie Prozac. The vet wants to try it, see how it goes. I took Prozac eons ago, so I’m not worried about Cubs taking it. If it helps him, it helps me. He is my unofficial therapy dog, my best buddy and furriest friend. Need to get him balanced and happy. We can’t, after all, have two kooks knocking around here.

Pills please, Papa.

Living in a vacuum

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Housesitting at my brother’s place and the biweekly cleaners are whirring, whooshing and wizzing their arsenal of electrical contraptions, a cacophony of vacuums, dusters and busters. 

It’s a racket, and the animals shudder and hide. I won’t see them for a good two hours. Then they’ll re-emerge with bristled fur and indignant scowls. The word balloon above their collective head will read: You S.O.B.

Who, after all, is partial to the rambunctious suckery of the vacuum cleaner? It’s a veritable monster, roaring, devouring.

I’m more a Swiffer guy. That gauzy glide across wood and linoleum, affably gathering dirt and dust, soundlessly, like cotton candy. But rugs and carpets demand plugged-in hardware, and there goes the neighborhood.

Right now, a cleaner is banging a handheld duster against the wooden window blinds and it almost evokes Latin percussion. A drummer, I’m tempted to pull out my cowbell and a tom-tom and fashion some dance jams. But suddenly there are multiple flushes from the bathrooms and a buzz has been decisively killed.

Obviously I could split this joint, go to a cafe to write, see a movie, vandalize some Teslas. But it’s too warm and I can manage the madness for a couple noisy hours. 

Yet I feel a little odd sitting about while they clean around me. On an ancient episode of “Seinfeld,” Jerry riffs about being home when the maid comes and gets all embarrassed that he just as well have cleaned but, you know, you’re here and all, and he offers a wincing apology and a pained shrug.

This isn’t like that. This is my brother’s abode and I’m but an innocent bystander. I’m on good, first-name terms with the lead cleaner, Delsy, and we banter a bit and joke about the animals. Then she hits the “on” switch and my brain rattles in its tiny pan, and I either leave or tolerate it. Today was the latter, as noted. I don’t know where the hell the pets are.

Delsy is cool. A young mother from Guatemala, petite with a helium voice, she once polished the wood floors so well that I slipped on my ass and about broke in half. That’s a compliment. She’s good. And when I’m there, she’s sweet as can be. She has the laugh of a cartoon elf. 

She runs a mean vacuum, scouring the carpets and attacking the stairs. She even sucks the sofa with that terrible tube. It’s all good, if benignly violent. 

And then it’s over and Delsy and crew politely exit, while the animals skulk out of hiding, wanting nothing more than to bite me. 

Pet sounds

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

The animals have it made. They just don’t know it.

Oblivious to their Edenic existence — room, board, vet care, treats, belly rubs — they try my charity and patience with animal trickery, inbred cunning that might serve them in the wild, but I doubt it. Tossed outside, the dog and two cats would eat twigs and weeds and cry for their mommies. That scratching at the door? I’m sure I don’t know.

When they’re not noisome they’re noisy, yawping dissonant arias that would make Yoko Ono reconsider her entire career. Every so often I am startled by the sound of hell’s maw bellowing tortured damnation. It’s just the cat.

While the cats whine constantly, the dog often breathes with the labored wheeze of a Sleestak, the reptilian humanoids from the “Land of the Lost.” He sounds about 100 and sneaks Pall Malls. And he barks at strangers with a fury so committed, you want to reward him with a meatball. But you don’t, because his outbursts are teeth-clinchingly annoying. Told to shut up, he replies: yap!

The male cat in particular, gray and greedy and shameless, is an air-raid siren of plaintive meows, begging for food then stealing that of his push-over sister. The other day I Frisbeed a small plate at him and missed. He gave me the stink eye and stalked haughtily to the other room, where he probably contemplated murder and mackerel.

Cubby the curly mutt is my pal, a boy and his dog and all that. We get along with a fellowship of such purity you could throw up. We’re like bros, even though I hate bros. He doesn’t know this.

The cats are another deal. They’re sweet and affectionate, but it’s hard to get close to creatures that prefer aloof entitlement to purry snuggles. One cat hibernates in the attic all day, zonked, and the other one is on call strictly for food, any food. (This is flagrant feline stereotyping, I know. My ex and I had a cat named Jesse who would play fetch with bottle caps and sleep on your head.)

Watching the animals in repose, on their back or curled up like a large ball of yarn, must be what it’s like when your small child finally falls asleep after a day of tantrums and slobber. Suddenly there’s a still angel in your midst, halo shimmering, mouth miraculously shut. Shhh.

Oft-seen shot of Cubby, blissfully at rest.



The angsty animal

~ Chris ~ 2 Comments

It’s raining and Cubby won’t go out to poop. He’s a dog, but he’s also a scaredy-cat. 

Yet even more than drizzling drops of water, Cubby cowers at mighty gusts of wind that make the trees sway, whipping up hissing whooshes, as if the gods are sighing at we dim mortals. 

Don’t even get him started when the landscapers are out, buzzing, rumbling and roaring with fossil fuel gusto. The spooked dog melts into a quaking, head-ducking mess. His body vibrates like one of those 25-cent motel beds and he hides between our legs and under chairs.

Cubby is a wuss. And he seems to be getting wussier with age. More neurotic, less secure in his fur, clingier and whinier. 

That hasn’t stopped his predictable barking tantrums when UPS or USPS drop by. Oh them he wants to tear apart between his keening and caterwauling. How exercised he gets when someone walks upon the front porch who isn’t friend or family. He’s a little guy, so it’s almost risible, all that raucous theater. We’d snicker if his clamor wasn’t so trying.

Poor pooch. He’s torn between fear and fury. Of course there’s the sweet in-between: the daily dogginess of cuddles and belly rubs, bully bones and the Baby Yoda chew toy, naps and nuzzles, loving woofs and lazy walks. 

But now, at this moment, Cubs has risen from repose and his ears perk nervously at a chorus of cicadas that’s blossomed after a day of rain. What’s that? Realizing it’s naught, his chin hits the floor again. The old man — 50ish in human years, really not so old — is learning that every noise isn’t a trigger.

An uppity pup? Hardly. He’s a humble character, gentle and obeisant, practically a lap dog. He likes to play chase with Baby Yoda and he gladly comes when called — he practically gallops. 

Despite his fear of the big bad lawn mowers and some other anxieties that may require pills, therapy, or both — did I mention he has to be sedated with not one but two meds before vet and grooming visits? — Cubby is fine, a good dog with curly gray hair and melting brown eyes. Funny thing is, he just might have taken a whole lot after … me. 

Cubby: craven and combustible; cuddly and crazy.

Is Austin overrated? and other stray thoughts

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

1. Even through my teens, my two grandmas, bless their long-dead hearts, called me Chrissy, and I didn’t mind a bit (unless it was in front of my friends, then I turned a scorching shade of fuck me). Today, one of my best friends, an unassailable lady in Texas, occasionally calls me Chrissy or even Chrissy Poo in endearing texts. Born Christopher, I’ve always gone by Chris, but that’s a unisex name, and for those of you with monikers like Jamie, Terry, Jessie, Charlie, etc., you know it can get sticky. Sometimes at my newspaper gigs, I’d get hate mail addressed “Dear Sir or Madam.” But that was rare. Readers could pretty much tell I was a guy, because my reviews often had an acid tang, a little banner that said: dick. Two of my favorite names for girls are Samantha and Alexis, which of course become Sam and Alex. I almost named a pet rat Samantha. When my sister-in-law calls the dog my way, she’ll chirp, “Go see Chrissy!” I don’t blush. I kind of like it. If it’s good enough for old Cubby, it’s good enough for me.

2.If I got a bunch of dogs, these are some of the names I would give them: Bongo, Mamet, Alvy, Corn Pop, Gatsby, Heddy, Akira, Brando, Phoebe, Takeshi, Willa, Uncle Johnny, J.D. and, my favorite, Kaboom. I don’t think a single one of the dogs would be pleased with me. Too bad. That’s just for starters. (Growing up we had a little black poodle named Itai, which is Japanese for “ouch.” Just think how he felt.)

Corn Pop and Bongo going at it.

3.I just retired my 2-year-old Apple AirPods — the first generation earbuds that pop out of your head when you sneeze — and replaced them with snuggier AirPods Pro: 2nd Generation, and I made a vital sonic discovery. It’s one that many of you probably already know (this Luddite lags in the world of aural ecstasy). And that’s that the pods furnish remarkably better sound quality when used for movies and videos than plain Apple Music tunes. I do my listening on a MacBook Air, be it music, podcasts, YouTube or films. I’ve watched three movies with the new pods (including the enthralling if baffling “Arrival,” a film that pushes me even closer to hating sci-fi) and the audio excellence — sumptuous, immersive, surround-soundy — has me giddy. Even a 1950s Billy Wilder flick cranked out sound like I was in a fine, classic movie theater that actually gave a spit about its presentation. Power to the pods.

4.I once worked with a masterly, natural-born writer named Michael Corcoran, who was the newsroom’s resident curmudgeon, bristling maverick and trenchant culture critic. Now retired, the award-winning scribe, who’s also a friend, maintains a beguiling blog whose lead entry is as incisive as it is infamous, a biting takedown of his hometown Austin, TX, titled “Welcome to Mediocre, Texas.”

“Only the mediocre are always at their best, someone said, which could be why Austin is so damn proud of itself,” Corcoran begins, and continues:

“There are two cities in the U.S. that truly matter: New York and L.A. Everywhere else is bullshit. Austin is cool and fun and artistic and — most importantly, easy — but that doesn’t make it a great city. The things that make a town a city — rapid transit, a great art museum, Chinatown, pro sports — Austin is without. We’ve got L.A.’s traffic, but no one who can greenlight a project bigger than a Chili’s commercial.”

Read the full rant HERE, especially if you’re reflexively enamored with Central Texas’ ego-tropolis, which a visitor I know once compared to Sacramento and Stockton.

But it sure is purty

I (sort of) like the cat

~ Chris ~ 4 Comments

The cat wails plaintively, pathetically, for no known reason. It is high-pitched and high-decibel. It’s a distress signal, a siren from the depths of hell that is feline. 

Cats are OK. I like them well enough, about as much as I like, I dunno, pet pigs. I don’t like them as much as I love pet rats, that is certain. Pet rats and I go way back. It’s an intricate relationship.

In my life, I’ve had a half dozen rats: Phoebe, Becky, LaShonda, Tammy, etc. They are like mini dogs — affectionate, social, clean and wickedly intelligent. They play. They come when called. They like their bellies rubbed. They drink beer. Dogs are tops, but rats are little badasses.

Cats, well. 

I’ve had about five cats, including this wailer who indiscriminately cries, whines and yowls. It’s like living with a sickly crone, or a werewolf.

The cat, a rescue named Spicy by his prior owner, resides with his sister, Tiger-Lily. She rarely makes a peep, only the occasional textbook meow, the sound you hear when you look up “meow” in the dictionary. 

Tiger is sweet, gentle, svelte, independent. Spicy is pushy, needy, burly, noisy. Plus his eyes weep goop like the Exxon Valdez.

But Spicy is cherished. He’s an animal, after all, and animals tend to deserve unconditional love, spoiled as they are because they are cute and cuddly, fun and furry, smart and, in Spicy’s case, smart-alecky. 

Is he smarter than us? He slinks with an underplayed intelligence and studied detachment. His yellow eyes burn through you, laser beams of simmering condescension. When they’re not softening at half-mast during cuddle mode, those eyes are saying, “Screw you.” 

He nips with sharp teeth to prod you to stroke him, to demonstrably adore him. He climbs in your lap when there’s already a laptop there, plop. He claws at the carpet with violent resolve, sounding like someone’s hair is being ripped out. And, of course, he whines and caterwauls like an opera diva in grandiose agony. He thinks all of this is charming, and it is to a point. But he’s giving cats a bad rep.

Of course Spicy does not represent all cats. He isn’t even emblematic of truly bad felines, like those cringey manimals from “Cats.” No, he’s in-between, part cuddle kitty, part son of a bitch. Don’t get me wrong. I love him like a pet. Just not my pet. 

Tiger-Lily and Cubby the dog own more of my heart. Cubby may bark like a madman and scratch the paint off the door on occasion, but he’s all angel, whereas Spicy has a satanic streak. Sometimes you’ll try to pet him and he’ll arch his back and bristle his fur. Devil cat!

And those yowls he emits evoke “The Exorcist” more than “Puss in Boots.” As I said, though, I like him alright, even if he’s trouble. Meow? More like meh.

The cat, giving the evil eye. As usual.

The dog’s lifting his leg, but not for that reason

~ Chris ~ 2 Comments

It always wrecks me to see an injured or afflicted animal, be it a stray dog scratching helplessly at mounds of scabby boils in Shanghai, a moped-stricken hound in Hanoi, or a baby hippo fatally gored by fighting adult hippos on the Serengeti. (I saw that one on TV in Florence last week. Thanks, Nat Geo.) 

Now Cubby the magical, mystical mutt may be ailing, and it’s distressing. The ridiculous animal is suddenly walking like Willy Wonka in the 1971 movie as the chocolatier emerges from his factory to greet the Golden Ticket holders, with a pronounced limp, one leg stiff and useless as a board.

Cubby’s back left leg is palsied and raised off the floor, bent. He’s walking around like one of those fashionable three-legged dogs that pop up in hip shows and movies. (See: Pamela Adlon’s “Better Things” or Wes Anderson’s “The Life Aquatic.”)

I’m no vet, but I’ve gently pressed, pulled and squeezed Cubby’s leg and paw and there seems to be no pain. He’s emitted nary a whine and he looks at me like I’m some sort of touchy-feely perv-o. 

He still scampers up and down stairs, leaps onto sofas. Maybe he’s pulling a Wonka. (If you recall, Wonka was faking it, just so he could perform this tremendous somersault and show up everyone as credulous dupes. He was the best.)

I hope he’s faking it, the curly little wisenheimer (actually he’s part Schnauzer). See him in video action just last week HERE. It’s worth it. 

As you can see, Cubby’s no old man — the rescue pup is roughly seven — but he’s no Gen Z whippersnapper, either. (Though he does adore making spritely little dances on TikTok.) He’s middle-aged, with tufts of distinguished gray and the breath of a chain-smoker. 

But I fret. To watch a creature suffer causes me unshakable anguish. The sick and maimed street animals I’ve seen around the world haunt me many years later. I was even nervous when Cubby, still at the shelter, was neutered and had to wear one of those big cones on his head. He did it with tail-wagging courage and panting dignity.

And now this, the hobbling hound. We’re stumped. The dog will go to the vet if the mystery malady continues. Sometimes animals just want attention, and they can be quite wily at doing it. In the end, we just hope scruffy Cubs has been pulling our leg.

Brave cone dog

Bird balm

~ Chris ~ 4 Comments

My good friend Tiva just bought her young daughter a pet parakeet. It’s blue-green with a sloped yellow head and small enough to perch on the girl’s slight shoulder. Tiva texted a photo:

“You see a cute birdie,” I texted back. “I see dinner.”

This sentiment is more pressing when she tells me the tweetie thingy’s name: Pickles Billabong. (Pickles Billabong!) Naturally, I demanded to know who cursed the poor creature with this name, which is straight out of Dickens or Dr. Seuss at their most baroque, or most high. Her daughter, of course, is the culprit. 

“She came up with the name by looking at a list of bodies of water (river, brook, etc.) because the bird is a kind of aquamarine color and a billabong is a pond that is created when a river changes course. Pickles is because the bird is shaped like a pickle,” Tiva explains. I am impressed. 

“The bird is her best friend,” she adds, and I don’t know if I should smile or sob. 

She goes on to say that the daughter and her twin sister are having a turbulent time during Covid — they’re not sick, just bored and longing — and so Pickles serves as a kind of therapy animal. It’s the Prozac parakeet. 

Birds. Indeed. They’re the one pet, besides a rhino and a manatee, I never had growing up. I stuck to dogs, rats and cats, with the occasional fish, salamander and turtle thrown into the mix. 

No birds, and I can only guess we skipped them because our friends had parakeets and they were awful. They didn’t really do anything that’s anthropomorphically charming, like dogs, which are half-human anyway. There was no fetch or leg humping. I mean, really.

The birds seemed stuck in a poo-encrusted cage, bopping around, whistling occasionally, cocking their robotic heads. When they got out they flew all over the house, perching high up on the curtains to avoid human clutches, and were generally an avian pain in the ass. I desperately wanted to open a window and watch them flap away.

Not so now. I hope Pickles Billabong thrives as a bright, animated companion, although, according to experts, parakeets can live 10 to 20 years. On that note, I immediately start thinking about the best sauce for a tiny, braised bird. And what are the best sides — carrots, potatoes, pet rabbit? 

But this is somewhat serious. The girls are in a needy space. Covid has cut a hole in so many lives, and kids especially are confused and adrift. They wanted a friend, exotic, potentially chatty, therapeutic — some thera-keet. The bird then is a balm, sweet, attentive, pretty, and other things I’m sure. They do have a dog, but it’s more Tiva’s baby than the children’s. We’ll see how this whole thing flies.

Meanwhile, I wonder: Does the dog look up at old Pickles and go, “Yum, yum”? Good dog. 

Stuff this

~ Chris ~ 1 Comment

The taxidermist was having none of it. 

On assignment for a midsize city newspaper, I was interviewing the local taxidermist, a Mr. Martinez, stuffer of critters, asking him about his life’s calling: 

How did you arrive at upholstering bobcats and mounting them in hissing, menacing postures? 

What’s the taxidermy process? Do you only use the animal’s skin?

Is it bloody? Does it stink? 

That kind of crap.

Growing bored by Martinez’s predictable answers and feeling stifled in his stuffy workshop — a matchbox cluttered with mounts, models, skins and dead, static animals in dubious attitudes — my mind drifted.

Though I knew the answer, I asked Martinez if he could taxidermy my long-passed pet rat Phoebe. Sure, he said without a blink, though with a wink, as if a common eight-inch rodent would present any challenge.

Then, scanning the room’s carpentry, tanning and painting gear, I waxed inspired. Could you, I asked, stuff my best friend Ian and mount him in a fearsome pose, like an agitated grizzly? Martinez smirked, but he hadn’t heard my full pitch.

My friend is still alive, I told him. Is that a deal-breaker? Martinez snorted, shook his head and pondered how his lab’s chemical fumes had affected me. Surely he thought I was delirious. Or just dumb as a mounted wildebeest head.

But I really did wonder if he could taxidermy my dear pal Ian, a generous fellow with good skin and, hairy as a chimp, would look splendid posed in a loincloth, hunting a saber-toothed tiger in the Neolithic period. I picture this scene amid a Serengeti landscape in a diorama in a musty natural history museum. That, I think, is where Ian belongs. You’re welcome, bud. 

No and no, said Martinez, squashing the dreams of this faithful friend. Adds award-winning taxidermist Katie Innamorato: “It’s illegal to taxidermy or mount a human being in the U.S. While I’m sure it’s possible, the end result doesn’t seem worth the trouble. Human skin discolors greatly after the preservation process and stretches a lot more than animal skin.”

Gross.

You want gross? Ogle this:

That’s from the site Bad Taxidermy, a cheeky celebration of botched stuff-and-mount jobs, from the whimsically warped (a kitty fastened with giant angel wings, dangling from the ceiling, its face a mask of open-mouth terror) to the near-blasphemous (a quacking duck head popping out of the butt of a surprised baby lamb).

As Bad Taxidermy and its competing site Crappy Taxidermy illustrate, it’s simple. 

There’s good taxidermy:

And there’s grotty taxidermy:

From macho hunter displays to Victorian curiosity cabinets, taxidermy rarely goes out of fashion. Two books — “Crap Taxidermy” and “Taxidermy Gone Wrong: The Funniest, Freakiest (and Outright Creepiest) Beastly Vignettes” — are taxonomies of the mutilated and misbegotten, the bungles and blunders. Horrible hilarity ensues.

What is taxidermy, exactly? Real fur, jagged antlers, feral poses, glassy doll eyes and wholesale creepiness come to mind. (Also: reprehensible game hunters and their appetite for machismo-fueled slaughter.)

Essentially, says an expert, “taxidermy is a mix of many disciplines — sculpting, woodworking, sewing, painting, carpentry and tanning, to name a few.”

It’s a grisly craft. “The animal is first skinned in a process similar to removing the skin from a chicken prior to cooking. Depending on the type of skin, preserving chemicals are applied or the skin is tanned. It is then either mounted on a mannequin made from wood, wool and wire, or a polyurethane form.”

I’m of two minds: I absolutely hate the idea of killing creatures for egomaniacal trophies. The other part of my brain revels in the freakish Frankenstein concoctions sprung from twisted artistic souls, Gothy individualists in black, with scads of tats and a penchant for playing Bauhaus while making taxidermy scenes of iguana tea parties.

My pal Mr. Martinez is a more traditional practitioner of the taxidermy arts. As his workshop attests, he goes for big cats, woodland animals, spindly deer, exotic game and other heartbreaking visions. 

So he won’t stuff my friend, got it. Maybe if I modify my specifications so Ian could still be prepped and mounted without breaking any laws. Maybe if Martinez does something less human and more on the hybrid side — a hint of Dr. Moreau, say.

Maybe, just maybe, we can settle on this: