Inside If You Leave a Cat with a Folksinger
Let’s say you don’t have wings. Then you probably want wings. That’s a no brainer. Doesn’t exactly take a poet to know it.
But let’s say you give a machine that kills fascists a Diet Coke, or even a cookie. Do that and the machine will still be desperate for cash, not a glass of milk, just cold, hard cash.
It does a body good, but who deals in hard currency these days?
Maybe you forgot your guitar. Maybe the only stacks available are flapjacks. If you give a singer a pancake, the singer might just lock your cat outside your apartment. This will be a sticky situation, but it will no longer require syrup.
Having locked out your cat, the folk singer will take the cat to another apartment. This will require riding the subterranean thought train.
The cat’s reflection will be on the window like a metaphor, but not like an invitation for trimming whiskers, or adopting new principles. It’s not like he has a secret identity or anything.
If you ask the hobo sailor to explain the cat, you will hear an explanation that is more fur than meta. Got milk? Thinking about milk might lead you to thinking about how An American Tail gave dangerous advice.
Because the weather outside is chilly, the folk singer might ask for a coat. Sinatra this is not. If you offer a coat before one is requested, then the coat might be refused on principle.
A hard case you might say, but that’s actually just how to carry a guitar. This folk singer does not want therapy — he just wants to crash on somebody’s couch.
If you give this bum a muffin, this harpooner might ask to sleep on your couch. If your couch is already occupied by a moose, then just offer the floor instead.
The moose wants to perform a puppet show at The Gaslight. Seeing the sock puppets helps you remember you are pregnant from the last time you offered Ishmael a muffin. This makes you reach for a notepad. You write in all caps I’M PREGNANT.
This is all very discrete. Do you have your seaman’s papers? Icarus had wings you know.
Anyway, when asking to borrow abortion money from another folk singer you happen to live with, this discrete wordsmith who just wants to crash will probably be careful enough to say don’t tell your girlfriend about this.
Secrecy is integral to the entire operation in-house and abroad. Everyone at The Gaslight loves the moose’s puppet show.
When our gracious Captain Ahab comes face to face with the military industrial complex eating a bowl of hearty cereal, he’ll wonder what happened to the moose. But that story has sailed.
Hearing about a music promoter in Chicago reminds our cook for a spell how he’s always wanted to tour the interior, especially that great Butcher of Hogs. Better to befriend kittens than piglets.
Things are looking up. Want to talk wings? Our journeyman refuses rockets and royalties. How would a moose even hold a needle and thread? Scotch tape for a mouse? That’s not even the right cat! Art is impermanent. Who has time for royalties? Neil Armstrong?
Our singer needs to cash a check now. This is the only reason to get involved with science fiction. It doesn’t hurt that even Johnny Five needs a place to crash.
If you want a ride to Chicago, you’re going to need a driver who looks like a Truman Capote character study. You’re going to need John Goodman on the restroom floor. You’re going to wish for some Red Bull.
When no one else can go the distance, you’ll lock a cat with no balls in the car. A tough choice no doubt. But maybe there really are no cats in America. Just vibes.
Chicago doesn’t see any money in your song. Well duh, a mouse could have told you that you can’t refuse royalties in one place and sing about royalty in another — it’s against the laws of physics!
So, it’s back to New York now.
Running this road trip backwards might remind you of that time you saw Tenet, but that’s because you watched these movies in the wrong order. Knowing there’s a right order should make you subscribe to the Criterion Channel — or at least update your Letterboxd.
No sleep ’til Brooklyn! Was that a cat? Sure wasn’t a moose. Guess when you drive near Akron, you’ll run over a ginger cat just for the hell of it. How does that advance the plot? How was that like a sex scene with your parents in the room? Wings sure could have prevented that awkward moment. And why do all the cats look the same?
Face to face with the old man. You can have that one, Mr. Neil Young. Something not old and never new. Might not be a heart of gold, but what’s inside old Llewyn anyway? Well, old Midas, he’s back on his bull shit with that guitar and a sea shanty. He could use a mop too. The old man just had an accident.
Are we still looking for a place to crash?
The Merchant Marines!?! I get it now — they’re all landlocked seamen! Hearing that might make them feel all tangled up in blue. And chances are if a singer feels blue, he’ll want to change his name and perform another genre.
That reminds me of something — is that Robert Pattinson drinking a Diet Coke? If he’s drinking a Diet Coke, then that reminds me of that time he played a guy named Neil in Tenet. Now he’s a funny boy? Imagine if they did this in a Batman movie — you would have to watch Bruce Wayne’s parents get murdered more than once.
