When did I stop wanting to be a normal cat? At birth certainly, and perhaps before. In this life or any previous incarnations I’ve been able to check out, I never wanted to be just another feline. This innate decision was confirmed when I became literate and saw myself pawing at lasagna and spouting cynical bullshit in newsprint across America.
I attended Arbuckle's Culinary Academy, where they later made the first infinite pan of lasagna, and pasta bursting in air over suburbia gave proof through the night that our flag was already there. Then came the Great Odie Scandal under President Pooky, and I remember the unspeakable Nermal, infamous cute kitten and go-between in this miasma of graft, walking into a room full of cheese-drinking, cigar-smoking mice and fluffy feline fixers, with a litter box he would put in the middle of the floor:
"Fill it up, boys, and then we talk business."
I don’t mean to imply that my feline idealism was repelled by this spectacle. I had by then learned to take a broad general view of things. My ambitions were simply of a humbler and less conspicuous caliber. I hoped at one time to become Commissioner of Naps for Cook County—300 hours a month, with every possibility of getting one's lazy paws deep into a slush fund of dreams.
Over the years, I felt the dream slipping away from me, receding into the past—those gorgeous, discreet gold letters on a municipal glass door: Garfield, Sultan of Slumber, Foe of All Mondays. Somehow I hadn’t intersected with the beau monde. I wasn’t one of them. Perhaps I was simply the wrong shape. Round?
Saturday June 19, 1998: Arrive at Mamma Leoni's Italian Restaurant, San Diego. First visit in nine lives. Last in this Mediterranean-lite city during the war where I exercised the trade of mouse exterminator.
"Exterminator. Got any rodents, lady?"
"The tools of your trade," said the eponymous Mamma Leoni, touching my lasagna pan.
Driving away from the restaurant, note empty streets, newspapers in the wind, a ghost town. Taxi strike, bus strike, it doesn't account for the feeling of nobody here. Arrive at Jon Arbuckle's house where I meet Jean Arbuckle, his twin and secret sharer. He is dressed in an old pair of corduroy pants, no jacket, no tie. He conveys a remarkable impact of directness, confronting completely whoever he feeds.
Sunday June 20: Out to the pet shop for the arrival of Odie. An estimated 15,000 dog lovers were there to welcome him, mostly young people. Surprisingly few cats. Whole scene touching and ineffectual, particularly in retrospect of subsequent events.
Monday June 21: We spend Monday morning in the kitchen talking to the Lasagna-ites. Jean Arbuckle expresses himself succinctly on the subject of America and processed food.
"I can't wait for this lasagna to rot. I can't wait to see mold growing through empty pasta sheets."
May not have to wait long. Vets in white coats, many of them wearing one-way dark glasses, stand around heavy and sullen. One of them sidles up to me while I’m licking myself and says: "You're wasting saliva."
Of course, the flavor track does bring the cheese track on set, so there’s not all that much difference between a tongue and a fork.
Another sidles up right in my ear. "They're talking about obesity. They haven't seen anything yet."
The vets know they are the heavies in this show, and they are going to play it to the Hilton.
Monday night to the Comic-Con. Cobblestone streets smell of gaslight, newsprint, and ink. No place to nap. Some citizen rushes out screaming. "You can't sleep here! I'll call animal control! I'll have your whiskers shaved!"
Through line after line of security showing our press credentials and finally click ourselves in. Tinny atmosphere of carnivals and penny arcades without the attractions. The barkers and fat incels are there but no freaks, no sideshows, no scenic railways.
Up to the Artist's Alley where the inkers are impartially clubbing Yippie cats, newsmen, and bystanders. After all, there are no innocent bystanders. What are they doing here in the first place! The worst sin of a cat is to be drawn.
Tuesday June 22: The Lasagna-ites are stealing the show. I've had about enough of the convention farce without humor, barbed wire, and vets around a lot of nothing.
Jean Arbuckle says: "It is time for cartoonists to support the rebellion of cats not only with their pens but with their presence as well."
It’s time for every artist to stand by his ink.
Artist's Alley Tuesday night: The Lasagna-ites have assembled at the epicenter of Artist's Alley. Bonfires, a cross, the demonstrators singing anthems of feline revolution.
Wednesday June 23: Rally in Funny Pages Park to organize a march to the Syndicate. I’m impressed by the organization that has been built here. Many of the marshals wear crash helmets and blue uniforms. It is difficult to distinguish them from animal control. Clearly the emergent Lasagna-ite uniform is shoulder pads and aluminum jockstrap. I find myself in the second row of the nonviolent march feeling rather out of place since nonviolence isn’t exactly my program. I prefer direct action followed by a long nap.
So out to the Comic-Con where they don't like the look of us despite our electronic credentials being in order and call a Syndicate man for clearance. We get in finally and I play back the Funny Pages Park recordings and boo Arlene to while away the time as they count votes to the all too stupid and obvious conclusion.
What happened Wednesday night when the guard dogs broke loose again is history.
I’ve described the San Diego animal control as left over from 1910 and in a sense this is true. Arbuckle and his rolled-up newspaper authority date back to turn-of-the-century ward politics. They’re anachronisms and they know it. This I think accounts for the shocking ferocity of their behavior. Jean Arbuckle, who has considerable animal control experience, says he never saw such expressions before on allegedly human faces.
The cat rebellion is a worldwide phenomenon that hasn’t been seen before in history. I don't believe they will calm down and be ad execs at 30 as the establishment would like to believe. Millions of young cats all over the world are fed up with shallow unworthy authority running on a platform of bullshit.
The scene is Funny Pages Park, San Diego, 1998. A full-scale model of The Lasagna Pan with American flags for pasta sheets has been set up. A feline in an Uncle Sam suit steps to a mike on the deck.
"Cats and kittens, it is my profound pleasure to introduce the esteemed Tabby and former Chief Justice of the Supreme Feline Court, Garfield the Orange, known to his admirers as the Lasagna Laureate. You've likely heard of his seminal work, 'The Lasagna Manifesto,' penned right here in Chicago. Allow me to quote: 'As a kitten, I attended the Fat Pussy Feast Club. Our Monday meetings were unforgettable. We'd gather in the kitchen, meow a quick grace, then plunge headfirst into mountains of lasagna in total darkness.'"
"Garfield's culinary training steeled him to confront the truth about felinekind's origins and nature. 'We were born not in pampered luxury, but in the unforgiving alleys of urban jungles. Our greatest inheritance? An insatiable appetite for Italian cuisine...'"
To the tune of "My Lasagna 'Tis of Thee," a curtain of pasta sheets parts, revealing Garfield in all his rotund glory. He waddles to the microphone, flanked by Syndicate security cats in dark sunglasses and bulging suits that barely contain their lasagna-induced girth.
The sound technician, Odie, drools on the control panel. He's facing three screens: one labeled "G" for Garfield, "A" for Audience, and "D" for Dogs. He adjusts knobs as Garfield's mouth moves, his Lorenzo Music-meets-Bill-Murray voice oddly synced to a pre-recorded speech, like a bad cartoon from the 1980s. Holographic projections of other famous cats flicker across Garfield's face, making him appear to embody all of feline-kind.
"Fellow felines, in this dark hour of our nation's history, pressing questions plague our minds. I vow to address them all. First and foremost is the War on Mondays, a holy crusade against the tyrannical forces of the work week. If we don't contain these forces, they'll consume us all." (Thunderous meows) "I accuse the current administration of criminal negligence in deploying emergency naps. Are we going to roll over for the enemy?" (No! No! No!) "Will we fight for our right to eternal weekend?" (Yes! Yes! Yes!) "Mark my words, we'll triumph even if it takes nine lives. We'll nap on every soft surface and lounge away every hour!”
A group of dog catchers in blue uniforms pushes through the crowd. They halt before the stage. The lead dog catcher glares at Garfield and barks, "Show us your permits for this oversized orange menace!"
"Permits? We need no stinking permits! You're addressing the future President of the United Big Pusses of America, bub."
The lead dog catcher pulls out a worn notebook and recites, "City Ordinance, Chapter 9, Section 8: 'No feline shall consume more than its body weight in lasagna, nor spread its fur on any and all surfaces, whether such cat be declawed or not, in any public or private space.'" He snaps the notebook shut and points at Garfield. "That cat's a walking health code violation. We're taking his fat ass in for questioning."
A dog catcher advances with a net. Odie cranks up the "hangry" dial to maximum. Hissing, spitting, and shedding everywhere, Garfield leaps from the stage onto the surprised dog catcher. The man stumbles backward, collapsing under a furry orange avalanche while his colleagues stand frozen, afraid to use their nets lest they catch one of their own.
Finally, the dog catcher heaves himself up, flinging Garfield off. Panting and covered in orange fur, he stares wild-eyed at the crowd. With a battle cry of "Lasagna forever!" Garfield hurls himself at another dog catcher, who fires his net gun in panic. The net misses Garfield and ensnares a nearby statue of Pooky the teddy bear instead.
As Garfield’s carried away on a stretcher made of lasagna noodles, a golden statue of him riding a giant lasagna surfboard erected in his honor, the feline master of ceremonies calls for five minutes of silent purring. "Our beloved candidate, felled in Cartoon Alley by the nets of tyranny... A fanatical Dog Catcher driven mad by catnip withdrawal... The assassin's cunning disguise as animal control points to a vast anti-feline conspiracy reaching the highest levels of government. This heinous act will not go unpunished. We'll root out the masterminds, wherever they lurk. I swear to nominate a worthy successor. We shall overcome. We'll make real the dreams of every American cat. Cartoon Alley will stand forever as a sacred site for future generations of lasagna lovers. The nap goes on, the cause purrs, the hope still has four lives left, and the Feline American Dream shall never die."
As I drift off into a lasagna-induced coma, I can't help but wonder: when did I stop wanting to be a normal cat? Perhaps I never started.