thebigbuddy

Opening Your Heart To A Crazy Cat: The Story Of Kevin

A writer reminds us that feline friendships don’t always come easy, but some of the hardest-won are the most rewarding.

When San Francisco’s KQED, the local public radio affiliate, asked its culture writers to reflect on “one beautiful thing” from 2025, Rae Alexander chose her cat, Kevin.

Kevin is “chaos in cat form,” a feline “sociopath” who doesn’t realize how much damage he does with his claws. The tabby, Alexander writes, is “never not screaming at us for food” and pads around as if he owns the place. (That sounds awfully familiar!)

After bringing Kevin’s heavily pregnant mother in from the cold earlier this year, Alexander adopted Kevin’s mother and his “well-behaved sister,” but was repeatedly rebuffed when she tried to get rid of Kevin himself.

Three potential adopters fell through while Kevin was growing out of his kitten stage, drastically reducing his chances of finding a home.

Then something crazy happened: cat and human came to a mutual understanding and the beginnings of trust led to friendship and love. As with any progress in gaining a cat’s trust, it was not a quick process, but Kevin eventually showed another side — a much softer, appreciative version of himself who enjoys cuddling and expresses love despite his quirks.

“As this fraught year draws to a close, I want Kevin to be a pertinent reminder to us all that the little things bumming us out today might just lead to the things that make us happiest tomorrow,” Alexander wrote. “Start putting all those everyday stresses on the stairs. You never know where that might lead in 2026.”

Read the whole thing here:

https://www.kqed.org/arts/13983150/kevin-favorite-cat-sociopath

We’re back after a brief interruption!

Apologies for going radio silent over the past week. This past Saturday I sat down to write and my computer was dead. As in completely dead — I couldn’t even trick it into loading BIOS or getting a boot screen.

So I said farewell to a machine that had served me well since 2018, that served as my primary platform for writing, producing music and gaming.

Now I’ve got an absolute beast of a machine centered on one of the new Ryzen chipsets, and it takes quite a bit of restraint not to go into nerdy details. I’m still setting things up, especially the music production workflow.

The important thing is, I’m able to properly sit at a desk and write again, and Buddy can properly supervise me from his desktop perch again, so we are now back!

“I Am The Very Model Of A Feline So Phenomenal!” Buddy Does Gilbert And Sullivan

Buddy the Cat’s talents are innumerable! In this rousing number he slips into the style of Gilbert and Sullivan and uses verse to tell us what a feline should be.

“I am the very model of a feline so crepuscular
My visage is so handsome and my meowscles are so muscular!
I am a little tiger though the fact may seem improbable
My knowledge is near boundless in all matters gastronomical
I eat six meals a day in circumstances nominal
For serving snacks when I demand, my human is responsible
No challenge is impossible, no problem yet insoluble
I am the very model of a feline so phenomenal!

I’m schooled in all biology from macro to subcellular
A meowster of olfactory for every object smellular
My hearing’s extrasensitive in low and higher frequencies
I hear the mice a-chatter but the elephants don’t speak to me
My style is more Big Punisher than Doctor Dre or Easy E
Cuz when it comes to hip hop my tastes all face to easterly
I like to shake my booty, I’m funky when I need to be
I am the very model of a cat who does it easily!

I rule with iron paws be it jungle or the living room
And when I’m finished dining, I am content to sit and groom
When it comes to games I am the ultimate competitor
Obligatory carnivore, I am a model predator
Yet somehow cute and fluffy when I feel the need to be
Mostly when I tell my buddy “Wake up, human, and feed me!

I am well-versed in big cats whether tiger or jaguarian
And qualities of catnip like a feline rastafarian
Intimidating surely, in my home I am the guardian
Look dashing in a tux or the kit of a safarian!
When it comes to ladies all the gents seek my analysis
I designed the Taj Mahal and Cleopatra’s palaces
I drink champagne from bottles and sip water from my chalices
Then ignite sky with a range of borealises!
A champion of Opens like the French, Aussie and Wimbledon
My game is too complex for the tastes of canine simpletons

A predator so optimal, impeded by no obstacle
When I’m roused to anger you will find me quite unstoppable
Stylish with a monacle, calm and rarely volatile
I am the very model of a feline so phenomenal!

I am the very model of a feline so phenomenal!

[Chorus of girls]

He is the very model of a feline so phenomenal! Find a better cat? Well that is just impossible! He is the very model of a feline so phenomenal!”

Wordless Wednesday: The Retrofuturistic Rocket Cars Of Rural New York

They appear out of nowhere on a scenic route in New York’s Catskill mountains, beckoning drivers to stop and check out the rest of the wonders inside the nearby shop.

A few years ago on the way back from the Catskills, a scenic mountain belt in low-central New York, I spotted this beauty from the road and had to stop:

It’s a heavily modified, custom Dodge Magnum crafted by artist Steve Heller. The parcel of land I’d almost passed houses his shop, Fabulous Furniture On 28, one of the most unique spots you can find in the state, if not the country.

Here are a few other photos of the Cro Magnum I took that day:

Heller’s property is adorned with all sorts of retrofuturistic metallic sculptures that evoke the science fiction films and comic books of yesteryear:

The classic cars are my favorite, but unfortunately I did not get to see them all that day.

The header image and the images below are from Heller’s site, while I took the other photos on the day I stopped to look around.

The header image is another Dodge Magnum, while the beast below is The Marquis de Soto, a customized Mercury Grand Marquis:

Oh Oh Oh Ozempic For Our Oh Oh Oh Obese Cats? It’s Close To Reality

In apocalyptic news for house cats everywhere, a pharmaceutical company is kicking off a trial of a GLP-1 drug for felines.

If cats could read newspapers, chances are they’d be gripped by a cold terror right about now, wondering if they’re among the unfortunates to have their yums curtailed by the same weight loss drugs their humans have been gobbling.

As the New York Times reports, a biopharma company headquartered in San Francisco, Okava Pharmaceuticals, is about to begin a trial to determine if GLP-1 drugs can help our chonksters slim down. More than 60 percent of American pets are packing extra pounds, the Times notes, while consequences like diabetes are shortening the lifespans and reducing quality of life for felines and canines.

“It is our belief that the condition of obesity, the condition of being overweight, is by far the number one most significant preventative health challenge in all of veterinary medicine,” Okava founder and CEO Michael Klotsman told the paper.

The upcoming study will include 50 cats. Most will receive a GPL-1 medication while a control group — about one third of the cats — will be given a placebo.

Since cats aren’t exactly known for being cooperative when it comes to taking oral medicine and weekly injections at a veterinary office are impractical, Okava has developed a system with a patch about the size of a microchip that will dispense the weight loss drugs over six months before a tiny cartridge needs to be replaced.

If all goes well with the trial, Okava will seek FDA approval and address other obstacles like convincing caretakers that their little pals can benefit from the feline version of Ozempic, Mounjaro and Wegovy.

That may be easier said than done considering our relationships with our furry friends and the role food plays in things like training, bonding and every day life

For lots of cat caretakers “their main way that they interact with and show their love to their pet often revolves around food,” Dr. Maryanne Murphy, a veterinary nutritionist at the University of Tennessee, told the Times.

How could the dynamic between cat and human change if the flow of yums is reduced to meals only? Will training — for everything from walking on a harness, to entering a carrier and fun tricks like high fives — still work if the reward is just a bit of encouragement or a scratch behind the ear?

An earlier weight loss drug developed for dogs, Slentrol, did not catch on because, as one veterinarian noted, “the main way [people] interacted with their pet was by feeding them, and seeing their excitement and happiness when they were eating the food.”

There’s also the not-so-small matter of cost. GLP-1 drugs are in high demand, and they’re expensive. One in eight Americans has taken Ozempic or one of its competitors. At times, the demand has threatened availability for diabetics, for whom the drugs were developed in the first place.

If the trials are successful and the GLP-1 drugs for pets gain FDA approval — which would require a series of much larger scale, more rigorous studies — the company hopes to offer them to consumers at a cost of about $100 per month per pet.

Even if this iteration of the drug fails, it’s unlikely to derail the larger effort. Vets have been prescribing tiny doses of the human version to cats with diabetes, and perhaps most telling of all, pet obesity continues to rise despite years of efforts by the veterinarian community to get people to play with their pets more and feed them less.

As Dr. Ernie Ward, a veterarian and founder of the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention, told the paper: “We haven’t moved the needle.”

And now we check in with our correspondent, Buddy the Cat. Buddy, what do you think about the possibility of GLP-1 for your species and the end of the proverbial gravy train?

Buddy? Bud? Are we having technical difficulties?

I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen, we can’t find Buddy the Cat. We’ll resume this segment if and when we manage to locate him.

It’s Never Easy With Bud

Little man’s got acne and won’t let me use a hot compress. Will a topical cream work?

The gross picture you’re looking at is the underside of Bud’s chin.

I knew he’d gotten acne again, but was surprised to see it’s this bad.

So I turned to Google, read a bunch of stuff, and watched a video in which a veterinarian had her arm around calm cat, who allowed her to rub its chin with a warm compress and witch hazel.

These veterinarians with their calm cats! You never see them with a cat like Bud, and I know there’s no magic to their approach because I’ve warned vet techs about him before and have seen them still come away with scratches.

Buddy’s selfie, triggered by the little guy himself when I was trying to get a clear shot of his acne so I could assess how bad it is.

I don’t have any witch hazel, but figured a warm compress could help. I should have known better. He won’t let me do it, just like he won’t let me trim his claws, brush him for more than two seconds at a time, or do just about anything else for his benefit.

When it’s his idea, of course, I can rub his chin until his heart’s content, as well as the top of his head, his cheeks and around his ears. But at all other times? Terrible! Unacceptable!

He is such a pain in the ass. A Pain In The Bud, you might even say. I love him very much and he’s generally a good boy, but what a pain in the ass.

I already have stainless steel bowls for him, so unfortunately this may be my fault for either not cleaning them well enough or not running them through the dishwasher enough to kill off all potential bacteria with heat as well as soap. Normally I wash them by hand with soap between meals/water refilling, and once a week in the dishwasher, but it looks like I’m going to have to be a lot more thorough and really scrub the hell out of them.

In the meantime, can anyone recommend a good topical cream? Bud won’t let me apply anything with a warm cloth or even a soft tissue, but I think I may be able to distract him and apply a topical cream with a Q tip. Then hopefully he’ll realize I’m only trying to help and allow me to apply it.