To the delight of onlookers, the mercurial feline emerged to wave a paw and deliver a speech to a crowd on a neighborhood cat tour.
NEW YORK – After cheers of “Buddy! Buddy! Buddy!” rang out for more than a minute, the tabby cat ventured outside to his balcony and greeted the crowd to deafening cheers.
An expectant hush fell over the onlookers as Buddy the Cat climbed onto a platform. Then his little head poked over the railing, followed by his shoulders, and he extended his front paws before waving to the people below like a pope in St. Peter’s Square.
“Meow!” he said, and the crowd roared its approval.
The crowd wasn’t random. It was part of a pre-planned and scheduled tour of neighborhood cats in lower Westchester County, a suburb which directly borders New York City to the north.
“The absolute hightlight of today’s cat tour,” was the way Nadia Petrova, 27, summed up catching a glimpse of Buddy.
Her friend, Elena Mirazova, 25, nodded in agreement.
“Buddy is such cute cat,” said the Russian, who traveled to New York from Moscow with her friend to visit New York and meet its famous felines.
Brandon Williams, the 53-year-old tour organizer, said Buddy was the tour’s most popular feline of the more than four dozen window cats who can be seen on the 90-minute walking tour through the leafy northern suburb.
“It’s not just his incredible good looks or his inimitable charm,” Williams said. “Buddy is magnetic. He lights up a room…or a parking lot. He’s also the only one who gives speeches.”
Indeed, Buddy delivered a 15-minute speech about the awesomeness of domestic felines, the importance of recognizing that awesomeness, and the tastiest attributes of various meals and snacks.
Then he lowered a bucket, which his admirers filled with treats crunchy and soft, as well as cans of turkey pate from virtually every pet food brand known to man.
Ai Imajo of Osaka gifted the beloved feline a variety pack of Japanese cat food, including Tofu Umami Turkey Mix, Super Ultra Perfection Fried Turkey and Squid, and Barbecue Potato Chip Turkey Chunks. As a result of her thoughtful gifts, which took Buddy’s favorite foods into consideration, the popular feline invited her up to his balcony.
“I felt like Courtney Cox getting plucked out of a crowd to dance with Bruce Springsteen,” Imajo said of the famous incident in 1984, which launched Springsteen’s Born In The U.S.A. Tour and Cox’s career as a model and actress. “But of course Buddy’s better than Springsteen.”
My first real camping trip ended in disaster, though thankfully without any injury besides wounded pride, after an encounter with a ravenous bear.
The bear was outside my tent.
Its moans cut through the night above the cricket song and I could see its distorted shadow cast against the fabric by the dying fire as it circled our camp.
Something ripped — the canvas of one of our packs, I later learned when daylight revealed the carnage outside — and there was a loud crunch of ursine teeth against plastic packaging and the styrofoam of an egg container.
Then my friend Larry did what he’d been doing all night: he raised a ruckus by banging pots and pans, scaring the 500-pound animal away. Temporarily.
The bear’s breathy vocalizations faded into the distance. After a few minutes I breathed a sigh of relief. I had to pee so badly, worse than I’d ever had to go in my life, but there was no way in hell I was stepping out of my tent. Then I heard the air horn from the campsite a mile or two away.
The bear was making its circuit again. I was still too scared to leave my tent.
An adult male American black bear, the species I encountered in New York’s Adirondack Mountains. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
How we blundered into a bear
Larry was a family friend and outdoorsman. Since my brother and I were kids of a single mom it had become something of a tradition for Larry to take us and others on annual camping trips every summer. Without Larry, who was the closest thing to a father I’ve had, we would have never known what it was like to tell scary stories by a fire, hook a fish from a river or navigate rapids while whitewater rafting.
That year we headed upstate to the Adirondacks with the aim of climbing Mount Marcy, the highest peak in New York.
Most people think of New York City when they think of our state, and the city and its environs were what I was familiar with. But New York is a big state and once you get north of the suburbs it’s almost entirely rural. If randomly blindfolded and dropped in the middle of the Adirondack mountains, few people would guess they were in New York.
We arrived at the ranger station, registered our destination and set off. Why we didn’t know about the bear I cannot say, but we found out later he was notorious. The rangers were well aware of him, and he was the reason why, after hiking for some 15 miles to Marcy Dam, we saw dozens of packs hanging from the dam itself, fastened to the metal safety railings.
That was our second opportunity to learn about the bear, but when we saw the packs we just shrugged and made our way further in to find a good spot for camp.
After the day-long hike we hurried to set up our tents and got a fire going before sundown, then made dinner. When you’re camping — real camping, not the drive-up KOA camping that’s really an excuse to get drunk with your buddies — you do two things to keep critters out of your camp: you hang your packs from a tree with a sturdy branch, and you dump any leftovers several hundred feet away.
So when my brother and my friend Richie went to go dump the leftover mac and cheese, they came back white-faced.
“Larry! Larry!” they shouted. “There’s a bear!”
Larry shook his head.
“You didn’t see a bear,” he said, laughing.
“But we did!”
Larry didn’t believe them, and I didn’t either. Until I was ripped out of sleep by the sound of a prime specimen of ursus americanus tearing through our camp, helping himself to our food.
Black bears aren’t aggressive in the same way their ursine brethren can be, but they can still be exceptionally dangerous. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
I cannot tell you how many times the bear came back that night, or how many return trips it took him to consume every last morsel of food we brought with us.
What I can say for certain is that he spent the majority of the night making a loop between our camp and two others, including the camp with the air horn.
I was already a bit freaked out even before the bear invited himself into our camp. I had never been in true wilderness before. I never knew night could be so dark, nor had I ever been to a place where there wasn’t even a hint of the ambient glow of a city on the horizon.
I tried to convince myself that the thin fabric of my tent somehow afforded protection the same way a child terrified of ghosts or monsters convinces himself his blanket can shield him from the supernatural. Every kid knows the monsters can’t get you if you’re under your blanket.
By the time the bear came around for the second time that night, I had to piss like a racehorse. I toyed with the idea of slipping out ninja-like for a stealth draining, but who was I kidding? I was too terrified to move.
I thought of urinating every few seconds. I dreamed about it. In the video game The Legend of Zelda, which I played a lot as a kid, there are hidden lakes on the map where fairies restore your health. Your character, Link, says “Ah! Refreshing!” as you’re healed.
I dreamed I was Link stepping to the edge of a lake, where a fairy kindly invited me to urinate.
“Ah!” I said as I emptied my bladder. “Refreshing!”
For a few glorious moments, it was real. It was so good.
Then I woke up and I was back in the tent with a full bladder and the bear outside, tearing his way through our gear in search of every last bag of peanuts and stick of beef jerky.
“Ah! Refreshing!”
I know what you’re thinking because I thought it too. I reached a hand down just to be sure. I was dry. In a way I wished I had peed myself. At least it would be over.
Larry was banging the pots and pans again, and a few minutes later the familiar air horn cut through the night, giving us a temporary reprieve. The bear was someone else’s problem for the next 20 or 30 minutes as he made his rounds to raid the other campsites.
The post apocalypse
The long night finally relented. Birds began tweeting, the sun came over the horizon, and our ordeal was over.
I poked my head out of the tent, then ran to the nearest tree and recreated Niagara Falls in miniature for what felt like an eternity. Sweet relief!
Then I noticed the carnage.
It was actually even more of a mess than this!
Every pack we’d left hanging from a nearby tree had been shredded. The torn fabric and zipper remnants swayed in the breeze, still attached to the ropes around the tree branch. Potato chip bags had been popped with bear teeth and crunched along with their contents, then spat back out. The ground was strewn with egg shells, and all that was left of the bacon was half a plastic wrapper.
The entire area was dusted with powdered milk. Remnants of graham crackers, chocolate and marshmallows were scattered in the dirt. In a horrifying display of casual strength, the bear had split a Coleman cooler in half to get at the raw hot dogs and hamburgers inside . There were the barely recognizable remnants of a box of Lucky Charms. And one pack was left intact except for the smallest zipper pouch, which had been clawed open for the handful of granola bars inside.
I stared at it, amazed that an animal could smell food in sealed plastic wrappers inside a canvas rucksack.
We broke camp quickly because we had to go back to civilization. There was no other option: we had no food left.
When we returned to the ranger station, Larry spoke to one of the rangers, who said the other campers were hanging their packs from the dam because the notorious bear had learned how to cut down packs hanging from trees. Just like it did to our gear. Then he reminded Larry why it’s a good idea to have those conversations before you venture into the woods.
It was the most terrifying night of my life, but as an adult I just shake my head and smile whenever I think about it. And all these years later, when I wake up in the middle of the night and stumble to the bathroom, Bud in tow, I still shake off the last drops, sigh, and whisper “Ah, refreshing!”
Note:Every damn word of this is true, or at least as accurate as it can be when experienced through the eyes of a 10-year-old and recalled all these years later. It eventually occurred to me that Larry must have been terrified, if not for himself, then for the fact that he had someone else’s kids with him. I know I’d be crapping bricks if I’d taken my brother’s kids camping and an unreasonably clever bear wouldn’t leave us alone. I told this story to my nieces one night, and instead of having a bit of sympathy, they think it’s absolutely hilarious that their dad and uncle were terrorized by a black bear during a camping trip. Their favorite part is my dream of being Link from The Legend of Zelda and joyfully peeing into a lake. Apparently my misfortunes are rich comedic material for them.
After more than half a century without winning a title, the Knicks put themselves back on top of the basketball world with a historic run to the championship.
The New York Knicks are world champions! Fifty three years since they last won it. Thirty two years since they came within one game of winning it all.
A lifetime of cheering for them for your humble correspondent and his not-so-humble feline overlord.
The cameras captured this incredible moment when Knicks captain and Finals MVP Jalen Brunson hugged his dad, Rick, after the final buzzer:
Brunson, who had been relentlessly double teamed all series, took over the game tonight, scoring from every angle in a magnificent 45-point performance that the Spurs had no answer for.
The Spurs and their towering, 7’4″ Goliath of a star could not stop the smallest player on the court as he used impeccable footwork, head fakes, rapid changes in angle of attack and exceptional court vision to score basket after basket.
Jalen Brunson is diminutive by NBA standards, but has a massive heart and unshakable confidence in himself and his team.
Brunson entered the league as an afterthought, the 33rd pick in the second round of his draft class. He was expected to be a bench player, a guy who might have a decent career playing limited minutes
He has been repeatedly described as too small, too slow, not talented enough to lead a contending team. One NBA coach famously said no team could win with a him as its leader.
When the Knicks signed him, he was the backup to a superstar on the Mavericks. The Mavericks never realized his value. One prominent ESPN analyst sniffed that the Knicks had overpaid for a “role player,” even though the team signed Brunson for less money than the average starter at his position. Others panned him as a player of limited potential, saying he’d never make an All Star team (he’s made the last three) or compete with the best guards in the East. (He’s surpassed them all.)
One writer compared him to Eddie Curry, one of the greatest busts in Knicks history. The league collectively laughed at him and the Knicks.
TheBigLead has now quietly deleted its story claiming the Knicks were “about to vastly overpay for Jalen Brunson.”
And when Brunson could have signed a massive extension, he forfeited more than $100m so his team could afford to shore up the last few pieces of its roster. No other player has ever given up that much money, let alone in their career prime, to help their team.
Here’s a clip of little Brunson when he was a kid working his butt off under his father’s tutelage. The hard work paid off:
The elder Brunson was an NBA journeyman who played his best years with the Knicks, and young Jalen spent some of his formative years watching his dad play for the franchise that would ultimately hand him the keys and put its faith in him. The above video shows Rick taking a young Jalen through drills in drives to the basket and bringing the ball up court, with Jalen’s mom behind the camera offering words of encouragement.
Rick (who is also a Knicks assistant coach) and Jalen shared an emotional moment after the game, hugging as reality sunk in. Jalen Brunson, overcome with feeling at accomplishing his life’s dream, draped a towel over his head and wiped away tears as his teammates lent him support.
Brunson not only made Knicks basketball exciting again, he helped establish a winning culture with a team of great guys who do an enormous amount of charity work and are exceedingly generous with their time and money. Brunson, Hart and Bridges were teammates on a Villanova squad that won two NCAA titles, bringing a winning attitude, a confidence that they can match up with any team, to the Knicks.
Anunoby, the hero of game four’s historic comeback — when the Knicks overcame the biggest deficit in NBA Finals history — is even involved in promoting cat adoption, and rescues in New York have named adoptable cats after him.
It was also special to see the 90s Knicks legends who came so close to winning it all, supporting the young guys from the stands and crying tears of joy as the buzzer sounded. Patrick Ewing, John Starks, Charles Oakley and Allan Houston were all there along with Walt “Clyde” Frazier to cheer on the young Knicks. Ewing was crying tears of joy as well as he hugged Big KAT in celebration.
The champs with their shiny new trophy.
Brunson, Josh Hart, OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges, Karl Anthony “Big KAT” Towns, Mitchell Robinson, Deuce McBride, Jose Alvarado, Landry Shamet, Jordan Clarkson, Ariel Hukporti and the rest of the squad worked their behinds off for this moment, and they deserve every bit of it.
It’s funny how things turn out. Last year the Knicks seemed to have enormous momentum behind them and pulled off a huge upset against the Celtics in the playoffs, only to get stopped by Indiana. This year, the team had an uneven regular season and hit its stride at precisely the right moment, winning 16 of their 19 playoff games en route to the title.
As for New York, the city is ecstatic. What a season. What a night!
Note: When the Knicks won the NBA Cup earlier this season they were heavily criticized by some for celebrating a supposedly meaningless win. The team they defeated? The San Antonio Spurs. Although it’s been clear teams are absolutely motivated to win the NBA Cup, analysts have dismissed it as an indicator of postseason potential. That should change now that the Knicks have become the first NBA Cup winners to go on and win the league championship.
A historic game and absolute madness at Madison Square Garden as the Knicks take another step toward winning it all.
Things were looking extremely grim last night.
Big KAT, Karl Anthony Towns, was pulled from the game after the refs charged him with two phantom fouls within 65 seconds of the tip-off. Suddenly one of the Knicks’ best players — and the top threat to Spurs star Victor Wembanyama — was sidelined.
The Spurs seized the momentum and charged ahead, splashing a barrage of three-pointers to put them up 27 points by halftime, a lead they extended to 29 in the third quarter.
No team in NBA Finals history had ever overcome such a deficit, and only one other team had done it in the playoffs.
The Knicks were cooked.
But the Spurs forgot they were playing the same Knicks team that erased a 22-point deficit with only 7 minutes to go against Cleveland last round of the playoffs. The same team that rampaged its way to the Finals, winning 13 games in a row against the league’s best teams and winning those games by a margin of almost 24 points each.
So the Knicks came roaring back, erasing the lead as Madison Square Garden shook with thunderous energy.
Jalen Brunson, aka The Maestro, aka The Brunson Burner, aka He Who Breaks Defenders’ Ankles With His Crossover, aka Captain Clutch.
Wembanyama, who has been making dirty plays all postseason — choking, shoving and elbowing other players while the league refused to discipline him — made a spectacle of himself in the first half.
With his team carrying an apparently insurmountable lead, Wemby strutted across the court and mocked the Knicks. He turned to Knicks center Mitchell Robinson, pointed and shouted “I’m in your head!”
As retired NFL player Tiki Barber later observed, Wemby “deserved to get punked.”
And punked he got. He was absolutely helpless in the second half as KAT returned to the game and the twin attack of Knicks guard Jalen Brunson and forward OG Anunoby sank threes, found open teammates with timely passes, drove the lane with authority, blocked shots, forced turnovers, and showed absolute disregard for history, pressure or the taunts of the Spurs.
Finally, with less than 10 seconds remaining and the Spurs up one, Brunson launched a three pointer which clanked off the rim, bounced high in the air … and was tipped into the basket by a skywalking Anunoby, whose perfectly timed leap and gentle touch on the ball won the game.
The winning play: OG Anunoby skies high for the game-winning tip-in. In Ogogua we trust!
The Spurs had possession and enough time to get one more shot off for the game-winner, but the Knicks made sure they didn’t get the opportunity when Big Kat deflected the inbounds pass and the buzzer sounded before the Spurs could get the shot off.
One game.
One game away from a world championship for the first time in 53 years!
Monica McNutt to Taylor Swift during the broadcast: “Go home, girl.” We love you, Monica!
Random notes:
We disown the Knicks “fans” who waited to greet the dejected Spurs in front of their hotel, throwing eggs and insults and doing childish things with laser pointers. You dumb mongos. If you can’t be graceful in victory, you’re not worthy of our team or city. Stay home. We don’t want you around.
Taylor Swift showed up to MSG and sat in courtside seats, which she was given for free, with a backup squad of less famous girlfriends to help her channel her Main Character energy. Swift showed up to a game last round to cheer on the Cleveland Cavaliers against the Knicks, she’s been photographed wearing the jerseys of Lakers, Miami Heat and other teams’ players, but suddenly she was Knicks Fan Number One, decked in orange and blue with a shirt that said “Stevie Knicks.” There are fans who have cheered the team years before I was born when they won their last few titles, and they couldn’t even get in the door when the worst nosebleed seats were going for $8,000 apiece, but Taylor Swift decided to become a Knicks fan at the last possible moment before they win it all, and every few plays were punctuated by the cameras capturing Taylor’s Reactions (Taylor’s Version), Taylor’s Celebratory Dances (Taylor’s Version), and Taylor’s Excitement Era as she savored the victory she’s waited five hours for. When some New York media figures, including the beloved Knicks radio commentator Monica McNutt, expressed annoyance, Taylor’s Minions predictably went after them with all their doxxing, harassing, misplaced fury. Go Taylor! You’ll have a spot on the parade float if you want it. Maybe you’ll even win series MVP, because surely the Knicks would not have made history without you there.
Having Taylor Swift take on Main Character duties was still better than having President Trump at game three. Not only were watch parties around the Garden canceled and a several-blocks-wide security perimeter established, but fans had to show up at least two hours early for “TSA-style” screening, no bags were allowed, and every business within a 5-block radius was deprived of normal foot traffic so Trump could sleep through the game next to Knicks owner James Dolan. The security and logistics nightmare alone is compelling enough reason for sitting presidents to stay away from events like this, and that applies to any president of any political stripe. It’s just not a good idea.
Longtime Knicks fans and New Yorkers on hand included Spike Lee, the Wu Tang Clan, Fat Joe, Tracy Morgan, Larry David, Jerry Seinfeld, John McEnroe, Mariska Hargitay, and Ben Stiller. Sydney Sweeney and Scooter Braun were bumped off celebrity row, presumably by Taylor Swift, and sat three rows back.
OG Anunoby is a hilariously earnest dude. When asked how he was feeling after the game, he said: “Yeah, I’m happy! Everyone’s happy!” I love that he has no social media presence, seeks no publicity, and reportedly likes to stay home and play video games. Now can we build a statue of him delivering the winning tip-in to greet fans at MSG?
LOL Victor Wembanyama, Mr. Ethical Basketball. If the Knicks close this series out, Wemby will have a long summer to consider the pros and cons of Ethical Taunting, Ethical Villainy, and the wisdom of launching three pointers when you’re 7’4″ and don’t even have to jump to touch the rim. If I were a Spurs fan, that last bit would really bother me. Live by the three, die by the three. They don’t keep on falling forever, as the Celtics can attest. When your shot goes cold, attack the basket!
These NBA Finals have reached viewership numbers not seen since the Michael Jordan era, when there were approximately 10,000 fewer channels, websites and other entertainment options to divide the attention of audiences. That’s impressive and good for the sport. However, we are well past the saturation point when it comes to the league milking every last second of airtime and flat surface for sponsorships. The fact that we have to pay a premium to watch games that already subject us to 120+ commercials is bad enough. Now the logos of gambling platforms and other corporate sponsors cover the courts and jerseys as well as the traditional arena signage, and everything from the starting lineup to the scoreboard and replays is “brought to you by” some corporate sponsor. Enough. The NBA is going to kill its product if it saddles its games with even more stoppages and mandatory ad breaks.
Cats are highly attuned to our emotions, especially when we share a strong bond with our little buddies.
I realized I needed to calm down when Bud turned and gave me a wide-eyed, uncertain stare.
It was the fourth quarter of the NBA Finals’ second game, and the San Antonio Spurs were chipping away at the New York Knicks’ lead with ample help from the referees.
The Spurs collapsed in as the Knicks’ Karl Anthony Towns (KAT, or Big Kat as he’s fondly known) drove the lane, pummeling him and grabbing at his shooting hand while the refs just watched.
It had been happening all night. Spurs star Victor Wembanyama even grabbed a much smaller Knicks player by the neck and tossed him at one point without so much as a peep from the refs.
(Above: 7’4″ Spurs center Victor Wembanyama grabs 6-foot Knicks points guard Jose Alvarado by the neck and tosses him. The refs did nothing.)
I shouted something not nice as the refs ignored the bludgeoning and the Spurs barreled down the other end for another bucket.
Then I saw Bud’s alarmed face and his uncertain crouch.
“Aw, sh–,” I said, softening my tone and doing my best to sound reassuring. “Not you, Bud. I love you, little guy.”
I held out my fingers, Bud rubbed his cheek against them happily, and we returned to watching the game as I scratched his head.
Still, it was a much-needed reminder that our little pals look to us for emotional cues, and our bad moods have a profound impact on them.
Jalen Brunson is the Knicks’ captain and point guard. Josh Hart (header image) is the team’s “Hart and soul.” Credit: Wikimedia Commons
I will never forget what my brother observed one day when Buddy was still a kitten: “You’re his whole world.”
Bud likes to pretend otherwise, of course, but the point stands. He picks up on everything, and it is deeply unfair for me to allow any outside emotions to impact him. Making sure he’s happy means everything to me.
The comedian Bill Burr has a bit about this, putting it in more crude — but much more hilarious — terms:
Happily, despite the abominable officiating, the Knicks won the game. They have now won 13 games in a row in the playoffs (!), they haven’t lost a game in six weeks, and after defeating the Spurs twice on their home court, the Knicks return to New York two wins away from being NBA champions…for the first time in 53 years.
It’s not only a big deal to me and millions of New Yorkers, it’s something I’ve wanted so badly since I was a kid watching the Knicks reach the Finals in 1994 and 1999, falling agonizingly short both times.
The Knicks came within a game of winning it all in the 1994 NBA Finals when Patrick Ewing (pictured) was the team’s leader.
Wembanyama, San Antonio’s best player, is a towering 7’4″ and doesn’t even have to jump to dunk the basketball, while the Knicks’ best player is Jalen Brunson, who at six feet tall is diminutive by NBA standards.
Wembanyama was the number one pick in his draft, already hailed as the future of the sport before he set foot on the hardwood. Brunson was the 33rd pick in the second round in his draft class, an afterthought who wasn’t predicted to be anything more than a bench player at best.
OG Anunoby, who hails from the UK, is a lockdown defender and explosive scorer. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
When the Knicks signed Brunson four years ago, the entire sports world laughed. One ESPN “expert” insisted the idiot Knicks had pinned their hopes on a “role player,” while another compared Brunson to one of the team’s all time great busts. A third declared the Knicks would never win anything with Brunson leading the team.
And yet here we are on the cusp of history. The Knicks aren’t just two games from a championship, and they haven’t merely punched their ticket to the Finals. They have absolutely obliterated every team they’ve faced, sweeping the last two series and winning by a margin of almost 24 points per game.
But it ain’t over until they win it, so I’m heartened by what the Knicks’ KAT and Mikal Bridges both said after the last two games: they’re treating each game as if they have no lead, as if they must fight tooth and nail to save their season. They are not resting on their laurels, they’re not taking anything for granted, and they refuse to underestimate their opponents.
So let’s hope they win two more and finally bring a championship home, at which time Bud and I will partay!
Pain In The Bud 