Cato for President

The practical guide to nine lives

"Armed robbery can be fatal." Lesson #62 in The Practical Guide by Cato

How did I get there on that fateful night?

A month before, I took the elevator to the top of Tokyo Tower and looked out toward Hawaii wondering what the winner of the fall presidential election would be thinking about in the coming months. I envied him the advantage of knowing what he would be doing for the next four years....I did not have this luxury. I had no idea what I would be doing.

I was in Japan hiding from my creditors.

Well that's not entirely true.

I had come to Japan to set up a psychiatric practice treating "Paris Syndrome,"a type of cultural shock that affects Japanese tourists visiting Paris when they discover that the city does not meet their expectations. I had begun to realize that my patients would be better served if I moved to Paris to begin treatment at the very beginning of their malaise.

I knew only too well about disillusionment --after all I had been a presidential candidate. Reality is sometimes hard to take after that. People look at you as a has-been. There is a debilitating withdrawal from rubber chicken dinners. The knowledge that you no longer have a driver --not even a car-- is painful.

While running from this painful reality, I discovered sushi, in particular ikura. It was my secret escape. I would eat those delicate, little pink pearls of fish roe...one after another, after another until I could not move. Illusions die hard, but one bite of ikura and the disillusioned can face reality with a smile.

One day I realized I was cured. I took six pounds of ikura, caught a taxi to Narita and headed to Charles De Gaulle.

That is how I found myself dressed in blond wig and flowered dress in Harry Winston jewelers robbing the proprietor, surrounded by nutters speaking the ugliest Serbian-accented French I have ever heard. The wig kept falling over my eyes. My paws were jammed cruelly into high-heeled shoes. I was holding a gun.

At that moment, I just knew I had found my niche. Armed robbery was so much more fun than running for president. It was exciting, exhilarating........ and very lucrative. 

It was exactly what I needed to rouse me from my ennui. In the end, I walked away with a Louis Vuitton full of emeralds, rubies and chunky diamonds the size of tiny bird eggs valued at more than 80 million euros. But I'm getting ahead of the story......

During the campaign, my brother became the lap cat of Boban Stojkovic a former member of the Pink Panther gang. The Pink Panthers were a group of 200 men and women who originated in the Balkan states and who carried out high-profile theft worldwide. My brother would text me about their activities where ever they traveled -- Tokyo, Mayfair and Dubai. I felt like I knew them.

He'd text'd me about the Henry Winston heist, so when I arrived in Paris, I stepped off the plane and took a taxi and to the jewelry shop without thinking. Then I pulled my gun out of my bag and shouted "hands up!" Everyone turned around and looked. A shot rang out. It didn't hurt at first. I just stared down at my dress and watched the red blotch grow. The blood warmed my feet. I remember staggering backwards and thinking how warm I felt.....

Then anxiety gripped me.

I could see the headlines, "Former Presidential Candidate Nabbed in Jewel Heist!" I supposed that I could write a book about the caper while doing time in jail, but I didn't really want to take that much time out of my life. How much time did one get for armed robbery? My thoughts began to scatter and I tried to get up............

"When you have a chest wound it is imperative that you seek medical care."Lesson #41 from The Practical Guide by Cato.

I lost consciousness. When I woke, I was standing at a roulette table, martini glass in hand. I watched the wheel spin for several seconds. There was no one else at the table but the croupier. "No more bets," he called out.  I realized he looked familiar. He was pure white, with pink ears and sky blue eyes. The air around him glowed with energy and he smelled of earth and roses.

"We meet again Cato," The Great Cat said in that self-satisfied tone he takes when he wants to teach me something.

Couldn't he see how fragile I was? I was bleeding.....couldn't he see the state I was in? I needed medical care. His blue eyes flashed and lit up with an internal fire that burnt everything away. If I had been worried or frightened of dying, it was all gone and done in that instant.

"Please, if you would, concentrate on the wheel," The Great cat said. I nodded and allowed my focus to soften.

"Yes, that's good," he said. "Now, place your bet.

I took a stack of chips and set them on the number 7.

"Yes, that's good," he said again. He spun the wheel and after the little ball bounced several times, the number 7 came up.

For several seconds I basked in that phenomena called winning. I felt better, stronger, almost healthy.

"Place your bets please," he said again.

I took a stack of chips and set them on the number 7.

Again the wheel spun and the ball stuck on the number 7.

The stack of chips was growing in front of me.

"Cato," he said. "As long you are with me, you will never lose."

"The Great Cat wants me to be rich," I thought to myself. He said the words like every televangelist I've ever heard -- smooth, silky and with just enough smiling encouragement that I would be turning all my earthly goods over to him....shortly. And yet, I felt good, better than good. I felt on the top of my game.

"The Practical Guide to Nine Lives is the highest authority in all matters pertaining to the physical life and death of cats. It is meant to be read at the birth of all kittens and whispered in the ears of all cats dead, dying or long passed. Felines regard the book as the history of their race. One hesitates to enter into discussion of accurately dating The Guide (sometimes called the Catitudes). The author, Cato, is reputed to have been alive during the time of the Battle of the Bulge, a time when every cat had plenty to eat and they fought the great war to maintain a healthy weight. Some European Catologists assign The Guide to the 12th Century B.C., others to earlier ages. Max Muller, for example, estimated the date to be about 1200 B.C., but Haug thought it closer to 2400. Neither believed, of course, in the divine origin of the book.The eminent Indian scholar, Sikkim Felitak, calculated from astronomical data contained in the Catitudes (and suggested in the mantras or meowas) that The Guide was brought together five thousand years before the Christian era. According to the orthodox tradition, the texts, even before their compilation, had been known to the catishis for unnumbered ages. In short, the dates of The Guide, its hymns and collections are far from clear......." From the Introduction to The Practical Guide by Cato.

 "There once was a beggar," said The Great Cat, "a holy beggar that was devoted to meditation. His mind, having been purified by meditation, came to possess the ability to materialize his thoughts. One day, after nearly continuous meditation, and yet having his mind fully concentrated, he decided to be reborn as a cat. Instantly he became a cat. The holy beggar who was a cat entered into the dream life of a cat; killing tiny creatures and rubbing the leg of his owner until he lay down in a sunbeam and went to sleep....and dreamed he was the creator of the universe...."

As he spoke, I felt tired and looked down at front of my suit. I could see the blood spreading across the fabric. I could see beneath the roulette table a great pool of my own blood. I felt oddly divorced from the idea that I was bleeding, profusely. When I looked back at him in puzzlement, he smiled.

"Here, Cato, sit," I climbed into his lap and he wrapped his arms around me and held me close. "My dear Cato," he whispered in my ear, "What do you long for?"

 My mouth was parched and all I could think of was a drink. "Wine, " I whispered.

"A Bordeaux perhaps?" he said. "A 1787 bottle of Chateau Lafite?"

I nodded, feeling warm and cozy. I could almost see the bottle. I could feel it resting in my hands. I brought it to my cheek to feel how cool it might be. I could smell the mustiness.

"Cato?" His voice was sharp. "You will become what you now concentrate upon." He blew across the top of my head and I felt a stirring in my fur. I felt myself lift slightly out of my body. It hurt.  I was frightened. Was I going to leave my body through the top of my head? And the, I found I was strangely confined and that my body was liquid and shaped by a glass bottle that contained it. I flowed and splashed. I lay on my side in a dusty cellar. It was so quiet for so long, I think I fell asleep.........and then my bottle tilted and I sloshed a bit.

"At the moment of death your mind, in fact your whole life will be clear to you. Enjoy this as it is fleeting and you will face tests yet undreamed of afterwords."Lesson #132, from The Practical Guide, by Cato.

To be continued.

Cato's post-presidential video

This video was created by Ruth Lake.

Relaxing at home

Cato gets out into the back yard and relaxes after a grueling all-day session writing his next story. Photo by Ruth Lake.

Cato looks at the light

Cato stands in a shaft of light contemplating his next move. Photo by Ruth Lake.

Merrry Christmas: Sent from my iThrone

I know that most of you are eager to know what it is that I've gotten you for Christmas. As you know, my candidacy has kept me very busy, so busy, in fact,  I have had very little time to sit down in the lab to create something special for the holidays......but I have come up with a little app that should make your lives easier.

It occurred to me on one of my long campaign treks that there wasn't much ground to sink my claws into. So much of the United States is paved that I was unable to find the proper material to perform my "business."

So I created a portable cat box just big enough to stick in my jacket pocket.

I call it the iThrone.

 You can take it out anywhere. Press the button -- it's ready to go when you are. AND because the iThone is so cool, most folks never really notice that you are taking a dump while talking to them on the phone.

The best thing? You can customize the program for things like dirt type and aroma (so you can dial up potting soil with a fishy smell), and set texture from gritty to fluffy. 

It also automatically buries your business every three minutes so you never have to get your paws dirty. Or if you prefer, you can give the iThrone a good shake and clean up your mess instantly!

It combines four products in one — a revolutionary phone, a widescreen iPod, a breakthrough Internet device, and a portapotty -- the ultimate in convenience.

For those that are worried about sanitation, the iThrone uses the latest in bacteria-busting nanotechnology by depositing silver particles averaging about 10 nanometers - less than a thousandth the diameter of a human hair - on the seat. Silver is an ancient infection fighter and in this age of antibiotic resistant bacteria, silver is still effective.

Options include  iBird  (particularly appropriate for outdoor kitties). If used while sitting on your iThrone, you can easily identify birds while preprogrammed birdcalls attract them to your waiting claws. In addition, each bird is rated in terms of succulence, sweetness and amount of protein availability. This feature will allow you to point, click and eat!

I can also engrave it to make it a special gift.  I gave one to my campaign manager that said: "Don't just sit there, feed me!"

I sent another to George W inscribed with this quote: "I've abandoned free market principles to save the free market system." I got a nice card back from him thanking me for my thoughtfulness.

Cato......solving life's dilemma's one app at a time. Merry Christmas....Sent from my iThrone!

The view from Sarah Palin's Lap

"Ground down by the war and driven back by Fate,

the Felidae captains had watched the years slip by

until, helped by Minerva's superhuman skill,

they built that Great Cat, immense as a mountain,

lining its whiskers with ships timbers hewn from pine.

An offering to secure safe passage home, or so

Alaska they pretended, and the story spreads through .

But they pick by lot the best, most able-bodied feline

and stealthily locked him into the cat's tummy

'till the vast hold of the monster's chest is placed

the Trojan Kitty bearing only his  wit, his audacity.

 

"And so it appears that the cats have sped home -- gone!

So all Wasilla breathes free, relieved of her endless sorrow, locked in war with the Felidae the gates of the small city were flung open, the citizens streamed out elated to see that their enemy had abandoned camp

And the Wasillians gazed wonderstruck at The Great Cat

transfixed by the feline, its looming mass, their doom.

Sarah Palin led the way. "Drag it inside the walls," she urged.

"Plant it high on the city heights."

 

"An opponent of dragging The Great Cat within the gates shouted: "Poor doomed fools have you gone mad? You really believe the enemy's sailed away?

Or any gift of the Felidae is free from guile?

Trust me, either the cats are hiding shut inside those beams

or the cat is a battle-engine geared to breach our walls,

spy on our homes, come down on our city, overwhelm us --

or some other deception's lurking deep inside it.

Wasillians, never trust that cat. Whatever it is,

I fear the Felidae, especially bearing gifts!"  The Feneid

 

It wasn't hard to see where this was going...I flipped open the trapdoor and fell out between the two massive front legs of the faux cat. My disguise as Hello Cato would help me look foolish rather than fearsome. 

 

I had agreed to the plan The Great Cat had laid out the day before. "Sarah Palin is living in a dream and that dream will bring doom to all.” He insisted that the Hello Kitty disguise would easily gain me access to the vice presidential candidate.

 

When he pulled out the actual costume, I balked.

 

"So you really expect me to wear that? It has a red bow. I am neutered, not.....redish!"

 

He smiled. "I knew you’d say that. But look, I've made it to look like a Siamese!" He laughed.

 

"Is the best you can do?" I sneered. "I agree she must be stopped. Anyone who hates cats should be neutralized, especially if they aspire to high office, but...." My paws fell to my sides. How will this get me inside the walls of the governor’s mansion and how will it get me onto the lap of Sarah Palin?"

 

“Your Hello Cato outfit will be familiar to her. She will recognize it as a cultural symbol of sweetness, while it masks your absolute deadliness.”

 

And thus I entered the Palin residence as a gift from the lower 48:

 

"Dreams haunt my quaking heart, Bristol!

Who is this stranger just arrived to lodge in our house -- our guest?

How noble his face, his courage, and what a cat!

Behold the bold red bow!

I'm sure -- I know it's true -- this cat is born of gods.

Fear exposes the lowborn cat at once. But, oh, how tossed

he's been by blows of fate. What tales he's told

what bitter bowls of life he's drunk…and to the dregs.

If my heart had not been fixed, dead set against

embracing yet another cat...," she broke off, voice choking with the tears

that brimmed and wet her heaving breast.

 

Then Cato, overwhelmed by this strange vision, felt his hackles bristling with fear—and something else—envy for her glasses, fogged by tears.

 

As the vision ended, I found myself nestled in her lap and breathed deeply of her scent. I smelled baby poop, breast milk, laundry soap and something else, something hideous…my bowels suddenly felt loose.

 

"It's the smell of the shadow, Cato," The Great Cat whispered in my ear. I listened to him intently, "By appealing to fear and resentment, hostility to change, suspicion of “the other”, religious intolerance and hatred of cats, the Republicans have been the shadow party for many, many years. Sarah Palin has put a smiling face on feelings we normally feel ashamed to admit. This is a classic battle between good and evil."

 

"I thought you were above all that!" I was beginning to feel real disappointment in The Great Cat, first the red bow and now this.

 

"I am. I am speaking from the human point of view: those who believe good and evil exist. Sitting in Sarah Palin's lap is the greatest test of your life. In order to lead people back to their humanity, you must have deepen your understanding: you must see what she sees, feel what she feels…and come to terms with it."

 

"The feline mind-meld? I said in horror.

 

"Yes, I think you are ready to experience it, and you have acquired the skills."

 

"But I thought it was forbidden?" I felt queasy. The smell of the shadow was sickening me.

 

"You are permitted because you our best chance to set the world aright.”

 

I gasped.

 

"Go within…touch her mind," he whispered.

 

And with trepidation, I sunk my claws into her thighs.

 

“Born of the blood of gods, Cato of the red bow, descended to the underworld of the Republicans within her mind."

 

Night and day the gates of the conservative underworld stand open, ready to swallow those who are dim-witted and misguided and swallow them whole. There on the steps of folly, I met my guide, Phyllis Schlafly. She smelled of the dead—the juice, which once animated her body, now dry.

 

"I understand you’re neutered?" she scoffed.

 

I nodded.

 

"That is unnatural," she said baldly.  “How, being unnatural, did you gain entrance to the Right and Holy Underground?”

 

I sighed. "Madame, how could I be otherwise? I am a cat: territorial, unorthodox, unbound by the niceties of humans. Hell, woman, I spray therefore I’m neutered!" 

 

"Hello Cato,” she warned, “You are unwelcome here. You have gained entrance, but you may never return to your previous life."

 

I felt a chill… then beat back the fear and regained my courage. "Yes, but what is the magic antidote, the enchanted device, that will bring me back to the Feline domain?"

 

"You must steal the heart of Dick Cheney,” she mocked. “Deep in his chest beats a mechanical heart of gold. That is the holy heart of the party. Pluck it from his chest, turn it off, and your return is certain."

 

I gagged. "I'll pass," I said. I was sure the Great Cat could help me return.

 

Moving deeper into Palin’s shadow realm, I stepped across the dying body of the Economy: repellant and oozing slime, the result of Republican politics. It reached up, putrid with greed, to suck the life from me. I dug my claws deeper into Palin's thigh and hung on for dear life.

 

I was now entering the realms of the monster known as “Wall Street”. I stepped carefully to avoid the crash. Monstrous howling and braying erupted as the financial world fell. I tossed $700 billion into its gaping maw, where it disappeared without a trace.

 

Suddenly a specter of Palin appeared, coming towards me. "Resistance is futile," she crowed, “You’ll never leave my realm.” She had plugged directly into the Republican hive mind. As she reached out to touch me, I could sense her desire to add feline knowledge to their party.  I jumped out of her reach.

 

"You will join me and my friends shortly," she hissed. "Resistance is futile," and she reached for me again.

 

I struggled to stay out of her reach, feeling that I might—somehow--be able to teach her a different point of view.

 

"Wait,” I suggested, “Listen to this story…There once was a king of

Syria

He was a very bad, a very nasty king, and he lusted after the kingdom of Egypt, just as you lust after the lower 48. So he invaded, and the royalty of Egypt begged Rome to intervene, just as the American people cry out to the Felidae for help. And Rome, being the greatest of all nations, sent Gaius Popillius Laenas, Consul of Rome, to intervene…and Gaius took just 14 wise men with him to meet with the king of Syria.

 

“You are offending the Senate and the People of Rome," said Gaius after staring at the king. "I order you to return to Syria."

 

The king laughed in his face. "And how are you going to make me do that? He asked. "Where is your army?"

 

"I have no need of an army," said Gaius. "Everything that Rome is, has been, and will be, is standing before you here and now. I am Rome, no less than Rome's largest army. And in the name of Rome, I say to you a further time…go home!"

 

"The king said nothing. Gaius Popillius Laenas said nothing. They stared at one another for a long, long time. And then the king turned, gathering his armies, and returned to Syria."

 

I ended my story and said to Palin: "By the red bow of Hello Cato, I order you to return home. By order of the family Felidae, I order you to pack it up and get out of the campaign…now, while you have your life. Go back to Wasilla.”

 

"Make me," she spat.

 

" Very well. Since you desire to add feline knowledge to your party, I will give you a glimpse into the wild mind of the Felidae."

 

“Oh, I’m so afraid," she said mocking me.

 

And then I opened my mind to her. She froze, registered pain, and then collapsed in shock.  Blood trickled from her lips and nostrils. I sighed. It couldn't be helped, she needed to know what she was up against: no Republican can stand against the wild mind of Felidae…

 

I picked her up from where she had collapsed and walked out of the Land of the Dead...

 

Editors note: Sources for much of the copy for this story came from The Aeneid (Fagles translation) and Colleen McCullough's book "The First Man of Rome." This story was edited by A2.

Fear and loathing on the campaign trail: rewind '08

"One of the marks of success in a career politician is a rooty distrust of The Press -- this cynicism is usually reciprocated." Hunter S. Thompson

"The only way a reporter should look at a politician is down." H.L. Mencken

When I first met the ghost of journalist Raoul Duke, I was aware as a presidential candidate that I was on shaky ground just by granting an interview to a ghost much less the author of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. He was a short Mexican man about the size of a  barn.  I found him sitting on my porch one night after I had had a particularly successful session in a vineyard with several small animals. I had come back to the porch to clean up before ringing the bell to be let in.

"Cato," his voice was soft and the accented English smooth and pure.  He patted his thigh offering me a place on his lap, and as it looked very large and soft, I obliged. I settled myself before he spoke again.

"Cato, I want to ask you how you met Richard Nixon?" Duke, of course was an upstart journalist, completely unafraid to ask anything at any time. I was aware that several members of the press knew about my past history with Nixon. I did not realize, however, that the knowledge of it was widespread.

"Well, Raoul," I settled my bottom on his thigh and turned to look at him and smiled. "That is indeed an interesting story."

"It was on Highway 93 back East somewhere in one of those little states that hardly matter unless it is primary season. Nixon knew that I was a seriously addicted to pro football as he was and he wanted a companion on his way down 93 to some god awful state in the South for yet another primary. It was 1968 and no one took him seriously. The serious candidate  that year was Nelson Rockefeller."

It was a very  weird trip. Both Nixon and I enjoyed it, this was before he turned into a prime-A asshole and mislead the American public while he bombed the crap out of Cambodia. There were only two of us in the back seat. The cop driving held the speed at exactly 65 mph. Whatever else might be said about Nixon -- and there is still serious doubt in my mind that he could pass for Human -- he was a goddamn stone fanatic on every facet of pro ball. At one point in our conversation, I mentioned a down and out pass in the waning moments of the 1967 Super Bowl -- the mismatch between between Green Bay and Oakland -- and obscure, second-string Oakland receiver named Bill Miller that had stuck in my mind because of his pinpoint style and precision . Nixon hesitated a moment, lost in thought, then he slapped me on the thigh and laughed. "That's right, by god! The Miami boy!" I was stunned, not only had he remembered the play, but he knew where Miller had played in college."

"However, Raoul after Vietnam and Watergate, I just hoped he would die a horrible death," I dug my claws slightly into his thigh to emphasize my point. "When it finally happened, I waited a good six months before I traveled to his grave, not to pay my respects, but to dig up the bones and gnaw on them to make sure that he was truly dead." I paused to let that sink into Raoul's brain.

"Is this for attribution?" Raoul whispered.

Six month later the little Mexican was back on my porch this time with  "...two bags of grass  seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored  uppers, downers, screamers, laughers [...] and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls." He offered me some catnip, which I gladly accepted.

While I was rolling around in a feel good frenzy, he asked his next question.

"What was your involvement in the Massachusetts caucuses of 1972 -- actually what do you know about the Cambridge caucuses?

"You're asking about 1972?"

He nodded.

"I wasn't alive then, neither were my parents." I grinned.

"Yes, but you remembered your encounter with Nixon. I have been advised that you remember all your lives," he whispered.

My feel good frenzy was over and a chill shot up my spine.

"I don't know what you are talking about."

There was a long silence.

"I understand that there could be a very dark side to your presidency."

I did not respond.

He sighed. "Let me refresh your memory."

"Neutering for everyone in your administration?"

"This is a matter of public record. I believe politicians can better serve the public if they are neutered."

His accusations came faster.

"Your plan for dog control?"

"The cat across the street?"

"Gun control?"

"It's obvious to me that when you have the skills to kill and eat your own food, what do you need guns for? Why bother to dress a moose, when you can eat it raw?" I licked my lips at the thought.

He continued. "Your plan to change the constitution so that non-humans may run for all manner of political office?"

This is not a secret it's a part of my campaign slogan 'The human race had its chance and squandered it.' It's obvious from McCain's recent choice for vice president that a feline, particularly a neutered one, would have been a better choice. Humans are increasingly exhibiting an inability to think well, cats do not have this trouble." I blinked.

He was silent for a moment. I feared what he was thinking.

"Yes, but when these things are put together in a package, your presidency appears rather dark."

I sighed. "What do you want to know about the caucuses?"

"So you do remember your past lives?" I had no idea why he was hounding me about my memory, but I was soon to find out.

"Yes, I remember everything from the beginning of my incarnation -- my original incarnation at the dawn of time. I am eternal........ " I decided to switch gears. "It was Saturday, the gym of Assumption College was packed. The median age was about 33 years. This was a little old for McCarthy supporters. That's why George  McGovern locked up 62 percent of the caucus voters that day. A real coup. This left McCarthy to split the rest, more or less equally, with Shirley Chisholm.

The Chisholm strength shocked everybody. She was one of 12 names on the ballot -- which included almost every conceivable Democratic candidate from Hubert Humphrey to Patsy Mink, George Wallace, Wilbur Mills, Sam Yorty, Gene McCarthy, John Lindsay, Ed Muskie. The Chisholm challenge was a last-minute idea and only half-organized on the morning of the caucus by a handful of speedy young black politicos and women's lib-types, but by 6:00 that evening it had developed from a noisy idea into a solid power bloc.

"What began as a symbolic kind of challenge became a serious position after the first ballot -- among this overwhelmingly white, liberal, affluent, well-educated and over-thirty audience -- half of them refusing to vote for McGovern because he seemed too conventional."

"Sounds like Iowa and Obama," he remarked.

"You might say that.  But it actually reminded me of Cicero who stood for Consul in the year 63. He was the underdog as a 'new man' of the Senate. He ran against some very able opponents and still managed to triumph using his oratory skills, his insistence on maintaining the Republic for all citizens of Rome and his intelligence to win. We have very little of that now."

"You are referring to the current election and yet you remember the Republic?" He asked.

"As I said, I remember to the beginning of time............and yes I remember the Republic. There was nothing like it and never will be. Men at that time tore each other apart with their bare hands. It was a very bloody time. I made a good living as a gladiator."

"You were a gladiator?"

"Oh, yes, most cats were. I was one of the winningest. I won my freedom and I was elected Tribune in the years just before Julius Caesar became sole dictator . But this is ancient history."

"You have quite a perspective on politics," he said in an admiring tone of voice. "Who do you think will win the election this year?"

I thought carefully before I answered his question. “You can always spot a fool, he's the guy who will tell you who is going to win an election. But an election is a living thing – you might almost say, the most vigorously alive thing there is – with thousands upon thousands of brains and limbs and eyes and thoughts and desires, and it will wriggle and turn and run in directions no one ever predicted, sometimes just for the joy of proving you wrong.

"This I learned on the Field of Mars that election day, when the entrails were inspected, the skies were check for suspicious flights of birds, the blessing of the gods were invoked, all epileptics were ask to leave the field, a legion was deployed on the approaches to Rome to prevent surprise attack, the list of candidates was read, the trumpets were sounded, the red flag was hoisted over the Janiculum hill, and the Roman people began to cast their ballots."

Six months later he was back, this time with just a pencil and notebook.

It was evening and the sun was hanging on the horizon. The color of the world had gone purple and the waning light lingered just for one long moment before going out, entirely. I was sitting at the screen door looking out. I was tired and satisfied. I had had a good dinner. I purred to myself with contentment.

"Cato, I have followed you through history. It took some time, but I have followed your tracks up until now." He sat on the porch looking out on history."I have two questions for you."

"Only two?" I followed his gaze. I was too content to be afraid. Whatever he had found, I would own it. I had nothing to conceal. Still, my history is long, I doubted he could know everything.

"Which administration do you think is worse Nixon or Bush?"

"I preferred Julius Caesar. He was intelligent and blood thirsty at the same time. He was completely unafraid to seize the era and mold the greatest empire to his ideals - whether right or wrong."

He was silent for several seconds.

"The McCain camp says you fathered a child out of wedlock."

I drifted in the dark. The languor remained as I drifted off to sleep.

"Yes, I had several bastards in my time,"  I closed my eyes slowly with a sigh.

"Once, I was an unwed mother too," I added and I licked my lips slightly. "I enjoyed myself tremendously in the past, but politics were always my favorite.........game."

The author owes much to Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail by Hunter S. Thompson,  Imperium, by Robert Harris and to the Great Cat.

Going where no cat has gone before

I'd spent the night applying for jobs online, alternatively drinking grape Kool-Aid and sneaking bites out of a block of domestic Parmesan cheese, when it happened.

My lips were purple and my breath stank. My stomach hurt. It was not a good time for an adventure.

I was running out of money. My campaign costs were astronomical. I owed $20 million for campaign advertising alone. My manager would no longer pay my bills.

I was frazzled. I faced financial ruin. I could see myself out on the streets. It wasn't a bright future.

I slipped a tranquilizer from the medicine cabinet while my manager slept. Took it with a glass of water and lay down at her feet.

Suddenly the room was shaking. It sounded as if a car was coming through the wall. The noise was unbelievable.

I opened my eyes and found myself looking out of a huge window into a dark void. In the distance I could see a space ship. Its opaque white sides luminously lit from within. What looked like a golden claw slowly extended to point directly at me where I sat.

My paws covered my heart reflexively and I screamed.

"Where am I? I wailed. I tried to stand. The floor rocked violently beneath my paws. I fell back in my chair.

"Captain," said a voice from behind me. "The ship is drawing huge amounts of energy to its photon ray."

I turned and looked at the speaker. He was pure white and feline with the strangest ears I had ever seen.

"Sir, we cannot sustain another attack," he said.

I found I was surrounded by others like him. They were all dressed in plain tunics with triangular insignias over their hearts. I could tell that their paws had never touched earth.

"Mr,....uh," I stumbled over the words still in the grip of the tranquilizer. I gazed around. My heart raced as I recognized the place. I was on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. I was going where no cat had gone before.

"My name is Bock, Captain," the weird-eared cat said. "Sir you hit your head in the last power blast. I am your science adviser."

Following in the steps of Captain James. T. Kirk, I took command of the ship.

An orange kitty dressed in a black and white kilt burst through the airlock.

"Sir, I can give you impulse power in a couple of minutes," he said in an abrasive Scottish accent. "Just the batteries are left after that last attack."

"We don't have a couple of minutes," I shouted.

I turned to the communications officer, "open a channel and hail that ship," I hissed.

Before she could execute my order, 'he' was on screen.

"Cato," he purred. "Welcome to EVE." I should have known that The Great Cat would be behind this charade.

He had changed dramatically since our last encounter. Snakes writhed around his neck in the most god awful necklace I had ever seen. Usually clean shaven, he wore a beard that hung in lumpy dread locks to his belly.

"Eve?" I asked.

"A massive online, multi-player game. You are in Jovian space. The last frontier in EVE. You are an outlaw. You inhabit a character that is not suppose to be playable. Your race has evolved through genetic engineering to be more than human," he smiles. "But we already knew that!"

"I thought I was the Captain of the Starship Enterprise and you were the scourge of the universe!" I quipped.

"That too, Cato, but this is your own show. You created this from your own mind. This is it."

"I created my own online game? I thought this was created and owned by CCP in Iceland.

"Like I said, you create your own reality on- or off- line.The world mirrors your predominant thoughts."

"My predominant thoughts were about the end of my presidential campaign and financial ruin," I laughed.

"Oh Cato," he began to sing. "Your mind, the Supreme Lord, is the Great Light of the universal consciousness. Your mind is the perfect medium of reflection. When your mind is fat, you are fat. When your wallet is thin, you mind starves."

"Oh Cato, you are the Spanda of the universe. The vibration of life. The heart, the essence, the wave, the strength, the exertion and the purr of the divine."

"I am the spandex of the universe?" I grabbed my sides, laughing, it was just too much. Sometimes his words exceeded my vocabulary. This time I wouldn't pretend to know what it was he was talking about.

"The universe is a block copolymer of polyurethane and polyethylene glycol disguised as a Siamese Cat who holds the universe together?" I was laughing so hard, I couldn't breath

"Oh Cato, you are the perfect vibration of the universe, Spanda or spandex, within you is the glue that holds the universe together. Within you is the destruction of the universe as well. You are the god of creation and destruction."

I could see where this conversation was going. I needed to keep him talking while I arranged for his destruction before he destroyed me.

"Bock, pinpoint the areas of that ship that lack enough power to hold a shield.," I said quietly to my science officer who stood nearby. I was tired of The Great Cat's dangerous games. I wanted earthly success. I wanted to buy my presidency like everyone else.

"Pinpointed." Bock nodded at me. "Phasers are locked on target."

"Engage, " I said.

I gave the order. There was a delay. Then the luminous ship that had once hung in the void like a golden beetle, blew to smithereens. All that was left was gold dust."

The screen went blank. The bridge was silent. All time stopped.

The Great Cat walked through the airlock and onto the bridge.

"Oh, Cato, undivided is the one Supreme Lord. The whole world is bound by the shackles of one's own wayward thinking. You are bound by a reality that is far from real."

"Cut the crap," I shouted at him. I was tired of his relentless pomposity. "The economy is sinking fast," I said. "The future is in jeopardy."

"All in your mind," he sang.

"People are losing their homes and their livelihoods. The future is collapsing."

"All in your mind," he sang.

"The globe is heating up and soon the only temperate places to live on earth will be the polar caps," I said.

"All in you mind," he sang.

"You are beginning to sound like our current president," I laughed. I raised my phaser and pointed it at his heart.

"Oh, Cato, George Bush had a great opportunity to realize the wonders of the mind. He could have led us all into complete realization. Still his being retains the vibration of the universe within despite his delusions."

"Oh, Cato,  few in number are those kitties that wander in the sky of consciousness. Fewer yet travel beyond the path where the Sun and Moon have set. You are well beyond your own universe. While some felines cry for milk, you crave discovery. Let your eyes be colored by the collyium of contemplation and you will behold your abode, the universe," his hands swept the stars beyond the ship.

I shot him with the phaser set to kill. He died singing with a smile on his face.

I wept. He was like a father to me. I loved The Great Cat like no other. I put my head in my paws and wept until my whiskers were limp.

"Captain, look!" Bock shouted.

I pulled myself out of my grief to look once again on the void. Rushing towards us was a mirror of our own ship and riding on the exterior lip of the bridge was The Great Cat. He was larger than life, majestic with his snakes gliding around his body. He held a trident above his head in triumph as he drove his ship into mine.

It was over instantly. The collision. The horrible sound of steel grinding on steel and then, when the air escaped, there was no sound. Nothing.

 My consciousness floated. There was me and the universe. Then there was the low, gravely purr, the vibration of the universe. Then there was nothing.

I woke with a shriek. My campaign manger sat bolt upright in bed. She screamed.

"Stop it, stop biting my ankle, Cato!" She kicked me and I flew off the bed. I hit my head and slumped against the wall.

I was alive. With all my delusions, I was alive. My mind had started again. It created what I saw and what I felt. It created the room, my campaign manager and the pain in my head. I was grateful for this reality.

Editor's note: My apologies to the EVE online community for stealing a little history. The inspiration for this post is the Spandakarika, one of the great books of Kashmir Shaivism.

The real truth about Calistoga Jones

It's been 48 years since my great, great, great uncle took his last breath. But now that the highly fictionalized movie has come out based on his life, I find myself compelled to tell the real truth about Calistoga Jones.

Contrary to popular belief, he was not human, but feline -- a common house cat from Wisconsin who felt the tug of adventure. Upon graduation from high school, Calistoga made his way to New York City to make his fortune in the basement of the American Museum of Natural History. There, using a combination of "forceful coercion, subterfuge and firepower (!!!!!!!!), he was able to rise from rodent abatement to explorer.

"I was born to be an explorer. There was never any decision to make," he wrote in his first book entitled The Business of Exploring published in 1935. "Killing as a profession did not really hold any excitement for me. I preferred dried kibble to dead animals. I had the desire to see new places, to discover new facts. Curiosity has always been a driving force for me."

He was a cat of the world, equally at ease stowing away on a merchant ship to Japan or China or entering the living rooms of Wall Street millionaires. He got along famously in the salons of Park Avenue. He fit right in when sailing with hard-bitten whalers. He was able to languish in a Japanese brothel with aplomb. When he walked into a yurt, he looked like he belonged."

Uncle Calistoga was a master fundraiser. Almost all his expeditions were funded by some of American's greatest businessmen. "I met with Rockefeller, Morgan, Frick, Vanderbilt, Astor, Dodge, Warburg, Baker, Phelps and Jessup. They all believed I would find the missing link between the smilodon and the common house cat."

After raising more than $250,000 in 1920, Uncle Calistoga set out for the Gobi Desert to test his hypothesis that this was the birthplace of the common house cat. That deep in the desert he would find the missing link between the saber tooth tiger and the Siamese Cat. He struck upon this theory one night during his night shift at the American Museum of Natural History.

One of his colleagues described the scene: "Calistoga was lying on his back with bag of catnip over his face. He lay there quietly for about 15 minutes and then jumped up and said 'I've got it!'  We all laughed at him. But he was resourceful. He sold the idea like a box of corn flakes to those millionaires. I mean, a cat heading an expedition to find the link between the prehistoric cat and the self-righteous Siamese? Come on! But he was a smart kitty, he knew those financiers couldn't resist taking a chance on an expedition into an area where there was liable to be oil. He got all the oil barons on board and he didn't need anybody else!"

Following in the footsteps of Marco Polo, his expedition traveled into the Gobi's overpowering vastness. "The landscape was awesome and empty with rocky outcroppings, sand dunes, escarpments, barren mountain peaks and gravel-covered plains. It was a virtual cat box," he wrote.

One day in the midst of a blinding sand storm, the expedition lost its way and wandered, lost into an unusual outcropping. "After walking a few yards, I found myself looking into a sweeping basin filled with spectacular formations cut by erosion into massive walls of reddish-orange sandstone," Calistoga wrote. He named it the Flaming Cliffs. Below these red cliffs he made feline history.

Almost immediately the discoveries began. The first day "everyone was gathered for lunch, and Calistoga walked up with his paws outstretched," wrote one of his colleagues. "He had found a nest of dinosaur eggs -- the first eggs discovered that were not laid by birds."

The next day Calistoga found another clutch of dinosaur eggs that included the skulls of several infants. On the third day he made his greatest discovery. It was a cluster of five eggs, each about eight inches long, reddish-brown in color. They were elongated and slightly flat.

"When I cleared away all the debris, I exposed a fragment of a skeleton of a quadrapedal mammal. It appeared to have died in the act of raiding the nest. I knew I had found what I had been looking for. This was the great meezadon velociraptor (toothy Siamese who is a swift thief). I had found the missing link. I imagined I could see his blue eyes flashing when I lifted pieces of his skull and his 12-inch-long teeth and placed these carefully in my bag. I could feel what the meezadon felt when he discovered the eggs so very long ago. I imagined him thinking 'Quick! Dinner!'  I could almost taste the egg as the shell was broached by his hideously long teeth."

When news of the discovery of the missing link hit the newspapers around the world, the reaction to the announcement was phenomenal. The press, felines and the cat fancying public devoured the discovery with a frenzy that even Calistoga found difficult to fathom. Minutes after his ship docked in San Francisco, reporters from every major West Coast city swarmed aboard.

I have pictures of him holding the skull as though it was a relative, tentatively, tenderly with a sweet, sweet smile of astonishment as he descended the gangplank of the ship.

The press accounts and photos of Uncle Calistoga show him surrounded by hordes of adoring fans at his first lecture at the American Museum. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. wrote about the scene: "We were cheek by jowl. A lot of hissing could be heard. I got cat scratched several times. It was impossible to hear Calistoga's speech. It was impossible to get to the case that held the eggs and the predatory meezadon. It was such a sensation...... I returned several times over the next month to look the missing link in the eye and to contemplate how it used its imposing teeth. I still shudder when I think of it today," wrote Rockefeller in his memoirs.

Yet the missing link was not the only attraction the public had for the man behind the discovery. Equally riveting was the swashbuckling image that was created by the media. Uncle Calistoga was the pioneering adventurer who forced the forbidding Gobi to give up its age-old secrets. Stories, whether true or not, were told of his facing down bandits armed only with a bullwhip. "I was surrounded by Chinese bandits. I had to protect the bones of the ancients that were in my possession. I pulled out the bullwhip and by some fortunate happenstance I managed to wrap it around the neck of the nearest robber. I pulled with all my might and his head came off with a big gush of blood," reports the New York Times of June 3, 1923.

His fame now soared to extraordinary heights and, like Nelson after the Battle of the Nile, crowds flocked to him whenever he appeared in public. He was offered the directorship of the museum. His visage appeared on the cover of Time Magazine. He was put forward as the choice for the vice presidency with 'Fighting Bob' La Follette, Sr. who ran under the banner of the Progressive Party. Both were from Wisconsin and were soundly beaten by the incumbent Republican Calvin Coolidge, although they garnered 17 percent of the popular vote in 1924.

Despite his fame, Uncle Calistoga found public life wearing. After defeat during the general election he retreated to the spa town of Calistoga in Northern California. He so identified with the rustic and wild place that it eventually became a part of his nickname.

There he found solace and a semblance of privacy. Local paper cuttings report that he was seen walking the hills above the tiny city to the summit of Mount St. Helena. There were rumors that he was secretly working on a big dig in the Palisades that grace the eastern edge of the hills above the city. He worked briefly for Giuseppe Musante, an ice cream and soda fountain owner who founded the Calistoga Sparkling Mineral Water Company.

Wars in Asia made it hard for Calistoga to arrange for another expedition to the Gobi, much to his great disappointment. He never went back, although he was offered money to mount other expeditions on three separate occasions. His exploring days over, he settled in Calistoga and proceeded to write his magnum opus The New Conquest of Central Asia. Under the banner headline 'In Search of the Meezadon in Mongolia,' the book was praised in New York Daily News as an "absorbing chronicle, a triumph and an enthralling blend of science and adventure that remains one of the most captivating narratives of exploration ever written."

Great uncle Calistoga spent the rest of his life writing about his discoveries and hosting parties at his country house just outside town. There were reported stories of love affairs later in life, but as a neutered male he was to live his life out alone, in the company of a small replica of the meezdon skull and teeth. He was discovered dead of a heart attack at age 93, clutching the bones of the missing link in one hand, a smile on his face.

Of his discoveries, my great uncle was reported to have said late in his life that "Man is an ape with possibilities, but there are many intelligent species in the universe -- and they are all owned by cats."

This story is based on Dragon Hunter by Charles Ballenkamp his biography of Roy Chapman Andrews.

Jean Paul Gautier Introduces Cato's Catwalk

Lured from his Parisian workshop, Jean Paul Gautier was on hand for the first rehearsal of the professional entrants in the "I'm too sexy.....Cato's Catwalk Contest. L'enfant terrible and sometime designer to such stars as Madonna and Marilyn Manson,
Gaultier worked feverishly to arrange the works of art that each entrant wore. First up on the catwalk was professional supermodel and sometime Gautier girlfriend Baxter, who frequently turns up as male and female in the designer's work -- so sleek is his/her style and so absolute is his/her refusal to adopt either sexual roll. Early in his/her career Baxter was quoted as saying it was important to him/her to maintain his/her identity as a feline first and a cat second. What this means, no one is quite certain, but it has caught the imagination of the feline fashion world. Baxter has been kept working full time 24/7. If he/she is not in front of the camera, he/she is catnapping somewhere.

Baxter is seen wearing a Joseph Campbell/Bill Moyers power of myth organza with a seed-pearl bodice and a cake-tired gauze skirt. His/her white fur wisps out of the delicate lace at arms and neck. His/her delicate features are surrounded by a French lace draped around a pair of antlers donated by the Deer Foundation of America. The whole outfit reeks of dead ruminant. The limited audience on hand for the rehearsal was driven mad by the proximity of dead prey.

Abyssinian pop singer Ruby strutted her stuff next. Bearing just about everything in an elaborate take-off on the Union Suit. Ruby takes it up a notch by adding signature Queen of the Nile golden leggings and a royal diadem highlighted with a circus pony pom pom. The body of her suit was crafted from a butterfly net, studded with gold lame and punctuated with intricate shoulder epaulets made from date palm leaves.  

To a Western feline sensibility there was something positively Elizabethan about her ermine collar and a golden crown.

As one of the oldest cat breeds on earth and the direct relative of felis lybica, the wildcat ancestor to all domestic cats, she walked a thin line between her middle eastern past and a haute future.

 Just back from a recent hastilude where she skewered several heads of state during a particularly brilliant bout in the lists, Christine de Pisan comes dressed for combat wearing a chain mail snood that reflects the green and gold of her eyes. Her matching ailette, besagews, couter, and gauntlets are also gold-plated metal.

Her brigandine is fashioned from Mercedes Benz hubcaps in descending widths to grace her hips. The couter and gauntlet fittings are made to resemble Disneyland's Mad Tea Party cups piled bottom to bottom at the elbow giving the military side of the gown a whimsical look that has more than once set her enemy to laughing and allowed her to deliver a coup de grace.

Hoisting her bastard sword, she strode the catwalk boisterously challenging all to meet her in hand-to-hand combat. A member of the fashion press spontaneously described her as "beautiful as Paris, as pious as Aeneas, as wise as Ulysses and as fiery as Hector. When the battle was over she was humble and courteous even though she has devoted her life to feats of arms."

Editors Note: Due to an ongoing search for employment, my campaign manager's ability to proof read my material has slowed. I apologize to those contestants who sent their photos in for the competition on time, expecting the contest to commence on May 15. The next installment of the catwalk will include all amateur contestants.