Headbangs and scritches

I am a rockhead (one who goes gaga over fuzzy riffs and harbour a closet desire to play a PRS, or maybe just a plain old strat, like any three guitar gods alive), albeit a rockhead who’s not much into the local scene. Still it was with a strange tugging kind of sadness and loss when I read this last Wednesday: The Suns’ drummer dies unexpectedly.

Yet, oddly enough, or maybe not, I felt a smile at this entry on the blog of 5 cat style and the flyer – a tribute to the man, and the cat who ruled (and I believe continues to rule) his roost: In loving memory: Wayne “Thunder” Seah 1977-2007.

That comaraderie between the band and the cat, between Wayne and the cat, is a love, a relationship that people who have never accepted any other living thing as it/he/she is, can hope to comprehend, much less appreciate the privilege, the honour, and the joy of sharing one’s life with a non-human. True, the band took on the cat, Messr Robert, out of pity:

Robert first stumbled into the life of one of Singapore’s pioneering and legendary bands, The Suns, as a shivering, skinny and very hungry kitten. After being told that he would most likely be put down because he was “so ugly, no one would want to adopt him”, the band, who were also struggling to feed themselves in a foreign land at that time, after being banned from performing in their homeland, found their lucky star in that little furry heart.

But the band opened their hearts to the little fuzzball without condition. They did not begrudge him his due and beyond. That is the true essence of being a pet-parent.

Ah, pets, such an archaic and misguiding term. A rose may smell just as sweet by any other name, but where Robert and his brethren of furries, scalies and featheries are concerned, perhaps there is significance in a name. They are companions, company in human homes, and hearts and minds. They are not chattel or mere possessions. “Pets” is a cumbersome albatross round their collective necks, especially ironic in this day and age of information, awareness and designer looks, where specifications for a pet’s looks are the norm.

Fitting a friend, a family member, into a mould, nitpicking over their physical imperfections, or worse, choosing who you want to be that special someone, these acts cheapens the relationship so. But that’s the contrarian motto of the modern man’s world.

So 3 chuffs each to Robert, Wayne Thunder and the 2/3s of the long-hairball-suffering Suns: Justin Roy and Sanjeev Veloo. Because while we may not lead such exciting lives, we definitely feel the resonance of being conned into companionship, willing parties to this strange wonderful exploitation.