Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Cat Daddy

There is something special about Jackson Galaxy. This became clear to me watching the first season of "My Cat From Hell" (the first season shows seemed to convey more emotion than those that followed; I can't tell you exactly why). Helping people to understand their cats better is a noble and necessary task, and this man can do it. People need to listen to him.

His book takes a surprising (to me) form: it is one long confession. I wanted more about understanding cats. Yes, there is a lot of that here, but the book is about Jackson Galaxy confessing his life, a life of an addict. He tells it well, the realness is plain, and he tells it the same way he talks, very engagingly, so it's easy to keep turning the pages. But I wanted something more, something to delve deeper into the world of cats. Still, I kept reading.

And then there it was. On page 270. The ultimate confession. The confession that tells all in one sentence. A sentence that is sped past in the drama of the dying cat, not to be returned to at all in the pages that follow. The confession that, if it were the focus of the book, would be laughed at by the world because it changes the world. It changes the very roots of our beliefs, the foundations of the way everything is done. It is the confession I have been trying to make to the world for a decade or more. I've been dancing around it on this blog. I'm still afraid to come out and say it.

I am not going to spell it out because I'm still afraid of the effects of saying it. I've told you where it is in the book (page 270, hardcover edition); you will either recognize it for what it is or you won't. But it is the ultimate game changer for the world. Jackson Galaxy knows this. I know this. Many other people know this as well. The whole world needs to know it.

Jackson Galaxy gets cats. He wants to relieve their suffering by helping other people to get them, too. People need to read this book. My personal desire is to take that sentence on page 270 and expand it into a book in a way that the world will understand even while it wants to reject it out of hand.