This is an unusual story, but when I read it, I thought it only fitting that one of the most famous metal bands in history be spotlighted on one of the top cat websites in history. It’s a story to warm the heart, and may even change your perception of heavy metal bands.
Slayer was scheduled to play a packed show at Old National Centre in Indianapolis on December 4. It was cold and the band guitarist Kerry King was at St. Elmo’s steak house the night before the show enjoying dinner with several members of the road crew. On their way out, Slayer’s assistant tour manager Jess Cortese saw a homeless man on the street. The man offered to see his kitten for a dollar. In an interview with Nuvo.net, Manager Heidi Robinson-Fitzgerald described the kitten as freezing. Jess rescued the kitty, who slept with her in her bunk on the bus that night.
Another of the runners knew of someone looking to adopt a cat, so the band made arrangements to get the kitten to the person who wanted to adopt. The new owner, Penny Hamilton-Riley, recently wrote on her Facebook wall about her new baby, whom she named Gypsy
“I gave her a bath last night then she slept for five hours on the heating pad. She’s at the vet this morning being treated for fleas and worms.”
The band received a lot of good publicity after saving Gypsy. Gypsy no longer has to live outside hungry and cold, and Penny got a new best friend. Oh, and Slayer possibly got a new campaign mascot, as seen in the photo above. It’s nice to know the band has a soft spot for homeless kittens.
Note: “Thrash metal” is a sub-genre of heavy metal and more extreme.
I have the story of the year coming by Christmas. Just have to be in the mind frame to write it. There’s going to be a reunion 🙂
Hi Marc. Great to hear from you. Hope you have a happy and peaceful Christmas.
I agree that completely. I wish there were a lot more stories like these. I want cat news to be good news but 90% of cat news is bad.
As to Red, you know I dug up the bones of my darling cat when I moved. Well, my girlfriend at the time did.
I had the bones cremated individually. I have her with me now.
The ashes of all my cats are in the same casket.
pawsome mews!!!! God bless — on all fronts. . . ♥♥♥
🙂 Nice to wake up to this. Occasionally I have a quick peek on facebook and see the usual plethora of tragic stories involving cats, dying usually, and for no good reason, only very bad ones. I know ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are loaded terms and enforce a kind of intolerant axis on everything but murdering cats, whether directly or through the more popular way, negligence, it will always be bad in my book and I’ll be a fascist about it if I have to be, when I see it personally.
So this is a nice story that is straight forward, obvious and simple in all the right ways, and which we all have experienced ourselves and probably feel every human who doesn’t understand needs to see it for themselves as well. The daily news regarding cats should have a ton of stories like these and not many others. IT should be about our awakening, not our falling asleep as is usually the case.
Anywho, a nice xmas story for those who like xmas and a nice story for the rest of us who couldn’t give a fig about it but do like the holiday and time off work.
So happy end of year to everyone, and hope you all have nice xmases or just a relaxing time with a bit of a breather from usual daily life if it suits you better. I was hoping to be alone for this period with my cats but sadly, being xmas, I have a bunch of people to see and things to go to. With any luck for our western calendar newyear I will be with just my (now 4 but not working out with Piki) cats.
To be honest I can’t think much worse than thrash metal. It’s supposed to be music, which I suppose it is, but music is just combinations of sound, usually harmonic and melodic according to our tightey whitey western scales, so I guess it barely fits the profile. There is usually some kind of rhythm in the noise so if you are not an angry person and shouldn’t be at a thrash metal concert you still have something to hold onto andnot feel completely lost. Thx god for rhythm eh. The truly worst band ever created i my opinion in the sex pistols even if they had a vaguely valid message, but the I’m ot an angry person so it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.
The woman who has kittens every year is a total ‘b***h and I’ve had to really bit my lip to stay in contact with those cats and kittens. What an awful woman she turns out to be, but it is in keeping with how she is about cats I suppose. Her xmas card says the same thing every year on the front:
Merry Xmas from Geeie & Toby, Alix &Henry (the kids), Daisy (the dog) and the cats (Teesha, Zulu and Twinky)
….it’s just such a perfect metaphor isn’t’ it. Not even a metaphor, just point blank imbalance really.
Gigi is the best cat i the world, she is a peace ambassador for Piki who is an only cat in the house type cat it seems. I’m so proud of her, she’s also become a major affectionate cuddler like Molly, who is also the best cat in the world complete with a couple big knots in her fur I ca’t remove so easily. Lilly is the best cat in the world too because she has so much energy and is so positive and enthusiastic through thick and thin. The most she ever gets is a little frustrated is things dont go well like with Piki. I have the place split in two so it’s hard. I change them over so they get to be all around.
Piki is the best cat in the world if you are a human, she really is, she is so nice and social ad cuddly and talkative to people who she trusts completely from the start it looks like. I really love her and it’s going to be very hard to let go of her. I will need to compile a sort of contract so when she is adopted I can know she is safe. For example the adopter can only let go of her if she is given back to me. That the adopter must adhere to certain rules and standards ad so on. I’ll ask some advice here when that time comes.
I can’t get my head around Red, it’s still too hard. I still don’t understand many things about the arbitrary forces in nature, that death is just a moment like any other, whether accidental or on purpose, and the struggle to understand it is one of the greatest riddles there is. I can only thank him for changing my life for the better, albeit bittersweet. He was a great great boy and I helped him be what he wanted to be and he helped me be what I wanted and needed to be. I feel a bit selfish, like I used him to better my life, and now he is gone and I am better in ways thanks to him.
There was an orange kitten in the last litter, I called him Orange, he was Red’s younger brother, just like him in every way of course. What a typical orange tabby he is. Very brave and very curious but very relaxed about it and easy going. I love those orange cats. I think of Marvin alot btw Dorothy if you are reading this. I imagine Red now and later when older and my reference is Marvin. I’m sure he’d get more lazy when older and not be so busy. Bit of a couch hog like Marvin.
I have one regret, I think Michael will understand since I know he moved his beloved cat once. I wish I had not buried him in that place, albeit beautiful and with his family, and right in so many ways, it’s turned out to be wrong for me actually. I don’t like that lady who lives there and I therefore don’t feel so open and free about going to visit his grave and I wish I did. If he was in my garden for example I could be with him everyday. But I would’t have bee able to put him there either so I think best would have been in the forest nearby. It was too late to do anything, he had to be buried as fast as possible as it was midsummer nearly and poor thing was baking in the sun for nearly a whole day I suspect.
This episode in my life has a long way to go before the dust settles.
I think of all your cats often.
….and of course you 🙂
Hope you and your cats are all having a nice time 🙂
Oh wot a precious story,she looks like my Molly when Molly was that tiny :o)
Super cute. Gypsy (good name) looks a bit like my Gabriel when he was very young.
I like these stories. They help the cat’s profile and they also help to raise the profile of rock bands. And of course one cat is saved.
Mind you the band possibly wants to be seen as bad.
Interesting the homeless man was charging one dollar to see his cat.
A rather cheeky request. Also if the homeless man was succeeding in getting people to pay one dollar he gave away his little earner. Good for him. I guess he was convinced it was the best thing to do.