WARNING - Spoiler Alert

This concept was one of the earliest ideas I had when I started shooting art videos. The problem was it literally took years for me to capture the footage I needed. At the time I had a cat who was a prodigious hunter. She was constantly bringing back mice and other critters and eating them in the kitchen, or just leaving their bloody corpses lying around. I had the bright idea that I would do a lengthy introduction of a video called "Eating Pussy" and in the end it would wind up being a closeup of my pussycat eating a mouse. I thought it would be great. It was a clever, raunchy double entendre, as well as having powerful shock value. I hadn't originally conceived of it as a Gong Show submission, but I knew it would be perfect for that format.

The problem was that as soon as I got the idea, my cat took a hiatus from eating mice in the kitchen. I thought it would be easy to get this footage, but the opportunity never presented itself. On the odd occasions when she would bring home a kill, either it was when I wasn't around, or I wouldn't have a camcorder loaded and ready, and she would finish eating it before I could get set up. This literally went on for a couple of years. There was a time when I kept a loaded, charged camcorder under the sink at all times so I would have it ready in the event she did bring something home. Yet I was still never faced with the opportunity. I essentially gave up on the idea.

I found her there on the kitchen floor with her kill, all ready to dig in. But unfortunately there was no light. I literally said out loud to her, "Hold on, I'm not ready yet." No joke, she sat there with the mouse in her mouth and didn't start eating it. I swear to god she knew exactly what I was doing. I grabbed a table lamp from the living room, yanked the lampshade off it, plugged it in at the outlet nearest to the cat, and just laid it down on its side on the floor. I got down on my belly, turned the camera on, framed it up on her, started rolling, and said, "Okay, go ahead."

This cat was a performer. She made a cameo appearance in "G*I*J*O" and stole the show. I'm not kidding when I say she knew what I was doing when I went to set up the lighting, because she sat there patiently the whole time, and as soon as I had the camera pointed at her and told her to go ahead, she immediately went into action. And she didn't just gobble down the critter. She tore that fucking thing apart, and literally made a performance out of eating it. If you have seen the video then you know exactly what I mean. She had never done that before or since. I am convinced she knew that I was recording her, and she made sure to really go over the top so I had some great footage to use. All I know is that it was exactly what I needed, and far more than I ever could have hoped for. And having a bare, exposed lightbulb shining obliquely at floor level gave it a stark and extreme appearance. It all couldn't have worked out better. It was well worth the wait.

Now that I had this in the can I just needed to shoot the lengthy introduction part. I used an approach that I had seen on "America's Most Wanted." The interstitial segments were shot with the camera in motion as the host walked briskly as he talked, either walking past the camera as he finished, or coming to rest and staring directly into the lens. It was an effective style that I never would have come up with on my own. I knew it would create exactly the kind of energy that this video needed. But it was not something I could just do with a tripod. I had to call up a friend so that he could do the camera work for me. It wound up being on a cold and dreary day when I was tired and a little bit hungover. I really wanted to just stay at home, but I also really needed the footage, so I sucked it up and went out. Once we started rolling it went pretty quickly. I had the general idea of what I needed to say. We got what I needed in just a few short takes.

I also roped in a couple of gay and lesbian friends to stand in front of local movie houses and give their gob smacked testimonials. They had no idea what they were supposed to be reacting to, but it didn't really matter. I just said pretend you've just seen the most unsettling and disturbing video you can imagine, and pontificate on it for a while. I did feed them a couple lines here and there, particularly the "can't be ignored" assessment that I needed to be consistent among all of them, but they all did really well to start with.

Once I had all the pieces, it came together pretty easily. It took a little time to mix and match the testimonials with my interstitial prompting, but everything matched up well. I pinched an excerpt from an old and obscure Pink Floyd song that fit absolutely perfectly for the closing credits. I also stuck in a wry joke with the whole "No animals were harmed in the making of this production" thing for one last zinger.

As far as it being a Gong Show video, I thought it was strong. My only fear was that the testimonial segment went on a little long, and it ran the risk of a judge losing patience and gonging it before it got to the punchline. I wanted to trim it down a little, but I felt that it was as tight as I could make it. I would have to hope for the best. But it wound up being a moot point. I brought the VHS tape to the program, but they ran out of time before they were able to show it, so it never even screened. That was disappointing, but here's the best part. The next year I didn't have a formal festival submission ready to go because I was bogged down working on "Wasteland", so I just packaged up "Eating Pussy" and sent it in as a last ditch effort. To my surprise they accepted it! That said something about the strength of my Gong Show submissions if this one was good enough to play in the actual festival. And I didn't have to worry about getting gonged or finishing in 3rd place yet again.