From a wannabe rock star to self-proclaimed “cat daddy”, Jackson Galaxy’s life reached its turning point one stormy night at a cat shelter in the US when he lulled a room of cats to sleep. “I moved to Los Angeles in 2007,” he began.
“I had only been there for four weeks and a friend of mine took me to an adoption event and all of a sudden this thing happens where I’m standing around with a bunch of cats and you could see the bells going off in his head [that Galaxy should do a TV show].”
Galaxy was recently in Bangkok to promote the 8th season of My Cat From Hell, a reality TV series that airs on Animal Planet. Originally the show was going to be called Cat Daddy, then the production team thought of Hell Cats before finally deciding on My Cat From Hell. The show premiered in 2011.
Galaxy, host and executive producer of the TV programme, was an hour late for the interview with Life, which took place last month at EmQuartier shopping mall. This allowed the other reporters and I to watch the My Cats From Hell promo over and over again during the wait. Calling himself a cat behaviourist, Galaxy has been interviewed so many times that he gives slick, rehearsed answers and is a dab-hand at giving reporters and his viewers what they want.
Even his name, Jackson Galaxy, is a much more glam and attention-grabbing moniker than his birth name, Richard Kirschner — a name he shed in his 20s. His goatee is interrupted by sculpted patches — rest assured this isn’t from feral cat scratches, but rather part of his “look” — and he carries a guitar case, loaded with cat accessories, to each house he visits.
The sensationalist approach — apparently producers were worried no one would watch a show about cats so made it more dramatic — concerned Galaxy at first.
“I completely had a freak-out because I come from the animal rescue world and I thought all my friends would disown me. The only thing I cared about was that very quick into each show you realised it wasn’t the cat that was from hell — it was either the people or the circumstances.”
Galaxy’s crowning achievement, alongside helping improve adoption rates for stray cats, is contributing to the rebirth of cat culture. For too long, he says, if people were into cats they would be quiet about it — especially men.
“Men don’t get the fact that women kinda like the cat thing. It’s like c’mon guys, you can do this.
“Everybody thinks of the crazy cat lady as being this crazy person who sits in their basement covered in cat hair and never goes out of the house. That’s why I tell everybody to Instagram pictures of them and their cat. You’d be surprised how hip and young cat people are now, especially men.
“There are more people I know who look like me and own cats now than look the way you might think. It’s important for younger people to own it for no other reason than we are killing thousands of cats because they have no one to take them home. If you’re not taking them home because you’re afraid you won’t get a date, that’s not a good enough reason.”
Galaxy talks about the same things he talks about in every interview: cats like getting the little area behind their ear scratched; don’t overstimulate the cat; let them come to you; listen to the cat; and whatever you do: never ever bathe a cat.
One question makes him pause. Who does he prefer more: cats or humans?
“That’s a tough question. It’s not cats, it’s animals. The thing I love about animals is they don’t make excuses, they don’t have ego, you don’t have to deal with all that static electricity you have to deal with in humans, you just get right to the point.
“So, probably — don’t tell my wife — if I was stuck on a desert island it would be with an animal probably.”
While the series displays a lot of blood — these cats are from hell, in case you forgot — Galaxy admits a lot of it is for show.
“I mean I need to demonstrate six weeks, three visits, 30+ hours of footage. You see 21 minutes. So I need to demonstrate what I’m trying to do in a very short amount of time. Getting beat up sometimes tells you ‘oh, that’s an aggressive cat’, so I don’t mind it… I heal.”
He says the one fear he has is that people will watch his show and assume all cats are aggressive — a fear that seems at odds with the whole marketing of the series, with its murderous overtures, blood, guts and cats needing to be “exorcised” according to panicked owners.
“The one reason cats have stayed alive in the wild for thousands of years is because they know how to stay alive. They don’t pick a fight, they know when to run, they know when to hide, they only attack when they feel like they’re going to be attacked. When a cat scratches you when they are playing, that’s play. Cats are hunters so play and hunting are the same thing.”
This source first appeared on Bangkok Post Lifestyle.