Charles Mingus and toilet-training cats
Bass blog contributor Benjy emailed me recently with a link to this short article from jazz bass giant Charles Mingus on how to toilet train (not litter box train–toilet train!) your cat. This is a must-read even if you don’t have a cat. I love how the Mingus personality comes through even in this short how-to!
Simon’s Cat (TV Dinner)
This is cat week on the blog, I suppose. I try to keep away from the kitty videos since this is primarily a bass blog, but again, I can’t resist putting this one out. This video shows a scenario that I seem to go through every time I sit on the couch to chill out. Both of my cats do this, actually…
Kittens inspired by kittens
Oh no! More cat videos on the bass blog! Actually, it’s been a while since I’ve put up any cat vids, and this one (which bassist John Floeter pointed out to me) is too cute to miss:
Daily Bass Pic – cats and basses
This is a familiar sight in the Heath household, though the case is usually on my bass when my cats get on them!
Angel the cat opens drawers
My cat Angel is obsessed with trying to get to all my cables–she loves to play with the metal connectors at the end of USB cables and the like. She’s also a crafty little girl, as you can see from this video.
Frank Zappa and his cat
Frank Zappa was a cat guy. Nothing wrong with that–so am I. Just dig through my bass blog cat archives if you don’t believe me. Photo found via The Catalyst, which it a truly righteous blog. Frank is my musical hero in may ways, so it’s good to see him hanging with the felines here.

Christmas Eve with the Jingle Cats
Oh no–they’re back!
For dozens (I hope it’s only dozens, not hundreds!) of older cat posts, my cats category is always an option….
Guidelines for cats
I try to keep the cat posts to a minimum here on the blog, but this list is cute enough to warrant a look. From my friend Aaron Burman:
Now for some truly fascinating/horrifying cate cutedom:
A visit to kitty heaven
I’ve been successfully resisting the urge to blog about cats for some time now (though you can find many a former cat post of mine–including videos of my kitties taking a stroller ride-under the cats category), but this post from gigglesugar was too much to resist.
Here’s a video of Lynea Lattanzio, a trained vet who runs an animal shelter called Cat House on the Kings and is not only a no-kill animal shelter but one that allows the animals to roam free and remain there their entire lives if necessary. 16,000 cats and dogs–wow!
Scared of the scroll
I’ve got another little tale about what happens when cats and basses collide. Most bass players seem to love cats, and many have similar tales of feline mischief.
One of my colleagues was over at my place playing some bass quartets a few years ago. His extremely large bass had a beautiful lion’s head scroll, and he had laid it down on its side as we were taking a short break.
All of a sudden, we noticed that my big orange cat Dan was frozen in his tracks, staring wide-eyed with grave concern at the big wooden lion’s head in his path. He inched toward it, tension radiating from every inch of his body. Nearing it, he reached out a little furry paw and tentatively touched it, jerking his paw suddenly back as if it were scalding hot.
This little dance continued for a few minutes, with Dan the cat approaching and recoiling over and over as we watched with amusement. It was amazing to me that he actually recognized the lion’s head. How cool!












