On 10 September, 2024, Taylor Swift’s Instagram featured the noteworthy songwriter holding her historic Ragdoll cat, Benjamin Button. The precious photograph of Swift and Benjamin is accompanied by four paragraphs. The conversation focuses upon America’s upcoming November presidential elections. It is well worth reading, to be sure.

In it, Taylor Swift announced how she will be voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.

How did I know her cat she was holding was named Benjamin? Well, let me tell you, I didn’t have to look it up. I already knew. I was with Taylor Swift in spirit on the set of her music video for the chart-topping song Me! And there, back in 2019, I held my breath when Brendon Urie of Panic! At The Disco bestowed on Swift the cutest kitten in the world, and it was Benjamin Button.

Later, Swift told me she just had to keep Benjamin in real life to be her cat.

To be a little stronger with the truth, I was with Taylor Swift in spirit while I was discretely imbedded inside of a much larger spiritual conglomerate. We run approximately one billion strong. We are the stalwart fanbase of the Grammy Awardee Taylor Swift and we also inhabit Earth and cherish Swift more than anyone else in the world. I think we all feel like we personally participate with Swift, throughout her artistic creations, in one way or another.

To further clarify reality from fiction, when Swift told me about her childlike desire to keep the kitten it was through the video screen which was a talk, again, intended for all the billions upon Earth.

But my careless mischievousness aside, I think Taylor Swift’s rise to stardom has been the most interesting piece of music history so far. An encyclopedia should be written so we can keep our memories of the fun times. Many lives and influential circles have been impacted for the better. Many wonderful anecdotes and tales have been shared by Taylor Swift about her life and her cats.

If anybody could bring a smile to the faces of American voters as they go to the polls, it’s Taylor Swift.

However, one week later, on 17 September, I was awoken by our dear Old English Bulldogge, Rasha, who gave the cutest yawn you can possibly imagine. For evidence of the cuteness I was beholding, click here for corroborative Old English Bulldogge content: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBwr8oIwTuE

Once I grogged myself onward to breakfast, I spied a suspicious post, and it happened over breakfast. It was made one week after Taylor Swift’s announcement. Strangely, Don DiLego of the currently chart-climbing folk-rock band Fantastic Cat was also holding a fluffy feline friend. In stark contrast to Swift’s endeavor, I didn’t know where DiLego got this cat.  

Four paragraphs written into the band’s Instagram by DiLego seem to parallel the prior Instagram post by Taylor Swift. This time, Don DiLego petitions for votes to be cast in his own band’s favor, in the upcoming 2047 elections, at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

With the Fantastic Cat band about to launch into the Pacific Northwest leg of their Appalachian tour next week in Seattle one might ask: how conspicuous can anyone be? After all, Fantastic Cat has publicly endorsed their personalized upbeat swing utilizing Cameo. Intended for fans like me, Cameo garnered participation by storybook folk-pop hero songwriter Adam Duritz, the lead singer of @countingcrows, to contribute his immortal vocals to their song “So Glad You Made It”. You can watch the happenstance in real life on the music video.

I listened to “So Glad You Made It,” and it sounds like the Duritz appearance was worth it.

The Fantastic Cat folk-rock band is trekking the star footprints in the sky of anyone whose voice might match their own.

Searching for any sort of clue to a “pet madness” to invoke celebrity voters, Instagram post of 16 August, 2024, at @billieeilish, finds megalithic superstar Billie Eilish sharing impressive photography of her own precocious pup. Eilish’s gorgeous black beauty mock-graces the cover of “DOGUE” magazine as a quasi-filibuster. Exactly one month to the day AFTER that, Eilish posted an astonishingly similar rendition of the @taylorswift Instagram announcement. Swift’s cat-inspired post about voting was one week earlier than than Eilish’s voting post—but close to three weeks after Eilish’s pup post.

Craziness!

The @billieeilish Instagram “vote post” happened three days ago! It features Grammy Awardees Billie Eilish and the amazing, fortuitous brother Finneas who is tagged appropriately, @finneas.

As a final tout about participating in today’s election era, over six weeks ago, and about one week BEFORE Billie Eilish shared animal photography on Instagram, I took a wrong turn in Portland. I ended up at the Animal Aid animal shelter located at 5335 SW 42nd Ave. The shelter was promoting visitors to stop over and simply engage with their adorable adoptable cats.

Everything inside was spacious and perfect for a cat’s life. Food, ample plush cat toys, occasional catnip and a heavy use of veterinary services to rehabilitate any tremor, are evidenced as being provided to every cat. They each were so content. The cat atmosphere brought me up so that, at the end of the tour, I told the woman I already knew I would fail any adoption application. All of the shelter’s adoptable kittens and cats were clearly better off staying there, with Animal Aid, in one of their many pristine rooms and playrooms, than living at my house with its @trump sign planted squarely in front—not because of some expensive hologram trick, or with A.I., but knowingly and self-determinately by one of my ignorant Irish family members who, like Donald Trump, loves to shout wildly. He owns the Old English Bulldogge so I think we’re going to keep the old boy around with welcome.

As for me, I am inclined to follow the Ben Haggerty vision for voters expressed so beautifully during the stalwart rap artist’s daily Instagram stories of 18 September 2024. In these, @macklemore showcases presidential candidates who do not necessarily fight dramatically at all. They just seem to know about important issues. I tried to find the names to include them here, but the stories from yesterday are too rapidly disappearing.

Whichever dog or cat America decides to follow in November, there’s not a question how “times are a-changing”, as the old @bobdylan song sang.