A marauding customer left a one-star Yelp review over a cat in a bodega she frequented in the East Village and the internet responded in kind. The bodega cat wars were brief and devastating, with multiple feline-loving humans responding to the Yelp review once word got out about its existence. Twitter was not amused.
But there’s a very good reason to have cats roaming around bodegas and lounging on top of six-packs of Budweiser: rodents. With cities becoming enlivened with construction, typical rat enclaves have gotten disturbed and the critters are left to scurry around for different real estate. Some major cities are looking to an old-fashioned solution to the problem. One of those cities is Chicago, where rat complaints are up 67 percent this year, according to CNN. And even after a new rodent task force crunched the data, the most effective solution to Chicago’s rat problems seems to be good old cats.
It’s a tale as old as time. Beginning with the Natufians (the ancestors who dawned our agricultural age) came rats, who found large stores of grain too appetizing to pass up. To combat them came the cat. And that’s where we still stand, some 13,000 years later. Some solutions just don’t get any better. New Yorkers seem to think so, as well. In response to that one-star review, New Yorkers started giving glowing reviews to the bodega in question, lambasting poor old Diana D., who seemed to leave the original review. With Yelp beginning to delete the reviews, one New Yorker started a Change.org petition to get the city to make Bodega cats legal.
Since then, the petition has reached 3,000 signatures and growing. Will we get the ability to pet adorable bodega cats freely any time soon? Not so fast. New York is still a town with rules. According to Gothamist, bodega cats are still considered a “general deficiency” and bodega owners can get hit with a $3,000 fine if a cat is found living in the establishment. Still, with rat fecal matter fineable at $300 a pop, it might pay to keep a Garfield around, even if it offends the delicate sensibilities of a few new New Yorkers. And then there’s this:
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TikTok shocked by 15-year-old unhinged viral clip of kids performing Scarface in school play
Think about the most outrageous film that could be adapted to the stage. Now, imagine the cast of that theatrical production is entirely children, ranging in age from 7 to 10. Now, film it and let the world react.
That’s what director Marc Klasfeld had in mind when he held auditions with professional child actors for a shocking video, meant to look like an elementary school production of the cult film-favorite Scarface. In a now 15-year-old interview with Entertainment Weekly, when asked why he thought this was a good idea, Klasfeld admits, "I thought this would be a nice fit into the kind of YouTube arena of viral videos. And I was right."
The result? Kids yelling “mother-fudger,” piles of popcorn meant to look like cocaine, and outrageous, lengthy scenes of children pointing Super Soakers at one another.
Marc, mostly known as an accomplished commercial and music video director, later adds, "I enjoy making provocative art. I like stirring debate and causing conversation. You're going to get two sides of the coin no matter what you do. People are going to love and hate everything. People loved and hated Avatar. People loved and hated the Jennifer Aniston movie. And people love and hate this. I guess that's a part of having something that's successful out there. There’s got to be certain people that hate it for people to love it."
Once they got their perfect cast, it didn’t take long to put together. He shares, "It was a one-take, so it was pretty much just choosing the right take. About a month altogether."
People sure did react, as it acquired millions of views and comments from all over the Internet. Some were horrified, some were outraged, and many thought it was the funniest thing they'd ever seen. But Marc emphasizes that the kids in the video were not scandalized. "They’ve heard the f-word. They’ve seen more violence in their everyday lives for as long as they can remember. So for this, they’ve seen worse things than this all the time. So this wasn’t that big of a deal for them."
Enter TikTok. The clip (which just popped up again recently on Facebook) was reposted a few years back, and, once again, the comments continue to run the gamut from indignation to full praise. One TikTok user exclaimed, "Bro, I can’t even remember my grocery list, how the fudge did these kids memorize this whole scene lol?"
Others expressed confusion: "I'm not sure whether to be angry or amazed." Some chose anger: "Just imagine, you know these kids watched the movie to get the characters right. And the parents cheering? Yeah, yeah."
Many commenters believed it was a real school play and commended the production for "keepin' it real": "That school keeps it real. Nowadays, kids know so much about guns and drugs, might as well teach them that bad choices don’t end well."
Yet another enjoyed it but was concerned that the parents of the children would not. "Love the tray full of popcorn. But my God, I would hate to see the hell these parents probably raised."
For the most part, the reviews were glowing. Many complimented the acting, and one claimed they definitely would have "preferred this play over their own school production of Macbeth."
And perhaps the biggest compliment? "Al Pacino will be proud."