Children & Animals
Despite W.C. Fields’ dire warning to never work with animals or children, my artistic path emerged from doing exactly that.
It started early. In a single-parent household, roles aren’t so much assigned as expected. By elementary school, the job of adulting had already been delegated and I was left in charge of my younger sister when she was a toddler and I was just ten years old. From there, one caretaking position led to another: Sunday school teacher, youth camp staff, daycare operator. The sort of well-meaning, low-paying gigs that attract people who mistake burnout for moral clarity.
Once our son went to elementary school, we started volunteering in classrooms and soon teaching after school enrichment classes for free. Then came the Fourth Grade Rock Band, followed by Rock Shop!, a well-intentioned musical mentorship to round out our dance, science and language creative arts program. Kids learned instruments, wrote songs, and felt like rock stars. Parents treated it like daycare with guitars. Next came Rock ShopZillah!, the summer camp version: vibrant, chaotic, and economically catastrophic. Rough math later revealed nearly $100,000 evaporated over ten years, due to our commitment to offer low cost opportunities to local kids. That explained the bank account with the permanent echo.
There was a belief, naïve but sincere that our “close knit” community would see our efforts and help. It didn't, although we threw ourselves into marketing, from handmade posters to grappling with social media content . Fundraisers bled money. Local blues musicians, feeling threatened by the kids' rock band success and popularity, asked local venues to blacklist us because they felt upstaged. No good deed goes unpunished.
Somewhere in that financial downward spiral, a newly transplanted island eccentric insisted the band participate in the inaugural recycled trashion fashion show at the county fair. She begged and called me for months to get my creative arts program kids on board.Packing material and old tarps were reimagined and turned into tunics and skirts after band practice. Spirits were high until dress rehearsal, where it became evident that what had been extended wasn’t really an invitation,it was a quota. Reasonable requests (like giving a young model time to change outfits) were treated as unseemly demands. The superintendent who had lobbied for their presence would not advocate for them in real time. Some of the girls in the band quietly disappeared after that. It was one of the many times I saw how easily kids under my mentorship could be dismissed, even humiliated, by adults who had promised support. That kind of lesson sticks.
Still, we refused to admit defeat. A young guitarist joined the band, to fill the emptiness the girls had left. His father, a cinematographer, after doing band photos and tagging along to several practices and gigs, suggested filming a music video. The more opportunistic of the parents swooned at the idea of their kids working with a famous cinematographer and started throwing their weight around and the more self absorbed ones ignored the opportunity entirely. Nevertheless, we worked toward our first video idea until he got sick. Tragically he died, leaving his two sons orphaned. The video didn’t happen, grief as always, scrambled the timeline and formed a new collaboration. His youngest son, our guitar player and I started making christmas music videos together once he was in college. Film school followed for me when I turned 50 after my partner had a near death experience.With so much loss around us, we knew we had to commit to our creative projects because time is not promised. Our guitar player grew into my favorite director of photography. Forward motion remained the only constant.
Meanwhile, on the domestic front: turns out living in an unfinished art studio doesn’t pair well with debt and structural rot. The solution required permits, a remodel, and several conversations with people who use the phrase “code compliant” unironically. Community programming hit pause. We had been giving all our time, energy and resources away to everyone else. One music video a year became the creative lifeline. My partner concentrated on building guitars. A screenwriting group provided structure for me and a much needed community of like minded creatives.
Then one of them suggested using a capybara in the next video. A Bill Peet book featured characters based on his pet capybara and had been among my partner’s childhood favorites, The Wump World, so it was an easy sell. A nearby petting zoo with a capybara named Eduardo was located. Using “Run, Run, Rudolph” our band recorded the song with our favorite sound engineer. Plonking antlers onto a capybara we had just met, we shot a music video at the end of the pandemic in a vacation rental and the petting zoo with our best kids camp talent and some film school friends.
Eduardo was delightful. The petting zoo was less so. Somewhere between coaxing him through scenes and glancing sideways at the tiny monkey in someone’s car, it began to seem like capybaras might be a pet we could provide a good life for and break the exotic pet owner tropes.
Months later, a wrong number connected back to the capybara contact. Thinking I was calling Melissa the choreographer for my next music video, I accidentally called Melissa the petting zoo owner. Her friend’s capybara had just had a litter. The idea of owning one, half absurd, half inevitable, was something we had conversations about over morning coffee or at the end of the day. What would we name him? Toby, Tony? The introduction call was brief: one male left named Antonio. We knew he was ours.
The exchange took place in a Costco parking lot. I joke that they are a seasonal item. Our son helped with the cost and we called it our anniversary present to ourselves. Antonio was seven weeks old and wide eyed. At home, he fell in love with Ripley, our older diabetic alert dog. She and the cats raised him and he nestled in next to her at the foot of our bed.. She tolerated him with quiet dignity and taught him how to go on road trips. She died before his first birthday. Everyone felt lost without her. Now he chases the new kitten around the house to show her who’s boss.
Capybaras grow and assert opinions, they can get to be over 175 pounds as adults. Anticipating that we chose to get him neutered at 6 months which was controversial in capybara owner circles because of how tricky they are under anesthesia. But in order to ensure his safety on set and in public, we thought it was best to nip any male aggression in the buds. It’s a common myth that capybaras are always gentle and get along with all animals. In reality, they can be aggressive and territorial. Training was also necessary for an animal actor destined for stage and screen. A Zoom-based exotic animal trainer provided guidance. Antonio learned to walk in a harness, spin, sit, jump through hoops, stay, touch, stand, walk upright and ride in a stroller. Costumes were permitted until they weren’t. Birthday hats are now out of favor. He has merchandise now, stickers, t-shirts, cards and totes as well as a yearly calendar. He also does Cameo appearances.
Then he went viral multiple times. From the time he arrived, he had taken over our social media feeds and I felt more compelled to create content daily but was overwhelmed. A call for volunteers was posted. Some local teens joined the ranks at the end of the school year. They were fresh and unfazed by the logistics of managing a semi-aquatic influencer.
A few weeks later, they were accompanying Antonio on the red carpet at the Seattle International Film Festival. One did the tiny mic interview with him. Meanwhile, we wrangled a 100-pound capybara in and out of his stroller to visit multiple theaters, delighting the staff.
SIFF generously provided passes, memberships, and tickets. We brought him to walk the red carpet during the festival to support our fellow filmmakers. Antonio left behind a trail of selfies, sticker swag, and amused strangers. We were celebrated and shared what was on his slate, narrating the Zucchini 500 documentary, starring in a post apocalyptic feature film and a new version of his hip hop music video dropping soon.
This was such a healing experience and full circle moment. Whereas kids we had mentored in the past had felt unsupported by our small community, these kids were able to bask in the attention of fellow filmmakers and share their interest in filmmaking and acting. Just a capybara with appeal, a team invested in this new venture and a creative life held together by stubbornness, humor, and potential.
Antonio provided a demographic that loved his journey. And by proxy, we as his partners gained more support for whatever mad capybara adventure we dreamed up next. And in following that lead, everything started to change.
