The cold reality and a foreward.

Let me preface this by saying that this blog in NO WAY is meant as an insult to the real Steve Buscemi, nor does it intend to infringe on any copyrighted photos/articles/property of any kind. This is a fun, silly thing and I hope it stays that way.

Steve Buscemi is one of my most beloved actors. He has become something of an icon and his ability to morph from the seriously skuzzy, hilariously over-the-top, awkwardly endearing, brilliantly sincere, definitely insane and heart-breakingly lonely people from film to film is staggering and impressive.

He has the effortlessness of some of the world's greatest movie stars and accomplished great things while not resting on traditional good looks. He has a somewhat unusual look going for him and to me, it only enhances his awesomeness.So, when an internet stranger made the comment that my Chihuahua Lucy is the "Steve Buscemi of dogs" at first I was a little insulted......then I laughed......and then I got serious.

First things first, let's face it. There is a resemblance.
Steve Buscemi:

Source: http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1345489408/nm0000114

Aaaaaaaaaaaand Lucy:

I cannot deny it......nay, I must embrace it!

But what makes such a comparison a compliment to both my dog and her male, human, actor counterpart? I admit, Steve Buscemi has the emotional fluidity to play virtually any role whereas Lucy tends to just look mad as hell 98% of the time. It comes from within, is the cliched answer.

Most of the people (all zero of them, aside from myself, that is) who read this will have some reference to the stage presence of Steve Buscemi. He's been in gritty dramas, intellectual indie flicks (Ghost World, *drool*), summer blockbusters and he's often that small character in Adam Sandler movies that makes you unsure of whether you should laugh or feel really, really uncomfortable (I usually opt for both!). But very few, if any of you (zero people) have had the pleasure/discomfort to meet Lucy. I shall try to put it adequately in words.

Lucy is a 6 year old female Chihuahua. She is what can be called a 'mill puppy', in that she originally came from a pet store and was no doubt the result of breeding from a puppy mill. This is an abhorrent practice and I do not support it in any way. Without getting into the personal details of how Lucy came to be mine, I shall say I knew her from day one and I knew that some day she would be living with me instead. Since mill breedings are less than scrupulous in practice I must give them credit for shaping what would become Lucy's "unique" take on what a Chihuahua should look like. Were I to take her to an AKC show, we would be laughed from the ring, possibly all the way back to our house.

To put it bluntly, everything about Lucy's physical conformation is wrong. Her eyes are too bulgy and look in opposite directions, her ears are too big and are carried at an odd angle, she has a pronounced under bite, is losing teeth, her body is too long for its height, her coat is too thin, her tail is rat-like and she has weak hind knees. She is a weird looking creature that has prompted responses of "Is that really a dog?!".  Yet......she has the ability to charm nearly every person she meets.

This dog draws all eyes to her whether she's actively trying to get your attention or completely ignoring you in search of crumbs under the feed store display shelves. Once she realizes you want her to notice you, she's all tail wags and prancing about. It's a magnetism that defies her outward appearance; the confidence it what she is and her implacable pleasantness earn Lucy endearment instead of revulsion. She's gonna do what she's gonna do and your opinion on the matter means very little indeed (but it'd be cool if you wanted to give her a biscuit in the meantime). Occasionally we meet one die hard 'macho' fellow who feels the need to point out that his large dog could eat her, but typically even big guys are won over by this little pooch.

What REALLY attracts me to both Steve Buscemi and Lucy is that these are two beings who are truly comfortable in their own skin and that somehow puts the rest of us at ease around them. They draw you in to their orbit and make you feel like you could both know and really like this guy/this dog, no matter what horrible/weird thing he does on screen or if she pees on my rug/steals a treat off a shelf.

That is the true Buscemi-Lucy bond; at first you don't want to when you look at them, but once they begin to act, you fall in love. What an honor for my peculiar little dog. A little far reaching and dubious of an honor for Steve Buscemi but I like to think he'd get it.