Breaking the Seal

Is that even a pun? I guess it is, but not like "A Man for All Sealsons." Even though that one was kind of a linguistic stretch, and even though it didn't really relate to any of the ensuing content, I really liked that one. It made me think of Seal standing in the snow, wrapped in a buffalo robe.

I know it's been a little Seal-crazy around here recently, and maybe I've been neglecting important world events (both the Pope and Hugo Chavez recently abdicated, one from life and one from the papacy, but I don't remember which did which), but as I've said, Seal is an interesting guy. I'd call him a latter-day Marquis de Sade, if I didn't think it was more accurate to call the Marquis de Sade an old-timey Seal.

Anyway, I've turned up another Seal gem. (I'm working my way through Seals biographies. None of them are great, but each has some good stories.)

The year is 1990. Seal, booked as "Seal S. Seal," is sitting in a police station. He has been arrested, and he is handcuffed to a desk while he waits for his booking officer to return with some paperwork. Seal was caught, covered in butter, trying to slip through a ceiling vent into a veterinarian's office. Seal claims that he was simply hoping to steal some tranquilizers, but after he regurgitated a large pellet of fur and small bones in the squad car, the arresting officers began to suspect that Seal is not telling the whole truth.

Now, affixed to the desk, Seal is wearing an oversized aloha shirt and cargo shorts, both very buttery. He watches a young girl, perhaps 8 or 9 years old, take a seat at the desk across from his. Seal catches her attention with a hiss, locks eyes, and begins to sing.

That song, made up on the spot, would become 1991's hit single, Crazy.

Seal discussed the incident years later in an interview with NME:
"I don't know. I guess, if I'm being honest, I was trying to hypnotize the kid, or something. I thought I could get her to unlock the handcuffs and set me free. But, see, while I was singing, I guess I broke my own thumbs and pulled my hands right out of the cuffs. I didn't even realize it until the kid came out of her trance to see my broken thumbs wiggling around, because I was dancing, see, and she just started screaming. Yeesh."

When asked about the fur and bones he had vomited in the squad car, Seal had this to say: "First of all, I learned that trick from owls. You gotta get rid of the bones and fur, so that's all that was. Secondly, I was being absolutely honest with the police. I really did want those tranquilizers. I'm just of the opinion that cat tranquilizers are not even worth taking, unless you take them after a cat has already begun to metabolize them. If you have a better idea on how to do that, you write it down and send it to me. No, write it down and read it to me. Doesn't matter, though, because no one reported a missing cat, and no one saw me eat nothing, so I didn't break any laws. How's that idea coming?"

What a guy!