Mike Paterniti
speaker
232 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Mar 2026
last heard 28 Jun
Mike Paterniti’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 1.
Appearances
Like every day he was as happy as he'd been the day before.
And because of it, he was good at drawing people out, at connecting the various factions inside the cemetery so that everyone stood around, nodding dumbly, listening to Jeff, our oblivious mare, holding forth on Kiana's new collar, our perfect shampoo, while Kiana took her pound of flesh out of some hapless pup.
This was not the way things usually worked in the cemetery.
The mere fact that I knew Jeff's name was unusual.
Usually, people didn't interact that much.
Instead, we knew each other by handles.
There was Dalmatian Man, father of three speckled dogs, one to whom he spoke in sign language.
There was a greyhound lady, regally walking her trio of greyhounds until the day that Lightning, her beloved, dove through a plate glass window during a thunderstorm and died.
There was the man who walks and reads, and frisbee dude, and the lawn chair family, an old father and his fifty-something son who daily set up their folding chairs near the cemetery gate, and the pickup artist around whom no one was safe.
And there was Crazy Shouting Man, owner of three ragtag mutts and an elder statesman of the cemetery, who, when I finally talked to him, wasn't Crazy Shouting Man at all.
His name was Al.
Even today, what strikes me as amazing about the cemetery is that there are people here, people who show up twice a day and see other people here twice a day for years.
And many of them just don't know each other's real name, let alone what the other does for a living or dreams of at night or loves or hates.
They just know each other's dog's name.
So when they refer to one another, they might say, Cersei's mom said milk bones are full of preservatives, which is why she cooks her own.
Or when they bump into each other downtown Christmas shopping, they'll say, Elroy's mom.
And then with nothing left to say, say, uh, how goes it?
Was this intimacy or a complete lack of intimacy?
Sometimes it felt like both at once.
You had the warmth of intimacy and the comfort of hiding behind your dog.
Showing 21–40 of 232 · page 2 of 12
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