PETA AWARD ACCEPTANCE SPEECH by Kathy Najimy PEOPLE FOR THE ETHICAL TREATMENT OF ANIMALS (PETA) HUMANITARIAN OF THE YEAR AWARD: ACCEPTANCE SPEECH BY KATHY NAJIMY 11/99 IN LOS ANGELES AWARD GIVEN BY SIR PAUL MC CARTNEY When I was eight, my cousin Alice and I fought constantly about who loved Paul more...me or her. She actually got to GO to a Beatles concert... LIVE and was convinced that that meant SHE loved Paul more. Guess what Alice... I win. Thank you for this prize. I love PETA. I love them because they actually DO things. They do what ever it is necessary to prevent pain and suffering of animals. By whatever means necessary...they don’t care about public perception, or kissing the ass of huge corporations. If they have to piss people off or dress in funny costumes or consistently attack major companies or even break the law... (who said that? I didn’t say that! Dan would never break the law. I have to say though I DO think Dan Mathews is into all this animal shit because he LOVES to dress up in the funny cow and pig drag)) Anywho, whatever PETA sees need to do... to stop hideous treatment of animals... they do. And they do it swiftly and persistently and with all of their heart and soul and guts until the abuse is over, and I fuckin love that. I think I became an animal rights activist for two reasons. One is that my best friend, the one that has lived with me and loved me the longest... is my dog Al Finney. Someone told me once that animals don’t have hearts and souls...Well ,if that is true, then I have loved and been madly loved, and comforted by a stuffed animal for the last 15 years. The other reason is because I am a cry baby. I just can’t bear the thought of animals being hurt by humans. I can’t bear it. On the first season of Veronica’s Closet, they had a dog on the show, Buddy , hooked up to a little wheelchair by his hind legs. The problem was, Buddy was a WELL dog and the wheel chair was just a funny prop. (Dontcha’ LOVE TV?) ...Anywho, every time I had to be in a scene with Buddy I would burst into tears. So I wrote a letter... and to the writers’ credit...they had already planned on doing it and they immediately freed Buddy. I’m a crybaby....I am... Whenever I am driving I have to stop my car, even on the highway ...to collect up all the lost dogs....cuz... I’m a crybaby. I can’t go to Sea World..not because of some big activist statement.....just cause I’ know I'm gonna cry when I see big ol’ Shammu bang his nose against that fish bowl trying to get out. I have gotten naked (and believe me, that takes a lot) naked...twice for PETA because I am a crybaby about the poor minks with their legs in the traps. I am a crybaby, thats why I do what I do and I encourage us all to just do today what we can do today. Now, there is some weird perception out there that in order to be effective in Animal Rights you must completely be perfect. For instance, a friend announced on New Years Eve that he was going to become a everyone at the table was immediately like...”Well, what about eggs? Huh? what about leather ?... huh? your shoes are leather...what about milk in your coffee... huh?” Thats not the point. The point is that everything thing you do matters. Every little thing and every big thing. What you DON’T do, doesn’t matter. It certainly doesn’t cancel out what you DO do. Everything counts. Everything helps. If you simply start with not wearing fur.. and please if you still wear fur I will come to your home and French kiss you if you stop,I promise! Please stop. Its gross, its ugly...and its the most frivolous selfish form of murder there is. If you do that...it helps. If you just spend one hour a week helping to save stray animals that helps... If you refuse to go to one circus...if you just stop eating beef.....just for one day..that helps. If if you stop using one brand of mascara that tests on bunnies ... If you buy one pair of hemp shoes from Woody.. all of it matters. WE do today what we can do today. And today I am so proud to accept this award.. on behalf all of the foxes and sables, on behalf of the elephants and street dogs and rabbits and horses and Buddy and my dog, Al Finney. And to ALL of you and especially to Peta, I thank you .