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DAILY BREEZE (Torrance, California) 29 September 05 T-Bone stakes claim, vows Reggie 'ain't getting away' - Katrina evacuee and alligator wrangler says he'll take his time tracking down the elusive reptile. (Donna Littlejohn)
Dee Dee the dog barked when the fiddler, the accordionist and the washboard player -- who was really the director of the local boys and girls club -- cranked and whined out the Cajun-flavored, foot-stomping musical tribute to Reggie the alligator.
"Reggie-Alligator, Reggie-Alligator," fiddler Lisa Haley yodeled forth in a deep Louisiana drawl, her cowboy boot-clad feet stomping beneath her long skirt to the down-home beat. "Alligator run, alligator hide. Come on, Reggie -- give me a little, bitty bite."
The gathering crowd in the park Wednesday afternoon was soon swept up in the swampy spirit.
They clapped, they sang along.
They chanted "Free Reggie! Free Reggie! Free Reggie!"
And Dee Dee, the little shaggy dog in a bright pink harness, kept right on barking.
Reggie the alligator apparently missed the show held in his honor, not having been spotted on the lake since Monday night.
Cajun music makers Lisa Haley and the Zydekats -- along with Harbor City Boys and Girls Club Director Hector Cepeda, who was drafted from the audience to play the washboard -- put on the impromptu performance at Ken Malloy Harbor Regional Park in Harbor City to welcome Thomas "T-Bone" Quinn of New Orleans, the third gator wrangler tapped to try to catch the loose alligator at Machado Lake.
"He ain't gettin' away," declared the heavily tattooed wrangler.
So, how long will it take?
"Hmm. That's a good question," said the wrangler, pondering the reporter's query. "I'm going to stay here till I get Reggie. I'll put up a tent."
Quinn managed to lose the television movie agent who had accompanied him to the lake almost two weeks ago, when Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn initially asked him to join in the hunt for Reggie.
But he was accompanied this time by a smiling, leggy, jeans-clad blonde, introduced as the president of T-Bone's new L.A.-based fan club.
Since arriving in Los Angeles a scant 30 days ago, the 47-year-old pipe fitter and welder -- an evacuee of Hurricane Katrina -- has managed to weave his way through celebrity circles, meeting the likes of actress Sandra Bullock at hurricane relief fund-raisers in Hollywood.
He has a Web site: www.T-Bone-Katrina.com. He wants to raise awareness for hurricane relief. And, like all the others before him, he wants to catch Reggie.
He's not sure, but says he'll probably stay in California. Indeed, life on the West Coast appears to hold promise for this native son of the South who is enjoying newfound fame as L.A.'s latest gator wrangler.
As he arrived at the park on Wednesday, T-Bone was surrounded within minutes by television cameras, photographers and microphones.
Wearing torn blue jeans and a sleeveless "West Coast Choppers" black T-shirt, Quinn said he'd camp out, climb trees with a rope and cruise the lake in a motorless boat until he could bring Reggie to shore.
"Could be a few days, could be a week," he said after having some time to think about how long the job would take.
It won't be easy, he said.
"I'm going to have to track him. I'm going to watch where he goes. If he goes up in those bushes, the next time he goes there I'll be lying there right up next to him."
Back home, Quinn says he has caught hundreds of gators -- the biggest was 14 feet long -- knifing them in order to harvest their skins for ladies' fancy shoes and handbags and the meat for food.
Even little alligator feet, he said, can be sold and made into back scratchers.
It's all perfectly legal in Louisiana. But there will be none of that, of course, in politically correct Los Angeles, where alligators are a newsy novelty.
A large, live rat would make the best bait, T-Bone said, but he probably can't even get away with that.
"There's a lot of rules about catching Reggie," he said.
Lily Van Patten of Rancho Palos Verdes, wearing a Humane Society T-shirt and clearly aware of T-Bone's alligator-killing reputation, managed to get a few private moments with the wrangler as he worked the crowd.
"You're not going to hurt Reggie!" Van Patten gently scolded, smiling but shaking her finger at him.
"I just don't want Reggie to hurt me," T-Bone told her.
As it turns out, Quinn won't be going it alone at Machado Lake. Reptile experts from the Los Angeles Zoo will oversee the search and rescue effort this time around.
But clearly, T-Bone already is the star of this show.
He was set to begin work later in the day.
Before getting down to work, though, he was whisked away by the band members for lunch at a local Denny's.
T-Bone stakes claim, vows Reggie 'ain't getting away'

DENVER POST (Colorado) 28 September 05 Coming soon: "Alligator Dundee" (Rich Tosches)
Between Hooper and Mosca Colorado's alligator-wrestling, alligator-tooth-jewelry-wearing reptile cowboy who made headlines a month ago by thrashing around in a Los Angeles pond trying to grab one of the beasts, leaves his gator farm here in the San Luis Valley on Thursday for another trip to Los Angeles. This time, Jay Young says, he will not wade into the mud with an alligator.
Instead, he has meetings scheduled with Hollywood agents.
Which may not be much different.
Young's wacky ride to notoriety began in August when the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks called and asked if he'd capture a gator that had apparently been dumped into a pond by a former Los Angeles cop.
Young didn't get the gator, but he did get a lot of attention.
Fans asked for autographs. People wanted to pose for pictures alongside the alligator man. TV cameras rolled nonstop.
P.T. Barnum would have loved it. And maybe Young does, too.
"Do I want to be a TV star?" he asked Tuesday. "It's not one of my big goals in life. I'm trying not to let all of this go to my head. But if getting a TV show helps take care of my family and the alligators on the farm, well, so be it.
"And the hat and the alligator teeth? I've been wearing them for years. We sell alligator-tooth necklaces in our gift shop. If I wear the product, it helps sell it. If this is an image, it's one I created many years ago, not last month in Los Angeles."
His father, Erwin, who started the farm in 1977, said Jay is not about publicity stunts.
"Jay is truly a worker," the elder Young said. "Jay working with gators is a lot more real than most of those reality shows on TV. He went to Los Angeles to catch a gator. It was that simple."
It didn't stay simple for long. Adding another ring to the gator circus was former Colorado Gators farmhand James Selvig, who allegedly called media outlets in Los Angeles, said he was representing Young and that Young had caught the L.A. gator. Selvig has been arrested and charged with criminal impersonation. He said Young asked him to make the calls.
"It turned out to be a PR stunt," Selvig later told The Associated Press. He could not be contacted for this report.
Young denied any involvement in the phony calls.
He said that after his agent-meeting trip to Los Angeles this week, he'll be back on the farm Monday.
Ah, the farm. There are plenty of attractions along Colorado 17 north of Alamosa. The Great Sand Dunes National Park looms to the east, and a huge metal UFO viewing platform rises from the dirt to the west.
But it's the alligators in the swamp water that really catch your eye. Not to mention your nose.
The farm has had gators since 1987. It began as a commercial fish farm 10 years before the gators arrived, with founder Erwin and wife Lynne raising fish called tilapia. They say they ship some 2,000 pounds of tilapia to markets in and around Denver every week. The gators were brought in to eat the tilapia that died in the ponds.
Today there are about 400 gators. "Alligator Jay" is in charge of all of them.
"The thing about alligators is that they're very predictable. They're always mean," Young said, his muscular arms on display in a sleeveless T-shirt as he prepared a 3-foot gator for a photo with a group of tourists by sealing the reptile's snout shut with clear packing tape.
Young has the scars to back up his claim. Take his right hand. Gently.
"Got three fingers caught in the mouth of a 10-footer, and he tried to rip the hand off," he said. "The key is not to panic. If you scream and pull away, you lose whatever is in his mouth. Wasn't a big deal. Separated some knuckles and cracked some bones is all."
Then he tipped his leather hat forward and smiled.
"Couldn't bowl for a month," he said.
Today, Erwin and Lynne Young will sell a few hundred pounds of tilapia in Denver.
Tomorrow, their son will try to sell 165 pounds of "Alligator Jay" Young to Hollywood.
Coming soon: "Alligator Dundee"