Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Happy birthday Yoko!
Yoko Ono is 80! Her birthday was actually in February, so I’m offering her my belated best wishes. I hope she’ll understand how difficult it is to keep track of celebrity birthdays in the rainforest. I only really notice the passage of time when the crocodiles start humping.
What a fascinating human being Yoko is! People have often wondered how a demur, soft-spoken Japanese woman could be so barmy. I blame it on the American military occupation of Japan following World War 2. When a teenage girl used to a diet of steamed rice and vegetables suddenly starts binging on chocolates and Coca-cola, it has a similar effect on her brain to LSD. She later did take acid, of course, and her disordered mind began to make weird connections, such as noticing the humour in men’s private parts. Did she laugh at John Lennon’s dick? It wouldn’t surprise me, but I doubt it damaged their relationship.
I once made the mistake of discussing the break-up of the Beatles with the manager of the safari camp. I said it wasn’t Yoko’s fault because the lads had already grown apart and were following diverging paths. This provoked a furious response:
“Of course it was Yoko’s fault, you ignorant ape!” barked the manager. “You don’t have a clue what was going on behind the scenes! She put a hex on the band and made weird mewling noises when they were rehearsing. If it wasn’t for her interference, John would be alive today and the Beatles would be playing in the Cavern!”
There was no point arguing with an irrational outburst like that, so I turned my back on him and farted before returning to the jungle.
The good news is that Paul has settled the issue by stating that Yoko didn’t break up the Beatles. What a nice thing to say after all the spiteful words that ping-ponged between them. Paul must have realised that there were bitchier women than Yoko on the face of the Earth after his divorce from Heather Mills. Whatever nasty things Yoko said about him, she didn’t cost him 30 million bucks. Let’s hope he goes to watch her perform at this summer’s music festival in London, where she’ll be singing the songs that John recorded shortly before he was assassinated by the mad assassin.
Another person who ought to go to the concert is Bjorn Ulvaeus, who praised the Beatles in a recent interview. When asked whether the Abba girls got annoyed when their husbands were chased by groupies, Bjorn replied:
“You may find this unbelievable but we never really had them.”
It does surprise me that neither Bjorn nor Benny attracted a single groupie at the height of their fame in Abba. But “unbelievable” is a strong word, particularly after looking at old photos of the band. If Bjorn says there were no groupies, I will accept his statement as factual if he gives me his word as a gentleman and a Swede.
Labels: Abba, groupies, laughing at John Lennon's dick, Paul McCartney, The Beatles, Yoko Ono
Monday, March 05, 2012
Ape genius
I hear that a captive chimpanzee has been solving computer puzzles at breakneck speed. Let’s hope he learns to tie his shoelaces before he’s offered a chair at MIT. If I were his agent, I’d negotiate a sponsorship deal with Apple. He could appear in their commercials with the slogan:
You don’t have to be a chimp to use our products, but it helps.
Being a stellar new talent in the world of homo sapiens is never plain sailing. Look what happened to The Beatles. Their fans behaved like hysterical baboons, screeching their heads off and going on the rampage whenever they flew into town. I don’t blame the Fab Four for taking medication to prevent the adulation going to their heads. It’s a wonder they could think straight at the end of it.
As a former circus ape, I know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of hero-worship. Most of my fan letters were from flighty young maidens who wanted me to rescue them from the evils of man. “Carry me off to your tree-house” was a common request. I got this type of attention because I’m a gorilla. Celebrity chimpanzees attract busty ladies who want to mother them with cuddles and fresh fruit. We apes cater for all the human fetishes.
It’s important to answer such fan mail politely, of course. I normally included the sentence “Sadly, my contract doesn’t permit me to keep pets” in my reply. I also sent them a piece of latex with my teeth marks on it as a memento of our courtship.
Now, some entertainers go to extremes in their quest for stardom. Have you heard of a man called Felix Baumgartner? One would have thought a fellow with a name like that would appear in kinky German porn films, having his buttocks thrashed by a busty dominatrix. In reality, he’s a crackpot daredevil who’s planning to jump out of an aircraft at an altitude of 23 miles, which is apparently the edge of space.
I have a number of serious reservations about this stunt. To begin with, where are the audience going to be seated? If they’re waiting for him below, they’ll miss the most exciting part of the dive, when his beard is covered in icicles. But if they’re up in the plane they won’t see the finale, when he’s babbling deliriously on the ground as the medics put an oxygen mask over his face. The other worrying issue is what he might hit on the way down. Birds could probably take evasion action, but blimps and hot-air balloons would be sitting ducks. If I owned a dirigible, I would sue any skydiver who landed on my canopy without permission.
The big unanswered question is whether performing this feat will make him a hit with the babes. Will he be feted like an astronaut and acquire a harem of starry-eyed groupies? Or will nubile women view him as an awesome nincompoop who jumped out of a plane? I will observe his fate dispassionately, like a biologist watching a moose during the rutting season.
Labels: clever chimp, groupies, rutting moose, skydiver
