it's better than being an aardvark's aunt

Today while working on some art with my friend Paul in his basement, he uttered the words "well I'll be a monkey's uncle." At least that's what I'm hoping he said. He very clearly mentioned a monkey in that way, in context yet utterly old-fashioned-sounding, and though I told him out loud that I was going to put it in this blog, I didn't write it down. I just figured I'd remember it for later. Well, I didn't remember until just now, and when I did a google image search for a maybe, possibly relevant image, this came up, so I'm just sticking with the Monkey's Uncle thing due to the sheer awesome weirdness of this album cover.

awwwwwwwwwww! howcuuuuuuuuuuuuuuute!

I really kind of actually mean that. These are some hand-painted nesting dolls listed on etsy, I saw this image when I clicked on a link to see newly up-loaded items. I may as well give this shop a shout-out since I'm using her picture, though I have some reservations about it because some of her items definitley don't look hand-made. OH WELL, it's todays monkey nonetheless...

foot pop?

After the last post I went downstairs to fetch the NYT crossword from the Oregonian. While I dug around for it I saw this here dorky article about KISSING on the front of the Living section.

I saw the opposite ends of a spectrum today.

Oh my word it's been a doozie.

I had an appointment at 9am today to follow up on some lingering, festering, debilitating tax crap downtown. And it was all downhill from there.

Traffic was awful, I was running late, and the security people hassled me fiercely about the mini-utility knife on my keychain (that miraculously didn't set off any alarms when my keys were in my pocket last week!?). What was supposed to be a run-of-the-mill groaner of a morning turned into an almost total disaster, and I don't want to go into it other than to say I had a badged and armed federal security dude get up in my face and threaten to arrest me: but it ended up being OK because, FOR REAL: the man who helped me take care of my taxes today was totally and completely cool.

I came in to his cubicle/office so frazzled by the security situation, which, in the interest of full disclosure was exacerbated by the fact that I was exacerbated by traffic, my life in general, and by the exacerbating security people. Two of them were actually quite patient and understanding (i think? they may have been putting me on) but two others were straight out of Central Casting, all super-aggro and entirely over-the-top caricatures of themselves, giving me more shit for nothing at all than I or anyone ever deserved...and i reacted. ANYWAY, when I sat down at the nice man's desk, in tears and clearly ready to break down, he immediately handed me chocolates and some tissues.

HOW AWESOME IS THAT?!?!?

Then, one of the first things out of his mouth was that he was going to "Help me get the monkey off my back." So, of course I had to mention this here lil' blog, and then the next thing he said was "you know what the best monkey ever is, don't you?" and while I tried to muster up some guesses, he said that the best monkey ever was the Trunk Monkey. And, well, I had to disagree with him there, because the people who put out that ad are the same people who fired me this month and so I think he and you, dear reader, can understand. I can't even dignify the mention with a picture, though there are plenty floating around on the web. Those commercials were--and are still--real darn funny, but one can understand why I have hard feelings...

After that we got down to business, got my taxes filed, made a plan for takin' care of bizness, and then I was on my way. And I did NOT look at the security guys as I left. I'm afraid I would've stuck my tongue out or given them a single-finger salute if I even for a millisecond caught their eye. But, I did NOT look. I did the RIGHT thing, and SUCKED IT UP, and left quietly and peacefully without incident. And as I walked past the trash container in which I had to throw away my little knife, I did not even cringe. I sent Dana a text message about yesterday instead. so there.

Anyway, Thank you so much Mr. Very Nice Tax Man! If you are reading this I want you to know that it meant a WHOLE lot to me as a person that you showed me such kindness, patience and understanding today when I really truly needed it! 100%.

I heart wikipedia!

This book was just sitting there on Dana's bookshelf waiting for me to see it I'M SURE! And after reading the wikipedia entry about it just now: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hundredth_Monkey I think I might ask her if I can borrow it. Even though the so-called phenomenon has been debunked, it still sounds interesting to hear Ken Kesey's take on it. And now, officially, the mix-up in my head that's had the "Hundredth Monkey" and "12 Monkeys" and "if you give a monkey a typewriter, etc" all confused and confabulated with each other is now untangeled! And also I want to rent 12 Monkeys again because it was really really good!

we can be heroes, just for one day

So much of this blog involves me plopping on the couch for the fewest of minutes to have something to occupy my eyeballs with while I'm having a snack. Today my "sighting" came courtesy of a kids show on PBS in which Word Girl and her monkey sidekick named Captian Huggy Face (really) go around fighting villains and explaining vocabulary words. I swear I only sat down for just a few minutes, and it was because I'd already read the paper over breakfast... I fumbled for my phone to take a picture of the screen, but it was over before I was able. These screen captures from the website work just fiiiiine though... On a side note, a far-away friend has commissioned me to make a super-hero cape, of sorts, for a performance/art thing he is doing next month. Yay!

I am unashamedly going to watch every milisecond of Oscar night shit, so thank goodness I saw me a monkey already today.

I ran across this image while checking out photographer Corey Arnold's blog. Here is his website, http://www.coreyfishes.com/ therein you will find a link to the blog. I'm pretty sure this image is not his, based on what is shown on his site. His work is beautiful, poetic, sometimes funny, and he also took my most favorite cat picture I have ever seen in my entire life:

I hope he does not mind me posting it here.

one of the best songs ever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-Uz-dPANDY
I still have this CASSETTE TAPE. From HIGH SCHOOL.

Very often I listen to East Village Radio: http://eastvillageradio.com/index.php. On Saturdays there is a particular show in which half the songs are straight out of my high school record (and TAPE) collection. Today one of the songs was this most amazing Terence Trent D'arby song (whatever happened to that guy) followed by a rad Japanesey re-make of I Cant go For That. I highly recommend checking out this particular dj's show, Sandy Acres Sound Lab with Colleen Crumbcake: http://eastvillageradio.com/modules.php?name=evrshow&showid=76

Here are the extra-special lyrics:

do monkeys dream of electric cats?

I had a sort-of, kind-of monkey sighting yesterday, but I went out dancing last nite and didn't get a chance to post it. I had gone to visit my friend at his gallery office, and he was watching a dvd on his computer of some animation. He froze the screen on this, an ape-like creature being pounced on ? by a dinosaur. He said it was about evolution.

After I got home from dancing, which was bery bery late, I floated off into a weirdo dream in which I hadn't gone to bed but had actually plopped on the couch to watch a music video. It was very lifelike. The video was the song "In God's Country" by U2 which I had heard earlier in the day on the radio. While I was watching it, my housemate, who usually stays out way later than me, came stumbling in himself from a night of revelry, and there were people with him including my friend from earlier in the day. We all began hanging out, and in the background this dreamy video was still on. I remarked on it and my housemate said "oh yeah, that's the 18-minute extended version." Then the video showed dirty children on a stubbly hillside playing with ages-old-looking sock monkeys who then began to dance around by themselves. I scrambled to try and take a picture but ended up watering a plant on top of the television and that is all I remember.

Here is an awesomely huge, very affectionate cat that was hanging out outside the bar my friends and I went to before dancing. His name is Dekum. His ear is torn. It was hard to take his picture because when I squatted down he kept mashing his head into my knee.

taxman wipeth me out.

I spent three hours downtown, ended up paying FIFTEEN DOLLARS to park, and hadn't eaten ALL day, so I came home and plopped down on the couch with some home-made beans topped with chips, salsa, avocado and sour cream. Yum. And this was on the nightly news.

taxman cometh.

On my way to the IRS to take care of some tax crap, I snapped this picture of a sticker on the car in front of me at a RED LIGHT, don't worry, I wasn't a terror on the road. It's really not a great shot, I wish the resolution was better on my camera, but you can definitely see it's a weird freaky ape-like creature.

Evolution 2

sometimes, too often probably, I listen to some talk radio. It's the progressive station KPOJ, and this morning, around 10am, Thom Hartmann went off on a riff about both pigeons and babboons having cognitive abilites similar to that of humans, and how we are more connected to the animal kingdom than we think. I tend to agree.

monkeys workin' overtime

There's NO way I was going to make it through this day without GOBS of monkeys: my friend Dana and I made a trip to the Bins and to the Teen Challenge Thrift Shop on Sandy. The Bins, for those of my many readers beyond Portland*, is the Goodwill dumping ground where crap is sold for $1.39/pound (it used to be less than a dollar per pound). The Teen Challenge is where disadvantaged Christian youth and some really funky old-timers get to earn some money by working at the thrift shop. I got a record of as many monkeys as I could:
That last one's not a meerkat, I swear. It's the "speak no evil" monkey.

The sad fact of this trip, though, was that we were going in search of some plastic toys in order to make a prototype for a project idea we have. SUPER TOP SECRET, of course, but to our UTTER dismay, because of all the problems with lead paint on toys from China, ALL childrens toys are BANNED from being SOLD! I shit you not. EVEN if they arent' from China. NO TOYS. Google it. The law went into effect only days ago, THWARTING our plan, and according to what I just read online, the shops are just stopping the sale of toys altoghether rather than check the "comprehensive database available online from the Consumer Product Safety Commission." They are, of course, afraid of getting sued. So ridiculous... The Bins wouldn't even sell me a childrens cardboard BOOK because of this "ban." And, though the Teen Challenge dudes were very nice and funny and talked to us a lot and gave us a great deal on the junk we did get, they still would not accomodate our need to get our hands on some plastic toys.

* ha ha.

oh yeah, i was gonna tell about this to, but i almost forgot. wait. oh yeah. heh heh heh.

I watched Pineapple Express last night, and of course it was hilarious and I totally lost track of how many times a monkey was mentioned, but I managed to jot the first one down. It's from early on, and I think it's when Seth Rogen's character is explaining to the other guy an example of one of his process-server visits. Or maybe it was a clip of one of his actual visits. or... anyway, he says:

"...you have repeatedly refused to trim your monkey tree..."

.

darling where... did I sleep... last nite?

I never knew that Maakies, one of the most twisted, most hilarious, most weirdo comic strips got made into a show! The Drinky Crow Show! http://www.adultswim.com/shows/drinkycrow/index.html

In the Mist

Ahh, back to normal. These were in a shop window on NE Broadway as I walked to Costello's Travel cafe with friends for coffee. Terrible photo quality, but if you squint your brain you can see Jane Goodall.

NO VALENTINE'S MONKEYS. BOO HOO!

Yup, two whole days with no primate activity. Saturday I babysat and then made dinner for some friends whose kitchen is being remodeled. And Sunday I spent the ENTIRE day getting my etsy page up and running: www.thenaughtybee.etsy.com so there was barely a chance for a monkey or ape to even dart into my peripheral vision. The work on etsy is rather naughty. You've been warned.

this one is from Friday nite

I went to a friend's house to "pre-funk" before going out, as I'm told all the young kids are calling it these days. Or maybe it's just my piss-ant, prick-face former employer and all his small-dick jock friends that call it that. (Still freaked out and pissed off about getting fired...). Anyway, this was on Lisa's fridge. That's her in the photobooth pic. I'm becoming more lax about featuring my friends in this blog because it appears that no one looks at it besides my two followers, one of whom is a friend of mine, and Carissa. Hi ladies!

Happy Friday

Lookin at the weekly paper website, tryin to figger out whats goin on tonight.
Then I looked at Carissa's great blog, which linked to another blog: http://www.cutethingsfallingasleep.org, which linked to another blog, which was even better: http://www.cutethingslaughing.com and led to this:

and now I am ready to go OUT!

Oh Mickey you're so...so... well, let me think a minute...

I've mentioned my love for http://galleryoftheabsurd.typepad.com/ before. I've also mentioned my semi-addiction to perezhilton.com. Well, today on Gallery of the Absurd I followed a link to TMZ, another celeb gossip site, which I have never looked at because I get all I need and way too much more from P-Nasty. However, today I took a peek and hooray! First monkey of the day! (This is not a good time to bring up the genetic differences between apes and monkeys. Just please suspend your disbelief.)

goin to the chapel

Last summer my friend Angela got married at that awesome little chapel near Oaks Park. Tonight while she had a little get-together, she whipped out the wedding pics. I don't know who's little kiddo this is, but I made her let me take a picture of the picture, 'cause she's playing with a stuffed monkey!

DANG IT! pretend it's still Wednesday.

I was flippin through my friend Carissa's blog: http://ihavenoideawhatiamdoing.com/, and I came across a post that mentioned a monkey. (and thanks, girl, for the shout-outs) But it turned exactly 12:00 midnite before I got to post it here. argh. but here is a screen capture and you should definitely check out her blog.

Earlier at Videorama I rented W., Pineapple Express, and Season 1/Disc 1 of Mad Men. At the checkout, the clerk informed me that 3 new-release rentals gets you one free older one. Yay! So I went back and looked for a documentary. I ran across two in the nature section that had tiny pictures of monkeys on the spine, but too small to take a phone-pic with, and I was in the mood for something else anyway, like flying dinosaurs. When I got home, I wanted to watch Mad Men first, but the disc in the box was actually number 3, so I watched W. Instead. So, in a way, I DID end up watching a DOCUMENTARY after all, about a MAD man who is a total MONKEY! Ba-dum-pum-CHH!

Hell's Kitchen

Last night in the kitchen of my friend, the one who claims to have been in a Monkey Knife Fight. Can you count all the monkeys in this picture?

seen and heard

Today I had looked up some information about a friend, and it turns out he had written a review a few years ago of a book about typewriting. I hope he doesn't mind me posting this!

Also, a few moments ago, a radio talk-show host uttered these words while talking with MY awesome senator Ron Wyden about the mother-effing economy:

"...they can monkey the books on this, can't they..."

there's no accounting for taste

The other day I was trying to tell a joke to a friend, but I forgot exactly how it went, so today I decided to try and find it online, because you really can find ANYTHING online. As I was looking through one website, under the keyword "drunk", I did not find the joke I was looking for, but I did find this one. (click to enlarge)

capitalism, or, my sweet pea sellout ass.

I came home from having a drink with a friend at my alltimefavoriteneighborhoodbar, and my roommate was kind-of watching the Grammys. The timing was perfect, because I was just in time to see Radiohead perform a song with a full marching band, very interesting, but then this commercial came on with some douchey douche taking pictures all over the place with a little stuffed-animal monkey. I do love how easy it is to google shit.

Today, my troubles are right up close

From this week's Portland Mercury. From now on my monkey count will probably go down a bit, but I have every confidence that this blog will still sustain a daily count: I lost my job yesterday. NO more ridiculous mommy blogs to look at, NO more sorel boot mentions in fashion blogs, tho i still really want a pair, NO more weird crap in the mail. And, most importantly: NO MORE CHIPPING AWAY AT MY SOUL BY SMALL-MINDED, SMALL-DICK, SELFISH, ASSHOLE, EGOMANIACAL, NARCISSISTIC FUCKWADS. For 5 months it was like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole and I am now grateful for the opportunity to DO what it IS that i'm SUPPOSED to DO. My former employer? a sad, sad prick of a man who is walking proof that MONEY WILL NEVER EVER BUY YOU HAPPINESS.

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away.

A man called the office yesterday, when I asked who it was to tell the man he called for, he said "Scott ___ with Sweat Monkey." This is an image from their website. For volunteering. I had a rough day yesterday, so I wasn't able to post till today.

I went over to a friend's house last night, these same folks I mention all the time in this blog. My friend with her kid and also her mom, who is awesome. I asked about this light thing that was on the table, it looked like a smaller version of one of those battery-operated lights that you push and it turns on. Grandma said "The light is from one of J___'s toys, it's a light-up monkey!" Sure enough:

some heads are gonna roll, roll

This from "The Edge" in the Oregonian.

this one counts for tuesday. it has to.

I am exhausted, but in a good way. I brought some work home with me, for the first time officially at my "new" job which I've now had since September. I did a quick e-mail check just now before zonking out, and normally I would just turn my computer off entirely, expecially at this late an hour, but I inexplicably only logged off of my e-mail, which then automatically sent me to the msn.com home page. And HERE was THIS.

Now, I am too pooped to watch it, of course, but just give me this: that I saw this thing SO near to yesterday that it counts for the blog for Tuesday! NOTE THE TIME. And if I have no legitimate monkeys tomorrow I will still be satisfied. Though, hmm, I wonder if I will have as INSANE of dreams "later on" as I did early early this morning. The friend from yesterday's blog was the main character in one, doing this weird performance/installation/interactive thing, while another friend from when I was a teenager was the main character in another. TMI, i noe.

you thought that it was just a sick animated joke!

Tonight I went to see a friend, who happened to have a giant red cut/scrape/slash up the side of his bicep, and when I asked him what happend, he replied: "Monkey knife fight."

Well, I should've taken a picture, because I had BOTH my camera and my camera phone on me, but I didn't think of it. When I did a google search for Monkey Knife Fight to at least have a picture to post, I had no IDEA how much shit would turn up! Wow! So, for all those who want to know more, here you go:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HciyMVDtLdU

I do not expect you to watch the whole thing.

king for a day

This came in the mail today at work, an insert in The SouthEast Examiner, a small neighborhood paper that nobody ever reads. It fell out while I was putting the paper into the recycling. Then I felt like I had to flip through it, and, well, I didn't see much else that interested me...

killer, dude.

So, as I said I would last night, I got in bed and read. I am about 200 pages to the end of The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer. It has been a long and fascinating read. I have purposefully been rather slow about it, because it is very good, and I don't want it to be over too quickly. It is about the events surrounding the life and execution of Gary Gilmore, but at the heart of it is a wrenching, very human and very soulful love story. You just have to read it. Well, there were two mentions of monkeys about 12 pages apart.

all american

I was milliseconds away from turning off the TV. I had had one ear on Family Guy while I straightened up my room, and I never watch American Dad, so I was just about to switch it off when the following scenario took place: The Dad was in some sort of spring-break party scenario, when he told a drunken chick she had to leave. Then she said to him something like "first can I hang off your arm and swing like a monkey?!" At which point he put up his arm and she swung from it and made the appropriate sounds. The TV is now off and I'm going to get in bed with a book!

OH but wait! I just remembered from Saturday Night Live last night, in the first skit, which would make this one of yesterday's monkey's: the set-up is that 3 super nerdy nerds walk into a sports bar on Superbowl Sunday and are dismayed to find that they cannot sit down. But they make the best of it and stand over to one side, at which point one of them offers the other some mints, but they are actually ecstasy tablets. At this point the skit could have turned really super funny, but they dropped the ball. Anyway, before that, one of the nerdy nerds makes a weirdo comment, then the other says, "Why Jean, you little funky junky joker monkey!"