The Notebooks of a Carnival Monkey, ETC.

The Notebooks of a Carnival Monkey
Book 1
Just danced my little ass off for a mousy looking human woman and her skaggy looking child. I was told it was the human big-star, Madonna. She's got a spare tire around her middle--big thighs, too--and she looked like she was flopping when she was so egotistically dancing to the little organ I grind while I'm dancing. I outdanced her ass. She threw god-damn fifteen cents in pennies in my cup. "Bitch!" I scream, but she didn't understand my dialect.

Book 2
Britney Spears booked me and Benny the Chinner for a private party at one of her fabby digs. Professor Glenn drove us there in his new Ford. He was bragging all the way to Miss Spears fabby house how he hornswaggled the Ford dealer down to 50% off the original price. "Plus, the broke son of a bitch threw in Satellite radio and 4 Bose speakers. They're desperate, I tell ya, desperate."

We got to Britney's fabby house around one pm. "Pool Party" it said on a sign hanging over the front door. "Follow the Arrows." So we followed the arrows around through a side gate and came out into this huge back area with this huge kidney-shaped swimming pool--hey, I got kidneys just like yours, humans--I piss just like you do, pals! My old lady fucks just like yours does, macho human males. Anyway, Britney had the pool area set up like a carnival. Clowns everywhere. God, I hate clowns. Especially those balloon-animal-making bastards. Kids'll fall for anything wearing a bulbous red nose and flappy shoes. I checked my little outfit in a glass sliding door that led into Britney's fabby house. I looked pretty good. My military jacket looked spiffy as hell. My fez was snappy. Damn, I looked good. And I'd written some new tunes for my little organ, so I was ready to kick some carnival ass.

Professor Glenn then said, "Noodles, you go on after Mr. Po the Lice Man." God, not Mr. Po, that sleazy bastard. A lice act. Who the hell can even see a lice act? Lice drive me instinctually bananas. I mean, come on, groomin's one of my drives; I see lice, I wanna pick 'em up and eat 'em. I ate a hundred lice one time--almost put old Po out of business. And Noodles! God I hate Noodles! He's a poodle who walks a high wire and walks like a human on his hind legs while he balances a couple'a balls on his nose. He looks stupid as hell. I can walk like a human. Hell, I can think like a human. I can understand human speech. Yakity. Yakity. Yakity. "Who's after Mr. Po, Boss?" I asked Professor Glenn. "Britney says she doesn't care for a monkey act." "Whaaa! Then what the hell am I doing here?" "Sorry, Little Joe, but that's Miss Spears's request. She says she's in a nonmonkey mood right now." "Bitch. Can I talk to her?" "Shit, Little Joe, humans can't understand you. You sound like you're mocking humans when you try and jabber with them." "How come you can understand me?" "I taught you everything you know, Little Joe. You know that. I love you like a son." "Oh shit, the shit's getting deep in here, brother!"

I searched out Britney. She was smokin' dope with a guy who looked just like Mickey Mouse, the Disney owner, I think. Damn, that'd be cool if he saw my act and put me on the Mickey Mouse Club--holy shit, that would make my day, baby. "Hey, Mick, remember me?" Come on, you son of a bitch. Professor Glenn followed behind me. "Little Joe, that Mickey Mouse is a human in a Mickey Mouse costume. He can't understand your jabber." "Well, come on then, Glenn, you get me on this Britney Spears thing so the Mick can check out my act and maybe get me on the Disney Channel." "Not likely, Little Joe. Organ-grinding monkeys remind humans of the Old World." "Whaaaa! What old world? I was born in Baltimore, dammit, what old world?" "Little Joe, your act. It's like Old World Italian--European--the organ-grinder's monkey." "Hey, this monkey grinds his own organ...." "No, I'm just telling you, Little Joe, your act is getting corny. Kids wanna play with your organ but they don't find you cute at all. In fact, I been meaning to train you to become a female impersonator." "Whaaaaa!" "Yeah, I think a monkey Judy Garland would be cute as hell." "Give me a god-damn break." "I'm tryin' to give you a break, Little Joe."

Book 3
I feel silly as hell in this new costume Professor Glenn has me donning. Holy shit. It's a business-looking man's suit, but it isn't a man's suit, it's a replica of that suit-looking suit Judy Garland wore during her London comeback concerts. "Am I supposed to sing?" "Naw," Professor Glenn said, "you just mouth the words and we'll run a real Judy Garland loop behind you over the sound system--'Over the Rainbow's' your big finale--you got it down?" "Got it down. I'm a pro, sport, I don't do nothing without gettin' it down, and gettin' down pat, too." "So we start off with a long monolog--you know, Judy spieling about her life and her this and that...." "And I've gotta be mouthin' all of that, too. That's a long boring ass cry for help, brother." "You can do it, Little Joe. Believe me, this is gonna cause a riot!" "Jesus, I hope you're right. I feel like the ultimate fool in this get up."

Book 4
By god, the Judy Garland thing is going over bigger than I ever imagined. Last night at Freddy's Cabaret in New York City, I wowed their asses--those dudes were laughing their gay asses off over my little act. "Judy never looked so good," I heard one dude say to his lover. Fuck no, I thought, Judy never looked so real. She was a monkey woman, wasn't she?"

Book 5
"What the hell you mean you've hired a monkey to play Mickey Rooney! This is getting, like
John Wayne once said, 'Regod-damn-diculous'." "Come on, Little Joe, it'd be cute, a Mickey
Rooney monkey with you--you two could do some farm-barn musicals like Judy and Mickey did back in the late 1930s--boy, were they hot." "Professor Glenn, I let you talk me into this Judy Garland impersonating shit, but I'll be damn if I work with another god-damn monkey...who are you thinking about?" "Mitch the Magnificent." "Mitch the Magnificent, that phony piece of crap. I mean, Jesus X Christ. Isn't that the monkey who does that Houdini death-defying water trick?" "Yeah, that's him. He's a thespian, too, though." "Never, I say, never, never, never." "Ah come on, be a sport." "Never."

Book 6
Professor Glenn hired Mitch the Magnificent alright but not as Mickey Rooney. Whew that was close. I dig this Judy Garland act and I don't want it fucked up with a Mickey Rooney character buggin' my ass. Would this bastard get to grab my ass or try and kiss me! NEVER. I'm getting good at Judy, boy howdy, I am. Professor Glenn gave me some uppers like Warner Bros. used to pump into Judy to keep her putting out movies while she was hot box office. Whew, I'm on fire on those uppers and playing Judy Garland to the fucking hilt. I'm laughing my ass off. Professor Glenn has Mitch dressed up like Evel Knievel, you know, a stars-spangled cape--and then he trots out this little red motorcycle. Yeah, a real motorcycle. You should see this stupid Mitch. He thinks he's gonna upstage me! Maybe Judy Garland'll take over that motorcycle. How 'bout a flying Judy! Don't monkey around with me! I ain't your average monkey.
________________________________________________________________
Levity
I mean everyone's so serious about this Obama inauguration. Hell yes, I'd like to be there. Stevie Wonder last night at Obama's mall concert was the best. He may be one of the best musicians to have happened to us in our lifetime. Talented motherfucker that Stevie.

One problem I have is this David Foster. Where in the holy hell did he come from? He wrote this "We Are America the Beautiful," or some such song, Will I Am said they wrote it together--and let me tell you, folks--it was really crappy. I ponder long and heavy over where these talentless goofs like this Foster guy or Josh Groban come from--Will I Am can't sing for shit and the tune was really redundant--the same lines over and over. A much more appropriate celebration was given by Pete Seeger, that old son of a bitch, and he got the whole shee-bang to singing "This Land Is Your Land," and he added in his workingman lyrics, too. What a talent, even though he is a folky--he's a real folky. It's in Pete's DNA to be a folky.

I got a comment about my proclaiming Josh Groban singing with an "unknown black chick." The commenter said this black chick, Heather something, was a big Broadway star--in The Lion King. The commenter doesn't know how I feel about Broadway. Especially the Disney invaded and occupied Broadway, of which The Lion King is their biggest moneymaker. Yet, like all Disney fables, The Lion King is all about royalty and masters and, to me, isn't very African at all. The woman who did it for Mickey Mouse was a white chick. Sorry, but a Broadway resume doesn't impress me. Broadway tunes are too easily parodied. Besides, Broadway is so full of Brit Vaudeville shit. Sorry, Broadway ain't my bag.

And it was MLK Day and I did dig Martin Luther King when I lived in New Orleans and my wife was active in CORE and we saw Dick Gregory and Julius Lester and Huey Newton all the time, and then I remember the Selma March--and my wife and I gathered up information about where to meet the march, where it was starting, and once we got there who to contact. We knew King liked to put white people with him on the front line of the march. And I remember the White Citizen's Council's phone lines that called anybody marching with "the coons" in Selma subject to being the target for a bunch of good ole boys out "Coon" hunting. We were comfortable in New Orleans. There hadn't been much trouble at all, just a little revolt by the white Catholics to school integration, though that passed. So did the sit-ins on Canal Street, at Woolworth's--yes, there was white backlash, but it didn't last, it petered out, and it looked good around the time of the Civil Rights Act--it looked like New Orleans was integrating without a hitch, though, yes, the Power Elite white assholes worked behind the scenes to undo all that the Civil Rights Movement had gained.

I remember the day Martin got shot. Our friend the head nurse, a black woman, called us and she was hysterical. "How could they kill this man? Why of all the men, why him? Wasn't he righteous?" We held a memorial service that night at our jam session for Doctor King--we played Nina Simone's "Why Did They Kill the Man of Love?"--and then we played some Memphis blues--and then all the women started crying and we went home and went to bed. Then it seemed like just a short time later these same insurgents shot RFK in L.A. All these assassins the same, madmen, Sirhan Sirhan, a crazy Arab dude who some people say was hypnotized when they arrested him--he's still alive and well in the California prison system.

So we listened to Martin's Riverside Church speech against the Viet Nam War. Then we listened to the Birmingham Boycott speech. Then we topped it off with the March on Washington speech. Martin's dream coming true when Obama takes the oath TOMORROW!

We have packed our cynicism away in the hall closet and instead we are keeping our fingers and toes crossed and "hopin'" for at least an effort for good and peace and assimilation.

Obama's into Hollywood stars, too--for his "girls" sake he says. Amazing how movie stars have the privilege of just attaching themselves to presidents. Like Barbra Streisand they said used to call the White House and bullshit with Billy Jeff Clinton.

I still wonder why Josh Groban and this David Foster! I'm so far behind the times. I swear, I'd never heard of David Foster until about two weeks ago.

theoptimisticgrowlingwolf
for The Daily Growler