Category: Funny Business

Due to the sweltering heat, I’ve gotten in the habit of doing my morning walks in the early, early part of the a.m. We’re talking pre-dawn, no other walkers or joggers out, only delivery trucks on the road early.

I kinda like it because my brain is basically a bag of silverware and steel pots, and the solitude allows me to quell the clanking and arrange my thoughts for the day. For the most part it’s quite peaceful, and I’ve grown so accustomed to my route I hardly even think about it anymore.

Well, I think about it more now.

There’s one leg of my walk that takes me past some woods and it happens to be the most poorly lit part of the trek. It never bothered me until a couple of weeks ago when I was traipsing past the trees and heard a thrashing sound just a couple of feet away.

It was startling.

I can’t remember if I shrieked an obscenity or let out a Hank Hill-style “Bwaaaaaaah!” but it scared me – enough that I feared I was about to be mauled by a bloodthirsty Chupacabra.

And now, practically every day, I hear the same sound in the same place at the same time. Even though I know it’s coming I’m still taken aback, and part of me is waiting for it to finally reveal itself.

But what, exactly, is it?

These are Alabama woods, so part of me fears it could be a deranged Civil War reenactor who is just waiting for the perfect opportunity to capture a Yankee (I’m a Birmingham native but I often wear blue and vote blue, making me a target).

If not a feral human, perhaps it’s a feral hog. These beasts – which are legendary in the Deep South – can reach enormous size and have been known to attack people without provocation.

I tend to doubt they roam the woods I frequent, though.

I live in the city and am nowhere near a farm. If it is a hog, I doubt it’s feral. It might not be fully domesticated, but I’m guessing it at least has a GED.

And really – now that I’ve heard the noise for several days and had a chance to analyze it – whatever it is probably isn’t very large. This decreases my fear of a Civil War guy or wild, angry hog.

I confess, though, that while I was walking under a full moon earlier this month, I hoped it was a werewolf. That would’ve been so cool even though it would’ve had to have been a small werewolf – perhaps a youngster. Better yet, maybe it was a runt werewolf that had been cast aside by his family.

I imagined the runt and I becoming friends, much like Wilbur and Fern in “Charlotte’s Web,” and I’d take him home to live with us and name him Mozart.

But that’s a story for another time.

Realistically, I figure this noisy critter is either a beaver, raccoon or opossum.

There’s a stream near the woods, so that would make a beaver a likely candidate. They like to eat tree bark and grass, and there is plenty available in this particular area.

And with all the tree hollows and snacklets available, it’d be a good place for a raccoon to hang. Plus, it isn’t terribly far from garbage cans, and since their nickname is “trash pandas” they might find the location perfect for their needs.

If I was an opossum, I’d probably love this particular patch of the woods. It’s quiet, secluded, and conveniently located near schools. (I don’t know if possums care about schools but they might … I truly have no idea).

Whatever it is, I’m slowly getting used to the sound and I’m not quite as freaked out about it anymore. I like to think if it was going to attack me, it would’ve done so by now and the thrashing is simply a greeting.

Hopefully one day I’ll find out what this creature is and once we see each other, we’ll have a big laugh.

Unless it’s a Chupacabra.

From what I understand, they have no sense of humor.

Like many of my science fiction-obsessed brethren and sistren, I’m a huge fan of the Planet of the Apes universe.

As a kid I soaked up the original films, live action TV series, and Saturday morning animated Return to the Planet of the Apes (which, really, better represented Pierre Boulle’s 1963 novel than the others).

I even watched Tim Burton’s version and didn’t hate it, which is as close to a compliment as I can give to his treatment of the subject matter.

But the modern trilogy (Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and War for the Planet of the Apes) is brilliant, and resonated with me more than all the rest.

Is it because the films serve as cautionary tales?

Nah.

As far as I’m concerned, they’re “feel-good” movies. And as we hurtle closer to mass extinction, I’m #TeamMonkey all the way.

Let’s face it … we (and by “we” I mean mankind) had our chance and man, have we ever screwed things up. So, when I watch a motion picture about evolved apes dominating the planet at the expense of humans who are sliding backward on the evolutionary scale, it warms my heart. In the grand scheme of things, I think of it more as tough love than a tough break.

For one thing, I enjoy hearing apes talk, especially when their voices sound like Andy Serkis and Steve Zahn. Serkis’ Caesar character is an all-business, no-nonsense type who gets things done and thinks of others before himself. He’s as likely to give you a pat on the back as a kick in your monkey butt.

An ape of few words, the words Caesar speaks are thoughtful and powerful.

Zahn’s Bad Ape reminds me a lot of myself – someone who eventually does what they’re supposed to do only after first considering all the easier options and ultimately feeling guilty.

Judy Greer also had a role in Dawn and War, playing Caesar’s wife, Cornelia. It was a largely non-verbal part but I think she’s magnificent, and would hope in a world of apes there would be many who are Judy Greeresque.

Know what else really impresses me about apes? Their respect for the environment. You probably noticed that in the recent trilogy, none of them drove cars – they rode horses.

A single automobile emits 4.6 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. Horses break wind, of course, but they also produce more than nine million tons of manure annually, and that can be turned into renewable energy.

Plus, if you travel by horse, you don’t have to worry about high gas prices, getting its oil changed every three months, or receiving spam calls concerning the warranty on your steed.

Now, as apes further evolve, they’ll become more technologically advanced. This can be a blessing or curse, but – as Blue Oyster Cult eloquently states in the song Godzilla – “history shows again and again how nature points out the folly of man.”

It says nothing about the folly of apes.

I would trust Caesar, Bad Ape and Cornelia to learn from man’s follies and not repeat them. That means there would be no nuclear weapons, no Styrofoam cups and no Jerry Springer Show.

Take those three elements out of life and we all win.

OK … so let’s assume apes now run things. What are the downsides?

I can’t think of any, if I’m being honest.

Sure, there might be an increase in incidences of poo-flinging, but is that really so bad? I don’t do it and don’t want it done to me, but if consenting apes wish to engage in such activity, it’s really none of my business.

Fling and let fling, I often say.

Finally, if a true planet controlled by apes followed the movies’ storyline, humans would become extinct. Maybe we blow ourselves up (the original film) or perhaps we succumb to a simian flu (the modern reboot).

Either way, it’s a game we lose which ultimately results in the earth winning.

If, however, I happen to be one of the last human survivors, I vow to adapt to the customs of our monkey superiors and do everything I can to ensure a peaceful transfer of power.

Everything except fling poo.

Conspiracy theories are just no fun anymore.

You hear about one today, and it involves some paramilitary cosplayer who believes the government has implanted a chip in his left nostril that tracks his Cheetos consumption. Not only that, the Deep State is plotting to take those Cheetos away.

He joins other paramilitary cosplayers, and the next thing you know you have people hoarding crunchy corn puff snacks and engaging in a violent uprising in the name of “freedom.”

It wasn’t always like this, though. There was a time when conspiracy theories were mostly harmless and, sometimes, even amusing.

The first one I remember vividly involved the moon landing, or rather the “faked” moon landing as the tin foil hat crowd would have you believe.

Yep … according to conspiracy theorists of the day, it was all just an elaborate ruse. There was no trip to the moon, just a trip to a movie studio in California where it was all staged.

It was one small step for man, one giant leap for Orion Pictures.

There was even a history teacher at my high school who was a moon landing denier.

Although it was fun to talk about and inspired a great movie, Capricorn One, I never believed the non-believers – not for a second. The fact that astronauts came back with rocks and not green cheese was proof enough for me. Plus, I watched Walter Cronkite cover the event. Uncle Walter would not lie to me.

And let’s face it – had the landing been faked, the production value would’ve been much better than that grainy, black-and-white stuff we had to look at. And James Arness would’ve played Neil Armstrong.

I guess since we had now traveled to another world it stood to reason that a conspiracy theory involving aliens would pop up. Thus, there were those who believed the government had already made contact with extraterrestrials.

Actually, this conspiracy theory is still very much alive and got a boost a few years back with the infamous “alien autopsy” footage. Supposedly shot at Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947, it was part of a TV special in 1995 hosted by Jonathan Frakes, who played Will Riker, or Number One, on Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Although I’m a Trekker and I want to believe (that’s a Fox Mulder/The X Files easter egg, by the way) this autopsy was basically just a big pile of Number Two. The filmmakers eventually admitted to “recreating” the actual footage, but I doubt seriously there was any actual footage to begin with.

Anybody with walking around sense knows that surgical instruments manufactured on earth cannot pierce the skin of alien life forms; only special alloys made by a race of robots hailing from the planet Vortek can do that.

And remember the discovery of mermaids? Not Daryl Hannah, who played a mermaid in Splash, or the Little Mermaid, who played a mermaid in, well, The Little Mermaid, but that weird looking thing shown in Mermaids: The Body Found. It was a mockumentary, but presented in such a way that it was easy to think the filmmakers were serious.

And let’s face it … millions of people are – how can I put this delicately – stupid, so it doesn’t take much to make imbeciles buy into nonsense.

Frankly, I was never one to believe mermaids roamed the sea. The bottom half of the body being fish-like and the top half being humanoid makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. A real mermaid would have a fish-like top half and humanoid bottom half. Otherwise, how could they breathe underwater?

Myth-makers need to do a better job of thinking these things through.

Of course, there have been all sorts of conspiracy theories over the years, ranging from Bigfoot to Elvis Presley faking his death to chemtrails to Batman and Robin being a good movie.

All enjoyable to talk about, but all completely absurd.

Regardless, I miss the days when we could yuk it up over silly speculation. After all, idiocy can be amusing – right up until people start believing the government is after their Cheetos.