I am not saying you shouldn’t hang with wild gorillas –  if you want to. Go ahead, it looks like fun.

It is just that they are both intelligent and they are wild animals, plus they have ideas on how things should go.

*Note to self – do not take your pet baby orphan gorilla into the jungle.

Personally I think I understand gorilla culture and etiquette, as it looks a bit like the culture and etiquette in my family. But as my husband knows, I avoid hanging with my family because they behave like mountain gorillas. They are cute and cuddly until you challenge them. You never quite know what you said that got them all riled up, all you know is that they are suddenly screaming and somehow its your fault …

Also a Safari into the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park in Uganda is like $300 a day, and I’d like to see what $300 a day could get me in Vegas.

I know that someone reading this might be thinking, “but  - but –  but….have you seen Koko the talking Gorilla who speaks sign language? Bill Shatner has!”

And I say to the imaginary Koko loving person in my head, “Oh yeah but what about the story of the Petronella Yvonne de Horde, she loved gorillas! She was convinced that the Gorilla named Bokito, who lived at the local zoo in Rotterdam was her friend…and so she went to visit him almost every day.  She would make kissy faces at him and he would make what she thought was kissy faces back….

But what Bokito was thinking was “Who are you to defy my authority! Lady, I am going to kick your ass…if I ever get out of this damn cage!”

Then he figured out how to break out of his enclosure, went on a rampage, dragged Patronella through the zoo cafeteria, breaking bones and biting her over 100 times.

This coined a new word: Bokitoproof, which was voted “word of the year” for the Dutch in 2007.

Now I do imagine that the best Gorilla porn can only be shot on location.

And I know there are many nice gorillas out there. Like Jambo … but clearly Jambo’s teenage son really sucks.

And okay, this one is just too sweet and too heartbreaking not to share.

* Another note to self, do not visit your pet orphan baby gorilla, years after you have sent him off  into the jungle, and expect him to understand you are only stopping by to say hi. As far as a gorilla is concerned, if  you are family you stay until you die!

And okay after seeing this one below … I think I’d rather go on an adventure in Africa than Vegas.

But I am not hanging with gorillas….nope I’m not… you can’t make me…. god they are so damn cute!

I should call my family.

And like, every million years a giant hand yanks the ship away and rips the planet apart, shaking everyone off to drift into their deaths in the cold wilds of the outer atmosphere.

In case you were wondering, I was, in fact, late to my destination. And yes, I do find psychedelic drugs to be redundant. Enjoy the pics:

psychedelic stand‐up show … a visceral experience from the downtown comedy underground. Accomplished thinkers, authors, poets, and artists join Barris and his band to become one seamless, improvised comedy freak show.”

I caught the sold-out show at Union Hall last Saturday. What I could see of it was really, really awesome, when I could see around a pillar. Everything sounded great, though.

Reggie Watts dropped in at the last minute and did a hilarious set, improvising all kinds of hilarious music and completely surreal standup that made perfect sense and told right-on truths as long as you didn’t listen too closely. If you did, you’d realize he was riffing on the kind of played-out onstage cliches you hear from most hip-hop and rock ‘n roll stage banter.

Here’s a pretty sweet clip. In it, Reggie Watts covers Maroon 5′s “Moves Like Jagger,” freestyles and improvises, and raps like the lead singer of a Cookie Monster death metal band:

Reggie Watts – Touching Songs Improv – Heart Of Darkness – 1.7.12 from Karmalize Productions on Vimeo.

In this clip, Reggie, Greg Barris and the Forgiveness improve a long jam about slack friends, vampires, teen smoking and more:

Reggie Watts & The Forgiveness – Improv Jam – Heart Of Darkness – 1.7.12 from Karmalize Productions on Vimeo.

Both clips were shot and edited by Alex Gaylon of Karmalize Productions.

Brother, did they ever deliver:

The saxplayer handed me a pretty sweet business card right afterwards, though none of the URLs on it are coming up right now. As near as I can tell, they’re called the Funky Nassau Band, and you can catch them in the subway underneath the Financial District, more or less. They’ve got a ton of stuff on YouTube, too. I especially love this slow jam in a Miami Vice suit.

The jukebox at Washington DC’s Black Cat is out of order. Or, it’s out of order as a jukebox – it works just fine as a multi-disc CD player, stuck on shuffle. Someone took the protective covering out from under the glass on the front, and you can see right into its guts. It’s pretty beautiful, I think.

I took this photo with TrueHDR via a wide-angle lens stuck to the front of my iPhone 4, then ran it through the Photoshop app and some other stuff to get this image:

It seems like copy-editors are getting laid off left, right, and center – as though nobody cares anymore. Sure, typos happen when you’re writing and posting fast. And everyone knows what you meant to say. But it’s like giving a big presentation with your fly all the way down. Sure, people know that you meant to put pants on. And your wang is probably still covered. But it still makes a distinct impression.

It looks like a rogue copyeditor took the red Sharpie to this Uniqlo ad on the C train. They just couldn’t take it anymore.

Good for them. It works better now, doesn’t it?

But it’s not as fun now that everyone’s using it. I mean, it still looks cool and all, and if you’re having fun with it, go nuts. Or continue going nuts. I’ll have to cop to a certain amount “before it was cool” mentality here, and admit that I have this deep and maybe not incredibly attractive need to have people know exactly how creative and special I am all the time.

This feature got me all excited and inspired to go beyond taking a photo, running it through an app, and calling it a day: Tricking Out Your iPhone Photos.

The iPhone is such a powerhouse of a tool for photographic creativity. It’s our century’s Polaroid, right there in your pocket. Rather than emulate the look of a time past, why not get stoked on creating a look for now?

I saw this girl in the mall by my office that looked like she fell through a wormhole in 1974 and landed up against that wall smiling and playing with a BlackBerry. She was kind enough to let me take her picture, despite probably finding me a little creepy. Fair enough.

I’ve had Karen Young’s 1982 jam “Deetour” on a permanent loop on my iPhone for a couple days, too. It makes the commute into this spacey disco loop, like someone tied my brain to a rollerskate and sent it over a beige rainbow bridge. I probably listened to the song ten times while I ran this young lady’s picture through Decim8, Instagram, TrueHDR, TiltShiftGear and StripeCam — ultimately ending up with this:

I don’t mind telling you that I’m pretty proud of it, too. It reminds me of a lot of things I love – old funk/soul album covers, ’70s striping, sun-faded imagery. I wish I could paint like this. Here’s the original shot, for comparison:

I’ll be posting a bunch more of these things in the future, too. Since you asked. If you guys recommend any other cool iPhone apps, do please let me know.

Ever since I’ve moved to New York, I’ve gotten more colds. And more of those colds have mutated into full-blown sinus infections. Last winter I coughed so hard I thought I cracked a rib.

I used to wonder why I got so sick all the time, and figured it had something to do with touching all those handrails on the subway all day long. Take a look at this guy I saw on the N train this morning — I think I’m right:

He rode the subway all the way from Atlantic/Pacific to Canal Street with his nose smushed against the railing, pausing only to give it a deep picking. I don’t know if I’m grossed out for that guy, or because of that guy.

From now on, I’m commuting in a HAZMAT suit.

I saw him on the PATH Train a few weeks ago. I don’t see him that often, but he’s not like, white buffalo rare. A JC Pimp sighting brings you goodluck, but it’s rapidly expended: you get the privilege of seeing him. That’s good enough. I have no idea what this guy’s name is, or what he does, or how he afoords those suits that make him look like Flavor Flav starring in a remake of “The Mask.” But he’s probably not a real pimp, like that other guy in Jersey City.

People in Jersey City try to photograph him, and they track sightings on the JC List. I saw him on the train once, wearing a floor-length faux-raccoon fur coat and a fedora covered in matching fur. I asked him if I could take his picture, and he waved me off, muttering “no pictures, no pictures.”

It’s fascinating to me, that someone could want to draw so much attention to themselves in one way — and so little in another. He’s not exactly trying to blend in.