The ever-increasing election coverage, combined with the Star Trek marathons that have been taking place at home, have made it hard for me not to see these resemblances:
One of the latest viral videos is of happy gorillas in the jungles of Uganda taking in a tourist as one of their own. Now this is an amazing video, so sweet, so heart-warming, and it got me cruising YouTube for gorilla videos – and there are plenty. That being said, I am personally not going to be hanging with the Wild Mountain Gorillas.
I am not saying you shouldn’t hang with wild gorillas – Â 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 …
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. Â She would make kissy faces at him and he would make what she thought was kissy faces back….
I performed at the awesome new Paris Burlesque Club in Red Hook and NBC was there, doing a story about the venue! So my burlesque alter ego, Cherry Pitz is going be featured in the story airing tonight!
The show is called LX.TV 1stLook NY. To be specific, I’ll be on WNBC, channel 4 (channel 704 in HD) on Time Warner Cable, Saturday Oct 1 at 7:30pm and rerun on Sunday at 1AM after SNL. Catch it on TV if you can, or find the piece on their site http://lxtv.com/1stlookny/.
The segment covers the show Moonlight Rendezvous, produced by the gorgeous Lana Firebird. It will feature David Slone, Cherry Pitz, Ivory Fox and The Lady Aye, all at Paris Cabaret Club! Many thanks to LX.TV.
This cardboard-and-Sharpie sign is nailed up in our friends Alex & Emily’s bathroom:
According to Emily:
“Alex and I were walking one evening in northwest DC and discovered a bunch of these signs (same misspellings and all) posted outside an embassy, I believe it was the Lebanese embassy. Since they had so many, we figured we could snatch one without them noticing.”
The sign is brilliant enough on its own, but I LOVE the thought of a cranky Lebanese diplomat stepping in dog shit once, and then scouring the embassy for scrap cardboard and scrawling out TONS of these things to put out all over the lawn. And possibly spending the rest of his day watching with one eye through parted curtains for trespassing dogs to yell at.
(Jeff can relate.)
My coworker went to send a fax this morning, and a funny thing happened when it connected to the number that she dialed: She got Rickrolled.
I just had to grab the camera and hit redial…
(See “Rickroll” on Know Your Meme, for those of you who were nowhere near the internet for the past 2 or 3 years.)
Jen Lee is a friend of mine from The Moth, and I just love her stuff because she pours it out straight from the heart. She’s not trying to be liked, she’s just trying to be true to the story itself. She’ll talk about some difficult stuff, and the way she handles it is masterful. She’s not an emotional exhibitionist and she’s not trying to launch her comedy career by making light of dark stuff. She’s a writer who happens to publish with her mouth, and every time she tells a story it’s different and better than the last time.
This is a video of Jen Lee from a Moth slam a few months ago. The theme was “Good Intentions.” Jen grew up as a fundamentalist Christian, and here she explains the hilarious, embarrassing reality behind swallowing fundamentalist doctrine and saving it for marriage — and makes it sound like it’s not necessarily so bad. She’s so funny and awkward and sweet here, and I just had to give her a huge hug when she was done.
Jen runs a blog and podcast for people doing creative work at jenlee.net. She also hosts Voice and Story Retreats, which she says are “one part storytelling and one part soulcare,” and she teaches at Squam Art Workshops. And you know you can’t do all this creative computing without being on Twittter, too — here she is.
