Self-Esteem & Teamwork

Part 28 of 30

My Fragile Self-Esteem

Toward the end of my life as I am now -- hitting the golden years is already a dim memory in my rear-view mirror -- I’m getting to that place where family members are writing down my fleeting memories of the old days. (One of my precious memories is how we used to buy TVs, by going to the store and exchanging money for one.) Along with that I’ve also got the Midas touch when it comes to vast scraps of knowledge on all subjects, even arcane stuff like the way monkeys interact and socialize. Which takes a little longer to summarize.

But it’s not really such a big deal. Anyone could do it. If you’ve seen monkeys at all, cartoons, movies, you know what they do. Some of them drag their knuckles, or they have a lot of fur or a little fur, they scratch their heads like they’re perplexed, and they swing from tree to tree, with lots of arm strength if you factor in those arms are lifting the weight of their whole body. And so forth

According to what I heard, additionally, God created man by making them go through a kind of trial as monkeys first. It was brief in terms of cosmic history, something like a few hundred million years. As far as I can tell, it flew by because it was completely done by the time I was born. All these species of things, they spent all that time being born and dying with breeding in between. And absolutely nobody was keeping track of it. Which might be how we should live now. They let things happen as they needed to happen and no one gave it the least little attentioin. It was the best way to evolve then, and it still would be now if we only had the sense to ignore it. We frankly wouldn’t be missing much. If we're able to catch up on eons of time, we could completely ignore it again and catch up in millions of years, no problem.

I hate to lose that point, so let me put a finer point on it. If you have the good sense to ignore life for eons, think how much more interesting it’d be when you finally dug in. Monkeys were happy with that system. They started out as whatever, evolved into fish, and from there crawled on land and eventually starting monkeying around. There wasn’t one complaint in the bunch. There wasn’t one fish bitching about it, “I never liked that side of the family,” etc.

So in part that’s why I’m not too worried if this trio of monkeys gets eaten by the alligator. But if they get away that’d be fine too. They’d live to be eaten another day, same difference. The first monkey’s thinking, If I can shake these two I’ll be fine. The second’s thinking, If we can shake the guy behind me, we’ll be fine. The third monkey’s self-esteem has diminished substantially since the alligator’s got him by the tail. Tailbone connected to the hip bone, hip bone connected to everything else. Bye bye world!

My self-esteem is more fragile than that. But fortunately we’re people and are able to change people in and out quickly. Like a football game, some guy’s smeared on the field like a gooey paste, obliterated. Put a little cornmeal on it, vacuum him up, and you’re ready to go again. But look, I’m on my own here. At least the monkey and athlete had the promise of his buddies forgetting him immediately once they’re safe. If only I had that luxury, I’d be content.

Sick of Monkey, Taking Pills

Chapter 24 of 25 -- Head Hunters of the Amazon

The Crowning Folly

Up de Graff went through a lot but he still wasn't ready to go home. The spirit of the wilds had possession of him. Then he heard of a get-rich-quick scheme concerning the rubber trade, but the only crew he had left was Morse. And Morse was on his way out, leaving him with an Indian boy, Supaitranca. Still, his mind was made up, so they set off on the journey. He spent a few months wandering through swampy forests but didn't find the Indians he was seeking and very little rubber. Then the boy died of fever.

At that point Up de Graff had no living thing to keep him company, not even a parrot. It was a very lonely place. He walked through the forest, but all he saw was the same thing, forest and never-ending swamps. He lived like an animal from day to day and had a hard time finding enough food. My personal opinion, that would be terrible. No food, not even a parrot to keep me company with its meaningless chatter... "Rawk! Cannibals, I'd run if I were you!" Cannibals never eat parrots unless they're terribly hungry.

But he made it back to the town of Barranca, and in a few days Morse reappeared, having news of a "sure thing" concerning exploring. Up de Graff was skeptical, but Morse gave a glowing account of a possible cattle and cedar business in a particular place. He even had a bag of English gold which an Iquitos merchant had advanced him for the venture. This convinced Up de Graff. So off they went, confident of success. 

They had an Indian companion who fell ill of fever the first day, then he became weak and could do no work. They talked it over with him and he agreed to be put on a raft with provisions and to be shoved off toward Barranca. So he was gone.

A few more days and they were demoralized. Ahead was three long months of travel before they would reach a particular place on the river. They were depressed. Then as they happened to be looking out toward midstream they saw in amazement a young Indian girl, Breginia. They talked to her. She was alone. She decided to accompany them. And she was of great value to them, knowing the various dialects of the country, being a good lookout-person, etc. She even knew the arts of tracking and hunting animals, supplementing their dwindling food.

But as they went on at length, they were again out of food. They went on. Up de Graff got sick. But he was able to kill a monkey and eat it and take some Holloway's Vegetable Pills, which was restorative. As they were headed back toward civilization, Breginia departed, because there were guys ahead who would've enslaved her. Up de Graff recalled her fondly, that she saved their lives.

What do you think? Is this journey almost over? I'd say! The chances of finding another companion like Breginia weren't good. And Morse was gone again. And it was all wearing on Up de Graff. It's wearing on me and this is a 100+ years in the future. I'd be saying, "If I never see another drop of river water it'll be too soon! Monkey might be good for survival, but frankly it's making me sick. And Holloway's Vegetable Pills may make you feel better but ... Hmm, you're right, these really are good medicine! Pass me that box!

Monkey's Great Every Meal

Chapter 13 of 25 -- Head Hunters of the Amazon

Barranca

It was day much like this day, except in the distant past. They had sunshine, water, a world stretched out around them, and though it was the distant past it simultaneously felt like "today" in exactly the same way our day constitutes the present. Something of a head-scratcher, I know, but if you keep thinking of it like our own lives it makes more sense. They weren't back in time, they merely lived then...

There was a character named Don Juan Ramirez who was a wealthy dealer in rubber and slaves. He organized his business to suit the place and it really flourished, big-time, with 300 Indians working rubber for him in half-a-dozen rivers. He also had steamboats to take passengers where they wanted to go. Which brings us to Up de Graff's team, who were with him on the Marañon going to Barranca. They passed many interesting settlements with canoes darting out from the various hamlets, some to be seen, some not to be.

Traveling there sounds very monotonous except for the clearings, since there's very little relief from dense walls of trees stretching on and on. The Amazon system has some 50,000 miles of water navigable by river-steamers basically like theirs. On this journey they'd gone up-stream for 10 days, daily stopping to hunt the night's dinner and chop fuel. The principal quarry was monkey, in fact the main dish at every meal, served as soup, stew, or roast. Monkey steaks, monkey soup, monkey see, monkey do. Even though we might easily be nauseated were we to live wholly on deer, wild turkeys, or any other forest game, that most certainly does not apply to monkey. From big to little, small to large, hairy or picked clean, as long as it's statutorily legal, every monkey is universally outstanding and delicious no matter how many times you eat it.

On the tenth day they arrived at the last Cocama settlement on the Marañon. Joining them there were expedition members Morse, Iberico, with their new, big canoe, the Exploradora. While at the settlement they bartered some goods for food with the Cocama Indians, one good for you, one food for me, etc.

Up de Graff charmingly describes these people's clever, devious way of spearing river-seals. When one's been killed, since it's impossible to lift it over the sides of the canoe, the occupants -- usually a man and a woman really rock the boat -- getting out and flooding it till they can float the river-seal in. Then, holding the seal's nose and the bow of the canoe together, they force the craft ahead, the backwater evacuating from a specially constructed poop. Then they climb back in and make tracks for certain and for shore!

The steamer pushed up the river and made Barranca that same night, a fine time being had by all.

Yuge, Yumbo Problems

 

Chapter 6 (2nd part) of 25 -- Head Hunters of the Amazon

The Law of the Forest

Andrade told the Yumboa, a tribe of Indians, the easiest way to get to the mouth of the Yasuni River. But they were very shy about entering a place of ill repute and didn't want to go. Little by little, though, they were persuaded to accompany the expedition. So off they went, 'Yasuni River, Here We Come!' The name Yasuni means long river. It's also sluggish and deep, covered with deep verdure in places, so you feel like you're right in the heart of the forest.

Once there, the Indians enjoyed excellent hunting, getting lots of monkeys from at least 13 different species. Up de Graff even started a collection of monkey skulls that he pulled from the pot as they cooked. Wild turkeys were also numerous and tapirs were seen daily, so there was no shortage of good meat. There was also a lot of fish, including piranha. One was hooked and fell to the bottom of the boat, where thrashing around it made a wound like a miniature shark on Jack's feet. I can imagine the screaming and thrashing around if, say, the boat had tipped over, the churning of the water. Then total quiet except for some last sad gurgling. Fortunately, that didn't happen.   

Among the wildlife was also the anaconda, the largest snake in the world. They can grow up to 50 feet. While bathing one morning, Up de Graff felt something heave under him, which turned out to be an anaconda about 30 feet long. They killed it with a shot that cut it in two, near the head, then dragged it ashore. I myself saw a snake about that big in a missionary meeting when I was a kid. The strangest thing I ever saw in church, except for some of the ladies' hair.

On they went, day by day, deeper into the Unknown. One of their principal sports was hunting the masquisapa, the largest monkey, jet-black with white markings on its face and head, and a long prehensile tail like animated rope with five ends. These are good sport because you can never get a still shot. But the Indians are better at hunting them with various skills they've developed over time. 'Sit still, you big lummox, so I can get a decent shot!' Very uncooperative.

After a while the idea occurred to them to strike inland and build a permanent camp for the area. They left the boat bottom up and followed a long hunting trail. It was so far they were 18 hours from the canoe! They built two shelters, one for Jack and Up de Graff and the other for the Yumbos. But they got a fairly rude awakening in the morning, when they discovered the Yumbos had abandoned them!

It might be fitting to roll the slow motion collage of their time with the Yumbos, with a cloying instrumental of "The Way We Were." The caption at the bottom about them meeting is: "At first they seemed very shy of entering the place of evil repute." Hold it, stop the film. Yes, little by little, they persuaded them, extra pay, a promise of return if there was anything bad awaiting them, etc. And "finally" they consented to go! All page 65. Now a scant 10 pages later they've abandoned them. My verdict around 130 years later, you should've seen it coming.

Trash-Talking The Sun

I got on this kick against the sun a few years ago, after a friend and I were airing our grievances about life. He thought he was big and tough because he personally hated nearly everything, asparagus, broccoli, elephants, and pinochle. At that time I had a few of the ordinary grievances to match him -- decks of cards missing the jokers, squash, reruns, and anyone named Lipfshitz. There's something wrong there.

In terms of who hated stuff the most, it was fairly even. Till I pulled out the wildcard, which was, "Despite our many years of deep, warm friendship -- we've been there for each other through thick and thin, good times and bad, trouble and blessing -- I've come to a conclusion that I feel it's safe to announce -- to confess, if you will -- that I think YOU suck, and probably always have. We became 'friends,' of a sort. But there was always something about you that stuck in my craw. Now I've dislodged it and can tell you without further explanation or equivocation, that, as of this moment (and probably at some level for the whole time I've known you), I hate you." He took back his little stack of DVDs, he dropped off my pup tent, and that's been it. Giving me another reason to despise squash, because it's his favorite food -- his mom still makes her old recipe on his birthday, I've heard.

After I lost his friendship, you could say I spiraled out of control. Like a pinball in a pinball machine -- that's an accurate image -- I bounced from one thing to another, never able to settle on any one thing. With a hatred of life in general so vast, so profound, so definitely spelled out that even the sight-deprived could read it clearly. There were interventions, attempted, all of which I rejected, by then acting in complete spite, but digging my own ditch deeper and deeper yet, till I was so deep and alone all I could glimpse was sunlight itself. Showing nothing, illuminating nothing, except the walls of that trench, or ditch, if you will.

There in the ditch, trench, or pit -- it was sort of like the pictures you see from World War I, men in a ditch, trench, pit, or hole. Doing whatever. Well, guess what. Looking at the sunlight, I came to hate it too. It'd pass overhead quickly, but slowly enough that I could shake my fist and essentially tell it it had low marks in my book. I'd see it in the summer months more, in the winter months not as much. It started my thought processes to make sense of it. What's supposedly 'bigger and badder' than the sun?; we've all heard that. But it couldn't hold its own against winter?

Now I had something bigger to hate, the stinking sun. And I let it know. In no uncertain terms. Don't get on my bad side or you'll live to regret it. Everyday I had another complaint. "You're the almighty sun, but you can't dispel a few clouds on earth?" "You're the sun, but what? You feel like burning us to a crisp? Well, the bigger they are, the harder they fall. And you've got a day of judgment a'coming, and we'll deal with you!"

Just think it over. You could probably add your own jibes against the sun. Did it burn you when you were a kid, when you didn't know any better? I remember one of my cousins getting such a sunburn, it was terrible. Then he told his parents that he'd had his shirt on all day. They couldn't figure out what happened, since he never lied, they thought. But his butt wasn't burnt at all. So they thought the cloth on his shirts must have been at fault. So they made all of his clothes out of underpants and threw away the others. He never burnt again. They hated the sun because of all the trouble it put them through. And my cousin was no fan of underpants, so he also hated the sun.

Anyway, back to me in my trench or gutter, whetting my appetite for insults when I perceived the sun was nearly overhead: "Somehow you also give night and day on Pluto, a totally worthless task since scientists tell us the chances of life on Pluto are less than one in a million!" I gave it a left jab, a right hook, insults literally to beat the band, and I kept right on punching -- usually connecting, sometimes flailing and missing -- until the sun got the message: "You no good, buster," and after that it quit coming around (Good!), and I've found I still have all the light I need with light bulbs, candles, and my phone.

My Wife the Orangutan

NOTE: THIS IS AN IMAGINARY STORY FROM SOMEWHERE DEEP IN THE IMAGINARY GRANDMA SLUMP UNIVERSE. I DON'T REALLY HAVE AN ORANGUTAN FOR A WIFE. IT'S TOUGH TO GET ORANGUTANS. BUT I HAVE A FRIEND (TRICKY THE DEMON) WHO PUT THE THOUGHT IN MY MIND: "WHAT IF A MAN HAD AN ORANGUTAN FOR A WIFE?"

It was a dream come true. So many times I'd dreamed of having that one true love. Which then always eluded me. You know how dreams are, this becomes that; it's all inexplicable, and forms don't persist, and the normally imaginable is replaced by the utterly fantastic.

That happened one morning, in the last dream of the night, that I was in love with a huge orangutan. She and I were sharing a deep moment of eye contact. I hesitate to share my thoughts at that moment, but thank goodness I woke up or we might have prematurely erased the boundaries of propriety, absent marital vows. Crossing this boundary with an orangutan would be put me in a Huff Post story, destroying my life and opening me to the threats of bullies, and then stories about that.

The thought, though, wouldn't go away. Her size, the muscles, the tenderness of her fur, the depths of the eyes, even the quirkiness of her smeared-on lipstick. It's that desire for mature relations where there's still a hint of innocence that does something to you. It's true for the saint and the sinner, the witchdoctor as well as the man of medicine. They see it everyday and they're not turned on -- nothing they'll confess to, anyway, but flutter those eyes in a motel room, and pucker those tentative, quivering lips, and Katy, bar the door! Cigarette time.

I drove by the zoo -- must've been 800 times, thinking, Is this right? Neighborhood Watch noticed me after 100. I was trailed by cops every time after 300. I ran out of gas around 500 and was beat up by boy scouts. Some time between 798 and 800 -- I guess it was 799 -- I turned in.

I hustled myself to the orangutan exhibit, where our eyes met again and again. Must've been 800 times. The zookeepers noticed me after 100. I was monitored by the other orangutans every time after 300. I was exhausted around 500 and beat up by the aviary. Some time between 798 and 800 -- I guess it was 799 -- we fell in love.

It was only a matter of her downing a case of energy drink, washed down by a single pot of whole bean coffee, and a touch of Tabasco on the tongue, before she broke loose. We fled immediately to an ordained friend, an extremely traditional hidebound guy, outspoken in his opposition to any deviation from societal norms. So strict is he there's no plumbing the depths of it. He readily married us, me in my normal clothes, she nude except for a lampshade on her head as a veil. We said, "I do," and I carefully lifted the shade and beheld my bride.

We were understandably nervous about what would come next. I hesitate to write about something so tender. But we drove by the motel, must've been 800 times. Some kids sneaking in the pool noticed us after 100. A guy looking for handouts stood up every time we went by after 300. I stopped to check a tire around 500 and was beat up by a gang. Some time between 798 and 800 -- I guess it was 799 -- we checked in.

Then it was off to our room, which we went to directly the first time. I will let it fade to black, leaving aside the close to 800 times we consummated the marriage, and the other way stations it took us to get there -- the 100, 300, 500, 798 and 799. We didn't have time for all that, working as we did through the entire King Konga Sutra. Had I known orangutans were so tireless and persistently demanding -- Downtown's an entire city itself -- I might have found someone else, a goldfish or even a woman.

But the deed was done, and the marriage was real.

The story doesn't end there. I'm writing this account on the eve of our 85th anniversary. Yes, it's now the year 2099, and, yes, the zoo still drives by occasionally, looking for her. No one told me orangutans lived so extremely long. Or me, for that matter.

The Trouble With Cartoons

The main trouble with cartoons is they're not realistic. So I haven't got much time for them. People with four fingers, etc.

It hasn't always been that way, what I thought. When I was a kid, like most kids, even the stupid ones of today, I wanted to watch cartoons. Turn on the cartoons, I want to see them! But back then, cartoons were something special. They were on for a half hour in the afternoon, Saturday mornings of course, and maybe an hour on Sunday, if you were sick and didn't have to go to church.

Now, kids have cartoons all the time, to the point of being able to watch countless reruns on Netflix or DVDs. And they have outrageous cartoons, more outrageous than anything I remember, like some guy, I think his name is "Kick Buttinski" or Buttowski. If we even said the word butt, we were grounded for a week. So that's another thing, it's all pottymouth.

How many times do you have to watch a cartoon -- and I'm talking about people who actually think, not your average idiot -- to realize you're not watching something realistic? That's my big beef, remember. They're pounding each other with sledgehammers that somehow they've been able to hide behind their backs. They're running off cliffs without being permanent injured or killed. They dive in a hole like it's an Olympic swimming pool. They're running 100 mph down a hill with a repeating background. So you see the same tree go by a hundred times. It's ridiculous.

Look at the illustration I have. A bunch of monkeys riding a zebra. The zebra is running so fast that all four feet are off the ground, if it's not Super Zebra and he's flying. Yet the monkeys are not holding on for dear life. They seem to be very nonchalant about it, and this would be a perilous ride! The fourth one back is waving at someone, we don't even see who.

The last one's the one I'm really looking at. He's reading a book. It appears to be a book by a guy named Darwin, in which he hopes to find the instructions for how to become a realistic man and get off this mad zebra. As it is, he has an erect tail to rest his foot on, and whatever hopes a monkey in mid-evolution can muster.