Posts tagged ‘NYC’
her name’s chrissa. she loves it when anyone is watching any episode from the second season of smallville. she’ll stop whatever she’s doing and sniff around in a circle like she’s going to pee but she’s not going to pee because she’s housebroken and I housebroke her when she was only a few weeks old but not everyone understands that. some people get a little touchy and i can see that they’re a little uncomfortable with my little fucking dog doing that little fucking circle pee dance on their carpet.
Meet Jabari and Azizi from the Prospect Park Zoo. They are baboons. That big motherfucker sitting on the woods there? That’s Simen. If you look at him funny, he’ll come up and slam the glass and scare the living shit out of you. No kidding.
So back to Jabari and Azizi. They’re really cute. They’re extremely playful. And yeah, they’re half-brothers.
I take my three old son to the Zoo on a weekday. Good thing to do these types of things in New York City on a weekday because it’s crowded as all shit on the weekends. We love the baboon exhibit at the Prospect Park Zoo, because most of the times the keepers are late feeding the Sea Lions.
So there they were playing around with sticks and some of the carrots and kelp the zookeepers insist they love to eat. My son and I have seen this several times. Then Jabari and Azizi run down to the “lower platform” of the exhibit, which has a different viewing station. It takes us a couple minutes to get to that viewing station because it involves stairs and if you have a three year old, you know how long it takes to walk down five sets of stairs.
And then there they were with Simen the alpha fucking male looking on. My son asks, “Hey dad, what are they doing?” I replied, “Hold on dude, let me just take some pictures.” So one picture turned into like fifteen pictures and then 1) I started thinking what kind of freak am I and then wished I had a Nikon SLR with continuous mode and number 2) oh shit, what is my son thinking? Then I say something to him along the lines of, “It’s this thing the young ones do but hey, look at that bird over there!” At this point they’re using their hands on one another and then I try to press the shutter again like a complete freak again but my camera goes kaput.
Good thing we had the whole exhibit to ourselves. Or so I thought. I look up and I see the security guard at the top. I said to myself, “Great, I’m going to get arrested for this.” But when I looked closer, I noticed the guard’s eyes transfixed on what was going on between Azizi and Jabari. I wanted to tell the guard, “Does the press know about this?” But when she caught me looking at her, she quickly turned and walked the other way.
“is it real?” she asked.
“of course it is,” she said as she glanced at her friend’s thigh. she hadn’t seen anything like that in a long time. “i’ve seen it work with my own eyes.”
“really?” she said.
“put your hand in this bag. do it real slowly,” she instructed. “and when you’re about to scream, just hold onto my arm right there and everything will be alright.”
i woke up this morning and discovered i had become someone else. i’m not talking just about physical characteristics. i’m talking about certain talents like playing the acoustic guitar and cleaning out vacuum cleaners. it’s an amazing feeling to know that even though your life was never how you imagined it to be when you were younger, you still have some identifiable talents that your kids, inarticulate or not, could talk about to others in perhaps the same unremarkable situations you did during one of your many life experiences that made you so damn unremarkable. even when i wrote that, i had to read it a few times, and not because these new nails were in the way. it was because of these glasses. they share the same u.v. protection that the astronauts have. on one hand, they protect me from the sun but on the other, i can’t see shit out of them.
children in new york city evolve much faster than the rest of the population. and new york city girls, well, even quicker. sure, you can try to keep them safe but when everyone lives in a blender at a constant mix and pulse, sooner or later that innocent girl of yours that loves to play with carebears and watch ni hao kai-lan is going to see that real life kind of grime that is starkly different than jumping in puddles or playing with finger paint. and the thing with new york city grime is that it doesn’t just sit there on the corner or in the alley or on the subway. the fucking thing talks to you in all kinds of different voices but it always ends with, ‘come on and look at me and then when you’re done why don’t you give me a little touch.’ you can tell your child lots of times to ignore it but sooner or later, the city you are trying to prevent your child from swallowing all of a sudden swallows your child.
















