9-3-01, Danny McBride, 826 words

Dateline New York City (Associated Press)- -“Saying he wanted to be ‘at one with the monkeys’, a man stripped down to his boxer shorts, scaled a high fence and jumped into the Bronx Zoo’s gorilla exhibit, police said Wednesday.”

Meanwhile, saying she wanted to be at one with the Monkees, a 32-year-old woman stripped down to her underwear and jumped on stage with Mickey Dolenz.  No wait.  Not true.  At least I don’t think so.

But a 32-year-old man did recently jump into the “Congo Gorilla Forest” exhibit, one of the Bronx Zoo’s most popular attractions.  Several zoo visitors watched as he took off his clothes and climbed the 20-foot wall.  No mention was made as to whether he was cheered on with what would obviously have been a Bronx cheer.

It seems the gorillas were unimpressed and retreated to their feeding area, as it was 11:00 AM, and near enough to lunch time.

“Hey, Ape.  Whaddaya make of the unhairy one heading this way?”

“I dunno, Mighty Joe.  Just a guy gone bananas.  Let’s go eat.”

The 6.5 acre exhibit, opened in 1999, is home to the largest group of lowland gorillas in the United States.  The gorillas live in a natural rain forest environment which is also home to the colobus monkey, the grey-cheeked hornbill, the African rock python, the African pygmy goose and the mandrill, among others.  I know- -you thought the mandrills lived in Nashville.  Those are actually Mandrells-- Barbara, Louise and Irlene.

The Congo Gorilla Forest has recreated all kinds of habitat for the animals such as eleven waterfalls, four ponds and four streams.  There are 15, 000 plants of nearly 400 species, over 45, 000 square feet of sculpted rock and over ten miles of vines.  More than 300 animals of 75 species live here, including two family groups of lowland gorillas—19 adults and 3 youngsters- -one of the largest breeding groups in North America.  Artisans at the Bronx Zoo have created the Great Gorilla Forest, the Mandrill Forest, the Opkapi Jungle and, of course, the Congo Gift Shop.

The whole project is aimed at preserving the rainforest and the habitat of all these animals and plants, and educating the public about the realities facing their survival.  Money raised by the zoo exhibit is donated to help conservation efforts in the Congo.

My first encounter with a large hairy primate was my Junior High School gym teacher.  He spoke in grunts and groans, walked on his knuckles and had one long eyebrow across his entire forehead. 

“Throw ball.  Run.  Kick.  Tackle.  Mmm…Good.”

“Hey, coach, take a shower.”

My next encounter with a large hairy primate was at a Saturday matinée re-release of King Kong (this was before videos, kids).   All I probably knew about gorilla behavior was based on that movie for a long time.  And what we knew then about the rainforest came from the Andrew Sisters’ (with Danny Kaye) 1947 politically incorrect hit “Civilization”, which everybody calls by the first lines “Bingo Bango Bongo I don’t want to leave the Congo, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no!”  Yeah, that was sensitive.  But a hit.  Bing Crosby did it.  So did Louis Prima.  Many others as well.  I wonder if our wall-climbing Gorilla-Boy knows this one.  Of course the Congo in those days was a colonial province of Belgium, but they gave up after about a 50-year run, from the 1880s to 1960.  In 1959, the new Belgian king Boudewijin announced that the colonies would become independent, and bingo bango bongo the Belgians left the congo, it was time to go home.

Then Dian Fossey, the California native who spent 22 years studying the mountain gorilla, made all that look really silly.  Her 1983 book, Gorillas In The Mist, and the subsequent movie with Sigourney Weaver, changed everything.  Nowadays the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund works to preserve the fewer than 650 mountain gorillas still living in the wild.  We now know these are, in the words of Sir Arthur C Clarke quoted on their website, our “harmless, gentle cousins”.

So what about Monkey-Boy?  He was only inside the exhibit for about 15 minutes.  As the police took him away he was quoted as saying “I want to be at one with the monkeys” so they took him straight to a psychiatric hospital for an evaluation.  Enough monkey shines. The AP story doesn’t say how they got the guy out of the gorilla exhibit but I suppose they coaxed him out with some bananas. 

Hard to believe someone would want to become a part of a zoo exhibit.  I have trouble in the kiddie petting zoo with the baby goats and lambs. 

Okay, enough about all this monkey business.  The guy got his 15 minutes of monkey fame.  I gotta go get ready to go out.  I’m having dinner with the gorilla my dreams.

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