From The Jungle: Monkeyshines, Shenanigans, and Primitive Opinions (2nd edition)

By j guevara

Share the wit and wisdom of j guevara's jungle primates, The Motley Crew, and learn the meaning of lesser intelligence; for if their is a missing link, it must be you and I. As Papa Joe, the leader of the Motley Crew, reminds us, "Fo all you's intelligence never forget it was a monkey, not a man, that was first in space."

• Language: English
• Publisher: j guevara
• Release date: Jan 26, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452340692

j guevara

j guevara (lower case'j' and 'g') musician/storyteller/soul food chef.Global citizen and incurable peregrinatorHave pen – Will travel.Last known address, 24n82wwebsite coming soon

Book preview

Introduction

Most times I didn’t believe it myself. I even questioned if jungle solitude had adversely affected my mind. But when I counted the missing beers and the misplaced rum, and looked at the mess that was left after every visit, I knew I’d been blessed by Nature’s best. My Jungle friends – that gang of monkeys with their toucan and python I call the Motley Crew – are just that, and a rare breed they are. Not since Man has climbed down from the trees has a man been more privileged to share the wit and insight of those still so close to the source. They have shown me the meaning of ‘lesser’ intelligence, and if there is a missing link, it must be you and I.

Many will say I had an illusion, for nothing in the jungle speaks to man, it’s just animals, birds, bugs, and trees. I understand their query; though I no longer share their doubt. The defining line here is truth, which is unique in everyone who cares to see. Thus, the various separate truths that abide in each one of us is what makes we different from me. Defined truth, however, the one we readily share, is but an agreed reality, which makes reality nothing more than a collective vent. Therefore, truth is not important in the question of, ‘To be or not to be’. For in truth what you will find is that only…

Imagination …shall set you free

The Woes of Women…

One day I decided to write down all the great ideas and insights jungle tranquility allows me to come up with. Mentioning this project to my friends, three of them fell out of their tree laughing, Durante the toucan beat his bill on the ground, and Fred the python curled up in hysteria – remind me to get a better class of friends. It was their opinion that the only great thought I ever came up with was the design on that special cooler to keep the beer cold.

Forget these tree swingin', beak headed, belly crawling naysayers. I'm up to the challenge. To begin, a special topic was needed, one that would grab anyone's attention. Some would immediately say, Sex! I was thinking, Women. I can already hear the reprobates saying, What's the difference? Nevertheless, 'Women' is a subject we men need to take a lot more to heart.

Look around guys, and hang your heads in shame. The treatment and condition of the female half of our species, the half that gives us life, wipes our behinds and nurses us to health, is deplorable. A quick global survey is enough to see that women are the niggers, the untouchables, the kafirs of the world.

The medieval church debated whether woman had a soul, while today's fundamentalists debate whether women even have a life. Progress has not been forthcoming; especially when in most parts of the world we are still contending with the accepted belief that educating your daughter is like watering your neighbor's garden.

In many countries women have been so downtrodden for so many centuries that the spark of liberation has nothing to kindle; an era when Goddess's were revered, where authority was shared, is not even a genetic memory.

When nations wastes half of the mental, emotional, and spiritual capacity of its population simply because they are women, little wonder it is called ‘Third World’. The vile, chauvinistic treacheries that man-men-males perpetrate on women stagger the thinking mind. From 13-year old Romanian gypsy wives denied education and the most basic human dignities, then literally chastened with no relief to a life of tub and scrub, to Sudanese girls whom after their first menstrual cycle have their vaginas sewn closed, not to mention, clitoridectomy, vaginal mutilation, beatings, disfiguring, and immolations that frequently occur to this day.

In Saudi Arabia and a few other oil-rich Bedouin sheikdoms, women by law have no birth certificate and traditionally are buried in unmarked graves, as though they never existed. Therefore, whatever happens to them in between, including being murdered is of no consequence – persona non grada. In Jordan a brother shot his sister in the head three times. Her offense? She was raped. He served five days in jail while the investigation found by Islamic custom it was a justifiable 'honor killing’.

Granted, Arabic and Islamic cultures should not be confused; many Arabs are appalled at the stranglehold fanaticism has on the Middle East. Still, it's enough to make you want to run your car on gasohol, corn oil, or even peanut butter rather than support such insane ignorance.

Much of the problem can be attributed to the male complex over sexuality. Men generally know the virility contained in the power of sex, and through dominance sees to it that women are deprived of such experience. His stamina during the sex act is a joke compared to that of women; yet, men, not women procure harems. In age, his prowess dissipates years before that of the women, but thanks to the eunuch standing guard – be he real or symbolic – male masculinity is defended at the cost of female frustration. The chastity inflicted, cultural and physical, is a mutilation of body and mind. And so well indoctrinated are these tortures that sadly perpetration is most often insisted upon and performed by women.

Every man knows in the dark recesses of his mind which is the weaker sex, and that to allow women free sexual expression would be to lift that veil of deception, thereby turning the world overnight into what men most fear: the castration of Goddess worship.

As more women enter the male dominated field of archaeology, they bring with them their unique perspective. In so doing we are rediscovering that the figurine is holding a sewing needle, not a sword, that it was woman, not man, that first learned how to swim so as to protect her young. Moreover, by having to burden the load, it was woman who first saw the practicality not in the invention of the wheel, but in the application of the axle. And why do we assume that it was brutish cave man, not domicile cave woman who were the interior decorators that left the wall paintings found in the caverns of Spain and France?

If prehistoric figurines are any indication, Woman has long been honored as the nurturer of life. The male phallus and semen represent the creator, but the exaggerated female breasts represented life's sustenance. These depictions are found on cave walls, carvings and pottery dating as far back as 60,000BCE, on up through Minoan Crete and ancient Greece. Early civilizations show a high degree of adoration for woman in their artistic appreciation of proportion, beauty, and grace exemplified in the statuary of their Goddesses. By today's standards, such reverence would be bordering obsession. For which I plead guilty.

From Paleolithic times, the women of Central and Eastern Europe were the first to make tools, plant herbs, sow grain, herd livestock, weave, throw pots, and write, plus a lot of other things we fail to attribute to Man's early appreciation of the Goddess figure. But the fierceness and vengeance of the male God Jehovah/Yahweh (same guy depending on if you're Hebrew or Gentile) put a stop to it all. Later, as these prehistoric inventions filtered into the Fertile Crescent the men of Mesopotamia quickly laid claim, as though it was man, not woman that rocked the cradle of civilization.

With the dominance of a male deity no longer willing to share the yin/yang influence over the progress of mankind, one by one through Egypt, Greece, Persia and Rome, our social evolutionary trajectory was high jacked as Goddess's were desecrated and abandoned. Lost in legend, their inspiration waned, ever to remain …shadows in the mist of Avalon.

The male attitude toward women parallels the worship of his deities. When Goddesses were around sex was good clean fun, the most natural thing in the world. That's when Isis, Aphrodite, and Venus called the shots – gals that new what it meant to have a good time. Once Moses descended with the wrath of his macho God, however, and male dominance took over in his image, nothing was the same. Zeus raped Athena, Neptune kidnapped her daughter, Oedipus did the unthinkable, and women have been battered ever since. Power over beauty; the Elite's might makes right.

From the early editing of Babylonia's biblical scholars, around 1500BCE, to Israel's rabbis who reedited them around 400BCE, to Peter and his apostolic succession, Constantine's ecuMenical council, a string of pious inquisition Popes, and leaders of reformations from Martin Luther to Calvin Klein – all men in case you're keeping score – have had to periodically edit and reedit scripture, the so-called word of God, to assure this dogmatic continuation.

So pervasive is this psyche it permeates our language to the point that we cannot think in any other terms. Try communicating without using terms of male-gender dominance and see what a bitch it is. Goddesses are idolatry; God is theism. Nature spirits of Mother Earth are occult paganism; Angels in our father's heaven are God's little helpers. Women healers are witches; men healers are physicians. The male solar calendar replaced the phases of the female moon. Breadwinner took command over bread maker. Guynecology, Histerectomy, Pap smear, Menstrual cycle to Menopause, and we ask why women are Histerical?

Though it had been deteriorating for some time, it was not until the height of the Roman Empire that this love affair with woman underwent its final breakdown. Not even the indulgence of Egypt's God-incarnate Pharaohs surpassed decadent Roman obscenity. Where Greeks, with erotic adoration and affection, made love in a garden, Romans took pleasure in a palace orgy. Where men and women of Athens competed au natural in Olympic games, Romans cheered ten-horse chariot races, gladiator slaughter, and feeding the defenseless to lions. Women were of no regard. Men were the vehicles for the power of carnage, the strength to expand their soulless Empire, which has continued unabated to this day.

Furthering this desecration to the female templar, contrary to what Jesus and Mohammad taught, medieval evangelists, both Christian and Moslem, preached that women were the direct cause of Man's problems, a haven of carnal desire and demonic temptation that kept men from knowing God. Woman was the personification of Satan incarnate, living off the weakness of male flesh. So, before some innocent, unsuspecting, puritan male gets an erection he can't handle, get out the chastity belts, black robes and veils, and drape those witches from head to toe.

What would this world be for both sexes if all were allowed complete personal freedom, sexually and otherwise? What would it take to transcend both sisterhood and brotherhood, to form a society of Humanhood; a society that could begin the long-overdue process of healing this planet? Male as dominator naively presumes if society is not patriarchal it must be matriarchal; if you do not dominate, you will be dominated. This is preposterous, a transference of his own psyche. The female yin factor, provided it is allowed to flow un-tethered, could not dominate if it wanted to. It is beyond her nurturing nature. To continue with this suppression shows in the words of Mark Twain, 'Man's a fool.' But to continue putting up with it, 'Woman's a damn fool.'

This suppression, however, has not gone on without a price. There is a particular masculinity, a part of male nature, an innate manliness that transcends culture. Although it's an integral part of men's nature, it has nothing to do with machismo or any of the other ego-testicle euphemisms. Men recognize it in each other whether they admit it or not. Surely, women have their counterpart, though I'm not equipped to say.

In any given culture, this innate masculinity declines in proportion to the degree in which its women are subjugated. In other words, when feminism is suppressed, and the male influence is allowed to run rough shod, with no restraint to its authority, masculinity atrophies. For the naysayers I have but one word…

Viagra.

That Stuff Ain't Funny...

My Motley's swung, flew, and crawled on over, making themselves at home as they usually do. With the mess they leave it's a bit of a bother when they up all at the same time. There had to be something on their minds. While BT put on a pot of coffee, Maloney, the leader, directed the rest to raid my best stalk of bananas before settling down around the table to discuss to what I owed the pleasure of their company.

Due to the volume of my solar-powered, surround-sound system, it seems we share the only worldly entertainment in this part of the jungle; my short-wave radio. And, it’s bummin' out everyone – howlers, panthers, parrots, pythons, the whole menagerie. So they wanted a little input for my next, 'From The Jungle', and I find their request fair. They asked me to tell people what's wrong with short-wave entertainment.

It is their simian opinion that short-wave is boring, dull, dreary, gloom-n-doom. From the Arctic to Zanzibar, there's not a legit laugh to be found. The programs that are funny are only so until you realize they're actually serious.

The talk shows are the worst. One host opens with a monotonous monolog of mindless rant he brags is without notes. I explained to my friends that that's called ad libing, talking off the top of your head, but they said it sounded more like he's talkin' out his ass. Monkeys don't monkey around when it comes to criticism.

Limbaugh, they concur, is no rush in the bipolar brain cell department, and that he should try sleeping on that magnetic mattress another program advertises. It's obvious why Hangover Haga, the ex-lawyer turned born-again raptured economist, no longer practices law. His low-drone, monotone is enough to put a truck stop with a ten-cent amphetamine dispenser to sleep. Imagine what he would do to a jury.

Though Johnny Lightning's Extravaganzoo draws the most intelligent callers, considering the competition I wouldn't be too quick to gloat.

Each program's audience has a distinct personality that good manners forbid me to describe. One thing they do have in common, which boggles the greatest minds of social science, is the way they defy all laws of statistics by proving that everyone can be below average.

When it comes to Holy Scripture, these on-call know-it-alls can interpret both Testaments better than any rabbi dead or alive, and can put more words in the mouth of Moses than Mammon did on the mount.

But the height of their Biblical transgression is only surpassed by the depth of their expertise in jurisprudence. Clarence Darrow wouldn't make a paralegal next to these legal eagles. What our armchair arbitrators cannot advise, the Supreme Court could not refuse to hear. From protecting your property rights with 'that thar allodial title', to 'dealin' with the polees' hauling your butt off to jail in violation of your Second Amendment right that says you don't need a permit to carry that concealed Uzi, AK47, bazooka, grenade launcher, landmines, and 50,000 rounds of ammo in the back seat of your car.

What these gun-rack experts know