Chimp Crazy

Tuesday night I attended the HBO premiere of CHIMP CRAZY directed by Eric Goode.

I was struck in this film by how these chimp lovers desire the love of the chimps to satisfy an emptiness in their lives, while oblivious to the pain of their loved ones. Strangely their providers are also trapped in life, living in the same prison as correctional guards, all of them eating the same food they feed their charges. Fast food, as if this consumption might evolve to a more homo sapiens state, as has mankind thanks to the genetic modification of our world.

Back in the 1970s a college schoolmate had a chimp catptive in his basement. My good friend Neil and I went over to see Stevie's pet. Both of us were shocked to see a grown chimp chained to the basement wall. Lunging at Stevie in vain attempts to kill his captor. Stevie finally freed the chimp to the Franklin Park Zoo. I still see his eyes wide-open in rage.

But as wicked as is the incarceration the film still showed the blindness of the love and there hurt after PETA rescues the last seven primates from Missouri Primate Foundation, an ape mill in Festus, Missouri. All other apes have been moved from the facility after its losing its permit. Acting pursuant to a court order, PETA this week removed all six of the remaining chimpanzees held at the former Missouri Primate Foundation (MPF) breeding compound in Festus, and they are now living at a Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries–accredited sanctuary.

The film touches on humor, outrage, and the realization that thousands of apes are prisoners all over the world. I remember Pattycake, the caged gorilla in the Central Park Zoo, who had been the zoo's major attraction since her birth in 1972. Trapped without a twig of green in their enclosure. Nothing sadder than their eyes meeting yours.

CHIMP CRAZY doesn't beat up on the owner or the care-giver. As stated in the film chimps are 94% human according to modern science. This episode suggests that chimps are more human than homo sapiens and people love them for our loss of humanity. If only they could be free, but they are trapped as are we by Man's belief of superiority over other species and even our own.

Eric Goode has been involved in saving threatened animals around the world and I applaud this film for once more filming the shadowy world of wildlife trafficking.

Bravo.

ps Patty Cake was freed from Central Park to the Bronx Zoo's Congo Gorilla Forest in 1982, where she gave birth to ten babies. Not free ever.

AUGUST 17, 1978 - JOURNAL ENTRY - EAST VILLAGE

The coke deal falls apart. What else is new?

Mark was too greedy and put another $300 atop the $2200. His friend Arthur, rightfully balked at paying so much, even though I hadn't stepped on the blow. The entire venture reminded me of why I never got into dealing.

Friends are fools and their thinking is dominated by greed.

My previous attempts were a sale of 300 hit of LSD, Five pounds of reefer, and a thousand Reds, which I sold too cheaply. Better to deal with stranger than friends.

I'm at the Central park Zoo. Pattycake, the six-year old gorilla, ceaselessly prowls his cell. The bar prevent his escape, but not abuses from the public, who throw food and worst at the captive Great Ape. At one point the zoo had imprisoned Pattycake next to the lions' den. The savage felines eyed her with with desire and not a single New Yorker was Tarzan coming to her rescue.

Pattycake has stopped her sad pacing. She gawks at her senseless audience. Eyes misty with tears and her face displaying a noble dignity despite her solitary confinement. None of the humans recognize that Pattycake's fate is shared by hundreds of thousands of their own race incarcerated behind bars. Many of them also serve time alone, never to touch another living creature. Man is so cruel.

Man is most cruel to his own.

General Haig ordered thousands of British soldiers to their death of the first days of the Battle of the Somme in 1916. 60,000 dead and wounded in 16 minutes earned Haig the nickname 'Butcher'. That is the brutality of Man versus the beauty of the beast and the beast has never killed on our level.

Pattycake was released from the Central Park Zoo in 1982.

She joined a small troop of silverbacks at the Bronx Zoo, which provided a large space for the Apes. Her children were taken from her and sent various zoos across the USA. She died in 2013, a year after her mother, Lulu. Wildlife Conservation Society claimed Pattycake exceeded the median life span of 37 years for female zoo gorillas.

Gorillas in Africa can live to fifty. All of it free.