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To The Chimp Cave!

By John Saleeby
January 1 , 2011

The Number One Cultural Event of 2010 (Rivaled only by Brenda Song's appearance in "The Social Network") was the sudden discovery of my old Comic Book collection in a storage space somewhere in the Southeastern United States. The greatest Archeological find since Kevin Bacon dug up his X-Ray Specs in the living room couch!* My Mom broke the news of this occasion to me and I was so excited I lifted my face up from the bath towel soaked in gasoline long enough to inquire "Ffffhhh uuuurrrrfffff durrrr?" (I often quote Shakespeare in times of great adulation).

* I have no idea what that means. But I wrote it and I like it and it STAYS!!!

So here I am, a Comic Book Collector again! And, yes, I know the First Law of Comic Book Collecting - All of your Comics must be safely wrapped up in a nice clean plastic bag to protect it from a lot of stuff I refuse to believe actually exists but the Pussies insist that we all live in fear of. But now that I am a Comic Book Collector I have to be more serious about things so all of my Comic Books are safe and sound in plastic bags. Four of them. I got them at the Check Out in the Super market and stuffed all of my Comic Books inside until they broke open and I kicked the whole mess under the table.

And they can stay under the table cause now that I'm a Fifty Year Old Crank those Comic Books bore my ass off! Like my old favorite "Our Army At War" with Sgt. Rock - The only interesting thing about that Comic Book is the recurring theme in the covers where Rock is made to look some kind of a SISSY so you immediately have to read the whole Comic just to make sure that Our Tough Guy Hero is still A Tough Guy Hero. Stuff like Rock in a ballet leotard and Nazi Stormtroopers jeering "Ha ha! Look at the Amerikaner Sergeant! Can he dance THE BLACK SWAN!!! Ha ha ha!!!" so you tear the Comic open to find out that Rock doesn't really turn into a ballerina he just . . . Aw, what does it matter, he kills a lot of Nazis and we get to look at cool pictures of tanks getting blown up - If they have to put pictures of Sgt. Rock belting out Judy Garland standards in a piano bar full of Nazi Brownshirts on the cover to make a buck that's just the way it has to be. But this is some serious Insecurity we are talking about! Maybe Rock should spend a few weeks in the same place Lindsey Lohan is locked up in. Don't worry Lindsey! Another six weeks and you'll be haggard enough to Star in "The Natalie Holloway Story"!

And speaking of men in tights, where did all these Superman Comic Books come from? I never liked Superman at all but there are tons and tons of Superman Comic Books in my collection. I don't remember buying them, I don't remember reading them, all I can say is "Where did all these Superman Comic Books come from?" I can only surmise that I bought them out of some stupid sense of obligation - If you are going to go to the store and buy a bunch of Comic Books you just HAD to pick up one or two Superman Comic Books while you are at it. Hey, it's SUPERMAN!!! Just like when I was a Teenager in the Seventies - If you were going to the store and buy a bunch of Rock And Roll Records you just HAD to pick up one or two solo albums by former members of The Beatles while you were at it. Hey, it's THE BEATLES!!! You just wait until the Eighties to get into The Clash like all the other Squares! Good thing my Dad had all my Rock And Roll Records fed to a Fifty Foot Possum in some Midnight Ritual involving flaming crosses and dudes to White Hoods - If I ever find myself face to face with "Band On The Run" it will be my turn to spend thirty five years in a storage space somewhere in the Southeastern United States. Is that where Lindsey Lohan's at these days?

So there I was with Comic Books scattered all over my apartment and I had to go around looking underneath them to find the DVDs scattered all over the apartment. And I was naked because going around looking underneath the Comic Books and underneath the DVDs to find the laundry scattered all over the apartment was too big a pain in the neck. Whenever I had to go outside I'd put on a Leisure Suit I made out of some stapled together issues of "Jughead Jokes". But Comic Books? Strictly KID STUFF!!

But then I had one of those moments of "Heightened Awareness" you read about in articles written by dopes who are so impressed with JFK nailing Marilyn Monroe they never wonder why the gimpy bastard didn't make it with Elizabeth Taylor. Actually it was only a moment of "Awareness" but I was standing on a chair changing the light bulb in a ceiling fixture so I was kind of "Heightened", right? Anyway, I looked down at the floor and I saw an issue of "Tarzan - Lord Of The Jungle" that I had no memory of at all! My hair just didn't stand up, it stood up and it pulled it's shorts out of it's ass. Within seconds the Comic Book was in my hands as I took in every detail of the cover - "EXCITING STORIES"! such as "CONGO BILL" with a preview frame of a guy about to get RUN OVER by a couple of ELEPHANTS! Whoa! Did that ever happen to him Sgt. Rock? I don't remember him ever throwing hand grenades at a couple of elephants wearing Gestapo hats and with Swastikas painted on their sides. Good thing Hitler never thought of that! I definitely had me some "CONGO BILL" Comic Book action in my Future! But then I saw the picture promoting the other EXCITING STORY and forgot all about "CONGO BILL" and his pachyderm posse (Still haven't read his Comic, I've been too busy with what I am going to write about as soon as I finish this stupid sentence) - "JUNGLE DETECTIVE" with a picture of a CHIMPANZEE wearing a SHERLOCK HOLMES CAP throwing books and papers all over the place while a bemused old white guy looks on all "Jungle Detective! What am I going to do with you?" like.

TIME and SPACE came to an immediate halt (It might have been because that ceiling fixture fell on my head, though)

I don't know if you can tell this from reading Acid Logic, but if there is one thing Wil Forbis - The guy who edits this mess - and I can agree on it is that Monkeys are THE BEST. We like Monkeys so much that if you don't spell "Monkeys" with a great big capital "M" we take the shitty articles you submit to Acid Logic and sell them to gay biker porno mags to pay for Monkey Food shipments to Eastern European Orphanages. We're Charitable, we're Monkey Motherfuckers. Acid Logic would be a very profitable Business if we put as much time and effort into it as we do on Emails like "Hey! Did you see that Spider Monkey in that Dean Martin Movie on TCM las night? He was ROCKIN'!!!" "No, I did not see that. Did you see that Gorilla in that episode of 'The A Team' on Centric this morning? He had BRANDO LIKE HYPNOTIC POWERS!!" "That was no Gorilla you, Dumb Ass, that was Mister T IN A GORILLA SUIT!!!" "IT WAS NOT!!!" "IT WAS,TOO!!!" "WELL, FUCK YOU!!!" "NO, FUCK YOU!!!!" and back and forth like that until we remember that it's time for a new issue and I do whatever the hell I'm doing right now. All I know is I wake up with a lot of scribbling all over the margins of whatever Tom Clancy paperback my Dad gave me to read the last time I went over to see him and a really bad smell in my apartment. Hhhhmmm, what should I take care of first? Editing the scribbling in the margins of the paperback or getting rid of the bad smell?

Anyway, I opened up "Tarzan-Lord Of The Jungle" #231 June-July 1974 to page 82, found "The Return Of The Detective Chimp" and it was The Beginning Of A New Life For The Bad Smell In My Apartment. Why didn't I lose my Mind over "The Return Of The Detective Chimp" in 1974 when I was thirteen years old? I can only guess that I was already so out of my Mind at age thirteen that I had already misplaced it. Probably under my bed next to that copy of LIFE with that picture of all those girls running around on the beach in those bikinis. But then, I knew about Alice Cooper when I was thirteen and I never really lost my Mind over "No More Mister Nice Guy" until a few years later so maybe I was just a dumb ass. I blame the bikinis! Am I comparing Alice Cooper to Bobo The Detective Chimp? Sure! Why not! Alice Cooper can take a joke and if Bobo can't it will be funny to watch him throw a tantrum.

I probably didn't appreciate Bobo The Detective Chimp when I was a kid because it was too advanced for my adolescent tastes. But now that I am Fifty Years Old and I have read hundreds of books, traveled around the Globe, and made eye contact with maybe two or three Women I have finally attained the kind of experience, wisdom, and sophistication to appreciate a Comic Book about a Chimpanzee that wears a Sherlock Holmes Cap and solves Murder Mysteries without wearing pants. I mean, Bobo doesn't wear pants. I wear pants but they're made out of old "Jughead Jokes" Comic Books.

Which only demonstrates what an endless supply of Thrills, Chills, and Spills this Pop Culture stuff is for those of us who are dumb enough to throw away our Lives on the shit. Just like Alice Cooper came along when everybody was getting sick of The Beatles and The Stones here comes Bobo The Detective Chimp now that I'm fed up with Sgt. Rock and Superman! And just like I got into The Ramones and The Sex Pistols once Alice Cooper turned into Barry Manilow I have no doubt that once I've had enough of Bobo I'll find some other old Comic Book I never noticed before like, uh . . . Captain Cabbage and Tommy Tentacles, The Teenage Squid Kid. Or something. Say, what's that underneath that pile of "Dennis The Menace" Comic Books? Can it be? Yes! It is!!! IT'S THAT COPY OF LIFE WITH THAT PICTURE OF ALL THOSE GIRLS RUNNING AROUND ON THE BEACH IN THOSE BIKINIS!!!! MUSIC : "Some Enchanted Evening"


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John Saleeby wrote for The National Lampoon while he was in high school, was a stand up comic in New York, and has contributed to the net humor zines Schmuck.com, Campaign Central, and the legendary American Jerk. He's on medication now so he's probably a little nicer now than he was when you met him earlier.
Email - jacksaleeby1@hotmail.com