Recruiting Tip

Watch for Shaved Monkeys who love to drive in such a downpour that they could almost be operating a submarine on the road.  THEY ARE DEFINITELY OUR SORT.

Similarly, look for humans who love walking, playing sports and especially swimming in the rain.  GREAT RECRUITING MATERIAL! 

If they climb up out of the pool or lake, onto dry land, and hide because it's raining, KEEP MOVING.  Don't even waste your time.

THE WATER MIRROR

This remarkable story by Kai Meyer -- ISBN 0689877870 -- is one of the BEST recruiting manuals to come out in a long time.  Framed as a children's adventure/fantasy instead of a horror story -- FOR A CHANGE! -- we see a teenaged girl (ALWAYS prime recruiting material) leaving the orphanage where she's been living (EXCELLENT!  When we take her, nobody will miss her) to start an apprenticeship with a man who lives on the Canal of the Expelled in Venice (which means EASY ACCESS for any fish working to recruit her to our Cause).  They even have a great big well out behind the shop, which might as well have a sign hanging on it saying "DAMPFOLK AND LANDFISH WELCOME."  On the day the story begins, we see something that will enchant young, human, female readers -- hordes of Mermaids, gathered for some sort of boating festival -- but HORRIFY the fish reader, because the Mermaids are in captivity, forced to pull gondolas with their TEETH for pity's sake.  The protagonist even mentions casually, AS IF IT COULDN'T POSSIBLY MATTER TO ANYONE, that Mermaid tail is quite a delicacy. 

Now before everyone scatters in terror, let me remind you that Naked Apes see almost every other living thing in terms of how they can be EXPLOITED.  Believe it or not, ladies, Meyer uses this SICKENING PERVERSION OF THE MERMAID'S LIFE PURPOSE to enchant readers and make Mermaids seem, you know, BIDDABLE -- and, apparently, EDIBLE.  In the years since Mermaids transformed in the eyes of Shaved Monkeys from the seducers of lonely sailors to the entertainers of small children, they managed to COMPLETELY FORGET the drawing power of the species.  WE DREW THEM INTO THE SEA LIKE LEMMINGS WITH OUR MERMAIDS, DIDN'T WE?  But now, in these very different times, they are more of an advertising logo for seafood restaurants -- and, of course, Starbuck's: 

 

...But I digress.  Their drawing power is unchanged, but in the years since we phased out this type of operative for aquatic maneuvers, their target audience has shifted considerably.  The mermaids you see today in movies and advertising -- PALE COPIES OF THE REAL THING -- now attract little girls to the edge of the water, wishing they could be Mermaids themselves.  They imagine themselves basking in the sun on rocks by the beach, combing their hair and singing.  And that's about all.  Drunken sailors no longer enter into it.   Alas, the image of the Mermaid is so de-sexed and sanitized today that those little girls never realize that the life goal of every Mermaid is to DRAG THAT LONELY SAILOR BY HIS WEDDING TACKLE, BUBBLING AND SCREAMING, TO DAVEY JONES'S LOCKER, where he will dwell with us in wonder and glory forever. 

 

Kai Meyer even gives us a rendering of "The Little Mermaid" in this story, told by an operative with the painfully ironic name Eft.  To my astonishment, he pretty much got the story correct, unlike any previous human author of whom I am aware.  Read it and see for yourselves!  Eft also explains with great bitterness that mermaids living in the canals of Venice are doomed to die because the Shaved Monkeys have made the water so filthy.  SHE DOESN'T EXPLAIN WHY THEY STAY THERE.  She also doesn't reveal her own secret agenda -- she is clearly one of our operatives.  It's so obvious that only a human could miss it.

 

Something else Meyer got right:  Merle, the protagonist, is completely safe from the ferocious teeth of the Mermaids only because she is specially favored by what they call the Flowing Queen, their revered ancestor (AND OURS!)

 

And this:  The water in this story has special properties the average Naked Ape reader would be unfamiliar with. 

 

However:  None of those properties are anything like the ones water has in real life -- also unsuspected by the Naked Apes.

There is a great deal more to see in this story, but I won't ruin it for you by posting it all on the Internet.  Just read it -- copies will be provided at every chapter meeting this month.  Great for gift-giving if you know a young girl who wants transforming into a Skate or a Bream.  Great "tickler" reading for the newest, rawest recruits in elementary-school classrooms. 

Today's Inspirational Moment

Human Subject Successfully Marked For Secret Operation

I KNOW, I KNOW; it isn't all that secret if I post it on the Internet, is it now?

But here's the story anyway.  THE PART THAT'S NOT CLASSIFIED.  Lindsay Hasz was eating in a restaurant a couple of weeks ago and bit down on something that she thought might have broken her tooth.  The tooth was intact, and so was the unlikely object she'd bitten down on:  a fabulously rare, perfectly spherical PIECE OF GARBAGE EXTRACTED FROM A LONG-SUFFERING SALTWATER CLAM WHO FOUND RELIEF FROM HER PAIN ONLY IN DEATH.  Humans wear these revolting objects as jewelry and (as we know too well) even make a point of inflicting pain and irritation on our bivalve sisters in order to create more of them -- even though they end up flooding the market with these "cultured pearls" and end up reducing their supposed monetary value.

Why is it, ladies, that "cultured" so often means "revolting object that only a human would touch"?  Yogurt is a cultured product, made from milk stolen from a cow and infested with HUMAN INTESTINAL FLORA.  Then -- get this -- they EAT it.  A human's "cultured" slice of cheese is a fish's revolting chunk of rotten milk.  And "cultured" pearls?  A pearl is to a Conch or Quahog as a gallstone is to a human, but you don't see them collecting their gallstones and wearing them as bracelets.  And they sure wouldn't deliberately grow a gallstone.  BUT THEY MAKE OUR SISTERS GROW THEM, especially our Oyster operatives.  Thanks a bunch, Naked Apes.  Go eat a piece of cheese and LEAVE US ALONE.

One snippet of mercy:  So many of our Abalone sisters have committed suicide in protest at attempts to "culture" pearls inside their bodies that they have LEFT THEM ALONE to TEND TO THE BUSINESS OF ABALONES.  The Quahogs, like the unlucky operative who wore that pearl inside her for YEARS, were not so lucky.

Ah, but there's always a way to turn the tables, is there not?  This $600 find has MARKED Lindsay Hasz for a special operation THEY WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO DETECT, LET ALONE PUT A STOP TO.  Your chapter leaders will give you all the details at the next monthly meeting.

Algae Bloom Maneuver A Spectacular Success

I GUESS WE SHOWED THEM!

The numbers are still coming in -- the landscum do love to count up the damage we cause their little monkey plans, and I, FOR ONE, WANT TO THANK THEM FOR THAT -- but at last count, 23 million of our Salmon operatives, all confined to slave labor camps they call "fish farms," REMOVED THEMSELVES FROM THE HUMAN EQUATION rather suddenly the other week.  Remember the massive fish exodus from Ford Lake right here in Michigan a couple of years ago?  This was MORE OF THE SAME.  When presented with a "black capsule" in the form of a massive algae bloom, THE OPERATIVES TOOK THE OPTION EN MASSE, leaving the fish farmers with a great deal of not-very-fresh fish and a generous supply of weird pink water as shown above.  I was here at in my tank the Manoogian Mansion when it all went down, but I have reports coming in from Chilean operatives who could hardly contain their pride and grief at the massive return of our sisters to the Roiling Intestine of Dagon.  Good show, ladies. 

Clearly they have NOT GOTTEN THE MESSAGE:  we can GIVE, and we can TAKE AWAY, and there is NOTHING they can do about it.  At least it didn't happen here in the USA; all the attention would have been misplaced on who the farmers were planning to SUE and how much money they could squeeze out of their insurance agencies.  The point even the Chileans managed to miss is this:  whether they're dealing with farmed Salmon or the uncountable minions of the Red Algae Army, ALL OF IT IS TAKING ORDERS FROM US.

CRABS ON THE RAMPAGE

This fine volume by Guy N. Smith -- ISBN 0440200229 -- takes us back to England, where GIANT KILLER CRABS are attacking once again.  Driven up the mouths of rivers, then drawn ashore by forces nobody understands, they are PISSED AS HELL and NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE.  They're not just attacking an isolated seaside village in Scotland this time, either -- they're surrounding the whole island.  We have apparently learned in previous episodes (I am reading them out of order) that they are vulnerable only to paraquat and nuclear weapons.  The hero -- he always makes me smile because his name is Cliff -- advises against using either one because they MIGHT create a safety hazard to other life forms, especially sea life, and hey, Britain depends on its fish.  YOU BETTER REMEMBER THAT, TOO, BUDDY.  Meanwhile, the crabs angrily tear down bridges, sink boats, and rip cars and featherless bipeds apart, all the while (ick!) OOZING PUS.  WILL ANYONE SURVIVE?


>> Crab anatomy has taken a detour into crazyland in this novel.  A man confronting a crab comments on its "fetid breath."  Um, hello?  Crabs breathe through gills.  Another notices their teeth.  (Crabs have teeth?  Since when?)  A third reacts in revulsion as a crab presses its rubbery lips against his -- wait, what!?


>> It's the humans I want you to notice, ladies.  THEY NEED KILLING.  THEY WANT KILLING.  THEY MUST.  BE.  KILLED.  Crabs, like our Shark and Bone-Eating Snotflower sisters, eat the dreck left behind by other species, and since the human race is itself pretty drecky, the crabs naturally focus on them in this story.  SMITH GETS THAT MUCH RIGHT.  Witness the human child in this story who can't even get out of his parents' car without breaking a leg.  I can only sit back in satisfaction as he gets torn limb from (broken) limb.  The whole species is pathetic.


>> It never occurs to ANYONE in this book that the Crabs are so upset because YOU TASTE SO BAD.  The species (never named) in this story apparently has quite a wide range of facial expressions -- MUCH LIKE CRABS IN REAL LIFE! -- and they leer, sneer, cringe, snarl, and even get scared DESPITE THE FACT THAT THEY KNOW THEY ARE INDESTRUCTIBLE.  But why is there no revulsion for the horrid Hostess-Twinkie taste of a human carcass?  They even had a crab puke at one point in this story, and it didn't occur to anyone to ask WHY. 


YOU MAKE US SICK, THAT'S WHY.


This is one of those stories that reads one way to a human, and another, completely different way to a fish.  Take heart, ladies; THE FISH ARMY IS EVEN MORE INDESTRUCTIBLE THAN THEY THINK.

Reduction Of Dry Land Proceeding Ahead of Schedule

This is what ALL their sandcastles are going to look like soon.  As we, oh, I mean THEY melt down the polar icecaps and OUR TERRITORY gets LARGER AND LARGER, their homes -- 50% or more of which are built as close to the water as they can manage -- get WETTER AND WETTER, until they are going to be forced to do one thing they really hate: DECIDE whether to live on the land or enter the welcoming arms of the sea. 

Remember that old movie Waterworld?  The polar ice caps are gone, daddy, gone.  Dry land is now so rare that most humans in the story consider it a fairytale.  But where are the people living?  In the water, where they belong?  Oh, no; they live on boats and artificial islands.  The central character, a Gill Man who can live more easily in the sea than he can above the surface, lives on a sailboat in constant fear of discovery, and when they do find out he has gills, they sentence him to death without further discussion.  THAT'S HUMANITY FOR YOU.  AS UNAWARE OF WHAT'S GOING ON AS SEVEN BILLION STICKS OF BALSAWOOD.  THEY NEVER RECOGNIZE A GOOD ROLE MODEL WHEN THEY SEE ONE. 

Well, their turn is coming soon.  And if some Dennis Hopper character does turn out to be in charge of the biggest boat they have, well, THEY SORT OF DESERVE EACH OTHER, DON'T THEY?

I Don't Know What This Is, But I Like It!

Now that's what I call architecture. 

This Troubles Me...

...Honest to Bluefish, what goes on here?  What are these Shaved Monkeys even thinking about?  After someone on my Great Lakes staff alerted me to the existence of this bizarre item, I started looking into it further, and DEAR SCROD, THE THINGS I FOUND.  There's a snack mix made of these, added to some pink jellybeans, breakfast cereal and melted goo.  There are themed party ideas built around these crackers.  Adorable "plating" strategies for parents who want to get a kid to eat lunch by carving it into the shape of a Mermaid and serving it with a side of Princess Goldfish.  A straight-faced online discussion of whether shoppers should pass this item by on the grocery shelf because it might be SEXIST.

Sometimes, I think they must all be on drugs.  Sometimes, I think they're trying to do our work FOR us.  When I try to count up all the little girls they will start down the path to becoming real, live Goldfish by eating these crackers I CACKLE WITH GLEE.  (Yes, Virginia, Clarias batrachis can cackle with glee.)

And of course that's just the beginning.  Every child in America, plus most of the adults, snarfle up the more familiar ORANGE cheddar cheese Goldfish like there's no tomorrow.  There are those awful, flavorless CHOCOLATE ones.  The health-conscious can eat WHOLE GRAIN Goldfish -- another concept that makes my barbels tremble with hilarity.  Sci-fi freaks can nibble on SPACE ADVENTURES Goldfish -- apparently developed by the same team that brought you Sharknado 3 -- and for the daintiest among the Naked Apes there are BABY Goldfish crackers.  You can get MULTICOLORED Goldfish crackers if you're bored with the orange kind.  And the dairy-intolerant can still enjoy ORIGINAL Goldfish crackers. 

What say you?  You never eat crackers?  You always skip the soup in favor of a sandwich?  Pepperidge Farm's still got you covered:

EAT UP, featherless bipeds!  Keep thinking about, shopping for and eating Goldfish in all their wonderful forms!  We'll be waiting for you when you reach the inevitable outcome!