I Don't Know How To Feel About This...

Joan Higgins has been put on tether, fined a thousand pounds and generally MESSED OVER for selling a Goldfish to a 14-year-old boy without asking his age or providing care instructions.  She was also charged with pain and suffering to a Cockatiel who had to be put down.  But of course we're focusing here on the operative who never got the chance to OBSERVE what was going on in the home of the 14-year-old.  Or REPORT BACK TO US.  I'm glad the British bobby has NOTHING BETTER TO DO than set up elaborate sting operations like these, to capture animal-cruelty violators.  NOBODY IN THAT PET STORE SUFFERS MORE THAN THE NOBLE GOLDFISH!  But at what point do they start to seriously interfere with our Glorious Cause?  WHAT DO YOU SAY, LADIES?

Yeah, I THOUGHT SO.

She Saw Enough, Chumly

...And laugh if you will, Naked Apes, but everything she saw, starting LONG before that burglary, is now on what you like to call your PERMANENT RECORD.

THE MERMAID

This light comedy, directed by Stephen Chow, is about a Mermaid operative infiltrating a "Chuppie" stronghold in order to assassinate the billionaire (Chao Deng) who is killing off her species using a deadly sonar device.  Hijinks ensue.  NICE AND SIMPLE.  There are a lot of sight gags, a lot of riffing on traditional Mermaid conceits (especially the one about 'why does she walk so funny?') and MORE THAN A FEW RECRUITING TIPS for new landfish operatives -- NONE of which will be Mermaids (she sniffed).  That comment was directed at any Shaved Monkey readers of this column who see the movie and are then expecting to see lithesome women walking down the street of a human city on the tips of their fish tails.

The characters were unexpectedly interesting in this movie.  The Merpeople do a lot more than sit around combing their hair and singing arias to attract male Naked Ape company.  They have fun; they argue and take care of their sick children; they even  ride skateboards and exhibit a fashion sense rarely seen up on dry land.  They are as fallible as anyone.  The humans as well as the sea people are far from cardboard cutouts, often completely dorky and embarrassing to stand next to.  And the voice of wisdom in this story -- the grandmother Mermaid -- points out how closely related the two species are and how likely to fall in love, even when they appear to be enemies.  ISN'T THAT OBSERVATION THE CENTRAL PARADOX OF ALL OUR LIVES?  The museum curator at the beginning of the movie -- if that's his job title -- makes the same point although he does not see the romantic aspect of it, only the genetic one.  (THUS DO FEATHERLESS BIPED SCIENTISTS, GOOD AND BAD, ALWAYS THINK.)  He's still hitting on something there.

The most complex and unreadable character by far is Ruo-lan Li (Zuqi Zhang), THE ONLY ONE IN THE ENTIRE STORY WHO RESEMBLES A REAL MERMAID.  She stalks through the movie in a series of slinky black dresses that Emma Peel would be proud to own, showing off her entirely human legs, but glares at Shan, the actual Mermaid operative (Yun Lin) when they meet with the unmistakable gaze of a female rival, a peer, AN ILL-TEMPERED MERMAID IN AN EGG-LADEN FRENZY.  Yet she gives not a single flip for the welfare of the Mermaids in Green Gulf.  Her attitude is "Mermaids!?  Send out the goon squad with the machine guns and wipe 'em out!  We have real estate to develop here!"  But this is the same Naked Ape who nearly falls out of her chair when a Goldfish is murdered in front of her eyes.  WHERE IS SHE COMING FROM IN THIS STORY?

I predict that we will be avidly discussing this film for MONTHS in the local chapter meetings.

Behold The "Capistrano Shark Bite"!

In a bit of an INSTANT HOMAGE to what was, after al, just a sighting of 25 or so of our Great White operatives off a California beach last week, someone has invented this ADORABLE beverage made of run, Curacao, a little of this and that and a drop of grenadine, with a rubber model of an operative added and is currently charging $10 for one serving.  Proceeds are going to benefit a recruit in San Onofre, name withheld on this website. ISN'T THAT NICE OF THEM? 

When The Sharks Return To Capistrano...

...All the featherless bipeds go to pieces over it!  A bit of a Shark convocation happened near what they call Capistrano Beach on the coast of what they call California.  WHAT A FUSS THEY MADE.  They got on their bullhorns and ordered EVERYBODY OUTOF THE WATER.  Helicopters bulging with anxious frogmen monitored the scene.  Adults dragged screaming children out of the surf.  EVERYONE TOOK PICTURES. 

You'd think we'd actually eaten one of them!

It says here "Marine experts said the sharks were probably looking for food." 

NOTHING GETS BY THOSE GUYS, DOES IT!?

And This Is My Final Answer

Here's the CORRECTED image of a real Mermaid encounter.  There is NO CAMERA.  The sailor is ALONE.  The Mermaids are SINKING HIS BOAT.  He is SMILING LIKE AN IDIOT, positively happy with the situation, and quite unable to comprehend that he is about to be KILLED and EATEN.

Ah, those were the good old days! 

The Answer To "What's Wrong With This Picture?"

I'm happy to say that just about every answer I got to the question a couple of blog entries back -- WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE? -- was ABSOLUTELY CORRECT:

>>   Mermaids were, indeed, phased out as recruiting operatives much, much more than a century before photography was invented, and scuba gear came out even later than that.

>>  A real mermaid would never, ever allow herself to be spotted, LET ALONE PHOTOGRAPHED, by a featherless biped unless she knew he had not seen a featherless biped female in at least 2 years and would be too sea-happy to distinguish one of his own kind from ONE OF US.  Our concealment techniques have COME A LONG WAY since those days, but for quite a while we had to rely on recruiting male humans who could no longer tell a pretty human girl from a Dugong:

>>  It seems clear from the whole look of the obviously-staged quiz photo that the diver got into the water to photograph the mermaid, although I may be reading too much into the image.  A Homo sap., dragged into the water by the song of a REAL SIREN, would never have the presence of mind to get into a wetsuit, assemble and test his breathing gear, load film into a camera and so forth.  If this were an actual mermaid recruitment, the guy would have done something more like this:  

>>  She is not KILLING or EATING him, although I agree the photo is ambiguous -- she may be on her way to doing just that.  

>>  The dead giveaway, though, is her SIZE.  As we all know, REAL mermaids were never that large:

Of course, this famous recruiter is a bit WIZENED after having been out of the water for A GREAT MANY YEARS before this photo was taken.  BUT YOU GET THE IDEA.

An Animated Gif From GODZILLA vs THE SMOG MONSTER

...in commemoration of Banno Yoshimitsu, director of that incomparable film:

...and another:  

...and yet another:  

Here was a man who understood about WHAT WE ARE UP AGAINST.  He went so far as to show a recruiter in this film wearing a fish-bedaubed body stocking and seducing an audience with her piscatorial dance until they turn into fish themselves -- as you can see in the topmost gif in this entry.  Just a beautiful moment, immortalized on celluloid, from a man none of us will ever forget.

(à la morte...) 

Just Putting A Smile In Your Day With This Image

What's Wrong With This Picture?

 

This is just a bit of a pop quiz for new landfish recruiting operatives.  WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE, and can you tell me what needs to be done to correct it?