Monthly Archives: May 2017

He Lived Like a Murder

Chris Cornell (7/20/64-5/17/17)

Heard it from another room
Eyes were waking up just to fall asleep
Love’s like suicide
Dazed out in a garden bed
With a broken neck lays my broken gift
Just like suicide

And my last ditch
Was my last brick
Lent to finish her, finish her

She lived like a murder
How she’d fly so sweetly
She lived like a murder
But she died just like suicide

Bit down on the bullet now
I had a taste so sour
I had to think of something sweet
Love’s like suicide

Safe outside my gilded cage
With an ounce of pain
I wield a ton of rage
Just like suicide

With eyes of blood
And bitter blue
How I feel for you
I feel for you

She lived like a murder
How she’d fly so sweetly
She lived like a murder
But she died just like suicide

Yeah
And my last ditch
Was my last brick
Lent to finish her finish her

With eyes of blood and bitter blue
How I feel for you
I feel for you
I feel for you

I feel for you
I feel, oh
I feel for you

Ah ah yeah (I feel, I feel)

She lived like a murder
How she’d fly so sweetly
She lived like a murder
But she died just like suicide

Welcome to the Monkeyhouse

 

In honor of the four-month mark of our new administration, here’s a look at the president’s slightly smarter cousin, the chimpanzee:

  • Washoe, the chimpanzee, was the first non-human to learn American Sign Language. She also passed on her knowledge to other chimpanzees.
  • In 2008, a chimpanzee named Anjana adopted and raised two baby white tigers named Mitra and Shiva after a hurricane.
  • Elephants and chimpanzees can display behavior patterns similar to post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.
  •  Humans have the same number of hair follicles as chimpanzees.
  • Chimpanzees can identify each other from pictures of their butts.
  • The United States and Gabon are the only two countries that allow experimentation on chimpanzees.
  • Congo the chimp was a famous abstract painter in the 1950s who sold paintings to Picasso, Dalí and others for up to $26,000. 

All Abuzz on the Western Front

 

The view of the western skyline from my backyard skyline isn’t exactly spectacular.

There’s one palm tree. The neighborhood is embroidered by the L.A. River Basin, better known for hosting rebels without causes and terminators without pauses than for an actual tributary that runs 48 miles start to finish.

It’s in an area my resale-conscious neighbors — even my best friend — have taken to calling Lake Balboa, though it’s really Van Nuys.

Hell, let’s be honest. It’s The Valley. America’s sweat stain.  Porn’s Vatican City. Our largest exports are porn and anal sex. It is smog-choked and traffic-strangled and beastly overgrown and…then. Right around 5:30.

The light catches right.

Or a creature turns bright.

And across the cement river there is a house full of kids. Or a daycare center. Or a park. It’s too fenced and green to see.

But not too beastly overgrown to hear: laughing and shouting and screamingtoheaven simply because their young lungs allow it.

And suddenly…

My music mixes with their laughter, and Esme gets in the mood to fetch, and I get in the mood to throw.

And suddenly…It’s not Lake Balboa, or Van Nuys, or Weedville, or Porn City. It’s not even smog-choked.

It’s home.

I take it back, what I said about that backyard perch.

It’s a pretty spectacular view.