Well, ya can’t always change history, but at least you can poke fun at it…
Last time the Great Ape bluffed his way into the White House I wrote my own take on events. The manuscript gathered dust for eight years, but now, with the simian one about to strut right back into his former residence, I decided that it was time to dish the dirt and tell my tale. PRESIDENT CHIMP is out now - available at various book shops - and of course on the dreaded Amazon!
The following excerpts will give you a taste of what to expect. I hope you enjoy it – and remember – the ape will have his day and one day the ape will fall… Godspeed that day!
Chimp excerpts:
And the people set up Chimp above them, and low they bowed to him, and seeing it to be thus, he lifteth up his foot and stampeth down upon his brethren and sistren...
...The presidential bandwagon trundled on, over-riding all protocol, all restraint and balance. Laws, standards, institutions, constitutions were shredded and trampled under its wheels. The vehicle seemed to have no brakes, no checks, no – no sense...
...His Supremely Bombastic Majesty leered at himself in the mirror. That wouldn’t be so bad, but he also insisted at leering at the entire world from every TV screen, every newspaper front-page, every computer and a numberless galaxy of phones. It was like a kind of sickness, like dogs to vomit, the slavish way in which the masses virtually invited President Chimp to walk all over them with his prehensile and tufty feet. There was something not quite right about it. It was a form of sickness, plain and simple. An abusive relationship between potentate and populace, between primate and punters.
He gazed upon the reflection of his notorious image as he primped and puffed-up his pompadour with slow, feverish abandon. His lips pouted in dour grimace of power – doubtless and resolute like a bloated Roman of the decadent age, maddened and sozzled on power, much like an alcoholic on booze.
Chimpy squeezed a dollop of banana-pulp into his hand and rubbed it into the towering yellow flag atop the juicy Citrus County orange of his head. Another big day ahead and the prez was gonna be looking goood!
...“Where’s that coffee, goddamit?” snarled the leader of the free world. The Vice President didn’t take kindly to ‘blasphemy’, as he called it, but he brought the coffee anyway. “Aren’t there any cookies to go with this fucking coffee?” blurted the vulgar ape, “where’s that so-called wife of mine?” “Er, she’s residing in New York City sir, if you recall? Why don’t I call my wife, I’ll have Carey fix us up a nice hot batch of cookies and bring them round in a basket, yes sir!” grovelled the Vice. “OK, ok,” grumbled the president, “but tell her to hurry up and stop talking like Sonny-boy, will ya?”
Pynchpenny reached for the red phone, but an apeish paw slapped his hand away. “Not that phone, fool!” barked the ape, “I’m the only one who gets to use that phone! You can use the other one.”
Pynchpenny lifted the receiver and dialled. “Hallo? Mother? Yes, hallo darling, it’s me.” The Chimp meanwhile rolled his yellowish eyes in mute, nostril agony. “Now listen Carey, I want you to rustle up an extra big batch of your best chocolate-chip cookies, dust them down in icing sugar, wrap them up in a little calico cloth, pop it into the old wicker-work basket and drop it round here to the White House. Yes, that’s right Mother, the White House!” Pynchpenny gave Chimp a weak little smile, which was returned with a surly sneer. “Yes, of course they’ll let you in Mother, I’ll tell the guys on the gate to watch out for you – yes honey-pie, now get to work and may the Lord be with you!”
The President spun round in fury and turned on the Vice. “I’m the only lord round here goddam your ass, and don’t you forget it, Pynchpenny, or you’ll be heading straight back to Indiana in a crate!” Brother Mike didn’t much like the President’s tone, truth be told, but he masked his feelings behind a sickly smile and bowed his head submissively towards the Chimp. Pynchpenny was a man who knew how to wait. Like a glacier he moved slowly and silently. You hardly noticed him moving, yet his advance could not be stopped either. He packed a certain gravity. You can see why the quiet architects of destiny had chosen him as a natural counterbalance to the bestial, foul and insane gibberings of his master, Mr Chimp. And talking of the bestial and foul, if there is one thing that is truly ugly in this world it is the sight of a reactionary and tyrannical ape, dolled-up in human clothing, ostensibly governing the USA, but in reality giving way to a tantrum of ape-ic proportions – going totally ape-shit.
“Hoo-HA hoo-HA hoo-HA!” he gibbered, frighteningly, as he bobbed up and down and bared his teeth at the Vice, who froze in horror, finding himself suddenly kicked out of his comfort-zone by a hairy and prehensile foot. “Hoo-HA hoo-HA hoo-HA!” reiterated the president of the USA, jumping up onto his desk, squatting down on his haunches, pounding the desk with clenched fists and spinning round and round, before kicking a pile of top-secret documents onto the floor and hurling an ornamental lamp against the wall.
“Mr President, please!” begged Pynchpenny, his usually cold eyes gleaming with the light of fear. It was no good – Donald Chimp was lost to his rage. His face darkened, his blood-pressure started to rise, his flesh palpitated and his lips drooled loosely. For a second, a faraway look came into his eye and he emitted a strange, high-pitched whine. Then, with a beastly howl, he hurled himself round the room, trashing and smashing, smashing and trashing as he gibbered, screamed and spat. His fury was rapid, vapid and vile. He hopped and spun round, now on two legs, now once again on four. He hurt his hand trying to punch the bronze cigar out of Churchill’s mouth. He banged his elbow on the desk and fell to the floor, trying to bite the carpet in the rare intensity of his transport of rage. He leapt up and put his fist through a two-hundred year old portrait of George Washington then vaulted over to where Pynchpenny lay huddled in a corner and started kicking him vigorously in the ribs. The Vice whimpered piteously. Seeking a new target for his wrath, the golden ape leapt across the room. There was a little cupboard in the wall and the monkey-President lunged for the handle and wrenched it open. Inside was a small black metal box with a red button on top.
The Vice-President meanwhile had risen to his knees and clocked what was going on. A bead of sweat trickled down his forehead and turned to ice on his skin. The President’s finger was about two inches from the red button!
For an extremely long and agonising second, the Vice wondered what to do. Then he vaulted into action and lunged for the extra-large hospitality fruit-bowl and grabbed the centre-piece, a gigantic bunch of sweet, ripe bananas. “Hey Donald! DONALD! Over here, lookee!” He waved the banana bunch and miraculously it distracted the crazed ape and lured him away from the dreaded button.
While Donald Chimp was ecstatically ravaging his high-carbohydrate snack, the Vice slunk over to the atomic cupboard and quietly shut the door, making a mental note to himself to try to prevent future episodes of a similar nature. He would pray on the matter. Perhaps discuss it with Mother.
A disgusting slurping noise announced the continuing banana-feast and more than once Mike Pynchpenny felt the clammy slap of a banana peel round the back of his neck. Just as Chimpy-boy finished the last fruit and loomed up over the Vice, face plastered in banana-pulp, golden mane further gilded and bespattered with yellow fruit-mess, a knock was heard on the door.
“Yeah! What is it?” barked the ape. The door was held open by an apologetic-looking Rance Piebrush. “I twied to stop her, sir, but-” “Shut up Piebrush, goddam your ass! I personally ordered that food, now let her in!” Piebrush nodded a simpering leer and in walked Carey Pynchpenny, All-American, Vice-Presidential, Cookie-Bakin’ Mama with a basket of steamin’ hot cookies.
“I nearly got mugged by some big ol’ Southern gen’leman out there in the hall – but he didn’t get so much as a little ol’ crumb!” she announced breezily. “Oh that would be Sonny-boy Purview – he can’t resist a nice cookie, or any other food item for that matter, now hand over those cookies, woman!” ordered the President rudely as he grabbed them out of her hand. “Er, Donald, this is my wife, Carey….” mumbled the Vice, dejectedly. “Yeah yeah,” growled the chimp, spitting out showers of cookie crumbs, “you wanna franchise? These cookies are fucking good! You leave it to me, I’ll sort something out for ya. Leave it to me! Meantime I want a box of these cookies every day, got it?”
Carey Pynchpenny looked confused but tried to cover it with a sickly smile. “Why yes sir, thank you Mr President, sir!” “Yeah yeah, now get out, we’ve got important presidential business to see to!” replied Chimp, shoving her roughly towards the door…
...The People’s Great Leader dismissed his staff early, ordering everyone to get an early night and retired to his room with the TV guide and a six-pack of lager. Beer was one of his favourite things about the human world. He also had a fondness for those little devices that tweet out your spontaneous and uncensored thoughts - blurting them out merrily to the planet after a few cans of the fizzy brew. By the time the hangover arose to greet him in the morning, his drunken mental projections had been right round the world, printed in countless newspapers, translated into dozens of languages, discussed by scores of millions of people – and he couldn’t even remember what he’d said! Still, fuck them! he thought to himself – referring of course to those billions of world citizens who constituted what is sometimes known as ‘the 99%.’ The fact was that rather than being worried about whether he might have offended people, he not only relished offending people, but had long been psychologically addicted to it, as a compensation-mechanism for all the humiliation he’d suffered back at the Detroit Zoo. That snug little golden cage that he’d grown up in had turned him into a thoroughly rotten little spoiled monkey-boy and now this sudden elevation, not only to human status, but to the top of the human power pyramid, had gone to his be-pompadoured and flea-bitten head...
...And like an ugly parody of the butterfly that caused a hurricane by flapping its wings, the wind that whistled, tweeted and tooted from the repellent lips of the U.S. Chimp sent currents of chill and unhealthy air circulating around the globe and encouraging audacious primates in foreign states to attempt coups of their own – after all – if a demented and ridiculous ape could seize power in America, then why should not these other petty despots, long-tailed and tailless, short-furred or furry, brunette or blonde, become the ruling lords of misery in their own various assorted realms?
It was a no-brainer really, but then, have you noticed? Everything’s a bit of a no-brainer these days – isn’t it?
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Not so England – poor old England!
The general air of eternal depression and cynicism had led to a blasé attitude towards simian security at London Zoo and it does not pay to drop your guard with these wise-guys. You give them an inch and they take a mile, I mean, why couldn’t the world learn from America? Anyway, the genial and well-meaning Keeper of the Monkey-House at London Zoo had no idea that under his very nose, Bojo the Baboon was up to something…
(Historical note: Seemingly ‘Bojo’ was also occasionally known as ‘Blojo’ and also as ‘Bozo.’ These names are interchangeable and all refer to the same, eh, character.)
For a couple of days Bojo had been exhibiting rather curious behaviour for an adult male baboon. For one thing he’d put on quite a bit of weight and become a podgy, flabby thing, thick around the middle and chubby at the edges. Also, Bojo had somehow developed, almost overnight, a wonderfully thick and dense mane of unruly straw-blonde hair! This kind of thing is unsightly enough on a human, but on a baboon it is simply pretentious! It was as if the great hairy ape had the temerity, the hubris, to sprout, sport and strut the coiffure of the ruling species! Most presumptuous!
And Bojo’s voice was changing too. The usual sequence of guttural grunts, howls and whimpers had gradually changed into a sort of smarmy, upper-class, treacly accent of almost human provenance – almost like an apish take on the speech-patterns of the English ruling classes. It did not sound pretty.
Unlike President Chimp, who’d simply vaulted his way from ape-hood to manhood, it’s commonly believed that Bojo simply bought his way out of the zoo, using funds illegally diverted from Conservative Party bank accounts and, like his vile American counterpart, coolly walked into human society and just blended in. It is believed he seized power over Great Britain by similar means.
The bare fact is that even a baboon, if it can pay its own way, and pay handsomely, can not only be accepted in society but get ahead and carve out a career in power-politics. Bojo’s meteoric rise to primacy even benefited from having the overt support of none other than Donald Chimp, Ape-Boy of the Western World… Seemingly, as fellow-fans of long, yellow fruit and sharing a deep contempt for democracy, there was a lot of common ground.
The two mop-top, monkey-boy leaders shared another trait – they could continually get away with saying and also doing ridiculous things in public. Although their detractors tried to make the best of their blunders and follies, the gutter-press had a way of turning them into endearing signs of the strength of character of these preposterous, simian, interloping overlords.
In his first few crude lurches into the realm of human politics, Bojo had got himself a reputation for repeatedly attempting to burn down the toilets of posh restaurants. This showed a disturbed personality as well as a dire ignorance of physics. Any teen-age school-kid could tell you that a restaurant toilet doesn’t contain enough inflammable material to melt ceramic tiles! Still the misguided and obsessed ape kept right on reoffending and was more than once photographed with smuts of half-burnt toilet paper bespattering his well-cut jacket and famous ‘mad-professor’ hair-do, a sickly and porcine grin clinging to his over-fed chops. It did his image no harm. He knew how to play the wild-card, how to play the clown, and the punters lapped it up.
Another famous image of Britain’s most notorious baboon was offered up to posterity when poor Bojo thought he would have no trouble showing off in public by sliding along a zip-wire over a crowd of plebs. Bojo was relying on his animal-grace and wanted to put on a good show for the good old British public. What he hadn’t realized was that his time of dining in London’s – and the world’s – finest restaurants had fattened his girth and the transition from bananas to haute cuisine had left his ‘animal-grace’ far behind him. Too many juicy steaks, too many profiteroles and too many fat wedges of Stilton cheese had taken their toll and rather than dazzling the punters with his tricks on the wire, he soon ended up dangling from it, stuck fast and whimpering for help.
Ever the clown, he rolled his eyes, shrugged his shoulders and blundered on towards his next faux-pas or his next insulting public statement. Like a blob of fat, nothing seemed to stick to him…
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PRESIDENT CHIMP also contains two other stories - More Of Everything is the story of someone whose attempt to enrich his life goes horribly wrong. Someone who is forced to ask himself 'at what point does enough become too much?' Perhaps you've been there yourself? If not, now's your chance. Let me take you by the hands and lead you through the streets of Lonton.
Into The Thunderbolt Land follows the journey of an English soldier during the 1904 British invasion of Tibet. Under official instructions to gather information on Tibetan culture, the Somerset vicar's son enters a world of meditation, yoga and a profound philosophy that seems to go to the very heart of the riddle that is life.
