"Wrench My Monkey"
I don’t want to sound like a W.C. Fields-type curmudgeon making cracks about liking children and animals on wallpaper, but let me make a clean breast of things here, get it off my chest and be bwutally, fwankly candid. I’m not overly fond of the Macaque monkey found in numbers in various Bali locations, okay? I don’t actively despise them or anything and do still actually see them as exotic (they’re monkeys for cryin’ out loud), but I can’t say I hold them dear to my heart either. I find them ornery, mean spirited and ill-tempered little shits that would steal the gold out of your Grandma’s teeth if not take the old girl herself from right in front of you. If they were people they’d all be behind bars or you’d have them shot.
As I was making my perspiring way past the Sangeh Monkey Forest this Saturday just gone, on an otherwise pleasantly uneventful run set by the Muddy Twins, a half a dried out coconut pod flew whizzing past my head missing me by millimeters. There were simian suspects everywhere, squatting, walking around the crime scene innocently looking the other way, but the angle of the trajectory of said object made me immediately look up into the huge tree hanging above to spy a large-ish (for a monkey) Bapak-style critter with testicles the size of regulation tennis balls baring his teeth at me, the cheeky bastard.
“Son of a…” I ejaculated at which point he actually rubbed his penis vigorously bobbing his not insignificant knackers up and down and chattering while staring straight at me and blinking. So now they’re throwing things at us, the turds, and waving their whangers at us. They’re no longer satisfied with taking our nuts (wait, that could have been put better) and our watches, jewelry, sunglasses, rings, anything that sparkles and glitters or chewing our children’s fingers off. No, now they’re being actively, premeditatedly hostile, those little fuckers. Send the army in, I say, whatever it takes: Uzis, tanks, defoliants, jet fighters, R.P.G.s, Humvees, before they come after us…
Ahem, where was I? Run? Run what? A warm bath and calm down? Oh that run, yes, yes. There was a run, on Saturday, it left from the Pura Kolam at Mumbul (as opposed to the Mambal swimming pool), and it was a ripper. This is always a beautiful area to hash in, even before leaving the car park with its massive tree looking like a nuclear explosion mushroom of leaves and branches and the view of the temple across the large man-made pond, the young teak forest on the rise above with local people collecting holy water from gurgling bamboo pipes below. What a sylvan scene, marred only by a bunch of Hashers chattering, cackling and kicking up a cacophony like Macaques; hard to say which are worse.
This time The Muddy pair took us around two, or was it three sides (?) of the aforementioned primate infested woods. The Sangeh Monkey Forest really is an imposing sight coming up on it across the sawa. Enormous trees in a slice of original forest that looks like something out of “Avatar” or “The Hobbit” surrounded by vast rice paddys, which only serves to remind us that it all looked like this once, the whole enchilada. It was also probably ten times as full of friggin’ monkeys; small wonder at the origins of everybody wishing each other “selamat jalan” (and wearing conical bamboo hats). There would have been projectiles flying everywhere. Whole regiments of the nasty little scumbags waving their hairy privates and flinging Christ knows what at the original human inhabitants, I’m not surprised the Orang Asli got so busy with their axes and cleavers …okay, okay, okay, already, I’ll chill. The ground was a lot damper last week than the week before at Tegallalang and it was quite pleasant going underfoot with just a hint of cool moisture under the brown and yellow broad leaves on the paths that surrounded the woods. Perhaps a tad too much asphalt and concrete for my liking on the trail, but that’s just me. Good run, Muddies, thanks.
The circle was more than a bit out of control this last Hash despite constant and enthusiastic icings by the Hash Master in a futile bid to get all the Macaques, no hang on, these were humans, to shut the fuck up, which they didn’t of course, being Macaques. Wait, weren’t they hu…? I don’t know what they were. I’d been yelling “Respect” and “Hash Hush” so loudly for so long I couldn’t see straight or tell the difference, still can’t. I wish to Christ Hashers would have the decency to at least try to control themselves to the extent of not roaring with laughter and shouting loud exchanges on the circle sidelines, conducting their own powwow, soiree, rally or riot on the perimeter of it while the poor bastards in centre circle who take the time and energy to try to entertain for a grand total of nothing, are completely ignored or drowned out in the process. The Grand Master had to be called in at least once to wrest control from the rabble and regain some form of order. His physical presence alone does indeed, fortunately, require attention, even the monkeys a couple of k up the road were in awed silence.
While we’re on the subject (again), let’s just put this monkey thing to rest. Of course they were here first and of course they deserve their own preserve at least. They are rare enough these days and you’re not going to find them riding the London tube, driving a Lexus down the 405 Freeway in L.A. or braving the surf at Bondi in a lifeguard’s outfit and headgear, then again… I only jest, you see, but I still wouldn’t want to find one in me laundry basket.
On on
J.B.
