Shalampax Speaks

Hi, peeps. As you have no doubt come to expect, I have more to tell in the ongoing Openfly tale. Dr. Don sent me a preliminary report based on only a couple of days of observing Openfly and the bonobo.

Unlike some of his other correspondence, I was able to understand this one. So, to save you time, I’ll encapsulate the report rather than reprint the whole excruciatingly long, boring document. (If this is only a preliminary report, we’re going to have to hijack more Internet bandwidth before he sends the full final report.)

Dr. Don opened with a warning that both Openfly and the bonobo were aware they were being observed and, as a result, their behaviors might have been inhibited. Recognizing Dr. Don’s fondness for Openfly, I didn’t have the heart to tell him that Openfly has never shown any sign of restraining even the basest of her behaviors when being observed, or at any other time.

Openfly told Dr. Don that bonobos issue a great many more distinct grunts, barks and shrieks than most humans are able to identify or that even the most sensitive of audio equipment is able to distinguish. What’s more, bonbobos use their grunts, barks and shrieks in a complex language with a vocabulary and structure that rivals English.

How did Openfly know this? Much to the surprise of Dr. Don, the bonobo, and Openfly, Openfly instinctively understood this language immediately. Dr. Don thinks that capability must be “hardwired” into the Shalampaxian brain.

Hardwired? I think Dr. Don is talking gobbledygook. Everyone knows there are no wires in brains. If there were, Shalampaxians would have extracted them long ago, melted them down and sold the copper on the open market. Then again, maybe we already have removed some critical brain wires and, in the process, erased all memory of us having done so. That would explain a lot.

Regardless of how Openfly is able to understand the bonobo, she and the bonobo are getting along famously. They chat for hours.

According to the bonobo, his name in the bonobo language is grrgageeeek. At least, that’s the closest we can come to spelling it phonetically in English.

Bonobos don’t have a written language, so it’s unknown if they would capitalize their names if they did. However, grrgageeeek thought they probably wouldn’t, so Dr. Don adopted the practice of leaving grrgageeeek’s name in all lower case unless it starts a sentence.

Openfly and grrgageeeek talked endlessly. Because of Openfly’s intellectual limitations, their discussions were mostly idle chit-chat.

It seems that Openfly and grrgageeeek have a lot in common. For example, they both enjoy reruns of old television programs like Superman, The Three Stooges and The Colgate Comedy Hour. Grrgageeeek, who has been living in captivity for most of his life, has long had open access to a television, a DVD player and an exceptionally large collection of old movies and television programs on DVD.

They also have their differences. For instance, grrgageeeek loves opera and symphony, whereas Openfly is a fan of children’s songs and country & western music.

According to Openfly, grrgageeeek frequently tried to lift the conversation to a higher plane.

At one point, grrgageeeek uttered a long speech explaining his views on the philosophy of Plato, whoever the hell he is. However, this was way over Openfly’s head. Consequently, she wasn’t able to do grrgageeeek’s words justice when attempting to translate them into English for Dr. Don.

Unprompted by either Openfly or Dr. Don, grrgageeeek issued a few choice words about the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). He expressed appreciation for the work they do to protect bonobos, but he wished that PETA would restrict their protective efforts to solely bonobos because, in grrgageeeek’s translated words, “Those other species are fucking assholes. They deserve everything they get, and worse.”

Dr. Don wasn’t certain whether grrgageeeek included humans when he talked about “other species.”

Dr. Don’s report also described the non-verbal interactions between grrgageeeek and Openfly. The report discussed the subject very discreetly and academically, but it seems that grrgageeeek, a male, and Openfly have had sex. Frequently.

Dr. Don isn’t certain, but he thinks there may be wedding bells in the future. Reading between the lines, I detected some sadness in Dr. Don over that. I think he’s more than a little jealous of grrgageeeek. He’s probably now regretting having brought the bonobo onboard.

I’m sure there will be more to tell in the coming days. And we are still awaiting the results of the DNA tests. So be sure to check back here frequently.

I love and worship Paahlm. Don’t you?

How could you not love Paahlm? After all, It created our majestic palm trees in Its image. It then commanded the palm trees to bear forth coconuts.

Paahlm, Glory be It, then sacrificed two of his precious coconuts to create the first humans. Since then, we have depended on Its munificent provision of coconuts to serve political, social, business and dietary purposes.

Most miraculous of all, Paahlm usually holds all of Its coconuts on our palm trees throughout numerous extreme gales until It clears the weather sufficiently for us to venture outside, hold our elections, and then collect the coconuts.

That is, Paahlm used to keep the coconuts on the trees. This year, It allowed them to be carried off by typhoon-strength winds that were even worse than normal.

Why It allowed that to happen this year is beyond me. We Shalampaxians must have done something to piss Paahlm off, although I can’t imagine what. Our spam and cult religion revenues are holding firm despite the current global recession, so I don’t know why Persnickety Paahlm should be displeased with us.

Maybe it’s all part of Paahlm’s Grand Plan. You know the one. That would be the Grand Plan that Freaking Paahlm has chosen to disclose to us only in discrete bits as It unleashes one of the Grand Plan’s horrid incidents after another.

I just wish that the Scoundrel, Paahlm, would revise his Grand Plan a little so it didn’t totally screw us all of the time. For example, rather than usually holding the coconuts on our trees, would it kill the Bastard, Paahlm, to give us clement weather instead so there wouldn’t be any strong winds to threaten the coconuts in the first place?

Sorry. I got carried away. I’m more than a little snarky these days. I foolishly decided to try the rhythm method rather than my normal form of birth control. I’m fertile now and it’s been a few days. I’m horny beyond belief and intolerably on edge.

Where was I? Oh yes, I love Paahlm. I praise and thank It every day for my daily bread. Of course, it would have been nice if Paahlm had blessed this island with some native foodstuffs other than coconuts. Then we wouldn’t have to import all of our damn food and frequently run out of the good stuff. Would that have been too much to ask of Damned, Frigging Paahlm?

Sorry again. I’d better shut up before I piss Paahlm off even more than Its normal Pissy Self.

Somebody remind me not to blog while I’m in heat. Either that or I’ve got to switch off the rhythm method.

The following notice is intended solely for citizens of Shalampax. If you’re not resident here, this will not interest you in the slightest, so you might as well leave now and find some other way to totally waste your time.

I apologize for not being a helpful time-waster for non-Shalampaxians today. It can’t be helped because I must use this space to deliver the following important message to our citizens. I promise that I’ll try harder in the future to be a better fritterer of your time.

Notice to Shalampaxians: Fire Alarm Test

The fire alarm system in Shalampax’s building will be tested tomorrow. As you are probably aware, the alarm system consists of floor superintendents running madly through their respective hallways shrieking repeatedly at the top of their lungs, “Oh my Paahm! Oh my Paahlm! There’s a fire! We’re all doomed! Paahlm save us!”

If you hear the alarm tomorrow please ignore it as it is only a test. If there is a real fire at that time, the superintendents will instead shriek, “Oh my Paahm! Oh my Paahm! There really is a fire! We’re all doomed! Paahlm save us!,” with special emphasis on the word “really.”

Of course, all of this is superfluous because combustible materials are not allowed in our building. (Who among us hasn’t spent countless contented hours moaning and bitching about the discomfort forced upon us by our stone couches and beds?)

The only areas exempted from the strictly enforced non-combustible materials rule are the library, restaurants and community kitchens. Those rooms have been effectively sealed off from the rest of the building with a fireproof barrier. That seal cannot be penetrated in the event of a fire.

Due to our foolproof fire prevention precautions, a dangerous fire in the living areas of the building is impossible. Thus, a fire alarm system is unnecessary. Nonetheless, because Shalampax is normally the most boring place on the planet, the fire alarm test is always quite entertaining. Enjoy.

Gee peeps, it’s beginning to look as if I’m never again going to have time to report on anything but Openfly’s ongoing escapade. I wish I could convince one or two of the other bloggers here at Shalampax Speaks to pick up at least some of this story. Fat chance of that.

Oh well, here’s the latest scoop.

The ship that Openfly is being held captive on has reached a port. Dr. Don refuses to tell Openfly or me where that is. He says he’s keeping his location a secret for “security reasons,” but I have no idea why he thinks he needs security.

As he said he would, Dr. Don couriered Openfly’s DNA sample to a lab to determine if she—and, by extension, the rest of us Shalampaxians—are Homo sapiens. He doesn’t expect to see results for at least a few days and possibly as long as two weeks.

One thing he didn’t tell me in his earlier emails is that, at the same time he contracted the lab work, he also requested that a docile bonobo be brought to the ship when it docked. According to Dr. Don, bonobos used to be called pygmy chimpanzees. I don’t know why they are now called bonobos. I guess someone thought that “pygmy” was politically incorrect. I’m told that people—and I guess chimpanzees too—are sensitive about that sort of nonsense these days.

Dr. Don sent me an email explaining why he wanted the bonobo. He worked hard to put it in language I would understand, but it was still gibberish to me. Rather than trying, and undoubtedly failing, to make some sense of it and then recounting it in my own words, I’ve pasted the body of his email below.

As you know, my theory is that Shalampaxians are not Homo sapiens. Although, even if I’m right, we are obviously still very closely related species. The similarities between Shalampaxians and modern humans are far too great for us to be too distant on the evolutionary tree.

With the possible exception of Shalampaxians, the closest animal relatives to Homo sapiens are bonobos and common chimpanzees. The current thinking is that the last common ancestor of those two species and Homo sapiens lived about 5 to 7 million years ago.

It is generally believed that Homo sapiens are the only members of the Homos genus not to have gone extinct. My theory is that that’s not entirely true. I believe that one of those other Homo species, I’m not sure which one, lived on and evolved into Shalampaxians.

If I’m right, bonobos, common chimpanzees, and Shalampaxians have all retained some of the characteristics of the last ancestor that they all shared with modern humans, characteristics that disappeared in Homo sapiens as a result of evolution. It’s Openfly’s estrus display that led me to this conclusion. Shalampaxian females share that characteristic with many other primate females.

From what I’ve been able to read about primates over the past couple of days (primates aren’t my area of specialty), I think Shalampaxians are closer to bonobos than to common chimpanzees, although my evidence for that is exceptionally weak. I base this hypothesis entirely on what Openfly has told me about Shalampaxian sexual behavior.

Like Shalampaxians, bonobos are quite casual about sex. In addition, both bonobos and Shalampaxians practice heterosexual, homosexual and autoerotic sex. Bonobos also French kiss and perform oral sex, just as Shalampaxians do, much to my delight.

There is one minor piece of evidence that suggests Shalampaxians might be closer to common chimpanzees: When common chimpanzee females are in estrus they typically copulate with many males in succession. When considering solely their promiscuity, they seem quite similar to Shalampaxian women.

Then again, baboon females are even less sexually discriminating than chimpanzees, but, despite sharing this trait with Shalampaxian women, baboons location on the evolutionary tree makes it almost impossible for them to be closer relatives to Shalampaxians than bonobos or common chimpanzees are.

Despite this one bit of sexual behavior evidence of link between common chimpanzees and Shalampaxians, I still think Shalampaxians have a closer relationship with bonobos. My reason for thinking this is that the females of the common chimpanzee species are typically sexually receptive only when they are in estrus. In contrast, because Shalampaxian women desperately want to avoid pregnancy, the only time they don’t have sex is when they are in estrus.

Bonobos, on the other hand, have a much longer estrus period. As I understand it from my reading, female bonobos are almost always sexually receptive. Shalampaxian women are much more like bonobos than common chimpanzees in this regard.

Finally, like Shalampaxians, bonobos use sex as a social instrument to make peace after a fight, seal contracts, bond relationships and so on.

To test my theory that bonobos and Shalampaxians share a number of traits that Shalampaxians don’t share with Homo sapiens, I plan to put the bonobo I brought onboard and Openfly in the same room.

You can put your mind at ease. I don’t plan to encourage sex between them. Instead, I will observe, compare and contrast their day-to-day behaviors to catalog their similarities and differences, purely for scientific purposes.

I’ll send you a report on my findings as soon as I’ve prepared it.

That’s where it stands, peeps. Openfly is going to be roommates with a bonobo for a few days. Paahlm help the bonobo. I hope it likes to drink.

Stay tuned.

There is something of a crisis shaping up in here Shalampax. We are running out of toilet paper. It would seem that Shalampaxians have recently been even crappier than usual. As a result, our shopkeeper was caught unawares by this situation.

A supply ship sitting about 150 kilometers off our shore is carrying, among other provisions, a large shipment of toilet paper. The ship’s captain is waiting for the weather to clear sufficiently for us to assemble one of our temporary docks. Our climate being what it is, that might be anywhere from a few days up to a few months from now.

Normally, we would risk building the dock in less than perfect weather. Unfortunately, we are also running short of the supplies required to build it. We only have enough to assemble one.

The supply ship is also carrying dock-building materials, but because our dock is normally destroyed by high winds within hours or, at most, days of it being built, we can’t take a chance with this one. If it’s destroyed before we have an opportunity to offload the supply ship we won’t get another chance.

Consequently, rather than taking undue risks, it’s been decided that the dock won’t be assembled until the winds are as close to calm as they ever get around here and no storm clouds are visible even with our most powerful telescopes. As we are all aware, those conditions are likely not imminent.

Fortunately, we have adequate food supplies in our freezers to last for up to five months.

In fact, our food stocks are slightly higher than would typically be the case. Despite regretting it at the time, we are now thankful that some anthropologists visited us a few weeks back. We still have leftovers from their visit. Our freezers contain three or four anthropologists’ rumps and a few legs. I’m told those are the tastiest parts.

We also have a large inventory of dried fruits. However, until we get more toilet paper, Shalampaxians are advised to go easy on the prunes.

While food is not a problem, the toilet paper supply is reaching critical levels. As an emergency measure, the government has decided to distribute copies of the Shalampax Criminal Code to be used as a substitute for toilet paper. This will allow Shalampaxians to literally do to the criminal code what they usually do to it only figuratively.

Tonight at 8:30 in Theater G, Discardedshoelace, who is not known as an accomplished musician or an accomplished anything for that matter, will perform a concert. His chosen instrument is a battered harmonica that fell from a branch of one of our palm trees. It was washed up there from lands unknown by one of the monster waves that recently crashed over our high shores.

Bystanders claim that, despite his never having had a lesson or ever even having seen a harmonica before, Discardedshoelace was able to coax something that the bystanders vaguely described as a “sound” from the harmonica.

Discardedshoelace’s program for this evening consists of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos. He will perform all six concertos in a single evening, with one intermission between the first and second sets of three.

Discardedshoelace does not read sheet music, but he claims to have heard all six of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos several times on a classical radio station that streams over the Internet. He feels confident that this will be sufficient to allow him to do justice to Bach’s work. Then again, as you are undoubtedly aware, a Shalampaxian’s sense of justice is not to be trusted.

When asked why he chose such challenging pieces for his first concert, Discardedshoelace responded, “Shalampaxians’ musical tastes typically range from Old Macdonald Had a Farm to The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round. Thus, it is likely that no one in the audience will have yet been exposed to the pure joy and joie de vivre of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos. As a result, it’s unlikely that anyone will notice that, should I manage to play two or more of the notes that Bach wrote, in the order he wrote them, it will be purely by accident.”

The concert is free for citizens of Shalampax. Non-citizens can buy tickets for the full concert at a price of $119. Alternatively, for $69 they can buy tickets for just the first half of the program.

Discardedshoelace highly recommends that, in the exceptionally unlikely event that any non-citizens happen to be in Shalampax, they should definitely take the half-program option because, as is our custom, foreigners will be carved up and served as snacks during the intermission. Refunds will not be granted to non-citizens who, as a result, miss the second half of the concert.