The Blue Monkey

By Poor William

Poor William has started to deal with and hopefully shed some wicked, holiday BLUES. He ain’t talking about the music that makes a grown and wanna-be-grown man lose what little mind he was given at birth. It’s much thicker than those nasty-ole blues!

Poor William. Photo by The Delta Bohemian

He is talking about that blue-hue funk that swings into one’s world from nigh on high in a Kiplingesque canopy. Funk that is laden in dour, steamy, mash entirely too sour.

Remember the animated movie The Jungle Book, where one can be whisked away to a pristine, antiseptic world full of melancholy delight? It is an orderly sphere–shrouded in blue–without hunger, where jungle mishaps rarely cause death and animals are personified–given endearing human traits according to their animalistic design.

The rub: One is left a bit melancholy as the man-cub Mowgli leaves his jungle buddies to pursue a beautiful, young girl from a nearby village. But the damn monkeys, other than the Swinging Cat orangutan known as King Louie, can wear a fellow out just trying to hide from them. King Louie is a bit intense too!

What is it about monkeys?

Back in the day, every year around Easter, the Howells would drive into the country where the Mr. Big John McKees lived near Friars Point to watch The Wizard of Oz. We didn’t have videos; we had whatever the few channels in existence decided to show us. Poor William was deathly afraid of those damn flying-ass monkeys. Jeez, how many children did the fake monkeys traumatize?

I remember as a kid that Clarksdale had a downtown pet shop. One day while in the store with my father—not a big pet lover–Pat Peay Sr. was holding a spider monkey that reached his little spider monkey hands out and snatched my hair before quick. I never liked monkeys after that, plus even the tame ones crap all over the place.

Monkeys are too unpredictable, just like depression!

In high school track, not a sport the small-but-slow Poor William exceled in, we often referred to the 500-pound bear that would jump on someone’s back while playing the piano as the exhausted runner sprinted the last few yards of the 440-yard dash. That bear might have been a booger-bear, but the monkey is quicker. Monkeys don’t play.

The Jungle Book’s laid-back protagonist Baloo the Bear fought the monkeys to little avail, but he would understand how to help Poor William keep the blue monkey away. It is in the recognition of what constitutes the “Bare Necessities,” those simple bare necessities, capable of putting even Poor William at ease.

See, the bear ain’t so bad. He can be seen coming. It’s that damn group of monkeys swinging in out of nowhere who perform the beat down. Then they send in the Blue Monkey. He don’t play!

He isn’t cool like King Louie; he ain’t no Jungle VIP! NO SIR, the blue monkey first snatches you baldheaded, then beats your ass for being baldheaded, then he just squats on you until you can barely snatch a breath!

So, Poor William is going to avoid the jungle the best he can this holiday season, try to be of service to others instead of focusing on his little ole problems, and he is going to keep listening and watching the attached video clip of Baloo singing about the Bare Necessities.

Modern life with its over-stimulation can get too damn complicated and busy. Take me to the aneseptic world of the clean, bug-free, Indian jungle. Let me eat some pawpaws with Baloo and the boys, but keep the lights on and the blue monkey in the cage!

Let’s remember the real reason why Christmas exists! God Bless and Merry Christmas! pw

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