OK.
What do you think?
Yeah?
All right.
So bear with me.
OK, so here's the last one.
I thought maybe-- that one is so controlled.
I just don't want you to think that this is a book--
I don't want to you buy it for your dad
and be like, "Happy Father's Day."
And it's a book about control.
So there's a lot of kind of absurdity and wildness
in the book, too, because sometimes I would
run into these animal stories.
And I loved them so much, I just wanted
to keep them polished and golden and sort
of special as the moment.
And sometimes I would run into these animal stories
and I would just want to throw the story out the window,
because it was so cruel or awful or disturbing,
or it just upended my expectations
that I'd had for 30 whatever years,
to the point where I couldn't take it anymore.
And no animal story did that more
than the story of Koko the gorilla.
You guys know Koko the sign language gorilla?
Yeah?
She's the only animal in my book that's still alive.
And I had assumed that I was going
to write this essay about her, or the way--
she's the only animal, I think, that has named another animal
using a human moniker.
She was on the cover of National Geographic
when I was very young holding this little orange kitten
that she had purportedly nicknamed All Ball.
And so I started researching her language pairings.
She has about thousand words in her vocabulary,
and she's got these really interesting ways of talking.
She's sort of made up a lot of words,
and invented a lot of pairings that are great.
Like, when she's mad at you, she calls you toilet names.
So she's like, "You bad, dirty toilet" when she's mad.
And she calls women "lips" and she calls men "nipple."
Purportedly, right?
And then she sleeps in a curtained-off part
of her enclosure, and they pull the drapes.
And so she knows the sign "drapes."
And so when she doesn't want to talk to you anymore,
she just says "drapes."
Like, talk to the hand, right?
Unfortunately, when I was researching her,
I realized that the Koko story is a lot more complicated
than I thought.
It's not that some kind of terrible story
where we all need to grab torches and drive to California
and save Koko, but it's not the darling open communication
thing that I thought-- that I could just walk up to the cage
and be like, I love you, Koko.
And she would be like, "hungry."
You know, she would say something back at me.
It's a lot harder to love.
It's a lot less unconditional than that.
And I was so upset.
And I thought-- and then I saw this Greenpeace commercial
where Koko was just doing these random things with her hands,
and they had subtitled it with these complete sentences
about abstract concepts like saving the environment.
And I was just like--
I was so mad.
And I was like, they're putting these words
into the mouth of this creature that I don't even know anymore.
This creature is a part of the gray matter
that I developed from ages five to 10.
And so then I thought, well, I do have this 1,000-word
vocabulary of hers.
If they're putting all these words into Koko's mouth,
maybe I should put some words into Koko's mouth myself.
So here is Koko telling the old vaudeville joke
"The Aristocrats."
Do we know "The Aristocrats?"
It's this comedian joke that comedians don't usually
tell onstage.
They usually tell it in the bar afterwards.
And it has the same opening and the same punch line.
But the premise of it is--
it's like a shaggy dog story.
They try to sort of make it big and bloated,
the story that's in-between the premise and the punch line.
But it's, a guy walks into a talent agent's office
and tells this agent about his family act, which
is the grossest, sexual, strangest, awful, carnage,
bloody, every fluid act.
And then when it's over, the talent agent says,
what's the name of your act?
And he says, the aristocrats?
And that's the joke.
So it's not even funny.
But the reason the comedians like to tell it, I think,
is because they can sort of try to gross each other out
for like 30-minute-long versions of the joke.
Here's Koko doing it with her vocabulary.
And it's only about a one-minute read.
"Koko the gorilla tells a famous joke.
Father gorilla, mother gorilla, baby gorilla--"
You have to imagine, by the way, that I'm
a 200-pound, 40-year-old gorilla, which is-- maybe
that's not too hard.
OK.
"Koko the gorilla tells a famous joke.
Father gorilla, mother gorilla, baby gorilla hungry.
Need work.
Mustache man tell, what work?
Father gorilla tell, really together show.
Fine show.
Good practice.
Lights off good.
"Mustache man tell, hurry.
Tell me.
Father gorilla tell, hello.
Do mother gorilla.
Hello, do father gorilla.
Together dance.
Clap people.
"Father gorilla harmonica.
Mother gorilla clown time.
Clap people.
Hello!
Do baby gorilla.
Skateboard do.
"Puppet dance do.
Clap people.
Father gorilla kiss.
Mother gorilla kiss.
Gorilla hug.
"Mother gorilla nipple find.
Clap people.
Nipple kiss, nipple rub, nipple pinch, nipple slap,
nipple on bottom, nail clipper nipple, many, many nipple
touch.
Tongue nipple.
Nipple sandwich.
"Mustache man tell, who nipple?
Father gorilla tell, all nipple.
Now, father gorilla, mother gorilla peekaboo pickle.
Poke stomach.
Peekaboo pickle with pat bottom.
With walk up my bottom.
"Pull out hair.
Nasty time.
Mean love.
Mother gorilla leash on pickle.
Skateboard ride do.
Clap people.
"Mother gorilla find baby gorilla little noodle pull.
Zip mouth shut strangle tadpole.
Mayonnaise necklace.
Father gorilla there.
Sit father gorilla.
Thirsty father gorilla.
"Mother gorilla strap-on.
Baby gorilla sit.
Mother gorilla, oh!
Peekaboo pickle!
Trouble pickle.
Baby gorilla get Ingrid."
Yes, one of Koko's vocabulary words is Ingrid.
"Baby gorilla get Ingrid.
Hello, do Ingrid.
Ingrid turn around.
Baby gorilla wrestle.
"Ingrid trouble.
Devil Ingrid.
You bad dirty toilet Ingrid.
Ingrid pudding do.
Ingrid laugh.
Ingrid eats.
Ingrid sick.
"Mother gorilla taste bottle.
Matt batch.
Ingrid electric pudding.
Ingrid get father gorilla.
Pickle bottle match.
"Peekaboo pickle on fire now!
Ingrid whole smoke ring blow.
Mother gorilla whole blow harmonica.
Father gorilla dance balloon on noodle.
"Baby gorilla clown time.
Balloon on tadpole.
Ingrid hole smoke smoke.
Around together skateboard do.
Smoke noodle balloon harmonica ride all.
"Harmonica holes play 'Purple Rain.'
Oh mayonnaise rain!
Oh finished.
Thank you.
"Mustache man tell, wow.
What name show?
Father gorilla tell, we wonderful snob people."
[LAUGHTER]
"Mustache man smile frown.
Drapes."
Thank you very much.