redux Mar'06
I have always thought that Gnus (aka Wilderbeasts) would have made a much better metaphorical representative of us in the Bible than sheep.
If only the Hebrews had headed directly South from Egypt and wandered all the way down to the Serengetti my wish would have come true.
It is true that sheep, like us, are really really
dumb and like most over domesticated livestock, have had nearly every last ounce of natural instinct (common sense) bred out of them long ago. The problem is that sheep are just too darn cute to metaphorically represent Homo Escapeons.
I prefer the Bewilderbeast.
Gnus are more like us because they have that dopey, stunned, blank, stare that you get from having to exist in utter anonymity lost in a gigantic herd.
Being surrounded by hundreds of thousands of other carbon copy clones tends to have that effect on you.
We all know that pampered lil Sheep are wearing pretty, little, bells and being protected by a vigilant shepherd and a big fluffy sheepdog as they merrily wander to the next greener pasture COME ON!
Gnus on the other hand are raggedy assed-half starved-scruffy-blank faced nomads who are constantly running for their frickin' lives from Lions, Hyaenas, and Crocodiles.
Do you remember watching Gnus on their great migration on those Sunday Nature Shows? Remember the sound that bewilderbeasts make..
Hmm.
On TV they show them trudging through the dust and all that you could hear was half a million Gnus grunting
Hmm Hmm Hmm Hmm Hmm!
Sound Familiar?
The bewilderbeasts live more of an actuarial existence like us.
The good gnews is that on the great dusty migration through life your best chance of surviving is to blend in somewhere in the middle of a vast sea of other identical gnus.
The bad 'Gnews' is that if you get singled out because you are young, old or injured, or just stupidly saunter off
Hmm from the herd your chances of becoming a statistic are greatly increased.
I always felt sorry for those poor Gnus because they were always on the menu as either breakfast, lunch or supper and every meal was shown in s-l-o-w m-o-t-i-o-n.
Everybody loves to Gnaw on Gnu!
The Gnus were like the extras in a movie and the bloody star of the show was always the Lion...even if it was about Gnus!
The Lion was the King and like any smart politician he made so
meone else do all of the dirty work. In reality the male lion only has a short tenure governing his pride before he is ousted by another male.
He has three mandates: make babies, kill hyaenas, and fight off other males for as long as he can.
While he is in office he sleeps for 18 hours a day and waits for the lioness sisterhood to supply him with food.
The King waits for his uncivil servants to chase and harrass Gnyou, grab Gnyou by the throat, drag Gnyou down and choke the life right out of Gnyou!
Death & Taxes!
All the commotion always attracts the Hyaenas who, like lawyers, fiendishly giggle and nervously hobble around the kill waiting for their piece of your pie. Of course the hyaenas must wait for the King to finish feasting but once the lion's share is gone they will pick away at your sorry carcass until there is literally nothing left!
Hmm..Hee Hee Hee Hee!
Sound familiar?
Like us, the bewilderbeast always had that same dopey stunned expression on their face no matter what the situation was.
For instance imagine a couple of gnus standing around....
Hmm chewin' away....
Hmm swishing flys with their tails...
Hmm dum de dum...
st
aring at an entire pride of lions charging towards them at full speed Hmm...OUCH..what the!
When the bewilderbeasts finally get to the river and bend down to get a drink BAM! SPLASH! a crocodile the size of a bus explodes through the surface and grabs one by the head Hmm OUCH!.. what the?
Like a sudden accident or fatal disease BANG! the gnew guy is suddenly gone!
Hmm.. the other bewilderbeasts lurch back for a second...
Hmm stare at the water...
Hmm swish away flys with their tails...
Hmm dum de dum....
Hmm then a few seconds later...
Hmm bend down and start drinking...
Hmm?
Sound familiar?
Of course there are good gnus and bad gnus, but most of us stay in line, follow the herd and hope that the Gnew guy gets it and not us.
Unfortunately we all look exactly alike to the Lions, Hyaenas, and Crocodiles.
They can't tell us apart from one another because we all wear that same stunned dopey stare.
Hmm!
the only reason the gnus are wearing such an idiotic expression is because they are all standing there thinking, 'what the hell do i have to do to become a lion/hyena/crocodile?' how can you hate that which you wish to be? maybe they just hide their hate under that ignorant visage, hoping one day they get lucky enough to be invited into the pride, not as dinner, but as an equal member....ha ha ahhaaa haaa!
ReplyDeleteit's the american dream. maybe i'll be the guy/gal whom they chews not to chew up and spit out, becoming the dust under the feet of their fortunes. maybe they'll see that i'm special too, just like them, that i have more to offer than just my organs and retail experience, my compliant stare and wasteful tendencies...maybe then, i ....i..
ah, to hell with it. i'm just gonna hold my neck over the water like the rest of them and whatever happens, happens. my neck looks just like the rest of them.
just like the rest of them.
ReplyDeletei needed to say that one more time, that way it's a stylistic preference and not an egregious grammatical faux pas.
Fell of my chair laughing! Not to say I did not like it!
ReplyDeleteKeep coming buddy! Thanks for saying I am some kind of genius. That I am!
LOL!
reysputin
ReplyDeleteBrilliant analogy from the left field as usual. You have a lovely neck that I am sure many crocodiles would love to grab.
I'm glad that you have abandoned any notions of joining the pride and their search for the american dream.
I'd be lion if I told gnu that it wasn't a croc!
ouch sorry...
gautami tripathy,
Thanks for tolerating all of the terrible puns..sorry that I couldn't have utilised Tigers but they are solitary creatures. I'll come up with something...
Note to self: Don't get cut from the herd.
ReplyDeletepamela,
ReplyDeleteHmmm I think you're right Hmmm Hmmm Hmmm.
...bewildered n' disoriented:)
ReplyDeletemateif ur wondering who's been littering White Devil's blog with my Id...it's a clone. Yeah someone has cloned my Id and using it to confuse my friends.
ReplyDeleteFunny post btw :)
**While he is in office he sleeps for 18 hours a day and waits for the lioness sisterhood to supply him with food.
hehe sounds familiar in the human world...lol!
Keshi.
stud,
ReplyDeleteand well you should
grumblefish,
you crack me up.
'teeth marks on your caboose'means that you've escaped atleast once..get back in the middle of the herd Hmmm
keshi,
OMG this was my first taste of subterfuge in blogville..oh the humanity! I couldn't figure out what the hell was goin' on..crikee!
Polish up the 'ol roo bar in case you see the culprit out on a walkabout....
Now you can start telling your tales about Great Whites and Tiger Sharks and Jaws...hmmmmmmm
ReplyDeletethanks for understanding mate! yes there r ID-stealers on the net too hehehehe...
ReplyDeleteKeshi.
Donnnnnn, this is too funny! I gnew you would eventually turn to something other than sharks... but it still involves getting gnawed on! Hmmmm......
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff! I laughed, I cried, I checked in the mirror for bite marks.
ReplyDeleteThe analogy is good as far as it goes, but where are the elements of Gnutopia that we have come to know and love? Where are the ones that have convinced the others that they have entitlement to the inner circles of the herd? Are there any who wear a piece of sod on their heads and claim to speak for the Great Gnu in the Sky (Xegnu?) How about the bureaucratic Gnus, creating false distinctions and playing factions off against each other by promising a Gnu Deal every 4 years? Salesgnu, getting commissions for selling stuff nognu needs and only think they want because it’s brand gnu? Investment Gnus, with the promise of large future returns in exchange for control of the cud?
Never mind. Keep it simple. This is beginning to sound like Waterbuffalo Down.
Sing along...
ReplyDeleteI'm a gnu.
We have a saying...."don't let the bastards get you down".
ReplyDeleteTime for this gnu to learn to outsmart, outthink, outplay.....swim, climb and talk!
That look on my face is just the ipod playing Eagles, "Peaceful easy feeling".
Long live the Gnu.
Pam
I bow down to you for educating and enlightening me about the Gnu. I had no idea as to their maginifence, presence and import.
ReplyDeleteI find you one cool person, Donnnnn....lovin' your pondercations and webmind.
Donn say after me "I am a predator, I am not prey, I am a diner, not dinner, I am not a herd animal."
ReplyDeleteSadly people are excellent predators and far more successful than any others.
There may be good and bad gnus
ReplyDeletebut they all smell awful
We always say that if something/someone smells really bad they smell of gnu
Hello there - I see that you saw my gnu post. I will get back into this again one of these days....sooner or later...perhaps. I miss you people :).
ReplyDeletethey suffer on, ignorant forever of the lyrics to the song they were told to sing....hmm hmm hmm.
ReplyDeleteNations: I'll make my own kind of music
ReplyDeleteSing my own special song
Make my own kind of music
Even
if
nobody
else
sings
along
You can sing along to THAT too.
ReplyDeleteIt's bittersweet really.. the lions like that we just follow the herd and challenge nothing but need one of us to step forward or lag behind every once in a while. We're screwed.
ReplyDeleteYou had to pick such an ugly creature, didn't you? Can't we all just be meerkats?
I swear this blog is like the constant premiere of the next Star Wars saga.......I think that people actually CAMP OUT at their computors checking this thing every five minutes for the next episode so that they can be THE FIRST one thousand or so to get in and get that souvenier T-shirt given to the first fifty billion to get in the door......sigh.......24 comments already, and I bet 10 more made it in before I finished typing this...........no gnus is good gnus!
ReplyDeleteI rem this GREAT post :)
ReplyDeleteKeshi.
MJ beat me to it. Never mind, I'll sing in the wilderness.
ReplyDeleteOr maybe recite a poem:
"Up jumped a wildebeest
Piet said we killed de beest.
Mit lead we filled de beest
Tea time, we grilled de beest."
(Can't remember the author without looking up the book. Answer later.)
No! Answer now cos I remember it!It was W.F.N.Watson, writing an example of the poetic meter, dactyl.Called Gnus in Brief.
A gnu avatar! Showing you at your sportiest, I see. And another gnu look for your blog....
ReplyDeletehmmmmm...
ReplyDeletehmmmmmm
hmmmmmm
sorry i was watching the lions...
gnuf said ;)
When's the TV series out?
ReplyDeleteThis requires syndication.
don~~your insight into human nature is amazing
ReplyDeleteoh shit, you are talking about animals, not humans~~
is there a differece?
**remembering that somewhere some instructor told me the difference between humans and animals were that humans were so ashamed of their bodies they decided to always cover themselves in clothes and so anxiety ridden that we have to do unnatural things to assure we have shelter and food
~~working for the allmighty $$ instead of gnowing what must be done for our survival~~and look what our superior brain power has gotten us~~we have almost(maybe completely) destroyed the planet in which we(all beings)live
wonder who the hynnas will sue when the world stops working after all, it can't be mankind's fault
it must be the gnus~~
I'm not a good gnu. In fact, I kind of wonder if I'm a gnu at all.
ReplyDeleteI kind of do stupid crap which makes me very visible.
I think I more resemble a male peacock.
I should really work on that.
PONYGIRL
ReplyDeleteI should just stick with my naturalist posts because I have always been an animal guy..didn't play with trucks or guns when I was a kid just toy animals..still have a killer collection of replicas that I pretended to buy for my sons over the years..HA! They're MINE!
BREAKERSLION
The really bad Gnews is that those asshats that feel so entitled to all the cud hide in the very centre of the herd and almost never get eaten..they play it safe.
One night we should all quietly slip away and leave them to wake up in the middle of the savannagh surrounded by all the predators!
MJ
HA! I am not sure where you store all of that info in your noggin but it must be pretty scary up there.
SIENNA
The truth of the matter is that none of these readers are Gnus..they are all adventerous free thinkers..this is just my grossly oversimplification of the great unwashed masses..you know, people who don't blog.
Sheesh, I am not totatlly misnathropic.
GILLETTE
The thing about Gnus is the safety in numbers thingamabob..the herd mentality...why reinvent the wheel when things have always been done the same way?
Once the Gnus reach a certain population somewhere past the 20/1 ratio required to sustain the predators, it's only climatic or viral afflictions to thin the herd and since they are always on the move they are usually pretty lucky.
I suppose they don't do well in captivity otherwise we would have been eating McGnu Burgers long ago.
This...
ReplyDelete"While he is in office he sleeps for 18 hours a day and waits for the lioness sisterhood to supply him with food"
is
real
life.
(Grrrr...)
I would only add that some play minesweeper 18 hours a day instead of sleeping.
I am a good gnu. Can't help it. ;)
ZIGGI
ReplyDeleteI am not Dinner!
No I am not Dinner
If I am not Dinner
Then why is the herd gettin' Thinner?
CYBERPETE
ReallY? Gnus have entered the lexicon in your part of the world?
What about that Gnu Car smell?
LEE
Hurry back because we all missed you too.
Hope everything is Okee Dokee.
FIRST NATIONS
Did you just write that or paraphrase? That is a fantastic metaphor..Hmmm...seriously, ignorant of the lyrics..that's great.
MJ
Wow you were inspired by Nations to lament!
What a Day
What a Day
What a Day!
ANNDI
ReplyDeleteMeerkats are way to cute and community conscience..they have altruism and babysitting..light years ahead of the long faced Gnus with the vacant glare.
THE MICHAEL
Ha! You are much to generous in your estimation..go check my stats thingamabob..I think that I had about 44 viewers all week...and I am grateful for every click.
Thanks for the encouragement...
I try.
KESHI
Yes, it was back in the day when you were having your identity theft and whoever made all of those outlandish promises of primal ecstasy and so I went out and bought all the costumes and set up the video equipment and then you and your friend never even showed up...
*sigh..live and learn.
MOREIDLETHOUGHTS
Wow I had no idea that Gnus had made such an impact on the literary world? Gadzooks!
I am totally changing my identity to W.T.F.WATSON that's an awesome moniker
PONYGIRL
Yep that's me Sporty Spice..I went out to tune up one of my daughters for a big Game and the next day I was so stiff..UGH...I suppose I shouldn't have tried to hit every ball over the fence..my back oooh.
Fabulous post .. I love it so much I am going to read it twice!
ReplyDelete:-Daryl
SWEETS
ReplyDeleteYou and me both..I remember how the Lion was always portrayed as Animal Royalty when I was a kid back in the 60s. It was anthropomorphic snobery thanks to the ancients and their idolizing this gigantic cat with that regal mane and thunerous ROAR.
We now know that they live hardscrabble claw to mouth lives that are under constant threat of upheaval from rival males who will kill or chase off the male(s) kill all the cubs so that the female will go into estrus and the new males can start anew pride..PRIDE.
THE POET LAUR-EATE
Back in the 80s I actually started a cartoon strip based on this premise..it's somewhere in my box of half-assed notions down in the basement.
What a life..those little Gnus need to learn how to run full speed in a matter of hours..the only thing going for them is that thousands of others are being born at the same time so hopefully the predators can't manage to eat them all at once...brutal.
CHARLENE
We are animals too although we don't like to categorize ourselves as such. We have totally lost touch with just surviving and now we have people who get paid to study the sex lives of Humbolt Squid, take photos of half nekkid Celebrities, channel dead relatives, scoop ice cream, invent new forms of taxation, sqweegee windshields...it is surreal.
If and when the 'system fails' it willl be a terrifyingly short distance to reverting back to warring clans and the survival of the most aggressive..we see it happen all the time in the news..Serbia, Rwanda, Pakistan..it only takes the blink of an eye.
It's pathetic.
CATSCRATCH
Do NOT change a thing! I was mentioning earlier that the reason that I find folks like you so entrancing is that you USE your brain and you let your little light shine! What is the point of going through all of this if nobody is gonna remember you? Seriously?
This isn't a dress rehearsal this is it..TA DA!! It's lights up for a full house on opening night.."break a leg"
LENI
Oh come now..you know that you like to see what's happening past the sea of identical shoulders and dust stirred up by the others. You look up at the sky and notice the Sun and Moon and the Stars.
The Lioness Sisterhood sticks together through thick and thin and the Males come and go..they need Kings to kill Hyaenas, scare off other males who would kill their young...and oh yeah and to fertilise them..which they do over and over for like a day and a half at a time.
DARYL
Thanks, please feel free to add your formidable insights. Please remember that I am not a complete and utter misanthrope and that this is a sarcastic gross generalization of all those people who don't Blog.
Sporty Spice. huh? Well, better not get too stiff and sore or the herd will leave you behind and you'll be lion lunch in no time!
ReplyDeleteWe just ain't as spry as we used to be, at our ripe old age of 50, eh! I haven't played ball in about 5 years - it would probably kill me to throw and hit the ball now. How sad is that....
It's the factual content of this blog that keeps me tuning in...
ReplyDeleteI didn't gnow this much about livestock.
All along you gnew.
Are you one of those Gnostics?
haha ur impossible Donn!
ReplyDeletecome check my Update :)
Keshi.
wonder what the taste like on the BBQ.........
ReplyDeleteyeah, but look at our fuck-off horns. eh? Check 'em out.
ReplyDeletePONYGIRL
ReplyDeleteYou're preachin' to the choir Sistah!
PAUL
HA! Takes one to Gnow one! Actually you may be on to something here..Gnostic Gnowitall has a nice ring to it..although I am still quite intent on becoming WTF Watson.
KESHI
I am 'um'possible..I shall be right over.
WHITEHORSE
Having survived 50 years on Earth it has come to my attention that almost every exotic food is described by someone else as "tastes like Chicken"
However, unlike domesticated fat lethargic cows who stand around chewin' cud for a year and or two before being processed..Gnus are nomadic stressballs eating on the run so their meat must be loaded with adrenalin and be as tough as their hooves...who knows..maybe they do taste like Chicken?
FATHORSE
YEAH! Look at those mothers..they look like they would leave a mark.
I don't know if Gnus are even bright enough to realise that they actually have horns. Maybe when they bend down to drink they see them for the first time and think hey what hell are those things on my head?
Unfortunately, as they are momentarily perplexed by having 'an idea forming in their 'ead', a Croc the size of a school bus has already grabbed them.
D'OH!
I loved this post and may become one of your regular readers from now on! I needed a good laugh and this post game it to me! ;-)
ReplyDeleteyeah, it's pretty much a zoo...and I say zoo cuz we don't get the benefit of the wild beauty.
ReplyDeleteanother triumph, fargin awesome post donn!
ReplyDelete