Leopard and Monkeys, Somewhere, USA, 1959
Warm wooden guts of unfinished walls and windows with turquoise bamboo shades provide a rustic backdrop for a redhead and a monkey exchanging smiles. A second monkey sits on her shoulder. Why is she dressed in leopard? Is she trying to scare them?
Speaking of monkeys, I was recently at Knott’s Berry Farm for the release of Knott’s Preserved, an AMAZING new coffee table book by Chris Merritt and Eric Lynxwiler, celebrating the history of the boysenberry farm that morphed into America’s first theme park by way of a Chicken Dinner Restaurant.
While I was standing in line for the book signing, this guy comes up and says he’s a fan of my books and has been to a couple of my slide shows. Before I can even say “Thank you,” another guy walks up and tells me the same thing. Then both guys look at each other and say “Hey! What are you doing here?” The first guy says, “Well, I like Knott’s.” The second guy says, “Well, so do I!”
As soon as the second guy walked away, the first guy says to me “Do you know who that guy is? That’s Hugh Hefner’s son.” To which I reply, “How do you know?” He says, “I’m Hugh Hefner’s butler!” The next thing you know, Mr. Hefner’s butler is inviting me to tour the Playboy Mansion.
The very next Sunday at 8 a.m., I am driving through the gates of one of the most iconic residences on Earth—home sweet home to a man whose contribution to the modern human condition is immeasurable. I was in awe. Touring the formal grounds of the old-world style mansion (which I saw from the outside because only Hugh’s guests are invited inside!), and being inside the famous swimming pool grotto is an experience I shall never forget.
And of course, around every corner I expected to encounter a playmate or two, or three, but no. Instead of playmates I saw primates. I had no idea the fearless leader of the sexual revolution keeps a menagerie of monkeys at his mansion. Did you?
Here’s to the lady in leopard, monkeys, Hugh, his butler, his son and KNOTT’S PRESERVED!
Charles Phoenix
May 27, 2010
Charles! Only you — and possibly me — could parlay a Knott’s Berry Farm book signing into a Hef’s Booby Farm Grotto-Rama! May you always veer between 3-D…and 33 Double D! — Steven
Incredible story! Very funny stuff, Charles.
The photo reminded me of this time in my life. When we first moved to Costa Mesa before I began 8th grade. I immediately found a job delivering newspapers along the bluffs in the western side of Costa Mesa. I had been doing that work since 5th grade so the job was nothing new just the location.
The papers had to be out before 6AM so I got up at began work at 5AM each day. I only had 60 some customers and a few more on Sundays. My two longest streets were Canyon and Pacific that ran the length of the bluffs and had no short cuts between them so one had to bike a good distance to get the job done at that point.
Often in the darkness things were so nice and silent and the job was just a wonderful thing to be out and doing. But then I had my first morning of the super thick fogs that plague the beach areas in Orange County in winter. I could not see the end of my own driveway from the porch where I folded and rubber banded my papers. I think vision was limited to under ten feet and it could have been less. The worst part was I had to cross a fairly active street without being able to see if any cars were coming. This was Victoria Avenue which led down the bluffs across the Santa Ana River and into Huntington Beach. I made the scary crossing with a lump in my throat fully expecting some speeding car to plow right into me yet not one car came along at all.
All was going well even though the houses looked totally different and I had to go slow to make sure I got to the correct houses on my route list. Then I had Pacific and Canyon to go and then I would be done. I went up Canyon a ways when out of the deep dark mist came a long and loud moaning cry of the some creature, an animal or specter …maybe a banshee. It got louder and louder and as I rode slowly up the street I got more and more scared. I could see nothing at all…just a fuzzy shape of houses or a garage. The sound started low and slow and went up in decibels and tone as it was repeated. It the dense fog the sound carried and echoed all over and got so loud as I went up the street I did my last customer up to the area the sound was loudest and turned around. I biked back and went around to Pacific and then came around to the other end of Canyon and did the houses on the far side of the sounds. It was the spookiest sounds I ever heard and I was petty much too scared to pass by from where I thought the sound was coming.
The next day was not as foggy and I went past that house where the sound caused me to go back and this morning in the haze I saw this long slender ape sitting on the garage of this house. It was collared and had a very long chain attached to its collar and obviously had the run of the yard. I sat up in the point of the garage looking at me and then cut loose with its moaning cries…my hair stood up on end but at last I had an answer and was able to do the job after that without my retracing my steps. I saw that it was some light colored gibbon (exactly as in your photo) and it watched everything I did every morning from then on. It rarely called out after that unless it was foggy.
This video is as close to the sound as I have ever heard. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8808147275293592108#
In the dark and the fog and for a goofy 8th grader this was just too eerie for words.
” Monkey Business ” Eight years or so ago one of Hef’s girlfriends kept her baby monkey in the bedroom at the mansion. My second child was a couple months old and she knew I was a full time resident of diaper city. Soooo….. since I worked nights and they go out at night it makes perfect sense that I would get tapped on the shoulder to blend up the warmed ingredients,bottle feed ( I refused to breast feed) every few hours, change a diaper and just generally keep ” chongo” or what ever it’s name was happy.
Here’s to the power of a junior college education, building my resume, climbing the corporate ladder and my purgatorial state of quasi-employment !
Dann
Looks like the room is a second story above a garage with a view behind what may be a new world spider monkey (the other may be a squirrel monkey) of sliding glass doors onto a patio slab below. Appears to be among many homes on a steep mountainside. Mix of architecture might indicate California or around Flagstaff Arizona.
Is she related to Edith Prickley?