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Once upon a 90′s, there were three alleged hatreds that defined the enigma known only as Angus McKay.

They were:
1. Guided Tours
2. The Macarena
3. Anthropoids

The scenario builders of CRAAB would use these big curly haired execrations to weave whimsical fantasies of Angus waking up to find he is on a guided tour where the beautiful guide, ignoring Angus’s pleas, would teasingly lead the group further and further into the jungle. The sentinels of surrounding foliage would rage to life for a split second, and there would be one less person on the tour, until one by one they are all gone, except Angus and the guide.  Now it’s getting dark and it’s getting creepy . . . especially when, through the trees, Vincent Price’s voice can be heard saying:

Darkness falls across the land
The midnite hour is close at hand
Creatures crawl in search of blood
To terrorize yawls neighborhood
And whosoever shall be found
Without the soul for getting down
Must stand and face the apes of hell
And rot inside a corpses shell
The foulest stench is in the air
The funk of forty thousand years
And grizzy gorillas from every tomb
Are closing in to seal your doom
And though you fight to stay alive
your doom is inevitable, Angus
For no mere mortal can resist
The evil of the Macarangus*

Like horrific poltergeists, massive gorillas emerge from the trees and slowly form a circle around the trembling minstrel.  Angus huddles against the tour guide for safety, but recoils in absolute terror as he discovers that she now has the face of a chimpanzee.  The gorillas fall in behind her as she starts to chant, “Huma numa nuuuma numa numa Angus!”  Together, they move with the perfect unity of one organism, while they:

1. Placeing their arms forward, palm down, right arm, then left arm.
2. Then they turn their arms over so that their palms are up, right, then left.
3. They put their hands on their shoulders, first right hand on left shoulder, then left on right.
4. Then they put their hands on the back of their head, again right, then left.
5. They then places their arms on their hips, right hand on left hip, then left on right.
6. Then the dancer’s hands go on their respective hips or rear end, right then left
7. The routine finishes with a pelvic rotation in time with the line “Hey Macarangus!”
8. Then they simultaneously jump and turn 90 degrees counter clockwise and repeat the same motions throughout the whole song.

The rest is not pretty. Needless to say, afterward, there is valpurgus all over the trees for at least a mile radius.  The local indigenous people say that on the darkest nights they can still hear the echos of that night playing along while rushing cross the forest.

Huma numa nuuuma numa numa Angus!
Huma numa nuuuma numa numa Angus!
Huma numa nuuuma numa numa Angus!
Hey Macarangus!

*At being screwed up, no one could beat you . . . but you gave the world The Thriller, so thank you, Michael Jackson.

In the movie Congo, to which we owe so much, there is a gorilla named Amy who has a machine attached to her hands that speaks for her when she signs. And thus:

“Amy love Josh. Amy love Boo. Amy love Kohl. Amy good gorilla.”
“Amy, what about Angus?”
“Amy kill . . .” and then she says with her own mouth, in her own voice, “ANGUS!”

There were many variations on this, including one where Amy is an unrequited lover of Angus, but Angus’s terror of gorillas makes the torch she bears for him a tragic impossibility.

Then a couple years later Angus married a girl named Amy. I didn’t realize the coincidence until I was writing a letter to Boo, who was serving in Brazil at the time. I was telling him how Angus and Amy were engaged and suddenly it smashed together in my brain so hard I got a nose bleed. “Oh my goodness! Angus is marrying a girl named AMY!!!!!” Only God can write things like this.

However the human Amy is a very nice individual, and due to propriety “Amy love Angus” jokes have faded away . . . but seeing how the joke predated us knowing Amy, I post the below picture one last time.

What if Angus just has a way with the Amys?

Beware the beast Man, for he is the Devil’s pawn. Alone among God’s primates, he kills for sport or lust or greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother’s land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him, for he is the harbinger of death –Sacred Scrolls of the Apes

It was not long after The Beginning that Gorilla humor was flying through CRAAB like poo. Angus, however, remained blissfully ignorant of this new motif. It was a time when 85% of CRAAB was somewhere on a mission, and The Keepers of the Home Fires included Josh, Chris, Angus and myself (and probably Boo too but we weren’t aware of that yet). CRAAB’s new Gorilla humor was founded on the premise that all gorillas maintained a deep-seated hatred/insatiable hunger for Angus. At first the jokes were mostly hypothetical situations in which Angus might find himself encountering a gorilla (or troop of gorillas), but after a few years the parameters of this humor grew to encompass all apes and any simian related texts. It even evolved to the point where Angus didn’t have to be included in the Gorilla humor for it to be hilarious.

Its obvious that our pop-culture has a fetish for ape humor as is, but for me, my appreciation for the hilarity of our hairy cousins didn’t come until the Brotherhood of the Congo Era of CRAAB. I think ape humor has been played out in our pop-culture, people often go for the cheep laugh by sprinkling monkeys on a situation like they sprinkle midgets. But not CRAAB, and that’s because we have a fresh angle; Angus!

For that we will be forever grateful. Thank you, Angus.

Dr. Savio DSilva of the Internet says: “The fear of Gorillas is defined as a fear of any event, outcome, situation or person that resembles, relates or symbolises “Gorillas” of any form or kind. The fear of Gorillas is a common phobia in North America, Australia, Asia and the rest of the world. Fear of Gorillas is a phobia that affects over 250,000 people in America alone. It is defined as a fear of Gorillas of any form or kind. People suffering from the fear of Gorillas or Gorillas phobia will do anything and everything to avoid Gorillas of any form or kind. Any event, person or situation that resembles, relates to or symbolises “Gorillas” can trigger this fear of Gorillas off. This Gorillas phobia is generally caused by some influence of “Gorillas” in the person’s life through the media, cinema, childhood experiences, family experiences, dreams, books, news events, etc.”

It was shortly after I returned from my mission, Josh and I were walking through Target when Josh picked up a stuffed gorilla and said, “Oooo! Oooo! Angus!” The moment was a normal moment, hilarious, yes, but no more hilarious than the things that we were saying before Josh picked up that Gorilla. What I didn’t know was that my life would never be the same. I asked Josh why he said Angus’s name. Josh told me that Angus was so scared after he watched the movie Congo that he had to sleep in his parents’ room. There it was. The Beginning.