GorillaOffTopic, Everything But Gorilla Trades

From the desk of the strange, bizarre, and just plain silly, comes a story that the Gorilla found both dumb and hilarious at the same time. It seems that some wacky people in Florida want the right to vote naked! That’s right folks, the Gorilla said NAKED.

Members of a Pasco County nudist colony called, Caliente Resorts, want officials to set up clothing optional voting booths for their benefit. The Caliente is the largest nudist colony in the U.S., with almost 350 residents who are registered voters, and they feel that they are being slighted by having to get dressed and drive to polls to vote. (Perish the thought!)

The residents want their own polling center set up for their use on Tuesday. But Brian Corley, Pasco County’s supervisor of elections isn’t considering the idea…at least not this time around. The election official said he does not plan to “even consider” opening additional polling places until after the scheduled 2010 redistricting. So does that mean that it would be a consideration at that time? Well, yes and no.

Jennifer Davis, a spokeswoman for the Florida Secretary of State’s Office, said a nude polling place would not violate any state laws, but that it would be up to the local election supervisor. (In this case Brian Corley.) One clever commissioner made a good point; If the nudists want to vote naked, why not send in an absentee ballot? But a spokesperson for the nudists claims that voting is a civic duty that the people at the colony take it very seriously just like any one else. They want to be able to express themselves the way they are accustomed to- in the nude!

Man, the Gorilla doesn’t know what the big deal is. If they want to vote nude, let them vote nude. The Gorilla has been voting in the nude (with only his fur, sans the suit he normally wears) for years. It seems that people are so shocked to see a Gorilla at the polls, they barely notice that he is naked! The point is, even if you vote in the nude, just please get out there and vote!

It’s Halloween, but do you know the origins of this creepy holiday? The Gorilla had only a slight idea until recently. The Gorilla remembers well being a child and finding out that some of his friends were not allowed to celebrate the fun and festive day because their parents were “too religious.” That’s the only answer the Gorilla remembers getting from those friends about the reasons their parents refused them this kid “rite of passage.”

The Gorilla never quite understood this mentality, but apparently many parents refuse to let their kids celebrate, let alone acknowledge Halloween, so the Gorilla decided to find the origins of Halloween. It turns out that it is in fact scary and gruesome, but mostly just superstitious. The tradition of Halloween dates back to the ancient Celtics and Europeans, who regarded the beginning of winter as being an uncertain and frightening time of year. Because of the cold weather food supplies often ran low and for those people who were afraid of the dark, the short days of winter brought constant worry and fear. They equated the time to a time of fear and starvation that quite often led to death.

On Halloween, when it was believed that ghosts came back to the earthly world, people thought that they would encounter ghosts if they left their homes. To avoid being recognized by these ghosts, people would wear masks when they left their homes after dark so that the ghosts would mistake them for fellow spirits. In addition, they would leave bowls of food outside their homes to keep the spirits from entering their homes. Pretty soon the time of year became a festival in which people would dress up in masks for the All Souls’ Day parades in England. During the festivities, poor citizens would beg for food and families would give them pastries called “soul cakes” in return for their promise to pray for the family’s dead relatives. The distribution of soul cakes was encouraged by the church as a way to replace the ancient practice of leaving food and wine for roaming spirits. The practice, which was referred to as “going a-souling” was eventually taken up by children, who would visit the houses in their neighborhood and be given ale, food, and money.

By the 800’s Christianity was widespread in Europe. Pope Boniface IV designated November 1 All Saints’ Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs. It is widely believed today that the Pope was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday. 

Okay, so maybe the whole “time of death” thing is scary, but Halloween is still supposed to be fun!  Yes, there are scary monsters out there in the world; death, tragedy, heartbreak, and fear. But this is the one day that kids can dress up as the things they either fear or fantasize about being, and is a fun and healthy way to pretend- even if just for a day. Why deny them that thrill? Let’s not get all weird about it parents. Happy Halloween to all!

Kids these days are not that hard to buy for during the holidays. They know what they want, and they are NOT afraid to ask for it. The same was true for a Canadian teenager, who desperately wanted a video game for his Nintendo Wii gaming system. The game was the highly sought after Guitar Hero III. For those of you who aren’t familiar, it is an exciting interactive game in which the user holds a guitar and plays a song from the interactive screen, while following along with the color coded keys on the guitar. Points are earned from each note that is correctly keyed while playing along. (The Gorilla has actually seen this game and LOVES it! It’s just too bad that his fingers are too big to play with it.)

The game is definitely hard to get your hands on, but the father of the teen thought that his son deserved the almost $90 game and so he went out and purchased it for the boy. Last week however, the boy was caught smoking pot in his backyard with some friends, so the father proceeded to take the necessary measures. To punish him, the father decided to auction off the beloved video game on eBay. The man, who is a schoolteacher, stated that he found it hard to justify giving the son this game as a gift when the boy’s behavior was so inappropriate. (Now that’s called hitting em’ where it hurts!) 

The man alerted potential buyers of the unusual situation and bidders were more than sympathetic with the man. So sympathetic, in fact, that a buyer in Australia even ended up purchasing the game for over $9,000! Wow! Now that’s a punishment that benefits everyone involved! So the kid smoked pot (unacceptable to be sure) but folks, at this point, how mad can the guy really still be? As angry and frustrated as this father was with his young son’s behavior, the Gorilla is pretty certain, the whopping $9,000 he made selling the kid’s game as punishment quickly got him over it. Happy holidays!