If you don’t know who he is, he was one of the stars of the hit 90’s sitcom Friends.

Don’t be impressed by that. There were too many “stars” to count on that stupid show. Even a monkey was a star on that show. A monkey. Not Curious George. Not the Ikea Monkey. Just a regular, annoying monkey, so Matthew’s “star status” is really no big deal at all.

Just like in high school.

Matthew may have had famous parents and a cheap California tan, but I was the real star at Lisgar Collegiate Institute in Ottawa. Not only was I president of the UFO club, but I was also a great athlete, and I used to crush Perry mercilessly at tennis.

All.

Day.

Long.

It used to infuriate him! He would throw his expensive tennis racquets all over the place, complain that I was “foot faulting” or not wearing proper whites. Bullshit stuff like that. Anyway, the bottom line is that I destroyed him and made the tennis team while he did not. This final humiliation seemed to break Matthew, and after that he was my subordinate, little yes-man.

Matthew has been pretty unemployable since Friends, and thirsty for a little bit of publicity, he recently went on Jimmy Kimmel and announced that he and another kid, “Chris Murray,” once beat up Canadian Prime Minister and sex symbol Justin Trudeau back in school.

http://www.womansday.co.nz/celebrity/matthew-perry-admits-he-once-beat-up-justin-trudeau-7383

This is not true.

As Matthew still respects and fears me, he wouldn’t dare use my real name in public, but I was the “Chris Murray” mentioned.

To make a long story short, I was giving a presentation– in the hopes of recruiting future members to my high school UFO club–to Justin’s fifth grade class. After my talk I opened the floor up for questions:

Justin: Je ne peux m’empêcher de remarquer que les filles semblent être sous-représentées dans le club UFO. Pourriez-vous nous expliquer pourquoi?

Me: What?

Justin: Oh, I see you don’t speak French. What a shame. What I was asking was why aren’t there any girls in the UFO club. Are they not allowed?

Me: Girls??

Justin: Yes, girls. They comprise over half the population. ( Class, including teacher, roar with laughter)

Me: No girl has ever tried to join the UFO club. Would any want to?? Do you think you could get us one!?

Justin: That’s not my job. Your job is to create a safe and inclusive environment so they’ll want to join. Girls, would you like to join this creepy, unilingual, UFO club for boys, or would you rather form your own right here?! ( Class, including teacher, roar with approval)

Some other things happened, but in short, I delegated Matthew to beat up Justin after school, however Matthew failed, as I should have known he would fail, and I had to step in to do the job properly. At this time in my life I got nose bleeds very easily, and my bleed had nothing to do with Justin, who mistakenly thought the fight was over and was walking away like a coward. I tackled him and was just about to apply the finishing gotchy when some little girl kicked me in the back of the neck.

I had to wear a brace for six weeks after that.

And sadly, Matthew and I then drifted apart and the UFO Club just sort of faded away.

********************************

I know that this isn’t proper form, but can I just say, what a goddamn monkey!!

Can we give it up for, George?

Yeah, that’s the sort of monkey he was, the sort of monkey that could get an entire church full of people to yell and applaud wildly. Just think about that for a second. He was an entirely different species, and here we all are, brought together by this wondrous monkey, cheering at the mere thought of him.

Remember that cheer, people. That’s a gift that George left to us, his encouragement to go out there into the world– fearless and happy– and to make as much mischief as possible!

George, as you all know, was no ordinary monkey. Other monkey’s may have arrived on the scene…Bubbles? The Ikea Monkey?

Couldn’t even hold George’s banana peel.

George endured while all the others fell away.

And Lord, such a funny monkey.

The funniest monkey ever, I think.

He was the Robin Williams of monkeys.

It wasn’t just his curiosity that made him so uniquely beloved, there was something else, too, something that spoke to humans and primates alike. George was joy, a playful little monkey who led us back to our better angels, to a place where the light of childhood shone all year round. And regardless of how famous George became, regardless of how busy or troubled his life became, even when he El Chapo made a trophy pet of him,

George ALWAYS made time to play.

Now, a lot of you might be wondering why The Man in the Yellow Hat, his partner in crime, isn’t here delivering this eulogy. Well, he and George had a complicated relationship, and it has to be said that over the years an awful lot of poo was flung. Back when it all started, The Man in the Yellow Hat tricked George by taking advantage of his curiosity, luring him into his big yellow hat and then taking him from his home and family in Africa to the shores of America.

George always resented it.

By today’s standards what The Man in the Yellow Hat did was unacceptable. A crime, even. But in the 1930’s people didn’t see it that way. Anyway, as George learned more about what happened to him, he distanced himself from The Man in the Yellow Hat. Well, it turns out this separation did neither man nor monkey any good. The Man in the Yellow Hat took to pills, the bottle and street fighting,

his whereabouts now unknown, and George careened from one professional disaster to the next– the masturbation incident in the boardroom of Celebrity Apprentice now carved into the history of American popular culture.

Our sweet George sort of wandered through the wilderness after that, a lost monkey in the cities of man. It was at this time that Islam reached out to him, and ???? ???????, as George chose to be called after his conversion, seemed to be getting his life back on track. Unfortunately, like too many of the disenfranchised and alienated amongst us, George became radicalized. Monkey see, monkey do.

George’s curiosity just proved too much in this case, and his life ended in Syria as part of an ISIS suicide squad.

I don’t know much about the afterlife or where George is, but I choose to imagine that beautiful monkey still clinging to that kite from one of his very first adventures, the winds gently pulling him upwards and home to glory.