Years ago I was a crackpot with a newspaper. I was the publishers of an alternative newsweekly in Athens, GA. We grew out of the Athens music scene and the desire for a local paper that could cover and celebrate it.
Now every media outlet that generates revenue from advertising–from print to teevee to radio to Web to whatever–will have open ad space from time to time. This is usually filled by giving the space to charity/public service ads, self-promotion ads or trades for some kind of service or need. We used do all these things when we had open ad space. For example we used to trade ad space with a local recording studio so that we could gather known and unknown Athens musicians to record our annual Christmas albums. These ad trades created amazing results like a cover of White Christmas by the late great Vic Chesnutt–a deeply missed friend who passed a little over a year ago.
As the owner of the paper I was free to use this open space to promote whatever I wanted to promote and that brings me to Monkey Milk.
Monkey Milk was an experiment in the ridiculous and the old American newspaper tradition of creating a hoax to amuse, confuse and titillate your readers. Bamboozling your readers was an art form celebrated as ‘Humbug‘. It was entertainment and most folks took it that way, but there were always the gullible and humorless who did not. Some of the newspaper hoaxes were masterpieces of the form like Sawing Manhattan in Half and The Great Moon Hoax of 1835 and The Great Balloon Hoax (written by Edgar Allen Poe) as well as the endless number of hoaxes promoted by P.T. Barnum–perhaps the real Father of our modern American system of media and politics rooted in an imitation of classic humbug.
One of my brothers was working with me at the paper and he was very fond of Humbug as an art form. He liked nothing better than spinning a good yarn that sounded just real enough to be taken as fact even though it was ridiculous–especially if you stopped for even a moment to think about it. He once convinced a fellow visiting him in NYC that folks in Manhattan where buying Brazilian attack turtles to keep as pets because they did a better job of catching mice and rats than cats and traps. So one week when we had some space to fill he came up with the idea for Monkey Milk. He wrote the copy while our Graphic Designer and I came up with a logo and the ad. The copy was brilliant and for authenticity it–of course–included a footnote:
The Monkey Ranch was founded in 1981 just outside of Laitteville, PA as a research center for the educational development of monkeys and apes. ‘We have also provided the entertainment industry with many talented performers. Animal Rights Activist, Julie Labbruf, called our operation, a model of humane and friendly treatment. ..”*
In the last seven years our team of trained researchers have turned their attention to the potential use of MONKEYMILK as a food for humans. The results have been amazing!* It has long been recognized that cow’s milk, while consumed indiscriminately by the dictates of tradition, contributes to a wide range of health problems.
Goat’s milk more closely answers the needs of the human body, but what could better satisfy the needs of the human body than the milk of our nearest relative in the animal kingdom? Our research has revealed the incredible nutritional values and healing virtues of MONKEY MILK as a delicious food for man, woman and child. For more detailed nutritional information, just pick up any MONKEY MILK product at a store near you!
* See the article about MONKEY Milk in Newsweek, Dec. 12, 1991 and in Nutrition Monthly, June 1991.
We ran the ad and enjoyed the response from friends especially some who worked at some of the local health food stores. With their help we widened the believability of the product. We made hanging cards to place in store refrigerated selves saying “Sorry, the last bottle of Money Milk has been sold. A fresh shipment is on order” and using an ad trade with a local screen printer we made Monkey Milk T-shirts to put up for sale at shops around town and to pass out for folks to wear.
We started running the ad week after week, adding the names of local stores and a promise of new products to come:
Folks started asking for it at the stores only to be told that the last bottle had been sold and that another order was on the way. Folks started calling the paper trying to find out how they could get in contact with The Monkey Ranch. These calls were always routed to my brother who would explain the that ads and payment arrived from a PO Box in Atlanta and we did not know how to get in touch with The Monkey Ranch. When one irate caller got upset with his inability to give her a straight answer she yell at him “you suck” to which he replied “Jesus, Lady that’s sick. They milk em like cows–with sterilized machines.” She hung up.
A few months later my brother and I were at a local bar having a drink when the latest issue of the paper was being looked over by a group of folks at a nearby table. A women at the table suddenly went “Yuck. Monkey Milk. That’s disgusting”. We had heard that kind of reaction before, but then a fella at the table spoke up told her that he had had it before and that it wasn’t disgusting at all. In fact, he said it tasted great. As he promoted the virtues of Monkey Milk somebody else at the table jumped to his support and claimed that he too had it before and that it was OK. As the group decided that they all had to try it, we toasted each other to a job well done while trying to keep our laughter in check.
Over the years we continued to run the Monkey Milk ad from time to time. And there was a few months when a small beverage distributor actually wanted to produce and brand something called Monkey Milk, but those discussions never went anywhere–I think the idea of an actual product was just too silly. As time went by Monkey Milk just became a good story to tell.
And yet, in the wake of 2010 and as the 112th Congress comes to town Monkey Milk has been on my mind. While I like to think the the art of Humbug is just good clean fun, the truth is that the skills required to produce the humbug newspaper hoaxes of old–the one that were played for laughs and entertainment–have a dark side. They can also be used to create hoaxes with a very different goal than a shared laugh at a practical joke well played. These skills can be used to promote fear, ignorance, bigotry and smears.
When I listen to the rhetoric of the modern so-called Conservative movement, when I listen to the spin of the Republican Confederate Party and when I listen to or read their mighty wurlitzer of propaganda on Fox, wingnut radio and the online purveyors of wingnutopia it is clear that they are just selling Monkey Milk with a far bigger budget and no sense of humor. They offer an idea of a product that does not and never will exist and they get the gullible to tell their friend that it is real. All they offer is an endless hoax and a con that is completely without humor and joy. It is Humbug employed as a dark art and the Father of our modern American system, P.T. Barnum, must be spinning in his grave.
Cheers
dengre
Phoebe
I’m the only person I know who thinks this, but I think the entire Fred Phelps organization is a hoax.
de stijl
Oh, my bones are so brittle. But I always drink plenty of…”malk”?
Restrung
job killer
Omnes Omnibus
What kind of monkey?
de stijl
@Omnes Omnibus:
Bonobos. The sexy monkey!
Redshift
My favorite recent humbug was ThinkGeek’s Canned Unicorn Meat, which was explicitly an April Fool’s joke, but was still convincing enough to draw a cease-and-desist letter from the Pork Board for using the phrase “the new white meat.”
Andy K
@de stijl:
I’ll be that guy: Bonobos are apes, not monkeys.
de stijl
@Andy K:
C’mon! Don’t be that guy.
Redshift
@Phoebe: I used to wonder if Bill O’Reilly was a hoax character. I guess it’s just my optimistic nature, since the world would be nicer if it was all deep performance art rather than such awful characters actually existing.
Citizen Alan
@Phoebe:
It is. They’ve made millions in frivolous lawsuits against municipalities which violated their civil rights by either denying them a forum for their hate speech or by failing to protect them from passersby who get angry over their hate speech and assault them in some way. The whole thing is an elaborate and offensive con. Literally half the “church” has a law degree.
Redshift
The real question is how many of them actually believe the BS and how many are still running it as dark humbug, after this long. And even more complex, how many of them are BS artists who have convinced themselves to believe it (because it makes their BS more believable), but could turn on a dime if it ceased being profitable.
Andy K
Along the same lines (sorta), when he was young, I told my kid that while his legal name was Brendan, I had baptised him under a full moon with his special Dude name: Kunta Kinte.
The look on his face at age 14 or 15 was priceless the day he got back from school and told me that they’d just started watching Roots in his Social Studies class.
Mojotron
BonsaiKitten.com, and ditto on the Fred Phelps thing. He can’t not know when they troll that hard.
MikeJ
@Citizen Alan: Those aren’t frivolous lawsuits. Denying a froum for speech is a serious offense, as is failure to protect.
awreckloose
thank you Andy K.
cuz i were tempted.
Phoebe
@Redshift: I was on the fence until they protested Elizabeth Edwards as soon as she died. Everything they do is so insanely unpopular and so consistently generates counter protests that I can’t believe they can get that many people to even hold the signs unless the negative publicity/counter protests are the actual goal.
freelancer
Barnum’s White Salmon, guaranteed not to go pink in the can. That guy could sell anything.
de stijl
Monkey Dots – the ice cream of the future!
Redshirt
I was a college radio DJ in 1990 and it was wicked cool. We still used actual records. There were a handful of CD’s, but that was all fancy new fangled and not widestream.
Anyways, Michael Stipe recorded a PSA for another DJ about forest fires or some such, and it was wonderful. I played it all the time on my show, since I was mad for R.E.M. It was recorded on this heavy duty recording cartridge that you would jam into this industrial grade tape player. It was all very reassuringly solid!
Dennis G.
@Redshift:
I wonder about Papa Bear. I’m never sure if he is playing a hoax or playing a con. As time goes by you have to think it is the latter. A key part of humbug is never taking it seriously. OTOH when it is a con trying to fleece a gullible mark, you can never break character until the scam is played out.
While he does sometimes seem to be self-aware I think that the truth is that he and everybody else at that network were hired because the are grifters.
Cheers
Jim, Once
Nobody’s said it yet, so I will: This is the best thing ever written on the subject of Republican idiocy. That is all.
Evolved Deep Southerner
Dennis, I can remember you coming as a guest speaker to one of my classes at the Grady School and the matter of Monkey Milk became a topic of discussion. At that time, I believe, you said you were contemplating expanding your product line to Monkey Ice Cream.
Dennis G.
@de stijl:
and 3-D Monkey Dots-the healthy treat for any outing to the cinema.
The product possibilities are endless. Perhaps I should get a twitter account or get Monkey Milk a Facebook page…
Phoebe
@Citizen Alan: That explains it [email protected]MikeJ: They are frivolous if the entire purpose of the speech is to generate the basis for a lawsuit. Bad faith.
Dennis G.
@Jim, Once:
Thanks
@Evolved Deep Southerner:
I remember that day. It was fun.
Andy K
@awreckloose:
You’re welcome.
:D
Jim, Once
I try to believe this and even take comfort in it … but so far, it’s not really happening.
MikeJ
@Phoebe: All you have to do is let them speak. I have no problem with punishing people who would deny civil rights.
People who went to drugstore lunch counters in the 60s did so with the intention of being arrested. I don’t like the Phelpseseses, but I hate the idea of silencing them even more.
Joseph Nobles
You know what’s good? Roasted snipe with a big, tall, cold glass of Monkey Milk.
phantomist
It was the lack of electrolytes that really doomed the brand from the start.
Andy K
So…Has anyone else here ever been to the Stooges Wax Museum, home of the 15′ high wah-wah pedal? If you go, avoid the James Williamson Wing. It really sucks.
Phoebe
@Redshift: People like Papa Bear, I think they start out all “I’ve got somethin’ to say!” and then they slide very fast into whatever generates the money and the praise, like monkeys pulling a lever for a pellet, and whether or not they actually believe what they say just becomes irrelevant to them. They aren’t operating from that place in the brain.
Sarah Palin is something else. She believes her own p.r. and half the time she doesn’t even know what she’s talking about, she just throws out catch phrases with the serene belief that it’ll be close enough to stick. I don’t think she ever had somethin’ to say. It was all vanity from the start, a means to an end.
Dennis G.
@Andy K:
Funny
Loneoak
Please, please for the love of FSM start selling Monkey Milk swag in the Balloon Juice store. I will order a dozen tshirts and thongs immediately.
JGabriel
@Redshift:
Fuckin’ tides, how do they work?
.
Dennis G.
@Loneoak:
If it helps raise more money for Charlies Angels then I’m all for it.
Cheers
Phoebe
@MikeJ: I thought of the lunch counters myself but that is completely different, because: had the lunchers not been arrested, had they been served, had they not had ketchup poured on them or whatever that was, they would not have considered the day to be a loss. They wanted to be able to go to a Woolworths and get a hot dog. The Phelps people don’t want to be able to say what they’re saying and they don’t even believe what they’re saying. They want to be interfered with so that they can sue, not so that they can demonstrate to the world that the town of x is unsafe for free speech. If anything they are not helping the cause of free speech at all, because everyone hates them and wants them to shut up.
The lunch counter people, in stark contrast, wore their Sunday best, were polite and nonprovoking, did not fight back, did everything possible to win the sympathy of the public and be the obvious good guys. That was extremely important. The law was NOT on their side. They broke the law. And they made the law unsympathetic and got it changed.
It’s actually the exact opposite.
Andy K
@Loneoak:
Dude, are you still in GR?
Andy K
@Dennis G.:
I still get people with that one. Two guys I know (or, well, knew) started that in Motorbooty way back in dickety something….
Loneoak
Andy, right now I’m in Kzoo. I interviewed for a professorship at K College. I’m in GR tomorrow for a few hours before I leave for CA again and I should spend it with my folks. Good chance I’ll be back in February for another round of interviews, so we’ll meet up then hopefully.
Loneoak
Dennis, I would seriously buy some swag. I’m giggling every time I see that monkey. Let me know if I can help make it happen.
Phoebe
@MikeJ: A better comparison for me would be with the Nazis marching in Skokie, and the ACLU defending them. The Nazis were at least sincere. They were legitimately expressing themselves, and their freedom of expression should be protected. But the Phelps people are not expressing themselves at all. Is this hard to prove? Yes. But this is why I don’t think they should prevail in a lawsuit, and the Nazis should.
Andy K
@Loneoak:
Sorry for not getting ahold of you…Shitty work week. I don’t think I could have found the time for a meet-up.
K College, huh? Top notch! Hope you get it!
maus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_R._Brinkley
I would consider John Brinkley the originator of modern politics, PR, and the media, and also conservative talk radio.
The book Charlatan does a good job describing his history
http://www.amazon.com/Charlatan-Americas-Dangerous-Huckster-Flimflam/dp/0307339890
BR
@freelancer:
Is that a West Wing reference?
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
The “friendly” is a nice touch.
What does a milk-monkey interpret as “friendly” treatment, exactly?
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@Redshirt:
Funny, a friend on fb just posted REM doing Radio Free Europe on Letterman. Gawd! They looked so young. Jim Henson’s REMbabies.
Now I haz an old.
de stijl
My favorite Crown Heights pizzeria is Zappatello’s where they use real monkey milk mozzarella. It’s softer than regular mozzarella and has this delicate nutty flavor.
God, I miss Brooklyn.
david
hey,dennis.from something you said in the past i thought
you might be dennis greenia of the flagpole & now this
confirms it.i enjoy your contributions-keep up the good
work.
freelancer
@BR:
Of course it is.
Little Boots
humorlessness is the greatest sin.
it cometh before pride.
Little Boots
why does everyone come out of some music scene? what the hell is that about?
BR
@freelancer:
Well at least I’m not the only one who’s seen that show way too many times…
Mnemosyne
@Dennis G.:
It’s not necessarily an either/or: the guy who pulled the “Drake’s Fortune” con in the 1930s ended up in an insane asylum because he eventually became convinced his story was true.
PanAmerican
@Little Boots:
I cannot answer you, because it’s totally unknown to me what you just asked me, and also very boring.
flukebucket
Vic Chestnutt + Widespread Panic = some kick ass music
Little Boots
@PanAmerican:
just as well, really. who are you again?
hamletta
@Little Boots: Because it’s where the geeks come from.
Underground papers, your ticket to riches! All the newsprint you can eat!*
*Butter and garlic for sauteeing not included.
I love this story. I was so painfully earnest in those days, I would have been horrified at the mere suggestion.
But damn if I’m not awash in regret right now!
Your brother’s a brilliant copy writer. It has that tinge of Old Weird America about it.
Yutsano
Sixty comments so far, and not one mention of one of the greatest hoaxes of all time?
Tattoosydney
@Yutsano:
Howdy. How are you feeling?
Yutsano
@Tattoosydney: Slightly less like death, although I almost fell asleep at work twice today. That and I think I cruised through a few cases on automatic pilot but hopefully didn’t fuck things up too much.
At least the kitten is happily playing around.
northquirk
Thank you for this late night amusement.
I’m a lurker, but wanted to thank you dengre for this most excellent tale that I had to share this with my brother (he’s in the hoosegow and can only get email via coorlinks, which ironically enough does not permit any links to the intertubes).
northquirk
Thank you for this late night amusement.
I’m a lurker, but wanted to thank you dengre for this most excellent tale that I had to share this with my brother (he’s in the hoosegow and can only get email via coorlinks, which ironically enough does not permit any links to the intertubes).
Jager
Were the monkeys taught to hook themselves up to the milking machines or did you have monkey dairymen and maids do it? I would imagine that monkeys could easily be taught to milk themselves, process and bottle their milk, then load it on the delivery trucks, saving a ton of money in labor costs.
The Monkey Milk business seems to me to be an investors dream. Get your ass to Wall Street, Dennis and get it sold!
northquirk
and since it’s clear I’m not proficient in commenting, I will go back to lurking.
thank y’all for this fabulous blog.
de stijl
@Jager:
Booji Boy milks them. Mojo Jojo is their leader.
Cermet
From now on, whenever a troll trys to peddle his stupid, I will just answer they are selling more Monkey Milk … hope I don’t get a letter from your lawyer … .
asiangrrlMN
Funny as hell, dengre, but very pertinent point at the end. Sad, but true.
Yutsy, and TS, either of you still up?
@northquirk: Don’t do that! We’ve all made that mistake from time to time. I, myself, have posted the same common thrice. The proper response is, FUCK YOU WORDPRESS or FYWP for short.
@Redshift: This would actually piss me off even more because then they’re doing something incredibly damaging just for the hell of it rather than because they actually believe what they shill.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: I iz, but prolly crashing out soon. I still gots this damn gunk to get out of my system, plus working wore me out.
Dennis G.
@flukebucket:
Nine high a pallet and many others. Brute was a great combination.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Aw, poor baby. Feel better soon.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: More Jewish penicillin, which shall be obtained on the morrow. And I think I should let myself go unconscious until then. Catch ya later hon. Hopefully FH #1 will be along to entertain you.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Night, hon. I probably should turn in soon myself.
stuckinred
Rock on Flagpole. Ask BG to tell you about the annual April Fools issue.
tesslibrarian
Oooh, I hope we have an archived copy in the Heritage Room so I can find a copy of one of these ads. Monkey Milk would make a great post for This Day in Athens.
Lysana
@northquirk:
Considering how often the prolific regulars will double-post and how your comments are far nicer than some of theirs, please don’t let that stop you next time.
stuckinred
@tesslibrarian: Maybe Pete has some archives?
WereBear
@Phoebe: I believe Sarah Palin not only wings it with folksy phrases she grew up hearing and just scams along as the wind blows; she thinks we are all doing it exactly as she is.
It’s all a con and none of it matters.
gnomedad
@Redshift:
My fave is the Tauntaun Sleeping Bag (complete with lightsaber zipper pull), which was made into a real product by popular demand.
Dennis G.
@tesslibrarian:
If my memory serves the age of Monkey Milk ads were between 1991 and 1994. I’ll look through my archive, but I think 1992 was a good year for them.
Cheers
PIGL
@Redshirt: I’m totally with you on radio. It was the late 70s and 80s for me. best time ever. I was recently back on that campus, and saw our old Ampex 4-track (on which yours truly had recorded the Pointed Sticks and X) sitting on the scrap heap in the loading dock. Kids these days….
Bill ORLY
We did similar things in college (although not to this degree). One night (for absolutely unrecalled reasons) we got discussing Ike Turner. My roommate and I improvised a story about how Ike was dead. He had been killed in a kiln explosion. Apparently after the Ike and Tina split, he turned to pottery as a way to pass time and to fight his addictions. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the funds for a modern kiln, which includes the proper venting systems and humidity measures, and a catastrophic steam build-up resulted in an explosion. Due to this “high” profile accident, many new laws were passed resulting in the required inspection and licensing of kilns, and the prohibition of the use of kilns on commercial aircraft. This went on for months.
We also expanded the snipe Grimoire to include the feared timber alligator. These willey creatures lived in the forests of the northeast, and grew to about 4 feet in length. They would climb trees and drop on unsuspecting hikers.
Good times.
tesslibrarian
@Dennis G.: Thanks. People love old ads, so I’ve done those frequently (pre-1923 for copyright purposes), but also nothing is more popular than animal stories. And this has both!
different church-lady
I think the really sad thing is that certain members of our political system might be doing humbug for pretty much the same reason you did monkey milk: for the amusement of it.
I mean, can Michelle Bachmann be for real? Or is she just the Andy Kaufmann of congress? I Anne Coulter just putting us on? Does Rush actually believe a thing he says or is just doing it because he knows how to keep his audience on the hook (much like Lozier). Palin? OK, actually Palin is probably for real…
Breezeblock
I’ve heard people say they think Ann Coulter is a hoax character, a plant by liberals to show the ridiculousness of conservatism.
I don’t think I believe that, but is it possible?
TMLutas
Silly people, haven’t you ever heard of google?
The food channel has a recipe for monkey milk.
http://www.foodchannel.com/recipes/recipe/monkey-milk/
Elly
Dennis – this is hilarious, although it’s all too familiar to me. While you’re using this story to make a point about politics, it’s also a totally apt description of the way many “alternative” therapies and supplements are promoted.
I mod a couple of weight loss/bodybuilding forums – thus, I’ve spent a lot of time debunking claims for products not too far removed (in principle) from “Monkey Milk.”
dfs
Can we get a Monkey Milk T-shirt from the Balloon Juice store? Pretty please?
Shelton Lankford
@JGabriel:
Nobody knows. But they go in and out. There must be a Dog.
I just blew my own mind…!