Zazu: The African Grey Parrot

It is the summer of 1996.

Goodbye, Joe, he gotta go, me oh my oh

I'm looking at my Aunt Linda's African Grey Parrot.

Son of a gun we'll have big fun on the bayou

Zazu is absolutely nutso, bobbing his head up and down; swaying and shuffling along the length of the wooden parrot stand set up in the kitchen.  As he reaches the edge of his stand, he reaches up and inserts a single talon into his beak, continuing to bob his head.

Aunt Linda cranks up the volume on her CD player.

Dressed in style they go hog wild, me oh my oh

Think of a fan who is meeting their rock idol for the first time.  They're so excited they bite their finger.  They pull their hair.  They scream.  They beat their own chest, legs, face.  So happy are they to meet their number one idol.  This is the impression I get when I observe Zazu doing his thing to music.

Son of a gun we'll have big fun on the bayou

He sway shuffles and bobs down to the other end of his stand and repeats this behavior, alternating from claw to claw.  

In my life, I don't think I've ever met a more bizarre animal.

And Zazu won't dance to just any music.

Zazu only goes crazy for Jambalaya on the Bayou from The Brenda Lee Story (Her Greatest Hits).  He even knows when the song is going to play.

We know he knows it's about to play because he starts calling out for cousin Deborah when the song immediately preceding Jambalaya starts.  On this album that song is Fool#1.

He seems to think Deborah loves Jambalaya as much as he does.

"Deborah!  Come here! Deborah!" (pronounced: de-Brah).  He's calling to her.

As Fool#1 is about to end he begins to flutter his wings, screaming out for Deborah.

"DEBORAH, DEBORAH!!!"

He has learned to perfectly mimic Aunt Linda's voice.

Deborah is not appearing.  We see Zazu beginning to insert one talon and then the other into his mouth.

In this moment, I remember one of those old newsreel videos of the Beatles first arrival in the United States.  The camera pans the massive audience.  The fans are screaming for their idols to embrace them.

The Beatles are coming!  The Beatles are coming!  Oh my God, I can't take this!  I feel like tearing my hair out!  I need to beat my chest and scratch myself!  Maybe the pain from the scratching will remind me this is really happening!

Deborah finally arrives in front of his stand.  

Goodbye, Joe, he gotta go, me oh my oh

Deborah swings into place.  She is in lock-step with Zazu and his every move on that stand.

Oh, what the hell, we all decide to join in.

We are all now standing behind Deborah.  We start to sway, bob and sashay across the kitchen floor in step with Zazu on his stand, making sure to alternate the insertion of our fingers into our mouths, playfully biting down and alternating this hand to mouth movement, mimicking Zazu's excitement.

Son of a gun we'll have big fun on the bayou!!!

Someone cranks up the CD player volume to maximum.

We are the most bizarre family on the planet.  We take our orders from an African Grey Parrot named Zazu.

*    *    *

Brenda Lee, the Grammy Award winning country singer has just arrived!  Thousands of her fans are here.  Some of them have been waiting for hours on this tarmac for their own taste of Jambalaya to arrive.

Folks, something is happening out on the Tarmac...

What is this?

There appears to be an African Grey Parrot that has fluttered down to Miss Lee's feet.  The parrot appears to be writhing around on the tarmac.  Did it just shit itself?  It appears to have both it's claws inserted into it's mouth and it's screaming for someone named Deborah?

Crazy fans!  Isn't this just wild?

Some of us here really love Brenda Lee, but I don't think anyone's excitement can surpass what we're seeing with this African Grey Parrot, folks.

Time for some Jambalaya on the Bayou!



Comments

  1. Dana KramaroffMarch 13, 2021 at 7:02 AM

    I love how you wove in the song lyrics into your writing! Zazu sounds like quite the character! Thank you for sharing this memory from a while back. Pets are amazing!

    ReplyDelete
  2. JoyMarch 13, 2021 at 7:23 PM

    Oh my heavens, your slice is hysterical. The personality on that bird is unlike any of I have ever heard or seen. Your closing is utter amusement. I can just picture Zazu, the number one fan, expressing his excitement for his beloved Brenda Lee.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Give 'm a Hand

Special note: Names, locations, and composite descriptions of people have been intentionally changed in this story. In February of 2020, my mother asked me to assist her with moving some boxes out to her storage shed in the backyard of her home in California. On the afternoon of this warm winter's day, I went out to the backyard before the planned move.  As I was breathing in the delicious mountain air, something caught my eye near the foundation at the house's western edge.   It appeared to be an artificial hand.  For a moment, I thought it was a sculpture.  After all, my mother has a habit of collecting odds and ends.  To this day, the living room of her house is filled with clocks and knick-knacks.   I looked closer.  When I did so, something stirred in my memory.  I remembered a mannequin I'd seen in a department store window.  This was a hand from one of those displays.  The tan color of the mannequin hand had faded. It was also evident that it had spent a lot of time
Read more

All I want to do is operate a deep fryer at McDonald's

brain burnt I use too much of my brain power for work this morning I dreamed of french fries I'm applying for a job at McDonald's *     *     * I woke to the sound of the crystals ringtone on my iPad.  It's 5 AM on a Sunday morning.  I like that particular ringtone, crystals.  When I hear it, it doesn't make me think of crystals at all, but it is pleasant. Just before the crystals, I was dreaming of standing in front of the giant deep fryer.  You know, the one you see at the service counter at any McDonald's restaurant.  In that moment, I am watching the fries slowly cooking and turning golden brown in the grease of the deep fryer.  I can smell the french fries and salt. I want to spend my days cooking french fries in a deep fryer at McDonald's. It's 5:35 AM on a Sunday morning and I'm still laying in bed.  It's now 5:40 AM on a Sunday morning as I start into writing my daily Slice. I'm going to apply for a job at McDonald's. All I want to do
Read more

My first blog post

I started my blogging journey today.  Well, actually, I started it last week when I decided to join my colleagues at the Long Island Writing Project and hosts of Two Writing Teachers (twowritingteachers.org) in a Zoom seminar about blogging.  This feels intimidating. I'm not used to doing this kind of writing. Okay, so, Slice of Life is the theme of the Tuesday challenge that will begin in the month of March.  It is hosted by twowritingteachers.org.  Yes, this is the impetus to get me to write each day.  I have no idea how long my posts should be or what I'm even going to write about, but, I'm going to do it! Slice of life...  today is a beautiful day in the Poconos.  That's where I'm at, sheltering in place since heading out to the beautiful Pennsylvania countryside in March of 2020.  In the past, whenever I would come up here to my house, it was usually just to crash and regenerate from my life in New York and Long Island where I work at Nassau Community College.
Read more