A friend of mine lives on a Michigan fruit farm with a chimpanzee named Mo Grunts. They’ve been there since the pandemic, when Jennifer left a job in tech and bought the orchards near Berrien Springs and Mo moved from a refuge in Tennessee.
They spend their time pruning trees, making and eating fruit pies, and tending the many barn cats that roam the property.
In the evenings, they spin Mingus records and drink mushroom tea and Mo sometimes signs for “smoke time,” meaning pot, which he first had with students in a Princeton primate lab in 1991 and which, like others, he now uses to manage joint pain and general ennui. After smoke time, Mo retires to the patio and listens to tree frogs and barred owls.
Mo has lived around humans since he was a baby. He’s now 35 years old. He and Jenn communicate in ASL and Mo uses a new app that converts sign language and speech for talks with farm visitors.
During a visit last month, Mo told me this technology has been a “game changer.”
I said, “Great, Mo, but use a different phrase.”
He said, “Sorry. I live with a tech exec.”
Mo said the app has opened up communication beyond the world of language specialists, primatologists and pharmaceutical scientists that he inhabited most of his life. Regular people now want his opinion, often about themselves.
I asked Mo if he had considered an advice column. He said he would look into it. He in fact said, “Will do, bossman,” which is what Mo says when he’s fired up.
Then I got an email from Jenn last week: Mo put together a column, and could I help?
Listener, what good is writing for public radio if you cannot aid a chimpanzee in need?
So take it away, Mo.
Thank you, Mr. Brett. You read the question and I do the answer.
Got it.
***
Dear Mo:
I recently hired a medium for a seance with my brother, who died in hospice last spring. It did not go well. My brother said there was no tunnel or bright light at the end of any tunnel. He said dying was like being vacuumed from this world to the next, which he refused to call Heaven.
Worse, my brother said he did not “see his life flash before his eyes.” Instead, he watched a giant electronic billboard, like a Times Square debt clock, speed through a mushrooming tally of unfinished tasks from middle school to his death at 67.
This seems all wrong, and I don’t know if it’s my brother or the medium. My brother and I were estranged for years but grew closer toward the end. This experience reminds me of the bad times. But it’s possible the medium is a fraud. What do you think?
– Not Happy with this Ever-After
Not Happy:
Maybe your brother is lying “from the grave” and maybe he is not. I think you do not like his answers and cannot really listen. But you should do what everyone else does and hire a different medium. You will someday find one with correct answers.
***
Dear Mo:
Why do women enter serious relationships with men behind bars, and is this ever a good idea? Asking for a friend.
– Cautiously Optimistic
Cautiously:
I have spent a lot of time in cages. I would say anything to get out. I would say, “I Love You.” I would say, “Tell me everything about you.” I would really mean it. But can it last when the door is open? I think this is your question. I mean, your friend’s question. My answer is no.
***
Dear Mo:
I live near a chimpanzee in Southwest Michigan. A neighbor said she heard cats and dogs are missing and the chimp is eating them. She also said you can get HIV from looking at a chimp. Is this true? It feels true. And it makes me so angry!
– Not a Bigot
Not:
Bigotry is stubborn ignorance. You are a bigot. Chimps eat fruit, not cats. Contact a library for more information.
***
We’re out of time! Please send your questions for Mo to me or WVPE, and listen for answers on the air.
Editors note: No chimpanzees were harmed or subjected to AI bots for this production.
Music: “Stranded in the Jungle” by New York Dolls
