Pissing Monkey Syndrome: A Selection from Tom Wolfe’s Back to Blood (2012)
“60 Minutes was merely the highest-rated news show on television. And Ike Walsh was merely the biggest star in television news. ‘The Grand Inquisitor,’ they called him. Magdalena was fascinated but frightened when she watched Ike Walsh on television. He was a bully. His specialty was going after people until they became flustered and broke down emotionally. But Norman wrote him off as a textbook case of the Pissing Monkey syndrome. . . .
I assume you know that monkeys make terrible house pets, Magdalena. But let’s say a man gets one anyway, a small monkey, a cute monkey, like a spider monkey. Well, that monkey, if it’s a male—as soon as he can get up high enough—and they can climb anything—he’ll start urinating on your head. Urinating on the man’s head. The man’s head. He’s not interested in women. He’ll urinate on the man’s head and then he’ll grin and go, ‘EE EE EE EE EE.’
He’s laughing at you, he’s mocking you, he’s telling you what a pussy you are. He’ll piss on your head night and day—while you’re in bed fast asleep, when you get up to go to the bathroom, when you’re getting dressed to go to work or whatever—all the time.
And it’s no use trying to make friends with the little bastard, no use trying to pet him or coo sweet nothings over him, no use trying to get in his good graces by serving him fabulous monkey feasts, apples and raisins and celery and hazelnuts, Brazil nuts, all that stuff monkeys love. Any way you try to please him is only going to make it worse. He’ll play you for a hopeless pushover.
The only thing that works is, you grab the little bastard while he’s at his bowl gorging himself, and you throw him in the toilet, and while he’s flailing about in the water and he’s disoriented and he can’t get any traction on the toilet bowl, it’s so slick, you piss on him. You deluge him with every ounce you’ve got. That fucking monkey’s going to think he’s trapped in a piss monsoon. The whole sky, the whole world is pissing on him. There's no more air to breathe, only piss fumes.
At first he’ll be going, ‘EE EE EE EE’—he’s mad as hell—and then the tone will change, and it starts sounding like a cry for mercy . . . and then it slows down to ‘EE . . . EE . . . EE . . . EE,’ and then the decibel level sinks, and nothing’s left but a pathetic little whimper, ‘ee . . . ee . . . ee . . . ee,’ and the next day he’ll be curled up on your lap like a little pussycat and practically begging you to pet him and coo sweet nothings.
You’ve shown him who’s boss around here. You’ve shown him you’re the alpha male, not him. And there’s your typical journalist like Ike Walsh of 60 Minutes. He’s a little pissing monkey.”—Tom Wolfe, Back to Blood (2012)
