Pet Donkeys

The first time I met Yanji he was walking his donkeys down the road. I have never seen anyone walk a donkey and I have seen few people love something more than that man loves these two animals. (This is of course other than Skye Humphries who loves swing so much that he dances so hard he throws up).

Yanji is a simple man. Kind of one of those toked out blue collar hippies that is really into permaculture and lives in the middle of a vineyard and dreams of one day living in a solar powered yurt. He spends his days dreaming of the wonders of mycoremediation (which is actually kind of fascinating) and devotes himself to the love of two mules that apparently he inherited from a friend and fell in love with. He couldnt bear to let them go. I learned a lot about donkeys that day. First of all they don't really bray or hee-haw like you see on TV. Its more like a grunt or a bark. Apparently donkeys have very heavy heads and they love it when you hold their heads up for them. It isnt good to have just one donkey either. They rest their heads on each others back in a kind of yin-yang circle of donkey love and affection. The completely wholesome kind of course (dont go see Clerks 2).

Another interesting factoid is that donkeys, much like myself, dont respond well to being yelled at or told what to do. Yanji can only whisper to them and suggest where to go and hope that his boys will eventually decide to join Team Yanji and everyone gets where they need to be.Yanji also pointed out some rather striking similarities between people and donkeys. Murphy and Murray are really very sweet and affectionate except when food is around. Then its like their flesh wakes up and they become these ravenous greedy beasts who knock each other over to get their fair share. In his blue collar hippie vernacular Yanji discourses the likenesses of humans when the corporate carrot of more, better, and different is dangled in front of any of us:

"It's crazy, man. They are all sweet and loving and shit until you pull out the granola and then they don't care anymore, man. It's just like people who work for like, Microsoft or something man."

Deep. Very deep. I guess in the end we are all just a bunch of jackasses.

(I'm sorry I had to.)