The Mystery of the Space Monkey Mafia

The Mystery of the Space Monkey Mafia

That line always puzzled me!!! And finally it came back to me during this "yet another sleepless night" night and I decided to do a Google search on it, and here is what I found:

But first, a little background...

I, for some reason, feel a strange connection with Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start The Fire"... So much so that....well, I'll get to that part later, another day... Anyway, it was 1989 when I first heard this song... I was about 10 or 11 and could not make a single word out by listening to it on the radio, but it sounded spectacular... The lyrics themselves ended up printed in a magazine of sorts and I remember reading them and becoming simply enthralled by them... The perpetual fascination with history and politics that would plague me for the rest of my life started at that moment...

Between that song and the fall of the Berlin Wall later that year, there was an awakening in me... I was quite impressionable at that age... (some will say I still am when not pretending to be a cynic...) So, like any other overly curious child would do, I researched each name and place in the song for fun, those that I didn't already know... I looked up what was Watergate, where was The River Quai, and who was Allatollah in Iran among other things... I was 10 or 11 then...

I researched everything I didn't know and found out what each thing was, except ONE thing.....

Space Monkey Mafia

I was like "what the hell is the Space Monkey Mafia?!!" Anyway, at the time, before Google and the internet as we know it, I was doing all my research at the library and in encyclopaedias, sometimes asking teachers and my dad... I could not find a single thing on this mysterious Space Monkey Mafia that couldn't really be that mysterious if it was written in a pop song... Alas, my search on the elusive and cryptic Space Monkey Mafia was futile... No one else could give me a clear answer and just said it must have been nonsense by Billy Joel... But that couldn't be! Because none of the other things he sang about in that song were rubbish, they were real facts! Also, everything he wrote was mostly chronologically accurate... So what was this space monkey mafia thing and where could I read about it?

Time passed, other songs came and went, I began focusing more on the fall of the USSR and the end of the Cold War... My little sister was born... I started noticing boys.... I got braces... I started reading mystery books and such... Then one day, like blowing out a match, I forgot all about the space monkey mafia....

Thursday, October 6th, 2005 at 7:45 am, I've just had what I like to call one of my "Eureka" moments...

I haven't been able to sleep all night and I'm almost done with Paulo Cuelho's The Valkyries.... I call my soothing blue-eyed angel to confess that I'm not making it to kung fu this morning and that I've not had any sleep at all... He tries to comfort me as best as he can, but then he has to get ready for work... I lay back down and try to finally close my eyelids, when BAM!!!

SPACE MONKEY MAFIA!!!!

It was well-hidden in my subconscious, not having made as much as a peep in years... And now it just came back, surfacing out of nowhere... One of the riddles that has puzzled me for over 15 years has now returned to haunt and torment me... But this time, I'm armed....with Google....

TA-DA!

http://spacemonkey.tinfoildreams.com

Space Monkey Mafia is a comic strip! How very lovely! My thoughts can now be put at ease....

But wait....chronologically speaking, that can't be right.... So I double Google search and I realize I still get these looney cartoon characters that are awfully contemporary to be included in the same year (circa 1959) as Buddy Holly and Benhur... So something is off, unless it's some sort of remake... I decide to look up the lyrics to the song again... Even though I know the song by memory, I may be overlooking something, or maybe I have my years wrong, or perhaps I can find another connection to the monkeys that can shed some light on this great mystery...

Then, as I read the lyrics, it suddenly dawns on me...

I've been reading and hearing it wrong for over 15 years.... The song does not go Buddy Holly, BenHur, space monkey mafia... The song actually goes:

Buddy Holly, BenHur, space monkey, Mafia.

Wow.... I was working myself up for absolutely no reason.... For over 15 years I was totally wrong about a term that was not in any way related, just the way he would sing it without any acknowledgement that there was a comma between monkey and Mafia completely threw me off... Here I am, feeling really stupid... But at least I can put a big "SOLVED" stamp over that enigma, after so long... I really thought Space Monkey Mafia was some uber-secret nuclear program or something.... Or other things I'd rather not divulge in public for fear of being condemned.... My wishful thinking alone wanted me to believe I was onto something extraordinary... Oh, but you live, and you learn, and the lesson learned is that all things will come to light, even if many years and decades, and perhaps lifetimes pass before everything is crystalline again and you have your Eureka moment...

Lastly, I'd like to thank Billy Joel for tapping that little switch in me with some silly song embodying the self-denying, guilt-free culture of the 1980's... They are still not taking responsibility for their actions, those damn '80s people.... *sigh*

Posted: 9:44 a.m. EST October 10, 2005 by Anayma Abderhazy