On Monday, Kevin, Aaron's longtime friend and now my friend as well, came to visit for one night. We had so much fun with him. So, in honor of Kevin's visit and Friday flashback, I bring to you something from the archives. Aaron wrote this one long, long ago.
Let's flashback to...
January 2010...
This past Sunday, Whitney and I went back to my house after a morning at Journey. Per our usual routine, we ate lunch and then decided to sleep for an hour or so, because we are always exhausted. Sometimes we fall asleep watching a lame movie. Other times, I am too tired to even bother with the attempt of picking something to watch and instead grab a blanket and conk out.
I woke up (after sleeping for three hours) and checked my phone for what might be coming on TV that night. We usually don’t watch that much television. On Sunday night, we usually just watch the previous episode of The Office. But for some reason I checked the listing anyway.
On the CW (you know – that network that no one watches) there was a showing of the 1993 cinematic treasure “Untamed Heart”. This is a flick starring Marisa Tomei and Christian Slater. I had never heard of it before so, like most movies I know nothing about, I turned to IMDB online. There I saw this plot summary and read it aloud to Whitney after seeing how ridiculous it was. Keep in mind, this is a plot summary written by someone who has seen it. Thus, the amateur writing:
All of Caroline’s boyfriends seem to leave her or cheat on her. On her way home from work two men try to rape Caroline. An introverted man from her work, Adam, rescues her. Adam is an orphan and he is told that he’s got a baboon’s heart. Adam opens up to Caroline and together they make sense. Adam and Caroline are very happy together but the rapists try to get back at Adam and not everyone accepts an outcast like Adam.
Now, this was just not enough information. So, like any good internet savvy person, I turned to Wikipedia for more answers. There, the plot summary was similar:
Caroline (Tomei) is a young woman working as a waitress who is always unlucky in love. Adam (Slater) is a shy busboy who saves Caroline when two men try to rape her on her way home one night. She then gets to know him. They become close, but she finds out his past, and the attackers come after Adam for revenge. As their relationship progresses, Caroline discovers that Adam has a heart defect, though he claims he has a baboon heart.
At this point, Whitney says: “Oh – you mean he really has a baboon’s heart?”
I say: “Yes…that’s what it said…what did you think it meant?”
She says: “I thought it meant like…he had the heart of a baboon. You know like he loves people with a baboon’s heart. Like the expression ‘heart of a lion’.”
At this point, I laughed. A lot. I think we spent the next 20 minutes laughing about it. I thought of all the ways you might could say it to people. For example, on Valentine’s Day you might say: “I love you with all the love of my baboon heart.” Or you might say of someone else, “You know, he’s a great guy. He has the heart of a baboon for other people.”
We came up with other ways you might say it and then we questioned if baboons are actually loving creatures. I recalled from watching Planet Earth that the chimps are actually quite mean – and sometimes even eat each other – far from the love a true baboon heart should express.
Later we went to her parent’s house and I read them the plot summary. I then asked, “What do you think it means when it says he has a baboon’s heart?”
Their response: “That he has a baboon’s heart inside of him.”
Whitney was hoping that they would also see the veiled expression “heart of a baboon” as a character trait becoming of an individual, but they didn’t.
Next, we had to call my friend Kevin. Kevin is one of my very good friends, and it is always a great danger and pleasure talking to him on the phone because we will spend about 90 minutes on the phone and nearly 60 of those minutes are spent in laughter, to the point it hurts…a lot. So, I thought this would be a good question to ask him.
After reading the summary, I asked the same question: “What do you think it means when it says he has a baboon’s heart?”
Kevin: “I guess, you know, like he has a great heart. Like he has the heart of a baboon. Though I’m not sure what that looks like.”
Whitney had found her kindred spirit on the matter at last.
We then relayed all that we had discussed on what it meant to have “the heart of a baboon”.
Kevin then told us about baboons he saw in Kenya some years ago:
“They were kind of cool. They were just chilling in the towns and stuff, and along the road and it looked like they would just come on the bus with us and hitch a ride. Except for when we threw them food. Then they would beat each other up. In those moments, I don’t think they were truly displaying the heart of a baboon.”
So, for good or bad, keep your baboon heart in check...
Thanks, Kevin, for having my back even back then. Hope to see you again soon.
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