Do Depressed Rockhoppers Tear at Their Feathers? or Tell 'Em That it's Human Nature

I'll keep this quick, since the last the thing the internet needs is a blogger (or reporter, or whoever else for that matter) blogging about the death of Michael Jackson. Roger Ebert wrote probably the best obit I've seen since his death.

I don't really want to get into his influence, or the sordid details of what did or didn't happen. Just want to relay a story.

Here goes:

I went to the zoo on Sunday with my girlfriend. It was pretty awesome. We saw the penguins exhibit, it was kind of cool I guess. I think I would have enjoyed it a little more if the birds were not mic'd up so that we could hear them constantly squawking. It was also easily the most crowded exhibit. I would have liked to get up a little closer to check it out, but I didn't want to be the guy blocking a bunch of toddler's view of penguins.

But anyways, during all the commotion of the penguins feeding was a single Rockhopper Penguin standing off to the left. You know, the penguins with the yellow stuff sticking out the sides of it's head, making it look like a cross between Wolverine, Gene Shalit, and Larry Fine.

It was the only one in a pack regular (I guess you'd call them) looking penguins. It wasn't trying to get near the other penguins to get food, and the other penguins weren't anywhere near him. He had a healthy radius of space surrounding him.

The rockhopper looked a older, its feathers were disheveled, and he was shaking. Christina, who is kind of an amateur orinthologist, had told me years ago when a bird is upset, it starts to tear at its feathers.

The penguin walked around in a circle by itself and defecated on the ice below its feet. A couple of kids and parents laughed. I was hoping he had a plan to escape the embarrassment of how totally different it was in that moment, maybe he'd jump down into the water. He'd jump back up in that weird looks-like-the-tape-is-being-reversed way that penguins tend to do when they hop back out of the water, his feathers smoothed out. He'd waddled over happily and fold right back into the pack. He didn't.

Christina and I both decided to leave because we couldn't take our eyes of the guy. We went over and looked at the jellyfish for a little while. It's entirely possible that we were projecting something onto a situation that didn't even exist. From my understanding the Pittsburgh Zoo takes pretty good care of its animals, and if a penguin was sick, it wouldn't be out there with the rest of them. Also, I would like to think that most people that work at a zoo are compassionate types that would spend a little more time with an animal that has been exiled from the pack. I'm not even sure that penguins do the feather thing when they are sad or upset.

It took me a couple days to notice the parallel between that bird and the famous guy who died last week. I was just struck by the isolation (real or imagined) that I saw with that bird and couldn't help but think that Michael Jackson was in a similar lot for most if not all of his life. The Onion put together a timeline of his life, and on the last date it said "June 25, 2009: Jackson experiences the only normal event in his entire life."

So what's the point of this whole thing? I don't know, go adopt an ugly mutt from an animal shelter instead instead of spending a bunch of money on expensive combination of Poodle and Dalmatian (PooMation? Dalmoodle?). And make fun of people less. I guess.

Anyways, here's my favorite Michael Jackson song: