Happy New Year, My Fellow Monkeys!

Finally a Chinese New Year that I can relate to -- the Year of the Monkey! We’ve had the Year of the Horse, the Dog, even Rats. Some of you can relate to that last one, but I don't see that in myself. Four legs, long snout with whiskers, and a twitching nose. And those paws wiping its mouth repeatedly. Rats must suffer from OCD. Maybe that's where that famous Jimmy Cagney line, "you dirty rat," came from – though I kind of doubt that. But 2016 is the Year of the Monkey, something I can finally relate to.

If I'm going to get behind the Chinese tradition of associating the animal’s qualities to those desired by humans, then it better be something close to my body type, DNA and attitude. A rooster is my birth year animal. Just my luck, a hen-pecked, cock-a-doodle-doo-ing, claw-scratching avian that sees out of one side of its face at a time. No stereovision, just two eyes producing mono vision for a brain the size of a cat's-eye marble. Yup, that's my guy! I've been squawking and pecking my way through life, so maybe there is something to this Chinese zodiac thing.

But this year the Chinese zodiac celebrates a human-like creature with opposable thumbs and a furrowed brow, one that can walk upright for more than a few feet. Just like some of my relatives. "I'll be a monkey's Uncle,” one of my uncles used to say. He was closer to the truth than he knew.

The monkey is a well-known tree-swinger -- brachiating is the technical term. Swinging from limb to limb, living on the edge of catastrophic failure for millions of years. One slip of the palm sent many a poor ape to its premature arboreal grave. For monkey kids in training, a fall sent them to the back of the tree line in embarrassment, having fallen short in the eyes of his peers. "To the back of the e-ticket limb line, you chump chimp," said the other chimp children. Kids have been cruel for millions of years.

Tree-swinging was a big part of human evolution, as our evolutionary ancestors spent a few million years living above ground, swinging from branches on a regular basis. If you don't believe me, try this -- put your hand down on a table, palm side up, and relaxed. Notice how your four fingers curl up, as if pre-set to wrap around an object. Like a tree limb perhaps. Millions of years spent traveling Tarzan-like through the rainforest produced shortened tendons in the hands of Homo sapiens -- that would by you -- thus causing the natural curling of your fingers in 2016. Like it or not, we are simply primates who found our way from the trees to the ground, walking upright grasping sticks and tools – and brief cases – to defeat nature.

And now we get to celebrate our primateness, thanks to the Chinese New Year honoring 2016 as the Year of the Monkey. Chinese celebrants around the world will delight us with their dragon outfits, firecrackers, and red envelopes filled with cash, while wishing us "Gung Hay Fat Choy,” which translates to “wishing you to be prosperous in the New Year.” I can get behind that, even if I am a rooster.

Happy New Year, my fellow monkeys!