What the Fuck Happened to Aquariums?

The very deep did rot : O Christ!
That ever this should be!
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.

                       - Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

When Coleridge penned that mighty poem, perhaps the best the English language has to offer, I doubt he could have conceived of the horrific maritime misadventures that I and my faithful seafaring companion would bear as we wandered into the New Jersey Aquarium in Camden.

No landlubbers we, Simone and I had passed enough grog through our guts and lashed so many government men to the metaphorical bowsprit that we classified ourselves as buccaneers; mariners of the main, inevitable seekers of Davy Jones Locker, fanciers of the fishes realm and, in Simone’s case, swallower of the brine.

I’ve hand fed a stingray in the Caribbean for chrissakes!

We liked aquariums.

But as I wandered into the new one on the riverfront in Camden, my third such in as many years, I began to realize something.

Aquariums absolutely suck now.

As a boy, in between baseball games, television and chronic masturbation, I fancied my future to be one spent in or near the ocean. While my classmates wanted to become firemen, cops, cowboys, long term insurance salesmen and/or Republicans, I dreamt of being a marine biologist. That is, if my NBA career didn’t pan out. I was, however, white and slow. I’ll let you deduce how and when that fantasy ended.

So my mind and heart turned to the sea.

I was a good swimmer. I had water-skied. I could hold my breath a long time. Not as long as Khalid Shaykh Muhammad apparently but, you know, longer than most. I was good at math. I was vaguely intrigued by aquatic life if not altogether dispassionate of it. This, it seemed, was the proper objective indifference it would require to become a great scientist of the sea.

I had learned this over the years from watching a detached, emaciated old Frenchman by the name of Jacques Cousteau on National Geographic specials. He didn’t appear to be overly fascinated by fish either. And yet he went out on cool boats, used sonar, scuba dived and had his own TV show.

It was not until later I learned of the affected aloofness of the French through my love of the cinema that allowed me to realize Cousteau was a very skilled, learned and passionate man in regard to ichthyology and marine studies. He was just a pretentious ass about it.

The profession began to look as if it required too much work. And even at 12 years old, I was already well aware of the fact that I was one lazy S.O.B. and would probably carve out a career path of least resistance.

Not even the pop culture tsunami of Jaws could reignite my interest in a life dedicated to the surf, swell and waves.

That once fiery passion, however dormant, surfaces like Melville’s great white whale on occasion and I am drawn back, once again, to the saline birthplace of life.

Which, since I'm not overly crazy about the beach, unfortunately comes in the form of the aforementioned aquariums. I loved them as a kid. But like candy, roller skating and sex (all things except booze and naps, actually), aquariums start to suck in adulthood.

I can’t believe it was always thus. I can remember the former Atlanta Aquarium circa 1995 being quite fascinating. My friend’s wedding reception at the New England Aquarium (Boston) in 1996 was a fabulous fete amidst the penguins, starfish and octopi. Sea World, in reflection, had always been a first rate act.

But lately, visits to the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga and the new Georgia Aquarium (which replaced the old one in Atlanta) have been eye opening experiences to the fact that we as a nation have surrendered everything socially or culturally interesting (and remotely bearable) to the interests of children. I include the Main Stream Media in that.

Now, I’m not going to bury myself here by saying that I do not care for the company of children (I bitterly detest them) or suggest that we should not cater to the development of our youth (they should be treated like veal) or even offer the reproof that we may have gone too far in our overindulgence of the progeny ( I want to smoke and curse publicly again) but, I will say, that when I grew up, children were to be seen and not heard. As a kid, it blew. As an adult, I long for those lost social mores.

See and hear the little monsters we did.

As a misoped, I find myself in the reverse role of a pedophile. I want children, moving into my neighborhood, ordered to come to my door and admit their crimes. I want a restraining order against them. I want them in GPS ankle bracelets. But mostly, I just want them to shut the hell up.

That is the problem with aquariums today. They’re screaming, bustling, jostling germ factories that have given up any pretense of being educational or scientific. They have become Dollywood without the herb-encrusted, breaded catfish. Sesame Street with a new Beluga whale character. The Hannah Montana Tuna Emporium. I'll let your mind wander with that image.

When’s the last time you learned anything worthwhile with four strollers and a consistent shriek surrounding you?

Our society has dumbed the culture down so much, Fonzie looks like Edward R. Murrow in reflection.

But it’s not just the children.

It took a few generations of time and neglect to produce the parental morons I witnessed.

Dimwitted assholes with broods, whose tattoos fell in nicely with their stark inability to exert any form of proper parenting techniques.

Here's a good rule of thumb; if you're dumb and rash enough to inject indelible ink into your body in the hope that others might know your interests or how you feel about yourself, you probably should not be passing your genes along to another generation.

These are the kind of people who gaze into the eyes of some seahorses and you have to wonder on which side of the glass the true intellectual observation took place.

These Einsteins simply could not control their offspring. Preteen children, zipping around, elbowing for position, taking cell phone camera snapshots, screaming (Oh my christ, the screaming) and saying just about anything that popped into their ugly little minds.

This is when my radar goes up. I tune out the runts and I start to hear the adult’s blather. I noticed some types:

The Authority - This asshole (typically male) needs everyone to know that he can read the short descriptions on the placards. He relays one extra anecdotal factoid (always incorrect) which asserts his profound knowledge on a variety of subjects. He does not know the difference between an alligator and a crocodile.

The Neo-Expert - Ex-Goth chick who just completed her biology paper on a rare cephalopod found only in the Indian Ocean. Overheard to say, “Sure, the otters are fun, but I’m shocked they don’t have a single pompilius suluensis here! It’s so, I don’t know, limited.”

The Housewife - Child mule, stroller pusher, who engages in a brief discussion of what is written on the placard, implodes the conversation by mentioning her sister Judy‘s upcoming cancer operation, gets everything wrong in regard to facts on the fish and proceeds to tell her children the opposite of truth. Believing all the while she has done a good thing. “They’re learning”, she self-affirms. “I’m so tired”, she laments.

The Shutterbug - Father who begins to take pictures or video of exhibits, exit doors, family, inert penguins, snack food items, gift shop cashiers, all with a disengaged eye. He won’t even look at the fish before hitting “record”. The forthcoming digital slide show being preferable to the reality of his life or the existence of his children.

The Tourists - people running around in a frenzy not speaking English. “Why Camden?”, I want to ask.

Shufflers/Wanderers - The roaming idle. Not sure of their whereabouts or quite what is to be gained in a place like this. Many have children, are not wont to discipline them, and thus in a state somewhere between grace and my wrath. They always tend to be in the way; when you turn a corner, want a glimpse of a fish, whilst maneuvering walkways/ramps designed for one or standing in line to pay for anything.

All of these people and gripes made me long for the nostalgia of the aquariums I had enjoyed in my youth. A hippo exhibit with actual hippopotami. A rotunda free of costumed actors in sea life regalia dancing to a watered down hip-hop song. Large soft pretzels not being kicked like discarded hockey pucks beneath my feet. A lack of flash photography directly against the glass, two inches from Simone’s face (she gets real ornery). Hands-on exhibits that require more than lifting a wooden slat to reveal a fun fact about the Northern Pike. An entrance fee on the easy side of the price of a blowjob on 7^th Street.

We as a nation are already paying for the indulgence of an ignorant child (just ask Dick Cheney).

If I want calliope and unadulterated pap I can tune to Fox News. I don’t need my museums or institutions of oceanic life (or my sciences) being overrun by hordes of Disney-minded marketers.

There was a telling moment outside the aquarium in Camden between a few penguins and I. It had begun to rain. It was a bit nippy and windy. I was without a hat or coat. Seven penguins stood outside their shelter, taking in all of the nasty weather as well. We began sizing each other up. Wondering who was the bigger idiot. Me, for being out there in the first place. Or them, for not simply walking four feet to cover.

The rain got a little heavier.

I realized I had lost the stare-down. We were both getting drenched. But they were behind a fence, incarcerated by their flightless plight.

I could have left at any time.

I wished them luck with the future morons they would encounter and promised them I would never return.

Not until we, as adults, take back our lives, our aquariums and the night from our children.