Today I learned that oceans might actually be made of tears.
This is “52″. Like “Four” he is deeper than just a pretty face. About 20,000 leagues deeper. And he is super special, and also like most geniuses, super misunderstood. Literally, he gets his name because he emits a sound frequency of 52 hertz, which no other whale in the whole great wide ocean can understand. Though let’s not speak for the prehistoric whales that I am pretty sure live on the bottom of the ocean, but choose not to function in our modern day society of dolphin praising, and (amazing) Disney movies about (adorably brave) fish. Whales, who communicate in a way that humans are still scratching their heads about millions of dollars and years later, are one of the most intelligent species on the planet (the only thing I learned from “Lucy” besides I will follow ScarJo to the ends of the earth, even to a movie with squandered potential).
“52″ rightfully so, has a famous admirer who is desperate to meet him, Adrian Grenier. Who I saw once in a bar in Brooklyn, and yes he’s beautiful enough for everyone to keep validating his TV shows, and Britney Spears inspired movies. But all that un-guilty goodness aside, he actually has some interesting side projects. Please see his 11 producer credits on IMDB for a list of his other eco-docs. And also there is his band, The Honey Brothers, who unironically I say in the next sentence, that I saw live at Coachella once. I went to check them out because I had already seen him in that bar in Brooklyn up close, and I also wanted to observe how he handled his fame and looks around ordinary people. And even then seeing him humbly rock out on tamborine next to those more musically inclined but less famous friends of his, to a crowd as big as a headliner, is when I definitely realized that he’s one to use his fame for the good of all other mammals.
Enter another famous, beautiful, Oscarless mammal: Leo DiCaprio, of Growing Pains fame. And the reason all of media is talking about our whale friend, “52″. Which can we start a kickstarter to rename him? I mean it’s just his situation, it’s not who he is people! Adrian Grenier and his partner Joshua Zeman had been shopping their doc for a production home, and then finally took to Kickstarter to raise the money themselves. The fact that Leo generously donated 50,000 (probably one check, from one run of Titanic’s back-to-back cable marathon on Valentine’s Day), inspired badly written headlines featuring the word “bromance”, between two people who just actually give a genuine, gigantic shit about nature. So here’s hoping all those unhelpful headlines, actually help find our friend “52″, and end ocean noise pollution? Is that like light pollution? I guess we’ll find out thanks to Leo, and also a bunch of people who aren’t millionaires, but equally as kind and environmentally conscious as to donate over 350,000 on their own. Or maybe they are just huge Honey Brothers fans.
If Frankie Barnacles fka “52″, is reading this, because he probably could I mean he is a whale; know that if we were a species intelligent enough to communicate with you that you would have many many friends. I would be your best one. I might not clean off your barnacles, but I promise to never freak out when you approach me, or judge you for aforementioned barnacles. I had pimples as a kid, I get skin issues. But I hope that you never give up on trying to find a family, and I also hope that your fellow mammals respect you and your less cool whale brethren, so that more of you are given the chance to survive in the hard seas that both life, and the sea bring. And now I am going to go cry for a year, who’s in?!
