I was walking along Santa Monica Blvd. early last evening when I noticed or more precisely heard a young T-shirted guy riding shotgun in a nearby moving car. The guy was looking at the driver and laughing hysterically and slapping his bare leg for emphasis. I was instantly appalled by this, and quickly took out my iPhone and tweeted the following: “I really don’t like people who clap their hands or slap their thigh while laughing at a joke told by a friend or colleague. That’s monkey body language. The clap or thigh-slap is basically a gesture of obeisance to the joke-teller. As loathsome as it gets.” The first time I noticed obsequious monkey-submission gestures was in junior high-school. The first time I noticed a celebrity slapping his leg to emphasize the wonderfulness of a joke he’d just heard was, I think, on a network TV Frank Sinatra tribute, and the knee-slapper was…who else?…Sammy Davis, Jr. I’m just reminding readers that if they want to be seen as a shameless kiss-ass, this is the way to go.