You Say "Go," I Say "Goch" (and So Does Van Gogh)

You may have recently heard that Edvard Munch’s masterpiece “The Scream” sold for a near-record $120 million. Shortly after, San Francisco Chronicle movie critic Mick LaSalle held a vote on his “Maximum Strength Mick” blog, asking readers which of 31 Old Master masterpieces would they like to own if could they afford it.

The selections ranged from the “Mona Lisa” (no no no, not the Bob Hoskins movie . . . aargh!) to Picasso’s “Guernica,” a painting that would only fit in Mitt Romney’s living room or the brick wall of the alley you live in, should you happen to be homeless.

I picked “Starry Night” for its dark turbulence; the stars like giant blossoms rolling across a turbulent blue sky on streams of energy. You can see the wind. It’s reality transformed, space seen as swirling with life.

I entered my selection, “Starry Night” by Vincent Van Gogh. Then, I added teasingly, “pronounced “Van Goch,” or maybe “Van Gich.”

“Ohhhh, stop being a show-off,” I’ve been told. Everyone—and that means E-VERY-ONE—pronounces it “Van Go” and who am I, some big-browed ponce who’s read “Gravity’s Rainbow” twice, to stand against the customs of lemmings? I’m only showing off my erudition like Michael Sheen parading his mouthy brain through the Louvre in “Midnight In Paris,” annoying the innocent-and-down-to-earth Owen Wilsons of the world (though, Owen's character, it must be said, is every millimeter the snob).

Arguments like this always give the impression of people looking up their noses at me.

If were a rude person, I’d be tempted to say a hearty “intercourse yourself” and continue glottal-stopping my way through the art gallery of life. However, my nose-thumb at the Indomitable Hive is not the point. My argument is based strictly and strongly on simple courtesy. Or what I also call the John Wayne Argument: “Ya call a fella how he likes to be called, pil-grim. Dead or alive.”

The “Van Go” said nowadays is the French pronunciation, and if Van Gogh were French, he would have pronounced it that way, too. But Van Gogh wasn’t French. He was born in the town of Zundert, which, as much as Wikipedia might sometimes have it otherwise, is not in France, but in the Netherlands.

Van Gogh was Dutch. He spoke Dutch and would have given his name a Dutch pronunciation (though, intriguingly, he may have been somewhat mispronouncing it himself: It’s also seems to be pronounced “Van Gich,” as discussed here.

Exactly how his name took on French coloration I haven’t found out, but, what’s really important is that Van Gogh apparently really really did not like the “Van Go” pronunciation. Van Gogh was already known as a difficult house guest and roommate (“almost unbearable” as even his loyal and loving brother Theo put it), and misstating his name made him even a bigger pill.

But whether Van Gogh was a Minnesota Nice Guy or not, what counts is courtesy. If you really love Van Gogh—or just love his art—it seems simply rude and tone deaf to address him any way but the right way--his way--even if he’s tracking mud all over your carpet while squeezing your last franc out of you and stealing the cheese off the sideboard.

Call him whatever else you want, but never call him “Van Go.”

(And if my argument really bothers you, look at it as one more way for freedom-loving Americans to annoy freedom-hating French persons.)

For myself, I imagine my own fierce displeasure at returning from the Beyond 150 years from now to find out that everyone is pronouncing my name “Boorch-veelt” simply because it took a German academic to make me world famous. Posthumous fame is nice, but please remember to address my ghost as “Burtch-feeld” (tongue tip on the hard plate, “f” as in “field”). Or else, I’ll steal your cheese, all your scotch and scare the feces out of you as I melt away into perfect gloom.

To extend my argument further--if irrelevantly--consider the case of Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush (former assistant to former President Richard B. Cheney). Sadly, we all recall Bush II’s joy in towel snapping nicknames on whoever happened to be standing around. On Putin, President of the Russian Federation (and whose soul was visible to Bush II, but no one else), Bush bestowed the nickname “Pootie-poot.”

Now, I know nicknames are not the same as given names, but imagine if, somehow, “President Vladimir Pootie-poot” had gone totally viral and had become customary usage to everyone in the world (yes, I’m looking at you, Henry Kissinger!) except for . . .  well, a dictator of immense power whose desk drawer contains a big red button with which he could launch World War 3.2. Tyrants are never good sports and “But everyone says it like that” is not a useful, or moral, argument, even in regard to a Vladimir Putin. I daresay, President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton would be inclined to agree.

At least, I hope they are.

 

Come Holmes fans come! The game is afoot!

A quick note encouraging all of you to stop your lives this Sunday night to watch the second season of “Sherlock!" on PBS Mystery (check your local listings). I loved the first three episodes broadcast last year; to my eyes, they blew the dust off without losing the spirit of the Conan Doyle originals.

The reviews for this season promise more ripping adventure starring Benedict Cumberbatch as the 21^st-Century Holmes (the best Holmes since Basil Rathbone, full of  bounding energy and infuriating self-regard), Martin Freeman as a sweetly exasperated but always game Watson, and co-creators Stephen Moffat and Mark Gatiss.

So many mystery series these days seemed weighted with humorless self-importance (AMC’s “The Killing” for one) that “Sherlock!” looks as fresh and cheerful as a daisy. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

Copyright 2012 by Thomas Burchfield

Thomas Burchfield has recently completed his 1920s gangster thriller Butchertown. He can be friended on Facebook, followed on Twitter, and read at Goodreads. You can also join his e-mail list via tbdeluxe [at] sbcglobal [dot] net. He lives in Northern California with his wife, Elizabeth.

DO NOT CATCH THIS FLU!

DO NOT CATCH THIS FLU. The Flu first emerges as a deceptively mild cold that lasts for 3 days or so. You may even feel the cold disappearing and your energy flaring anew, but DO NOT BE FOOLED. For verily, on the 4th day, the Flu shall blossom and soak and rage through your helpless flesh, and your only entertainment will be the flashing interior of your eyelids. Yea, even when the second day arrives and the fever has abated, DO NOT BE FOOLED (as I am not), for it may be merely resting and lurking, prepared to ambush, to strike, to attack again, as it chortles and chuckles like Lee Van Cleef, delighting in its boundless evil. I repeat: DO NOT CATCH THIS FLU. Thank you.

 Photo by author.

Copyright 2012 by Thomas Burchfield

An Old Celluloid Soldier Remembers

(The following was in response to the Red Room Website's request for our memories of World War II. As you will see, mine was fought from in front of a TV set and at the movies.)

Captain Flynn: My Favorite CO, a Man I'd Follow into the Jaws of Heck!

“Despite Spielberg’s avowed intent to darken and coarsen the formulas of the war picture, old moviegoing habits die hard: I was practically standing on my seat and yelling at Tom Hanks to kill more Germans, and then, when he had finished killing Germans, to kill more Germans”—Anthony Lane on Saving Private Ryan,  in The New Yorker (August 3, 1998)

I was a strapping, manly six year old when I shipped out for World War II. With only a few scenes of basic training under my belt, I was sent straight into battle, inside the glowing blue foxhole of my family’s RCA TV.

I’ve long forgotten the first battle I fought, or what non-movie theater it took place in. Most likely it was in the Pacific:  Objective Burma where I served under eternally evanescent Captain Errol Flynn. Together, Errol, me and a squad made up to look like Warner Brothers character actors battled our way through the steaming jungles of Burma, a unit in the guerrilla force known as Merrill’s Marauders.

My first battle also might have been Guadalcanal Diary. There, with fixed bayonet, I gung-hoed alongside William Bendix, Lloyd Nolan, Anthony Quinn and Richard Jaeckel, blasting our way across Guadalcanal’s jungle floors (dressed to look like a Hollywood set), shooting Japanese soldiers (disguised to look like Filipino and Chinese extras) out of palm trees.

Those battles over and won, Errol not only pinned a Mauve Heart (a rank below the Purple) on my bony hairless chest, but gave me manly and well-intentioned advice on how to kiss girls, none which helped.

From there, I turned my warrior’s distant gaze . . . let’s see . . . East . . . West? Anyway, I signed right up to join the fight against the Nazi horde besieging Europe where I fought my way through two campaigns, battles so tough, the smell of the popcorn is still with me.

In Attack, I was a private under the command of Jack Palance, Eddie Albert and Lee Marvin during the Battle of the Bugle; in Combat , Vic Morrow and Rick Jason led me and my buddies up from the beaches of Normandy, across northern France, a battle that lasted five years.

Of those two campaigns, Attack was the grimiest and, I must say, the most dysfunctional—Sergeant Palance threatened to stuff a hand grenade down Captain Albert’s throat, then had his arm crushed by a German Panzer. (Guess somebody needed a little R&R!)

Combat was the lengthiest campaign I ever fought in, longer than The Longest Day. For five grueling years, under constant fire from commercial breaks, I marched with Sergeant Morrow’s squad as we machine-gunned and blew up every Nazi in France.

Even after the war ended just a year after D-Day, our squad fought on for glory. We never got out of France, either. My, we must have looked dumber than Stan Laurel when 1949 rolled around and we noticed that most all the other GIs had shipped out stateside! Boy, were we surprised!

Many were the carefree hours I spent fighting in Combat with my squad of pint-sized GIs in schoolyard and forest as we killed more Nazis than attended the Nuremberg Rally. A stream of images of Men Falling Down in the most acrobatic entertaining fashion—why it was just like it they were going to sleep!

What? Of course, they were just going to sleep! How else do grunts like Richard Jaeckel keep showing up in movie after movie!? You get shot. You fall down and go to sleep. You get up again. How simple is that?

And stuff blowing up. Never forget stuff blowing up!

Combat ended, but my craving for action didn’t. I promptly re-upped for my toughest, most dangerous, mission ever--the mission that took me . . . Where Eagles Dare.

Where Eagles Dare was the best two-and-a-half hours I ever spent killing Nazis. Me, Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood huddled manfully together on top of a windswept cable car a million feet above a jagged snowy Alpine Valley. Then, at the top, we scaled another million feet of castle wall, full of grim, single-minded determination to complete our desperate mission . . .  

Rescuing Ingrid Pitt!

Best Reason  Ever to Climb a Castle Wall

With lovely Ingrid in my arms and under the able command of battlefield general Yakima Canutt, Dick, Clint, and I blasted our way to victory, sending another ten thousand Nazis to fiery, glorious, stuntman’s doom.

It was during the Where Eagles Dare campaign that I learned one of my profound lessons: when you go into battle, be sure to take along Ron Goodwin and His Orchestra. It’s the only road to victory!

After the smoke cleared, I turned down Ingrid’s plea for marriage to fight alongside Clint again in the Battle of Kelly’s Heroes. Still, that day comes when a young soldier has to face the fact that he’s becoming an old soldier. War was changing: banana peel humor, Don Rickles spinning Borscht Belt jokes,  hippie Donald Sutherland popping wheelies in a Sherman tank while we really blew apart another ten thousand Nazis  . . . none of it felt like my World War II.

I resigned my commission. Except for a brief mission with the brilliant but erratic General Sam Peckinpah—I found myself fighting on the wrong side and then the German Army ran out of money—I retired to my den, polished my medal and reminisced.

When Spielberg called me back to fight in Saving Private Ryan, I told him “nuts” and was glad of it when I saw it—all those heads flying off, faces exploding, and guts draping over beach barriers like sausages didn’t look like any war I ever fought in.

In fact, this old soldier wonders about some of the younger veterans he’s meeting nowadays: boys who fought in the front lines in Korea and Vietnam, Desert Storm and Afghanistan. It’s a different kind of soldier I’m seeing: blinded, strapped in wheelchairs, limbs blown off, hitting the bottle—and other stuff--too much, crying, yelling and acting crazy like . . . like they’d been through some kind of bad experience!

Too bad you missed my war, me buckos: Don’t believe me? Grab that remote. Let’s go climb that castle wall once again and kick some Nazi butt!

Copyright 2011 by Thomas Burchfield

(Re-edited 6/1/11)

Photo of Errol Flynn from Jerry Murbach/Dr. Macro Web site

Photo of Ingrid Pitt from Where Eagles Dare fan site.

Thomas Burchfield can also be read at The Red Room website for writers. He can also be friended on Facebook, tweeted at on Twitter and e-mailed at tbdeluxe [at] sbcglobal [dot] net.

Copy-Cat ! (Or: Burchfield Rips Off a Jon Carroll Cat Column)

Admit it, macho man. Something in you goes "Awwwwwww!"

Over the past eight years, I’ve seldom written about our cat Flo, a gem-like but goofy and affectionate calico. This is not due to any weeny sense of privacy, but, partially, because I didn’t want my work to be seen as a pale shadow of the fine and famous Cat Columns by famous San Francisco Chronicle Cat Owner, Jon Carroll.

[5:45 a.m.: The World-famous Cat Columnist Jon Carroll suddenly sits up in bed, antennae shivering with alarm in the cold dawn. Something is wrong! Rising quickly, he slips feet into slippers and wraps self in bathrobe.]

My main reason for not writing more often about our dear Flo is that there’s not much to say about her beyond “Yup, she sure is sweet, ain’t she?”

[5:50 a.m.: Carroll trips over cat Bucket and falls on face while rushing down hallway to office.]

I first saw Flo’s green button eyes staring vacantly up at me while on my first visit to Elizabeth’s apartment in 2002. Not many brains in this one, I thought.

Later, I caught Flo curling about on the kitchen counter—a Place Upon Which Cats Do Not Belong (though They Behave Otherwise). Before I could remove her, she stood on her hind legs, put her paws on my shoulder and crawled into my arms, swelling into a purr that melted the granite cockles of my heart.

Uh-oh, I thought. Oh my . . . I couldn't put her down, even after she started to drool on me.

[6:05 a.m.: Bearded lips quivering, Carroll gapes in horrific disbelief  at computer screen: “This . . . this is an OUTRAGE!”]

Later that evening, after a pleasurable time spent combing my fingers through the sumptuous fur of this ecstatic creature, I rose from the couch and walked across the room, only to feel a batting at my feet. I turned to look: It was Flo, chasing after me, with her odd, whisper-soft hiss, her eyes wide with outraged bafflement as she swatted at my ankles: Hey! Come back here! Pet Flo! Then she sat on perfect point, staring up at me, her eyes wide with hope. 

Suitably chastened, I returned to the couch.

[6:20 am: Carroll fires off angry cease-and-desist e-mail to Alleged Plagiarizer.

6:25 a.m.: After an angry response to reply from someone named “Norman Mailer Demon,” Carroll shoots highest-priority e-mails to Chronicle Editorial Board, requesting emergency meeting.

6:28 a.m.: Carroll discovers that cat Pancho has figured out control-alt-delete.]

Most Cat Stories start like this: “I always thought cats were dumb, but one day. . . .” Then comes the tale about flushing toilets; playing fetch, hide and seek, and the piano; ringing doorbells; sounding the alarm when the house catches fire; catching the burglar; stealing chess pieces, hiding them, then leading you to them; signaling it’s time to take the yummy medicine by jumping up on the chair, right when you have the dropper in hand.

Cats are certainly not smart like dogs, but the smart ones reveal an often startling, opportunistic intelligence and awareness. If they were human, crime rates would be three times what they are. But they also display a fierce devotion toward their people equal to that displayed by dogs. I’ve bonded with cats without going within ten feet of the food dish.

I have no Smart Cat Stories about Flo. She’s a WYSIWYG cat. To me, sociability equals smarts in cats, but Flo is an odd exception--dumb as a dust mop, loves all who pass gently through her small rounded world (except, of course, for Other Kitties).

[6:40 a.m.: Carroll trips over Bucket, falls on face while rushing out to car.] 
 
Elizabeth and I have a dumb goofy cat. That’s all.

Example: Flo does not steal food. We could leave a steaming hot chicken and tuna dinner out on the dining table, go out to a movie and it’ll still be there, untouched, when we return. Though Flo may sniff around it, she won’t eat it.

Does this mean Flo is an Trustworthy Incorruptible Kitty, the Eliot Ness of Felines, one who would never stoop to stealing the Food of Her Masters?

Not at all. It means simply this: If it’s not in a dish, on the kitchen floor, it’s not food!

“Yup,” you say, “that’s a dumb cat, alright.”

[8:00–11:00 a.m.: During tense, three-hour meeting with Chronicle Editors, Carroll anxiously proposes options for dealing with new challenge to Cat Column Monopoly. Urges copyright lawsuit and trade marking of such terms as “cat,” “Bucket and Pancho,” and “kibble.”

11:00 a.m: Carroll storms out of meeting after suggestion that he get a dog and write about that instead.]

Cats are said to be “snobby,” “aloof,” “independent.” We’re only their “staff” and all that. I must disagree. I’ve bonded with many cats in my life, and after eight years of living day in and day out with Flo, I conclude that cats are none of those things.

The truth is this: Cats are babies.  

Cats are stuck in an eternal kittenhood, are deeply dependent on their owners and are as domesticated as dogs. The fact that feral cats (the so-called free-living kind) live on average only five miserable years, while fighting off parasites, other cats, dogs and car traffic, while your housebound cat lives up to twenty years (even outlasting many dogs), should settle the matter.

Without us, cats live hard and die early. To me, that’s a pretty human-dependent animal.

[12:15 p.m: Carroll returns home, finds cats have changed locks on doors. Attempts to gain access through cat door.]

Their image of independence could be, I suspect, due to our projection of flattering ideas of ourselves on this sometimes opaque creature. One thing seems true—their stealth and opacity makes them a good subject for whimsical, absurd flights of humor.

[2:48 p.m.: Carroll finally extricates self from cat door, finds entire neighborhood has gathered to stare. Carroll is told that Bucket and Pancho are now posting “Jon Carroll Columns” on the Internet.

“Cats!” Carroll shakes fist at sky. “Damn them!”]

Flo is truly a Wonder Cat. As in, “I wonder when Mom’s coming home?” “I wonder when the Big Friendly Giant’s gonna break out the Wonderful Blue Brush?” and “I wonder why they’re using my water dish as a toilet?”

"Mine!"

Life with Flo is one sweet and simple puff of delight after another: the way she lies on top of my hand (another one of All the Things that Belong to Flo); how she snuggles in my armpit on cold nights; the way she runs in front of me when I walk into the bedroom at night, looking up at me in hope that
I’ll pick her up (which I may or may not do).

 

 "Mine!"

[3:30 p.m.: Carroll rushes into Internet cafe. Review of Bucket and Pancho’s “Jon Karel Kolum” site shows 1,000,000 views since morning and offer of column space at The New Yorker. Carroll’s page views: minus 10.

 Cuter than Bucket . . . cuter than Pancho . . . put Together!

You wouldn’t know it from the photos, but Flo is an old girl now, her joints creaky, her stomach touchy to anything but special kibble. Still, her jewel-like charm and kitten spirit shine bright and Mom and I are happy to be the Greatest Things in Flo World. Even with her low-wattage brain, she’s one of the great cats of my life.

[4:45 p.m.: Carroll goes to animal shelter, brings home dog.]

Copyright 2010 by Thomas Burchfield 

Photos by author

Re-edited 11/18/10

Thomas Burchfield's contemporary Dracula novel Dragon's Ark will be published March 2011 by Ambler House Publishing. His essays and blog entries can be read at The Red Room website for writers. He can also be friended on Facebook, tweeted at on Twitter and e-mailed at tbdeluxe [at] sbcglobal [dot] net.

 

You Just Wait! I'll Be RIGHT There!

"I’m now at Trader Joe’s, Emeryville—"  Recent Facebook/Twitter feed.

Dear Earl Eckenlouper:

I am a corporate spy, government assassin, professional criminal, and certified clinical psychopath. I am writing this e-mail to thank you for keeping me constantly up-to-date on your real-time whereabouts via your Twitter and Facebook accounts. Thanks to your penchant for public exposure, I am now able to track you wherever you go without expending endless miles of legwork or investing thousands of dollars in hi-tech surveillance gadgetry. Your compulsive self-promotion enables me to take whatever actions necessary should necessity, desire, or both, arise.

For instance, as a corporate spy for a fast-food franchise, I may “take you out” (as we say in the trade) when you tell the whole world that you have committed the error of dining at my client’s competitor.

As a government assassin, I may “put you down” at some future moment for “friending” the Turbaned Guy at the Local Mosque, signing that Climate Change petition, or hitting on Michelle Bachmann.

Further, as a professional criminal (or a “Crime Pro” as we underworld citizens like to call ourselves) I wish to inform you that next time you’re slumped over at Slumpy’s Tavern at 8th and Weyauwega , I may pop by your place, kidnap your entire family and hold them for ransom. That will be a hangover you will not forget.

And finally, as a certified clinical psychopath, I may simply enjoy watching you squirm when I track you down to Mr. Blister’s’ Deli on 9th and Broadway where, every Tuesday at one p.m., wearing those godawful low slung jeans with your butt crack showing, you order your cold pastrami on day-old white, sprouts, no mustard (and if that’s not reason enough to whack a guy, then there’s simply no justice in the world.)

To make my job/hobby/favorite pastime a little easier in the future, I request that next time you inform us of your current whereabouts via Twitter and Facebook that you wear a large circular bulls eye on your back, or lift your chin skyward so as to enable an easier headshot

Oh, and I’m still mad about Betty Jo Bialowsky dumping me for you!

Because I am not a completely bad person, I will give you a head start by saying that I’m six-two, look like Lee Van Cleef and stare a lot--usually right at you. I also openly carry high-powered weaponry, thanks to recent Supreme Court rulings.

And please note that any sudden movement tends to set me off.

Thank you for your help in this matter. I know I’ll be seeing you . . . soon.

Sincerely,

You’ll Find Out . . . .

Thomas Burchfield's contemporary Dracula novel Dragon's Ark will be published March 2011 by Ambler House Publishing. His essays and blog entries can be read at The Red Room website for writers. He can also be approached on Facebook, followed on Twitter and e-mailed at tbdeluxe[at] sbcglobal [dot] net.

Photo by author

Copyright 2010 by Thomas Burchfield

In Which We are Introduced to a Certain Bear and A Dubious Notion

“Where the Wild Things Are seems sure to appeal to the sensibilities of a certain cohort of urban young adults — the type who read comic-book novels and wear skateboard sneakers; who might concur with a note I saw one day scrawled on a legal pad in [Spike] Jonze’s office: ‘There is no difference between childhood and adulthood.’” – The New York Times Magazine.

Here I come now: BAM, BAM, BAM; BASH, BASH, BASH down the stairs on the back of my head behind the kid. With each riser, the inside of my skull explodes like Guy Fawkes Day.

The kid always drags me down the stairs, sometimes by the arm, sometimes by the leg, but never the right way. Never the way I want to be held. Ever give a thought to what all that crack-smash-crunch does to a chap? Think Eventual Brain Damage. Major Motor Neuron destruction. I’m no better off than a punch-drunk boxer.

The suffering doesn’t stop there. It’s the same every night: Me on the dirty floor, the kid listening with his marbles out his head while his rich old Da’ tells him the same stories over and over while glamming his eyes me like he’s Warren Buffet and I’m a bloody bottomless ATM. He squeezes my bum and laughs as the millions pour out. Typical imperialist toff! I should've know he'd sell me for a pair of mouse ears.

His little git’s no help to me at all: It’s always about him. That’s how life is when you’re a stuffed animal. They stuff us with their dreams. As if we had none of our own. But it’s not just stuffing and little rugrat dreams in here, behind these big round button eyes. It really isn’t.

As the old duffer starts, I groan: Not this codswollop again. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve heard this one. You know it too, the one about the worst moment of my life—the bloody awful honey tree.

Let me say this first: Not one of you muttonheads has the foggiest idea of what those stories were really about; the real theme that runs like a sewer through all of them. Not a one of ‘em tells the truth of what really happened, out there; the real story behind the bloody hell hidden behind the rustic gates of Cotchford Farm.

But I’m going to tell you. Whether you like it or not. Go ahead. Tell me I’m “destroying the magic.” But how can you destroy a magic that never existed?

The truth is this: of all the stories about all the animals in the forest, there was one animal whose story was never told, whose existence was known only to those of us who lived in the forest and to no one else.

That animal was the monkey who lived on my back--the monkey of honey addiction.

I became a honey addict with my first gulp of that sweet goo. As it melted in my tummy like a soft gold ball and the sugar molecules streamed through my veins, I became hooked. I completely abandoned my usual diet of nuts and berries. My life of rustic English country ease sank into a miserable bog. As my fur quickly encrusted with sugar, I became home to a zillion ants. The others could always tell when I was around by the cloud of flies that followed me everywhere.

No price was too high to get my paws on the sticky stuff. Obsessed with my next fix, I feverishly hustled the others for their honey stash. I pawned every scrap I owned to that cheap crook Rabbit, right down to the bell on my front door. After I sold off everything, I stole Roo’s toys. There wasn't anything I wouldn't do.

Oh, the kid tried to keep me away from the honey jar, even brought the whole forest in for an intervention. But after I mistook Piglet for a beehive in that little striped shirt of his, they all knew they’d lost me. There was nothing to do but wait for me to hit bottom with a bigger thump than the one I made that time I fell into the Heffalump trap.

One morning, I dreamed I was lying under a giant beehive teeming with billions of little honey makers. Just when long yellow strands of honey were dripping within reach of my straining tongue, I woke up screaming, the walls closing in on me, my every nerve end shrieking with agony.

I crawled on my paws and knees across the splintery floor and staggered outside, my fur soaked in acrid sweat. The honey-yellow sunlight only sharpened my hunger into a blunt stabbing knife. (You can see the craving in my eyes in Shepard’s sketch of me sitting outside my front door. It may look like I’m gazing at the sun. I’m actually screaming from withdrawal.)

I couldn’t take it anymore. “Honey . . . honey . . . honey,” I grunted as I crashed desperately through the gorse and bramble until I found what I was looking for—the buzzing of bees. The sound of honey from high above. My desperation was at its pain-filled peak. I would have climbed to the moon at that point.

You know what happened next. Any clod who thinks falling ten meters, spinning around three times and flying into a gorse bush is funny should try it sometime. Let’s see how hard you laugh with thousands of gorse prickers spiking you like porcupine quills!

Afterward, I lay face down in the English country mud, my whole body on fire, and bitterly reviewed my options, none of them good.

Piglet would just go all freaky-squeaky on me; Rabbit would raise an army to invade Iraq; Owl would start pontificating about the National Health Service while I lay groaning and shivering on his doorstep; if Tigger had been around then, it would’ve been a Million Pieces of Pooh all over the forest; Kanga and Roo’s Extract of Malt worked no better than watered-down methadone.

And don’t get me started on Eeyore. The truth is, he was actually only in the story where he lost his tail. Two days later, still racked with pain from where the kid had nailed the new one into his donkey’s bottom, he tied a rock to his hoof and jumped off Poohsticks bridge. (Glug, glug, the lucky sod. Maybe you get now why some of us Cop a Bad Attitude.)

I finally had to face facts: There was only place where I could go, where they had to take me in. To my enabler’s.

I was half-conscious as I crawled to the door of the kid’s tree house. As he plucked the prickers one by one out of my flesh, each pluck like a strummed harp string, he cooked up another one of his great ideas. Anything to keep me dependant on him.

Yeah, you guessed it. The balloon. A typical addict, I’ll jump at any scheme to satisfy my craving, no matter how harebrained. I swam like Michael Phelps from one end of that mud puddle to the other until I looked more a like two-legged fudgsicle than a little floating cloud. But what do bees know?

I’ll never know how the kid trained himself to breathe helium, but before you could say “Where the Woozle Wasn’t” there I was again, my duff dangling ten meters in the air. My rotten luck continued when I floated close enough to see they were really quite the wrong bloody sort of bees—Megachile rotundata. Alfalfa leaf-cutter bees. Not the honey-making sort.

Humiliation hit me like a bricklayer’s punch. I came face to face with the cruel reality of my existence; with how far I’d fallen in the world; how disgusting to myself I’d become. Quivering with self-loathing, I begged the kid to finish it with his cork gun.

But, as usual, reality fell short of the dream. His first shot fixed it so there’d be no Pooh Juniors. The second shot only broke the balloon and down I floated, the hope hissing out me with the helium. I spent the next week with my arms stuck up in the air like I’d been bagged by Scotland Yard.

(You’d think a bloke would learn his lesson, but no, not this sort of bear. Days later, while hustling Rabbit for a fix, I got my biffer’s bottom stuck in his door. Some blokes are just asking to be turned into towel bars. Seems I’m one of ‘em.)

End of story. A bullet of pain shoots through my hip--arthritic from decades of being yanked about by the leg—and it’s WHAP, BONK, THUMP on the back of my noggin up the stairs once again. The kid yells for the old man to watch him take his bath and I think Yeah, that’s it. I’ll drown myself in the bloody bathwater.

I better come up with something, fast. No way am I going to live through another round of stories about the old forest. The other day, Kanga said something about some wealthy Yank named Oprah and how she’s a sucker for stories like mine. Maybe she won’t help me get this monkey off my back, but maybe there’ll be enough quid in the deal to keep the bloody animal fed until I do.

(Photo by Author; bear by Gund, from original E.H. Shepard design).

Friends? We Got Friends . . . .

“Is George Clooney the Hottest Guy in Hollywood? Seems Everyone Wants to Be his Bud.”--Headline on Yahoo! News. “I’m really white trash.”—George Clooney E-Mail from: The Lipinskis To: George Clooney Dear George Clooney: Trudi and I wish to thank you very much for the free dinner and drinks the other night at your new Las Vegas resort. It’s not every day an everyday Nebraska couple like us gets yanked off the street by a big restaurant owner for free eats! Trudi really loved telling you all about her collection of your Aunt Rosemary’s records and had no idea she had such a smart and handsome nephew. And such a good cook! We apologize for not knowing who you (or Brad Pitz) are, but we don’t go to the movies at all because they’re too expensive, and Trudi can’t drive, and I don’t drive too well myself because of night vision. Maybe they will show one of your movies on the Hallmark or Western channels or the Turner movie station (as soon as we can afford the satellite adjuster box) and we can catch up then! My wife and I were happy to add a touch of everyday normal America to the grand opening of your new resort. It made us feel very special—especially since we were the only ones there! (Maybe if you add White Castle to the menu, you’d get more customers hint hint!) We wish you the best of luck with your new restaurant. Sincerely Yours Fred and Trudi PS: Trudi knows of an excellent hand cream you can use if washing all those dishes turns out to be too hard on your hands! Dear George: Thank you very much for all those movie disks. As soon as we can afford one of those players, we’ll be sure to watch them, but our trusty Betamax still has plenty of mileage on it so we’ll stick with it for now. Until then, those disks will make great beer coasters! From all those movies, we can see you’re a real busy guy! Could you really afford all that postage? We can hardly afford Christmas cards and have to send e-mail greetings from the computer at the meatpacking plant. We’re down to one gift a year for each of us. Last year my wife gave me that yellow-purple Hawaiian-plaid shirt I wore that time we ate at your restaurant. Who knows? This Christmas I might get a new one! We’ll see what Santa has in store for this year! Trudi wants to know, when you guys are short-staffed at your restaurant, do you have to fill in yourself? It’s a BIG problem where Trudi works. Some days she has to work a double and then her boss has to fill in and boy, I tell you, some guys should just stay the heck out of the kitchen! Bon appetite! Dear George: Thanks a million for the clothes. Unfortunately, I guess you forgot I’m on the short and heavy side, so the pants are a little tight around the waist. I can have the legs shortened, but I don’t know if I can lose all that weight. I can have the shirtsleeves shortened too (as soon as we can afford it). I wore the tuxedo jacket to bowling the other night and all the guys got real excited, especially when they saw the “Ocean’s Eleven” label. By that way, is that “Ocean’s Eleven” on one of those movie disks you sent us? It’s funny, because Trudi and I saw it the other night on that Turner channel and while we saw Frank and we saw Dino and we saw Sammy, we’re darned if we could see you! You’ll have to tell us which scenes you are in, so we can see them and tell our friends how we know somebody who knew Frank and Dino and Sammy! One other thing: the dresses you sent don’t fit Trudi at all. Do you have any with thicker straps that aren’t so low cut? (She caused quite a stir when she wore one of them to work the other day.) Who’s that Julia Roberts on the label? Is she one of your restaurant’s waitresses? Trudi says they oughta cover themselves more! Take care! Dear George Clooney: Thank you very much for dropping by with the disk player and your tailor. I will get the rest of the clothes out of storage for the next time your tailor comes by. (You don’t have to come though if it’s too much trouble!) We hope you found our couch to be comfortable sleeping. I very much enjoyed hearing you talk about golf! We didn’t know there was so much to hear about the subject! Have you really golfed everywhere? I didn’t know there were that many golf courses! Sorry I fell asleep toward the end there. Shouldn’t have had that last beer! Bye for now! Dear Mr. Clooney: We’re very sorry we couldn’t take up on your invitation to vacation at your house on Lake Como, but Trudi has mosquito allergies and Minnesota mosquitoes are real WHOPPERS! It was nice of you to stop by on your way. Your visit sure set trailer court tongues wagging (especially after the wind from the helicopter knocked over our neighbor’s trailer!) We were fascinated by your stories about how loud, shallow, and boring Hollywood people are and how everybody there wants to use you or sleep with you—though Trudi wonders if adding an extra bedroom in your house might solve that problem—and how you wish you could find some real friends in the real world. We both wish you luck in your search! PS: Could we ask a small favor? Could you leave your pet pig at home next time? He was a very fun, energetic pet, but our dog Schotzie was a lot happier when she had both eyes and all four legs! Dear George Clooney: Sorry about the dictated letter, but they don’t have e-mail at the hospital and my own handwriting won’t be legible again until the cast comes off. The neurosurgeon says there isn’t any permanent damage, but they likely won’t get all the dents out of my skull. Maybe going out for a round of golf wasn’t such a great idea. We probably should have gone right in when the thunderstorm started and maybe it wasn’t too smart of you to pop that wheelie on your golf cart. (I guess the docs didn’t like it when you took over the ER either, especially after you broke my ribs with the defibrillator) Anyhow, we won’t be able to make it to the Oscars ceremonies because my skin grafts haven’t healed yet. (Are you catering that by any chance? We sure hope so! You seem like a guy who really needs to stay busy!) And you don’t need to come visit again, if it’s too much trouble. Trudi and I found the screaming a bit much. Do nurses always tear their clothes off when you come around? Trudi’s still blushing! We really, truly hope you find the friends you are looking for. Good luck! E-Mail from: Ed Vendetta, Esq. Law Firm of Skurvy, Vendetta and Capone. To: George Clooney Re: Lipinskis v. Clooney—Restraining Order Dear Mr. Clooney: Attached as a .pdf please find the restraining order in the above case Lipinski (“Plaintiff”) v. Clooney (“Defendant”). To briefly reiterate the conditions as follows: The Defendant shall stay a minimum of one hundred miles from the Plaintiffs, their persons and their properties at all times. Nor is the Defendant under any circumstances to repeat his visit to the Plaintiff during the remainder of Plaintiff’s hospital stay. The Defendant shall make no attempt to contact Plaintiffs in any matter whatsoever, including postal mail, e-mail, chain mail, phone, fax, teletype, telegram, Morse code, semaphore code, strung-together tin cans, rocks through windows or airborne advertising banners saying: “FRED AND TRUDI! I’M SORRY! PLEASE FORGIVE ME!” The Defendant shall not mail gifts or any other packages to plaintiffs, including free meals, DVDs, DVD players, second-hand clothing, invitations to red carpet premiers, Oscar and other award ceremonies, resort openings, airline tickets to Switzerland, or golf outings. The Defendant shall not hold additional pet funerals in the Plaintiff’s yard. “Oceans 14—Rascals in Nebraska” will not be filmed. Finally, the Defendant shall not mention the Plaintiffs, both directly and indirectly, in any of his public utterances, including references to them as “my real-life down-home All-American friends.” Please download the document, sign and return to our office immediately (and you would mind throwing in an autographed picture of yourself? Make it out to “Ed!” Thanks!). Sincerely, Ed Vendetta, ESQ.

Like Shootin' Fish in a Pork Barrel!

The following is a humorous shard of gimcrackery I wrote in the late 1990s for an e-mail column I had then. A recent review showed it still had the capacity to cause the heart to trip with laughter. I’ve updated it with photos and a little tweaking. And I do apologize to the Senator in question: His intentions and goals were good, but his method made him an irresistible bulls-eye and me grateful that I am not a politician.


Dear Honorable Elected Representatives:

It has come to my attention that Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) awhile back pushed through a bill designating Lake Champlain, a somewhat large body of water located in his fine syrupy state, as an additional link in the chain of what are known as the Great Lakes: Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, Lake Huron, Lake Michigan and Lake Superior. This despite the fact that Lake Champlain is vastly smaller and separated by hundreds of miles of dry land from the nearest Great Lake, that being Lake Ontario.

Lake Champlain

By having Champlain designated as a “Great Lake,” Senator Leahy has gained access to funds for the conservation and management of those very Great Lakes for his own state.

I am not complaining. I am not bitter. Nor am I jealous. But I do feel somewhat unjustly neglected, for I too live very near a body of water that I truly believe is an integral part of the major ecosystem known as the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary.

Farallon Islands

This body of water, though, to some, small and insignificant, has played a significant role in the historical ecology of the Farallon Islands, undoubtedly long before my discovery of it a few years ago.

I am speaking of the body of water located in my bathtub.

Renamed “Lake Burchfield,” by me in my honor, this previously unknown, but nevertheless significant, body of water was discovered by me when I took possession of my apartment in June 2002. Located in the rear left of the bathroom, just behind the toilet, Lake Burchfield is six feet long, three feet wide and two feet deep at its deepest. Fed by streams from the High Sierras, it drains into the Pacific Ocean a few miles from my home and hosts a unique ecosystem of extremely rare (and, dare I say, precious) microorganisms of a type and beauty found nowhere else in the entire marine environment.

Lake Burchfield

Shortly after my discovery of this mysterious and complex biosphere I invited a select group of distinguished marine biologists over to study Lake Burchfield. Though they disagree somewhat with the “lake” designation, (Dr. H.P. Heckerbooper, for one, said, “puddle” might be a more accurate appellation) all the scientists firmly agreed that they had never encountered an environment quite like the one encountered in the teeming shallows of Lake Burchfield.

Several newly discovered species have already been written about in numerous distinguished scientific journals (unfortunately of pitifully small circulation), including:

-- the extremely rare Thomas voracious, a bacteria whose diet consists entirely of soap particles

-- Tadus moronicus, a previously unknown genus of mildew, exclusive to plastic white shower curtains

-- and finally, the first sighting ever of the elusive and controversial Circuitous smudgus, the wondrous creature responsible for bathtub ring.

I won’t even go into my toilet, since there’s nothing in there but alligators anyway (and boy do I have the scars to prove it ka-boom!)

In addition, with the help of the experts noted above, I have introduced several endangered species of rare fish into this environment in the hope of restoring their devastated populations for future generations. To date, I have admittedly met with little success, but I am currently working with several marine environmental groups on a proposal to declare Lake Burchfield a major link in a chain of new Pacific salmon runs, provided we can get the fish to swim up the pipes.

In addition, I am currently breeding a unique subspecies of guppy, Invertius poissonus, known for its unique habit of floating upside down for the latter part of its life cycle.

Now: All this takes money and it is with this in mind that I am beseeching you, my elected representatives, for funds to continue my strenuous efforts to preserve, protect and study the amazing, unique hydro-scape that is Lake Burchfield. By designating it as part of the Farallones National Wildlife and Marine Preserve, Lake Burchfield will surely qualify for assistance under the National Sea Grant Program. In anticipation of this qualification, I have registered myself as a University.

Of course, many critics may call this “pork barrel,” but that, of course, is because the money is not going to preserve the wildlife in their bathtubs, which they themselves have never seen fit to pay attention to until I came along. It is in response to these accusations that I solemnly promise to sell Lake Burchfield to the Nature Conservancy upon my departure from this area.

I am in need of funds not only to continue the scientific studies, but also to protect the very environment itself. Already there are threats to build condos along the shiny enamel shores of Lake Burchfield. Indigenous species are under threat from various invasive creatures, including the deadly voracious Billus gatus, a microorganism so vile and pernicious that it has already devoured an entire fleet of plastic boats and neutralizes all dandruff shampoos.

Another Deadly Invasive Species!

Without funding, I may be forced to sell Lake Burchfield to rapacious developers and the incredible world that lives and thrives within its watery depths will be lost forever to future generations and leave nature a little poorer than I found it.

I am currently in negotiations to rent closet space on K Street and am ready with cash bribes for you to defend my cause! Checks should be made out to “Lake Burchfield Preservation Defense Fund.”

Please help, before, once again, another beauteous pocket of nature is gone for good! Remember: “Extinction is Forever (But Not if You Give Me Money!”)

Sincerely,

Thomas Burchfield

(All photos by author; boat by Elizabeth; cat by Flo)

Drunken Sleeping Master

Last week, a high pressure system enveloped the San Francisco Bay Area like a massive slab of steam-heated cat fur. In these parts, three days of this equals three years in a hot box in Brazil wrapped in bacon. If we still used old-time thermometers, geysers of globby mercury would’ve shot into the air, adding to the poison already in our systems via too many tuna sandwiches. Each night I baked awake in bed, my brain cooking with insomnia not even melatonin could cool.

On the third afternoon of the heat wave, work done, my jaw ligaments snapping, my mouth like a cargo bay, I turned on my biggest—and only—fan, a 26-inch, 3-speed Lasko and sunk down on my bed. As the cooling fan wind flushed over me, I kidded myself: 30 minutes, 45 minutes, 60 . . . 90.

I awoke asleep. According to Wikipedia—unless someone’s making mischief again; last time, it was instructions on how to hunt grizzly armed with a butter knife and assurances that cooking with anthrax is perfectly safe and delicious--I had made mistakenly slipped across the door sill from “Power Nap” into the room signed with the sinister appellation “Slow Wave Sleep.”

“Slow Wave Sleep.” Say that out loud. Behold the bulb-headed saucer-eyed aliens in lab coats, thick, two-foot syringes twinkling in their bony long-fingered hands, standing around your bed with their Peter Lorre lisps: “We’re only putting you down you into 'Slow Wave Sleep!'” But why are you laughing!?

By napping too long, I had entered into Slow Wave Sleep and then broken it too early to my detriment. From Normal Sleep I awoke to Abnormal Consciousness, or "Sleep Inertia." My skull felt like a bowl of liquid rust that had bored a hole in the bottom and then seeped blood-like throughout my body; a rust that crusted on my nerves, my arteries and veins, and every cell muscle. If the police had come to my door, I would not have been able to think fast enough to identify myself. And then they would have shot me.

I wandered zombie-like through the house. If I am a zombie, my mind droned, then I must go out and eat some brains. Luckily, my wife arrived home just then and the next door neighbor escaped unharmed.

Some weeks earlier, I had bought tickets for a benefit concert for that night as a birthday present for my wife—in my decrepit stupor, I recalled only that her name was something like “Mrs. B.” After some desultory conversation, I finally grasped that we were scheduled to attend the “Mozart for Mutts and Meows” benefit for the Berkeley/East Bay Humane Society. Five minutes of patient explaining and hot coffee poured over my barren skull alerted me that it would not be Mozart as performed by dogs and cats (or, as the cat constantly reminds me, “cats and dogs”). In fact, no pets would be attending at all. I said I thought it unfair to exclude the animals, but my wife, sensing that I was unable to grasp complicated explanations, simply said “The animals don’t have any money, so they can’t afford the tickets.”

We left the house, my wife by the front door, I by falling through the living room window. “Grrrhhgg,” I growled as I waved my arms at all four points of the compass when my wife asked me for directions to our destination. We detoured through Martinez and it was very very nice, but it makes for a long drive to Berkeley, unless you’re trying to run your Normal Sleep Cycle like I was. I managed to doze through all of Walnut Creek, both directions.

We finally arrived in Berkeley with enough time left to annoy the staff at Moe’s Books by my insistence that somewhere in the world there was a first edition of Moby Dick by Dean Koontz. I then caught another five sprawled face down across the remainder table. I paid for the books I drooled on, among them, one called Spelunking for the Claustrophobic.

I snatched another five minutes on the walk to the Berkeley City Club, a journey made perilous my inability to discern the difference between sidewalk and street and the desire to lie down on both. In the lobby of the club, I glimpsed a sign that said “Bed and Breakfast.” But before I could get a bed for the night, my wife steered me toward a broad staircase laid with the softest, most comfortable-looking carpet. And so I stole another five minutes of Normal Sleep Cycle curled up on the second floor landing.

I am told the Berkeley City Club was designed by architect Julia Morgan, but it could have been Mies Van der Rohe for all I knew. The second floor was filled with hundreds of people. I bounced from body to body like a pin ball rolling from post to post, until I rolled in front of a bar and figured that a scotch and water was just the pick-me-up I needed. Five minutes later, I was sprawled face down across a comfy platter of smoked salmon where I happily snoozed until show time.

The concert, performed by members of the Mozart Midsummer Festival, consisted of a reduction of Die Zauberflote (KV620, arranged by Johann Wendt) and the Quartet in G Minor (KV 478). I am sure the performances were fine, but I remember not one note.

I did, however, receive compliments for the performance that I was unaware I had given. “My word! The Magic Flute sounds so evanescent when accompanied by loud snoring!” piped up a fellow concert goer as we shuffled out of the hall.

“Do I detect a note of sarcasm in that remark?” I riposted, arching a sleep-ruffled eyebrow.

“Not at all!” she cried, rhythmically thumping me on the head with her fist. “Next-time-just- re-mem-ber-it’s-the-Quar-tet-in-G-not-C!”

My wife hurried me home. By the time we got there, my sleep cycle was completed. I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, chipper and ready for action! “Wanna go somewhere!?” I chirruped like a bird, happily bouncing up and down on the bed.

“Oh shut up,” Elizabeth grumbled and stuffed the pillow over her face. She still hasn’t told me what she was so sore about.