Waiter, there's a horse in my butter!

Transcript of Tom Rhoads' interview with Bean, author of the blog, Poop Ederim, from the WTRB broadcast of Blog Agog, January 22, 2019.


TOM: Welcome, listeners, to another edition of Blog Agog, the show that highlights the latest in creative blog publications. Today our guest is the producer of Poop Ederim, a site that has gone blogosphere bonkers in recent months. Welcome, Bean... you just go by Bean, is that right?

BEAN: Maybe I should go by Big Shot Bean. I mean, here I am on your show.

TOM:  Right, big shot. Now that you're such a big shot with a big shot blog, readers across the country are wanting some answers.

BEAN:  First of all, it's "readers across the WORLD," if you don't mind.  I have a solid following in Turkey, and also a following on an unregistered laptop in Nigeria.

TOM:  Okay, sure. International big shot then. About your name. Were you named Bean by your parents? Or was that a nickname you picked up?

BEAN: My last name is Bohnhorst. "Bohn" in German means bean, so it came from that.

TOM: And "horst"?

BEAN: I'd rather not say if you don't mind.

TOM:  Fair enough. Speaking of names, people are intrigued by your blog-title, Poop Ederim.  Your readers have googled it, consulted Merriam-Webster, called the National Weather Service.  Nobody can find a match. What does it mean?

BEAN:   People were googling it?  Cool!  What did they find?

TOM:  One listener was Googled to a website having to do with "poop dreams".  Any connection to your Poop Ederim?

BEAN:  No, but that's interesting.  Poop Dreams was a terrific documentary that came out some years ago.  It has a cult following.

TOM:  You must be thinking of Hoop Dreams.

BEAN:  No, I'm thinking of Poop Dreams.  Poop Dreams was a courageous documentary film about the heartbreak of constipation. Sadly, it missed a nod from the Oscars.

TOM:  Let's get back to the question.

BEAN:  Listen, just because the laptop in Africa can't be traced is no reason to eliminate Nigeria from my international blog checklist.  It's like a birder's life list.  Once you see a roseate spoonbill, even in the blink of an eye, you get credit for life.  Same goes for a laptop in Nigeria.  I can now say the African continent is following me! Officially.
 
TOM:  So what about it?

BEAN:  What about what?

TOM:  Poop Ederim!  How did you come up with that?

BEAN:  Poop Ederim has its origins in Turkish, or to be more precise, with Roger Price. It is a bit mysterious, isn't it?

TOM: That's why I'm asking.

BEAN:  Okay, I went to an American high school in Ankara, Turkey, in the late 60s as my family lived there. In 1973, I returned to Turkey and got a job teaching English to adult Turks at the Turkish-American Association in Ankara.  It was great fun.  I would stand in front of 20 students who were very enthusiastic about learning English.  One of the teaching techniques we used was "listen and repeat."  I would say something, and they would repeat it.  For example, I would say, "Good morning, Mr. Jones.  How are you today?"  And the class would respond in a resounding chorus:  "Good morning, Mr. Jones. How are you today?" And then I would insert a different name. For example, I might say "Mrs. Smith", and the class would chant, "Good morning, Mrs. Smith.  How are you today?"  And so on.  I had such power!

Sometimes I would close the textbook and insert my own names.  I'd say, "Batman."

And the class would respond, "Good morning, Batman.  How are you today?"

 Or, I'd make it more complex. "Richard Nixon and Jack the Ripper."

Without batting an eye, they would repeat, "Good morning, Richard Nixon and Jack the Ripper. How are you today?"

And then, the grande finale: "You idiot and your idiot goat."

Those trusty Turks would close the deal: "Good morning, you idiot and your idiot goat. How are you today?"

TOM:  I'm getting discouraged.

BEAN:  I didn't know it then, but as I was soon to learn, the English word "book" sounds like the Turkish word "bok".  "Bok" means, to be blunt, "shit".  So, at first many of my listen-and-repeat exercises caused some embarrassing disturbances. It turned out that I was unknowingly hurling verbal turds around the classroom. For example, when I modeled, "Hello, Johnny. May I see your book?", the class whimpered with giggles and probably wondered if I liked to hang around public restrooms. Some students pretended not to notice, but there was no ignoring the bok-faced elephant in the room.

Still not knowing their Turkish turd word, I singled out a "struggling" student to model some repeats for the rest of the class:  "Mehmet," I said. "Come on now, repeat after me:  'Yes, Mr. Brown. I will put my book on your desk.'"

Mehmet dutifully responded, "Yes, Mr. Brown...  I will put my b... b... b..."  Mehmet collapsed in howls and others buried their faces in hysterical tears. I was so puzzled. I was at a loss.

One brave lady approached me, took me aside, and helped me. "Mr. Tom," she whispered. "Your English word... book... sounds in Turkish like, how you say in English... poop? Book is a bad word."realize how this bookish/bokish intersection of languages had rendered these young souls hysterical and helpless.

Incidents like this made me a wildly popular English teacher.  My reputation, I'm afraid, had everything to do with my demonstrated deference to their, well, shit.  And whenever I then asked my students to "look in your book" or "bring your book", we exchanged knowing glances and grew in an appreciation of our teacher/student relationship.

TOM:  How bookish. And... so....?

BEAN:  Yes?

TOM:  So all that, somehow, in some obscure way, all that has something to do with, dare I ask, "Poop Ederim"?

BEAN:  Oh, no. Of course, not. When I was seventeen, I was traveling with my parents and little sister in southern Spain and we went to a nice restaurant for dinner. White tablecloths and all that. There was bread, but no butter, and I wanted some butter. So I asked the waiter in my school-learned Spanish to bring us some "burro", por favor. We had just been in Italy and the Italian word for butter is burro. I made an innocent mistake. The waiter looked perplexed but deferentially nodded and hiked back to the kitchen. We then noticed through the window back there a major debate going on between the waiter, the manager, and the chef. They kept arguing about something, looking over at our table, then going back to their argument. They must have debated over what exactly I wanted. Finally, the waiter sheepishly approached our table and from under a linen napkin, presented me with...  a box. I opened the box and there inside was a big, fat cigar. My father erupted in embarrassing and uncontrollable guffaws.  I wish I had a recording of that conversation in the kitchen.  My father told that story a hundred times over the years.

TOM:  Mantequilla.

BEAN:  Pardon?

TOM: Mantequilla: Spanish for butter. Burro: Spanish for donkey.

BEAN: Sure, I know. I wanted butter, ordered a donkey, and got served a cigar. Burro and bok. Both of those situations were innocent mistakes.

TOM: All right. Just let me try this one last time. Poop Ederim... where does your blog title come from?

BEAN: I've wondered what those guys said in that kitchen.: You didn't let me finish. Like I said, poop ederim has its origins in Turkish, but more precisely with Roger.

TOM: Who is Roger?

BEAN: You mean, who was Roger. He departed the world years ago, but was the funniest person I've ever known. Maybe the saddest, too.

TOM: And?




TOM:  Okay, I am leaving now.  I will take some Tums.  And I will lie down for a while on my bed.





Comments are welcome at tombohn2@yahoo.com

Local Playwright Pens Masterpiece

TRAVERSE CITY, MI -- The producer for a new local musical is all adither with news of the show's premier.  Tom Bohnhorst -- producer, writer, director, actor, props manager, and best boy -- made the announcement today in the parking lot behind the offices of Northern Lakes Community Mental Health.

"It's a musical in the grand ol' tradition of Broadway musicals," Bohnhorst said.  "It's enormously exciting to unveil plans for my new creation:  "I May Have Alzheimer's, But At Least I Don't Have Alzheimer's."

Inspired by the years Bohnhorst cared for his aging father, he said the idea for a theatrical production hit him like a slap in the face.  "I saw Dad walk into the broom closet and said to myself, 'That's it! This story belongs on stage!"

Over the past months, Bohnhorst has honed several inspired songs while following his father around the house.  "The show starts out with a ballad," Bohnhorst offered. "An old man comes out into a dim light and sings, 'I love you, whoever you are.'  This number sets the tone for all that comes next."

The plot follows the old man's proposals of marriage to a half dozen women the man, Elwood Limp, encounters in his adventures in and out of the hospital from attacks of diverticulitis.  "He's a lovable ol' cuss," said Bohnhorst. "The audience just falls in love with him, if not the women he wants to marry."

Other show-stopping tunes include: "Dementia is just a four-letter word,"  "Point your pecker down, Pops, point your pecker down,"  "Must I be served peanut butter 24 hours a day?"  "Scrub your own scroidels, but please, leave mine alone," and "Old and decrepit, old and decrepit, go together like mold in the septic."

While the production is full of suspense and romance, Bohnhorst has assured us that laughs are sure to erupt.  He said the song, "Who knew? Who knew? The Ambulance Crew! We're off to the E.R. again!" will get people howling.

Bohnhorst explained that he's made room for two dance numbers as well.  "The Walker Waltz" and "The Incontinental Divide" are sure to please.  The latter song is a tribute to caregivers everywhere who employ creative efforts to keep their loved ones' sheets dry through the night.

Bohnhorst let the cat out of the bag when he unsheathed news about the show's final number.  Cast members will free themselves from the shackles of their prescriptions by showering the audience with cascades of pills.  All through the drenching, the chorus will finish with a song of hope, "We washed our hands with toothpaste while Roosevelt saved the day!"

The production will be presented on August 25, in Kaleva during Kaleva Days, in the picnic pavillion at the south end the Manistee County Road Commission Garage.

Musical accompaniment will be provided by the Kazoo Club of Thompsonville. 



  
Comments are welcome at tombohn2@yahoo.com

Lady Madonna

Those were heady days back in 1971 and 72. George and I shared room 226 in Snyder Hall at Michigan State University, I a sophomore, he a socially awkward freshman. Before the leaves started to turn, we became best buddies. The Stones blared and we guzzled quarts of Colt 45. Dozens of boys from the down the hall would wander in and out our open door to appraise our latest rendition of chaos. Neither of us had started to shave.

Some might have said that as copacetic roomies go, we were an unlikely pair. George had a ponytail and abhorred smoke of any kind. I also had a ponytail but adored smoke of several kinds. I fancied myself a revolutionary and joined SDS. George mocked my left windedness and all hell could break when our clashing ideologies were fueled by malt liquor. 

One spring evening an angry mob of student protesters marched past our second-floor window. Hundreds filled the space between Snyder and Abbott halls. The American military that day had bombed Cambodia. I would soon join that anti-war mob, grab a bull horn, and help lead a takeover of the Administration Building. But on that night, half drunk on Colt 45, George thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle. He cranked open the window and screamed, "Go Purdue! Go Purdue!"

George grew up on a pig farm in western Michigan, but his father also worked as a chemist. He was an intellectual, a descendent of blue bloods back in Boston. Visiting George at the farm made for a collision of senses. Inside, family members sat by lamps reading novels.  Outside, pig stink wafted through cottonwoods while chickens in their coops clucked and pigs grunted from within the hog barn.There was a milk cow named Bossie and an old, fur-matted collie snoozing on the porch by a row of high rubber boots ready for chores. Fly paper hung in the kitchen. Meanwhile, George's mother sat in the parlor doing the New York Times Crossword Puzzle. He and his family had shed any social graces out on that farmland of Allegan County


George had no aspirations to acquire his father's pig farm. He hated the place. But he shared his dad's keen aptitude for chemistry and toddled off to MSU in 1971 to major in the subject. The plan was short-lived. By his second semester, he switched from chemistry to English, my major. He would later say that I had had a major impact on his decision. I did argue that his passion for Robert Burns the poet far outweighed any curiosity he might have had about carbon interacting with hydrogen. I did argue that his love for Kurt Vonnegut was unmatched by any love for the laboratory. I did argue that he was a fine writer with a fine wit. But I suspect it was just easier to be an English major when your academic demands were tempered by dormitory mayhem. 


So, George and I, both students now of the humanities, took a course entitled, "The History of Famous Art in Europe from April 12, 1165 to July 29, 1354, Mainly Paintings but Some Really Old Architecture Too." The class fit nicely around important stretches of sleep and priority beer activities. One hundred students, about ninety eight of them girls, attended. We sat up in the back of a darkened, stadium-style lecture hall where the professor presented slide after slide of really, really old paintings.

For ninety minutes one day, the prof presented an endless stream of Madonnas. Evidently, pre-Renaissance Italians just loved their Madonnas and couldn't get enough. With all the proportion of a second grader's crayon drawing, those old painters unleashed a buttload of madonna classics. Slide! Here we have Madonna with Child, and notice how the artist... blah, blah, blah. Slide! You got your Madonna with Saint Agnes, and notice how the saint holds an olive branch... blah, blah, blah. Slide! You got your Madonna with Child and the Saints! Slide! You got your Madonna with Child in the Manger. Slide! Madonna with Saint Ignatius. Slide! Slide! Slide!  Droning and droning, noticing and noticing, the professor persisted in monotone. And each medieval madonna wore the face of an unpleasant woman with uncomfortable gas. Madonna with This. Madonna with That. You could hear a smattering of snores.

At about the seventy minute mark, George gave me a poke and handed me a note. This was odd. In the dim light, carefully, I opened it. It read,

"Madonna with Beard!"  

I was unprepared. I lost it. I laughed loud and I laughed long. The professor stopped mid-sentence and froze. And all those eyes, those two hundred eyes, they searched the room and fused their gazes upon me. But I was a goner. I was in mid explosion. There! There seared into my brain, I beheld the most precious madonna of all, Madonna with full cheeks of hair.

Before Giotto, DaVinci, Michelangelo, and all the other Renaissance Boys came around, you wouldn't have seen any painters down at the Florence Comedy Club. Those old masters, back in their musty studios, they could have used a guy like George. For hundreds of years, saints just stood around adoring. Baby Jesuses just laid around being adored. And hundreds of madonnas, they just stood or sat there with unpleasant faces. It would have been nice, if one of those Madonnas, just one, would have been depicted sneaking two fingers behind the head of an unsuspecting pope. Rabbit ears!

If you happen to visit Florence, join the throng at the Uffizi Gallery, and visit the madonnas of the Pre-Renaissance. If you get bored and don't mind some playful sacrilege, you can let George be your guide: Madonna with Personal Flotation Device. Madonna with Mohawk. Madonna with Burrito. Your appreciation for art will skyrocket.

I remember him sitting in our dorm room with a book in his lap, laughing at a Robert Burns' verse or at a passage in a Vonnegut novel. His love for a turn of phrase rubbed off on me.
We took a class on Chaucer together and learned to read Middle English. He tutored me. Responding to George's final paper, the professor at first accused him of plagiarism. He hadn't, but his thoughts coincidentally had mirrored a scholar's thoughts. After George stormed the professor's office, the professor became persuaded. George got an A. Besides, cheating was beneath him.

I sometimes wonder what draws people to become friends. Kindred interests, of course, and kindred spirits. I lost it when I read the note that read, "Madonna with Beard." But of the hundred students in that class, how many would have had a similar response if passed the same note at the same time? A minority, I would bet.

One afternoon on an East Lansing street, a group of us were clambering into my parked Pinto when from out of nowhere a large friendly puppy bounced up and jumped headlong into the back seat joining George and another friend. They suddenly became ensconced in a tornado of frenzied dog like three characters spinning full tilt in a clothes dryer. No one could grab the beast as it bounced from floor to roof to front seat and back, its tail slapping faces and its tongue splattering froth as it gyrated.

Springing from some demented recess in my brain, I thought in that moment to shout, "Out damn Spot!" 

And off Spot ran. Look! See Spot run. George howled at the joke but my other two friends comprehended nothing funny. That was a big thing that made good buddies of George and me, to twist from the events of a day some absurd irony.

Two young strangers assigned to Room 226. Kindred spirits, kindred thirsts, kindred points of view. I admired the kid who celebrated a crazy connection between an anti-war mob and a football rally, who was inspired to pass a note in art history class. I admired the kid who grew up on a pig farm and would sit down with a 19th century Scottish poet. He celebrated my hair-brained connection between MacBeth and the puppy in the Pinto.

We got each other.

.











   






Comments are welcome at tombohn2@yahoo.com 

Mosquitoes and Monster Trucks

Merhaba!!!  Which, if Uncle Leo were Turkish, would mean,  "Jerry...  HELLO!!!"

Come on in, for godssake. And if you don't mind, please remove your boots.  This blog is brand spankin' new, and who wants their new website tracked up with mud?

For years, people would get my annual Christmas letters and muster the courage to ask, "Is there any way to get off your mailing list?"  But a few "friends" came forward and gave some strange advice:  "Tom," they said.  "You should start a bog."

In 2004, we moved to a Traverse City property that bordered a bog.  The land had a one room hut that overlooked this bog, and to get in touch with my friends' advice, I would spend hours communing with the bog-loving mosquitoes of spring, the mosquitoes of summer, and the mosquitoes of fall.  Finally, I asked myself "What's the big whoop?"  I watched monster trucks getting stuck in bogs.  Didn't do a thing for me.  Hundreds of dollars blown on mosquito repellent.  All that time bogging when I coulda been blogging.

I have tinnitis.  My ears constantly scream.  My ears scream like they're heading to hell on a roller coaster.  Every waking hour I'm heading to hell on a roller coaster.  In my sleep, I stand in line at the carnival.  "Bog"..."blog"... who knew?  Would I have been a pioneer in the 19th century?  I would have heard, "Go rest, young man" and gone back to bed.

My point is this: Tinnitis has altered the course of human history.  But we're trying. 

I plan to write on this boggy blog from time to time.  You are always invited, whoever you are, but in your stockinged feet please.  Invite your friends if they have strong stomachs and might enjoy a glimpse of pure neurosis.  And to refer to a favorite beer back in the day, "Weidemann Weep!"




Comments are welcome at tombohn2@yahoo.com