Bean, the Big Shot

(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 popular and the peculiar in creative blog publications. Today our guest is the producer of Poop Ederim, a site that has gone bonkers on the blogosphere in recent months. Welcome, Bean... you just go by Bean, is that right?

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

TOM:  Big Shot it is. You've earned it. Now that you're the man with a big shot blog, readers across the country are wanting some answers.

BEAN:  It's "readers across the world," if you don't mind.  I have solid followings in Turkey and Britain, and also a follower 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 somewhere?

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

TOM: And "horst"?

BEAN: Storage house. My name means storage house of beans, at least that's what my father always said. I guess you have to put all those kidney beans somewhere.

TOM: 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 clue. What does it mean?

BEAN:  People are googling it? Cool! I wonder what they find.

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

BEAN:  Poop dreams? What is that? Confessions of the constipated?

TOM:  So what about it?

BEAN:  What about what?

TOM:  Poop Ederim! The name, where it comes from. All this poop business. You have a funny blog entry called Chasin' Jackie where a grandfather comes up with, like, a hundred rhymes for a toddler's poop in his diaper.

BEAN: I had a lot of fun writing that, dreaming up all those rhymes. Truth be known, my wife helped me while we were on a road trip to Florida. I suppose I do write a fair amount about the butt. My friend, Bill, has accused me of being anally obsessed.

TOM: Are we really talking about this?

BEAN: It all started in first grade, Tom. I was an advanced reader and a proud member of the Blue Birds reading group. We were tearing through The Adventures of Dick, Jane, and Sally when we were introduced to a new chapter word... behind. As was the custom, we went around taking turns reading pages, and that morning is the most memorable of my first grade career. We read, "Look, Dick, look! Spot is behind the chair." Let's face it: six year-olds just love butt talk, and to be encouraged to read the word BEE-hind aloud in front of our teacher, Mrs. Terroff, well, it was pure joy! Dick, Jane, and Sally really came to life. I'll never forget it. Maybe that's where my problem started.

TOM: Let's try this again. Poop Ederim?

BEAN:  Poop Ederim is derived from the Turkish language. It is a bit mysterious, isn't it?

TOM: That's why I'm asking.

BEAN:  Okay, the Turkish language. I went to an American high school in Ankara, Turkey, in the late 1960s as my family lived there. In 1973, I returned to Turkey from college and got a job teaching English to adult Turks at the Turkish-American Association.  It was great fun. I would stand in front of 20 students who were very enthusiastic about learning English.  One of the main teaching techniques we used was "listen and repeat."  I would say something and they would repeat it.  For example, I might say, "Good morning, Mr. Jones.  How are you today?"  And the class would respond in resounding chorus:  "Good morning, Mr. Jones. How are you today?" Then I would insert a different name. 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."

"Good morning, Batman,” they’d bellow. “How are you today?"

 "Rocky and Bullwinkle."

"Good morning, Rocky and Bullwinkle. How are you today?" Had they ever heard of Rocky and Bullwinkle? It didn't matter.

"You idiot and your idiot horse."

"Good morning, you idiot and your idiot horse. How are you today?" Those trusty Turks could really close the deal. Such fun!

TOM:  I'm getting discouraged.

BEAN:  I didn't know it then, but as I would soon learn, the English word "book" sounds like the Turkish word, "bok", which means, to put it bluntly, "shit". This caused some listen-and-repeat disruption. I unknowingly hurled verbal turds around the classroom. When I modeled, "Hello, Johnny. May I see your book?," the class whimpered. They 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. They probably felt like first-graders reading that Spot was BEE-hind the chair.

I singled out a good student who for some reason was listening but was not repeating. Instead, he was laughing. "Mehmet," I said. "Please stand up. 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 tears. I was so puzzled. I was at a loss.

One brave lady approached me, took me aside, and tried to help. "Mr. Bean," she whispered. "Your English word... book... is our Turkish word for... I don't know. Book is dirty Turkish word."

Incidents like this made me wildly popular. My reputation, I'm afraid, had everything to do with my demonstrated deference to their, well, shit.  Whenever I then asked my students to "look in your book" or "bring your book", we exchanged knowing glances. Eventually, we all got past it.

TOM:  And... so....?

BEAN:  Yes?

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

BEAN:  Oh, no. Look, when I was seventeen, I was traveling with my parents and little sister in southern Spain. We went to a fancy restaurant for dinner, white tablecloths, dressed up waiters, and all that. We were served bread, but no butter, and I wanted some butter. So I asked our 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, okay? The waiter looked perplexed but nodded deferentially and strode 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, looked over at our table, then went back to their argument. They must have wondered what exactly I wanted. We were high rolling Americans, after all, and they wanted to do right by us. Finally, the waiter sheepishly and formally approached our table and from under a linen napkin, presented me with a small, wooden box. I opened the box and there inside lay a single, fat cigar. My father just exploded in uncontrollable guffaws. Everybody stopped mid-bite and stared. 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 is Spanish for butter. Burro is Spanish for donkey.

BEAN: I wanted butter, ordered a donkey, and wound up with a cigar. Burro and bok. Both of those situations were innocent mistakes. And now I am reminded of another one. I have a friend who years ago went to church every Sunday and took his kids to Sunday school. His then six year-old named Sam was obsessed with dinosaurs as little boys are. We would always see them at the beach in the summer and there would be Sam playing in the sand with his toy dinosaurs. So Sam goes to Sunday school every week and my friend noticed that Sam's attitude about going suddenly changed. He became afraid and didn't want to play with his dinosaurs anymore. My friend had a chat with Sam and this is what he learned: the Sunday school teacher talked about God, as Sunday school teachers do, and how God loves and protects them and if they were quiet and still, they could feel God in their hearts. Well, one of Sam's dinosaur toys was the bad guy, the horrible and monstrous Godzilla. It turned out that whenever the Sunday school teacher talked God, which was like non-stop, Sam thought she was talking about Godzilla. He imagined the body of Godzilla whenever she told stories about God, like when on the seventh day of creation, Godzilla rested. Or when Sam learned that human beings are made in Godzilla's image.

TOM: Poor kid.

BEAN: I know, right? Just another innocent misunderstanding.

TOM: All right. Let me try this one... last... time. Poop Ederim... Please tell us. Where does your blog title come from?

BEAN:  You didn't let me finish. Like I said, "poop ederim" has its origins in Turkish, but more precisely, with Roger Price.

TOM: Who is Roger Price?

BEAN: You mean, who was Roger Price. He died tragically some years ago. Roger was the funniest person I've ever known. Maybe the saddest, too. We were good friends in high school in Turkey. Our fathers worked together for the Agency for International Development and Roger and I would knock around Ankara together. One of the first things you learn to say in a foreign language is "thank you." In Turkish, you say "teshekur ederim." Ederim literally means, "I would" and you find it attached to all kinds of terms and phrases. You hear it a lot -- this-ederim, that-ederim. One Saturday night Roger and I are getting drunk at a downtown restaurant called Piknik. The waiter brings us our third or fourth beers, and I, of course, thank him by saying, "Teshekur ederim."

Roger, on the other hand, takes a long swig of his beer, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, smiles up at the waiter, and shouts, "Poop ederim!"

TOM: That's it? What does it mean?

BEAN: It doesn't mean anything. I suppose it could mean, "I would poop," but it was just funny. I was feeling it, and in that moment, Roger's perfect words were a perfect summation of being a half-drunk American teenager on a Saturday night in Ankara, Turkey, in 1969. From then on, as you can imagine, we would say "poop ederim" whenever the time was right.

TOM: So that's where the Poop Ederim comes from.

BEAN. Yep. Sometimes I try to write funny stuff on the blog. I can never hope to be as funny as Roger was. Poop Ederim is a tribute to his humor and and to his memory.

TOM: I'm sure Roger would be very proud.

BEAN: Why, teshekur ederim.

TOM: It looks like that's all the time we have. For readers who are interested, Bean, where can they find your blog.

BEAN: Thanks very much. tombohn.blogspot.com