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THE EDDIE BERTHANSE STORY:

The Life of Dr. Biddaddy’s Second-in-Command

By Bob Nemtusak



     I guess you could say that Edward Voorhees Berthanse lived an

interesting life.  An interesting life…in interesting times.

     May you live in interesting times.

     Ha ha ha ha ha.

     He was born of a jackal in the year 1953.  On the same day, Joseph

Stalin and Sergei Prokofiev died.  Coincidence?  Perhaps.

     Then again…perhaps not.

     Did anybody famous die the day YOU were born?  Are you so bold as to

suppose THAT was a coincidence?

     Ha ha ha ha ha.

     Well, like they say, he who is born of a jackal must be the son of

Satan, or something like that.

     Right?

     Our hero, the jackal’s son, had an interesting childhood.

     People used to say stuff like, “Hey, Eddie!  Where’s your tail? 

Jackal!”

     Of course, Eddie beat the living shit out of anybody who said anything

like that to him.

     Ha ha ha ha ha.

     Anyway, by the time Berthanse reached adulthood, he was known as a

major league Ass Kicker.

     So it was a bit of a surprise to all concerned when Eddie decided to go

to medical school.

     Why, people asked him.

     “Discovery,” he would smile.  “I embark upon a voyage of discovery.  In

my travels, I will discover many uncharted regions of the earth.  I will go

to the place known as the Blogosphere.  Ha ha ha ha ha ha.”

     More about the Blogosphere later.

     At age 23, Berthanse graduated from medical school, while the United

States celebrated its Bicentennial.

     Which was a bigger deal?

     The Bicentennial of 1976?

     Or Eddie Berthanse’s graduation?

     Well, it all depends.

     It depends on who you ask.

     Berthanse thought his graduation was a pretty big deal.  They say he

graduated with Big Ass Honors, whatever the hell that means.

     “I got Big Ass Honors!” he bragged to anyone he met.

     And in January of 1977, Eddie became apprentice to Brain Trust

Enterprises CEO/Grand Pooh-bah Godfrey Stonecroft Biddaddy.

     Speaking of big deals…

     Ha ha ha ha ha.

     Brain Trust Enterprises was in the body-snatching business.

     In case you’re wondering, body-snatching is when you find a dead living> body and recycle the parts.

     As you may have guessed by now, Dr. Biddaddy was a cloner.  He made

Clones.

     So basically, Eddie was hired to assist the Biddaddy in securing

material for Clones.

     Sounds kind of like Dr. Frankenstein, doesn’t it?

     Ha ha ha ha ha.

     IT IS KIND OF LIKE DR. FRANKENSTEIN.

     AND IT REALLY HAPPENED!

     Talk about interesting times.

     Whoa.

     Interesting and THEN some.

     Where were YOU in 1977?

     Were you watching your dad ascend the stairs, praying he didn’t break

his neck?  Were you anxiously awaiting the arrival of George Lucas’ Star

Wars: a New Hope?  Maybe you were cursing the Carter White House and longing

for the old Nixonian brand of democracy.

     Well, guess where Eddie Berthanse was?

     He was at Rush Hospital in Skokie, Illinois, administering Brain

Quality Tests.

     Scoff you may.  You’ll probably say that NO SUCH PERSON ever worked at

Rush Hospital.

     Ever hear of a fake name?

     Ever hear of identity theft?

     Scoff, indeed.

     Anyways, he was there.

     Dr. Biddaddy’s nephew, Gideon Prestwick Biddaddy, was Eddie’s

supervisor at Rush.

     “Oh, of course I remember Berthanse!” said Gideon.  “He really knew how

to GET INSIDE PEOPLE’S HEADS, as they say.  Heh heh.  Sure, he was only a

clipboard-smacker.  But he was one of the best.”

     There you have it.

     One of the best.

     Eddie always dreamed of being one of the best, if not THE best.  Better

Than You, as the saying goes.  And people noticed.

     People notice when you try to be one of the best.

     People notice you when you go the extra mile.

     Eddie went the extra mile, even as a lowly clipboard smacker.

     Gideon P Biddaddy noticed.

     “Yes!” Gideon told us.  “Yes, indeed.  Berthanse certainly DID go the

extra mile.  For instance, when he discharged a patient, he didn’t forget

all about him or her.  You could tell.  You could tell by the questions she

asked.  There was the young agoraphobic woman.

     ‘What will you do when you get out of here, Hortense?’ he said. 

‘You’ll go to stores, won’t you?  Will you buy things like toilet paper?  Or

will you wipe your ass with your HANDS, eh?’

     “Little things like that.  That’s the kind of clipboard-smacker Edward

was.  HE WENT THAT EXTRA MILE.”

     As for the apprenticeship to Dr. Biddaddy, that was a different story.

     You see, the Biddaddy had thousands of apprentices.  Some of them were

real people, some of them were Clones.  You had to come up with something

SPECIAL to be awarded Grand Pooh-bah Apprentice status.

     Did Eddie deliver?

     Is that a rhetorical question?

     Is the Pope German?

     Was the Pope a Nazi?

     Figure it out, Esteban.

     We’re talking about Eddie Berthanse.  We’re talking about a fellow who

would one day become right-hand-man to Biddaddy!

     Rest assured-he delivered.

     In June of 1979, Eddie’s first novel, How to Avoid People, hit

bookstores.

     The results?

     Endless.

     How to Avoid People was a best-seller.  It sold quite well.  By August,

Berthanse was a millionaire.

     Summoned to Dr. Biddaddy’s hideaway in Martinique, Eddie packed a

suitcase and his pet gecko Ferndale, and hit the beach.

     That’s where people do business in Martinique.

     On the beach.

     Get it?

     Dr. Biddaddy sized Eddie up.  He scrutinized the best-selling self-help

author.  He took notes.

     Finally, he showed Eddie the money.

     Show me the money, as they say.

     “Five million,” Biddaddy said matter-of-factly.  “Five million dollars

upfront.  From you?  From you, I want another novel…and a little something

extra.”

     For emphasis, the Doctor leaned forward, inadvertently knocking his

Singapore Sling onto the sand.

     Eddie asked, “Extra, sir?”

     “That’s right,” said Biddaddy.  “I want Fat Guys.  An army of them. 

TEN THOUSAND FAT GUY CLONES, cloned from the original Fat Guy.”

     And so, Berthanse got to work.  It took him all of two weeks to

complete Warp and Woof:  If It Looks Like a Clone….

     Some more conservative critics worried that the public wasn’t ready for

a book about how to clone people.  Boy were they wrong!!!

     It’s a rare treat when you go from clipboard-smacker to best-selling

novelist in a mere three months.

     For Eddie, it was only the beginning.

     Oh yes.

     Only the beginning.

     Were people surprised by this overnight sensation?

     Let’s see what some of the critics had to say.

     Freelance writer Hortense Mokena told us that, “Writing is like any

other art.  A gift isn’t enough.  Talent isn’t enough.  You have to work at

it.  Eddie Berthanse?  Yes, I know him.  I was one of his subjects, I mean,

‘patients,’ at Rush Hospital.  Yeah, I remember Berthanse well.  He asked me

if I was going to wipe my ass with my hands when I got out of the hospital. 

He’s a real asshole.”

     “Nothing’s shocking,” said horticulturist Jane Magwell.  “Before Harry

Potter, nobody knew who J.K. Rowling was.  But look at her now.  Shove THAT

up your ass!”

     The legend grew.

     It grew by leaps and bounds.

     In times of woe and impending doom, people like to be distracted.  They

like to be entertained.  Most folks hit the best-seller aisle at the

bookshop for precisely this reason.  But what happens when a TRUE STORY hits

the best-seller list?

     I’ll tell you what happens.

     Eddie Berthanse is what happens.

     An impatient reading public pounced on Eddie’s third novel like lions

on baby antelopes or something.

     “Everyone likes sequels,” Eddie said at a press conference.  “Even Mel

Gibson.  Look at Giuseppe Verdi, for instance.  Remember his hugely

successful opera The Force of Destiny?  Well, the public wanted a sequel,

and Verdi delivered!  Oh sure, Force of Habit wasn’t nearly as popular as

The Force of Destiny.  But he tried.  Why should I be any different?  Ha ha

ha ha ha.  Warp and Woof left a lot of questions unanswered.  Questions, you

know?  Is it SAFE to build a Clone near a nuclear reactor?  Is the Ayatollah

a Clone?  Did the Jews clone Moses?  Questions.  Well, we answer these

questions in Divided Consciousness/Divided Loyalty.  Shove THAT up your

ass!”

     Ineed, Divided Consciousness/Divided Loyalty answered some questions. 

And it became a best-seller.

     By 1982, you could see Clones everywhere.  Who would have believed that

Ridley Scott’s Replicant thriller Blade Runner was happening in real life?

     WHO WOULD HAVE BELIEVED?

     “People will believe pretty much anything,” said conspiracy theorist

Mike Browarski.  “There’s this story Bob tells about how they killed Ronald

Reagan in 1981, and replaced him with a Clone.  Then you have the

innumerable reports of Golem sightings in the late 1990s.  I could go on for

hours, but you get the idea.  They’re all crazy!”

     Well, skeptics notwithstanding, Clones were there.  They were there,

and they had a five-year life-span.

     How much can you accomplish in five years?

     Not much, you will say.

     Well, you’re wrong.

     Way wrong.

     Remember Terence Young?  He directed a piece of primitive shlock called

Dr. No in 1962.  Three years—only three years later—he came up with the

masterpiece Thunderball.

     See?

     You can do A LOT in five years.

     You can do a lot in THREE years!

     Eddie Berthanse kept up the good work.  After a vacation in Cambodia,

he got ready for the “prequel” to Divided Consciousness/Divided Loyalty.

     Then it happened.

     On Halloween, 1983, 241 U.S. Marines were killed when terrorists bombed

their barracks in Beirut.

     It looked like World War III.

     So Eddie switched gears.  He saw the writing on the wall.  He set about

presenting a “non-religious” argument that we were living in the fabled End

Times.

     Were we?

     Did Halloween 1983 usher in a New Age of destruction, terror, and

mayhem?

     Could be.

     I don’t know.

     Here’s what I DO know.

     Some pretty heavy shit went down back in 1983.  First, there was the

war over the Falklands.

     What?

     That was 1982?

     NOBODY LIKES A SMART ASS!

     Then you had America’s invasion of Grenada.

     That invasion inspired the song “A Time For Fear ” by

the Art of Noise.

     It prompted budding conspiracy theorist to write a letter to Ronald

Reagan.

     And who can forget Beirut?  They’d been shooting and bombing the SHIT

out of Lebanon for years.  But the October 31st bombing was right up there

with the Thanksgiving 2006 bombings in Baghdad, Iraq.

     Heavy shit.

     Take a look at the opening lines of Eddie Berthanse’s fourth novel, The

World Is Barbecue.

     “Armageddon.

     Apocalypse.

     The End Times.

     Revelation.

     We use different names for it.  But we’re really talking about the same

thing.  THE END OF THE WORLD.

     Scoff, you say.

     Well scoff all you like, jag bag.

     Scoff your heart out.

     You will say that Jesus hasn’t come back yet.

     Well, he’s going to.

     Quote me.

     Anyway, buy yourself a fallout shelter.  Death is coming.  We’re

approaching our final destination.”

     For The World Is Barbecue, Eddie jettisoned the Clone rhetoric of his

previous two novels, and returned to the good-old-fashioned paranoia of his

debut, How To Avoid People.

     A laugh riot?

     No.

     But it entertained—and it informed.

     In the opening moments of the year 1984, Eddie Berthanse was the talk

of the publishing world.

     Reviewers sang Eddie’s praises until the cows came home.

     “I laughed.  I cried.  I stuffed my face!” raved Fat Guy.

     “This is some heavy shit!” remarked movie mogul Jack Bronstein.

     “This is timely work.  Eddie Berthanse shows us what’s really going ON

in the world.  I want to have his children!” gushed Jane Magwell.

     We all did.

     By June, Eddie was a millionaire five times over.  In addition to his

lucrative contract with Dr. Biddaddy.  There was a Clone in every state of

the Union.  But Eddie still hadn’t delivered his army of Fat Guy Clones.

     It was time to get to work.

     You can read all about the mythical origins of Project: Clone Fat Guy

in the historical fiction of Bob Nemtusak.

     For everybody else, here are the basics.

     Eddie Berthanse made a deal with the Biddaddy.  Godfrey Stonecroft

Biddaddy.  DOCTOR Biddaddy.  You don’t make a deal with Biddaddy, and then

pretend like it was nothing.  Not if you value your life.

     So it was “do or die” for Eddie.

     Deliver an army of Fat Guy Clones—or die.

     It would probably take about an hour to explain the cloning process as

it pertains to Hollywood legend Fat Guy.

     Do we really have time for that?

     I don’t think so.

     Time is precious.

     When we sit around counting how much time we have left, we devalue it. 

We have to, as Mike Browarski said, “Live in the present.”

     Think about it.

     Got it?

     We don't get to pick and choose--in a sense, we're all beggars.

     Life requires some measure of cooperation.

     Compromise, natch?

     The Beastie Boys figured it out in the year 1989: from 'Dropping Names': 

If your world was all black and if your world was all white
Then you wouldn't get much color out of life now right

True enough.
If you're all smug-not, expecting everybody to do what you WANT them to do?
They will call you bigoted.
They will call you closed-minded.
And you will probably sit there all smug-not, and grin, "SO?"

PLEASE DONT DO THAT.

it's wrong to treat people like objects.
It's wrong to make negative judgments about people you don't even know.

Now, as for Eddie Berthanse and the Clones?
Difficult situation.
Slippery slope, perhaps.

Please allow me to explain.
I, the opiner, just got done talking about how all people are special.
As in, they aren't clones.
AS in, you have to respect them as individuals.
You can't play Satan, and churn clones out of Dr. Biddaddy's body banks, and call yourself some kind of humanitarian.
think about it.

Eddie Berthanse is NOT a humanitarian.
He works for Ultiamte Evil, also known as Dr. Biddaddy.

So do the math.

Reason it out.

If he succeeded in cloning the FAt Guy of London, would that benefit the good guys?
Would it benefit humanity?
NOt that there's anything wrong with being fat.

But people aren't clones.
People are supposed to be unique.
No two are supposed to be exactly alike.

Eddie--and his boss Biddaddy--started out on shaky moral ground.
What were they thinking?
And what horrors did Project: Clone Fat Guy portend for the future of mankind?

I hope you've got it now.
You should be asking yourself, did the Biddaddy win?
Did Berthanse clone a bunch of lazy-ass fat guys, and let them loose, armed, on society with orders to pillage and loot?
Yes?
No?
Has reality become so 'twisted' that you can't even tell?

Maybe that's the trick.
Maybe you're getting the picture.

YOU
LEARN 
WELL
GRASSHOPPER

Let's try to close on a positive note.
It's possible--however unlikely--to be a 'positive' cloner.
Sure.
Didn't Yahweh clone Adam from Eve? Or maybe it was Eve from Adam.

Never mind.

Take an example from Hollywood.
Look at Frankenstein's Monster.
YEEAAHH.
He was comprised of lots of different people, sewn together, quilt-style.

Not convinced?
What, are you an expert?
When's the last time you bumped into Frankenstein's Monster on teh sidewalk?
Last week?

Next you'll tell me your name is Jack Bronstein.
Ha ha ha.
If you're Jack Bronstein, tell me your middle name.
Eh?

Jack Bronstein's Main Man: Fat Guy

written by
Sandy Baron
AS 
Jack Klompus
AS 
David Paymer
AS 
Cliff Gorman
AS 
John Methuselah Bronstein

A studious Fat Guy looked up at Margaret the waitress, and he said, "Give me some of that turkey on toast, please."
"On toast, Fat Guy?" said Margaret.
Fatty grinned, "Yep. TOAST."
Margaret said, "Why didn't you SAY that?"
"No, you didn't.  You said, 'Al Pacino'! Fess up!"
Fatty lunged, "I did not! You lie, Margaret!"
"I lie when I FEEL like lying, Fatty! Then, and ONLY then."
"I did not say 'Al Pacino'! You're out of ORDER, Margaret."

editor's note:
Margaret Kazanjian was a take-no-prisoners sort of woman.
She posed a risk to others.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW1WYrdxfMk

"Risky business," Jack Bronstein grinned reassuringly.
Fatty nodded.
Jack asked, "Are you and Margaret having another lovers' quarrel, Fatty?"
Margaret said, "In Fat Guy's DREAMS, Jack."
Jack shrugged, "Huh?"
Noisily, Fatty cracked open some Burfresca materials, i.e. Samhain Blend Blue Moon & Guinness Stout.
"Anyway," said Jack. "How's school, Margaret. Is Kitazzy still offering computer training?"
Margaret smiled, "Oh, yes. Get a load of this. Remember 'rich text format'? And 'spell-check'? Now, they have the 'florid purple prose activator.' It's great for poetry."
"Yeeeaaahhh," beamed Fatty. "Here's to Edgar Allan of Baltimora."
Promptly, policeman Whigham Shea appeared. Chip on shoulder...anger in the eyes.
"Look here," said Shea.
Fatty blurted out, "Shea? Write Margaret a ticket for being too sexy. The CHIN keeps WAGGING, and the--"

lose or win

Buddy Ryan: 'Mike Ditka's a ---, what difference does it make?'
Mike Ditka: 'Who you crappin?'

an eddie berthanse rant

Vampires.
they're fashionable again.
Ho hum.
Remember dracula?
Movie fans know what happened to Count Dracula.
In teh lurid Freddie Francis film, Dracula Has Risen From The Grave, Dracula's untimely death was depicted in gruesome detail.
The finale featured James Bernard's gripping musical composition, 'Dracula and the Crucific.'
But that doesn't make it right.
Not by a long-shot.
What they did to Dracula was NOT RIGHT.
They threw the count off a cliff, and impaled him on a giant crucifix. That is not O.K. O.K.?
O.K.
but that's what they do.
They murder our Draculas, and they canonize the Van Helsings of the world.
THEY WRITE HISTORY.

dillusion

Feel like you're trapped in a movie?
You're not.
The VCR has an eject button...

sense of doubt

The Biddaddy adjusted the volume on the David Bowie record, thinking he had transcended humanity at last.
He mused, "Then again..."