Bert Johnson - Artistic Soul

Bert Johnson, a long time friend and local character extraordinaire, died last week at the tender age of 44. Rather than fill this post with tears and sadness, I have opted to share some of my favorite Bert tales. First though, to my friend I say: Bert you were the kindest, most compassionate, heartfelt, man on the planet Earth. I know you felt tremendous pain all your life. I hope you have found peace wherever you are now.

There is an annual play held in the Astoria area called Shanghaied in Astoria. It is a campy, raucous, melodrama , in which the audience is encouraged (required actually) to participate. We boo and hiss, yell and scream, make inappropriate remarks about the character's looks and heritage, and especially throw popcorn all over the theater. Bert managed to show up so drunk, and be so obnoxious, that he became the only person in the production's 3 decade history to be thrown out AND permanently banned.

There is a small town south east of here called Birkenfeld. To me it seems less like a town and more like a really, really, big tavern. Like it takes up about 3 acres. The town is so small that one citizen had the address on his driver's license listed as "the white house behind the tavern". One fine summer evening, Bert and I picked up our old friend Dave and brought him to his home town to party it up with his relatives (uh, which was most everyone in town). The entire population was there at the tavern, engaged in one activity or another. Its one of those places common in rural America where the tavern doubles as a general store, post office, realty company, drug store...you get the picture. For several hours Bert and I soaked up the local atmosphere, which consisted of country music blaring over some blown-out speakers, ribs burning away on a makeshift oil drum barbecue, and little kids sitting at 50 foot long wooden tables eating corn dogs while the adults drank copious amounts of cheap, rot gut beer. That was perfect for Bert. He liked his crowds loud and rude, and his beer cheap and yella. Now you may remember that I mentioned a guy named Dave. Dave is louder, drunker, and more obnoxious than Bert was, and that is not an easy thing to accomplish. Bert and I both kept wary eyes about this here little redneck establishment/town as we swilled down the awful beer with the citizenry, wondering what sort of drama would enfold. Early on in the night Bert found Dave's younger sister and they proceeded to disappear out to the huge, ramshackle back porch the tavern boasted. In the meantime, Dave went off to have a chit-chat with his older sister, who happened to be in the ladie's room at the time. You see where this is going, right? Yep, sure enough, no sooner was Dave all kicked back in there, when an 11 year old girl walked in to use the toilet. You could actually hear her screams over the Hank Williams Jr. song. The ensuing madness was a thing of beauty. Imagine the Jerry Springer show coupled with Benny Hill on crack, and you'll have a good picture of that wonderful half hour. The banjo player in the corner never stopped playing and kept perfect accompaniment to the melee. Now I'm not sure if it was Dave's brother bill, or his other brother Bill, who came up to me and said "Chuck, we really like you and Bert, but we can't put up with brother Dave's bullshit. You and Bert are welcome to come back in the future, but right now we need you to throw Dave in your truck and get the hell out of town" Looking up at the twenty some country boys standing around our table, I was convinced pretty quickly. Four of the biggest farm boys picked Dave up by all four limbs and literally threw him into the bed of my pick up. I slammed my beer and made a quick beeline for Bert. There he was, shorts pulled down to his ankles, with Dave's sister's ankles up over his shoulders. He didn't pay much attention to me as I ran by screaming for him to get in the damn truck, but when he noticed the entire town piling on to the porch he pulled his pecker out pretty quickly and actually beat me to the car. As we rode off down Highway 202 laughing our fool asses off, Dave cursed and screamed obscenities, and the populace of Birkenfeld stood in the parking lot and waved us a pleasant goodbye. Bert was so proud to have finally been kicked out of an entire town.

No one, not even Bert himself, knows quite how it happened. Bert got himself permanently banned from Burger King. All we know is that it happened late at night and Bert was roaring drunk. This was more than ten years ago and the ban is still in effect to this day. Fast food restaurants have a stupendously high turnover rate in their personnel and hundreds of employees have come and gone over the past decade. Still every employee there knows to bar entry to the infamous Bert Johnson.

Then there was the time when the bosses at the KOA KAmpground where Bert was seasonally employed found him passed out on their riding lawn mower. He had placed a brick on the gas pedal and tied the steering wheel to the left with some rope. He enjoyed a long nap while the mower kept making left-hand circles for hours.

You may be wondering about the pink bunny ears. Bert had the audacity to show up to one of our halloween parties without a costume. We picked this one out especially for him out of the goofy costume's box.