Amateur Sleuth

Once again Tonto Fielding found himself in the service of billionaire, Ewbank Manchip. Tonto had earned a reputation as an amateur sleuth, ever since he famously solved the “who stole the kishke,” case. Manchip was certain that his business and tennis doubles partner, Eduardo Boner, was out to exploit, harm, and deceive him, even though no evidence existed to support this expectation. After an initial inquiry, I assured Manchip that he was being hyper-vigilant for potential threats, and had to explain to him that his suspicious nature would elicit a hostile response from others at the club. People were starting to perceive him as hostile, stubborn, and sarcastic. That was why no one else would partner with him on the courts. He responded by indicating that this only served to confirm his original theory. I had to explain that another billionaire would have no need for stealing one of his slippers. “That ball at the net was Boner’s to take. Yet he let it drop only to spite me,” he said.

Tonto then believed that a rational discussion about paranoia was hopeless. He had to solve the crime. It wasn’t really that hard for a master sleuth. I only had to follow the trail, which led to an fiendishly adept thief named Spot.

Quid Pro Quo

Tonto Fielding has a new television reality show that he is pitching to several producers. In it, the members of the cast display an instinctive set of characteristics, not learned through written or spoken words, but instead, simply understood by all members of the group, who must follow these unspoken rules to be accepted and considered normal. Essentially they will interact under a mask of acceptable behavior with regards to the other members of the group with whom they choose to interact, respecting each other’s essential needs, wants, and desires. This will include safety, food, sleep and the emotions of love, pleasure, anger, and fear. The “hook” here, and what will differentiate it from other reality shows, is that the group will look for ways to fill each member’s essential needs. The better someone in the cast is at successfully interacting with others; the more likely he or she will be to have a large portion of their life and behavior influenced by the opinions of his peers. And then at the end of each show, the cast will have five minutes to verbally abuse, spit at, pull hair, punch, and claw each other.

from- The NASCAR Sonnets

Your sheet metal doth th’ impression fill
Which sanctioned sponsors stamped upon my bonnet;
What cares Tonto for foreign cars,
The horse is happy in my carburetor.
You are my Daytona,
My fruitful Dale,
None else to me, nor I to none alive,
Can take your place at the pole.
In so profound abyss am I lapped,
Of others’ voices in the pitstop.
To suffer such outlandish abuse in switching lanes
Mark with my bumper I do dispense.
You are so strongly in my engine block bred,
No longer do I mourn, now the flag is raised.

Flyting

Tonto Fielding recently went one on one in a debate with Margaret Witty-Wrong, leader of the Velvet Lizzies Social Club and Family Preservation Society, whose precept was “everything happens for a reason.”

I believed that I had won over the audience after making it perfectly clear that we should embrace a view where human spirituality is in a manner consistent with science and postmodern natural philosophy. This is a world view which gains nothing from theism or from atheism, both of which prefer to believe that they already know pretty much everything about the human world and how it works.

Witty-Wrong made a strong counter move by explaining to the audience that Tonto Fielding was a moral reprobate who had been banned from thirty six countries due to numerous reasons, including having taken part in several revolutions, smuggling, and several news worthy lecherous affairs that had brought down monarchies.

A deft move on her part, indeed.

But I threw her curveball that she was never able to recover from. I countered with the old Existentialism argument (centered upon the analysis of existence and of the way humans find themselves existing in the world). I explained how choices become unique without the necessity of any objective form of truth. This is a strategy Tonto will resort to, simply because I like to win arguments.

I could only smile, because I had won the point by using two completely opposing philosophies. Poor Margaret was so steamed by this time, she cried “Foul,” and threw her cup of tea in my face..

Finally, the issue of whether small dogs and large dogs should be permitted to commingle in the newly proposed Dog Park, was voted on by the council.

Cherubim

"God, I am so bored."
"What do you mean bored?"
"Christ. Can you believe these two?"
“Eh. Give it a chance. That’s what I always say.”
“Could he be more clueless?”
“Dense as a mud brick. That’s what I always say.”
“New guy says he wants to paint us.”
“Again? Can’t they think of something else to paint?”
“It is getting pretty old.”
“Ain’t that the truth.”
“Yet I hear this one has some talent.”
“We’ll see.”
“Want to get a drink after this?”
“Life is death if you don’t have a little drink every now and then.”
“Hey, that’s my line.”
“Oh yeah. Sorry.”

The Power of Color

Tonto Fielding’s contribution to painting is a story that Art Historians refuse to recognize. But, any guerilla artist will tell you that art encompasses so much more than what hangs in museums.

Tonto spent years working on perfecting the art of mixing colors. I drew my inspiration from the journals of Vincent Van Gogh, who wrote, "It is impossible to say, for instance, how many green-grays there are; there is an endless variety. But the whole chemistry of colors is not more complicated than those few simple rules. And having a clear notion of this is worth more than 70 different colors of paint -- because with those three principal colors and black and white, one can make more than 70 tones and varieties. The colorist is the person who knows at once how to analyze a color, when it sees it in nature, and can say, for instance: that green-grey is yellow with black and blue, etc. In other words, someone who knows how to find the grays of nature on their palette.”

Finally, I came up with the perfect combination of pigments for my signature color of paint. Now, the walls of every hospital in the world are covered with the “Fielding Shade” of green.

Flashing the House Lights

When Igor Stravinsky's ballet, “The Rite of Spring,” premiered on May 29, 1913, at the Théatre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, Tonto Fielding’s grandfather (Hieronymus Fielding) was more shocked than the audience, which responded to the performance with a din of hisses and catcalls.

Vaslav Nijinsky's shocking choreography was obviously stolen from Fielding’s ballet, The Professor’s Maid, that tells the story of Ludvig Bager Nissen Kragballe and his maid, Misse Jørgensen, who is celebrated for her award winning sauerkraut and sausage recipes. The ballet had already earned a reputation for being physically unnatural to perform. This was one of Fielding’s hallmarks.

As for the music, Fielding’s masterpiece, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern at Le Chabanais, had already premiered with a musical theme without a melody, and only one loud, pulsating, dissonant chord with jarring, irregular accents.
Hieronymus Fielding fought Stravinsky in the courts for years, but was never compensated. He did though have the last laugh, when he called in a marker and had Stravinsky and Nijinsky banned from the famous French Brothel, the subject of his not so famous ballet score.