The Adventures of Spike the Wonder Dog Page 4

  They think ’cause Bud’s on TV, he has a magic power to do anything. A woman comes to the station for him to get her upgraded to first class on a flight to Acapulco. Bud’s never flown first class in his life.

  The worst is people tryin’ to get on the show. Bud says, “I see this look in their eyes when they spot me. They come over like they’re just gonna say hello, but they really just want something. They think TV exposure’ll make ’em rich. Maybe they’ve got a niece I should get on Dancing with the Stars or some cousin who’s a chiropractor who’s gotta be on the show as soon as possible, ’cause he thinks my spine is in grave danger.”

  I growl to scare them off, but it doesn’t work. Why is everybody obsessed with getting on TV?

  And Bud’s too nice. He’s tryin’ to make everybody happy, wearin’ himself out. Then one day on the show he’s got Regis Philbin, and after they go out for lunch and talk about the TV business.

  Bud says, “I’m really happy here, great life, but it’s not enough. I want to leave this little market and get a show in New York and live the New York life.”

  Regis thinks and gives Bud the name of ‘a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy’ who might be looking for a show host. “I don’t know if it’s New York, but check it out.”

  Bud tells Regis about this pressure he’s feelin’ from people who want a chunk of him. “You think these people really care about you?” Regis asks. “One day you’ll get replaced, and they’ll knock you over trying to meet the new guy. A person who tries to make everybody happy is doomed to failure. Focus on the important things in life, Bud, not fame.”

  Problem is, Bud doesn’t have a lot of the “real stuff”—just me, the show, and a succession of babes who seem to be irresistibly drawn to working in the exotic services industry while studying for advanced degrees.

  So Bud calls Regis’ guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who’s shooting a pilot for a reality show, but he won’t tell Bud the idea ’cause they’re afraid someone will steal it. But knowin’ now what it was, I don’t think that woulda been a problem. Bud ships them video of the interviews he shot at the Greater Greensboro golf tournament.

  They call him. He’s got the job if he can get a week off and come to Fort Myers to shoot the pilot for a show they’re callin’ I’d Live with Goats to Be on TV.

  Right away, I get the sense we’re not talkin’ American Masters.

  Bud’s all hot to do it—to make the extra bread, have some fun, maybe break nationally, ’cause they tell him it’s for major syndication. The big challenge is convincing Lombardo to let him host a reality show costarring goats. I’m hopin’ the boss is gonna say no—don’t get me started on what I think of goats.

  Bud explains the premise to Lombardo: “A family signs a contract—they gotta have their home rigged with cameras and then live there with a herd of untrained Caribbean roadside goats for five days.”

  “People living with goats?” Lombardo says. “What the fuck?”

  Bud tells him that the goats will have full run of the house but can’t be let outside. “My job is to go in each morning and evening to report on what it’s like for people to live with goats.”

  Right now, I’m prayin’ I don’t get dragged into this.

  “It’s hard to interview people when you’re wearing a gas mask, Bud, ’cause that’s what you’re going to need to go into that house. The average goat produces ten pounds of manure a day,” Lombardo says.

  “How do you know this stuff?” Bud asks.

  “Bud, there are some things that are just common knowledge when you’ve had a liberal arts education at an expensive, obscure college,” he says.

  “Hmm…well…hadn’t thought about any of that, but here’s the thing. If they make it through the five days, they win,” Bud explains.

  “What do they win?”

  “That’s the great thing; they don’t win anything. They just get to be famous for living with goats on prime-time TV. The producers figure the sky’s the limit for the winners in pop culture after that—book deals, shovel endorsements, political office. Who knows?”

  “I’m saving your career right now,” Lombardo says. “You’re not doing this. Don’t say another word; just get outta here and get ready for your interview with Itzhak Perlman, or should I tell the maestro you’ve run off with goats?”

  That night, it’s drinks at The Dive Bar with Buffy and Phil Froth, the gay weatherman. That’s not Phil’s on-air title, by the way. We’re havin’ a great time. Nobody’s more fun than Buffy after four drinks, and Phil and Bud are pals. Sometimes we go to his house for parties, which are great, ’cause he uses ballet dancers to park cars. He calls it ballet valet ’cause they pirouette around the cars and lift some passengers over the doors.

  Phil has two martinis. I’m enjoying a Bloody Bull shot—one’s my limit, ever since I had three and fell over. Bud’s on his third Duvel and finally admits he’s come to his senses about the stupid goat show.

  “Lombardo was right again,” Bud says. But Phil Froth loves the idea. He says he’s been crazy about goats ever since he dated the Annapolis midshipman who was the caretaker of Bill the goat, the mascot of the U.S. Naval Academy.

  Bud gives Phil the guy’s number, and Phil sends off his tape. Two days later the guy’s guy calls Phil to do the pilot. Phil buys a gas mask and drives to Fort Myers.

  I’d Live with Goats to Be on TV never got aired—’cause of somethin’ to do with concerns about goats’ rights brought about by the surging popularity of Baby Goat Yoga. The producers kept rewriting and refinin’ their goat concept, and the rumor is that it might have led to a program called The Great British Baking Show.

  Phil ends up back on TV spouting weather in Fort Myers, and tells Bud he’s marrying the show’s goat herder, who’s quitting goat management to launch Far Out, a website for gay men who’re so far out of the closet, they’re back in.

  Lombardo’s gotta find a new weatherman, and I get sucked into the search. Phil Froth was always as nervous as a border collie around Lombardo, scared of him ’cause of his tough Don Corleone style. You know, I always thought the only thing missing from that Godfather movie was a dog. When they went to shoot Brando at that vegetable market, if he’d had a 120-pound Italian Mastiff, instead of that wimp Fredo, things would’ve been different. Anyway, Phil Froth took off in the middle of the night, and when he’s safely outta town, he texts Lombardo that he quit.

  Lombardo doesn’t yell and scream. Just says to Bud, “One door closes, another one opens. We’ll get a better weatherman.” Lombardo’s got this look in his eye like when he catches Phil Froth he’s gonna staple him to the weather map.

  First night he makes the news anchor Sam Halloway stand up and do the weather. This is a big insult to Sam, who thinks he’s the reincarnation of Edward R. Morrow, except he can’t read the prompter, is a bad reporter, and has a lisp. He’s always tellin’ Bud, “I want to be a ssthar.”

  Bud gets a call from Lombardo at home. We’ve finished our jog together; Bud’s had dinner and is stoned watching Extra, tryin’ to calculate the depth of Mario Lopez’s dimples, when he picks up the phone. “You and that dog are doing weather tomorrow night. Come up with something and make it work.”

  Bud’s high as a kite, so crazy stoned ideas are rushing through his head real fast. “We’ll end each forecast with the Wonder Weather Bark,” he tells me. He’s been tryin’ to teach me this stupid finger-bark routine where he shows one finger, I bark once; two, twice, etc. But I can’t get it down. Maybe I got a learnin’ disability. I can jump over a Volkswagen, but I can’t count to five. “And,” Bud says—now set yourself for his big idea—“I’ll be The Singing Weatherman!” He tells me, “There’s never been a singing weatherman on TV. I’ll be a pioneer.”

  He’s so excited that he has to switch to PBS NewsHour to calm down.

  They might have constructed Saturday Night Live on pot, but The Singing Weatherman wouldn’t have made the cut.

  We’re on. We’r
e live. I’m standin’ under a dumb cardboard sign that says, “The Wonder Weather Dog.” I’m nervous and studying Bud’s hands, tryin’ to practice the signals. Sam Halloway lisps it over to Bud who says, “Thanks, Sam. I’m Bud your singing weatherman; as far as the weather tonight and tomorrow morning”—and he belts out—“there’s no sun up in the sky. It’s stormy weather.” “But,” he says, “starting tomorrow afternoon”—he starts singing again—“you’ll have the sunshine in your life…yeah…yeah, for three days it’ll be around…yeah, yeah.”

  Lombardo’s in the studio, and he’s got that ‘I’m gonna nail Bud to the weather map’ look on his face. “Now,” Bud says, “it’s time for our official Wonder Weather Bark three-day forecast.”

  Our graphic comes up. One bark = sun, two = clouds, three = rain, four = major storm and flooding, five = evacuate: cyclone and hurricane. We got three days of sun comin’ up, so all I need to do is bark once each time Bud says a day. He flashes me a finger. I look at it like I’m tryin’ to read the small print on the directions you get with any product made in China, which, unfortunately, is most products.

  I’m nervous, panicked like I’m under water again. He flashes me the “one” again, and I bark a couple of times, I think four.

  Bud says, “Let’s try that again, Weather Dog.” And I just start barking and barking and keep barking, and they have to drag me outta the studio ’cause I’m barking madly during the sports report.

  Lombardo, Bud, and Buffy spend the next hour answerin’ calls telling people not to evacuate. The next day Lombardo orders Bud to monitor his pot smoking and “go over to the North Carolina School of the Arts and find some beautiful girl in the TV department who could do weather.”

  Instead, Bud goes to an improv comedy class to find a black girl who does a perfect Oprah Winfrey impression. They rig up some padding to make her look eighty pounds heavier, and that’s how our station got “The Big O’s Weather Report,” which Lombardo said upped our news ratings 40 percent.

  “And it was all a stoned idea,” Bud tells Buffy.

  4

  Lombardo

  Bein’ dragged out of the studio barking during Marv Herbert’s sports report was not my finest hour. After the show, Marv’s yellin’ at me, but Lombardo comes to my defense. “The dog was nervous, Marv. Remember your first night? You called the Carolina Panthers the Black Panthers three times, and then said Brandon Stokley was Stokley Carmichael. Klan guys over in Caswell County thought you were sending a coded message.” Marv slinks off to have several drinks.

  And now, for whatever reason, Lombardo every so often wants me in his office with the big desk with nothin’ on top of it and three giant TVs on the walls. He’s asking me questions like he thinks I’m the Enigma machine of daytime television.

  “Whadda you think of her?” He points at Ellen DeGeneres. Ellen loves dogs—what am I gonna do, betray her? I pant. Somehow I think he gets it. He switches to people screamin’ on the Maury Povich show. Turn my head away, can’t watch. Then swarms of tattooed people clawin’ at each other on Springer. I head for the door. Lombardo tells me, “They got a dentist at the Springer show to give guests false teeth, ’cause they’re showing up with big gaps in their mouths.” They should cement their jaws shut, I think. I’m hopin’ to see my favorite, Maria Bartiromo. If she could sing, I might take her over Cher.

  Commercials come on.

  There’s a hardworking guy who takes one Aleve pain pill and who’s bragging that hours later while he’s still working his ass off, he’s blissfully happy ’cause he doesn’t have to bother to stop to take a second pill like he would with another brand. Seems to me, a thirty-second pill break might somehow be a welcome pause.

  We see this Cialis commercial where they’re showin’ handsome, stubble-faced men with a fake confident look in their eye “for when the time is right.” When the time is right with Bud, he’s not actin’ like these guys. These guys are trying to initiate action by givin’ the woman a tiny peck on the lips like they’re standing at the front door after a 1950s prom date knowing that her parents are peering at them through the window.

  “Whadda you think of her?” he says. “Judge Judy.” I’m nodding approval, thinkin’ it’s nice to see an old lady on TV, and he says he thinks she’s had a facelift. Guess she’d have to have a twin sister for me to know what she really looks like. I’m confused by Family Feud. I can’t figure the anatomical reason for how the host, Steve Harvey, can talk and smile while showin’ all his teeth. Maybe it’s some kind of special dentistry, or media training.

  Bud comes to get me, and Lombardo says, “You know, Bud, I think that dog could work for Nielsen.”

  I can tell that Bud can’t figure out what I’m doin’ in the boss’ office. But I think Lombardo just wants a little company beyond most of the employees who’re always telling him what they think he wants to hear. Sometimes he even says nice things to me he wouldn’t say around Bud. “You’re not the worst dog I ever met; you’re really a strong son of a bitch. Now I know why Patton had a dog like you. My dog, Doc, is tough, but I wouldn’t want him messing with you.” One time he says, “You’re one funny bastard, Spike. I don’t know why, but you’re just funny.”

  Thanks, Boss, but maybe that’s ’cause your pal Doc is a Doberman, the breed with as much sense of humor as a fire alarm. It’s true. Have you ever seen a Doberman with any expression except lookin’ like he wants to rip a piece outta your leg? Have you? Huh?

  A big day of the year for Lombardo is the annual lunchtime five-inning softball game against his rival, Bolster, who runs the station across the street. People at our place might’ve been scared of Lombardo, but Lombardo wasn’t gonna screw you. Bud said everybody at Bolster’s place was “scared shitless” of Bolster. Can’t imagine being “scared shitless,” but it’s a technique Bud oughta use on me, ’cause I’m still inclined to have an “accident” in the house on the rare occasion.

  “Bolster’s a lying tyrant,” Bud says. “Talk you out of taking a job at a bigger station one day, and fire you a month later ’cause he was gonna replace you anyway.” I’m lookin’ to eyeball Bolster and maybe take a little leak on his shoe to see how mad he can actually get.

  We scrape together nine players and head to the playground. New on the team this year is Buffy—who ran track and played softball at college, and has hands like an iron worker from milking cows at the dairy—and Milt Moss, the art director. Lombardo puts him as catcher, figuring Milt’s chronic flatulence, brought on by his obsession with cheesy garlic Brussels sprouts, is gonna throw off the batters. But after a couple of pitches, the umpire can’t take any more of Milt and moves him to far right field.

  I’m relaxing, havin’ a good time outside on a sunny day. Some kid who’s watchin’ gives me half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, which starts my lifelong addiction to peanut butter. Like Lombardo’s always tellin’ Bud, “Temptation is everywhere.” Anyway, as usual, Lombardo’s on the mound for us and Bolster for them. Bud’s doin’ fine at third base, and Buffy’s movin’ like lightning at as shortstop.

  As we head into us batting at the top of the fifth, we got a 1–nothin’ lead, thanks to a home run by Buffy, but trouble’s ahead. Milt Moss draws a quick walk—the ump and catcher wanted him outta the batter’s box as fast as possible. Lombardo pops up, which pisses him off big-time, then Marv Herbert drills one straight back at Bolster.

  Two outs, and Buffy’s up, and their outfield’s movin’ deep. She’s two for two, and diggin’ in at the plate. First pitch she sends a looping ball to short center. The shortstop’s runnin’ back tryin’ to get it, but it hits the ground as Buffy’s chargin’ to second base. Bolster runs to cover second himself; she slides while Bolster takes the throw and on purpose plants his foot down hard on her ankle, blockin’ her from the bag but worse, hurtin’ her leg bad. I’m leashed up or I’d be goin’ for a piece of Bolster’s flat little ass.

  Buffy’s hobbling off the field with the help of the anchor Sam Hal
loway, who’s lisping, “This shucks, this shucks!” Everybody’s yelling and screamin’ at Bolster. Lombardo shuts them up and slowly walks over, and with this freezing-cold look in his eye says, “The day will come, Bolster. The day will come.”

  We’re all starin’ at Lombardo figurin’ he’s about to give Bolster the “kiss of death.” Bud says, “Lombardo’s the kinda’ guy you’d want in a foxhole with you.” I’ve seen foxholes; not sure how that works.

  Now we got no shortstop and Lombardo’s worried and tryin’ to figure a shift. But Bud says, “No problem, Spike can stop any ball. Put Spike in next to me.”

  Lombardo says, “Our goat-loving, singing weatherman has a bright idea.”

  “No, seriously, Boss. Watch,” Bud says, and he gets balls and starts hurling hard grounders at me, which I catch with ease. Back home Bud’s been throwin’ a little pink ball against our wall to see how many in a row I can catch. I’m up to thirty-one.

  Lombardo tells the ump, “This dog, who is an insured station employee, is now our shortstop.”

  I’m way more confident now than as weather dog but startin’ to wonder, if we go extra innings, how do I bat?

  Bolster, the Scott Pelly robot, and everybody in their dugout is laughing and pointing.

  The Pelly robot yells across the field, “Goodness gracious! A dog. My, my, they must be down on their uppers!”

  “Goddamn him, program some profanity!” Bolster snarls at an intern. “Pelly sounds like my grandmother.”

  “By jiminy, this is keen as mustard!” the robot screams.

  “Shut that fuckin’ thing up, you idiot!” Bolster orders.