The Rescue Poot

We don't know how old Pootie is. He joined the household in the '80s, but, as Dave pointed out, he already seemed to have some history, with a lot of preferences as to the way the world should operate, and if a lot of those preferences aligned with Dave's own--a fondness for basketball and chocolate, say--that just goes to show he was going to be a good fit. I do know my friend Margo and I first spotted him downtown, in a store, where he was sitting in a basket of identical dogs. You could look at them as a litter, I suppose, but knowing the Poot, it was probably more of an entourage.

He was a force from Day One. Anyone could see that. Margo certainly did, and shortly went back downtown to the Arfnage and scooped Petey out of the basket. So Petey lives with Margo and Pootie lives with us.

I'm not going to say Petey lives a cushier life but there's no question she doesn't fling herself headlong into it quite the way the Poot does. There is photographic record that Pootie was once blond and fluffy, but after seven Cycle Oregon tours and countless adventures in far-flung locales, and lots of time in the sun to work on his beige, he's a changed dog. He's even gone a little bald like his hero Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, at least enough to show stitching. Petey, on the other hand, has not let herself go. We don't see her as much as we used to and it's always shocking how fluffy she is.

But it's not for lack of love. Not only is Petey a solid member of the Margo household, but Margo's niece Valentina has taken a shine to her as well. In fact, Valentina adores the entire Pootie franchise and even has a Friend Of Pootie hoodie that, reportedly, is rarely off her long enough to have hygiene applied to it. It's the niece, now ten, who discovered that, like herself, Petey is as much a Trail Blazers fan as Pootie is a Lakers fan. Which is odd in that she lives in California and we live in Oregon, but you're not going to get anywhere arguing loyalties among stuffed canine basketball fans. Valentina only gets to hang out with Petey on vacations.

Pootie, Petey, and Price Bugle

Anyway, we walked into an antique mall the other day where Dave spotted an old baby carriage right by the front door, filled with stuffed animals and dolls. And, said he, a Pootie clone right near the top.

I picked him or her up. "Man, real close," I said, "a knock-off at least, but not quite right. Pootie has a rounder face. Doesn't have this much of a muzzle." Dave said Pootie the hell did too. "I have drawn Pootie thousands of times," I said, with exaggerated patience. "I think I know what his face looks like." Dave harrumphed. We turned the animal around and up and down and Dave settled him back into the carriage, on top, to improve his prospects.

But by the time we'd seen everything in the store and were ready to walk out the door, I realized that even if the new fellow was not the same, he was certainly Pootular, and in any case we couldn't just pick him up and admire him and talk about him and then put him back and walk out the door, because that would surely crush the little guy, and we're sensitive to that kind of thing. So we fished out the three bucks and took him home.

Where I discovered he really was a member of the Pootie Posse. Pootie's muzzle just looks flatter because he's had some fur loved off.

Margo saw it right away. You can hardly see a difference between the new guy and Petey. The new guy is blond in front and a little beiger in back, is all. We realized the little dude has spent the last thirty or so years propped up in a window, and then abandoned. But someone's life is about to turn around at last. Someone's going home with Valentina.

Are You A Friend Of Pootie?

The original Starbucks logo was similar to the current version, except the mermaid had titties. This goes way back to 1971. It took Starbucks a while to get off the ground, and it's probably because of the titties. People were disappointed to find that coffee was what was on the menu, and not titties.

Mind you, she still has them. They are implied by the curves of her hair, and all the more powerful for that, because they force the brain to do the work of imagining them. The brain can dawdle at its task as long as it wants. It's the same reason reading a book is more engaging than watching a movie. The brain gets to construct the scenery. In the case of the Starbucks logo, it gets to leave some of the scaffolding up, and you're that much more readily drawn into the next Starbucks as it appears, which could be as soon as a half block away.  It's the power of the logo. Also, they sell drugs.

The logo is also brilliant because unlike your average mermaid, all enticement up above and frustration below, this one has a forked tail, and moreover, she obviously has it all spread apart for you. There's your coffee with cream, right there.

The latest iteration of the Starbucks logo assumes we all have our implied delight firmly in place in our heads, and leaves out the "Starbucks" wordage. It signals that the company has arrived, and like Nike and its swoosh, it doesn't need to spell it all out for us anymore.

And that's when it occurred to me that Murrmurrs really needed a logo. And we already have a dog-o. Moreover, he is an extremely handsome dog-o, and vain enough to embrace the role. Pootie is an interesting fellow and interested in many things, primarily being famous. He is not shy and is a natural leader. He has a number of friends, all of whom have accepted a subservient role. Scooter is typical. Scooter is a perfectly fine wiener dog, but when he arrived here from the Arfnage he was immediately drafted into one of Pootie's many enterprises, being the entire workforce of Poot 'N' Scoot Janitorial Services, a baseboard-cleaning outfit that accepts payment in M&Ms. Scooter does 100% of the work involved, but Pootie, as he points out, is the brains of the operation, and keeps all the M&Ms. We're not certain Pootie is a Democrat. But anyway, Scooter is just fine with this role, as long as he gets to call himself a Friend Of Pootie, and that's the way the rest of us feel, too.

There are already several hand-painted shirts out there emblazoned with Pootie's handsome mug and F.O.P. above. There is a Pootie Fan Club whose benefits include (all right, it's the only benefit) a laminated membership card. And now, since the Poot had been gracious enough to grace the screen here for lo these many years (seven), we here at Murrmurrs, Inc. would like to give anyone the chance to become an official Friend Of Pootie. Yes. There are T-shirts. We here at Murrmurrs, Inc. are going to begin with the proposition that we have arrived, even though we haven't, and leave out all mention of Murrmurrs.

Imagine the thrill of traveling somewhere and spying someone else wearing an F.O.P. shirt! Why, there are twenty-six of you in Australia alone, and two in Tasmania. If you do not run into someone with an F.O.P. shirt, you might run into someone who asks you what it's all about, and you can proudly say you are a Friend Of Pootie (he won't mind) and that means you're also a fan of Murrmurrs (I won't mind). If you see someone with an F.O.P. shirt while you're wearing one, you'll feel extra special.

Special-Bus Special is still special.


So are you a Friend Of Pootie? Order an F.O.P. shirt in any style or color and soon you'll be rockin' the Poot. If you want a dark shirt, click here. For a snazzy white, click here. There are tons of options. Please supply your own head.