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PearlyBowl by Allan Wayne
Feast your eyes on the legendary lavatory that once graced the Bay Haven Inn's (aka Snag Tavern), men's room in Newport that Paul Newman (and Henry Fonda) undoubtedly championed between drinking scenes. and now lies hidden in a secret site, a veritable kabala, and pearly peach bowl of paradise, on Oregon's remote Pacific Coast. Pilgrims of Sometimes a Great Notion, who seek to stand in the footsteps of the saints--and achieve vicarious visions in the hinterlands of hydraulic happenstance--dream with passionate eyes of the plumbing masterpiece.
That's right, when Paul Newman filmed Ken Kesey's northwest novel, his crew sequestered the Bay Haven for a few days, and undoubtedly dabbled in the sampling and earnest downing of malt beverage, otherwise known as beer.
The Bay Haven had only one urinal; which afterward seemed charged with almost superfluous energy and blinding patina, as if some alpha personality had marked the territory with paralyzing scent. Afterward, even rough loggers and fisherman, who were used to floundering about, found their aim a bit off the mark, until they swore it wasn't the beer, but a leaky bilge in Beelzebub's tub; and the women, only a few feet on the other side of the wall, became distracted to the point of blissful incapacitation, pushing against the powder room doors, as if charged with a tingling opiate of electrostatic pleasure. Face it, it had to be Newman.
No self-respecting pub man could take that too long. It is surmised that Deep Down Dave, in a prostatic fit of pheromone fury, barged past his swooning girl friend, ripped the holy grail off the wall, heaved it on his shoulders, and tore off across Yaquina Bay, clear over Tabletop Mountain, where he hid it, and where it is rumored, if one listens carefully in the spruce forests, one can hear the stopcock sound of the enameled Stradivarius, a sucking serenade, and hedonistic juice harp, that played such a sensual part in the making of Sometimes a Great Notion.
Movie aficionados have sought, with a Sasquatch hunter's zeal, the manly artifact. But the legend grows. Even elk and bear, they say, steer a wide berth, so pungent is the man scent. So perfect is the pitch. Ah man, ah Newman, playing the amber strings of his virtuoso violin
