a CONVERSATION with GUS GREENBEAR

 

Gus Greenbear co-edited In Case of Bears and co-authored The Greenbear Chronicles, now in its second printing (Riley Hall, 2005). The Chronicles are his coming-of-age autobiography, from his birth into the markets of the Chinese bear trade and liberation from life on the shelf, to his adventures across America and the Seven Seas. In a grizzly world, Gus learns and teaches the most surprisingly human of lessons.

 

 

TEDDY BEAR NEWS : Well Gus, what's your favorite movie or show?

MR. GREENBEAR : Shakespeare in Love. Saw it four times! But "the show must..."

TBN : Must . . .?

GGB : Go on! [Laughs] Right? "The show must go on!"

TBN : Ah yes, I get it. [Laughs] And I see from your resume that you directed a scene from Hamlet for a theatre in the Bahamas? [Gus nods] Your vitae is impressive. I mean, you've only been out of the shop a few years.

GGB : Well I learned from the master. Will Shakesbear is a main character in my book! There are allusions to sixteen of Shakespeare's thirty-six plays in The Chronicles .

TBN : Amazing!

GGB : I learned all about directing, playwriting and acting from Will. In the book, I perform that scene from Much Ado About Nothing . You know, the one with the goofy guards. Anyway, I had to direct the Hamlet Master Class , as Sandy wrote the scene and was acting in it. It's hard to act and direct in something you've written as well.

TBN : But Shakespeare did it.

GGB : [Smiles] Yeah, Will could do anything.

TBN : You miss your friend very much, don't you?

GGB : Sure! He is in my heart, and he lives forever in the book.

TBN : Do you have anyone in your life now? A girlfriend maybe?

GGB : Oh, I'm too young for a serious relationship, but yes I know about love. Love that won't quit, I forget the word for it, like Romeo and Juliet, very Greenbear indeed.

TBN : Unrequited love.

GGB : Yeah, unrequited, that's the word. Shakespeare took the story of Romeo and Juliet from the Greek myth of Pyramus and Thisbe, you know. There are myths about unrequited love way earlier than Shakespeare's time. Joe Campbell knew them all. I love his books. There is a stone patio in Spokane, Washington with a bronze spiral set into it. Their story is carved in bronze. You walk the spiral to read the words.

TBN : Do you remember the story?

GGB : Oh yes, it's retold by the Great Grandmother Bears, as how Spokane Falls came to be. Coyote loved a maiden from distant tribe you see, and he was not permitted to marry her, right? Coyote moves the river for her, but in this grief and anger, he smashes the river with his paws, creating Spokane Falls. It rains for forty days and nights. Sound familiar? But when daylight comes, the falls are all full of salmon. All for love.

TBN : Wow, what does it all mean?

GGB : My friend, Broken Arrow, says we are one: all places and times, Earth is mother to all. Beyond our bare selves, we all have the same feelings, we all need to be one with nature. To me, Coyote's tears for his love drove nature to answer. The story may be sad, but something good happened. Dark becomes light.

TBN : Deep! Besides the theatre, you have so many interests. Tell us about them.

GGB : Peggy has been teaching me to play piano, but it's not easy. My paws are fat, so I often hit two keys at the same time. [Laughs] I have to use both arms to reach one octave. My favorite note is "B" because it reminds me of honey.

TBN : And I've also heard that you're a visual artist as well?

GGB: Yes, in fact I just learned a new style of painting with my buddy Mark, called 'touch-painting', but I also enjoy modeling for artists too. Mister Jay and I practice photography and he helps me with my camera eye.

TBN : And how did you begin working in ceramics?

GGB : Well, there's a story in that. Peggy and Sandy found me in a shop in Idaho Falls. They were in town to show their jewelry and table art, made of clay and semi-precious stones, at the sidewalk art fair. The first day of the show, they parked the van at the Post Office and left me inside strapped to the headrest by a boogie cord! It was so hot! So I had to get my paws in the clay right away so I could sit with them at the shows.

TBN : What do you make?

GGB : I have a line of bear beads and pendants with a spiral bear claw design.

TBN : And what's in your pouch? Did you make it yourself?

GGB : Sandy made it for me. My wotai stone is in it.

TBN : What's a wotai stone?

GGB : The Lakota Sioux people call a special stone that comes to you at a significant time in your life a wotai.

TBN : And what is your stone, may I ask?

GGB : I got mine the summer before I wrote the Chronicles with Sandy. We were in the South Dakota Badlands, one my favorite places to visit. We had to stop at a Wall-Drug. I listened to Singing Sam the Gorilla Man sing "Alley Oop," had my picture taken with Annie Oakley and rode the carousel. Now I love carousels, I ride everyone I see! Then we went into the Rock Shoppe and my friend Travis shows me a tiny piece of raspberry garnet, and I knew that was my wotai stone. I was counting out the pennies I had saved up, but the man at the counter gave me the stone anyway.

TBN : Do you have anything else in your pouch?

GGB : Pieces of pottery the Lucayan people made. They were the people who met Columbus in 1492, on the island of San Salvador in the Bahamas!

TBN : Really, have you been to San Salvador?

GGB : No, in the Bahamas, just the Abacos so far. I've seen a lot of the United States. I hibernate with the parrots in Miami for the winter, and visit with the deer in Kooskia, Idaho in the summertime. I've seen the Big Sky of Montana, whales in Puget Sound, cows in California looking out at the Pacific Ocean, bald eagles standing in oyster beds on the beach at Orcas Island, and Miracle the albino buffalo in Janesville, Wisconsin. I travel by car, mostly.

TBN : What is the funniest thing you ever saw on the road?

GGB : On a highway in Missouri, I saw a Cadillac disguised as a rooster. I love this country!

TBN : You were born in China, but what nationality are you?

GGB : I'm an A-bear-ican citizen, and proud of it! I realized this most when I visited Independence Hall in Philadelphia. Cosgrove, the tour guide, sat me on the desk where Benjamin Franklin signed the Declaration of Independence and framed the articles of the Constitution. Just sitting there sent shivers all through my body. Right beside me were Ben Franklin's own spectacles, feather pen and clay pipe. Will wrote with a pen just like that. And I found a broken bowl-pipe, made of clay like Ben's, at the Miami Circle dig and several pipe stems at the latrine dig at Green Turtle Cay.

TBN : [Laughing] What else did you find in the latrine?

GGB : Oh, dozens of quart-sized bottles of Irish whiskey, broken plates and stemware, parts of a child's tea set, a few coins and an old watch. That site probably went back to the early 1800's.

TBN : What about the Miami Circle Dig?

GGB : That is about two thousand years old! The Tequesta people of Florida started out there. It was a ceremonial site of some kind… I've seen a medicine wheel in Big Horn National Forest a couple summers ago in Wyoming. For thousands of years people from around there, would meet at the wheel to pray for the good of all the people, even at wartime. Today people leave gifts, hanging on the fence around the circle.

TBN : Did you leave something there?

GGB : I tied my kerchief to the fence. And I left a white buffalo pendant I made on the fence of Miracle's corral when I went to visit her in Wisconsin. Broken Arrow told me the best gifts are the things you prize the most.

TBN : Do you have a favorite pastime?

GGB : Baseball! [Beams] Go Marlins! The summer I got out of the bear store was the year Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa broke the record for most home runs hit in a single season, and I got to watch them do it! Mark danced around the bases, and Sammy cried. The next year, Mark McGwire hit a homerun the first inning. I work out at the Biltmore Hotel in Miami. Lisa, the physical trainer there, helps the pitchers. One time I met 'El Duque' Hernandez and he signed my little baseball book. And Lisa introduced me to Alex Fernandez and she took our picture. [Laughing] He told me, "The Greenbear Chronicles is a hit!"

TBN : So Gus, how will you get to the World Series?

GGB : Practice!

 

 

email: GusGreenbear@gmail.com