white with foam

On her 149th birthday, Kansas returns the easiest guilty verdict ever. The jury deliberated for 37 minutes, probably including potty breaks, in the case against the man who assassinated Dr. George Tiller last summer, a grim, sad present that must not be returned.

It ain’t like the old days. Kansas’ 26th year saw the birth of one of her most tragic folk heroes: Roscoe Conkling “Fatty” Arbuckle. Even today, Arbuckle is less well known for his lithe, graceful physical comedy than for the accusations of murder brought against him by the friend of train-wreck flapper Virginia Rappe and compounded in order to sell newspapers by William Randolph Hearst.

To say a good man got shafted is like saying Krakatoa was a volcano. From the get-go, Arbuckle’s talents, his comic timing and mellifluous singing voice, his very presence was a challenge to entrenched assumptions about poor fat dudes from Kansas. He was, in a way, the Colbert of his days, fully aware of his craft yet so thoroughly convincing that people believed the actor and the role were the same. When he died — two weeks after the Kansas City Massacre, and roughly two months older than I am right now — great clouds of dust had begun to fall on his home town of Smith Center, and his second act had just begun.

This is my random way of saying happy birthday, you crazy bitch. You don’t look a day over 125.

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UPDATE: During the “lost years” of 1928 and 1929, Arbuckle owned a restaurant in Culver City called the Plantation Café. Click here for a .pdf of its menu (424k), which includes such delicacies as Celery Victor with Anchovies. Thanks to Craig Kirkpatrick of Prairie Village, grandson of Elsie, to whom Hat’s waiter gladly stamped and sent the menu, which will make sense when you follow the link.

Tags:   Fatty Arbuckle · George Tiller · Scott RoederNo Comments