Musings & Reflections with Tom Berenger

This whole Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination sure has the country in a tizzy. I'd be lying if I said it didn't remind me of a story.

Picture this: It was '82. I was taking six months off from making pictures to work on a real boss mustache. As I was prone to do in those days, around about noon I whipped up a shake comprised of a pint of yogurt, three cans of Michelob, a dozen-and-a-half bumps of blow and an over-ripened pomegranate.

Now don't ask me how, but I misread the recipe and soon found myself sitting on a double batch of the tasty concoction. With more than enough for myself, I decided to share the good stuff with a friend. So I paid ol' Mike Landon a visit.

Landon was shooting a Little House Reunion special, so I dumped the narcotic smoothie in a Thermos and hotfooted on over to the set. Mikey-boy caught sight of me and told the director to call it a day.

"Your timing's impeccable, Tommy-B," Landon said as we walked back to his trailer.

I didn't know exactly what he meant until I opened the trailer door and found Tyne Daly greased up with Crisco and wearing nothing but a plastic fireman's hat. The three of us guzzled the shake, and in no time Landon and I were doing an old-fashioned Chinese-handcuffs on the eager and willing Cagney and Lacey starlet.

As hot as this scene was, it was nothing compared to what was to come.

As I was going to town, my ears caught an unfamiliar slurping sound. I turned and found a seven-foot grizzly bear licking out the remnants of the Thermos. Our eyes met and I was filled with delightfully confusing feelings.

"She must've wandered in off the set," Landon said. "Want me to call the animal wrangler?"

I assured Mike that a call wouldn't be necessary as I approached the mighty grizzly. Soon our naked bodies met and filled each other with pure and unbridled ecstasy.

The next several hours were real hazy, but in the morning I woke up in Cleveland with a lady bear in bed beside me wearing the biggest wedding band I've seen to this day. Eventually, I started working on a little movie called Eddie and the Cruisers and we grew distant. We finally called it quits when I found her in the sack with Tom Selleck, but while it lasted, our love was nothing short of magic.

Now you see, America is like that grizzly bear, and the Supreme Court is like Tyne Daly's heaving, Crisco-soaked bosom. It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to see that Harriet Miers is no different than that really boss 'stache I ended up sporting for the next three months. It's all relative, and it all makes me proud to be an American.