Orson Khan: An Ode to "Orson Fat"
by Francine DuBois
Leland (Joseph Cotton): You still eating?
Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles): I'm still hungry.
- Citizen Kane (1941)
Capt. Hank Quinlan (Orson Welles): I'm Hank Quinlan.
Tanya (Marlene Dietrich): I didn't recognize you. You should lay off
those candy bars.
Quinlan: It's either the candy or the hooch.
- Touch of Evil (1958)
Hot Rod (Judd Nelson): Who's Unicron?
Krannix (Norman Alden): A planet that devours everything in its path.
The Transformers: The Movie (1986), in which Orson Welles was
the voice of Unicron
"I hate television. I hate it as much as peanuts. But
I can't stop eating peanuts." - Orson Welles
In Kenosha did Mrs. Welles (from her loins)
A stately pleasure-addict expel:
Where Michigan, the great lake, swells
Onto beaches devoid of beautiful shells.
This man-child would be of great girth,
'Twould be five miles to round his waist
In forty years hence. Never did he waste
A morsel of brandy, salmon, caviar, pizza, fish sticks:
Apples? Granny Smith. Grapes? Muscatels.
He could get to the center of a Tootsie Pop in two licks,
An entire turkey took a few bites.
But oh! that deep hunger, that empty hole, which grew
Into the largest hand-dug well, only bigger still!
A savage chasm no kind of moo shu
Could fill, more invisible than the moon of blue,
And more powerful than Winston Churchill.
And from this pit, with ceaseless hunger seething,
As if a fat chick in thick pants were breathing,
A mighty man ordered large amounts of food
And smugly asked for seconds yet.
He ate Philadelphia while merely teething.
The Shadow knows about his dome of pleasure,
A giant hedonistic paradise lives in his belly.
Dash for dash, pinch for pinch, measure for measure:
Elvis was not the only fan of fried P.B. & jelly.
Rip Van Winkle heard the bowlers in the sky,
But was it Orson bellying up to the bar?
Was it Orson strapping lobster bib over tie?
Was it Orson breaking breads - white, wheat, potato and rye?
It is Orson, ordering steak tartare.
And all who heard should see him there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes! He doesn't care!
Even with all the twine of the world,
'Tis impossible to circle him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
***
Coleridge ate quite a bit too, at least before falling
asleep.
http://www.poets.org/poems/poems.cfm?prmID=1908
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