Doug Clark: Spreading Spokane cheer in second-cousin city

It’s me again, your Turkish delight.

Yes, Charlie Schmidt and I have made it safely to Istanbul!

About 9:40 a.m. Wednesday (Turkish time), our big Boeing jet soared over the massive city of red roofs and landed with barely a bump.

If only the trip had been as graceful.

My legs aren’t made for air travel. Every time I doze off, I get a calf cramp wake-up call.

My eyes are more bloodshot than the Turkish flag.

We had a bit of a scare during our layover in New York. After being told there would be “at least a 30-minute delay,” Charlie and I decided to take a leisurely cuppa coffee break.

When we ambled back we found Gate 12 noticeably devoid of waiting passengers. To our horror, we learned our jet had been boarded and the doors closed.

After a period of begging – and I do mean begging – we persuaded Delta personnel to take pity on us and let us on.

And thank goodness we did.

If we hadn’t been allowed on, I never would have been able to drop my pen and reporter’s notebook into the airplane toilet.

The notepad and attached pen somehow slipped out of the inner pocket of my jacket while I stood over the …

Do I have to draw you a degrading picture?

Much like the Donner Party, a situation like that really shows what you’re capable of.

Staring down into the abyss at my soggy items, I heard this voice in my head say:

“Flush it, Doug. Keep what’s left of your dignity and send your befouled belongings sailing into the night sky over southern France.”

But this other voice kept saying: “But Doug, that’s a really nice pen.”

A few moments later, I shuffled back to my seat, carrying you-know-what wrapped inside enough paper towels to carpet an airplane hangar.

“What the heck is that?” asked Schmidt.

“You don’t want to know,” I muttered.

Turkey is a tourist’s dream, a complex and historic land where anything can happen.

And I do mean anything.

Not long after we arrived, for example, we were whisked to a cavernous TV studio where we met a man holding a bucket full of live, angry, pinching crabs.

Talking to us in nonstop Turkish, the guy grabbed one of the largest and most hostile crabs and let it scuttle all over his head. Then he stuck a bare hand into the bucket.

Never again will I consider Charlie Schmidt’s dancing nose routine radical.

As you might recall from my Tuesday column, Schmidt’s inventive and comedic nose is what took us to Turkey.

Able to make his nose dance like Gene Smelly, Schmidt invited me to tag along with him to Istanbul, where he is appearing in a variety show called “Night of the Miracles.”

Of course there’s a trick. The nose gag is all about camera angles, having a limber beak and the rhythmic use of a window pane-sized sheet of glass. (See it online at www.spokesmanreview.com.)

Once Charlie fulfills his performance commitments, we plan to soak up as much of Istanbul as we can. And based on the e-mails some of you sent me, we could probably spend a month here.

“I highly recommend that you two check out the ‘Circumcision Room’ in Topkapi Palace,” wrote my friend Ned. “You’ll really be able to peel back the layers of history and see the Ottoman Sultans in all their glory.”

Maybe. Maybe.

I want you to know that, despite what it sounds like, this adventure isn’t just about self-gratification.

Before I left town, I wandered over to the Spokane Regional Convention and Visitors Bureau.

When I told them where I was going, our civic boosters gave me a load of Spokane trinkets and propaganda to pass along to the Turks.

On Wednesday, I gave Spokane sippy cups to two television workers, Oage Tas and Ebru Karaca. The 20-something women were quite touched.

But that’s not all. A few moments ago I rode the elevator down to my hotel lobby. With nobody at the front desk, I stocked Spokane maps in the rack of Turkey tourism materials.

Anyone who walks by will see our Clocktower right next to a stack of brochures advertising “Sultana’s Dinner – 1001 Nights Show.”

I can’t wait to pass out the Spokane golf balls, bookmarks, lapel pins and (no, I’m not kidding) bass plugs.

If Istanbul isn’t our sister city when I get done, it will at least be like a second cousin.

You can hear how big Istanbul is. But until you see it firsthand, it’s difficult to comprehend just how enormous and frenetic the city is.

Storefronts and modular apartments occupy the landscape as far as you can see. Pedestrians cross streets like they’re playing the old arcade video game “Frogger.”

And driving?

It’s like something out of a car-chase flick.

During the trip from the studio to our downtown hotel, we must have had two dozen near-misses. Drivers pass one another on the left or the right. Motorcycles flit in and out of traffic like insects.

Yet there seems to be an almost psychic give-and-take among motorists that keeps the bloodshed mostly at bay.

Well, that’s enough for now. I’d like to write more, but my jet lag is so bad I’m starting to doze off between insults.