Tim “Bing’ Bingham loved his fans. Their adulation sustained him; their adoration fed him; their admiration made him feel good. When he was around his fans—appreciative talk show audiences, bleacher bums outside the Golden Globes and the Emmys; hell—even people in malls who recognized him going into Forever 21 to pick up a gift card for his latest girlfriend—it was all good.
The problems started when there weren’t fans around to stoke the engine of his ego. That’s how he’d ended up at the Food is Love Mission on Christmas, serving mashed potatoes from a chafing dish to poor people.
Not that poor people couldn’t be fans, of course.
So Bing served up the potatoes with a big smile and a hearty “How ya doing buddy?” which was the catch phrase he’d coined during the 12-year run of his sitcom The Bingham Show.
He’d never won an Emmy for the show—thank you Kelsey Grammer—but America loved him and his character, “Bing Kephart,” a lovable dad with a smart-ass wife and three adorable kids.
A lot of people dismissed the show as mindless fluff but The Bingham Show had outlasted Everybody Loves Raymond and their last year, at his insistence, the show’s writers had begun adding a little edge to their stories.
Bing was particularly proud of the episode in which his oldest son broke the news that he was transgender. The revelation turned out to be part of an elaborate practical joke he and the wife were playing on Bing Kephart, but Bing was proud that the episode provided an opportunity for open dialogue on the topic of he-shes.
Not that he’d gotten any props from GLAAD over the show. In fact, they’d blasted his “transphobia” and labeled him “criminally clueless.”
He’d gotten a chuckle out of that. Half the porn he downloaded was chicks with dicks.
“Here ya go,” Bing said to a middle-aged guy wearing what looked like a custom-made suit. “How ya doing buddy?” he added as he dropped a ladle full of potatoes on his plate.
“I’m good Bing,” the guy said. “Thanks.”
