Tuesday, October 13, 2009

One Day I Shall Meet Bill Murray

I know, I know, the ancient Chinese warned us against pursuing our wishes. Let me start out by saying, to hell with the ancient Chinese. But I do recognize the need to be careful what you wish for, or at least be prepared if those wishes come to fruition in strange, twisted ways you hadn't envisioned. If the stars are in an ornery mood get ready for a curve ball.

It would be my rotten luck that I would finally meet Bill Murray in a men's room at some hotel bar. I step up to the urinal for some routine business and there he is taking a leak one stall over. Do I dare break the Golden Rule of the men's room, striking up a conversation with a stranger in mid-flow? As I silently cursed the Universe for putting me in such a conundrum I'm sure my mind would race for a loophole, some way of acknowledging one of my greatest heroes without being added to his mental list of autograph assholes.

In the unlikely event I ever fall into such a circumstance, I've prepared a statement. “Sorry Mr. Murray, but I'm just not going to bother you for an autograph with your cock in your hand.” I'd then give a friendly nod and walk back out to the bar like nothing had happened. I think he'd appreciate it.

That's the dream of all us fans, to meet our number one living figure and say something so clever or devastatingly cool they not only laugh, but possibly offer up a dinner invitation, or ask if you have any interest in seeing their record collection.

Since I have no idea when I will meet Bill Murray, I find myself preparing for every possible contingency. If we become trapped in the same elevator, I will say “Emergency call buttons are for pansies!”, and volunteer to be the guy that tries to climb through the ceiling hatch thingy and up the greasy cables, heedless of any damage to my clothing or person. There is no film in which this escape route has failed to work.

If we find ourselves at the same DMV getting our licenses renewed I will pipe up with “You know Bill, if you put Organ Donor on your license it makes for a great dirty pickup line.” I wrestled with the question of whether I should use his first name so soon, then came to the realization I'll have to gauge each situation accordingly.

Another challenging introduction would be accidentally backing into his Mercedes as I leave the airport parking garage at two in the morning. I'm loaded down with jet lag and sleeping pills, fumbling for the radio when BAM, a familiar looking gray-haired figure is fuming in my rear view mirror. But I am prepared. “Tag, you're it Bill!” I think that one calls for a first name basis, just to break the ice.

Of course, delivery here is crucial. I don't want to anger him further by treating the accident like my lucky day. His dream wasn't to meet me, and I probably just made him late for something. I'll make sure the man isn't hurt, then offer to buy him a steak. Or if I signed for the extra insurance on the rental, offer to let him take it for a wild ride around town, not worrying about the bodywork. Everyone wants to scrape a rental car along a Jersey barrier doing forty.

With any luck we'd end up drinking Johnny Walker on his veranda, smacking golf balls onto the roofs of his neighbors. No one minds if Bill Murray hits a golf ball onto their roof. They get a thrill when they hear one hit, knowing its source. Very few people on the planet have this power. He'd tell me stories about hazy weekends at Hunter Thompson's farm or the time he joined the Mile-High club with a Lufthansa stewardess en route to film “Stripes”. And oh the laughs we would have doing donuts in Harold Ramis' lawn.

Now I'm no stalker. Nor will I subject myself to kidnapping and tying up his pool cleaner for an opportunity to sneak onto his estate in disguise. I'll instead allow the hands of destiny to work their magic. Of course trusting in fate to introduce me to Bill Murray runs the risk of frankly, running out of time. Let's face it Bill's not getting any younger. And with his hearty passions for life's pleasures, I personally don't see him pulling off a George Burns-style longevity gig.

A friend suggested I steer my efforts into landing a bit part in the next Wes Anderson picture, of which he has starred in all but one. This plan presents another level of complexity, but one thing it has going for it is that as Mr. Anderson is my favorite director, I wouldn't feel any guilt in using him so. Time to get cracking with some acting lessons. That or bribe his casting director. Either way it's just a matter of time. I can feel the stars at work already.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

What it's Like to be Dead

There's something unmanly about passing out in our culture. It's normally portrayed as the stuff of the meek or anemic, bringing to mind images of ladies in large feathered hats falling into someone's waiting arms when a mouse is spotted in the kitchen. But I'll be man enough to admit I do it all the time.

It happened when I had my tattoo. It happened one New Year's eve as my broken scapula was being set in the emergency room. It happened when I had a grout splinter pulled from beneath my fingernail. To be fair that last one would have probably made anyone's reptile brain reach for the emergency brake. It even happened to me before surgery after my IV line was inserted. The thing that pissed me off in retrospect was that they actually revived me before administering the anesthesia.

So of course if blood is being drawn, get ready to test your strength catching 210 pounds of my lifeless ass. I warn all my phlebotomists beforehand. I learned to do this after a panicked RN summoned an ambulance when the local she administered before removing a biopsy sent me into dreamland. Most shrug my warning off with a laugh and tell me I have nothing to fear. It's as if their skill has been called into question and now they need to show me just how talented their light touch can be. There is no one so prideful in their work as a phlebotomist.

I can usually even make it through the entire procedure before I feel the dizzy warmth start to creep over me. When it happened yesterday we had completely finished the draw. More than a minute had passed and 'Ms. Pearl' had labeled the sample and filled out some form. I had even complimented her accent as something that brought to mind Ms. Cleo. But once I feel that harbinger of the certain unconsciousness to come, there's nothing more you can do but tell them to get ready to test their strength. Even still they always assure me, no honey you did great, everything is fine, just take a few deep breaths. How about a cookie? I make a few jokes and then comes the nothingness. Once my body senses even the slightest drop in blood pressure, the shutdown sequence begins and there is no turning back. It's like sugar in the gas tank.

There is nothing and I mean nothing so utterly peaceful as when you're out like a light. And nothing so utterly confusing as when you're coming out of it. The first time I can remember taking an involuntary nap was in the fifth grade. We were outside for recess and I was standing against the wall. You stood against the wall of the schoolhouse and watched the other kids play if you had done something bad and had the misfortune of getting caught. That spring I seemed to spend a lot of time against the wall, though the reason is now lost to the ages. Two other kids that did the same were Mac and Alison. That afternoon Mac and Alison were having an argument about something, but for some reason I ended up getting stood between them. Probably to keep them from each other's throats. At some point Mac said something that must have really gotten the girl's goat, because the next thing I knew a melon-sized chunk of asphalt was hurtling our way. And then I found myself opening my eyes and wondering why I had been sleeping on the playground on such a lovely day. The letter of apology Alison had to write my mother was priceless. “Dear Mrs. Soyke, I'm very sorry I hit Eric in the face with a rock. I was aiming for Mac.” I hope my mother still has it.

Yogis practice all their lives to shut out external stimuli. I can do it before you can say “pass the smelling salts”. I've been through the routine so many times now you'd think it would be routine. But waking up on a hard lab floor as panicked nurses slap wet paper towels over your face can get old.

I'm tempted to conclude from my manifold pseudo-near-death experiences that there is no afterlife. I base this on the fact that when I'm out, there is nothing. No dreams, no beckoning lights with robed figures, no sound of harps or visions of myself floating through the ceiling. Just nothing. In the incident in the surgery room, the doc told me he'd never seen anything like it before, that my pressure had bottomed so low he was worried he was going to have to fetch the electric paddles. I think he just wanted to test the things.

Over the years I have become convinced that the brain is just a machine. A computer. And you can track the progress of your booting sequence as each system comes back online. Slowly, very slowly, the first system to come back online oddly enough is intuition. This probably wasn't what you were expecting, but thinking back it's a common thread. You just sense that something is wrong. Like you've forgotten something as you're leaving for vacation times ten. Or if you've ever woken up first thing in the morning and had that feeling like you're not sure if you should feel joy or dread for the day to come, that's what I'm talking about. Then you decide on dread. There's an unmistakable feeling that something is terribly wrong with this world and it's starting to make you mad, but you can't put your finger on it. I guess this is the id beginning to stir.

Next come your senses. Hearing is first, though speech recognition isn't up just yet. After the ringing begins, you'll soon be able to hear other noises that after 10 or 20 seconds you will recognize as human voices. They'll be very faint and you will wonder why you are hearing them. Eyesight comes up soon after. But now even though you can technically hear and see, you have no idea what on Earth you are hearing or seeing. Those faces hovering far, far above you are still just distant shapes that make no sense, just like their words. You can't but wonder if this what stroke victims feel. Or maybe insects. You have no idea what year it is, who you are, or why there are so many wet paper towels on you. This is when the weirdness begins.

Did they say something about someone passing out? Sucks for that guy, as you can't remember ever feeling so relaxed before. Soon comes understanding. After catching a few more words you slowly gather you're the guy everyone's talking about. A few pieces of the puzzle click into place. The urgent need to remember something important is overpowering now. And then you have it, the riddle is solved. You had a blood test today. You are now lying on the floor. You're soaked with sweat. Dammit.

Next online is speech, and the very first thing you will want to say is how perfectly fine you are. No need to worry ladies, I'm perfectly, perfectly fine. I do this for kicks sometimes. Of course other than your eyelids and vocal cords you still can't move a muscle, that doesn't come for another twenty helpless seconds or so.

I've never seen myself during or after one of these slips, but apparently you turn whiter than an Elk's Lodge in Utah. By the time they're lifting your head off the linoleum, you've already sweated more than if you had just spent the past hour on a stair master. In the Mohave. And even though the entire ordeal lasted maybe two minutes you would swear you had slept a solid two days.

When you've blacked out so many times that you begin to consider yourself a connoisseur, there comes the realization that our consciousness is quite probably just an illusion, cooked up by too many synapses and tiny squirts of dopamine. That even our most involved dreams and spiritual experiences are nothing more than an extremely confusing sequence of chemical reactions. Maybe Einstein was right and we are just finely crafted timepieces created by a watchmaker that decided on a permanent vacation once his shift was over, and we are all just ticking away until the tiniest of springs goes pop. Or maybe death is the beginning and those who have never passed that door have no idea of the kingdom to follow, etc. Either way, next time I'm giving blood laying on a couch.