Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Chapter 60 - July 24, 2012

Brian, do you believe in God?  This guy is the most resilient patient I've ever seen.  You are so brave. Oh, you're that guy that Dr. Steig worked on.  What an amazing operation.  Let me shake your hand.  Good job. You're my new hero.  They gave you a 5% chance of making it off the table alive.  What's going to be your legacy?  That is going to be my legacy.  All of the above are things I heard from doctors, friends, family, nurses.  They were all happy I pulled through.  The fact I pulled through and my daughter, that will be my legacy.

Sometimes you go to the beach and the ocean is full of rip currents.  Being a surfer, I love rip currents.  If you're a swimmer, they can be a real drag.  The point is, it depends how you look at something.  There's always a positive and negative to everything.  As a surfer, I love rip currents because they would bring me out back to the waves real quick.  As a swimmer, as long as you don't fight it, you could work with it.  But, if you work against it it could take your life.  So, once again, it all depends on how you look at it.  This is how I live my life now.  There's definitely a negative side, but believe it or not, there's a positive side as well.  You just have to search for it.

I used to be a negative person.  Always looking at the negative side of things.  Now I try to do the opposite.  And it is like a form of therapy.  You gotta stay positive.  Go with the flow.

OK, I'll get off of my soap box now and tell you a few things I thought of while I was on my back.

I was in Hawaii on a commercial photographic job.  I was walking back to the minivan with my two assistants.  Our arms were filled with equipment.  My first assistant said, open in a very deep voice, and the door slowly opened.  I thought, how cool is that?  A voice activated door.  Perfect.  We got in the van and in a deep voice he said "Close." And the door closed.  I was really excited about it for some reason.  The next day, when we were finished, we were once again walking back to the minivan.  I said to my assistant, "Let me do it.  Let me say open.  Let me open the door."  I stood there and said, "Open" in a deep voice.  Nothing happened.  I said Open again, nothing happened.  The first assistant said, "You sound like a 10 year old girl.  You gotta be a real man like me.  It's programed for a manly voice like me.  You gotta be manly like me. Try again."  So I said, "Open" in a voice Pavorotti would have been proud of.  And the door opened!  Once again, once we were inside, I deeply said, Close, and it closed.  Well, this went on for a couple of days, and then one day I said, Open in a deep voice and I looked over.  The guys, my assistants were crying they were laughing so hard.  The first assistant pulled out a clicker that he had in his pocket.  He'd been pressing open or close all week.  There was no voice activated door.  The bastards got me.  I was pissed.  The thing that really got me bummed out was there was no voice activated door, so if there's anyone out there with a connection to GMC, let's produce this idea, get it done, and then we can be the ones laughing at them.

While we're talking about assistant, I'm going to tell you another story.  I had one guy I worked with who was skinny, skinny like you can't believe, and yet, he ate like an elephant.  I had clients who would ask me if I was bringing him because they had to increase their food budget.  Well, anyway, we were at a job in a japanese restaurant, me and the crew and this assistant.  We had just gotten done shooting.  We had a good meal.  It was a good crew.  The client asked for the check and the waiter said, OK, but you still have one item to come out.  She, the client, looked confused.  Just then, I saw it. It was a humongous boat complete with masts, sails, and it took 2 people to roll it out.  It had sushi all over the deck.  I thought, that can't be for us, that's for 8 people.  The client said, oh no, that's not ours, and my assistant said, no, it's mine!  And he ate the whole thing.  I still say he has a tapeworm.

Another story happened in New Guinea.  I was on an editorial shoot.  We were on a boat along the coast.  Anyway, we were all drinking at the end of the day, and I did a few things I'm not proud of.  1. I drank way too much beer.  2. I threw the aluminum cans into the ocean, and 3. I decided it would be a good idea to show the model how to fire a 9 mm handgun.  These are all bad ideas when you're really drunk.  So, anyway, the girl with our guide decides to use the cans in the water as target practice.  Well, after a few rounds she actually hit a can.  She was so excited she started jumping up and down and saying I hit it, I hit it.  Well I sure was jumping up and down.  She was waving her hands back and forth, and in one of her hands was a 9 mm gun.  She almost shot my head off.  The gun was under my chin.  Well, I sobered up pretty quick and after checking my shorts we went home to the hotel.

Well, that's over now.  I have many more stories to tell.  I think it's good for me to tell them.  It's kind of like therapy for me.  I'll see you next week.  Love, B. Nice



1 comment:

  1. ROTFL! When I was a toddler my dad had me change red lights to green. I think you can guess the details.
    And I don't remember you being negative, but I appreciate how every moment is more precious now.
    I love reading your stories. Thank you!!!

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