We're looking into a classroom.
You know it's a classroom because your eyes tell you.
Think for a moment how many things you know...
just because your eyes tell you.
You know what the weather is like when you look outside.
You know that Tommy Walker wore his plaid shirt today.
You can read your lessons and learn things...
because you can see.
You know your teacher better because you can see her.
Watch, now. Use your eyes...
and you'll learn how you can take good care of your eyes.
About five years ago, I was running a lathe...
and had safety glasses on, and as I was running the lathe...
a piece of hot steel chipped off...
bounced off of my cheek, off the glass, and went into my eye.
So, um, in about a day or two, I couldn't really see.
My eye was really hurting bad. I couldn't even do paperwork in my office.
The fluorescent light in my office would hurt my eye.
I had to wear sunglasses while I was doing paperwork.
So eventually I went to the doctor.
When I got there, I told him, "My eye's killing me. I can't really see out of it."
So he put some liquid cocaine eyedrops in...
which immediately just - relief.
I could see everything/ I thought it was over with. I was ready to leave.
And the doctor said, "No, no, no," so he brought me into the office...
and when I went into the office, he took a swab...
put a chemical on it, and rubbed it into my eye.
After he did that, he turned out the lights and put on an ultraviolet light.
He looked in, and everything was glowing in my eye.
He said he could see a big ole' sliver of steel...
that was right on the edge of the blue part right next to the pupil...
and he said if it'd been over just a fraction more...
it would've put my eye out.
So I asked him what to do, and he said, "Put your head in this harness."
So I put my head in the harness like this...
and he pulled out a hypodermic needle.
I thought I was getting a shot in the eye, and he said, "No, don't worry."
He took the needle off the end of it, and he came at my eye...
and pulled out a piece of steel about an inch long out of my eye.
And that's about it.
Well, I sleep with my eyes open...
and they dry out, and then when I blink...
my eyelids tear pieces of my eye off.
Very painful.
And I've tried a number of things...
to try to keep this from happening.
I wrapped an ACE bandage around my eyes one night...
to try to keep them shut, but that didn't work...
and tried loading my eyes up with all kinds of goop...
to keep them wet during the night - that didn't work.
So what I've been doing is...
taping them shut at night...
which seems to work okay.
But it's pretty uncomfortable. It looks pretty funny too.
Well, what happened - I went to dinner with the wife...
and, um, I started getting a headache...
a real bad headache, and I never was sick before...
so I said, "Well, let's go to a hospital."
She said, "You just got a headache. Let's go home and get some aspirin."
I said, "No, let's go to the hospital."
So we went to Baptist Hospital...
and we got there, and my eye started closing.
My, uh - It just started -
One eye just started closing, on the right.
And it started hurting real bad, and I was talking to the nurse...
and the doctor was coming through the hall...
while I was explaining to her what was going on.
And he looked at me and grabbed me and took me upstairs...
and they took me right into X-ray, and they checked it out.
And what it was, it was an aneurysm behind my optic nerve...
and it was pressing against the nerve, and it started ballooning out...
and it started getting ready to bust.
And they took me right into surgery.
They cut my deal open...
and did microscopic surgery...
right behind the optic nerve.
They sealed off the blood vessel that was ballooning out.
And later the doctor told me if I would've waited...
like an hour more, I wouldn't be living today, you know.
And the wife told me to go home.
If I'd have went home, I wouldn't have made it to the hospital.
Well, it's really difficult to tell anybody this story...
because it was such a dumb thing to do, but...
I accidentally...
put Super Glue in my eye...
thinking I was putting eyedrops.
It was very late at night.
I guess things like this always happen late at night...
but my husband drags me off to the emergency room.
I'm screaming. I think I've been disfigured...
or blinded, at the least.
We're there for several hours, and I'm told that...
I can either have surgery to open the eye...
or I can just wait...
for the Super Glue to dissolve.
I understand it does not adhere to human tissue...
and I was told that that would probably be the best option.
So that's what I did. I waited...
three or four days, and finally it just loosened on its own.
And it all flaked out...
and I'm not blind.
I have funny eyelashes, but otherwise I'm okay.
It was about ten years ago. I was doing a brake job on my pickup truck...
and, uh, I was cleaning the backing plate.
I had it up on blocks. I had the wheels and everything torn apart...
and I was cleaning the backing plate with a wire brush...
on an air tool...
and there was one spot left, about the size of a quarter...
and the only way I could see it was to look around to the side.
And it was throwing dirt back on me, so I thought about getting safety glasses...
but then I thought, "Nah, it's only the size of a quarter.
I'll finish it right away." So I stuck the tool back in...
and sure enough, a little dirt in the eye.
So I went into my trailer...
and I went into the bathroom.
I looked in the mirror and opened my eye up like this...
and sure enough, bull's-eye - a piece of wire sticking straight in the eye.
And I tried to grab it with my finger...
and it was too short, so I went outside and got my pliers...
wiped the grease off, came in, grabbed hold of 'em...
and I started pulling, and the eye was stretching out.
And I thought, "I don't know what I should do...
but if I go see a doctor, they'll have to take it out."
So I grabbed it again with the pliers and pulled it out...
and when I did, it tore a hole in the eye...
and the front sac of the eye drained all the fluid out...
and I was blinded in one eye.
And the worst part was, I had to finish the brake job with one eye -
two and a half hours - so I could drive into town and see a doctor.
Well, this incident took place right after a karate event.
I had placed well in a tournament...
was leaving the exhibit hall, and was carrying a trophy.
I sensed something was wrong, though.
I did a 360-degree turnaround.
I really felt something was wrong. Maybe somebody was there.
But I was excited I had done well at the tournament...
so I proceeded on to the parking lot...
took a couple of steps, and someone or something hit me from behind.
I later found out to be the trophy, the karate trophy I was carrying...
with the foot figure and the hand figure...
it raked right across my eye...
and I fell to the ground...
and immediately put my hand upon my eye...
and felt a golf-ball-size object...
which I later found out to be my eye.
My instinct was to push up.
I pushed and held pressure and looked up...
and there was someone taunting me...
and I later found out it was to be someone...
who I'd fought earlier in the day at the karate event.
I went on a fishing trip with some kids.
We were on the bank of Camp Singing Waters River...
and while we were standing there, I was baiting my hook...
and somebody in front of me must have flipped back their pole.
And I can still see this image, and their arm's about to move forward...
and a tug on my eyelid, and the hook had come...
right through my eyelid and was pulling my eyelid out.
A lady grabbed the kid, knocked him to the ground...
and grabbed the string.
Somehow they cut the string, and I had to walk back to the camp.
After they took the worm off, all I had was a hook sticking in my eye...
and they were able to get it out.
Well, I was cleaning my mother's oven with a heavy-duty oven cleaner...
and the thought had crossed my mind to put some glasses on.
And right at that moment, I hit the back corner of the oven with the sponge...
and it sprayed right into my left eye.
And the pain was just excruciating...
and I immediately ran to the sink and started flushing my eye with water.
And once I regained some of my thoughts and composure...
I ran into the shower and shaved -
not "shaved," excuse me -
washed my eye out, oh, for about 20 minutes.
And then I realized that I had no money...
and no way to get to a hospital, because I'm in Washington, D.C...
and my mother was out with the car.
So at that point, I decided to make some phone calls...
and call my dad, and he's a doctor...
and he said that I did the right thing.
And at that point, Mom came home...
took me to the emergency room, where they signed me in...
and I had to wait about two hours until the doctor told me...
that I saved my own eye.
And that's pretty much what happened to my eye.
I think - I think it all began...
the summer that I turned 50.
I was leading a storytelling workshop in upstate New York, about 15 people in it.
I asked them before they began telling their stories...
to sit in a circle as a kind of centering exercise...
and just look into one another's eyes.
Just eyes.
"When you get tired of looking into one person's eyes...
move on to the next, and so on around the circle."
And I was participating in this exercise...
and I got locked into the eyes...
of this one particular woman and could not get out.
Azaria Thornbird.
She was tall, blond, blue eyes...
about 33 years old, dressed in white - the Immaculate Conception.
And I got locked into her eyes and mesmerized.
And as I was staring at her face, I saw that it was slowly decomposing...
and drooling down off of her skull like a horror movie.
- Like a bad LSD trip.
And all of a sudden, her face turned into this pulsing oval ball of white light.
I'd never seen anything like it except on the cover of a Carlos Castaneda book.
And it was dilating my pupils, this light. Then all of a sudden - boom!
It came together in a point, shot out the window...
like a white tornado, and her face recomposed...
and was smiling back at me.
- And immediately my rational, logical voice kicked in and said...
"That was just a case of backlighting, wasn't it?
Dilating my pupils like that - it was extreme backlighting.
Backlighting."
So I got back home...
where I was trying to work on and finish my novel...
Impossible Vacation.
And I was reading over and over a particularly painful section...
about my mother's suicide...
trying to get it right...
and I noticed that the print on the page was breaking down.
I assumed it couldn't be the print. I thought it must be eye fatigue.
So I remember playing around with my eyes.
I started by covering my left eye...
and everything on the right was in focus...
no matter where I put the manuscript.
Then I covered my right...
and everything was out of focus...
no matter where I held the manuscript.
And this was pretty frightening.
It was so frightening, I thought I'd better forget about it.
Finish the novel first, then worry about my eyes.
So it was about four months before I got up the courage to get an eye examination.
I didn't have an ophthalmologist, so I had one recommended to me...
a Dr. Schecter on the Upper East Side.
And I went up for the standard exam, not telling him anything about my eyes...
and he began with a little penlight, shining it into my right eye...
then over to my left, then to my right again.
Things were going smoothly. Over to my left.
Then just as he's pulling to my right, he goes left, left.
He brings down all these other instruments. Left, left, left.
It's like a scene from General Hospital, only the dramatic music is missing.
He pulls all the instruments away, and he says...
"I think you have something wrong with the retina of your left eye...
but I can't tell you what it is because I'm not a retina specialist.
But I can recommend one to you, and I think...
you should go to him this afternoon. "
So he recommends a Dr. Mendel on the Upper West Side.
I don't even bother to take a cab. I charge from the Upper East to the Upper West...
running through Central Park with my hand over my right eye...
noticing, "Oh, my God! This is really serious.
The trees are all wavy. There's no right angles.
The Rollerbladers are fuzz balls."
I get to Dr. Mendel's office. The first thing that happens...
is the nurse comes out, and she puts drops in my eyes.
I don't know what they're for. I'm just doing what I do in any doctor's waiting room.
I'm catching up on my reading, you know? People, Time, and Newsweek.
What else do you do in a doctor's waiting room?
You don't look at the art!
So pretty soon I realize my pupils are dilating.
She's put drops in my eyes to dilate my pupils, and I can't read anymore.
I have to put down the books. I'm going blind in the waiting room.
I'm reduced to waiting.
I'm waiting in the waiting room!
At last the nurse comes in and leads me in to Dr. Mendel.
Introduces me. He's a bit of a fuzz ball to me...
but what I do notice is, he's got this rather large syringe in his hand.
He tells me he's got to shoot me up with some colored dye.
I think, "Why not? He's the doctor."
I mean, he's one of these guys you gotta ask, "Why? What for?
What's going on?" with everything. So he tells me what he has to do...
is put colored dye in me to highlight the veins and capillaries in my eye...
and take color photos of my eye. Fine.
So the nurse puts my chin up on this brace, and I'm looking into two holes.
Happens to be the camera. Happens to be a ?ash camera.
Whoa! I'm pulling back. The nurse is not holding my hand.
She's pushing my head forward. It's like a torture.
It's like a Clockwork Orange situation. All I can see is spots.
I pull away. I see Dr. Mendel racing across his floor...
gown blowing in the nonexistent breeze.
He's going off, scribbling madly in shorthand on a pad...
to develop the photographs, and I'm sitting there...
waiting.
Dilated and waiting.
Now the nurse is holding my hand, telling me about...
some package deal she has to the Bahamas.
At last, Dr. Mendel breezes back into the room, scribbling on his pad.
He goes past me to the telephone. Instead of speaking to me...
he calls my ophthalmologist, Dr. Schecter.
Dr. Schecter isn't in, so Dr. Mendel leaves a message.
"Hello? Dr. Schecter?
Dr. Mendel here. First of all, I want to thank you...
for sending over your patient, Gary Spalding.
Close inspection of the left macula shows that there is a distortion...
of the interior limiting membrane...
secondary to the posterior hyaloid-face contraction.
But the posterior hyaloid, which is attached to the optic nerve macula...
and major vessels of the retina, have remained attached and intact."
"Uh, Dr. Mandel. Over here, please. It's me, the patient."
He turns his back to me and goes on dictating.
"With dissolution of the central vitreous gel...
the envelope that the vitreous gel is in begins to shrink...
and distort the surface of the retina.
A fluorescein angiogram was done to determine the amount of vascular distortion.
I was surprised to see...
that he has some minimal cystoid macula edema on that left eye...
on the basis of that capillary incompetence from that distortion.
Thank you very much."
"Uh, Dr.-Dr. Mendel, please.
What is wrong with my left eye? Tell me."
"Basically, Gary...
you have a macula pucker."
"A wh-wh-what - A ma-ma-mac-
A macula pucker? Wh-What is that, Dr. Mendel?"
"Basically what's happened is that your vitreal gel...
has broken down and decomposed in your left eye...
and pulled away from the macula...
which is the center of the retina and responsible for all detail in vision.
Now, the breakdown of the vitreal gel is not that uncommon.
We find in most autopsies that the cadaver no longer has a vitreal gel.
In your case you were less fortunate...
because in pulling away from the macula, it left a little piece of tissue...
and it's caused your macula to pucker up.
Think of your retina as a piece of Saran Wrap bunching.
You have a pucker, Gary. A pucker."
"But what would cause that? I can't possibly -
I don't have it happen in my right eye.
I mean, wh-what would cause a thing like that?"
"I don't know. Did you have any trauma to that left eye?"
"Um, I can't think of any.
I mean, the last thing I remember happening to my left eye was so long ago.
It was 1976, I remember. It was New Year's Eve.
I was dancing with this woman.
She didn't have a good sense of her own personal space, if you know what I mean...
and her pinkie shot into my left eye, and she scratched my cornea.
It was tearing. It was painful. They put a patch over it."
He just turns to me and says...
"You have a good memory, don't you, Gary?"
"But is there anything that could be -
you know, be done for the left eye? Any corrective measures?"
"Yes, I think so.
I recommend a little macular scraping."
As soon as I heard that word "scraping"...
I knew I wanted a second, third, and fourth opinion.
He tells me, don't bother. He's the best macular scraper in town.
Up until then, I really didn't like this man. Now I hated him.
I had no problem walking right out of that office without any guilt.
I go back and tell Renée what he said.
She's very upset, but she's also excited...
because it means she can do research.
It's gonna give her some focus. She's very good at research.
She wants to find the best macular scraper in town.
I'm no good at research. What am I good at? I don't know.
Sitting at my desk and speculating. Speculating on causes.
Sitting down with my notebook. "What could have caused this thing?"
Because under no circumstances do I want it to happen to my right eye.
So I'm sitting there thinking, "It's my book.
That's it. Impossible Vacation.
Reading over and over that painful section about my mother's suicide.
I mean, without probably mourning her or grieving her loss...
it probably made me cry in one major way.
My eye just exploded. One big tear."
Then I thought, "No, it's because I wrote it in the first person - the book.
It was simply too much 'I, I, I, I, I.'"
Then I thought, "No, it's my left brain rebelling against my right."
Or vice versa, because I am dyslexic.
Now, whenever I'd ask any of my New Age friends...
what they thought was going on, they would say...
"Well, what is it you don't want to see?"
And I had lists.
Then I thought it was my Oedipus complex...
because the book Impossible Vacation was somewhat about that.
Not that I was consciously aware of ever wanting to sleep with my mother...
but at the time I was writing the book, I was reading Freud's essay on negation.
And in that essay, Freud says the denial of some state of affairs...
is the implicit acknowledgement of it.
So that if a guy says he never wanted to sleep with his mother...
the chances are he gave it some solid consideration.
So I'm thinking now the unconscious part that gave it the solid consideration...
is now reaching up and scratching out my eyes one at a time...
beginning with my left and feminine eye.
So that's what I'm doing with my time!
Meanwhile, while I was speculating on causes...
Renée was out looking for - and finding - one of the best macular men around.
A Chinese doctor. I liked him immediately.
He had a really good bedside manner.
You know, a smile like Buddha.
Most of these eye doctors are like automatons.
Also, I liked his language.
Instead of "macular scraping"...
he referred to what had to be done to my eye as "macular peeling." Right?
Also, he says, "Mr. Gray...
please stop worrying about causes...
because this condition is idiopathic...
meaning 'no known cause.'"
Idiopathic.
He wants me to know all about the operation. It's a relatively new operation.
It costs $10,000.
It's not guaranteed to correct my vision, but it could help.
What he has to do is take a very sharp knife...
and cut my left eye in two places, two incisions.
Into the first he sticks a little miniature vacuum cleaner...
a little pump, to suck out what's left of the vitreal gel.
Then, in he sticks a teeny little peeler.
Microscopic. It's microsurgery.
And he peels the retina.
Now, he wants me to know what risks are involved in the operation...
so I can make an educated choice and he won't be responsible.
The first risk is slight chance of infection...
which would mean prosthesis.
Also, he could slip and tear the retina while peeling...
which would mean instant blindness in the left eye.
Also, there's a 35 percent chance of cataract...
due to the trauma from the operation...
and there's a one percent chance that the whole condition...
will simply clear up on its own...
which I'm banking on.
"But, Mr. Gray," he says, "no rush.
We don't have to operate right away. I have to check on it every so often.
See how it's progressing. We can take our time."
"You can? Well, that's great. You mean -
'Cause I'm not gonna sit around and wait.
I could try alternatives, right, while I'm waiting?
Like diet, acupuncture, prayer, all three?
I could do that, couldn't I?"
"Oh, yes," he says, with his great Buddha smile.
"Try all the alternatives you want.
Then we'll have to operate."
So I got back home and told Renée what the doctor said...
and she said, "Spald...
do you know what 'prosthesis' means?"
And I said, "Um, I think so.
I mean, I thought I knew when I walked in here, but now I'm a little fuzzy.
Wait a minute. It hasn't got anything to do with the prostate gland, does it?
No, wait. Doesn't it mean 'false arm' or 'false leg?'"
And Renée says, "Try 'eye.' Try 'glass eye.'"
Oh, God. I didn't want to go into a hospital if I could help it.
I didn't want to go in. A friend of mine around the time this was going on...
went in for a simple gall bladder operation, into a New York hospital.
The nurse gave him a shot in the wrong quadrant of his buttock...
and hit his sciatic nerve and paralyzed his right leg.
Now he's suing the hospital for a million dollars.
I didn't want to go in!
I had a girlfriend that was dating her ob-gyn...
and she'd go on these dates to the hospital, because he had a cubicle with a bed.
He was always waiting to be called to deliver babies.
And also, she'd go there because he had access...
to liquid cocaine...
and they would wipe this liquid cocaine on their genitals and then light a doobie...
and go to town.
And in the middle of this date, the doctor's beeper would go off...
and he'd jump up stoned with an erection and go off and deliver a baby.
I didn't want to go in! I didn't want to!
I didn't want to go into a hospital if I could help it, please!
Also, what did I know about hospitals or doctors?
- I grew up as a Christian Scientist. I had no experience with hospitals or doctors.
Growing up as a Christian Scientist in Barrington, Rhode Island, was lonely.
There were about six of us:
my three brothers, a couple of brothers down the street.
There was no church in Barrington. We had to go to church in Providence.
Basically, my friends treated me like anyone else...
except in the summertime they'd get bored...
and kind of back me up against an elm tree...
and start their own little Protestant Inquisition by saying...
"You're a Christian Scientist, right?" "That's right."
"That means you don't believe in doctors?" "Uh, that's right."
- "Uh, say lightning hit this tree now...
And a branch cracked, came down, hit your head, and your brains were drooling all over the grass.
Would you go to a doctor then?" "No."
"Uh, say you're walking across the street, and a cement mixer...
- squished and pulverized the whole lower part of your body into the pavement.
Would you go to a doctor then?" "No."
"Uh...
say the North Koreans invaded Barrington, Rhode Island...
- and they took a cage of starving rats and put them up to your ass...
and the rats started eating up through into your body.
Would you go to a doctor then?" "No!'"
So I began to feel my friends had a death wish for me.
I mean, it kind of put me on the outside of the community.
I did have some healings, though. I remember-
I'm trying to think of one I can tell you - share with you.
Oh, I know. When I was in seventh grade...
one morning I woke up with this little, like, piece of flesh...
growing off the end of my nose, like a little flesh stalactite...
and it kept growing, and my friends kept looking at me and saying...
"Ya got some snot on your nose."
And I'd say, "It's not snot.
It's not."
So I wanted to have it burned off, cauterized.
I wanted to go to a doctor. Have a quickie. Bypass prayer.
So I went to my mother and asked her if she would take me, and she said...
"Spuddy, dear, no. Please.
Let's let the Christian Science practitioner pray for it first."
So I had to do it. What can I say? She had the car.
So we all began praying. I was praying for the little thing to drop off.
She was praying it would drop off.
The Christian Science practitioner was praying for it to drop off.
But it didn't drop off.
At the end of the week, I said, "Can I go to the doctor now, Mom?"
And she said, "Give it one more day. Please, dear, one more day."
Well, I had to give it one more day, because on that particular day -
it was a Monday - I was being tutored in seventh-grade math.
I was failing seventh-grade math.
I remember my tutor was this nice older woman...
and she kept looking at my nose.
And she finally said, "Looks like you could use a hankie."
So I tried to humor her. I took her lace handkerchief...
wiped my nose, and...
off it came!
So...
keeping this healing in mind, I decided for my first alternative...
I would try calling a Christian Science practitioner.
I'd never called one before. My mom always had.
So I remember I was touring in London.
I was in London, and I got the name of a practitioner in San Francisco.
Now, I thought, "The power of prayer can go around the world, they say.
Maybe it'll go halfway." So I call up.
Now, when you call a Christian Science practitioner, you're not supposed to mention...
any disease names.
It gives it power. Don't name the condition.
Just refer to it as an "error."
So needless to say, there's a lot of innuendo...
that goes around that word "error."
Is it a b-i-i-i-g error, as in cancer?
A little error? Cold. Medium error? Flu.
But I jumped right in and started describing the condition.
"Hello? This is Spalding Gray calling from London...
and I have an eye condition.
My left eye is totally blurry. They're calling it -"
"I think we've heard just about enough, Mr. Gray.
Now, first of all, I would like you to go to a Christian Science reading room...
and look up Mary Baker Eddy's book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.
Look up "The Perfection of Eyes," page 624 and 625.
I will also send you some information.
Now, I want to ask you:
Are you faithful?"
"Oh- uh- you mean, am I filled with faith?"
"No. Are you seeing anyone else?
Any doctors?"
"Oh, I see what you mean.
Well, uh, there's this Chinese guy, but it's nothing serious.
I mean, once a month I check in with him -"
"I'm afraid we can't work that way. We can't be duplicitous in our faith.
You have to choose me or the doctor. So you think it over.
You can get back to me anytime. I'll be here.
God bless."
And he hangs up...
and I realized at that moment...
why it was I had left Christian Science.
So I went to my therapist to talk to him about my eye condition.
My therapist was a graduate of Auschwitz...
so he was an existential realist.
And I told him the story, and he listened and then said...
"Spalding - Spalding, please, please.
All things are contingent...
and there is also chaos.
In other words...
shit happens.
Please, give up this magical-thinking business, huh?
Airy-fairy, Disneyland, Tinker Bell...
Angels in America nonsense, please.
Do the right thing.
Get the operation."
So he was no help.
So I walk out of my therapist's office doing my New York walking blues.
I've got a ratty old overcoat...
and I haven't shaved in four days, and I'm hunched over.
I don't care where I'm walking. I'm just walking...
and I'm thinking, "How?
How could I allow someone to cut into my eye with a knife?
Cut into the window to my soul?"
And why - why this affliction?
Of all the things - losing the detail in my vision.
I mean, I totally depend on seeing the detail in order to tell stories.
I'm not making any of this up. I mean, don't you think I'd rather sit at home...
and be able to make things up?
It'd be so much less wear and tear on my body.
But I'm thinking, "I need my right eye."
What would happen if I went blind in my right eye?
I mean, what would I become? A blind poet in New York City?
I hate poetry," I'm thinking as I'm walking.
And I find I'm walking now in the Bowery...
which is fine, because I feel like...
I belong there at this point, and a bunch of prostitutes are on the street.
You know, the kind that just trick out of cars?
And they're paying no attention to me. I'm walking on by.
In fact, they're rushing over to an old black Pontiac...
I see pulling up to the curb there out of the corner of my good eye.
They're rushing over like-like -
like a bunch of prostitutes, really.
And they get over to the car, and one of them turns and yells...
"Hey, yo, boy! Over here!
They want you!"
And I turned...
because I'm curious...
and I love to be wanted.
And I walk over, and the prostitutes part like the Red Sea...
and I walk up to this old black Pontiac...
and it's got three Hasidic Jews in it -
two in the front, one in the back.
And they say, "Get in."
And I do...
because I'm curious...
and I love to be wanted.
So I get in the back with the youngest, and they drive off down the Bowery.
The prostitutes are yelling, "Bye! Have a good trick!"
So I don't know - Where are they taking me, I ask.
They tell me they're taking me over to Williamsburg.
I think, "Well, why not? I've never been to Williamsburg.
Why not take a tour? Williamsburg.
Go with the chosen people."
So by now, anyway, I'm telling them my name is Peter.
I say I'm a drifter from Schenectady.
I'm kind of just making myself up. Tired of the old Spalding Gray, you know?
"Peter with perfect eyes" kind of concept.
And they're saying, do I want anything to eat?
They want to buy pizza and beer for me. I say, "No, no, thank you.
I've just eaten, and I don't drink before 5:00."
So over the bridge we go. Pull up in front of a synagogue.
I go with the ?ow. I follow the three of them in.
We go into this old synagogue.
Other Hasidic Jews are in there...
mending the bindings of old books and looking up...
and winking at me like little Santa Clauses.
I follow the driver of the car into the kitchen.
He gets out a couple of plastic garbage bags...
a rake, a shovel, a broom...
opens the back door, referring me out to the backyard...
says, "Please.
Go. Clean."
So, hey, I knew I could just say I was Spalding Gray...
and drop everything and walk away, but I didn't.
I continued to be Peter.
And I walked down into that backyard...
and I took the rake, and I began to rake.
I'm raking up all these broken plastic knives and forks and paper plates...
and things left over from parties and wet leaves.
I'm doing a good job. In fact, I feel this energy. Mm!
This raking energy I haven't felt since I was a kid in my father's yard.
I'm doing such a good job, I could feel these muscles in here getting strong again.
I'm doing such a good job, a woman that lives behind the synagogue...
throws up her window and says, "Yo, boy! Hey!
You work good. You come here next? How much you charge?"
I said, "No, no, no. I'm all booked up. Sorry."
About an hour's time I got all the leaves in the bag, tied up.
The driver of the car walks out on the porch...
looks over, peruses the backyard, says...
"Very good. You work very good.
You are the hardest-working Bowery bum...
we've ever picked up.
Usually they come here, they work for drinks.
You don't seem to drink...
so I suppose we must pay you something."
"Yes. I suppose so."
"Mm, eight dollars."
"No, no. Ten. Even up in Schenectady, it's ten dollars an hour.
I've been out here an hour."
"Mm, eight plus carfare."
"Uh, no. Ten, and I'll walk."
Here it is - a Scot and a Jew haggling it out...
in the backyard of a synagogue.
I get the ten dollars, and I walk.
Triumphantly across the Brooklyn Bridge I'm walking, thinking...
"Hey, look at that.
There is something I can do if I go blind in my right eye."
So shortly after this, there was a reunion call...
for the storytelling workshop that I did in upstate...
and it was to be held in New York City.
I wasn't sure if I was going to go...
and then I thought, I'd better go...
because maybe Azaria Thornbird would show up...
and I really wanted to see Azaria again.
I- I want to try to describe her.
It's hard to get words around this woman.
All right. She lives outside Minneapolis. She's a single mother.
Has two sons she raised. I think she did a very good job.
I've met them. They're nine and 11 years old.
And the only kind of odd thing for Azaria is that...
she happened to be a sorcerer's apprentice.
She trained with this sorcerer, Everet K. Whiteowl...
who's part Welsh and part Native American Indian...
and he trains out in the desert outside Los Angeles...
in what I refer to as "Manson country."
And she was going out to do these very esoteric trainings...
in astral projection, lucid dream state...
the Breath of Fire, which she's teaching to women in the Minneapolis area now...
and then - oh, the American Indian tantric sexual initiations.
The Quidoshka trainings, right?
Which she was about to be initiated to and he was doing with women out there...
but she couldn't get out to do it because she was running out of airfare.
She couldn't afford to fly out anymore.
So what she told me she did - Now, I believed this when she told it to me.
I was very convinced. She said she would go to sleep at night...
in her bed in Minneapolis...
and out of her corporeal body would rise this astral body.
She'd go into a lucid dream state and astral-project...
and up would come this astral body, and it would go and mingle and mix...
around various Indian grandmothers in the living room...
and then go upstairs and meet Everet K. Whiteowl's astral body...
and they would have their Quidoshka workshop...
and - zoop! - save money on airfare.
And - thoop! - soon as they finished...
Everet K.'s astral body would go "whoop!" back to the desert...
faster than American Airlines...
and Azaria's would go "whoop!" back into her corporeal body...
and she'd wake up in one body.
So I say, "Azaria...
you mean to say you have two bodies -
one that can stand up and look back at the other -
and you've never tried to make love to yourself?"
I mean, that's the first thing that would occur to me...
before I'd go mixing with Indian grandmothers.
Please myself. She says it never occurred to her. Never.
And then she says she tried it and it worked.
So she was very open.
Now, what she did show me, actually...
that I did see happen was this Breath of Fire.
Now, this is an extraordinary thing. I mean, where I come from...
women 200 years ago would've been burned at the stake for doing this.
She lay on the floor, and without touching herself once...
she had about eight classic Reichian orgasms.
She came from her toes to her nose. It was like...
I'm just sitting there going, "Teach me, teach me, teach me!
Do you know how many lonely hotels and motels I stay in across America?
If I could come like that without touching myself...
I'd be a happy man - or at least content."
So she tells me I have to lie on the floor, right?
And I have to suck the energy in the room -
"energy," whatever that is - into the base of my spine.
Through what hole, I don't know.
So I'm doing a lot of visualization.
I see energy as these pink balls of cotton candy...
kind of floating around aimlessly...
and as far as the hole in my spine, I see my coccyx...
as hollow, with a little cork in it.
I take out the cork, and I begin to suck.
I mean, really, the closest I could get...
was a sense of reverse farting.
All I'm trying to say is she's an interesting woman.
And she did show up at the workshop. I couldn't look her in the face, though.
And I couldn't stop talking about my eye operation...
how I was gonna get it or not get it...
and I kept deflecting, and she said, "Spalding...
do not go to a hospital for an operation.
Listen to me. Come out to Minneapolis...
and we'll have a Native American sweat lodge for you.
And the power of our prayer - it's larger than one-on-one.
It's a group. You must come." "All right. I'll try to."
"No. Look me in the face and tell me you'll come."
"Well, I'll give it a try." "No. Look me in the eyes now."
I look her in the face, and her entire face...
begins to drool and peel down off of her skull...
and I say, "Stop it! Whatever you're doing with your face, don't do it!
It makes me nauseous. Please stop it. I'll come, all right?
I will come out to Minneapolis.
I'll do it. I'll come."
I think I would try an Indian sweat ceremony.
I don't think it could be much stranger than my trip to the hypnotherapist.
And maybe it'd be more successful. Who knows?
I don't think so.
An Indian sweat ceremony? Never heard of it.
That's a pretty mystic idea.
An Indian sweat ceremony?
It sounds interesting, but I don't think so.
I wouldn't like to participate in an Indian sweat lodge...
because it's a dark place full of smoke...
and it's too damn hot for me.
Uh, an Indian sweat ceremony could be interesting...
especially if you're gonna be around...
female Indians sweating.
Minneapolis in winter. Perfect time to sweat.
I'm glad I went out. It was really interesting.
She had about 15 followers, all practicing these Native American rituals.
She started out by doing the peace-pipe ritual in a barn.
It was very cold. Very cold.
She's calling the spirits from the four directions.
Then she takes us outside. The sweat lodge is all built.
If you've never seen one - traditional Indian sweat lodge -
it's a low dome made by saplings...
that are all interwoven...
and over it, the Indians would put animal skins, buffalo skins.
In this case, they had blue plastic and canvas tarpaulin.
And, oh, the fire. The fire keeper had the fire going since 6:00 in the morning...
so the rocks were very hot to make the steam.
We go out, we're standing there knee-deep in snow...
and Azaria says, "All right, take off your clothes...
and throw them in the snow," and we do it.
We do whatever she says. Now we're standing naked...
knee-deep, naked in the snow, like these freezing refugees...
and we have to line up to go in the sweat lodge.
Well, I'm in fourth place...
as quick as I can get over there in the line, and I'm looking around...
and I notice, all these people around me -
there are no Native Americans there.
Basically, they look Swedish.
So we're told that before we're to go into the sweat lodge...
we have to cry out to the sky the phrase "All my ancestors."
So we're ready. First person - "All my ancestors."
"All my ancestors." They're in.
Comes my turn. I go, "All my ancestors"...
and I start in the sweat lodge, and I stop and I think, "Wait a minute.
'All my ancestors'? Now, who were they?"
Because my father had just finished the family tree...
and I remembered going over it, and I remembered some of the names:
John Proctor...
the Right Reverend Curtis Fox Gray and his wife, Thankful Atherton Gray...
Colonel Simeon Spalding, Captain Edward Spalding...
Brigadier General John Crane...
the only man wounded at the Boston Tea Party.
And I think, all my ancestors? Who were they? Pilgrims.
What did they do shortly after they came to America?
Kill the Indians.
Where was I going? An Indian sweat lodge.
Good luck.
Ooh, and I go into the tent. It's not warm in there.
It's not even hot in any way.
It's musty, cold, dank, dark.
There's about 15 of us, men and women, naked, sitting in a circle on top of hay...
which is on top of the snow.
And Azaria starts telling us what's going to happen.
She says there'll be four rounds of prayers.
The first round will be to set intention.
Prayer for intention or attitude - what we want to maintain...
throughout the whole ceremony, which could be anywhere from...
two and a half, three hours, you know - you just never know.
And then the second round of prayers will be...
the prayers for friends and loved ones.
Then the third round - which is very important -
the third round is that we give away or renounce...
anything we're attached that we no longer want to be attached to -
you know, like, say, an eye condition.
Now - "But this is very important," she says.
"On the third round, do not in any way, please,
take on the other person's giveaway.
Don't identify with whatever the pathology is that's being passed around.
Just let it go right out through the tent, please, or you could be very sick."
And the fourth round is not exactly a round of prayers...
but what happens is, hot rocks are brought in...
and then she pours cold water over them, and we just sit and listen to them steam.
And if we listen very carefully, you see, these rocks may give...
valuable information, all right?
Now, before we begin, what we have to say is, the procedure is this:
We have to say, "O Great Spirit, my name is -"
Then you state your name, you do your prayer, and then you say...
"I have spoken" to indicate that the next person can go...
and I do hope it goes smoothly 'cause there are quite a few of us.
And in the fire keeper brings the first hot rocks...
and pours them in the pit, and Azaria pours the cold water...
and - Whoa! Whoo!
Steam starts coming up, and it's hot, let me tell you.
Across my chest I can feel it. I think, "It could get very warm in here."
And the first rounds of prayers start out slowly...
rounds of first intention.
"O Great Spirit, my name is Shelly...
and I pray that I can maintain a sincere and open attitude...
during this sacred ceremony. I have spoken."
"O Great Spirit, my name is Seth...
and I pray that I can maintain...
a humble attitude during this sacred ceremony.
I have spoken."
"O Great Spirit, this is Spalding speaking...
and I pray I can maintain a sincere and open attitude...
during this sacred ceremony and not pollute it...
with my heady analysis and ironic commentary...
and end up turning this sacred event into just another story...
I will try to sell to the American public.
I have spoken."
And everyone in the tent goes, "Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho"...
which I take to be a kind of cheerleading attitude to say...
"Hey, let's see if you can pull that one off."
More hot rocks are brought in. We're going into round two.
We're praying for friends and loved ones. Oh, man, it's steaming up!
I can't even see across the other side of the tent.
People are groaning, down on their sides. I'm getting down on my side...
trying to breathe some fresh air in under where the tent hits the ground.
And we're praying for friends and loved ones. I pray for Renée.
I pray that at last she'll get a Hollywood film script to write...
that she really likes, that will be funny...
that will pay her well and get made.
And I pray for friends with AIDS.
"Ploo!" Oh, boy! More hot rocks are brought in.
We're going into round three. We're gonna do the giveaway...
and I'm down on my side now, panting.
All I can think of is my health club in New York City.
I see in my mind's eye the sign for the steam room:
"Do not exceed ten minutes under any circumstances."
And I think, "Whoo! Who is this Azaria Thornbird?
So her head turned into a ball of white light.
Does that mean she's not trying to kill me?"
And people are down on the ground, praying.
"O Great Spirit, my name is Shelly. I want to give away my pride. I have spoken."
"O Great Spirit, my name is Seth...
and I want to give away my macho attitude. I have spoken."
"O Great Spirit, this is Tyrus. I want to give away my craving for caffeine. I have spoken."
"O Great Spirit, my name is Ingrid.
I want to give away my gluttony. I have spoken."
"O Great Spirit, this is Spalding speaking...
and I want to give away the fear that I'm about to have a heart attack at any minute!"
And just as I say that, a guy next to me about my age with a beard...
grabs his chest and goes, is popping!
My heart is popping! My heart is popping!"
And he runs out of the sweat tent. And I'm fine.
He just took all my fear and ran right out the door with it.
Azaria says, "Someone has broken the sacred circle here. Do you hear me?
No one is to leave this sweat lodge in the middle of the ceremony.
Now we are about to sit here and listen to the hot rocks steam...
and possibly talk.
If you feel you have to go, go now, but as soon as that tent flap is closed...
no one leaves."
Now, I am both very claustrophobic and find it difficult to take orders...
but I am determined to get through this sweat ceremony.
I just hope that the hot rocks don't talk too long.
The fire keeper brings the hot rocks in, puts them in the pit.
Azaria pours the cold water over.
Just as she does this, one of her members of her lodge jumps up...
a guy with a ponytail down to his ass, rushes for the door.
Azaria hurls her naked body in front of him and yells...
"Get back, Lame Deer! Get back!"
He falls back on the hay, going, "Shit! Fuck! Fuck! Shit!"
Everyone else is going, "Ho, ho, ho...
ho, ho, ho?
They're "ho-ing" him. They're "ho-ing" him down.
"Ho, ho."
And at last, we sit there in silence...
and listen to the hot rocks steam.
And I didn't understand a word.
And I stepped out of that sweat lodge, and I felt triumphant.
I'd made it through. I don't know how long I'd been in there.
Two and a half, three hours? The sun was going down...
like a - like a big... sun, like a big red sun...
casting rivers of red across a crusty white snow.
I could've rolled in that snow in my new naked body.
I'm standing there, I'm feeling this internal heat pouring out...
and Azaria comes over and says, "Spalding, what is wrong with you?"
"Nothing. What are you talking about? I feel great."
"No. When the time came for you to talk about your eye condition...
you began babbling about a heart attack!"
"Oh. Oh - Oh.
Oh, God."
And I realized I was still the child...
who had to act on his most immediate fears.
So I get back to New York City.
I'm pretty depressed.
More than usual.
I'm sitting at the kitchen table, talking to Renée...
about the sweat lodge...
and listening to my health-food show...
Barry Spires, every day at noon.
In case you don't know...
Barry Spires is one of the most radical nutritionists in the universe.
He sleeps two hours a day...
and lives on air, when he can find it.
Usually I listen to him - I go up and buy health food...
up at the local health food store and listen...
but I never can eat, because according to Barry...
everything gives you cancer, and everything else cures you of it.
So I'm listening, and Renée gets this lightbulb idea after the show.
"Why don't you call Barry up? I'll bet he knows what to do about your eye."
So I give it a try, and he's wide-open. He knows all about a macula pucker...
and he says, "Have you ever heard of...
Dr. Ron A. Axe in Nutley, New Jersey?"
"No, I can't say that I have."
"Well, he is the top nutritional ophthalmologist in America.
You should give him a call."
So I call Dr. Ron A. Axe's number...
and I get this wizened old voice.
I mean, I have nothing against old people, but I don't know...
if a doctor should have a receptionist quite this old.
It's like Tiresias. It's androgynous.
You don't know if it's a man or a woman. It's...
"Hello? What?
You want to see who?
Dr. Axe is very busy.
You'll just have to take your chances and c-come on out.
And come early, because you're gonna have to fill out...
an extensive dietary questionnaire.
Now, if you're coming by bus"... "I am."
"you take the Port Authority to the Nutley Mall...
get off, turn left on Fay Street, and come on down.
You can't miss us."
Hangs up. Nothing. No appointment, no address.
But I think, "Hmm.
Sounds like an important journey...
and I should do what the old voice said."
So I take the bus out from Port Authority to the Nutley Mall.
Get off. I turn left on Fay Street.
I don't notice anything. I mean, it's New Jersey. It's a wasteland.
Tract houses, no landscaping, high-tension wires.
Then I round the corner, and - boom! - there it is.
Whoo! it's like Froot Loops. It's like Hansel and Gretel's house on acid.
It's like a Howard Finster dream.
All the shingles are the color of the rainbow.
Day-Glo outlines around the windows of the house.
The rocks the foundation is built from are all the primary colors.
A bunch of fir trees over there with a big sign that says...
"Dr. Ron A. Axe...
O.D., F.F.A.O...
F.C.O.U.D., F.I.C.A., F.A.S.S."
And out of the fir trees jumps this spindly little man with bottle-thick glasses.
I hope it's not Dr. Ron A. Axe. No, it's his brother, Don B. Axe.
Brother and assistant. He jumps out as though he's been hiding in there...
waiting for me all day.
Hops out and says, "Hello, Mr. Gray. You are Mr. Gray, aren't you?
Follow me. We're going to the sun porch to fill out the dietary questionnaire."
I follow him around, come into the sunporch. I am overwhelmed.
Quadraphonic opera is playing. Madame Butterfly, full blast.
On the wall are all these ski medals.
To my right, a six-foot-high cutout of Hoagy Carmichael.
Over to the left, these little miniature dinosaurs...
playing in a miniature prehistoric landscape.
On the ceiling, floating, four-foot-wide map of the moon...
famed in a pink Hula hoop.
To the left, the toothless head of a Bengal tiger roaring at me.
And spewing down the wall like a yellow papering waterfall...
is this 1964 original teletype printout...
of Lyndon Johnson's acceptance speech for the Democratic National Convention.
And I'm looking around, and Don says...
"All this stuff makes you want to see, doesn't it, Mr. Gray?
Really activates the eyes. Makes you want to look."
"Yeah."
So he gets out the dietary questionnaire.
It's 754 questions...
concerning all the foods I may have eaten in the past six months.
And he's got all the categories here -
soups, meat, poultry, eggs, fish...
seafood, dairy products, vegetables, desserts, sweets, beverages...
grains, breads, cereals, nuts, seeds, legumes, fruits...
spices, herbs, flavoring, condiments, miscellaneous items.
And he begins with "burrito."
"All right, how many burritos have you had in the past six months?"
"Um-" Now, I've got a photographic memory...
and I can remember the Mexican restaurants, but I can't remember what was on the plate.
Was it a burrito? Was it a taco? "All right, please.
How many? Quickly, quickly."
"Um... 18."
"All right. Eighteen burritos. Were they whole wheat or flour?"
"Whole wheat? I don't travel in those circles."
"All right. Eighteen flour. On to borscht, please. Borscht."
"Borscht? I don't eat it or drink it or whatever you do to it.
Just forget it. Wait a minute. Don't forget it.
You've got me so confused. I don't have an average six months in my life.
Five months ago, I was in Russia. I don't ever expect to be there again...
but I was eating borscht every day."
"How many days were you there?" "I think it was a 14-day trip."
"We'll put 16 in case you had some for breakfast.
On to hot dogs, hot dogs?" "No hot dogs. Skip it.
No. No, wait a minute. No, no. Two months ago...
I think it was, I was in Columbus, Ohio...
and just across from my bed-and-breakfast there was this place called Coney Island.
I'd go in every day, and I'd order two -
No, wait a minute. Those were wieners. We'll wait till we get to W."
And into the middle of this comes the old voice.
It's his 87-year-old mother with these bottle-thick glasses...
and a big babushka, saying...
"Time to bring Mr. Gray in to see Dr. Axe."
"Stop it, Mother. Please. We have not finished the dietary questionnaire."
"Bring him into the antechamber, then. Finish it there.
Bring him in to the antechamber."
"Antechamber"?
So into the antechamber we go.
Quadraphonic opera's playing full blast in there.
On the wall, the box from the Metropolitan Opera.
The general manager, Don, used to sing for the Met...
and after they tore it down, somehow he salvaged the box...
and it's up there, and it's got cutouts of Toscanini and Caruso...
black and white, six foot high, staring down.
Miniature Valkyries underneath. Crossed sabers underneath.
On the ceiling - map of the universe.
Christmas balls hanging down and strings at different levels.
And Don is saying to me, "Rabbit. How many rabbits do you eat?
Do you eat it with the skin on? Skin off? Dark meat? Light meat?"
I said, "No, no. No rabbits. Renée won't let them in the house."
Meanwhile, the mother is saying, "Bring him in now. Skip it.
Finish the dietary questionnaire later. Bring him in to see Dr. Axe now."
d Ta-da d The door opens...
and there, sitting behind his desk is this spindly little man...
with these bottle-thick glasses.
A sign reading "Dr. Ron A. Axe...
O.D., F.F.A.O.,
F.C.O.U.D., F.I.C.A...
F.A.S.S."
And he says, "Welcome, Mr. Gray. Welcome.
Please, get in the electric chair."
He refers to his examination chair as an "electric chair." I don't know why.
I get into the blue examination chair, and he begins...
- what I could only call a family slideshow.
The first slide was of he and his brother, Don...
skiing down Mount Washington, down Tuckerman's Ravine.
Tucking down Tuckerman's.
he and his brother and his 87-year-old mother...
skiing in Stowe, Vermont.
he and his brother and his 87-year-old mother...
visiting Lenin's tomb.
I'm trying to relate to this, so I say, "Oh, yeah. Lenin's tomb.
That's where I was five months ago. That's where I had the 16 borscht."
Then something strange happened.
Somehow - I don't know how he did this -
up into the left-hand corner of the family slide...
he fades an eye chart, a traditional doctor's eye chart...
and he says, "Can you read this?"
And I found I could. I could read it better...
than I could read it in my Chinese doctor's office.
I don't know why. Maybe the family slideshow relaxed me.
But I thought, "You know, there's method in this man's meshugaas.
I'm gonna let him examine my pucker."
And he does.
Looks at both eyes, then says...
"Now, Mr. Gray, I would just like to speculate...
speculate a bit on causes."
"Oh. Causes. Great. Maybe I'm not idiopathic after all.
Let's give it a run."
"I'd just like to throw it out. Vitamin C -
Do you take a lot of vitamin C?"
"Sure. I have to when I'm on the road. I don't have an understudy.
I can't afford to get a cold."
"You know what vitamin C is, Mr. Gray?
"Um, I thought it was vitamin C."
"Wrong. It's ascorbic acid. And do you know the vitreous humor...
and the pancreas are two parts of the body that can't assimilate ascorbic acid?
So why would you be doing that - pouring acid into your eye?
Now, if it isn't the vitamin C, it's the ozone layer.
It's breaking down. Sheep are going blind in New Zealand.
I hope you're wearing a big broad-brimmed hat and good thick sunglasses.
Now, this is all speculation. You've got to have a blood and urine workup...
and then come back to me as soon as you have that done.
As for today, it's $240. You go and pay my mother."
I go and pay the mother $240. No health insurance in that place.
She's sitting there with her babushka on, going...
"Work, work, work.
That's all my son does now is work and research.
He doesn't sleep. I don't have a life.
We don't even ski anymore. I'm 87 years old...
and I don't have a life!"
So I hand her the $240 check...
and I go out searching for blood and urine analysis clinics.
I'm going from New York to San Francisco. Every clinic I go to...
looks at the paperwork and the technicians say...
"We don't test human beings for this stuff."
So I don't know what to do. I call Dr. Axe.
He recommends a place up in upstate New York.
Maybe they're in cahoots. I go up there.
One thousand dollars they charge me. No health insurance.
They draw more blood from me than I've ever had taken before.
And then they give me this, like, milk carton, you know, with a handle.
Like, a cardboard box to collect my urine for 24 hours.
I'm carrying it around with me everywhere. I'm ducking behind hedges in Central Park.
I'm carrying it to therapy. I got it at the theater between my legs.
I'm traveling on the subway with it between my legs...
having made the mistake of eating asparagus the night before.
At last I get all the paperwork done.
I bring in the report to Dr. Axe, and he's reviewing it...
and he looks down, and he says...
vanadium.
Goes right off the chart."
"Vanadium? What's that?"
"A rare element used to toughen steel
and make it more shock-resistant.
In short, you're filled with heavy metal."
"But where would it come from? I mean, none of my friends have it."
"Sea cucumbers and sea anemones."
"But I never eat them. I don't know anything about them."
"No, but I bet you eat big fish, don't you? I bet you're a fan of big fish."
"Yes, I love to eat big fish. I eat it any chance I get."
"Well, that's where it comes from. They eat the sea cucumbers and sea anemones...
and it gets into their fatty tissue, and you eat it.
So you've got to give it up. Got to give up all your big fish.
Your swordfish, your salmon, your tuna, your mahimahi.
You've got to give up your shellfish, crustaceans, lobsters...
scallops and chicken and turkey."
"Chicken and turkey? But why chicken and turkey?"
"Because they grind up big fish and feed them to the chicken and turkey.
You understand? Give it up. Just eat raw vegetables.
That's what you should do. The only reason people cook vegetables...
is 'cause in the old days, people had wooden false teeth.
Now you don't have to. Eat it raw. You hear me?
Raw! Raw! Raw!"
Uh, to improve my eyesight, go on an all-raw-vegetable diet?
Uh, that'd be tough. I don't think so.
A raw-vegetable diet?
Yeah. If it would improve my sight, yeah.
Well, yes, I think so.
I like anything that has to do with nutrition if I feel like it's valid...
and something that I would enjoy anyway.
'Cause I already like vegetables.
Oh, yes, because I happen to be reading that right now...
and I believe in totally -
The raw vegetables is the only way to get the live enzymes...
and vitamins out of fruits and vegetables.
I think I would consider...
going on an all-raw-vegetable diet...
if the person giving me that pitch was convincing enough, I think...
and if I wouldn't have to do that for too long.
I don't think an all-raw-vegetable diet is for me.
I'm omnivorous, and I really enjoy the meat in my diet...
so no, I don't think I would.
And he put the fear into me, and I totally believed him...
and I went on a raw-vegetable diet.
I went to the supermarket, a place I thought used to have food.
I mean, I look down the aisle, I think...
"Nothing there for me. Nothing there for me. Nothing there -"
I've never seen so much nothing in my life.
In the old days, when I'd shop, I wouldn't even take a list with me.
I would just take the cart, go down the aisle...
take whatever caught my eye - my good eye -
pop it into the wagon, go down.
Now I have to go to the vegetable area. What is it?
It's a bunch of vegetables being spritzed with a sprayer.
It's supposed to make them look glossy. In my opinion, it's waterlogging them.
The celery's soggy. I don't know where to go find vegetables.
I go the farmers' market in Manhattan...
in Union Square every Wednesday and Saturday...
hoping I'll find the Pennsylvania Dutch bringing in...
some exotic turnips or something...
and I see this sign that says...
"Farm-raised trout from the Catskills."
I think, "Oh, boy. There's a fish I could eat.
Raised on a farm in the Catskills?
Couldn't run into any sea cucumbers up there."
So I go over, I'm chatting the woman up. There are three of them.
She's wrapping them in newspaper. I say...
"Hey, by the way, I'm just curious - what do you feed your trout?"
She says, "Chicken."
Also, I'd given up drinking alcohol.
Went cold-turkey. Just stopped, you know?
I mean, after my mother's death, the only religious ritual...
left in our home was cocktail hour.
What's a day without cocktail hour? It's just one big...
Bed!
So I was on this raw-vegetable diet. I'd given up pretty much everything:
sugar, caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, meat -
and pretty much sex too, 'cause they're all interconnected.
I hadn't realized that until I gave all those up.
And I got this raw-vegetable diet, and it's causing enormous intestinal gas...
and Renée and I are practically breaking up over it.
I'm getting real thin, and Renée's mother sees me...
and she says, "Spalding, it looks like...
you have just entered the Bermuda Triangle of health."
Renée's mother's got this theory that this Bermuda Triangle of health...
is between 50 and 53.
That's when everything starts happening to you.
If you make it through, you live to a ripe old age.
She had a heart attack at 51. She survived. She outlived it.
Her husband, Renée's father - mm, he died at 52. Didn't make it.
My mom killed herself at 52.
Renée's mother's brother had a heart attack at 50.
He made it through the Bermuda Triangle of health.
And I was in it, and I was damn lonely.
I'm saying to my doctor, "Please, show me someone else that has a macular pucker."
He tells me hundreds of people have them, but he's not giving me any phone numbers.
So I'm so lonely that I go down to The Village Voice newspaper...
and I put an ad in that says, "Macular Pucker Club -
Does anyone else have one?
Let's share stories."
And all I get is a letter from a guy...
who wants to scrape me.
Then the inevitable happened. My Chinese doctor called me in...
to have my eye examination.
I didn't want to go, really.
I just denied that it was ever going to happen.
I drag myself in. I sit there.
I don't have a book anymore. I'm just waiting for my pupils to dilate.
I- I- I'm munching on a sweet potato, I remember.
And out of the nurses' office comes this man...
with a - oh, God, a drooping eye!
It's worse than a bloodhound. Worse than Elephant Man.
I can't look at it. I say, "Nurse, what was that?"
She goes, "Oh, Mr. Gray, that's the drooping eye."
"I figured as much, but where would it come from?"
"Oh, sometimes it's a result of the operation."
"What? No one told me that!"
"Oh, Mr. Gray, don't be a silly-billy.
It's easily fixed with corrective or plastic surgery."
And she goes back into the office, and I am sitting there.
I go into a bubble. I'm completely freaked out.
I picture Jesus, like the old days, coming into the waiting room, you know?
And the way he used to come to the multitudes and
And the lame shall walk, and the deaf shall hear.
And - bing! - The blind shall see. One-touch Jesus - that's what I picture.
Or E.T. with his magical, sparky finger...
coming and - zhoom! - zapping my eye, and I'm better.
'Cause that's what I want. I want magic and miracles.
I don't want this medicine, please.
And as I'm thinking this - boop! - the man with the drooping eye...
trips over my foot, runs into a woman whose pupils are dilated.
She "sclumps" down next to me and says, "Hello.
I have a macula pucker. What do you have?"
Oh! I hug her! At last!
"Oh, my God, it's so good to meet you. What have you been doing?"
She said, "Well, I've been doing some alternative therapies...
but I had to come in here today because today is my preoperative exam.
I have to make up my mind by Thursday." "What? Oh, my God!
I wouldn't know what to do if they told me Thursday. What are you going to do?"
"I don't know. To tell you the truth...
I helped cofound the emergency room at Roosevelt Hospital. And if you knew...
what I knew about New York hospitals, I don't think you'd go in one."
"Oh, I know. That's what all my friends are saying.
So I've been trying to do alternatives myself."
She said, "Well, I'm considering - A friend of mine - listen -
had a breast tumor plucked from her breast.
No cutting or anything like that.
She went to the Philippines to a psychic surgeon."
"What? A Philippines psychic surgeon?
Why didn't I think of that?"
"Well, you could still go. I have his name. His name is Trini Boca.
He's known - I don't know why - as the Elvis Presley of psychic surgeons.
He's in Manila. I'll give you all the information."
Just as she's telling me this, the nurse comes out of the office and says...
"The doctor will see you now, Mr. Gray."
And I say, "Well - Well- Well - I'm not ready to see the doctor.
- I'm off to the Philippines!"
If I flew to the Philippines to be treated by a psychic surgeon...
I don't believe anything would happen to me.
I believe in real doctors with knives and medicine.
And pretty nurses.
No.
Just sounds too way-out.
Not my style.
Never heard of it.
I think I - I think I would, uh -
I would try going to the Philippines to see a psychic surgeon.
You know, if nothing else, it'd be an interesting trip.
I don't know. I guess it couldn't hurt.
Psychic surgeon? No.
I don't really believe in psychic surgeons.
Uh-Uh-
I wouldn't mind going and watching a surgery...
but, you know, I don't believe in it, no.
A psychic surgeon?
That doesn't appeal to me either. No, I don't think so.
I'm not a believer in psychic surgery.
Uh, my best friend's an ophthalmic surgeon...
and I think I'd trust him with my eyes...
before a Filipino.
And I did it! I flew all the way to the Philippines on my own...
without taking a drink on the plane once.
I arrive. I'm pretty jet-lagged. I got directions.
I'm supposed to go down to Trini Boca's psychic surgery lab...
at 9:30 in the morning there in Manila.
Used to be the Tip Top Disco.
Now it's been converted to a psychic surgery lab.
I arrive at 9:30. I'm the only Westerner there.
The rest are Japanese. About 50 Japanese.
There's a bus tour - Psychic Surgeons of the Philippines - that they're on.
I think 25 are being operated on. The other 25 are videotaping it...
judging from the equipment they've got.
And we're all going down this long corridor...
pictures of Trini Boca doing psychic surgery on the walls.
We get to the end of the corridor, there's this huge crucifix of Jesus - who else?
And I turn, we go into the operating room...
and I cannot believe my eye.
- There he is - Trini Boca...
The Elvis Presley of psychic surgeons...
standing in semitrance under fluorescent light.
He's a short man, about 45 years old. Prince Valiant haircut.
Gold chains around his neck.
- Gold rings on his fingers, a gold watch.
He's got a light blue surgical gown on.
He's got these Palm Beach white lattice leisure shoes.
He's got this kind of Ricky Ricardo-babalu Vegas energy pouring off him.
And around his waist is a butcher's apron.
He's standing in front of this operating table that's shrink-wrapped in plastic.
Either end of the table, two men with mops.
And it begins.
Trini rolls up his sleeves, comes out of trance...
shows everyone he's got "nothing in his hands, folks."
Puts his hands up, and the first Japanese woman...
trots up, lies out on the table, Trini takes his hands and...
drives them into her stomach.
The blood shoots five feet in the air...
spraying the other naked Japanese that are running, screaming, like children...
playing under a bloody sprinkler in summertime.
"Ow! Ow! Ow!" She goes around to the back of the line.
Up comes a Japanese man. He lies down. Trini drives his fingers into his stomach.
He begins pulling out what looks like a meatball the size of a bull's heart.
"Thoomp!" Throws that in a bucket. That man goes around to the back of the line.
Up comes a Japanese woman. She lies down.
He takes his fingers - droop! - drives them into her stomach...
pulls out what looks like bloody grapes...
begins squeezing them overhead, like a kid playing with his own shit.
It's dropping down over her breasts. She goes around to the back of the line.
Up comes a Japanese man. He lies out.
Trini takes his underwear, pulls it back..
Revealing his round, firm, full rump...
and begins reaching in, reaching up his ass.
With gold rings on his fingers he's reaching up.
And he's pulling out what looks like spaghetti with marinara sauce on it.
It's supposed to be hemorrhoids. "Thoomp!" Throws them in a bucket.
That man goes to the back of the line. Up comes a woman. She lies down.
He begins to ooze pus out of her neck, green and yellow pus...
catching in a cup. She goes around to the back of the line.
They go through one more time, basically having the same thing done.
He finishes, goes over, crosses them, blesses them.
Goes over to the crucifix, genuflects...
wipes the blood off his Palm Beach leisure shoe...
- lights a cigarette, and leaves.
And I - And I went back to my hotel...
and had my first drink.
I had 12 of them, in fact. Twelve San Miguel beers.
Oh, my God. There was no one to talk to at the hotel.
All the Japanese tourists were there. They didn't speak any English.
The only people that spoke any English were the Philippine waiters...
and they're going, "Hmm. You go to Trini Boca, sir?
Hmm? He's very powerful man.
You will be healed if you believe."
"Believe? Is that a prerequisite?
I thought he was gonna be like Jesus or E.T. -
one touch and I'd be healed.
Oh, God, give me another drink!"
"You don't believe, sir?" "No. No, I don't believe.
Doubt is my bottom line.
The only thing I don't doubt is my doubt.
God, get me another beer, please."
"You do not believe in a creator, sir?"
"No. What creator?
I thought I was idiopathic.
Give me another beer, please."
"But you are praying all the time, sir." "What do you mean, I'm praying?"
"You are saying, 'Oh, God, please, a beer.
Oh, God, please, another beer."'
I went upstairs. I couldn't sleep.
All I could see is meatballs flying through the air.
At last I had a little drunken slumber. Woke up with a hangover, ravaged...
staring at the ceiling, thinking...
"AIDS. AIDS. Of course.
Why does it take so long to get to my bottom line of fear?
What American in this day and age wouldn't be blood-phobic...
with all that blood flying around?
I gotta go down and talk to Trini Boca," I think.
So I go down a half hour early, and I tell him, "Please, please, Mr. Boca...
when you finish operating on the Japanese today...
just wash your hands in rubbing alcohol...
come to my hotel room, do a private operation with me, please?"
"No. We do not do the private here.
Group only. No, no. No private operation."
"But you have to respect my fear for AIDS.
How would I totally relax and lie out on a table and give over to you...
if I have that fear in the way?"
"There's no AIDS here.
One man came. He had the virus. Did not tell me.
My hands, they would not enter, they go...
zoom!
No AIDS."
I wanted to believe him. I wanted to get on that table.
"Where would I ever get the courage?" I thought.
And I thought, "I will just get in with the Japanese.
When they start moving, they got that kamikaze energy.
Up on that table. No doubt."
So I get in line with the Japanese that are gonna be operated on.
They strip to their underwear. I'm stripping to my red Fruit of the Loom jockey shorts.
And I'm just standing there, my knees shaking, waiting.
And Trini comes, he rolls up his sleeves.
The Japanese woman from the day before comes up, lies out on the table.
He takes his hands and drives them into her stomach.
The blood shoots five feet into the air. People start going around.
It's my turn. I rush up. I lie out on the table. I'm shaking.
I look up and say, "Trini, remember, it's just my eye. Just my left eye.
Don't be pulling any meatballs out of me, please."
He raises his hands. Shows me - nothing in them.
He goes over, he washes them off...
in basically what looks like a bucket of blood.
Picks up the cotton gauze. This is where the "debunk" is...
like Amazing Randi says, that they hide the blood pellets.
But as if to show me, prove it to me, opens it - nothing in them.
Comes at me. Two fingers. Oop.
All of a sudden, I feel this pressure. His fingers are going in my eye.
Blood is coming out. I assume it's my blood.
It doesn't feel like my blood, though neither does a nosebleed...
when it comes out of my nose.
But it's coming down, dripping over my other eye. Pop!
Pulls his finger out. No. Stops.
I run, not to the back of the line but to the men's room to look in the mirror.
I'm looking at my eye, and there's no blood leftover. What's going on?
And I don't see any better. And now all I can hear is my friends...
back in Barrington, Rhode Island, saying...
"Say you went to a guy who started pulling meatballs...
out of you the size of melons.
Would you go to a doctor then?"
"Yes!
Yes!
Yes!"
At first, I really thought that this gentleman was just an actor...
and that he would try to memorize...
or let's say just be able to give his lines in a certain way.
But he was so very good at it, and he was so very knowledgeable, really...
when it came to some of the medical terms...
and I guess he became so believable...
that I really wanted to question whether it was fiction or it was for real.
Well, I just thought that...
the methods he chose, the alternative methods...
including the sweat box...
the psychic Philippine person...
and the raw vegetables - they were just so extreme.
I didn't think anybody would go through those extremes to, uh...
you know, to treat an eye problem.
And he obviously is a very intelligent person.
He's very neurotic.
I think he certainly takes things to extreme...
and I'm not sure I agree with his thought process about everything...
but I really was surprised...
that it really was - He was the patient. Mm-hmm.
I think he was kind of humorous. I really do. It's kind of, um...
more New Yorker style, I guess.
I think he would be a very pleasant person...
but I don't know if I could...
relate to him quite as easily.
I think he would be a challenge, and I think he'd be somebody...
that you would find it challenging to consult...
but I certainly would advise him...
some of these alternative therapies that he should not do.
And I think I probably would spend more time...
just trying to reassure him...
that this condition does have a fairly good prognosis...
and that he should've done this earlier rather than later. Mm-hmm.
So I get back to New York City, sure that I'm gonna have the operation.
When I get back, I'm not so sure.
The nurse calls, says I should come in. The doctor wants to see me.
He's heard I've been to the Philippines.
They want to do a kind of preoperative exam.
I don't have to get the operation. It's my choice, right?
Also, they say, "Come in on Friday. It's a half day.
There won't be anyone in the waiting room."
So that's a temptation, and I do come in.
No one's there. I'm getting my pupils dilated.
I have no book. I'm doing my dilation meditation...
kind of fuzzing out there, and I look down the corridor...
and I see this guy backing out of my doctor's office.
And he's kind of waving as he's backing up.
And it's like an old-time movie. It's like a Buster Keaton movie.
And he turns, and he's walking toward me...
and I realize he has one of those rubber Nixon masks on...
the kind you'd buy in a joke shop when Nixon was president.
And I think, "What's going on here? A robbery?"
He turns, he's coming toward me, and I realize...
"Wait a minute. It is Richard Nixon."
And he's walking toward me with intent...
as if he's gonna say, "Hello.
I saw Swimming to Cambodia, and I loved it."
And then I think, "Wait a minute. Maybe his pupils are dilated...
and he thinks I'm Ralph Lauren."
He walks up. I look up. I just say, "Oh, hi," and he walks out.
But you know, the strange part is...
seeing Richard Nixon come out of my doctor's office gave me...
the faith, the hope, and the courage to have that operation.
I don't know if I could've done the operation if Renée wasn't holding my hand.
I was terrified
They gave me a local anesthetic, so I could hear everything that was going on.
The doctors were talking about some party they'd had the night before.
While they were peeling me, they were talking about a party.
Very nonchalant.
The radio was playing rock and roll, I remember -
Elton John, "Crocodile Rock."
When I came to, I had a patch over my left eye.
And they put a gas bubble in there...
in my eye, to prevent glaucoma.
I'm glad I didn't know they were gonna do that.
Turned out I couldn't raise my head at all, 'cause it would break the bubble.
Oh, and the doctor gave me a videotape of the operation.
He titled it Swimming to Macula Pucker.
Had a sense of humor.
I get home, I couldn't raise my head. I had to sleep facedown.
Renée put pillows on either side so I couldn't roll over.
I had to eat facedown. I had to walk. I remember-
Oh, I joined the Library for the Blind. I could get books on tape.
And I remember Renée guiding me up with my head down...
looking at chewing gum, cigarette butts...
graffiti, dog shit.
I get up and rented The Miracle Worker, I remember.
And when I got back, Renée did this ingenious thing with mirrors...
so that I could see the videotape of the operation.
She arranged mirrors so I could see the monitor.
And... oh, whoa!
What a video! I mean, you talk about Philippine psychic surgeons.
Here's a close-up of my macula. It was magnified, so it looked like Mars.
It was very yellow, and the veins and capillaries looked like the rivers on Mars.
And then into the frame you see this little pincer come...
just like a little crab claw, and begin to pick at the edema.
And it's coming off the retina like gossamer threads.
I mean, never touching the retina once.
Just off and up until we're in whiteout.
I don't know where we are. Renée's in the bathroom by now.
And I see stitches the size of ropes...
and I realize they're sewing up my left eye.
It's like - whew! - The Andalusian Dog
magnified a hundred times.
I'm just thinking, "This is just a movie.
That's not my eye. This is just a movie."
And after 14 days, it was time to have the patch removed.
Renée and I went to the doctor's office.
He took the patch off, and basically it was not great.
It was like looking through the bottom of an empty Coke bottle.
Real fuzzy. Also, it was a cockeyed feeling...
like I had this white hair between my eyes...
that just needed to be brushed, but I couldn't find it to brush.
And we went out and sat on a park bench in Central Park...
and I looked across the park, and in the distance I saw...
leaves blowing in the wind, a bunch of children running...
a red ball rolling, a flock of starlings taking off.
I covered my right eye. No leaves.
Blur of children. Blotch of red.
No birds.
Covered my left - ah, ecstasy.
Covered my right -
despair.
Ecstasy.
Despair.
And I realized at that moment that I was now living...
the perfect yin-and-yang existence.
And Renée and I went home, and I ate big fish...
and I drank a bottle of wine, and I smoked a cigar.
And I ate and I drank and I smoked...
everything that could make me blind.