Shatner Rules (18 page)

Backstage, it occurred to me that I hadn't prepared a speech. This was unlike me, especially after lecturing Ben (fold) Folds about preparation and punctuality. I began to go over a few of the things I could say to win over the crowd of metalheads.

“I have gone where no man has gone before. And tonight—I go to eleven!”

“There's a hearse in the parking lot with its lights on, license plate 666.”

“All hail Satan!”

I had nothing, and then they called my name. The crowd roared.

And they roared metal. Raw, uninhibited, pure energy. Before me was a sea of people, men and women, all clad in black with leather, spikes, and studs everywhere, cheering me on.

Had any of them ever spent a Saturday afternoon listening to the Metropolitan Opera with their father? Who knows—maybe? All music has the power to unite people. And metal has united these people strong. They are welded to the sound.

I finally got to the mic, and all I could feel was the energy and emotion of the crowd. I was handed my statue (of Stonehenge—a tribute to Spinal Tap), I raised it aloft and shouted . . .

“FUCKING GNARLY!”

I think I was using it right.

FOURTH RULE FOR TURNING
80:
Get. Out. Of. Bed.

A
nd this may be the most important rule of all. You don't necessarily have to be eighty for it to be important. But if you are eighty, it is something you must do.

When I turned forty, I didn't get out of bed for three days.

Forty was tough. I was divorced. I was often not employed to the level I wanted to be. I had just come off the road from touring in summer stock and dinner theater productions, living out of a truck.

Not “living out of a truck” the way one “lives out of a suitcase.” I was living in a truck. With my dog. When I would travel from town to town, I would shower inside the theater, perform, greet the fans, and then go to bed in a truck. Clearly my finances were not what they should have been.

It's hard being broke when you're an actor. In most any other profession, if you hit rock bottom, if you've spent your last dime, you can shift gears without anyone noticing. I was drained financially after my divorce settlement, and I couldn't hide, couldn't shift gears.

“Hey, that temp in accounting? Didn't he used to be on that
Star Trek
show? Tell him to beam up my expense reports.”

As an actor, you might have made next to nothing on your last movie, but you had better show up to the premiere dressed to the nines or, as Hollywood often demands, dressed to the tens. Nobody wants to hear that 10 percent of your earnings went to your agent, another 10 to your lawyer, and maybe even 15 went to your manager and the other 65 percent to your ex-wife. They just demand you be famous and appear famous.

The best way to be successful in Hollywood is to seem successful, no matter the cost. The sweet smell of success can overpower the stench of failure.

Thankfully, forty years later, I'm in much better shape. Daniel Ellsberg mentioned to me while taping our
Raw Nerve
interview that miracles happen all the time—miracles are just the things that happen that you don't expect. I wish I could go back in time and share Ellsberg's wisdom with the forty-year-old me.

Eighty is great. I'm married, financially secure, and have work whenever I want it.

But here's the thing . . .

When I woke up on my fortieth birthday, I felt like my career was over. That was terrible.

When I woke up on my eightieth birthday, I felt that might life might be over soon. That was terrifying.

I thought I was prepared for March 22, 2011. What is eighty, other than a number? I'm in good shape; all the horse riding has been great for my legs and my upper body strength. I feel great; I take my vitamins and exercise every day. (I don't use skin creams or cosmetics, though. I'm an actor, but I'm not
that
much of an actor.)

But the terror of dying felt very keen that morning in the darkness of my bedroom.

God, I'm going to die. Very soon,
I thought to myself. Everyone knows they are going to die, no matter how much they deny it, but once you're eighty, you're now actually on a deadline.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross outlines the five stages of grief in her book
On Death and Dying.
They are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. I had already jumped to my own “acceptance,” and I hadn't even gotten out of my pajamas yet.

There are some people who view death as an adventure. I once heard that Timothy Leary's last words were, “Of course.” At the moment of death he saw the logic of the universe. What a joyous celebration of the unknown! That line alone offers me more comfort than any one of the supposed five people you meet in Heaven.

You know who else saw death as an adventure?

Kirk.

I never played Kirk with fear. Kirk was never frightened; he was always amazed, curious. And that's how I approached his death, once it became clear that the executives at Paramount were hell bent on killing him off.

What would Captain Kirk feel at the moment of death, having lived his life looking at the strangest animals and the strangest things?

Captain Kirk would look at death with awe and wonder. He wouldn't run from it; he would move forward toward it. I imagined that Captain Kirk would look at whatever death is—blackness, lightness, the devil, God, nothing—and wonder
Where am I going?
without fear.
I'm on another step on the journey. What's the next step after this
one?

Kirk's final words upon his death in
Star Trek: Generations
were, “Oh my.” No fear. No fear at all!

So, this attitude of Kirk's can be used to prove one thing, once and for all.

I am not Captain James T. Kirk.

On my eightieth birthday, I just lay there in my terror, no awe or wonder to be found. I wish I could stampede over to a belief system that offered me a convenient afterlife and a benevolent God. That kind of thing requires faith, and I don't have it. I would love to be nurtured in the arms of someone ecclesiastical when I die, but I don't think that's going to happen.

The fear that I had that morning marking my eightieth year comes from the loneliness in all of our souls; this is the promontory that every human being stands on. We yearn to be joined with someone or something. We strive all our lives to do so with marriage and children and friends and family and clans and country and patriotism and pets—yes, pets—and even sometimes objects that aren't alive, statues, concepts like God, cults. Whatever.

But even in the holiest of holy people, I have to think that deep down there exists doubt. That doubt is in me, it consumes me.
We're all alone; in the end, we're all alone,
I thought in my bed on the first morning of my eightieth year.
And you have to suffer through those feelings by yourself.

Elizabeth rolled over and wished me a happy birthday.

I might not believe in the standard view of God. I might not believe in an afterlife. But I most certainly believe in love. There's proof of it. It's all around me, I can touch it, and I can experience it. It will protect me from the existential terror of my failure to exist.

It finally occurred to me—when I turned forty, I could afford three days to lie in bed. At eighty—I don't have that luxury. The clock keeps ticking.

Get. Out. Of. Bed.

Even if you're lying in bed next to Elizabeth, one of the greatest individuals I've ever encountered. She is enormously kind and has a great capacity for love. She's highly intelligent, has a great sense of humor, and is very empathetic. She understands so much.

And she throws a great party.

Toward the end of the run of
Boston Legal
, Denny Crane was given a great line: “I live my life as though I'm in a television show.” That one hits home. I've been coming into people's homes for nearly sixty years now, and I'm not quite ready for cancellation. So let's cue the music, and

CUT TO • INT • SHATNER HOME
MARCH 22, 2011 • FADE IN:
We see WILLIAM SHATNER, 80—not ready to fade out—surrounded by loved ones, smiling.

 

Elizabeth really does throw a great party. We were surrounded with friends, family, and my dogs, Starbuck and Cappuccino (who thankfully decided not to tear up their doggy beds for the occasion). Elizabeth even hired a drum circle.

And it was a drum circle indoors, because there was a monsoon outside. If there is a God, I think he was jealous of all the fun I was having.

There's a song I wrote for
Has Been
called “It Hasn't Happened Yet.” It sums up perfectly those feelings of loneliness and failure that have chased me all my life.

 

As the carillon sang its song

I dreamt of success.

I would be the best.

I would make my folks proud.

I would be happy . . .

 

—It hasn't happened yet

—It hasn't happened yet

—It hasn't happened

Among my many gifts was a plate from Elizabeth, which bore the legend
IT HAPPENED
.

As the party and evening progressed, the storm grew even more violent; it felt like the afterparty the night of the Golden Gods Awards. We were all in a tent, and the drumming of the rain threatened to drown out the drumming of the drummers. The hillside behind my house began to collapse, trees began to fall.

Would this army of love around me protect me from the elements, from the unknown, from certain disaster, and despair, and loneliness? From the dark specter of inevitable death?

As Timothy Leary might say, “Of course.”

Besides, how can I die when I have so many lifetime achievement awards to collect?

I
don't know why more people don't follow this rule. Seriously, dying is a bore! And lifetime achievement awards are a lot of fun.

In June of 2011, I was invited to McGill University in Montreal, my alma mater, so that I could accept an honorary Ph.D. As with my Honorary Headbanger Award, I am more than aware of the limitations of the title. Only in symbolic medical emergencies may I assist, and I will only be allowed to rhetorically defend any of my make-believe dissertations.

McGill, this storied institution of learning, has been very good to me over the years, despite the fact that my title of “academic slacker” while attending was anything but symbolic. While matriculated, I felt that my learning needed to be done outside the classroom, although if I had ever deigned to
enter
a classroom in my four-plus years of going there, I might have found book learning appealing.

The university has produced seven Nobel Prize winners, Pulitzer Prize winners, and Academy Award winners, and I'm sure you can find out all about their histories if you ask around at the William Shatner University Centre.

Yep, the student union is named after me, thanks to a student referendum in 1992. Traditionally, buildings at McGill have been named after benefactors or dead people. Last time I checked, I'm neither. I am furiously avoiding death and—as for the money—well, McGill, I put the check in the mail. It must have gotten lost.

An honorary doctorate! Not bad for a kid who barely graduated high school and who entered McGill thanks to a Jewish quota program. Keep in mind, McGill was also giving an honorary degree to publishing magnate and fellow Jew Mort Zuckerman, so at least I know that
my
degree was not filling some sort of cultural requirement.

Bill takes his chapeau off to his alma mater, McGill University, in Montreal in 2011. (
Courtesy of McGill University
)

So there I was, in my jaunty cap and gown, standing before the graduates. Years ago, I hadn't graduated with my own class because I had to make up some courses I'd failed. This ceremony would be my first official graduation. Eventually, it came time for me to share my honorary wisdom with the students, and I read a speech I prepared. This is what I said.

(NOTE: If you would like to experience what it was really like to be a graduate listening to William Shatner speak, pretend to worry about your job prospects, and start rehearsing your breakup speech to your college girlfriend/boyfriend.)

 

This was an easy degree to get. Just say “yes” and they hand you a degree. Thank you very much. While I am honored and grateful, it wasn't quite so easy getting my bachelor degree of commerce from McGill.

I had quite a struggle actually—first getting into McGill, it being such a prestigious university. My academics weren't all that good coming out of West Hill High School, which is now defunct. The only vivid memory I have of West Hill High was corporal punishment, where the teachers whipped you with a rubber mallet on your open palm if you had done something requiring punishment, like coming late to classes—which I did—or being rambunctious within the classroom—which I did—or even burning the principal's car—which someone else did and I deny it to this day! But the only thing that remains more vivid than anything else is that we won the city championships. We became a dynasty. We won several football championships, and I was really the best player on the second team—the story of my life.

So when I came to McGill, I earnestly thought that I could be the best football player on the second team of the freshman class. After all, I weighed 160 pounds and could run the one-hundred-yard dash in something like fourteen seconds flat. Slow but sure—the story of my life.

Sadly, I didn't make the freshman football team. Somebody punched me in the stomach and then somebody else stepped on my head. You can imagine I didn't do so well with the breakfast I had eaten a little earlier, making my first day my last day. It was then that I discovered drama. Things would have to be easier at university, so I joined the drama club. But not really.

I had been active in amateur theatricals for several years before that, on radio and on stage, with television yet to be invented. That's how far back I go, folks.

And when I came to McGill, I followed those interests and became at some point president of the Radio Club and a creative force on the Red White and Blue, performing university musicals. It was through creating those musicals that I got my university education.

In a student union building, a couple blocks from the present student union building, in the basement, under the stairs, the Red White and Blue had their offices. Their offices consisted of a desk, a chair, and a sofa. I made better use of the sofa than the desk. That's a whole other education I received.

 

(NOTE: At this point, I attempted to run up and down the aisles, administering high fives. Under threats of having my degree revoked by the dean, I returned to the stage.)

 

 

My point is that my academic life at McGill—where I was working on a bachelor of commerce degree with all of those accounting, economics, and mathematics classes, none of which I attended because I was too busy trying to clean the sofa in the Red White and Blue office—wasn't easy.

In those days, there were very few vacuum cleaners and spray cleaners—it was all done by hand—another part of my university education. But what this did teach me was not only cleanliness but also hard work. Running around that desk in the Red White and Blue office was hard work. I felt the sweat on my face running around that desk. It taught me that if you wanted to get something done, you had to get up early in the morning. When asked what my secret is to being successful, my answer has always been get up earlier in the morning. There is nothing that you can't accomplish when standing on two feet. When you are lying down, all you accomplish is some REM sleep and working out your dream life.

When I graduated, which I did just barely in the fall after I made up a half course in math, which I had failed, I got my degree. In September I landed my first professional job in a small acting company in Montreal at Mount Royal.

The bothersome thing was that I got the job as an assistant manager by telling them I got a bachelor of commerce degree and I was adept at accounting and banking. This was the only other lie I ever told. The first one being that I hadn't set fire to the principal's car. It wasn't long before they discovered two things: that I had no accounting skills whatsoever—my math skills are really bad—and that I was a good actor.

My talents didn't lie in the field of accounting. My father, who paid for my education, was not amused. But my talents lay in trying to be funny and entertaining people. Although I didn't study that per se—that's Latin by the way.

 

(NOTE: Huge round of applause from the Latin Club.)

 

 

I did get my education complete, whole, and useful at McGill. I got it in my own way. I urge all of you to get it your way. Don't be afraid of taking chances, of striking out along paths that are untrod. Don't be afraid of failing. Don't be afraid of making an ass of yourself. I do it all the time—and look what I got.

 

With that, I held my honorary doctorate aloft, as proud as I could possibly be.

I sat back down and scanned the crowd, here at the institution where I started my adult life. In a few weeks, I would also be getting another lifetime achievement honor from the governor general of Canada.

Which reminds me—hey, United States? Let's get busy with the honors and accolades! Do you want to lag behind Canada in the race to honor William Shatner?

So what does one do after so many awards and accolades?

Get to work on winning some more.

There's finality to this life achievement business that I want no part of. As long as you're able to say “yes,” the opportunities keep coming, and with them, the adventures. Say “no” to fear and complacency. Keep saying “yes,” and the journey will continue.

In this, the eightieth year of my life, I should be settling down, taking it easy, resting on laurels. Forget it.

This rocket ride of a life I'm strapped to just keeps hurtling on and on, faster into the unknown. Will I be ejected, rejected, or dejected? What will happen with my new album? What will happen with this book? With the family? With my TV stuff? The horses? With all the wonderful adventures Elizabeth and I are sharing and will continue to share?

I have no idea. But the rocket keeps going, and I keep holding on.

I think perhaps my rule of saying “yes” has been a way for me to
think
I'm controlling the sometimes wild trajectory of my existence. The fact of the matter is, I've been lucky enough to have life say “yes” to me, time and time again. Perhaps there's no way to control anything. Perhaps the best thing to do is work hard, hold on, and enjoy the view.

I'm not done yet. There are many lives in a lifetime. There are many things I would like to achieve that I haven't. I'll place these degrees, these awards, on my mantel, as a constant reminder of what I have yet to achieve.

Whatever else happens, I'll be sure to let you know. And thanks for saying “yes” to going along on this crazy rocket ride with me.

My best,

Bill