the "Schwimmer effect"----the fear that the last image you see in life is something unsettling, ugly, unpleasant, or goofy. Image if you had a fatal heart attack immediately after watching Anderson Cooper crying over a dead cat on CNN, or you were hit by a Mack truck shuffling across the street while looking at a pic of your ex-girlfriend still lingering there on your cell phone, or you drowned at the beach after startling Pee Wee Herman while he was urinating behind a sand dune wearing a Speedo suit and flip-flops. These examples just prove there is a hell on earth. You don't have to die to go there.
On the other hand, what if the last image David Schwimmer ever saw was that of DrTom? You know, he heard about this book, he actually read this chapter, he was disturbed about what I had to say, he had a heart attack as he scrolled to the top of the page where there is a picture of me sitting on a horse, and he died. Would the "DrTom Effect" be any less damaging to him than the "Schwimmer Effect" would be to DrTom? These are questions worth pondering in Philosophy 101 this fall at institutions of higher learning around the world. In fact, it would be informative to see a list of images created by respondents that would define their "Schwimmer Effect". Send me an email with your suggestions.
So what should we do to avoid the "Schwimmer effect"? Watch only National Geographic specials on tv---rivers, mountains, and polar bears. A brief look at the Miss America contest is probably ok, as long as Rosie O'Donnell is not the host. If you go to the movies, a flick like "Happy Feet" is good--mostly animated penguins. Only use real trees at Christmas, not aluminum. And if you must read blogs, read Huffington Post or DrTom. And think only pure thoughts.
Walk a mile in my shoes
The heavy, tight-fitting leather shoes were hurting my feet something awful, and I couldn't take it anymore. So I removed them as soon as we disembarked from the subway near our room, and set them in an obvious place on the sidewalk against a building. I walked the remainder of the distance to our room in my socks. I suppose this was the first time an American had ever left a pair of perfectly good shoes on the sidewalk in the 16th arrondissement (the Trocadero section) in Paris. My feet felt better instantly and I felt liberated generally. Nearly barefoot on a Parisian sidewalk, and I didn't give a damn.
About a year after this, I was in Kenya for an international meeting in Nairobi. After the meeting, I went on a little safari to the Maasai-Mara, where I stayed in a small tent camp. On this trip I took a pair of sandals, to wear around the camp, and some high-top hiking shoes for daily excursions onto the savanna. My Maasai guide and I hit it off right away; he knew all the birds in the area, and I wanted to know them all. But during my two days with him it was obvious that he coveted my sandals, which he saw me wear to dinner each night. When I was about to leave on the third day, I made a gift of the sandals to this young guy, who was extremely pleased to receive them. He promised that if I ever returned, one of his wives would fix me a nice dinner. Sounded good to me, as long as the dinner did not consist only of cattle blood. By the way, if you have any good recipes using this "food", please pass it along. I don’t see any on cooking.com.
Then, last month in Costa Rica my feet developed a rash that would stop the bulls in Pamplona. I was convinced it was due to the Crocs I had been wearing, and they weren't very comfortable anyway. However, I admit that the Facebook group that I had only just discovered titled "I Don't Care How Comfortable Crocs Are, You Look Like A Dumbass" was haunting me. I seem to have a deficiency when it comes to buying footwear that works for me. So I gave the Crocs to the cleaning lady at the Hotel Herradura in San José. They were nearly new and I didn't want to just toss them in the trash. Bon appetit, or I'd guess you'd say bon chaussures.
So, three pairs of footwear left on three continents during a 3-year period. I had become a one-man TOMS shoes' representative. Although I was feeling a bit like a poor-man's philanthropist, I was more taken by the kind of story I might tell about this behavior. Of course, the idiom that came to mind was "walk a mile in my shoes". But that is an invitation for someone to see the world from your point of view or station in life, and literally wearing someone else's shoes does not accomplish that at all. Ironically, given that people in the countries I visited wanted to own MY shoes almost allowed me to walk a bit in their shoes, if you catch my drift.
I suppose it is not a coincidence that we focus so much on footwear. After all, you could walk around without a shirt or pants or dress if you really had to. You might be embarrassed, but you can physically do it. But try walking around Paris or San José or the tropical savannas of Africa barefooted and your physical metal would be sorely tested. In other words, shoes may have become a method of making a fashion statement in the modern, affluent world, but it is damned practical to have some protection on the bottom of your walking tools. I have stated this before but, after spending time in agricultural areas of tropical America, I have never looked at a banana or a cup of coffee without deep appreciation for the human sweat it took to produce those commodities. Similarly, I will never look again at the choices in my shoe collection with passive disdain, even if the selection of the day makes me look like a dumbass.
Thanks for everything! Anna Maria Alberghetti
It was the summer of 1967 and I was working as Assistant Tennis Pro at Scioto Country Club in Upper Arlington, Ohio. I played tennis for Ohio State in those days and John Hendrix was the coach at OSU. He was also the Head Pro at Scioto CC, so he hired me for the summer. I mostly played tennis with elderly women who needed company and who wanted someone to make them laugh on the court while hitting tennis balls. I also ran tennis clinics for kids, strung tennis racquets, and I got to play quite a bit of tennis when I wasn't teaching. Not a bad gig all-in-all.
One of the members of the club was a developer who was ready to have a Grand Opening of his housing development. He and Coach cooked up the idea of having a tennis exhibition at the development as part of a gala opening, and Bob "Harry" Harrison and I were given the assignment. Harry also played for OSU, so we were old friends. But the exciting part of the event was the planned appearance of a celebrity that the developer had hired, or bribed, or coerced in some way to show up and mingle for a while with prospective buyers of his houses while watching our tennis exhibition match.
The celebrity was Anna Maria Alberghetti, a woman who is well-known to those of my generation. Alberghetti started her career as an opera singer and a child prodigy at the age of 6, performed at Carnegie Hall at 13, and then starred in about a dozen movies in the 1950s and 60s. She won a Tony Award for her Broadway performance in Carnival in 1962. I specifically had remembered her in Cinderfella in 1960, where she co-starred with Jerry Lewis. And she was on the cover of Life magazine twice. Wow!
So Harry and I were to play a singles match in front of the famous Anna Maria and that was it--no other matches but ours, no other distractions for the movie star. She could focus on our talent and our Ohio personalities, she would enjoy herself thoroughly, she would raise our praises in Rome when she returned to her homeland, and she would giggle and tease and horse around with us after the match. In short, she would have an afternoon so entertaining that she would never forget it, nor would she ever forget us.
Anna Maria showed up in a limousine, exactly befitting a famous person. She was surrounded with 4 or 5 men who wore sunglasses; I assumed they were body guards. Anna Maria also wore large sunglasses and a huge, wide-brimmed hat. Her arrival was anticipated by the crowd with great excitement; Harry and I giggled like 3rd graders before the match. The only problem was that she arrived AFTER we had finished our match. She got there in time to see two tired, sweaty, and smelly wannabes gawking at the black entourage, and I mean black. The limousine was black. All the bodyguards were dressed in black. They reminded me of a scene from The Sopranos.
Anna Maria never said a word during the entire 30 minutes that she was there; I mean she never uttered a sound-not in Italian, not in English, not a moan, not a sigh, nothing. She signed autographs, while the ends of her mouth were turned up ever so slightly in what could be defined as a smile. It then occurred to me that maybe the
