Eye Eye

Can I ask you a question? Is the question, "Can I ask you a question?" not one of the most leading, instantly nerve-wracking questions there is? Doesn't it just scream I'm curious about something I know you don't wanna talk about? Isn't asking the question a bit like practicing dialing the number for a phone call you're nervous about (yes, I've done that)? Isn't it a bit like asking someone if you can sucker punch them, right before sucker punching them? Forget the ha ha response to the question of "You just did" and walking away. When you graduate from the 4th grade you can really ponder the baggage that goes along with the question "Can I ask you a question?" Obviously it's a question the questioner hesitates to ask, one he or she thinks might be too prying or too annoying or too something for the answerer to answer comfortably. Right? Don't you kind of cringe and immediately start battening down psychic hatches when somebody comes up to you and asks, "Can I ask you a question?" Your mind races to come up with plausible responses to the question, "Where are the bodies buried?"

And so it was the other day when in the middle of doing The Job, Co-Worker asked me, "Can I ask you a question?" Paranoia immediately struck deep, as it always does when I'm asked that question. I checked my fly. I quickly glanced down to make sure I was wearing exactly one, no more or less, pair of matching shoes. I activated the stand-by button on my mantra chant, "No comment. There will be no comment at this time." I did my best to maintain my usual cool and braced myself for being asked if the piece of lettuce stuck between my teeth was some kind of fashion statement, or if I was aware I had a 50% Off sticker stuck on my butt.

(Now having said all this, and before revealing the question that needed to be prefaced with an introductory question, let me state that Co-Worker is one of the most polite human beings I know, truly. He is not one to not only ask if he can throw a sucker punch, but he is not one to actually wish to, contemplate, or indeed truly sucker punch anyone. As it can get pretty busy and distracting while doing The Job, in retrospect I honestly believe Co-Worker was just being polite as ever when he asked me if could ask me a question; there was no intent on his part to actively induce a paranoia attack in me. This should all be clear when I get around to revealing what his question was, which, given the entire context [which said Co-Worker didn't provide as a prelude to his question {the actual question, not the pre-question question} which, not providing the context, is the source of all this bafflement, but which, ironically, makes the whole story pretty funny and worth--trust me--telling you about], really isn't as odd as it first seemed. Anyway, my point is to absolve Co-Worker of any blame for using the pre-question question as anything but a polite request for my time.)

So, in the middle of doing The Job in our own separate ways and not having had any immediate previous conversation, Co-Worker asks, after asking if he can ask me a question, let's not forget, "So how did Marty Feldman actually die?"

Marty Feldman, ladies and gentlemen. Crazy-eyed actor. Died December 2, 1982, of a heart attack, though read further about how six packs of cigarettes a day, a surprise guest, and a shared food-poisoned knife might have been involved. (Okay, full disclosure here--yesterday I wrote about a two hour, very funny post about all of this, but somehow before publishing it I lost the last hour and a half of work; what you've read so far is what was salvaged; I'm having trouble re-creating it all, so trust me, what follows is not nearly as good as what's floating around the ether, never to see the light of day again; we beat on, boats against the current).

I must admit, even though my vast knowledge of arcane nonsense is fairly well-known and thus I receive a lot of bizarre questions (including a drunken post-midnight call from a friend in Chicago calling to confirm that the Book of Lists once ranked Cleveland as a windier city than Chicago) as a sheer out of the blue, devoid of context question, the Marty Feldman question now tops the list as the strangest, beating out the nearly thirty-year-old question from a deep slumbering college roommate who woke up long enough to squint down at me from his lofted bed to ask, "Did you ever get the feeling Henry Fonda was about to walk in?" After quickly checking the door and considering the possibilities of Henry Fonda making an appearance at my fraternity, I turned back to tell him no, but by then he had rolled over and was snoring again.

What, do I look like a card-carrying member of the Marty Feldman Fan Club? What is it about me that when people get a crazy question in their mind they think, Oh, I bet Dan will know the answer, though before asking him I should ask him if it's okay to ask him a question first? Turns out Co-Worker was assessing the worth of a Marty Feldman DVD at the time, so his question wasn't that much of a non sequitur, but still. Though I might just add here that my immediate response, while my mind was going WTF, was, "I'm not sure, I think it was a heart attack." Grace under pressure, folks. That's me.

Now although the sainted George Noory always claims, somewhat eerily, that "there are no coincidences," I'd sure like to know what pattern, what significance for my life put me in position the very next day to answer another Youngun Co-Worker's question that led to another eye-related, long-forgotten (or never even known, as was the case) celebrity reference. Said Youngun Co-Worker pointed to the Bette on a Bette Davis book and asked me, "It's pronounced Betty, right?" "Yes it is," I helpfully and non-judgmentally answered (a fair enough question coming from a mere 20-something), but I couldn't help adding, "She of the famous eyes." "Hunh?" Youngun Co-Worker replied with a twisted face (no sweat, by now I'm used to twisted-face hunh replies to half of my utterings). "You know," I prodded, warming up the singing pipes, "'She got Bette Davis Eyes' by Kim Carnes." I must admit, her reply of, "What the hell are you singing about?" was a new one for me.

How old am I? Older every day. Because not only did said Youngun Co-Worker profess no knowledge of Kim Carnes (wiki refers her to as "the female Rod Stewart" for her husky voice, so, Rod-bashing other Youngun Co-Worker, investigate no further) and her ubiquitous 1981 smash (nine, 9 weeks at No. 1, second biggest single of the entire 1980s next to Olivia Newton-John's "Physical") "Bette Davis Eyes," but two other Youngun Co-Workers professed/confessed to similar ignorance. True, all three delightful and very intelligent Co-Workers were not yet born in 1981, but one might assume with I Love the 80s saturation and everything else that they might have heard the song by now. Sorry, Kim, fame is fleeting; my sympathies. Needless to say, though, when talk turns to any TV show of the last twenty years, let alone last night, I'm helplessly clueless; one man's Kim Carnes is another's Snooki, I guess.

Can I ask you one final question, though? Aren't you jealous that I co-work with so many friendly, inspiring, and fun Co-Workers?