Backaches

Don’t you hate backaches? Don’t they just burn you? They can mess up your whole perspective on the world. Backaches make me feel weak and brittle, and I can easily imagine a karate chop in just the right place could break me perfectly in two (think Darth Maul, Episode One). Back in the early 1980s when the Boston Celtics won their next to the last championship (that’s a depressing thought right there), a reporter asked their coach, Bill Fitch, how he felt about winning it all. His reply was simple. He told the reporter that anyone who has ever experienced a nagging backache, one that never seems to quit, couldn’t enjoy much of anything. And I thought, can a backache affect him that much? He just won the freakin’ championship for crying out loud! But, alas, the long, hard years have helped me to understand Bill. I feel his pain. I mean I really feel his pain.

When I have a backache, I get a self-image of a weak, bitter, old man — no longer the bouncy, energetic dynamo I fancy myself to be. I walk like an old man, I bend over like an old man, and I’m cranky like an old man. The only thing lacking is a cane to poke children with while telling the whippersnappers to slow down and mind their manners. I feel completely crooked in body and soul and I yearn for the good old days when I could dress myself without groaning or get out of a chair in under five minutes.

In other words, when I have a backache, I’m the biggest wuss you ever saw.

Needless to say, I’m experiencing a backache right now. I’m not sure what set it off, but I do have a theory or two. The top suspects are that I’ve been sleeping too much on my stomach and last weekend I had to pick up and carry the lawn mower about ten times (don’t ask me why). Usually it occurs in my lower right back, but this time, for a little variety, my muscles decided to go oingo-boingo on my lower left. It’s a clenching kind of action they make and as they do it they seem to shout, “Oh no you don’t!” For instance, when I go to pick up a pencil I dropped on the floor, I hear “Oh no you don’t!” Or if I twist to reach the telephone, it’s “Oh no you don’t!” When I try to climb onto my bicycle, “Oh no you don’t!” And, of course, as I desperately hustle across the street to avoid the oncoming traffic, they mock me by saying, “Suckah, you a dead man!”

I’ve had much worse backaches. This morning I could run for three miles relatively pain-free, so my back will allow me to do some things. Pedaling my bike to work isn’t fun though. Sitting seems to be the toughest thing. No matter how hard I try to correct my posture and find that perfect position where my back won’t aggravate me, nothing works. And when I stand up from prolonged sitting, it needs to be done slowly and in careful stages; if I try to do it too quickly or all in one motion, I know I’ll wind up shrieking like a little girl with a frog thrust down her blouse.

In the grip of a backache, the simplest movements require exhaustive planning; a field study needs to be made and an action plan drawn up. Stooping to grab a book from a low shelf is no longer the automatic act I’m used to doing. I have to consider the objective and break down in my mind the series of actions I believe myself capable of making. Sometimes the result looks pretty funny, but other times surprisingly graceful as I assume the classic ballet position number two and then perform a slow motion arabesque to retrieve the half-full coffee cup on a low box over in the corner. My legs take up the brunt of the work these days and I find myself doing a lot of squats. I hear that’s good for the glutes. See? There’s some good that comes of everything!

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Here’s a theatrical idea I am sure will become an instant Broadway hit: Star Trek: The Musical. I’m not kidding, folks — I’m as serious as a New York heart attack on this one. It would be based on the 1960s Star Trek, not Future Generation or Voyager or any of those others. We’re sticking with the fundamentals, strictly Kirk and crew. I don’t have a story outlined (of course), but I do have some basic ideas, like the Klingons should look like the 1960s Klingons and, when the Enterprise is under attack, the performers throw themselves around on the bridge set just like they did on the TV show. The actors naturally should be made up as close to their original counterparts as possible, and whoever plays Kirk needs to do the most outrageous William Shatner impression possible. Really ham it up. He’ll definitely have a few solos, like Kirk’s Lament with the refrain: Oh Scotty, beam me up! or another song that will go something like: Klingons! Why can’t we get along? Klingons! You’re dark and I am blonde! (all right, that was terrible). And, for the New York production, a special scene will be written for the real William Shatner to play old, caught-in-a-time-warp Kirk having a dialogue with his younger self. And it calls for William Shatner to do his most outrageous William Shatner impression too! Maybe even throw in a few Priceline.com references! Hilarious, right?

So what do you guys think? Is it money? Does it have legs? Any ideas? Anybody know Andrew Lloyd Webber? Let’s roll with this one!