Will Self - Walking to Hollywood

I recall my conversation with Dr Szasz perfectly well (or should I say, with his impersonator, for I realized soon enough that he was being played by Donald Pleasence in his last major role), and in particular his goulash-thick Hungarian accent that added the suffix szasz (pronounced zarj ) to many of his words, thus: ‘Yesasz, my criticszasz are many, my enemieszasz ubiquitouszasz,’ giving me the uncanny feeling that his speech was a form of prayer, consisting in the incantation of his own — possibly divine — name.

Not that there was anything self-worshipping about the veteran anti-psychiatrist (as portrayed by the valetudinarian actor). I had a journalistic assignment, but was also interested in speaking with him because he had known Zack Busner well during the early 1960s. At that time Szasz was working on what would become his signature work, The Myth of Mental Illness , while Busner was setting up his ‘concept house’ in Willesden. Both were engaged in a revolt against the dehumanizing character of institutional psychiatry, both fundamentally questioned its view of mental pathologies, but only Busner had ended up on celebrity game shows.

Peering over his bifocals, Szasz looked at me as if I were a psychic gift sent by his old comrade in arms-thrusting-from-the-walls-of-her-flat. I told him about the Riddle, and how buying up shares in the manufacturer had almost financially bankrupted Busner, just as publicizing the enquire-within tool had done for him professionally. ‘I seeasz, I seeasz,’ Szasz muttered as I spoke; then when I’d concluded he said: ‘It isasz, I think, a caseasz of hubriszasz.’

‘Hubris?’

‘Exactly, hubriszasz. You seeasz, like me, Zack Busnerasz believed that schizophreniasz was not a pathology at all, only a semantic confusionasz.’

‘And it isn’t?’

‘No, of courszasz not — researcasz in the last thirty yearszasz haszasz conclusively established the genetic basiszasz of schizophreniasz, if not its actual causzasz.’

‘So, you were wrong?’

‘We were wrong, which is by no meanszasz to endorszasz the way the therapeutic state treats schizophreniasz, or to admit that any other so-called mental illnessasz — such as depressionasz — are anything of the sort. But in this caszasz, we were wrong. I think perhapszasz that Busner is too proud to admit thiszasz, and so…’

His fingers, which had been steepled beneath his chin, now interleaved, then inverted to reveal all the pink little people straitjacketed in his institution. So, as you can see, it was an epochal encounter for me — one that had far-reaching consequences, especially when I became aware that Szasz had cofounded, with the Church of Scientology, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights.

For the rest of the interview Dr Szasz treated my questions seriouszly if peremptorily, szwiping them out of the air in such a way as to suggest he was translating from one conceptual language into another. Which made it all the more bizarre when, at the end of our hour together, he turned hospitable — very hospitable — and suggested that while he had no wish to detain me against my wishes, I might like — on a purely voluntary basis, of course — to be his guest in a nearby facility… indefinitely.

On the same trip to the States, Charles and I went up the Twin Towers. Given subsequent events, I’d like to be able to tell you that they made a big impression on me, but that would be a lie. Indeed, I can honestly say that I never gave the vast blocks another thought from that day until 11 September 2001, whereas my revulsion from Mike Myers returned again and again over the years, rising unfunnily up my gorge whenever I caught a few seconds of a trailer for one of his movies, saw a poster, or even heard the words ‘Mike’ and ‘Myers’ in completely unrelated contexts.

The scene in The Love Guru that most outraged me was one involving the actor of restricted height, Verne Troyer, who Myers had imported from his earlier Austin Powers movies to play the foul-mouthed manager of the Toronto Maples ice hockey team. I suppose that given my own issues it ill behove me to be quite so censorious, but when I saw Troyer upbraiding the Guru (Myers) and his star player (Timberlake) in a scaled-down office obviously modelled on the dwarfish train carriage set in the Marx Brothers’ At the Circus , *I longed for one of those vodka miniatures that I drained during the 1992 JFK to Heathrow flight to magically reappear in my hand, so that I could smash it against the wall of the cinema, then plunge it into Myers’s chipmunk cheek. †

It may be the vagaries of memory, but I think the vodka miniatures were glass. I don’t believe either Charles or I behaved at all badly — we didn’t even raise our voices, only unravelled the way even well-knit folk do when drinking to excess on long-haul flights. Nevertheless, about an hour before landing the stewardess approached our scaled-down barroom and told us that she refused to serve us any more liquor, and that if we didn’t moderate our language she would have the pilot radio ahead and we would find the police waiting for us upon touchdown.

‘He was wearing crocodile-skin shoes the last time I saw him,’ Bret was saying of a former brat pack writer-buddy. ‘He told me they cost $20,000.’

I pushed my spoon through the quarter-inch of tarte au chocolat and it clicked with china. The waiter materialized with a vodka tonic for Bret; then, as he turned away, he moved the bottle of Powerade from one point on the adjacent table to another more exactly in my own mid shot. As if this setdressing were the cause, the voices of the other diners were now right in my ear .

‘It’ll be huge, see,’ the man was saying. ‘I mean, we’re with this guy all the way — he doesn’t know who he is any more, hell, he doesn’t know who anyone else is either.’

‘Uh-huh.’

I’d misread the situation: this wasn’t a date; the suit was pitching to hay-hair, who had to be a studio exec.

The suit pressed on: ‘Everyone he runs into is played by an actor — some well known, others not so, and people’ll have a great time trying to identify who’s who — that’s how they identify with his, his—’

‘Condition, yeah, I hear you.’

‘But there’s more’ — he began waving his hands — ‘our guy has these delusions, he sees things, he hears voices, everything is incredibly significant — everyone is in on the conspiracy –

‘He’s a paranoid schizophrenic, right?’ She was bored. ‘Lissen, Griffin, I don’t want to, like, pop your bubble, but I’ve had people coming on to me with these psycho ideas for months now — it’s all over town like a goddamn rash.’

I could understand why Bret didn’t want to sit next to anyone in LA. I couldn’t tell if he’d overheard the schizopitch; his face bore an expression of frightening ennui. I began babbling: ‘I’ve been reading your Lunar Park , man; it’s great, truly great — maybe your best yet. I love the way you play with your own identity, create a doppelgänger — but isn’t that what the movies can do now, there’s no disbelief so heavy that it can’t be winched up with fleets of computer-generated helicopters? I mean, it’s also like a psychosis , believing in this stuff even for a second — that’s why they’re putting so much into the new 3-D technology. Shazzam! And you’re in the insect mines of Minroad. Shazzam! again, and you’re in some poor fucker’s liver , kayaking down his bile duct… and, well, this is what we fear , isn’t it? The numbers of people with mental illnesses are increasing exponentially — bipolar, hypomania, OCD, dementia, addiction, schizo-fucking-phrenia — it’s a plague, and these Hollywood movies are expressing that fear! What’s so incredible about the Hulk? I’ll tellya: he’s got BDD, body dysmorphic disorder. He’s a perfectly ordinary guy but he thinks he’s got green skin and this, like, obscenely muscled—’