David, Whoopi and Me

David Carradine died early this morning, or late last night, apparently by his own hand. I am sure that some writer will posit that this was unnecessary because his career was experiencing a resurgence (he was in Bangkok, Thailand working on a movie). But perhaps while on the outside this looked to be a resurgent career, on his insides it was already too late. We will probably never know what specific trigger caused him to take this action, but we do know the outcome. That much is not in doubt.

There are a couple of things about this situation that are distressing to me. First of all, he was the Kung Fu Master, from whom one expected a certain zen-like calm about the storms of life. Even though, I understand that that was a persona he inhabited only for several hours a day nearly 30 years ago, one tends to imbue stars with the traits of the characters they play. Forgive me then my cognitive dissonance on that score.

Another facet of this scenario that is disquieting, is the report of the long lulls in his career. Just this morning on The View, I heard Whoopi Goldberg say that sometimes you come to a point where the work has so dried up that you’ll do just about anything. (She went on to say in her usual acerbic fashion, you'll do anything that is, except taking up a spot on the corner, ‘cuz that’s so tiring. To that I reply: "Honey, I hear ya!")

Here is the nexus point between me, David and Whoopi: sometimes all you really want is for someone to just give you a chance. You want to scream, “Let me in the door and I’ll knock your socks off. Just let me in the door!” As a person who has had to look for a job a time or two thousand, I totally understand what it is to be frustrated. I’m fortunate not to understand desperation, but then I have no child to feed or mortgage to pay. Moreover, although I do have a retirement to think about, I’m pretending that the time I’m losing now I’ll make up later (when I’m making oodles of dollars). I’m also fortunate to have other resources – financial, emotional, spiritual and intellectual – but what if I didn’t? Had David run low or was he all out?

And so here we are. The Kung Fu Master is gone because he, like so many others I fear, was running on empty.