That time Bill Murray relieved my constipation

Staying in the hotel grace, San Francisco. A hotel I've nicknamed because of the view.

It's the second time I've stayed here. The first time was years ago. I was with my parents and brother on a vacation. Around this time I fell hard in love with cooking, quickly going from making the basics to ever-more adventurous recipes. I haven't looked back since.

The week before we left for vacation, I made candied ginger for the first time. On the surface it's not a complicated recipe: Wash and peel the ginger, slice it thin, boil it in sugar water, let it cool and there you have it. The only way to screw it up, as I discovered, is to get a knob of mature ginger and then don't bother peeling it. In that case, you end up with an outcome that is just as fiery sweet, potent and exotic, but a little too fibrous.

By "a little too fibrous," what I really mean is, it constipated the ever-living shit out of me, or up in me, to be more precise. What started as ominous discomfort on a trans-continental flight became a painful, disturbing brick of misery lodged in my guts to the point where I was walking doubled-over.

We were initially situated in a hotel right near Fisherman's Wharfm the kind that guide books bill as "family-friendly." One look at the questionable stains on the carpet and rusty massage-for-a-quarter contraptions affixed to the nicotine-stained bedroom walls made everyone wonder aloud exactly what kind of family would stay here. My mom's answer after five minutes inside the room was "not this family."

If we were going to stay anywhere for two nights before hopping on a plane to Hawaii, it was going to be somewhere with a bit more style. We were on vacation after all. After some coercion, my dad finally consulted the guide book and looked above the two-star level and low and behold the hotel grace not only had two rooms available, but with a nice weekend package including breakfast. Not that I wanted breakfast. Or lunch. Or dinner.  All I wanted was a proper bowel movement. Which hadn't happened in a while.

We dropped our bags off and hit the streets, walking down to Chinatown. I saw a promising pharmacy with a esoteric jars and bottles in the window and hobbled my way inside, hoping for some ancient remedy. After explaining the situation, the man came around the counter, directing me to a dark, dusty aisle. He bent down low and pointed. The feeling of disappointment must have confused him when I saw the bottle of Milk of Magnesia and frowned. With all that other stuff in there I was at least hoping for some bitter-tasting tea or an elixir in a bottle with a stopper on it, or some ground up root, hopefully peeled, please God. But who was I to question a pharmacist? I paid for it, went outside and drank down the required dose.

I don't remember where we ate for lunch or what I had. I do remember my mom saying "It's gotta come out sometime. Just keep eating." We wandered around some more, and visited the adjacent hotel which was just as fancy.

In late afternoon, my brother and dad were getting antsy, so they hit up a bookstore, coming back later with some paperbacks. When dinner rolled around, I was still feeling uncomfortable and didn't much feel like going out. Mom was wiped from the plane ride and time difference, so she opted to keep me company, having a dinner of potato chips while my brother and dad went to a pizza joint in North Beach.

After they left, we looked for a movie to watch. First one that came on was The Man Who Knew Too Little. Bill Murray's always funny. Why not? For those who aren't familiar, it's one of the last movies Murray did that could reasonably be described as a comedy before he got into his Serious Artist who hangs out with Jim Jarmusch phase.

He plays a loser who works at Blockbuster, who invites himself over to his much more successful brother's house in London so the two of them could celebrate his birthday. The brother has to get rid of him for a few hours while he entertains some high-profile bankers. So he signs him up for a live-action improvisational theater called the Theater of Life. It begins with his answering a phone. The problem, of course, is that he answers the wrong phone call and suddenly finds himself in what he thinks is the improv theater when in actuality it is a plot by the Russians and British rouge agents set on killing ambassadors to reignite the cold war.

There is very much an Inspector Clouseau aspect to it, and the film threatens to get derailed by its own plot which can't decide what type of comedy it wants to be. Character actor Alfred Molina's Russian goon is played with the subtlety of Boris Badenov. In the meantime there are subtle jabs at Hollywood. Murray manages to retain his signature sarcasm mixed with a Jerry Lewis-like idiot-savant quality. Despite its flaws,  it's an underrated comedy,  especially as far as Murray movies go. I will forever love it and be indebted to it for the way it finally made me shit.

Granted, the Milk of Magnesia had a lot more to do with it as it had been working on me for a good eight hours by the time this scene came on where Bill Murray is dressed like a Cossack and starts making up a goofy Russian dance in an extended sequence that had me laughing so hard it was like every augh spasm was a flood breaking up my own constipated damn until I finally had to for real, yes please run to the bathroom and make a silent promise to never, ever make candied ginger again with peel or without, until finally doing the deed and emerging fully upright and ten pounds lighter.

Now I'm here in the same hotel, all these years later. The décor hasn't changed but it sure hasn't fallen into disrepair, either. And I am as regular as a clock. But just to be on the safe side, for the rest of the week I'm staying here, I will fight the urge to turn on the TV in case that movie is on.