" Dad?" " Yeah?" "What would you say, if I said to you..." "Mm-hmm." "Bike trip, Nova Scotia." "Bike trip, Nova Scotia, how would we get to Nova Scotia?" "Bike trip." "I don't mind going on a bike trip, and having Nova Scotia, even, as our goal, as our destination, as long as we agree with each other not to be disappointed if we don't leave the city limits." "What if I make a sign..." ""Entering Nova Scotia."" "And you ride by." "Tell me again why we need to do this." "Dad, we need a weekend to ourselves, you know?" "We need to get away from the grind." "Ben, what grind?" "What about a fly-fishing weekend?" "You always said you wanted to do that." "It's at a stream." "In the mountains, we camp out, there's a guide who guides us." "Is there plumbing?" "You just hold it." "Yeah, but what if you gotta go?" "When you gotta go, you gotta go." "Where do you think the animals go?" "Yeah, that's true." "Let me rephrase that question:" "Where do you think the animals go?" "Oh, you actually want me to answer that." "Well, you know, I've often wondered about that, because, in the city is littered with dog poop." "Yeah, I know." "But you get into the wilderness, and you never see any animal droppings or animal corpses." "Have you ever been to the wilderness?" "I've seen footage." "You just can't see it in the footage." "They take it out." "Oh, you think they touch it up?" "Well, let's go to one of those places that have already been touched up." "Let's just watch a nature film and get this over with." "But your mother and I, on our honeymoon," "I wanted to go to a resort hotel, and just sort of get pampered." "Right." "Your mother wanted to go camping." "So you got divorced." "No... so we went camping in the Catskills." "In the Catskill Mountains." "Right." "3:00 in the morning I hear a rustling in the woods." "And she's scared, I stick my head out of the tent, it's shecky green." "Well, dad if we take a trip," "I don't think it's worth it to take a comfortable trip," "I think we should be miserable." "You know, we should get out there and we should take a..." "You know that you can do sort of a..." "I mean, when's the last time you took a trip that required you to challenge yourself?" "When we went on that walk for the heart-lung association." "That wasn't really a trip." "That was a, well..." "It was a walk." "Yeah, but it was a good hunk of the day." "I guess we did go through the woods at one part." "The toughest guy on the block happens to be mother nature." "I don't care what anyone says." "She can kick our asses any time she wants." "That is so true." "The things that you discover about yourself and each other when you're pitted against great odds." "Exactly." "And I'm talking about the wilderness." "I'm talking about survival, really." "You know, dad, the thing about getting out into the great outdoors is that I think you learn a lot about yourself, and I think we'd learn a lot about each other." "Yeah, I think that's what I just said, isn't it?" "Yeah." "But I..." "look, I'm not resisting the idea." "I'm just saying that there is a way to do this carefully." "And to plan it so that we don't find ourselves..." "Dad, I don't..." "You ever hear the expression, "withered corpses"?" "No." "That could be the lead line on a story about you and me if we don't play this thing right." "Who do you think would last longer." "If we got stuck in the wilderness:" "Me or you?" "I figured it out, and I can live off my own body fat for 3½ years." "Go." "You make me open up..." "I feel loose with you." "Well, that's good, Don." "I feel close to you." "Well, that's the whole idea." "You make me feel like a whole person." "Okay, you want to sit down for a second?" "Yeah." "I appreciate your enthusiasm, but help me." "I need to keep some kind of perspective on your problems." "At least... so the six feet would help me with the..." "Between here and the couch." "What you're telling me is you need more space." "That's all I'm saying..." "Just a little more space." "So the couch back to the..." "Back to the couch." "It's not... don't think of it as a setback, you know?" "Well, that's the way I'm looking at it." "You just had me opening up now." "And now you want me to close down again." "No, I don't want you to close down." "I just want you to open up from there." "Did you get that seafood salad downstairs, it smells like?" "Yeah, you could tell?" "Well, you develop like..." "It's like a..." "I was gonna say a sixth sense, but it really is the sense of smell I'm talking about." "One of the old senses." "Yeah, one of the original." "They're great, aren't they?" "Maybe we should do this before lunch next time." "I know it's painful, but you don't talk about your family at all." "I mean, just anything would help." "You grew up with a big... you have brothers and sisters." "Yeah, that's usually if you have a big family, that's what... that's one of the main sources." "Okay." "Were your parents affectionate with each other, Don?" "We had a big family, so you've got to figure." "At least those few times they were." "There were no outward signs of affection, though." "A high-five here and there." "Your father take you to the ball game once in a while?" "Yeah, but never take us back." "He'd take us to the game and then leave." "That was the bad part, yeah." "You still in touch with your siblings?" "I don't know, we communicate, but mostly by rumor." "It's..." "I don't know, it was always so crowded." "It was an Irish background, everybody lived together." "My grandmother lived with us right 'til the end." "Mm-hmm." "She didn't die, we just went, "Get the hell out."" "I get pulled over by the police a lot." "Why is that, Don?" "A lot of times I like to sit in the back when I'm driving." "That's a red flag for these troopers." "Have you ever been pulled over by the police, and you didn't think they were pulling you over?" "Sure, I've had that experience." "You hear the siren and you see the light, you're with somebody else, and you go," ""Somebody's in trouble."" "And then you go, "It's us!"" ""Let me talk to them, I'm good at this." "Here, hold my drink."" "Don, if you get your..." "You could get your license revoked, you know?" "I have had it revoked..." "You mean get it back?" "You have a driving record, then." "Well, I'm not a..." "I'm not a particularly good driver." "I'll admit that." "Last year, I was in 11 accidents." "I came in fifth in the state." "A lot of them were not my fault, I don't feel." "Mm-hmm." "I don't pay any attention to driving, I read." "Yeah, so you don't really feel responsible for most of these accidents." " No." " For instance..." "All right, last year, I hit a guy." "He was in his living room." "We've all done things we're not proud of, and this is a strictly confidential situation here." "There's nothing you can't tell me." "Mmm." "So please don't feel like you need to hold back." "I robbed a bank once." "Holy...!" "I'm not proud of it, but I can tell you now." "It was actually a cry for help, too." "I wanted to get recognized, and so I did it from the drive-up window." "I figured even if it was not successful, it should make the papers." "Right." "I was serious about it..." "I rented a gun." "Mm-hmm." "And I'm in the line, and I wrote a note." "I said, "I have a gun, give me all your money."" "And finally, it was my turn..." "That drawer opened, and I put the note and the gun in the drawer." "How'd it work?" "Dr. Katz's office." "Laura, how are ya?" " It's Ben." " Yeah." "What are you up to this weekend?" "Are you busy, are you..." "Yes, busy." "What do you usually do on the weekends?" "Um, I'm busy." "Really?" "How do you keep yourself occupied?" "Um, I just..." "What do I do?" "I'm glad you asked." "Because I like to go, get out, go out there into the wilderness and..." "Really." "Okay, great... so I'll talk to you later?" "Actually, um, my dad and I, we're going away together." "You know, it's been a while since we've had a family trip." "And I decided, hey, you know, we should go away again." "Tee-riffic." "You know, not just a typical family trip." "I figured we could go somewhere different, make it interesting." "Go to, like, um, up north." "Yeah." "Just go north." "Keep driving 'til we hit the ocean." "The arctic ocean?" "We're gonna go hiking." "We're gonna climb up and fall down." "We're gonna hurt ourselves." "We're gonna get helicoptered to a hospital..." "On one of those red cross things." "Oh, great." "When you're strapped and you can't move, and the guy's panicking like, "Don't move your neck!"" "We're gonna be like, "Ow, I moved my neck!"" "I was thinking last night..." "I was lying in bed thinking that... wouldn't it be fun to just go to the airport, travel light, pick any city, just, like, a fun city and spend the weekend there, check into a really nice hotel." "Yeah, but, dad..." "Room service, spectra-vision." "Didn't we have this discussion, though?" "That we weren't gonna go to a city, that we were gonna go to the wilderness." "What is that called, that dessert, something brûlée?" "Crème brûlée." "Crème brûlée sent up to the room." "We could go to a city." "And the weird thing is, I'd like to go to some city that's not a city that most people associate with a vacation." "Someplace like Pittsburgh, or..." "You know, I did read in magazine, there was the ten worst cities in America." "If we go to one of those..." "That's what I'm thinking." "You go to a city like Bridgeport, which is a depressed city." "Exactly." "And they would go crazy if they saw some American money." "Yeah." "I was thinking this would be fun, every year..." "And we'd get to see the country, we'd go to a different state capital." "All right, all right, that's a good idea." "You know what the capital of New York state is?" "Uhh, New York City." "No, that's what most people think... it's Albany." "Albany, New York, a place I've always wanted to visit." "The capital of Nebraska, I think, is Cedar Bluffs." "Man, I don't wanna travel with you." "You're the most boring man alive." "We have 30,000 frequent-flyer miles." "Really?" "So we get a free domestic, or..." "A free domestic." "A free domestic flight." "No, we get a free domestic." "I'm talking about some household help." "That's illegal." "No, we can get either one free trip, round trip." "Right." "Or we could each get upgraded to first class, but we can't get home." "You know what would be kind of cute?" " What's that?" " Going to Cuba." "I would just like to yank on that beard of his one time." "Who are you talking about?" "Castro." "Oh, don't mention his name in this house." "Dr. Katz's office." "Hey, Laura, it's me..." "Benjamin Daniel Katz." "Yeah, yeah, yeah." "Or should I say Benjamin Daniel Boone Katz." "No, you shouldn't say that." "Well, listen, I just called to ask if I could borrow..." "Do you have a video camera?" "Yeah, I do." "Because we are going on this trip." "Oh, it's gonna be amazing, though, you're not gonna want to miss all the stuff." "I'm gonna be eating nuts, berries, plants, herbs." "I'm gonna be pooing green." "That doesn't sound very safe." "Well, you know, we can take care of ourselves..." "I meant for the camera." "Hey, Laura, you know, after this trip, you know, it's gonna be a full weekend." "You've never seen me with a two-day growth, have you?" "My hair will be all mussy." "And my clothes are gonna be all tattered, you know, from the hunt." "Wow, sounds great." "You know what?" "Take the camera." "Really?" "It's gotta be worth at least one good guffaw." "I think I am ready to assume my place in nature as one of the animal kingdom." "Where exactly do you fall on the food chain?" "I'll eat anything, if that's what you mean." "I feel bad for women." "They're constantly bombarded with these stupid commercials." ""Suzie, how could you work eight hours a day and look so young and fresh and vibrant?"" ""Stay-free maxi pads."" ""Yeah... did you hear the question I just asked you?"" "Hey, Laura." "Hi." "Tell me what you think." "Do you think I come by too much, or do you think I call too often... or both?" "Both." "Both..." "I was gonna say both, too." "Anyway, I'm here." "Yeah." "I'm here to pick up the camera." " This is it?" " This is it." "It's just I thought it would be bigger." "No." "Is this, like, a bad one or something?" "No." "This is, like, a little nothing." "How much did you pay for this?" "$800." "800 for this?" "For this little thing?" "Yeah." "It looks like it came out of the candy machine." "Can I show you how it works?" "Um, I'll figure it out." "Just let me show you." "I've worked these before, so I know, basically, how to do it." "There we go." "Hello, Laura..." "Say hello." "Ben." "Say some more..." "Say something interesting." "Say something that would be worth being put on tape." "Go ahead." "Laura?" "Ben." "I'm right on you." "Wait, hold on, let me zoom in here." "Holy God, that's too close!" "Oh, Ben, please just take it and go." "Let me get a better angle here." "You're late again today, Don, is there a reason for it?" "I'm not even sure if I need to be here at all." "Well, you're here." "You made an appointment with me, and you showed up 25 minutes late." "Right, well, I went to see a shrink on the way in." "A second opinion kind of thing?" "Actually, he figured his would be the first opinion and you would be the second opinion." "Well, that's adding insult to injury." "That's like putting salt on an open wound." "Any other clichés you might want to throw my way?" "That's like..." "I was gonna say it's like a stitch in time, but that doesn't apply." "No, it does not." "But let's bury the hatchet." "Okay." "Okay, Ben, let me just remind you, though, that not everything is interesting to watch." "You don't want to just tape everything." "There's the Mr. Coatrack." "I mean, that's the first thing that people do." "When they get a video camera is just..." "They tape everything and they don't realize it..." "There's the corner of the room." "And they narrate it, which really baffles me." "As though people wouldn't know by looking." "Panning out, panning in, panning out, panning in." "It's all out of focus here..." "Wait, hold on a second." "And focus, and there's the plant." "If you guys want to do something really exciting," "I think you should go to a spa for a weekend." "But isn't that where you just get pampered?" "Not necessarily." "Not that I am not up for a good pampering." "Yeah, well, that's..." "One of the things with the spas is they..." "I think they give you a morning massage and an evening massage." "Do you get massaged by a masseuse or a mes... meshuggah..." "Man or a woman?" "That's the thing..." "I always feel slightly sleazy saying," ""And can you make sure that the masseuse is a woman."" "You always say that?" "You always request that?" "I always request a woman, because I'm not comfortable being massaged by a man." "Yeah, I think they call it homo-mysogy..." "Mysogy-homophobo." "It has nothing to do with homophobia." "No?" "It's just fear of being touched by a man." "No, that's homophobia." "I didn't realize this couch opens up all these years." "But this is fun, lying in bed, on our own couch." "It's not exactly the wild weekend I pictured." "Yeah, it's gonna get wild." "When we try to close this thing up, though." "It's gonna get wild, believe me." "Well, you know what I say we do?" "We'll sleep on it." "When's the last time you slept in the living room?" "When you had your tonsils removed, because I couldn't stand the crying." "I wish we were the type of people who could get out there and experience the outdoors." "Yeah." "As opposed to what we're doing here." "Well, we shouldn't rule that out." "Just because we weren't those kind of people this weekend, last weekend, and every weekend before that." "Doesn't mean..." "It doesn't mean that we're not gonna become those kind of people." "Yeah, so if we work our way up to it." "So you thinking what I'm thinking?" "Mm-hmm, you betcha!" "Order more food." "Salsa, please..." "Pass it." "You know what?" "Oh, dad, let's eat 'til we die." "Whichever happens first." "Yeah." "I'm willing to try." "Hey, dad, when we watch the videotape I made of us sitting around here tonight" "30 years from now, it's gonna be great memories." "Oh, God, why wait?" "Yeah." "Hey, food fight?" "Seriously?" "What the hell?" "The place is a dump anyway." "You clean up." "No, Grace is coming in tomorrow." "All right, food fight." "I have a friend that scuba dives." "He goes, "Oh, you know what you're supposed to do if a shark's bothering you?"" ""Bothering?"" "This guy needs to look in a thesaurus." ""You know, it really bothers me when you shear my legs off at the hips."" "Mm-hmm." ""I find it very bothersome to get back to shore without my legs."" "He says that when the shark's bothering you, you just punch him in the face." "Yeah, and when that doesn't work, you poke him in the eye with your stump." "Mmm..." "Punch a shark." "What if he wasn't going to attack you?" "What if he's just curious, and he's swimming by, and you go..." ""Hey, what was that for?"" ""I thought you were going to attack me."" ""Yeah, I'm going to now."" ""I was gonna let you go, but the other sharks are watching." "It doesn't look good now."" "You know what really bugs me about plane crashes?" "What's that?" "When you watch the news, and they say the people have to be identified by their dental records." "Well, if they don't know who you are, how do they know who your dentist is?" "Right, right." "I saw a crash on CNN, this Piper Cub crashed in a field, and the news guy's standing out there and he said," ""The plane crashed over here, decapitated the pilot." "He's apparently dead."" "Yeah, wanna double-check?" "Maybe the head's still alive by itself." "It's gonna be going, "Over here, behind the bush!"" ""Hey, are you okay?"" ""Yeah, I can't feel my legs."" "I saw an ad for a Time-life book." "A guy jumped out of an airplane." "He fell 30,000 feet, his chute didn't open, and he lived to tell the story." "You know, I would have loved to hear that story." "What made you decide to go on a diet?" "I realized I was not in shape." "I realized that when I got winded in an elevator." "That's a bad sign." "Yeah." "I mean, you don't gain all the weight in one day." "Like, there's indications." "If your socks are tight, that's not a good sign." "I got to be honest, I realized I had a pot-back." "And that was bad, you know?" "Yeah." "Do you try to stay in shape?" "You exercise?" "I tried lifting weights, but, boy, those are heavy." "There should be a warning on them." "Yeah, I think there should be." "But I'll tell you one thing, you look healthy." "Maybe some of your habits are not good, but you must be doing something right." "I'm trying, I'm trying, doc." "I'm a vegetarian now." "Good for you." "I eat meat, too." "Well, that's good." "Hi, Laura, how're you doing?" "Fine, how was the weekend?" "It wasn't as wild as I had expected." "Oh, really?" "Probably as wild as I expected." "Well, you got me." "You know the part about going away?" " Right." " We didn't do that." "But we stayed in, and I videotaped some stuff." "It's all on there." "I also dubbed off 12 hours of British television." "Great." "You know, even though I didn't take a trip, Laura," "I did learn a lot this weekend." "What was that?" "If I spend another second with my dad, I'm going to explode." "Now, Don, this was a really great session." "Great, better than great." "You don't know what you've done for me." "Well, I'm getting a sense of it." "Well, I'm telling you, you have done a lot for me." "I don't really shake hands with my patients, but you've got a good grip, you know." "Can I have that back now?" "All right, well, I gotta..." "I'm telling you, I really appreciate it." " Okay." " And thanks." "I'll be putting this in my pocket now, if you're done with it, okay?" "Oh, oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." "That's okay." "Sometimes, I forget that I'm holding your hand." "But you know what?" "Now it's time to let go and just move on." "Because, I know you don't like to hear this, but I'm seeing other patients." "Ooh." "And, you know, this is a problem with us." "You have to get used to that notion." "So that reaching out and touching someone is..." "Well, you're hurting me." "Oh."