ATOMIC DOG
Death Rattle
by TC

A good friend of mine killed his wife last Saturday. By the looks of things, he cornered her in the bathroom and, despite her pleas, shot her. He then walked into the bedroom, sat on the bed, and shot himself with the same gun.

Some of you may recognize his name, Dr. Bruce Nadler. He once went by the moniker of "The World's Strongest Plastic Surgeon" and was known throughout the bodybuilding world as a specialist in the surgical treatment of gynecomastia. He was the subject of a few interviews on Testosterone and even wrote a couple of articles for the site.

I've known him about 15 years, first becoming friends during one of the "fitness cruises" Muscle Media 2000 magazine sponsored back in the nineties. I went to visit him and his wife a couple of times in New York and he too was often a guest in my house. I even accepted an invitation to join his family for Passover Seder, the Jewish ritual feast.

He once wore a Testosterone T-shirt to a taping of Howard Stern's old E channel TV show, which endeared him to me all the more.

Recently, he'd given up his New York medical license and fulfilled a long-time dream to move to California to open up a personal training studio. I was under the mistaken belief he was happy.

But now he's dead. And I didn't even find out about it until Wednesday morning, four days later.

What's really frustrating is that I'll probably never know what happened; never know why he killed Terri and himself, never know if it was out of anger or depression or even part of some suicide pact. Did he blow his head off or did he shoot himself in the chest? Was he fearful when he pulled the trigger? Was there a death rattle?

The papers said he was seeing a psychiatrist, but I sure as heck didn't know about that. The sad truth is that I hadn't had any contact with him for several months. He'd sent me an article to post on Testosterone a few months back, but I never ran it because I didn't think it was right for us.

I feel pretty bad about that. Granted, it's hard to imagine running his article would have made a lick of difference to his apparently damaged psyche, but I still can't help feeling a little bit guilty.

And now he's gone.

I guess if someone were on the verge of flipping out and committing suicide, this is the time of year you'd expect it to happen. The holidays are over and there's this long, bland, stretch of days before the next one.

Football season is no longer a pleasant distraction and hockey and basketball are in their midseason doldrums.

Most of the country is in the depths of winter. The days are short, the nights are cold, and nary a square inch of female flesh has been visible since mid-October as most females are bundled up to look like Nanook of the North.

There's no temporary respite at the cinema, either, as February is when the studios drop their bombs on us. Likewise, the television writers are on strike so we're forced to watch horrifically bad reality TV.

Regardless of all that, it's hard to imagine suicide as an option. If things got so bad I felt like offing myself, I think all it would take to change my mind was to sample something pleasurable. Hell, even a piece of chocolate might do it. I'd take a bite and invariably think to myself, "Man, this is so damn good! What the hell was I thinking?"

Sure that's simplistic but the point remains, there are so many great things in life that when in the depths of depression, it seems logical to sample one of them to pull you back, whether that sampling be a piece of chocolate, some good music, a favorite movie, or something in a tube top.

One of my favorite movie scenes of all time is from Hannah and Her Sisters when the Woody Allen character has just had a failed attempt at suicide. "Mickey" was suffering from existential angst; almost literally worrying himself to death, but all it took to bring him back was something pleasant:

"And I went upstairs to the balcony, and I sat down and, you know, the movie was a-a-a film that I'd seen many times in my life since I was a kid, an-and I always u-uh, loved it. And, you know, I'm, I'm watching these people up on the screen, and I started getting hooked o-on the film, you know?

"And I started to feel how can you even think of killing yourself? I mean, isn't it so stupid? I mean, l-look at all the people up there on the screen. You know, they're real funny, and, and what if the worst is true?

"What if there's no God, and you only go around once and that's it? Well, you know, don't you want to be part of the experience? You know, what the hell, it-i-it's not all a drag. And I'm thinking to myself, geez, I should stop ruining my life...searching for answers I'm never gonna get, and just enjoy it while it lasts.

"And...you know...after, who knows? I mean, you know, maybe there is something. Nobody really knows. I know, I know 'maybe' is a very slim reed to hang your whole life on, but that's the best we have. And...then, I started to sit back, and I actually began to enjoy myself."

I only wished I could have strapped Bruce in a chair and propped open his eyelids like Alex in Clockwork Orange and force-fed him chocolate while he was forced to listen to an endless loop of Smash Mouth's Getting Better while watching a Power Point presentation of girls' butts.

Or maybe if Bruce had just found something to be excited about, something to look forward to, it would have kept him going.

I'm usually excited about any number of things, even though it's dreary February. There's a Victoria's Secret TV special on this week. Saturday, I'm going to a "James Bond" theme party, complete with bikini-clad hostesses that hopefully have Bondsian names like Pussy Galore and Helen Goodhead.

I'm hugely interested in the Presidential primaries; I'm saving up for a top-of-the-line 60-inch plasma TV; baseball season starts pretty soon; I've got a half dozen books on my shelf just begging to be read; I'm going to Vegas again later on this month to play some poker; and Biotest is coming out with a number of exciting new supplements.

All of that keeps me pretty amped up.

I'll admit there were times when I've experienced depression and there were times when I needed help, including therapy. Believe it or not, I used to have this paralyzing but seemingly inexplicable fear of clowns. I couldn't even leave the house because someone had started a clown school down the street.

After seeing a psychiatrist for a year and a half, the doc threw out this wild Freudian-based theory that it had something to do with the time I went to the circus with my family and Bonzo the clown killed my dad with a mallet disguised as a phony bouquet of flowers.

You know something? I think he was spot on with his diagnosis.

Sure, psychiatrists get a lot flack, but the good ones can piece together seemingly unrelated clues and come up with a plausible explanation to fears or behaviors. God what I'd give to have introspective powers like that....

Okay, so I threw in a comedy bit right in the middle of a serious and dark dialogue. In my defense, I paraphrase a famous philosopher who said that man's the only animal that knows he's going to die; thus he was compelled to invent laughter.

Maybe Bruce didn't have anything to look forward to. But that's way too simple. I know there are those who are afflicted with bad chemicals that can't be fixed with anything but pharmaceutical chemicals and therapy. Bruce was almost certainly one of them, but hopefully people like him are a tiny minority.

Still, I'm surprised Bruce didn't find at least a little bit of comfort in the therapy that binds all Testosterone readers together, the therapy we call lifting weights.

For those of us who occasionally battle with some minor form of depression, the gym is part therapist's couch, part church, part Indian sweat lodge, and part afternoon spent with our head lying between the comforting bosom of a beautiful naked woman, but put it all together and it's sweet mental bliss.

Who among us hasn't found relief from a bad breakup, the lost job, or even the loss of someone close, by lifting weights? Who among us hasn't mentally transmitted his troubles into a heavy weight and just torn that mother up in a sweaty effort to exercise and exorcise that demon? Who among us hasn't felt the blood surging through our muscles, followed by an intense cramping pain that's both excruciating and cathartic at the same time?

You can have your soothing wind chimes, I'll take the beautiful sound of clanging dumbbells any day.

In fact, you can shove your Prozac, your Xanax, your meditation, your Dr. Phil, the equally sophomoric Secret, your comfort food, and your whining. Instead, take this pill, the one that weighs 45 pounds and is made of solid iron. It won't sedate you and it definitely won't deaden your feelings, but it'll flatten that thing gnawing on your soul.

Got soul sickness? Got downright despair? Got run-of-the-mill blues? Strap on the headphones, turn up the volume, and grip, rip, and hoist. Feel the satisfaction of moving things that to most are unmovable. Shake the sweat off your head and brow and baptize all those damn unbelievers with your own holy water.

I'll admit I'm personally a little down because of Bruce, but I'll be okay because I'm going to the gym.

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