The Tao of Bill Murray

The Tao of Bill Murray: Real Life Stories of Joy, Enlightenment and Party Crashing by Gavin Edwards           Hardback Book: 368 pages               Genre:  Biography

I love Bill Murray’s comedy ergo, I loved this book.    So many great, real-life as promised, stories about Bill Murray – the guy – from his home, growing up as Billy in a family of 9 kids to his Second City days honing his style and delivery so well that he still improvises to this day no matter the media or crowd.   He has been known to walk up behind total strangers, put his hands over their eyes and say, “Guess Who?”  When he releases them and they see who it is, Bill will say, “No one will ever believe you.”   Ya gotta a guy like that.    He is very loyal to his friends and has taken some questionable roles in some questionable films and made the best of them as best he can which is a lot all because a friend asked.   Married twice with 6 sons to show for it, Bill has always been a rambler and a rover.   When he goes someplace for a film shoot, or just checking it out, he will stay there hanging out and learning all about the locality doing touristy stuff and just going on Walkabout as the Aborigines call it.   He hands out meeting people and doing fun things even showing up and crashing weddings, frat parties, BBQs pretty much, you name it and if he is in the vicinity it is a good possibility Bill Murray will be there.   He is a riot.   Surprisingly while he is mostly good and kind to people he has been known to throw his weight around on a film set when it suits his purpose, though it is just as likely he will hire a band to play during lunch or maybe he will spring for a night out for everybody or maybe he will just disappear for a while then show up spot on when it is time for him to go before the cameras and will shock and amaze people by knowing every line, every cue, every dance step whether he has rehearsed or not.  This book is chock full of Bill Murrayisms.   Not everyone has his working style – he scared Mickey Rourke to death when he totally went off script but made it better with the dialogue he invented as he went.   Mickey is a one take maybe two take kind of guy but that shoot, Bill and Steve Carrell did the same scene 32 times and played it different each time, adlibbing the whole way.   Another time he totally frustrated Richard Dreyfus, who never got over it, by going completely off script delivering different lines than were written but in the same vein coming in with different lines but lines setting Dreyfus up so he could deliver the lines he had memorized allowing him the same reaction.    The frustration Dreyfus felt in real life showed in the film but made it that much funnier, it appears like Dreyfus is just doing a bit of great acting but it seems it was more real reaction than not.   Bill has been known to go up to complete strangers and sit on their laps, or hold his shirt up and rub his belly, whether they understood English or not.   Bill has done so many funny things that are captured here and there is good intel on behind the scenes stuff on Saturday Night Live (he and Gilda Radner were an item before she met Gene Wilder), each film he has done, his adventures in other countries, etc.  Bill Murray sounds like he would be a great friend to have – no matter what you or he would come up with – it would be no holds barred, let’s do it.   Fun!    I highly recommend this book to free spirits, fun lovers, fans and anyone looking for an enjoyable read about a guy that goes for the gusto and seems to enjoy every minute of it then like Zorro disappears.   Great book.