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The Sun Runner Arts & Entertainment Magazine - July 1999
“Frazier Crane is in My Bathroom”
By Jeremy Baumann
My friend Horaclia is the only person I know who will admit to reading a book on the toilet until both her legs go numb.
Instinct tells me to cross my legs so only one goes numb at a time; if there's a fire I might stand a chance of survival by pogo-ing my way to safety. Her only option might be to project herself into the tub and fill it with water.
I tend to keep light reading by the toilet: computer books, magazines, autobiographies and porno.
Occasionally, while sitting in the bathroom, I'll get caught up in a book which surprises me, which catches my attention to the point of pins, needles and beyond, as it's worth more time than normal bodily functions require. But you get comfortable... it's hard to walk with numb feet. This happened again just last night with a book I discovered in my tiled reading room and read until four a.m.
Some people are always reading books, some never do; I go through phases. Now is a reading phase. At times like
this I'll buy the most unusual books--like people who overfill their shopping carts when they're hungry and a week later wonder why they bought four different brands of brownie mix.
My literary equivalent of this was coming across Kelsey Grammer's autobiography in a pile of unread books by the television set. The book migrated shortly to my bedroom, where it did not hold my attention at first and was thus banished to the porcelain library.
Where had it come from, I wondered. Eventually I remembered that after reading a number of heavy books in succession
it felt like time to break the spate with some light reading. A good friend had been looking at renting Kelsey Grammer's loft in New York City and, in a discount bookstore one day, I saw his face on a jacket
cover and wondered what he was like that my friend would want to get that close to him. Perhaps it would only be a business deal and they'd rarely if ever meet but, just as likely, they knew each other well
and enjoyed the company of the other.
I did not know and didn't ask my friend such questions as a habit. It would be interesting to know a bit about him other than the characters he portrays, in case we were to ever meet, or so went my thinking that day. Too, a great mind once said "no knowledge is ever worthless." That and the book was marked down from $22.95 to a buck fifty.
Death does not make me cry, generally.
My tears usually take a vicarious route after someone or something I care about dies. When the two best friends I ever had died shortly after each other, it took my learning about the death of a little boy I used to babysit to burst the dam. Nat died in a car accident, my mother called to tell me. I started smoking cigarettes that day and tears snuffed the cigarettes out as they dripped off my nose. When I worked in the medical field I recall one week when three of my favorite terminal patients died. I mourned deeply, but it took a melancholy episode of Mary Tyler Moore to set off the tears.
Thus, after the latest epics which led to my splitting the desert for awhile, after letting go of friends I once found dear
and seeing some of the worst a small town has to offer, I suppose it should come as no big surprise to find myself weeping on the toilet, feet numb as frozen trout, reading of the rape and murder of Kelsey Grammer's
beloved sister. Feeling for him, wondering if we were to meet if I'd bother to tell him how sorry I was to learn of his tragic loss or thank him for telling a story which touched and released me.
Most likely I would never tell him. Still it was worth the read to find that Frazier Crane has a real life and that it hurts just like all of ours do sometimes. It was worth the read to be reminded that no information is ever worthless. Best dollar fifty I ever spent.
Writer Jeremy Baumann is the founder of Jeremy’s Cybercafe & Beer Haus in Joshua Tree, CA, and is a frequent
contributor to The Sun Runner Magazine. He now lives in New York City.
This story appeared in the July 1999 issue of SR. For author or reprint information, contact the Editor at
(760)362-5257.
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