Book: The Big Bad Book of Bill Murray

The Big Bad Book of Bill Murray by Robert Schnakenberg

I’ll tell you what I liked the most about meeting Bill Murray, and by meeting I mean exchanging a smile and a few words while I cleared plates away from his table…. I was working at Sushi Village in Whistler BC, as a busboy. I was 19 years old, clearing tables, pouring tea, and saving money for university. It was a snowy December, I was home from exams and Bill Murray was in town to ski. He wanted to come in for dinner but there was a wait list, at least an hour (pretty standard for one of the best sushi joints in north America). Bill said nothing and say patiently in the crowded lounge for a while before someone told the Japanese owner there was a Ghostbuster waiting for a table. Space was cleared and Mr. Murray was promptly given a very public table in the centre of the room (table 1) and left to enjoy dinner with his friends unbothered. After the meal he bought big beers for all the sushi chefs, and gave me some of the best advice of my life while I cleared up his gyoza plate.

He asked me if I was in school and when I said I was, for writing, he suddenly got very serious, put his hand on my shoulder and said, “It’s hard to be an artist. It’s hard to be anything… but when you get there and you’re and adult that gets to pick your pleasures… they should be worth picking.”

And that was it. I cleared his plate, later said goodbye and thanks when he left, and I’ve never seen Bill Murray again.

Except, of course, on screen in all the best movies and in this book, which discusses every film, “public” stories (one very much like mine,) and even includes quotes from the man himself (but not what he says to Scarlett Johansson at the end of “Lost in Translation”). All in all this book is pretty fucking awesome, just like Bill Murray.

Update: February 2020. Pebble Beach ProAm golf tournament. 71- year-old Bill Murray drains a no-look, switch putt like the legend he is.