Uma Thurman: An Essay in Humor--After the Trial Verdict was In

I am glad that the trial of Jack Jordan for stalking and harassing Uma Thurman during a three-year period in NYC is over, with a guilty verdict on two counts against Jack, because now it finally frees up Uma to focus on the person she should have been noticing all along--ME. Actually, when you take some time to look at it objectively, I cut a much more attractive figure than Jack and should have no trouble, in fact, in winning her attention. For example, he only has one degree from a "near-Ivy" school (the University of Chicago, in literature (1994)), whereas I have two degrees from an Ivy League school. In addition, while his degree was in literature, mine are in religion--a field in which Uma's dad, Robert, excels. Both her dad and I know what it is like to study classic texts of religious traditions, to teach students in elite environments and to bring scholarship into the classroom. Indeed, since Professor Robert Thurman is a student of Eastern Religions and I have spent a good number of years studying Western and Middle Eastern Religions, it is as if he and I are "complementary," a fact which Uma has, no doubt, already recognized. A person as sophisticated as Uma has a need to try to make sense of the East-West character of the world in which we live; connecting with me will further that interest like nothing else.

Then, I am superior to Jack Jordan in another way. He made his living, if that isn't too generous a word, through part-time pool cleaning. He said that it cleared his mind. I don't know if he was consuming the diatomaceous earth while doing it, but we have to give credit to his sincerity and passion. But, I can top him. More than 35 years ago, when I was growing up in the SF Bay Area, I spent a lot of time cleaning pools. I knew how to move those huge brushes; how to balance the chemicals in the water; how and when to add various other cleansing materials to the water. Jack only did it "part-time." I was a nearly "full-time" pool cleaner. Certainly Uma can't overlook that in me...

Other "Coincidences"

If you believe, as I do, that there are "no coincidences in life," that all of life is working to the greater good of some power which we can't really understand, then you can also understand the following as infallible indications of her secret and unconfessed interest in ME. First, she is tall, and I am tall. She is 5'11'' and I am 6'2''. Most women want the man to be taller than they are. Now what do you do with that, you skeptics? Then, second, she is blonde and I, before my hair turned gray, used to be blonde. It really isn't that usual for people to be blonde anymore. I think that is a second infallible sign of our secret connection.

Then, on a more substantive note, she acted in two "Kill Bill" movies. My name is Bill. Instead of taking the movie title literally, can't you see that her acting in those movies was a sort of suppressed cry for help, help indeed from a person whose name is Bill? Don't try to confuse me with facts that say that there are probably 2,000,000 Bills of my "age cohort" in the United States. Actually, I think the number of "Bills/Williams" is plummeting rapidly, as designer parents give their boys designer names like Madison, Ashley, Landon, Hayden, Brayden, Cole, Chase, Addison and hundreds of others. Even those who are named "William" are not called "Bill" as much anymore. Thus, by acting in movies named "Kill Bill," she was, most likely, trying to communicate in a very subtle way that she was seeking some kind of salvation or liberation from a man named Bill. Rather than wanting to "kill Bill," as the title says, she was wanting to kill off her desires for other men, of any other name, and focus only on Bill. But she would only be open to a man named Bill who realized all these things. She is a person of deep intellect and spirituality, who, because of her visible position as a celebrity, has to communicate by these kinds of subtleties if her true "match" person is to recognize her. Just as it is popularly said that sometimes there is a look of recognition when two people who are destined to be together meet for the first time, so I think that my solving what I call the "mystery of Bill" all fits into her plan for finding the man of her dreams. I have solved that riddle now. I will await her email or phone call.

Speaking of email and phone, I debated at length whether I should try to contact her. I figured I might write to her dad, and "play the religion professor colleague card," sidling up to him on some topic in the history of religion, and then gradually letting the cat out of the bag that I was the destined Bill. Then, when he caught on, he would eagerly pass me on to her. But I have decided against this option, principally because if this thing really is in the stars, then she will find me. Actually, since I grew up as a Calvinist, which admittedly is pretty far-removed from a Buddhist-sympathetic philosophy, I assert a belief in the over-riding Providence of God, a Providence that will not be discouraged or diverted by the inefficiency of modern technologies such as email or phones. And, indeed, since I spent many of my formative academic years in the town of Providence (RI), I think you can see how Providence has to be shining brightly on me as I write.

A final note of "coincidence" that is just too much to believe is a product of chance, is that Jack, my competition, first fell in love for Uma when watching one of her early films entitled The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988). That eighteenth-century German mercenary would have lain undisturbed in his grave had it not been for a 1785 book published in English by Rudolf Erich Raspe entitled The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen, which celebrated his military ventures and his even more impressive ability to tell a tall tale. Well, guess what??? Jack only saw the 1988 movie; I am now writing a long paper on Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, named after the good Baron himself.

Conclusion

With all these "coincidences," how can you think anything other than that the obstacles are being removed for my eventual meeting with Uma? The stars seem aligned now that Jack is out of the way. All signs point to it. And I can rest easily because I know that since it is destined to happen, it simply will, and I don't have to do anything other than write this essay for the wheels to start spinning. Indeed, I am expecting a call in a few weeks from her, or maybe it will be from her lawyer....

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