The decomp room

I spent the 90's in the morgue.

I thought about this today as I got in the cab here in Beijing.

Let me explain...

For close to 10 years I did crime. Crime shows that is...

All in all - I did a heck of a lot of murder shows. We would travel all over the country interviewing people about murders - then come back to the studio and recreate them.

I went from nightmares and intense revolusion to insane curiousity. How are we as humans capable of such atrocities? And after we're gone...what happens to the bodies?

Sometime in the middle of the different series - we started going to the morgue. Interviewing the coroner. So that means you gotta get some B-roll to introduce them. And that usually involves dead bodies.

At various times I have been locked in the freezer with the bodies, locked in the drawers the bodies slide out of, been zipped up in body bags that they swore to me were unused, and lifted out of coffins.

I've helped a coroner shave the arms of a dead man to look more feminine because there weren't any dead ladies there when we needed to film.

I seen things. Things I don't want to talk about.

And smelled things.

First time I went in a decomp room - I was in Texas. Decomp rooms are usually in rural areas where they have a lot of unused land. When a body sits out in the sun for a few weeks until someone stumbles upon it - they usually head to a morgue with a decomp room - because the smell is so bad - no one wants to take it to the morgue.

I was interviewing a Coroner who was a piece of work. She would come to work in shorts and sandles - and do all her autopsies that way - making sure to spray her legs off when she was done to get rid of all the bits of blood and brain and bones.

The story we did had a body found after three weeks in the Texas heat. So we shot her in the Decomp room. And did her interview there.

When she open the door - I felt as if I was hit in the face by putrid decay. I don't think I've ever smelled anything like it in my life and would be happy to never smell anything like it again.

My sound guy immediately turned around and vomitted.

The doctor just laughed.

And she told me something interesting. She said that the brain is pretty amazing. That if we just stood there breathing - in a couple minutes - we wouldn't even notice the smell.

I found it hard to believe. My sound guy never came in - I had to set his stuff up.

And sure enough - after a couple minutes - I didn't notice the smell. Maybe cause I was too distracted by the bodies in various states of decay....

But I thought of this today as I got into my cab.

For some reason - a lot of Beijing Taxi drivers almost live in their cabs.

And when they don't have customers - they eat something full of onions and garlic...and the stink that fills that cab - especially when its hot out and they turn the air on and lock that smell in - cooking in the sun...

I thought of the decomp room.

And I closed my eyes. Vomitted a little bit in my mouth. And breathed.

And it worked. :)

Thank you, decomp room...