"You're onto something. In those first years, I'd have the television on all night. It affected my marriage. I became suicidal. I thought about the ways [to kill myself]. But then, for some reason, I don't really know, I stopped. And I went in another direction. I sought to…embrace it. To go INTO it, to make that sound a part of my body, or perhaps to make my body part of that sound, do you see? In biblical times, in ancient scrolls, when there is mention of people, mad people, holy people, tuning in to the sounds of the planets, to the sounds of the UNIVERSE ITSELF, to angels, do you think they were talking about tinnitus?"

This was the mysterious essence of Denny Crane, the way he seemed attuned to some cosmic frequency no one else could hear.

"This is where the 'Wha…?' came from!" Shatner says. "There would have been no 'Wha…?' without the tinnitus."

This is a trademark gesture of Crane's that Shatner and I have discussed at length—his knack for greeting the frozen stares of others in response to something appalling he's said or done with an incredulous open-palmed shrug and a half-breathed, half-spoken "Wha…?"

" 'So I shoot a gun in the office? So I grab some dwarf's ass?' " Shatner says. " 'What is WRONG with you people that you fail to understand?' "

And then the phone rings. It's Conan O'Brien. There's an emergency. Can Shatner come and do this afternoon's taping? Sarah Palin delivered her resignation speech yesterday, and it was…madness. A sublingual splatter. Dangling participles to which dangling participles had attached themselves like barnacles. Will Bill please, please, come onstage and, with a stand-up bassist and a bongo player behind him to frame the moment, deliver select portions of her speech as if it were the most profound stream-of-consciousness Beat poetry ever composed?

Is grass green? Does the sun rise in the east?

It's beyond meta. Transformed Man redivivus via the Priceline Negotiator. It is, to borrow Shatner's own word, insane.

This is precisely what David Kelley's talking about. The slam-cutting: death…suicide…supernatural voices in the head…onstage, asking a delirious Tonight Show audience in a low, sober voice, " 'The cold, though, doesn't it split the Cheechakos from the Sourdoughs?' "

At The Tonight Show, Shatner does his piece and then abides in his private greenroom. That night's other guests, all ostensibly more A-list than Shatner, gather one by one to pay homage. Such is the nature of SHATNER: first the members of the Fray, then Judd Apatow, then Meryl Streep. She seems nervous. She should be. What are fifteen Oscar nominations in the face of SHATNER? "William! Oh, William!" she says. Shatner, remaining seated, extends a hand, which she takes and kisses. "William, you are brilliant." After a time, the no-name in the room requires an explanation.

"This is a gentleman from GQ magazine," Shatner says. "Andrew Corsello."

Ludicrously, he places the accent on the first syllable.

"Cor-sell-oh," I mumble.

Shatner doesn't miss a beat. Just turns his head in my general direction, though not his eyes, which stay with Streep. "You say Cor-sell-oh, I say Cor-sell-oh," he quips.

SHATNER!

After the lesser stars are gone, Shatner turns and says, "Did I tell you that I woke up thinking of you the other morning? I've got an idea for an article for you! I was up early, sitting outside having a cup of tea. There were the greening mature trees, in the fullness of the flowering of the summer. The trees were voluptuous, Andrew! Swaying in this breeze. And there were great birds wheeling overhead! And the chimes, the wind chimes, were striking so beautifully, and everything was in rhythm. And I began to think—are you ready? Bells! Where do they come from? Whence their mystical role in human history? BELLS! They vibrate, Andrew. They vibrate, and the sound leaks out. Into the infinite. And I vibrate. And the vibration of the bell goes through me. BELLS! WHERE DO THEY COME FROM? What is the meaning of them?"

William Shatner then interrupts himself. To scream.

"MY GOD!"

The greenroom has a flat-screen television, and something there has caught his eye. I look. Monkeys. Monkeys in cowboy hats. And chaps. With crops. Riding Chihuahuas. Chihuahuas outfitted with saddles.

They're racing.

"MY GOD!" Shatner exclaims again. "IT IS MAGNIFICENT! YES!"

This is as large as Shatner gets. Which by definition means as large as any man on the planet gets. Or so I think. Because at that moment one of the monkeys lifts a paw off its saddle and begins waving it triumphantly. His competitors have tumbled off their saddles or strayed from their lanes, but he's still going, and goddamit, he knows it.

"MY GOD, YES!" yells William Shatner, finally at his apotheosis and embracing all that is before him. "YES!"

andrew corsello_ is a GQ correspondent._