There is no dignity in show business. I have said this so many times it would probably be considered a Mercer-ism—if there were such a thing.
Usually, that phrase would come tumbling out of my mouth while I was half-naked by the side of the Trans-Canada Highway—changing out of my suit and into a safety harness, perhaps. Or maybe I would suggest it while preparing to be immersed in some horrible substance whipped up in the props department. “The script requires you to swim in pudding. We need to keep adding ice to keep the consistency right.”
But to say there is no dignity in show business is probably an exaggeration. Very little would be more accurate.
Also, “show business” is a pretty big catch-all. There are many people in many different occupations in my racket. But what we all have in common—the actors, the singers, the dancers, the jugglers—is that we all sing for our supper.
Look at the finest theatre festivals in the world. The folks who tread the boards during King Lear or Macbeth may look like they are wrapped up in some dignified occupation, but it’s a hard old life. Most stage actors must literally beg the artistic director year after year to be included in the company. You eat at their whim.
Even a symphony orchestra—and what seems classier than that?—is not as pretty as it appears. Having performed Peter and the Wolf with two of Canada’s finest orchestras and having featured the Toronto Symphony on the show, I can tell you that their working conditions are not the most dignified. You can’t have an orchestra without a brass section huffing and puffing at an ungodly pace. And when they aren’t mid-huff or puff, they are busy dumping spit valves willy-nilly all over the floor of the gazillion-dollar hallowed hall they are playing in.
During an opera or a Broadway show, the music may sound heavenly from the good seats, but down in the pit (aptly named), near the brass and woodwind section, the floor is so slick it resembles the deck of a Japanese whaling vessel. And if the lead trumpet player is required to drop his instrument and pick up the flugelhorn, the surrounding musicians would, if they were allowed, don those pink plastic ponchos that tourists wear when they ride the Maid of the Mist underneath Niagara Falls.
But of course, I can’t speak with authority about those communities. I can only speak of comedy and TV.
And the truth is, comedians may stand on a stage much like a mezzo-soprano or a Shakespearean actor does, but there is one major difference. Comedy at its heart is often about making a spectacle of oneself. And from the moment we enter school, there is an army of teachers waiting to remind us repeatedly that making a spectacle of oneself is simply not appreciated. It’s just not something a lady or a gentleman does.
But people in comedy? It’s what we do.
Even true masters of the craft, the wittiest minds and the sharpest tongues, will, if necessary, resort to crossing their eyes and running around in circles, slapping themselves on the forehead. Anything for a laugh.
Comedians would feel more at home in a Mexican wrestling match than a production of Hamlet.
Now, to be clear, I’m not complaining about showbiz humiliations—I’m merely stating that they exist. I accept them. It’s just part of the game. And I realize that other occupations have it far worse. Imagine being a professional hockey player. Imagine playing for the Leafs. That job involves constant humiliation accented by intentional blows to the head. Show business is a Sunday walk in the park with George compared to sports.
So I am not complaining. I am admitting that when I am required to revisit any grand humiliations in this book, I will couch the language to keep it all very PG.
That’s not a requirement; it’s just an admission to myself that, as I grow older, I find myself becoming somewhat of a prude. I find myself saying things like “I don’t think it’s appropriate to say that on network television at eight o’clock in the evening. Young people could be watching.”
To which anyone under the age of thirty-five who might be listening would answer, “What is network television?”
It is because of this newfound prudishness that I decided I could not in good conscience allow the word hemorrhoid to appear thirty-plus times in one chapter. And so my promise to both you the reader and to myself is that the word will appear exactly one time, as it just did, in the previous sentence. Henceforth that unfortunate medical condition will simply be referred to as Harry.
Harry is a good, solid name. There have been presidents and business tycoons named Harry. Also, great artists. And of course, Harry sounds somewhat British, but don’t read anything into that.
Harry showed up in my life on a Monday. It was alarming. He caught me completely by surprise.
I was lucky. At this point in my life, during my forty-five-odd years on earth, I had never crossed paths with a Harry. I’d never had a single reason to visit that aisle of the drugstore.
Clearly, my luck had run out.
After an alarming Google search I was off to Shoppers Drug Mart, where I filled my basket with the abandon of a man on borrowed time shopping without a budget. I was in an “I’ll take two of everything” frame of mind.
At work, I did the wise thing and sought medical advice from the writers. The writers room of RMR was populated with the funniest people Gerald and I knew. Some of them, like Tim Steeves and Chris Finn, were stand-up comedians who had worked with us since the very early days of 22 Minutes. Tim was universally accepted as one of Canada’s sharpest and most confident comedians. Nobody wanted to follow Tim on stage. He was a destroyer of audiences, in the best sense of the term. Finn joined us after a wildly successful stint on MAD TV in Los Angeles and has one of the most deliciously cynical minds ever developed.
For many years, until his death from cancer, we were lucky enough to have a true legend in the room, in the person of Irwin Barker. A genius and a gentleman, George Westerholm came from the world of music and comedy and happens to be the most effortlessly cool man in Canada. And Rick Currie, the late addition, came to us after we lost Irwin. Rick is an Ottawa Valley boy who understands pure comedy like nobody else. When Rick is not writing or performing, he is helping someone move or fixing a widow’s fence.
Greg Eckler rounded out the gang. His nickname was “College”—because unlike the rest of us, he had been to one. He is a student of television like nobody I have ever met and never ceases to make me laugh. Which was true of everyone in the room.
But on this day I was not searching for laughs I was seeking medical advice. What I received was far from sympathetic. My news was greeted with guffaws and horror stories. Seems that more than a few colleagues had been down this road and were more than eager to blurt out the gory details. Although none were quite as scary as the advice given to me by our show business doctor, whom I reached on the phone a few hours later.
Being a showbiz doctor must be a terribly tedious calling. They spend a big part of their days doing insurance medicals for actors and singers. And I’ve met more hypochondriacs in show business than I can count. I once worked with an actor who would routinely self-diagnose herself with all manner of illnesses, real and yet to be discovered. She once left a rehearsal and went to a local emergency room seeking treatment for what she insisted was a previously undiagnosed case of spina bifida.
But though I have many faults, hypochondria is not one of them. I’m a wuss but not a hypochondriac. Blessedly, the doctor was able to take my call.
For the purposes of this story, I’ll call my doctor “Marv,” because that’s his name. He is Toronto’s most prominent showbiz doctor, widely respected and often mentioned in Canadian memoirs. Most recently, Academy Award winner Sarah Polley spoke of Marv in Run Towards the Danger, her award-winning book of personal essays, and gave him full credit for saving her life.
“Those Harrys,” he said. “Awful.”
He walked me through the various over-the-counter treatments (I already had a Halloween candy sack worth of those) and told me to take it easy for a few days. “Lots of cold and hot compresses,” he said, “and don’t do anything too active—those things can burst, and that’s no fun, I tell you.”
The notion was far too horrible to contemplate.
I said goodbye to Marv, promising him I would not do anything active. I would just stand very still for the next week. I would be statuesque.
At this moment, Tom knocked on my door. He was somewhat pleased with himself.
“We have a great shoot lined up,” he said. “It took a long time, but your schedules have finally lined up. We have the ambassador; he’s going to teach you how to play tennis.”
He was referring to the United States’ ambassador to Canada, David Wilkins.
We had wanted the ambassador for quite a while. He always looked good on TV and was quick with a quip. We always suggested that we do something active with our interview subjects, and he chose tennis.
Tom was thrilled. Sports diplomacy at its finest!
Tom went on to tell me that Jill, the head of wardrobe, was already shopping for my tennis whites. “It’s a requirement,” he said.
Surely to God I didn’t have to play tennis in whites with a time bomb in my pants. Maybe we could play chess instead? I knew better than to float the idea.
Ah yes—the show must go on.
I’d already had concerns about playing tennis with the ambassador before I was told to avoid rigorous activity. I’d never played the game before, at all. I had never even banged a ball against a brick wall with a racquet. I like to have at least a passing familiarity with the activity I am attempting. I am a below-average skater, but I can skate. So I will gladly play hockey against a professional hockey player or perform with an Olympic figure skater. In fact I’ve done both. I can ride a bike, so I’ll play bike polo, circle a velodrome or hurtle myself down a ski hill on a mountain bike. Again, I’ve done them all. I’m an okay downhill skier, so I’m happy to hit any slope anytime. Point me at the slalom gates and roll the cameras.
It’s always great to have some basic skill level. And I will always try my darndest to do a good job. Sometimes beginner’s luck will kick in and I’ll look okay. Often, my best will come across as awful. But that’s the name of the game. Sometimes they aren’t laughing with you, but at you.
I remember when I attempted the trendy sport of kite skiing. This is where you race on skis across beautiful snowy meadows, being pulled by a giant kite. The sport is marked by the spectacular leaps the skiers make, rising into the sky two and three storeys at a time. It is exhilarating to watch.
The day of the shoot, I tried my best, but the snowy meadow was a sheet of ice and the pretty flurries turned to freezing rain. I spent most of the day being dragged on my face across the ice. Occasionally the lines tangled and I’d come to a halt. Then the wind picked up and the kite would once again be off like a rocket. When it was over, I was literally bloody and beaten.
After the show aired, a kid emailed me and said, “Dear Rick, you are really terrible at kite skiing, even by Rick Mercer standards.” I was my own low bar.
He went on to say that when someone in his gym class did something particularly humiliating, the gym teacher would yell, “Okay, Rick Mercer, stop putting your face in front of the medicine ball.”
Gym teachers are no longer allowed to ridicule students with the string of offensive terms they once had in their arsenal, so they just substitute my name instead.
So this was my initial fear about tennis. I knew playing an epic game of tennis against the American ambassador could make for good TV, but I wasn’t even sure I could manage a basic volley, let alone even attempt to be quasi-competitive.
The ambassador, by the way, was in his sixties, and a passionate competitive player. In fact, he attended university on a full tennis scholarship, so I knew I would lose and lose badly. That was a given. My concern was purely aesthetic. While I never played tennis, I had watched enough of it to know that players have a certain grace. There is a beauty in the game. I had no idea how I would pull that off—I was presently walking as if I were suffering stage-three rigor mortis in my lower extremities.
But I would be representing my country. So Harry be damned, I said. Once more unto the breach.
Also, I was dying to see the house.
I have a fascination with embassies and residences. Many years earlier, in my 22 Minutes days, I went to Ottawa and decided on a whim to poke around the tony neighbourhood of Rockcliffe—or as it’s known in Ottawa, “Embassy Row.” This was a different time. We knocked on doors without calling ahead and introduced ourselves. I asked on-camera if I could taste something from the residents’ country.
To a person, the people at the door were friendly and charming. If the ambassador happened to be home, they appeared unprompted and were, for the lack of a better phrase, graciously diplomatic. It was a glorious day filled with Pakistani lemonade (still the best I’ve ever had), Swiss chocolate, Danish herring, Norwegian smoked salmon and French pastries. The Irish ambassador poured us a Guinness, the Japanese ambassador provided us with a tea service and the Saudi ambassador threatened to cut off our hands.
In other words, they all brought their A game.
I’ve always thought being an ambassador would be a fantastic gig.
Canada is considered a very good placement for most of the world’s diplomatic corps, and for obvious reasons. First and foremost, we are a very stable country. And let’s face it, being ambassador to Canada wouldn’t be the most stressful job in the world. We aren’t exactly known for getting into diplomatic spats with other countries.
My guess is that the hardest thing about being an ambassador to Canada would be coming up with creative ways to pass the time. Really, imagine that you are the Belgian ambassador to Canada. How would you even spend your days? You can only go day drinking with the Dutch ambassador so many times.
Granted, some of the ambassadorships would be very taxing. Obviously, the US ambassador has a huge job. After all, our two countries exchange two billion dollars’ worth of goods and services every single day. I would also assume the Chinese ambassador must be very busy. He has to oversee the massive network of spies from China that operate here. Never mind being responsible for the secret Chinese police force that terrorizes Chinese nationals living on Canadian soil.
But if I’m ever in the position to ask a prime minister for a very large favour, I would naturally ask to be ambassador to Ireland.
There is an expression in Ottawa that every member of Parliament believes they should be in cabinet and every member of cabinet thinks they should be prime minister. The exception is any member of Parliament from Newfoundland. They go to bed at night thinking they should be ambassador to Ireland.
What a job it would be, lying around the fancy house in Dublin, representing the not very pressing interests of Canada in the land of your forefathers. The spare bedroom in the house would be filled with a steady stream of relatives and old high school buddies hell-bent on having a party and finding out where their great-grandparents are buried. The best Newfoundland musicians would be at the embassy, hobnobbing with their fiddle-playing Irish counterparts. The kitchen parties would be epic.
Mother Ireland. The Emerald Isle. The Land of Saints and Scholars.
She’s easy on the eyes and hard on the liver.
Of course, Ireland is not for everyone.
They say the ferocity of the lobbying that goes on by Italian Canadian politicians for the ambassadorship to Italy is unmatched. And who wouldn’t want that job? My god—the food alone! Traditionally when an ex-politician gets named ambassador to Italy, the press gallery will start an internal pool to guess exactly how many pounds the servant of Canada will gain in their first six months on the job. Forty is the average.
The American ambassador to Canada, my soon-to-be tennis partner, was himself an ex-politician with a very impressive record. David Wilkins was a Republican who served twenty-three years in the South Carolina legislature; for twelve of those years he served as Speaker of the House. He was coming very near to the end of his tenure as ambassador, and his record was very good. He was even being credited at the time with helping get a deal done to end the softwood lumber dispute between Canada and the United States.
This was quite an achievement. Any armchair historian will tell you that the softwood lumber dispute began somewhere around the day that God created heaven and earth. On the seventh day, while God rested, the United States and Canada embarked on their first failed arbitration process.
A year previous, I attended an event in Toronto where Wilkins gave remarks. His honey-soaked drawl seemed incredibly down-to-earth. And his skills as a trial lawyer were obvious when he was presenting an argument. I swear, if I were in the prisoner’s box and he was arguing that I go to the gallows, I might just start a slow clap to show my admiration.
I was looking forward to meeting the man.
After three days of prep, cold compresses and standing still, Don, John and I headed to Ottawa.
It was to be a fast shoot. Fly up in the morning and fly back in the late afternoon. The ambassador, of course, was on a very tight schedule, so we would go from the airport straight to the location, without stopping at a hotel room.
Rockcliffe never disappoints if you like architecture. It’s an area filled with real estate porn. And the US ambassador’s residence is considered by most to be the most exquisite.
We were waved through a very impressive security gate and drove up the long, winding driveway that ends in a roundabout in front of the house. As they say in the real estate business, it “shows beautifully.”
As our van came to a halt on the roundabout, the front doors of the mansion opened and out walked the ambassador and his wife, Susan. It was cinematic.
I walked to the steps and said my hello. The ambassador said, “Welcome to Lornado, official residence of the US ambassador.”
It was that kind of place. It had a name. Lornado. It looked like a Lornado.
I liked the couple instantly. They were incredibly hospitable. As soon as John and Don joined me on the porch, we were offered refreshments. I could listen to people offer me something cool to drink in a South Carolina accent forever. Over cool spritzers they both were effusive in their praise for the country they were proud to serve in and made kind comments about our show—which they didn’t have to do. They even went so far as to speak with some authority on previous episodes they had watched. Now, whether they had watched them on the couch together on a random Tuesday night or whether an enterprising staffer had provided them with recordings didn’t matter to me. I was charmed.
We were just about to start work and mic up the ambassador when we were joined by the world’s oldest dog. He walked with the gait of an animal that had not chased a squirrel or a rabbit in many years. Immediately, both the ambassador and his wife fussed over this clearly beloved pet. The ambassador proudly introduced us to Speaker the dog. Speaker took one look at us and began to pee. He wore an expression of mortified incontinence.
Within seconds the ambassador and his wife were on it, cleaning up after the poor thing, comforting the dog and apologizing to us, which obviously was entirely unnecessary. This was clearly a well-loved pet, and these two were doing everything they could to make his final stretch as comfortable as possible.
“Speaker is a good dog,” the ambassador told me. “One of the best. The last little while has been hard on him. It’s very difficult.”
An aide gently encouraged us to start work, reminding the ambassador that they had an important engagement in just a few hours. It was, he reminded them, full black tie.
Gently chastised, we got down to it. We put a microphone on the ambassador and prepared to shoot. But first, I inquired about the washroom.
The ambassador said, “Follow me,” and led me upstairs. He walked down a long, dimly lit hallway that led to a sitting area where I could rest if need be or change. Off the sitting area was a small bathroom that he said was for me.
“We call this the Reagan bathroom,” he told me. “It was installed prior to President Reagan’s first state visit to Canada in 1981. That’s why the towels are there.”
He pointed to a large collection of fluffy hand towels on the sink, all emblazoned with the seal of the President of the United States. This was one classy john.
He left me alone. I shut the door and dropped trou.
One minute later I was half-naked. One bare foot was on the sink, another was on the floor. Using the provided towels, I was applying a presidential cold compress to Harry. I silently offered an apology to President Reagan and gingerly returned to work.
We started with a tour of the residence. The getting-to-know-the-ambassador part of the segment.
As we say at home, what a spot. The house itself was magnificent. A grand old Edwardian lady oozing with charm. Built by a railway tycoon, it was picked up in 1935 by the Americans, and became their official residence. Overlooking the Ottawa River, it has a giant rooftop deck and widow’s walk that gives its residents the best view of the Gatineau Hills.
One doesn’t compare apples and oranges, but the US ambassador’s residence is so much nicer than the prime minister’s residence. It makes 24 Sussex look like a tar-paper shack.
Clearly, back in the ’30s the Americans thought, “Well, if we are going to get an official residence, let’s do it right. Let’s make sure it has a great view, but also that it’s set back off the street so it can be secure in case some hooligan wants to throw a rock.”
That’s what they worried about back then, hooligans throwing rocks.
The Americans have maintained this official residence with such care, you’d swear they were a First World country.
Whereas Canada? In 1950 we acquired a residence that is so close to a public street that any misfit with a bum arm, standing on the yellow line, can hit the front door with a can of tuna. What was already a security concern in 1950 is an unmanageable nightmare today. The cost of refurbishing the pile is somewhat in line with what was spent on the Beijing Olympics. That said, no amount of money in the world can fix its biggest problem: its exposure to the street.
Good money after bad—a part of our Canadian heritage.
The tour was fantastic on-camera. The walls of the house were dripping with American art. The view from the roof was majestic.
I asked the ambassador if Canada was considered a hardship post. Would he not have preferred the excitement of, say, London, England? He claimed not. He said that when offered an ambassadorship he did his research and concluded he had only one choice: Canada. He said he had no interest in London. “Once I realized that you are our largest trading partner and our best friend, it was Canada or nothing for me.”
I thanked him for googling us.
It being near the end of his run, he talked effusively about having visited every part of the country. I suggested he was casing the place for our fresh water.
He sounded as excited as a kid on Christmas when he told me about the day he woke up and saw that the entire Ottawa River was frozen! “Imagine that,” he said. “In South Carolina, if the dog dish freezes over, you call all the kids and bring ’em outside and show them the ice, and talk to them about how cold it had to be to make that happen! Imagine, you have whole rivers doing that!”
He said it like we were the luckiest people in the world.
Looking at a pillow emblazoned with the coat of arms of his alma mater, he seamlessly told me he’d gone to university on a tennis scholarship. “I got a free ride,” he said. “Wanna play?”
I said yes.
After a trip upstairs for one last hello to the presidential seal, I took off my black suit jacket and put on the tennis whites. Whites head to toe. I looked like the loneliest gay at a Miami circuit party. This was not my look. I headed back through the dark corridor, went downstairs and declared myself ready to play.
Once he got on the court, his game increased dramatically. Not his tennis game, but his chatter. This is where he is clearly the happiest. He became my instructor, teaching me a grip, teaching me how to serve. When it got windy and I commented on how it was affecting my game, he became a sports psychologist.
“No way, man. Ignore the wind. Don’t let it get to you. Don’t let the wind take you down. Look at me, I live in the wind. I love the wind. I am the wind!”
The US ambassador suddenly sounded like he was David Crosby on an acid trip circa 1969.
The game we played had stakes. If he won, he wanted the oil sands; if I won, I would get Mount Rushmore. I had dreams of adding Neil Young and turning Lincoln into Gord Downie.
We created, on the spot, a great bit of physical comedy. Because I was terrible at hitting the soft lobs he sent my way, he began to serve like a ninja. Every one of his serves hit me, and hit me hard. Body shots were banging off my chest, my knees, my head and ankles. I didn’t have a chance. I was dancing around like someone was firing at my feet with a six-shooter. Hang in there, Harry.
Mercifully, I made it through. But we weren’t finished yet. I had a last-minute idea that we should roll around Ottawa and let the ambassador say goodbye to our nation’s capital. He loved the idea, but noted he was going to be in a “whole heap of trouble with head office if I’m late getting home.”
But he did it anyway. And we created a little goodbye montage.
Unplanned, we hit Parliament Hill, bummed a pair of hockey sticks from some kids and played street hockey with the Parliament Buildings glowing behind us. We went for poutine in the market. We shopped for Mountie postcards, and I gifted him with an Ottawa toque for those rare South Carolina nights when the dog dish freezes over. We toasted the friendship between our nations with a BeaverTail.
In conclusion I shook his hand and said, “Thank you, Ambassador, it’s been a great day.” He responded, “Thank you, Canada, it’s been a great three years.” And I believed him. A gentleman through and through.
Together we travelled back to his residence. He was in the back of our minivan, regaling us with off-camera stories that I would have killed to have on-camera. They always do that!
But when we pulled up to his house, I could tell we had created, by adding the montage, a mild domestic disturbance, or maybe a diplomatic faux pas.
His lovely wife, Susan, was on the porch, dressed to the nines. Apparently, this so-called black-tie affair wasn’t fictional. The aide next to her looked frantic.
“You are so late,” she said. “Go go go.”
We bade our goodbyes and he ran into the house. We apologized to the ambassador’s wife and loaded ourselves back into the van. As we pulled away, Susan ducked inside—one assumes to whip her husband into shape.
Just two minutes later, at the bottom of the driveway, before we hit the gates, it dawned on me: my black suit jacket was hanging on a hook in the Ronald Reagan presidential loo.
“I have to go back,” I said. “I forgot my jacket!”
Luckily, we hadn’t gone through the secure gates, so we simply backed up the driveway very slowly.
When we arrived at the residence, it already looked different. The only lights were on in a different part of the mansion. And it was getting dark outside. I ran up the steps and knocked on the door, cursing the fact that they were inside, getting ready, and now I was here to disturb them again.
There was no answer.
I knocked again.
No answer.
I guess that maybe because at this point I felt like we were old, fast friends, I did what people in Newfoundland do when knocking. I reached out, opened the door, knocked again, but stuck my head inside and yelled “Helloooo?”
There was no answer.
The house was dark.
I was at a loss as to what to do. I knew what was happening. He was in the shower, she was elsewhere in the house, on the phone, making excuses.
I thought, I know where my coat is. I’ll just go grab it.
Yeah, that’s it, Rick. Enter the house of the US ambassador without actually being invited inside. After all, you two go back four hours now.
I slipped off my shoes and ran up the stairs towards the Reagan bathroom. At the top of the stairs, I entered the darkened hallway. But now it was a very dark hallway. I wasn’t going to reach out for a light switch because I knew exactly where I was going. And sure enough, within a minute I was in the Reagan bathroom, rescuing my coat.
I turned around and was making my way back down the corridor, in my socks and holding my shoes, when it happened. My foot came down in a pile of what anyone who has ever known a puppy would be familiar with.
I froze.
I wiggled my toes. It was what I thought it was. And it was substantial.
Panicked, I kept the contaminated foot in place, making sure I wouldn’t move it at all, and stepped one foot forward with my clean foot in order to maintain my balance.
Foot number two suffered the exact same fate. There were a minimum of two deposits and I had found both of them.
I was in trouble. Ankle deep.
I knew what I had to do. I slowly squatted and, while praying to the gods of personal balance, I gingerly, one after another, removed my socks.
I then began to creep slowly down the dark corridor, very aware that any step could prove disastrous. God knows what else might be waiting for me. I felt like a cat burglar inside the Louvre, trying to avoid secret laser beams.
Except it wasn’t just a metaphor—I was literally a burglar, or could be accused of being one. Seriously, what was I thinking?
I had to get out of there.
I padded down the staircase and made it to the front door, where standing on guard was Speaker.
God, I thought, he might have one last hunt in him.
“There’s a good boy,” I said, reaching over with my one free hand and patting him on the head. “You’re a good dog.”
Thank god his barking days were behind him.
John later said, “I was wondering what was taking you so long, but I didn’t expect to see you run out of their house barefoot with your socks and shoes in your hand. You looked like a maniac.”
I had jumped in the van yelling, “Drive! Drive and don’t stop!”
Which we didn’t. Except for one little pit stop to rid myself of the socks. Don and John both insisted.
I wondered if forensic scientists can test for toe prints the way they test for fingerprints. Would I be arrested for tracking poo down the corridor of the ambassador from our largest trading partner? Is that how it would all come to an end?
There really is no dignity in show business.
In the days that followed there was no call from a furious ambassador, no visit from the FBI. And on the Friday night, as I watched the piece get played back to the audience, I sat and watched with the confidence of a man who no longer had to deal with Harry.
He had left town.
Good riddance. Worst uninvited guest ever.