Shatner Rules

feel the sheer excitement, the energy, of the event going on above me. In my earpiece, I can hear the director calmly giving his instructions to the crew. Fellow Canadian Neil Young was performing on my platform as I readied my entrance.
    Neil finishes, huge cheers. His platform lowers, and there he is in front of me, guitar over his neck, resplendent in muttonchop sideburns.
    “Hello, Bill,” he says.
    “Hello, Neil,” say I. And he heads off into the night.

    FUN FACTNER: Every Canadian knows each other and is on a first name basis. (Hi, Celine! Hope you’re enjoying the book!)
    Two technicians run over to my platform as I go over my lines in my head. They both furtively attend to my teleprompter, which . . . is . . . not . . . working.
    As with the mighty steel arm that never rose, my teleprompter worked fine in the rehearsals. Now it was on the fritz. My earpiece, which was working quite well, helped me hear the director say, “Sixty seconds to Shatner!”
    Never mind flop sweating on stage—I was doing it quite well in this subterranean studio. I knew my lines, but . . . what if I didn’t know my lines?! Christina Aguilera has performed the national anthem more times than she’s had hot meals! And she flubbed it at the 2011 Super Bowl. It’s not a long song, and she should know it, but she blanked in front of a huge audience. An Olympic-sized audience. The same size that I was about to face.
    “Put Shatner on the platform!” said the voice in my earpiece. Again, the earpiece was working splendidly, unlike my teleprompter.
    The workmen now skillfully started repairing the platform by pounding it with a hammer. The teleprompter was working when Neil Young went up, apparently. What the hell did Neil do? Did his heavy sideburns burn out the hydraulics and cause an electrical malfunction?
    “Shatner on the platform,
now
!”
    A production assistant shuffled me onto the platform, gripping my arm. A good hangman can supposedly guess the condemned’s weight just by shaking his hand. That’s how I felt! I was being led to my doom. Except that the platform would rise up instead of drop.
    I was literally being pushed. I began to think of fellow Canadian Robert Goulet. He forgot the words to the national anthem at a Muhammad Ali/Sonny Liston prizefight in 1965. They never forgave him. Poor Robert! (We were on a first name basis, you see . . .)
    The platform began to rise, the mic in my hand trembled, one of the technicians gave one last swing to the hammer and—
    The teleprompter fluttered on. I began to rise.
    The lights, the sound, the energy of what I witnessed when I rose up through the floor was unlike anything I have ever experienced. I once did the coin toss at the Rose Bowl, and the cheers hit you like a shockwave. Your body trembles as it passes through you. But at least I was no longer shaking from fear.
    This is what I said. As you’re reading, scream your head off at the end of every line, to make yourself feel like you were in the audience.
     
    My name is Bill, and I am proud to be a Canadian.
    My pride is an immense as this majestic country who hosted these 2010 games.
    As a Canadian, I am proud of many things.
    Our magnificent lakes. Our stunning sunsets.
    Proud of my hometown, Montreal.
    Proud of the University at McGill and the words “
Je Suis Canadien.
”
    (NOTE: I made sure to make this sound as French as possible. We Canadians love doing that!)
     
    And the fact that we are a people who know how to make love in a canoe.
    And our health care system covers the splinters.
    I’m proud of our Rocky Mountains, our glaciers, our loons!
    (NOTE: If you say “loon” in front of sixty thousand Canadians, sixty thousand Canadians will then impersonate the loon’s call. They love doing that, too.)
     
    And that, to Canadians, minus thirty degrees is just another sign of global warming.
    It’s a big country. We dream big, you have to, in a land that is the Final Frontier.
    (NOTE: When making a speech to a billion people, it’s best not to go too esoteric with the references.)
     
    And, damnit, I’m proud of the fact that Canadians, after four beers, in front of worldwide television, can successfully pronounce “the Strait of Juan de Fuca” without being censored.

    FUN FACTNER: The Strait of Juan de Fuca is a one-hundred-mile-long body of water that serves as the principal outlet for the Georgia Strait and Puget Sound, which then empties into Lake Smuttyjoke.
     
    For I am