Anchorboy
Page 19
My colleague, Kate Beirness, had been working with us for just under two years at that point. Kate had been given a plum assignment for the Games, or so I thought: She was actually going to be in London for the duration, covering the Olympics for SportsCentre. A broadcast location would be selected somewhere in the city, and she would put together two five-minute highlight “hits” that would run every day during the Games. Frankly, it sounded awesome.
So after tiring of hearing me complain about my role, Mark finally called me at home and said, “We’re sending you to London instead of Kate.”
I was really, really torn. On the one hand, I was obviously elated that I would be able to attend the Games, especially on such a plum assignment. On the other hand, I felt terrible about usurping Kate this way. At least Dan would be coming along to share the blame …
“We’re only sending you, not Dan,” said Mark.
Good grief.
“Why aren’t you sending Dan?” I wondered aloud to Mark.
“Not necessary,” he replied. This translated to “We don’t feel like spending the money.”
Now I felt like a total douche instead of the marginal douche I’d felt like before. Their new plan was to have Dan and me host a show from 5:00 to 7:00 EST, Dan from the SportsCentre studios in Scarborough and me from Trafalgar Square in London. We would be linked up via satellite in a double-box format, not unlike the one Will Ferrell had enjoyed all those years ago during the 2:00 a.m. edition of Sportsdesk. All I knew was that I was going to be in London and not suburban Toronto for the Games, and that was good enough for me. Still, I felt like a real jackass and resented the fact that I had to stoop to this behaviour to get my ass to London.
We flew a week before the London Games were about to start. I quickly realized we very likely had the best set-up of anyone working under the Olympic Consortium banner. Our broadcast location was in Trafalgar Square in Central London, the same square that houses Canada House, the Canadian consulate in London that would be transformed into Canada Olympic House for the Games. You could literally hit it with a pitching wedge. Our actual broadcast location was a series of “sets” on a temporary scaffold occupied by us, Sky Sport Italy, Fox Digital, and CBC News Channel. The Tower of London loomed in the distance.
The Sky Sport Italy guys showed up around the same time as us, about a week before the Games. After that we didn’t see them until the very end. Like the last day of the Games. I’m not even joking. The Sky Sport Italy “set” was empty the entire two and a half weeks during the London Olympics.
No one thought to provide us with a portable toilet, so at various points during the Games, I peed into Venti Starbucks cups on the Sky Sport Italia set to relieve myself after chugging a king-size energy drink and sitting in a suit for two hours. My cup overfloweth every time. Sorry, Sky Sport Italia.
Our accommodations were more than adequate (tiny but clean rooms in a central London hotel), and more importantly, a five-minute walk from work. The hotel was located in Covent Garden, an area in the centre of the city jammed with restaurants, shops, bars, and tourists on its windy streets. I had been told we would start shooting any field reports out and around the city at approximately 2:00 p.m. local time, finishing around 5:00. That gave me a couple of hours to get ready and grab a quick dinner, write the show around 7:00 p.m., host from 10:00 to midnight, and then fix up any mistakes for the morning show segments until 12:30 a.m.
It was, in my mind, possibly the greatest Olympic broadcast schedule ever. I would be able to go out with the crew after every show, albeit not to pubs, as they all closed down at midnight. None of us understood why the pubs closed so early until we realized everyone in London started drinking at 4:00 p.m. and was pretty much obliterated by 8:00. Luckily, we discovered that in London the hotel bars are there to serve the hotel guests. If the hotel guests want to stay up and drink until 5:00 a.m. every single night, then the hotel bar will stay open until 5:00 a.m. every single night. Not surprisingly, our hotel bar was open until 5:00 a.m. every single night.
The next day we rehearsed our first show from Trafalgar Square. Dean Willers, our veteran camera guy, was also serving as lighting director, floor director, set decorator, assistant sound engineer, and continuity person. In other words, a typical Canadian television shoot. At one point Olympic Consortium executives sent us an e-mail congratulating us on the look of our shows and thanking “the crew” for their hard work. Dean really enjoyed that line. “Tell them the crew appreciates it,” he said.
That night we had managed to convince Leigh, the manager of the Maple Leaf Pub in the heart of Covent Garden, to stay open a bit later for us so we could celebrate our first broadcast. Leigh, like almost all the employees at the Maple Leaf, was Canadian. A former student from Vancouver who’d come over to Europe to travel, she had run out of money and gotten a job at the only Canadian pub in London to make ends meet, only to find herself still living in the city and still working at the pub two years later.
I had visited the Maple Leaf years earlier during the aforementioned backpacking trip of 1998. In fact, I was there on July 1, 1998, because I assumed it would be a big Canada Day party, and for once in my life I had made a correct assumption. The evening ended with the entire bar singing “Summer of ’69.” I had hoped to replicate that experience at one point during these Games for a feature story, but tonight was all about celebrating our successful first broadcast. Six of us gathered around the table drinking Sleeman beer and downing tequila shots until Leigh finally kicked us out around 3:00 a.m. In an incredible stroke of luck, the pub was just around the corner from our hotel. I managed to make it all the way back to my room, tear off my suit and shoes, and fall into bed.
About an hour later, I was awaked by the sound of someone puking. That someone was me.
I had literally woken myself up by vomiting uncontrollably all over myself and all over the bed sheets. It says something about my state of mind during that moment that I paid it no attention and immediately went back to sleep. Luckily, I was sort of propped up on my pillow so there was no danger of choking on my own vomit like Bon Scott or John Bonham.
Deep into another slumber, I was awakened again about an hour later when I heard a loud, piercing wail that sounded like my smoke detector back home. I strained my eyes to look straight up at the ceiling: Sure enough, there was a smoke detector in my room, and I had now determined that it was somehow going off at full volume and likely waking up the entire hotel, or at the very least my entire floor. I didn’t stop to think about why my smoke detector might have been going off. I just wanted the sound to end so I could go back to sleep.
I barely managed to pull myself out of my puke-stained bed, naked except for my Calvin Klein boxer briefs, eyes straining to adjust to the light. I tried desperately to find a button that might shut off the smoke detector before the hotel manager came up to my room. The sound of the siren was so loud, so piercing, that surely other guests had started to stream out of their rooms to figure out what was going on. I quickly gave up trying to find an off button and ripped the cover off the smoke detector in hopes of taking out the battery. But after I tore out the battery the piercing wail persisted. I was at a loss. I was also still drunk and half asleep. Why wouldn’t this damn smoke detector turn off? Finally I gave up and accepted my fate: I would likely have to find another hotel after this incident. But that daunting prospect paled in comparison to the appeal of simply falling back on my sick-stained sheets and returning to a drunken slumber. I was very likely in deep trouble, but it was nothing I couldn’t put off until the light of day.
The next day I woke late for a mandatory security meeting at the International Broadcast Centre at the Olympic Park in East London. There was no time to assess the disastrous situation from the evening before. I showered the vomit off my body and gathered the sheets in a pile, surrounding the worst-stained sheets with the ones that were still relatively clean in hopes the maid might just gather them up that way and not notice the mess I had
made. I noticed a tiny vomit stain on the mattress itself but hoped the cleaning staff might not notice, as the stain was about the size of a toonie (a Canadian two-dollar coin, for all you international readers). I didn’t even have the time or the sense to replace the cover on the smoke detector. I figured the maids would replace it, so I left them a five-pound tip in hopes of them just returning the room to normal and keeping things quiet. I should have left a twenty-pound tip.
I met the rest of the crew, and as we prepared to leave for the shoot, one of our camera guys, Dave Parker, asked why I hadn’t ended up in the lobby last night.
“Why would I have ended up in the lobby?” I wondered.
“Because of the fire alarm?” said Dave with a look on his face that said, “Are you really that dumb?”
I am really that dumb.
“How could you not hear it? There were old people in pajamas coming down the stairwell. I grabbed my camera, came down to the lobby, and started shooting footage,” said Dave.
It all became clear. In my fall-down, puke-riddled, drunken stupor, I had mistaken an ear-splitting alarm in a massive ten-storey hotel for the sound of a regular, tiny smoke detector. That would of course explain why the alarm continued after I took the batteries out of the detector. Basically, the moral of the story is I am an idiot. Still, I laughed it off. I just hoped the maids would clean the sheets and we could all forget this incident had ever happened.
After returning to the room following the meeting, I found a letter waiting for me under the door:
Guest Name: Mr. Jay Onrait
Arrival Date: 20/07/2012
Departure Date: 13/08/2012
Room: 846
Saturday, 21 July 2012
Dear Mr. Onrait,
Thank you so much for choosing the Hotel in London. I hope that you are having a relaxed and pleasant stay with us.
It has been brought to my attention that there was traces of vomit in your room, namely in your bed, which have caused damage to the duvet, the bed linens and the pillowcases.
I have also been informed that the smoke detector has been removed from its place. May I reiterate that since July 2007 our hotel is Smoke Free; it is against the law to smoke in any part of the hotel, including guest bedrooms and public areas. It is also against the law to tamper or remove any of the fire prevention equipment.
We have collected photographic evidence and we are now assessing the cost of cleaning the room and replacing the damaged items. The costs for the cleaning and replacing the damaged items will be communicated to you on Monday.
Kind Regards,
Duty Manager
Looks like I really did not leave a big enough tip.
Now I was in trouble. They thought I had removed the cover off the smoke detector because I was smoking in my room. I quickly realized that my only real defence in this case was pure stupidity.
Would the duty manager really believe that the reason I had torn the cover off his smoke detector in the middle of the night was because I thought the loud piercing sound of the hotel fire alarm was actually my smoke detector? Even though it was the truth, it sounded completely ridiculous even to me. Surely, however, they wouldn’t charge me for the soiled sheets. How hard is it to get vomit out of sheets? Think of all the bodily fluids that are soaked into the sheet fibres of every hotel you’ve ever been to. This was downtown London for God’s sake! There was no way in hell I was the first person to fill my own hotel room bed with the contents of my stomach. I was confident that after apologizing in person I would be charged a very small fee, and life at the hotel would continue unabated.
Two days later I received another letter under my door:
Guest Name: Mr. Jay Onrait
Arrival Date: 20/07/2012
Departure Date: 13/08/2012
Room: 846
Monday, 23 July 2012
Dear Mr. Onrait,
Thank you so much for choosing the Hotel in London. I hope that you are having a relaxed and pleasant stay with us.
Following the previous letter sent to you I am writing to inform you about the charges you will incur. We will be applying a charge of 120.00 pounds that will be added to your room bill.
The reason for this charge is explained below:
120.00 – Cost of replacing the mattress
You can come to the reception to settle this amount at your earliest convenience.
Mr. Onrait, if you require any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact me.
Kind regards,
Duty Manager
Well, this was a problem. One hundred twenty pounds? There was no way I was paying that much for soiled sheets. I also knew there was no way the hotel was going to replace that mattress. It was clear from the incident that I was a dumb, dumb man, but I was no pushover. I vowed to fight it.
The next day I was awakened by the sounds of construction workers outside my window. Turns out they were doing work on the roof of the hotel, and they had decided to start at the ungodly hour of 8:00 a.m. Unacceptable! I thought to myself. I also saw it as an opportunity. This was my way of getting out of paying that bill.
I called down to the duty manager and apologized for trashing his room like Charlie Sheen, and then I promptly launched into a complaint about the construction noise. I told him I was working late throughout the Games (true, but not that late). I then informed him that the construction had in fact ruined my entire workday, and as such, I should not be held accountable for the damage I had done to the room on the 21st of July. This seemed like a stretch but also a plausible way to get out of paying the hotel almost 300 Canadian dollars. He apologized for the noise and promised to take it into consideration.
Two days later, another letter under my door:
Mr. Jay Onrait
Room 846
c/o Strand Palace Hotel
25th July 2012
Dear Mr. Onrait,
I acknowledge receipt of your complaint made to Duty Manager, regarding a charge of 120.00 added to your account.
I have now had the opportunity to investigate the matter and am in a position to inform you that, on Saturday 21st July, Housekeeping Department brought to the Duty Manager’s attention that there were body fluids all over the bed and that the fire detector has been disabled.
May I bring to your attention that, as per the photographic evidence, the following linen have been badly stained and discarded: pillows, pillowcases, duvet, duvet cover, bottom sheet, mattress protector. Pillows, duvets and mattress protectors are made with fire retardant fabrics and for heavy use, hence, the cost to replace them is higher.
I would like to inform you that, when the linen is seriously tarnished by body fluids, the linen is thrown away and replaced. It is very well known that body fluids could contain bacteria, acid gastric, blood and other liquids which are Health hazards for the staff handling the items stained.
I comprehend that you consider the amount of 120.00 being exaggerated, but as per the above explanation you will understand the reasons why.
I will not make any comments on the subject of the smoke detector being de-activated and the significance of it, as I understand you have apologized to Miguel the day after the event occurred.
Finally, in relation to the noise complaint made yesterday, regrettable, an external contractor did not realize that they should have not carried out works in the early hours. The contractors were summoned to stop the noise immediately. Nevertheless, we did not receive any other complaint in relation to this matter.
Mr. Onrait, I do hope that the rest of your stay is an enjoyable and relaxing one and if you require any assistance, please do not hesitate to contact the Duty Manager who will be more than delighted to offer their help.
Yours sincerely,
Operations Manager
I was screwed.
I decided to drop the fight, for now at least. Maybe they would forget about it.
CHAPTER 32
Have You Seen This Dan?
THE
FIRST THREE SHOWS WE did from Trafalgar Square went incredibly well. No major delays in the feed from Toronto, so there weren’t any new awkwardly long pauses while we chatted via satellite, just the normal awkwardly long pauses that we usually have on the show.
Since Dan wasn’t at the Games, I had come up with a “game show” idea to feature him as prominently as possible. I had our marketing manager, Tiffany De Groote, create a couple of T-shirts for me to wear with a giant picture of Dan’s face. The plan was to corner Olympic athletes and broadcasters from countries other than Canada and have them play the breakout hit game show of the London Olympics, “Have You Seen This Dan?” Guests would try to identity the Dan on the front of my T-shirt in a multiple choice question.
We made our way down to the NBC Olympic cafeteria at the International Broadcast Centre to try to round up some popular NBC personalities for the segment. Imagine my surprise when the first NBC star I ran into was none other than American Idol host Ryan Seacrest! He was so tiny I wanted to put him in my pocket! Not just short, but skinny. He honestly had the body of a thirteen-year-old girl whose boobs hadn’t developed. But what a nice gentleman he was when I approached him out of nowhere.
“Ryan, Jay Onrait from SportsCentre in Canada. Want to do a quick interview with us and guess who the famous Canadian is on this T-shirt?” I asked him as he tried to make his way into the NBC cafeteria, probably to eat a single grape.
“Sure!” said Seacrest. Even I was surprised by how gung-ho he seemed. What a great guy! My camera guy, Dean Willers, was about to turn on his camera when suddenly two thirty-something women dressed in identical cardigans with identical necklaces closed Seacrest off like a castle shutting its gates.
“No! He can’t do it, sorry. He’s too busy.” It was his duo of publicists. They were in charge of booking interviews for him, and obviously I hadn’t gone through the proper channels. In our business these days that’s a no-no. It’s certainly understandable. We have great publicists at TSN who book our interviews and separate the legit interviewers from the guys who are just trying to make us look dumber than we already are and waste our time. I am certainly happy that we have publicists do that for us. But in this case I thought Seacrest’s publicists were going a bit too far. Seacrest was clearly ready to do the interview, I had full Olympic credentials hanging around my neck, and the entire thing would have taken approximately one minute. Instead, Seacrest walked away with shrugged shoulders and a sheepish look that said, “Sorry, dude, you know how this works.” I’ll never forget how nice he was, though, and I’ll never forget how mean his two publicists were.