Shatner Rules

these animals in action is not unlike watching a ballerina at work. I’m also a champion reiner. What’s reining? Well, it’s a champion riding competition that involves . . . Oh, sorry. I’m being told you don’t have all day. More on this later.
    19. For many years, I suffered from tinnitus. Now, it only flares up when I don’t want to listen to all those questions about
Star Trek.
    20. In the 1970s, I began doing television commercials. I’ve done hundreds. And if you would like to reserve this space for your product or service in the paperback version of this book, please call the publisher. We can work out some sort of arrangement.
    21. In 1975, I starred in a television series called
Barbary Coast,
in which I played a nineteenth-century government agent and master of disguise. I think it was a great show, but I notice I’m never invited to speak at
Barbary Coast
conventions.
    22. I have written nearly thirty books, and my autobiography,
Up Till Now,
was a best-seller in 2008. You don’t need to have read that one before reading this one. But you should definitely buy it. And a backup copy. And the audiobook, too. Just because.
    23. Ten years after the original series was canceled, in 1979, Kirk and company hit the big screen with
Star Trek: The Motion Picture,
directed by film legend Robert Wise. Its success led to several more hit films, one of which I directed, and many more Star Trek spin-off TV series.
    24. In the 1980s, I played the title role in
T.J. Hooker
, a hit series about a by-the-books LA cop who was always quick to use his nightstick while kicking asses. The final season moved to Chicago, where I was quick to use my overcoat to keep my ass from freezing off.
    25. I own a horse ranch in Kentucky where I raise my Saddlebreds. In order to give the place a true plantation feel, I employ many non-paid interns.
    26. From 1989 to 1996, I hosted
Rescue 911,
a reality-based program about 911 emergencies, which managed to save 350 lives over the course of its run.
    27. A documentary I produced,
How William Shatner Changed the World
, aired on the History Channel and was nominated for an Emmy. A different documentary,
How William Shatner Rocked Your World,
is a pay-per-view thing you can watch in your hotel room.
    28. Much has been made of the supposed fortune I earned as spokesman for Priceline.com. And if you are crass enough to bring up this fact in my presence, I will buy and sell you ten times over!
    29. Since 2001, I have been married to a lovely woman named Elizabeth. No joke here, folks.
    30. After seeing a Priceline commercial, David E. Kelley created the role of Denny Crane for me.
Boston Legal
ran for several seasons and earned me some of the best notices of my career, along with two Emmy awards. It was maybe the best thing to come out of my Priceline work, second only to my massive fortune.
    31. Much has been made of my not appearing in J.J. Abrams’s reboot of the Star Trek franchise. More should be made out of the fact that Kirk lands on Delta Vega in the
exact
location that older Spock is. Come on! It’s a huge planet! As giant as that coincidence!
    32. I starred in the sitcom
$#*! My Dad Says
, the first ever show launched from a Twitter feed. A group called the Parents Television Council was outraged over the title. I said to them, “Don’t get your [redacted] in a [redacted]!”

CHAPTER 3
RULE: Busy Is Measured in Units of Shatner
    A lot of people reading this book (or listening to the audiobook, in which case I would like to deliver a sexy “hello”) want to know the rules of being William Shatner, looking at this tome as a map to certain truths of self-Shatnerhood.
    Well, if there is one rule you must follow on your scramble up the pyramid of Shatner’s hierarchy, it’s this: Stay busy.
    So busy, in fact, that you won’t have time to sit around and read a book about how busy I am. Put the book down now! (Although you will need to read on to know how to navigate being as busy as I am. This is indeed a conundrum! Keep reading?
Fail!
Stop reading?
Fail! What are you going to
do?
)
RULE: Don’t Let Shatner Get into Your Head!
(Even I Follow This One!)
    Where was I? Oh yes, sorry—I am an extraordinarily busy man. I don’t have time to write this book, much less edit it. That’s why things may jump around a bit here in the narrative of
Shatner Rules.
Look at it as “Shatner playing with the space-time continuum” for those of you who need that sci-fi angle.
    Here,