I think if I produced a show I would not want to be part of that production. That's not... I'm not... I mean, I couldn't even sell Boy Scout chocolate bars when I was a kid!
One of my early childhood memories was my grandmother always having a bowl of Nestle chocolate bars at her house. My sister and I would argue over who could eat the chocolate bars. Looking back, I don't know why we just didn't share. We could have split them.
I was never a Boy Scout, but oh, I wanted to be one when I was a kid about ten or eleven years old. But there wasn't anyplace where I could ever join the Boy Scouts.
Being a Boy Scout saved my life. I was a bookish, introverted kid, shy and withdrawn, unhappy and easily bullied. I was also gay, although I didn't know it yet. I should've been miserable. But being a scout got me out of myself and into the world.
I remember watching 'EastEnders' as a kid with my mum, and even my dad would be gripped by the odd episode. So to think I would be part of the show was a strange feeling at first.
The summer of 1976 was so hot that bars of chocolate melted on the shelves before confectioners could sell them.
Actually, as that first association continued, we got a little more legitimate. In those days, they asked Boy Scout troops to act as ushers during the football games. So we signed up and I went to many games in full Boy Scout uniform as an usher.
I will say that Edward Norton, who plays the scout master, would be a first-rate Eagle Scout. He's got all those techniques. If your plane crashes into the jungle somewhere, he would be the guy you would want to have with you.
There's a lot of stuff I want to do, just things that I want to explore that don't involve show business. I'm going to become a television critic. Can you imagine? But I would even consider becoming a baseball scout. Traveling around the heartland looking for the next world-beating phenom.
Joining 'ER,' I felt like that kid who got the golden ticket in 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.' I've been offered chocolate bars all these years, but there had been no golden ticket. Just the stomachache that was called 'Jake in Progress.'
We go to Europe, and they think we're totally prejudiced 'cause we hang the bars and stripes. But for us, the bars and stripes doesn't mean we want to see anybody in slavery or anything like that. It's just our heritage. To us, the bars and stripes means grits, 'y'all,' and the beauty of the South. There's no prejudice at all in that with us.
You need chocolate with enough cocoa butter. If your chocolate is high-quality, with a good content of cocoa butter, the chocolate will melt inside and create layering. That's very important. Those chocolate morsels don't melt. So, for the best chocolate chip cookies, I use the chocolate we sell, which is a 60 percent cocoa.
Having big audiences when you're on a book tour is like Valhalla if you're a person who used to sell Girl Scout cookies on the side. Because you want to give the reading that will sell the most books.
I used to mow grass and sell Christmas cards and shovel snow in order to raise the $25 to go to Boy Scout Camp in Osceola every year.
I still remember the entire Boy Scout motto. I don't remember the serial number of my gun in the army. I don't remember the number of my locker in school. But I remember that Boy Scout code.
I ate everything. I ate every single lolly you can think of. Chocolate bars, Curly Wurlys, Aero bars, Fantales, Minties, Clinkers, Cherry Ripes. Pretty much anything, you name it, I ate it.
My father also encouraged my love of nature. He urged me to become a Cub Scout, and later a Boy Scout, and I found I really liked being outdoors.