My secretary buzzes me to say the White House is on the phone. "Is that that damn Daisy doing an imitation of President Clinton," I asked. "No, no," she said, "it's the office of the White Houses social director." Skeptical, I picked it up. I was listening to an advance CD of the next Chris Isaak album, Speak of the Devil and was totally engrossed in "Don't Get So Down On Yourself" at that moment. The voice at the other end of the phone told me President Clinton had asked her to call me and request my assistance in arranging for Lou Rawls to come to the White House. Lou Rawls? I have nothing to do with Lou Rawls. But the President said I did so there was no getting around it. "You sure he doesn't want to meet Joni Mitchell again," I asked. No, Lou Rawls. I checked the old rosters and asked the old timers but Lou Rawls had never been on the Reprise label or the Warner Bros label. I called the White House back but they weren't buying it. Apparently, if a president says so, it's so. "Wait," detective Klein asks; "what's this all about?" The president wanted Lou Rawls to perform at a state dinner and he said I was the man who can arrange it. "Hmmm... who's being honored with a state dinner?" It was a secret. "Give me a hint." It turned out she let slip that it was Vaclav Havel, the President of the Czech Republic. I guess there would be no way to get Bedich Smetana but as soon as he mentioned Havel, I understood exactly what President Clinton wanted-- and delivered. Havel and Lou Reed, a Reprise artist and a friend of mine, had such a powerful bond that Havel actually credited him with being part of the inspiration for the Velvet Revolution that freed Czechoslovakia from Soviet domination.

So a month or so later I was on the reception line cracking up President Clinton with an off-color joke and then sitting in the East Room next to Dick Lugar who was dancing in his seat to a red hot performance of Dirty Blvd.