Saturday night we were placed on board buses and driven down to a nearby cinema for the screening of "Good Morning, Vietnam." Apparently, some of the locals hoped to catch the show as well: the line in front of the box office snaked halfway around the block. As we were ushered into our reserved seating, some of the hoi-polloi greeted us with hisses, jealous no doubt of our preferred status.
"This section for national press only," said the Vietnamese usher. At this the second-stringer from Washington leaned over to me and whispered, "Did you hear that? The national press is here."
"Individually, we're the local press," explained another. "But collectively, we're the national press."
"Oh," said the first.
Coming back to Boston Sunday night, I had that awful morning-after feeling that comes from a combination of guilt and alcohol poisoning. True, I had escaped the city that spawned Michael Dukakis for three precious days. True, in that time the thermometer had risen back into the positive numbers. But somewhere in the back of my mind I wondered if I had lived up to my obligations. Might I have tried just a little bit harder to wring a few more drops of alcohol from the mini-bar? Might I have pressed a little bit harder for an expense account receipt from the topless bar? Mightn't I have had just a little bit more fun?
That, in the long run, is the ethical dilemma of the Hollywood junket.