Becoming the Storm
72 Forward
THE NATIONAL SHOW had been pretty disgusting, as far as we were concerned. Everyone we met had his own agenda. Of course, we did, too, but mostly it didn’t include trying to screw everyone else at the show—literally or figuratively. Nonetheless, we had a ton of follow-up to do the next few weeks. We were still taping every morning and since the sisters had done all my shows for a week, I didn’t get another day off for the rest of the run. In the afternoons, the production and management teams had work to do. Jennifer and Samantha were in charge of following up with most of our contacts while Rose, Hannah, and I worked on strategy for the next season. We were already behind, if what I saw at the show was any indication. Our management classes had pointed out to us that we didn’t plan far enough ahead. Technically, we should be planning the season after next and be putting together pilots for series that would take months to shoot.
Louise sat in on many of the meetings, too, going over our financials and indicating what revenue sources we had available. Speculating on new shows was risky business. If we invested a huge amount, we could lose it all if neither our syndicate nor a cable station wanted to pick it up. We had to ensure that Chick Chat and Redress were adequately funded and planned since those shows were bringing in nearly all the company’s revenue. The crew had already finished taping the season finale for Redress and Heaven was off in Paris shooting fall fashions. Warren was anticipating the end of Chick Chat so he could go join Adam.
Courtney and Geoff were installing all new computer equipment in our production room. Both of them were swearing about using Macintosh computers when they both preferred PCs. But apparently the video capability of the Mac was what we needed in the studio. Courtney had nearly completed her editing software and we were going to be doing non-linear editing in the fall. I was glad we had technicians who understood this stuff.
Geoff and his family were another surprise. Robyn was noticeably pregnant. And happy. Kevin was doting on her and seemed to be living every step of the pregnancy vicariously. Geoff was a pretty proud husband and father to be. He held both of them in his arms whenever possible. His long hair and rather wooly beard was a stark contrast to most of the gays I knew. He wasn’t as concerned about the ‘landscaping,’ as he referred to his beard.
Elaine spent time after each show working with the writers Nikki had set up for her. I sat in on some of the brainstorming sessions and was impressed with how they kept coming up with ideas. Each day there were newspapers scattered all over the big table we’d set up in one corner of the studio and when we weren’t recording, there were always televisions going. We were turning out to be better informed over all. What they gleaned from the news reports soon became satirical points in Elaine’s monologues. It was unfortunate that two of the writers still had a year to go in college. They were here only for June. The third writer was a woman almost as weird as Nikki. I guess writers are just like that.
We ended the season, and in spite of having spreadsheets and flipcharts all over Stall One, it didn’t seem like we were any further along in our planning. We knew we had to expand, but doing it on so many levels was a pain.
Whitney got a call home on the Fourth. It was short. She missed us but said she was doing well in her training. She couldn’t say precisely what they were doing, but said only they were engaging in unarmed combat the next week. I had an image of Whitney crawling through mud and swamps at Parris Island. It was already in the high 80s in Bloomington and I could only imagine what it was like in South Carolina.
Five minutes was not nearly enough. It was going to be a long six years.
We had a pretty lowkey celebration of Hannah’s twenty-second birthday on Tuesday, but Wednesday the two of us loaded Toby and Tyler in the horse trailer and drove up north of Ann Arbor, Michigan to a State Park. There were miles of horse trails and we camped out on the trail for three nights. We weren’t really packing in. The truck and trailer were at our campsite, but the facilities were pretty primitive. There was a pump for drinking water and pit toilets. We used about a gallon of mosquito repellent. We made love every night anyway and I felt like we’d really reconnected.
Of course, Hannah wanted to get back home on Saturday because she missed the babies. I had to agree.
When Nikki and Liz came roaring into the ranch on their motorcycles the fifteenth, they were tan and fit. They stripped and it seemed obvious that both girls had spent a lot of time in the sun in just their underwear. I wondered, in fact, if they’d done some of their riding in just their bra tops.
Nikki’s first rant was about Lionel.
“I get a three-book deal that will keep me writing for five years in order to fulfill my obligation to the publisher and I get $150,000. I think that’s great! I’m already a success and my book won’t even be out until Christmas. Lionel gets fucking drafted by some no-name team in Florida and signs a base rookie salary of over $400,000 a year for three years! They don’t even know if he’ll play. What kind of world is this? I bleed onto pages for five years, tearing out my heart and soul for a pittance and he goes to play in the sun for a fortune! Whitney didn’t even have the opportunity to play professional ball and went into the Marines. I tell you she won’t get rich!”
Nikki paused in her rant in the family room and after a second, we all applauded.
“How long have you been rehearsing that?” Elaine asked.
“We watched the draft in Denver,” Liz said. “They actually have bars with dozens of television screens so you can just watch all the sports that are going on at one time. Nikki entertained the whole bar with stories of Lionel and you doing your trick shot in high school. They were lined up to buy her drinks.”
“You should talk,” Nikki said with her eyes wide. “Who knew you could run a pool table? We were lucky to get out of there with our virtue intact.”
“Okay, here it is,” Sarah said. “I could get my PhD with this research. In fact, I might. Guys aren’t interested in any show that talks about how to be a better guy. Guys are pigs. They want shows about racing, hunting, drinking, and tits. They don’t even care about girls, just the tits. If you could put together a show that just had guys drinking beer and watching girls on a trampoline, you’d have a male hit. Especially if sports were playing in the background. And explosions. You’d have a winner if you could blow something up during each show.”
“Oh, come on, Sarah,” I complained. “All guys aren’t like that.”
“Ha! Look, here’s a bell curve of men eighteen to twenty-four, the same demographic as the women in Elaine’s audience,” she said as she drew a curve on a flip chart. “Over here on this end are Brian, Josh, and Lamar. Good, decent, kind men who respect women and will do whatever is necessary to protect and defend the ones they love. Over on this other end are psychopaths, rapists, and child molesters. This huge section in the middle? Pigs! There are degrees, from men on this side who still think of women as property and just want a hot one to show their friends, to men on this side who pay lip service to the concept of equality between races, sexes, and ages, but still think they should be paid a little more than anyone else. And they don’t want to learn any different.”
Sarah was pretty wrapped up in her rant. Nikki was scribbling furiously and I had a feeling there was another Elaine monologue coming out of this.
“Name one guy on the ranch who falls in the middle of that curve,” I challenged. “Experience says the numbers aren’t right. We’ve got good decent men all around us.”
“Absolutely,” Sarah agreed. “Every man on the ranch is exemplary of this side of the curve. For every one of them, there is a Wayne Enders or John Smith on this end of the curve. Brian, this is your fault. Why do you think so many women in Casa del Fuego are content to share you and Josh? Only two of us have stumbled upon men that could be your equals when it comes to being decent, loving human males. Sora and I were selfish. We saw the opportunity to have a good man and not share him with anyone else. But you spoiled us for ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the men we will ever meet. I’m not saying that every woman in the casa wishes they could have just one man and no one else. We grew up together. We found love and life. As much as I love Lamar and am the happiest I’ve ever been, I still miss making love to you, having my sister in my arms, even Jennifer’s tongue gainfully employed at times. I don’t think anyone else in the casa with the possible exception of Angela would ever even look at a different opportunity if it arose. But it’s not typical.”
“Then we’re screwed,” I said. “We need to come up with a different concept for a show.”
“No, we don’t,” Sarah said. “The concepts that we’ve floated are good and just need to be refined. What we need is a different audience.”
“Sister, the concepts all revolve around helping guys be better guys. I don’t think any male wants to see himself portrayed in the middle of that curve,” Hannah said. “The audience is young men.”
“Except that young men don’t want to listen to that,” Sarah said. “But young women do.”
“What?”
“My research says that a show that talks about enhancing the image and caring of men would be a big hit with women,” Sarah continued. “This stuff goes even deeper. We’ve often joked about how men don’t listen. For the most part, upper high school and college age men are still in the rush of freedom and being able to do whatever they want to do. It is about them. What they want. What is exciting. What will make money. What will get them a bigger car. What will cause a bigger explosion. Women entering that age group are conflicted. They want a career, money, a car. But they also want a home, children, security. They want to build their nest. And as a result, they choose guys they think can give them those items, even if the guy himself is no great catch.”
“I suppose you’ll tell me that the women on the ranch are different, like the men are,” I said. “Not all the women are like Sugar who just couldn’t wait to get a baby. Even when Doreen started our first, she was already well into the last part of our demographic.”
“How many women at this table right now are ready to have a baby and start a family?” Sarah asked. My mouth fell open. All the women—even Hannah and Nikki—raised their hands. Sarah turned back to me. “That doesn’t mean we are going to, but even if we are focused on building our careers, we are planning for that moment when we’ll be settled in our little nest nursing our baby and smiling at our loving husband.”
“Crap,” I whispered.
“What is the recommendation?” Rose asked.
“I’m not in programming. I’m in demographics,” Sarah said. “What I’ve discovered is that there is a large audience among women 18-24 for a show hosted by a man that talks, generally, about being a good man. Men are interested in women from a superficial standpoint. In this instance, I’m not really using that as a pejorative. Brian, even you. The first thing you look at when you meet a woman is her figure. Your first assessment is whether she would be fun in bed. You don’t ask yourself if this would be a good mother for your children. You simply ask if she’d be fun in bed. No matter how fleeting that response is, before you focus on her eyes and what she is saying, it is still there. Women’s first response is to ask if this man would be a good provider and father. Women are intensely interested in what those signs are. They are interested in finding that man. And if they can’t find him, they are interested in how to take the raw materials they’ve been given and create him.”
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