“Late Nite” originally appeared in Yes Yes Yes.
The host of the popular late-night show enjoys meeting his guests in private before the show is taped each night. Only under rare circumstances, such as occasional demands upon his time by network higher-ups, does he fail to meet them personally, without cameras or audience. The guests are, overwhelmingly, popular entertainers who appear at the behest of a publicist in order to promote a new project, cloaking in witty banter an exhortation for the public to see or to hear this project. There is always an accompanying film clip or a musical performance. Less frequently, the guests are not entertainers, as such. Rather than being actors or musicians, they are athletes, journalists, politicians, writers, or celebrities who are celebrities for no other reason than that they are well known for being celebrities and no one is quite sure what it is, exactly, that they do.
It is interesting to note that although the host of the popular late night television show exudes on-camera confidence and wit, poise and good humor, and his interviews are widely regarded as being, if not the best in the business, then at least comedically brilliant and insightful and highly entertaining, he is in reality being prompted, via tiny and unnoticeable earpiece, by a team of writers and two producers, to one of whom he is married.
But the host nevertheless makes it a point to meet his guests in their private dressing rooms each night, coming unannounced with neither producers nor assistants, knocking softly at the door of each dressing room, making his way down the fluorescent lit hall where the dressing rooms are. He likes this feeling of intimacy with the guests, which he feels really comes across on camera later during the taping, even though the comments and questions, his gestures and endearing tics, that will follow later, on camera, are not really his own. The guests do not know about the earpiece he will soon be directed through, but they are sometimes curious to know why, in their private meeting with the host, he seems awkward or conversationally stunted or not at all like they thought he would be.
The host had come by his job at the once-flagging late night show after having been seen presenting his local network affiliate’s evening weather report by the producer of the late night show, after his flight from Chicago to New York had been cancelled and he’d been forced to stay overnight at an airport Marriot. The producer lay fully clothed on his hotel room’s bed with the comforter still in place, sipping mini-bar scotch. He watched the newscast and marveled at the weatherman’s on-screen presence and easy going humor while pointing to a poorly-constructed map of the Midwest, predicting the next day’s chance of precipitation and cracking wise about the sport coat he was wearing and how the wardrobe people were going to get a call from his, the weatherman’s, mother later that night because he was sure that the pea-green coat made him appear sickly and besides that, he complained jestingly, it didn’t fit properly. The producer had then called his assistant in Los Angeles and asked her to get the Chicago network affiliate’s people on the phone the next morning in order to discuss the weatherman.
This is not the entire story of the weatherman’s transformation into host. Between the producer seeing the weatherman’s forecast and the weatherman being installed as host of the late night television show, there took place a number of meetings, lunches, interviews, auditions, screen tests, seemingly endless contract negotiations, and finally drinks with which to seal the deal. This weatherman, however unknown and untested he was, however unlikely it may have seemed, was to be the new face of the network’s late night programming. This was reflected in his relatively low starting salary but not betrayed by the advertising blitz that announced the makeover the show was slated to undergo. It was going to be completely revamped. His jokes and monologues were going to appeal to a younger and hipper audience and his guests would be the envy of every other late night show host. The advertising budget alone would make most people blush. Within a week of the contracts being signed, the new host’s image appeared on billboards in Times Square and on Sunset Boulevard. His whitened smile was seen on buses and taxis as they made their ways across each of the major metropolitan markets, spreading matrices of good will, reassurance, and topical humor.
And as all this happened the host became just a bit nervous, though not enough for him to seriously doubt his intended trajectory. Could he do this? he asked himself in a private moment of self-reflection as he gazed into his fog-free shower mirror. Yes, he could. This was meant to be; it was foreordained, if not at the moment he was born, then absolutely on the day he had met his wife. He harbored little doubt and his producer/wife even less, counting as she did on her own skill in coaching her husband/weatherman, which she had begun to do even while she’d still been a girlfriend and later fiancée, because without this coaching he was not only lacking confidence, charm, and wit, but was actually a vacuum of these. They were not simply absent in him, but at times he actually seemed to drain whatever reserves of these qualities people in his vicinity kept in stock. The reason for this coaching and prompting was because his wife was certain that he was simply too good-looking to not be on camera, and that such a little thing as personality shouldn’t be a hindrance to what might, given the right cultivation, blossom into a successful career even if he was, at the time of her noticing him, only the sports reporter’s assistant’s occasional replacement. And so the weatherman’s girlfriend, though hardly unattractive herself but knowing unreservedly that the weatherman was more than just attractive, bordering actually on beautiful though still assuredly masculine, a combination as potent as it is rare, began to nurture ambitions of her own for him, which she then began subtly to impart unto him.
After a time then, the future host began also to suspect that he was destined for bigger things. He began wearing sharp suits that he could ill afford, and his hair, formerly shaggy and attached to a set of oafish sideburns, was trimmed and molded into a kind of dome. His head was huge, which is a good thing on television. Ask anyone. Every attractive person on television has a disproportionately large head. And one day he was noticed by the station manager. The manager asked him what he did at the station, and when the future weatherman/host told him what he did the manager agreed that such a good-looking, well-dressed man really ought to be in front of the camera. An audition was scheduled and the weatherman/host, somewhat nervous, went home that night and was extensively coached by his girlfriend. The audition went well and he was soon made the weekend weatherman. After his first major segment, a winter weather emergency, as always with the benefit of extensive, secret coaching beforehand, he got down on one knee before his girlfriend right in front of the green screen as soon as the cameras stopped rolling. As the cold front continued to blow down from Canada over her shoulder, she accepted and by the time they were married four months later the weekend weatherman was the regular evening weatherman, due in part to the previous weatherman’s inability to explain what he’d been doing in that motel room with his high school-aged daughter’s best friend. The weatherman’s wife, already an associate segment producer, asked the station manager to let her produce the weather segments as well.
Things are good for the weatherman and his producer/wife. The weatherman, as part of his contractual obligations, is occasionally asked to make live appearances at outlet stores or restaurant grand openings. His off-the-cuff comments at these events are also well rehearsed and he exudes poised confidence and easy going-ness that are reflected in ratings bumps following these appearances. Their evening newscast leads the market’s time slot ratings-wise, and the station manager knows to whom this may largely be attributed. The sports reporter, according to trade magazine polls that rate viewer opinion of news personalities, in terms of positive appeal and likeability, doesn’t rate so high and is frequently described as “curmudgeonly.” Ditto the Hollywood correspondent, an elf-like man whom viewers seem to think of as slightly too effeminate. The female anchor, though, tests well in the male demographic due to her status as a former Miss Illinois as well as an unpublicized and tastefully understated breast augmentation procedure that the wardrobe department has begun to very subtly capitalize upon. But it’s the weatherman who’s carrying things at the newscast in terms of viewer appeal and station loyalty, and in those same trade magazine polls, the words most often attached to his name are “trustworthy” and “American.” This is reflected in generous bonus checks for both him and his producer/wife, authorized by the affiliate’s owner himself, which necessitate a bump in advertising rates during the holiday season that has Chicago’s Toyota King threatening to pull his spots, which he doesn’t actually do, because the station’s primetime newscast still carries the highest ratings in the city. And so pretty much across the board, contentment is high.
Then comes the call from the network. Would the weatherman be interested in testing for their admittedly floundering, though easily revivable to its former glory given the right host, late night show? The station manager is understandably upset, as is the affiliate’s owner who will have to roll back advertising rates should the weatherman leave the newscast, but this call is from higher up, and so they consequently can only gripe about it and not actually hold the weatherman to his contract with the affiliate.
The late night show’s producer’s assistant has arranged for the weatherman and his producer/wife to fly to Los Angeles and to have them put up at the Chateau Marmont. The assistant meets them at the hotel and asks if they need anything and that the producer would like to meet him, the weatherman, the next morning. The assistant tells the weatherman’s producer/wife that she is sure her stay at the hotel will be quite comfortable, due to the hotel having a lovely swimming pool and complimentary car service to Los Angeles’s finest boutiques. The weatherman’s producer/wife calmly informs the assistant that the two of them are a package deal and asks the assistant if this might present a problem for the network or the producer, or even the assistant herself. The assistant wisely defers and excuses herself by letting the producer/wife and the weatherman know that the network’s limousine will arrive at 9am to take them to the network’s offices. Their first night in Los Angeles is spent diligently rehearsing jokes and banter after which the weatherman fine-tunes various facial expressions while regarding himself closely in the mirror. For their meeting with the producer they have decided to go with trustworthy, self-deprecating, and borderline sardonic, all of which, they have read, test well with viewers of late night television. Still allowing for a good night’s sleep, the rehearsal and coaching is followed by relatively brief sex in the hotel room’s shower.
The next morning, having woken, dressed, and coiffed at sunup, the weatherman and his producer/wife enjoy a large poolside breakfast and are already in the lobby when the network’s limo pulls up. Despite some residual nerves on the part of the weatherman, his producer/wife’s confidence and charm in the meeting easily win over the producer. The weatherman sets his face to self-deprecating and shoots his rehearsed wisecracks to much success. The producer is intrigued by the prospect of a husband and wife team and agrees to pitch them to the network president as such. Over the course of several weeks negotiations take place and finally things are settled. After an on-air goodbye to the greater Chicago area television audience, the weatherman/host and his producer/wife, over Hollywood sign-shaped ice cream cake and cocktails, bid a tearful farewell to the affiliate’s staff, and the next morning are flown by private jet to Los Angeles where the network has rented them a tasteful bungalow in the hills.
The late night show goes on hiatus while it is being re-tooled. It will go back on the air in a month. A new house band is assembled, which will be led by the former bassist of a once-popular rock group. An exceptionally plush couch is ordered for the guests and the new host is fitted for an expansive desk that is shaped, for some reason known only to the show’s production designer, like a ship’s deck. The show’s logo is redesigned and soon adorns crew jackets, coffee mugs, t-shirts, and baseball caps. The producer is joined in the booth by the host’s producer/wife. Together they work on routines for the host. They practice the delivery of his monologue and his comedic timing. The show’s producer, though, is kept in the dark regarding how much control the host’s wife exerts over his on-air personality. She rehearses with him even how he will act during rehearsals. Things go well. The late night show’s debut is fast approaching and the network has pinned many hopes on the new host’s success.
The day of the first taping arrives, the show will premier that night. Anticipation runs high. Network executives are counting on: chemistry between the host and bandleader; witty monologues, comprised of anecdotes and topical humor culled from the day’s headlines by a team of writers harvested from other highly successful shows; snappy rapport between the host and his guests. Everyone foresees big things for both the show and its new host. Many magazine articles are in the works. TV Guide has devoted its cover to the new host, from which he beams his magnificent smile, affecting easy-going charm. The dress rehearsal, with stand-ins for the night’s guests, is scheduled two hours before the taping. There is no live studio audience. There have been many rehearsals already, but this is their culmination.
The dress rehearsal: The band plays the show’s new theme song; a modernized take on the show’s original 30 year-old theme. The host is tastefully attired in an appallingly expensive suit, which manages, however, to look perfectly natural on him, as if he’s worn it for years. The spotlight comes into focus and the host stands before empty seats, hands in his pockets, the pre-rehearsed gesture of aw shucks. The theme crescendos with a bass solo and an off-screen announcer welcomes the absent audience and introduces the host in his soon-to-be-trademarked announcing style. The host is center stage. Cue cards in place. Four cameramen stand on stage, ready, waiting.
The host greets his public: A round of applause for the band. Take a bow, please. Wasn’t that great? It’s great to be here. Isn’t it? Thank you. While you’re at it, give yourselves a round of applause. We’ve got a great show for you tonight.
Cue: introduction of band, band leader, and announcer; monologue; guest stand-ins; musical number; one-off jokes; credits; fade out.
And? It is abysmal. Worse. Whatever magic his wife had used to shepherd the host through the auditions and screen tests and interviews seems to have evaporated. The host’s delivery is stunted, awkward. He stammers and squints at the cue cards. Sweat dots his forehead before running together in pancake streaks. The stand-ins are visibly embarrassed. The host doesn’t know which camera to look into. His practiced facial expressions come off as grotesques. The producer orders the crew off the set in order to have a sincere talk with the host and his producer/wife. He demands an explanation, which he says had better be convincing. Does he, the host, know exactly what is at stake here? What could he possibly have to say for himself?
The host opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. He looks to his wife. She quickly leads the producer away. The host remains alone on set, unable to account for himself. Even without an audience and actual guests, even without home viewers and critics forming opinions, he has failed. How is it possible to fail after he has come so far? His face already beams down from billboards, his smile reassuring everyone with its porcelain veneered glow, his confidence and promise pulsing forth in waves, infectious and radiant. How can all this be a lie? The producer and the host’s wife return. They agree: What has been done cannot easily be undone. Not now, when specific shoulders are carrying various burdens and the shoulders cannot easily be unburdened. But the shoulders can be supported. An armature can be constructed. The producer, pale and worried, has managed to salvage a modicum of hope that the artifice will not crumble. Already he is on the phone, calling in his sound people.
The producer and the host’s producer/wife meet with the show’s core writers, and under a veil of secrecy it is decided that the host will be prompted during the taping. Handsome and malleable, he will be a vessel, a facade. A tiny wireless earpiece is obtained, unnoticeable when inserted. His charm and captivating wit will flow not from some internal wellspring, but will be filtered through him via wireless conduit from the production booth. The late night television show isn’t broadcast live. It can be edited, awkward pauses can be creatively removed. The only question that remains is how to keep this all secret; there must not be so much as a rumor of the host’s inadequacy. Network executives, sponsors, publicists, critics, guests, viewers, house band, crew, none of them can be allowed to suspect that anything is even remotely amiss. Let us, the producer informs the crew, blame the rehearsal on nerves. Let us chalk this one up to simple opening night jitters. We can do this, he says as if coaching a misfit baseball team, all of us together, and no one will be the wiser for it. In fact, he continues, the show will be all the better for it. Instead of there being a single man out there it will be us as a team. We will distill our collective wit and humor and insight. This is a boon. This is revolutionary. We cannot fail.
The writers, the producer, and the producer/wife work feverishly but efficiently writing off-the-cuff remarks and choreographing stage directions, feeding it all to the host in real time. And he manages to channel it seamlessly. They learn to anticipate anything that might arise during a taping, and soon the host is able to find something that resembles confidence, though which is perhaps better described as rhythm. He learns to fall into character at the slightest prompt and the words and gestures of his writers issue forth from him as though through a spirit medium.
Things go remarkably well this way. The show is a success. Critics marvel at how intuitively the host establishes rapport with his guests. The bandleader and the host engage in witty banter. Audiences are lured away from competing late night shows. Each evening as dusk’s unhurried veil spreads westward the show’s production apparatus slips into gear. Studio technicians arrive from their homes in the valley, camera operators punch their union timecards, ushers don their blazers and survey an excited audience lined up with tickets in hand. There is a pre-rehearsal rehearsal during which the host is briefed on the night’s rough outline. He is given an approximate script that’s no more than the most basic gestures. This armature is then fleshed out during the taping in rapid-fire prompts and one-liners. And as each time-zone clicks over the host takes to the air in ever more homes and makes his way across the nation in miniature, tracing out a diffuse meridian upon millions of flickering screens, miasmic from great heights, clicking on and tuning in at the appointed hour all in unison, awaiting their bemused moderator, their agent of comedic dissemination for the day’s absurdities. He wins us all over.
As stated, the late night television show’s guests are culled almost exclusively from the A-list. There is a great deal of mutual back scratching between high-powered agents and the show’s bookers. B-list celebrities clamor absurdly, their publicists and agents turned dogged sycophants, for the less-frequent openings the show reserves for that echelon. Falling into that category, the author of a somewhat obscure though highly regarded novel is scheduled to appear on the show because his book has been made into a film that is already an early contender for major awards due to a fine, nuanced performance by a popular actress. Famously cantankerous and protective of his privacy, the author, at the request of his agent and the movie studio, reluctantly agrees to appear. In the week leading up to his appearance, the author watches the late night show every night. He observes the host and notes his smooth brow, and as much as it is possible through a television, he attempts to look into his eyes. He decides that he does not like the host. He attempts to pull out of the appearance, but he is obligated since the movie studio putting out the film version of his book has already committed to extensive advertising on the network.
The author discusses his options with his wife. No fan of the show herself, she nevertheless urges her husband to appear on it, however reluctantly, since it will boost his book sales, though this is by no means her true motivation. The author’s wife, while holding him in high regard throughout their thirty year marriage, not only as a husband but also as a writer, has decided that he has developed a growing misanthropy, perhaps still unnoticeable in his work, but which has made him increasingly difficult to live with. She would like to see him brought down a notch, made human again. She sees in the host someone who is adversative to her husband, a man who relishes and thrives upon public opinion rather than denouncing it. She hopes the host, with his banter and bonhomie, will somehow disarm her husband or, if not disarm, then at least humble somewhat. He traffics in everything her husband so vehemently eschews. He is the broad-shouldered manifestation of American goodwill that offers a hearty handshake in the service of a greater good that wants to tell you, Yes yes, it will be all right, no need to worry—so contrary to her husband’s hunched demeanor, his miserly posture, his ears sprouting thick black fur, the purposely threadbare jacket, the shrewd economy of his kindnesses that are too easily overshadowed by worry and regret, the knowledge of the essential misery contained within all people, telling us in measured prose, No it will not be all right, we are right to worry. She imagines this confrontation and in her heart believes that she can see how it will end.
The show’s ratings exceed even the most unrealistic expectations harbored deep within the hearts of network higher-ups. The host radiates outward from a thousand thousand magazine covers in grocery store checkout lines, his show is the most watched late night show in America. The host and his producer/wife trade in their tasteful bungalow for a gated compound with ivied Greek columns and a guesthouse that has its own pool. The host drives a small Italian sports car down the Pacific Coast Highway, bathing in the stereo and the wind, and he thinks, This is how it was meant to be. Everything is contained within this moment of exceeding the speed limit and tasting the salted air. He wonders when the time will be right to thank his audience, because, truly, he is grateful. He looks upon his wife with supreme devotion and his eyes sometimes mist over when he recalls all that she has done for him. He could never do any of this without her, nor would he want to. When he thinks about this role that he plays, he feels that it is just that—a role. He is an actor, he and his wife work together to present a single wonderful entity to the world. Knowing how many people he makes happy each night, how could that be wrong or inauthentic? He calls his mother and lets her know that he is happy. His mother is happy. Her son is every mother’s envy. She remembers him as a small child and chastises herself for not seeing his full potential. The wind and music and salted air, bathwarm.
The day of the author’s appearance arrives. He sits in his dressing room, having agreed only to the most rudimentary makeup, as his wife sits in the section of the studio audience reserved for family and friends of the show’s guests while the warm up comedian urges the crowd to be vocal in their appreciation. The host makes his way to the dressing rooms to meet his guests: a teen singing sensation, an actor who plays a doctor that moonlights as a detective on a popular television show, and the author. When he arrives in her dressing room, the singer greets the host with a toothy smile. She thanks him for the gift basket that the show has provided and expresses her hope that they will get to do this again in the future. The actor greets the host with a firm handshake, dressed down in a black sweater and slacks, his hair just beginning to gray at the temples, which tests incredibly well with 25-45 year-old women. He thanks the host, remarking how fit he looks, and asks where the host tans. Lastly, the author. He wants to tell the host why he is no fan of the late night show, taking him and all that he stands for to task. The author wants to know if the host has ever been unsure, has ever suffered, and what, if anything, he fears. All that which is effaced by the apparatus of television and its production. But the author is unsure if he is capable of doing this. He has been admonished by his editor not to make things unpleasant during his appearance. They have pleaded with him to keep things light, to engage in banter, to avoid appearing aloof or reproachful. Think of the reputations of the publisher and the literary agency and the movie studio. The host knocks softly at the door.
Hello, says the host extending a hand as he steps through the door. The author takes the host’s hand. It envelops his own. Thank you, says the host, for being on the show. It’s a great honor. I’ve heard good things about the film, he says. Awards and such. You must be very happy. My wife has read your books. Really, it’s a pleasure.
Thank you, says the author, and they stand quietly, the air conditioner’s antiseptic cold teasing up slight gooseflesh. The host opens his mouth but doesn’t speak. The author wants badly to see something of value in the host’s eyes. He wants to see the tiniest doubt. A love gone to ruin. Regret for having caused, perhaps, a car crash. Some hurt that cannot be assuaged. He tries to meet the host’s eyes, to see something in them that will put the two men on an even keel. The silence becomes drawn out, overdue. The host wants very much to have something to say to the author, wanting to be not only liked but respected. He thinks of his mother in her house that is paid for and his sisters who will not ever have to worry about college tuition for as yet small children. He thinks of his father who worked many odd jobs and ran off one winter with a neighbor woman and has been sending annual postcards to his three children ever since, awkwardly trying to explain his decision. The author doesn’t see any of this, nor though does he mistake the host’s silence for condescension or smugness. To him, the host gives off nothing so much as a lack. There is simply some incompleteness that the host is incapable of hiding, which is maybe shared by a great many people. The author then recognizes a similar lack in himself and finds he cannot fault the host. Light as fingertips the author tenderly brushes over his own emptiness and simply catalogues a slight wince.
An assistant knocks on the dressing room door to let the host know that he is needed in makeup. He excuses himself politely, not having anything else to say to the author. He knows that having the author as his guest is a prestigious honor that will bestow upon him all kinds of serious journalistic credibility. He wants badly to say something of worth but cannot coax the words.
Again alone in the dressing room, a beautiful untouched fruit plate arranged in front of him, the author finds that he is unable to appear on the show. Assistants come to fetch him, but he refuses to open the door. Finally the producer comes down from his booth, but the author cannot be persuaded. He remains in the dressing room and the show goes on without him. To fill time, the teen singer is asked to perform a second number. Surprisingly, the reputations of neither the host nor the author suffer. Days later the film opens in theaters across the nation. The lead actress’s performance really is quite good and critics sing the film’s praises. Faces upturned and tears falling unabated, audiences exalt, not cowed or beaten down by the film’s essential sadness, but given to nothing quite so much as a deep gratitude for simply being able to share this sadness, their hearts filled with wonder and affinity, many for the first time.