by Nic Tatano
Fortunately we're not wearing gingham for this rehearsal. Stacy has put together our own private fashion show, asking each of us to choose a half dozen of what we would consider appropriate outfits for the courtroom. Her stipulations: no New York black, which makes up about fifty percent of all closet space in Manhattan; no white, no earth tones, no gray pinstripes, no high collars and above all, no pants. She wanted bold and brassy, with bright primary colors that would stand out in a sea of muted courtroom tones. "Your clothes need to reflect business and pleasure," she said, which made me think there needs to be a line of fashion with that name. (Women who work hard and play harder wear B&P. Kinda catchy, huh?)
We're doing this little runway thing at Neely's place. She argued that she had far more than six "possibles" in her closet and she was not going to wheel her wardrobe across Manhattan on a rack, "like some garment-district worker with a hot pretzel hanging out of his mouth." So Rica, Jillian and I have brought several hanging bags full of stuff to her townhouse. Neely, ever the Southern hostess, greeted each of us at the door with another wonderful vodka concoction, like we were buyers from a department store and were here to see the fall line. Then, just as we were about to start the show, she fired up some upbeat instrumental music from the eighties to add some energy.
Rica went first, for no particular reason. She disappeared into Neely's bedroom for a few minutes, while we all slipped deeper into the couch and a vodka coma at the same time. I noshed on the hot bacon-wrapped shrimp that sat on the coffee table, which, when dipped into an old-fashioned fondue pot filled with warm melted Gouda, created a decadent hors d'oeuvre to die for. (Neely, by the way, is also a fantastic cook, hence the "biscuits in the oven" line to which she often refers.) Stacy, who was on her way to starting a chapter of her own at the law firm, had a legal pad in her lap, a pen in one hand and a drink in the other. We had asked Stacy to bring some of her outfits as well, but she said she'd already chosen her wardrobe. But we badgered her, so she brought some stuff. We want her to feel like part of the group.
Rica emerged, prancing to the music wearing a tight burgundy business suit: a cropped jacket with a skirt about three inches above the knee and a pair of stiletto heels. "Hot damn," said Neely, bringing back memories of the gong show. Rica's black hair made a striking contrast with the burgundy. She took off the jacket which had a beige silk blouse underneath that was tight enough to reveal a pair of party hats.
"Very nice," said Stacy. "Though I'd like to see it with a bra."
Rica shrugged her shoulders. "If I owned one, I'd put it on," she said.
Jillian's turn brought out seven outfits which all had the same strategy. Legs, legs and more legs in shoes that could qualify as stilts. The Snack was right about that; keeping those long stems in flats (or covered up) was ridiculous. We all vetoed the one pair of pants she brought; even though it broke Stacy's rule and the pinstripes made her legs look endless, nothing compared with a short skirt that showed off her perfectly toned calves. Her collection of bright, satiny silk tops in blues and greens worked great with her hair and eyes. Neely described her look as, "A lot of class in the boardroom and a great ass in bed."
Neely was next, and saved the best of her outfits for last. I knew damn well she'd gone shopping, since the first seven outfits she'd modeled for us had never made an appearance at work, and one still had the tags. Then she disappeared into the bedroom and five minutes later cracked the door opened and announced, in a deep dramatic voice, "Ladies and Gentlemen, we have been transported to the future. Please welcome the next President of the United States!" She then power-walked into the living room (just as "Walking on Sunshine" started to play…she must have timed it) in a candy apple red business suit with an incredibly tight skirt that ended about four inches above the knee. The jacket partially covered a blouse that was straining to keep her boobs from exploding out of it. But the best part of the outfit was above the neck. Neely's upswept hair and no-frame rectangular glasses left no doubt she was a doppelganger for a certain politician from a very cold state. If that certain politician had done an ad for Victoria's Secret and worked as a slutty librarian during the day. "Your books are overdue, young man, but I'm going to take out your fine in trade."
"Gives new meaning to the term swing vote," I said.
"You betcha," said Jillian, adopting a nasal twang.
"If that top button on that blouse goes, you might put the judge's eye out," said Rica, popping another shrimp.
"Ah, but this is only part one of the outfit," said Neely, smiling and quickly raising both eyebrows.
"What, there's a hockey stick that goes with it?" asked Rica. "A stuffed moose head?"
"No, silly," said Neely. "What's every Republican man's fantasy about her?" Neely slowly removed her glasses, reached behind her head, removed her barrette and shook out her hair, which fell loosely about her shoulders.
If Scott were here, he would have said, "Whoa."
"That's fantastic," said Stacy. "You should do that in court once each day."
"Really?" asked Neely. "I thought you guys would think it was too much. I was just having a little fun."
"No, seriously, it's great," said Stacy. "I mean, here's what you do. You walk into the courtroom every morning like that, with the hair up and the glasses on, looking kind of serious, and maybe right after lunch you drop the hair and the glasses in the courtroom just before the judge comes back. You do it every day and the cable channels will start looking for it while they're doing their commentary during the recess."
"Yeah," I said, "they'll start speculating on the daily hair drop. You'll have your own cult following."
Except in red states, where CGR will be pulled from every cable system and replaced with a shopping network.
"As long as I don't get cited for contempt," said Neely. "Meanwhile, I'm not done."
"You can't strip in the courtroom," said Rica.
It was my turn to hit the dressing room. I knew I wouldn't be able to top Neely's display, but I did manage to get five of my six outfits approved, as one dress wasn't deemed "slinky enough" by Stacy. Apparently she sees me as the seductress of the group. Must be the redhead thing. Since her courtroom opponent is also a copper top, she wants me to be the polar opposite of Ms. O'Hara. We're playing a game of "good redhead, bad redhead", but in this case my being the bad redhead is actually good for the men on the jury.
* * *
There was a little bite in the air. The leaves were changing. Roadside produce stands were ablaze with orange pumpkins and colorful gourds.
That only meant one thing in the television industry.
November sweeps were coming.
Years ago this was an insider thing, but now, thanks to entertainment magazines like TV Guide and Entertainment Weekly, the public knows about "sweeps" months (February, May and November) during which stations and networks pull out all the stops to entice viewers to watch. Ever notice that all sorts of good stuff is on all at once and then it's a parade of reality and reruns? Well, that's because sweeps months are when the almighty Nielsen Company calculates ratings, and those ratings determine what you can charge for commercials. Even one rating point can literally mean millions to a network.
Years ago stations and networks would do what are called "sweeps series" which were multi-part stories that carried enough interest to attract new eyeballs. Most of them were legitimate pieces of investigative journalism on things like unscrupulous car mechanics or crooked politicians. Back then the evening news was appointment television in many households, and you could run a five-part series reasonably assured that viewers would watch all five parts if they liked the first one.
But no one has that kind of time anymore, so a "series" might just be two parts. Or you might have a "sweeps piece" that is just one part. And, of late, sweeps have become a game of "can you top this?" as broadcasters are becoming more outlandish than ever. Journalism doesn't even enter into the picture anymore.
There are three sure-fire hits wh
en it comes to sweeps.
Fear, money and sex. And if you can combine two or more of those, you've really got something.
Under the fear heading we find the sweeps pieces that are simply designed to scare the living shit out of you while you're sitting on the couch, and the titles often contain the phrase "can kill you" somewhere in the promotional copy, while featuring video of something disgusting. "The bacteria on your dish scrubbie can kill you! Details at eleven!" Viewers must be cowering under the bed when they learn that they can die at the hands of things like sponges, kitty litter boxes, or the latest hot unseen killer on the loose, germs on the handles of shopping carts. Run for your lives! The all-time classic in this category, however, was one on escalator safety that followed the Super Bowl, resulting in a unique promo that managed to combine fear and football. "Stairway to death! After the game!"
Money stories, while not as sexy or scary as fear pieces, subscribe to the theory that people vote their pocketbook on election day and do the same if they have a ratings diary. So if you can save a viewer a buck, you might have a loyal viewer. Some, however, manage to combine money issues with sex, (the two often go together quite well in television, as in real life). In the case of a California station's sweeps series titled, Make Ends Meet as a Daytime Madam, the story spotlighted a woman who pretended to be June Cleaver while her husband was around but was actually Heidi Fleiss when he wasn't. (We've come a long way from stories about housewives who clip coupons, huh?) The print ad featured a woman who had basically been sliced right down the middle. On the left side she was dressed in an apron while holding a mop, on her right she wore a black leather bustier, matching boots, and a whip. The caption read "Jekyll and Hide", with the "hide" referring to the leather.
Sex, of course, is a no-brainer to grab some ratings, as anything remotely kinky brings out the voyeur which lurks in every viewer, especially those who don't subscribe to Cinemax. Stories that include transvestites, hookers, women in thigh-high boots (no comments, please… I wore them as part of my managerial duties), male strippers, pole dancing or erectile dysfunction can generally bring out the viewers in droves. If you could ever find a story with a transvestite pole-dancing prostitute who had a bad reaction to little blue pills, you'd have the perfect storm for sweeps. Speaking of those E-D ads, one station created a great deal of water cooler talk last year with a series on men who exceeded that four hour red zone you hear about in those commercials and ended up in the emergency room. The title for the series, Stuck Up, was an instant classic.
While we often see two of the big three topics combined in a sweeps piece, it is rare that anyone has come up with a riveting series which incorporates all three. The only one that comes to mind is the piece on condoms that were sold in a close-out store (money) and past their expiration date, which if used for more than five minutes (sex) tended to break (fear, the thought being that knocking up your girlfriend can be as scary as death). The series, titled Killer Raincoats, sort of backfired when people tuned in expecting a piece on shopping for bad weather outerwear and instead were treated to an exposé on prophylactics whose lubricant had dried out.
Luckily for us here at CGR, fear is not an option. (I'm talking sweeps here, not the way we run the place. Though I do like the slogan.) We're taking some time off from the trial preps to brainstorm some topics for November, since we're slaves to the ratings like everyone else. Sex, of course, is a given with our product, and we should be able to tie that into money quite easily. Sadly, CGR does not broadcast any sporting events, so the possibility of hearing, "Top ten uses for riding crops! After the game!" will simply remain a pipe dream.
We've asked our anchors to submit sweeps ideas on these little forms that Neely made up. Now every other station has plain old sheets for story submissions, but she's doing the Martha Stewart thing again, and has taken the blank page (mauve paper, no less) to a whole new level:
Name:
Story idea:
Reporter involvement:
Female element to the story:
Please place a checkmark next to the item(s) that will be included in the story:
__Shirtless men
__Stiletto heels
__Bedroom toys: whips, handcuffs, costumes, etc.
__Edible items
__Inflatable accessories
Oh, I just realized you probably don't know the definition of "reporter involvement" so I'll explain it. You know how you always see a reporter holding a microphone in any story? Well, that's called a "stand-up" and serves as a way to place the reporter at the scene so the viewer knows he or she was actually there. "Reporter involvement" takes the stand-up to the next level, as it not only gets the reporter's face on camera but shows the reporter doing something that relates to the story. For instance, if you were doing a cooking story, you might be stirring a pot or tasting what you've just made, instead of just standing there talking about it. It's basically show-and-tell. In the case of CGR, a woman might be doing a piece on "lowering your blood pressure with chocolate during sex " and could do a stand-up holding a dark chocolate bar; but the piece would be so much more interesting with reporter involvement. For example, if she licked melted dark chocolate off a chiseled chest while talking about the positive effects of flavonoids on your arteries. She runs her tongue over the guy's pecs, turns to the camera and says, "This gets your blood pumping in more ways than one." Now see, isn't that more interesting to you as a viewer?
And, now that I think of it, that would make a very good sweeps series. "Screw your way to good health! After the game!"
Neely had collected all the ideas and had well over one hundred. She handed each of us a stack in my office and we began to sort through them.
"Here's one I like," said Neely. "Grocery shopping for the bedroom: how a trip to the supermarket can spice up your sex life."
"Sounds decent," I said. "What's on the shopping list?"
"Well," said Neely, "some of the usual, like whipped cream and dipped strawberries, but the basic premise is that if your partner has a flat stomach, you can use it as a plate and eat breakfast off of it. But you can't use any utensils."
"Sounds interesting. Who submitted that?" asked Rica.
Neely's eyebrows went up. "The Snack," she said, and all eyes turned to Jillian.
"What?" she asked, her face pleading ignorance.
"Spill," said Rica.
"Okay," said Jillian, as the freckles started to bloom. "So one morning I thought it would be fun to have pancakes in bed, but the plate slipped off the tray and I spilled syrup all over The Snack. One thing led to another, so I just put the pancakes on his abs and worked my way down."
You just know those two will never run out of ideas.
"Sounds like a keeper," I said. "Next?"
"This one sounds interesting," said Rica. "Trading down. For women who are stuck with a balding, overweight, middle-aged man. How to "trade down in age" and turn your life around. Part one is ditching Shamu and part two shows how to find a newer model."
"Love it," I said. The others nodded.
"I've got a winner," said Jillian, waving a piece of paper in the air. "Age inappropriate. Lists all the things women over thirty aren't supposed to do or wear. Short skirts is number one on the list."
"Hell," said Rica, "We could shoot that without ever leaving the office."
After an hour we'd agreed on a few dozen sweeps series, of which my favorite is "Hot bods and cattle prods", submitted by Denton's co-anchor Kristin. The premise is how to "train" a man with a perfect body to perform in the fashion that pleases you.
Just as we were wrapping up, Amanda stopped by with the news that our lawsuit has been fast-tracked (unheard of in New Jersey, whose legal system moves at a glacial pace) and will begin on Thursday, November first.
The first day of sweeps.
"So," asked Rica. "Are we going to be covering our own trial?"
"That would imply that we're a news organization," said Amanda. "We'll leave that to everyon
e else. Believe me, there won't be any shortage of coverage on this one. What we can do, however, is buy some ads on the court channels. I'll bet lots of people who haven't sampled us or even heard of us will want to check out the source if they're watching the trial."
Damn, she's brilliant.
* * *
I guess 'tis true that what goes around comes around, or payback, or whatever you want to call it.
We used the gong on job applicants, and now Stacy has a buzzer for us which will be used during the rehearsal. Actually it's a piece of a Taboo board game that makes an annoying game show wrong-answer noise, but it's effective for what we're doing.
Welcome to Stacy Heller's mock courtroom, where we're going to legal charm school. We've got Stacy, four other lawyers (two of whom are exponentially cute guys just a few years out of law school… hmmm… another recess, perhaps?), a retired judge, and a video technician so we can play back and watch our performances. So, in a twisted bit of irony, our on-camera work is going to be harshly judged on things that are basically superficial. It's Karma with a gong!
We learned how to sit, how to smile, when to be serious, how to use our eyes, how to walk, make eye contact with the jury, nod our heads during positive answers, shake it during negative ones, use humor when appropriate, flirt with the male jurors who seem receptive, not look to the lawyer for help on a tough question, and, in Jillian's case, how to sit at the end of the table nearest the jury box and cross her legs every fifteen minutes while extending her toe in what might be considered a sensual Pilates move.
