Talk (13 page)

“Syndication requires three things,” he had told me. “First, you need big numbers in your home market. You have that. Second, these stations have to believe they can sell your show to advertisers, and the way to prove that is to read any script they put in front of you whether the product is gold or penile enhancement.”

I wished he were joking, but I'd already done both of those things. In fact, he'd just referenced two of my biggest advertisers.

“But you also need edge, something that distinguishes you from every Rush wannabe, and that is where TV gives you a chance to shine. Use cable to build your identity, Stan.”

I remember the first time I got a call from a cable TV booker inviting me to provide a political opinion on then newly elected governor Chris Christie. I was a bit clueless about how the medium worked and how best to use it to my advantage. But I learned two lessons that night. First, I initially thought I would have to go to New York to appear. Little did I know that there was a satellite TV facility in a high-rise office building just two blocks from the WRGT studio. Modern Video, the studio where I have appeared countless times since, has a hokey, fake backdrop of a beach scene that may or may not have been taken in the Tampa area. What I remember from that first night was being surprised that the show was live
at 9 p.m. but on the backdrop behind me, the sun was shining. “Who are we shitting with that?” I wondered.

My second lesson was substantive. Or maybe I should say, lack of substance. A major blizzard had hit the Northeastern states. It was so bad that the NFL took the unprecedented step of postponing a playoff game scheduled between the Eagles and Vikings for two days, which then became good talk fodder when Pennsylvania's Governor Ed Rendell complained that we'd become a nation of “wussies.” (He later got a book deal and a TV contract out of that one comment.) Although the storm was predicted, some cities and states were caught flat-footed. In a snowed-under New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg lost his cool with a challenging media. And in neighboring New Jersey, both Governor Chris Christie and his lieutenant governor (whose name I can't remember) were both out of state at the same time. Christie was in Disney World with his family, and his proximity to my market might be why I got the call. Well, as the plows were still moving, I made my first cable appearance that night in a segment discussing the reaction of public officials to the snow.

“What about Chris Christie being in sunny Florida while his constituents need the roads cleared and the power back on?” I was asked.

“Well, there is a practical consideration and a political consideration,” I said. “The practical consideration is that snow removal is primarily a responsibility of local governments. That's why in New York, the focus is on Mayor Bloomberg, not Governor Patterson.”

I was staring into a satellite camera more than 1,000 miles away from the cold when I finished my thought.

“But the political consideration is that the optics are bad for Governor Christie who is one of the rising stars of the Republican Party, and you can rest assured that in some future
campaign a photograph will surface of him riding Dumbo the Elephant and be used against him in a commercial.”

Phil watched the segment. He was pissed.

“Well you fucked up your debut, Powers.”

“How so?”

“Too much hair splitting. Too much of you trying to be the smartest guy in the room. And not enough edge. Just way too much inconsistency.” And he was right, at least in the world of cable TV. It was a long time before I was invited back.

“You should have just said that Chris Christie is working his balls off trying to bail out New Jersey after the disaster that was that liberal cocksucker Jon Corzine, and people need to get off his back while he recharges his batteries with his kids. Stress that he is with his f-a-m-i-l-y,” Phil wisely emphasized.

Now, years later, I was getting much more face time just as Governor Tobias was touring the country in support of his now-official presidential run official. A few days after his appearance on my program, I watched him speak to a rally at a shuttered manufacturing plant in Reno (“this is what Republican tax cuts do for the working class”) with Susan and their daughters at his side. The Tommy Bahama in his Florida closet had been replaced with Brooks Brothers. But my eyes were fixed on Susan, looking positively stunning in a pair of Christian Louboutin black boots, tight-ass jeans and a turtleneck that ran up to those classic Princess Grace facial features. Fuck Tobias. Maybe my callers were correct. They hadn't let up from the moment he walked out of the studio.

“Hello, Stan? You were too nice to that European socialist Tobias. And his wife is to the left of Nancy Pelosi. Why doesn't she stay home and raise those kids?” said one who was typical.

“Well, some would say all you need to know about his wife is that she kept her name,” I responded lamely. “Thanks for the call.”

The Florida primary finally arrived, and to no one's surprise Tobias hammered Vic Baron and his other five opponents. The surprise was what happened on the Republican side. To my secret delight, Margaret Haskel barely edged out Colorado Governor Wynne James. It seemed that the conservative vote was getting divided between Haskel, Redfield, Lewis and Figuera, and the fringe threesome of Redfield, Lewis and Figuera was taking enough of the vote from Haskel to give an opening to the one candidate in that field with whom I was personally comfortable—but of course who my core audience distrusted.

With Florida behind him, Tobias' attention now shifted to Super Tuesday states. As he made his initial whirlwind tour, I saw Susan constantly at his side. But then one day she was missing, or at least missing from the camera frame. And that's about when I got another message from Wilma Blake, whose first call I had never returned.

•  •  •

Most days after my program ended, Alex and I would recap what had gone well and what had tanked, plan the next day, and sift through listener email and (old school) letters. These days, Alex would also review with me requests she'd received for print interviews from newspapers across the country (it seemed that everybody wanted the inside election scoop on Florida) and finally, we'd review the miscellaneous telephone messages left at WRGT's main number. It sounds like a lot, but we'd run through this list in five minutes, sometimes with Rod sitting in our suite pretending to be going through his own email. Like who the fuck was emailing him? NAMBLA?

“Some lady named Wilma Blake called again,” Alex told me. “She's left two or three messages, Stan, and says you and
she are old friends and she is anxious to speak to you about a confidential matter.”

Confidential matter. That's another thing. Rare was the phone message or email from a random listener that did
not
concern a self-proclaimed confidential matter.

“Sure, give me that number,” I said, trying not to attract Rod's attention.

I had avoided her initial message, and by now I was convinced that Susan would have seen me talking about her husband on TV. I know how presidential campaigns work—they monitor all the media, especially during an announcement week, to see how it plays and how their candidate is being treated in the different outlets. I envisioned Susan sitting in a Radisson in Virginia Beach watching tape of her husband's announcement, immediately followed by talking heads, including me, raising issues like whether he is sufficiently Christian to be elected president. I'd waited years to reconnect with Susan Miller, but as I prepared to dial the telephone, I was no closer to any kind of a plan as to what I was seeking from the interaction and how I intended to get there.

Convincing myself that I would simply be a good listener, I got in my convertible but kept the roof up like it was one of my Phil sessions where I actually wanted to hear his advice. And then, just as soon as I'd cleared the underground lot and had given my customary nod to the lone fisherman, I dialed.

“Look at you now,” was how she answered the phone.

“No ‘hello, it's been a long time'?”

“It's not a social call, Stan. I think you know that.”

“You always were about getting down to business, Susan. What can I do you for?”

“Listen, I'm calling you as an old friend. I think you misunderstand some things about Bob. I'd like the chance to set the record straight.”

“Sure. Come on the program tomorrow. You can pick the time, although I'd recommend the 7:30 segment.”

“I'm not interested in being on your program Stan, and Bob won't be coming on again either. But I am interested in meeting with you privately to clarify some history.”

“A history lesson would be nice,” I awkwardly responded.

Susan said she was headed to a hospital fundraiser in Sarasota the next night and that she could meet me afterwards.

“It'll have to be private, Stan. I don't want this to sound harsh, but it wouldn't help Bob if we were seen together, and I am counting on you to keep this confidential.”

I wanted to tell her there was a keg freezer where I could usually count on a little privacy but instead I showed some uncharacteristic restraint.

“No problem, consider it off the record,” I said.

And then reflexively, I said:

“I have the right spot. It's seedy but safe.”

“Sounds like old times,” she said with a laugh that bore distant recognition.

“It's called Delrios,” I said, and started to give directions.

But Susan interrupted me. “I know where it is. I'll be there around 8ish. Sit in the back. Bye, Stan.”

The line went dead.

I drove along with the phone to my ear for a few more seconds before putting it down in a cup holder. How did Susan Miller know Delrios? The place was a mystery to many of the year-round residents of Clearwater. What I did know was that Susan Miller, Florida's first lady, was now acquainted with a numbnuts named Stan Powers, a conservative talk radio host, presidential kingmaker, and supposed right-wing ideologue. For all she knew, the skinny barkeep she'd thrown some snatch at in a cold storage locker many years prior had had a
transformative epiphany that lead him on a holier-than-thou path which now included disparaging her husband. She'd have no way of knowing it was all about entertainment in the name of growing my career and lining my pocket—or did she? If she had any doubt, I could let Debbie enlighten her.

I also wondered what history she was coming to explain? Ours? Or that which concerned her husband's faith? Personally I didn't give a shit as to which alter he knelt at, and ditto for her. Religion was not something that had ever come up back at Shooter's. Nor did we discuss anything else all that personal. She'd always kept things close to the vest. And what I knew of her personal life thereafter was what anyone could learn by Googling her and Tobias. Susan Miller had returned to FSU for her junior year and seemingly never looked back. According to Tobias' official bio, the two of them met during his senior year (her junior) when he was the household-name quarterback of the football team. After her graduation, she followed him to Tallahassee where he was serving in his first job—as an assemblyman. No ordinary political freshman, Bob Tobias already had more name recognition in the state of Florida that just about anyone shy of Dan Marino. Two terms in the state House and two terms in the state Senate later, and he was ready to be elected to the governor's mansion.

The moment I hung up the phone something else occurred to me. I'd reflexively said Delrios without realizing that tomorrow was a Tuesday. I'd just agreed to a clandestine meeting in my usual haunt on my normal drinking night. The cone of silence at Delrios was about to be tested.

WRGT never did bring anyone else to town for the early shift, other than me. To this day I don't know if Steve Bernson really tried to negotiate a deal that fell through, or if he always planned on trying to make a go of it with me. Maybe he was following Phil Dean's advice. All I know is that my 30 days became three months, which before I knew it, had become a few years and my position as a talk host was secure.

Phil was vital to my success. Whenever I start thinking that I could have become a talk host without him, all I need to do is think back to my first two weeks on air. At the moment when the station actually flipped formats, Phil was finishing work on another station makeover, so for my first two weeks in morning drive, I was flying blind. What I knew about the format was limited to what I'd heard and usually turned off when listening to pre-set stations in rental cars. Given that it was a talk format, I naturally assumed that the goal was to make the telephones ring. The more rings the more callers, the more callers the more listeners, or at least that's what I thought.

Bernson was temporarily my day-to-day manager, and he'd instituted a system whereby the guy ending an air shift would spend five minutes with the guy taking over. It seemed to make sense. The idea was to try to hold the audience of the guy who was leaving for the guy who was taking the chair. When I was getting started in the mornings, it meant that my crossover time was with the guy leaving after doing the overnights, a fellow named Frank Sellers, who worked the graveyard shift. I can still picture him wearing a Madras sport coat and argyle socks, dressed like he was headed to a sock hop or something instead of a talk studio when most people were sleeping. At age 67, Frank was a veteran talk show host, one of the last vestiges of the era where personality mattered, not ideology, as evidenced by the fact that he was an old liberal warhorse who idolized RFK. We both thought we were placeholders, and maybe that's why we bonded. In his case that was true. His liberalism didn't fit with the station's new direction and he knew his days were numbered, but he wanted the paycheck and the station needed someone to hold down the fort. Frank was old school. He didn't own a cell phone and couldn't tell the Internet from intercourse. He read newspapers that were printed on paper and required turning the pages, and to him a newscast was one that began at 6:30 p.m. on one of the “big three” networks.