Read Online Filthy Rich by Dorothy Samuels - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Dorothy Samuels
Ads: Link
he left upstate to come to the party.”
“Not funny, Marcy,” Lois said. “Man-wise, the night was a bust. The good news is, I have at least one friend who’s not above giving TV interviews. I forgot to tell you. Norma’s on Ted Koppel tonight to plug her new book.”
Ted Koppel. Good for him, I thought, and not for having the foresight to book Norma Ruckenhaus, well-known feminist intellectual. I was thinking instead of the notable absence of the host of Nightline among the media biggies plying me with flowers and candy to get me to bare my soul, such as it is, on their program.
Flipping the channels to find Norma, my timing coincided with the end of the local news shows. Lucky me. I landed on channel 5 just as Liz Smith was launching into a review of my humiliating introduction to the viewing public, reading text off the TelePrompTer I gathered she was recycling from her syndicated column. “It was a long, roughnight for Marcy Lee Mallowitz, but I confess I enjoyed every minute,” gushed the veteran gossip czarina, her tone unduly chipper, I thought, considering it was my life she was talking about. “Like a lot of what transpires these days under the nouvelle heading of ‘reality TV,’ Marcy’s blowup with her beau on Filthy Rich! was at once tasteless and transfixing—sort of like munching popcorn at a train wreck.”
I then had the eerie experience of watching different stations play the same humiliating video clip of the previous night’s Filthy Rich! fracas. Fortunately, I had the foresight to put the sound on mute, so I was able to avoid any snide remarks by the blow-dried anchors.
The part they kept playing is where Neil calls me a bitch, starts screaming “ Comedy Hour, Comedy Hour, Comedy Hour ,” and I respond by yelling back and throwing the ring. In the playback, Neil seemed even angrier than I remembered, his body language even more menacing. Also, I had to give my mother credit. I looked pretty good in that Saks number we picked out for the show. Even on sale, it cost a lot of dead roaches, as my dad would say. But they were dead roaches well spent.
After playing the clip, channel 9 announced the results of a brand-new poll. Americans, according to the survey, were so impressed by the way I stood up to Neil that they now rated me among the world’s most admired women—behind Eleanor Roosevelt and Mother Teresa, to be sure, but before another woman with man problems, Hillary Clinton. Don’t get a swelled head, I told myself. A week from now, probably only a few die-hard Filthy Rich! fans will remember your name. Adding insult, I thought, by then I’ll probably be replaced on the list by the latest contestant to be ejected from the phony island paradise where they shoot The Plank .
The Plank , I needn’t tell you, is the hot new “reality show,” which at that moment was threatening to equal, or even surpass, the phenomenal success of Filthy Rich! , notwithstanding its cheesy production values and a ludicrous format that lends credence to my theory that someone—perhaps visiting Russian spies piqued by the long lines at Disneyland—has slipped a mild hallucinogenic into the bottled water consumed by the TV big shots charged with deciding which programs America gets to see. Each week on the The Plank , in case you haven’t seen it, network executives dressed in elaborate pirate costumes drive around environmentally sensitive beach areas in flashy BMW convertibles, sometimes getting stuck in the sand. But the real drama comes at the end of the hour when the “pirates” capture the scantily clad contestant who registered the lowest likability with viewers in the Q rating the week before, and force him or her to walk a specially constructed plank to an awaiting rowboat, thereby tossing the person off the island and the show. The plank is decorated with the show’s logo of a winking pirate done in blue-and-gold glitter, so it stands out in the aerial shots that open and close the
“Not funny, Marcy,” Lois said. “Man-wise, the night was a bust. The good news is, I have at least one friend who’s not above giving TV interviews. I forgot to tell you. Norma’s on Ted Koppel tonight to plug her new book.”
Ted Koppel. Good for him, I thought, and not for having the foresight to book Norma Ruckenhaus, well-known feminist intellectual. I was thinking instead of the notable absence of the host of Nightline among the media biggies plying me with flowers and candy to get me to bare my soul, such as it is, on their program.
Flipping the channels to find Norma, my timing coincided with the end of the local news shows. Lucky me. I landed on channel 5 just as Liz Smith was launching into a review of my humiliating introduction to the viewing public, reading text off the TelePrompTer I gathered she was recycling from her syndicated column. “It was a long, roughnight for Marcy Lee Mallowitz, but I confess I enjoyed every minute,” gushed the veteran gossip czarina, her tone unduly chipper, I thought, considering it was my life she was talking about. “Like a lot of what transpires these days under the nouvelle heading of ‘reality TV,’ Marcy’s blowup with her beau on Filthy Rich! was at once tasteless and transfixing—sort of like munching popcorn at a train wreck.”
I then had the eerie experience of watching different stations play the same humiliating video clip of the previous night’s Filthy Rich! fracas. Fortunately, I had the foresight to put the sound on mute, so I was able to avoid any snide remarks by the blow-dried anchors.
The part they kept playing is where Neil calls me a bitch, starts screaming “ Comedy Hour, Comedy Hour, Comedy Hour ,” and I respond by yelling back and throwing the ring. In the playback, Neil seemed even angrier than I remembered, his body language even more menacing. Also, I had to give my mother credit. I looked pretty good in that Saks number we picked out for the show. Even on sale, it cost a lot of dead roaches, as my dad would say. But they were dead roaches well spent.
After playing the clip, channel 9 announced the results of a brand-new poll. Americans, according to the survey, were so impressed by the way I stood up to Neil that they now rated me among the world’s most admired women—behind Eleanor Roosevelt and Mother Teresa, to be sure, but before another woman with man problems, Hillary Clinton. Don’t get a swelled head, I told myself. A week from now, probably only a few die-hard Filthy Rich! fans will remember your name. Adding insult, I thought, by then I’ll probably be replaced on the list by the latest contestant to be ejected from the phony island paradise where they shoot The Plank .
The Plank , I needn’t tell you, is the hot new “reality show,” which at that moment was threatening to equal, or even surpass, the phenomenal success of Filthy Rich! , notwithstanding its cheesy production values and a ludicrous format that lends credence to my theory that someone—perhaps visiting Russian spies piqued by the long lines at Disneyland—has slipped a mild hallucinogenic into the bottled water consumed by the TV big shots charged with deciding which programs America gets to see. Each week on the The Plank , in case you haven’t seen it, network executives dressed in elaborate pirate costumes drive around environmentally sensitive beach areas in flashy BMW convertibles, sometimes getting stuck in the sand. But the real drama comes at the end of the hour when the “pirates” capture the scantily clad contestant who registered the lowest likability with viewers in the Q rating the week before, and force him or her to walk a specially constructed plank to an awaiting rowboat, thereby tossing the person off the island and the show. The plank is decorated with the show’s logo of a winking pirate done in blue-and-gold glitter, so it stands out in the aerial shots that open and close the
Similar Books
