Lawrence Eisenberg

By Lawrence Eisenberg

Original Version Appeared In Penthouse, January 1983

The other day, after watching CNN, Fox and MSNBC, followed by the five o'clock, six o'clock and the six thirty news, and wondering, as I do every destiny-cursing day, why those anchorpeople get paid seven figures and I don't, I dozed....

I was just out of graduate school, sitting in a taxi, headed for an employment agency and wondering what I was going to do with my life. "Wouldn't it be great to have a career in television news?" I asked. The cab driver handed me a matchbook. which read, "Be an Anchorman in Three Days.... If you can read a sentence, you can earn six figures.... The Right Now! School of Broadcast Journalism."

I had the driver take me to the address, a midtown loft. Meeting me at the door was Ms. Priority, a tall, spiky-haired, sixtyish blonde, whose darting tongue seemed capable of trapping insects. Before saying a word, she took my $100 deposit and, bracelets clanging in harmony with her stiletto heels, waved her arm, welcoming me to a seat in a room with 20 empty chairs. When I asked what had happened to the rest of the class, she twisted her heavily lipsticked mouth and said, "I expelled every one of them. They were hopeless." Moving to the podium, she looked appraisingly at me and asked me to stand up.

She shook her head and said, "You probably developed that straight-arrow habit in college. Dump it. Now, stand up as though you've got a wet body around your shoulders. It's what we call our Albatross Stance."

I tried and tried, and after 18 minutes was standing well enough to earn a smile from Ms. Priority.

"Very important now," she said, pointing a long fingernail, painted with stars and stripes. "Stand up and walk across the room." I did so and she screamed. "Stop! Your walk is Preppie City! Keep the stand-up pose I taught you and weave a little from side to side. Your walk should be a statement--a combination of world-weariness, ironic amusement, and the insouciance of somebody who's just put in fourteen hours of meaningful sack duty, if you get my drift." After skirting the room for thirty-three laps, I finally got a nod from Ms. P.

"From now on, I want you to stand and walk that way in your everyday life until it becomes a permanent part of you," she said, glancing over clothing. "Conservative, a little dull. Perfect. But, occasionally, I want you to wear clumpy brown shoes with a gray suit or a rumpled sweater under your jacket. That shows audiences you may not have slept home last night." She scanned my hair, then whipped out a comb, brush, and cans of mousse and hairspray. "This will be our last lesson of the day," she said, and in the next thirty minutes taught me how to keep my hair four inches off my scalp while maintaining an almost-natural look. She pulled a few wisps down over my forehead. "A little untidiness shows vulnerability." Now she mussed my hair so it was hanging over my eyes. "This is in case you get a job as a street reporter. It tells the public--and the news director--that you're working hard in dangerous conditions."

I left the school thrilled. On the way home, an old woman offered to help me cross the street, saying, "You're walking so funny I thought you were in an accident." While reassuring her, I collided with a street sign and dented my hair.

Day Two at the school was divided into (a) Small Talk and Banter, (b) Kidding Around With the Weather and/or Sportsperson, (c) Laughing.

"Small talk is easy," said Ms. Priority. "Whenever your co-anchor or a guest or anybody finishes a sentence, you must always say, 'That's for sure' or 'You can say that again.' If the other person has just announced that California has fallen into the Pacific Ocean, you comment, 'Boy, that's really serious.' These meaningless statements assure the audience that you're concerned, chatty, and that you've been listening. Also: all your remarks should be accompanied by lots of shtick--eyes raised skyward and crossed, smirks, and fish lips. Your guiding principle is that no piece of news is ever as important as your reaction to it." She handed me a list of twenty-five obvious comments with diagrammed facial expressions, asked me to memorize them, and went on.

"Naturally, you're constantly bantering with your co-anchor, but your chatter with--and about--the sports and weatherpeople is aimed a little lower: you must give audiences the impression that they're buffoons, badly dressed, and would have trouble getting a date in a women's prison. At the same time you don't want viewers ever to think you are anything but the closest of friends, who go out for jovial beers and backslapping every night after the show. Never mind that it's costing $475,000 a minute for this banter. Here are some samples: 'Well, here comes Marv. Hey, Marv, where'd you get that suit--at a wino yard sale?'; or, 'Hey, Frank, where'd you get your haircut--in a Cuisinart?'; or, 'I hear Joe's buying drinks tonight. The last time he picked up a check was on a street in Prague. That's spelled C-Z-E-C-H’. Every one of these remarks is followed by such laughter as to shatter glass--paroxysms, screams, uncontrolled geysers of giggles," continued Ms. P. "It's also very important to begin reading the next news item while still guffawing, making a nice, easy transition--and lightening it if it's tragic news."

I was really getting into it, adding my own jokes to the school's suggested list. With Ms. Priority playing sports/weatherperson, she told me my giggles and snickers were first-rate, my small talk a new high in insipidity, and my gestural ad-lib--throwing a pencil at her head--a stroke of genius. Then she got serious. "Tomorrow, on your final day, we take up enunciation, the most important aspect of the curriculum."

That night I went to a trendy restaurant and was almost smacked to the ground when I asked the maitre d', "Where'd you get that suit---at Undertaker's Outlet?" As soon as my date arrived, I commented, "Have some coffee. You look as though you've just taken a wine tour of the Bronx." She punched me in my sweater.

Day Three at the school: Ms. Priority was wearing black, with a small veil on her head. "Everything you've learned till now is frosting," she said ominously. "Today we separate the anchormen from the wimps. 'Enunciation' is our topic. Repeat the following sentence: Harvesting of grapes while Ronald Reagan was California governor ran a fine line between appealing and repelling."

I read the line and she slapped my face. "You read a line like that and you won't get to anchor a Mafia body in the East River! You sound as though you went to speech school! Nobody wants a major newsperson to speak correctly. Let's start with the Walter Cronkite Een. Cronkite is retired, but the malady lingers on," she said, snorting at her pun. "He never could pronounce the final ing, so it comes out een. Therefore, the first word in our test sentence is harvesteen. Say it after me." I did, twenty-four times, until she said I'd done well.

"On to Tom Brokaw," she said. "He's semi-retired, but hasn't left our screens. Every time Tom hits an L he sounds as though he's gargling his throat. Therefore, the words wild, Ronald, California, line, appealing and repelling would be: whiaghd, Ronaghd, Caghifonia, ghine, appeagghing and repegghing." This was a little tougher than Cronkite, but twenty-five minutes later I had it down.

Ms. P. raised eyes skyward. "Next, there's Barbara Walters. She's famous for making R's sound like W’s. In that sentence, the Walters words would be: Wonald, Weagan, wan and wepelling." This was pretty easy for me.

"Finally," she said, "we come to the Geraldo Rivera Oy Syndrome. Rivera tries to conceal his New York accent by fancifying his O's so they sound like ehw. But his I's give him away. You take the words while and fine line and they come out woyl and foyn loyn. Can you handle that?" On the eighteenth try I could and I felt euphoric.

Ms. Priority looked at me and said, "Okay, now this is the final exam: let me have the sentence as Cronkite, Brokaw, Walters and Rivera would say it. Go ahead: Harvesting of grapes while Ronald Reagan was California governor ran a fine line between appealing and repelling. "

I pulled a few hairs over my forehead, had a fit of giggles, stood in my slouch pose, walked wearily, and said, "Harvesteen of gwapes woygh Wonaghd Weagan was Caghifornia governor wan a foyn ghoyn between appeagghing and wepegghing."

Ms. P. was transfixed. Tears rutted her heavy makeup. "Moments like this make all the disappointments worthwhile," she said. Without a rehearsal, she whipped out a video camera, had me do an audition tape, and sent it everywhere.

If you follow the media, you know the rest. Every TV station in the United States wanted me for an anchor slot. I was offered all the jobs on "60 Minutes" as well as host duties on "Good Morning America," "Today," and the CBS morning show. Eleven universities asked me to conduct guest seminars, and I won the Mary Hart Broadcast Journalism Award. As TV's most influential critic said about me, "He radiates the authority of Cronkite, the savvy of Brokaw, the street smarts of Rivera and the spontaneity of Walters. But he has it all over them in one area: when he says something, you know exactly what he's talking about..."

Well, it was a dream, of course, and I'm just too old to start a career in television news. But...I could be teacheen people how to do it. Seriousghy, I'm considereen this tewwific oydea for a study pwogwam...
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Copywright 2008, Lawrence Eisenberg. All Rights Reserved.
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