DC Flashback

Part 5: Metromedia

The next morning, or was it the next afternoon, I set out to explore the AU campus. The first planned stop was visiting cousin-in-law Ira, a government scientist who worked in a research office on campus when he wasn’t perpetually remodeling the Georgian manse he shared with cousin Roberta in Chevy Chase.

In 1969, I knew about as much about physicists as I knew about life in the Andromeda galaxy. According to no less an authority than Life magazine, a socio-political “revolution” had officially taken place, so I failed to see any particular purpose for their existence … unless it was performing useful tasks for “the people” — like improving waste water systems for communes.

I found cousin Ira and his fellow science nerds ensconced in a windowless office. Fluorescent light bounced crazily off the glossy concrete-brick walls. No PCs or laptops could be found — they hadn’t been invented yet. A mainframe terminal displaying grainy green letters to the right of a command prompt may have been shared by the group.

It was hard to tell exactly what this crew was up to. Interrogation into its raison d’être produced some mumbo-jumbo about designing sonar systems for nuclear subs … or was it tweaking the Napalm formula to improve the kill rate? Thanks to the Venezuelan, my recall was somewhere between a little murky and totally compromised. Either problem — too many maimed and not enough dead or picking up enemy depth charges a second too late was clearly a problem requiring the best and brightest minds of a generation. Minds of that caliber were problem-solving right in this room. With their help, just maybe our valorous Navy could fend off fleets of deadly North Vietnamese sampans long enough to achieve victory.

You’d think a group of heavy-hitter government scientists would have had the decency to raid their kids’ chemistry sets and rig up an elaborate bong from the spare parts. But no. No such luck.

They had a stash of Agent Orange, enough to defoliate Colombia, but no weed whatsoever. Just what kind of people were they?

That visit didn’t last long, especially after my japes about dropping weed on the Vietcong instead of incendiary devices “bombed.” The room got real quiet after that.

Naturally, I wanted to get an idea how I’d fit in at AU— the intermediate stop on the three-year plan I’d devised to skyrocket me from a third-rate college to the Ivy Leagues — which is why stop two on my campus tour was the Student Center. You’d think that had to be more entertaining.

Twenty yards away from the front steps I saw her. On the steps of the Student Union, clutching her newly acquired textbooks in a classic coed pose, sporting some spiffy back-to-school wear, stood an eerily familiar female. I blinked. I tilted my head and stared for a moment. Then it came to me: it was none other than Maxine Seigel, an “in crowd” girl from River Vale and Pascack Hills High who’d been in every one of my classes since second grade. She’d even skipped 4th grade along with me (or did “three years in two,” to be technically correct).

I recalled all-too-well that addressing in-crowd girls in the classrooms, hallways, or cafeteria of Pascack Hills was definitely verbotten. Now that we stood on neutral ground, on relatively equal terms, I broke protocol.

“Hi Maxine,” I offered in my cheeriest tone right smack dab in the middle of the “love, peace and understanding” era.

“Lory — this is a nightmare!” she shrieked.

Argh.

I’ve attempted to convey my status, or lack of it, as a worm unfit to crawl upon the face of the earth during my formative years at much-loathed Pascack Hills High. In case I haven’t quite succeeded, well, Maxine’s caustic crack hammers the point home bluntly enough.

I wish I could tell you that after gaining confidence from my recent free love escapades I laughed a crack right like that off. That’s not what happened.

I was still disoriented after the abrupt transplantation. Maxine’s reaction brought to mind the distinct possibility that the last year had been nothing more than an aberration, that I was right back to feeling socially estranged like I did before the magical year in The Hamptons. That’s why I didn’t laugh off the “nightmare” retort. Instead, I let it get to me. I wandered around campus around with a hangdog look until I found the closest bus stop and hopped on the first one that came along.

Then I was riding aimlessly on a Metro bus to points unknown, past neighborhoods devoid of postcard-worthy attractions. Eventually, I got off who knows where and began walking around a nondescript neighborhood.

I paused in front of a building with the words “Metromedia TV” chiseled on an arch above the entranceway. I’m not sure why those words caught my eye. At that moment, finding a part-time job was the last thing on my mind. Yet some force compelled me to ask a receptionist if I could fill out a job application.

I’m not sure how I even knew what a job application was. The only “jobs” I ever had were clamming and caddying at Edgewood Country Club in River Vale. The caddying gig began a week after my bar mitzvah reception was held there. That Saturday in 1964 the help addressed me as “sir” as in, “Sir, can I get that door for you” and “Sir, can I get you another cocktail weenie?” When I showed up to caddy, there was a swift comedown from “Sir” to “Hey you,” as in George the Caddymaster’s, “Hey you — scrape the dirt off Dr. Finklestein’s clubs with your tongue, then go police the range!” He’d interrupted his favorite pastime, picking off pigeons from the roof of the clubhouse with a rifle, to issue the command.

Neither of these “previous positions” had required an application.

Humoring me, a kindly WTTG receptionist produced one. I filled it out as best I could, then resumed my reconnaissance of the area.

Three weeks later, long after I’d forgotten ever filling out an application, one of the brothers told me a call was waiting for me on the lone pay phone which served the entire house.

A voice identified itself as Madhu Damania, Director of Channel 5 News.

I could barely make out what the Director of WTTG News was trying to get across to me. I’d never spoken with an Indian. I’d never been to an Indian restaurant. I didn’t even know that Indian restaurants existed. Virtual help centers stocked with Indian customer service reps were thirty years away. I didn’t pick up much beyond the main point that this Madhu person wanted me to come in and talk with him about something or other.

Most people in the northeast knew Metromedia TV and Channel 5. After all, in pre-cable days, the TV lineup in major cities consisted of maybe seven stations. With the majority of the population already “glued to the boob tube,” keeping track of seven stations wasn’t that challenging. Metromedia was also Channel 5 in the New York area I grew up in. It was regarded as being one level beneath the Big Three Networks, NBC, ABC, and CBS.

The network wasn’t really big on producing or airing laughfests like The Munsters or My Favorite Martian or dramatic series like Bonanza or Perry Mason.

Its strength was in news, particularly political news.

A few days later, I retraced my steps to the Metromedia building. I was whisked right into the newsroom. A colorful cast of characters was assembled. Before I was introduced to future TV luminaries Maury Povich and Connie Chung, Madhu outlined the nature of my mission. Apparently the station had hired another kid before me to post the college football scores on Saturdays and the NFL scores on Sundays. The pressure had gotten to my predecessor; as a result, the scores were becoming discombobulated.

For example, the onscreen graphic for the Cornell–Princeton score showed:

Cornell 143

Princeton 3

… which of course should have read:

Cornell 14

Princeton 3.

There had been one too many variations on that theme.

Another aspect of the weekend job — that appeared was mine if I wanted it — was being personal assistant to the broadcast team. Maury Povich was still a sports announcer. His dad had a gender-bender name, too: Shirley. Shirley Povich was a highly-regarded sports columnist for The Washington Post. So we had something in common. Connie Chung was a co-anchor with Bob, a black guy. The international crew included a Chinese woman, an Indian, and an Afro-American — a longhaired hippy freak wouldn’t be out of place.

Monitoring the ticker tape machine was another duty. This contraption served up all manner of “breaking news” from the big news agencies like the AP, UPI, and Reuters. The beast emitted a sound like “tick tick” as a clicky mechanical keyboard pounded out stories in a telegram-like font onto a seemingly endless roll of pulpy paper.

You tore off a sheet when you found a story that you deemed newsworthy — like an AP report about the latest peace march, for example — and handed it to one of the anchors.

Most sentient life forms would have recognized a break like this as the opportunity of a lifetime.

Alas, I wasn’t most sentient life forms.

Next: you say you want a revolution?