Faster on My Own: Chapter 14
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Ten white nerds surrounded a table, as Steven pounded his fist against it. “No! We’re not doing relatable.” All of them made a note, one of a hundred notes. It was easy to imagine them at restaurants, concerts, in bed, in the middle of sex, jotting down quick facts and thoughts to which they could refer later. A sickening distance from the real meat of life, sensation and ambiguity. But that was why Steven was in charge: to mine these nerds for observation, and use them to create a worthwhile show.
“Mr. Williams.”
“Please-”
“Yes, that’s your father. We’ve heard that joke at least four times now.” This nerd, wire rim circles and a burgundy cardigan, counted off tally marks from his notepad. Other nerds, to his side, consulted their own pads and nodded.
“At least?”
“You could have said it once more while I was in the bathroom, where I was peeing for longer than average.”
Instead of responding, Steven tapped his finger against the table and stared at the cardigan nerd. The silence went on for exactly fifteen seconds, before the nerd said, “Ah, anyway. We’ve found that talk shows do best when there’s a fun host, who doesn’t take themselves too seriously. Like Fallon. We think you could be the conservative answer to Fallon.”
Other nerds muttered “Fallon” quietly enough that Steven didn’t bother to quiet them. Were it up to him, none of them would have a job. He could just go on television each night, freewheel for a while, and then hop back off and get back to his normal life. But the network insisted. No television experience beyond guest appearances, demonstrable proof of difficulty following through, a fundamental lack of trust in his ability to do the job. That sort of thing. But surely, after handling meetings full of executives and crowds of angry protestors, a room full of slump-necked robots shouldn’t be much of a problem. “You know why I’m not going to become Fallon? Because I have a reputation. Gravitas. I’m not an entertainer. I’m a businessman, an intellectual. When I say things, people take them seriously. Don’t think so? Check the footage outside University of Michigan, that Holmann put up when I guested. It got serious. So now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s figure out what kinds of topics we’re going to address.”
Another nerd spoke, this one definitely more of the Cool Nerd varietal. A leather jacket worn indoors and a button up oxford. When he talked it reeked of cigarettes, but when he closed his mouth it reeked of cedar. “It’s simple. Focus groups are all over it. Lean news. No getting bogged down in the topic du jour. You hit the topic, tell them who to get mad at, then you’re out of there.”
“I’m not a news reporter.”
More note-scribbling. All the research in the world at their fingertips, and this was the best they could do. The Cardigan Nerd said, “You may not be news, but news offers some credibility. Maybe you riff on a few current events, then you can spin that out into a larger discourse with a guest.”
“I don’t riff. I… speculate. I examine. I investigate. These are heavy pursuits. I want this show to introduce me as a leading conservative commentator.”
“Serious thoughts don’t put asses in the seats.” This one was a Sports Nerd. A jersey of the Hartford Whalers, and someone’s batting average tattooed on his forearm. “You know, Mr. Williams, you don’t get why people like you.”
“I don’t?”
“You don’t. See, it’s not about your thoughts. No one has any idea what you stand for. 100% of people who say they like you also say they haven’t read your book. They don’t even know that you don’t have one.” The Sports Nerd waved his notepad at Steven, which flustered the Cardigan Nerd.
“My research indicates something a little different, which is that five percent of people who have heard of Mr. Williams, yes sir I know you’re not your father, did read his essays and didn’t understand them.”
“It’s the same thing, they’re just lying to cover up not having read essays that don’t exist.”
“It’s a crucial difference, though I agree our course of action should be the same either way.”
Steven leaned a hand on the chair in front of him. Most people would be tempted to label these chairs cheap, or insufficient because of the discomfort created by the gray mesh lining. From Steven’s experience in the business world, these chairs cost about fifteen hundred dollars each, and the scratchy material performed a crucial back-supporting function. What, he didn’t know. After a few seconds thinking about chairs, he returned his attention to the fight to become alpha nerd which unfolded in front of him.
“Precise data not only informs our next action, but may clarify our decision ten actions from now!” The Cardigan Nerd was as burgundy as his sweater, while the Sports Nerd had his sleeves rolled all the way up. Off to the side, the Cool Nerd vaped and the rest took notes.
“Buddy, someone told you a fairy tale. There’s margins of error. Precision isn’t real. You gotta grow up, pal.”
As much as Steven wanted to know what a fistfight between the two of them looked like, violence on the first day would reflect badly on him. Every decision the network made, from his 11 PM timeslot on Tuesdays, to the Nerds, to the nervous emails asking if he really thought he could do a show, showed a lack of confidence in him. He needed to give them a common enemy to stop them from fighting each other. “I don’t care about the data. I’ll give it to them the way they understand it.”
“So what, powerpoint presentations?” The Cool Nerd snickered.
“You… think I’m the nerd?”
“I mean, yeah, we all do. That’s why we’re here to turn you into an entertainer.”
“My guest spots got people there.”
“Oh you got people there, but they didn’t care about what you said.”
Before Steven settled into a detailed explanation of exactly what he was getting at with the Soros conspiracies, he realized that was exactly what a nerd would do. “Fine. You want me to be an entertainer. What did I do to get people to watch me?”
The Cardigan Nerd said, “It appears that all of your posturing and inflammatory rhetoric, transparently designed to increase controversy–”
“I wouldn’t say it was that transparent.”
“Forty-five percent saw through it. Transparent enough. Your audience agreed with that performance. So if you want to play to your existing audience, I would recommend that, again.”
With that, Steven sat down in his chair. The Nerds had formulated a plan, after seeing through every one of his tricks. If they thought they could make him more effective, he’d let them do it. Two months later, the show went to air, and the first thing Steven did was call the Secretary of the Interior a slut. And the ratings were good.