Tony Partly Cloudy (25 page)

Tony got up and rummaged through his battered metal file cabinet, soon finding a copy of the offer letter he had signed. He skimmed it, then said, “No, I don’t see anything like that. Most of it seems to be them telling me over and over that they don’t have to hire me at the end of the ninety-day probationary period if they don’t want to. Nothing about where else I can work. I guess they weren’t too worried about anybody else wanting me.”

Sarah’s look was serious. “Well maybe they weren’t worried about it at the time, but I’ll bet you anything that they’ll add that verbiage to your long-term contract. If you’re reading that thing right, there’s nothing to stop you from taking another offer before you sign on for the permanent position. If you were going to make a move to WGX, now would be the time.”

Now Tony put down his fork – a rare event when there was still food on the table. “Are you saying this from a hypothetical standpoint, or are you saying I should seriously consider looking at WGX?”

Sarah’s face was pensive. “I don’t know. I mean, it’s WGX, for God’s sake – that’s a Top 25 station. People like you and me would usually kill to break into that market.” She sipped her wine, continuing to think out loud. “And it’s Chicago, not California. That’s only about eighty miles from here – probably only an hour-and-a-half drive.”

Picking up the thread, Tony said, “We mostly hang out together on weekends – we could still spend weekends together, easy.”

“I could come visit you there, or you could come back here and stay with me,” Sarah said.

“And maybe, just maybe,” Tony said, “if I was working there, I could get an inside scoop on any jobs they might have there for
you
...”

Tony and Sarah stared at each other across the table.

Tony said, “I mean, we’re getting way ahead of ourselves here...”

“I know,” Sarah said. “But this is real – we should talk about this. This could actually happen.”

“So if WGX does make me an offer, and it’s a good offer and all, you think you might be okay with me taking it?”

Sarah reached for Tony’s hand. “Yeah,” she said, “I think I might. You should definitely call them. At least find out what they want.”

“Okay, then,” Tony said. “I’ll call them first thing Monday.” Holding up his glass, he said, “To whatever the future brings, as long as it brings it to both of us.”

Sarah clinked his glass with hers. “I’ll drink to that.”

Putting down his glass, Tony said, “You know, this Austrian stuff ain’t half bad.”

“Australian,” Sarah said, smiling.

“Whatever.”

♠ ♥ ♣ ♦

Once Tony made the call to WGX on Monday, things started to happen very fast. Yes, they
were
interested, and an interview was scheduled for Wednesday morning, early enough to allow Tony to get back to Rockford in time for work. He drove into Chicago Tuesday night after his broadcast, checking into a hotel near WGX, after first completing the ritual of timing the drive from the hotel to the station and back, averaging the two trips to estimate his transit time. Old habits die hard.

The next day, Tony arrived twenty minutes early for his appointment, which gave him some time to look around.

WGX was huge. Tony’s exposure to TV studios had been limited to WEFQ and the small New Jersey stations where he had interned.

This was a different league – everything Tony saw around him kept driving that point home. The lobby was all mahogany and leather, reminding Tony of those private clubs they showed in old movies, where millionaire businessmen smoked cigars and drank brandy and made deals.

A stunning receptionist wearing heels that made her nearly as tall as Tony ushered him into the GM’s office, a marvel of chrome and black leather with one wall entirely made up of TV monitors – probably forty or fifty of them. Tony shook hands with the GM, an intense little man named Regan Trask, with bulging eyes and a vocabulary apparently unchecked by decades of TV censors.

“I won’t bullshit you, Tony,” Trask said as soon as they were both seated. “There is some opposition to the idea of you joining our team. We’re big, but not flamboyant. We’re not like some of those lurid, anything-to-get-attention stations. No, here at WGX we just do good, solid news, using the resources and technology at our disposal.”

Tony made a sweeping gesture toward their surroundings, and said, “Looks like you’ve got a pretty big disposal.”

Trask looked at Tony, trying to figure out if he was talking about a kitchen appliance, then shrugged and went on.

“We’re the fourth biggest station in the entire Midwest market, and our broadcasts get picked up in syndication all over the world. So this is a whole new ballgame from WQEF.”

“WEFQ,” Tony corrected.

“Whatever. Anyway, what we’re talking about here is hiring you on a trial basis. You know, to see if it works out, before we make any long-term commitment.”

Tony nodded thoughtfully. “So what you’re basically saying is, you want to sleep with me for a while before you decide if you want to go steady with me.”

Trask sputtered, unprepared for any opposition. “Well, that’s hardly how I’d put it. This is just a perfectly normal approach to hiring an unknown quantity, which is what you are.”

“Really?” Tony said. “That’s funny. I guess none of the other stations that have been calling me realize how
unknown
I am.”

Trask shifted in his chair. This guy was supposed to be some dumb lug, according to all his reconnaissance. Where did he come up with the balls to push back like this?

Tony continued. “Look, I understand that choosing a chief meteorologist is a big decision. The guy you’ve been using is good – I’ve seen him. You’d be putting a lot at stake by replacing him with me. But I’ve got a lot at stake, too.”

Tony leaned forward in his chair. “So here’s the deal. When you’re
sure
you want me, you offer me the job. With the kind of contract you’d usually use when filling a position like this,
not
with some trial-basis loophole. Hire me regular, or don’t offer me the job. I mean, you can still fire me if you don’t like me. But then you’ll have to meet all the severance obligations in the contract, just like you would with any other chief met you hire.”

Tony stood up. “Mr. Trask, I don’t mean you any disrespect or nothing. I know part of why you’d hire me is for – what do you call it? – the novelty appeal. But you gotta understand, I don’t treat my career as a novelty. You hire me, and I’ll come in and do the best job I can. But I don’t need any
trial basis
jobs – I already got one. You got a
real
job for me, then we got something to talk about.”

With that, Tony began to walk toward the door.

Rather than calling out his name to stop him, Trask shouted a number. A very large number.

Tony stopped, turning to face Trask. “What’s with the number?” he asked.

Trask said, “That would be your starting salary, with performance-based pay raises factored into your contract on a recurring basis.”

Tony’s face was stone still. “What kind of contract – is it regular, or that trial-basis stuff?”

Trask shot Tony a long look. “Regular.”

“When can my lawyer see it?” Tony asked, hoping Trask wouldn’t ask his lawyer’s name; Tony had none.

“I can have it FedExed to you by tomorrow morning.”

Running out of verbal artillery, Tony said, “That sounds good.”

Now Trask stood. “So, do we have a deal? Assuming of course that your lawyer likes the contract? And it’s understood that we’ll need to negotiate some of the finer points in the offer letter.” Seeing Tony’s face darken, Trask hastily added, “But those are only the finer points. The number I quoted? It will definitely
not
go down. Fair enough?”

“I guess so,” Tony said. “Send me the offer letter, and we’ll take it from there.”

Trask reached out his hand. “You’re a tough customer, Tony.”

As Tony shook Trask’s hand, he said, “I’m just trying to be professional, you know? It’s important to me that the people I work with take me seriously.”

“I’m picking up on that,” Trask said. “I think you’d have to agree that the number I quoted shows that we take you seriously.”

Tony smiled. “Yeah, I think you convinced me.”

As Tony walked out to his car, he made a mental note to call Chip Randall to thank him for the advice he’d given Tony about how chief meteorologists’ contracts were usually structured. Then he’d call Jimmy Carbone, to thank him for teaching him how to bluff and maintain a poker face.
Then
he’d call Sarah.

Things were pretty freaking good.

“MY GOD, TONY – YOU’RE ON A BUS!”

Sarah pointed at the Chicago Transit Authority bus as it lumbered past them on State Street. Emblazoned along the side of the bus was Tony’s face under the bright red WGX logo, along with the slogan “In Chicago, It’s Partly Cloudy Five Nights a Week.”

“Oh yeah,” Tony said, “I forgot to tell you about that. I’m also on top of some taxis, and on a couple billboards here in the Loop. And they’ve got my mug on some of the station’s camera trucks, too, although they usually use Tiffany Stone’s face, since she’s our hottest looking news anchor.” Catching a look from Sarah, he added, “I mean, that’s what I’ve heard
some
guys think. Me, I never notice stuff like that.” He smiled as convincingly as he could.

“No, of course not,” Sarah said. “I mean, when have Italian men
ever
noticed a pretty girl?”

“Look, there’s Marshall Fields,” Tony said, trying to change the subject. “That’s where you wanted to go first, right?”

It was Sarah’s first trip to Chicago since Tony had started with WGX. Tony had gone back to Rockford the previous three weekends, but now the couple planned to take turns visiting each other, alternating between the two cities. This was Sarah’s turn, and she wanted to take advantage of the shopping available in Chicago.

And shop she did. During the course of the day, Tony went from escort to pack mule, laden with shopping bags and boxes. Sarah was tireless in her efforts, but Tony finally got her to stop for lunch at the Walnut Room, the elegant restaurant at Marshall Field’s. There Tony rested his feet while Sarah planned the afternoon’s retail raids.

“So, you like Chicago?” he asked.

“So far, I love it!” Sarah said, admiring the mountain of packages Tony had stacked next to their table. She looked up at Tony. “Oh, and the company’s pretty good, too.”

“Thanks,” said Tony. “Jeez – a few months ago I wouldn’t have been able to afford to take you shopping someplace like this.”

“It’s all happened pretty fast, hasn’t it?” Sarah said, picking at her salad.

“I’ll say. And it’s a lot different than I thought it would be.” Tony paused to take a raptor-sized bite out of his cheeseburger. “I mean, I thought it would be really cool to do the weather on TV, and it is, don’t get me wrong. But I hadn’t realized how much of a, you know,
public figure
I’d be. You know, with my face on the side of a bus – stuff like that.”

Sarah nodded. “Yeah, I bet that takes some getting used to. But it’s all good stuff, isn’t it? I mean, these things are happening because people like you. Face it – you’re a hit.”

“I guess so,” Tony said. “I mean, I thought it was pretty wild what a fuss they made over me back when I was at WEFQ. But that was nothing compared to this. I mean, just yesterday somebody from Wrigley Field set me up with season tickets for the Cubs. Season tickets, and these are freakin’ box seats – do you know how hard it is to get those?”

Sarah’s grin grew wicked. “Too bad the Cubs suck.”

Tony laughed. “Yeah, it is too bad. Christ, they haven’t won a Series in almost a hundred years. Now if these had been Yankees tickets, that would really be something!”

“Yeah, but it would be kind of rough making it to home games from here.” Sarah said. “But still, that’s a really nice gesture, giving you the tickets. People are really going nuts over you.”

“Present company included, I hope?”

“Have you forgotten last night already?” Sarah asked, again with the grin.

“Not likely,” Tony said, grinning back at her. “One thing about only getting to see each other on weekends – it kinda gives us each a lot of, uh, stored-up energy, I guess you’d call it.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” Sarah said, reaching for his hand. “That was quite a welcome you gave me.”

“Well, you know, as a public figure here in Chicago, I feel it’s my duty to make people feel welcome in this fair city.”

“People?” Sarah asked.

“Only certain people,” Tony quickly corrected. “One person in particular.”

“Good answer. But you know what? I’m not quite sure I feel welcome enough. When we get home, maybe you could welcome me again.”

“Check, please!” Tony called, raising a hand to catch a waiter’s attention.

“Not so fast,” Sarah said, pulling his hand back down and drawing it to her mouth to kiss his fingertips. “After we’re done shopping.”

The two ate in silence for a while, both smiling. Then they resumed Sarah’s quest for the Ultimate Pair of Shoes.

♠ ♥ ♣ ♦

There were four people at the meeting: General Manager Regan Trask, Tony, Andrea Finch from Public Relations, and Meyer Goldman from Legal.

“Do you believe this shit?” Trask said, waving a rolled-up copy of
People
magazine at the others seated around the conference table.

Andrea said, “Well, imitation
is
the highest form of flattery.”

Trask was not placated. “In my book, imitation is nothing but copyright infringement.”

Goldman cleared his throat, then spoke timidly. “Well, technically you can’t copyright somebody’s personality. I mean, if other people were using Tony’s catchphrases verbatim, we’d have some legal traction. But all they’re imitating is the
idea
of using somebody who is as, er,
colorful
as Tony to broadcast the news.”

“Colorful?” Trask said angrily. “Don’t you mean OE?” Trask threw the magazine down on the table, and began rapidly thumbing through its pages.

“It’s on page 52,” Andrea volunteered in a hesitant voice.

Tony had read the article the night before. After being deluged with unexpected phone calls all bearing the same news, he had gone to a local drugstore to buy a copy of
People
. And even though he had been warned, he was still shocked to see his face staring out from it pages. But there he was, right there along with people like the President, lots of popular actors and models, some Middle Eastern terrorists, and a heavily tattooed basketball star who had recently announced his homosexuality.

The photo wasn’t half bad, he thought. He had one of his nicer suits on, and was shown in front of a map of Illinois, pointing to a row of predicted temperature ranges. Superimposed over Tony’s image were three words that made up the title of the article.

TV GOES OE

Chicago’s WGX Ignites a New Trend in Broadcast News

Tony Bartolicotti is not your average TV weatherman. A hulking 29-year-old who speaks in a thick Brooklyn accent peppered with colorful phrases from his Italian upbringing, Tony looks and talks more like a longshoreman than a meteorologist for the fourth largest television station in the Midwest. But last month, Chicago’s WGX shocked the broadcast news community by hiring Tony as their Chief Meteorologist.

Bartolicotti had been making regional waves at a small TV station in northern Illinois, carving a reputation for amazingly accurate weather forecasts delivered in a rough-around-the-edges Brooklyn patois. As one television executive said, “It’s like pulling Joe Pesci or Robert DeNiro off the set of
Goodfellas
, and having them give the weather forecast, still in character.”

True to form for a man of his New York Italian heritage, Bartolicotti has a colorful nickname:
Tony Partly Cloudy
, a play on his difficult-to-pronounce surname that suits him to a T, given his profession. But he’s not just another not-so-pretty face. A skilled meteorologist, Bartolicotti holds a bachelor’s degree in meteorology from Kean University in New Jersey, and cut his meteorological teeth at the National Weather Service, where he worked for five years in Key West at the country’s primary hurricane tracking center.

But it’s not Tony’s background that captivates his audience. It’s his delivery. Flying in the face of the homogenized (read
bland
) language and pronunciation used throughout the broadcast news profession, Tony makes no apparent effort to conceal his Brooklyn accent, and seems oblivious to the constraints of convention or grammar. A typical
Partly Cloudy
forecast may include admonitions of the weather being “hotter than a fake Rolex,” or “pretty freaking cold out there,
capisce
?” Tony constantly teeters on the edge of profanity, always apparently remembering in the knick of time to say “freaking” instead of another popular word beginning with the same letter. While Tony’s news producers cringe in the WGX editing room, his audience eats it up, as shown by WGX’s rising ratings.

And ratings are what this game is about. So it’s no surprise that Tony’s success has spawned a wave of imitations from stations eager to capitalize on what they see as the latest marketable gimmick. Across the country, other TV stations are adding “colorful” members to their staff – some of them blatant rip-offs of Tony Partly Cloudy. But they’re not stopping there. In an effort to match or exceed WGX’s success, many stations are now trying to outdo each other in hiring newscasters who are “overtly ethnic,” or – in industry parlance – “OE.”

The result? In addition to Italian weathermen in pinstriped Al Capone suits, TV stations hopping on the OE bandwagon now treat their viewers to leering mustachioed Mexican bandito sportscasters, Asian anchors in full Kabuki makeup; even an African American “gangsta meteorologist,” who recites the evening’s forecast in the form of a rap song.

“The idea of the OE newscaster is taking the TV news industry by storm,” says
Chicago Tribune
TV critic Spencer Taft. “But I don’t think you’re going to see the networks follow suit. They’re more conservative – they play to a much larger audience, where they’ve got to try to please all the people all the time. A personality like Tony Partly Cloudy works at a regional level, but I just can’t picture NBC’s Brian McThorn ever saying, ‘And now let’s go to Tony Partly Cloudy, for the best freaking forecast in the country.’ It’s just too much of a left turn for one of the big networks to take. Well, maybe Fox, but I don’t think even they are willing to take that kind of risk.”

While the OE movement continues to grow, only time will tell whether this trend is here to stay. Most OE stations are enjoying boosted ratings, but that may simply be a result of the novelty factor. It’s already clear that many of the stations are missing a vital component: actual expertise. Tony Partly Cloudy is a world-class meteorologist – even his detractors cannot dispute that fact. So far, most of the other OE competitors are simply actors hired to read the news or weather, not trained journalists or meteorologists. Whether the “color” these OE newscasters provide will continue to satisfy an audience hungry for both entertainment
and
hard news remains to be seen. But for now, Tony Partly Cloudy remains the Godfather of TV Meteorologists.

Trask said, “Where the hell do they get this OE crap? First we had to be PC, and now we’re OE. I swear, the gross national product of this country is nothing but
acronyms
!”

Andrea said, “Well, the article does present us in a good light. We were the first to ‘go OE’ – and so far we’re the best. The other stations are just pale imitations – the article pretty much comes right out and says so.”

“That’s true,” Goldman said. “I know you’re upset that we’re being imitated, but at least the public recognizes what’s happening. And it says right here in
People
that we were the first.”

“
Often imitated, never duplicated
,” Andrea said. “We can add that as a tagline...” She smiled eagerly, hoping to appease Trask.

“That’s okay,” Trask said, “but the
Godfather of Meteorology
– that’s even better. That’s perfect. Let’s use it. Andrea, I want to see that slogan on the side of a bus before the end of the week.”

While Andrea scribbled on her legal pad, Trask continued. “Still, I just hate seeing other stations succeed by riding on our coattails. I mean, the article also said those other stations are – and I quote –
enjoying boosted ratings
.”

Goldman said, “True, but none of them are here in Chicago. None of our direct competitors are doing it.”

Andrea cleared her throat. “Er, that’s not entirely true. Last night WRFI debuted Weidermann the Weatherman. He wears lederhosen and speaks with a heavy German accent. But I don’t think he’s going to last – I expect there’ll be too much opposition from the local Jewish community. Face it, since World War II, the only time it’s cool to be German is during Oktoberfest. So we think WRFI dropped the ball on that one.”

Trask groaned.

Goldman said, “And I think that article is on the money when it comes to the networks. You won’t see any of them taking a risk like this. They’re going to stick with regular newscasters speaking regular broadcast English.” Goldman leaned toward Trask. “And outside of the networks, we’re one of the biggest players, so that puts us safely on top of the OE food chain. It’s win-win.”

“I agree,” Andrea said. “All in all, the
People
article is just great publicity for the station.”

Goldman nodded. “That’s my take as well.”

Trask stood up and grabbed the magazine off the table. Rolling it up tightly, he waved it threateningly at the other three. “You better be right,” he said. “It just chaps my ass to see somebody else making money off our gimmick.”