Even though Johnny’s submissive, I was still surprised that he accepted Chelsea’s offer to move in with her and, in effect, his big boss, Ted. It’s a bit odd, but knowing Chelsea, I’m sure she insisted that he stay with them. She always has people staying with her. She’ll have the most random people crash with her, most of the time even in her own bed. She’s basically become the Michael Jackson of comedy.
A couple of nights into Johnny’s stay and all seemed fine. I was really curious about the specific living arrangements and how everything in the house was playing out. After all, this wasn’t a little weekend getaway for Johnny; he was full-on living with his bosses. That meant sleeping, meals, laundry, etc.
From the outset, I was so uncomfortable with this setup that I needed to know every detail. For example, what did Johnny sleep in? I, for one, sleep in boxers and nothing else (that’s right, ladies, start visualizing). But I’m not sure I could wear just boxers while residing in someone else’s home. What if there were a midnight fire alarm, an earthquake, or an early morning visit from the Breakfast Burrito truck and everyone had to get outside quickly? It would have been a little inappropriate if Johnny came running out in underwear and nothing else. How would they take him—and his girlish figure—seriously at the office the next day? That could negatively reflect on his capabilities as an employee. Besides, in someone else’s pad, you must be ready for anything. In fact, in this situation, I’d sleep in jeans so I could be prepared for whatever went down. Perhaps a sweatshirt, too. My nipples harden quickly in the cold air.
At every chance I got, I expressed my discomfort with the arrangement, but Chelsea insisted that this was standard operating procedure and made me sound like I was the idiot.
“Brad, it’s not that big a deal. He stays in the guest room, wears boxers and a T-shirt, and, yes, we have dinner together every night.”
I was a little disappointed in Johnny’s choice of sleepwear, but it wasn’t my place to correct him. One morning Chelsea said, “Ted makes breakfast for everyone. Johnny loves Ted’s oatmeal.” That’s stupid. Who has a special oatmeal recipe? (By the way, if someone were to have a special oatmeal recipe, it would be Ted Harbert.)
As days turned into two weeks, any comfort I had with this deal completely subsided. This was not healthy and it couldn’t end well. Johnny was getting too intimate with his bosses.
I began assessing how I would have handled the situation if I had been Johnny. First, I would most likely have tried to get the landlord of my flooded building to pay for a hotel for me, or at least crashed at a buddy’s place. In my obsessive mind, I can’t get comfortable staying in someone’s home unless they are a direct relative or an old friend. I always feel like it’s an imposition and that the person hates me and resents my existence. I even feel like that at home with my wife at times, but that’s another book. I think it’s a reflection on how I would feel if someone I wasn’t close to stayed with me: What the fuck are you doing here? Don’t touch my shit, and did you pick up my dry cleaning? They’d have to earn their room and board.
I constantly asked Johnny how long he planned on staying with Chelsea and Ted, yet he couldn’t give me a straight answer. “I don’t know” was his standard response. I was livid; how could he not know? It’s not like he’d been displaced by Hurricane Katrina and lost all his worldly goods and maybe even a few family members. There’d been a little flood in his shitbox of a studio apartment. This didn’t require FEMA-type relief. For some reason, I needed a timeline for exactly how long Johnny planned on shacking up with his boss. This couldn’t be an open-ended stay; that was just not appropriate. And while Johnny, in my mind, had already done the unthinkable and accepted Chelsea’s invitation, I knew that he was a good kid with good manners and he’d never overstay his welcome.
I pressed him further. Was this stay going to last another week? Another two weeks? A month? When he refused to give me a hard-and-fast date, I became preoccupied with calculating the amount of time—based on Johnny’s description of what had happened to his apartment—it would take for his landlord to fix the flood damage.
As a Jew who never does manual labor, I could have been slightly off in my calculations, but assuming they had stopped the gush of water in Johnny’s crappy studio apartment, I figured the whole process couldn’t take longer than two weeks. Again, I’m not a contractor, but I have certain expectations and know the timeline I would have accepted.
I impressed this upon Johnny, but he couldn’t be bothered. How was he not concerned with how long he was going to be put out? He was effectively homeless. He had some clothes and that was about it. Didn’t he want to go home to his things and his own space? Even if the remodel was going to take a year, he couldn’t realistically think he was going to live with Chelsea and Ted the whole time, could he? What kind of a sick world were we living in?
It wasn’t even so much his overstaying his welcome with Chelsea that concerned me. Because of her age, relative immaturity, and obsession with Johnny, she was much more of a peer than a boss to him. What I was fixated on was how Johnny could live with Ted. After all, Ted is somewhat of a legend in the TV landscape. He ran ABC and NBC studios and is considered a big-time television executive. I mean, he was the guy responsible for such hits as Boy Meets World. To an up-and-coming producer like Johnny, it was best not to overstep his boundaries with a guy like Ted, but Johnny seemed to have no concerns.
In truth, I was actually a little envious of Johnny getting so much face time with Harbert. I relished any one-on-one time with Ted so I could pepper him with questions about the industry. Now here was Johnny going to sleep in his boxers and T-shirt and waking up with the guy. In my mind, his future as a successful TV producer was a lock. I was now obsessed with assuming that Johnny was quickly becoming Ted’s “guy.”
If you think I was overreacting, then you’re right, I probably was, but Johnny and Ted’s relationship was rapidly blossoming. Stories of their camaraderie were making me sick.
First came Chelsea’s announcement at a meeting that Ted had gone into Johnny’s room that morning and said, “I’m doing a load of laundry. Do you have any colors, Johnny?” Really? Johnny was letting his host, the CEO of Comcast Entertainment, do his dirty laundry? I started to twitch.
Then came the dinner at Katsuya, Chelsea’s favorite LA restaurant. It was a Thursday night, and my wife and I were there with Chelsea, Ted, and another couple. I was conveniently situated at one end of the table, next to Ted, and hoped to capture some wisdom or insight from him. Ted loved answering my questions, and I saw this as a chance to reassert myself as his number one. I always had this weird fantasy that I’d say something so profound that he’d respond with “You’re right, Brad. That’s genius!” and anoint me as his new programming guru and I’d become his most trusted adviser. In reality, I usually ended up getting drunk and passing out. Yet I always clung to that dream.
We’d been seated for fifteen minutes when Ted’s cell phone rang. He looked at his screen. “Oh, it’s Johnny. Hold on.” With that, he answered the phone. “Hey, Johnny. What’s up?”
Wow, I thought, I can’t believe Johnny has the fucking nerve to call during dinner. What was so important that Johnny, knowing full well that Ted was out to dinner, would call him? It had to be a critical, time-sensitive matter… something like Ryan Seacrest wanting to refrost his hair and needing Ted’s approval on the color scheme. Johnny hates imposing on anyone at any time, so he would never be so forward as to interrupt someone’s dinner.
“You want to watch a DVD in the living room?” Ted asked. “Sure, I’ll walk you through how to do that.”
Unreal! That took major balls to call and ask something like that.
“Oh, that’s cute,” Chelsea said. “He wants to watch a DVD.”
That’s not “cute.” That’s obnoxious. Figure it out yourself, Johnny. Suddenly I envisioned Johnny lounging around Ted and Chelsea’s condo like a sloth, probably in his underwear, helping himself to popcorn and whatev
er booze they had, wanting to watch a DVD. I couldn’t believe he had the audacity to call with such a concern. If I were Johnny, I’d have sat in total fucking silence until they got home. But no, not Johnny Kansas. He wanted his DVD on demand and had no qualms about ringing up ol’ CEO Teddy and asking him to put down his Tuna with Crispy Rice sushi to walk him through the process of starting a DVD on a sixty-inch HDTV. Johnny was getting too comfortable, and I was fuming.
“What DVD do you want to watch?… Oh, that’s a good one,” Ted assured Johnny. I was beside myself. Ted was not only unperturbed by the interruption, but he’d actually offered Johnny kudos on the DVD selection he’d just made! He suddenly admired Johnny’s taste. All sorts of assumptions ran through my head about how Ted and Johnny would start their own guys’ movie night and discuss the films afterward, Ted anxiously awaiting Johnny’s honest feedback because he “always has the most refreshing perspective on things.”
How could this be happening? How was Johnny getting away with being so brash? The only rationale I could conjure up was that Chelsea loved Johnny, and that Ted was so in love with Chelsea he would accommodate any of her demands, including allowing an employee to live with them. If Chelsea was cool with it, so was Ted. It was a demented love triangle… and someone was going to wind up hurt.
I was having immense trouble coming to terms with this situation. As long as I had known Johnny, he had never wanted to overstep his bounds or inflict his presence on anyone. If anything, there had always been a lot of me telling him, “Don’t be a pussy. Just do it!” Add to all of this the fact that Chelsea was his boss so he now lived with both of their bosses, and I felt totally distressed on Johnny’s behalf. This was not going to end well.
Two full months in and Johnny was still living with Chelsea and Ted. I questioned Johnny every now and again and he was rather dismissive. I had graduated from being a concerned friend to a guy who thought Johnny was just blatantly rude. I kept inquiring about the status of the renovations on his apartment, and he’d just say they were still working on it. He didn’t seem to mind. Wasn’t he paying rent? Didn’t he want to go home? Didn’t he feel uncomfortable in someone else’s house?
Over the next couple of months, Johnny progressed from house guest to full-fledged family member who was factored into every major decision.
“Of course Johnny’s coming with us to St. Barths over Christmas,” Chelsea assured me one morning. “He lives with us, Brad.”
I couldn’t contain my surprise. “He’s staying with you temporarily, Chelsea. You don’t have to bring him on vacation. He’s not your child.”
“He is our child, Brad. And you need to start dealing with it.”
It was at this moment that she felt compelled to offer me the grand perspective on her relationship with Johnny.
“Ted and I are looking at new homes and we’re getting a bedroom for Johnny.”
His own bedroom in a new home?! We’re talking LA real estate. An additional bedroom could easily run you $500,000 to a $1 million extra. Johnny was suddenly worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to them? Chelsea and Ted were delusional. What power did Johnny possess?
He was technically a grown man—and an employee of Ted’s company—and he was being treated as if he were their seven-year-old son. In fact, one weekend Johnny casually mentioned that he was going with Ted and his son, Will, to San Francisco for a 49ers game. What? Johnny was now being included in father-son bonding trips? That was ballsy, but apparently Ted now loved Johnny like one of his own. We might as well have started calling him little Johnny Harbert.
“It was great,” Johnny assured me upon his return from the game. “We stayed at the W Hotel and we all shared a room. Lots of fun.”
Any hopes of me becoming Ted’s programming muse were crushed when Johnny lumbered in to work one morning looking exhausted. “Why do you look like shit?” I asked.
“I was up late watching TV pilots and helping Ted decide which shows should be ordered to series,” Johnny answered.
I lost my mind. Johnny had officially assumed the role I had been dreaming of, and he had far less experience in television. He was only an associate producer, yet he was now guiding Ted’s decision on which new show would follow Keeping Up with the Kardashians on Sunday night. I was crushed.
I’d finally had enough and needed to speak my mind. This, after all, was not rational, to me or anyone else. Employees don’t live with their bosses. Was I the only one who understood this? This is like airplanes not taxiing before takeoff; it just didn’t happen.
“Chelsea, Johnny can’t live with you.”
“Why not?” she asked. “Why can’t he be happy?”
Wow. That was a good question, one for which I didn’t have an answer. He did seem content and at peace for the first time since I’d known him. I always sensed that Johnny longed for the family and connections he gave up when he moved from Kansas to California. I guess he’d found them in an eighth-floor condo in Marina del Rey, California, with a burgeoning TV star and her executive boyfriend. Who was I to deny him happiness?
After long talks with my wife and others, I came to accept the arrangement and understood that it made Johnny and Chelsea happy. I couldn’t be convinced it made Ted happy, but he did whatever Chelsea said. I stopped asking about the progress of Johnny’s apartment and assumed Chelsea was helping him cover his lease, after which he’d be free and clear to live with Chelsea and Ted wherever they ended up. He was now a full-fledged Handler-Harbert.
Six months after Johnny moved in with Chelsea and Ted, we gathered for Chelsea’s thirty-third birthday party at a restaurant in Venice, California. I’d had plenty to drink, and after I insisted, to the woman’s face, that one of the makeup ladies on the show was not thirty-four and had to be “at least forty,” it was time for the obligatory toasts.
Ted was always so awkwardly effusive when it came to Chelsea, and he was no different this time. He gushed about what a great person she was and how she’d turned his life around. At one point in his speech he remarked that Chelsea, on the one hand, could be so wonderfully caring and giving while at the same time “She can be so conniving and mercilessly fuck with people. Where’s Brad Wollack?”
Ted looked around for me, and I excitedly waved like an unsuspecting idiot. “Over here, Ted!”
“Brad,” Ted continued, “Johnny Kansas has never lived with us. He has never even set foot inside our condo! He’s not coming on vacation with us; we’re not getting him a bedroom in a new home. You are one big idiot.”
I was floored! For six months I had wrestled with my emotions. I was concerned for Johnny, wrought with jealousy, and tormented by the ridiculous amount of time and patience a landlord had been granted to repair a fucking leak.
Johnny was relieved. He no longer had to avoid me for fear of slipping up. He had resorted to having little to no conversation with me, knowing full well he couldn’t keep the secret anymore. He had been pulled in two different directions: one, obeying Chelsea; and two, revealing the lie to me so I wouldn’t think he was a total mooching pussy.
Ultimately, I think the lie took as much of a mental toll on Johnny as it did on me. He was terrified of Chelsea and obeyed her every command, but he couldn’t stand the fact that I thought he was living off her with no care in the world. Chelsea should really be thankful that he didn’t have another ulcer.
SEXUAL HARASSMENT
It was December 2007, and Chelsea had been asked to host a year-end special for E! A few of us writers—Tom, Sue, and I—had been hired to help write the show. To avoid any conflicts with the Chelsea Lately production schedule, the special was to be shot at our regular studio on a Saturday.
That morning, I awoke to find an e-mail from Gary Snoonian, our executive in charge of production. Gary handles all of the budgets for our show and takes care of any logistics, including human resource matters. Gary, a self-loathing man of Armenian descent, is only remotely approachable when smoking a cigar or talking about horse racing, bu
t is otherwise a coldhearted prick. Like any stiff, unfeeling jackass, Gary drives a no-frills Mercury Sable and is all business, all the time. You just don’t fuck with Gary and the constant frown he wears on his pudgy, goateed face.
The e-mail he sent to me was brief: “Brad, please stop by my office when you get into the studio this morning.” There are only two reasons you’re called into Gary’s office: one, to be scolded; or two, to be scolded, fired, and then physically removed from the premises by security. It’s weird that workplaces never tell you when someone’s getting canned, and you just have to sit there and pretend nothing’s wrong while a poor girl sobs uncontrollably, makeup streaming down her face, and throws shit from her cubicle into a cardboard box. I really wish they could give more of a warning. It’s just so awkward for everyone.
While getting ready to head to the office, I racked my brain for any possible infraction on my part. Sure, I was always saying inappropriate things. The rule at Chelsea Lately is that it hasn’t been a productive morning writers meeting if I haven’t made a 9/11 or Holocaust joke (and I’m talking about the Jewish Holocaust, not the Armenian Holocaust—no reason to get on Gary’s bad side).
As I drove in that morning, I continued to ponder what Gary could possibly want to meet with me about. Obsessive thoughts and concerns ran through my head. As soon as I arrived at the studio, I walked into Gary’s office and he instructed me to have a seat.
He was calm, mild-mannered, and even showed concern for me, which made it that much worse.
“So, someone has filed a harassment suit against Comcast,” Gary said.
My heart skipped a beat. What did a harassment suit against a major corporation have to do with me?
“More specifically, they’ve made the complaint against you.”
Oh, that’s what.
“Who did?” I asked.
“I can’t legally say,” he added. “Can you think of anything inappropriate you may have said to someone in this office?”