Martha, Rachel and Wendy

I had a job at a nursing school for seven or eight years.  Loved it.  Nurses are notoriously the most unsympathetic people going and they have to be.  Matter of fact.  Black or white.  No bulls*t.  My godmother was a nurse so I get it.  One Thanksgiving while chopping carrots, I sliced a finger and without even turning her head she said “you should get a bandaid for that” while not missing a beat stirring the gravy.  

So anyway. the Nursing school was on the fourth floor of a building on West 26th Street. When I first started, the fifth floor was the headquarters for Martha Stewart Inc. and the studio she filmed in was across the street.  There would be people lined up for blocks to be in her audience.  Even in pouring rain, did Martha supply a covering or let them in early? Hell no.  She had a ton of young assistants and interns.  Every morning on the elevator, they’d be beaming and giggling with excitement.  After 5:00 on the ride down, they’d be hunched over crying or moaning.  She fired at least three per day … one for not having the stem of a flower on the preferred angle.  Then she went to prison.  Not the intern.  Martha.

So in less than a week in comes Rachel Ray & Co.  She took over Martha’s office space and studio.  Totally different vibe in the elevator.  First of all, much less turnaround and attrition.  Happy people.  She’d bring extra food downstairs to my office.  Like Rachel herself.  Giddy.  Smiles.  Almost sickening, especially to the Nursing students who don’t go that way.  

Rachel’s happy ass crew stayed about three years before moving downtown.  Then the next tenant arrived.  Wendy Williams.  Offices on the fifth floor, studio across the street and another vibe.  First of all, half of her staff were drunk at 9:00 AM and zombies by 5:00.  I caught Wendy one day getting out of a limousine then kicking the car door in a fit of rage and then punching the driver.  And the Christmas party.  My god. People were rolling down the stairwells.  Blood.  Cuts.  Concussions yet still laughing. 

Me:  (to bloodied body on concrete step) Could I just slither by?

Bloodied Body:  (inaudible groans and cackles)

Before Martha was Tyra Banks and

before Tyra was someone else.  

Talk about skeletons in the closet.