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, but is otherwise a coldhearted
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, but is otherwise a coldhearted
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