Going Down In A Blazer Of Glory With `Today'

The gig is up.

On Friday mornings my nose no longer will be Honey Beige.

The new plum-pink sports jacket hangs forlorn in the closet.

My television career is kaput.

In retrospect, as far as careers go, it didn't have a whole lot of retro to spect.

When the "Seattle Today" show folded last Friday morning in a wash of local nostalgia, my services as a television restaurant critic were no longer required. After a four-month run under the hot lights at KING 5, I was free.

At liberty.

Dumped.

A lifetime of writing newspaper columns prepares you for a lot of things in life - accommodating anxiety, deflecting envy, remedial spelling - but not the loss of your makeup artist.

The departure of Green Room camaraderie.

The free coffee and muffins!

The undoing of a television show is an exercise in unwelcomed dignity and masked humility. Not, in this instance, for me. I was a newcomer to "Seattle Today," a four-minute weekly hanger-on. I had a limited emotional stake in what transpired - or expired. But it was tough to witness nevertheless.

I brought my eldest daughter, Katy, down to the set for the final show. For two reasons: I wanted her to see how a live television show is produced (she has already seen how a live newspaper gets made). And I wanted her to observe how good people act when tough times befall them.

They acted very well indeed. Cliff Lenz and Pat Finley said their goodbyes with eyes filmed over (an assistant, on hands and knees, scurrying below camera level, quickly brought over a box of tissues) and no one was the wiser.

Except, of course, on the set where we all were.

Wisdom does not come from our triumphs, but from our mistakes and our failures and sometimes simply our observations that times have changed and so must we.

"Seattle Today" was on the air for 17 years. A live, locally produced variety-talk show, for many of those years it dominated its 9 to 10 a.m. time slot.

Over those years, however, many things changed. Least important were the changes of on-air personalities (Shirley Hudson to Pat Finley to Susan Michaels and back to Finley. More important were the changes in Seattle homes where the flickering television sets resided, the sets that Mr. Nielsen relentlessly counted.

There weren't so many folks at home anymore. Most houses that come with two-income mortgages are empty after 9 a.m. Dwindling daytime audiences flipped around for information or more high-powered entertainment, like the shock and schlock of Geraldo.

"Seattle Today" shifted hosts; brought in actor Colby Chester for a stint, let him go. They tried more gutty topics, booked less fluff. Ratings continued to slide. Stress levels rose. Tempers got tight.

Personally, it was a fascinating five months. I lost some sleep. I found some friends and some skills.

I discovered that it was possible to do something I had been afraid of for years: to get up in front of a live camera and be myself.

"You are taking to this like a duck to water," Finley told me after my third appearance.

"Old duck; fast water," I replied.

Told that my usual drab clothing faded into the background colors of the set, I bought some bright sweaters I will never wear again. A week before the show closed I shelled out $250 for a dusty plum blazer (43 Regular) that looked great on the set, but no place else. Bids welcomed.

I learned that Honey Beige was just the right color for my base makeup. But I forgot to get the name and color of the powder.

Hair spray, I learned, could mask an overdue haircut. And that when seated facing stage right it was my left forehead that needed the most powder.

I had dinner with Finley the night the show closed. We had fried goose liver and pasta puttanesca and 22-year-old burgundy.

Pat is going to Santa Fe for a couple of months, then to Russia, then back to rural France, where she had lived for a while before rejoining "Seattle Today."

"I don't know yet what the rest of my life is supposed to be," she said.

Me, neither. Except I'll have more time to write for you on Friday mornings.

John Hinterberger's column appears Wednesdays in the Scene section of the Times and his restaurant and food columns appear in Sunday's Pacific magazine and Friday's Tempo.