New York Central with Michael Musto

This was a brief gig, but memorable.

I wrote for Michael Musto’s talk show “New York Central.” First, let me tell you that Michael Musto is a dream. This was only my second real tv job, and writing jokes for him was intimidating, but he was always totally encouraging and hilarious. He wrote a great piece about his experience on the show that you can read here.

Now let me list just a few of the things that happened.

  1. At one point Dionne Warwick, who had been booked as a guest, was stuck in the building elevator for like 45 minutes. As we waited for her to be freed, Michael said, “I’m a little nervous about this interview, I hope she doesn’t remember that I tried to single-handedly bring down her Psychic Friends Network.”
  2. The showrunner was this bizarro social snob who told me he was mortified growing up because his mom subscribed to National Geographic.
  3. Years later I learned I was hired in part because I came to the interview wearing green Dickies and a black “Cats” tshirt with the sleeves cut off.*
  4. The producers were these full British tabloid guys and when the whole Lizzie Grubman thing happened they told me we were going to cover it relentlessly. One of them said, solemnly, “This could be our OJ.”