In the Light of Renewal: John Tolliver, 2/26/2076

Thank the Lord, I was finally able to get to the club yesterday. Saved by Renewal Remembrance Day, yet again. I’ve spent the last three days dealing with Johnson, going through affiliates leads on our local bomber and getting ready for the live Reconciliation. The tedium of it all is just draining.

Johnson has been beside himself, calling twice a day to try and find out if I’ve gotten any information on how we missed this person or who their associates might be. S+P hasn’t turned up anything of any value on that front either. They have turned up some contraband though, which has been good for the evening broadcasts. They even found a basement still and an unlicensed alcohol operation. I think we’ll be able to get the confessions and recantations on tomorrow’s broadcast. The regional S+P Assistant Coordinator, Becks, was quite pleased and promised he’d be sure they were in good shape for broadcast. The last batch of recants were pathetic. They looked more like they’d had a rough day on a work farm than they did recants. He assured me this lot would be thoroughly battered. Becks informed me the same sergeant would be in charge, and he understands there will be consequences if these aren’t ready for prime time.

Johnson is falling apart, and he’s been a pestering whelp. I can imagine the pressure is coming down from State, but even for that, he’s quite a bit out of hand. If he’s being pushed in anything like the degree he’s pushing myself or Becks, it makes me even more suspicious all of this is really just to get him out and for whoever at State is pressuring him to be able to get someone they prefer into his position. He’s such a toddling moron, I don’t know if it’s even occurred to him. If I have to look at his ruddy, sweating, quivering face one more time this week, I might just vomit. He is such a disgusting creature. I don’t know how The Party can even be willing to allow him to be presented as the Regional Administrator. I have wondered if this might be reason enough from someone at State to want him out. He doesn't present much the image one would expect for a Party official of his status. How he made it beyond Town Party Captain, I'll never know.

Pendleton issued the statement to affiliates about the bonuses for information on our bomber, his associates, the plot itself, anything related, on the day we found out about it. Not only have I spent hours listening to Johnson whinging, but I’ve spent even more hours going through information being sent by affiliates attempting to get the bonus. These half brains are sending all manner of nonsense, as if I’m some kind of idiot who’s just going to fall for whatever bunk they attempt to connect to the story. None of them seem to have come up with anything decent though. Nothing but people attempting to pursue grudges against their neighbors or coworkers or romantic rivals, attempting to attain the good fortune of seeing their rivals or targets of their jealousy on a live Reconciliation broadcast. Who knows how much of the bonus any of these affiliates are promising to share in return for good information, either. It wouldn’t shock me if half of them don’t understand Regional and State are looking for genuine information. They may not even care, as long as they can get their hands on the bonus. I know a few of them are sharp enough to see the opportunity to gain Party favor though. Andrews, Shaw, Quint. I could tell in conversation they grasp it. We’ll see if it’s one of them who happens to bring me something decent. Andrews has already demonstrated his ability to grasp what can make both the party and viewers happy.

Quint is a particularly sharp one too. She’s done some very good work since we brought her on. Her affiliates license wasn’t a month old when she brought in the the story about the drug lab under the repair shop in Melbourne. She’d apparently been working on it when her license was granted, but never said anything about it in the application process because she wasn’t sure if she was going to be able to get her proof. It ended up being the most popular story of the month. She has a good sense of presentation too. She was in perfect position to catch S+P put down the moron who actually attempted to fight. That clip has been in our top ten most viewed for six months. It’ll probably be one of the most popular clips of the year. She’s the only one giving Andrews a run for content creation. She makes Pendleton nervous though. I think he’s worried she might be angling for his job. On the one had, she is very good, and I might be worried if I were Pendleton, especially since he hasn’t been able to turn anything up on our bomber yet. On the other hand, it’s one thing to have a woman as an affiliate, not as Affiliates Director. They work well on camera. Quint is definitely popular with the eighteen to fifty males, which helps, but that’s still something completely different from having a woman running daily affiliate communications, deciding on story placement and overseeing visual design. Her looks might help her bring in some of these stories, but Lord knows the male affiliates will never take directions from her, and the designers and editors would eat her alive. The stories out of US1 in California are enough to demonstrate a woman doesn’t belong as a Affiliates Director. Pendleton might be a sniveling neurotic, but he’s still a man. Besides, Andrews is more likely to be the one to end up in Pendleton’s position. I may decide a bump in her rate is worth it if she does happen to bring me a good bit on our bomber. It’ll be fun to see Pendleton squirm a bit. I’m sure it would please Benji as well, since he’s the one who brought her to my attention.

I reserved Charity for the day yesterday, and as always, she was perfect. She was able to get a conference room for the day, and I spent the morning and the afternoon on cam conferences with Dinkler from Pennsylvania, Brewster in Virginia, the three State and the National Content Agency chairmen. The National Party wants each State and Region to carry out the Reconciliations. They feel carrying it out at the National level would legitimize the conspiracy too much, and they want to be sure to send a message to anyone who may have been aiding the bombers in their home states and regions. They feel it would show too much concern from the National Party if they were to carry it out. It doesn’t portray enough strength for the public to have faith in their ability to keep subversion under control.

Everyone lamented we couldn’t get this Reconciliation prepped in time to have it broadcast on Renewal Remembrance Day, but it’s just as well as far as I’m concerned. Views are always low on Remembrance Day. The rabble are too busy watching sports, various National Party speeches and getting drunk to think about anything else. Besides, Leader Frakes has a scheduled address during the eight PM time window, so we’d have had to broadcast at seven or nine, which means another definite loss in viewers. National wants the view count on this Reconciliation to be better than last years group of terrorists in New York, so at least a few days of promotion is necessary. I envy Brewster a bit. He has nine of the twelve conspirators in Virginia. Dinkler has two, and I have one. Though I assume National is directly leaning on Brewster quite significantly, and I'm glad not to have that.

We’ll be broadcasting our Reconciliation first, and I have permission to commission the S.U.F band and James Chasten to come perform the national anthem. Chasten is from here in Florida, and he has quite high approval ratings. Andrew’s popularity guaranteed he’d be hosting. I don’t want to deal with the arguments from Pendleton and State Content Chairmen Oaks by even thinking about assigning someone else. We’ll do the national anthem, Andrew’s will give a quick telling of what the circumstances leading to this Reconciliation are, then we’ll go to Brewster’s people in Virginia so they can play the National S+P Director’s statement. He apparently has two National S+P officers he is going to bring in to tell their parts of the story, and the National Content Agency will have a pre-recorded reenactment to play along with these. Party Leader Frakes is going to have a pre-recorded statement which will follow. Then we’ll go to Florida State Party Leader O’Brien followed by Florida State S+P Director Houston. From there we’ll go to the actual Reconciliation here, then to Pennsylvania, and Virginia last. National wants to make sure we have the Reconciliation covered from every angle, plenty of wide shots, plenty of close up angles. They want everything on screen, bulging eyes, defecation, urination, seizures and struggle. They want to make sure the message gets home to everyone in the audience. I assured them we’d have a team working with Director Houston on rehearsals for the next few days.

Director Houston was very pleased with the idea of recording his during a rehearsal. We can have him in the foreground, as the rehearsal takes place in the background. He’ll go through the day and time, as well as the reason for the Reconciliation, and then as soon as he’s finished, we’ll have the platform drop and the dummy swinging in the background. Considering he and I are both under pressure surrounding just how this conspirator in our territory got so far along without being found out, it seems a good idea to keep him happy by helping find ways to present him as a figure of strength. Of course, Leader O’Brien then wanted to have his promo recorded the same way. Luckily, Charity kept me in coffee all morning. It’s incredibly dull going through all of this with these men. Houston presents quite well on camera, so even as he has hundreds of questions, he’ll do fine. O’Brien comes off less as being a figure of strength and virility than he does as being a suspicious, conniving back stabber, which of course, he is. Both of them are incredibly boring though.

We spent hours going through all of it until the Content Agency chairmen were happy with it. Downes, the National Content Agency Chairman is a brilliant man. He may be the only person I’ve ever known who understands content presentation as well as Father did. He had strict instruction for the State CA chairmen to make sure to go through the recordings of the rehearsals from their states. He said he would speak to them each separately about things he wanted from them specifically. FCA Chairman Nash said I should put him directly in contact with O’Brien so they could coordinate without interfering with any of my time. I conferenced Andrews in to a cam with O’Brien so as to make the introductions and insure both Andrews and O’Brien knew I’d be keeping close tabs on their progress.

I was worried for a bit that I was going to miss the billiards game Charity has scheduled, but we did get things wrapped up just as six was coming around. I gathered all of the others wanted to get on with enjoying the activities in their local clubs as well. I do have to say, I will have to make it a point to visit the club near State Party Capitol. Whoever Chairman Nash’s leisure coordinator was, she was absolutely stunning. Charity said she’d make a call and try to find out the girls name for me, so I’d be able to try to reserve her if any of the State Party officials hadn’t when I was in the area. Of course, Charity is the most excellent leisure coordinator in my local club, but I can’t take her with me, and I’m not always able to attend my preferred club.

She had the billiards table reserved with Jack Payton. I’ve known Jack since school, and he’s good company, as well as being a competitive challenge. We got six or eight games in, and though he did win two, I came away $60,000 richer in the end. I’ll have to be sure to talk to Jacob in Advertising and tell him to cut Jack’s companies a slight break for the next few weeks. Competition is fun, and I take pride in playing the game as well as Father taught me to, but it’s dangerous to make enemies over something like a game of billiards. Jack has enough pull in the party and power in the region to be a very good ally if someone decided they wanted to try and challenge me for control of TolliVision or for our licenses. It was clear Jack hadn’t spent as much of the day working as I had, and he wasn’t sloppy, but it was clear he’d had a good few more bourbons than I when we started, and he had a few more as we played.

I did catch what might have been a bit of competitiveness between Charity and Freya, Jack’s girl. Freya knows her billiards quite well it seems, and did give Jack a bit of strategic council at a few points in the game. The first two times, Charity didn’t say anything verbally, but was certainly saying enough in her expression the other few times, Charity commented on Freya’s competitive spirit. I don’t know what it was, exactly, but something was between the two girls. It was amusing to see Charity’s demeanor after I’d won and we were parting the table. Jack seems to like a much more classic girl. She looked as if she would be at home in some of the old advertisements Father had video of in his private collection. One of the things I like about Charity is how much more she seems to revel in her role at the club. She draws the eyes of most of the other members.

We went to the theater from there. Charity took care of having dinner arranged and insured the serving staff kept my Manhattan fresh. She knew the screening schedule without having to even consult it. She’s gotten to know my habits and preferences quite well. I haven’t made sure the club has the best collection of banned films east of the Mississippi out of the goodness of my heart. As a matter of fact, I’d forgotten until now, a contact who has been very good at finding them left a message for me the other day. I need to have Benji get back to them. I’ve been spending so much time with Johnson and the affiliates, I haven’t had a chance, and over the next few days, I’ll be overseeing preparations for the Reconciliation broadcast, so I may not have time to get back to them. If he has something good, I don’t want to lose the chance to obtain it because some other collector snatched it up.

Speaking of overseeing preparations for the Reconciliation broadcast, it’s time I got about my day. I need to check on Andrews and make sure he’s ready. S+P Director Houston sent me a message this morning saying they’ve already had 3/4 of the tickets for Reconciliation Pavilion reserved, and we haven’t run the first promo yet. The story has been drawing good view counts each day, so it’s not shocking to hear. It’s good to know the interest it already there though. It suggests we’re on our way to getting those view counts National wants.

After spending the rest of the night being the beneficiary of Charity's first rate personal service, I feel relieved of a significant weight, and even Johnsons sweaty, quivering countenance probably won't be able to shake me from my confidence to maneuver the next few days.