Martha, It Smells Like Something’s Burning

A Tale of Two Martha Stewarts in 2002.

It was the best of Marthas, it was the worst of Marthas.

It was the Martha of wisdom, it was the Martha of foolishness.

It was the Martha of belief, it was the Martha of incredulity.

It was the Martha of light, it was the Martha of darkness.

It was the Martha of hope, it was the Martha of despair.

It was the gracious-living Martha of painted bird cages and dried rose petals, it was the Martha of controversy--tainted by the feds suspecting her of illegally trading ImClone Systems Inc. shares.

It was the sage Martha of fava beans and Maine pancakes, it was the ridiculed Martha of farce who kept chopping cabbage while trying to fend off host Jane Clayson’s questions about ImClone during her weekly segment on CBS’ “The Early Show.”

Two separate and distinct Marthas, at odds yet somehow co-existing.

I’ve never been a great fan of hers, although she did turn out to be right about cats’ hairballs. If combed together, they do make an attractive centerpiece for formal dinners.

The polar opposites of her life are intriguing, though.

One Martha uses her media sprawl to give cheerful home-style advice: in her magazine, newspaper column and radio show. And in “From Martha’s Garden” on HGTV, “From Martha’s Kitchen” on Food Network and her daily TV series, “Martha Stewart Living,” airing at 9 a.m. on KCBS.

The other embattled Martha is now taking on heat like one of her Tuscan pot roasts. The U.S. attorney’s office, the Securities and Exchange Commission and Congress are questioning her dumping 4,000 shares of ImClone--whose former chairman, Sam Waksal, was her close friend--a day before the biotech company announced its new cancer drug had been rejected by the Food and Drug Administration. Although Waksal faces federal charges of insider trading and perjury, Martha has not been charged and denies all wrongdoing.

How to reconcile these dueling Marthas? I thought of that when bumping into “Martha Stewart Living” while surfing daytime TV one morning and noting that many live-audience talk shows are anachronisms on the cutting edge of obsolescence. As Martha’s show may be, should her image keep blackening.

Time has stood still on these tawdry hours. Many still pluck their guests from goofy little subcultures, the exposure on TV elevating them to undeserved prominence. Here’s betting they draw viewers from the same underclass gene pool, people who surely find in these shows validation of their dark feelings about life.

On Jenny Jones’ show, the audience screamed at a busty woman who boasted of flashing men. On Maury Povich’s show, the audience hooted a man whose answers to a polygraph refuted his denial of cheating on his pregnant teenage wife. “I ain’t been with nobody,” he insisted, as poor Uncle Maury was deeply distraught--do you hear, an emotional wreck?--over this domestic dispute.

Meanwhile, Sally Jessy Raphael, packing it in at the end of the year as daytime TV’s doyenne of low burlesque, was airing excerpts from her best shows. On one, titled “I’ve Got a Shocking Secret,” a man rushed from the audience and began screaming at the guests, who screamed back. Poor Sally was helpless to stop it, shaking her head and throwing the camera one of those oy vey looks.

In another oldie, the audience hooted and hissed at a man who had devastated his fiance, Autumn, by telling her he’d slept twice with her best friend, Gina. It didn’t “mean nothin,’ ” he assured Autumn, on his knees while begging forgiveness, because he and Gina were only “the bestest of friends.” Autumn wasn’t buying it.

She suffered, he suffered, poor Sally suffered. Then out came Gina, who immediately began suffering too. “You’re scum!” an audience member shouted at the palooka who’d cheated on Autumn. He screamed at the audience, the audience screamed at him. Sally rolled her eyes. As much as her heart was breaking, as much as she wanted this to stop, what could she do?

There, there, Sally.

Much of daytime has always defined its own shuttered reality. Which is why “Martha Stewart Living” is a perfect fit, its opening blissful shots of her smelling roses, smiling warmly at berries and dipping a finger into whipped cream setting up an idealized tasteful realm as distant in tone from Sally’s back-alley grunges as the Hamptons are from Coney Island.

There she was one morning on “Martha Stewart Living,” getting it all together effortlessly for a 12-year-old’s rock-climbing birthday party, from the invitations (little rocks, with tags) to the cake made from gooey, chewy, rocky ledge birthday bars that he helped her make.

While the scummiest of daytime shows peddle a nightmarish America where supposedly no one can be trusted, “Martha Stewart Living” sells dreams, too, as its star putters around her spotless house whipping up comfort, sealed off from anxiety. Her dreams are unattainable happy faces, though, and her manner confident and soothing, in contrast to the chaos of her life.

This recalled another surreal TV moment several years ago when NBC’s “Today” taped co-host Katie Couric celebrating Christmas inside the White House with Bill and Hillary Clinton.

The Clintons could have passed for Ozzie and Harriet while schmoozing cozily with Couric, spinning Christmas yarns and telling her they’d be holiday homebodies and “just have a good time together.”

It was another remarkable performance by a pair of superb actors who gave no hint of anything troubling them. As NBC’s audience watched this comforting fiction on videotape, however, cable’s all-news channels beamed live coverage of an overlapping reality that was much grimmer:

The House Judiciary Committee debate on impeaching Clinton over Monica Lewinsky.

In other words, as Martha is learning, there are times when even the best acting doesn’t amount to a hill of fava beans.