I was on TV yesterday. For the first time. The Jacksonville Channel 4 Morning Show was kind enough to invite me to tell my story and plug Waking Up the Ghost. I was told to be at the station at eight A.M., so I did what I do every time I have an important early event – slept fitfully, woke every fifteen minutes and got up at four looking dissipated after a REM-less sleep.
Looking away from 500 images of ME…
I got ready, wearing my uniform of black trousers and a black turtleneck sweater, and arrived at the station at seven. I sat in the car in the parking lot and practiced the pithy things I was going to say… I assumed the morning anchors had read my blog and would ask me specific questions about: The Bahamas; my children and friends; my newfound do-gooder lifestyle; and my oh-so-important life struggles. I was prepared. I wasn’t nervous.
When it was a reasonable time to ring the station’s doorbell, I did – and was ushered by a nice lady to the Green Room. It was SRO with two small couches and a high-rise bar table with stools, a small, mounted mirror, and a suspended flat screen TV with the Morning Show playing.
Dare I say the other denizens of the Green Room were not A-listers?
It occurred to me, after watching the cast members of the Morning Show preview (with flashy, jumbotron photos) EVERYBODY who was going to be on the show but me, that I was what is known in Show Biz lingo, as the FILLER. The biggest plug went to a woman who had lost like a zillion pounds, and had become a body building contestant.
In the old days, I would have left. I would have gathered my things, walked out of the station, and gone to the closest convenience store for screw cap wine shooters. But, the new Marilyn Spiller waited patiently. Eventually I was ushered to the studio, where the anchors ran from set to set asking over their shoulders, “Are we doing that before or after the weather spot?” They looked very, very BUSY.
The technical guy, clipping a small microphone to my turtleneck and running wires under my clothes asked, “So, are you the body builder?”
It was pretty dim in the studio wings, but this guy had just had his HANDS under my shirt. I answered, “No. Not me.”
He flipped through a legal pad, looking confused and said, “Are you the SORORITY blogger?”
THEN I got nervous. I started thinking I should have walked out because this was LIVE TV, and NO ONE knew who I was, and if I got out to the cute little, faux livingroom set, with all the lights and the five-hundred cameras hanging from the ceiling, and they started asking about SORORITIES or BODY BUILDING, I was going to be royally fucked…
Then, feeling the way I think it must feel when you’re about to be strapped to a gurney to get a lethal injection, I was ushered – DEAD WOMAN WALKING – to the set. The same technical guy who didn’t know I was there because I was an EX-DRUNK, pointed at us and said, “Action!”
The handsome, man-tanned anchor turned to me with a big stage smile and said in one of those well modulated, TV voices, “What’s YOUR ghost?”
I think I said, “Huh?”
The rest of the interview is a blank…
When it was a reasonable time to ring the station’s doorbell, I did – and was ushered by a nice lady to the Green Room. It was SRO with two small couches and a high-rise bar table with stools, a small, mounted mirror, and a suspended flat screen TV with the Morning Show playing.
Dare I say the other denizens of the Green Room were not A-listers?
It occurred to me, after watching the cast members of the Morning Show preview (with flashy, jumbotron photos) EVERYBODY who was going to be on the show but me, that I was what is known in Show Biz lingo, as the FILLER. The biggest plug went to a woman who had lost like a zillion pounds, and had become a body building contestant.
In the old days, I would have left. I would have gathered my things, walked out of the station, and gone to the closest convenience store for screw cap wine shooters. But, the new Marilyn Spiller waited patiently. Eventually I was ushered to the studio, where the anchors ran from set to set asking over their shoulders, “Are we doing that before or after the weather spot?” They looked very, very BUSY.
The technical guy, clipping a small microphone to my turtleneck and running wires under my clothes asked, “So, are you the body builder?”
It was pretty dim in the studio wings, but this guy had just had his HANDS under my shirt. I answered, “No. Not me.”
He flipped through a legal pad, looking confused and said, “Are you the SORORITY blogger?”
THEN I got nervous. I started thinking I should have walked out because this was LIVE TV, and NO ONE knew who I was, and if I got out to the cute little, faux livingroom set, with all the lights and the five-hundred cameras hanging from the ceiling, and they started asking about SORORITIES or BODY BUILDING, I was going to be royally fucked…
Then, feeling the way I think it must feel when you’re about to be strapped to a gurney to get a lethal injection, I was ushered – DEAD WOMAN WALKING – to the set. The same technical guy who didn’t know I was there because I was an EX-DRUNK, pointed at us and said, “Action!”
The handsome, man-tanned anchor turned to me with a big stage smile and said in one of those well modulated, TV voices, “What’s YOUR ghost?”
I think I said, “Huh?”
The rest of the interview is a blank…
At this point, I am beseeching God to HELP ME…
