VJ PLEASURES (AND A LONE PUBE)

Check out the "CNN STUDIO A" photo above.
It's from a 1997 Time Warner brochure that contains an article called, "24 Hours In The Life Of CNN". You can see me there in profile, at the crummy, paper-based, duct taped TelePrompter. Note that I have a Prompter Assist, even though this shot was taken during the easiest TelePrompting gig around-CNN Newsroom. I do not think I inspired confidence as a solo act. Also note how we lowly VJs are the only people in the article whose names they did not deem important enough to print.

So as you can see, I've been going through a bunch of old crap. I never seem to get rid of it, just shift it from place to place. I also came across my CNN ID badge. The photograph was taken on my first day as a VJ, and I look so hopeful, so convinced I was going someplace.
That didn't last long.
It was quickly replaced by the look on my face when I ducked behind a rack of clothing at Lennox Mall, tripping and falling on my ass just to avoid contact with an anchor who was so bitchy that I literally trembled and pissed my pants once (just a bit) while TelePrompting for her.

Looking back, I know this was stupid. She would never have recognized a peon like me anyway.

I'm not saying that anchors and other newsroom VIPs have to make nice or bake cookies for the underlings or ask about your dog/husband/baby/new car. I'm just saying you can always tell which ones are confident professionals and which ones aren't by the way they treat the people around them. The shrill, nasty ones are pretty transparent in their insecurity.
The point is, back then I endured my stultifying, sometimes humiliating shift by enjoying the little pleasures in life like:

1.) Being the first person in the bathroom after it was cleaned

2.) When people brought in movies to watch at 2am

3.) When MARTA arrived on time

4.) Turkey Tetrazzini

5.) Daylight savings, when you got paid for an hour that you didn't actually work

6.) Director Earl Maple's jokes crackling through one's headset

7.) Going to the Omni hotel bar with a pal, sitting in one of those cushy, vagina-shaped chairs and having a Bloody Mary

8.) Calling up a friend and telling them to turn on CNN while you walked behind the set

9.) Read-Me flame wars

10.) When someone hit return on BASYS without noting the name, sent you the wrong message and revealed good gossip

UPDATE:
ACK! If you click on the photo above, the enlarged image shows what looks like a lone pubic hair! Very mysterious. It isn't mine. Perhaps it's from 1997...Vintage pube!