I hate getting makeup in my eyes

… Don’t you?

I usually try to wave off the stuff, but I had been sweating all day (good, healthy, manly sweat, mind you), and I had a good Nixonian shine going when I entered the ETV building. So this time I didn’t resist when I was steered to the makeup room.

Greg Ryberg was in front of me, and he really needed the help. HeEndorses had seriously gouged himself shaving, and had this big, honking scab just below his lower lip. The makeup lady managed to cover it well enough for TV purposes, so he didn’t look like he had a communicable disease or something.

Thomas Ravenel was behind me, settling in the chair when I got up, and he immediately went into the regular-guy "I-don’t-think-I-need-this-stuff" routine, and the makeup lady responded by saying he didn’t have to have it if he didn’t want it. I don’t know whether he stayed and had his face done or not, but I didn’t notice him walking out with me.

The whole TV experience has an air of unreality that makes it hard to be natural, which is why hardly anybody is. You’ve got this weird goop on your face (at the end, Rick Quinn asked — a little too late — whether it would harden like concrete), and you can see every move you’re making on monitors. Do I really look like that? I hope not. Why is my head leaning over like that? And you try to straighten it up, but you lean it over more, looking like your spine’s having a convulsion or something, because it’s not a mirror. It’s like a mirror of a mirror, and just really discombobulating to the nervous system.

At that moment, the host signals that it’s your turn to ask a question, and all you can think of for a second is, "How come my neck looks like it’s broken, and when did my hair get so mangy?"

It’s all so distracting, I forgot to wave. Sorry.

This is why I prefer radio — or better yet, the written word. You can think about the conversation, instead of whether you’re sitting up straight.

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