Every morning in our school we had Chanel One – a half hour ad
dressed up as news, and then live announcements from a student that
came right over the same closed circuit TV. I wanted that job so bad.
It appealed to my innate need to be the center of attention and I
also liked the idea of a captive audience. The announcement person
was always and senior and I was not a senior so I needed a plan. The
plan I came up with was to just be there and be ready and when the
opportunity came I would worm my way on as a special guest
commentator. The kid in charge of the announcements was actually
from my home town and was really not a huge fan of my work but he did
have a desperate desire to be liked and I was friends with some
people who he wanted to impress. If you were able to untangle that
Gordian knot of High School Machiavellian hierarchies then you know
that all I needed to do was to ride a little coat tail action onto
the A.M. prime time. My in was a generally regarded as cool kid
named Tim. Who despite having the massive handicap of being in the
band which more often then not is social suicide at almost every
school at every level was liked by many people, bordering on popular.
Our niche was to review extra curricular activities. Our
retrospectively shamefully corny shtick was to give a synopsis of
the event and then rate it in 'Woo-Hoos' which would be given in
synchrony and deadpan accompanied by a single finger extended
overhead twirl. Everything got about 4 or 5 'Woo-Hoos'. We were on a
couple of times a week which the kid in charge was not really happy
with but we just wedged ourselves in and he really liked the
technical aspect of the production so he was happy putting special
effects and titles over the top of whatever was happening.
