“If you’re just joining us, it’s 4:54 in the AM and you’re watching Perspectives.”

-Lionel Osbourne

I found this line (from the old SNL skit with Tim Meadows) constantly popping up in my head this past Saturday as I made my official debut on public access in northern Virginia (NoVa to the locals).  The reason for my appearance on channel 10 in Fairfax was simple (promoting 2wcOnline and our web comic) – at least, a lot simpler than it was just to travel up there from Hampton, Virginia (which is situated about twenty-five minutes north of Virginia Beach).

What should have been a three hour drive (… a three hour drive…) ended up bearing more of a resemblance to a five hour slog through a clogged artery.  Now, don’t get me wrong – I’m very familiar with the fact that there will be traffic on a weekend.  I’m even familiar with the fact that there will be even more traffic during a summer weekend.  I’m even fully aware that there will be a significantly greater amount of traffic on the stretches of road leading to Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, as well as a solid barrier of four-wheeled death machines  as soon as you get anywhere near DC.

But, what the artist for the web comic I write for and I experienced on Saturday defies any logic that having the affore-mentioned knowledge affords you.  It was literally like someone injected tar into the veins of a human test subject and watched to see what the effect would be.

“The effect?!!  I’ll tell you what the effect is!!  It’s pissing me off!!”

– Male Test Subject, ESP Experiment

And it wasn’t even a holiday weekend.

Needless to say, almost five hours later we finally made it to our destination… which brings me back to my original point for this week’s blog.

As my cohort and I signed in, got our “Visitor” badges, and made our way down the hall to the studio “where all the magic happens”, the Lionel Osbourne line kept popping up in my head.  Well actually, the first thing that immediately came to mind was “Wayne’s World” – at least up to the point that I discovered that the camera guy wasn’t going to be Tobias Beecher from Oz sporting long hair and doing the five-count countdown.  Instead, the camera operator was from a completely different end of the spectrum – a tiny lady who was somewhere beyond forty.

Expectations shattered, I immediately took in my surroundings as one of the assistants started fitting us all with mics.  We would be filmed sitting behind what looked like an anchor’s desk.  From my point of view – looking out from said desk – there appeared to be a kitchen-style set, most likely for some local cooking show.  My imagination ran wild again as I tried to imagine some Mr. Popeil informercial gone awry as the Swedish Chef made a surprise appearance and tried to hack a muppet turkey on the run with a chainsaw.

I know – there’s something not right with me.

After getting mic’ed and checking sound levels, my partner-in-crime Danny and I made our way back into the Green Room with the other two guests for the episode.  And that is where my eyes met the coolest set of furniture in the entire building:

A high table and chair/stool set.

This wasn’t just some ordinary, old high table and chair/stool set, either.  It was from the future, man!  Or Space!  Or space in the future!  All three pieces were plastic-like, painted a futuristic silver with little sparkly flecks.  All ninety degree angles were rounded off, giving the appearance that this is what you would see in a lounge on an alien spacecraft – where the aliens go to have a smoke and a drink after probing anuses all day.

I immediately knew that I had to sit down in this artifact from a close encounter of the sore ass kind.

As soon as I sat down in one of the chairs, I immediately started acting like I was giving orders to fire the proton laser on the planet of humans.  Yes, I know – there’s something not right with me.  We’ve covered this.  Move on.

It was at that point that we were needed back in the studio to film our interview with the host and to plug our wares.  Disappointed that I would never get to see if we successfully destroyed Sol 3, I took my seat behind the anchor’s desk and began my fifteen seconds of immediate-vicinity fame.

That’s about when the line started to play in my head – “If you’re just joining us, it’s 4:54 in the AM and you’re watching Perspectives.”

Oh look – there’s that original point I was looking for.