A few weeks ago, I mentioned that it was picture day at Channel 9. Well, today, is make-up day. No, I don't mean the day when I am required to go around and apologize to all of the other employees for my lackluster performance, public humiliations and general, all-around, doofus-ness. That requirement falls on September 24th, this year. I am talking about sitting down with an expert in powders, creams and potions. Since KMBC is moving into a new building with different lighting and with the increasing use of High Definition television, it is necessary to take a look at what everyone is using to look good on camera. If looking "good" is too tall an order, as in my case, it is, at least, an effort to not look too repugnant.

When I first started on TV, back during the Hoover administration, one of the oddest things I had to do was buy make-up. In a house full of brothers and a mother not too interested in, or in need of, make-up, I just had no idea what was required. (My dad wore rouge and false eyelashes once, but that's not important to this story so just drop it.) At WMTV in Madison, they had a young lady sit down with me, in the first few days after I was hired, to make some suggestions: "You need something in the warm beige category... about the hue of a paper bag. In fact, why don't you just go ahead and use a paper bag." There was talk of running a special paper bag give-away to introduce me to Madison viewers. "We'll send you, our loyal viewers, a special Channel 15 Paper Bag to wear whenever our new weatherman, Joel Nichols, is on the air...just in case the one he is wearing rips open! Just send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to 'Double Bag the Weatherman' care of WMTV...." Anyway, I ended up going to the cosmetics counter at the local Ace Hardware, admittedly a dangerous thing to do as you run the risk of ending up looking like John Madden. After I convinced the woman there that I was really making these purchases for myself, she ended up selling me a bunch of stuff...something called foundation...powder...concealer...lipstick...eye-liner...a fake mole.

The day of my first appearance, I spent quite a bit of time applying everything. I used so much of the goop, I had to apply it with a trowel which made it necessary for me to join the bricklayers union. After I went on the air, viewers called in to say they really enjoyed watching Joan Crawford do the weather...or was that really Faye Dunaway dressed up like Joan Crawford? The next day, my mother surprised me by stopping by the station just before show time. She looked at me very closely and asked a question she had never before had to ask any of her sons "Is that Cover Girl that you're wearing and what shade is that lipstick?" Soon it became very obvious that I was wearing way too much of the stuff. Frankly, I got sick of kids coming up to be and asking if I had seen the Hamburgaler or Mayor McCheese anywhere.

Over the years, I used less and less make-up. A few years ago, a different make-up expert came in and scolded me for not using enough. The lights in a TV studio can be pretty harsh and make even a healthy person look a little drained not to mention the shine that can appear on just about any forehead. Apparently, the glow emanating from my increasingly large forehead, exposed as my hair-line recedes at warp speed revealing, by coincidence, my warped noggin, was so bright that children and small pets were being needlessly frightened. The day I had my appointment, I had forgotten to shave. I don't have a very heavy beard but it still left enough stubble to make the expert feel I really didn't care. She did not appreciate my apathy. By the time I left her chair, I had enough layers applied that it required a sand-blaster just to open my eyelids.

In recent years, I usually just use a little powder to take off the shine. Sometimes, if I happen to have a blemish, I will try to cover that so as not to affect people's breakfasts anymore than I do just by my mere presence. At my age, I'm actually happy to get a little pimple now and then. It makes me feel young. (Unless, it actually means I'm already entering the adolescence of my second childhood!) But, in this new age of HD, that minimalist approach may not cut it and that brings us back to today's make-up session.

I don't have any idea how high definition TV works. Frankly, I'm still trying to get my 8-track tapes to play. But, as I understand it, HD will make everything look sharp, defined and clear. That means the smallest of flaws will be magnified. For example, a close look at my aforementioned aforehead reveals so many bumps and humps that it could well be a relief map of one of the moons of Jupiter. There is a scar from a time I got hit in the head by a rock thrown by one of my brothers. He claimed he was just trying skip stones in the lake. Oddly, we were visiting Death Valley at the time. In High Def, the scar actually resembles the Grand Canyon...if you look closely you can see a team of pack mules and Gabby Hayes. Near that monument to brotherly love, is a bump. I'm not sure what it is. It's just a bump. One explanation is that the same people who built Stonehenge once used this bump to tell time. They called it Stonehead. In HD, this little fleshy molehill becomes a mountain of skin. In fact, you'd need a Sherpa just to get from one side to the other. Those two attributes are accented by increasingly deep furrows brought on by having four children. So, while they may not be too noticeable on a 13 inch black and white Zenith, in HD, those elements tend to overwhelm the hapless viewer. And, that's just my forehead. In HD, the bags under my eyes would have to be checked prior to boarding if I was flying somewhere. The pores on my nose begin to resemble a Putt-Putt Golf for fleas which I don't mind except for the windmill hole. The crooked nature of my teeth would embarrass Kukla and Fran, not to mention Ollie. My chin(s) and jowls begin to vibrate like a tank of Jello after a wrestling match between Roseanne and Rosie O' Donnell. (This is the second day in a row I've mentioned someone named Rosie. Yesterday, it was Rosey Grier. Tomorrow I will have to work in a reference to Rosie the Riveter.) The bottom line is that my face may start to look like my bottom line if I don't pay attention to the expert.

So, I'm off to see the wizard of aaahhhs. I don't have high hopes. If they're going to change the technology of broadcasting, I wish they could make it so a person looks ten years younger and 20 pounds lighter. I'd like to think that, even with all the attention paid to the appearance side of things, it is still content that matters. Never mind. I'm on even thinner ice looking at it that way.