Last week the director of Teen Link, an anonymous crisis line for teens, asked me to accompany him to a taping of Northwest Afternoon and stand in the background while he delivered a short public-service announcement. Northwest Afternoon is a daytime television show that has the same acronym as Niggaz With Attitude. Although the show has been entertaining area housewives and the unemployed for over 23 years, it still has trouble filling an audience and thus requires anyone making a public-service announcement to bring at least 15 people. Thankfully, I was available.

On the day of the taping, I woke up at 8:30 a.m. and found my way to Fisher Plaza East. The entire audience (25 strong) were sitting on chairs in the lobby watching “Regis and Kelly” on a plasma TV and eating muffins. I looked for Kathy Goertzen and asked everyone if they’d seen her. They shrugged. After about five minutes, a short blond girl in a pink sweater vest appeared.

“Hi, I’m Sam. I’m an intern here at Northwest Afternoon. How is everyone today? Are y’all eating the muffins?”

Sam straightened her shirt and motioned us toward the metal detectors, where a security guard patted us down.

“You can’t bring guns to Northwest Afternoon. No guns allowed. Lock ‘em up at home,” the security guard said to us. It wasn’t until the taping began that I appreciated the seriousness of this request: If someone were to suddenly become homicidal, it would most likely be a member of the studio audience at a Northwest Afternoon taping.

Sam the intern followed the group nervously, and introduced us to Jessica, another intern who had the thankless task of warming up the Northwest Afternoon studio audience. Jessica played us a short reel of the show’s highlights over the years, which ended with a clip of something called an “ambush makeover.” A woman nominated by her friend for a makeover is pulled over by a cop hired by Northwest Afternoon. He pretends to arrest the woman. She looks scared as shit. Suddenly, someone lets off a confetti firework in the woman’s face.

“AMBUSH makeover!” someone yells from behind the camera.

Like most human beings, the woman had never seen Northwest Afternoon. She looked shaken and angry, not happily surprised with her makeover.

Jessica stopped the video and asked us which highlight was our favorite. I raised my hand and told Jessica I really liked the ambush makeover. “That’s everyone’s favorite.” Jessica said. Then Jessica told us about the three segments of today’s show. She told us that each segment would air in a different episode. We were not watching an episode of Northwest Afternoon but a compilation of three.

The first segment was about where to find clothing for under 60 dollars. Jessica asked us if we knew who Sarah Jessica Parker was. We nodded. “Good.” Jessica said. The second segment was about a man who lost his job, ended up working at Starbucks and wrote a book about it called How Starbucks Saved My Life. “He was homeless. You, know. Sad.” Jessica said, looking down. The third segment was about dog etiquette. Jessica asked if any of us were dog owners. A couple of people said yes. “What’s something your dog does that embarrasses you?” Jessica asked. A middle-aged woman dressed in pastels and flowers raised her had.

“Mine puts his slimy balls in people’s laps,” she said.

The boy sitting next to me whispered, “I can’t believe I skipped school for this.”

Finally, it was time for those of us doing the service announcement to go upstairs for a run-through. We went into another studio and stood in front of a brightly lit picture of a dining room. The director of Teen Link read his spiel into the camera and I strained to not look irritated.

The rest of the show was a blur: an overweight woman showed off her cocker spaniel and taught the audience how to Febreze pillows, Kent Phillips made a lot of jokes (the underlying theme being “I’m not a gay!”), and a dozen anorexic high-school girls paraded the newest fall fashions from Gottschalk’s (or god knows where) on a carpeted runway. Cindy Rinehart, the show’s soap expert, failed to appear. Throughout the entire hour, I had a camera in my face. I was expected to ooh and ahh. I didn’t ooh or ahh. I tried to look constipated so that the cameraman would pan away from my face. It didn’t work.

At least I got a free Sarah Jessica Parker purse.

Steven Blum
Public Intern