I’m not very good at recognizing people, though I’d probably recognize Martha Plimpton because I adored her my entire childhood.
So far in the makeup room before taping I’ve recognized only Anderson Cooper. He was all chatty with the makeup ladies. He seems like a nice guy, and he’s blazing trails for silver-haired men on TV so good for him.
But today was exciting. While I was sitting in the makeup chair, U.N. Ambassador John Bolton and his posse came into the room. The Ambassador was probably doing Cooper’s show or Wolf Blitzer’s Situation Room. I thought it was funny because only seven posts ago I was having fun at his expense. I thought, “What a small world.” And then I thought, “He looks like Wilford Brimley.”
When it comes to makeup, Bo-Dog is all business. He didn’t talk. He just sat in the chair and waited for the Polish makeup lady to work him over. He seems like he’s got a lot on his mind and as he works for the U.N. I can imagine that’s exactly the case. He’s probably fantasizing about capping Kofi.
It seems every time I go into make-up I get a different lady with a different technique. Men get about three minutes in the chair while the ladies get much longer. I accept this. I shall not litigate.
Some ladies airbrush my face and some of them do the old-fashioned wiping-it-on-with-sponges thing. I prefer the latter because I don’t shut up, and if I talk during an airbrushing I get a mouth full of makeup.
The worst make-up job I ever had was in the ‘90s for an NBC improv TV show called Kwik Witz. It was a poorly-executed rip-off of Whose Line Is It Anyway? and it wasn’t really improv. The makeup lady made me look like George Hamilton. It was sad for me.
But I digress.
Today a makeup lady made me look whiter than normal. I really felt like an albino. When she announced she was finished I thought she was kidding. I spent my remaining time before the taping asking everyone in the hallway if I looked too white. I thought I was going to come across as a sickly ghost. Even my eyelashes were white. I felt awkward and thought I should be ill.
After looking at the footage I can say it’s definitely not my favorite makeup job. But I don’t think I look like the guy from Powder.
At any rate, I got my Bolton fix.
Brian Sack
I started Banterist in 2003 after this conversation with my cat. It led to all sorts of good things.
Awww, it’s not so bad… and in any case, it’s in keeping with the image of someone newly returned from the sunless northern European clime.
It looks like Glenn got new spectacles.
my, how your commentary has degenerated.
[ Did you hold it in high esteem at some point? -B. ]
Well, the make-up job was… adequate.
Is it just me or are these segments getting shorter? I’m guessing that in two months, they will just flash your face, name and a foreign monument behind you on a postcard held by Glenn.
[ The important guests are supposed to fall silent when the ‘shut up now’ music kicks in. If they don’t, I lose valuable seconds. At least, that’s what they’re telling me. -B. ]