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Cable T.V. Be all you
can be. (but only up to a point, please.) I started to work for
Adams Russell Cable Services around 1985. Adams Russell was one
of the many companies that snapped-up the cable T.V. rights to
all sorts of towns when cable was first introduced in the early
80's. By promising that you'll blow a pile of revenue dough on
"local origination" programming, a town would be more likely to
give you the rights to install cable into that region. What "local
origination" entails is all the crap you would see that pertains
to the town; town meetings, highschool sports and of course selectmen's
meetings. (these were VERY important, why? because the selectmen
were responsible for granting the cable license of course. They
HAD to be on T.V., damnit!)
Of course our department
didn't generate any revenue WHATSOEVER. We basically weren't ALLOWED
to make any money, the equipment was meant for all the kiddies
and retired folks of the town to use. I basically blow about 3
years of my life for this company making all sorts of garbage
that nobody wanted to see. But in the meantime, I start to produce
a bunch of weird videos that I wanted to make. They start to win
all sorts of awards.
Adams Russell was a small company that desperately wanted to grow
and look important. (There's MONEY to be made in that thar cable!)
They notice that our little section of our company is getting
recognition from my awards. I start getting all sorts of executives
patting me on the back. I'm in my mid 20's, I'm thinking God himself
came down and kissed my ass, what the hell did I know. I was truly
impressed with how uncreative and bland they were. (These were
corporate executives fa chrissakes!)
I eventually win an
ACE award for a compilation of comedy shorts called "Mis-Matched
Socks". ACE award stands for "Award for Cable Excellence". This
was supposed to be a big thing in the cable industry, it's sort
of like the Oscar. When I mention this to other people at the
time, they went: "what the hell is an ACE award? You played CARDS
to get it?"
The big awards ceremony
was to be held in Dallas, Texas. The company sends me and my boss,
and a bunch of other executives I've never met. ("Some kid out
in Norwood is gonna win an AWARD for us? Let's ALL go on this
junket and use it as a tax write-off!") My category comes up,
my name is called, I win the big award. The next 10 minutes of
my life gets weird.
I'm walking up to the podium, the band is playing, my clip is
running on the big screen and then some good looking chick in
a slinky dress hands me the award. I almost drop this chunk of
metal because I didn't expect it to be so heavy. They IMMEDIATELY
push me back stage. I'm now stunned by all this intense activity
that was focused on me. I'm standing back stage and start to look
around. I see all the BIG NAMES in cable T.V. back there. Mark
whatshisface who was an MTV D.J. at the time who now has ended
up hocking those stupid "greatest hits of the past millennium".
I stare at him and don't know what to say. "HEY YOU! Stand here!
It's time for your photo!" I'm standing in front of this backdrop,
holding the chunk of anvil when from out of nowhere up-steps DARREN
STEVENS from the T.V. show Bewitched! (That's Dick York or Dick
Sergeant, I always get them confused.) Next to me is this INCREDIBLY
OLD GUY WHO LOOKS LIKE HE'S ABOUT TO FALL OVER. It's Larry King.
(I vaguely knew of him at the time.) I'm standing there right
next to Dick Sergeant going, "That's DARREN STEVENS! I'm standing
next to DARREN STEVENS! I used to watch that show a million times
when I was a kid.! Wow!"
"Everybody look this
way!" "O.K., NEXT!!" Both celebrities scatter. I never
said a word to any of them. They IMMEDIATELY usher me back to
my seat out in the audience. I sit down and my boss turns to me
and says, "SO HOW WAS IT?" I say, "I just saw Darren Stevens."
The rest of my life has been pretty uneventful.
 Take
a look at an article from:
The Daily Transcript
- March 11, 1986
Cable firm nominated for award
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