Columnist Scott Dickensheets: Smile, print boy! You’re on ‘Jintsy’s’ camera

Scott Dickensheets

Tuesday, March 24, 1998 | 10:36 a.m.

"The best thing you have going for you is your willingness to humiliate yourself."

-- Greg Kinnear to Jack Nicholson in "As Good as It Gets"

WHEN I heard that the SUN and KLAS Channel 8 were going halfsies on a 24-hour cable news operation, my response ran the gamut from Hmmm to That's nice. In other words, I don't plan to exploit the situation to somehow get my mug onto the screen. The photo above is all the face time I want and more than I probably deserve.

Perhaps it's some writerly fear of TV's bad magic, that it will steal my tender, poetic soul in a cloud of superficial pixels. Or maybe I fear TV's other evil juju, its ability to add 10 pounds where 10 pounds does not exist -- and where I don't need it. Or perhaps I'm just one of those printosaurus wrecks who doesn't translate well into other media.

Despite those sensible attitudes, I went on TV the other day.

I'll be the first guest on an upcoming episode of "The Jintsy James Show" -- no airdate yet -- on Prime Cable's public-access channel, Metro One (Channels 1 and 48). Jintsy what? Jintsy James is the gravel-voiced diva of public access, host of her own homegrown Sunday evening variety show that is several parts junior Merv Griffin and several more parts Wayne and Garth. From the smattering of applause by the mostly Jintsy-connected audience to its slice-of-Vegas-life approach, "Jintsy James" epitomizes the rough charms of public access.

From what I've seen of "Jintsy James," the episode we taped Sunday is somewhat typical. After me, Jintsy hosted, in succession, a Robert De Niro look-alike, a lawyer who discussed administrative law, a veterinarian who brought Winky the Desert Tortoise, the Jordanaires and a fashion segment starring Kenny Kerr.

Somewhere in there, she made a few minutes for Polly Peluso, a Hollywood gossip with a large swirl of frizzed hair and a Southern twang that could slice grits at 20 paces. After managing to mispronounce the name of "Titanic" star Leonardo DiCaprio she announced, "I gots to get going." She was jetting to H'wood for Monday's Oscars.

Some of them are regulars, members of what James refers to as "my people," an extended entourage of guests and crew members that coalesces every month or so to film another trio of episodes. On camera, James is an exotic creature, a rara avis of carefully combed hair, wide eyes and painted lips. She coos over her guests, asking easy questions and greeting their answers with exaggerated flourishes. "Oh, when's the divorce?" she cackled after I told a story about my wife. Off camera, she is the show's producer, keeping tight rein on every aspect of it, right down to the editing.

My own segment was at once mortifying and embarrassing. Beneath a large photo of a young Frank Sinatra at the Debbie Reynolds Hotel, I tripped over my tongue, forgot crucial information and looked everywhere but the right spots. Some people just aren't TV people. "You did fine, dear," Jintsy said. Uh huh; I got a glimpse of myself on the playback. Yep, there were those additional 10 pounds -- in all the wrong places, of course -- and the only reason I mention any of this now is that if you should channel-surf into my segment of "The Jintsy James Show" -- wipe out! -- you can't say I didn't warn you.