Original MTV veejays have book deal

NEW YORK (AP) - MTV's surviving original veejays have some wild times to share.

Atria Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, announced Thursday that it had signed with Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman, Alan Hunter and Martha Quinn for an "uncensored" oral history of the music channel launched in 1981. The book is currently untitled and no release date had been set. A fifth veejay, J.J. Jackson, died in 2004.

According to Atria, the veejays will talk about everything from partying with Van Halen to a disastrous "Paint the Mutha Pink" contest with "Pink Houses" singer John Cougar Mellencamp. The veejays also participated in an MTV oral history published last fall, but Atria spokesman Paul Olsewski said Thursday that they have saved their "best stories" for their own book.