Newbie to Stupor (in 7 Easy Steps)

As a wise wookie once told me, it's hard to age gracefully when you shoot ribbon cuttings for a living. Tru Dat. Still, as I settle into my 40's, I can't help but feel I'm on the cusp of enlightenment. That, or I gotta stop eating that dollar menu chili. Either way, I do feel a bit wiser than I did back when all this silliness started. So while I may never learn to make my live truck levitate, I can fake a positive attitude with the best of them.While I do, check out the seven steps of news stupefaction - featuring actual dialogue I made up from memory...

SHOCK: “Dude, I cannot believe they gave me a camera to keep! And a car! All I gotta do is jump and run every time the scanner burps…How cool is that? Even better, I get to drive like a cop - at least when the police aren’t looking! I tell ya, I’ll never get tired of chasing news - EVER! Yep, I’ll probably shoot news for the rest of my life!”

DENIAL: “Nooo - I’m not losing interest in my job. I just … need a break! Just because I ripped that intern’s head off doesn’t mean he wasn‘t a douche bag. He hasn’t spent the last three years processing mayhem , meetings and murder! So I been on edge lately, so what? Give me one good week at Sunset Beach and I’ll be itchin’ to shoot another groundbreaking!”

BARGAINING: “Yeah, I figure I’ll shoot news for another year or so, then maybe work on my screenplay. Ya know all this running around has really honed my navigational powers. Maybe I’ll go to flight school! Until then, I could make some extra scratch driving a cab. There’s sure to be lotsa jobs I can do now that I got mad skills. Hey- where’d that flyer for the community college go?”

GUILT: “Should a listened to Mom. Maybe if I had applied myself in school I wouldn’t be schlepping this cursed boat anchor every where I go! Just once I want to drive by a car crash and keep goin’. Or notice a plume of smoke in the distance and ignore it. But I can’t. Not with this freakin logo on my car door…Guess it’s my fault for watching all that TV as a kid.”

ANGER: “I swear if he pages me one more time I’m shoving this beeper square up his newscast! So a train derailed into that orphanage -- Big Hairy Deal! It’s not like those kids had a future anyway! Back in my day, we didn’t soil ourselves every time the scanner burped! We had STANDARDS! Huh? What? The station’s on the phone? Sweet Mother of %#&@%^$&@!!

DEPRESSION: “Hmm? Yeah, sure. I’d love to drive three hours to that Liverwurst Protest. Yeah. That’d be fun for me. Maybe the potted meat people will hurl loogies at my lens. Bring you back some hillbilly spit for a set prop. Why don’t you send along an intern so I can shoot a few stand-ups for their reel while I’m at it. Doesn’t really matter. I feel dead inside.”

ACCEPTANCE: “Sooo, you want me to turn the four o clock county commissioners meeting into a five thirty lead AND wash all the live trucks? Sure - I can do that. I can do anything. I once turned a nat sound piece on a Mime Academy. What’s that? The reporter can’t make it? No sweat. We’ll chroma-key her in when I get back…Yep, I’ll probably shoot news for the rest of my life...”

(I'll let you know what phase follows next - as soon as the voices in my head stop sending me to house fires.)

Fergie and the Goob

Soooo, you’ve been assigned to profile a state park and on the day you go there, the place is deserted. What to do? Simple: strap a microphone on the nearest park ranger and hope he packed his personality. That’s exactly what the ever fetching Nicole Ferguson and I did last week when we traveled out of market to Raven Rock State Park - a wide spot on the Cape Fear River neither of us had ever heard of. Upon arrival, we realized Tuesday mornings were a lousy time to catch up with campers, as the property was devoid of any life forms larger than a woodchuck. Luckily, the guy in the Smokey Bear hat wasn’t afraid to chat. When he wasn’t reeling off bird names like Rainman on safari, he was cupping his hands around his mouth and mimicking a certain species’ mating call. At first I wanted to join in with a Gomer Pyle inspired “Hooty-HOO!” - but since I promised my daughters I’d never again do that in public, I held my fire and silently thanked the News Gods for providing us with at least one character. As a result, the piece we put together didn’t suck at all - even if we did shoot it in under ninety minutes. Will it bring home the Oscar? Probably not, but it did make for an enjoyable morning ... hernia, bird calls and all….

Joe Dirt's Photog

I don't know what I like better: the patriotic doo-rag, the Unabomber hoodie, or the fact that dude had pioneered a whole new way to cradle a circa-1984 camcorder. Either way, my forearm cramps just lookin' at him. Much love to Weaver for taking note of this cat at a recent Obama rally and alerting me to the resulting photo. Ya know, the first Presidential campaign of the YouTube era has brought out lenslingers of every stripe, from the newspaper yak with the baked-potato-cam to the college kid with the Radio Shack endowment to Captain Knievel here. Though it's crowded the camera risers a bit, the quality of people watching has never been higher. I just have one question: Where's this guy gettin' his VHS tapes?

Schmuck Alert: Twin Cities Smackdown

This one's tricky. Did a news crew trespass on school property? Did a school official have to get all grabby? Do these pants make me look fat? These questions now linger over the Twin Cities region after an incredibly avoidable affray went down in front of God, Allah and everybody ... Crews from both KARE and KSTP traveled to the campus of Tarik ibn Zayad Academy, a charter school accused of offering religious instruction in Islam to its students. From there things get murky. While the KARE crew - who say they called ahead to gain permission to be there - was left alone, school director
Asad Zaman took issue with the KSTP crew and without so much as a "Get off my lawn!", tried to wrench the camera from the photographer's grip. What followed was a staggered fracas in which everyone involved came off looking like an ass. People, what have we learned? Hmm? Bueller? Anybody?

Okay, let's review: First: When members of the media decide to go on public school grounds, they'd do well to ask permission first. Sure, there's probably some law somewhere stating otherwise, but as a parent myself I can't feel too sorry for anyone bum-rushing a schoolyard. Feel free to shoot video from across the street, but if you wanna hang with the kiddies, consult the authorities first. If you're lucky they'll give you one of those sticky visitor badges. I got about a million. Second: If you're a school official, a rent-a-cop or just some hyperventilating bystander, here's a tip: Hands off the camera! Whether or not you have the right to remove said news crew, there a million better ways than grabbing the lens. It's akin to going for a cop's service pistol. Disagree? You don't know the photogs I do. I got buddies I'd raher punch in the teeth than pick up their rig - let alone drag it off their shoulder down by the school buses.

So, while the news crew fumes and the school officials vacillate, I'm washing my hands of this whole silly business by decreeing a first ever all encompassing Schmuck Alert for the entire Twin Cities region. Ya'll act like you got some sense. Schmucks!

Loser Gets the Girl

Despite a proper upbringing and intentions, I entered the workforce a resounding failure. By then high school was little more than a delinquent memory; the Navy left far fresher impressions - but even those uptight goobs weren't naming any new submarines after me. As far as I know they erased any hint of my enlistment once I traded in my uniform for a wicked new mullet. Community college offered some solace at first, but for every English Lit course that elevated my pulse, a biology class came along and made me feel like a lesser lifeform. Striking out on my own, I found whole new ways to flounder: a one-day gig at a windshield factory, a slightly longer stint as an orderly at the local hospital, even a turgid couple of months selling BMW's to coveting yuppies. None stuck, so instead I turned my attention to the study of late night chicanery around the campus of ECU. There I would have stayed, aging less than gracefully into one of those pockmarked losers known to buy endless rounds of shots for every new freshman class. But alas, I had a secret weapon...

I had a girlfriend. A smart one too; one that held me to a higher standard even as she rendered me agog with a single pair of red shorts. But Shelly was no strumpet. No, she was an overachiever going to an out of state school on a full scholarship. What exactly she saw in me I never figured out - but I stumbled along thinking she'd one day wise up and leave me free to pursue all manners of mediocrity. She did not. Instead, she held my hand in public and laughed at my jokes - providing me with the kind of boost in confidence that only a pretty girl on your arm can provide. Together we swooned - even sharing the same haircut for a couple of years. At the end of the decade I proposed and 18 years ago today, we sauntered down the aisle in newlywed bliss. Other than our love, we had not a pot to piss in. I'll never forget moving in to our first apartment; it took about ten minutes. From there, we had nowhere to go but up. She entered nursing school, I enrolled in the extended poverty program at my very first television station. Who knew that any of it would last?

But it did! Nearly twenty years later, she's still a nurse, I still lift cameras for a living and we're still happily married. Sure, she cloned herself in the form of our two lovely daughters - but who's really counting anyway? I'm not, for I'm way too occupied tabulating the blessings in my life to bother myself with any new math. I just feel bad for her ... Here I wed three species above my own and this poor girl gets stuck with the Walter Mitty of TV news photographers. It ain't right, I tell ya! in fact, I'm going to file a formal complaint with the cosmos on her behalf - just as soon as I shirk this mortal coil. Until then, I'll keep my furry mouth shut, for my bride feeds me on a regular basis, allows me to sleep on the bed most nights and even puts up with my little writing obsession. For this you'd think she'd deserve a professional Hallmark card or something, not just another half-baked blog post...

Hmmm. Maybe next year.

A Day in the Making

People don’t think much of TV news crews but when they do, scenes from local station promos come to mind. It’s true; my cohorts and I regularly bound down courthouse steps, gesture emphatically and race off out of frame - but for every staged segue there is an interminable lapse in action. Take the other day, when Chad Tucker and I decamped near Clemmons, where a week earlier, a bedtime tornado had eviscerated parts of a leafy neighborhood. No one lost their life that night, but sheaved off treetops and a vengeful wind laid waste to countless houses. When another TV truck pulled up Friday morning, the fine folk still picking through the wreckage stopped to talk. Sixty minutes later Chad and I had all the interviews and footage we could squeeze into a ninety second slot and after wishing our new friends aswift reconstruction, withdrew to our rolling billboard. It was then that time stopped.

Okay, it didn’t stop, but it damn sure slowed down. Fresh with impressions of the storm-wracked cul de sac, I climbed into the stale cockpit of yet another live truck and felt the morning's momentum roll to a stop under the seat. There with the half-eaten bag of Cheesy Poofs and crumpled Visitor badges, it sat like a stone, no matter how I tried to dislodge it on the way to lunch. Hey I'm all for desperate measures but there are only so many nasties one can sling with pork chops and cornbread in mind. Hey, does that waitress have a moustache?

URP! ... 'scuse me. Ya know, there's just something to be said for the culinary buckles of the Stroke Belt. Anyhoo, two blue plate specials later, Chad and I stumbled out to the sunlight and made our way to the TV van at the end of the gravel parking lot. Fumbling in my pocket for the keys, I felt the earth's orbit slow up just a little as I lunged in slow motion toward the door of our mobile newsroom' . By the time I got it open, I barely had the strength to lift my bloated carcass up into the seat, let alone steer it across town. Somehow we made it though; Chad and I picked out a lovely hilltop spot across from the affected neighborhood and settled in for the afternoon. He cracked open a laptop and began transcribing our footage. I set the truck up for a live shot, eventually flipping more switches than it took to throw Han Solo's ride into hyperspace. When I was done, Chad still had lots of material to digest - so I decided to help him. I threw the seat back, waved off a few mosquitos visiting from a nearby sewage plant and popped off a shot of Chad hard at work before briefly losing consciousness.

You won't see that in a promo.

Lens Ascending...

There's a mock motivational poster in the above photo somewhere, but in my current funk the caption eludes me. Nothing's wrong, mind you - just a week when the words won't come. It happens. When it does, I loiter and brood 'til the angst builds up until eventually I sate my need to communicate with a java-induced internment in my upper lair. What I've learned NOT to do is fret too much about my missing mojo, for as soon as I grow convinced I'll live the rest of my life as a shackled mime, I'll start fingering couplets of dust on the coffee table again. (My wife HATES when I do that.) So, while I stare at the wallpaper for clues to my next narrative, take a couple of minutes and watch this travelogue on Falls Lake State Park. It's just one of thirty-nine such havens of nature in the great state of North Carolina and I'm always happy to explore their leafy cathedrals - even if it does mean humpin' my gear up six stories of rickety wooden stairway. It's probably the only corporate ladder I'll ever climb...