Inside Ophelia: Day Three (Finally...)

“...Stewart Pittman is standing by live in Carolina Beach and joins us now, Stewart?”

I opened my mouth and began talking, but didn’t really listen to what I had to say. I’ve found that, for me, there’s no quicker way to mangle a live shot than to over-prepare or concentrate too hard. Back when I first began going live in the early nineties, I’d make the rookie’s mistake of writing out a script, only to fumble on a word, lose my place and somewhere in the process forget to breathe. This rarely made for a good performance and as a result, I have nothing but painful memories of my earliest attempts at live reporting. But time heals all wounds they say - even botched TV remotes. By the time the proverbial red light came on last Thursday morning, I tackled the assignment with nary a nerve on display. As I scrunched my toes in the sand and talked to Wes Barrett’s camera some two hundred feet away, my only real regret was that I’d rushed out of the hotel room without visiting the Little Photog’s Room. As a result, it was all I could do to stand and deliver the news without dashing offscreen to go desecrate the nearest sand dune.

Instead, I stayed on my mark and filed live updates for my own station, as well as Fox affiliates in Orlando and D.C. There really wasn’t too much to tell: Ophelia had taken her sweet time moseying through town the day before, toppling signs, ripping up shingles and flooding streets. But as anyone with functional vision could tell, that had all changed. With the sun poking through the clouds, a light breeze rippling off the ocean and seagulls swooping down on crustaceans, the day after Ophelia had all the markings of a beautiful day at the beach following a bad storm - which is exactly what it was. I’m not sure if it’s solely a matter of comparison, but the immediate daylight hours following a hurricane are some of the most tranquil displays of dazzling nature you’ll find on this heartless orb. Too bad you’re usually ready to pass out from sleep deprivation by the time it arrives. This time though, I was pretty well rested. Having made a beeline for the hotel as soon as I got my orders the evening before, I endured an ice cold shower in a pitch black bathroom before crawling on top of the covers for a fitful night of feigned rest in a humid room. By hurricane coverage standards, I was livin’ large!

Which is why I tried not to complain as I loitered on the boardwalk between live shots. Further up the coast, Eric White and Brad Ingram manned a similar post at Atlantic Beach, not far from where Ophelia had made a fine mess of my childhood vacation spot of Salter Path. I didn’t envy them, for while this latest hurricane was less than cataclysmic, covering the aftermath of even a Class 1 was work indeed. I’d much rather work the front end of a storm; as setting up electronic camp and screaming ’Here it comes’ is far less drudgery than churning out round-the-clock coverage of a community’s broken dreams. Been there, thank you very much - got the t-shirt, only to realize it smelled like feet thanks to being balled up in the corner of a sweatbox hotel room for three days.

No, I fared pretty well in the storm this time, I realized as I watched the sun‘s ray appear for the first time in days. Waiting for the voices in my head to prod me, I watched stalwart locals poke their heads outside, pick up shingles and carve one more defiant notch on their hurricane belts. That goes for me too, though I’m not quite as brazen as those crusty fishermen smoking discount menthols at the local store. I’m just a TV geek, one who loves nothing more than to suddenly race Eastward only to complain once I got there. I did plenty of that this time, though there in retrospect, there wasn’t THAT much to bitch about this time. Chances are, I’d once again toss my packed bags on the bosses’ desk the next time a marquee wind came our way. Until then, I’d man the sand at Carolina beach, tell the good people of the Piedmont what little I knew of Ophelia’s visit, before repeating the same message for Orlando, Atlanta and whatever other Fox affiliate that was jonesing for a satellite hit. I just hoped the Broadcast Gods would soon cut me a bathroom break, before I lost all control of my innards and made ‘The Daily Show’.

Brace Yourself, Greensboro...

News Flash! The twisted circus that is the American Idol Audition process is coming to Greensboro! Memphis was the original location, but when that city went into Katrina Relief overddrive, Idol Producers wisely backed off. Now, through luck (and a little synergy) thousands upon thousands of karaoke champs and divas-in-waiting will invade the Gate City beginning October 2nd. Those in the area can expect no hotel rooms and busy restaurants, not to mention a roving army of delusional songbirds up and down High Point Road. For me, it means I haven't got to crawl into a pressurized tube to once again witness and record the madness of American Idol up-close. Stay Tuned...

(We now rejoin the previously scheduled plodding hurricane epic.)

Inside Ophelia: Day Two Point Five

As the slow-motion hurricane scoured every crevice of Carolina Beach, we TV geeks got our broadcast on. Riding point was Chad Tucker, pushed out on a rain-lashed balcony bathed in electric light. As streaks of water strobed behind him, the young reporter held a finger over his earpiece as Wolf Blitzer asked him a question. Just inside the third story room, Wesley Barrett reached from behind the camera and wiped the lens. In his ear, Blitzer moved on to CNN’s meteorologist for yet another look at the radar. ’Not bad, Chad...’ Danny said, breaking into the line from the satellite truck parked downstairs, “Next up is Fox News -”. A series of telephone beeps and boops followed as Chad wept water from his brow. Inside, I was drying off too, back from another excursion through quickly flooding streets for images to accompany Chad‘s narration of the storm. Taking off my windbreaker, I flicked water on Joe McCloskey, who - still wrapped in bedcovers - manned the motel’s remote control. When Fox News Channel popped up on the TV, I grabbed my digital and waited for the right moment to click the shutter. Seconds later it arrived, with Chad’s image filling up the motel’s 19 inch set. The resulting image captured the satellite delay and satisfied me greatly. Unfolding my laptop, I plugged in the camera and uploaded the picture. A minute later it was on my blog. “Is that cool or what?” I asked the others, excited about what I may post on-line throughout the day. I did then realize we were about to lose power for the next twenty hours.

But humid hotel rooms, long hours and lousy food are hallmarks of hurricane coverage and Ophelia did not fail to hold up these long-held traditions. While only a Class One, the swirling Cyclops of wind, rain and debris inched through town at a wino’s pace, tipping over gas station canopies, downing power lines and sending heavy manhole covers floating down the streets. Through it all, I plowed through the flash-floods in trusty Unit Four, parking strategically into the wind and using the Explorer’s tailgate lid and overstuffed cargo bay for cover. As dim morning light shone through the thick layer of clouds, I was able to find humans to interview. All around the island, stalwart locals hunkered down. A hunched over old hippie behind the only open counter in town scoffed at Ophelia as he counted back my change. At his suggestion, I drove to the marina to interview his fishing buddies, but the gruff men standing in a circle under a fish shack’s roof and sharing a lumpy cigarette didn’t seem to want to talk. Three blocks away, a woman in a pick-up proved far more gabby and I soon had her in the crosshairs of my lens. A few minutes after I left her idling in a rain-swollen parking lot, her answers to my questions ricocheted through outer space.

As did Chad’s drenched image. Throughout the morning, the King, North Carolina native’s face appeared on TV sets across the nation. From L.A. to Orlando, viewers stopped to watch as the young man told in dulcet tones of the worsening conditions along North Carolina’s Crystal Coast. But by noon the producers and suits back at the shop had tired of Chad’s third story high wire act. From a fleet of soggy pagers came the terse order: ‘Get him off the balcony. Get him on the beach.’ With a good deal of eye-rolling and a wee bit of bitchery, we did just that - breaking down our camera, lights, tripod and three floors of cable all so we could set it up a half mile down the coast. Our new broadcast home wasn’t as palatial as the electricity-free Marriott. Instead, we holed up by a dilapidated oceanfront apartment complex, parking our sat truck close against the salt-encrusted building for protection from the wind and pushing Chad out onto the boardwalk as far as our broadcasting common sense would allow. In the process of all that moving, Wesley’s news unit sprung a flat tire, courtesy of a screw-laden piece of gutter pipe that attacked the underside of the Explorer. As a result, I ferried my co-workers from hotel to sat truck; light duty indeed - except for having to traverse a flooded intersection that rose a few inches with every passing. While one colleague would recommend I cross the swollen intersection at a snail’s pace, my next passenger would insist I merely ’punch it’ to get across. I found both methods worked fine - as long as I kept my but-tocks clenched in the driver’s seat.

By six o clock, we were firmly ensconced in our new locale. The wind and rain still roared but not quite as ferociously as before. It could still send sheet metal flying through the air, but it probably wouldn’t drive a pine needle through your skull like they used to talk about on those grade school filmstrips. We even got chance to break a little bread, in the form of frozen ham sandwiches and Pringle’s purloined from the hippie’s convenient store freezer down the road. Having been up and wet since 4 a.m., we were all delighted to hear our bosses’ plans of letting us sleep in the next morning, while our crews in Atlantic Beach covered their portion of Ophelia’s path. This news lifted everyone’s spirits, as while we all prided ourselves as swarthy news warriors, a little downtime in a pitch black hotel room that smelled of sweat socks was more than welcome. With only the ten o clock show to execute before we could all go get some sweaty shut-eye. I was hunched down by the sat truck ladder, catching rainwater while polishing off a Ham-sicle sandwich and a few soggy potato chips, when those glorious plans changed.

“Hey Stew,” my assistant news director said through the antiquated cell phone in my ear, “CNN won’t play ball with our guys in Morehead. Can YOU do live shots in the morning?”

Inside Ophelia: Day Two

It took the motel alarm clock several beeps to convince me to open my eyes. When I did, I wasn’t exactly sure where I was. But the rumpled co-workers shaking off sleep in the lamplight along with the freaky howl of the wind triggered some inner synapses and it dawned on me I was finally inside Ophelia. Then a colleague clocked me with a pillow and someone snapped a towel, setting the tone for the rest of the day. The four guys I’d rendezvoused with the night before - seasoned professionals who took their craft very seriously, were like myself equally capable of Grand Larceny Grab-Ass. I wouldn’t have it any other way personally, but I don’t always get a say. This time though I felt lucky, as all the jokers assembling gear and cracking wise around me were most agreeable - even at this ungodly hour in the morning. With the first of Ophelia’s Class 1 winds lashing the balcony, Wes squeezed through a gap in the sliding glass door to power up the lights he’d bungee-corded to the railing the night before. When he did, the a curtain of horizontal raindrops lit up like a theatrical backdrop - which of course it was. When Danny opened the hallway door to head for the sat truck downstairs, a slicker-clad Chad Tucker entered the room rubbing sleep out of his eyes. Meanwhile I donned my own protective suit of shorts, shirt and sandals. Joe, not due to run the truck for several more hours, lay in bed and questioned everyone’s lineage. Sensing all was well with my colleagues, I jammed a soggy ball-cap on my bed-head and hit the stairwell.

The heavy metal door on the ground level almost broke my nose when I tried to push it open. It gave way at first before a sudden gust of saltwater and warm air slammed it back in my face. I cursed as the driving rain soaked one side of my face, pointed my chin to my chest and jogged across the dark, wind-scoured parking lot. As I did, Danny poked his hooded head out of the sat truck’s rear door, half eaten Pop Tart in one hand, the other wrapped around a cell phone. He shouted something, a smart remark probably, lost in the din of the approaching hurricane. I answered with a one-fingered salute as I ran past, before stopping in front of trusty unit four to fumble with the car keys. By the time I climbed behind the wheel, I was soaked from head to toe. Jamming the key into the ignition, I thought of how I used to dress for hurricanes: heavy boots, two piece raingear, hood pulled tight. Since then, I learned that trying to stay dry during sideways rain was as annoying as it was futile. So I embraced a certain minimalism, choosing a wardrobe much like that of any other beachgoer. It was all gonna cling to me like a second skin anyway I reasoned as I dropped the Ford Explorer into REVERSE and backed out of the spot. Besides, I thought as I pulled out onto the deserted, rain-choked streets.

Zipping up and down the streets of a deserted beach town while a Class 1 hurricane whips sheet metal and shingles across the hood of your two-door SUV is nothing less than intoxicating, affording one the type of buzz familiar to hardcore video-gamers. But since there were more than pixels flying through the air, I leaned into the steering wheel and tried to stay focused. Back on the third floor of the hotel, Chad manned his windblown balcony perch and talked into Wesley’s lens. As he went live (!) for our station back home and countless affiliates across the country, I squinted through a bleary windshield and looked for icons.

It didn’t take long to find them. Stop-lights wobbling in the wind, fountain-worthy water formations arcing off the corners of shuttered buildings, flashing traffic signals swaying on their wires like laundry snapping on the line: everywhere I looked I saw the images I needed, so I parked my news unit’s nose into the wind and with a just a tinge if hesitation, leaned into the door. Outside, stinging darts of rain peppered my face and legs as the screaming wind tried to rip the raincoat off my body. Under the tailgate, I found solace, as well as quite a bit of camera equipment. I grabbed my tripod, plopped it down in the fives inches of stormwater swirling around my feet and placed the Sony on top of it. With a flip of a switch, light erupted from the viewfinder, bathing the camera’s eyecup in a soft blue haze. Leaning in, I squinted through the lens, trying to decide which water droplets were on the front of the lens, which were pooling up in the eyecup, and which were streaming down my fogged-up glasses. I twisted the focal tube and dabbed the lens with a balled-up t-shirt. As I did, a loud metal screech rang out behind me, snapping my head in that direction.

Twenty feet ahead , a twelve foot section of gutter piping skittered across the pavement, driven by the winds toward my truck. Yelping out a curse, I hopped up into the back of the cargo bay as the razor-sharp piece of sheet metal passed a few yards by me. As it clattered out of sight, I sat there in the dark, knees to my chin, laughing nervously. I was wet, sleepy hungry - yet pumped - the exact conditions I’d dreaded as I crossed the bridge the evening before. Climbing back down to my camera, I popped off a few bleary shots of windblown streetlights and flash-flooded streets As the wind drove raindrops up my nose, I couldn’t help but think the same thing I did the first day of boot camp:

‘I volunteered for this?’

Inside Ophelia: Day One

I cant really explain why I like chasing hurricanes, as it is a thoroughly miserable endeavour. But whenever one of these churning monsters takes aim at the Carolina coast, I jones to be there when it slams ashore. Perhaps I wouldn’t feel this way if I fixed copiers for a living, but after fifteen years of habitual storm coverage, I’ve developed quite the nasty hurricane habit. Like a junkie who knows he ain‘t living right, I could barely look at myself in the rearview mirror of my news unit Tuesday as I made one more mad dash into dirty weather. Bright sun in the Triad disappeared by Raleigh. By the time I reached the edge of Wilmington, a long line of evacuating traffic choked the oncoming lanes while angry raindrops turned my windshield into an abstract painting. It was then I realized just what I’d volunteered for again and I spent the last few miles to Carolina Beach squirming in my seat with adrenaline and regret.

I blew into town around the same time Ophelia’s outermost rain-bands did. Snaking through the flashing yellow traffic signals, I scanned the storefronts for makeshift plywood and spray painted defiance. I found only the former, a sunglass shop with all her windows sheathed in expertly erected wooden planks. Swooping into a parking spot off the main drag, I threw the Explorer in PAR K, leaned on the door handle and tumbled into the drink.

Outside, shimmering curtains of rain showers undulated across the deserted intersection. I kept my head down, but still took on quite a bit of water in the two seconds it too me to pop the tailgate. Crawling into the overstuffed cargo stash, I grumbled under my breath and fumbled with Velcro straps. Only when my Sony was encased in tailored blue canvas did I venture back out, knowing all the electronic bravado I brought would all be for naught if water got inside my camera. As I poked my head out of the back of the truck, two shirtless surfers pedaled by in slow-motion, their tattooed necks twisting shaven heads toward the emerging newsman.

“Hey guys,” I shouted over the roar of the storm, “Ya got a minute?”

Bill and Ted were friendly enough types but had trouble putting more than three words together at a time. As they roped to express how stroked they were to ride out the storm, I searched for a way to blow them off quickly. Chewing my lip, I stared at the quickly dimming daylight behind Bill’s (or Ted’s) head. On my hip, an ancient cell phone rang.

“You got time to call this yacht guy?”, Wes asked from the cockpit of his own news cruiser. “We‘re about a half hour out.”

“Sure” I said, not knowing who the‘ yacht guy’ was. Six minutes later I stepped aboard the vessel in question; it sunk a bit under my weight, making it more of a boat than a yacht. Inching along the narrow walkway outside the cabin, I held my camera in a death grip and thought about a storm named Gordon. I was halfway around the starboard side when a older man in a lighthouse t-shirt and white beard slid open a door panel and beckoned me inside. Once belowdecks, I pinned a microphone on my host, a retired state trooper who’d spent the last ten years cruising the Caribbean. In a corner of his potted plant-filled cabin, his gray haired girlfriend giggled at his every on-screen retort. Less than ten minutes after boarding the boat, I gathered my tools and disembarked. I couldn’t help but giggle nervously as I gripped the railing of the bobbing boat. Nary a slip around the small harbor was empty, paint-peeled fishing vessels and gleaming pleasure crafts pitched and yawed along side each other, the sounds of rope rubbing on wood echoing underneath the slapping patter of the hard-falling rain.

‘The places I find myself’ I thought as I stepped off the boat and onto a floating pier of lashed-together boards. In the distance, I saw Unit Four parked by the condo entrance, its hazard lights still flashing in the downpour. Holding my head down to avoid a face full of rain water, I ran around across the Yacht Club’s yard with my camera lens pointed behind me. I was almost to the other side when I heard them.

“Woo-Hoo! TV Dude! Wanna Beer? C’mon on man, make us famous”

I looked up and squinted through the deluge. Three stories up a small group of young locals loitered and grinned outside the condo’s covered porch. Cigarette smoke hung over their heads, mingling with the smell of a nearby grill’s sizzling contents. Low voices and raucous laughter rang out from behind the screen, punctuating the sound of the wind howling through the breezeway. Climbing the condo‘s steps, I smiled and waved, grateful to have found a bonafide hurricane party to put on the ten o clock news. When I stepped onto their landing, the inebriated foursome clapped and cheered, welcoming me to their gathering like a guest of honor. As they all began talking at once, I pinned a lapel microphone on the soberest one’s shirt and peppered him with questions. Through fumes borne of an Old Milwaukee can, he spoke of how the boats berthed below would float up over their slips should the water level rise enough. I made a mental note to check back later on the area as drops of rainwater slid off my eyebrows and straight into my upturned viewfinder, distorting the drunk man‘s image. I was wiping off the water with a rain-soaked sleeve when my cell phone rang for the fifteenth time that day.

“Stewie, we’re at the Marriott. Chad needs your disc so he can log it. Didya get anything?” I could hear tinny audio playing at fast speed in the background, along with a considerable amount of trash talk.

“Yeah...good stuff too”, I said, fumbling through my run-bag for the feel of my small digital camera. Across the screened-in porch, the guy I‘d been interviewing convulsed with tipsy giggles as his friends fought to high-five him. I ran my fingers under the soaking wet station ball-cap and pressed the old phone to my ear. “Lemme say goodbye to my new best friends and I’ll be right there -”

(To Be Continued...)

Redemption in Thibadoux

With my own sudden jaunt to the coast this week, I’ve neglected updating you on the ‘Cajun Country Convoy’. The last time we checked in with these crusty volunteers, they were erecting a makeshift grocery store in Thidaboux, Louisiana for the mountain of merchandise donated by the good people of Pitt County, North Carolina. Since then they’ve hit the road, ferrying truckloads of supplies to the many Bayou towns nearly wiped off the map by Hurricane Katrina. Yesterday they rolled into Pointe Aux Chenes, a backwaters island isolated from most relief supplies. From his shotgun seat in the caravan, The Daily Reflector’s Paul Dunn files another splendid dispatch:

Crawling at a parade's pace, the convoy's six vehicles wound its way past Cajun camp homes raised 9-10 feet above bayou level. Some volunteers rode, others walked alongside. At each home, enthusiastic, tireless men and women rushed to front doors asking people what they still needed. Most asked for water, baby things, medical supplies and paper products. Nerf balls and plastic jewelry thrilled the kids, who raced out with their mothers to see what was going on.

"Thank you very, very, very much," residents repeated as they received goods.
Our Father's House of Fellowship and Restoration assistant pastor Leon Brunet III marveled at the relief effort.

Riddle retrieved a Nerf football from his truck, reared back and fired a wobbly spiral toward a boy standing by the open window of a parked car. The ball missed the boy, but nearly landed in the car's window. No matter. With quick reactions, the kid grabbed the bouncing toy and raced away toward his home.

At another stop, Gonzalez jumped out of the truck, ran up to an idling school bus and popped a couple of Nerf footballs into the open windows. The kids grinned. Gonzalez grinned back. The Greenville building contractor had been waiting for this day, he said. "Today, I felt great, and it was the reason we were down here: to help the people," Gonzalez said. "I'm tired, but I'm tickled to death that we were able to help them, here. This makes you realize how lucky we are, doesn't it?"

After visiting just about every home in the area that still needed supplies, the group decided to call it a day. The trailer they'd been pulling was considerably lighter than it had been two hours before.

A final stop at the church, a quick prayer, heartfelt thanks in both directions, and the relief workers headed back to Thibodaux, sweaty and exhausted, but happy.

"I wasn't sure we'd ever get back today," said Carney, who'd rode the entire distribution route on the back of the open-bed trailer. "This was a lot of work, but we did what we set out to do, and the appreciation from the people here was just wonderful. I'm grateful we were able to help them."

This morning, three of the four men will begin the long drive back home. Dick Carney, organizer of the relief effort and my once estranged father, will stay in the area for at least another week. I love Dunn’s description of the Old Goat riding on the open bed trailer, offering help and humor to those who really need it. Wish he’d answer his cell phone...

A Sure Sign of the Apocalypse

VIA ENCDTV, A SHOCKING IMAGE OF WORLDS COLLIDING!!!

Okay, so it's just two dudes sitting on a news set. Still, as anyone who's watched local TV news East of Raleigh can tell you, this is a most incongruent duo. For years Allan Hoffman and Gary Dean anchored the evening news on opposite channels, their nightly images seperated by a hefty click of the remote control. I've been lucky enough to work with both these local legends; though they are starkly different men, they both taught me a thing or three about broadcasting. But to see them co-anchoring the same newscast sorta boggles the mind, like that goofy Star Trek movie where Captain Kirk kicked back with Captain Picard. But that's how it is in the incestuous world of local TV News. Old colleagues and ex-competitors never die, they just switch logos. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go prepare for the End Times.

Crew-Call at Camp Ophelia

Having spent the better part of the last 48 hours awake, wet and windblown, it’s awful nice to be back in the Viewfinder BLUES home office. But as I sit here with my feet up, listening to ‘Texas Flood’ and perusing digital images, I’m still a bit storm-struck. I suspect that’s due to sleep deprivation, as I’ve found lack of slumber kills creativity almost as quickly as power-inhaling live truck generator fumes (not that I‘d recommend either). Whatever the reason for my dearth of narratives, I sit here with great material, lots of pictures and not a clue as to where to start. After some thought (and a tumbler or two of highly restorative Maker‘s Mark), I’ve decided to break up my Hurricane Ophelia epic into a few separate posts. Look for diverging storylines and a semblance of clarity in the days ahead. For now, there’s some fellas I want you to meet:

Meet Chad Tucker. Sometimes known as the King of King, this intrepid young reporter was the face of our Ophelia coverage. While the Gods of TV News demand reporters bare themselves to the elements, they’re a bit more reticent when it comes to their fancy electronics. Thus, Chad was the wettest one of the crew - though I contend that once your skivvies are soaked, comparative moisture levels are pretty irrelevant .But Chad didn’t just have to eat sideways rain for hours on end; he had to make sense while doing so. Always the pro, Mr. Tucker did just that, filing rain-soaked coastal reports not only for our Piedmont viewers, but also for Atlanta, Orlando, Los Angeles and many points in between. Here he’s pictured going live on Fox News Channel, minutes after doing the very same for Wolf Blitzer on CNN. That may sound like strange bedfellows, but in the incestuous world of TV News, nothing’s too kinky. Yes, Chad’s drenched visage ricocheted all over outer space before bouncing back to this troubled orb in the most unlikely of spots. But not without some help…

It may look like a pimped-out moving van, but this vintage satellite truck is just as much a character in our story as any of her smelly occupants. Lovingly referred to as the ’Santa Maria’ by her Captain, this rolling TV station is a damn welcome sight when it‘s raining up your nose. Just yesterday, I huddled in its less than vast interior, chopping tape (disc), eating Pop Tarts and talking a good deal of smack while the old girl rocked like a sailboat out to sea. Good times! Equal parts control booth, storm shelter and locker room, our beloved mobile headquarters has traversed the state (and the country) in the name of news a time or nine. I once heard a competitor sneeringly refer to it as ’The Death Star’ for its ominous black paint job, I think of it more as the ‘Millennium Falcon - a battered old vessel still capable of impressive jaunts into hyperspace, even if you do have to occasionally get out and push. If this kind of dated ‘Star Wars’ reference induces your eyes to roll, go get your glasses, as in a couple of paragraphs, we’re going to meet her Han Solo…

But first let me introduce you to one Wesley Barrett. Originally from Roanoke Rapids, N.C., Wesley is everything I’m not: highly-organized, laser-focused, nattily-attired. Hell, the guy dresses like a pro golfer, for cryin’ out loud! That’s no slam, as I’m almost certain it beats the loser-photog cabana loungewear I so favor. When not out bedecking his fellow lensmen, you’ll find him feeding his lifelong obsession with the N.C. State Athletics Department. Here though, he’s hard at work manning the balcony cam as he expresses frustration at the strange voices in his head. No he’s not schizo; he’s simply listening to the producers back at the shop - a great group of folk who would do well to get outside the station once in a blue moon. Exasperation aside, Mr. Barrett is a damn fine photog - a term of respect I don’t bandy about lightly, though it should be noted that my opinion and four dollars will still only get you one cup of coffee at Starbuck’s.

Speaking of coffee, you’ll find none of my beloved blog-juice inside the old Sat Truck. What you WILL discover are hidden caches of snack foods, coolers of bottled water and an illicit supply of assorted tobacco products. Somewhere among all this contraband you’re sure to stumble across one intently-distracted Truck Op, in this case the battle-proven yet baby-faced Joe McCloskey. A solid shooter himself, lately Joe-Joe has taken it upon himself to learn the Ways of the Satellite - a mysterious discipline rewarded only with a steady succession of sudden road-trips and some seriously righteous overtime. That the young newlywed would embrace this monumental task in the first place brings me great joy - for there’s nothing more valued than a cool cat who can tune in the bird. That’s some kind of lame vernacular for a most affable chap who can fathom satellite coordinates under pressure. Joe is that and more - and I’m not just saying that because his saucy spitfire of a wife would bend me into a pretzel if I badmouthed her man. Really.

Last but not least, it is my pleasure to present you with a local legend among sat truck clusters. I give you Danny Spillane. At first glance you may think the guy washing the Santa Maria’s windshield is a mere truck driver. Not true. Highly experienced yet under-appreciated, this veteran of a thousand media circuses cut his teeth shooting every kind of news there is before joining the Sat Side many moons ago. Since then he’s logged a staggering amount of miles in a variety of dish-bearing vehicles. Think of a major news story in North Carolina and the surrounding states over the past ten years or so, and chances are Danny was not only there, but he probably held the day together with his calm yet volatile leadership style. He’s saved my bacon a number of times, from fixing my attempts at fancy lighting to loaning me pair of dry socks once a storm named Bonnie drenched every pair I brought. Simply put, if Danny ain’t at the helm, I don’t wanna go.

So there you go - four friends, who along with your trusty neighborhood lenslinger, drove into the very teeth of a category one hurricane, all while telling tall-tales of the last big storm that got away. As for this most recent misadventure, there were enough snack crackers, peril and mayhem to fill quite a few posting son this humble bog. Perhaps tomorrow, I’ll have a better idea of where to begin. For now though, I gotta get some sleep.

Hard to Blog...

Wow! It's awful hard to blog when the entire island loses power! Nonetheless I have images and stories galore. As soon as I make it back to High Pockets this evening, I'll more than share. Stay Tuned...

Hotel Live Shot

Chad Tucker goes live from Carolina Beach hotel room...

Dirty Weather

The trip was long,

the weather dirty -

which meant SOME people were ready to party!

More tomorrow...

Reach for the Beach

Ophelia is still just a tropical storm spinning off the Carolinas' coast, but the suits here at the shop feel it warrants up-close coverage anyway. Ater a hard-target search of their top-shelf talent, they've come up empty and decided to send me. Thus, I'm hurtling toward the shore even as you read this, with plans to blog about it along the way, (provided I get a wee bit of down-time and a little wi-fi). Stay Tuned...

Interview With a Cowboy

His name is Wesley Hopkins, but I’ll always think of him as the Marlboro Man. Not because he smoked (he didn’t), but because of the careworn creases in his cheek, the no-nonsense cowboy hat and gravely, matter-of-fact demeanor. It took me the better part of an hour to reach the sprawling acres of Southwest Randolph County he called home, but within seconds of shaking Mr. Hopkins leathery hand, I knew it was worth the trip. Before I could even crawl out of my news unit, the veteran rancher began pointing out facets of his compound previously unnoticed. The split rail fence in the distance, the thatch of junipers over there, the stone inlay of a winding walking path - all carefully constructed by the 65 year old grandfather using his grade school education and his complete mastery of the rolling, wooded land. As the old chap showed me a small but beautiful chapel he built from the parts of a storm-damaged church, I smiled and nodded - thinking how it took me all weekend to organize my garage.

But I hadn’t traveled so out of my way to compare job-jars; I was there on business. Mr. Hopkins knew it too and agreed to ride with me to the pasture where the dreadful thing happened. A half mile from his modest house, this land-rich patriarch pointed me to a narrow, rutted path. He made grandfatherly small talk as I steered the Ford Explorer around the deep impressions in the gravel. Right around the middle of nowhere, Mr. Hopkins motioned for me to stop, hopped out rather spry-like for a man of his vintage, and unfastened a drooping metal rope from a post the size of a flag pole. Before I could tell him my citified SUV was only two -wheel drive, the grizzled landsman pointed to a ridge across a grassy field. Glancing down at the fuel gage needle as slipped below the bright shining ‘E”, I picked a path through the tire-high grass of the sloping terrain and hoped I had enough juice to get back to the nearest gas station - wherever the hell that might be.

From the top of the grassy ridge I could make out the silhouettes of a couple dozen black cows against the meadow. They took in my presence with their usual languor, but the sight of the man in the cowboy hat caused their heads to bob and their moos to thicken. As the herd began sauntering over in hopes of something to eat, Hopkins pointed to a spot of land near an electric fence.

“We found him right here...”

With little to no emotion, the old farmer told me of hearing tires screech just after dusk on Saturday, of checking on his 250 head of cattle, of finding a black angus bull shot through the heart with a bow and arrow. “I ‘spect it was hunters. They problem hunted all day and just wanted to kill something.” The bull in question was long gone, buried by Hopkins and his Bobcat the day before. Sheriff deputies had recovered the arrow and too it away to dust for prints. All I was left to shoot were the remaining cows, a beautiful rolling pasture and a taciturn landsman. While I framed up shots and hit the ‘Record’ button, Hopkins pointed out more features of the land. Every stump, rock and patch of trees had a back story - a hard-earned tale of sweat, labor and innovation. Where as I looked around and saw an inert meadow, Hopkins saw the breathing living components of a lifetime of labor. That impressed me and I told him so. He laughed as I remarked how all his efforts put a younger man like me to shame. Then he really looked at me for the first time, taking in my battered tripod, tropical shirt, my logo’d news unit idling in the background.

“Man, ride around, take pictures all day...you ain’t got NOTHIN’ to do…”

So true.

Thibodaux and Beyond

With its truck tires riding low under the weight of thousands of pounds of relief supplies, Greenville's "Cajun Country Convoy" rolled into this southwestern Louisiana town Saturday afternoon.

And so begins the first of two articles Daily Reflector reporter Paul Dunn has submitted from Thibodaux, Louisiana. Having hitched a ride with the group of grizzled Greenville men bent on assisting Katrina victims, Dunn is now documenting their progress as they unload the massive generosity of Pitt County residents.

After that, they will probably help distribute the mountains of food, clothing, paper products, tools, gasoline and other supplies that are growing daily in a Thibodaux warehouse. The Louisiana towns of Houma and Grand Isle, both on the Gulf Coast, have been particularly hard hit and may be the men's focus in the coming days.

"I don't really care what we do here as long as I know it's for a good cause," Dick Carney said. "I'm relieved to know a system has been put in place and that things are being taken care of."

When I spoke with him last night, Carney (my old man and the reason I’m following all this so closely) sounded positively exhausted.

“We’s whooped - but I think we’re doin’ some good.”

For two days now Carney and the rest have sorted and organized supplies, trying to brig some semblance of order to a warehouse designated as a staging area for donated goods. Thibodaux itself dodged much of Katrina’s fury, but victims from nearby towns and parishes have poured into the small town.

“The damage around here is minor, but you ain’t gotta go to far to see total wipeout.”

Two of Carney’s cohorts ventured into the community of Grand Isle, an area that bore the brunt of the class 4 hurricane. Residents on the small island are still without many necessities. Carney says the Red Cross hasn’t done much there yet, the National Guard just now has arrived and FEMA hasn’t even been heard from. That leaves the local citizens of Thibodaux and our hearty band of volunteers to siphon supplies to the storm victims, as well as the relief effort’s first responders. To that end, Carney and crew have purchased shelving for the supply warehouse in hopes it will help them organize the several tons of supplies that are piling up. It’s not very glamorous work, but these men didn’t make the 21 hour trip for just the photo ops. They came to help - if that means stocking shelves for eighteen hours - so be it. Monday morning, they’ll be back at it - but not before a night of rest.

“We’re gonna get a bite to eat and then get in the crib. We’s whooped.”

The Lost (VoSot) Patrol

Between the half dozen reporter-voiced ’packages’ in your average newscast is a plethora of what we in the biz know as Vo-Sots. Allow me to elaborate. VO stands for Video, in this case 40 seconds or so of highly edited footage designed to run ‘under’ an anchor’s off-camera voice. This is followed by a Sot, or Sound On Tape, better known as a sound-bite. You know, those talking heads you see being interviewed on the evening news; the parade of grimacing faces that appear on the magic box in the corner of your living room right around dinnertime. TV News, it‘s called. Perhaps you’ve heard about it.

If not, congratulate yourself. Otherwise, stop pretending like you don’t know what a VoSot is, because it’s definitely gonna be on the test. Not just the structural breakdown of said line-up item, but the actual procurement of said species, for this is where the real learning begins. I have discovered more cosmic truths about the planet on the seemingly endless itinerary of this pointless pursuit than from any college syllabus. Then again, I never got very far past the syllabus, choosing instead to frequent the parking lot the for the very finest in whatever illicit bent was currently in season. It wasn’t long before I traded a half-hearted stab at academia form a job selling cars, a career I was so miserable at that I quickly abandoned it for the quixotic occupation of TV news-gatherer. That, my friend, is desperate.

Still, I took to the oddball crew of electronic town-criers like the aimless drifter I was. After I proved my mastery of the mid-seventies technology rusting in the studio, I shuffled through a few other in-house gigs, but always with my eye on the open road. Production vans were my first modes of transportation, but they only took to me to the used car lots and rich lady dress shops of the cheesy local commercial circuit. What I really yearned to pilot was a flashy news unit, lacquered to the gills with updated logos and bristling with the crackle of multiple scanner traffic. I’d watch the painted Blazers, low-rider station-wagons and newfangled SUV’s rumble out of the lot ever morning as I polished light bulbs in the back of my faded white Ford Aerostar. Oh to be a cowboy, I thought - dodging deadlines and tracking down news on the open road.

It all seemed very romantic back then, but from where I now sit - in the well-worn ass-groove of my umpteenth news unit, it feels quite pedestrian. Especially when I spend my days on VoSot Patrol - that time-honored tradition of assigning a lone photog several small news stories to gather throughout the day. Ribbon-Cuttings, Mug Shots, Dog-Shows and Drive-by’s - the flotsam and jetsam of daily drivel that warrants mention but not analysis (according to the twenty-something news producer that is, very often a nebbish type who’s been out of Momma’s kitchen three times now, thank you very much). No, after doubling back from town to town, I’ve begun chasing the trivial and the traumatic at about the same speed. Sure, I‘ll still goose the engine for breaking news, but don’t expect me to risk life and limb for the County Commissioner meeting. They’ll still be acting like third graders when I get there, don’t you worry.

So while I stare at the dust motes skittering across my office‘s dashboard, excuse me if I don’t crane my neck too hard at that fire truck that just sped through the intersection. Until I see a giant ape, burning orphanage or flying police car come across my windshield, I’m not about to get off schedule. After all, I got a group of school kids, a hopped-up principal and a cage full of ghetto-birds waiting on yours truly. It’s gonna take more than a toxic smoke plume twisting up from the horizon to keep me from my appointed rounds! Somewhere, back in the newsroom, there’s a metrosexual cracking open his third Diet Coke of the day and watching Judge Judy, who’s counting on me to fill 120 unrelated seconds of his show. One tap of my cell phone’s speed-dial feature and warm soda shoots out his nose and all over today‘s plaintiff. Don't make me do it!

Let the rookie chase the Bin Laden sighting on aisle five, I’M on VoSot Patrol…

Remembering 9/11

I was wrapping up an interview with a pair of visiting Russian cardiologists Tuesday morning when a pale-looking PR guy motioned me out of the conference room.

"You may want to reconsider waiting. A plane just crashed into the World Trade Center...."

The tone of his voice told me he was serious, and the implications of such an impossibility raced through my mind as I gathered up my gear. Minutes later I was behind the wheel of my marked news unit. As I weaved an angry thread through the maze of morning traffic, frightened voices describing unimaginable scenes poured from the Explorer's speakers. Leaning forward, I punched the accelerator and tried not to look at the speedometer. Suddenly the pager on my belt started humming and vibrating - an hourly occurrence that now sent chills down my spine. Not bothering to even look at it, I took a hard right and pulled into the TV station parking lot.

The smokers on the loading ramp were uncharacteristically quiet. A friend of mine from sales seemed to be crying as she fumbled for a cigarette. She made a point of looking away as I approached her. Before I could say anything the door burst open and a portly photog lumbered out, straining under the weight of his tripod and camera.

"Crazy-ass Bullshit", he muttered -- as he headed for the only remaining live truck in the parking lot.

Inside, the newsroom was an exercise in bedlam. Frantic staffers ran about in every direction - phones rang unanswered, tape machines reeled and screamed. Every one of the thirty or so TV monitors in the cavernous hall were on - all blaring impossible images of airplanes slamming into skyscrapers. In the feed room, two normally glazed-eyed young editors were yelling satellite coordinates with the fervor of sinking submariners. Just past them I could see anchor row was empty - the on-air talent having abandoned their desks for the studio down the hall.

"Where the hell are Hoyle and Donna?" shrieked a frazzled producer in
tie-dye as a nearby cluster of sharp-suited managers debated where to send the sat truck. I pushed past them all, feeling somehow impervious to the mad action all around me. Squeezing past another wide-eyed colleague fumbling with a handful of scripts, I ducked into the morning conference room.

It was empty, and that struck me as strange - though all my attention was drawn to the bank of televisions. Six 25 inch sets, set side by side flush in the wall above the giant dry-erase board. Below the screens small neat placards identified their permanent settings -- CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN FOX #1 and 2. Countless are the times I've drifted off during a morning meeting in that very room, scanning the row of monitors for something interesting as a co-worker pitched their story idea. But now as I collapsed into a chair and looked up, the usual parade of talk-show blather had been replaced by a surreal montage of mortally wounded skyscrapers.

From behind me a good friend's voice. "Did you SEE that shot?" Wick
plopped into a chair beside me and handed me a tape. Before I could answer - another voice, that of an assignment editor broke over the loudspeaker --

"Swensen, load up in five and meet Zander at the airport!" Wick snorted in contempt as we both took in the madness onscreen. Suddenly the room filled as the gaggle of suits stammered in, our stiletto-heeled news director leading the way. "Hell no we're not showing Queen Latifah, Layton says stick with network. Call Foster and Gina, get em on set and order pizza. Send whoever we got to the airport - Swensen why the hell are you still here?"

Looking over at my surly photog friend, I noticed for the first time just how punch-drunk he appeared. He opened his mouth but before he could utter a caustic reply, the sound of a woman's shriek filled the air. Heads snapped in direction of the sound and we all saw a colleague recoiling from the TV in front of her. Swinging back towards the bank of monitors above us we watched as a kaleidoscope of camera angles captured the incredible sight of the first great tower toppling. Frazzled voices trailed away as the rumbling descent of pancaking floors snuffed out thousands of souls. For once no human voices could be heard in the vast newsroom, with only the off-kilter ring of a dozen phones left to fill the void...

On the Road to Thibodaux

Dude...really do wish you could come with me on this adventure. We could do some serious good. Guard all them hens and I'll contact you via one of my e mail hook ups as soon as possible. -- Dad

The e-mail brought a smile to my face, as I knew Dick Carney was right where he wanted to be. Just last weekend, the man responsible for half my DNA recoiled from the images of anarchy radiating from the Gulf Coast. Desperate to help, he posted his wish to assist on a Presbyterian website. Twenty four hours later his phone rang. The feeble voice on the other end identified himself as the preacher of a 120-member church in Thibodaux, Louisiana. ‘Did he really wanna help?’ the preacher asked. Dick assured him he did, quickly agreeing to come spearhead recovery efforts and help locate the many missing members of the Thibodaux First Presbyterian Church. The preacher soon hung up, a bit relieved perhaps, but in no way aware of the force of nature he just released by challenging a Carney to come lend a hand.

But the Old Goat knew he couldn’t do it by himself. So he pressed friends and strangers into service, accosting everyone he ran into around Pitt County with a no-nonsense dare to help make a difference. By the end of the week, he’d coerced elementary kids, car dealership owners, local politicians and retailers big and small to donate something, anything to the cause. Boy did they. With more supplies than he thought he could transport, plus a growing pot of more than ten thousand dollars, Carney knew it was time to saddle up. First though, he had to upgrade his mission’s communications base, so he barged into the nearest Sprint store and declared a state of emergency. Thirty minutes later, he walked out with a sweetheart deal on a cell phone package and a discounted ‘air-card‘ for his trusty laptop. When the local newspaper sent a reporter over, he didn’t hold back when praising the people of Pitt County.

"When this thing first kicked off, we didn't expect this kind of response," Carney said Thursday. "The volume of what we've been given has snowballed. I usually have a pretty good feel for what the community will do, but I've been overwhelmed with what the community has done."

Friday morning, Dick Carney, three other volunteers from area churches and a reporter/photographer named Paul Dunn steered their small convoy out of town. Two hours into the 1,500-mile trip, Carney dialed up his youngest son’s cell phone number, reporting in from the rumbling cab of a dangerously-overstuffed Ryder Truck.

“What ya got in the truck?” I asked from my desk in the newsroom.

“What have I got in the truck? What ain’t I got? 600 pounds of laundry detergent, 40 cases of bleach, generators, chainsaws, boxes and boxes of canned food, Pampers, Depends, motor oil, clothes, shoes, toothpaste, toys, tarps, toilet paper…”

I laughed at the alliteration and he chuckled along with me.

“I’m telling’ ya boy - there ain’t no flys on this operation!”

‘No flys‘. That’s ‘Carnese’ for ‘quality endeavor‘. Enjoying the excitement in my old man’s voice, I listened a while longer before bidding him adieu. ‘Pace yourself’, I told him. ‘And be easy on that reporter dude ridin’ shotgun’. He assured me he would and hung up. Shortly after dinner, he called me again. He and his ‘Cajun Convoy’ were inching through Tuscaloosa, Alabama - with plans to bed down in Meridian, Mississippi before making the final five-hour leg Saturday morning.

Brace yourself, Thibodaux - you’re about to meet a character you’ll never forget.

'Five Days With Katrina'

Via one of my true gurus, Mark on Media, a potent piece of citizen journalism in the form of a 197-piece slide show from New Orleans hotel worker Alvaro R. Morales Villa.

Entitled 'Five Days with Katrina', the captioned images serve as a visual autopsy of a slain city. I'm especially struck by the above shot. It reminds me of the time I waded through the hip-deep floodwaters of downtown Grifton, gear held high and scanning the murky surface for that tell-tale slither of evacuating serpentines...

But enough about that. Go check out a sterling work of personal journalism.

Evacuee Watch: Still Waiting...

I was loitering atop a live truck the other morning when a colossal orange orb rose from the Eastern horizon and ruined my shot.

“Son of a --”, I muttered as I reached for the iris ring on the focal tube.

“What’s up?” Jeff glanced up from his notes, a look of concern on the edges of his telegenic brow.

“Sun’s killin’ us, man” I said, twisting the camera’s flip-screen so he could see his silhouette in color. “You look like the first alien coming off the ship in Close Encounters.”

Jeff glanced over his shoulder at the sun’s blinding rays eclipsing the runway behind him, then looked back at the feeble spotlight atop my wobbly stand.

“What can you do?”

“Not much”, I said, adjusting the blue gel wrapped around the bulb’s outer casing. “You can’t out-light God.”

Jeff’s forehead crinkled as the voice in his earpiece talked about a storm named Ophelia. “True dat,” he said under his breath, “True dat...”

And so went the most meaningful exchange between Varner and I yesterday, as we manned a lonely outpost on the outskirts of Piedmont International Airport. For four hours we paced around the corrugated metal deck of the brightly-painted van, keeping a vigilant eye on distant tarmac and broadcasting the monotony every thirty minutes. The first rumors of Hurricane Katrina refu -- evacuees headed to Greensboro had surfaced over the weekend. Since then a series of phone calls and subterfuge reminiscent of Deep Throat had plagued newsrooms across the Piedmont. ‘The evacuees are on the way…no flights are scheduled out of New Orleans until tomorrow…Expect at least 500, if any at all…THE PLANE IS IN THE AIR!’

Soon, assignment editors across the region were popping antacids and scratching out flow charts as rumors, misinformation and innuendo reeked havoc on their daily planners. I’d successfully avoided any involvement in this scheduled chaos until a midnight caller informed me I had less than five hours to sleep.

“Rumor has it the refugee plane lands tomorrow at eight. We need you and Varner at the airport by six thirty.”

Thus, I spent a brisk morning stepping gingerly around the many TV gadgets I ‘d piled on top of our newest live truck as Jeff shook the last vestiges of a two week vacation. As predicted, there wasn’t much to report, but that didn’t stop us from breaking into the endless anchor banter for breathless updates on how nothing had changed at the airport. At one point, more than twenty Greensboro police cruisers filed into the lot, making us believe a planeload of desperate evacuees was surely making their final approach.

That ended twenty minutes later, when, after mustering in a huddle at the far end of the lot, the Gate City’s finest piled back in their Crown Vics, shot us a variety of dirty looks and sped off to fight crime elsewhere. So much for my well-honed journalistic instinct. In the end, we chewed up several minutes of air-time, killed at least two camera batteries and held a bracing discussion about the effect of strong coffee on morning constitutions. As we left, Jeff and I both agreed that we probably woouldn't be returning to this lonely stretch of asphalt.

Until the next frantic phone call, of course.

Dispatches from the Gulf Coast

b-roll.net, Kevin Johnson's globally-known website (and birthplace of 'Lenslinger') continues to showcase the very best in photog prose. New to the front page, a disturbing dispatch from Rick Portier of WBRZ in Baton Rouge, who tells of pillaged lives and plundered faces...

'Wednesday was truly the most emotionally draining day I have ever experienced -- even more tragic than 9/11. I was at the Baton Rouge Centroplex with 5000 refugees. The pictures from New Orleans were terrible, but they paled in comparison to the faces I saw there.

Imagine, if you can, 5000 people who have just lost everything they have ever known: homes, possessions, family. They paced the floors of the Rivercenter and the Arena with expressionless faces, like empty shells. All had harrowing stories of fleeing the storm with only the clothes on their backs.

One man told me of how he carried his nearly 300-pound neighbor across the street to his own house as the flood waters rose above his waist. He pushed him through a window into the house. When the water inside the house got waist-deep, he again loaded the neighbor onto his back and climbed to the second floor, the attic, and finally thru the roof where they waited to be rescued.

Another man told me he watched through his kitchen window as looters beat his neighbor to death then ran-sacked his home.'

Now go read the whole thing (click on Stories from Hurricane Katrina). It'll give you something to think about the next time you're peeking through your fingers at some horrible news footage you just can't bring yourself to ignore.

Operation Thibodaux: Loading Up

I’d simply be remiss in my duties as an honest blogger if I didn’t tell you about the efforts of one Dick Carney - a Pitt County man, who among many other things, happens to be my biological Father. He’ll be the first to tell you he’s no saint, but much like my older brother, the urge to help others is deeply engraved in his DNA. When he called me late last week in an uproar over what he saw on his TV, I knew the old goat might very well jump in his pick-up and head South. I just didn’t know how soon.

But don’t take my word for it, Check out what his hometown newspaper, The Daily Reflector says about him in their front page coverage.

Dick Carney, head of the mission operation at Peace Presbyterian Church, received a call for help last week from a church in Thibodaux, La., 45 miles southwest of New Orleans.

The preacher of the 120-member Thibodaux First Presbyterian Church has only heard from eight of his parishioners since Hurricane Katrina hit.

"We know there's a lot of damage to the homes of the members of this particular church," Carney said.

That's about all that Carney and three other men, who have nicknamed themselves the Cajun Country Convoy, know about the area. The group, including Randy Riddle of Hollywood Presbyterian, Danny Gonzalez of Covenant United Methodist and Homer Tyre, plan to stay at the church and work in Thibodaux for two to three weeks.

When they arrive, they'll start by recovering people who are still trapped in their homes. Carney, Riddle and Gonzalez are contractors, so they also plan to clear roofs, clean up demolished areas and build shelters.

Peace Presbyterian, Hollywood Presbyterian and local businesses began collecting money for the mission on Saturday. In two days, they received around $10,000.
"It's so rare that you find that kind of generosity blossom with that kind of speed," said Paul Lang, pastor of Peace Presbyterian.

They already have around 500 health kits and several cases of bleach and water. They still need a lot more, including generators, cleaning supplies, baby and child-care products, nonperishable food, paper products and medical supplies.

"We're getting some direction from the folks down there about what they're short of," Carney said. "Anybody that's bought a generator and feels like they can live without it, that's a definite need."

There are no doubt scores of people just like Carney who, tired of watching tragedy unfold on the tube, have decided instead to leap into action - but there are none I'm more proud of than My Old Man. Both a clever carpenter and trained medic, he is perfect for the task of rescue and reconstruction. He's also a gifted raconteur who promises to keep in touch with his prodigal son via e-mail while he’s down on the Gulf Coast - dispatches I plan to share with my half-dozen readers. Stay Tuned...

Media Redemption in New Orleans?

For days now, I’ve wanted to tell you how proud I was of my fellow journalists performance covering the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, but with bodies still floating in stagnant water, the time didn’t seem right for a victory dance. Meanwhile, writers with many more zeroes on their paychecks have filed similar dispatches, from the New York Times to the BBC to the Washington Post to USA Today. Despite a variety of spins, all center on the same thesis: The media was KEY in exposing the madness that gripped New Orleans in the days following Katrina.

Like a lot of you, I’m still trying to figure out why leaders from every level of our government sat on their hands while a sat truck army moved into every reachable crevice of the Big Easy and began broadcasting. Never before have so many domestic U.S. journalists encountered such third-world conditions, all while politicians and generals tried to pretend it just wasn't happening. I’ll save that particular debate for the many other frothing bloggers out there, but suffice to say there’s no excuse for an elected official of any kind to feign ignorance of a national tragedy when the evidence to the contrary is blaring from every TV screen in the nation. What do you mean you can’t get help to the evacuees? Stone Phillips is down there with perfect three point lighting!

But I digress. All I really wanted to say was that for once, the electronic media worked as advertised. Long derided (rightfully so) as shallow, vain and celebrity-obsessed, TV reporters and their intrepid crews shone a much needed spotlight on a national disgrace - often at the tops of their lungs. I’m all for demanding neutrality among the Fourth Estate, but if you can point a camera at corpses and squalor withOUT getting worked up, well - I don’t want you in my camera scrum. That said, someone in Geraldo’s crew should have him with a face full of seltzer water the other night, for his eleventh-hour shrieks of outrage truly approached the clownish.

I much prefer the quiet wrath of Shepard Smith, who after days of touring his broken homeland, shut down confirmed ass-bag Bill O’Reilly’s proclamation that all was well with little more than a sour glare. Now THAT’S good TV…

Lord of the Corn

I kicked off Labor Day morning the way most Americans did, butt cheeks firmly clenched around the rickety scaffolding of a wobbly observation tower, fumbling with lenses thirty feet in the air while the sun broke over the rolling horizon of a freshly-groomed corn maze. What - you gonna tell me you slept in late? Not me. Having spent the better part of last week editing American Idol blather only to find out a planned trip to the Memphis auditions would not happen, I somehow found myself signed up for an early morning shift on this very last Monday of Summer. Bracing for balance atop my wavering perch, I scanned the rows of corn for Shannon, all the while repeating the two words that made me feel better for being up at work in the first place…

Double-time. Though truly, my level of recompense would mean little were to I pitch off my skeletal roost and land face first into the cornfield below. With that in mind, I wrapped my leg around a pole and gripped my camera tight as a familiar, folksy voice bled from my headset. ‘That’s your forecast, now let’s go to Shannon Smith - who’s lost somewhere in a cornfield...’ -- ‘Thanks, Roy...’ Shannon’s voice took over and I zoomed in ever so slowly toward where I thought she stood amid the stalks. As the lens pushed in, I picked up their forms, two ladies and having an early morning chat by the towering cornstalks. Thanks to the wireless microphone, I could hear the corn maze lady answer Shannon’s questions as clear as a bell. So too could viewers across the Piedmont. Now if only I could keep from taking a blind step into open air...


Which of course, I did. In fact, I got quite comfy atop my scaffolding as the morning wore on. When I wasn’t tracking Shannon’s distant form among the rows, I sat and watched the sunrise above the expertly groomed field of gold. A light breeze kicked up, reminding me of the promise of the Fall. Soon, the leaves on all those hardwoods would begin to wilt, and fabulously rustic colors would erupt from the trees’ final death throes. For now though, everything was still green and as I stared out over the rolling hills, I realized the smothering humidity of the Carolina summer was finally, mercifully, gone. Of course, I couldn’t help but think of the people down in Louisiana still trapped in their own sweltering hell. That’s when I realized my meager corn maze assignment was the first non-Katrina story I’d pursued in the past week. The Gulf Coast’s plight seemed a million miles away from up there, but I knew all I had to do was climb down to my live truck for a rolling update on the national nightmare. But I didn’t. Instead, I sat up there on my shaky corn-stand and allowed my self to daydream, knowing full well the cell phone on my hip would soon bring it all to an end.

Rescue Bus Fiesta

“Unit four…”

“Hi Stew - gonna need to send you to Winston. There’s a busload of evacuees comin’ into a shopping center off MLK. “

With that, all thoughts of sunrises evaporated. I sat up in my office chair, leaned into the steering wheel and goosed the engine. Any cornhusks still stuck to my bumper quickly took flight as I fell into the fast lane. Twenty minutes and three interstate exits later, I pulled into the strip mall in question. Or so I thought. The lot in front of the Shoe Shop was all but abandoned. My eyebrows crinkled in the rearview mirror as I threw the Ford Explorer into its third u-turn of the day. Halfway through my impromptu donut I spotted the unmistakable profile of a TV live truck speeding past the parking lot. Falling in behind my competitor‘s van, I smiled at the freebie and tried to drive casual - tough to do when you’re the last float in a logo parade. I thought about tossing a few lollipops out to pedestrians, but the wino talking to a tree made me think better of it.

“Actually, it’s only one refu -- guest, a young man from New Orleans by way of Baton Rouge. We had hoped to bring back thirty-five people, but red tape kept them there …”

I pressed a button and marked my shot. Leaning into the viewfinder I rode the iris and zoomed in. As the image of a diminutive politician spoke into the microphones thrust before her, I fought with the low, stubborn sunrays behind her. Every time she shifted from one foot to another, blinding rays took enveloped the tiny screen, causing her image to silhouette. Three inches to my left, a newspaper photographer scrunched face and fired his own weapon. With every pull of the trigger, the shutter‘s sharp bark drowned out the sound coming from the coiled headset around my neck. I wanted desperately to reach down and pull the tiny speakers up over my ears, but with a face full of camera and colleagues, I couldn’t spare a hand. Besides, any sudden movement would jar the pens and lenses of a half-dozen working journalists - not something you want to do before lunch.

By the time the bus wheezed into the far end of the parking lot, the press-knot had loosened; assorted shooters and scribes fanned out among the mostly African-American group of volunteer, church leaders and just plain curious. Six says ago, this ad-hoc committee of congregation members had dispatched six of it own to Louisiana, in a local tour bus full of donated food, bottled water and good intentions. Today, as the very bus glided in and hissed to a stop - it’s familiar flat windshield a good deal grimier, heartfelt applause broke out among both the grinning and the embittered. With an eye on the other camera-heads in the crowd, I glided forward, letting my square lens-hood part the throng. By the time the doors of the bus hissed open, I held the entire de-boarding process at point-blank range. As the wall of lenses, loiterers and looky-loos tightened behind me, I pressed my eye into the viewfinder and wondered what was exactly that was pressing into my kidneys.

"Welcome to Winston-Salem!”

A tall skinny black man in a pale green shirt stepped from the shadows of the bus and into the bright sunlight. Cupping a hand over his eyes, he surveyed the assembled masses: squinting cameramen, beaming choir members, fresh-scrubbed children holding hand made signs. Through the blue haze of my XD’s eyepiece, I tracked the nervous look on the young man’s face as he took in the crowd in slow-motion wonder. We had to be a curious sight to this beleaguered traveler, total strangers putting on a conqueror’s return. For a moment, I thought the guy was going to turn around and get back on a bus, but after a few hard gulps, Rendell Bartholomew of the west bank of New Orleans smiled and waved to the grateful crush of onlookers, who instantly roared in approval. Perhaps the displaced Wal-Mart employee with only a duffel bag to his name sensed how badly we all needed a hero to cheer for. Whatever his true thoughts, the exhausted and affable young man hugged old ladies, signed autographs, answered countless dumb questions from the media and generally lifted everyone’s spirits, before climbing into his brother-in-law’s car for a final leg to Virginia.

I, for one, hope he rests well tonight.

NBC Photog Speaks Out

NBC photojournalist Tony Zambado is receiving praise and derision from industry insiders for his outspoken assessment of the anarchy at the New Orleans convention center:

"There's no support here. There's no foundation. There's no Plan B, Plan A. These people are very desperate. I saw two gentlemen die in front of me because of dehydration. The sanitation was unbelievable. The stench in there, it was unbelievable. Dead people around the walls of the convention center, laying in the middle of the street, in their dying chairs, where they died, right there in their lawn chair.

"They were just covered up. In their wheelchair, covered up. Laying there for dead. Babies, two babies. Dehydrated and died.

I just tell you, I couldn't take it."

Of course journalists aren't supposed to voice opinions - especially those of us with cameras on our shoulders, so its no surprise that Zambado's remarks have sparked a debate at industry watering holes both real and pixelated. A brief sample:

"I don't need someone to tell me how to think or feel in a "news" report. I want the facts. The things he states as facts in the report, such as them not starting riots, no hostility, no plan b or plan a, are just emotional repetition of what he's been told or conjecture. They are things he could not know." - Frank McBride

"I do feel Tony Zambado's first person experience added to the understanding of what was going on during this tragedy. I don't feel "journalism" was compromised because he was no different than any other witness to an event we might interview for a story other than he had video and sound to back up what he was saying." - John "Lensmith" Dumontelle

"Tony Zambado is a hero. His pictures and words conveyed the despairity of the situation at the N.O. convention center. Thanks to him hundreds of lives were saved. If he overstepped his bounds as a journalist... I don't care. He conveyed the gravity of the situation in any way he could. Those people were running out of time. Thanks to his efforts those people finally have food and water today. Thank you Tony." - Fisher

Strong words from those who walk the walk. I myself haven't seen the clip yet (who watches TV anymore?), but I have no real problem with the transcript. As it reads, the piece is what we call a 'Nat Sound Package', an edited collection of soundbites and background noise devoid of narration. These type of reports can be very powerful as undiluted, first-person accounts. Here, Zambado plays the role of interview-ee, he is not the producer of the piece and harbors no responsibility for it's end content. If anyone's journalistic ethics should be called into question, it should be those of Zambado's higher-ups, who sanctioned the airing of an employee's passionate opinion. Personally, I'd like to buy my fellow photog a beer for having the grapes to tell it like it is.

Stroll through a flood shelter full of dying innocents and tell me how YOU feel.

Idol Auditions Cancelled

Due to the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts taking place in the city of Memphis, the producers of American Idol have cancelled the auditions scheduled for there next week. Thus, I WON'T be jumping on an airplane this weekend. Instead, I'll cut the lawn, hang out with the kids, do some reading. I was looking forward to Beale Street and all, but this just ain't the time to make a fuss over ten thousand delusional songbirds. But fear not Idol fans (Bueller...anyone?), producers will soon announce another audition city for the '06 season. Hopefully, I'll get to go, for after this incredibly grim week, prowling another arena floor full of clamoring, off-kilter wannabes doesn't sound so bad.

(Special thanks to esteemed Memphian Scott Hayes for the additional heads-up.)

Misery Through A Tube

A fellow news shooter and old cohort of mine, Mike Durenberger of WNCT-TV, posts a valid question on my favorite message board:

How do we or can we separate ourselves or deal with the depth of emotions brought on by watching our fellow humans reduced to basic, primitive survival behavior. I've been through more than a dozen hurricanes including the aftermath of hurricane Floyd six years ago. That was one thing. What's happening in the Gulf coast region is deeper.

My response:

We don't. We keep our humanity at close range even as we zoom in on the devastated and the downtrodden. Otherwise we're truly the heartless jackals many people already think we are. Sure, we develop thick outer shells, hide our true feelings under a thick layer of cynicism as we make crass jokes with other journeyman shooters and scribes. But the day we don't allow the tragedies we document to shape our soul in some way is the day we become camera-toting robots.

I don't wanna be a robot. Instead I want to pay for my all-access pass to calamity by treating the subjects of my stories with wit and compassion. To do anything less is to betray those we point our cameras at. Am I sometimes a callous bastard? Sure - on the surface. But deep down inside, my heart goes out to each and every victim I witness - whether its through the wide-screen in my den or the tiny black and white screen at the end of that magical tube.

Like you Mike, I've covered countless storms. The one that left the deepest scars on my pockmarked psyche was without a doubt Hurricane Floyd. I will never forget standing amid the flood victims at the Tarboro High School gymnasium. Whole families hovering on government-issue cots, an old man brushing his teeth with a filthy rag, a little girl playing with an amputated Barbie doll...

Those scenes will follow me to the grave, which is how it should be. I use them to help me gain perspective when I find myself bitching about work, speeding past a panhandler or explaining life's many mysteries to my girls. I don't know what well of experience your average accountant draws from in times like these, but I know what the readers of this message board do. It's part of what makes me proud to be photog - and it's what makes me proud of you, too.

More responses to Mike's question can be found here. Read them, as they prove we're not the thoughtless leeches so often portrayed in movies. Most of the time, anyway...

Covering Katrina

As anyone who's been near a TV set in the past forty-eight hours can tell you, the images coming out of the Gulf Coast region are nearing the unfathomable. While the human suffering of the refugees deserves all the attention, I tend to see things through the filter of an overworked viewfinder. Thus, a quick glance at the unprecedented challenges facing many media crews covering the Katrina's aftermath (with a grateful nod to Lost Remote).

During the storm, Weather Channel stud Jim Cantore and crew found themselves scrambling for higher ground as floodwaters poured into a Gulfport retirement home:

"We're not even shooting [video] anymore. We're basically in self-preservation [mode] right now. We're helping people put up boards and sandbags to keep the water from coming in. We've become part of the crew."

A Washington Post article describes how state-of-the-art gear and top-shelf talent aren't always enough when traversing such a hostile landscape:

'NBC anchor Brian Williams got his satellite truck trapped in downtown flooding, a tire and the gas tank damaged. His team stayed as the water rose, reporting from the area and waiting for someone to come pull the truck out. John Roberts, the CBS News White House correspondent, spent Tuesday on an overpass over Interstate 10. He had to cut off the satellite feed between transmissions to save gas. Staffers for several networks are sleeping in trucks. Some NBC crew members have started suffering from digestive ailments.'

Of course, some broadcasters don't have to leave their workplace to experience Katrina's wrath. In Biloxi, WLOX continues operations, despite a damaged building and a fallen tower:

'While the station sustained heavy damage during the storm, they continued to broadcast and are continuing to broadcast at this time. They are also simulcasting through several radio stations in the market. Many WLOX employees have lost homes or their homes have suffered heavy damage.'

But what haunts me most is the following passage from a WWLTV blog, that describes a scene straight out of a Stephen King novel:

'Talked to Donny (news photographer Donny Pearce of WVUE) today for a while, he's in Shreveport with his folks, sounds very shaken up, had a horrifying escape from the city apparently, people hanging on his truck begging for help/food/money....'

I'm not asking you to feel sorry for the Fourth Estate. Save that (and your donations) for the downtrodden and the devastated. Just know that the reporters, photojournalists, sat truck operaters and field producers aren't just phoning it in. They're on the ground and in the water, filing heartbreaking reports that will hopefully galvanize a nation into action. Sure, when the flooding subsides they'll go home, but not without a few scars etched into their psyche. Trust me.

Internet Killed the TV Star

Via the increasingly vital Lost Remote, Cory Bergman provides some very good reasons why The Web is the Medium of Choice for Big National Stories. For starters...

The sheer amount of information is not the best fit for television. TV is a linear medium. Bits of information are delivered in real time, one after another, and then they disappear. There's a finite amount of coverage that can be delivered. Unless, of course, you want to watch TV all day and night.

But the internet can display a wide variety of information and make it available on demand. It's more tactile, more useful than television. Over the past few days of watching TV and browsing the internet, I discovered the most immediate and comprehensive information online. And I invested far less time in getting up to date.

I couldn't agree more. Why watch a news organization's coverage when you can peruse those journalists' source material, not to mention a global collection of pictures, analysis and contact information. From the comfort of your favorite bean-bag chair, you can research a natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina, flip through hundreds of images and clips and donate to your responding relief effort before that stodgy anchorman ever stops clearing his throat.

For now, TV is still the one medium that bests conveys raw emotion. Through sight, sound and editing, television can pack a visceral punch not found in the pages of a magazine or in the clicks on a website. But with on-demand web video racing to perfection, its only a matter of time before that box in the corner of your living room becomes something of a relic. I'm not suggesting that TV's are on the way out, but I guarantee you my grandkids will someday look at a current-day set and ask where the keyboard is.

Bovine Castaways

I usually don't re-run material, but the Biblical flooding triggered by Katrina keeps reminding me of September 1999, when days after Hurricane Floyd blew through Eastern North Carolina, the water kept rising and rising...

I gripped my camera and leaned into the wind as the bass boat plowed through the murky water. Beside me a stoic wildlife officer in designer rain gear stared ahead and gripped the wheel, piloting the skiff through a gauntlet of half-submerged telephone poles. The craft cut a deliberate path through the muddy water, and as we plowed forward, I realized we were traveling a route usually reserved for cross-state truckers. The bow of the small boat slapped the filthy water without mercy, and I tried to fall in synch with its rhythm. I pulled the rain-cover tight around my station’s camera, and squinted at the horizon. In every direction ugly brown water swirled and fermented, courtesy of one bastard of a rainmaker called Hurricane Floyd.

Cradling my camera in my lap, I recorded a few low angles as we skimmed along, before pointing the lens at the craft’s third passenger, a stooped little man in ball cap and soaked overalls. He didn’t return my camera’s gaze; instead he stared into the distance and continued the silence he’d embraced since we left dry land thirty minutes earlier. Bracing myself on the pitching deck, I peered through the blue haze of my viewfinder. I zoomed in on the old man’s weathered face, the shiny water strobing behind him. His eyes were dry, but they conveyed a quiet sadness I’d see a lot of over the coming days. He pulled a tattered rag from a pocket and dabbed his face, perhaps trying to wipe away the vision of the unnatural lake that eclipsed everything around us. The image in the viewfinder muttered something, but the roar of the boat’s engine drowned out the old farmer’s words.

After what seemed like forever of straight trajectory, our square-jawed captain made a sharp starboard turn, and we rounded a stand of battered pine trees. As he eased up on the throttle, the high pitch of the outboard engine subsided to a low throaty rumble. I took the opportunity to dab water drops off my lens as the old man across from me uttered his first words of the trip.

“’Bout a half mile more, just past ’em trees,” he twanged matter-of-factly. “There’s a hun-erd head if there’s a one of ‘em”

I thought about what he said as the Wildlife Officer goosed the accelerator and the small boat chortled forward. Up ahead, a box-like structure stood guard in the middle of the watery expanse. As we got closer, I saw it was a single-wide trailer, the water-line just below its curtain-less windows. Large, indistinctive shapes bobbed all around the pathetic building. I shouldered my beta cam and pushed in with my lens to get a better look, but the pitching deck offered little purchase. Instead, I followed a glint of sunlight as it danced along the metal edges of a nearby road sign - the marker barely poking above the roiling water.

‘River Road’ it proclaimed. Without a thought I steadied up and rolled tape. I was still congratulating myself on bagging my first important image of the day when I heard the old man’s voice break…

“Sweet Jesus…”

The smell hit me before my eyes landed on the target. Just a few feet off the starboard bow, the bloated carcass of a full-grown steer stared back at us. The pungent odor of the rotting beast raced through my sinuses and I hid my face behind the viewfinder. Through it, I watched a delirious green fly pull a piece of flesh from the waterlogged animal’s swollen tongue. I looked away quickly, only to catch sight of another bovine corpse bobbing alongside, followed by another, and another. The Wildlife Officer pulled a state-issued bandana over his emotionless face and piloted the craft through the swirling brown sea of long-dead cattle.

“Never had a chance”, the old farmer said. The worn creases around his eyes squeezed even tighter and he stared off into oblivion, addressing no one in particular. He seemed unaffected by the stench, his weather-beaten nostrils long since given up on unpleasant odors.

“People’s got boats, a damn head a cattle ain’t got a chance in hell --”. AT that, the old man’s voice cracked and he turned even further away, taking in his loss and nursing his pride. I watched the short speech through the artificial blue haze of my viewfinder, punctuated by the steady red glow of the ‘RECORD’ light.

As the twin-engine pushed the boat forward, the age-old mobile home came into sharper focus. As we closed in on the only man-made structure in sight, the number of dead cattle increased. In a desperate lunge for higher ground, the panicking herd had apparently converged on this abandoned trailer, as the passing hurricane had dumped more water on this old pasture than man, or cow, could have imagined. Many of the doomed beasts choked on their own tongues as dirty water filled their lungs. Others had been gored and stomped in the closing minutes of the frantic stampede, their rubbery entrails now exposed to the midday sun. A dozen more carcasses floated in the toxic sludge surrounding the trailer, their lifeless forms rubbing against the metal walls and making a scrubbing, haunting sound.

Our stoic boat pilot pushed in within feet of the mobile home and turned to circle it. At the far end of the front side, the trailer’s thin walls lay splayed open, itself a victim of the storm and ensuing onslaught of frightened cattle. One cow in particular, seemed to have perished during the fight to get inside, his whole left flank ripped open by the sharpened tin. Holding my breath, I rolled tape and tried to picture what it must have been like during those last few horrible moments. The great lumbering beasts thrashing and kicking at each other, fighting to the death in a frenzy of adrenaline and instinct, as the emotionless water rose, and rose, and rose.

“Well, I’ll be damned…” The farmer’s voice snapped me back to reality as the boat rounded the far side of the trailer and we came face to face with the lone survivor of the watery death march. Solid brown with a mask of white on his muzzle, the cow snorted with fear and excitement as he stuck his head out of a shattered window frame.

The look in his dark eyes was wild and knowing, totally unlike the look of bored vacancy usually found in the breed. As our boat made a slow arc around him, he stepped in accordance - tracking our every move. Around him, two more swollen carcasses bumped against his hind legs. Taking us in, the animal roared lowly, seeming to plead for help. I pulled out to a wide shot and wondered if this simple beast understood his perilous state. He had, after all, watched his companions died a horrible death al around him. Bracing myself against the low bulkhead, I zoomed in on his dilated pupils, catching for a second the real (or imagined) guttural pleading within.

On board, the old farmer took off his dirty ball cap and ran his leathery fingers through a shock of white hair. “Been livin’ on this land for more than seventy years, never would ‘a believed it. The good Lord may know what’s best, but I’ll be damned if I can figger it out.”

With that, the man seemed satisfied with the visit and he asked the silent Wildlife Officer to take him back to the command center. As we made our way back through the maze of drowned cattle, the old farmer slumped in a corner of the craft and pulled a plug of tobacco from a pouch hidden in his drenched overalls. No one spoke a word the whole way back, and as the motor droned on behind me, I realized I had a new answer the next time someone asked me what was the weirdest thing I ever saw with a camera on my shoulder.

The 40 Year Old Rookie

Even the most casual of my half-dozen readers will tell you: I'm often at odds with my job. It's not that I don't enjoy my chosen craft, but the pressure and pace of daily TV news will wear on even the dullest of souls. Don't get me wrong, it's been a blast and then some, but lately, I've grown convinced it's a ludicrous way for a grown man to make a living. That's why Everett Aldridge's recent e-mail was so refreshing.

In it, the Arkansas man weaves a tale of wishful redemption, of staring into space and finding an answer - or maybe just another set of problems. In a clear and world-weary voice, Everett tells of how a dead-end kitchen job forced him to reconsider his current career path:

"As I made my way through the parking lot, the smell of beef juice and mixed veggies followed me. Reaching my car I realised my shoes had been wet since 11:30 am. My feet were tired and I could feel the slime of the day oozing through my wrinkled toes. It was just like any other day the long hours and smell of banquet food made me queezy as I sat at the stop light. I Wondered to myself how long could I do this job before I snapped."

The disillusion tailed him through crosstown traffic...

"As I drove down the same boring old street it seemed nothing had changed, it was the same as every other day, except that tonight, a white NAV( news assault vehicle) had just passed me, flying low with flashers blinking and puffs of smoke rolling from the drivers window. As it changed lanes and moved through traffic disappearing around a corner. That has to be a fun job I thought. Going places you have never been, meeting people with interesting stories..."

Inspired by this stoplight epiphany, Everett answered an ad at a local TV affiliate. Filling out an application, he dropped it off with the station receptionist and returned to his banquet hell. He'd all but forgotten about the interlude until a harried manager called him in for an interview...

"After a short dizzying tour we sat back down in his tiny office, he looked at me, a tired painful look on his face, then glanced at the stack of applications sighed abit and looked back at me and said, "you know , I really don't want to have to go thru this whole stack and you seem like you have a brain, so if you can start tomarrow then the job is yours. Be here at 9 am we can get your paper work started." My heart almost jumped out of my chest, I had done it, tomorrow I will be in Television!!!!!!"

I scored my first job the very same way - from an understaffed production manager teetering on desperation (Thanks, Lori!). But I was a twenty three year old punk at the time; my biggest responsibilty was keeping the girlfriend happy as I fought off sobriety at every turn. Everett's a 40 year old man, with all the baggage that come with it. I commend him for running mid-field into a young man's game and hope it brings him the satisfaction he craves, If nothing else, his story and burgeoning blog have made me rethink my own bitterness of late. Why, its almost enough to convice me I'm right where I ought to be in life.

Almost.

Top Ten Ways to Improve Hurricane Remotes

Amid my own ancillary newsgathering, I watched as much Katrina coverage as I could stand. As usual, my colleagues didn’t disappoint, forging new ground in televised stupidity as they perfected the art of the human windsock. I should know; twelve years ago I was the poster boy for questionable storm-tracking tactics. I’ve covered many a hurricane since then and would probably be manning a French Quarters balcony this time given the chance. Instead, I’m digging deep in my salt-encrusted camera cases for the following pointers. I give you...

Lenslinger’s Top Ten Ways to Improve Your Hurricane Remotes.

1. Stop Acting Surprised
If you’re standing in the middle of a hurricane with a wireless microphone in your hand, chances are you clawed three co-worker’s eyes out for the assignment, drove hundreds of miles and put a great deal of thought into your matching rain gear. So for the love of my remote control, stop pretending your shocked that the weather is suddenly shitty.

2. Lose the Wind Speed Thingie
Look I know it seemed like a good idea back at the sporting goods store, but those infernal contraptions are notoriously unreliable. I once had one that worked fine until it got wet. Do us all a favor next time and leave it in the prickliest, right beside the giant thermometer you used last month in that hot car story. You know the one.

3. Introduce Me to Your Friends
Hey, you’re pretty and all strapped to the pole like that, but we all know you’re not out there alone. Put that wireless microphone to use and interview the crew. Quiz the photog about sleep deprivation, ask the grumpy dude in the truck how many granola bars and cigarettes he‘s consumed in the past hour, quiz the field producer on her college days. Anything’s better than hearing you recite the obvious while dodging coconuts.

4. Stop Yelling!
I know, I know - it’s rained sideways up your ear canal for the better part of the morning, but my bear in mind, that heavily-logo’d microphone you’re eating is a highly sensitive directional instrument quite capable of recording your mastery of the obvious at most any decibel. If nothing else, do it for the sound guy back at the studio, who’s no doubt ripping his headphones off and spilling coffee as you screech about how your handheld wind thingie has stopped working.

5. Work on the Wardrobe
I’m guessing the promotions department made you wear that aqua green rain slicker with the oversized logos, but I gotta tell ya, it just ain’t working’. How about an outfit that better represents the average tourist - say a pair of Birkenstocks, bright orange Speedo’s and a too-tight Nascar t-shirt. For the ladies, maybe a confederate flag bikini and cigarette holder? I saw a pregnant lady wearing thisvery outfit at a water park recently and it was most entertaining. Until her boyfriend noticed me, that is.

6. Lose the Cliché’s
I know its tough to come up with original patter when your dodging trash can lids, but using the terms ’steady clip’, ’not fit for man nor beast’ or any catchy spin-off of the storm’s name (Katrina and the Waves, anyone?) won’t win you any friends with the better-versed viewers out there. After all, you don’t want to SOUND foolish while lashing yourself to a chain-link fence and urging others to evacuate, do you? Wait, don’t answer that.

7. Try not to Look TOO Smug
Hey, I realize you want to be there, but Sally Joe Housecoat thinks your risking your life for her! So wipe that silly grin off your face, spit out a few facts and at least pretend your up to your knees in toxic waste for the betterment of your viewers, and not just so you can have something flashy for the opening montage on your next escape tape. We know better though, don’t we?

8. Compare and Contrast.
Unless you’re REALLY charming, countless live shots of you leaning into the wind quickly grow monotonous. Why not fight your way across the courtyard and into the hotel lobby, have a few buddies pry open the door and show us how safety is just a slow-motion steps away. If the power’s off, use your cameraman’s top-light top make wacky hand shadows on the badly-ravaged Continental Breakfast Bar. Just don’t disturb any card games. Those Weather Channel people get real pissy when you interrupt their gambling - especially that Cantore dude.

9. Get an Act
Much of what’s wrong with the modern day hurricane live shot isn’t in the inherent danger in the location but in the lethal addition of hackneyed and banal banter. Instead of repeating fragmented weather terms in a breathless yelp, try something different: a little soft-shoe perhaps, or a long pointless story from your youth, maybe a show-tune or two…Anything that will separate you from the pack. Personally, I always begin my sound checks with a heartfelt recitation of ’Texas Radio and the Big Beat’, but that’s just me.

10. Look Out!
You there - with the microphone and false sense of entitlement: you’re not immortal, ya know. Those flying shards of razor sharp sheet-metal could easily cleave you and you designer rain-slicker in half, POW! - right between the logos! So do us all a favor and keep you eyes open for incoming projectiles. If you’re truly destined to be the first hurricane reporter to buy the farm on camera, at least you’ll have time to say something pithy before your unwise demise is burned into a nation’s collective consciousness. Won’t your J-School Professor be proud?

Katrina Takes the Stage

For once I'm glad NOT to be on hurricane watch. That's saying alot. I'm one of those camera-packing nimrods who loves nothing more than rushing to the coast as a tempest with a title sends everyone else scurrying inland. What a kick! But Katrina has all the markings of 'The Big One' - a swirling monster that could turn the Big Easy into a wreckage-choked cess pool. As always, the media isn't letting the doomsday scenarios stop them from setting up sat truck outposts along the shore, all the better to frame up frothy waves and battered sea-oats behind rain-slickered correspondents.

In a way, I don't blame them. After all, a Category Five storm slamming into a historic, low-lying city will no doubt offer the opportunity for some truly spectacular footage. But at what price?

So far the media has been damn lucky. Despite all the seaside histrionics, no crews have ever been serfiously hurt while covering a hurricane (as far as I know). To date, the biggest victim has been the dignity of all those over-emoting reporters who cling to light poles while surfers and looky-loos loiter in the background. Hopefully, thazt less than lethal trend will continue. The very strength of Katrina should preclude some coverage. After all, transmitter dishes cannot withstand 170 mile per hours winds and sat trucks don't float. But knowing the renegade nature of your average highly-competitive news crew, I'm more than a little worried. Please everyone, stay safe. No shot is worth going home in a box.

Losing Stevie

15 years ago today, Stevie Ray Vaughan died when the helicopter he was in crashed into a fog-enshrouded embankment outside Alpine Valley, Wisconsin. With this unceremonious collision, an undeniable giant in the field of American music was forever silenced. When I heard the news that terrible day I cried like a baby, even though I was already twenty-three years old.

You see, back in the 1980's, when Boy George, Thompson Twins and Duran Duran were filling the airwaves with the frilly sounds of a slick new British invasion, Stevie Ray was busy re-writing the electric Blues guitar. He did so because he knew how to do nothing else, he lacked good looks, sound judgment or a musical pedigree. But what Stevie had in spades was TONE, that indefinable aural quality that most guitarists would sell their souls to possess.

Aside from his incredible virtuosity, Stevie Ray was known for his love of the Masters. Once he obtained worldwide fame, he took every opportunity to cite his influences. As a result he helped revive the career of many a forgotten Blues cat. Just ask Lonnie Mack, Albert King, Buddy Guy or the scores of other musicians whose work I wouldn’t own had it not been for the scrawny little force of nature known as ‘Guitar Hurricane’.

So do me a favor, if you like SRV, listen to his music today. I do, EVERYDAY - for something about this American original, this gee-tar impresario, this ugly little cat from Texas with the blistering chops speaks to me like no other musical artist on the planet. Stevie Ray Vaughan died on August 27th, 1990, but his signature sound will live on forever in the hearts and souls of millions of fiercely loyal fans. Books have been written, tribute albums recorded, and movie rights secured, but nothing has ever come close to replicating the magical abilities or the troubled genius of the late great Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Weary from Battle

What a work-week! 54 hours on the clock, 4 small plane lift-offs, 4 small plane touchdowns (whew!), five reporters, four live shots, three meetings, two airport alerts, one burning eighteen wheeler, countless hours in the edit bay and a few blog posts in between. Needless to say, I’m tapped. On the bright side, I’ve found sleep deprivation supplies the same kind of buzz some people loiter on street corners to obtain.

Brutal as it felt, it’s a pretty typical series of shifts for a general assignment TV news photographer. I usually work alone, turning stories that end newscasts rather than start them. Lately though, I’ve been drafted to the front lines, assigned a foxhole buddy and made to dig while an endless barrage of daily deadlines rain down from above. I’ll survive alright, but forgive me if I’m a little shell-shocked as of late.

Strangely, the nights are the worst. Haunting images of an older, fatter, balder me chasing year after year of meaningless intrigue jar me awake in a cold sweat. Lying there in the cool darkness, I stare into the abyss and review my work-life: so many slots filled, wild gooses chased, press conferences met with indifference. For what? A weekly stipend, a sore back and a mountain of logo-wear...

But it’s given me more, and I know it. For all the wear and tear the past decade and a half have wrought, those same fifteen years have fed my family, stirred my soul and ignited my imagination. I always knew I would write about my life; I just didn’t know it would be the jaundiced tale of a weary lenslinger. I suppose I could switch careers, but then what would I fill up the page with? Reflections of an Amway Salesman?

No way. I’m a news guy through and through, one who looks at life through a viewfinder and rarely understands everything he sees. As grateful as I am to wield that lens, I’m awful tired of pointing it at the lowest common denominator. What I would give for a chance at advancement, an opportunity to do more than nail the shot, make the deadline and man the live truck...

Maybe I’ll sell Mary Kay.

Sheehan Marine Goes 'Kenny Rogers'

As a working journalist , I'm not about to weigh in on the political potboiler brewing down in Crawford. Having said that, I think The Cindy Sheehan Show has officially 'jumped the shark'. From The National Review:



"While news cameras were filming the event, Marine Jeff Key physically grabbed a cameraman from San Francisco local affiliate KGO. Key objected to the cameraman’s shooting position, which was on the same site where the protesters have erected crosses listing the names of fallen soldiers in Iraq"

I'm all for honoring dead heroes, but one of the tenants they fought and died for is Freedom of the Press. When rabid believers from either side run out of things to do and begin attacking the members of the media they've tried so hard to attract, well - it's time to pack up the circus tent and go home.

Back in the Day with Charlie

Via the ever intriguing Nashville is Talking, a delightful look at the newsrooms of yesteryear from Charlie411.com, a broadcast elder of sorts and my newly favorite Tennessee-based curmudgeon. In his latest post, Charlie blows the dust off the teletype and fires up the film-chain to show just how primitive the local news was some fifty years ago, before videotape, live trucks and consultancy run amok fairly ruined the once-promising form...

"It was the black-and-white days of local TV news, and we showed stills ripped from the United Press photo wire--a machine that burned news pictures onto a paper roll. Years later, in the early sixties after color came in, we used magic markers to color the photos, taped them on a board in front of a camera, and presto! We had a color shot of a national or foreign news event."

There's alot more, so go read the whole thing. Though I've only been prowling newsrooms for a scant fifteen years or so, Charlie's post reminded of my very first station - a Roy Park owned, backwaters CBS affilliate that could have served as a museum for dying news technology. Thus, I got to experience teletype machines, paper-chain teleprompters, film room fumes and the pall of cigarette smoke EVERYWHERE. Alot has changed since then, but I'm awful glad my formulative years were spent playing with gadgets from a generation back and learning from more than a few local living legends (like Charlie). I dare say I'm a better broadcaster for it.

Someday I'll return the favor by explaining to a group of jetpack journalists how we news-geezers actually used to run around in trucks with telescopic masts. I'm telling ya, it was CRA-ZEEE!

"What's the Vector, Victor?"

Despite my many adventures in aviation, I really don’t enjoy flying. But yesterday an assignment required I wedge myself in the co-pilot’s seat of a Beech Baron 55 for a daylong crisscross of the Tar Heel State. As always, I followed my camera into battle, though not without a little trepidation. In the end, there was nothing to be concerned about, though the day did not lack a little in-flight drama. More on that in a minute, but first, lets meet our pilot...

Duncan Jones is Sales Manager of Lancair Certified Aircraft and one hell of a nice guy. All day long he tended to his instruments, exuding quiet confidence in his ability to launch and land his vintage Seventies-era flyer. Why, he barely batted an eyelash at the fidgety photog ridin’ shotgun, who flashed a hearty thumbs up one moment and looked positively green the next. Nor did he avert his perfect vision to the rear of the plane, where nervous giggles could be heard regularly emanating from one Jeff Varner.

Luckily I had a lens to fiddle with. With my full size fancy-cam stashed in the back, I wielded a down-sized Sony for most of the trip. It’s tiny controls and attachable wide-eye made for excellent diversions whenever I wished to ignore the fact I was thousands of feet in the air in a rickety five-seater. Forgoing the full color flip-out monitor, I squinted through the viewfinder and reduced the sweeping vista to a one inch black-and-white screen. Occasionally, I’d bump the co-pilots wheel with my elbow, causing little variation in the aircraft’s trajectory but triggering doomsday scenarios in my overfed imagination nonetheless. It was a long day.

Nonetheless, we accomplished our mission and took in some incredible views along the way. From the deliberate quilt-scape of the rolling farmland to the bright aqua pinheads of far below swimming pools to the billowing behemoths of cumulus cloud just off the wing, planet Earth is incredible from every altitude. Only once did things get hinky, just after lift-off from Charlotte-Douglas International Airport. Just before our craft entered the base of a dark, towering thunderhead, the pilot keyed his microphone...

“We’re probably gonna get some rain, a few bumps - ”

Suddenly the plane lurched downward and to the left. As it entered the swirling gray mist, shadows fell over the cabin and deep rivets of rain streamed across the arced windshield. The propellers sliced pockets of unstable air and the twin engines fought for supremacy as the airplane shimmied and shook. By then I was no longer shooting, choosing instead to close my eyes and take whatever was coming like the pansy I am. As the beleaguered craft continued to buck and bounce I heard Jeff yelp a time or two over the headsets. ‘If this gets any weirder...’, I thought. As I did the skies brightened and the turbulence faded away.

Sunshine filled the cockpit as the twin engines hummed in accordance. I looked behind me and Jeff flashed his trademark grin. It was then I realized what would happen if we DID crash. The media would screech of an ex- Survivor’s untimely death while barely mentioning the additional passing of pilot and photog. I’d be the Ritchie Valens to Jeff’s Buddy Holly - if I were lucky! Somehow that notion, however morbid and unlikely, brought me a little comfort up there in the Great Blue Expanse. That and the thought that when I did get back on the ground, I’d have something to blog about.

Waking up on the Interstate

The above image is out of focus for a reason; I was half asleep when I took it. But what do you expect when, five hours after crawling in bed, you find yourself huddling in the rain by some Interstate calamity? Hell, it was all I could do to fire up the appropriate lenses, knowing as I did the mile of traffic backed up on I-40 would be no doubt be long gone by the time any of my footage hit air. Still, it is not my job to question these things, but only to collect the images (and the overtime). But with a full day of flying scheduled for later, those were three hours of sleep I could have put to use in the most righteous of manners...Oh well.

Blogging Togs: The Next Generation

Stardate: 2005...The photograblogosphere continues to swirl and thicken. After exploring its outer realm, I humbly file this report, from the Bourbon-soaked voyages of the Starship Lenslinger, its five minute mission to explore strange new links, to seek out new blogs and the the shooters behind them, to boldly go where no sober photog has gone before - HIC!

From the seedier side of urban Ohio, Richard Breaden shows us what its like to work Overnights In Columbus. Breaden, who need not worry about job offers from the local Chamber of Commerce, says of his midnight gig:

“This is a world infested with drug pushers, pimps, prostitutes, gangs, cops, and the occasional TV news crew. When you wake up at five o'clock in the morning and you see the images of death and destruction on your television sets...there is a good chance I was there providing you the glimpse into overnights in Columbus...”

Damn, the Buckeye State never seemed so...C.S.I. Next up is a reticent young fellow I pass in the hallways at work. What little I know of Matt Wood I like, but that’s one placid cat! I‘ve learned far more about the New Hampshire native from his promising blog Betaboy SP, which details his initial forays into the business as well as his very first fatal:

“Next to it laid a dark colored car with its roof cut off. The EMS crew was doing CPR on a victim in a front seat. I captured shot after shot of the scene. I let my artistic mind take over and used my memory from all the other wrecks to get the best pictures I could.”

If you don’t understand what he’s talking about, you’ve never rolled up on a fresh wreck with a camera you like. You should try it sometime. But first though, come with me to Dallas where a former news shooter - nay an ExTvTog takes a cue from young Matt and describes his boyhood encounter with a news lens, courtesy of a thoughtful one-woman-band.

“She must have noticed me standing there fascinated and in awe, so she did something that most reporters would not do especially to a kid following them around. What she did had a profound affect on my life. It gave me purpose and focus, clarity as to what I must do in life. I stuck my boyish eye in front of that large betacam viewfinder cup as she pushed the play button. I was amazed at the tv magic she had created. From 6 years old, I was hooked!”

Poor bastard. While he seeks the proper therapy let’s swing over to a fabled place called Michiana where another veteran of the p.m. shift punches in. Brian Sapp’s been slingin’ an evening lens for seven years, and he seems to like it that way.

“We try to find the news to fill up that half-hour news slot after prime time. You know the one. Right before Letterman or Leno. We do most of this without any direct supervision of management. They go home and try to forget the day they've just suffered. Sooo...what happens once the policy makers leave?”

Wait - don’t answer that. We all need our jobs. How else could we accumulate such wondrous war stories? I.T. guys don’t have this much fun. Though, they do get weekends and holidays off. Forget I mentioned it. Now beam me up, would ya? My ice is melting...

ConvergeSouth, Coming Soon

David Hoggard reminds me (and every other Triad blogger) that it's past time to start promoting ConvergeSouth. Not a problem. This October (7th/8th) event is one I've long looked forward to, ever since my Blogfather hinted about it that day in his office. What was then vague talk of a 'happening' has morphed into a gathering of giants, a summit of thinkers, hell-bent on explaining and exploring "Creativity on the web for all people"...

That's a hefty bill, but the names already attached to this conference include more than a few 'rock stars' of the blogging world (did I just say that?). ConvergeSouth has other marketable aspects, namely it's price (Read: FREE). Also it's taking place at N.C . A&T, no stranger to diversity itself, in the heart of Greensboro in the fall. But why the Gate City? Greensboro's Internet community has become so active that The LA Times dubbed the city "Blogsboro" for the scores of people who have their own online journals...

That includes me, I suppose. So look for your trusty camera jockey at ConvergeSouth, I'll be there with my many lenses and mid-range laptop in tow. If you need me I'll be attending the many sessions, learning about podcasting, video-streaming and all other manners of web communications from the very pioneers of the forms themselves. When I'm not out back, washing Ed Cone's car, that is. (Sue's too, I'm now told...)