As Good As It Got

Sure ... I'm standing on a chair in a gymnatorium, pretending to listen to some City Manager while my knees scream in agony, but I'm tellin' ya dude, I'm IN THE ZONE! It may look painful (it was) but this temporary perch above B-Block fodder was the first time I've been comfortable since I got back from vacation. Some people live their whole lives in search of their special purpose. I found mine early. I had a vision while still in my twenties; an ethereal being in flowing robes appeared in the corner of my very first viewfinder and with a glazed look in its eye whispered how I'd spend the rest of my weekdays. I ... would make ... local TV news!

Yeah, I was bummed at first, too - but after a few dozen fat lady dress shops spots and one hell of a hostage stand-off I embraced fresh destiny as only a 23 year old with no other offers can. Cops, Robbers, Crackheads and New Jack Stabbers; I shot 'em all. For the longest time every story I turnedbegan with someone in handcuffs. But a funny thing happened on the way to America's Most Wanted: I showed a penchant for the trenchant. At least that's how I described those epics of unimportance I churned out on my offtime. Let's face it, there are only so many ways you can frame crime-scene bystanders. Give me the underwater wedding, the inmate rodeo, the trash collector appreciation luncheon...

Yeah, the 'the trash collector appreciation luncheon' - but before you give me the same look my boss shot me this morning when I first pitched it, hear me out... We're talking seventy sanitation engineers parking their trucks in a church parking lot and gettin' their grub on. Free stomach juice from a grateful citizenry. Still unimpressed? Did I mention Richard "one of them deals" Petty would be there? Yeah, I know he lives all of twelve miles away, but when the King of NASCAR hobnobs with a room full of garbage men shouldn't at least one fancycam be in attendance? I think so, which is why I chased High Point's Smelliest on their morning run before rendezvousing with them again in a rec room near you....

The moist chunk of television that followed won't bring home any gold-plated eunuchs, but I'm guessing it will stick in the region's throat long after all that crime and grime has washed down the collective gullet. Now help me down, would ya? Dude's on auto-yammer and I can't feel my spleen...

(Photo by ELizabeth Lemon. Photo Editing by Gabbie Pittman)

Spaghetti for Breakfast

Early morning live shots, they're the forgotten front of local TV news. While most day-siders rarely give them a second thought, the day's first newscast wouldn't be the yak-fest it is today without the reliable remote. Band Camps! Crash Sites! Bake Sales! Body Finds! There's pretty much no place we won't send our perky morning reporters - provided we can reach it with our cables. Cable: it's not something you give a lot of thought to, until you've changed location six times within the same damn day-part. Then and only then do you know the joys of man-humping endless spools of cord up three flights of darkened stairwell - all so the toothpaste model you brought along can glimmer and flirt before a suitably cute backdrop...

Aww, who am I kidding? Morning reporters are decent peeps; hardworking Joes and Janets who can navigate their way through crime tape or silly string - depending on the News Gods' many whims. When I filled in the A.M. shift two weeks ago I was paired with my old Idol ally Shannon Smith, who tolerated my grogginess long enough to get us through five days of morning show grind. Blood Drives! A cooking segment! Ringside at the UniverSOUL circus and some dance studio where a lady danced with candles on her head! You can't score those deep kicks workin' bankers hours! Naah, you gotta wake up confused, dress in the dark, grab the reins of a modern day stagecoach and go to some place pointless. Why just the other dawn I was wrestling heavy spaghetti through a downtown doorway when some guy who slept in his clothes thrust a dollar my way...

I'd have taken it too, had I not been draped head to toe in enough greasy tether to tie down a satellite. Add to that a tropical shirt drenched in flopsweat with a penchant for pejoratives and you have a pretty good idea why no one's asking me to make an on-screen cameo when there are meals being consumed in the Greater Piedmont Googolplex. I'm already the flustered brother Shannon never wanted. Allow me to wander into her screen space and it's a good bet grown men will abandon their breakfast to help rescue the TV sweetheart from the glistening madman who's suddenly invading her space. You know, the one who looks like he just had relations with the Meineke Man's soot-covered loose around the lugnuts cousin. Or worse yet, I could simply track my reporter's every move as she/he totally manhandled a passing drunk.

Don't laugh, it's happened.

Sunset or Bust

When planning this year's beach week, I was a little worried about my daughters. See, they're 12 and 15. Barbies and buckets just don't cut it anymore, status updates trump story time and iPods have all but replaced juice boxes. In other words, my girls are growing up. This pains me greatly and not because I now live in a house full of women. Understand I grew up almost exclusively with boys; I had but one female cousin and she was smart enough to stay away from my brother and me. No, what little I know about the female adolescent I've learned the hard way; by going back through elementary, middle and now high school while wearing a dress - or more accurately, a Hollister fitted tee. Which is why I was just a wee bit jumpy about taking them back to Sunset.

Sunset Beach, that is. Located between Wilmington and Myrtle Beach, this innocuous spit of land is but one of many Carolina ocean towns worth your time, but it just so happens to be my happy place. For almost a decade I've spent the closing days of every June pretending to be a local there. With its (soon to be closed) floating bridge and pristine sand dunes, it's a fantastic place to absorb the shore - unless you're looking for something to do. If so, you'd be better off moseying up or down the coast, for you won't find much miniature golf, dinner theater or museums of the weird around here. There is however, respite for the taking, be it in the form of a surf-side book or a drive to nearby Calabash for seafood so good you'll start talking like there's a parrot on yer shoulder. ARRGH!

A-hem. Sorry, I promised my daughters I wouldn't use my pirate voice outside and since they were so good last week, I feel obliged to at least keep my eye-patch in my pocket. And by good I mean complacent, for we did little we haven't already done a dozen times. Grill out, sleep in, boogie board and Bocce ball. Ride bikes around the island, shop for trinkets, stare at the horizon and hurl Frisbees back and forth. But no matter how we spent our days, we took in each dusk like it was a Broadway show. My kids used to roll their eyes when I marched them back to the beach for 'the golden hour'. But now I've taken enough pretty pictures of them to make 'em appreciate that dying light and while they'd be reluctant to admit it, I think they dig this quiet island just as much as dear old Dad. Who knows, maybe next year I'll take them to that glittering scab down the road named Myrtle.

Naaaaaaaah...

Smother the Bones

No doubt about it, Michael Jackson died as he lived: with an unbelievable scrum running slightly behind. And while his untimely demise may have been broken by the new likes of Twitter and TMZ, the pros quickly moved in to smother the bones. That included some friends of mine. Malkoff, Frank, Browning, Orozco, Busse ... they and hundreds of their closest competitors ended the week over Jackson''s Hollywood star - just in case he arose with dancing zombies in tow. So far they're a no-show, but it didn't stop a posse of photogs and fanatics from forming where usually only tourists dare to tread. Size-wise, L.A. hasn't seen this kind of pile-on since O.J. Simpson got away with murder. How long the chattering classes will stand watch over this less than sacred sidewalk remains unknown, but one thing is for sure. As long as A-List celebrities die in scandalous manners, the Fourth Estate will roll up late and gesticulate.

Now step off my cable, wouldya? We go live in three minutes and the Elephant Man wants to give a shout-out...

Lens of the Father

(Via Amanda Emily)

Handing down a passion is tricky business, but James V. "Smiling Jimmy" Pergola seemed to do it with ease. Maybe that's because the famed Pathe News cameraman was so consumed himself. From the Lindbergh baby’s kidnapping to the the Detroit auto strikes to the Cuban revolution, this son of Italian immigrants dragged his glass through every sensation the dirty Thirties had to offer. Along the way he gained a reputation as a fierce but fair competitor, one who wasn't above bringing his boy to work. Sadly that tutelage was cut short when the legendary lenslinger boarded a United Airlines flight to do a story on the safety of Transcontinental flight. A powerful blizzard forced the plane off course; it crashed into Utah's Hayden Peak and Pergola perished with the rest of the passengers and crew. Still, his words of wisdom weren't lost on his son James, who grew up to enjoy a 45 year career as a cameraman on feature films and television. But don't take my word for it. Hear it from the grown up son - who spells out his legacy here.

And you just bought your Dad a card for Father's Day.

Obligatory Jackson Post

I don't take a lot of vacation. When I do, seminal figures tend to drop dead. Last year it was Jesse Helms. Tragic? Not so much. This year while I was slathering on sunscreen down by the shore, Ed McMahon coughed up his last guffaw, Farrah Fawcett truly became an angel and Michael Freakin' Jackson moonwalked off to another realm. I was sitting in a seaside bistro with my family, about to rip into a half pound burger I did not need, when my cell phone began to vibrate. 'In case you haven't heard,' the text read, 'Michael Jackson is dead.' HUH? A check with the chatty waitress confirmed it: the self-annointed King of Pop had indeed kicked it. What followed was a delicate dissertation on the Michael Jackson canon; one in which I danced around the Jesus Juice, the nose-melting surgery binges, the molestation charges, the cryogenic sleep chamber, the fact that he named one of his kids 'Blanket'... What I tried to convey to my two daughters was that that once upon a time the crazy white woman the Brits call 'Wacko-Jacko' was a young black man who just happened to be the most exciting entertainer on the planet.

I was 15 when 'Thriller' came out. While not a typical Motown fan I was a follower of The Isley Brothers (thanks to my older bro's vinyl collection) and deeply enamored with MTV. Back then, Music Television was just that - a 24 hour cable channel that played incredibly new inventions called 'viddy-oze'. I was hooked. And while I couldn't identify with 'Billie Jean' and 'Beat It' quite like I could, say, 'Jack and Diane', even a rhythm-free bookworm like myself could not deny the infectious lure of the dude with the one white glove. Hell, for awhile he made high-waters cool! And while I may never have rocked a red sequined jacket, I damn sure bought 'Thriller' on cassette and danced to it in my room when I was sure no one was looking. If any other survivor of the 1980's tells you different, they're lying.

But it didn't end there. Jackson released more hits, influenced just about everyone, then got deeply weird. I don't know much about that period. The last song/video of his I dug was 'Smooth Criminal' (and if you didn't like it, you ain't got a pulse). I do however know a thing or three about Elvis Presley. Like Michael, he was handed the globe on a silver platter at a very young age and - quite rightly - went out of his gourd. The day he died, I was ten. I still remember picking butter beans out behind my parent's trailer when my grandmother burst out of her home, housecoat a-flutter, yelling "Elvis Died!". 'That fat dude in the jumpsuits?' I asked. Over the next few hours, my elders educated me on the cultural signifigance of the hillbilly with the million dollar sneer. Slowly but surely, I became a fan. I couldn't help but think of that day as I explained to my kids how Michael Jackson broadened his appeal by tapping Eddie Van Halen to shred on 'Beat It'. I'm not sure they got it, but I have great faith they eventually will.

Funny how the world works...

All Hat, No Cattle

Just because I'm picking bits of beach out of my teeth, doesn't the rest of the world is on holiday. In fact Alex Lindsay of the ProVideo Coalition has been quite busy building a shoulder mount rig for the new iPhone. Sure, it's nothing less than ridiculous - but the implications rank right up there with the buggy whip. Think about it: When every other resident of Earth is packin' a cell phone that shoots and uploads video to the web, do we really need legions of professional lenslingers with their laughably large dino-cams? Well ... yeah.

Folks with user-friendly phone-cam in their pockets are still no match for a network of news cameras wielded by pros. After all, some idiot with an iPhone still can't craft the kind of b-block schlock I so specialize in. C'mon - can you even imagine some schlub turning a report on a school bus rodeo or a dog in a funny hat with a camera the size of a candybar? I think not. But here's the rub: The market for feel-good video fluff is - much to my chagrin - on the wane. No, it won't vanish overnight, but with news divisions dwindling, viewer habits collapsing and the twin tubes of the internet overtaking every aspect of communication, there just ain't alot of call for the waterskiing squirrel.

But it isn't just silly features. No facet of broadcasting will remain unchanged by the revolution already in progress. A teetering economy, a tsunami of new tools, the ubiquity of the web ... it's the perfect recipe for a brand new paradigm. This ain't news, of course - but the advent of cellphones that's a TV camera and a TV set will no doubt be seen one day as a watershed moment. We're still not quite there yet, the iPhone's camera is reportedly clunky, but its ease of use and ability to instantly upload changes EVERYTHING. Looking forward to the next large plane crash, terrorist attack, Sasquatch invasion? Few of us are, but when that next unwanted schism occurs, don't wait for the networks to catch up. Go to the web, where the pictures, interviews and impressions will be scattered on-line before the first news anchor can get their dimpled chins on it.

Now, say cheese...

The Coastal Report

As you may have guessed from the lack of bile oozing from this site, I'm on vacation. Actually, I've gone underground; forsaking my fancycam for a fortnight while I live among the peoples here at Sunset Beach. And what a peoples! 'Tweens jacked to the gills on food they're usually not allowed to eat, Hollow-eyed Dads wandering lost among the dunes with furniture on their backs, old women staging surgical strikes on trinket emporiums, Moms barking orders as they slather their offspring in enough sunscreen to spot-strip a Buick. And then there's me: your surprisingly humble lenslinger lurking among the uncomfortably numb, my only protection from recognition (PFFFT!) a half-masticated straw cowboy hat. No, pictures are not forthcoming. In fact, every time someone's jammed a camera in my hand, I've passed it off to my children - who incidentally sling a mean lens themselves. For proof, dig the above sunrise shot captured by my 12year old - hours before her old man stumbled from his sleeping chambers in a pair of flowery shorts, sun-scorched torso and bunkbed-head. If that imagien isn't horrific enough, know that it won't be long before I shake off this delicious torpor and bag a few photos of my own. First, I gotta finish blowing up this wretched beach float. I just hope the kids don't ask why their plastic alligator smells like Maker's Mark....

More to come.

Dump in the Distance

When you're a seasoned television professional, years of experience go into the lamest of live shots. Real-time analysis, borne of eons spent squinting at tiny screens appear in your peripheal vision. Thoughts like: "Crikey! That heffalump's about to off-load!" Such where the words that formed in the corner of my mind's eye Thursday morning - not long before I snapped this photo of Bill Welch dealing with the very same steamer. Narrowing his view considerably, the News 14 vet kept said defecation out of frame, ensuring local decorum - but depriving the world of one more viral video to snortle over at work. And you thought we just stood around with cameras on our shoulders...

Off the Street

Ahhh, the slog - that inglorious task that some stories demand: body dumps, unplanned landings and everyone's favorite - the long-distance pot pull. Such was the case yesterday when a trio of co-workers took to the woods for a deputy-led dash through the brambles of Davidson County. I was recovering from my morning show steak shoot at Lucky 32 when the call came in: seems Grice and the boys found a sizable operation south of Denton. Any news crews wanna hike out to the site? I sank lower in my chair of course, but the trip that ensued reminded me of the good ole days; when chasing deputies with machetes was a buzz to be discovered...

See, I cut my teeth on eradications. It was dawn of COPS and ride-alongs were all the rage. I was but a mullet in training; my mentors crusty one-man bands who picked the police blotter clean. They taught me how to forge good ole boy friendships with the high and tights. Soon my bag-phone rang with invitations to all kinds of Crown Vic conventions... late night drive-bys, prostitution stings, speed trap skeet shoots. All I had to do was get their good side. That's tough of course when you feel like your spleen is gonna explode if you have to forge one more briar patch. Call it the War on Drugs if you must, but after about a half mile of ass and elbows, you start to realize who the foot soldier is.

That's why we sent Kid Nathan. Fresh-faced and quip-lipped, he was just the youngster to trudge through the muck and bring back evidence of the demon weed. Actually, he was one of three (3!) El Ocho operatives on scene, but when you're sending a fella into a tick infested thicket with a hard deadline andthe possibility of being shot by a heavily jonesing stoner, you kinda have to pump him up. Me, I usually start with an anecdote or two about bustin' up moonshine stills back in the day, then move into meth lab territory. By the time I bring up the black helicopters and hard target take-downs, he's so ready to check off his bucket list, he'll carry everybody's tripod.

For a mile or two...

The Dirigible and the Dude

Q.) Why do so many photogs insist on dressing like tourists?

A.) Because they never know when a vacation's gonna break out.

Now I'm not saying this unidentified shooter didn't earn his pay that day. Hell, just keeping up with that Dave Malkoff guy requires some kind of stipend. But having hitched a ride on a flying bladder myself, I know the delights of dirigible flight. It's a great way to levitate; sort of like riding a minivan strapped to a cloud. When I went up ten years ago or so, it was courtesy of the Goodyear Tire Company. As I watched the pilot turn around in his seat and pass out personalized trading cards, it occurred me news photographers weren't the only ones with interesting jobs.

But enough about me. What's the story behind this fellow and his zeppelin? Dave?

Iconoclasts of My Past

In all my excitement about the approaching coastal break, I neglected to report on an important rendezvous. But first, A Message To The Kids: Take note, Junior, You may think you're pretty radical now, but before you know it you too will be reluctant leaders of the Status quo (if you're lucky!). Take the above unfunky bunch. Sure, they're the very definition of harmless now, but once upon the 80's they were part of a freewheeling cabal, a loose-knit cell of insurgents hopped-up on Prog Rock, Marlboros and Meister Brau. Now, look at them: Chemists, IT Guys, educators, some boob who chases ribbon-cuttings for a living. Lame, I know - but it wasn't so long ago these operatives huddled under their mullets and congratulated each other on how charmingly prescient they all were. These days, most of them can embarrass their kids just by getting out of the car. Take a good long look, all you Jonas Brothers out there... this too could happen to you.

Now for what I learned: Goldsboro, North Carolina is a mostly unremarkable place. This very fact haunted me as youth; I cursed my forebearers continuously for landing me in what had to be the planet's most boring community. To this day, I hyperventilate a little whenever I cross into Goldsboro proper, for I have watched enough Wayne County corn grow to last a couple of lifetimes. But the older I get, the more I reconnect with survivors of that distant time , the more I'm forced to reconsider the merits of my homeland. For all its lack of intrigue, some of the most invigorating folks I know came from the home of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base. Knowing that my own experience is but a microcosm of a larger America, I'm momentarily convinced there is hope left for humanity. Then I go to work, sit in on a City Council Meeting and all those warm feelings melt away like so much spilled, cheap beer... the kind teenagers drink when they think nobody's looking.

Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.

Fair and White-Balanced

You can tell A LOT a photog by watching them white-balance. Take this cat. When he stumbled in late to a press conference in motion, a PR chick sidled up and jammed a program in his hand. He never looked at it; just stuck in front of the lens and calibrated his colors. That the speaker he was about to shoot was standing under a spotlight thirty feet away didn't seem to bother him. I like that; if only because it drives the production types crazy.

See for every schlub white-balancing off his tube-socks, there's a pasty shooter rifling through a collection of mail-order warm cards. No doubt he'll find just the right shade of ivory to synch his camera's innards with the room's brackish light - but he'll miss the first seven soundbites trying to decide. I choose The Middle Way... Sure I like to show up early and sniff around the room's edges for palatable light, but if I gotta bum-rush the interstate at dusk and 'zero out' my fancycam's color memory off a passing semi that ain't been washed in a while... Well, that's how the white-balance bounces.

Soooo, if you're a forgetful photog or just a well-dressed ex-thespian who works with one, do us all a favor: the next time you see a shooter trying to Mirandize his camera, hook a brother (or sister) up. Uncrumple that grocery list, point to the sixteen ambulances parked nearby or simply flash him those pearly whites your parents are still paying off. That way, nobody will turn up blue on the evening news, we'll all keep our jobs and those clowns in the edit bay will have to find something new to cackle about. The lenslinger in your life will thank you. This one certainly does.

Cell Transfer

Not since I rocked a Motorola the size of a shoebox have I been so smitten with a cellular telly-phone. It’s just an old LG, really - a battered slab of scratches and plastic that’s ridden my hip through deadlines and drive-thru’s for three years. Sure, it’s an electronic leash, but this half-scorched Tricorder allows me to span the cosmos - or at least keep up with my peeps while I go where every other cameraman has gone before. Was a time I squawked ten-codes into two-way’s, talkin 'bout drive-by's and fender-benders like I was calling in air-strikes. But that G. I. Joe shit fell out of favor as cell towers started popping up over strip malls everywhere. Soon bag-phones began appearing in floorboards and paramedics, news crews and pizza guys could be seen hunched and mumbling into glowing handsets, using more minutes than ever to convey the particulars of their fruitless pursuits. I myself have had a half dozen station-paid models in that time, an ever shrinking parade of handsets that no longer require their own car battery. With my latest cell phone I reached a comfortable plateau…. It lodges in my watch-pocket, ha a damn good memory and sports a picture of my beloved Grandmother. What’s not to love?


Plenty, I'm told. It won't let you text without knowing some wretched thumb-fu they only teach twelve year olds. It doesn't have the foggiest idea how much I should tip the delivery guy and without a few accessories won't make the first french-fry. And they call that a PHONE? PFFFT! They ain't sen my NEW rig - a cranberry-colored comm-link that will spit out dispatches in all eight flavors, not to mention launch a satellite or two. I've only had it a week and already I'm learning which button to push whenever it starts to levitate. The other day I ignored it for a few seconds... it triangulate my GPS position with my most recent Tweet and when I showed up at my shoot an army of dorks with clip-boards and zombie voices asked if 'I could hear them now?' ... What's up with that? I use to roll up on house-fires with nothing more than two cans and a string on my side. Now I can't gut a simple ribbon-cutting without a few new avatars flashing at me? What's next? Wi-Fi in my windshield?

Hang on. I gotta take this call...

Far Side of Crazy

I was taking the clicker around the horn this evening when I stumbled upon this National Geographic special on The Shooting of Ronald Reagan. I dropped the remote. It's the same reaction I always have when I see footage of John Hinckley's misdeed, for it never fails to bring me back to that March afternoon in 1981 when the network suits broke into programming and unfurled a fresh historical document at thirty frames a second. I was but a 14 year old punk that day, not yet a news junkie. But the unbelievable images radiating from every set left me positively thunderstruck. I simply couldn't imagine watching the world change through a viewfinder.

Today, I have a slightly better idea of what that might feel like - though certainly I've never recorded anything that cataclysmic. No so for ABC's Hank Brown, CBS's Charlie Wilson and NBC's Shelly Fielman. They were the three network photographers waiting outside the Washington Hilton that day when a misguided drifter tried to impress a movie actress by spraying the President and his aides with gunfire. Twenty-eight years later, it still makes no sense - but if ever there was a definitive breakdown of that afternoon, this National Geographic special is it. I can't recommend it highly enough, if for no other reason the above photograph. In it, the three network news crews smile happily, minutes before Reagan emerged from the hotel. A closer look reveals the would be assassin himself (third from the left) standing idly by, contemplating madness.

Chilling, no matter whose lens you sling.

A Lack of Happenings

"Honestly you have a much more interesting job than just about anyone I know."

My friend meant it when he said it and I didn't argue with him. But I'd be remiss in my self-appointed duties if I let anyone believe the life of a photog is one of unbridled adrenaline. It ain't. Just ask any news shooter who's tried to claw their own eyes out at the back of a County Commissioners meeting. Or wandered through a flea market five days before it opened. Or wished for death as some expert prattled on about matters the chick with the microphone is only pretending to understand. Yes, like any field of study, Cameramanthropology has its drier chapters. But those of us who have been doing this awhiel have learned to savor those doldrums, for the News Gods are a pissy, vengeful bunch and they can smell complacency from three states away. No sooner than you curse the times for its lack of happenings, some jackhole in the hood stabs his whole family over a Playstation dispute , Mother Nature takes a dump on the tri-county region or Bigfoot gets caught shoplifting at the Circle K. Then suddenly your pulse is pounding through your viewfinder as the live truck throws a rod and your cell phone melts in your pocket. So the next time you hear a news photographer complain about a slow news day, ask to see his press credentials. Chances are the laminate is still warm...

Hmmm. I guess it is pretty interesting, after all.

The Word of Turd

Sure, I've TALKED about it - but the Louisiana lenslinger known as Turdpolisher up and DID it. He wrote a novel! Ten days ago or so he sent me the first three chapters. I was staring at my own blank screen when it arrived; before I knew it I was racing through words I wish I'D written. Halfway past the first chapter, I set it aside. Jealousy demanded I stop reading immediately - lest my very melon explode. Now that I'm older (by about a week and a half) I willingly revisited Rick Portier's manifesto and despite my newfound maturity, I'm still a little green with envy. WHY?

Because, Writing is HARD and anyone who sits down to do it on purpose is more than a little misguided. This I know well - and I mainly just peck around in cyberspace. To actually commit to a long project like a novel is to fend off self-doubt at every syllable - with no visitor's comments to lift the spirits or buoy the soul. So far, the grind of such a protracted slog has left me questioning if I had any business stringing words together at all.

And now this hairless Cajun has delivered on his threat to complete a manuscript and he had the nerve to make it freakin' readable! Where Turd goes from here I don't know, for literary success is foreign ground to me. I just know that the three chapters he sent me is a taut plunge into the world of Louisiana news, complete with ghetto preachers, obnoxious hotties and a bruised and battered photog who's pretty sure he's shot it all. Over the top and wholly believable, profane yet elegant, Portier's latest leaves me proud, defensive and a little mad at him for making so good on his promise. I guess at some point, I'm gonna have to tell him how I feel.

Perhaps I just did.

Thoughts of a Jackal

"Dude, we got CRA-ZEE flash flooding all over. Can you check out a water rescue up your way?"

It was more marching orders than a request, so I didn't bother answering. Instead I repeated the address in question and folded my cell phone. Thirty seconds later I wondered where my hat was as I steered Unit Four through what felt like the Red Sea. It wasn't, but with seven inches of rain falling over my homeland over the course of a few hours, the biblical references come fast and furious. Which is precisely why I kept an eye out for animals traveling by pair as the GPS screen led me deep into Northeast Guilford County. When the voice on my dashboard told me I'd reached my destination, I didn't really believe her, but then I saw red and yellow orbs dancing in the distance.

Closer inspection revealed men beneath that light show, so I found a soggy patch of shoulder to park on and inhaled my last few seconds of comfort for the evening. KA-WOOM! The rain came down with such force, I wondered if I owed it money. But before I could figure out who to curse for my soggy boxers, I felt the eyes of a dozen souls upon me. Firefighters, deputies, rescue swimmers - all staring at me as if I'd mailed invitations to this glistening spot in the road. But I didn't take it personal, for I know what's up when first responders idle...

I stood there for more than an hour, the rain invading my every pour as I competed with the rescue crews for who could look the most bored. None of us were bored, mind you, but it's just something grown men do when there's no one left to rescue, nothing yet to report. Later, I would find out a woman driving a moped had ignored police warning to stay off that road and she paid for it with her life. I was there when they pulled her out, but far enough away to escape the brunt of it. Folks sometimes grow angry with my ilk; they figure we're unfeeling leaches who live for the next body-bag shot. They're wrong - but I can no more change their minds than I can stop the rain. Truth is, I no longer really care. This job CAN be done with dignity, respect, feeling. Those who say it can't have never stood in my soggy shoes, have never averted their lens when the gurney rolls past, have never pretended the water rolling down their face is nothing more than rain.

Here's hoping they never have to.

Schmuck Alert: Charlotte's Finest

NOTE: Apocalyptic weather notwithstanding, Team 'Slinger remains committed to exposing gross acts of grab-ass involving TV news cameras - if for no other reason to bring shame to that overpaid choad Kenny Rogers...

Dateline: Charlotte. A couple of TV News photogs from competing stations respond to the scene of a fatal accident, eventually finding a perch on a nearby embankment. Very soon two officers with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department began ordering WBTV photographer Travis Washington to stop shooting. Washington, a credentialed news-gatherer on public property dared to question "WHY?" - a brazen move that brought about the full fury of one particular female officer. Demanding he stop recording, Officer Midol tried to wrestle the camera from Washington's hand, thus causing the delicate tool to drop unceremoniously to the ground. "You're not showing proper respect to people in the accident", admonished the constable before cuffing and stuffing the paid station employee in the back of her police cruiser. There Washington sat for about an hour, before being released without charges. He then sought treatment for a minor back injury related to the confrontation. The camera itself sustained about $1,000 in damage and WBTV plans to ask police to pay for those repairs.

To which we here at the Lenslinger Institute ask "WHAT THE F*DGE?" Police officers ARE in charge of emergency scenes; it's quite common (if not particularly legal) for them to corral photographers behind imaginary lines only they can see. In the Queen City however, law enforcers are also cinematographers, civil rights attorneys, judges and juries. When they attained this lofty status is still unclear, but we assume it happened to them shortly before city officials deemed them Omnipotent Overlords of the Fourth Estate. That looks damn spiffy on a business card, but it ain't worth the taxpayer provided paper it's printed on. And why did Channel 3's cameraman get manhandled while Channel 9's lenser was left alone enough to videotape the whole damn thing? And what's with this trend of shoving a pesky photog in the back of a cop car, only to release him (or her) 120 minutes later with no charges. If I pulled shit like that, I rightly be called a kidnapper, yet some Testicle with a basic law enforcement course under his (or her) gunbelt is free to rewrite the constitution on the spot. WTF?

Washington is on vacation this week. His station, Channel 3, is weighing their lack of options while the Charlotte -Mecklenburg Police Department launches an internal investigation. Channel 9 - which apparently has video of the whole enchilada - is sitting on their tape for the time being. I respect that, I guess; they could make great ratings hay of running that puppy on a loop throughout their every newscast. Still, a little sunshine's powerful disinfectant and releasing said outrage sure would make it easier on armchair pundits like the ones at Schmuck Alert Central. Speaking of which, we're surprisingly law and order around here. I know LOTS of cops and even more news photogs. With a few glaring exceptions, their all folks I'd have over for a bar-b-cue. At breaking news scenes, the attending press is about as thrilled to be there as the cops - who would no doubt prefer parking in clusters just off the interstate. That's cool - I just wish the men and women in blue would educate their junior colleagues a abit better, for far too often it's the rookie cop that loses his effin' mind when lenses gather on the edge of calamity. Seems they should cover the basic rights of the press at the Academy. Hell, I'd be willing to go hold a seminar, provided they' wouldn't go all Abu Ghraib on my tired ass.

Schmucks.

And a Hard Rain Fell...

It just doesn't pay (actually, it does!) to be ON CALL when 7 plus inches of angry rain turns your town into a toilet bowl. No sooner had I arrived home for the evening when my cell phone exploded into a million frantic voices. What followed was an epic slog through high water and deadlines, capped off by the requisite news-gatherer goofiness. Chances are I'll weigh in later with some analysis. For now I gotta sleepwalk through eight hours of breathless follow-up. Where's a furlough day when you need one?

Cherries on Top

"You picked a hot day to do all this," the lady at the orchard gate said.

I had to smile as I dropped Unit 4's shifter into Drive. Through the windshield, a deeply rutted road defied me to take it all the way up the mountain. Miles away, colleagues slogged through squalid animal shelters, school board hallucinations, grizzly collisions out on the interstate. I, on the other hand, was tasked with watching cherries ripen on the vine...

"It's hotter in the ghetto," I assured the gate lady, whose puzzled expression stuck with me the rest of the day. Guess I should have explained myself a little better, let her know I wasn't just some camera-toting gasbag - but an earnest journalist from Furniture City who was glad he wasn't stuck in some cumbersome scrum. Sure, there's adventure there. But so too is their the whiff of industrial strength hairspray, the death rattle of a dozen live trucks and frantic voices bleeding from deeply-seeded earpieces. Is it any wonder I pitched the kick-off of cherry season to the suits this morning?

No, but it is a bit of a shock they went for it, considering the life cycle of these beautiful drupes really isn't news at all. It's botany. But rather than argue semantics with a group who could send me on a walking tour of a manure convention, I slunk out of the room all sullen like - just so they'd think nothin' was wrong. A few minutes later I was on my way, hurtling uphill as my rather feminized Ford Freestyle would take me. By the time I arrived at the orchard gates, I'd crossed a state line, polished off some rather righteous snack crackers and nearly driven off a cliff by staring at my GPS, instead of the trusty windshield. Once inside the orchard the fun really began as I opened the sunroof, wrestled the steering wheel and stopped repeatedly just to dig on the view.

In the end, I returned with a mildy serviceable look at the cherry crop of southern Virginia. The shooting was so-so, the writing rushed, the editing a bit pedantic. But the the drive...the drive was nothing less than spectacular. Too bad that doesn't show up on screen...

Land of the Lost

Rival newsrooms vowing to collaborate, rock steady anchor teams crumbling into dust, Conan O’Brien hosting the Tonight Show! Yes, it’s a frightening time for that glowing box in your living room, let alone the journalists that live inside it. For decades, news viewers could count on their local stations to do one thing exceedingly well: imitate each other. Chrome-plated news desks and promos at the ready, updates slathered in gadgets and delivered by ‘Talent‘, breathless reports laced in mood music, swaddled in Doppler and buzzing with candy-colored choppers. Now, however, all that amalgamation is in flux as tricked-out new tools and a dearth of advertising dollars are doing what those smarmy consultants tried so very hard to avoid… They’re making TV newscasts interesting again.

Notice I said interesting, not viable. Whether or not the rumbling plates underneath the Fourth Estate will thrust the property skyward or just swallow the damn thing whole is still unknown. One thing is for sure, though: it will never be like it was. No, the economy could correct itself overnight and the broadcast landscape would still buckle under the weight of new expectations. Sure, magic laptops and boned-up telephones play a part but all the gizmos in the universe fail in the face of human nature. Take my oldest daughter (Pease - she’s FIFTEEN!). I’ve yet to buy her one of those cell phones that comes with its very own flux capacitator, but that hasn’t stopped her from consuming news the way her better-equipped peers do. Al A Freakin’ Cart.

See, she’s been on-line since around age 3. When she wants to learn about the world she knows the libraries of the globe are just a Google or two away. If a snowstorm hits and the school day is in question, she triangulates texts, Facebook updates and a myriad of Twitters before I can ever stumble out of bed and find the remote control. Not once does she think to simply sit down and wait, to stare at a haughty rectangle in the corner of the room until someone handsome appears and speaks in glib riddles. Why would she - when with the twitch of two freakishly strong thumbs, she can truly spin the globe - without the assistance of any thumping news themes, spasmodic graphics or disembodied pitchmen. To do so would not just be old-school, it would reek of the antique.

So do the tectonic changes my chosen field are experiencing fill me with dread. Naaaah, not really. Not half as much as if we were still just aping our neighbor down the dial. THAT, is the road to extinction.

UPDATE: Friend of the blog and N&R Editor John Robinson weighs in with his own thoughts on the matter as does NewsLab Czar Deborah Potter.