Tools on Parade

While no fan of live trucks myself, I can't imagine scrambling up the side of one as three thousand of my closest friends chant the initials of a university I couldn't get into. Speaking of which, should YOU ever find yourself preening over a boozy mob like some shirtless King of Sop, do take a moment to review your goals in life - if not your immediate fashion choices. Apparently, no one in Richmond stopped to think of anything after VCU's unlikely rise in the Final Four sent a street full of Virginian's into an O.J. like frenzy. Okay, so no one lost their head - but dignity did die a thousand deaths as a band of jabronies decided to summit a WRIC live truck. Much bad dancing followed. Somehow, this arrhythmic act sated the crowd, providing irrefutable proof of their team's round-ball dominance. Ooooo-kay. Just be careful with your flash mob, there. You might break into a halfway decent moonwalk only to have some portly schlub in a utility vest reach up and slice your Achilles tendon with his rusty Leatherman. I'm not saying it's right, only that there's enough suppressed rage behind the wheel of the average rolling billboard to erase an entire city block full of athletic supporters. Remember, Sports fans...

...that ain't no ice cream truck.

Except the Camera Guy...

Rust Never Bleeps

Bill didn't care what their little jazz trio was called, Stephanie's cousins WEREN'T gonna follow them around all day!

Okay, so they're not Stephanie's cousins, but Wally West, Matt Kendrick and Wiley Porter can come to my family reunion any day, since they chew with their mouths closed AND play kick-ass Jazz. I tell ya, between the (incredible) Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings concert I went to Saturday night and running into Wally today, I'm beginning to realize what a fan of brass instruments I am. This in itself is strange, as I grew up the younger brother an amateur trumpet player. I'm not saying it scarred me, but to this day the faintest whiff of a Herb Alpert solo makes me lunge for something grungy. I find early Soundgarden to be a suitable antidote. But this post ain't about music.

It's about serendipity.

That's what I felt when I schlepped my gear into the VIP tent this morning. All the way over I'd been grumbling to the News Gods about what a cliche they'd created with the groundbreaking. Really, the products of those staged affairs may make for great lobby tchotchke, but as television they rank right below ride-alongs with the Amish vice squad. Actually, THAT would make for pretty interesting Tee-Vee, but a gathering of suits and golden shovels? It's enough to make you want to leave the fancy camera in the car and record the damn thing door to door with an Etch-A-Sketch. The prolonged podium gloating, the endless acknowledgements, the high-gloss hardhats -- it's a presentation I've slept through a thousand times before. There's only ONE thing that could make a scene like that worse...

Rain.

Which is exactly what I awoke to, a mere eighty minutes before the speaker was scheduled to begin recognizing every single elected official in the crowd. I could just hear the predictable patter as I watched a woodchuck float past my bedroom window on an upturned Frisbee. %&$@%! With my luck, they probably wouldn't even rent a tent! How wrong I was. Not only did the hospital spring for a tent to announce their expansion in, they hired the official sax player of this very website to chase away the doldrums. Wally even stopped playing long enough to give a salute when I walked in. How cool was that? Almost enough to make up for the fact that all that jazz drowned out most of my soundbites. Still, it served as a musical reminder that life doesn't always suck the way we think it should.

That, or it's better to burn out than to fade away. I'm never sure...

All the World's a White-Balance

It's about as sexy as changing the batteries in your smoke detector, but skip it just once and your whole day could go up in flames. I'm talking about the lowly white-balance, that in-camera calibration that separates the cameramen from the fan-boys. Sometimes a push-button, but most often a toggle, this seminal switch can unmake your day faster than a traffic reporter hopped-up on fender-benders. Ahem...let's review the science. Embedded deep within each and every fancycam is some metallic doohickey that can't judge color for shit. Thus, a persoanl asist of sorts is needed each and every time you fire that puppy up. It's easy: just find something white in the room/submarine/typoon you're shooting in and point the camera at it. Press another button and the camera shuffles through color cards from the mini-series ROOTS before finally deciding precisely what white is. Seconds later you're own your way, smug with the knowledge that your fancycam damn well knows the difference between taupe, puce and of course, magenta. As such, all colors will properly stick to the tape, all will be jake and at no time will the Smurf word be used... Until you wander into another room/submarine/typhoon, at which point you have to start the whole needlesome process all over again. Got it? Good!

I'm happy we've had this time together. Ya know, other than just running my mouth non-stop, I really want to establish the Lenslinger Institute as a place of higher learning, where photog fashion and camera-mannerisms can be studied by shell-shocked survivors of the Fourth Estate. I just hope I wasn't too technical. I mean, sure, I could delve into coor-temperatures and the Kelvin scale, I could prattle for endlessly about where to white-balance in brackish light. I could even devise some sort of miniature flow chart that young news shooters could stuff into their cargo shorts pockets, you know, the ones filled with dead Double-AA batteries, Cheeto dust and travel bottles of AXE body spray. But what good would that do? A new photog has to repeat every error in the book at least twice before he or she remembers to search endlessly for spare square inches of hue-free real estate. It's more than a technical setting - it's a rite of passage! Why, I remember the first time I white-balanced on a passing albatross. The sea was angry that day, my friend...

Down in a Hole

We were just outside Khaddaffi's hidey-hole when the laxatives kicked in... Okay, so that never happened but when you're humping gear under heavy deadline, you never know where you'll be forced to offload, er...upload. Which is why it's important to have a partner who can pull you up when you're stuck in the dumps. Take Charles Ewing - but don't think it'll be easy. Dude's a stone-cold prognosticator with a black belt in News-Fu. Sure, folks know him as their weekend weatherman, a genial bloke whose gravest hope is that you pack an extra pair of galoshes in your kid's lunch tomorrow. But come Monday, this mild-mannered meteorologist transforms into a tracked-package assassin, a cross-trained field operative who can break down a city council impasse in ninety seconds and tell you why it's gonna rain in five. That's a malleability I admire, which is why I never duck and cover when I see Chuck comin' with a crumpled piece of paper and a certain look in his eye. Many a morning he's dragged me out of the building and into some foolishness in the name of news. Does your weather guy do that?

Mine does, and though he might rather be holding down the green screen back at the shop, he's evolved into quite the safari partner. Why, just in our sporadic collaborations, we've drummed up conundrums, stared down rare scenarios and processed more oddities than most veteran detective teams. Call it a by-product of the grind, an accumulation of minutia so diverse it starts to wear away at your frontal lobe. Thus, my recall is less than total. I don't remember everything I shot last week, but I hold hazy frames of Charles in my head from half a decade back. There was the time we chased chatty hoarders around that Goodwill Store, posed as museum pieces at the Rosenblum Institute, turned day-old storm damage into breathless updates and fended off apoplectic residents of a most glowering inferno. Yes, the good Mr. Ewing and I have had many a misadventure and while this may read like some farewell piece, Charles and I ain't goin' anywhere. We're both fathers of two who count ourselves lucky to have a job we can rarely mail in. We may not chase down fire trucks unrequested, but when a subject matters gets in between us and our lunches, you'll not find a more focused predator than this brashly placid forecaster. Just don't mention the goldmine.

Glassing the Assassin

Hank Brown was there to spray the place, not witness a ripple in history. But that's exactly what he bagged on March 30, 1981, when a young John Hinckley reached down into a very dark place and pulled out a pistol. Brown was thirty two and a Vietnam vet the day ABC paid him to wait outside the Washington Hilton. He and the other lenslingers in attendance weren't expecting much more than a wave from the newly elected President. What they got was shot at immortality, though they couldn't have known then that the next few seconds would hiccup into infinity, looping back on itself forevermore on a distant invention called the web. When Hank Brown saw the bodies fall and the gunman crumple, he kept clear of his own trigger, letting the RECORD light shine in the corner of the screen as as chaos spilled onto the street. It wasn't easy...

"I had to keep telling myself, 'Hank, do your job. Keep rolling. If you do it, it will help ABC and the police..."

He was right. The evidence Brown (and others) provided helped a nation grasp the unimaginable and it set in motion the notion that America's fortieth President was made of more than flesh and bone. That's still being debated, but one thing's been certain for thirty years now. Hank Brown stepped up and stood history down. Will YOU be as ready?

Message Received...

For the moment I'm low on overblown prose, so let me extend a simple word of thanks and be done with my day. Last week, my youngest handed me a package she found on our front step. I was in a bit of a cleaning frenzy at the time and didn't give it much thought, but when I tore into it later I was delighted to find not a voodoo doll with a camera on it shoulder, but a brand new book I already hold dear. The second edition of Al Tompkins' Aim for the Heart, to be exact - a tome I loan to anyone smart enough to notice it on my desk in the newsroom. Last year in Vegas, I sought and received counsel from the man behind Al's Morning Meeting. He and Les Rose were more than generous with their time and I walked away with a head full of advice and a belly full of beer. Nearly a year later, I haven't forgotten that encounter. But neither have I acted on their shared wisdom of two men who populate a plane of existence of which I too aspire. Now this: a bound reminder of what determination can do, a talisman suitable for shelving. But I didn't just toss Al's book aside. I opened it and there I found a dare. Both naked praise and blunt instruction, its message was written in a language this simple news shooter can grasp: "Write YOUR damn book."

Heh. I feel as if I already have. And while it takes more than stream of consciousness to craft something someone wants to buy, I KNOW it's within my ability. That hasn't always been the case, as just ten years ago I was telling my wife how I wanted to take an evening college course in creative writing. Well, true to form I never made it to class, choosing instead to hammer out my yammerings and post them on-line; first on industry message boards and then on that emerging platform known as the blogosphere. Aside from wooing my wife and siring pretty kids, it was the best unconscious decision I ever made. Okay, so at no time was I bathed in ethereal light. I just followed an old friend's advice on writing: Put Ass. In Chair. That I did, night after night, until my alluring wife threatened to torch my computer if I didn't come to bed and get some perspective. My postings leveled off and my marriage improved. Now, I come to you from the deepest reaches of the Lenslinger Institute, a cameraman in full. All I really need are six extra hours a day, a focus honed from years of perfecting my stare and perhaps a tonic for my thinning hair.

Yes, nearly six years into this silly site, I'm no closer to writing a book than I was back when I was deciding if Lenslinger should have two esses. I went with one of course and never looked back. Doing so has enhanced my life in more ways than you can imagine. No real dollar signs have followed, mind you, but if appreciative e-mail were the coin of the realm, I've be swimming in the bucks like Scrooge McDuck. As it is, I'm still a man without an empire, but the stars seem to be aligning as of late and I'm increasingly convinced that where ever the hell this obsession is taking me, I haven't yet reached the end. Whew! I was beginning to think I'd peaked back when I was fawning over some dude named Daughtry. Turns out, I'm still gathering steam, though I do reserve the right to become derailed every so often. You'll know it when it happens: my output wanes as I cloak myself in melancholy. Hey, I think Shakespeare said it best: Shit Happens. Now if you'll excuse me, the bride says it's bedtime.

Some orders you don't ignore.

Fembot Not Included

Hey, stations! Tired of buying those pesky video cameras? There’s an app for that! And those lippy schlubs who think portage is art form? Can the lot of ‘em! All your really is the iPad 2 and a pretty person to hold it. So finds the fine folk at WKRG, who recently sent web reporter Lauren Styler out to cover a story with little more than the trendy tablet. Okay, so she had a photog trailing her and the whole purpose of the shoot to see if it could be done, but you’ll understand if I’m a little put off by the casing of my replacement. I don’t want to say it’s a watershed moment, but I think I know how Ah-nuld felt when the newer Terminator poured in under the door. Obsolescence? You’re soaking in it... I just hope I’m (not) there when The Suits inform the photogs their services are no longer needed, now that a direct descendant of Merlin is riding high in some spokes-model's purse. It’ll be like telling a kitchen full of career firefighters they’re being replaced by six ashtrays and a George Foreman grill.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a HUGE fan of Apple. They’re like the R&D department of the entire computer industry. But just because something is technically possible doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. (Snuggie, anyone?) And while most of my ire is pure writing device, I gotta ask: Is using a futuristic tool to shoot the same old song, dance and extended stand-up progress at all? Perhaps, but no amount of magical gadgetry will make up for a lack of imagination and we as an industry are as low on original vision as we’re about to be on fresh videotape. So you’ll excuse me if I remain unconvinced, for any report that ends with the line “Time will tell” is about as cutting edge as that Carpenters 8-track stashed in my attic. Besides, can an iPad 2 get you lost en route to the story, then make up for that lost time in the edit bay? Can it waltz through a crowded ballroom dressed like a roadie and not feel the lest bit self-conscious? Can an iPad 2 trade off-color remarks with its buddies at wholly inappropriate times?

Probably, but you’re gonna need extra batteries.

A Breed Apart

Unlike, say, 97 percent of TV news shooters, I LIKE newspaper photographers. Why wouldn't I? They're hardworking, resourceful interlopers with a seriously creative bent. So what if they worm their way into your frame, gum up the scrum, then skulk away with the shot of the day? That doesn't mean we can't be friends! Yet ... so many of us aren't. It's silly, really. Denizens of print have long held our ilk in low esteem - and not just those nerds with the narrow notebooks. Many a still photog has arrived on scene early, blended in despite their many lenses and waited patiently ... only to have some dimpled bimbo and her one man entourage roll up late, loud and -GASP!- logoed. Can you blame them for rolling their eyes? Sure, but you really shouldn't. Not with the coming camerapocalypse - that earth shattering upheaval that's gonna level the playing field for lenslingers of every breed.

Hell, it's happening already. News shooters wrestling with their cell phones, snappers juggling microphones ... what's next? TV reporters paying attention? (Ooh, sorry. Wrong rant.) Anyhoo, take my unwanted advice and find a way to get along with that still photographer. If you're lucky, you'll both be working for the same robot consortium some day. Me - I like to turn the table on my newspaper friends. Whenever they're not looking, I whip out my Droid and take a snapshot of them. That's how I got this delightful frame of my buddy Nelson here. Leave it to him to get all ground-level at a grimy crime scene all for a better shot. I respect that - if only because your average TV photog wouldn't get that low unless some catering truck jack-knifed and splayed free Jell-o shots across the open highway.

It's what separates us from the animals.

Handling the Truth

Once upon a time, sharing courtroom video took little more than a gentleman's agreement and the toss of a tape (or two). No more. It's rare these days for any two stations within the same market to record video on the same format, let alone ALL of them. So when some judge stops brushing crumbs off his robe long enough to decide he can abide but ONE camera in his courtroom, a delicate, digital dance begins. Except it ain't so delicate. Not with a handful of fully grown A/V geeks scrambling around bug-splattered news wagons. Pop quiz, Hotshot. Your biggest competitor's got hot footage of the star witness blowing her nose under cross examination. He'll share it with you, too - but only if you make it easy on him. Too bad his station records images on used solar panels, while your employer prefers computer cards the size of postage stamps. Hey, did I mention everyone's boss is screaming into their headsets for you vested oafs to figure it and feed the video NOW so that said Star Witness can wrinkle her Kleenex on the promo leading into Dr. Oz? Well, they are, so you'd better daisy chain those cameras together and pray in the name of Saint MacGyver that Missus Witness pops up on that one inch screen. But don't think all your energy's going to waste. Somewhere in a courthouse window, a judge is chewing a toothpick and humming a familiar tune as he watches blue-collar Joe's do the Hokey-Pokey.

And isn't THAT what it's all about?

Eyes of a Lifer

It doesn't matter their background, habits or nationality. After enough time in the saddle, ALL photogs look the same...unconvinced. Then again, if your lens was permanently affixed to the blend of drivel and sin that makes the evening news, you'd seem a little hinky too. Take my friend Jeff up there. Dude's been to more gala events than most debutantes, witnessed silliness in grim vicinities and watched more bulging body bags roll by than any of those stiffs on CSI: Newark. His is a pockmarked point of view, a forced perspective borne of deadlines met and live shots executed. But just because he knows the objects in his viewfinder are weirder than they appear doesn't mean he suffers tunnel vision. No, this Master of the glass still gets pumped when the soundbites flow and on a good day his soul can become engulfed by shafts of natural light. I know; for our afflictions are quite similar. And while I wouldn't guess his age without cutting him in half to count the rings, I'll bet he's been whittling away at the edges of your TV screen far longer than even he first imagined. I know I have - which is why I've chosen to spotlight the plight of these exceptional image-dispensers here at Viewfinder BLUES - with the quiet hope that by shadowing them, I might see myself in stronger light...

Besides, all the really important people took out restraining orders.

Infiltrating the ACC

Ahh, the ACC Men's Tournament, where blue collar Joes bellow collegiate nicknames, orange sweatshirts pass for fashion and bromance springs eternal. Normally, I only strafe the exterior of this fine institution, but this year's gig required surgical insertion. Thus, I followed a team of seasoned El Ocho operatives into the deepest lair of the Greensboro Coliseum Complex. It wasn't easy, but under a heavy load of lanyards and lenses, I bluffed my way through numerous checkpoints posing as a conventional sports journalist. Worried that at any moment some beefy security guard would demand I name all the colleges in the conference (or even explain the game of basketball), I kept my head low, my mouth shut. Eventually, I made it to the rendezvous point, where I spent two snack-filled days embedded with the sports field's most forward units. I really think I'm the fatter for it.

Of course, one doesn't just stroll onto the hardwood, no matter how many spare batteries or press-passes you got. Only once in fact did I make it to the floor. (A lovely local lady won the chance to launch a half court shot for one One MEEELLION dollars. She never came close to riches, but her story chewed up a good two minutes of b-block.) No, I spent much more time exploring the concourse, passing freely through backstage doors I never knew existed and averting the gaze of half-mad supplicants who wanted nothing more on this green planet than to scream the name of a university they never attended into the lens of a camera that wasn't even on. And here I though America Idol audition wannabes were obnoxious. Guess I'd rather have a lady dressed as a viking give me her best Whitney than have some tubby drunk shower me with testosterone and pork-skin spittle. Is it any wonder I hid in the pit?

Except they don't call it 'The Pit'. According to the sign, it's the Audio/Video Media Acquisition Area. All I know is past the team entrance, down the hall, around a few bends and straight through what looks like a TSA convention, sits a grid of tables, laptops, monitors and enough cable to upfit the moon with HBO. It's cavernous, yet crowded. The again, local TV's always been a small world. And with sports department budgets next to nil these days, that world's even smaller. Still, you couldn't swing a dead camera battery without clubbing a former colleague. Example: I was hoarking down popcorn when I felt a rumbling in The Force. "Kay-Oh", I mumbled under buttery dust. There in a corner, with rounded shoulders and a shock of white hair sat an old Master, Kevin O'Brien. One March morning long ago, that dude pushed me into News. I didn't know whether to hug the gut or drop-kick him in the sternum. Wisely, I did neither.

Besides, who can execute any Hong Kong Phooey with this much food on board? To me, it's the most confounding element of these kind of events: The Spread. Between the breakfast buffet of French Toast, Bacon and Eggs to the Salad bar to the sandwich fixings to the full Lasagna and chicken dinner to the hot fudge sundaes to the ever-present plethora of Popsicles, potato chips, pretzels and Pepsi products, these cats know how to masticate! I'm not complaining, mind you but for the life of me I can't figure how or why these sporting orgies are so heavily catered. I do know this: if every assignment came with this kind of feast, I'd be pushin' 300 pounds. And a wheelbarrow to carry all the Oreos I'm gonna gorge on...Now back to the game!

It was a helluva competition. The UNC-Miami game, that is. Friday's Quarterfinal match-up between the Tar Heels and the Hurricanes had all the hallmarks of a Carolina tragedy - until UNC's Tyler Zeller scored his team's only lead - just in time to win the damn thing. It was thrilling to watch - even for a non sports fan like me. Even more invigorating was the throw-down that followed. See, minutes after the Coliseum erupted into near religious fervor, camera crews began gathering in a narrow hallway outside Carolina's locker room. Having nothing else to shoot at the moment, I blended in, if only to witness the bedlam first hand. It wouldn't be my first post-game interview. I covered enough ECU football to know locker rooms smell worse than anything the Navy had to offer. And that. is saying. A LOT. But enough of my yammering -- GO!


The next few minutes were a blur. There I was, chatting up my buddy Scott Garrand when somewhere down the hall, a series of locks tumbled open and the walls began to strobe. It was much like the Running of the Bulls, but instead of apoplectic longhorns trying to run you down, it was former high school jocks who weren't about to be denied their chance to grill sweaty men in bath towels. Hey, who am I to judge? I once stepped on a lady's face to get a clearer shot of Randy Jackson. Still, those Hollywood 'togs ain't got nuthin' on a pack of overfed sport directors all hopped up on Blow-Pops. It's why I only lingered in the locker room long enough to bag this self-satisfying shot, before ducking out the door and heading for my deadline. Now, two days later, I'm sitting safely at home, watching Duke and Carolina battle each other for the whole enchilada. All of which makes me wonder...

What's on the buffet?

Ready? Set...Pontificate!

Though it's unclear why YOU'D want to sit through it, the folks who attended our recent Final Cut Pro session didn't look all that miserable. Then again, I was too busy running my mouth to notice anyone low-crawling out of the room. Had I spotted any, I would have let them leave - as nothing I had to say was worth, say, missing an episode of 'Cake Boss'. Still, Chris Weaver and I had a great time explaining how we use the planet's most sophisticated video editing software to make stories about dogs in funny hats. Well, to be fair, Weaver did most of the explaining as my own expertise tends to dissipate once it clears the flume of hot air rising from my tongue. But don't take my word for it, watch this l-o-n-g Ustream clip and learn more about the El Ocho work-flow than you ever thought possible. Or better yet, DON'T. I won't hold it against you. Hey, you could always make a drinking game out of it. Just knock back a shot of your favorite whiskey every time I say "ummm", "at any rate" or anything else the least bit self-aggrandizing. Just pace yourself; I lost track around fifty...

Rain on the Stare-crow

Not in the news biz? Here's a fun way to find out what it feels like to be a (frazzled) photog. First, find the family camcorder. I know, you never even use the damn thing anymore, but that only makes it more for our little exercise Now, turn that puppy over and find the battery compartment. See it? Okay, now open it up and remove one (1) battery. Take a good look at it...now go toss it in a junk-drawer! You won't be needing that until the next neighborhood watch meeting, anyway! Now, grab the camcorder, a tape or two and just for good measure, that neglected bread-maker your wife made you buy, the lava lamp from your box of college crap and perhaps a wet and dry shop-vac. Got 'em? Good! Drag every bit of that claptrap to the garage, dump it in a lump and drape the whole thing in orange extension cord. You'll have more than enough time to sort it out later ... NOT! For now, though, the complete history of Manhole Covers is on Discovery Channel, so you'd best hit the couch...

WAKE UP! WAKE UP! FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT'S IRRELEVANT, WAKE THE $%#&! UP! It's raining like The Bible out there and a herd of caribou has wandered onto the interstate! Two semi's jackknifed to avoid impact but a stuffed activity bus from the Ministry of Silly Walks plowed into 'em sight unseen! It's nothin' but quivering flank steaks and British high-steppers for miles! Go! G-O! G-O-O-O-O-O! First though, grab your gear! The camcorder, the bread-maker, the lava lamp and the shop-vac! Throw 'em in the mini-van! Yes, the one with no gas in the tank and too many dried-up juice-boxes in the floor! HURRY! WAIT! The neighbor lady's going with you! Yeah, Missus Crankle! Yeah, I know she walks her houseplants but that's not important right now. There are caribou dying on the highway! G-O-O-O-O-O-O!

Hmm? What's that? Traffic's backed up for a dozen miles and your mini-van's vertical thrusters are on the fritz? The lava lamp oozed goop all over the camcorder and now you got it in your eye? Hey, you GOT a shop-vac! And what do you mean Old Lady Crankle is waiving her microphone and a few gang signs at some bikers? Don't they know who she is? Haven't they seen her in the social pages of that free weekly? The one where she's sticking her tongue in that deejay's ear? Forget it, see if they'll comment on the caribou! And can you bring back a carcass or something for a set-prop? What do you mean you're not there yet? We've already built an over the shoulder graphic and a lower third index bar! We're calling it CARIBOUCALYPSE! Now G-O-O-O! Hit the breakdown lane and drive that mini-van like the wind! Hurry! We're taking your lava-vac-camcorder shot in 5...4...3...2...

SNORF?!? Oh...sorry. Must have dozed off there and propped my head on the keyboard. Damn Mac web-cast my dream again. At least it wasn't the one where I'm running fiber-optic cable through the sinkhole convention while Sasquatch tosses anchor-wrap at me. That one's always so hard to explain...

Glass Action Hero

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a thirty year old reminder you'll never be as cool as David R. Busse. Don't feel bad. Few news-gatherers have lived through as many hard and fast deadlines as this West Coast legend. It's why we're dedicating an entire wing of the Lenslinger Institute to him. That, and he's got a suh-weet photo collection that we really think will liven up the place. This latest one is a doozy. In it, Busse can clearly be seen walking the skid of a chartered JetRanger, as he demonstrates how the quintessential cameraman got it done w-a-y back in the 80's. Long before gyro-stabilized cameras made crawling out of the cockpit unnecessary, Busse and his buds relied on a custom-made harness and enlarged sets of genitalia to bag. that. shot.

But as always, the picture only reveals a sliver of the story. Ask Busse and he'll tell you of catching a flying seat cushions by hand - seconds before it got sucked into the tail rotor. He'll tell you of using this same rig to fly low and slow over the 1992 L.A. riots. Hell, he'll even tell you about that time they had to land in a Stuckey's parking lot so his buddy Martin could take a piss. What he won't discuss is exactly when the pussification of America took hold, but I'm betting Busse was hovering overhead and laughing the moment it did. Recently, David stuck that heroic old harness on eBay and waited for a clamor to commence. It did not. Now, my personal pick for The World's Most Interesting Man thinks that celebrated series of straps should hang in a museum and I, for one, agree.

In fact, I have just the - AHEM - institute in mind...

Where Men Become Boys

Most news stories are mandated by The Suits. Others you assign yourself. Such was the case today, as I worked harder than I had to simply because the subject matter, well ... mattered. But I'm getting ahead of myself, something you won't find me doing whenever Weaver and I soak up some singletrack. "Singletrack"- that's cyclese for twisty ribbon of dirt. There's miles of it behind my house and even though I'm a full-grown homeowner, you'll find it still runs straight through my heart. Thing is, my heart's forty-four years old. And while that's nowhere near retirement age, it is a little 'up there' for the kind of riding I like to do. Thus, it recently became clear to me what I must do...

Suck up to the rescue squad.

That's where Chris Roseboro comes in. Hulking and gregarious, this former floor camera jockey gave up television years ago for a higher purpose: firefighting. But it ain't just flames Rosie knocks down with a single beefy forearm. Lately, he's lent his considerable might to the fire department's fledgling mountain bike rescue team. When word reached me that he was looking to get the word out, I rung him up to quite simply say, "I'm your huckleberry". Trouble was, he wasn't much of a 'Tombstone' fan so I politely informed him I'd be happy to point some eyeballs at his pet project.

That, he understood.

All of which is a wordy way of explaining why Weaver and I took to our weekend ride with a bit more vigor on Saturday. The Blue Heron trail was as dry, hard and fast as we'd seen it in months, and we wasted no time rocketing down its many ravines. Perhaps we should have wasted some time for it wasn't long before I found myself flying over the handlebars, headed for Terra Firma while wondering what other hobby I should explore. Likewise, Weaver made sweet, unplanned love to a tree stump. Both collisions were recorded by the GoPro camera and eventually made it into my report. We didn't plan it that way, but I've been a news man long enough to when to take advantage of a bloody knee.

Even when it's my own.

Fast forward to Monday morning. No longer outwardly limping, I met Roseboro and his pals at a North Greensboro park for a few hero shots. And speaking of heroes, Weave showed up! Dude had some time between shoots so he lent me some assistance with the kick-ass but finicky GoPro camera. Even more to his liking, Weaver got to exhibit his finest Dukes of Hazzard skill-set, at one point, driving a Gator backwards with one hand while shooting video with the other. Somebody call the law! Then again, all they would have found is two TV geeks and three firemen giggling like school boys as they popped wheelies and dropped one-liners. All in all, a great way to spend a Monday...

I just hope the rescue squad remembers it, should they ever have to scrape me off a tree.

Roll With (It)

Ever have that dream where you're being chased by a frowning clown with a mail-order camcorder? But then the whole thing morphs and YOU'RE the broken down old man in sideshow white-face, taping an endless string of kid's birthday parties as you while away your final years as as a vexed, expressionless jester? Yeah, me neither - but if I did, this joker would easily serve as the specter in question. In fact, I'm not positive I didn't see him this weekend. That, or there's another buffoon in floppy shoes padding around my peripheral vision. Perhaps I'm just projecting. As a boy, I absorbed every Stephen King book I could find, including It - that charming tale of an inter-dimensional predator posing as a party clown. Hey, it isn't King's best novel (The Stand is), but it was enough to skew my perception of your average harlequin, years before I ever shot a discount circus story and saw just how skeevy they are up close. Anyhoo, forget I mentioned it. Just do me this favor: Should you see me out and about, come up and say 'Hi' or maybe wave from afar. But don't skulk about the edges in pancake makeup and outdated fancycam...

It creeps me out.

Charlie and the Chatter Factory

While it's not exactly clear WHY Charlie Sheen went all Joaquin Phoenix this week, it sure has been a hoot. Personally, I haven't found him this fascinating since his turn in Platoon helped turned me on to real Vietnam literature (And a Hard Rain Fell, Chickenhawk, The Things They Carried). Since then he and the rest of the Estevezes been off my radar (I didn't watch West Wing, Two and a Half Men or whatever public service announcement Emilio directed lately). Soooo, you can imagine my shock when he popped up in my periphery, looking gaunt, haunted and blurting out assertions far funnier than the zingers slung on his top-rated sitcom. (My favorite: "I don't have burnout in my gearbox.") Who knew the dude talked like Ron Burgundy? Not me, but then again I've never been very close to the white-hot God light that is His Sheenery. The same can't be said for freelance cameraman Jose Hernandez, Jr., who, moments after Charlie appeared LIVE(!) on Wednesday morning's Today Show, posted this picture of himself at the scene of all that slime.

Are we in the media straight-up enablers? Or merely man-boy voyeurs? I'm guessing both but then again the last Hollywood nut-job I pointed a camera at was Paul Abdul and even she didn't threaten to 'love me violently'. Would have been nice, though.

An Open Letter to Lazy Reporters

The world is full of talented TV News reporters. I’m lucky enough to work with some of them. But there’s a trend afoot I find most disturbing and it’s ushering in the age of the VJ. I’m talking about laziness, plain and simple. It’s not a trait most people would attribute to such a high profile profession but it’s one that runs rampant in many modern day correspondents. Voicing this of course will win me no friends. That’s okay, I got enough friends. What I’m running low on is patience, patience for people who’s only goal is to accomplish as little as possible while looking good doing it. But before I go any further, let’s synchronize our watches:

Oh look, it’s 2011! Across the broadcast universe, stations are slashing their staffs in half. Producers are cutting footage, photographers are learning to write and reporters are being handed cameras the size of baked potatoes and told to go make TV. If you’re one of the lucky ones who still has a photographer to do the dirty work, Congratulations. Chances are that won’t always be the case and too many of you have brought it on yourselves. If, however, you’re a hard-working, enterprising reporter, you’ll probably always enjoy some form of technical support. Feel free to skip to the end. The rest of you...

You might not believe this but there was a time a reporter got OUT of the car while the photographer shot video. Not every time, but sometimes. Crazy shit happens when you do: people speak, birds chirp, news ensues.You’d be amazed what passes for life outside your makeup bag, or Blackberry or whatever it is that so glues you to that shotgun seat.

Say you’ve made a few phone calls, but can’t stir up any news. What do you do? If you said ‘sit at my desk and do my hair while the producers find me a story‘ then you are EXACTLY the person I’m talking to. Once upon a time, a reporter knew enough to leave the station, story or no story. After all, news doesn’t happen in a newsroom. Those of you who rely solely on others for ideas should use that free time to look for another job, for an industry as crippled as ours has no more room for your dead weight.

No one hates useless live shots more than me, but the fact of the matter is your employer bought lots of live trucks and until they’re totally replaced by laptops, they’re gonna use them. So if your sole goal everyday is to wiggle out of that six o clock dog-lick live shot, understand this: you’re insuring your own extinction. Live shots are the one thing (most) photogs cannot do. Yes, standing outside some empty building at dinner time is a drag, but it beats standing outside the unemployment office wondering how you’re going to afford that fancy new iPhone you bought.

As a TV News photog, I’m expected to shoot clean video, edit quickly, find any address without GPS, set up a live shot in seconds flat and a growing host of other duties. I’m up for all these challenges and take quiet pride in doing them well. But one duty I’m more than willing to refuse is carrying your dead ass one. more. foot. You wanna be on Tee-Vee, get a chance to anchor, maybe wind up on a billboard someday? Fine, bring something to the table other than your workmanlike dedication to doing as little as possible every shift. That simply doesn’t cut it anymore. It’s a crime it ever did.

If you’re wearing a power suit and holding a big ole logo’d microphone, you have little business asking ME “What do you think I should say?”. Yes, collaboration is key and together we can come up with some pretty clever lines, but if time and time again you simply repeat my words verbatim into the lens, then you deserve to hold MORE than the microphone. How about the camera, the tripod, some batteries, a few lights...

Look at it this way: We drive around with thousands of dollars of sophisticated recording equipment in tow. You can’t phone it in EVERY day. Sure, there are times we can shoot a story in half an hour and spend thrice that amount of time on lunch. But that’s hardly a way to build your reel, let alone foster the kind of working relationship that can make reporter-photog collaboration an absolute joy. Remember, you have to work up some speed before you can coast.

And speaking of that reel you’re building... There was a time that even a reporter who didn’t know how to edit could press Record and dub themselves off a tape. No more. With non-linear editing, most on-air people don’t even know how to access their last package. So you find a photog who can help you and most often they do. Well, don’t ask me. As much as I‘d love to see you leave my shop, I have better things to do. Besides, foisting you on yet another TV station goes against my creed, much like wrapping up an extension cord goes against yours.

Still want to be a TV reporter? Cool, go find a story no one else has, convince a reluctant witness to talk on camera, melt the Rain-X off my lens with your scintillating presence. I’ll sing your praises from on high, when I’m not following you into the fire. Otherwise, go sell Mary Kay, real estate or perhaps your own plasma. As it is, you’re bringing me down, robbing the product of any relevance and proving this industry’s many critics correct with your unbridled lust for mediocrity. Back to you...