The Irene Diaries: Thursday

A pox on me for dropping off like that, but I’ve been a little busy. A certain homicidal cyclone has blasted my glass and zapped my synapses for the better part of five days. It roared ashore South of Cape Lookout - low, slow and overexposed. I was quite nearby at the time, passed out in a sand-infested bed on the fifth floor of the Atlantic Beach Sheraton. I sleep deeply. Thus I heard nothing when the tempest struck: the blithering wind, the airborne lumber, the off-kilter car alarms tripped by the passing killer. Can you blame me? I was two days into a bender of Gatorade, Granola and gear. That’s what it takes to create the flavor of these truly signature whirlwinds. Television News didn’t ordain the hurricane. It did, however, pay for The Reception - until the soaking wet storm reporter was as big a cliche as the best man giving drunken shout-outs over the banquet hall P.A.; But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s go back to the beginning.

We were almost to the coast when dirty weather set in. Sloppy raindrops came in at every angle, slathering our two vehicle convoy in pre-Irene precipitation. It only lasted for a few minutes, but it was enough to put reporter Sheeka Strickland, photojournalist Chris Weaver and yours truly in a storm chasing mood. Good thing, as that was our chosen mission. Actually, it was more like storm-waiting. With Hurricane Irene slowly barreling toward us, all we had to do was set up our TV trucks at the ocean’s edge and wait for conditions to get Biblical. Okay, so we needed to do more than wait. The desk expected a torrent of storm reports from the coast, starting with the very next newscast. That was just a few hours away, which is why Weave and I pulled over at the first shot-worthy thing we saw: the sunset. Tropical systems have a way of bringing out the best (and worst) in the horizon and we openly indulged in dusk before pushing on to the hotel.

The hotel: an aged Sheraton devoid of any tourists but far from empty. One look at the parking lot told us that. Satellite trucks littered the parking lot, the local ones wrapped in color-coordinated promises, the ones from the network bland and clandestine. Everywhere you looked, swarthy men and pretty women roamed from between vehicles, dragging cable, setting up cameras, shooting each other friendly birds. It’s the very milieu I came to bathe in, an ad-hoc gathering of journeymen and the occasional ingenue. Though I knew many of them, there wasn’t much time to socialize. There’d be plenty of that later. For now we had to establish our signal, plant Sheeka at ocean’s edge and send her image to a million plus living rooms. So we strung our fiber-optic cable from the truck to the battered pier that would serve as our stage. By ten o clock we were firmly ensconced and the first of our breathless reports began. By the time the first live shot was finished, we all felt a little better but our satisfaction was tempered by the fact that many, many more would follow beginning at five o clock the very next morning.

So we crawled up into our respective rooms and enjoyed the last bit of air-conditioning we’d feel in several days...

Five Floors Above Irene

Many stories from covering Hurricane Irene to come, but for now a quick video from Atlantic Beach, North Carolina...

The Hulk and the Hurricane

It's not every day you tell a grown man you loved him as Thunder Lips, but that's exactly what I said to Hulk Hogan when I ran into him at work on Wednesday. He told me was I was dating myself. I said that was okay around here. He half chuckled before ambling down the hall - gingerly, like a man who's taken a folding chair to the face. I was in suitable awe, but I couldn't linger too long on this deflated superhero. There was a bigger name on the other line. IRENE. Seems this salty wench is intent on crashing our Carolina shores and if that's going to happen I simply have to be there. Why? Hard to say. Voluntary deprivation is normally not my bag, but the pageantry attached to these marquee winds draws me in like a punch-drunk barfly. Too bad escorting a harlot onshore is such thoroughly miserable business, with little to no reward. In the end, there are only bragging rights, the ability to name-drop the latest storm at the very next keg party; it's the TV news equivalent of getting a new tattoo. All I know is for me, the only thing more unpleasant than chasing a hurricane is watching someone else do it. Thus, I'm hustling to the coast with electronics in tow and safety in mind. Friends are joining me. Dirty weather awaits. I'll try and keep the blog updated but things get hinky when trashcans take flight. So check my Twitter feed or Facebook. Get with.  Know that I'll be checking in... Courage!

Off the Handle

I have seen the FUTURE of news gathering! At least I caught a glimpse of it before it buzzed that burning house. First though, a disclaimer: Here at Viewfinder BLUES, we pride ourselves on remaining calm in the face of emerging technology. Too often, practitioners of our craft set aside better judgment in the rush to be perceived as early adopters. No sooner does a new tool or technique emerge than a certain type of news shooter declares his (or her) fanaticism, until every story the produce features a tilted swish-pan, extensive wide-angle lens use or every overwrought auteur's favorite device: the infamous dip to black. (Guilty! Guilty!! Guilty!!!) Thus, the founding faculty of the Lenslinger Institute vows never to go coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs when a sober endorsement will do. Having said that...

Sweet Lincoln's Mullet, THIS is the coolest thing to hit the news scene since the introduction of the wireless microphone cut workplace injuries in half! Officially, it's known First-Person-View or FPV. It's the latest craze among the RC Aviation crowd and no doubt has it's roots in the military. Basically, it's (one of those wonderful) GoPro camera strapped to a flying platform. But it's no mindless drone. Instead, an earthbound operator watches a real time feed through special goggles, enabling said joystick jockey to jam his flying eye into the very bunghole of calamity, all while feeding instant Hi-Def video back to its base and beyond. The possibilities of such a toy-like news gathering tool are endless! Okay, so one would last about five seconds in even a category 2 Hurricane and they probably wouldn't harvest much footage at that County Commissioner meeting, but imagine what you could do at a road-choking traffic accident or a spread-out ostrich farm or even some highly predictable controlled burn situation.

That's where the intelligent beings known as the Roswell Flight Test Crew broke out their tiny quadcopters and flew them through the plume of an abandoned apartment complex - a set of structures thoughtfully set ablaze by the Longview, California Fire Department. The results are staggering - even withOUT the pyrotechnics and driving metal soundtrack. The Roswell developers say it's still in the prototype stage, but whatever they fly it over next, it's sure to turn industry heads - provided it doesn't make an unceremonious splash. As for me, I'll be honing my (non-existent) joystick skills and reminding Mrs. Slinger how a GoPro camera would fit quite nicely in my Christmas stocking. For now, I'd like to hear YOUR suggestions for how this truly bad-ass hovercraft can enrich local newscasts. Just speak up, would ya? I'll be out back, practicing my swish-pans.

Schmuck Alert: Bachmann's Mob

I have an aching distaste for politicians. They remind me of small market news anchors with coke problems: paranoid, grandiose, willing to gab all night with total strangers - as long as another blast of adulation was coming back their way. Perhaps I'm projecting. On second thought, no. I've stood through enough city council meetings, governor's huddles and Presidential pit stops to know the only thing more maniacal than your average incumbent is the person currently working so furiously to unseat them.Which brings me to Michelle Bachmann, aka the poor man's Sarah Palin. Lately she's been making all the right noises as she crisscrosses the country in an effort to make Barack Obama a community organizer again. That's cool! Depending on your views, she's either the GOP's latest great white hope or a headstrong wretch whose husband wants to pray Barney Frank back to lumberjack status. None of which concerns me.

What does concern me, however, is the way Michele Bachmann handles her business. In the eight weeks that she's been a Presidential candidate, her sycophants have manhandled members of the press; shoving, pushing and threatening reporters as they attempted to make her a viable choice for leader of the free world by hanging on her every heavily scripted soundbite. It's happened five times. Five times! It's flippin' systemic! Much of the roughhousing has happened in the scrum, when membes of the Fourth Estate close in on a candidate and pepper them with questions. It's an American tradition that dates back to the American Revolution  -  though I can't ever remember George Washington getting his knickers in a twist whenever some scribe wanted to fixate on his wooden teeth. Even Sarah Palin herself manages to plow though a far angrier press mob without drawing blood (and looking like a million bucks, might I add).

Don't get me wrong. Certain reporter types CAN be assholes (Don't make me draw up a list). But if you're aching to lead the planet's last superpower into the Twenty-teens, you're simply going to have to deal with it. And telling your goons to let loose with the elbows and retorts is only going to make you look bad - especially in an age where a candidate's every wet fart is tweeted, Facebooked and blogged before those late night comedians even come into the office.  That's why we've taken unprecedented steps here at the Lenslinger Institute. We're issuing our first ever STANDING Schmuck Alert on Michelle Bachmann, not because we think she has a prayer of gaining office, but because of the fatwa she has apparently declared on the working media. That Mickey Mouse shit won't get you to the White House, lady, but it WILL get you top billing every night on TMZ. Here's hoping you enjoy the view.

Schmuck! 

Bromancing the Stone

Haul glass up and down the interstate and you'll stumble upon a ton of cross-country quests. I feel as if I've covered 'em all: cowboy preachers on horseback, junkies taking a run at redemption, wall-eyed drifter carrying a cross. Whatever led to their personal sojourn, they had one thing in common: they were all half a bubble off plumb. That's carpenter talk for 'avoid elevator rides with this person'. So far I've managed todo just that, but scaling a few floors in close proximity with one of these pioneers is nothing compared to back-pedaling in front of them on some lonesome highway for a few hours. Don't get me wrong: I've met some fine folk, but quite often I've left their presence with the bullshit detector in my brain clanging away.

Which is why my time with a group of cyclists from Buffalo was so refreshing, for they didn't come off as the least bit loopy. Instead, they seemed dangerously sane for a flock of forty-somethings pedaling from state to state. Then again, they've had a quarter century to think about it. See, these three friends began their journey back in 1986 and they'd have finished it then too, had a truck driver not fallen asleep at the wheel and plowed into their group. Two went down, hard. What followed can only be described as life: a couple of the cyclists grew up to be doctors while a third fell into a crevasse of addiction. That's usually where the story ends, but these Buffalo natives are simply made of stronger stuff. When they decided to embark on another cross-country trek, a sore-saddle lunge for closure, local media outlets swooned. That included Bob Buckley and me. We spent no more than two hours with the guys as they snaked their way through the Piedmont, but I'll have a hard time forgetting them, for they taught me A.) it's never too late to finish what you started, B.) old campers CAN be held together by duct tape and C.) not everyone obsessed with that next horizon is completely out of their gourds.

I'll try to remember that next time I roll my eyes at an assignment.

 

 

Wing and a Prayer

I'm not much for assigning meaning to happenstance, but an encounter on a bridge named for a murdered child is enough to give one pause, if not hope. It happened Sunday, as more than a hundred bikers stopped to pray on the Jennifer Short Memorial Bridge in Rockingham County. Back in 2002, someone took the lives of nine year old Jennifer Short and her parents. Michael and Mary Short were murdered in their home, but it took investigators six weeks to locate Jennifer's remains in a creek alongside the very bridge that now bears her name. I was there that day, but you didn't need to be on scene to be haunted by this senseless killing of an entire family. Nearly a decade later, the case remains unsolved, despite numerous new leads resulting from a profile of the case on America's Most Wanted. For local folks, the only thing left to do is keep the Short family's memory alive. That's what was happening Sunday when reporter Katie Nordeen looked up from a memorial service and saw a royal blue butterfly hovering over her photog's tripod plate.

It landed at the beginning of the prayer and just sat there opening and closing its wings until they started playing the bagpipes. I'm a big believer in "signs" and I'm hoping this is one of those...

A chance landing by a flying insect? Probably, but I was a sailor long enough to think about the transmigration of souls. While the cynic inside me knows it was nothing more than the thoughtless loss of flutter by a gussied-up moth.... Katie and I choose to believe otherwise. Now go hug your kids.

Old Times Not Forgotten

Like a bad episode of Matlock, the case of the confederate soldier keeps bleeding onto TV screens. First, some background: In 1793 the invention of the cotton gin increased by fiftyfold the quantity of cotton that could be processed in a day, greatly increasing the demand for - Hmmm? Not THAT far back? Fine, so a few weeks ago a groggy driver plowed straight through a traffic circle in Reidsville, toppling a confederate soldier statue that had pleasured pigeons for more than a hundred years. It was an ignominious end, especially since somewhere between decent and impact, the old soldier lost his head. This made for a visual so delicious that camera crews from across the Greater Piedmont Googolplex soon swooped in to feast upon the headless confederate. I was not among them. No, I was laying low the day that story broke and happily sat out the dash up Highway 29. I even dodged the follow-ups, of which there were many. Seems not everyone up there adored the little gray man who lorded over that end of town. Soon TV reporters were furrowing their well-kept brows on cue as sweaty photogs panned up the statue's broken base. "Will the statue that used to stand here rise again? We'll tell you in a moment, but first is your dog psychic?" At least I think that's how it went. Truth is, I don't watch the news much, which is how I remained blissfully ignorant of the ruckus in Reidsville... until forces drove me there Friday.

Actually, I drove myself. It wasn’t like I had much choice, as I was already behind the wheel when my Droid launched into the generic metal dirge that is my ringtone. It was the morning assignment editor, her voice tense against the backdrop of scanner chatter. “There’s a man dressed as a confederate soldier standing on the pedestal where that statue used to be!” Okay, so it wasn’t “Aliens have landed at Center City Park and they’re asking for you!” but it got my attention nonetheless. So much so that I didn’t even debate the desk on the merit of my new assignment, something we photogs do by reflex. Instead I pointed my rolling logo northward and shut down much of my brain as the odometer clicked off mile after mile. No need to plan my attack, I thought. By the time I get there, any and all Civil War soldiers will have returned to whatever reenactment regiment they got separated from in the first place and there I’ll be with one less hour in the day in which to create the two minutes of newscast I’ve been made to feel responsible for all these many years. Hey, maybe it was never a soldier to begin with, just some wino in a Halloween costume. Either way, I was sure the rebel in question would be long gone by the time I dropped Unit 4 into PARK...

Except ... there he was. A little portly for a 19th century guerilla commando, but other than that the young man looked every bit the part as he stood at crisp attention among the rush of pick-up trucks, Volkswagens and mopeds. Hopping out of my own ride, I approached him sans camera. He smiled and welcomed my company, though he asked that I not block traffic, I complied, standing beside him and looking forward as if I were secretly arranging an intel drop outside some foreign embassy. As for the soldier, er, history buff, he was forthright, informed and seemingly way too sane to rock an itchy wool coat on a hot August day in North Carolina. He began to spout reasons why the Daughters of the Confederacy should build a bigger and better combatant on the spot, but I really wasn’t listening. I’d hear it all again in an edit booth, but not before I got a microphone on the guy. Walking back to my mobile office, I dug my equipment out of the back and returned with my lavaliere. I pinned it to his coat, backed off and zoomed in. Twenty questions later, I crossed the street one last time to secure a nice wide angle for my opening shot, the centered up on the soldier just in time to catch him whistling dixie.

Seriously, dude whistled Dixie. From across the street, I tried to squelch my yelp, but I was too stoked to muffle it completely. Hey, it ain’t everyday a person of interest wanders into the center of your screen and gives an old story new legs, but that’s just what seemed to be happening here. And best of all, I had it all to myself. I was halfway through congratulating myself on said storytelling coup when the first of my competitors rolled up. Oh well, at least I’d have a few chums to chat up while the local police decided whether they were going to openly endorse the young soldier, drag him off in chains for disturbing the peace or simply use all those downtown surveillance cameras to scan the small but growing clutch of journalists camped out there on the sidewalk. As the cops watched us, we watched him, but the sentinel at the center of our cobbled-together controversy didn’t do much beside fish Skittles out of his overcoat and sneak swigs of Gatorade from a bottle he tried to keep hidden. At one point he even whipped out a smart phone, leading me to wonder Robert E. Lee would have preferred a Droid or an iPhone. Subjugate an entire race? There’s no app for that.

Actually, I’d be a stone cold liar if I even pretended politics played a role, for that’s not the way a photog’s brain works. Dude could have been dressed as Mayor McCheese for all I cared. Fact was, my bosses wanted him in my crosshairs and that’s about all it takes to spark my interest. But what interested me even more wasn’t the soldier himself but the reaction of all the town folk pouring past him. From my vantage point in what had become tripod row, I had a clear shot of motorists as they whizzed by the guy. Of those that reacted at all, I’d say 98 percent gave him a thumbs up or a rousing cheer. This neither surprised or inspired me, but I’m guessing most of those who held the simulated rebel in contempt had too much class to acknowledge it, lest their one fingered salute make it on the evening news. A man I spoke with on camera agreed, which gave me the dissenting view I needed to balance out my piece. With that perspective and many more simmering on my camera’s SD card, I made preparations to leave for the sidewalk was growing crowded with competing cameras and well, I hate the smell of catch-up before lunch. Thus, I bade my fellow photogs adieu, gave the young man across the street a half salute and gathered up my gear. Hopefully, the cops wouldn’t hog-tie the guy or Matlock himself wouldn’t wander out and mumble something homespun over a Ritz cracker, but if that very development was in the cards, there was really only one way to force destiny’s hand....

Leave. So I did.

Peril to Spare

Worry all you want about dicey neighborhoods; the most dangerous thing most TV News photogs do is climb behind the wheel. At least that's the case with James Walter Moore, Jr.  - the forty year old photojournalist for South Carolina television station WSPA. On Monday, Moore was driving north on I-85 when the spare tire from a pickup truck in front of him took flight. Moore swerved to avoid hitting the tire. flipping the station-owned SUV at least once. According to reports, he remains in serious condition at Spartanburg Regional Medical Center. Though the market he works in is barely a state away, I've never met the man. But I have logged thousands of miles in search of news, battling lane-changing madmen at seventy plus. In this case, Moore's fast reflexes most probably saved his life, though it's hard to know any of that when the truck in front of you starts shedding parts. Here's hoping the good Mr. Moore heals quickly and can soon join the rest of his Carolina colleagues on the ludicrous pursuit that is local news. Get well, Jimmy.. The rest of ya, keep your eyes open...

UPDATE: From b-roll.net...

As of an hour and half ago Jimmy was in his second surgery of the day. He may have one more later today. During the accident his V6 vertebrae slipped above his V4 vertebrae, so the spine is the main concern right now. He does not have feeling from the waist down. The surgeries are an attempt to alleviate the swelling on his spine, and that should help him to regain feel again.

His tests have come back favorable to show that he doesn't have any sort of head trauma, but there is a large gash on his head that will need a surgery to fix it.

Jimmy's wife has said that while she knows he is in pain he isn't complaining about it at all, and is talking, laughing, and cracking jokes.

It's obviously going to be a very long recovery for Jimmy. Everyone at the station as well as his family are asking that you keep him and your thoughts and prayers while he pulls through this, and would like to thank everyone from across the country who have called or written asking about him.

Rolling Stone

When a band of violent morons overtook his Clapham Junction Neighborhood, Sky News Reporter Mark Stone could have high-tailed it out of there. Instead, he committed journalism. To be more specific, he fired up his smart phone and began narrating the bedlam that's threatening to level London. Okay, so maybe it won't level London, but when dimwitted marauders began looting shops on Lavender Hill, it probably felt that way. Which is what makes Stone's performance all the more spectacular, for not only does he jam his tiny camera into storefronts as a mob tries to dismantle them, he even challenges a few of the cowardly thugs to explain their rancor. They cannot, but that doesn't stop the Sky News reporter from expressing his own disdain in a way that is exquisitely British. Ya know, if I was in charge of something as useless as the local Emmys, I'd ship a few of those golden statues across the pond to a certain reporter who's more than proved his mettle. Can't say I'd do the same...

Smashed, Soaked and Broken

Try as I might, I cannot get through an episode of Whale Wars. It's not the heartless slaughter of those magnificent beasts that drives me away; it's those damn hippies! Seriously, if I was bobbing along Antarctica with that crew, I'd ram every harpoon ship I saw just to shake the smell of Patchouli oil from my decks. Yes, there would be only ONE thing worse than watching a whole season of this Animal Planet production: shooting it. Don't believe me? Take a few minutes and watch The Making of Whale Wars: a growing collection of interviews with the shooters and producers who trolled the Southern Ocean with the ballsiest crew of nut-bags ever to play chicken with a Japanese whaler. It's a soggy dichotomy: The activists aboard the Sea Shepherd and her sister ships are willing to DIE for those poor whales. The camera crews shadowing their every suicidal move are NOT. Good luck with that. You know even if the photogs of Whale Wars were positive they'd see dry land again (they were not), the whole trip was an exercise in misery. Gloves, Neoprene suits, helmets: these are not things that make operating a camera easy. Now, crawl down into a bucking Zodiac and HOLD ON as the shaggy pilot of that small boat makes a beeline for a ship full of pissed off whalers with water cannons. "Great Neptune's Nipples, can't I shoot a thousand city council meetings instead?" Probably, but it won't score me the kind of street cred the Animal Planet crew came back sporting. In fact, I believe the producers have stumbled across a viable reality show spin-off: the adventures of a reluctant camera crew as the salty oddballs they're about to make famous do their best to kill everybody aboard. 

THAT, I'd tune in for.

Attention on Dreck

Like a Navy SEAL dropped into an enemy compound, the veteran photog doesn't stop until the target is acquired. Okay, so according to the latest intelligence, running around shooting news is nothing like offing lofty despots. Still, we do get to take down the occasional slumlord -- and that's after we rake him over the coals in an overly-promoted special report featuring flashy graphics and ominous drones. But I digress. What I really logged in to talk about is the heavily-seasoned 'slinger: that guy (or gal) in your shop who was dragging glass around this town when you were still mastering your multiplication tables. They're not exactly the Greatest Generation, but they are a cut above your modern day news combatant, and I say that not just because I myself wear the stripes of a lifer. Okay, that IS partly why, but you'll understand if I boost my own kind, won't you?

Just look at the specimen above. The graying hair, the taut muscles, the fierce of look of concentration... "Did I turn the camera on?" he's probably asking himself. I dunno, Chief, you're the one who grabbed the reflector and tried to burn the talent's retinas out. Figured it was some kind of old school finishing move. Hmm? You need to me to work the overnight shift the rest of the week? Lemme pile on some accolades. The grizzled news shooter is part Poet. Plumber. Pirate. They are hoarders of moments, harbingers of horrors and dispensers of whimsy. With a dedication to frame rivaled only by their knowledge of local eateries, they are a fierce opponent and a staunch ally. And they're fun! Older photogs don't take anything too seriously - except their next deadline. Get in the way of that and they'll fillet you with a rusty Leatherman. If they can find it.

So, no - being a stateside news shooter is nothing like being a member of the special forces, though both require the deft touch of an operator. Whereas SEALS rappel into hostile territory and spray lead everywhere, we park our boxy transports on the edge of peril and bitch until the voices in our head(phone)s tell us it's time to go home. Ain't America grand?