If you believe the promos, we news crews spend all of our time popping out of live trucks, rushing up courthouse steps and, inexorably, pointing. In truth, we sit down on the job quite regularly. Take Bill and Phil. Together (and separately), they live under constant deadline, scrambling from one county to the next in a never ending quest to fill the approaching news-hole. Such was the case last week when I caught up with the pair in Reidsville, where the lot of us were conspiring to elongate the Civil War with less than inflammatory updates on a fallen Confederate soldier statue (l-o-o-o-o-n-g story).
But even feigned controversy doesn't happen without pockets of downtime and as seasoned professionals, Bill and Phil know when to point their news unit toward the horizon and when to chill until the City Manager realizes his path to lunch is clogged with camera crews. That's what's happening here; nothing more nothing less. Note the wireless microphone at Bill's knees, the headphones around his neck, the quizzical look on his face as he notices I'm pointing my Droid at him. Phil, meanwhile, is oblivious to it all; his posture slackened as he closes in on one last angry bird.
Seconds later, this moment of repose dissolved. The City Manager emerged from his office and we jumped on him like the jonesing vultures we are. When the dust settled, I turned to show Bill and Phil this picture, but they were already gone. A day later, I caught up with Bill again, in a different county, with a different shooter, on a different story. Twenty four hours had passed, I'd forgotten about the photo and besides, I had a face full of viewfinder and a desk monkey on my back. That's okay. There'll be another day, another county, another park bench.
Since my only visit there was as a drunken sailor, I have fond if fuzzy memories of Milwaukee. Which is why it's such a buzz kill to see a member of that fine city's police force acting like an utter choad. Hmm? Well, what else would you call a cop who stopped staring at a house fire just long enough to hassle the oldest photog he could find? Sixty-eight year old Clint Fillinger was shooting footage of said fire from behind the police tape when a sergeant (who should know better) suddenly insists the accredited news photog back up. All the way up. Fillinger does, but as he's shooed away from an area where the public is allowed to gather, the veteran of forty-five years on the street doth protest...
"Don't give me that bullshit!" he snaps after the cop tells him moving back is for his own safety. This apparently was more than the sergeant could bear, for a few seconds later he sets aside his concern for the sexagenarian and pushes him to the ground. Fillinger is soon in cuffs, all because he spoke up when a confused constable decided the Bill of Rights only applies to people without TV cameras. Oh well, at least local residents were able to sleep better that night, knowing that Sergeant Safety rid their streets of this journalistic scourge. I guess that's one less house fire the people of Milwaukee will have to bothered with.
All sarcasm aside, this case is just the latest in a series of disturbing encounters between cops and photogs. Seems every week someone with a badge makes a rash judgment call that results in an awkward YouTube clip and new footage of their chief trying to explain why they put some camera-guy in a headlock. Why is that? Have the laws of our land grown too numerous to manage? As a news shooter I'm expected to recall every major intersection within three counties, any and all accepted light temperatures and enough greasy spoon locations to choke a mortal man. Is it too much to ask the police to remember what it is that gives the authority to arrest people? Doesn't seem like too much to ask...
Sure, I've had a tiff or two with reporters over the years, but as far as YOU KNOW, I've never pulled a knife on any of them. These days, however, that kind of thing wouldn't be a problem. Hell, it might win you an Emmy! Now, where is that new category? Ah, here it is...
'Best Use of Cutlery in an Overwrought Stand-Up'
At least I think that's what a Columbus, Ohio news crew was trying to win they other day when they broke out a blade to better convey their message. Their message? I dunno - something about some lady defending herself with exaggerated hand motions. Truth is, I was so distracted by the shimmering knife and artificial urgency, I didn't hear what the breathless reporter was saying... you know, kinda like a viewer would feel!
But hey, who cares what those annoying folks at home think? The important thing is the reporter found a way to differentiate himself from the pack, a move I'm sure sparked a round of clumsy high-fives in the newsroom (if not shame elsewhere). You know what they say... Every time a reporter find a new way to 'walk and talk' on camera, a consultant gets his bonus. Not that I am totally guilt-free. Back in the re-creation craze of the early nineties, I alone barrel-rolled over squad cars, posed as evil silhouettes and ran through the ghetto my camera held low and rolling more times than I'll ever admit in a court of law. I just ... grew out of it. And chances are out industry will too, shortly before our needless theatrics are relegated to the internet-ready wristwatch, where the screen is so small, no one will notice what that the reporter is (over)doing.
So remember, newsies, props are BAD - even when they won't poke somebody's eyes out. Step out of those hip-waders, put down that giant thermometer and for the love of all that's holy, take off that Catholic priest collar. Just report the freakin' news, in a manner that won't embarrass either of us. You'll both thank me when the Blowtorch Bandit rolls into town.
In the justly underrated 1958 horror flick I Was A Teenage Cameraman, movie-makers attempt to cash in on the young werewolf hit of the previous year with the story of Stanley Troubleslate, a bumbling young news shooter who begins turning into a TV camera after he accidentally locks himself inside the station's equipment closet and falls asleep in a pile of goo. Though its clunky transformation scenes made for a decent preview, the film's premise peters out early when Stanley becomes so encumbered with then state-of-the-art broadcast gear that he can barely move - let alone lumber menacingly toward breathless ingenues. An acne-ridden Leonard Nimoy stars as young Stanley, though the Star Trek legend distanced himself from the movie after it was savaged by critics, ignored by audiences and generally thought to be a waste of perfectly good television equipment. Too stupid to be taken seriously; not funny enough to lend itself to irony. (Showing every three hours all month long on HBO)
As one who sticks a microphone into stranger's faces, I can tell you it's a pretty perfunctory process. Monotone drones, tangential sentences, bouts of vernacular: they pop up time and time again, foiling most folk's wholehearted attempt to hold the cameraman's attention. NotGeorge Lindell. THAT dude's a tour de force, working his hat as a prop, providing his own sound effects and dropping a catch phrase for the masses on his way out. Look for the t-shirts, coffee mugs and Conan cameo to follow. In a world where Dane Cook is actually considered funny by some, is there not a comedic vehicle out there for a madcap motorist who does his own pyro? Certainly Jack Black has turned down something. As for me, I'll be sizing up strangers a little differently now, knowing that somewhere out there, the next sensation in waiting wants to tell me how he put the dumpster fire out with his neighbor's cat.
I keep my fancycam's controls proudly set on MANUAL, but my head ... it's stuck on Auto-Reflect. It's always been that way - even before I shouldered a Sony and started repeating myself. What's that, you say? Isn't a life behind the lens the very definition of exciting and new? Well, Yes and No. Mostly No. Truth is we news shooters adhere to a routine. We follow our own tracks so often, even mailmen shake their heads. We trot out more old props than a magician's assistant. And we repeat ourselves more than your Uncle Louie does when he lies about killing all those guys in Korea. Don't believe me? Here, I'll prove it - using nothing more than four photos I just now found on my phone. Let's review:
Hey look - it's a freakin' polar bear! Actually, his name is Wilhelm and he's a friend of mine. We first met back when the North Carolina Zoo rescued him from a Puerto Rico traveling circus (you read that right). Wilhelm (Willy to his peeps) is a fairly rare bear whose goofy grin and lackadaisical style has made him a crowd favorite and keeper sweetheart. I know this, because I've dragged my glass around the North Carolina Zoo 7,000 times. Not that I'm complaining. (It just sounds that way.)
Ever raced to the middle of nowhere just to lay eyes on a cop car convention? I have - and so has every other tripod jockey on this heartless orb. In fact, the far-flung car wreck is such a staple of news-gathering, they even teach it in college. I'm kidding - they're far too busy pontificating on The Fourth Estate to touch on something as esoteric as when to slip the state trooper your business card, or how to handle that nineteen year old volunteer firefighter who wants you to park six miles back and hoof it up to the scene with half a TV station on your back.
TIMMMM-BER! Yeah, whatever. Once upon a time, chasing storm damage really appealed to me. Then I picked my way through about a thousand debris fields and the novelty of playing pick-up sticks wore more than a little thin. As is stands (or leans) now, I've hovered over more fallen trees than a first year lumberjack. But it only took a half dozen to realize all that broken wood is nothing compared to the stunned expressions found on the sweet people whose yard you're standing in. I'l just let myself out - through what used to be your garage.
Of course, I don't turn intrigue into monotony all by my lonesome. Well, not EVERY day. No, on regular occasion I work with our fine staff of on-air reporters and among that lot you'll find none finer than Winston-Salem bureau chief Brent Campbell. That's him - adjusting his microphone and wondering just what in the hell I'm up to. Pity the reporter who has to hear my schtick long before its turned into pixels. Brent, though, he can take it. Dude's seen every bit of inanity I have and he doesn't even blather about it on-line. Guy like that's got a real future.
I guess the news crews had it coming. After all, they had the audacity to knock on the door of a Longview, Washington union hall and offer coverage of an ongoing dispute. They were roughly rebuffed. And that's when those jackals from the Fourth Estate stepped over the line. They pointed their cameras at an official note posted on the union hall door. It was more than one schmuck could bear. In a flash, a seething figure wrapped in shrunken flannel burst from the building and in one fell swoop, lowered all the boats in the harbor. "I say, good man, won't you refrain from videotaping our premises?" he did NOT say. Instead, this bellicose nutbag put on a performancethat proved not all stereotypes are wrong, lashing out at the reporters and photographers with enough guttural language to make a drill instructor blush.
It seemed it wouldn't end as the longshoreman bounced from one camera to the next, grabbing lenses, threatening everyone and setting back his cause a hundred years. Really now, sir. Wouldn't your stance be better served by reasoned discourse, or even the unimaginative 'No Comment' - rather than the homoerotic comeuppance you slung all over that parking lot? Down South, we call that 'showing your ass' and we generally discourage it unless blood has been shed (or a pitcher of sweet tea has been spilled). Rarely do we endorse the kind of infantile vulgarity that seems to be your strong suit, if only because it convinces people their prejudices are correct. Didn't you notice the photogs were having a ball? Throbbing veins and flying spittle are a challenge to shoot, but when you back it up with a vocal performance like that, it is a pleasure to bleep and disseminate. Something to think about as your and your pals crack open another Meister Brau, or whatever cut-rate beer you guys drink for breakfast.
Schmuck!
Oh, and if that wasn't enough moronic showboating for you, a clip has surfaced of an EMS official accosting a WNBC photojournalist. " I told you to stop!" the medical technician yells, mistaking his dangling walkie-talkie for the Sword of Grayskull. The photog appears as perplexed as we the audience, but that's a natural expression when an otherwise mild-mannered first responder tries to wrestle your livelihood from your grip. Hey, you don't see us media types snatching stethoscopes from the necks of unsuspecting medics, do you? Do you? Hyperbole aside, I'm most troubled by this last clip, as we news shooters have great respect for emergency medical technicians and work hard to stay out of their way. I mean, we expect longshoremen to go ape-shit when the big words start to fly, but an EMT? Must be more to that story and we here at the Lenslinger Institute are anxious to hear it. Meanwhile we can only judge the evidence before us and lump Mr. Medic in with that flannel-clad oaf with the limited vocabulary.
Sometimes you have to crawl up into the camera's eye-cup and forget everything else around you. Friday Night Football would NOT be one of those times. No, for something like that you need the speed of a cheetah, the thumb of a junkie and the situational awareness of a Navy Seal. I possess neither, but it didn't stop me from shocking sports fan across the land by showing up at my daughter's high school and shooting my first local football game in easily fifteen years. Those cats at NFL Films can relax. While I proudly stand behind all my highlights, a grasp of football's finer points would no doubt have clued me in as to where those jacked-up gladiators were gonna run to next. As it was, I followed the ball, threw up color bars at after every score and kept my balding head on a swivel. But as the above photo illustrates, danger abounds before those guys in tights ever take the field. Witness:
1) I'm surrounded by cheerleaders. High school cheerleaders. Now, I'm certain they're all nice girls, but it's a known fact that anyone who dons a cheerleader uniform is opening themselves up to zombie demonification. Not the kind of creatures you wanna turn your back on, even if they haven't enterfed the seventh circle of Hell just yet. Be it a brain-eating bloodbath or some daffy flash mob, it all feels the same when that cute little thing in the pig tails comes at you with a flying drop-kick.
2) There's a teenage volunteer firefighter at my feet and he's fondling an extinguisher. Normally I got mad respect for anyone who rocks the Neoprene for free, but this particular scenario makes be a bit itchy. After all, I was once a teenage volunteer firefighter and I did unspeakable things with far less intrusive station equipment. Therefore, I'm dedicating 45 percent of my peripheral vision to all the young dudes with chaw in their lips and pagers on their hips.
3) Vikings, Marauders, Cupcake Queens...whatever you call them, a speeding column of testosterone and shoulder pads is about to burst through that paper and make a beeline for yours truly. Okay, so most of them will pass me by, but once the game begins all bets are off. I have seen grown men with mortgages and crab-grass damn near crippled by a sixteen year old running back who's drunk on Twizzlers and pep talk. That might make for a decent Matthew McConaughey flick, but it ain't gonna be based on me.
In the end, I came away from my shift on the gridiron unscathed. There was even a bright among the stretches of tedium and moments of terror. After hearing "Hey Mr. Cameraman!" about two dozen times, I turned away from the game to see my own Freshman daughter among a group of girls. Amazingly, she waved me over and I followed with my fancycam, recording a wide swath of her whole group as they cheered for a game they really weren't watching. Hannah seemed pleased and before I returned to the sideline, she acknowledged to her posse that this slightly sweaty doofus before them was indeed her dear old Dad.
For THAT, I'll dodge a thousand flying drop-kicks.
Note To Self: Drop the family off before you join in on a high-speed chase. Photojournalist Carlos Rodriguez might do well to post that to his dashboard after a fleeing suspect car-jacked his Nissan Cube - with his wife and baby aboard. It happened the other night near Turlock, California. Rodriguez and family were doing some back to school shopping when word of a police pursuit broke over his in-car scanner. Unlike my normal reaction (Unplug scanner. Take to pawn shop. Sell for parts.), Carlos apparently floors it, heading straight for the tri-county high-speed chase with his wife and two month old son in tow. (That's dedication! I think.) For a few minutes, it's a family adventure - until the intrepid photog catches up and (apparently) pops out of his boxy ride to catch a shot of the approaching suspect. From there, things got hinky:
"There was a split second where I see the vehicle go by, but the suspect wasn't in the vehicle and the next thing I know there was pounding and screaming coming from the inside of my car - I run up and see the suspect throwing the car in gear and speeding off with my car," Rodriguez said.
The mind reels. But as Carlos Rodriguez watched a car-jacker speed off with his young family, he did what any natural born shooter would do: he raised his glass and thumbed the RECORD button. Then he flagged down a cop and told him the man they were looking for was now driving a goofy white Nisssan with precious cargo and a police scanner aboard. Ya know, one doesn't have to be a screenwriting hack or even a cynical lenslinger to imagine how badly this could have gone. After all, three picture revenge thrillers have been built on thinner premises. But luckily... thankfully... mercifully, the true life drama soon concluded.
Brett Phares, the 28 year old tool behind the wheel, pulled over two exits later and let Mother and son safely out of the car. He then cemented his standing among criminal masterminds by running out of gas several miles down the road. (Schmuck!) As for the Rodriguez family, they're happily back together. We here at Viewfinder BLUES Global Headquarters wish them nothing but placid commutes and a plethora of yacht rock to soothe their jangled nerves. That especially goes for MRS. Rodrigue, who might very well have a thing or to say the next time hubby points the family van toward the horizon and proceeds to punch it.
There's more I could tell you about Operation Irene and eventually I will. For now, just know that it was an invigorating way to spend a work week - a chance to break away from the soft news I so specialize in and get back to my storm-chasing roots. Weaver led the way this time with his uncanny acumen and limitless energy. Sheeka, too, proved herself quite the storm warrior, doling out cogent facts and commentary each and every time we pointed a camera at her - which was most of the time we were there. Countless live shots, dozens of packages, more tweets. Skypes and status updates than you can shake a dying iPhone at. Was Irene over-hyped? Not my call. But it was the first real hurricane in the age if social media and it all makes me wonder how we'll cover these storms just a few short years from now. One things' for sure: I'll fight to cover these signature whirlwinds each and every time they threaten our shore - if for no other reason than it leads to cinematic situations like this:
It was nearly dusk on Saturday by the time we saw the sun. Even then it was just a glimmer, a five minute break in the haze in which the Western sky exploded. I broke off a conversation with WRAL-TV's legendary shooter Robert Meikle and stumbled toward the orb. Loitering on the boardwalk there, I bathed in its beauty as a bundled figure approached. "That's somethin' ain't it?" I asked him and he agreed it was indeed celestial. We exchanged more warm words about the sun and as I stood there looking at it , I feel the young man staring at me. He leaned in close and with a grin said, "He-e-e-y, you ARE the Lenslinger!"
At 7:30 am, Irene made landfall near Cape Lookout, N.C., some fifteen miles north of the sandy Sheraton we called home. Moving low and slow, the Class 1 hurricane raked the Crystal Coast before taking lives and property as close as the Outer Banks and as far away as Vermont. Within that context, Atlantic Beach escaped unscathed, though that would be difficult to explain to the residents whose neighborhoods were temporarily flooded, whose income was interrupted, whose favorite fishing pier was crippled by the passing storm.
For the members of the press, how you spent Saturday morning depended on who was picking up your expense report. Those with network addresses on their check invariably fared better. Just ask the NBC crew spotted walking out of a backroom with bacon and eggs on their breath - long after Irene knocked out power to the hotel. I'm not saying Sheraton staffers fired up a generator and cooked the big-shots breakfast, but there's a local photog over there with a belly full of Cheez-Wiz and Pop-Tarts who wrote a little song about it. He's humming it now outside the Peacock's sat truck right. Try not to make eye contact.
Then again, maybe I imagined him. It all seems so fuzzy now. What I most remember about the morning Irene came ashore is driving around in it. Sheeka, Weaver and I scoured the island as best we could while eighty mile an hour winds made full grown stop signs wobble and thrum. From a leaning steeple to shattered glass, we collected the requisite evidence of a hurricane on the wane. Hell, we even pushed Sheeka out in the open for some street-level coverage. It was great fun, in a "hey, watch out for flying sheet-metal" kind of way. Later, we hit the beach where great curtains of flying sand granules wedged themselves in places that just shouldn't be explored on a family blog as this.
But you didn't stop in to hear of gritty under-loins. That kind of thing can be found all over the internet. No, what I hope you expected were tales of deprivation, pithy missives borne of hunger, snark and delirium, great passages of action in which a heroic news team rises above their station by plucking orphans from a kinetic surf. You know, I'd kinda like to read some of that myself, for true hurricane coverage is comprised of hours of boredom punctuated by seconds of totally heinous chafing. By far, the most perilous part of our mission was navigating five stories of pitch black stairwell under heavy load every time we went somewhere. I've never tasted so much flashlight!
But even that metallic taste doesn't capture the true flavor of extended hurricane coverage. For that, I'm forced to cue up a most disturbing vignette, a grainy trek into the very heart of darkness. That's right, I'm talkin' about the trail of destruction spawned by a news crew on assignment, a swath of debris that begins somewhere around the Do Not Disturb sign and extends well past the point of imagination...
By nine o clock, the mood at Molly’s had changed. Gone were the drunken swimmers and sober-eyed cops. Missing too were more than a few camera crews. With Hurricane Irene churning just off shore, more than one affiliate had ordered its people off the island. Those crews moved quickly: no one really wanted to drive their satellite truck over that bridge after dark. Not with the wind howling like God himself had a hemorrhoid. It’s just one of the many reasons Weaver, Sheeka and I had decided to stay put. Irene would strike overnight. We wanted to be here when it did. So we hounded the hotel lady for the safest place to park. Other stations did the same and soon all the TV trucks clung to the old Sheraton like frightened pups huddling under their mother during a storm. Inside Live 3, Weaver and Sheeka worked on a story for the next newscast while the top-heavy truck rocked back and forth on its tires. I, meanwhile, unfurled fiber-optic cable across a parking lot turned tidal pool. At least that’s what I think I was doing. Truth is, my glasses were so fogged up and my rain-suit so twisted I wasn’t sure if I was setting up a live shot or doing the underwater lambada. All I know is that it was raining up my nose and not just because I was bent at the waist wrestling . Up ahead, a couple of strong spotlights lit up my next destination. Molly’s, the beachside bar and grill whose covered patio had become the media’s situation room. Minus Wolf Blitzer, of course.
No, I’m not sure who was the guy outside the CNN truck. Blame it on the rain. Once Irene started spitting ocean water at us, everyone pulled on their plastic. Soon even the glossiest of correspondents got lost in a sea of rain-suited strangers. (Except one. NBC’s Kerry Sanders rocked a giant NBC peacock on the back of his bright yellow coat. It was awesome and I told him so a day later outside a port-a-potty. No law was called.) I pulled my own hood tight and followed a particular strand of the thick black cables running toward the shore. Most of it ran under water at some point and as I shook water off the end of an extension cord before jamming it into a sandy receptacle, I found myself wondering what they talked about in all those middle school science classes I slept through.’ No bother’ I thought as I splashed across the parking lot. I’d swapped my flip-flops for a pair of rubber fishing boots and at the moment my toes were the only body part not wet. Once under Molly’s roof, I fought the urge to shake off like a dog. Had I done so, I would no doubt have incurred the wrath of a Fox News Channel photog and for a slender blonde woman, she looked like she could rip your lips off. Nearby, a local crew took turns taking pictures of each others, their wisecracks and nervous squeals punctuating the wailing wind. It may have been a slow night at Molly’s, but the atmosphere was electric and as I stood there dripping in it, a weary grin appeared beneath my visor.
Whole cooking shows could be built around the taste of a hurricane. I like it best off the rocks, wedged into the stairwell of some concrete hotel with a protected doorway from which to point my camera. That would come later, but for now I’d take advantage of the few minutes I had for before the newscast started and simply soak it all in. This would be easy to do, as I was wet from stem to stern. Back in the truck, Sheeka and Weaver were putting the finishing touches on the interviews we had shot earlier. It wax dry in there and more than a little fragrant, so I chose to stick it out at Molly’s for awhile. With my camera and cables now seeing eye to eye, there was nothing left to do but vedge, something I’m particularly gifted at. Besides, the rain was utterly hypnotizing me. Hurricane rain is like that: it comes down in cockeyed curtains, whips upward when you least expect and preforms the kind of aerobatics people cough up good money to watch. With the high powered lights pointed toward the pier, the rain put on a performance worthy of a flashback, each buoyant orb its own Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. I stood there for a long time, the cackle of the neighboring news crew falling away as I focused only on the falling water, the exploding surf, the tortured wail of the wind. You’d think a hurricane was coming…
Wanna make those camera crews contract? Just add water. That's what happened at Atlantic Beach on Friday, as the outermost rain bands of Hurricane Irene began lashing at the shore. What had been a loose knit confederation of lights and lenses strewn across the Sheraton parking lot was now a clot of photogs and reporters huddling under the roof of the pier-side bar. Sure, it got a little crowded, but rubbing rain-suits with the competition beats still beats setting up a karaoke booth inside a car wash. That's kind of what it feels like to shoot video on the edges of an approaching hurricane. Though to be fair, I've never set up a karaoke booth, in or outside of a car wash.
What I have done is point a TV camera at everything under the cloud cover and for my lack of money, few things are as satisfactory to target as a fishing pier under duress. Yes, what had been our stage just hours earlier was now safe to use only as a backdrop. And what a backdrop! Every time one of those ten feet seas crashed into it, the old pier groaned, swayed and threatened to collapse into the surf. This of course made for a fabulous measuring stick and Sheeka and I spent the better part of both newscasts expecting it to crumble and fall. But even if that waterlogged wooden walkway exploded into a million splintery pieces, not all the camera crews present would have caught it.
Not with all those angry birds flying about. Throw in some words with friends and you got a couple of reasons why grizzled journalists in head-to-toe rain gear were stealing glances away from nature's fury to check their Twitter feed. That includes me! In fact, the biggest difference to modern day storm coverage is by far the wonderful handheld devices everyone seems to be staring at. Whereas you used to feel kind of isolated waiting on a storm everyone else has run from, now it's just another chat-fest. As an insatiable communicator, I love it, but I can't help but wonder when we'll have the first hurricane death caused by electronic distraction. Oooh! That would make for a cool status update!
"The news crew awoke before dawn...they put their boots on." Actually, we went with flip-flops. That hussy rainmaker known as Irene was still was doing her make-up off shore, leaving us the better part of a day to pretend to be tourists. But tourists rarely rise before four. They don't rig the business end of a fishing pier in wire and lights in hopes they'll lure in viewers. It's exactly what we did. Taking a stance behind my sticks, I traded gazes with reporter Sheeka Strickland as distant co-workers chortled in out earbuds. Across the parking lot, Chris Weaver hunched over some buttons in our television transmission truck and tuned in the bird.
Bird. That's tee-veese for satellite. Without them, we couldn't beam our signal back to the Greater Piedmont Googolplex. But it wasn't just our homeland we were about to slather in storm warning. No, we were gonna hook up every step-sister station down the line with breathless remotes on the coming or Irene. It sounds tawdry but it's not. Once Sheeka wrapped up our local report, she and I stood down while Weaver dialed up another affiliate. Like magic, new voices poured from the tiny speakers wedged in our ears. Soon a voice would address us directly, tell her we were about to go on air with Susie and Chet, Brock and Sasha, Bert and Ernie. Sheeka blinked away the introductions, until the booming sound of an out of town anchor began mangling every fact they could find.
"Hurricane Irene is barreling toward the South Carolina coast, Streeka Shickland is on the Outer Banks there and joins us from Atlantic City." This went on for hours as Sheeka's image bounced from Phoenix to Florida to Connecticut and back again. At some point I lost track, if not consciousness, of the places we visited while standing on that pier. All I knew is that the bigger the market we beamed into, the cheesier the game-show voice in my headset sounded. Four hours later, we were just about done, which was a good thing since our immediate surroundings had sprung to life. Cops, surfers, carpenters and reprobates milled about the place, each one marveling at the darkening skies and newly erected spotlights. That's when the industrial-strength raindrops began to fall.
It would not stop raining for twenty eight more hours...
