Lavender Crush

Keep your wretched Sex and the City sequels; we need a movie about the modern news woman. Take Sheeka Strickland. As a general assignment reporter, she dashes from palace to crack-house and back again in the course of a single morning. Why her lowliest notebook contains the kind of rare characters and gory story arcs those Hollywood phonies would trade their spray-tans for - and that's just the stuff she remembered to write down! Most of that data traveled straight through the wireless microphone she wields like a diamond-encrusted laser-sighted truth beam. Hell, I once saw her use it to make an entire Wal-Mart parking lot freeze - and that was before I told her the batteries were dead. Yes, Tinseltown would be wise to stop bedding bimbos and instead dramatize the lives of interesting women the globe over. And where better to start than a certain Ms. Strickland?

Yeah, I'm a bit biased. Sheeka and I have logged many a news mile together, broken bread in a half dozen counties, even picked through misery as family members strapped on sidearms. Of course the last time we saw Sheeka, she was picking bits of Hurricane Irene from her lipstick and swearing off Granola bars forever. Now it seems she's in the middle of another storm - a roiling cloud of fancycams, fishing vests and middle fingers all directed at one John Edwards. That's right, none other than the feathery worm himself is making cameos in The Sheeka Strickland Story and I for one have urged her to lock her trailer late at night. Otherwise, she may need more than a posse of photogs to have her back - something any of the lensers who've accompanied this pleasant vet into the fray would be more than glad to do. Hell, we might even take a bit-part in her upcoming bio-pic...you know, provided we ain't gotta talk on camera.

We photogs hate that.

Raging Tool

Since he never laid a hand on the camera crew, we can't very well issue a Schmuck Alert, but we here at the Lenslinger Institute would like to recognize the brother of South Carolina Lt. Governor Ken Ard for setting back the image of Southern Men at least a couple of decades. Not since Billy Carter upchucked on those Bicentennial cupcakes has a Governor's brother made such an unabashed ass of himself. (Somewhere in Arkansas, Roger Clinton is feeling pangs of regret over that Playgirl spread he bailed on.) Anyway, senior staff met overnight on the matter and while Sammy Ard won't be granted full Schmuck status, we did agree he's an egregious dill-weed...

I'm not sure what WIS-TV's Jody Barr expected to find at the auto body business owned by Sammy Ard last week, but chances are 'unhinged dullard' wasn't written on his reporter's notepad. That's about what he and his photog found though as none other than the Lieutenant Governor's brother rushed out to identify himself.

"MUHNAMESAMMYARDDUHLOOTENTGUBNERSEFFINBRUTHER!"

At least I think that's what he said. Truth is, even a Southerner like myself had to play it back twice to understand the man. Locals will no doubt grow sick of the sound after Lt. Governor Ken Ard's opponents run it into the ground come re-election time. That is, if he makes it that far. Currently, he's facing a state grand jury investigation into how he funded his campaign. Seems Sammy donated the maximum amount and testified before the grand jury - one day before showing his true color to the evening news. Nice move, bro. With family like you, your brother won't need any political enemies.

Same As It Never Was

See Dick Run. See Dick Shoot. See Dick sport a pair of wool slacks that'll make generations of lensers break out in hives. Honestly, if a guy with that much dip in his 'do came at ME with a camera, I'd kick him square between the Darrins. Maybe then, he'd stay out of my subconscious - instead of wandering into my every other day dream like some overdressed specter. Did photogs, I'm sorry, "cameraman drivers", ever really look like that? Apparently so, but in my two decades behind the glass, I've not met a single news shooter who could double as that Dad from Dennis the Menace. Then again, I don't get out of Carolina much. Perhaps in Metropolis, mortal recordists dress like Clark Kent. Here in the shallow South, we favor the Suburban Dad turned Survivalist duds -that is when we're not rockin' the mismatched cabana-wear of seaside drifters the globe over. That look never goes out of style. But don't take my word for it. Ask Amanda Emily, the sharp-eyed archivist who forgoes fashion for fresh relics from the ash-heap of TV history. Maybe that's where she found this broadcast schematic - a bold mobile coverage plan, slathered in Mad Man fashion and dripping in retro-tech... 

Talk about timeless.

Hernia Sold Separately

I know what you're thinking: someone threw away a perfectly good photog. But I assure you, Rick Portier is far from discarded. In fact, he's hard at work , rewiring some pesky patch panel in the back of that live truck, -- or aiming his new squirt gun at an unsuspecting reporter. Either way, he's finding new ways to thrive in a changing work environment while demonstrating his mastery of a photog fundamental: Flexibility.  

That's right, it takes more than a sharp eye and a drifter's wardrobe to succeed behind the lens. You gotta be limber. Circus freak limber. How else are you fit in that cop car cockpit? Or commandeer that golf-cart? Or hold that fancycam over your head while parade float rolls over your toes? I'm not saying you have to be a straight-up contortionist, but if you're gonna roll up on a clotted scrum and expect to get more than a face full of camera battery, you better snap back mosh after mosh.

Of course with point of view cameras and news crews of one, the lost art of the lens jockey will go the way of the test pattern. No more will stations rely on grubby underlings with malleable backs and zero social skills to procure fresh footage. Hey, why hire some guy you wouldn't allow in your home to hang off that speed boat when you can send Newsbreak Barbie and a couple of suction cups? Come to think of it, such a thing might convince even ME to tune in.

Still, I worry about all those pliant news vets out there - the ones who customized their skill sets to fit every newscast. Where they gonna go? I knew one dude - we'll call him Flexy- he could backpedal on his buttocks, hold his breath for the better part of a telethon and grip an entire light kit with his forehead. How are those skills gonna translate to the real world when his trusty TV gig is rendered obsolete by a buxom blonde with camera implants?   

Don't bother answering. I'd have to remove this tripod plate from my chin just to write it down.

Ray of Mope

I've been told I need to smile more in photographs. Piss on that. If I got any giddier, they'd kick me out of the news shooters union, for a thousand yard stare is simply the price of admission. In person, I'm almost jovial ... ya know, in a morose kind of way. More than anything, I'm a product of conditioning. And for the past two decades I've been conditioned to squint through things... windshields, lenses, Wendy's milkshake lids. Is it any wonder I wear a poker-face? You would too, had you waded into places where you either weren't welcomed or were fawned over to the point of kidnapping concerns. It ain't me, mind you. It's that Sony on my shoulder. People tend to genuflect in its presence. That, or they simply skulk out of the room. I have to chase them either way. Some run. Others stop, drop, pop and lock. One guy in shackles wanted to 'take me back to the double-wide to see if I bleed'. I declined - using the exact same facial muscles I employ to wave Goth kids off at the county fair.

Hey, YOU roll up to a City Council meeting or a crowded kindergarten class without your mask of apathy intact. They'll make you eat paste! And those little kids can hassle you too, though a room full of jacked up five year olds still pales in comparison to one low-level wonk in search of a constituency. Don't believe me? Lock eyes with an assistant city manager who wants to get his no-kill litterbug campaign off the ground. You'll wish you covered your face in Saran Wrap. Also, appearing vaguely constipated discourages looky-loo's from approaching the glass. 'You there, throwing devil horns and screaming 'Hey Mom". Your mom ain't here. She's tied up back in my live truck telling all your secrets. So if you don't want me spreading details of your chocolate bath habit across seven contiguous counties, you will back the fudge up.'  Now, I of course would never SAY anything so rude to the people who pay my bills, but if I scrunch my eyebrows together and channel Chuck Norris just right...

...I shouldn't have to.

Sound Man Down

How do you tell the local news crews from the network guys at a Presidential Pit Stop? Simple. During the inevitable downtime before the leader of the free world takes the teleprompter, the locals will mingle and chat. Those jet setting network techs, meanwhile, will drop like soldiers coming off a three day hike and get some shut-eye in front of God and everybody. At least that's what fellow local Chris Weaver found today while he waited for President Obama to put out his smoke polish off that orange and speak to the people. By the time he did, I'm sure said soundie was in an upright position, for you don't hold onto a gig like that by lying down on the job. You do, however, earn the right to be pixelated on these very pages, for there's nothing like a supine audio technician to convince me I made the right call when I dodged the latest round of Obamathon. I'm sure he'll be back in no time, for North Carolina is shaping up once again to be a battleground state and you know what they say, " An Army travels on its back, er, belly, er, battery belt... Now if you'll excuse me, I gotta go stretch out on the floor and snore some more.

How else will I ever go network? 

Glance the Night Away

Not so very often Man and Moment collide, leaving such an indelible impression he ends up defining a generation. That or he just really embarrasses his future kids. I should know. All of which is why I had to breathe into a paper bag for a few minutes the first time I took in the sartorial head-spin that is/was Ed Springer...

Note how the feathered hair and the butterfly collar frames the Burt Reynolds' mustache just so. Throw in a jaunty pose and some serious waist piping on that sweater vest and you have a lothario under glass. And what glass! Why, just the pistol-grip on that antiquated mini-cam should have its own display case at the Newseum! But please, don't think I'm making fun of the man. Back when Springer was styling and profiling, I was hunched over a multiplication table wondering how I was gonna make a living without math. Had a cameraman with such panache wandered into my fourth grade class, I would have followed him around until someone filed a restraining order.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm suddenly in the mood for some BeeGees. Can't remember the last time that happened...

Black Hole Sun

Some might call it a snapshot, but to me this picture of young photog on the go has all the makings of a motivational poster. The dude's name is Bryant James Vander Weerd (and what a name that is!) When he's not splitting the scenery at the first sign of demonic smoke plume, Vander Weerd shoots and edits fresh footage for WHAS11 News. It's the kind of thankless gig that can take a young man anywhere, from a cushy spot at the cabbage queen pageant to the slim margin of safety of a not so distant inferno. That seems to be what's happening above, as our hero splits the scenery solely because his newest assignment was about to blot out the sun. But don't let me church it up, let's hear from the man in black himself:

"This was taken at a strip mall fire in Sellersburg, Indiana. To the left in the frame is supposed to be a mass of fire trucks, but it's very windy today and all of a sudden I'm bombarded with water, smoke, and pieces of toasted shopping center. Totally lost sight of the building. Not exactly an ideal place to do a live shot!"

Not at all, Bryant James Vander Weerd, not at all. Glad you moved. But hey, if you could just run back and grab one of those smoldering chunks of insulation,  the anchors need something to pass back and forth during happy talk. Just don't come into the newsroom, as by now you smell like a melted hosiery outlet. The chicks may not dig it, but you and I both know it smells like freedom. FREEE-DOM!!!!!! 

(Sorry, motivational posters do that to me.)

Not Your Huckleberries

Hey Sports Fans! Bummed out about the NBA cancelling the first two weeks of their season? Me neither! The last time I watched a professional basketball game, Michael Jordan rocked knee-socks and a low-top fade. Now, however, the league of thuggish millionaires is providing more entertainment than they have in years - all by staying the hell off the hardwood. It all started during the Derek Fisher press conference when two camera-AHEM-men began arguing over who had the larger Holly Hobbie collection where each other should stand during the interview. Voices sharpened, hollow chests filled with air, spare batteries caught fire from sheer bellicosity. It was, by all accounts, pathetic. So much so that fellow journos suggested they take their shouting match OUTSIDE - ya know, where truck drivers, sailors and junkies spill blood.   

With that, the duo settled down, but once the presser was over they did indeed take their umbrage to the street, though the result was less like the bare-knuckled brawl their colleagues envisioned and more like two Avon ladies squaring off over mixed up lipsticks. Look, I'm way too cowardly, er, cerebral to advocate violence, but if you're gonna bow up like that in front of a bored pack of photographers, you'd best break out the haymakers, 'cause your half-empty can of whoop ass is about to preserved for all of eternity. You might even want to throw a punch. One you expect to land. 

Oddly enough, that never really happened. What did go down was an awkward waltz,  an exercise in avoidance, a thrilla in vanilla, if you will (even if you won't). For an excruciating ninety-four seconds the two brutes circled each other, wavering on the edge of actual fisticuffs. They danced, they flexed, they grimaced...they grimaced again. Watching it, one gets the feeling they were waiting for the slow-motion effect from The Matrix to kick in. It never did. Instead these two morons delivered a few half hearted kicks (where I come from, you only kick a man when he's down - and only then when no one's looking), eliciting only giggles from the crowd before they lose interest and wander cruelly out of frame.

Fellas, please! There are better ways to make TMZ. Frankly, footage of you crawling out of a limo without panties would be less humiliating than that (lack of) action sequence. I've seen gnarlier clashes at cat shows. So, whether you two were trying to embarrass yourselves or you're both just really bad at pulling off flash mobs, I implore you to go BIG or go home. Otherwise you're just lowering the reputed testosterone levels of photogs everywhere by sixteen hundred Tony Danzas or Midi-chloridians or whatever the hell you use to to measure machismo. You're also making it awfully easy for pajama-clad pundits like me to make fun of you and while I appreciate the work, I'd much rather you sting like a bee instead of just floating there like a couple of confused and flaccid butterflies.

Now back to your corners and come out swingin'.

Outward Found

We interrupt this lack of updates to bring you a special bulletin: Your not so humble lenslinger is tired of talking television. Hey, I slave over a glowing viewfinder for, like, eight hours a day sometimes. When I get home, there are "Honey-Do's" to negotiate, teenager daughters to embarrass with my mere presence and a rather lippy Eskimo Spitz mix to parade around the neighborhood. By the time I plop down in front of my beloved Mac, I can't always spell T-V, let alone wax poetically on its foibles and future. A shame really; if I could sync up my desire to write with my erratic ability, I might just be able to pry this camera off my shoulder for good. Then again, I can't seem to add new music to my iPod without the assistance of my (embarrassed) 17 year old - who gets her vengeance by loading it down with songs from Phantom of the Opera. Why I'd think I could summon the muse and the tools at the same time makes about as much sense as anything Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote resonating with a high school senior in the year 2011.

But I digress.

Or to be more accurate, I've wandered away from my source material. That's happened pretty regularly in my nearly even years of blogging and I'm more than certain it'll happen again. Whereas I used to make some grand proclamation whenever my focus softened, I've leaned that announcing one's plans is a sure-fire way to make God spit ocean water through his nose. But while I'm on the subject, let me assure you that I'm way to needy a writer-type to ever shut this blog down completely. I've come close a couple of times, but my fragile ego and strong desire to see this thing through always stops me from dismantling this compendium of snark. Simply put, there's no downside to continuing. Unlike my day job - in which I fill two minutes or so news cast every (damn) day - the pace of publication for Viewfinder BLUES is totally up to me. Just remind me of that the next time I'm staring holes into my bedroom ceiling at four in the morning.

Or better yet, catch me on the lake.

That's where you can find me these days, for I finally grew so tired of stepping over the kayaks in my garage that I now park them in the 816 acre watershed out behind my home The Lenslinger Institute.It's proven surprisingly therapeutic, whether I'm racing dragonflies across Lake Brandt's surface or simply bobbing for solitude off it's heavily wooded shoreline. Ya know, I never thought I'd end up as that middle age guy in the plastic boat, but now that I've given up any hope of a sports car (wife got one), there may simply be no paddling back. And while there are less taxing forms of aquatic conveyance, I found that paddling is key. See, like mountain biking, poking around a lake (or river) is both calisthenic AND contemplative. Not to mention, you're sitting down the entire time. That's MY kind of workout! Yeah, sometimes I'll just float there with one eye on the sky - should that alien spacecraft I've dreamed about ever hover over my vessel and beam the both of us aboard...

Maybe then I'd have something to write about.

Tools on Parade

I'd like to think the Occupy Wall Street crowd understands their issue better than yours truly, but I've covered enough protests to know most folks screaming catchphrases are clueless reprobates with nothing much better to do. You there - dressed like a shepherd and reeking of ditch-water. Wanna change the world? Leave the street. Wash that ass. Get a job. Maybe then I'll be the least bit interested in what you have to say (though chances are if you're holding a homemade sign and wearing anything made of hemp, I'm gonna consider you still mad at your parents and officially not worth my time.) But hey, I didn't log in to lose readers with my half-addled pragmatism. There's tons of blogs featuring that weak cheese. Besides, politics cease to matter when the night sticks take flight. Just ask Rodney King.

Or better yet, ask FOX 5 photog Roy Isen and reporter Dick Brennan. They were among the news crews caught in an explosion of violence between New York Police officers and the great unwashed. No matter your theology, it's a scary scene. Protestors pushing forth, cops swatting back with batons and pepper spray; if nothing else the footage proves you don't cover a riot, you swim in one. Of course the Occupy Wall Street movement famously started via social media and some would say the mainstream media is only getting what they deserved for being late to the world's most unpleasant party. Meh. I'm just glad that particular fracas is happening far from here, for as painful as it would be to catch a nightstick to the head, it would be even more excruciating to do so in a crowd full of people who still aren't sure what in the hell they're fighting for.   

Sloth to Flame

Even though I'm not the spot news specialist I once was, I can still roll up hard on a house fire. Especially when it's one of those abandoned homes lovingly set ablaze by men in turn-out gear. That's right, I stumbled across a training fire last week and treated it like it was news. To be fair, I knew it was a 'control-burn' - as the traffic cones between me and the fire trucks were arranged way too precisely. Still, I forged ahead, knowing that somewhere among that burning rubble were a few sharp edges I could hang a story on. As it turned out, UNC-Greensboro donated the old home to the city's fire department, who,  not surprisingly, doused the thing in gasoline and called all their buddies. By the time I noticed the smoke plume, they were well on their way to choking every squirrel within a fifty tree radius.

But it didn't stop me, for I've been taken with blaze containment since the Reagan Administration. Back then I was the bookish younger brother of a future firefighter. Richard Pittman grew up to fulfill his action hero leanings. Me, I just dug the view. So I became a TV news photog and in twenty years I've attended countless conflagrations. Most were tinged with tragedy, of course. That's why training fires are so much fun: you get the thrill of the hunt without trampling over some poor woman in a housecoat. Why, I've even known training fires like to this to change young photogs lives! There was this one guy I knew who covered a controlled burn so thoroughly, he left the scene wanting to be a firefighter himself. Look! There he is now!

Tim Bateson, in the flesh. I suppose I should have expected him to be here, but when he popped out from behind a fire engine with camera in hand, I was more than a little surprised. And pleased. Tim spent many years at El Ocho, proving himself a committed lenslinger and all around great guy (even if he IS Canadian). When he announced he day he was leaving tee-vee to answer a higher calling we asked him when his garbage route started. Turns out he had something even more noble in mind. These days, he's one of them, though his photog past hasn't left him, as evidenced by the way he kept getting in my shot with that damn camcorder. That's okay. I'll wait til he picks his nose one day, then share the dig with the Greater Piedmont Googolplex. That'll teach him to get all heroic on us.

Now if only he'd teach me to arrange traffic cones like that...

Where No Handelman Has Gone Before

"Did somebody bail?" That's what I wondered when journeyman radio host Allan Handelman called the other day and asked if I'd appear on his show that afternoon. "Youbetcha!", I heard myself say. Then I hung up the phone and realized I still had ninety seconds of newscast to fill before I could even think about what I was gonna talk about on the ray-diddio. Two hours later, I fed my final cut to the server down the hall then headed to the break room. On a whim I bought a Dr. Pepper, gunned half of it down like a frat house beer, then escorted the rest of my beverage to an undisclosed location. There I hunkered over an antiquated land-line, scratched notes on a four year old phone book and tried not to belch on the air...

...And judged by those harsh standards, my appearance on The Allan Handelman Show was a raging success. Allan seemed rather desperate happy to let me babble about local television in this new media age, a subject I can ponder endlessly without ever even attempting to provide any real answers. Hopefully no one drove off the interstate when they realized the homeless pet psychic scheduled to be on at six had been replaced by some guy they'd never heard of before holding forth on a medium they no longer watch. Hey, everyone needs a niche. Besides, Handelman fans (like me) know to expect just about anything on WZTK's afternoon drive-home show, from alien abduction experts to that time Sasquatch called in to talk weed legalization. Me, I'm just happy to help, though I got a little nervous when I realized 'Phil from Myrtle Beach' was indeed old friend Phil Werz, calling in to lob a few broadcaster softballs. Thanks, Phil and Thank You, Allan, for nothing pleases this gasbag more than pretending someone out there is paying attention.

Now about that syndicated show...