Viewfinder BLUES

Bright Passenger

2012-01-28T16:57:00.000-05:00

Hey kids, what do serial killers and TV news photogs have in common? Their wardrobe, of course! That and their habit of driving around with 'kits' in the trunk. You know, the kind of thing everyone keeps handy: bleach, jumpsuits, a few tarps. Hey, you never know when you're gonna have to go cover a mudslide, wash up after a bloodbath, profile a panhandler or simply off a hobo. Either way, you're gonna want to be prepared, so I suggest staying up late at night categorizing your supplies. Hmm? No, hanging upside down in your closet while you sleep should be optional, though it may help some of those sorer torsos out there. What you really want to do is learn the location of the nearest sorority house, er Radio Shack. Look, the urge to feel the thrum of a fresh nine volt could strike at any moment. You don't wanna be circling some dark parking lot, waiting for some hero type to start ogling your logos. So know when to blend, how to hide and where to find the exits. Master that and you'll go as far as your heart of darkness or fanny-pack full of pork rinds will take you. Just keep you head about you. Hell, you may even wanna cover it up altogether. OOH, I know! Go to your local tractor-pull and see if they're still giving away bright orange ski-masks as door prizes. That way, you'll always be in style -- whether you're bum-rushing ribbon-cuttings or working on your earlobe collection.

Same thing, really.

Diagnosis: Lifer

2012-01-25T07:26:00.001-05:00

What is Viewfinder BLUES?

It's that feeling you get while freshening up a widow's porch, rearranging the rocking chairs so that sunlight will glint off the tears you're about to capture.

It's that sudden knowledge that you're gonna spend the rest of the day camped out in an electrified dumpster with promises printed on it.

It's the sensation you get when the woman who called your station demanding something be done about the problem in her neighborhood tells you she doesn't want to talk about it on camera.

It's that deep-seeded realization that no matter how many heartfelt epics you serve up night after night, the viewers just want to watch the hot chick wiggle through her stand-up.

It's that dull throb you feel behind your temples as a young colleague who's yet to master the fundamentals wonders how long it will be before he wins his first Emmy.

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But it is so much more. It's a self diagnosis, the kind of thing you come down with while spinning your wheels at the intersection of Pixels and Grit. It's also an excuse: "Hey I'd like to help with your telethon and all, but I got a wicked case of Viewfinder BLUES. Doc says the only cure is warm beer and a few 'WKRP in Cincinnati' episodes." And for better or worse, it's become a bit of a lifestyle. Don't believe me? Look around your newsroom. Surely you'll find an aging photog or two bitching about how the free ice cream at that last ribbon-cutting was too cold.

I get that guy. Hell, some days, I AM that guy. But by twisting grist into pithy epistles, I've found a way to live with this affliction. It's no cure, mind you. I still lapse into torpor on a regular basis; feel sorry for myself 'cause I stayed at the party too long. That's my hang up, not yours. And while I still have no good answer whenever someone asks me why I haven't written that book yet, know that I haven't given up on the idea of starting it one day. For now I'll forge ahead, knowing that, if nothing else - I got a title that says it all....

Besides, 'Live Shot Miasma' just didn't sound right.

Legends of the Maw

2012-01-23T22:17:00.001-05:00

Bonfires, lock-downs, cockfights ... you never know where you'll run into (or over) a colleague. And since it's chaos we seek, we never let it stop us from catching up. Just ask David R. Busse, a Senior Fellow with the Lenslinger Institute. Busse has seen it all, all right, but he hasn't done so alone. And when he spots a colleague across the maw, he doesn't let said bedlam interrupt his visit. Such was the case the other day, when protesters stormed the campus of the University of California-Riverside...

"Your correspondent, now 55 and proud of the fact that he recently shed knee braces and takes ibuprofen only on really busy days, jumped in the fray and moved up the stairs with the mob, certainly the only person on this campus at the moment wearing a Cabela’s baseball cap. As crowd turned the corner near the top landing, they were met by a brace of helmeted University police in full riot gear. The upward mobility of the group quickly stopped.

In younger days, your correspondent would have pushed his way to the 18-inches or so of tense air that separated youths from hickory batons. About the time he began to ponder that move, and among drum-beating, chanting and loud discussion of the moment, there was a tap on the shoulder, and someone muttering “Hey, Busse…” (pronounced bus-eee in case you were wondering).

It was the familiar voice of Kurt Miller, veteran news photographer of the Riverside Press-Enterprise newspaper, and a person with whom this correspondent had covered fire, flood and, now, insurrection, for more than three decades.

The chanting continued, but among the shoving, jostling and drumming, two veterans managed to catch up on the goings-on among respective places of employment, family stuff, retirement plans and other such weighty matters…cocktail party conversation among the jetsam and flotsam...

Ten minutes later, the protesters retreated, cops held their ground and peace returned to that side of the building. Your correspondent began to think of deadlines and image ingestion issues. A packed lunch also awaited in the back seat of Minicam Unit 51 and somewhere in that lunch bag were a couple of ibuprofen tablets."

With friends like that, who needs painkillers?

Schmuck Alert: Get a Leg Up!

2012-01-22T21:12:00.000-05:00

Okay, show of hands... Who here hasn't fantasized about ripping off a tripod leg and going all Billy Jack on somebody? I myself have concocted whole action sequences in my head while pacing about some deserted sallyport (look it up). But to actually do it? In broad daylight? As cameras rolled? Gentility forbids! Besides, you know what kind of tensile strength it takes to wrench a limb off a modern-day camera stand? I'm w-a-a-y too lazy for that. Plus, I got CLASS - a mental condition not shared by the crazy bitch, er, distraught family member who - in under sixty seconds - brought more shame to Detroit City than any twenty members of the Kiss Army combined. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to step away from this paragraph and collect my thoughts.

Ahem.

You know, we've seen a lot of savagery here at Schmuck Alert Central. Handcuff tantrums, slow-motion moonshiner spit, a veritable parade of ill-advised dropkicks... But in all our days of screening rash of acts of video, we've never before witnessed the kind of tripod atrocity as the wanton utensil sacrifice depicted in the clip below. As with many crimes against the camera, it happened outside a courthouse. That's where the families of both the victim and defendant in a murder case left an arraignment Saturday afternoon. Free from the supervision of the courtroom's drowsy bailiffs, the relatives waste no time cursing each other and the predictable collision ensues.

Third verse, same as the first.

Or so we think, for after a few moments of rampant apoplexy, one young lady sheds her pink jacket and does something wholly unexpected. She makes a beeline for the nearest tripod, body-slams the damn thing, then throttles that weak-kneed beast in front of God and everybody. This is a new maneuver in the annals of news crew abuse and quite possibly, a sign of the apocalypse. I can only wonder what's going through the photog's mind as he pans from the general chaos around him to the methodical dismemberment of the three-legged creature he takes with him everywhere he goes. The mind reels. Worse yet, the woman manages to separate said leg, no easy feat I assure you. She then brandishes it a bit before finally following her family down the street, all the while twirling the broken leg like some demented drum majorette from Hell and leaving the rest of civilization speechless...

Schmuck!

Weary from Prattle

2012-01-20T07:47:00.001-05:00

Things they don't tell you at The Photog Academy: You're gonna grow old staring at a podium. In fact, you'll gather most of your news standing still. But you won't have time to daydream. No, you're gonna learn to spot a CEO at a thousand paces, sidle up to his lackeys without really speaking and secure a one on one interview with the boss they hate. First though you're gonna wait. You're gonna lean against a back wall and fantasize about trap doors, sprinkler systems and giant hooks. You're gonna edit in your head while some guy in a thousand dollar suit reads off a napkin. You're gonna rock back forth in your sensible shoes until you're up to your fanny pack in' off the cuff' remarks. You're gonna learn to field strip a press kit down to the bare essentials, then go back to eyeballing the refreshment table. You're gonna curse the corporate hack running the audio bord, plug in anyway and record sound you know will never make air. You're gonna scan the room for big wigs you know, zoom in on a pair of hands and hold your fire until they start clapping. At one point, you're even gonna look over at the competition, lock eyes as if your both prisoners of war and quietly pray for an asteroid to hit the building. These are just some of the things they don't tell you about at The Photog Academy.

Next time, the TRUTH behind noon live shots. (HINT: It's all about The Price is Right.)

Give One Pause

2012-01-18T22:10:00.000-05:00

Thanks to the camera-shaped growth on my shoulder, I spent my twenties inthethickofit. Crumpled cockpits, brazen blazes, inelegant weather - nothing short of a restraining order would keep me from savoring the latest imbroglio. But after years of gorging myself on handcuffs and house fires, I lost my taste for top stories. So too do most photogs foolish enough to mistake A/V geekery for a career. Hey, CSI: Schenectady may make every murder look like a garden party, but your average homicide scene is a stone cold drag - and not just for the stiff under the sheet. Callous? Youbetcha. That's what happens when you spend ten years staring at politicians and body bags. Next thing you know you're the crab-ass at the crime tape, bitching to all who will listen how the Medical Examiner in your old market would have been here by now. If that guy sounds a lot like you, do us all a favor:

Go deep.

That's what Richard Adkins is doing... I think. Truth is, I don't know where exactly dude is, though judging from the above photo, I'd say he's due east of the Lenslinger Institute. And while I have no idea what he's focusing on down by the shore, I damn well know what he's looking for: Respite, relevance and perhaps a cool reflection shot. Throw in a boat ride and you have the makings of a most satisfying sortie. Will it make the first few minutes of the very next newscast? Will they pay me more if it does? No? Then ease up on the inquisition, would ya? My man's trying to steady his shot. How else if he gonna tell the story he's formulating in his head? Chances are he's got the thing half-edited in his frontal lobe. See, long before he hunches over a tree stump with his laptop and little yellow lunch box, he's got a good grip on the narrative taking shape in his cerebellum. And I'm pretty sure it doesn't call for some failed thespian in a trench coat doing his best Robert Stack.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

But for the true cameramanthropologist, propping up spokes-models and turning interns into auteurs is a surefire recipe for brain rot. Lead stories may get all the cool graphics, but they're painfully pedestrian to produce. I myself can pound out a pretty gripping update on the latest drive-by shooting without breaking a sweat - provided the sheriff begins his briefing on time. And that wall of flame I erected in an instant? Strictly point and shoot, chief. It takes a lot more skill to find your kill, be it a one of a kind character in some backwater town or some human cartoon no one ever peruses. Consider it the Church of Kuralt - a denomination we Carolinians are especially fond of. And while our man Adkins would never compare himself to Father Charles, he squats at the very same altar, knowing that if redemption can't be found in those counties less covered, chances are a languid lunch is in the offing.

Can't get that at the crime scene.

Private Glancer

2012-01-17T21:54:00.001-05:00

He had the eyes of a fighter pilot and the legs of a dancer. At least that's how Sam the Cameraman saw it back in 1936. Trouble was, not everyone was ready for a newsreel man so prone to pirouetting. So Sam tried to lay low, which was a tough gig for a jet-setting fellow like him. Once, while perched on a car roof covering the National Air Races, a passing beat got the better of him and the dancer in Sam came out. Years later, an investigative committee would point to a visiting pep band for sparking the melee that followed. But Sam must shoulder some of the blame, for it was he who tore his eye away from the action, removed much of his restrictive britches and attempted to introduce a Depression-era crowd to the concept of 'Jazz Hands'. Tragically, a group of Merchant Marines was also in attendance that day and, after watching the oddball photographer break several social mores at once, pulled Sam off that sedan and beat him senseless. Sam survived that brutal attack, and while he continued to schlep glass across much of the Twentieth Century, he never so much as broke out another Foxtrot... Hmmm? That's NOT how the whole thing went down?

Oh well. Leave it to Amanda Emily to let 'the facts' get in the way of a good story.

Slumdog One

2012-01-15T20:41:00.001-05:00

And now for a look at technology, we go LIVE(!) to Mumbai, where a crack squad of broadcasters is demonstrating the latest in third-world news-herding... It's a sat truck! It's a billboard! It's a dusty micro-van cloaked in logos and motor oil. Whatever you call it, remind me not to whine so much the next time someone leaves Slushee guts in the center console of Live 4, would ya? At least that thing's been inspected since the last century. Speaking of the last century, a reporter lady from India's News Leader was gonna speak but she was overcome by generator fumes and had to go lie down. That's a shame too since she had some hard-hitting facts about Tim Tebow and the wonderful things he's done for the people of New Delhi. Oh well, let's meet her crew. Say, are those viewers leaning into that passenger side window - or is someone trying to trade that hoopty for two sand-bags and an ox-cart? Hey, I'd pull the exact same stunt if my mobile newsroom had the life expectancy of a Ford Pinto on an grease-covered overpass. As far as I'm concerned, you have every right to upgrade your conveyance - no matter what hemisphere you call home. Just take my advice and burn those clothes while you're at it. After all...

...it ain't just credibility that thing's oozin'.

Kryptonite Not Included

2012-01-12T21:52:00.001-05:00

Faster than a producer's countdown! More powerful than a weatherman's Corvette! Able to leap Clerk of Court countertops in a most ungraceful bound! "Look! In the conference room! It's a Shooter! It's a Hair-do! It's ... That Guy from the Other Station! A strange visitor from another newsroom, who came to the Golden Valley's Upper Half-Circle with powers far beyond those of mortal one-man-bands! He can change the course of entire newscast with a single dead battery, bend KFC sporks in his bare hands, and who, disguised as a mild-mannered reporter for a medium-market TV affiliate, fights a never-ending battle for truth, justice, and a sit-down lunch every three days or so...

IT'S S-U-U-U-P-E-R-M-A-A-A-N!

No, wait. It's just Mac Ingraham. Dude gets winded checking his Blackberry.

Signs of Light

2012-01-11T07:34:00.000-05:00

Top Ten Signs You're Using Too Many Lights on Your Live Shot...

10.) Rival street gangs show up and declare a dance-off.

9.) Talent begins experiencing college dorm era mushroom-induced flashback. (After all, college was THREE years ago!)

8.) Grotesque shadow puppets terrorize the city.

7.) Every time you plug in that last extension cord, the stoplights flicker.

6.) Greenpeace protestors appear and begin shouting down your thoughtless destruction of our planet.

5.) Your live truck begins to rev and flex like that Delorean in Back to the Future.

4.) A reporter you haven't talked to in six years calls your cell phone to complain of burning retinas.

3.) NASA begins tracking your position as possible rogue sunspot.

2.) Helicopter gunships begin strafing your perimeter.

And the Number 1 Sign You're Using Too Many Lights on Your Live Shot...

1.) It almost looks like actual news.

Gimme Three Steps...

2012-01-10T22:10:00.000-05:00

Leave that firm grasp of global trade policies at home, what you really need to cover a Presidential Election is a good step-stool. Just ask Joel Wade, New Hampshire news shooter and Senior Fellow of The Lenslinger Institute. That's him, wedged in the corner between Old Glory and Whats-His-Nuts. He didn't get there by accident. No, he'd driven ninety minutes, fought his way onto the riser and jacked his sticks just as high as they would go. And still that wasn't enough to see Democracy in action! You know, watching my colleague claw his way to the top of the scrum like that fills me with pride and turns my stomach. I abhor politics and having been stuck in small rooms with a various world leaders over the years, I got good reason. But more than the megalomaniacs themselves, it's the process that leaves me so deflated. Back in 2008, North Carolina was a battleground state. Jumpin' John McCain, all the Clintons and some cat named Barack swung (swang?) through the Piedmont so many times, I began to frisk myself just to save the Secret Service some time. If that weren't enough, I never once saw anything come from these summits but empty posturing, kind of like the acting you've come to expect from Saturday morning infomercials. Even with Mr. Hope and Change, the theatrics were rehearsed down to the pensive head tilt struck every three and a half minutes from any one podium. Of course, had I not come prepared, I wouldn't have take away any impressions, other than the neck size of the network goob who invariably shows up at the last second and blocks my shot. Not Joel Wade...

When I got outside and saw the two-deep crowd along the cattle fence, I asked the reporter, Jenn Gannon to run back in and grab my stepstool so I could get above the crowd. That's why you can see me in that shot. I was about two feet above everyone's head.

Ahh, the lowly step-stool; once again making America safe for stagecraft and pageantry! To be fair though, these household ladders are good for more than eyeballing the future leader of the free world. I took one to an American Idol red carpet event in Hollywood once and could see clear over Simon Cowell's ego and directly into Paula Abdul's narcotic-induced haze.

Scary in there.

Mold Rush

2012-01-09T23:18:00.000-05:00

Remember kids: study hard, take your vitamins and you too could spend a drizzly January afternoon videotaping an illegal tire dump. Better yet, just do what I did: fail at everything else first until fate places you well below your station. For me, that station was a CBS affiliate I grew up watching, a charming little fixer-upper brimming with living legends and even crustier gear. I learned much there, In fact, I learned more during my four (plus) years at the Roy Park School of Broadcasting than I've picked up anywhere since. And that, ladies and germs, is increasingly the problem. See, there's a reason local news shooters don't bring down major coin: it ain't that hard. Yes, it takes a certain dexterity and an artistic bent never hurts, but when you get right down to it, the fundamental skills needed for news gathering are, well, fundamental.

Now, before you e-mail me copies of your doctorate in telecommunications, understand a couple of things: 1) I'm dealing in generalizations here and 2) I couldn't give less of a rip about your sheepskin. I've been outperforming better educated colleagues since before Bush the Elder yakked in that Prime Minister's lap. Back then, I thought I knew it all too but a not so funny thing happened on the way to total enlightenment... I began repeating myself. Ten thousand newscasts will do that to a fellow, no matter how many industry websites you write for. And while I know in my shriveled photog heart that I'm better now than I ever once dreamed of being, try telling that to the twenty-three year old co-worker who acts like he scaled Mount Vesuvius just because he called shotgun on his first cop car ride-along. Better yet, let him talk. It's only cosmic payback for the way you used to run your mouth.

Besides, he'll get his. I really can't say if local TV news (as we know it) will be around in twenty years, but if it is, I promise you the heavy lifting will be done by a handful of burn-outs who always meant to go design holograms or train robots or some other such nonsense, but never set the lens down long enough to pick up on anything else. See how this works? I didn't at first, but after climbing the corporate stepladder and realizing dress shoes hurt my feet, I came limping back, all too aware of the kind of Arrested Development that awaited me. Speaking of TV shows, touring today's tire pile with my pal Charles Ewing was like living through an episode of 'American Pickers' - without any chance of treasure but plenty of male bonding. Mr. Ewing and I have many a misadventure. We've crashed gold mines, house fires and a few time-space continuums. All of which makes a colossal tire pile par for the course, sooo as we tried not to sucked into a vortex of moldy rubber we both had to laugh, knowing somewhere out there a nation of cubicle dwellers dreamed of the kind of assignments we've grown to loathe...

Poor bastards.

Lark of Night

2012-01-08T18:08:00.000-05:00

It's been a weirdly warm winter here in the Carolinas, the kind of thing we really don't mind so much. But with the lack of activity on the radar screen, some at El Ocho have started to mess with Mother Nature. We're talking straight up sorcery, bro. Okay, so it's a gizmo on a stick that throws fake snow in a semi-circle. Whadda YOU GUYS do for fun? Don't bother sending the answer in a self-addressed stamp envelope - I'm all out of postcards. But even if I had some, I'd be hard pressed to come up with a prettier picture than this one, a frigid enough vista procured and delivered here by an unnamed operative of the Lenslinger Institute. Seems several heavily logo'd layabouts were seen skulking out back the other night. Details are sketchy, but ninety convenient minutes before the late news, "the white stuff" was seen falling by the satellite farm. This is indeed bad juju, the kind of ecological recklessness that leads to local newscasters using terms like "the white stuff", not to mention whatever weather deck apocalypse such a rash move could trigger.

Sure looks nice, though.

Eyes Without a Face

2012-01-07T20:59:00.000-05:00

Sure, they look relaxed, but at the first sight of their quarry these mild-mannered camera handlers will pounce, forming a tight knot of glass around whatever felon, suspect or superstar is deemed newsworthy that day. On this day, it was none other than that feathery worm John Edwards. Long before his lawyers arrived at Greensboro's Federal Courthouse, a leathery collection of skeptics formed on the sidewalk outside. There were grievances aired and crude jokes told as the lenslingers leveled their weapons and eyed the horizon. Not far away, a gentleman with a real weapon on his hip sat hidden in a hut, watching the watchers and fondling the knob of his walkie-talkie. Cameras and foolishness aren't allowed in Federal Court and a sworn army of serious men make sure that remains enforced every single day. Wanna get water-boarded? Play Chinese Fire Drill outside a Federal Courthouse. You won't make it to the driver's side door before three beefy men in black tackle and shackle your goofy ass. Okay, so that's a bit extreme but the fact of the matter is the older cats who prowl these halls of justice take their jobs very seriously and I wouldn't so much as pass gas inside there without asking permission.

Outside, there was still no sign of the Man with the Golden Haircut. John Edwards is no stranger to these streets. For months now the former Presidential candidate and his lawyers have fended off the beginning of his trial. He's facing six felony and misdemeanor counts for allegedly using campaign donations to hide his pregnant mistress, a (GULP!), videographer. (I know, it's sick.) Throughout the hearings, Edwards has shown his face, popping out of a low-slung roadster and sashaying down the runway, er sidewalk. Never one to shy away from his own reflection, he usually beams and occasionally preens as the cameras close in, smiling all the while as if he's walking into the Fellowship Building to go teach Sunday School. I myself have backpedaled before the man a half dozen times and I can assure you, his hair was perfect. This time, however, I wouldn't get a chance to ogle his tresses, for the man who once fancied himself a potential POTUS simply didn't show.

But his lawyer did. I was long gone by then, but footage has been filed of Edwards attorney Jim Cooney exiting the building looking wary and embarrassed. Why wouldn't he be? TV cameras were coming right at him, held by swarthy pirate types - guys with nicknames like Skeeter, Rad and Chim-Chim. Pirouetting off his every step, the clot of photogs dodged, bobbed and weaved around streetlights, stealing every glance they could of the nebbish attorney without braining themselves in the process. As walk-downs go, it was pretty long and I imagine it was fascinating from afar, like watching a noisy storm front move across the horizon. Back in the scrum, the man in the middle uttered nothing but chuckles as the cameras and questions kept coming. I myself laughed when Piedmont news vet Margaret Johnson chided his silence. "One or two words will do." At that, Cooney finally responded, if only to say that he couldn't respond. It wasn't much of a soundbite, but with everyone under deadline, they'd take what they can get. Besides, the Edwards affair is far from over and even if the millionaire philanderer buys his way out of a trial, he'll have to come through us to close the deal.

Nothin' personal.

Logan's Scrum

2012-01-03T23:26:00.001-05:00

In the little seen Terminator prequel, Rutger Hauer stars as John Connor's father, Sal, a hapless NBC cameraman turned time-traveling cyborg killing machine. Lauded for its early use of steadicam technology, the film was equally ridiculed for its nonsensical top hat song and dance number. 2 out of 5 Stars.

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Ya know, for a fairly forgotten photograph, this one still packs a punch. There are the headphones, of course. Why, I think I used those very cans to learn the multiplication table in summer school! They were messed-up then; I still can't remember seven times eight. And that hardhat! Wasn't carrying around that contraption humiliating enough? Now a guy's gotta worry about falling rivets? Besides, doesn't the radiation leaking out of that backpack eclipse all other safety concerns? Personally, I wouldn't crawl up under that bucket of bolts (called a "Creepie-Peepie" -- look it up!) without one of those bunny suits the bad guys in E.T. wore. Even then, I'll be sure to duck just before I hit the RECORD button - lest any ectoplasm shoot out of that top exhaust pipe, er, antennae... But you know what the most dangerous part of this get-up is? It's those eyes... Look at 'em... Alive yet... lifeless... lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes....... Hmm? Yeah, well you can gawk at the man all you want; I'm gonna show a predator some respect. Just don't let him point that thing at me. I don't need X-rays of my spleen smeared all over a future/past/present episode of the Huntley-Brinkley Report.

Who does?

Terms of Disservice

2012-01-03T00:45:00.001-05:00

"On Special Assignment", it almost sounds sexy when the hair-do's say it. But never before have two words teamed up to reveal so little. In fact, it's only slightly less deceptive than "We have crews on the way.", which incidentally means "We just found about this from our competitor are now scrambling every employee we can get to answer the phone."... But you knew that. "On Assignment", however is excessively nebulous. In fact, it's worse than that, it's (GULP!) producer-speak. You know, pruh-doo-ser speek: those arrhythmic sentences some pasty cube-dweller feeds into the Anchortron 5000 every afternoon around four. Here, I'll give you an example. Say the houselights rise on your local news studio, but there's a certain silhouette missing. Up pops some bubble headed bleach blonde with just a hint of glee in her delivery:

"Good Evening, I'm Dawn Juwannadoomee, Glenn DimpleChin is "on special assignment."

Uh-Huh. First of all, could you be less specific? Only if you said " on the planet". As it is, good ole Glenn could be just about anywhere doing just about anything. So how about some truthiness?

"Good Evening, I'm Dawn Juwannadoomee, Glenn DimpleChin is pacing around a cotton field while he screams at his West Coast based agent on a station-owned cell phone."

Nice.

"Good Evening, I'm Dawn Juwannadoomee, Glenn DimpleChin is still horking down free lobster meat at the Moose Lode while his photographer trades cigarettes for interviews at the Methadone Clinic."

Very nice!

"Good Evening, I'm Dawn Juwannadoomee, Glenn DimpleChin is... Well, to be honest folks, we don't know where Glenn is. He peeled put of here just after five p.m. talking about some dancer he met out at a club by the airport. Ya know, Glenn's been a large part of the Eleven Alert News Fleet for darn near thirty years now, man does what we damn well pleases. We're just glad he no longer demands a promo every time he brakes for a yellow light. Was a time he hijacked a live truck so we could broadcast a remote of him giving his Lhasa Apso a sponge bath... "

Whoa, whoa, ease up. You're gonna break the Fourth Wall. Go with something more generic, like "On Special Assignment". Our research shows viewers love that stuff...

Hand to Zod

2012-01-02T22:42:00.001-05:00

Whereas I usually wait until April to make my New Year's Resolutions, I'm only spit-balling here when I cough up seven fresh promises I know I'll never keep...

I vow to slow my roll the very next time I'm running late for a press conference. After all, nothing of value is ever said over a podium, anyway and if it is, those camera-hungry jackals will happily repeat it when I arrive.

I resolve to stop answering "unicorn porn" whenever strangers ask me why I'm waiting outside a courthouse with a camera on my shoulder. Too many people are whipping out their smart phones and blocking my shot.

I pledge to learn my station's latest live truck innovation NOW, instead of waiting until I'm perched on some frozen overpass with producers counting backwards in one ear and a photog buddy questioning my manhood in the other.

I promise not to collapse into three day crying jags, launch into an off the cuff rock opera or even kick-start a one man bar fight the next time some innocent passerby happens to mention how exciting my job must be.

I vow to cut back on the profanity. Hey, just because I frequent drive-by shootings, butterfly farms and the occasional evidence locker doesn't mean I have to sound like some Seventies Has-been in a Tarantino flick. Dammit.

I resolve to stop driving around on fumes. I got a company car! So why do I look down once a week from the middle of nowhere only to discover I've been on 'Zero to Empty' for 16 miles. Eventually, I'm gonna have a coronary. Or worse yet, run out of gas.

I pledge to work on my Lenslinger's Zen, to go about my day knowing no matter how many ribbon-cuttings I gotta slice, no matter how many vapors I gotta chase, no matter how many hostile rent-a-cops I gotta dodge, this silly gig still beats a real job.

Wish me luck on that last one.

That's a Wrap

2011-12-30T08:06:00.000-05:00

2011 is almost over and I've yet to work up the obligatory Year in Review post. Oh well, what better way to wiggle out of all that reflection than to share one of Sean Browning's Go-Pro masterpieces! In his latest submission we see not some frazzled photog staring into the abyss, but rather a bugs-eye view of a live shot at dusk. Funny, I don't remember my least favorite part of the day being so beautiful. Then again, life's all about how you perceive it. Whereas many lenslingers see only knotted drop cords drenched in generator fumes, others aren't afraid to simply gape at the heavens. I rather like the latter and in the coming year I vow to look up (and live) a little more often. So while I can't promise to be as sunny as my West Coast brethren, I'll try my best to turn down the Sturm und Drang. Now if you'll excuse me, I have half a mile of orange cord to untangle and this lousy daylight is dying fast.

Happy New Year...

News You Can Lose

2011-12-29T00:15:00.002-05:00

It hasn't just been slow this week. It's been inert. That's to be expected, for during this week after Christmas, a good percentage of the hemisphere stays home. Not us newsies. We've got a show to put on - even if it means filling our broadcasts with a complete lack of happenings. You'd think it would make for an easy week. You'd be wrong. Me, I'd rather race from turnstile to rubble pile to live truck dial than try to make news out of nothing at all. Take the past few days - please! I've played more phone tag than a telemarketer with Tourettes, left quizzical missives with executive assistants, drooled over the kind of press releases I'd usually use for spitballs...

Yes, Public Works? Nigel from Channel X here. We just got word you guys were waxing speed bumps this week and we wanted to know if we could send a crew over? Excuse me? You don't see WHY this is newsworthy? Look pal, you're the one who sent the press release! I'm just keeping my place in the food chain. You know what a slow news week it is? My assignment editor had to breathe into a paper bag before your fax ever made it through the machine. She's laying down right now! So before you go changing your mind, you should know my satellite truck is circling your block. Inside are two separate news crews, one to cover 'nuts and bolts', the other in search of a sidebar. I got my best graphics guy cooking up an over the shoulder as we speak and I'm thinking about sending my main anchor over to break out the gravitas. So unless you wanna tell the entire Upper Valley Homeland Crescent why you're wasting valuable fax paper, I suggest you get the fellas out there and out there NOW! Otherwise, we're going straight-up investigative on your ass and YOU'LL be the one explaining why a half dozen city workers were caught on tape getting high by the salt pile! Hmmm? What's that???

Yeah, I can call back tomorrow.

Terminal Viscocity

2011-12-26T23:51:00.000-05:00

After eleven days off, I wasn't sure I'd remember how to push minutia through a tube. But mere minutes after planting my camera outside a busy department store, I realized - like dirty looks from women who didn't do their hair before venturing out to return those oven mitts - those news-gathering callouses weren't gonna fade any time soon. For instance...

I can still profile with extreme prejudice. You would too if persuading strangers to yammer on camera were part of your daily duties. So if I accost you in a crowded parking lot, be honored! I let the last weirdos pass without so much as a game of slap and tickle! Now tell me, what brings you to the syphilis clinic, Senator?

I can still think on my feet. Today, certified gajillionaire Jerry Neal escorted me around his palatial estate. It was awkward at first, until we realized we both knew Jerry Bledsoe and Phil Morgan. From there, we gabbed like old friends, despite our differences in age and income. Maybe he'll come mountain biking with us!

I can still remember when crossing county lines felt like a lo-o-ong way to go to fill forty seconds of airtime. Now I'll crisscross the entire region six times for one close-up of an eggplant that resembles Martin Van Buren. Make that seven if the lady who grew it speaks with an odd accent. Throw in a funny wig and I'll go well past eight.

I can still tell who used my gear while I was gone simply by examining the physical evidence. Viewfinder out of whack? Must be that shortsighted sports shooter down the hall. Shutter speed cranked to the high heavens? Film school student at twelve o clock. The faint smell of Egg McMuffins and desperation? I'm lookin' at you, morning crew!

I can still recall a time when chasing scanner blather felt like a really important thing to do. It was the dawn of the nineties and I was high on acid wash jeans and Jane's Addiction. These days, everything has changed except my musical tastes and while the siren's song doesn't thrill me like it used to, I still can't meet a screaming fire engine on the street without mumbling curses and giving chase.

But I'm working on it..

Sling, Slank, Slunk!

2011-12-25T16:16:00.001-05:00

Contrary to what my wife may tell you, that ain't me. In fact, on this not so brisk Christmas morning, I couldn't be merrier. Much of that has to do with the fact that I've been on vacation for going on ten days now. That will change tomorrow, when I skulk back to El Ocho with a bag full of jacked-up toys slung over my one good shoulder. I'm expecting a hectic week: one filled with live shots, handheld soundbites and not a lot of news to go around. Whatever (doesn't) happen, I'll try not to complain, for who wants to hear the grumblings of a wordy camera nerd with garlic in his soul? Not me. For while my heart may be full of unwashed socks, my head is back in the game. 2011, with its bouts of doubt and toadstool sandwiches, is nearly a thing of the past. I'm looking more than forward to Twenty Twelve, if for no other reason it reminds me of a Rush album I dug in middle school. That and the world's gonna end when this new calendar runs out. What better reason to get off my felt green ass and commence with the sentences? None that I can think of, so if you try not to roll your beady little eyes so much, I'll try and do better by these pages in 2012 - even if I have to pillage the entire Piedmont Triad Googolplex to do it.

Merry Christmas.

Gold in Them Thar Reels

2011-12-25T08:51:00.000-05:00

If you're like me, you've not watched a single frame of Discovery's Gold Rush. But that's about to change now that the show's producers have unleashed a wicked new Behind the Scenes episode. It ain't news, but one look at what the production crew has to go through up there in the Klondike will make anyone with a camera groove in their shoulder wince in solidarity. Killer mud, pissed off prospectors, rogue excavators! Reminds of a few groundbreakings I've attended. Then again, nothing I've seen on the golden shovel patrol can compare to what folks like Nick O'Mealley experienced while living for months in the middle of untamed Alaska. Don't believe me? See for yourself - just don't go around trashing those 'pampered' production crews. After all, when's the last time a hungry bear bum-rushed your ribbon-cutting?

Been at least a couple of months for me...

Master of the Grab

2011-12-25T08:20:00.001-05:00

You can keep your Chet McChindimples and vaguely ethnic Barbies. I need a real man for the mission at hand, one who isn't afraid to wear a connector necklace, sensible shoes and a bright red fanny pack. Such a person is John P. Creel, III, otherwise known as JPC-3PO. I myself have never met the man, but Richard Adkins has. And to hear RAD tell it, Creel doesn't just commit television news, he embodies it...

John Creel didn’t teach me how to shoot, he didn’t teach me how to edit. What John Creel taught me was Survival in the world of TV News Photography. What John Creel knew that so many in the business missed, is that a good News Photographer has to be part Journalist, part Boy Scout, part artist and part asshole. All while being a good person.

John is an early adapter of technology, while others were still playing Pong, John had a home computer. Before cell phones were small enough to fit on your glove-box, you could always talk to John via his Mobile Radio Phone. And John taught me how to fix what broke, at least good enough to limp through the next live shot.

Creel is that guy who you never catch off-guard… stuck on a stake out at the scene all night? Creel will bring out a box of food stashed away in his truck. Rain? He’s got you covered… literally. Every gadget, every adapter, every thing you need… John can pull out of his pocket in an instant.

After working with John for about five years, I ran in to him later on assignment. I’ll never forget that night at the Great New Madrid Earthquake… a zillion Sat trucks lined the levies of the river, a long day, a long night… and while everyone was tired, folding up lights and rolling up cables after the last live shot, we all caught the smell of freshly popped popcorn… we looked around there was John, offing up hot popcorn from the microwave in his rig… and I just may have imagined this part… but I’m pretty sure there a cooler of cold beer with arms reach!

Adapters...popcorn...BEER? What say we clone this Creel fellow and improve television tenfold!

Shooter in the Crosshairs

2011-12-21T20:14:00.001-05:00

Brock Nicholls screwed up. Now, he's stuck where his career started, Baton Rouge. When an arsonist begins torching the city, it's his ticket back to the top, but he'll have to fight his boss and partner to get there. When he meets the arsonist, Brock discovers he has one more demon to exorcise...

For years now, Rick Portier and I have ruminated on the rewards of writing. During countless phone calls and more than a few times in Vegas, we've knocked back top-shelf liquor and traded lies about jack-slapping the muse. Now, that dodgy little photog has put his imagination where his mouth is. With Shooter in the Crosshairs, Rick's combined his knowledge of the news business with his gift for depiction to create a freakin' page-turner. The nerve of that guy!

When his television career went down in flames on the steps of a Dallas courthouse, it made national news and earned the TV photog a night in lock-up. Now, Brock’s stuck in the place where it all started, Baton Rouge, working for a mental midget like Percy Finch and his "Good News" strategy that has viewers flocking to the competition. If that weren't bad enough, Finch has Brock locked into shooting pet parades for Katie Couric wannabes like Nancy Patrick....

Are you kidding me? With a set-up like that, square-dancing zombies could do-see-do all over the next chapter and a half and I'M STILL IN! Luckily for us though, the -AHEM- author steers clear of the undead and instead sticks to the streets he knows so well. It's that authenticity that will leave anyone who's hoisted or stared into a fancycam nodding their head in recognition. As for me, I'll try and keep my head out of the nearest oven as I ingest the quest of one Brock Nicholls, a world-weary news shooter who I'd love to see team up with G. Lee. First though, there's an arsonist to catch and I know just the man for it.

Along the way, Brock reveals newsroom secrets and rails against everything that is wrong with the business he loves, a business that's cost him every relationship he's ever had. When he finally comes face-to-face with the man behind the sheet, Brock discovers he has one more demon to exorcise – one from his youth. In order to do that, he'll have to decide between telling the story of a lifetime and sending a murderer to jail.

How does it end? How the hell do I know? I'm reading this thing along with the rest of you! So while I don't need an extra copy, surely there's someone in your life who does. So buy Shooter in the Crosshairs and help a brother achieve his dream. And do it soon, before the artist formerly known as Turdpolisher lands a three picture deal and won't return any of our calls.

At the End of the Day...

2011-12-20T21:02:00.001-05:00

Funny how the average live truck can crisscross three counties, race through rush hour traffic, squeeze into a breakdown lane, idle for six hours straight, double as an audio booth, sleep three (un)comfortably, attract transients and school children, backfire only in sketchy neighborhoods, boast the logos of three separate consultant firms, power enough lights to be seen from space, suck just enough gas to ensure you'll have to fill it up later, harbor the remnants of a thousand dollar menu items, inspire new whole methods of laptop hackery, serve as a grooming booth and/or rest station for restless 'talent', spew engine exhaust on anyone rolling up cables, emit the kind of aroma that brings to mind sea travel...

...only to break the hell down on the way back to the station.

Okay, so it's not funny at all - especially when you've put in a long day of news gathering and are still FAR from home. In fact, of all the inconveniences I might wish on a competitor (weak camera batteries, brittle light bulbs, flatulent reporters), I wouldn't foist a dead live truck on my worstest enemy. Just ask A.J. Willen, the Atlanta lenslinger who posted this photo and jump-started my my memory banks... I remember one remote van in particular that would seize up with 'vapor-lock' every day at dusk and shut down on the highway home. "Nothin' you can do 'bout it but sit and let it rest for awhile", said the engineer on the other end of the cell phone. One fall evening I nearly abandoned the damn thing along Route 421. ("%#$@% this!", I remember thinking. I'll just live like Caine from Kung-Fu; ya know, walk the Earth, drop-kick evil villagers...) I got about a half mile down the road, thought about my mortgage and the mud-hole my wife would stomp in me if I marooned a mobile newsroom..

It took nearly two hours to get that live truck back to the shop. At one point a car full of Goth kids happened by and began heckling me, 'til I threatened to microwave their piercings. I think I was justified...

Arose Such A Clatter...

2011-12-18T21:15:00.000-05:00

'Twas the week before Christmas and all through the land,
News crews were squeezing into their vans.
To airports and malls they carried their loads,
They even went LIVE by the side of the road...

Around them the world began to slow down,
But they were too busy looking for sound.
Grilling last minute shoppers and fake Santa Clauses,
Their producers would cue them when to take pauses...

Back at the station, managers vanished,
The green room sat empty, its visitors banished.
Top anchors split early, their substitutes preening,
Thank God the Year-Ender was due for a screening...

Over in the studio, the pizza's arriving,
It's all that keeps the floor crew surviving.
But the Sports guy dives in, as do the slackers,
Back in the live truck, they eat chap-stick and crackers...

But if good food and family are things you will miss,
What the hell are you still doing in this business?
Why you're lucky to have a job at this station,
Unlike normal folk, The Truth takes no vacation...

So hang in there, all of you stuck in a truck,
Our industry's changing and so will your luck.
But should you start feeling merry - now or later,
Know you're breathing in fumes from the truck's generator.

Pride and Petulance

2011-12-17T20:57:00.000-05:00

When an ABC Sports executive wanted to spin off Monday Night Football into a Saturday morning animated series, Howard Cosell was said to be livid. "Do you know who you're speaking to? I am the biggest name in show business today. And you want to make a cartoon character out of me?" The irony, of course, is by then that's exactly what Howard Cosell was: a cartoon character. But after reading Mark Ribowsky's withering new biography of the sportscasting legend, I can't help but remember him in all three dimensions. Then again, I'm a child of the Seventies; when Cosell was a bigger pop icon than Justin Timberlake is today. Howard was everywhere: quizzing a glistening Mohammed Ali, enabling a young Joe Namath, lording over such heavyweight fare as Battle of the Network Stars. Yes, the man born Howard William Cohen (in Winston-Salem, no less!) enjoyed a most unlikely career, turning untold hubris and his loquacious nature into a ringside seat to the Twentieth Century.

At 436 pages, Ribowsky's book seeks to cover much of Cosell's rise and fall. Especially the fall. With a subject as repugnant as this, it's understandable ... but in so gleefully depicting every instance of Howard dancing on some enemy's grave, the author commits a little schadenfreude of his own. Still, the book's a ripping good read, if not, like the man at the center of it all, a bit long-winded. I guess that's only fitting, like a custom-made toupee or a mustard yellow ABC Sports-jacket. That's what I'll remember about this American Original. That and the staccato barrage of his trademark nasal tone. Howard Cosell didn't just love language. He molested it. And while that was enough to win my teenage admiration, I've grown to know enough gifted communicators to recognize a few as straight-up assholes. Howie certainly seemed to be that and so much more. But he forged new territory in television and brought the kind of gravitas and grit to sports commentary that Bryant Gumble is still trying to pull off. All while sucking the air out of every room and knocking back lots of vodka.

Hard to hate on that.

Natural Born Slinger

2011-12-16T17:03:00.000-05:00

Three months after a Milwaukee police sergeant roughed up the oldest photog he could find at a house fire, city officials have admitted Clint Fillinger did nothing wrong. That is to say they've dropped all charges against the Fox 4 photojournalist. Readers will remember Fillinger as the - ahem - seasoned lenslinger who responded to a house fire call only to be accosted by an oddly hostile cop. "All the way back!" the sergeant barked, as he and a fellow officer walked the accredited photographer away from the news scene. Fillinger protested as he backpedaled, until finally the cops put him on his ass. When they did, his camera took a hard bounce but it did capture the sixty eight year old community menace being unceremoniously cuffed and stuffed.

At the time we issued a stern Schmuck Alert, a move met with stiff indifference by all parties involved. We're cool with that, though one of the core tenets of The Lenslinger Institute is that clashes between The Fourth Estate and first responders would not occur so readily were certain people not so insistent on being absolute douche-bags. It's even written in our by-laws. So, you can imagine our delight at hearing the city of Milwaukee have reconsidered their position and expunged Mr. Fillinger's record of any and all cooked up charges. Hey, being publicly identified as a forty five year old veteran of television news is enough to live down. No one needs a rap sheet they didn't earn.

Remote Patrol

2011-12-15T23:25:00.000-05:00

Should ever my life flash before my eyes, have I got to watch all those silly live shots again? And how about those endless minutes between live shots? I'm not sure I can suffer through those extended sentences a second time. Then again, I'm still wearing residue from last night's protracted encampment from the side of the road. Sure, I've washed off all the carbon monoxide and flop sweat, but there's still a groove in my gut from slumping over the steering wheel while my reporter pounded out rejoinders on the world's grittiest laptop... What, like YOU'VE never power-napped as a deadline loomed, never left your body as soundbites danced through your head? Hell, I once found myself floating above the truck only to look down and see the real me molesting an innocent sandbag.

You can imagine my shame.

Or you can keep reading as I try to justify my rancor at having to drop anchor. As a kid, the notion of a protracted encampment in one of these mobile newsrooms would have made me downright giddy, but as a grown man staving off a mid life crisis, nothing makes me feel like I'm wasting my days than some interminable afternoon spent peeling faded logos from the corners of what's left of my critical thinking skills. I'm not saying live trucks make me dumb but the other evening I spent ten full minutes admiring the way I'd coiled an extension cord. If that weren't enough I took real pride at the amount of back-light I milked from a dying street lamp. Add that to the way I convinced that drunk we were breaking down (instead of setting up) and you have the very definition of meaningful remote execution.

And yet it leaves me so empty.

Part of it is, of course, the weather. This time of year it simply gets dark too damn early. That's a big deal when you're trying to make a brick wall interesting, let alone relevant to the earthquake/clam bake you covered seven hours earlier. Of course, I'm just wasting my breath. I know this, just as sure as I know that neglected nine volt battery powering the talent's earpiece will die a sudden death the moment she begins breaking down the deposition. You know, the one they recorded across the street this morning. Look over my reporter's shoulder and you may catch a slice of courthouse window. That, my friends, is the most you can hope for when adding filigree to facts. It won't win you any Emmys but it will put bread on your table if not fill you with quiet pride as some jack-hole with a leaf blower shows up to drown out your shot.

Now back to you.

Points to Squander...

2011-12-13T00:32:00.000-05:00

Funny how a single TV camera can turn a bustling post office into a barren wasteland...

Odd how those protestors stop chanting the moment I drive away...

Eerie how a bag full of dead camera batteries can cause an entire freight train to derail...

Scary how much that Black Friday piece resembled the last sixteen I did...

Strange how that kid yelled "Hi Mom!" just before he flipped me off...

Spooky how those people with the golden shovels think this is real life...

Typical how a reporter who phones in every other assignments spends three months crafting his Emmy entries...

Baffling how they set the podium in front of that plate glass window...

Ironic that a woman with so much gravy on her teeth insist on being interviewed...

Weird how unsatisfying writing lists can be...

Bum Rush the Show

2011-12-12T22:07:00.000-05:00

I admit it: when news broke of another shooting at Virginia Tech last week, I promptly dove under my desk. Blacksburg may be a couple hours away but in the Spring of 2007, almost every news crew within this hemisphere made a beeline for the small Virginia town. Even Z-block zealots like myself made the trip, if only to witness one of the largest TV truck summits ever convened. There was, of course, great tragedy at hand - but for the distant affiliates, foreign bureau chiefs and network hotshots who roamed the campus that week, the massacre made but for a backdrop. and what a backdrop... Hundreds of tripods stood at attention as spotlights large and small chased shadows across Blacksburg's darkest day. It was a sight to behold and not for the best of reasons. By the very first nightfall, what began as a madman's fantasy had transformed into a slick and salacious sat-shot juggernaut, a commodity of sorrow served up in every skewed perspective our 24/7 news universe has to offer.

This time, however, the crime at hand did not involve mass casualties. That makes it no less horrific to those involved, but it did prevent the matter from devolving into some kind of hi-def circus. Perhaps no one was more thankful of that fact than El Ocho's own crew, who can be seen above reporting the facts -- withOUT turning aftermath into stagecraft. Me, I'm just sorry the latest shooting had to happen at all. Virginia Tech is a fine school. It no more deserves wanton gun-play on its campus than it does armies of correspondents trying to make their bones over gross and random depravity. As for that massive sat truck encampment on the far side of the school, it was awesome to watch, but it just ain't the kind of thing one wishes on any institution, let alone a campus as bucolic as Virginia Tech. Personally, I don't want to be part of a scum that large unless it's parked under a giant spaceship that just spit out Freddy Mercury.

Maybe then, I'll come out from beneath my desk.

Walk The Line

2011-12-06T21:46:00.001-05:00

Though I was working in North Carolina television at the time, I did not know Bart Smith, Rick Sherrill or Jim Lane. But when all three men perished in the 1991 crash of WTVD's helicopter, the impact sent shock waves through every television station in the state and nation. Since that time, I've grown to know several people affected by that terrible night in ways big and small. They don't talk about it much and I don't ask. But with the Twentieth Anniversary of the crash upon us, I feel compelled to dip my lens in honor of these exciting young men struck down in the prime of their lives. Of course, nothing I can say will assuage the pain still felt by loved ones, so I hesitate to try. Instead, let's hear from journeyman photog Dave Wertheimer - who doesn't need anniversaries or tributes to relive that awful call...

Twenty years ago I was a Photojournalist for WTVD and I got a call in the middle of the night from Bonnie Moore. The chopper went down and I had to go cover it. At the scene Dave Boliek met me there. I concentrated on keeping my right eye on the black and white viewfinder, trying to insulate myself from the reality that Bart (my roommate), Rick (my best friend) and Jim (close friend and former next door neighbor) were dead in the wreckage. All three were engaged or soon to be. I stayed focused on the black and white images I was recording until I heard Bart's voice pager go off, the voice was his soon to be fiance Karen saying "where are you, are you with Dave? Call me". At that point I had enough and could not shoot any more. I spent the next day or so going between the houses of Karen, Diane and Lisa trying to comfort them in their loss. In the days to come I went to all three funerals. In the years to come I became a "video gypsy" of sorts, moving from station to station trying to find myself, still remembering December 7, 1991 as the worst day of my life.

My condolences to those still suffering...

Hunchbacks of Happenstance

2011-12-05T21:03:00.001-05:00

As a hardened guardian of the Fourth Estate, it's hurts my heart to watch it all crumble. But crumble it does as the tectonic plates of television grind beneath our feet. Thanks to faltering funds, a groundswell of gadgetry and an exodus of peasants, what was once considered bedrock is now a billion shifting pixels. This curtain of uncertainty threatens to swallow us all, until whole fiefdoms cease to be. But you know, it's not the Knights in Shining Hairspray or even the Damsels of Duress I worry about most as those castle walls begin to fall... It's the hunchbacks.

You know, those poor souls you still see scampering up turrets or floating in the moat. What with their medieval machinery and olde world aroma, it's easy to dismiss as little better than serfs. Until, that is, you see them chase a rainbow, quiz a Visigoth or just heap scorn on reports of a unicorn. Of all the subjects in this whole kingdom, it is they who seemed strangely free, despite their outdated armor and fondness for grog. What will become of them as new civilizations rise from this abysmal industry? Will they rise up and fight - or slink away like some kinky alchemist in the night? Why, I'd give up my one good eye to know...

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm needed in the watchtower.

Milk for Free

2011-11-29T20:17:00.002-05:00

CNN's recent bloodletting has the folks at Comedy Central thinkin'... if the Most Trusted Name in News can shit-can their staff and (not) hire a bunch of amateurs, why can't they? Enter South Carolina's cleverest export, Stephen Colbert!

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The decaying state of television news doesn't make this clip any less funny, but amid the giggles, Colbert and crew lacerate this business with weapons we have handed them. The revolution may not be televised, but this industry's tailspin will be prodded for jollies all the way to the bottom. See ya there!

Born to Porter

2011-11-27T18:50:00.001-05:00

With a name like Porter Versfelt III, he has to be good. So good that fate placed him behind the glass during the very first season of COPS, the show that convinced a generation of lenslingers to ditch their sticks and strap on some running shoes. I was among that number, for nothing felt more natural at the age of twenty three than to chase a bunch of hopped-up constables through subsidized doorways as guys I knew from community college flashed handguns and badges. It's a wonder I didn't get shot. If I ever did, I probably would have blamed that Barbour /Langley production for getting me and the boys so worked up in the first place (not to mention thrusting the shirtless, blubbering felon into the American consciousness). These days, I don't watch a lot of COPS and I avoid the front and back seat of police cars every chance I get. But in the early Nineties, every story I produced ended with somebody walking away in handcuffs. Little did I know back then I was aping the moves of the third Porter Versfelt to roam these fruited plains. Now his own boss down in Atlanta, Mr. Versfelt looks back fondly on his season on the street...

It was fun. And dangerous. That's a bullet-proof vest I was wearing there. I sat in the front seat of the police car. My sound man was in back. The door locked automatically back there (to keep prisoners in) so if I didn't open that door in the heat of the moment when arriving at a crime-in-progress, my sound man was stuck inside. I'd shoot for this kind of show again in a heartbeat. :)

For street cred like that, who wouldn't?

The Simplest Lift

2011-11-26T22:01:00.002-05:00

If you're like me, you've watched the mid-air dismantling of that New Zealand helicopter about a ~~dozen~~ hundred times now. Then again, maybe you're not as into ogling found footage as I. Odd, that... Anyway, let's review: It happened on the Auckland waterfront as workers and journalists watched a helicopter hoisting portions of a fiber optic framing. It was "probably the simplest lift we had ever done", according to pilot Greg Gribble. But shit got complicated quick when a main rotor blade apparently struck a wire, triggering a seizure of sorts. In the space of three seconds the unwieldy bird shimmies, sheds its tail and flips. Rivets unravel and turbines scream as the B2 Squirrel Eurocopter proceeds to come undone. Strapped in and stunned, pilot Greg Gribble goes along for the ride, not remembering much when asked about the impact later. Long before the dust settled, workers rushed the downed chopper, pulled out the pilot and counted hardhats before realizing everyone had survived.

But that's not what I logged in to talk about.

Rather, I'm interested in the unforgiving rub of happenstance, that roll of the newsroom dice that determines if the next mad dash will be mine. You follow? If, say, a fellow photog gets caught up in some groundbreaking swell and can't make his very next mission ... that particular foray could fall to on me. Or suppose a body pops up in founder's fountain and I'm foolish to answer the phone? Next thing I know I'm down there bobbing for hobos as a once distant and reserved edit bay gets all loose with some other shooter. Of course, it ain't all about me. ~~Strike that~~. Of course it is! Isn't your life about you? From my tripod spot, life occurs slightly off center. That's the way I like it, mind you. I'm quite pleased to be perched on the periphery, provided karma and a news car took me there, not some convoluted set of missteps that sends me stumbling in front of a homicidal ostrich, free falling wrecking ball or some citizen turned media critic.

But I digress. Back to the crash scene...

No more than five seconds before the chopper's blade caught the cable, an unidentified cameraman grabs his rig by the shoulders and hustles it a few feet away. It was a fortuitous move, for even before he fully replanted his sticks, said vessel began shedding metal. Chunks of the chopper were found hundred meters away and while its impossible to say whether Auckland's finest photog would have absorbed that shrapnel had he stayed put, speculating on such a thing is the very lifeblood of this blog. Sooo, did our hero count himself lucky for dodging hot projectiles? Or does he still rue the day he turned away just as God dropped his best eggbeater? I hope not, for a camera(man) can go crazy focusing on the past. Me, I can't remember everything I shot last week, though I can close my eyes and feel the blast of an angry ocean from damn near two decades back.

Now see what you've done.

A Job To Do

2011-11-24T09:23:00.001-05:00

On this Thanksgiving Day, I'm grateful that my old friend Rick Portier is writing again. Then again, I suspect the artist formerly known as Turdpolisher never stopped writing - he simply stopped sharing as much. But when personal loss collides with professional pride, you just gotta get if your chest. That's exactly what the Louisiana lenslinger does below and the result is a few potent paragraphs that should stick to the roof of your subconscious long after the tryptophan wears off...

I hadn’t seen Tim in six months. It was at a graduation party. As always, he was loud and brash, and after making enough small-talk about the kids, football, and politics, I looked for an opening to ditch him. It’s not like we were fishing buddies or anything. We bought a house from Tim and his wife Natalie fourteen years ago. His old neighbors became our new neighbors, and by default, we began running in the same social circles. Tim, a bear of a man with salt-and-pepper hair and a Chicago accent, liked being the center of attention, Natalie, shied away from the gossip at the women's table and looked after their kids.

I had just set my camera on its tripod. It wasn’t the kind of street corner that usually attracts news crews. Ranch-style homes with freshly manicured lawns awaited guests for Thanksgiving dinner. Neighbors huddled in their doorways and kept to themselves occasionally pointing at the interloper with the lens pointed at the house across the street.

“Show some respect, will ya?” The voice blasted through an open car window.

I guess it’s a normal reaction when vultures perch on the street sign outside your home. I learned a long time ago not to argue the first amendment with grieving son. “I’ll try. But I’ve got a job to do.” I’m sure the expression on my face and the tone of my voice weren’t exactly comforting. This was my second murder scene of the day, and it was barely noon.

He sped away disgusted, and I was happy to see him go.

I kept my distance from the family as I always do in situations like this. They had enough to contend with without a hack with a telephoto lens exposing their every raw nerve to the entire region. But I did my job. A wide shot of the house circled by a thin yellow ribbon, Crime Scene DO NOT ENTER. A medium shot of deputies clustered near the garage. A crime scene technician snapping on latex gloves.

Family members clung to one another behind a beat-up van. I spun my camera at them and kept the shot wide and tried to pretend I wasn't looking at them. I told myself it was better than zooming in on a private moment. I still didn’t know what was happening, but scanner chatter told me there were two bodies inside.

Any anchor worth his can of AquaNet could whore this up in to a lead story, so I sat and waited for a captain who could give me the details. After a few minutes, the captain stepped out of the house, her face sickly and pale. She stepped before the camera, notepad in hand. She prattled through the details: time of the call, time of arrival, two dead inside – husband and wife. And names.

Natalie and Tim.

My knees buckled. “Whoa-whoa-whoa!” I couldn’t breathe. I stepped away from my camera and paced back and forth while the other crews on the scene just stared at me. I shook my head, tried to breathe, and stepped back behind my camera. I had a job to do.

The captain continued. “It looks like Natalie asked Tim for a divorce, and he shot her in the chest, then turned the gun on himself.”

I did what I had been taught. I called the desk and asked to be removed from the story. It would be forty-five minutes before another crew could relieve me. I aimed my lens at the front door and waited for the bodies to roll out, all the while making excuses: "It's not like we were super-close." "I always knew something was wrong between them." "Better for the family that it's me and not another crew that wouldn't keep its distance." But I did my job.

When does a story cease to be a story and become someone’s life? It’s a question I came to grips with early on in my career.

Today, all I can think about is when did it become a job.

-- Rick Portier, November, 2011

Riders on the Storm

2011-11-22T00:13:00.000-05:00

Plunder the rubble of fresh calamity and you won't find any answers. Just ask anyone who's watched a widow pick through her broken home or seen a senior citizen call a soggy cot home for more than a fortnight. No doubt about it, that Mother Nature's a real bitch. Why else would she push a trailer up a tree, toss a car across the yard and make everyone think of freight trains? Don't ask me. I've slept-walked through more debris fields than I can list and the only thing I ever came away with was an appreciation for the absurd. It happened again just last week, as I followed the wake of another tornado and found that I can still be struck by sticks and stones. But I was not alone in my journey of selfish discovery. I had my friends, right there beside me...

You might know them as jackals, carnivorous and loping. In fact, they are a weathered set of action figures who aren't nearly as ditzy or villainous as filmmakers would have you believe. Well, most of us anyway. The fact that we gather in packs probably doesn't help, but when a fickle tempest lays waste to a wide spot in the road, we're gonna crowd the parking lot like stoners jonesing at a Dead show. That's us, stringing lights across still wet wreckage, grilling would-be victim and trying to decide which handful of shattered dream would make for the very best set prop. No one ever said it was noble, especially those of us with splinters in our minds' eye. That's how I've come to think of the shards of memory that surface whenever familiar vistas pass through my glass.

Call it deja vu, reflected echo or lenslinger's dementia. Fact of the matter is I can free associate other people's darkest days like some soul-eroding parlor trick. There's the stunned youngster from a decade back, searching his parent's property for what he knew to be an immovable object. There's the grizzled war vet picking dishes out of thickets and repeating his poodle's name. There's the grown-up tom boy balling up her fist and turning away, lest her tears end up on the evening news. I can't say I'm haunted by these people, but they pop up in m subconscious at the oddest moments and I find myself hoping I did not do them wrong. It's so hard to know sometimes when you show up like some dreaded specter, scour the vicinity for bits of narrative and vanish before the victims even realize what you've done.

Now go do no harm.

Some Kind of Monster

2011-11-16T07:25:00.003-05:00

In an industry that keeps hiring younger and cheaper, it's almost impossible to age gracefully. And while I'm no longer the Velociphotog I was once was, I'm not quite to the Schleposaurus stage. So while I decide whether to chase another news story onto the fruitless plain or merely stumble off into the tar-pits, let's review the Top Ten Signs You've Been Shooting News Too Long...

10) Your first station-issued cell phone came with its own battery belt.

9) You were already working in television the year some of your current reporters were born.

8) You still feel bad about those silly-ass Y2K stories.

7) You remember when the station website was a test pattern.

6) That new photog makes you want to call everyone you worked with when you were twenty-two and apologize.

5) You'd pay good money for a few hours with a working three-quarter inch video deck.

4) You vividly remember quizzing strangers on camera about the shocking new Madonna Sex book.

3) You've spent a fifth of a century on-call.

2) You've watched the smartest people you ever worked with run like hell from this insipid business.

And the Number One Sign You've Been Shooting News Too Long...

1) You find yourself writing about it on the internet.

Outstanding In His Field

2011-11-14T21:01:00.001-05:00

He may not be the FUTURE of news-gathering, but Ed Scannell knows enough to be present. Maybe that's why I see him everywhere: ribbon-cuttings, train wrecks, ribbon cuttings that turn into train wrecks. There I'll be - deep in the sleeve, zooming in on something stupid and my 'slinger sense will start to ping... ~~Blair~~, ~~Costner,~~ Scannell! Actually, I call him Scan-lon, a mistake this dapper cat has never bothered to call me on. I like that. Some on-air types I know bleed through their spleen whenever anyone mangles the name their agent gave them. Not Ed. Then again, he's no pampered hair-do with a latte in one hand and a stack of autographed glossies in the other. He's like me: a denizen of the trenches who shoots, writes and edit up to two minutes of television a day.

Except Ed takes it a step further, walking around in front of the camera to expound on said subject as if a coterie of assistants lovingly placed him there. That explains the suits. And the hair. Even the voice. And what a voice! Ed's got the mellifluous tone of an off-screen announcer with a delivery that's crisp and devoid of any accent. It's hard not to hate him! And while other news shooters may curse his breed for not needing them, I know Ed to be a resourceful sort. a journalistic journeyman who's not pretending to be anything he's not. We photogs can lament the demise of the specialized lenser, but we shouldn't pass judgement on the likes of Scannell until we've walked a mile of debris field in his thin, possibly pinstriped socks.

In fact, I'm so suddenly taken with this smooth operator that I've gone to the trouble of clicking on his station's profile page. There, within a few short paragraphs, I learned more about the man than he ever divulged while waiting for the rodeo clown/ body-bag to appear. Did you know Ed hailed from Boston, worked for years in LA. radio and spent fifteen years as a professional musician? I sure as hell didn't but the very next time we're babysitting crime tape, I'm gonna act like I did. Maybe ask about his time at the Menendez brothers' murder trial, drop some knowledge on that Papal visit he covered, maybe even talk a little O.J.

Who knows? I may even get his name right.

Schmuck Alert: Penn State!

2011-11-10T06:54:00.001-05:00

Hey, I'm not the guy to mourn the loss of a live truck, but after watching footage of Penn State students flipping one on its side, I'm reconsidering my long-held spite for these lumbering beasts. At least I can take solace in the fact that the WTAJ live truck lying on its side deserved such an ignoble end. After all, what else do you do when your university fires a folk hero? Express regret over a system that enabled a monster to stalk little boys for many, many years? Stop and consider that something as trivial as college football seems even more inconsequential in the face of serial child-rape? Volunteer to help the victims put their lives back together? Pen a thesis on the poisonous group-think that allowed a sexual predator to hunt children under the auspices of your hallowed university? Naaaaaah, you go out and party! You take to the streets in numbers and destroy everything in sight - all because a football coach you blindly worshiped seems to have little to no problem with pedophilia. Who couldn't get behind a cause like that?

Well... ME. Then again, I didn't go to college, don't watch a lot of football and generally disapprove of grown men rodgering little boys. Maybe that's why I can't fathom why Penn State students would riot over the professional demise of an athletic coach - a coach! And riot they did, eventually toppling the very live truck that was unmistakeably the culprit in all this unrest. You know, at least the mob that tore Kadhaffi apart had decades of murderous subjugation to blame for their bloodlust. What do Penn State students have - less of a reason to tailgate this Saturday? Now, I've covered enough protests to recognize the extraordinary madness of crowds, but even this one baffles me. It pisses me off, too. I got friends who work in that market and I can only hope and pray that none were injured in this, the world's stupidest melee. Way to go, Penn State! You've forever sullied the name of a once great university, struck a blow in the name of perversion and made the very worst of the Occupy Wall Street crowd seem quite reasonable by comparison. I just didn't think that was possible.

Schmucks!

Tree of Strife

2011-11-08T07:13:00.000-05:00

I've watched cops wrap crime tape around many different things: dumpsters, stop signs, dozing hobos. But an innocent set of sticks? It just seems so wrong - like a news shooter interviewing a Senator against a plate glass window 'cause he just don't give a damn. In fact, I wouldn't have thought such banner abuse was even possible, had this photo by KING-TV's Randy Eng not surfaced on the interwebs. Okay, it's no double rainbow, but what does it mean? WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

"A KIRO-TV photographer ran off to interview a person possibly involved with a shooting. Not long after he left, the officer (whose car the tape was tied to) had to leave. The officer was in a hurry, so he wrapped the tape around the closest object and sped away. It was a good thing the officer didn't wait: the tripod wasn't reclaimed until almost an hour later!"

Oh. I was hoping for something more... serpentine - like a photog went rogue, got cuffed and stuffed and pissed off the PO-leece so bad they charged his tripod with inciting a riot. Or maybe a news shooter clicked his heels and just disappeared, leaving authorities so confused they draped his camera stand in commemorative yellow. As it stands (get it?), it just sounds like a lazy cop - which is cool and all, as long as they don't try to arrest any news shooters when they find a squad car covered in extension cord. That'll show them.

The Saint of Crank

2011-11-05T08:24:00.001-05:00

Frumpy, cantankerous, and wry. A personal hero. Rooney's reluctant brilliance and hand-chiseled rants first made me think about the words they used on TV. His were always sharp - whether he was railing against long-held dogma or opining on the pleasure of a pencil. War Correspondent, essayist, loveable curmudgeon; Andy Rooney lived a life that cannot be repeated. That a creature as he succeeded in television its a testament to the medium's early promise. He'd have an eve harder time today, when the vacuous and statuesque are spoon fed their rejoinders by an army of feckless scribes. Still, his legacy lives within the hearts of millions who savored his weekly missives, if most especially, me. My fourteen year old daughter knows who Andy Rooney is. I'm proud of that. Thank you, Sir, for showing me how it's done.

Snide Before the Fall

2011-11-03T20:06:00.001-05:00

You there, with the lime green top and industrial size fanny pack. That thing between your legs is my tripod. You may have noticed it's holding up my camera. In fact, I put it here on purpose - a safe distance from said holy podium and safely behind the seats. Look around and you'll see others like me. We TV types may travel separately, but we gather in packs - especially at events like these. See, sometimes a simple semicircle will do. No jostle, no bother, no rattling knobs like you. I wouldn't feel comfortable saying that to a stranger, but since your every pelvic thrust is causing my lens to wiggle, I felt it was something we could share. Is there not a coat rack in the corner with which you can bump and grind? The view may not be as nice, but you're far less likely to have, say, a hamstring sliced by a TV station key-chain over there. Nooo, that's not a threat - just the self-expressed fantasy of the cameraman whose glaring holes through your threadbare sweater. Are those Garanimals? Ah, there I go again, dating myself: a province I suspect you know well. Really though, can I ask you one question, you know, before I unsheathe my Leatherman and do something your morning rag and my next newscast will both be forced to lead with...

Where does one find a fanny pack that size? And what do you put in it? Your Lincoln Logs collection? I mean, I know you still photogs like to come heavy, but I've done live shots from hot air balloons with less hardware. Anyway, you may want to unbelt that mother and set her down real slow-like -- before the blood loss kicks in and you topple over on us all.

Lavender Crush

2011-10-31T21:47:00.000-05:00

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

2011-10-26T19:41:00.001-05:00

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

2011-10-25T22:45:00.001-05:00

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

2011-10-24T21:32:00.000-05:00

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

2011-10-20T22:20:00.001-05:00

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

2011-10-18T21:19:00.000-05:00

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

2011-10-14T21:20:00.000-05:00

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

2011-10-14T20:32:00.001-05:00

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

2011-10-11T21:24:00.001-05:00

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

2011-10-09T22:53:00.002-05:00

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

2011-10-06T06:29:00.000-05:00

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

2011-10-03T06:35:00.002-05:00

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

2011-10-02T15:57:00.001-05:00

"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...

License to Chill

2011-09-27T07:11:00.000-05:00

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.

Is this how Forrest Gump got started?

Schmuck Alert: Milwaukee's Worst

2011-09-22T21:44:00.000-05:00

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...

Schmuck.

A Rut Above

2011-09-21T06:58:00.001-05:00

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.

Rebel Without a Head

2011-09-19T20:44:00.000-05:00

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)

Sidewalk Soliloquy

2011-09-17T12:52:00.002-05:00

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. Not George 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.

Hope I'm rollin'.

Power Lines Fall on Crashed Vehicle, Driver Trapped: MyFoxPHOENIX.com

Rinse, Blather, Repeat

2011-09-15T21:40:00.002-05:00

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 just wish this silly business did.

Schmuck Alert: Dumb and Dumber

2011-09-13T05:59:00.006-05:00

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 performance that 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.

SCHMUCKS!

UPDATE! Proving there is some justice in this world, the bellicose longshoreman featured above has been arrested on four felony charges: burglary in the first degree, assault in the second degree, intimidating a witness, and sabotage. 'A witness had alerted police that he recognized (Ronald) Stavas after seeing video on KGW-TV of an angry man who confronted a news crew at the Longshoremen union hall.' We here at the Lenslinger Institute sincerely hope he encounters some form of unwanted sodomy during his time in the, ahem, pokey. Schmuck.

Friday Night...Delight

2011-09-08T07:44:00.006-05:00

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.

Uncool At Any Speed

2011-09-06T22:02:00.000-05:00

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.

Y'all be careful out there...

The Irene Diaries: Saturday Wrap-Up

2011-09-05T23:04:00.001-05:00

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!"

And that's how I met Ben McNeely.

The Irene Diaries: Saturday's Swath

2011-09-05T22:21:00.000-05:00

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...

The Irene Diaries: Friday Night Lights

2011-09-04T07:15:00.006-05:00

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…

The Irene Diaries: Friday Afternoon

2011-09-02T06:26:00.001-05:00

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!

'Scuse me, won't you...

The Irene Diaries: Friday Morning

2011-09-01T06:07:00.002-05:00

"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...

The Irene Diaries: Thursday

2011-08-31T06:39:00.002-05:00

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

2011-08-27T14:20:00.000-05:00

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

The Hulk and the Hurricane

2011-08-25T10:34:00.002-05:00

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

2011-08-22T21:42:00.000-05:00

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

2011-08-18T07:00:00.000-05:00

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

2011-08-17T05:54:00.001-05:00

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

2011-08-15T06:26:00.000-05:00

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

2011-08-14T21:46:00.001-05:00

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

2011-08-09T09:06:00.002-05:00

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

2011-08-08T23:29:00.002-05:00

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

2011-08-03T21:03:00.001-05:00

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

2011-08-03T06:02:00.001-05:00

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?

Schmuck ALERT: Just Go Away!

2011-07-31T12:14:00.002-05:00

Calling All Cars! Calling All Cars! Proceed to Sycamore Avenue. Sergeant Pornstache has skipped his meds again and is now accosting a photog. Witnesses say he pushed the cameraman back a block, ranted about his thirty year career and threatened to go viral. The camera's red light glowing. Repeat, the red light is glowing! Apprehend immediately! The repeated use of tasers HAS been authorized...

Sadly, that dispatch came too late. Before reason could be restored to Suffolk County, a member of the local media got locked up and a veteran cop proved himself a complete tool. It started where it ended: Long Island. A photog named Phillip from Stringernews.com responded to a police chase turned car crash and quickly fell out of favor with the force. It's unclear if any officers were injured in the wreck, but judging from the pulse of one Sergeant, Robocop himself was pinned under a couple of Hummers and the TV truck had just backed over the jaws of life. "GO AWAY!" yells Sarge - the first of thirteen times. Phillip does so, slowly - all the while being told his just being there threatened a perfectly good investigation. It's hard not to notice kids ambling by the crash scene as the credentialed photog is forced back a block. Near the end of the inevitable Youtube clip, we see the angry officer swooping in by squad car, whereupon arrests Phiilip the photog for obstructing an investigation some distance away... Can't we all just get along? Apparently not. Ya know, it only makes so much sense to argue with a guy who's packin' heat, but I would like to ask Sergeant Neckvein there just what America looks like on his watch. From where I stand on a public street, it doesn't seem to matter whether I'm holding a fancycam or a dandelion as long as I stay out of the way. As a guy who finds himself at just such occasions, I dread the day I come across a deputy so bedeviled by my presence. SCHMUCK!

Lenservention

2011-07-29T21:43:00.001-05:00

You there, with the leisure wear and thinning hair... Just look at yourself: forty four years old and still running your hands over complete strangers in the shadow of some skeevy newscast. What would your children think? Oh, that’s right. They think you’re a cable installer. It’s probably best that way. For if they could see the way you spend your day: scouring the hinterlands for a minute-fifteen of fluff, pursuing that minutia as if it held the very keys to the planet, ruing the day you staggered into that first affiliate... it’s all just so predictable. Would life have not grown rosier has you instead stumbled into some hallowed hall of higher education? That way your world outlook would have been shaped by a sheltered expert, not a revolving door of lead investigators, ghetto preachers and gassy passers-by.Who knows what heights you could have reached had you not burdened with yourself with a Sony you didn't even own. I don't wanna tell you how to live your life (or mine), but twenty some years into this silly gig and you're just now realizing you got the world's most interesting dead-end job?

Worse yet, you been at this so long, there's really no hope for recovery. It's not like you could go out and get a real job! No, you'll never be promoted to Vice President of Stapler Arrangement with that limited attention span of yours. You know, the one you fractured years ago with all those disposable vignettes you've foisted on an unsuspecting public. And that driving record of yours? No church will ever ask you to cart around their flock, that's for sure. But perhaps the most troubling aspect of your diminished condition? That half-baked notion you've seen it ALL. Look, two decades of putting every type of person and predicament on the news does not an education make. For insight like that, you have to rise in the corporate ranks, get a teaching fellowship or at least be put in charge of a french-fry vat or two. Only then can you possess the kind of enlightenment that comes with random letters behind your name, or a good ole fashioned hairnet. So, do us all a favor there, Fellini: Back off that deadline. The only thing you're killing is any hope your Mom and I ever had of you becoming a professional bowler. She may still claim your kind, but me...

I can’t even look at you.

The Iceman Slummeth

2011-07-25T21:36:00.002-05:00

Great filmmakers have tried and failed. Now, the dude who made Cutthroat Island is tackling the photog psyche. Sigh. Now, don't get me wrong. I hope 5 Days of War will be a bold and brainy blockbuster, but something tells me it's gonna be more like that wretched Godzilla remake than the next Broadcast News. Then again, we TV stevedores have been taking it on the unshaven chin for as long as Hollywood has seen fit to feature us. Whether it's a romantic comedy or a political thriller, the guy (or gal) behind the glass usually comes off as some thwarted doofus more comfortable with cameras than conversation. Okay, so that's not so far from reality, but still, movie-makers seem to go out of their way to deride the role of the television news photographer. What with our odd job and sensible shoes, we're natural bit players, comedic foils, roaming props. I get that, but when the most textured interpretation of a TV News cameraman belongs to Chris Elliot in Groundhog Day, you know your profession has been cinematically shortchanged.

Now this... a glossy thriller about the Russian-Georgian War, as seen through the lens of an American news crew. I'd feel better if it were some animated schlub holding his camera the wrong way. Maybe then, we could chalk any and all discrepancies up to technical mistrust between the trades. Otherwise, we're going to be forced to defend the cross-cultural bumblings of a fictional camera crew - as envisioned by the genius who brought you The Adventures of Ford Fairlane. How could THAT go wrong? It's not like the Finnish wunderkind went out and bagged some has-been actor for a pivotal role... Wait a minute - is that Val Kilmer? Sure, he made for a mean Morrison and his Doc Holliday was tops, but a photog? Was Richard Dean Anderson unavailable? Don't answer that; just know that we here at The Lenslinger Institute don't hold out much hope for a slick flick about a messy war helmed by the guy who tried to wrap a pirate franchise around Geena Davis.

In fact, we're delegating this whole messy matter to broadcast archivist Amanda Emily, who after hanging out with these losers, knows a thing or three about cameraman semantics. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to gather some rotten fruit for the premiere.

Master and Commander

2011-07-24T08:37:00.000-05:00

If you ask him about 'that train wreck', he'll tell you to be more specific.

He takes his live truck funk with justatouch of pretty reporter hairspray - yet he hates the taste of catch-up.

Politicians, cops and models slow their roll whenever he looks their way.

He can drive blindfolded at night on a mountain highway, but won't park a call in the newsroom for love nor money.

Judges, bums and drum circles play to HIM.

He's backpedaled before Presidents, bum-rushed the funkiest of dumpsters and bodily jostled rock stars. All without changing his socks.

He can smell darkness.

If he happens upon a picket line, protesters remember what they're mad about.

Many a waking bailiff has wish him dead.

He's escorted more gorgeous females to their lunch table than a Hollywood agent.

He's the reason Dog the Bounty Hunter dresses that way.

His very best stories, he keeps to himself.

He's not even The Most Interesting (Camera)Man in the World, but dude's survived lunch meat riots, crashed landed hot air balloons and mastered his craft before most of his cohorts put down their Sippy Cups.

Stay thirsty, my friends.

Noyz in the Hood

2011-07-21T07:08:00.000-05:00

It was stupefyingly hot on Wednesday so of course I spent it outside. After all it’s part of the Photog Credo: “Neither rain, nor sleet nor oven door heat will stop me from venturing out in the names of news.” Seriously, I covered some spot news in the inner city that felt like a scene from Cool Hand Luke: everyone sitting around trading bromides while glistening in sweat. In this case however, it wasn’t an egg eating contest at the center of attention. It was a gas leak. Not one of those foisted on family members by a flatulent fourteen year old either, but an unauthorized dispersal of natural gas. Seems the copper tubing at the bottom of an abandoned house was too much for the crackheads to ignore, so they shimmied underneath in the middle of the night and made off with the metalwork. One wonders if they smelled the gas as they took apart the tubing. Neighbors surely did. By daybreak, the fumes were overpowering along Bessemer Street. Someone called the PO-leece, who called he fire department, who made so much noise about it on the scanner that a certain grizzled lenslinger was torn away from his morning cup of joe and told to beat feet toot sweet.

“Hey neighbor!”

If years of violating personal space with a TV camera has taught me anything, it’s how to approach people with a microphone and a smile. Seriously, if I’d been as successful at engaging strangers during my short-lived car selling career, I’d still be pushing Volvos, Jeeps and Beemers. But where I was never all that great at convincing people to drop coin on a pricey ragtop they didn’t need, I’m a certified Closer when it comes to bagging sound. “You there - with the housecoat and lump of snuff in your lip! I know you were forced out of your home at four in the morning, but wouldn’t you like to step in front of my lens and tell the Greater Piedmont Googolplex what it feels like to be displaced by some overly-jonesing yutz with a crescent wrench? No? how about your friend there with the tattooed torso and visible shakes? He looks like a talker!” Okay, so I wasn’t that brazen. More than anything I was nice and nonchalant in that southern kind of way that big city actors never quite master on screen. But I wasn’t just collecting quotes, I was making friends!

I mean that. For every drug-addled young plumber making unauthorized house-calls, there’s half dozen sweet grandmas shaking the heads at the gall of today’s kids. Not ALL of them will talk on camera, but unless you’re a monumental dick a few of them surely will. Of course it helps that whenever a marquee crime lights up the shady side of town, residents pour onto the street with lawn chairs, hand fans and I-told-you-so’s. Gas leak, homicide, alien spaceships on the horizon... it all draws a crowd in the ghetto. And while the very term “ghetto” is probably not politically correct, it’s what the good people I interviewed yesterday called their hood. “Hey Mr. news man! What brings you to the ghetto?” Upon hearing that, I made a beeline for the three hundred pound lady who wanted to know, for one of the first rules of soundbite acquisition is to quiz the curious. Example: you just pulled up to a drive-by shooting scene and while a few felons ducked their herads at your arrival, others are doping backflips to get your attention. Those are the folks you start with, for if a guy’s gonna stand on his buddy’s shoulders and hurl one-liners your way, there’s an excellent chance he’ll climb down ling enough to weigh in on whatever tragedy is at hand. Call it profiling if you will. But, please, let me start rolling first so you can say it on camera. For if I don’t capture it on tape, it never happened and courtroom sketch artists don’t ride along with us news types at midnight.

Pity, that.

Man Overboard

2011-07-18T21:02:00.001-05:00

As a raving fan of The Deadliest Catch, I want to like Captain Keith Colburn. He's in business with his brother, takes advice from his adorable little girl and owns a kick-ass crab boat. But time and time again, this skipper had proven himself to be a dill-weed of the highest order. Those who watch the show know what I mean. The only thing more predictable than a shot of some greenhorn deckhand losing his lunch are extended sequences of Captain Keith losing his shit. I suppose it makes for good TV. After all, several (edited) minutes after launching into one of his nearly incoherent tirades, Cap'n Keith can be counted on to repent. Seriously, this guy delivers more sobbing apologies than he does King Crab. And it works! Just when you want to write him off as a psalty psychopath, he says he's sorry, all while reminding everyone within earshot what a tough gig he's got. As a viewer, I've cut him a blank check more times than I can remember. Yeah yeah... killer waves, bad crab, some dude sticking a lens in your face when you're trying to drive... it can't be easy! No matter that all those other captains seem to manage the same thing without berating their crew to the point of mutiny - he's just an emotional guy!

Well, this week a clip from an upcoming show surfaced that has forever erased any slack I may have granted this seafaring putz. In the video, Keith is seen lamenting his fate as a successful businessman when the wheelhouse telephone rings. It's a Discovery Channel cameraman asking for a co-worker. This is apparently against the Wizard's policy, as the commanding officer of said vessel promptly storms below deck to confront the offending lenslinger. What follows is an exercise in absolute gas-baggery. Keith hurls (irrelevant) insults, throws in a few threats for good measure and when the cameraman doesn't back down, frog-marches the two of them from stem to stern before crashing into a distant bulkhead. Even with Keith's history of hissies, it is an embarrassing display of a captain come undone. Of course a crab boat passageway isn't a board room and behavior deemed unacceptable on dry carpet is simply the price of business out to sea. But, Keith, really? Is Discovery putting a little something extra in your check if you promise to go mental every fifteen minutes? I guess it makes up for a lack of crab action, but you're establishing yourself as a villain on a show that really didn't need one.

Worse yet, you came dangerously close to incurring the first ever waterborne Schmuck Alert! Had their been an actual camera in that cameraman's hand, I would have had no choice but to throw the secret switch here at the Lenslinger Institute and bring shame to your entire fishing village. And really, what good is owning your own fishing vessel, appearing regularly on cable TV and starring in your own Sears commercial if much of the nation and every living TV photog considers you an utter tool? Something to think about the next time you're about to 'show your ass' on camera. Just look what it did to David Caruso...

Fade to Jack

2011-07-16T22:08:00.000-05:00

You can keep your Will and Kate (Okay, Kate can stay). My favorite power couple from across the pond is Colin and Chris Weir, the former TV cameraman (and wife) who just scored £161 Million in Europe's biggest Lottery payout. £161 Million? White-Balances for everybody! Sorry, but it's hard not to root for this working class duo with the newly engorged checkbook. He's a retired studio manager! She's a former nurse! They've been married so long they look alike! What's NOT to love? And I'm not just saying in that in hopes the Weirs will see fit to contribute to the Lenslinger Institute - that most deserving center for the advancement of cameramanthropology! No, I'm truly stoked for this bloke and his Missus, if only because career TV tech types rarely get anything but a chintzy wristwatch and walked out of the building when they've surpassed their expiration date. Hell, dude even worked a broadcast term into his official soundbite:

"When we first realized we had won, it felt like a dream. Everything went into slow motion. But it feels like a good thing; something we should not to be afraid of but for us to enjoy with the children."

As well you should, charming Scottish couple I'll never meet! Here's hoping neither of you buys an island or starts collecting showgirls or some other such nonsense that so often befalls lottery winners here in the States. Tell you what , should all that cash ever become cumbersome, why not ship a crate of it across the Atlantic? I'd gladly sink it into my own self-aggrandizement, maybe send you good people a postcard from a certain writing shack in Cabo... That or you could spend it on your own grown children; they're certainly deserving. But so help me, I see ONE paparazzi shot of you two trading whiskey shots with the Beckhams and I'm jetting over the briny blue for a full-on intervention. I'll be the one walking backwards in front of Dr. Drew...

Esquire on Deck

2011-07-16T21:00:00.000-05:00

Geoff Johnson: Sling of the World!

What sort of man reads Viewfinder BLUES? A roguish soul on constant reconnaissance, lens always within reach, a natural born distiller of minutia and mayhem. His gaze is steely, his fingertips rough. But what would you expect from a man unafraid to rock the boat and a professional fanny pack at the same time? Don’t answer that. You’ll only ruin the sound he’s recording. Careful, though. Both those elbows are considered weapons in seven different states. But this fortune hunter of sorts would rather over-light than out right fight. He’s rather parry and spin around any opponent, strike glancing blows with well-placed pans before centering up for a rock steady assault. Yes, this TV stevedore is more than assassin with panache. He’s a weathered escort of the only moments you’ll remember from tonight’s newscast. He knows where to park outside the courthouse, who to woo when the room goes stupid and what to wear when sailing over a pirate ship. Call him a cameraman and he won’t mind, but neither will he answer. He’s far too consumed with what flickers on that tiny screen, the same images you’ll soon see dance across that giant plasma perched atop your hearth. What sort of man reads Viewfinder BLUES? A master of the glass whose world view is limited only by the polish of his press pass and the glow of his cojones.

I guess that explains the wide stance.

Shake and Bake

2011-07-13T06:35:00.000-05:00

HOW hot was it yesterday? So hot the reporter doffed his suit jacket before fronting his poolside live shot! So hot the photog broke out his still camera just to stave of delirium. So hot our every newscast began and ended with dire warnings of face-melting across the ~~Heartland~~, ~~Upper Crescent~~, ~~Golden Valley~~ -- er, the six closest counties. Honestly, the great/maddening thing about being the tip of the spear is your constantly thrust in the middle of the action. If a crushing heatwave falls over your homeland, your undies will be the soggiest. If a blizzard blows in, your mustache will sport the best snotcicles. If an alien space ship hovers over the city, your rectal probe will glow the rosiest... you get the idea. Honestly, when I was in my mid-twenties, being in the middle of the action was the only place I wanted to be. At 44, I'd just as soon take your word for it that mutant crocodiles are rising from the sewer and swallowing pedestrians whole.Why, it reminds me of hurricane season, when otherwise lucid broadcasters fight each other for the right to dodge flying trashcan kids and eye-gouging pine needles.

Problem is, after you do this silly gig for enough years, all that interloping begins to feel normal. I know that when I left news for the placid world of promotions, I nearly passed out from jealousy when my hurricane chasing colleagues struck out for the coast with nothing but hubris Slim-Jims. 'That should be ME out there!, I screamed from my air-conditioned office. A few months later it was, as I shirked the duties of a house-cat hack and took my talents to the front lines. Drought, pestilence, County Commissioner workshops! For the past 14 years, I've braved them all, just so some overly perfumed executive could experience flea and tick season without ever getting itchy. That reminds me, anybody know a cure for heat-induced psychosis? Something came over me the other day while licking humidity off the live truck and now all I want to do is run naked through the inner city. Pretty soon, I won't even be able to form whole sentences. How will I complain then?

Oh, I'll find a way.

Out of the Office

2011-07-10T20:44:00.000-05:00

Every week I hit the street, a crusty pusher of soft and gooey news. My mission: fill a few minutes of broadcast with something that won't pollute the Greater Piedmont Googolplex. Most days I pull it off, other times... not so much. But whether I'm slingin' straight up trophy bait or chewed-up filler covered in catch-up, it's always, ALWAYS on time - for what good is that totally kick-ass super slow-mo sunset sequence if Sally Joe Housecoat flips away when the anchors start to stretch?

On Tuesday I found myself stalking that most elusive of species: the quick-turn kicker. It all began when an anchor poked his head in the morning meeting and said a single mother had crashed his private pool. This proved quite the pitch for soon after I was soaring to said oasis, where I found kids, chlorine and, warming eggs in a nearby planter, a sitting duck. Affecting my best David Attenborough, I sidled up to the wildlife and addressed her in crisp, English tones. When the young mother duck glared back as if she were about to rip my lips off, I backed away and quizzed a few six year olds in elbow floaties. A man's GOT to know his limitations.

Mother ducks are nice and all, but why not use that glass to reflect the very best of humanity? It's why I rose early the very next day and raced to Raleigh-Durham International. It was by the baggage claim I found my peoples. Rounded shoulders, lots of pockets, tripods by their sides... Seems I wasn't the only photog looking to shine a light on some world class athletes. 'Fine', I thought as I made cross-market small talk, 'at least we're not fixin' to fawn over some infantile jock with a million dollar contract. That's when the concourse dissolved into applause and a stream of gold medal heroes poured onto the floor. The next few minutes passed quickly, but the interior grin lasted all day.

Of course, every day ain't an exercise in nobility. Some days it's like pulling teeth. Of course if teeth are to be pulled, I'd much rather be a cameraman knocking over Novocaine tanks than any of those souls with hardware hanging out of their mouths. That was me Friday, as I roamed the floor of a free dental clinic. "You there! With the recent pink slip and aching jaw. Wanna be on Tee-Vee?" Didn't think so, which is why I tread lightly at these kind of soirees. Folks don't stand in line to see the dentist because they want to. Whether they want to share their woe with the region at large is their choice, not mine. Besides, there's always some untroubled soul willing to share their views with a stranger from The News.

Always.

Schmuck Alert: INCOMING!

2011-07-07T21:46:00.000-05:00

File this under ways I won't die: set ablaze with bottle rockets by some shirtless yuck in the middle of the night. Sure, some reprobate might wing me with an attempted forehead scorcher, but his next target will be the logo on the back of my news unit, for dodging bottle rockets falls just beyond my job description. Guess I'd make a lousy war correspondent. Veteran Dallas TV News photographer Robert Flagg, however, may have The Right Stuff. That's him sticking around far longer than I would have the other night as some upstanding taxpayers celebrated our nation's freedom by aiming their rockets not at the heavens, but at each other. (Officer Darwin, paging Officer Darwin...) When photog Flagg rolled up with fancycam in tow, the fine citizens of the Creekside Villa apartment complex took direct aim at The Fourth Estate."The missiles — or whatever they were — they were hitting, they were bouncing off my chest and off my camera," Flagg said. "One hit me in the back, and it burned my neck and it burned my shirt." When the PO-leece arrived, they too became targets, a development we here at the Lenslinger Institute find downright disturbing, for our great nation is indeed in peril when Independence Day in Texas begins to resemble the trailer for RoboCop. While strapping plate metal to some hack-cocked officer would make for interesting video, we simply can't afford it. Thus, we're locking our doors tight, turning down the scanners and issuing a blanket Schmuck Alert for any yahoo stupid enough to launch incendiaries at a cop, a camera, hell, even a consultant.

Schmucks!

Esprit de Noir

2011-07-06T22:02:00.000-05:00

Say what you will about the Casey Anthony verdict (everyone else has), I'm just glad I wasn't part of the thunderous scrum outside that Florida courthouse...

Sure, it's the Trial of the Century (11 years in), but I'd still rather chase a double rainbow that was never really there to begin with than ride herd on some pasty trollop's flogging. Not that I don't enjoy a good sat truck farm: the illegal parking, the muddy cables, the smell of fresh take-out and diesel fumes. Throw in a few celebrity sightings and you have the makings of at least a heavy metal parking lot. Look! Past that guy with the porno mustache. Is that legendary lenslinger Brad Houston? Why's he standing behind Geraldo? Doesn't matter; Dude could wrestle Rivera to the floor with half his chin-cabbage tied behind his back. Hell, I once saw him hold a lecture hall full of photogs hostage with a single showing of his resume tape!

Of course, they gave him a standing O before he got it out of its protective sleeve, but that doesn't subtract from the fact that Brad's had a helluva career, from flying around with former first ladies to traipsing across dead zones to holding court at the annual NPPA Workshop In Norman, Oklahoma. It was there he huddled with yours truly there back in 2000 for a quick tape evaluation. "Oh, he said, after watching my favorite story from the previous year, "I see what you're trying to do." Ouch! Little did I know then what a powerhouse Houston was. When I did find out, I took his remark as a compliment, though I never did figure out what it was I was trying to do.

Now that the interwebs have made the world so much smaller, I've reconnected with my former sensi. He even said it would be okay if I stuck some of his photos on my humble blog. The one with the cameras outside Camp Casey, I really like. The black and blue foreground, a blonde on the side, the ever present logo on the horizon... I can see what he was trying to do.

Independence Fray

2011-07-03T20:35:00.004-05:00

Of all the holidays a TV News photog has to work, the Fourth of July is one of 'em. Actually, it's a lot like working President's Day - just with a greater chance of heatstroke. I should know...

I've schlepped my weapon through more re-enactor campsites than any dues-paying militia member within the six county confederacy.

I've spun like a top in the middle of Main Street as mostly sober grandpas sporting the latest in fez-wear tried to kill me with go-carts and halitosis.

I've soaked in the smoke of a wide open pig-cooker a total stranger in an American flag apron insisted I take a whooping To-Go plate back to the studio. I usually ate it in the car.

I've felt concrete bridges flex beneath my feet as a State Trooper aimed his radar gun down at passing traffic and chuckled as the truckers flinched.

I've dropped wisecracks in the firecracker shack before a guy with nine fingers and a mouth full of worm dirt, er, chewing tobacco shushed me, spraying his collection of PVC pipes in warm, brown spittle.

I've seen steady beads of sweat run down my forehead, drip off my brow and land on a tiny black and white TV screen, until I wiped it dry long enough to zoom in on an approaching beaming beauty queen.

I've huddled with chums in the breakdown lane as men in Smokey Bear hats held up a tarp to block our view of head-on collision victims. 'Cause, you know, we're always putting dead bodies on the air around here.

I've wrung-out jungle-flavored flop-sweat from my third shirt of the day as an on-air partner remained dry and fly under the strain of my reflector and his necktie. Strange get-up for a water safety story.

I've baby-sat dying live trucks outside amphitheaters as sunburned citizens rushed home to watch digitized glimpses of the very fireworks shows they just saw spread across the heavens. Never understood that.

Yes, I've hauled glass to (and from) every Independence Day cliche that's out there, even made up a few new ones along the way. All the while I've chortled and bitched about double-time not being enough to ease my freedom, and if the schedule I read on my way out of the office of Friday is correct...

I get to do it all again this year. Happy Fourth of July!

Blessings Accepted

2011-07-01T22:59:00.001-05:00

Condensing distant events without much video can make for difficult television. But one of the benefits of working solo, (besides listening to your own music in the car) is near total control of your product. In the case of Lost Ring Found, I arrived on scene to find another news crew fully engorged. Luckily, they were friends of mine and we stayed out of each others' shot. But a crowded palette and Friday-itis convinced me to quit shooting long before I should have. Thus, this story isn't all that it should be, but the sweet Southern people at its center more than make up for my lack of effort. Good to know the News Gods can still smile down upon me. Almost absolves all those thunderbolts.

Almost.

Pimp My Ride

2011-07-01T05:48:00.000-05:00

It's been nearly a month now since the suits slapped stickers on my unmarked news car and I'm STILL trying to get used to it. Don't get me wrong; I steered a succession of rolling billboards across the open newscape for many, many moons. But for the past few years, I've been the pilot of a quieter ride: an off-white hatchback with only a few scratches to distinguish it from a million other Mommy mobiles. It. Was. Liberating. No longer hassled in traffic, I could roll up on office buildings and imbroglios without ever letting anyone know a jackal of the Fourth Estate was chewing on the scenery. No more. Now, my once forgettable Ford has enough excitable adjectives etched onto its surface to qualify it for the pole at Pocono. So much for being aloof. Still, I've (re)learned a thing or two in my time behind the decorated wheel, mainly that volunteer firefighters bearing oversized flashlights are far more impressed with embossed lettering than they ever were at my encyclopedic knowledge of old Bullwinkle episodes.There are a few OTHER things to consider.

I'm not so much a reckless driver as I am an emotional one. Twenty years of running down deadlines with a genetic lead-foot will do that to a fella. Couple that with the fact that two high-speed interstates tattoo my home market and you get a pretty good idea why I prefer motoring about incognito. Now that a certain set of call letters adorn my every car door, I've tried to drive more like a gentleman and less like an escaped prisoner. Why, just the other day I edged off the eighty mile per hour mark when I realized the letters of my logos were sliding off the side panels.

Whether it's Metallica's Kill 'em All, some Kool Moe Dee or simply that new Katrina and the Waves track, you'd be wise to hold down the volume at red lights when your station's web address is splayed out in patriotic colors across your hood. Otherwise, you may have to explain to your superior why a news shooter who looks a lot like you was spotted singing along to The Phantom and the Opera soundtrack in mid-town traffic. And don't dare claim to be part of some cross-cultural music exchange program. My boss didn't buy that at all.

Now, I would NEVER pull my news unit under a shade tree and sack out on company time - especially now that it's wrapped in day-glo promises. But a station vehicle is more than a company car. It's a home on wheels. I have personally changed clothes, nodded off, dissected equipment and even held a seance or two in a news car - ALL in the line of duty. Okay, the seances were really just spontaneous events borne of tedium at hostage stand-offs. Whatever the case, I sure won't be as eager to host any mobile AVON parties now that the outside of my ride screams 'look over here!'.

It's human nature; you pull up to an idling news car at a stoplight and look over to see if a local celebrity is behind the wheel. Instead, you see me: a furry faced father of two hoarking down a burrito. This is good marketing? Yeah, it probably is. But I gotta tell ya, nothing will bring you out of a post-taco stupor like six set of eyes boring down on you from a primer-gray Chrysler idling beside you. And no matter how guilty I feel for not being that cute weather bunny everyone wants to see in public, I'm just not willing to cross-dress.

Yet.

International Man of Misery

2011-06-28T21:49:00.000-05:00

Say what you will about the British: they take to the rain like a new intern takes to an empty news cubicle. Just ask Paul Martin, freelance photog and waterlogged friend of the blog. When not rounding up pictures for the telly, Sir Paul can be found handing out soggy crumpets to his drunken countrymen, frolicking on the still wet lawns of Hampshire, or simply cradling his very own electronics as the liquid sunshine of an English summer rolls down the crack of his ascot! Okay, so he mostly just stands around and glowers at tourists, but with a mug like that, he ain't exactly gonna edge out any Beckhams off the cover of a tabloid, eh? Eh? Anyway, I find strength in his lack of resolve, for it reminds me that dripping skivvies and fogged-up eyepieces are a drag no matter what side of the pond you call home. Besides, closer examination reveals my continental doppelganger uses the exact same facial muscles I employ at Independence Day parades, mythical flash-floods and most any story involving crime tape and lens condensation between the months of, oh, February and November. Yes, with universal truths like this being being bandied about, it is any wonder I wanna move the Lenslinger Institute to Fleet Street? I just might, too - once I wrap my brain around the mother tongue. Speaking of which, does anyone know of a derisive broadcast term that rhymes with 'wanker'?

I got nuthin'.

Funk, Interrupted

2011-06-27T23:35:00.000-05:00

What’s a local TV news photog do once his week off has ended? Find a slightly less wrinkled pair of shorts to wear into work. Hey, every day on the clock isn’t a stroll on the beach, but I’d be suffering from sunstroke if I didn’t recognize how closely my chosen - ahem - profession resembles some kind of vacation. Think about it: Every morning I load a couple of cameras into a hatchback, take a stab at my GPS and drive to a strange location. Once there, I drag out all kinds of baggage, ask a few stupid questions and stick my lenses where I damn well please. Then I go eat something greasy, most often behind the wheel. Okay, so it’s no luxury cruise, but I’m betting there’s a claim processor somewhere who’d trade his eight hours of fluorescent light for a chance to point a reflector at a squirming news bunny. Certainly it was this semblance of adventure that first drew me out of the studio, but a rather unfunny thing happened on my way to a million newscasts...

I forgot what a bitchin’ gig this was supposed to be.

My friends outside the business didn’t. They still ask about my job with the kind of excitement I haven’t used on the job since I made deadlines in an acid-washed jean jacket. To hear them tell it, every TV news shift ends in the anchor-team gang fight scene in Anchorman. I haven’t the heart to tell them I spent four hours wishing for death the other day while some overpaid wonk prattled on about city sewage sub-laws. Nor could I being myself to divulge how grumpy I was at that battered woman’s shelter dedication the other week (The nerve of those ladies - making me wait outside like that!). They simply wouldn’t understand how incredibly stressful it is to roll up late to a ribbon cutting and distill the whole damn thing to a single clip... Okay so when I type it out like that, it sounds pretty simple, but the fact of the matter is pixelating trivia requires nerves of steel and shoulders of Jell-O. I mean, it’s not like some prom queen with a camcorder can do it!

Oh...wait.

Better yet, proceed as usual. I’ll catch up, just as soon as I get the wide angle on my perspective tweaked. Maybe then I can get a better look at the long-view, remind myself why I do what I do what I do. Oh yeah - I failed at everything else first. THAT more than anything convinces me I’m still where I’m in a pretty good place, for shouldn’t someone with my qualifications be mopping up a spill on aisle five right about now - instead of trying to decide how boring I find debris fields and backstage passes... You know, twenty years ago I would have strapped my glass to a police cruiser if it mean a new angle on the day. Now, I could probably doze off at a spaceship landing if the pod doors didn’t open quick enough. That’s not something I’m particularly proud of, for my least favorite people in the business (besides those who take themselves so very seriously) are those who swear they’ve seen it all and most of it sucks. That ain’t me. In an effort to never forget that, I’m reminded of a string of wise words told to me by an old cowboy...

“Ride around, take pictures all day...you ain’t got NOTHIN’ to do…”

How come it seems so much more complicated than that?