'Roll!' by Rich Underwood

While I've been feeling sorry for myself, another TV news photojournalist has kept his eye on the prize. Rich Underwood, veteran television director, cameraman and part-time educator has penned a hefty tome on the state of Electronic News Gathering. Roll! features interviews with TV news vets, practical shooting advice and hopefully a war story or two. Cover to cover, its 416 pages of words about the pictures and sound we harvest every night. A respectful dip of the lens is in order. With so many on-line video 'experts' rushing their own manifestos into print, it's heartening to see a broadcast journalist assert his mastery of the craft. I only wish it were me. Actually, several folk have suggested I attempt to assemble a manual of sorts, but I've always dismissed it for fear of the arduous research it would take. I guess now I can scratch it off my list altogether. Still, if I ever did write a textbook, I hope it would be the TV news equivalent of this.

To Blog or Not

Relax - I'm not going anywhere. I'm way too hooked on being read to shutter this website anytime soon. But as someone who's been web-publishing at least five nights a week since the fall of 2004, I can tell you - the compulsion to do so fluctuates. Most days my forehead is afire with analysis and lies, twisted sequiturs scribbled on windshield and page. Other times I can barely recall how to write my name, let alone some diatribe of note to leave overnight on-line. Lately, I've been of the latter mind - an interminable phase fraught with restlessness and worry. Well, not too much worry. I've been through this before ; the moment I convince myself I'll never again line words up successfully, some pre-written screed will pop in my head and I'm off to the races. Oh, to wrest control of that elusive mojo...

But that would be too much to ask, I guess. Instead, I'll try to be grateful I learned to write at all, for there was a lifetime on the books before my particular muse ever figured out how to strike. Now that it does (or did) on a regular basis, I'm reduced to the role as distracted dictator. That's fine with me - as I love to listen to the guy in my head. See, most times he's smarter than me, he's got better hair and he's not afraid to type what I really think. (Though to be fair I often have to censor his prose as to insure my weekly stipend.) No bother. The dark comedy currently afoot will make for perfect fodder one day - provided my readers don't think I'm yankin' their chains. For now, you'll just have to settle for this, the latest in an irregular series of directionless ponderings, the kind that are usually followed by a flurry of more meritous posts. Otherwise, check my archives for times when I really had something to say and know that though I'm not pummelling you with my every thought, you, dear reader, are very much on my mind...

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm late for a date with my lava lamp...

Idol Finale: Too Many Lenses

Hey, check out this fantastic shot of Chris Daughtry and his wife Deanna moments before they rushed into the American Idol finale ... What? Okay, so the framing's a little off, but that's what you get when you blindly pop off shots with your left hand as your right hand holds a 18 pound viewfinder to your face. The entrance to the finale was strictly a handheld event, making it virtually impossible to score solid stills, lest the moving pictures suffer in the process. That's a shame since a series of Idol used-to-be's and B-List stars strode past my slice of the crush. Bo Derek, Cameron Manheim and Kevin Nealon stopped to chat while Kathy Griffin, Carrie Underwood and others I could not identify swaggered past. At one point Bucky Covington's twin brother Rocky paused for a few high-fives, ignoring the reporters around us who kept insisting he was his far more famous brother. When Bucky did come by he laughed at the idea before loping into the Kodak Theater. It was almost showtime when Chris' publicist pulled him from the clutches of clamoring zombies. That's when his wife Deanna spotted us and steered Chris and company toward our perch.

"I think I'm gonna be a singer when I grow up." he joked before the publicist yanked the guy we met down at Natty Greene's last August past an adoring press and hundreds of rabid fans.