Born to Bloviate

Let’s be honest. Some days there’s just nothing to write about. But since this is a blog, I can’t let that stop me. Others don’t. In fact, I’m amazed at how my blogging cohorts fill dispatch after dispatch with stream of consciousness fare that strangely enough fits their frame of reference. I envy their spontaneity. It’s not that I suffer over every word, but keeping this site focused on The Perils of Electronic News Gathering sometimes limits the...blogabilities.

Now, I’m not complaining. Nor am I planning to change Viewfinder BLUES into a vehicle for political screeds, consumer rants and pet photos. There’s plenty of THAT already available in the blogosphere. No, I’ll continue to pour forth on life behind the television news camera, for that’s what I know best. But once in awhile, the well runs a little dry, so forgive me if not every posting is a polished essay on the trials and triumphs of my chosen trade. Sometimes, all I got are nuggets. For example...

I hate Mondays, especially when it snows on the outskirts of my immediate viewing area. That always sends show producers into a tizzy and before I can finish my morning coffee, I’m hurled once again into the slush. Today I could almost SEE through my windshield as I made my way up Highway 29, a troublesome corridor in any conditions, let alone the sideways sleet and rain that thwarted my wiper’s finest efforts this morning. Low visibility aside, I ended up in Eden, where three inches of sloppy wet snow proved to be just the kind of footage my producers were jonesing for. Did I mention I hate Mondays?

Another thing I detest intently is the wrongful use of perfectly good TV equipment, which in my not so humble opinion, is just what ‘Good Day Live’ is. For the past few years, network bigwigs have foisted this bastion of insipidness on a nation of afternoon viewers. Featherweight and celebrity-obsessed, this L.A.-based broadcast blurred the lines between newscasting and unmitigated show business crap. Well, good news! “Good Day Live’ is ‘Good Day Dead’! No longer will I walk into the feed room at work only to catch a few minutes of some C-List bimbo grilling J-Lo’s stylist on what kind of hair mousse she prefers in the limo. Good Day Riddance!

On to less frivolous matters. How about school violence? As a taxpayer and a parent, I‘m against it - though as a working journalist I’m rather adept at keeping my opinions to my self. But today, at a press conference announcing a troubled high school’s fifth new principal in four years, I had to fight to keep down my Chick fil A. Why the indigestion? Just the new administrator’s claim that the school in question is no more violent than any other school, but rather the victim of bad media hype. Excuse me? We newsies may be shrill harbingers of this particular school’s prolonged downfall, but we’re NOT the ones throwin’ gang signs in the hallway, pedaling drugs in the classrooms, or launching haymakers in the cafeteria. I wanted badly to share my thoughts with the new principal, but I knew better. Maybe I’ll tell her replacement. We should be meeting THAT unlucky educator in about a month or two.

Well, there you have it - a few unrelated items from my pea-sized brain. Check back in tomorrow when I’ll try to conjure up something a bit more...linear. Until then, I’d better get some rest. You never know when a sleet storm may envelop the periphery of my homeland, and I’ll once again be back in the saddle, hunting accumulation and cursing my wipers. I could just replace the damn things, but then what would I blog about?