A Fertile Milieu

If John Grisham can make legal briefs the stuff of thrillers, surely I could work up something in the newsgathering genre. What other profession offers so many twisted senarios for the budding scribe to hang prose on? Consider the following true scenarios - in an ever annoying Foxworthy-like format...

Ever follow a love of lights and language down a long plastic hallway, until you realize the exciting career you never dreamed you’d have is about to drive you up the broadcast tower out back? Ever watch UPS drivers deliver packages and wonder how it might differ from the silly gig you got?

Ever wish for death as every war veteran in the freakin’ retirement home clamored for the cameraman’s attention? Ever fake a forest fire pager alert and slink out of the room to the cheers of your lap-quilted admirers? I’ll surely pay for that one.

Ever cringe behind the lens as the mullet-wearing daughter of a murder victim jumps out of her beat-up Nova and screams at the burly Sheriff deputies digging up her father‘s six month old grave? It‘s the kind of thing that sticks with ya.

Ever regret not charging that last battery as the Governor hugs the podium and every brick you got goes dead? Ever rooted around your fanny-pack in stark denial as network field producers scoff at you from behind their cappuccinos?

Ever bitch about the flood zone, the heat and the bosses with your sat truck buddies all day - until catching sight of an old man sorting through his every flood soaked possession on a sweltering park bench made you not wanna talk at all?

Ever feign empathy as the distraught citizen in your lens explains how the nut-bag down the street is ruining the entire condominium complex? Ever pull that same reassuring nod with said nut-bag only minutes later? Ever not stop to care who’s right?

Ever use a drop dead gorgeous intern to enchant the smarmy faculty yaks of a private college - all so you can get the kind of leafy enclave footage out of stock at the local community college’s dumpy smoking hut? Every threaten to taser an aging horn-dog in a thousand dollar suit?

Ever drive fast with your ass off the seat as state troopers tear by you with their lights and sirens blazing? Ever follow ‘em at unthinkable speeds until the guy in front driving the stolen highway patrol car wipes out just inside the county line? Ever schlep a camera past a frozen parade of badly-parked patrol cars?

Ever whip an elementary school lunchroom into a scene from ‘Lord of the Flies’ simply by poking your lens into the room? Every try to convince a reading rug full of pre-schoolers not to bum-rush the nice cameraman? Every wish you’d done better in school yourself?

Yeah, me neither...