After the Swarm

News doesn't happen in a newsroom. It seeps into the nooks and crannies of your adopted region; down dusty, dead-end roads and up long, plastic hallways. I know, for I am but one of many lenslingers paid to collect perspectives. It's an interesting living and until ACME Products perfects the News Drone 5000, there should be adventure a plenty for those thick enough to pick up a lens. But be forewarned: Numbing discomfort afflict all who enter here. Consider it the price of admission. See, war stories don't ring true unless the teller wears a few scars. It's what separates us from the Producer Class, that rare ability to remember news events by the way they smelled and felt, not just the way they shimmered on the far wall of a crowded booth. Wanna shoot news? You gotta find it first - and contrary to what those wretched deskies think, there is no drive-thru window in the game of Life. Even a few fleeting seconds of footage can require a dirty walk in and an even dirtier walk out.

And that's on a normal day.

Lately, Nashville hasn't had many normal days. One look at the national news proves that. But the flood waters that are swallowing Music City have a far bigger effect on the local guys than your average network news crew. It's their home. True, it's a chance for all Nashville stations to shine, but it's awfully hard to perform superhuman feats when your own lair is swirling in dirty runoff. But that's whats happening in Central Tennessee and it's not quite registering on the national consciousness in the way that Katrina did. Why that is I'm not really sure, but I'd like to take this opportunity to extend a heartfelt shout-out to all the local news crews currently dealing with the insidious beast that is a flood. We have many friends in Nashville: Eric, Nicole, Smitty, Cordan and Roxy, to name a few. It's hit some harder than others (Help is on the way, Whitey!), but chances are they've been too busy scrambling for purchase to soak in the longview. Better days are on the way, folks. What you're living through is miserable history and the only small solace is that you won't need any periodicals or network specials to recall the onset of Summer, 2010.

Hang in there...