Turd, Rising

Once upon a time TV stations the nation over fostered the oddest of 'talent' - in-house eccentrics, weatered debutantes and pockmarked auteurs. While never the prettiest horse in the stable, these locals souls were allowed to roam and they brought back a kind of coverage that was distinctively regional. But consultants changed all that; forging a brand of television both flashy and antiseptic. Soon, TV affiliates from every corner of the country simply mimicked each other - until broadcast offerings from Pfafftown to Reno resembled nothing more than, well - each other... just another canned dispatch from the United States of Generica. Gone were the slickers, hayseeds and con-men that once represented their particular wrinkle in the map. Now some local customs are thought too provincial, out-of-towners regularly decide what's right for around here and even a scant of an accent is damn near taboo.

Not so, however, in Baton Rouge.

There it seems at least one newsroom values a little indigenous input. How else can you explain the unlikely rise of one Rick Portier? You of course know him as Turdpolisher - the irascible author of his once vibrant blog. These days the Louisiana lenslinger doesn't share all he's writing, but he's too busy being a correspondent to bother! That's right, someone high up in the broadcast tower finally recognized Rick for what he is: an oral storyteller of the highest order. I first got the inkling they were on to him a few months back, when the station suits greenlit a televised quest for the perfect burger: conceived, executed and featuring a certain chrome-dome shooter. Apparently his turn as the Hamburgler was well received, for just the other day the grown-ups in the room ordered him outside all by his lonesome. Just what kind of heatwave story they wanted is mostly unknown. but I'm guessing no desk jockey present could have come up with what Rick conjured from the elements...



Somebody get that guy his own billboard...