All Apologies...

Pity the local media pack. Not only do they have to elbow their way to the middle, turn soft-centered stories on a dime and fend off crazies outside their live trucks, but they have to deal with me popping off shots of them during press conferences. Really, it's inexcusable. I mean, would you want to look up from your TPS Report to see me looming over you with lenses and one-liners? Probably not. But then, that's the role I've chosen as lenslinging defender of the news crew nation. For more than half a decade now I've toiled over a coffee-stained keyboard to spotlight their plight; not because anyone's asked me to, but because I find the plugged-in data-gatherer to be a particularly intriguing breed. That doesn't mean I like everybody. Or they me.

But hey, I'm not about to run down a list of who I think should and shouldn't be allowed to slay deadlines all day. No, I'm way to in debt to do that. But while I have you, there is one detail I've always wanted to share about the making of Viewfinder BLUES... If you and I cross paths or lob lenses together on a professional basis and I haven't gotten around to featuring you on these humble pages yet, there's one of two reasons why: A) Your charisma mystifies me and I'm waiting for just the right frozen frame to capture but a fraction of it. or far more likely, B) I consider you a complete and utter putz and wouldn't darken these pages with your visage if it brought me all the web-hits in Googledom. You know who you are.

So, why am I divulging all this? Eh - no reason. Okay, okay, I was rifling through some random photos I'd collected on a card and I came across one serious case of Stink-Eye. I give you Kira Mathis: reporter, photographer, fitness enthusiast. I know this because she once chased me off her lawn. Okay, not really - but we DO live in the same neighborhood and I think I once freaked her out by saying "Hi" one day on a dog-walk. Hey, who knew the drifter looking dude in the ball cap being dragged by a small white Eski-Poo was an official member of the Fifth Estate? Apparently not Kira, who for only a second, looked like she might drop-kick me in the thorax. Thus, it was with special chagrin that - upon closer inspection of said photo - I realized I'd once again weirded her out.

I hate when I do that.