Arc of a Lifer

Few are the photogs who make a lengthy career of TV news. Many more give it a temporary go, until the dizzying hit of a live newscast feels like a soft hammer to the forehead. That’s when they bail - to bartender jobs, law schools, and the occasional ice cream truck gig. I sometimes think they’re the lucky ones. For those of us who never leave the scrum are destined to schlep down a familiar path. Come along, as we high-step through the lifespan of a typical news shooter (me, of course). Hey, you don’t mind carrying my tripod, do ya?

NEWBIE

By the dawn of the 90’s, I was a smart-ass studio tech, usually found somewhere runnin’ my mouth - when I wasn’t runnin’ camera for the morning and noon news. Come 12:30, I’d drift through the news department and see what the dork squad was doing. I learned to love their overwrought vibe - their insistent persistence that what Chet McHandsome rattled off the teleprompter every night really mattered. They were like a cult, I thought - but then I was baptized by SWAT Team fire and I became the newsroom’s most fervent apostle. Armed with a fifteen year old lens and a cell phone the size of a lava lamp, I roved the territory with religious zeal, bearing electronic witness to the tragic and the trite - when not studying the crumpled text of police scanner 10-codes. It all seemed so important. House fires, bake sales, drive-bys and groundbreakings… I covered them all with the passion of a true believer…

BURNOUT

But a tragic thing happened on the way to salvation. Fate set me adrift in a sea of endless deadlines and clichéd headlines. At first I didn’t mind repeating myself, convincing anyone unlucky enough to be trapped in a news unit with me that I was honing some sacred craft. It was during that time I discovered many truths: how TV cameras make lousy flotation devices, what not to say to the Secret Service, the seven different ways to shoot a ribbon-cutting. Years passed, but the feeling I’d covered this stand-off/pancake dinner/burning church bus before remained. So I snapped. Running off to the land of branding, I forsook my journalistic calling for a stint as promo dreck evangelist. It was hell. Microphone cable tucked between my legs, I made a pilgrimage to a Piedmont affiliate and presented myself as a prodigal son. They took me back allright, but banished me to the badlands. Soon I was crustier than thou, a wild-eyed disciple of the Temple of Bitch. How far I’d fallen…

SAGE

That ain’t me yet, but I’m on my way. Having finally come to terms with my newsgathering affliction, I take life on the street one assignment at a time. No longer the brash upstart with the porno mullet and low-slung battery belt, neither am I a member of the Eternally Cynical. Okay, I still get the newsletters, but I haven’t attended a meeting in months. Those dudes just bring me down, their ceaseless ire and predictable whine grow old even quicker than I do. But it’s not entirely their fault. After all, it’s hard to age gracefully when you’ve got a noticeable groove on your right shoulder, when you’re still paid to chase bent sheet-metal, when you’ve yet to stop dressing like a third grader on a field trip. But a few elders do attain a level of enlightenment. Guys like Woody Spencer and Timmy Hawks, who teach rookies deep secrets by simply making small talk and who inspire neophytes with their knowing nod and incongruent grins. It is this high priest status I now seek for myself. I’ve got my time in behind the lens, gathered my heavily logo’d frocks and pounded out a tutorial or two. All I need is a sourpuss exorcism and the elders just may let me a lead a service or two.

Either that, or I’ll become a writer.

Rocks In His Pockets

Compared to the grown-ups riding on the rumbling harvester in the field, those of us unloading the barn had it made in the shade. At least that’s how I saw it back in the summer of 1978, as a man I knew only as Mr. Dan‘l passed me fragrant bundle after fragrant bundle of crinkly, flue-cured leaves. Still a summer away from riding the harvester myself, I’d spent the summer doing whatever light work Mr. Franklin could find for me. He got more work out of my older brother Rich, who’d already won a seat on the punishing underside of that rickety harvester in the distance. Slung low on a plastic seat, Rich snapped the finest leaves off every passing stalk, before attaching them to a chain-driven pulley that trundled the roughage above. That’s where the older girls stood, pulled the sticky green flora from the rotating clips and tying them to rough-cut three foot poles. It was dirty work all around and at the moment I didn’t mind missing out on it.

Besides, there was plenty to do back at the barn. Once the dim interior was emptied of every leathery golden leaf, there were tractor carcasses to crawl over, dirt circles to draw and Mountain Dews to pilfer from forgotten drink coolers. For now however there were hundreds of leathery gold leaves to unload and Dan’l and I worked fast to upsize any downtime. If we could just finish up before the harvester crew brought back a pallet of their sticky wet cargo, I’d have time to plunder and Dan’l could sit and dip his snuff in the shade. At least I thought it was snuff. Truth is, I wasn’t sure to make of the grizzled old man in the John Deere cap. A speech impediment of sorts cloaked the meaning of his words in eroded syllables. He wore crusty overalls and carried rocks in his pockets. I never understood much of what he said, but I did marvel at his ability to nap on command. In return, he seemed to tolerate my presence the way an old porch dog might regard the runt of someone else’s litter.

I guess that made us friends. Dismissed as a simpleton by many in the community, Mr. Dan’l (never Daniel) taught me an important life lesson that day. He did so - by dropping dead, right in front of me. Actually, my head was turned when it happened. Stretching my neck to check the harvester’s progress, I heard a muffled thud behind me and turned to see old Dan’l laying face-down in the dirt. The next few minutes were a blur. A nearby adult saw the old man drop and he tried to shoo me away as he ran up and rolled the prone figure over. Dan’l’s face was purple. The very sight caused me to backpedal in the dust and as I did, my brother and others raced up on foot. Already a volunteer fireman, Rich dropped to his knees and with the help of others began pumping the old farmhand’s chest. Dan’l didn’t respond. As my brother and the grown-ups huddled over him, farm trucks poured into the path leading to the barn. Eventually an ambulance screamed into view, its driver and attendant confirming Dan’l’s death. As if on cue, it began to rain.

I witnessed many firsts that day. I watched my brother keep his cool in the face of calamity - a character trait that would define his coming career as a firefighter, paramedic and all-around hero on-demand. I saw how unexpected death affected people differently, from the melodramatic gasps of the teenage girls climbing off the harvester, to the matter-of-fact chatter of Dan’l’s rustic contemporaries. Mostly, I remember the sudden arrival of Dan’l’s brother, who took one look under the stretcher’s sheet and began wailing in a way I would never have guessed a man in his sixties could. It must have embarrassed his wife, who shooshed and shamed him until he wandered off in the rain to grieve among the tobacco plants. Sad as I was, I don’t remember crying that day. I was too busy taking in the scene. From Dan’l’s purple face, to my brother’s efforts to save him to the unspoken summit of weathered faces that showed up to cast dry eyes on an old friend’s corpse -- I can see it all so clearly 29 long years later.

I hope that you can, too.

Escape from Chocowinity

By 1995, I was withered and torn from the mindless grind of making news five nights a week. Recalling fondly my formulative months in of production, I took my TV skills down the hall. What followed was a turbulent two year career in Promotions - that internal department vested with projecting, branding and embellishing the affiliate’s image both on-air and off. I regretted the move almost immediately. Quite frankly, cranking out tripe for the man left me hollow and spent. Eventually I staged a daring escape to a larger market, freeing myself forever the shackles of corporate camera servitude. Since then I’ve worked hard to forget that time, but a few memories of action and angst will always stick with me. Like…

Rolling a big red barrel stuffed with postcards over a warped studio floor so a catatonic weatherman could sleepwalk through one more post-forecast grand prize drawing. Huddling just off-screen with stopwatch and praying he wouldn’t mangle the winner’s name again. Cringing every time he did.

Corralling hundreds of high school seniors together in stifling heat as fellow production grunts struggle to keep antique cameras going for one last wide shot. Cajoling college dean through his six words of on-camera dialogue. Suppressing rage when ass-hat GM repeatedly apologizes to crowd for the fact that I was wearing shorts.

Working for weeks on a campaign to promote GM’s latest slapdash scheme. Nodding emphatically as Pinpoint Mobile Weather van concept was explained. Stifling concern as ballyhooed vehicle arrives at station in the form of stripped Ford Aerostar. Learning the power of hype when the silly thing becomes minor sensation.

Scrambling to produce quick-turn promos on station’s ongoing hurricane coverage. Trying to get used to spacious office as heartless boss dictated latest whim over speakerphone. Watching with envy as old news buddies broadcast live from storm-lashed coast. Realizing I’d made a horrible mistake.

Backpedaling over horseshit as jacked-up cub scout troop showers my lens in fresh taunts and frozen tootsie rolls. Trying not to get run over by Santa’s float as the director in my headset screams for a shot. Wiping out hard when hippie grip girl behind me gets distracted and wraps camera’s cord in a passing elf.

Attempting to ignore jiggling Budweiser girls as local basketball star mumbles incoherently into my lens. Sighing with relief as tuxedo-clad anchor breaks in to mention tote board for the twenty-seventh time that hour. Shifting from foot to foot in hopes of ending fiery lumbar pain. Swearing off telethons forever.

Collapsing in cushy office chair after an extended seafood buffet lunch, happy that boss and chief lackey were out of town. Pushing aside paperwork and gathering shoot tapes. Retreating to soothing confines of dimly-lit edit bay for soul-cleansing edit session. Receiving phone call from receptionist that the platoon of girl scouts I’d forgotten about scheduling had just arrived for their station tour.

Staring at GM’s massive aquarium as he droned on and on about all I didn’t know from the jaunty perch of his in-office dentists chair. Fixating on bosses beloved fish as fellow department heads chuckle and nod at station head‘s smug soliloquy. Digging my nails into my palm as floating menace stared back. Seriously contemplating Piranha-cide.

Okay, so I never did kill that damn fish. Instead I slunk away to the comparative sanctum of midnight murder scenes, county commissioner temper tantrums and flipped-over semi's on the interstate. That’s been ten years ago this September and while my return to news hasn’t been total bliss, it sure has provided better fodder than the tortured sacraments of a junior executive. May I never sell out again.

Pixelator's Twitch

I love my job. No, you haven’t mistakenly clicked on the wrong blog . It’s just that every once in awhile I have to remind myself of something fundamental: I still very much dig what I do. The access, the creativity on-demand, the daily race to meet never-ending deadlines…it all goes quite well with my interloper tendencies, my artistic bent and my raging (but undiagnosed) attention deficit disorder. What other gig calls for equal parts writing and lighting skills on a daily basis? In what other profession could I saunter into a crowed ballroom or a freshly busted crackhouse wearing the exact same outfit and expression? Where else could I people-watch, stunt-drive and hold a million people’s collective attention on my oh-so weary shoulder? Nowhere but Tee-Vee-Nooze, baby.

That’s what drew me to the exciting field of broadcasting so many moons ago. That, and a staggering lack of viable career options. But chances are I’d have turned down a seat on the space shuttle - had NASA come a callin’ back in 1989. For that was the season of my content, a fleeting Honeymoon period when I was happy just to hold a TV camera, let alone ride around with one wedged (all O.J. like) in the back of a white Ford Bronco everyday. But unlike a certain low speed pursuit that was still years away, I slammed the gas-pedal through the floor as I screeched from sit-in to bake-sale to stand-off. It was the early 90’s in small-market North Carolina, but to my delusional inner knight in logo’d armor, it was freakin’ Camelot.

But a not so funny thing happened while storming the castle. My field of vision changed considerably. No longer the eager serf I had once been, callous cynicism replaced youthful vigor, my bright eyes and bushy tale growing slowly into an aching back and thousand yard video-junkie stare. Blame it on a lack of moderation. See, back in my twenties, I hit the news pipe pretty hard, taking deep hits off smoldering wreckage, live truck pollution and intern perfume. Is it any wonder I suffered from the crush of a thousand broadcasts? Can one repeatedly bend space and time in the name of news without throwing their precious point of view out of whack? I damn sure couldn’t.

Today, however, I consider myself a burnout reformed. No longer titillated by every chase and stake-out, I’ve pounded my chest and choked on my bile a time or two. You would too - if you had to endure the relentless pace of the modern calamity cycle, the competing strains of the victor and the vanquished, the flagrant ire of pubescent housecats too girly and weak to ever step outside the newsroom. For this I gave up a semi-lucrative career in auto sales? Yup. Too bad I threw away all those business cards. I could be moving units even as we speak - instead of rushing in and spraying light on dying headlines. Intriguing, sure - but you can’t exactly take zeitgeist for a test-drive, now can you?

I’m not alone. Most career shooters I know suffer the very same disillusions. They just don’t bitch about ‘em on-lien like I do. Instead they huddle in their camera scrums and roll their eyes at anyone without calluses on their hands and soul. But just when the lot of us are awash in disgust, something happens to quell our well-earned wrath. A captured surprise on optical disc, a backstage pass to disaster’s after-party, a happy accident in the edit suite. No, it doesn’t take much for all the politics and tripe involved in the news-making process to melt off the edges, leaving nothing but undeniable truth beaming center-screen. It’s almost enough to make one forget about the office dillweed who’s yet to figure out he’s a walking cartoon.

Almost.

DorkQuest: The Quickening

Okay, this one's gonna be tough to explain. Perhaps I shouldn't even try. What I will say is this: Some people master their craft through deep research and rigorous study. I figured mine out by storyboarding hippie sword-fights in the park. Is that so wrong? I don't think so - especially when you're a young camera-head with lots of questions about placement, pans and pacing. What better way to explore the cinematic possibilities than an afternoon with my buddy Sam the Barbarian and his collection of yard-sale swords? Huh? Sure, we freaked out a few ECU soccer moms at first and it was a shame about those old people - but between the numerous "Dudes...", countless Monty Python references, and clumsy white man high-fives, we all learned alot that day. I did, anyway - for the resulting footage made for pivotal editing for years to come. After shuffling the shots through every edit bay I could find for awhile, I finally stopped trying to replicate that wrinkled comic book inside my head. All that remains is a forty-five second segment deemed by the Lenslinger Committee as Way Too Stupid for YouTube. All I can offer you presently is this frozen antique frame, in which I've apparently taken flight in mid-mullet lunge, as the Evil Sam struggles to smite my wrath all medieval-like. Good Times.

Have Mullet, Will Skydive

This I do for you, dear reader - for nothing seems to please you people like a picture of me with a stupid haircut. I hope the above photo - a frozen frame of ancient video that will NEVER see the light of YouTube - will suffice. If my wrestler's hairdo seems a bit more unkempt than usual, there's a reason: I'd just plummetted to the Earth from 15,000 feet when WNCT-TV chief photographer Kevin O'Brien accosted me with his ever-present lens. If memory serves me correctly, I said something stoner-ish about tandem skydive being 'the ultimate head rush', before throwing the goat and further embarrassing myself. Horrible thing, youth...

A Photog Turns 40

Spend just one year chasing news and you’ll quickly start repeating yourself. Winter storms, Spring training, Summer camps and Fall Festivals, all punctuated by a steady barrage of crime and grime. I’ve spent the past fifteen years running circles around this slow lurching parade, doubling back and stealing glances while trying not to get run over or step in too much horseshit. It’s a ludicrous way to make a living, but it’s the one I’ve chosen.

Or maybe it chose me. After following my lack of ambition around for a bit, I wandered into my first TV station at age 22. Imagine my shock at all the inmates running the asylum. Characters straight out of vaudeville sat in corner offices, puffed-up anchors arm-wrestled for face time and zonked out production types regularly fell asleep at the wheel. Suddenly, I was home! Looking around at the twenty year old technology, blustery egos and simmering incompetence, it occurred to me I’d found my special purpose.

So I dove in headfirst, soaking up everything there was to know about backwaters television. I started each morning slow-dancing with a studio camera as ladies with blue hair hawked homemade potholders. I learned to run audio for the noon news and tried not to doze off during weather. After lunch, I’d hold up in a musty edit booth, watching wizened masters craft polished spots out of sticks and scrap metal. Along the way, I traded notes, jokes and a few unmentionables with the pirates, freaks and madmen that made up the station ranks. Staffers a few years older told us we were attending the Roy Park School of Broadcasting - a half slam against our affiliate’s miserly owner. How right they were. The steakhouse coupon I got for being Employee of the Month turned out to be the only sheepskin I've ever received.

But a funny thing happened on the way to becoming the World’s most well-read studio tech. I saw...THEM. Swaggering through the tape room like dusty gunslingers, the station’s news photographers ambled past with their cameras hung low and dirty. I couldn’t look away. With their streamlined gear, digital pagers and seen-it-all stare, they bled the kind of street cred I‘d been faking all these years. As they passed by my darkened post on their way back to their waiting news steeds, I sunk further in the tape room’s shadows and swore to myself I’d one day join their ranks.

And so I did, but not the way I‘d envisioned. It took a fake handgun and a twist of fate to draft me into service, but once I became indoctrinated, I never looked back. How could I? I was too busy learning the ways of The Force, sharpening my camera skills and editing acumen until I could slay the scariest of deadlines. Looking back, it all seems quite silly, but at the time, it was a heady rush of newsgathering truths, a period of time in which great mysteries dissolved into well-worn tips and tricks behind the lens. Before long, I was blowing through the station with considerable swagger of my own, convinced I’d already seen it all because I’d attended a half dozen press conferences.

That was a decade and a half ago, though it feels even longer. In that time a lot has changed. I’m a father now, one who places a higher value on getting home on time than scoring that elusive exclusive. I don’t knock over old ladies to get to house fires anymore, I don’t jump curbs to attend ribbon cuttings. More significantly, I don’t high five co-workers over tears captured on tape, I don’t roll up on children in peril without swallowing hard and thinking of my own beautiful girls at home.

No, the joys and pitfalls of the evening news aren’t quite as intoxicating as they used to be. What rendered me spellbound as a 24 year old news punk with an attitude now barely holds the attention of this now 40 year old taxpayer with a mortgage. I suppose that’s only normal, but as I spend day after day peering into the same old viewfinder, I find myself wondering how much longer I can keep it all in focus.

Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s a groundbreaking I have to get to.

The Places I've Been

From cat-napping in a gold mine to stealing a ride on the Good Year blimp, the press pass around my neck has afforded me access to a life of stilted intrigue. But like the copier salesman who dreams of being a dashing day-trader, I have chased cadaver dogs in the rain while fantasizing about a nine to five desk job. The grass is always greener of course, but when a jostling Sony is riding shotgun on your shoulder and the deadlines are gaining ground, the opposing turf is downright iridescent. Luckily though, I usually find time to reflect before doing anything rash, lest I foolishly remove my self from the chase. True, my years of adrenaline abuse have crystallized into chronic detachment - but even I can get juiced about some of the places I’ve been…

Ever pulled up to a fresh plane crash in a dusty live truck, only to be yelled at by men in windbreakers for driving across the debris field? My Bad!

Ever started a near riot at a middle school pep rally, just by walking across the gymnasium floor? Personally, I’d have killed for that power back in the 7th grade.

Ever waded through an angry crowd outside a midnight murder scene and acted like you belonged there? It’s all in how you carry the tripod.

Ever tried to keep up with a screeching platoon of cleavage and baby strollers as they raced toward a shimmering mirage of desert camouflage? Don’t get caught in the middle...

Ever made elevator small talk with a handcuffed evangelist facing federal charges and widespread scorn? Try to avoid the touchier subjects - like God, politics and reasonable sideburn grooming..

Ever shadowed a prize patrol of corporate cheeseballs they bestowed trailer park residents with fabulous cash and prizes? Watch out for the crush of relatives pouring out of back rooms.

Ever tried like hell to avoid hitting the co-pilot controls with your big lens as the guy in the aviator glasses to your left looks for a place to ’set her down’? Man, I hate when that happens!

Ever jammed a finger in one ear and your cell phone in the other as the packed courtroom around you erupts in unexpected verdict fury? Trust me, spent vengeance has no volume control.

Ever hunkered over an upturned viewfinder as blue-haired college kids walked all around you, waving manifestos on homemade poles while they cursed the cabal behind your logo? Lousy punks.

Ever hid behind your camera as a couch-bound zombie described the loss of a recently-slain loved one? Do yourself a favor - skip that one...

Adventures in Radio

Shortly after I conned my way into my first TV job, I struck out to do the very same in the exciting world of radio. Hey, if I can push antique cameras around a warped studio floor, surely I could master the local FM airwaves! Or so I thought as I leafed through the yellow pages in search of a station to grace with my undeniable talent. Maybe I was feeling cocky, having just scored a minimum-wage gig at the CBS affiliate. Whatever the case, I set aside my lack of ambition just long enough to ring up a couple of program directors around town. Besides, I thought as the phone rang, once they heard my dulcet tones, I’d probably spark a bidding war. After all, I was Captain Nemo.

No bigger than a broom closet, the radio booth aboard the U.S. S. Mount Whitney had been my island of solace in a sea of discontent. A shipmate first turned me on to the small compartment just down the passageway from the flag bridge, a dusty little booth with Vietnam War era turntables and boxes of LP’s from the Armed Forces Radio Network. The buddy who first let me in to that tiny space had no idea I‘d be back so soon. But once I got a look at the antiquated control board, with its oversized knobs and still shiny toggle switches, I was hooked. The fact that the noise produced within radiated all across the ship via close circuit radio was but a distant thought;. I was seeking refuge.

I found it - soon skipping precious sleep just so I could sit and spin the finest in late 80’s hair-metal. Though I’m still not sure any of my shipmates ever really listened, I quickly developed an evening radio show and a persona to go with it: ‘Captain Nemo’s Taps to Midnight - featuring an eclectic mix culled from the official onboard library and a dozen shipmates private CD stashes. I guess you could say I was playing radio, but it was one of the few things that kept me sane as my ship did lazy circles off the coast of Guantanamo Bay for weeks at a time. I’d pull the lights down low in my inner sanctum, crawl into a pair of government issue headphones and forget all about all the haze gray world on the other side of the hatch..

The Navy didn’t make me a radio star, but it left me convinced I was born to broadcast. That realization deepened when the second program director I got on the phone that day invited me to come in for an interview the very next day. Eighteen hours later, I steered my battered Toyota into the gravel lot of a rundown one-story building on the edge of town. After checking in with the world’s most disinterested receptionist, I sat and waited in the chintzy lobby - mostly sober, over-cologned and excited about my new career as a radio stud. Imagine my surprise when the Program director - a fellow in a wrinkled sweatshirt and sleepy eyes - poked his head through the door and motioned me back.

Though the guy looked like he slept in his clothes, he was all business. Tossing aside my copy of Captain Nemo’s Greatest Hits, he jammed a few sheets of paper at me without ever listening to the homemade cassette. I was halfway through filling out the forms when I realized I had the job. Beaming inside, I stole glances at the aging equipment around me. Only some of it looked familiar, but that didn’t matter; this guy obviously knew talent when he heard it. Half an hour later, the scruffy Program Director escorted me out, told me to report back the following Sunday night for my first on-air shift, and promptly dead-bolted the door behind me. I skipped all the way to the car, ecstatic at being discovered and in awe of the Program Director’s quick grasp of my immense talent. Little did I know, he’d just been happy that I had a pulse.

-----

I listened to the station all the way in. Drumming the steering wheel to its cheesy top forty beat, I followed the strengthening signal to the edge of town. At the end of my journey I found the same gravel lot, anchored by a slab concrete building and a rusty transmitter tower. Parking beside the only other car there, I strutted to the front entrance, tapping the faded station logo on the door with newfound affection. As the last minutes of sunlight left that summer evening, I pressed the buzzer underneath a pockmarked loudspeaker. Nothing happened. Shifting from foot to foot I bobbed and nodded as the door continued to ignore me. Suddenly the half-gallon of sweet tea I’d downed the hour before roiled to the surface, making the barely reformed country boy inside me eye the woods behind the transmitter. Just as I turned to dash off to the shadows, a heavy metal click sounded from behind me and the door clicked open.

Inside, I found the lobby darker than before. It was a small room with a desk, chair, sofa and coffee table that looked like it was picked up at a trailer park fire sale. On the wall, scratched plaques from the local free weeklies competed for space with black and white framed photographs of the radio station’s on-air talent. Amid the white man afros and gold chains, I recognized the familiar face one of the disc jockey’s - a grinning jackal of a man I’d one day build a series of used car commercials around. But that particular travesty was a good nine months off. For now all I knew was that radio superstardom was a mere thirty-five minutes away. I was literally about to piss my pants with excitement when I grabbed hold of the interior door‘s latch - only to find it disturbingly dead-bolted.

With my face jammed against the door’s heavy-wired glass I could see the on-air booth at the end of the hall. Inside, a dumpy silhouette hunched over the control board, perfectly still. This lasted through the better half of the Milli Vanilli song echoing in the distance one beefy wrist hove into view and twisted some unseen knob. Just then Rob and Fab faded and the slightly less gayer sounds of Hall and Oates filled the deserted halls of the South’s dumpiest radio station. Rapping my knuckles on the door, I tried in vain to get the deejay’s attention. But no matter how I motioned and waved, no matter how I pee-pee danced around the lobby’s dated furnishings I could not tear the disc jockey’s stare away from the board. In fact, he barely moved at all, appearing as if a surgeon would while immersed in his lifesaving work, instead of some broadcast drop-out spreadingthe last of his curly fries over a Mr. Mister CD.

My bladder quivering to a breech and my inaugural radio shift just minutes away, I grew increasingly spastic there in my shag-carpeted hell. Despite my convulsive display, the deejay never seemed to notice. So I forgot about him, training my direction instead on the gaudy vase dominating the scuffed glass coffee table. Normally not one to vandalize, I seriously considered filling it to the rim with recycled tea, lest I soil the pants I’d so deliberately picked out earlier in in my slummy duplex. I was about to desecrate the discount ceramic when the silhouetted deejay finally unlocked the door, and a pasty Dungeon-Master with skin issues stuck his head out.

“You the new guy?” he asked in a booming voice normally heard only at tractor pulls and beach music parties.

-----

In my own feeble tone, I asked him where a fellow could take a piss and he pointed a beefy forearm down the hall. I stiff-kneed it in that direction and found a Mens Room with a tinny speaker blaring out the station’s on-air signal. Though I tried to drown it out with the thundering cascade of a spent bladder, I could clearly hear a familiar British metal track winding to a bombastic yet girlie finish.

“That’s the latest from Def Leppard on Hits-96! I’m Your Man Stan and I am Outta Here! Up next, The New Guy with all the music you need to rock the night away! But first here’s Peter Gabriel!”

With that, the ex-lead singer of Genesis launched into a syncopated dirge about sledgehammers. As he did I burst out of the restroom, anxious to pick the Dungeon Master’s brain about the control board before I had to fly solo. But he wasn’t in the booth at the end of the hall. Nor was he in any of the offices I passed along the way. “Stan” I called out, not feeling so much like a hero of the airwaves anymore. Overhead, Peter Gabriel asked the sledgehammer to call his name as well. Neither answered and it dawned on me to check the booth for nay of Stan the Dungeon Man’s belongings. I found none, and with a trace of panic bolted for the lobby door. Pressed against the glass, I saw the car I’d parked beside earlier leaving the lot, gravel and dust kicking up in its wake.

About that time the slow-motion kicked in and I found myself running back to the booth as if underwater. Peter was still screeching his love for certain implements but experience and the CD player’s red countdown clock in the middle of the board told me that would soon end. Lunging forward, I grabbed a stack of 45’s and began flipping the few switches I recognized. As I did the speakers fell silent, but a row of herky-jerky needles told me the board was still transmitting sound. Next I fumbled through a stack of liner carts, befor finally giving up when the countdown timer marched backwards to zero. A half second before the goose egg popped up, I dropped the needle and podded up the source. I Still couldn’t hear anything, but the audio meter needles began dancing to a new beat. With relief not felt since just emptying my bladder, I fell into the rolling leather chair and caught my breath. This control board had a lot more buttons and dials than I was used to, but it also held a lot more possibilities. Wiping my brow, I looked the antiquated board up and down, a sly grin overtaking my expression of doubt. Abandoned or not, I could figure this out, I thought, because I, I possessed genuine broadcasting talent. Trying not to gloat, I looked down and saw all a telephone flashing six different lights. Eager to chat with any new fans, I picked up the receiver and in my most booming carefree tone, bellowed “Rock 96! Captain Nemo speaking!”

The voice was that of an adolescent; its crackling pitch deflating my newly swollen radio ego with its simple message..

"I think you’re playing this song at the wrong speed."

Needless to say, I had a very short career in radio. I was much more adept at escorting antiquated studio cameras through their daily news moves, than forging new paths in FM territory. I’m hoping eventually all this television will pay off. I'll let you know.

Rebels Aging Badly

Sweeps, Kids, Wife - they're enough to keep a cameraman away from his beloved blog. But fear not dear reader (Hello?), regular posting will soon resume. Until then, click on this hours-old photo and see what twenty years does to a bunch of dorks who once considered themselves high school revolutionaries. Remember kids, this could happen to YOU...

Trust Your Gut

Well, now I’ve done it - gone and robbed myself of any excuse ever to complain about my job again. In short, I’ve turned down a golden opportunity to leave the world of electronic newsgathering. Protocol prevents me from sharing the details, but let’s just say it was a rare chance to stay in television but out of the newsroom. Not too long ago I would have gladly gargled broken glass and Texas Pete to stage such an escape, but when it came time to ditch my fancy-cam and run, I just couldn’t do it. ‘Why’, you ask? Well, it’s kind of embarrassing, but you see...I’m a newsman.

That’s right, a newsman. Though I began my career producing used car lots and fat lady dress shop commercials, things didn’t really kick into high gear until I picked up a news camera. Suddenly, a blur of Easter egg hunts and drive-by shootings raced through my lens, holding my attention the way thrift store ads never really did. Of course, that newscast magnetism weakened over the next decade and a half. Crank out years and years of the same news cycle and you too will reach maximum burnout. It’s one of the reason so many of my gifted colleagues have sought ground higher than that of your average news set.

Despite all those defections, I’ve stuck with it - though at times I’ve displayed frighteningly embittered tendencies. I’m not particularly proud of it, but at the time raging at the machine felt quite justified. Still does, sometimes. Which is why it makes no sense that I pass up a chance to rid myself of the news unit shackles. That is, until my gut speaks up. Call it conscience, heart or Jiminy Cricket, we all have it - that insistent, interior voice that speaks with painful frankness. I’ve ignored mine a few times over the years and have suffered for my obstinacy. One particular example springs to mind...

At age 27, I was a one-man-band reporter/photog at my second station. Always more talented behind the camera than in front of it, I tortured the region nonetheless with nightly vignettes featuring my furry mug. It was great. I worked out of a bureau, far from the politics of the newsroom and relished the freedom and the friends I’d made at crime scenes and train wrecks. Problem was though, I felt abused. No matter how many breathless reports I filed, my lack of on-air polish destined me to a career of endless deadlines and damn few perks. Back then, I still held onto a dream of making it on-air - even though I was never very good at it. Meanwhile a bevy of overgroomed beauties came and went - all reaping the rewards of the star-making machine that a scruffy stutterer like myself would never enjoy. Slowly I realized I’d always be a foot-soldier in the War on News.

Which is why, I entertained the idea of a certain dark overlord. I was pounding out a script in my dumpy little bureau when the call came. A smarmy voice I’d come to loathe pitched an enticing scenario. ‘Wouldn’t I like to come to the promotions department and produce on-air ads for the station?’ The offer entailed a bit more money, but besides that - it presented a chance to escape what was beginning to feel like a dead-end career. My wife was expecting our first child at the time and the opportunity felt like the Right Thing To Do.

Without giving it too much thought, I said ‘Yes’ and hung up the phone. But I couldn’t let go of the receiver. Instead I could only stare at it as the annoying beep echoed through my small office. Over that particular din however, another sound ricocheted through my brain. “You‘ll regret this”, my small voice said, “You‘ll regret this…” And I did. After a couple of years of cranking out tripe for a jack-hole of a boss, I ran away screaming to a Piedmont newsroom. My foray down the hall taught me a lot, but it interrupted the trajectory of my career. It’s taken me years to make up for it. I swore back then I’d never again ignore that voice, for it most always knows better than I.

Now that I’ve been presented with another seemingly easy escape, that same voice is screaming at me. I’d be a fool not to listen, even if it does seem intent on keeping me mired in the highly stressful world of TV news. Someday the right offer will come along and I’ll happily fork over my keys to Unit 4 and the freedom it affords me. This however, ain’t it. Or so I’m told. Oh - as for that ‘never complaining about my job again’ shtick? Don’t hold me too it. The next time a deadline or a live truck acts up, I reserve the right to go nuclear, for despite my celebrated lack of sheepskin, I hold a Masters Degree in Bitch and Moan.

One March Morning...

When David changed from his bartender’s uniform into camouflage and ski mask, he had no idea how many lives he was about to change...his own, the friends he was about to take hostage, and to a lesser degree, mine. I don’t claim to know what was going through his mind as he slipped out of the supply room dressed like some kind of masked G.I. Joe, but I guarantee he wasn’t thinking about SWAT cops, TV cameras and police negotiators. No, he was most likely planning on simply taking the money and running. But as he skulked around the just-closed restaurant, his sweaty palm gripping the gun handle, it was already too late. He’d set in motion a series of events that would alter the way a lot of people saw their world, including one long-haired TV geek - who more than fourteen years later, still thinks about that chilly March morning...

By now, long-time readers of this site are familiar with, if not sick of, The Applebee's Incident - a 1992 botched robbery turned hostage standoff that among many other things, launched my newsgathering career. Even though I wasn't exactly a practicing writer back then, I knew I'd attempt to fully describe it one day - if only to gain some badly needed perspective. Over the years I've occasionally tried to do just that, with mixed results. Accurately chronicling such a convoluted tale requires more than a tumbler of Bourbon and wishful thinking, I've found. It takes research - the kind of hard work I've yet to pony up. Instead, I pour over my notes, my timeline, my memory. Now however, I have the video.

Credit Dustin Miller, a old buddy of mine whom I really wish lived closer. His recently unearthed gift of a DVD contained more than stupid bloopers and silly haircuts. It featured the Rescue 911 episode CBS crafted around the footage we shot that day. As a result, I've gleaned facts I'd forgotten and dusted off visual impressions that had grown hazy over the years. While I'm still a l-o-n-g way from completion, brother Dustin's contribution has brought new life to my abandoned manuscript. Why I'm so entranced with this distant episode isn't so easy to explain. To the veteran detective it was your typical stand-off - one in which no one got killed and the gunman ended up in cuffs. However, to the young production dork I was that day, it was a highly cinematic kick-off to a passion play I'm still living. Any writer-wannabe worth half his adverbs would clamor at the chance to tell this tale.

Trouble is, emotions get in the way. The young lady held hostage that morning is a friend of mine. We haven't chatted in years, but on that fateful day my heart stretched and nearly broke at the sight of her suffering - even if I was zooming in for the evening news at the time. As for the gunman David, I hold no real malice. He received a pretty stiff sentence for his stupidity that morning and no doubt regrets his actions more than anyone. I was merely a bystander, a peripheal player who did nothing more than press 'Record' and try to grasp the impossible scenes playing out in the camera's eye. I guess I should just let it go. But if I'm truly destined to document my adventures behind the lens, I can't forget it - for everything that followed still pales in comparison to the footage and feelings I gathered that fateful day.

To (eventually) be continued...

Early TV: The Stupid Years

When I last saw my old buddy Dustin Miller, he pressed a freshly-burned CD in my hand and warned me not to watch it in front of the kids. I did as instructed and immediately understood why - for some of the uglier footage on that disc is hard enough to explain to rational adults, let alone wide-eyed offspring. Still, it made for stimulating if not wince-inducing television. Cobbled together from back in the day, it’s a quick-cut clip-fest of two young production dorks learning to use news cameras. I’d stick the whole thing on YouTube were I glutton for punishment, but alas, I still have some pride. So instead, I thought I’d feature a few dear friends of mine who were unfortunate enough to score a cameo. Let’s start with Dustin himself, seen here sporting more hair and more freedom than either of us are allowed to leave the house with these days. As for what’s really in that cup, let’s just call it the elixir of youth. That, or Bacardi 151.

I don't know what's more ludicrous: the fact that I used to appear on camera every night around dinner time, the way my shirt just happens to match that electric blue windscreen, or the way some bleary-eyed graphic operator mislabeled me as the geriatric checker player I was profiling that day. Either way, it's a classic screen-grab - one that takes me back to the distant Saturday on which it was first recorded ... Morehead City, circa 1991 - a gaggle of senior citizens holed up in some shoreside hotel for the mother of all checkerboard show-downs. I was but a rookie reporter schlepping an outdated lens from table to table and eyeing the newfangled defibrillators on the walls. When no immediate coronaries went down, I set up my sticks and mumbled something contrived into the camera, not knowing I'd one day riff from from afar on the very idea of shooting my own stand-up. Good times...

Look past the freshly arrested David Melvin and you're sure to catch a fleeting glimpse of my two earliest mentors. When cross-town competitors Andy Cordan and Carolyn Kusbit weren't eating my lunch, they were teaching me the finer points of street-level newsgathering. That's Carolyn thrusting her microphone forward, a formidable weapon in the hands of such a professional. It was she who first taught me to get it right, reminding me always that no amount of flashy video would make up for a lack of facts come broadcast time. Sadly, she's no longer in the biz, but I for one am a better journalist, thanks to her time in service. Behind her the great Andy Cordan can be seen tracking the bad guy's every move. Far less refined than Carolyn, Cordan was a whirling dervish of a one-man-band, cracking the VJ mold before Rosenblum ever got around to re-inventing it. These days, he's still quite the pioneer, and if I know Andy, still pretty ticked off.

As vital to my journalistic upbringing as Carolyn and Andy were, neither could hold a dying frezzi light to this guy: Paul Vernon Dunn. Part Principled Newsman, part Southern-fried Shyster, no one taught me more about the art of the grab than ole Vern. He could fast-talk a deputy, convince The Weather Channel into buying footage sight unseen and turn a cop-shop walkdown into a handcuffed confessional before I could even get my camera powered-up. Whatsmore, he could do it all with the most beguiling disposition, eliciting the most evocative responses from those in his crosshairs in a way that brought to mind Chris Farley interviewing Paul McCartney. To the loss of my industry, he too left the fold, employing his many skills in the private sector. That stinks, as no one's more fun to hang out with by the crime tape than Mr. Dunn. No wonder Carolyn married him.

I suppose I should stop right there, but as a special gift to my half dozen loyal readers, I leave you this: Me, with a mullet. Humiliating, yes - but what stroll down memory lane is complete without at least one unfortunate haircut? None, in my book. Speaking of my book, it's still f-a-r from a finished manuscript. Truthbetold, I haven't made alot of progress on it as of late, but when I do, I'll know where to start: The Good Ole Days - that wobbly launch of my working life when cigarettes coudn't hurt you, police scanners burped all through the night and everything that went down inside a dusty viewfinder was of great and noble import. If the last ten years of lenslinging has left me bent and embittered, it's only 'cause I'm still comin' off one hell of a start to my newsgathering career. Thanks for the flashbacks, Dustin. Now, destroy the masters...please?

O Brother Where Art Thou?

Funny thing about a blog. You put your thoughts on-line and people read them. Not just strangers either, but folks who knew you l-o-n-g before Al Gore twisted a series of tubes into what we now know as the internet. I was reminded of this very fact today when my buzzing cell phone flashed Richard Pittman on the screen. Seems my older brother had just finished reading the previous post and wanted to give me a little grief about all my belly-achin‘. Nothing unusual there, I guess. But considering our tumultuous past, the phone call was anything but insignificant. See, Richard and I haven’t always gotten along. In fact there was a time when the two us couldn’t share the same room full of oxygen without trading blows. Looking back I think I understand why.

He's the Alpha Male to my Omega Dork. He was an undersized punk trying to find his place in the world and I was his smart-ass little brother. Is it any wonder we tried to kill each other so often? Though I didn’t appreciate it then, I now credit my bellicose older brother for toughening me up a bit. Who knows how I would have turned out if he hadn’t regularly ripped the encyclopedias out of my and hands to enact his own lesson plan: Sucker-Punch 101. To this day, if a buddy sneaks up behind me I drop into a pseudo-Ninja crouch, instantly prepared to grapple to the death - or at least until Mom yells at us from the other room to knock it off. That’s real world man training you can’t find in a book.

As he grew older, Richard’s fondness for contusions served him well. Falling under the influence of the volunteer fire department we grew up near, he embraced his genetics and emerged as a natural born first responder. Today he’s a highly-skilled paramedic and a seasoned firefighter. He drives ambulances, whereas I just chase them. But the differences don’t stop there... I blow off steam on a mud-encrusted mountain bike. He tools around town on a shiny, tricked-out Harley. I stick my lens in the faces of the oppressed. He scrapes them up amid broken glass and administers IV‘s. He keeps his cool when others are bleeding to death around him. I lose my shit when one of the live truck gadgets fails to work as advertised. I suppose I should end this post by telling my big brother that I love him. No need. He knows. I just wanted to clue the rest of you in.

Flirtin' with Disaster

“Yeah, he sounds like a ‘prince’.” Jon sneered as he silenced all those crying doves with one jab of his bony finger. When he did, the Rebel’s radio switched over and the Southern thump of Molly Hatchet filled the old car’s darkened interior. This pleased my best friend greatly and he settled back in the passenger seat, a picture of Country Boy Cool in his cowboy boots, faded jean jacket and wispy blonde hair. Too bad he topped out at 95 pounds. Of course I wasn’t a hell of a lot huskier myself - at 16 years of age, I weighed in at maybe 110 pounds, provided I stuff the pockets of my baggy khaki pants with extra quarter rolls for the Galaga machine at Take Ten.

That was precisely my destination on that distant Fall evening. The last of the autumn afternoon’s long shadows had since grown together and draped the back roads of Wayne County in unseasonable darkness. Not that I noticed, mind you. With my hand slung over the wheel and sockless feet swathed in faded Vans, all I could think of was the romance to be had on the selling floor of Berkeley Mall - Goldsboro’s only shopping mall and premier punk-ass hang-out. After a slice of greasy pizza and a few distracted video games in the arcade, Jon and I would strut and preen along with the rest of the food court hoodlums of 1983. First though, I had to get there…

I was well on my way I ran afoul of physics, friendship and fuel efficiency. It started with an old lady in a wood-paneled station wagon; the back of her blue had lit up my by cocksure headlights. When she insisted on navigating the twisty rural road at a reasonable rate of speed, I gunned the engine of my aging chariot and blew the proverbial doors of Grandma’s Vista Cruiser. That I executed this particular move on a blind curve didn’t seem to bother either Jon or me. Apparently we were wearing our childhood cloaks of immortality along with copious amounts of Polo cologne. Whatever the reason, we just cackled like dumb school kids as I clipped the edges of the winding two lane road. When a low-slung Camaro tapped its brake lights up ahead, I stood on the 17 year old car’s accelerator and sang along with Molly Hatchet:

“Yeah, I’m travelin’ down the road and I’m flirtin’ with disaster…”

As if to prove it, I veered over into the oncoming lane and tried to pass the Camaro before the narrow road doglegged to the left. I’d just gotten past the screaming muscle car when the white-hot glare of headlights blanketed the Rebel’s windshield. In an instant that still feels like slow motion, I swerved back over into my lane, almost running the Camaro off the road in my haphazard attempt to get out of the way of the oncoming car. Through sheer luck and not experience I managed to squeeze past both cars without anybody trading paint. My driving prowess however was not refined enough to prevent my buddy riding shotgun from exploding in threats and curses and judging from the rapidly growing headlights in my rearview mirror, he wasn’t alone in his wrath.

When I realized I was being chased, I punched it. Looking back that was probably a mistake, as the last sip of gas I had on board at the time surely turned to my fumes underneath my lead foot. But having grown up on fresh ‘Dukes of Hazzard’ episodes, I knew only to floor it and I sure wasn’t about to falter on my very first high speed pursuit. That’s not to say I wasn’t frightened, as I trembled in my vinyl Members Only jacket as the Camaro’s headlights smothered the Rebel in its angry glare. ’ Don’t sweat it dude, we’ll lose in him town.” I offered bravely, lost in the youthful bravado borne of a dozen Starsky and Hutch reruns. In my rearview mirror, the Camaro closed in, almost bumping the Rebel’s rear as the road stretched out straight before us. I’d almost convinced myself I could ditch the angry driver once I reached the city limits when the last of the gas evaporated and my means of escape began rolling to a slow stop.

Inside the Rebel, reality set in. While my best buddy Jon fidgeted in his denim and cursed the day he met me, I sat frozen solid to my side view mirror, hypnotized by what I saw. The Camaro had pulled up within inches of my crippled steed; when the door opened the dueling gee-tar work of Lynyrd Skynyrd poured out, followed by the biggest hillbilly silhouette I’d ever seen. As the hulking mass rose to his full height and stomped toward my door, the tunnel vision started. Swinging my head from side to side, I took in swirling images like a punch-drunk prizefighter: the knuckle dragger closing in on my side of the car, the fuel needle buried left of the ’E’. my best friend cradling his own door handle and waiting for the best possible moment to bolt, leaving me to deal with Hood Swamp’s angriest felon all by my puny lonesome.

‘What the hell was that back there?” the hulk-billy roared at my rolled-up window. When I didn’t answer he landed a ham-sized fist on my driver side door, jolting the car and instantly purifying a good portion of my bowels. “We ran out of gas.” I offered weakly as the giant grappled with the door handle and cursed a Southern blue streak. Throughout all this, I did what any underage dumb-ass would have done - I scrambled to Jon’s side of the car and nearly gouged his eye out trying to open his door in the darkness, wanting only to run as fast as I could from the roadside, the Rebel and the redneck. That’s when the angel spoke.

“Styu-wert? Is that you?” Though I couldn’t see her for the towering inbred clawing at the door, I immediately recognized Rene’s voice. A friend of my older brother’s, she was all too familiar with my fondness with my own voice. Despite this, she chose to save me that fateful evening.

“Leave him alone, Charlie!” she spat at her colossal date. “That’s Richard Pittman’s little brother - He ain’t nobody!”

“He’s gonna be a dead nobody, he don’t learn to drive!” With that Charlie planted one more fist square and deep in my car door, then spun on his boot heels to shoo Rene back in the Camaro - where they were no doubt now late for the romantic tour of some tractor pull or another. As they pulled off, Charlie flipped me a big fat middle finger and mouthed an obscenity through his Rally Sport's own smoked glass. Showering my car with gravel, the Camaro sped off, leaving me with my entrails intact, my gas tank empty and my young friend nearly catatonic.

“So,” I said eyeing the farm house lights in the distance and thinking about the rusty gas can in my trunk, “you still feel like pizza?”

Crazy on a Ship of Fools

‘Fecund Stench’, a local blogging demagogue and amateur naval archivist, has kindly chosen a vessel from my past to feature as the weekly banner image on his own potent site. Thanks, Fec. Not only have you shone the spotlight on a thoroughly impressive ship, but you’ve dredged up memories I buried at sea a l-o-n-g time ago. While I’m less than ready to examine everything I did or even witnessed while in uniform, I do recognize that period of my young life for exactly what it is - saltwater fodder for one hell of a coming-of-age story. I’ve known it since the day I last came ashore, yet I’m still not one-tenth the writer I’ll need to be to fully capture my surreal stint in uniform, even if the impressions are still clearly visible on my frontal lobe.

After all, I was just a kid - a bookish underachiever with a few dozen wild oats still to be sewn. How I came to enlist in the first place is a lesson in improbability. Never one to embrace responsibility, I exhausted the patience of every lucid adult I encountered with my lack of life skills and my abundance of smart-ass remarks. Once those wise grown-ups let me fall on my face a time or three, it occurred to me I desperately needed a new direction. So, under the influence of a delusional roommate’s naïve advice and who knows what else, I wandered into the local recruiter’s office and defied them to take me away. When they finished doing back-flips, they shoved a sheaf of important looking papers under my scruffy chin and I started signing.

A few weeks later, I found myself standing at exhausted attention on an icy parking lot, as the frigid winds off Lake Michigan turned my nose hairs to brittle stalactites. Somewhere behind me, a small, leathery man whom I truly believed to demon screamed obscenities at my brand new bestest buddy. As the swarthy agent of hell force-marched us to the mess hall for a lightning round of freeze-dried dog food, I wracked my addled brain trying to remember why exactly I’d willingly volunteered to go to prison. A month earlier I’d been an underage lothario of sorts, a harmless hoodlum of the shaggy sort quite happy to ply my charms on any young college cutie who didn’t mind slumming for awhile. It wasn’t an perfect existence, but as I double-timed it back to formation with a greasy bacon substitute roiling in my gut - my memories of it seemed pretty idyllic.


But that was only boot camp - an idealistic prelude to the ocean bound adventure awaiting me. While it took several weeks of nautical instruction to convince me these cats actually wanted me to live on a boat - I eventually seized on the idea and successfully completed my training. Newly qualified to operate navigational radar ( and chip paint with the best of them), I checked aboard my first ship just after nine in the evening. With a scowl and a curse the Officer of the Deck signed my orders and led my sea-bag laden form down a pitch black passageway. Motioning me into a darkened compartment, the annoyed Officer instructed me to climb a rickety ladder to the smelly top bunk that would be my new home. I did and, fully clothed, curled up around my sea-bag and lost consciousness.

Seven fiftful hours later, I awoke to find myself the object of amused derision. As the surliest of salty-dawgs rubbed their bleary eyes and pulled on incredibly crusty socks, they heckled, hounded and harangued the new boot staring back at them from the top rack. It was then I realized I was in too deep.

Of Floaters and Feelings

Sorry to continue with the macabre theme this week, but a comment from my dear friend Carolyn - an ex-reporter who taught me much about street-level newsgathering - revealed how a distant afternoon we've both pretended to forget, still haunts her...

"My worst - and I still hear this scream in my dreams, and Stu, I think you were there - was a case in which a man had drowned, and the cops were dragging the river for the body, and for some ungodly reason had allowed the man's family - his children - right up close to watch. Well, when the rake hit the arm of the guy and pulled it out of the water, his daughter started screaming - as long as I live I will never forget that scream, it went on and on, she collapsed, it was awful. I looked at my photog and he said "Sometimes I hate this job."

I'd been in news only a few weeks; the veteran of a half dozen press conferences, three meetings and little more. But suddenly I found myself at river's edge, sandwiched between two tripod veterans as would-be rescuers dragged the depths of the mighty Tar for a missing fisherman.

As I brought the small dinghy into focus, I pressed the 'RECORD' button and grew entranced. The man in the boat was down on his knees, pulling aboard a metal chain hand over hand. When it kept coming up empty, he'd motion the boat pilot to rev the motor and move a few more feet downstream.

This went on for quite some time and I stayed glued to the viewfinder, rolling tape and grinding my teeth. On either side of me, the other TV news photogs rolled their eyes at the new guy. I barely noticed them, as all my attention was drawn to tiny black and white screen at the end of the eyepiece. As heart beat increased with every pull of the dead man's chain, my two more experienced colleagues talked shop, traded police scanner frequencies and cracked on each other's Mom.

Not me. I followed the boat in my viewfinder as it moved slowly down it's invisible string. It was almost halfway to the nearest bend when family members started to arrive. At first there were only, but before long five large farm women paced up and down the dock beside us, wrininging their hands and muttering prayers. My two future buddies quieted down a bit, but still exchanged bored glances.

Feeling newly uneasy myself I leaned into the camera and zoomed all the way in. Backlit now by the setting sun, the silhouette of the men leaning low out of the boat was dowright iconic. I didn't know what that word meant back then, but I did realize I was documenting things I had never seen with the naked eye.

Panning slowly to keep up with the boat, I almost missed it, but out of the lower edge of the screen, the slumped head and shoulders of a very large man bobbed to the surface. The men onboard almost went into the drink as they pulled the body toward the boat. My eye buried to the eyepiece, I heard two cohorts lunging for their own lens.

That's when the screaming started.

Three or four voices. of varying pitch but related timber, howling ill-formed syllables of unmistakable pain. Forgetting my shot, I jerked my neck to the left and saw them. As if recieving electrical shock, the women convulsed and dances on the small pier, in much the same way you might if you saw you loved one at the end of a hook.

The next sounds, heavy metal clicks in close succesion, woke me from my stupor. My two competitors tore their cameras from their tripod heads and quickly shouldered them. As they began to advance on the wailing women with their looming lenses, I found myself torn between duty and decency.

I did NOT want to point my camera at those poor women, but I immediately understood I had to. As a small part of me wretched in disgust. I unlocked my tripod head and picked up the camera, realizing this was just the kind of drama I'd been seeking. Who knew it would feel so lousy?

Fourteen years later, I still attend the occasional drowning, and I've put more sad people on television than I care to count. It's my job. But I've never forgotten that day,when I had to get my hands dirty in the name of news. These days I employ more distance and tact in the pursuit of truth - knowing you can document the truth without getting in the way.

Most of the time.

The Adventures of Camera-Dad

It’s happened. After years of heavy exposure to the vagaries of the chase, a virulent strain of the Photogiphus bacteria has infected my every chromosome. How do I know? Everywhere I go, I exhibit the symptoms of an ‘imagist’. Take yesterday for example:

Just outside the Girl Scout camp, the growing throng of parents chatted and cackled. For four days, the Moms and Dads had relaxed and worried as their daughters learned the fine art of bracelet-making and bug-killing. Now, just minutes from their offspring’s victorious march into camp, the crowd simmered with anticipation and regret. Not me, though. Bad as I missed my kids, I was too busy reading the room to get all misty-eyed. Drifting through the crowd like a seasoned pickpocket, I palmed my snapshot-camera and scanned the edges of the crowd. Thousands of hours spent documenting assemblies has taught me a thing or three about group-movement and I can’t help but employ my camera-sniper skills at every congregation. Finding a suitable perch by the front gate, I glanced around at the suburban faces and sized up my competitors’ lenses. Imagine how proud my girls must be when they march into camp singing, only to find their grizzled father body-checking a Grandmother to steady up his shot.

I guess they’re used to it. The day my oldest was born, I spent the early morning hours riding along with under-cover deputies as they yanked sleepy crack-dealers out of housing project bedrooms. As far as she and her sister know, my job is normal - but what can you expect from kids who grew up with flashy news-units in their drive-way? Dignity? Not when their goofy Dad tends to wander aimlessly in Home Improvement Stores, lost in admiration at how the sunlight filters in through the garden section’s windows. Not when they’re late for piano lessons because their male chauffer fell in behind a screaming fire truck and followed it fifteen miles out into the county. Not when their old man turns even the quickest hike through the woods into yet another fuzzy photo excursion, jostling passing cyclists, just to get one more obscure shot Mom’s never gonna have developed. No, the best my girls can hope for is that Dad will stay on the beat, otherwise will have to satisfy his cinematic jones as only a hobbyist - and nobody wants Daddy videotaping the Prom someday.

Not that I have to be in public to befuddle my kids. You should see the expression on their faces when they see me at home, eyes pressed against the window in an hours-old crouch and muttering imaginary coordinates into the TV’s remote control. You see, a menagerie of wildlife meanders past our backyard creek. With a visit or two to the seed store, I’ve manage to persuade many of them to strike pose in exchange for a morning buffet. Sure, the kids dig it - but for some reason they’re not quite as into it as I. Whereas they favor more energetic pursuits, I’m happy as a lark to camp out at the glass for hours, with nothing more than a lens and beverage. That kind of thing’s normal enough I suppose, but I wonder if pipe-fixers think about proper microphone placement when they go bird-watching? Probably not, but I bet their kids are equally embarrassed by all that plumber’s crack. Anyway, I gotta get back to the view, I’m expecting some blue-jays around lunch and I don’t want to miss a chance to catch ‘em out of focus.

How else do I convince the wife I need a better camera?

Order of the Fork

I was mentally willing a stoplight to turn green today when, inexplicably, I whispered a long-buried refrain:

“We are, we are, we are, we are the Order of the Fork…”

Suddenly I was thirteen again, sweating profusely in a Boy Scout t-shirt as the older guys took up their forks and marched around the mess hall while singing at the top of their hairy lungs….

“We are, we are, we are, we are the Order of the Fork…”

Every Wednesday after the noon meal, the more muscular staff members of Camp Tuscarora struck dread in the hearts of their less developed campers with this most unsanctioned of initiations. For three long weeks in a row I’d sighed with relief as they’d passed me over for some other squirming unfortunate.

“We are, we are, we are, we are the Order of the Fork…”

But I was living on borrowed time. As a junior camp counselor, I was a prime target for the older guys’ abuse. I’d held up pretty well so far, but as a bookish dork not good at anything but reciting Steve Martin comedy albums, I deeply dreaded this inevitable ritual.

“We are, we are, we are, we are the Order of the Fork…”

Their voices grew louder with each new burly member that joined the chant. Marching around the crowded mess hall, they slammed their fist in unison on passing tables to punctuate their mantra. Then they’d poke some feeble young schmuck in the ass and drag him to the center of the cavernous hall.

“We are, we are, we are, we are the Order of the Fork…”

I knew I was in trouble when I spotted Steve-O leering at me with unmitigated glee. Steve-O was a big, rangy farm boy who took special delight in my lack of athleticism and penchant for difficult words. When he and his thug buddies drew near, I knew the jig was up - even before the dull tines pierced my tender flesh.

“We are, we are, we are, we are the Order of the Fork…”

Instantly, I was on my feet, surrounded by a crush of Jamboree ’76 shoulder patches and chest hair. Behind me, straggling members of the Forked Brotherhood reached over and got their own tardy jabs in. I barely felt a thing as I was locked and loaded on the industrial size stainless steel pitcher being held above the crowd.

“We are, we are, we are, we are the Order of the Fork…”

Their off-kilter hymn increased in volume and tempo as a beefy pair of hands poured the pitcher’s grisly contents into an oversized mug and thrust it into my reluctant palms. Though I knew better, I couldn’t help but examine the swill within. The color of pancake batter and the consistency of kindergarten vomit, the gritty bile glistened and sloshed as the crush of counselors pushed the vile mixture to my lips…

“We are, we are, we are, we are the Order of the Fork…”

Afraid I’d dry heave in front of God and everybody if I didn’t get it over it with, I allowed the mess hall rotgut to be poured down my throat. Despite being a committed finicky eater, I swallowed and gasped as thick streams of chunky scum poured down both sides of my mouth. What little cross my tongue tasted like liquid cigarette butts and purified cat litter. But with out-ranking giants all around me, I had no choice but to force it down - knowing for certain that, if it didn’t kill me on the spot, this abominable concoction would somehow make me a man…

“We are, we are, we are, we are the Order of the Fork…”

-------------------------

I hate long stoplights.

The Ever Elusive Applebee's Opus

"Hey boy...is your bride in bed?"

What a strange question, I thought as I stared at dim blue light creeping across the bedroom ceiling. Beside me the woman in question shifted under a twisted knot of covers and cat. Through the phone, I could hear muffled voices barking on a crackling police scanner.

“Yeah...Why?”

"Some jackass is holdin a girl hostage at AppleBee's," my father said with that matter-of-fact tone of a first responder. "Thought for a minute it might be Shelly."

Suddenly I was up, standing on the second-hand bed's crappy mattress and almost hitting the broken ceiling fan. Below, my young wife sat up in bewilderment and the cat shot out of the room. In the distance, the voices on the distant scanner were arguing.

"Say that again." I said, dodging the fan's dead, dusty blades.

"There’s a gunman inside AppleBee‘s, with a girl from last night’s shift. Turn on your TV, boy and call me back." CLICK.

And thus begins my adventure behind the lens. A cinematic tale of a chilly morning in 1993, 'The Applebee's Incident' has served me well at cocktail parties and camera clusters. But proper documentation of my very first news story continues to elude me. That bites, as it's the opening scene in the book I'm still not writing. 'All I gotta do is overhaul this opus and the rest of my short stories fall in order', I tell my project coach and myself. We both know it won't be that easy, but it's evident I have to work through this long, complicated, conflicted tale before I get to the not so simple business of pruning and collation. So, why am I telling you this? I dunno - beats straining my melon trying to remember ancillary facts of my punk-ass past. Besides, a few of you out there know the incident of which I speak. One or two of you were even there beside me that day. What do you recall of March 5, 1992?