200,000 (and counting)

Normally I don't delve into the 'blogonomics' of Viewfinder Blues. Hey, I'm all for transparency - but pet photos, lunch menu summaries and tortured dissertations on possible template changes are a large part of what makes blogs so laughable. Still, I'm poking my head out from behind the curtain this morning to note a small milestone and impart a word of thanks. A couple of nights ago a reader from British Columbia hit the trigger on their mouse and became visitor number 200,000. That's a miniscule amount of traffic for a professional site, but for a guy who slather his thoughts on-line so he can sleep better at night, it ain't too shabby. So please take out of your moment out of your busy Friday to pat yourself on the back, as your continued visits here have truly enriched my life. Thanks to your efforts, the ramblings of a camera-schlepping nobody have found a home in cyberspace and a silly user name has become something of an alter-ego. I may shrug it off in person, but it means an awful lot to me. I don't know that I would have stuck with this late night endeavor had I not known someone out there was actually reading my drivel. So while I scream for Tito to bring me a tissue, click over to the other photog blogs and give 'em some love. But please(!), come on back when you're done. I swear someday, I'll make it worth your while...

Navel Gazing Ahead...

If readers of this blog get the notion I’m one melancholy bastard, they should consider themselves perceptive. Plagued with self-doubt, stricken with introspection, addicted to apathy - I’m guilty of ‘em all. It started in my childhood. Devoid of athleticism and ripe with reticence, I plodded through my youth with the growing knowledge that failure just might be my strong suit. Sure, I could always make the girls laugh, but rarely - if ever - could I make them swoon. My teachers were equally vexed - pulling me aside at regular intervals to remind me I still wasn’t living up to my potential. None of this I blame on my parents. They did the best they could with a kid who never could seem to get very psyched about success. When adolescence hit, I giddily embraced my new excuse for being sullen. Cigarettes, truancy, and a mountain of THC followed. Before I knew it, I’d blossomed into a red-eyed hoodlum wannabe - albeit one with a better vocabulary than the rest of the losers fumbling for ecstasy in the back of a Trans-Am. By all accounts, I should have followed my gifts for indifference into a life of factory work, acid-washed denim and petty crime. But Mama taught me better. On a whim I joined the Navy, met the love of my life and conned my way into the local TV station.

So why am I telling you this? Hell, I don’t know. I merely made a pot of coffee, locked myself in my upper lair and threw myself into a trance. That’s what writing feels like to me - during the good times, anyway...that dreamlike sensation of watching my fingertips dictate my interior voice - the voice that has always been there - even back when I was unsure of everything around, about and inside of me. For the most part, those days are gone. I sit before you a working journalist with a nice house, a fantastic wife and two wonderful daughters who confound and enchant me on a daily basis. Were I struck by a bus tomorrow, I’d breath my last gasps knowing that somehow, I’d won the game of life. But it ain’t that simple. While mildly successful at what I do for a living, I - like everyone else on the planet - yearn for so much more. Not material possessions, mind you. I don’t lay awake at night coveting my neighbor’s new speedboat. Nor do I hunger for any degree of renown. I know way too many marginally famous people to ever think happiness comes with being recognized at the Food Court. No, I ache to simply write. To make love with words and perhaps leave something behind that will better explain my thoughts and actions to any descendants. I'm telling ya, life would be a whole lot simpler if all I wanted was a pair of jet-skis.

‘So, write!’ you say. For the past five years or so I’ve done just that - first with turgid short stories, then serial message-boarding and finally this very blog. It has been my salvation. Always one to marvel over simple written words, I knew from the moment I first learned to read that scribbling my thoughts made me happy. I just wish I’d gotten around to it earlier. At a young age, it occurred to me I expressed myself best on paper - but I thought everyone did. As a boy, my Uncle Jennings - a man of words himself - made a big deal over a letter I’d penned. I doubt he remembers it, but I sure as hell do. In the Navy, I earned the nicknamed ’Poet’ - after foolishly drooling over a particularly eloquent paperback passage to my porno-watching shipmates. As a rookie photog, I jumped at the chance to write my own scripts and not just to get away from vapid reporters. When I first moved to the Piedmont, I began haunting the periphery of local writer groups in hopes I’d learn the secrets of journaling. I didn’t. It took 35 years and one mother of a professional slump to force me to sit down and transcribe my more linear thoughts. I’m so very glad I did, though I foolishly assumed it would only get easier. It hasn’t. I still struggle with what in the hell I’m trying to say and lately, I delete more than I share. But don’t worry. I ain’t depressed; I’m just me. If writing truly is in my blood, it only makes sense that I occasionally have to open a vein. Sorry if I got any on ya.

To Blog or Not

Relax - I'm not going anywhere. I'm way too hooked on being read to shutter this website anytime soon. But as someone who's been web-publishing at least five nights a week since the fall of 2004, I can tell you - the compulsion to do so fluctuates. Most days my forehead is afire with analysis and lies, twisted sequiturs scribbled on windshield and page. Other times I can barely recall how to write my name, let alone some diatribe of note to leave overnight on-line. Lately, I've been of the latter mind - an interminable phase fraught with restlessness and worry. Well, not too much worry. I've been through this before ; the moment I convince myself I'll never again line words up successfully, some pre-written screed will pop in my head and I'm off to the races. Oh, to wrest control of that elusive mojo...

But that would be too much to ask, I guess. Instead, I'll try to be grateful I learned to write at all, for there was a lifetime on the books before my particular muse ever figured out how to strike. Now that it does (or did) on a regular basis, I'm reduced to the role as distracted dictator. That's fine with me - as I love to listen to the guy in my head. See, most times he's smarter than me, he's got better hair and he's not afraid to type what I really think. (Though to be fair I often have to censor his prose as to insure my weekly stipend.) No bother. The dark comedy currently afoot will make for perfect fodder one day - provided my readers don't think I'm yankin' their chains. For now, you'll just have to settle for this, the latest in an irregular series of directionless ponderings, the kind that are usually followed by a flurry of more meritous posts. Otherwise, check my archives for times when I really had something to say and know that though I'm not pummelling you with my every thought, you, dear reader, are very much on my mind...

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm late for a date with my lava lamp...

Stretching the Reflections

No thesis tonight in your coffee, no thesis tonight. Instead you’ll have to settle for a quick traipse through some of the pre-dawn thoughts found in the Sore-Hand Companion. While I can provide no real context for these midnight rejoinders, I can assure you you’ll wish you’d paid attention when I pass out sheets at the end of the tour. Now if you’ll follow me, we have some non sequiturs to flesh out. And please - no wandering away from the group.

Pomp and Squalor
I admit it - the dichotomy gets me off. My inner contrast junkie just can’t help it. There’s nothing I enjoy more than wandering from the enclave of self-afflicted pageantry to the scene of some sordid exploit on the smelly side of town - then back again. Still don’t get it? Bet you’ve never reached for a microphone you attached to that wino an hour earlier and pinned it on some smarmy blowhard’s silky lapel. Therapy for the working man, if you will.

Tripping on the Cinders
Another moment of recorder’s bliss occurs whenever certain incongruent elements conspire to inspire. Litter skittering across the gravel lot of a burned-out restaurant, the crunch of shovel digging into a shady grave, late-day sun silhouetting the carcass of an 18 wheeler, dashboard blue lights throwing crackle and strobes as the crime tape billows…if think all fatalities have to be ugly, might I recommend the night shift? I've seen structure fires prettier than paintings.

Pot Pulls, Cadaver Dogs and Mud Slides
What do the three have in common? No, they’re not individual events in the Redneck Games. They’re three assignments I remember getting absolutely filthy on. The first was an early marijuana excavation, which is a fancy name for a two mile hike into quicksand for six spindly reefer plants. Oh, and watch out above for the chopper wash. While you’re at it, be sure and dodge that steamer ole Rex just left in his wake. That shit can really take the shine off a news unit’s interior.

Ditch-Bank Rendezvous
Whatever the zip code, a tattered platoon of first, second and third responders considers your turf their beat. Paramedics, tow trucks drivers, cops and photogs - we come a runnin’ whenever enough sheet-metal is bent and act like we knew it was going to happen. Given any amount of downtime, we shuffle among the rubble and continue stories we last trouted out at that plant fire, the train-wreck or those lake drownings. You remember...

Pilots, Surgeons and Sax Players
There’s a certain protocol to documenting gross concentration - one that requires patience and subservient lens. It’s hard to put a trigger-finger on, but the same unmistakable aura emits from the hunched sculptor, the squinting physician, the sweaty welder, and the tipsy recording engineer. Remain quiet and still and you’ll soon slink away with potent imagery. Meanwhile, try not to unplug anything. People with power tools hate that.

To Nod or Not
Much of the above centers around spot news: unplanned calamities ripe for the evening news. But a lot of what I broadcast features regular appearances by the Talking Heads. No, not the geniuses behind that song ’Psycho Killer’, but the revolving stable of experts and charlatans we so eagerly cut to every fifteen seconds. But for every sound-bite that airs, a shooter drags his gear in place and rolls - often by his or her lonesome. Thus I regularly find myself feigning comprehension of some lofty ideal being expressed while wondering if I pushed ’Record’ or not.

You know, I could go on all night with the broken prose - but since we both gotta work in the morning, I’ll try and wrap it up. Since it’s late, I’ll skip the quiz - but do me a favor would ya? The next time you’re forced to watch the news, think about all you don’t see - for there in the heavily-edited margins you’ll see the greasy cheeseburger fingerprint of the master photog. Ever since local station stopped airing credits, it’s all we got...

From Blog to Glossy

Forgive the victory lap, but this photo signifies the best birthday present a wannabe-writer like myself can ever receive. It's the January edition of NPPA's News Photographer Magazine, featuring a slighly tweaked article I penned as a blog post several months ago. Not only is it the first time I've ever been officially published, I even got paid for the damn thing! Whatsmore, they even plugged my blog address and included a couple of pictures. How cool is that? Don't answer - just know that your friendly neighborhood lenslinger isn't quite as grumpier as usual. For a while, anyway. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to fill out my NPPA membership application. Otherwise, I'll never lay hands on all the future issues I hope to weasel my work into. More cognac!

Oz Takes a Fall

"When are you gonna write that book?" It's a question I'm asked with increasing frequency and one I still have no satisfying answer for. Truthbetold, I'm writing that book every other time I log in to this humble site, for "Viewfinder Blues" will be a collection of my worthiest short stories - whether an honest-to-God publisher gets involved or I end up scribbling it all out on a stack of bourbon-soaked cocktail napkins. So here's your warning: I'm self-publishing a collection my favorites with plans to pimp it profusely here and elsewhere. Look for it.

Aside from my long-delayed anthology , there are far more fictive elements roiling around my now four decade old brain. I've got a few storylines in mind, but until they rise above the level of your average made-for-TV shlock, I'm keeping them to myself. Characters, I'm far more willing to share - for every flawed persona residing in my head (and notebook collection) are based on real people - mostly the surreal cast of kooks that populated my formulative years behind the lens. You know, back before I decided that most of the charlatans clamoring for my camera's attention were in fact, a complete waste of flesh. But enough of my bitterness, let's meet the players!

First up is Oz: A former news shooter from back in the day who worked at every station in town until a botched pot-dealing sting left him on the wrong side of the lens. These days you'll find him driving a dilapidated ice cream truck of sorts. Instead of pedaling soft-serve to the kiddie set, he works the construction sites, selling biscuits, cigarettes and God knows what else to any hard-hat or goth kids who'll approach his rig. But when spot news strikes and the TV vehicles gather by calamity's edge, Oz makes a beeline for said sat-truck encampment and soaks up the glory of deadlines past, while hawking his wares to anyone in need. Hey, a burn-out's gotta eat.

Next is Maurice: Derided by some as a simple ghetto-preacher, this crunked-up evangelist is so much more. When not whipping his inner city pack of church ladies into a religious and weirdly lustful frenzy, Maurice cruises the hood in any number of sleek new sedans a man of his means couldn't possibly afford. Sure, the slum-lording helps pay for the day-glo suits and blinged-out cellphones, but Maurice has a curious habit for a man of the cloth so obviously shady: He loves to be on the evening news - whether condemning the plight of local criminals from his pulpit - or bathed in the glow of crime-scene close-up, doling out sticky details over the freshly dead.

Last but not least is Lloyd: A former deputy who's managed to fail upward, this marble-mouthed hillbilly actually got himself elected sheriff by appealing to a backwater constituency with race-baited talk of no-nonsense law enforcement. Now in office, he delivers on that promise - no matter what he's got to do along the way. A greasy good ole boy backed up by a gang of inbred deputies, Lloyd's got an awful hankerin' for a certain local news bunny. That puts him on TV far more often than he probably should - but who can resist when the object of his lust comes a callin' with that shaggy cameraman in tow?

Clichéd? Hackneyed? Predictable? Check, check, chiggety-checked. But these three dudes do exist, in my memory and now in my imagination. Whatsmore, they all three share a common past - a sketchy history they never thought would come back to haunt them, until a sliver of success splashed their gnarly little secret all over the evening news. As soon as I figure out what exactly that secret is, I'm gonna write it all down. For now however, I think I'll look for an old mullet picture to post...