Throng of One

I don't know what the hell's going on in this picture, but I profoundly disapprove. That many in-house lenses trained on a single colleague reeks of conspiracy, the kind of back room huddling that ends with me babysitting six cameras at once while someone counts backwards from twenty in my ear. I'm not kidding! Once a secret meeting ran three hours and before I could hoark down the first doughnut, I was marooned in a hot air balloon with a mobile hop and a leaky car battery. You ever tried to point a dish at a spot on the horizon while battery acid ate away at the rotting wicker bottom that separates you from a sudden plunge? I have and no amount of word games or shadow puppets will make the memory fade. So before you and your executive pals come up with a new way to stretch me and our station's resources to unspeakable lengths just so some doofus can swivel from grin to grimace eight times over, think of the affiliates in River City who don't have the gear to stage this kind of ordnance! What's next - crop circles in the weather garden? Chopper shots of the main anchor's old trench-coat collection? Pray tell, what kind of hopped-up navel gaze-a-thon could justify this kind of lens expenditure? What's that? It's for a 'Photog Special'?

I guess that would be okay.       

Under Deconstruction

Just when I thought the John Edwards trial would never end, the damn thing did. No longer needed outside Greensboro's federal courthouse, I returned to my unit, where I attempted to build a shelter of soft news around me. No such luck. Since Judge Carolyn Eagles last dropped her gavel, I have roamed this fruity plain: sticking a lens in victims' faces, circling bent sheet metal and hoisting wobbly antennas over the shadiest of neighborhoods. Why it's enough to make a fella pine for a philandering dandy! But I didn't log in to whine about the lack of whittling conventions in my zip code, but only to check in with my crumbling readership. Helllooo? Remember me - wordy camera nerd with that mother of a writing compulsion? We had some good times you and me. I'd bleed all over my keyboard, hit 'POST' and somehow staunch the flow of pith and ambition that robs me of my sleep. Once in awhile I'd even wake up to a nice review, a swollen link or at least the lack of a restraining order. As career plans go, it makes as much sense as shoving drivel through a tube, but since that's how I spend my walking hours I thought I'd switch it up come evening time.

Trouble is, I'm a photog ... a man of shifting attentions, waning angst and constant obstinance. To expect me to do more than make my daily deadline along with a few new curse words is to ignore the very nature of Photo-Erectus. It's why I'm so well equipped to spotlight the plight of my fellow cameraman (and woman). See, I'm one of them. I got tripod bite marks on the palm of my hand and a disturbingly low opinion of county commissioners. I got three chips on my shoulder about the size of my glass and a funny way of walking when I close one eye. I can smell low light, burp up hurricane and tell you if a lady's gonna talk on camera by the way she holds her purse. Yes, twenty years behind the lens has left me better and bitter, long on what's wrong with the ruling class and shorter of patience with the hoi polloi. If those are the kind of traits you think you can live with, my wife would like to show you a Power Point presentation. When you're done, click back by and we'll go over the kind of lies and recriminations you can expect to find here at the Lenslinger Institute. Just don't hold me to a schedule. I hit a hard deadline every day at dusk and after that my mind kind of wanders. I might eek out a screed on the vanity of man or fold a stack of wash cloths. Either way, you're getting exactly what you paid for, which last time I checked is more than I'm getting to craft these pablum to begin with. That will change some day and when it does, I'm not gonna act surprised. No, I'll show up late and plant my tripod in the center of the room, look around slowly and defy anyone to ask me why the hell I'm wearing a reflective vest and hard hat...

It's my density.

Non Jovi

It's all the same, only the stations change
Everyday, I sling the same old way
Another place, where the stories are so dull
I go live all night, drives me out of my skull

I'm a PHO-tog, in a minivan I drive
I'm wanting (w-a-n-ting) to get out of my live
Wanting (W-a-a-nting!) out of my live

Sometimes I sleep, usually in the edit bays
And the people I meet usually end up getting sprayed
Sometimes you tell the day 
By the way your buddy stinks
And times when you're alone, 
it's of freelance that you think
 
I cruise these streets, gas station receipts by the stack
I eat real cheap, 'cause they're slow to pay me back
I been everywhere, but I can't recall
I've seen a million faces an I've double-punched them all

I'm a PHO-tog, in school I did not thrive
I'm wanting (w-a-nting!) to get out of my live
Wanting (W-a-a-nting!) out of my live
Still I drive (I still dr-i-i-ve!)

Cause I'm a PHO-tog
I got lights in my ride
And they're wanting
(W-a-a-n-ting!)
Me to go live.
(I go l-i-i-ve!)
I go live!
Starting at five...

And Justice for Some...

After much deliberation (and a rather intense spitball fight), the governing council of The Lenslinger Institute has decided to go ahead with its Class Action Lawsuit against the makers of Groundhog Day. That's right, we're going after one Harold Allen Ramis, the man behind the film that forever maligned the reputation of TV News cameramen everywhere. Not that our reputations were all that pristine to begin with. In fact, the perceived character of the photog nation has been impugned since the very dawn of television. Much of that has been our own fault. We've never dressed properly, always bitched and occasionally insisted our prettier partners carry something greasy back to the car. Not a recipe for a widespread love and acceptance. But as misguided as our behavior has been, nothing has impugned the character of we TV stevedores like a certain Bill Murray vehicle. You remember it: Weather weasel travels to Punxsutawney, PA, where he's trapped in some kind of comedic time warp. There he languishes until his surly demeanor gets the better of him, whereupon he escapes his fate by simply becoming less of a tool. It's an engaging concept, though the completed film is more original than funny. Still, it's become something of a cultural touchstone over the years. It's very title has even come to serve as shorthand for a dull, repetitive, never-ending assignment. All well and mostly good. There's only one problem... This guy. Christopher N. Elliott. Once upon a time, he was 'the guy beneath the seats' on the old Letterman show. Eventually, he achieved cinematic immortality as "Woogie" in There's Something About Mary. But in 1993, director Ramis launched a hard-target search for an actor to embody 'Larry', the local station lenslinger who suffers at the hand of Murray's pompous weather prick. Worse yet, Ramis and company gifted Larry with a brief speech that has haunted my kind since the film first ruled the multiplex. To wit:

"PEOPLE THINK THAT ALL CAMERAMEN DO IS POINT THE CAMERA AT THINGS, BUT IT'S A *HECK* OF A LOT MORE COMPLICATED THAN THAT."



Now, as profound as that may sound, it's delivered with contempt, leaving the audience convinced that Larry (and every other TV news shooter on the planet) is a lumpy schlub. Untrue. Only about half of us are. The rest of us are raconteurs, bons vivants and artisans Why, I knew one guy who made a whole row of main anchor voodoo dolls using nothing but undead Double AA's and his own stomach lining. You won't see that on the silver screen! Neither will you find realistic depictions of other standard-bearers like taxidermists, auto-pilots or that bearded weirdo who use to stalk you at the roller-rink. People think it's easy skating backwards in glitter shorts and a disco wig, but I'm tellin' ya, it's a *heck* of a lot more complicated than that.

The Professional

As a freelance sound engineer for one of the networks, Neal Gettinger didn't just monitor the microphones at the John Edwards trial. He set the tone. With his trusted heads-up that defendant's vehicle was near ("Suburban!")' to the crisp salutation that followed ("Good morning, Senator."), to his insistence we TV swine clean up after ourselves ("All right, you filthy animals..."), Neal boosted more than his client's audio levels. He boosted morale. And he did so with a deft touch, one he's no doubt honed over years of hoisting that boom mic over tripe and travesty. Of course it helps that he's a bear of a man with a Yankee's accent; the kind of guy who can get away with saying ANYthing - and not just because he's looming over you with a ten foot pole. Not that he'd need an equalizer. Dude's got a thick stash of zingers somewhere in that mixer board he wears. (Think W.C. Fields with headphones.) Why, I dare say John Edwards himself came to appreciate the towering sound guy who apparently ran the show along press row. I know those federal marshals cracking up behind their sunglasses certainly did. Hell, even the 'scribblers' Neal kicked out of the tent seemed to savor his savoir faire (well, most of 'em, anyway). I myself came to count on the man, for he more than anyone kept the growing scrum of cameramen, reporters, still photographers and attendant weirdos from embarrassing ourselves too badly. Yes, you'll find a quieter recordist than our friend Neal - but you won't find one who holds his audio, his assignment, or even his colleagues - to such exacting standards.

Just don't get in between him and his subject. Dude will flatten ya and make you feel like it was your fault. Now THAT'S a professional.

Tempest Spent

Well, America, it looks like our long national nightmare is finally over. The John Edwards jury reached a verdict. Sort of. They found the former Presidential candidate Not Guilty on one charge of campaign finance fraud and they deadlocked on the rest. It was a fitting end to a seriously weird ordeal. For me though, the John Edwards trial was less about the legal wranglings that went on inside the courthouse and more about the shenanigans that played out on the sun-baked steps. For that's where I spent the better part of seven weeks: waiting, laughing, occasionally losing consciousness.

It would have been singularly miserable were it not for the misfits that joined me there, a ragtag group of journalists who traveled a lot farther than I did to watch what passes for justice dribble out of that courthouse door. It was an experience I will never forget, no matter how much I pay for therapy in the coming years. Few hurricanes I've covered have left me as exhausted, sore or uncomfortably numb. You might say I'm glad it's over. And while I won't particularly miss taking Market Street by force every morning, I will miss the friendships I formed there.

Funny how the world works. A philandering millionaire bangs a videographer and a hundred other camera nerds make new friends as a result. I don't know if that's quite what you call 'the butterfly effect', but it's exactly what happened here. And while this probably wasn't the snark you dropped by for, right now, it's all I got. If you really want to know what's in my head, just take a look at my new pal Chuck Liddy, who found a way to express how every journalist who covered the John Edwards trial is now feeling...

 (Top photo by Jerry Wolford. Bottom photo by ...Chuck Liddy?)

Rarefied Stare

I can no longer tell you how many times I've shot John Edwards as he left and entered court, just that  I fully expect him to be shuffling his elderly parents through the back-alleys of my brain for... oh, the next thirty years. That's how it works, see. Squint through the glint of current events and you're gonna get few shards of history in your mind's eye. If you're not careful, it can get infected and the next thing you know you're lying awake one night soaked in sweat as the last two decades of defendants, damsels and dogs in funny hats dance across your darkened ceiling. It's enough to make one request a roofie. But enough about my night-sweats, let's meet the players!
 
It's ... the same gang of drifters and layabouts I been smellin' for six weeks now. Ya know, it's pictures like this that do my breed a disservice, for it tends to convince our station-bound bosses that we lenslingers are locked in some sort of mortal lounge-off in which the photog with the most bloated expense report wins dinner for six at the high-end bistro of his liking. No charge. (Don't ask), just know that for every time you see of us sitting down, a homeless guy takes a dump behind our live trucks. I won't say it's happened, but if you see a guy who with 'Flawless' tattooed on his lip eyeing a patch of pavement anywhere near your mobile newsroom, know your little weather garden is about to get fertilized. And if you catch him in the act, wait 'til he's done. Otherwise he gets all pissy about the tip. Forget I mentioned it. In fact, let go off all that unwanted knowledge: things like your computer password at work or what level of the parking deck you left your news car double-parked in. You won't need any of that once you summit your own personal step-ladder and peer into the abyss. Just don't look for too long...

Or something like this could happen to you. We'll call him 'Richard'. Rumor has it he's some kind of hot-shot from out of town. He seems to have a lot of toys and they say has just as many trophies at home, but from what I can tell he's a nervous shell of the fellow who first appeared here a month and a half back. Dude used to have opinions about EVERYthing, but lately he just fixates on the middle distance and tries to call in airstrikes with an iPhone that hasn't seen the business end of a charger in nine days. I figure when it's all said and done, we'll pick his pockets and point him towards Capital City before abandoning him altogether. Someday he'll thank us, provided he regains the ability to speak in anything other than satellite coordinates. Until then, your better off avoiding this once coherent cameraman altogether. That, or hit him with a lawn dart and be done with it. Now this: