Squirmin' on the Mount

BACK IN MY DAY we didn't have fancy little lenses strapped to fishing poles! If we wanted to shoot something way up on a mountain we man-hauled a camera the size of a baby grand piano straight up the face of Old Baldie! BOTH WAYS! I'm serious - I once crushed three vertebrae just so Roger Mudd could one-up that Charles Kuralt show-off!

We didn't have those newfangled cell phone transmitters, either! If we wanted a live broadcast, we did it the old fashioned way! With heavy cables, lots of overtimes and enough cigarettes to choke a bus full of orphans! Nor did have those fairy iPhones! We used bulky two-way radios and when we did we used official police ten-codes! THE WAY GOD INTENDED!

And another thing! We didn't dress so damn comfortably! We wore heavily-starched dungarees or action slacks! None of this cargo-pants crap for my generation! Up top we favored an ill-fitting station golf shirt and/or a proper utility vest! You simply can't pack the correct number of back-up camera batteries in a pair of skinny jeans! NOR SHOULD YOU TRY!
 
Oh, while I have you - nix all that infernal twittering! Was a time a grown-ass photog wouldn't be caught dead snapping pictures of his ham sandwich, let alone posting status reports on Faceplate! And what's with all these opinions? YOU'RE A #^@% JOURNALIST! Go grab the facts and leave all that bad tap-dancing to the lady-boys back in the booth!   

You're a man ... ACT LIKE IT! And while I'm on the subject, who let two girls on the set at the same time? I tuned in thinking it was some kind of baking segment and do you know they were discussing something called 'the fiscal cliff'?  I figured it was some new kind of desert topping, but as far as I could tell, they won't even wearing aprons!

Then they pitched it to some little tech news worm and his pants weren't even pleated! For the love of Cronkite's expense report, IS NOTHING SACRED? I remember when a newscaster wouldn't even go on camera without a little Bryl-Creem and a bird bath! I tell you, the lack of respect on display today is enough to make this newscaster spray Boone's farm all over his TRS-80!

And those never ending crawls at the bottom of the screen! WHO WRITES THAT CRAP?  I know Ham radio operators with clearer syntax!  And what the hell's a "hash-tag", anyway!?! Sounds like something those wretched stoners at The Learning Channel would turn into a reality show....

Disclaimer: The preceding rant was the sole opinion of the author and does not in any way reflect the views of The Lenslinger Institute and/or its worldwide subsidiaries. Any POV cam enthusiasts, under-dressed photogs or registered lady-boys who took offense at the aforementioned bile should contact their therapist immediately and demand a full return because let's be honest here: You're reading the mice-type at the bottom of a blog post and feeling pretty smug about it. Consult your physician if self-satisfaction lasts for more than four hours. No portion of the above paragraphs may be reprinted, sung about or etched in peanut butter without the express written permission of the National Football League. All Rights Reserved. Kneel before Zod. It's better to burn out than to fade away....  

Marauders Anonymous

With so many innocent victims to be found in Newtown, Connecticut, I’m not about to pretend The Media is among them. But in the wake of unspeakable tragedy, my profession has suffered a few slings and arrows it does and does not deserve. More on that, later. First though, wanna stop the kind of atrocities that befell Sandy Hook? Unplug that violent video game! Throw down your weapons! Hit your knees and beg that guy in the sky to show mercy on this heartless orb. Maybe then, the clouds will clear and we’ll return to a world where school kids are safe behind brick and mortar. Just don’t look to The Media for answers. We got nothin’ but questions, anyway. Clumsy, ugly, hurtful questions, the kinds of inquiry you can’t imagine asking yourself, but the kind fully expect to see answered in full when you lean into your screen.

It’s an ugly piece of business, one that those of us on the ground would like to do without. But until the moon cracks in half and mankind is left staring slack-jawed at a new kind of eclipse, horrible things are going to happen. When they do, rest assured my kind will be there, breathless, vexed and at the ready. Think what you will of The Fourth Estate, but no one I know wants to be on scene when children die. I myself ain’t exactly the praying type, but even I appealed to my maker when I heard the news. First I thanked him (her?) for keeping my own children safe. Secondly I offered my eternal thanks for keeping this latest piece of savagery far from the place I call home. Selfish? Youbetcha. But the unrelenting scrum that forms around this level of bloodshed is the kind I can only stomach once or twice a lifetime. Virginia Tech was more than enough.

But I’m not here to remove myself from the shadow of Blacksburg. Back then, The Media caught a lot of heat for ghastly tactics and a questionable bedside manner. Of that we were guilty and maybe more but it’s hard to keep score when Geraldo is running loose. Me, I kept my nose relatively clean - but grab-ass just naturally breaks out at the sat truck farm and if I can be convicted of anything, it’s enjoying my work too much. One thing I don’t enjoy is traumatizing kids. l got two of my own and while they’re not so little anymore, I remember when they were. Hurting even the feelings of a youngster still in shock and ain’t exactly on my bucket list and neither is defending that action to any half-mad Dads. But while much has been made of news crews interviewing kids in the minutes (and hours) following the massacre, I just can’t grab a pitchfork this time. Had I been cursed enough to be on scene, there’s not a doubt in my mind I’d have quizzed any one who would have offered my lens even half an explanation.

That make it right? Probably not. But an effective press is an energetic one and even a nat-pack slacker like myself knows enough to shoot first and review the tape later. Considering all the misinformation that flowed out of Connecticut last Friday, a little more review may be in order. Don’t hold your breath, though. In a time when lies and misconceptions hosts their own Twitter accounts before the Truth can clear its throat, urgency trumps analysis. Now that very idea of a deadline is growing quaint, you can look for assumptions and conjecture to be passed as fact. Just don’t think The Media pack was enjoying itself that day. Many of us have kids of our own and most of us still know how to feel. Quizzing strangers of any age about the very worst day of their life ain’t the way we want to spend our day and even with their parent’s permission, grilling children about things they’d be better off forgetting is fraught with peril for all involved and never, never easy.

 I’m guessing nothing in Newtown was easy that day.

Pass the Mic

FAR BE IT FROM ME to pop out a plastic fern and pin a microphone to your smock, but I couldn't help but notice you were getting your hair did! Which is quite the cowinky-dink since I’m doing a story on that very thing for our late breaking action packed newscast! Ya know, childhood hairstyles has been issue I’ve been pondering every since my assignment editor shoved a crumpled print-out of an e-mail the night guy saved into my Cheeto-stained fingertips about thirty minutes ago! Now, I know what you’re thinking: What’s a fella with a feathery melon like me know about haircare? Nothing a thirty year old can of mousse crust wouldn’t fluff up, I assure you! But from all that I gathered after reading some press release during that last long stoplight, pubescent grooming is first and foremost on the minds of men and women age 18-49! That may make precious little sense to a young lady like yourself, but I can assure you that someday when you grow up and are lucky enough to get a job you used to want that there will come a time when one of your many bosses will come up with some cockamamie idea that will instantly become your own personal manifest destiny. Manifest Destiny, that’s old school for ‘you gotta pick up ALL the socks in the rec room before you can even expect to watch Sponge-Bob or Breaking Bad or whatever the kids today zone out in front of just for fun’. Hey, speaking of television, do you ever watch the news? I don’t but I have it on very good authority that every night around 6:08 those pretty people run out of bad things to talk about and suddenly wanna sell some soap. Once that’s over, they’re usually in the mood to tease the weatherman but not before chortling over some banal piece of videotape featuring cute kids, old folks or woodchucks in tuxedos. Well, today you’re the woodchuck and back in the live truck I got some ruffle-fronted monkey suits that are gonna be all the rage once your friends see you sporting one between weather and sports! That is if your friends watched the news! Chances are they don’t! But see back in the say there were only a few buttons on the remote control and even those were hard-wired to the back to TV sets the size of bank vaults! Back then, we’d trudged halfway across the room to just to find out what some other uncle looking fellow had to say about hog futures! Most times it was the exact same thing the only other two guys on at that time had to say so very often we’d do the unthinkable and turn the TV OFF! Yeah, no kidding! I once spent a whole summer outside! Over the course of two months I watched only about three fifths of a Mork and Mindy episode and that was without ever realizing that Robin Williams was jacked out of his gourd on the kind of stuff that could make a grown man stay up all night talking to the kind of people he wouldn’t even look at in the light of day, but, HEY - How I spent the better part of that one lost summer isn’t important right now! What IS important is that I get your inner most feelings on the role of personal aesthetics in the post millennial renaissance. Now, I now that’s a mouthful, but we’re getting paid by the syllable here so if you don’t mind, just say and spell your first and last na-- What’s that? ... You don’t want to be on camera?

Never mind.

Burning Down the House

Though logic would dictate he turn around, I can assure you, Steve Hofbauer knows exactly where to point that thing. In fact, this gentle brute forced me to dig a little deeper every time he rolled up on scene. From grabbing shots before I could think of them to convincing witnesses to emote in his direction, I could never relax when "The Hof" was afoot. Weirdest of all, I liked the guy! Maybe it's because we share the same lineage. Perhaps it's because he could probably snap me in half. Whatever the reason, we bonded many times over - when we weren't trying to gouge each others eyes out.

These days, however, Hof sightings are pretty rare. Not so long ago, dude got really smart and left the business. Now he can be found performing his magic in the hallowed halls of Academia, where I hope the eggheads appreciate what they got. See, Steve has the instincts and experience borne of a million deadlines met. He's shot every story there is a half dozen different ways and as far as I know, he chews his food with his mouth closed. Why, you'd think a newsroom would do whatever it took to keep such an apex predator in place.   

You'd be wrong.

Now, I'm SURE Hof's old station hated to see him go and from all that I can tell their commercials aren't bumping into each other for lack of content. But I truly believe we'll look back someday at the mass egress of people like Steve as the beginning of the end of news as we know it. Yes, there will always be pretty faces on screen recapping the day's events, but understand this: local TV News is hemorrhaging talent like never before.  When a veteran leaves, they're replaced (if at all) by fresh young faces who are expected to do it ALL for far fewer escudos. That they do - and it shows. 

Will station's go dark as a result? Probably not. But the journalistic services they provide will become shockingly shallow, until the very idea of gleaning anything useful from local TV news will seem as quaint as that old pocket watch you hocked to help buy an iPad. It didn't have to be this way, but quantum leaps in technology and a dearth of ad dollars have all but enabled our assisted suicide. If that doesn't concern you, you're probably my children's' age - which, ironically, is just a few years junior to that of your average local TV reporter these days.

Is this the rambling of a fellow fossil? A case of hand-wringing from a guy who can't help but read the writing on the wall?  One last battle cry from the surviving member of a doomed platoon? Yes. Yes, it is. But if you're gonna take my fancycam, you'll have to pry it from my leathery grip, for unlike The Hofinater here, I gots no place to go. Besides, I still dig the view. And while my contemporaries may be exiting stage left, right and every direction in between, I'm not quite prepared to go make brag tapes, widget demos or commencement montages just yet... YET.

Now get off my lawn!

Sling For Your Supper...

Ever drag a fully functional fancycam through a Department of Social Services? It’s like covering a red carpet event in reverse! Seriously, if I have one more crack addict look at me in disgust, I’m gonna go throat-punch my high school guidance counselor. Then again, I never paid much attention to that lady anyway. Now that I’m all growed up, though, I can’t help but think what a little forethought may have done for my state of mind, let alone something as meandering as my career path.

Would I be the same person if I never knew the reaction one gets when asking fresh vasectomy patients if they’d like to remove the bag of frozen peas from their lap and tell central North Carolina just what Obamacare means to them?

Could I better relate to the proletariat had I not first learned to pin Wal Mart shoppers in their cars until they came up with six good answers to “Hot enough for ya?” (Lay on their hood and twitch. It stuns them until you can get the microphone out.)

Would I feel the same about the judicial system had I never been dressed down by that bailiff that caught me filming him chortling in his sleep? And do you know of a website that would properly pay for that sort of footage?

Should I have truly pursued higher education, instead of filing daily digests on everything from hard cider homicides to tips on picking that perfect poinsettia? Would it have made me a more intoxicating cocktail party guest?

Would I have so warned my children about the perils of zealotry had I not spent so much of my working life sharing air with convicted criminals, city council members, and (shudder) TV consultants?

Could I have possibly spent s-o-o many hours writing about my workaday adventures had I fallen into something less skeevy that TV news? Like crime scene clean up, Port-A-John repair or premature taxidermy?

You're right: There's nothing's skeevier than TV News.

Lark of The Beast

Ever have an old chum ring you up and be all like...

 “A tanker truck full of cucumber juice just flipped over on the interstate! We got all three westbound lanes knee-deep in pickle spit! Strother’s gonna meet you with the jet-pack! GO!” 

No? You must not shoot news. If you did, you’d be perfectly versed in the Doctrine of Improbability. It’s a basic precept in the Book of Lenslinger that exposits - through a series of Cheeto-encrusted flash cards - that the less likely something is to actually happen, the more likely you’ll be on call when it finally does. I can’t really explain it without breaking out the Handy Wipes, but just know the next time you’re scrambling up an overpass for a better look at the chunky purple smoke plume, you probably had it coming. Me, I got Inconvenience on speed dial.

Which is not to say I totally loathe spot news. Freight train derailments have their place (down by the tracks, I’ve found) but you really have to be in the mood. I wind my way to the back of the newscast, where there’s more control amid the whip cream rodeos. Less bloodshed, too. Not to mention other non household stains... “What’s that? Geysers are spiraling over the waste-water treatment plant and you need me on scuba-cam? That could be a problem. See, I’m all the way over in Itchy Grove, where they’re having their annual ‘Macrame Days’. I got all the sound I need, but the Mayor’s about to bust out his best oven mitt and I don’t wanna miss it. Fountain of brown wouldn’t look good in plasmas anyway. Clashes with the rest of the set. Hmm? Yes, I know, hot open and three teases. Bye.”

Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, the breakdown lane. Ya know, I can’t recommend you ever loiter there, as many photogs I know consider it to be their own private flight path...

“Hey, life’s what happens when you’re missing slot. Besides, that glimmer in the distance is the competition raising their mast. If you don’t put the hammer down now, we’re gonna miss the widow again. Last time that happened, bossman made me spend the night in The Box! I didn’t walk upright for three days! Now is that a tripod in your trunk or did you just skip middle college? Those glass shards aren’t gonna rack themselves into focus, ya know. And that throng of zombies glaring at the sheet metal? They’re bristling with Emmy Award winning soundbites! Now step on it, before there’s no state troopers left to grill! For the love of Savitch, I want us turning wreckage into spectacle before that cable news trollop heaves the first bosom! My God, man, is there no logo on your soul? G-O-O-O!”

I gotta run.

Just Add Water

It may only look like a hole in the road to YOU, but to us local TV goobs, it's a galloping chasm that could screw up your commute, flush your 401-K and quite possibly kill your goldfish. Okay, so the goldfish part I just made up, but when you spend a chilly afternoon staring into the abyss of a brand new water-main break, the mind starts to wander...

Did I REALLY just run a grandmother off the road to babysit a mud puddle?

The house-cats seem to think this thing may swallow us all. What are THEY swallowing? Psilocybin?

Is it TOO LATE to go to night school?

Wonder how many orange cones I can gather up before the road crew throws ME in the hole?

How much do those guys in the hard-hats MAKE, anyway?

If they pull the lost ark of the covenant/ a glowing 'possum  out of that hole, am I gonna have to WORK LATE?

How are we gonna tie THIS into the Fiscal Cliff?

Isn't this EXACTLY how that Y2K expert I use to put on TV so much said the end would begin?

When they DO let traffic back on this road, think they'd mind if I lie down in the fast lane for a bit?

How did a guy who reads as much as I DO end up standing behind a camera for a living?

Wait - don't answer that last one. I don't wanna know...