No Prose Needed...

But when did that stop me? Besides, this heavenly shot by Nathan Parsons deserves some kind of write-up: Seen here in the wild, these temporary spires can be found alone and in clusters. Courthouse parking lots, interstate breakdown lanes, suburban sinkholes, there's almost nowhere these broadcast obelisks won't pop up. Often reaching apogee just around dusk, they then contract altogether, before reappearing in empty parking lots an hour shy of midnight. Me, I avoid 'em these towers of babble like the plague; but only because I almost O.D.'d once on generator exhaust and Cheesy Poofs. Don't ask. Just know that young Nathan laid a halo on this leaning steeple, bringing a sense of divinity to an otherwise ugly appendage.

Not bad for the new guy.

Schmuck Alert: Run for the Border

As proven by that friend of yours who can never hold his liquor, there's a Schmuck in every bunch. That includes law enforcement, where the efforts and rep of a whole department can be sullied by one cop with too much caffeine on board. Just ask Victor Castillo, an Action 4 News reporter who got cuffed and stuffed while covering a police pursuit in the Rio Grande Valley. Seems a drug investigation ended in a case of bent-sheet metal, creating the kind of scene you might watch on the evening news. That's when our man Victor rolled up with gear in tow and caught sight of cops unloading bundles of marijuana from the freshly-wrecked vehicle. Momentarily confused as to which side of the border he was on, Victor set up his camera on public property and did what a free member of the American media has every right to do: he quietly recorded the unfolding events from a reasonable distance. On its face it all seems pretty innocent, but Victor must have passed gas or made one too many doughnut jokes: for one officer took suddenly decided the Constitution wasn't a good enough reason to let some pesky news photog document the confiscation in question.

After exchanging less than pleasantries, the camera-toting Castillo backed off more than he really had to, but Office Bogart still didn't dig it - so he arrested the young interloper for committing television right there in front of God and everybody. Why the nerve! Anyway, knowing outrage when he saw it, the very angry cop placed the brazen photojournalist under arrest and charged him with interfering with public duties. Considering he was a good deal away from the action and surrounded by members of the public when he was arrested, Victor Castillo shouldn't have too much to worry about. For now though, he's still facing a Class B misdemeanor punishable up to six months in jail and a $2,000 fine - all for doing his job. What a country! Maybe someday all badge-wearing individuals will read the memo, brush up on the Fourth Estate or just get a freakin' clue! That way maybe we can avoid these predictable fits of testosterone. Until then, careful where you break out your camera; it just might win you a trip to the pokey. Schmuck!

Remains of the Day

Nobody becomes a photog just so they can hang out all day. But take it from the Turdpolisher himself: Sit Happens. Yes, for every high speed chase, for every raging warehouse fire, for every floating airliner, there’s a couple hundred bouts of courtroom minutia to record. Trouble is, some states (and all federal) courthouses don’t allow prying lenses inside, a less than transparent policy that kicks the cameraman to the proverbial curb while his better-dressed partner yearns for a sketch artist inside. Time. Stands. Still. But how we handle that downtime illustrates the sometimes imperceptible difference between lifer and loser. Some folks polish their battery collection. Others simply text. I usually hunker down and strive for some reasonable state of Zen. That rarely works however, and I end up tossing pebbles at competitor’s live trucks. Not Louisiana’s own Rick Portier. He uses his quiet time to cook up some potent prose, fire off a few snapshots and find new ways to poke fun at his profession - without alienating his allies. It’s an odd hobby, but one that gives me plenty to read whenever I’m down and out in some half-dead live truck…

Provided I don't doze off first...

Subterranean Mutt Not Included...

Attention Producers --

I admit it: I lingered too long in the newsroom the other day, poking fun at the phone call you wanted me to turn into television. Sorry, but claims of stray dogs stuck under houses always crack me up. It’s not that I’m anti-canine, I ‘m just naturally skeptical. (Twenty years of chasing vapors will do that to a fella.) This time however, your instincts were dead-on and had I shagged over there just a little quicker, I would certainly have captured some memorable moments on camera. Instead, all I can offer is the following exchange; two true-life minutes that are now stuck on a loop inside my head…

“I’m sorry you came all the way out here,” the lady in the housecoat said, “but Horace already got that dawg out.”

“Really?” I asked, looking around for evidence of the imperiled pooch. I found none, but there was plenty else to look at there in the lady’s front yard. Cats, perhaps two dozen of them, roamed this way and that, peering out of the front window, cowering under nearby bushes, rubbing against my ankles.

“Yeah, the poor thing got stuck up under there this morning” she said, hiking a nicotine-stained thumb to the modest home behind her. “But he’s in the woods by now. Horace got him out.”

That’s when I noticed a flashlight’s weak beam shining from beneath the house’s crawlspace There, through a low square hole in the bricks, a greasy head of hair inched toward the opening. Horace, I presumed.

Following my gaze, the woman acknowledged her hero. “Didn’t take him but a minute to get him out. Said his collar was hung up on my ductwork. I gave him some food and he took off for the woods. The dawg, not Horace.”

I nodded as I watched the man of the hour turn his shoulders and shimmy out through a hole the size of a shoebox lid. Incredibly, the baseboard orifice birthed a pretty sizeable hillbilly. As Horace stood to his full height, he squinted at the stranger staring back at him. Lowering my gaze, I couldn’t help but notice the muddy skid mark on the front of his rebel flag t-shirt. Something in my subconscious clicked and I suddenly remembered the pick up truck I’d park behind a minute or so earlier sported mud flaps with the same set of Stars and Bars. That’s when I noticed Horace was looking at me, hard. Then he coughed up some long-lost lung nugget, hurled it into the dirt, reached for his millionth Winston and turned to the lady.

“That’s the same dawg ate that cat last year.”

This seemed to bother the lady and for the first time she acknowledged the felines at her feet.” I just hate to hear an animal suffer. It’s why I got all these cats. I don’t go looking’ them. They must just follow their friends here.”

I nodded absent-mindedly, wondering how I was going to convince the producers that the great Stuck Dog Story of Aught Nine was a no-go. That got me to guessing how else I might spend the rest of this suddenly slow news-day. About then, I felt the burning stare of Horace as he searched my form for any sign of confederacy affiliation. Finding none, he turned his attention to my glasses, his forehead scrunching between unkempt eyebrows. Wondering if my bosses would be able to find my remains by tracing the memory of my GPS unit, I glanced nervously at the woodline, where the mystery dog was supposedly licking his woods. That’s when Horace uttered an offer I still can't seem to get outta my head...

“You want me to stick him back up under the house so you can get yer picture?”

Oddly enough, I didn’t.

Daughtry's Drummer

Chris Daughtry may not have taken his old band along with him on his post-Idol career, but he did hook one homeboy the hell up. Joey Barnes, a charismatic young drummer from around these parts flew all the way to L.A. to audition for his old rival's band. Needless to say, he got the gig. I first met him in 2007, hours before Daughtry took the stage at a free concert in downtown Greensboro. Belligerent women roved Hamburger Square in packs that day; Joey risked being ripped to shreds by them when he popped out of the tour bus for an on-camera chat. It was a righteous thing to do and I vowed to return the favor should he ever need someone to spit-clean his tambourines. THAT opportunity never materialized, which is why Shannon Smith and I were so stoked to rendezvous with him a few weeks ago at a top secret location....

Actually it was an anonymous house in Summerfield that just happened to have a recording studio where the car-hole usually goes. If that weren't odd enough, Joey actually showed up on-time (okay, he was an hour late, but if I just came off a whirlwind global tour, I might keep the locals waiting too). Anyway, when he did roll in, Shannon and I cornered him with cameras and questions: How did it feel to play stages the world over? Was Oprah cool or all 'suh-diddy'? What color M&M's did he and the fellas in the band simply not tolerate? Joey answered 'em all, before steering the conversation toward the reason for our visit: His new CD. That's right, this hometown boy is keeping busy between Daughtry albums by crafting a solo effort of his own. Best of all, he's doing it all right here in the Piedmont. The tracks he and producer Josh Seawell played for us were indeed diverse; each showcasing an urbane verve one might not expect from a drummer who favors kilts and kabuki masks behind the kit.

But I'm no critic. Hell, I'm barely a cameraman! So Shannon and I did what we did with Bucky Covington and what she and Weaver did with Daughtry's first recording session: we rolled on everything 'til they kicked us out! That way, we had plenty to choose from when it came time to sit down and slice: a stilted series of edit sessions plagued with all kinds of interruptions. Oh well, who wanted to concentrate like that, anyway? We still managed to plug Joey's upcoming album repeatedly, all while supplying the region with their recommended monthly allowance of swaggering bald rock-star news. Hey, if assisting musicians on their way to immortality is my special purpose, someone get Phil Spector on the phone - I got some doo-wap I wanna record! So while I warm up my throat, check out this profile of a thoroughly engaging young man who happens to have the world by the tail. I just hope the new music garners him some female attention. Must get awful lonely out there on the road....

Screech of a Leach

How is an apartment fire like a garden party? It’s not, really – but when you’ve kibbitzed near as many hulking remains as I have, the wine and cheese crowd seems a little stuffy. Perhaps I’m not giving these afernoon soirees enough credit; I’m sure you’ll find lovely people there. I just prefer my small talk with something smoldering in the background. Those who crash calamity with deadlines in mind know what I mean. Or maybe they don’t. Truth is, this silly gig has skewed whatever social norms I once embraced. Whereas once I marveled at that plume of smoke in the distance, I now curse it for delaying my edit plans, my lunchbreak, my afternoon interludes of quiet reflection. It’s kind of negative, I know – but at least I still know how to behave around the freshly bereft. For every huddled clump of hollow-eyed homeowners I’ve put on the tee-vee, there’s a hundred others I’ve left the eff alone. See, I’m a photog, not a complete KNOB. It ain’t always easy, but I’m doing my best to live the difference. Take the other day for example (please!): I didn’t put that skeevy guy in the blue blanket on the news and it wasn’t JUST because he was flashing me gang-signs. I’m not totally sure what he meant, but I have a feeling he wasn’t inviting me for a sit-down. A BEAT-down, perhaps...

So, now that we’ve established I’m a master of apathy with a penchant for distance, allow me assure you I ain’t alone. There are countless lenslingers in the news crew nation, rugged if not rumpled individuals who wouldn’t think of getting in your business - if the logo in their lives didn’t pretty much demand it. We’d much rather keep to ourselves… out there by the ditchbank, clustered just off the breakdown lane, bathing in the rejuvenating exhaust of a dozen haphazardly parked fire engines -You don’t think we’re discussing journalism out there, do you? Most likely the topic centers around some workaday abomination: the threat of furloughs, a competitor’s infideility, that rug the weekend sports goob has started to sport... you know, important stuff. Okay, not so important stuff, too. Like cinema hitmen chewing over minutia outside their victim’s door, journalists and first responders have the oddest conversations at the edge of other people’s darkest hours. C’mom, I can’t be the only schlub who’s had to dub in the sound of an idling firetruck over a particular piece of footage in which I questioned the efforts of some self-appointed TV genius... can I?

On second thought, keep your opinions to yourself. Just know that I’m more than willing to stand behind the bulk of my statements, should Saint Peter meet me in front of the pearly gates with a rolling transcript of my crime tape commentary. Sure, that crack about scanner code junkies and sheet metal enthusiasts was a little crass, but not once did I storm the porch of a new widow with details designed to ensure the procurement of tears. Trust me, those people are out there (or at least they were) but the vast majority of journalists I know would rather take a kick to the kidneys than grill the hapless or the bereaved. So much like the veteran traffic cop who cringes at the sound of breaking glass, most newsgatherers out there are all too human. We just have weird jobs; occasionally exciting occcupations that once felt revolutionary but now smack of laborious futility. Or maybe that’s just how I see it. Whichever the case, it’s a safe bet you’ll find me far more entertaining at the train wreck than at some stuffy, cheese-tray get-together. Trust me, I’ll understand completely if the invite never arrives.

Besides, I look lousy in a sun-dress...

Schadenfreude at 11

So, there’s a nasty catfight among media factions in Oklahoma and, were it no so moronic, it might be kind of entertaining. But we’ll pass judgement later. For now, let’s do the math:

When KOKH-TV wanted to produce a weeklong series on the demise of newsprint, they sure didnt look very far. (I know what you’re thinking: Who produces weeklong series anymore? Answer: About five more people than actually watch them.) Why should they – when just down the road the local paper proved such an easy target? Like lots of paid publications, The Oklahoman is losing readers, hemorrhaging relevancy and (gulp!) raising their prices! Remember, every time a newspaper goes under, a twenty-something news producer who only reads Facebook gets their wings. Is it any wonder what happens next?

Disclosure: I’m totally bereft of any insider information on this matter. Sure, I helped commandeer a certain costume shop in nearby Norman, traded shots with fellow photogs and scratched my head at all those standing ovations - but aside from some NPPA Workshop schwag, I don’t know squat about media machinations in Oklahoma City. However, I do know a thing or three about the acidic relationship between TV stations and their closest newspaper friends. Friendly, it ain’t. You’re more likely to get that creepy Burger King dude to cough up something he likes about Mayor McCheese than hear a broadcaster point out anything positive about those ink-stained wretches down the road. Likewise, print folk will glady lambast the efforts of their nearest affiliate – often with words we TV dweebs don’t even understand. So when I say I’m fair and balanced in the following reportage, well, you never really believed that hooey, did ya?

Now,I don’t know if reporter Nick Winkler wanted to do this story, but he certainly gave it his all. College professors, ex-readers, newspaper delivery boys all growed-up: dude talked to everybody! Of course the folks at The Oklahoman declined to speak on-camera, but you can damn sure believe they caught every frame of a five part series that pretty much celebrated their impending extinction. You stay classy, Fox 25! Of course by local TV standards, the stories were pretty even handed, though you can almost hear the high-fives being traded back at KOKH. I’m not saying their information was anything less than accurate, but if I crafted that a smarmfest like that, I’d have to go home at lunch just to shower. Worse yet, The Oklahoman followed the station’s playbook by cranking out a shrill set of ads questioning the broadcast outlet’s intent. “Hey, I got an idea! Let’s heap some publicity on that ten minutes of television where they say we suck! Who’s with me?”

I’m not – even though FOX 25 did further dirty the waters by putting together a sixth piece, in which they sought out the reasoned opinion of (shudder) some bug-eyed radio hack. What’s next, some clown in the park wanna pantomime his displeasure with the glaring lack of floppy shoes for sale in the classified ads? I’m all for nuanced analysis of the Fourth Estate, but easy on the self-congratulatory crosstalk, people. Before any of us know exactly what’s happening, the death of local television will be documented too. But it won’t appear in any musty old newspaper. It’ll be twittered, in 140 characters or less. TTFN!