In Scruff We Trust(ed)

"Its funny how cameramen are such a scruffy set. They spend all their time at the biggest functions in the world, yet they manage to look like tramps. ... Its no use use wearing good clothes anyway – they don’t last five minutes. You clean your lenses with your tie, and lie down on the ground to take an angle shot; you tear your trousers as you climb through a fence. No, a cameraman is better off scruffy."

And so it was written in 1947, laying down a legacy of leisure-wear modeled by sloppy photogs the world over. That's right, cabana fans, we're here to talk about what you're wearing. Me, I got no problem with it. Then again, I got more Hawaiian shirts and cargo shirts hanging in my closet than every other Dad in the cul-de-sac combined. They more than make up for it with their fancy cars and holidays off, but do they know the rush of waltzing into a stuffy Republican fundraiser dressed like they're fresh off a fly-fishing trip? Have they ever rolled up on a train-wreck wearing actual hobo-clothes? Can they fathom what it's like to ask a world leader a question while rockin' darkened armpit circles and hiking boots? Highly. Unlikely.

If they did, they'd stop giving us photogs the stink-eye, for then they'd realize half the fun of being an assignment roadie is dressing like one. Until then, count on the gentler set to continue judging you at a dozen paces. Sure, they'll stop to kiss your glass when it's to their advantage but otherwise that rather gamey concert T will only ruffle their designer feathers. I ain't sayin' that it's right; only that it IS. Ever since the first horn-rimmed engineers erected the first empty tube, those of us tasked with filling it with pictures have focused far more on what we see than how we look. Our on-air cohorts know it's true. More than one reporter has raised a sculpted eyebrow over how their shooter chose to cover himself that day. We as a breed tend to shrug it off, but now a new animal is threatening to unravel our sartorial gnarl...

Vee-Jays. Multi-mediums. Ratpack Journalists. Whatever you call them, these crews of one are popping up everywhere and it's a safe bet they look better than you. Hell, I know one statuesque 'slinger who could find steady work modeling for one of those aircraft nose art calendars. Technically, that's a sexist statement - but what did you expect from a guy sporting a Cannonball Run press-on decal where most folk park a polo player...decorum? Perhaps, but I for one can't help but notice how the new breed of newsgatherer eschews the look of old and aims for something a bit more respectable. Chalk it up to those tiny cameras they sport - or the fact that so many of them double as their own on-camera talent. That's a tough gig and if you can pull it off in something other than lumberjack clothes, well - my non-ironic trucker hat's off to ya. Now if you don't mind I gotta gubernatorial debate to attend....

Anybody seen my serial killer pants?

Shakes on a Plane

Whereas I spent the day locked in a box watching stagnant water, The Mighty Weave took to the heavens. That bastard. Actually, I can't blame the guy. He was nothing but hunched over his newsroom computer the other day when The Assignment Guy laid the high-flying gig at his feet. I know; I watched the whole transaction from a cubicle away, barely suppressing the urge to scale the partition and the both of them with my Leatherman. I would have done it too, but my Leatherman was in the car and at the time I was writing under deadline. Besides, Weaver's probably the better choice join professional news lady Cindy farmer as she did loop-the-loops over Winston-Salem.

See, dude's a bit of an astronaut. We both came of age outside the same Air Force town, but I was never able to recite the specs of every swooping war-bird quite the way Chris did. When the two of us (separately) took up the lens years later, we worked our respective fancycams for entree into many a cockpit. Me, I favored hot air balloons, homegrown helicopters and a near hallucinogenic ride aboard the Goodyear Blimp. Weaver liked to go fast, strapped in, upside down if you let him. I suspect he's hoping he'll get to take over the controls himself one day - but only if he could figure out a way to capture the whole death-defying ordeal from every possible camera angle. He is a photog, after all.

But there's another reason Weaver's got the upper hand, one I don't broach easily. Flying - height in general, really - scares the shit out of me. What can I say, I got a fertile imagination and a vocabulary to match it. I've never let my mild phobia stop me from crawling aboard whatever aircraft that would take me. I've even jumped out of a semi-perfectly good plane, parachuting to the Earth while sporting a mullet straight out of 'Roadhouse'. If that doesn't take grapes, I don't know what does - even if I did freeze up a dozen years later after stumbling out of a Las Vegas elevator and onto the top floor of the Stratosphere. I still say that had more to do with blood alcohol content and sleep deprivation, but I understand if the likes of Portier weigh in to differ.

It's inconvenient, really. People - pilots included - assume the cameraman who shows up for the airplane ride to be pretty stoic. Usually I pull it off, though there have been a handful of times where I made deals with any deity listening while scrunched down in the co-pilot's seat: Get me down and I won't get back up. But I tell you is this: Despite a lifelong dread of falling to my death and a plate full of unedited Floyd retrospectives, I would have jumped at the chance to take Weaver's spot on that chase plane - if only to scratch another sphincter notch on my Sony. Still, the News Gods made the right choice, for if - God forbid - something were to go happen to the pilot in mid-flight Weaver would push the guy aside and request a vector, Victor. Me - I'd simultaneously soil myself while swearing in seven syllable soliloquies.

It's the only way to fly.

Breaching the Fiefdom

Like a weathered but still proud gargoyle hunched above the Fourth Estate, the broadcasting vet can't help but wonder what's crumbling underneath. Okay it's not that Gothic, but the rate of decay is all the talk in the TV News kingdom, from the Earls of Anchordom to the serfs with tripods in their oxcarts. From my particular perch, I see nothing but upheaval on the horizon, a relentless schism that will leave the media landscape unrecognizable to all but who enter it anew. Then again, I'm not the only stone monkey dragon thingie peering into the distance. Many a village elder and more than a few damsels in tight dresses have clamored for a better view. What they've spotted has caused many of them to breach the fiefdom, to run screaming for higher ground, wherever their checkbooks or cheekbones would take them. Me, I'm part of the architecture - but even a sculpted dolt like me has to ask himself...

"Why am I still hanging around?"

That query is answered of course every time I pull into Castle Pittman. Let's face it: no one's going to pay me to sit around and pen venomous epistles for the internet. Not yet anyway. There's plenty of TV in my future and not just the 42 inch Sony I sit with my back to most every night. No, I make my living off the evening news and while it ain't the deep kick it was back in '91, I still dig it more days than not. Truthfully, it's all I know. Running around mass communicatin' is something I've done for most of my adult life. Thus, I see the world through a prism of lenses, one eye buried in the 'finder while the other scans the room for the very next view. It ain't a habit that lines your pockets with silver. Dead 9-volts, maybe, but not silver. That kind of currency's reserved for folks with far duller gigs that mine. I get paid in access, perspective and two week increments. It'll never land me a shopping spree in Belize but I knew that the moment I first dedicated myself to the pursuit of news. I just never realized how quickly the world would change.

But it has.

Audience, technology, resources and rewards are at levels unthinkable just a few years back. Even us squatting quadrupeds have had to sit up and take notice - a tough enough nut when you're forever burdened with deadlines and live shots. From here, it's easy to bury your head in the morass of the next newscast, provided those newscasts keep on coming. I'm not so convinced they will, which is a helluva thing to mutter out loud, for when I first hoisted a fancycam it was generally agreed the evening news would last forever. Well, score one for the odd oracle out there who predicted a renaissance. Most of us weren't listening, cleaving instead to our individual disciplines as the calendar pages fanned before us. Me, I got lost in the pixels and fell in love with a form of communication that never had much respect for itself. That's cool; I didn't have much else planned anyway. But as the rub of unending updates has worn away my reserves and I find myself wondering if I should have a crack at my shackles and at least attempt to fly away. Sure beats choking on the coming rubble...

Now help me up, would ya? My haunches are killing me.

"All the Best"

According to a strict set of bylaws I just made up, I'm unable to classify this on-camera confrontation as a Schmuck Alert - since no cameras were accosted. But one gets the feeling New Zealand reporter Matt Chisholm would have preferred a Kiwi beatdown over the reaction he got from a strangely - ahem - affection meat-cutter. But I'm getting ahead of myself. It all started when TVNZ's Close Up began investigating claims of horse meat being sold for human consumption. EWWWWW!

Anyway, Chisholm and his lenser do their due diligence - collecting evidence and recording incriminating video before they corner the beefiest of butchers. The ensuing encounter begins typically enough, with Slaughterhouse Clive denying any knowledge of said horseplay. But then, just before the two minute mark, things. get. weird. I'll let your imagination do the rest, but just know Sam the Butcher's urge to cuddle wasn't just unexpected, it was positively genius - as it nearly unraveled our inquisitve friend (who was doing so well until then!). Will this kind of press reception catch on? Hard to tell, but a nation of news crews are already testing that theory by trying to catch rising ingenue Megan Fox in anything unlawful - in hopes her response will be equally amorous. Good luck with that fellas...

(Much love to Stephen CameraGod Press for the heads-up...)

Station to Station

If unpacking gadgets in the shadow of catastrophe is your idea of a fun afternoon, have I got a gig for you. So too does Sean Browning - one of man L.A. based lenslingers caught stalking the plume of the Station Fire. Now I've never covered an inferno of those dimensions, but I have made plenty of Tee-Vee on the side of the road and I can tell you it's not without its potholes. Knuckle-scraping cable spools, passing traffic, a Greek chorus of wisecracking firefighters ... throw in a couple of troublesome Double-AA's and you understand why I've been spotted spinning like the Tasmanian Devil around any number of these modern day chuckwagons. But enough about me - check out the gear! I've staged whole telethons with less equipment! Ya know, it's enough to make this East Coast schlub wanna wing it to Hollywood and get my very own logo'd stagecoach. Hell, I could stand chasing wildfires and mudslides, freeway chases and dead celeb--

On second thought, I'll stick with Hurricanes and Swine Flu...

Unnecesarry Bluffness

See, here's the thing: YOU KNOW Chris Rock ain't in town just as well as I KNOW Chris Rock ain't in town. But when your company issues a 'Press Release' stating (and I quote) "Chris Rock will be in High Point previewing his new movie..." well, you set more than a few news wheels in motion. It starts in the newsroom, where someone whose job it is to decipher incoming faxes suddenly begins speaking in tongues known only to Pentecostal grifters. Now, before I can even duck under my desk, said sinner locks eyes on me and the loopy arm movements and broken syllables increase tenfold. At this point, all logic is suspended - for while everyone in the newsroom realizes the chances of Rock being on this side of the state line are damn near nil, we're obligated to assume it's true, lest we blow it off only to see the popular comedian yukking it up at six on another station.

From here on out, the adventure's mine. Sure, someone from the Art department begins scouring celebrity websites for a suitable image and a few producers debate what movies they should include in the filmography that will follow our sure-to-be exclusive interview - but I'M THE GUY hurtling down the interstate, triangulating surface street stoplights while digging fresh batteries out of the glove box for my digital camera. By the way, you ever run a Cadillac full of elderly furniture shoppers off the road 'cause you were dickering with a memory card when you should have had your mind on the merge? It's a lousy feeling - especially when you finally arrive at prescribed destination only to find the only Chris Rock on the premises is the cardboard cut-out you're not allowed to shoot.

Now don't get me wrong: I like you guys! Your company makes an interesting product and we've done good work together in the past. I'm equally stoked that a big name like Chris Rock made note of your firm in his new film. In fact, I'm happy to do a story on it, but this kind of subterfuge wastes my time and makes us both look silly. It's akin to me calling you up and saying, "Hey, Katie Couric is in town and she wants to tour your plant! Quick, clean up - she's on her way over RIGHT NOW!". Now, I would never do that - and not just because I have absolutely no affiliation with the leggy CBS anchor. Speaking of leggy, that PR lady you sent to intercept me at the movie theater was gorgeous! She could have been a toothpaste model, which would be damn handy since it kinda feels like you guys took a dump in my mouth. Un-Cool. You know, were I a more industrious sort (and not some TV news geek with questionable driving habits), I'd take your little press release around the country as a sterling example of how companies can screw themselves out a well-deserved press opportunity. You know for that kind of presentation, I'd need someone to front it, someone funny, famous and full of street cred...

Someone like, Chris Rock... I hear he's in town.

Nuggets from Doug

And to think I was worried Doug Richard's blog would suffer when we he went back to work. Hardly! Ever since the mind behind Live Apartment Fire signed up with Atlanta's WXIA, he's spoken truth to power with a flurry of posts that would be preposterous were they not so spot-on. This guy's on fire! And I'm not just saying that because he's heaped undue praise on me in the past. No, I click on LAF 'cause it's written by a real person - not some overblown, chiseled phony you see sleepwalking from Sports to Weather, but an honest to God reporter who knows how to play dead in a live truck, where to grub in the inner city and how to act when the shit goes down. If that weren't enough, Doug's doing it all under his real name, thus incurring the slings and arrows of every nutbag with a Blackberry in the greater Atlanta Metroplex. That takes grapes, not to mention a conscious effort never to take one's self too seriously. Trust me: it's harder than you think. In my nearly five years of constant blogging , I've more than earned the wrath of certain competitors and colleagues - simply by pixelating one lenser's opinion. But enough about my busy dance card, this post is for Brother Doug, who's found a paying gig without giving up his voice. Still not convinced? Consider his recent list of newsgathering truisms - which includes a tip so tried, so true, so trenchant - every new reporter should commit it to memory.

8.) If the phone rings at five minutes after noon, beware. It means that the newsroom managers have seen something on a competing TV station’s noon news that your station has overlooked. The phone call means you’re being asked to recoup on a story with a rapidly fading pulse. Consider waiting five minutes, then return the call. The problem may solve itself.

Quick, somebody etch that in stone before I'm forced to write it in lipstick on the ladies room mirror. Then who will be lookin' for work?