Warping the Fourth (in 3-D!)

With all this talk about 3-D TV coming to a cable channel near you, it's not a s-t-r-e-t-c-h to think your nosey neighborhood news crew might want in on the action. How that might further warp the Fourth Estate remains to be seen, but I'm willing to whip up a Top Ten list - if you promise not to assign me a camera the size of a Hemi!

10.) For years microphones have gotten smaller. Look for that to change as field reporters refuse to wade into even a minor scrum without one of those skinny Bob Barker numbers. How else they gonna joust for sound?

9.) 3-D could singlehandedly (triplehandedly?) save that most endangered commodity: local TV sports. Who else is gonna bring you team coverage of the high school cheerleader pyramid? You know, besides those pay-websites...

8.) Mark my word: The first time they cover a hurricane with 3-D cameras, some reporter will finally get their head cleaved off by a flying trash can lid. It should be spectacular.

7.) What good is an extra dimension without some schwag to fling into the void? Look for carrier pigeons, floppy discs and station flamethrowers to make an immediate comeback.

6.) Will that giant, acrid plume rising from the warehouse fire on the edge of town set off smoke detectors across the tri-county region? And what happens when a single marijuana extraction story gets half the Heartland high? Rhetorically speaking, of course.

5.) Journalism. It's all fun and games, 'til someone gets their eye poked out.

4.) High speed chases will get a whole new look as news choppers shoot 3-D camera drones into the cockpit of some hopped-up Nova for proper fly-around footage of whatever drunken mullet's behind the wheel.

3.) Hostage stand-off, street riot, tsunami, kindergarten Easter Egg hunt. Introduce a three dimensional news crew into either if these scenarios and somebody's goin' down!

2.) With field crews having all the fun, expect the anchor teams to demand management build them a 3-D set... Aquariums, dried ice, scepters, and over the shoulder graphic boxes that spin in and out of frame like expertly thrown Ninja stars. Look out!

and finally...

1.) Think the Weather Guy's got a God complex now? Wait 'til he can hurl logo'd thunderbolts across your rec room.

Licensed to Ill

My plans to post only polished insight this calendar year have already been derailed, thanks to a giraffe with one scratchy, spotted throat. Okay, so I don't precisely remember walking through the cloud of crystallized giraffe spit, but the fact remains that I spent a good twenty minutes ambling through the North Carolina Zoo's African Animal paddock and limped away feeling like a lesser life-form. From all that I can gather, the microbes entered through my auditory canal. Maybe that's why one ear feels like it's smuggling apricots while the other feels like it's been thoroughly blow-torched. Hey, I'm no doctor; I didn't even stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night. For all I know, whatever crawled in my hed and dies did so long before I ever made it down to Asheboro. But as long as I have a half-imagined inter-species sneeze to blame for my maladies - well, that's my story and I'm stickin' with it...

Pity, if you will, my wife. A tough little woman with a decade of ER shifts under her belt, she must contend with a husband who can smother a simple head cold in hundred dollar words. In fact, the only reason I'm able to communicate with you now is due to the fact that The Missus has pumped me full of multi-colored, magic pills. I'm not sure what they were exactly, but after swallowing them I played air guitar in the closet for an hour and a half. She say's she'll give me more in the morning - if only I refrain from complaining so much. You got a deal, honey, but if you load me up too much I may very well play Purple Haze behind my back again. But enough of my delusions. I really just checked it to check out. See, I don't feel so good. Whjetehr I wake up with a hankerin' for tree leaves remains to be seen. Just do me a favor, eh? Send someone over to check on me in a day or so. I'll be right here, licking my ankles with my new purple tongue or trying to scratch out The Star Spangled Banner on the family cat...

You may wanna knock first.

Class Under Glass

Tonight on Quantum Leap, Sam jumps all the way back to 1972 for a rollicking turn as Horace Riprock, a beefy news-gatherer with an eye for fashion. Can he win the ratings and save his station? Or will the sleazy owners turn it into a disco? Before he can find out, Sam/Horace must rescue Holo-pal Al from an aging oscilloscope, convince a bumbling consultant that film will last forever and stave off the affection of a boozy noon anchor (special guest star Morgan Fairchild), who has a well-known thing for 'slingers... 'Oh boy', indeed... (CC) 60 Min 9PM

Next Week: The behind the scenes hi-jinks continue as Dr. Sam leaps into the all black threads of alleged visionary Michael Rosenblum, moments before he takes on arch nemesis Nino in a fight to the finish cage match! Warning: Some scenes may disturb viewers too young to care...

Change You Shouldn't Believe In...

New Year's Resolutions? I can't keep a pair of toenail clippers for more than a fortnight; how am I gonna keep a pledge for twelve whole months? Simple...I'm not. But I am going to share with you ten, er seven things I'd do to improve myself over the next 52 weeks - were I the kind of guy who to follow up on an oath. Which I'm not. Promise...

In 2010 I resolve to drive less with my knee, to use a turn signal like a law-abiding mortal and to stop flipping people off beneath the dashboard, where they can't see it. Unless of course they cut me off. Then IT'S ON like Grand Theft Auto, baby!

This year I promise not to daydream so much during protracted press conferences, but rather glean every syllable of said podium blather for meaning, nuance and implication. That or purge my iPod of any new Abba medleys my wife may have uploaded.

I hereby affirm that in the next calendar year, I'll continue to pepper my speech with words people just don't expect to hear from a TV news photographer! Words like 'obdurate', 'allegory' and 'Excuse me Officer, is it okay if I park here?'

In 2K10 I resolve not to take a hostage when the weather turns hot. Sure, it's sixteen degrees now, but just as soon as I find all my cold weather gear, the last wind will blow and an underwear-expanding blanket of humidity will once again make this Southerner threaten to move to Maine, fur-shirt and all...

Over the next twelve months I pledge to work by myself more than ever before, if for no other reason than it irks certain colleagues who are too lazy, unwilling or frightened to try it themselves. Have fun with those evening live shots, fellas!

In Twenty-Ten I vow to be a more mature news-gatherer, to thank the assignment desk for any directions, to nod and smile when berated about a bump I've already cut, to exercise a little verbal @&*%$ restraint when The Suits want to send me to Choad County for a photo essay at the Septic Tank Sit-In.

Finally, in 2010 I resolve to cut down on the many lists I post to Viewfinder BLUES. After all, lists are eerily sequential, rarely original and almost always a rip-off of something David Letterman's already done. That reminds me, have I ever told you my top twelve ways to confess an indiscretion. #1) Get a talk show...

Dream Job

Ever have that dream where you're tuning in a live shot and the engineer on the other end of the line starts speaking in hieroglyphics? Then you look up to see a badly smoking spacecraft crashing past and you realize that's just the kind of thing you dreamed of seeing when you first picked up the lens and wouldn't it be life-inspiring to capture such a sequence for all of mankind instead of HOARKIN' AROUND WITH SOME NEARSIGHTED BATTLE-WAGON FROM HELL! And then suddenly you're holding on for dear gear as the golf cart you're in jostles side to as you and a weasel - an actual weasel - chase an inebriated NASCAR legend through a cactus-packed back nine. Through thick cigar smoke the weasel rattles on and on about Ricky Bobby's tight schedule and immediate need for aloe so you lean down low to get a shot of the velvety green landscape strobing by and you lean too far and in an instant you're tumbling in a giant dust-ball of fresh faxes, bad toupees and late 80's bag-phones. By the time you come to a stop you're completely bedraggled and as you shake off the hurt and rise from the now vacant dreamscape you find you can hardly move and that's when you realize you're weighed down by ever camera battery you've ever 'borrowed'... With ever dreaded step, the fanny pack full of lead around your waist grows heavier until it's very shadow blots the sun! Soon you're but a bug squashed beneath a bulging blue canvas satchel the size of a space station and as you lie there trapped for all eternity, the IFB speaker jammed in your ear comes alive and you perish there slowly, as the distant signal of control room coworkers riffing on last night's episode of "Glee" taints your dying breath. You ever have that dream?

Me neither.

Sociopath Wanted

Perhaps the most shocking thing about last month's murder of Makayla Sitton is that the man responsible remains at large. Hopefully that will change, now that none other than America's Most Wanted has joined the hunt. Paul Michael Merhige was a guest in veteran TV photojournalist Jim Sitton's home on Thanksgiving evening when family members say he inexplicably opened fire, killing three female relatives before going into six year old Makayla's bedroom and shooting her dead as she slept. The mind reels. So too, do the survivors. But through all the unspeakable loss, Jim and Muriel Sitton have remained vocal guardians of their daughter's legacy. This I hope provides some solace, but the real healing will begin with the capture, prosecution and (dare I say) execution of her killer. Maykala's dad Jim is a highly respected member of the Photog Nation. Many of his behind the scenes brethren would be especially pleased if television - in the form of America's Most Wanted - played a part in the apprehension of this animal.

CAPTURED!

(From The Keys to a Cage)

Not long after Merhige's ugly mug was splayed across the airwaves, an America's Most Wanted viewer called in with a tip, leading authorities to a small motel in the Middle Keys of Florida. A 'John Baca' had paid in cash there for a two week stay. According to reports, Paul Michael Merhige was on a computer when U.S. Marshals burst into that room. (I'd love to know what he was looking at.) Marshals apprehended him without incident and found his Toyota Camry nearby, underneath a car cover. Merhige faces four counts of first-degree murder. Hopefully, the Sittons can begin to heal. But as Jim himself says...

"This doesn't bring Makayla back. I'm not jumping for joy. Her room is still empty. But the monster is in a cage now."

2009: Ten I Can Live With

Listen to your keyboard long enough and you'll recognize its rhythms. That's what I do more nights than not: sit and stare at a glaring laptop until one of us starts to talk. I know, I know: strange pastime - but hey, the hobby shop was out of model airplanes. Besides, what other unpaid endeavor allows one access to a glowing, mocking screen - one whose very cursor taunts the creative spirit with every wretched blink? Forget I mentioned it. Just know that for every fortnight of thwarted expression, an epistle slipped by that even a self-doubting lout can live with. Here's ten from within 2009, in particular order:

Life, the Universe and Everything By years beginning, I was channeling Douglas Addams, in hopes 2009 would pack the punch of a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster. So far only fizz, but I still like the way this birth announcement goes down...

Dear Madam Here's a deal: You don't wet your pants whenever I point the fancycam your way and I won't be forced to vent my spleen all over the internets that very evening. Until then, clean up on Aisle 5.

Eau De Photog Speaking of messes, you oughta get a whiff of your average news day. Equal parts smoke plume and generator fume, this bouquet boasts the bottom end of a cadaver dog and the top notes of a homeless camp. And that's not counting the stench comin' off that guy behind the camera...

You There... Of all the blather I've slathered across the web this year, this entry sparked the biggest response, from coworkers who fived me in the hallway to the shapely object of my disaffection who cornered me in the edit bay that day. Can't say I regret a moment of it...

Satisfaction Doubtful As an avid student of the Exploration Age, I've been meaning to fashion a post after those great recruiting posters promising little more than pain and suffering. I just never had a suitable image to go along with it - until a frustrated Carter Francois popped up on Flickr.

Fair and White-Balanced Far be it from me to hate on another news shooter, but this particular entry was interpreted as such. More than anything I was admiring a competitor's chutzpah - if not his idea of suitable light. Still waiting for this guy to bean me in the back of a head with a nine volt battery someday...

Pursuing Hootie I've chased a lot of famous people, from Nikki Sixx through an underground parking garage to Paula Abdul through her latest delusion. But few have been so gracious as the artist formerly known as Hootie - who even took time to chat about The Attic.

As Seen on TV Long before Billy Mays ordered up that one last 8-ball, I tried my hand at beign a pitchman. So far no one's hired me to host their infomercials, but I feel that has more to do with my budding curmudgeon(ism) than my spray-on beard.

Breaching the Fiefdom Hey, even a jaded gargoyle like me can't help but notice the Fourth Estate is crumbling beneath my talons. Thus I filed this grim report from my not so lofty perch - despite the fact that, assignement-wise, it's been a pretty fly year!

No Rhythm Required Then again, perhaps I'm still a bit giddy from the Father-Daughter dance I attended last February. Ya know, it won't be long before I'm back in the Empire Room, threatening my teenage daughters with one photog's attempt at The Robot... I knew this blog was good for something.