Under the Mast

Ever huddle on the rim of someone's discontent and throw up a big ole antennae? It sounds like an awfully rude thing to do but it's exactly the tactic employed by your typical news crew. I'm talking about those cursed live trucks, a fleet of vehicles I've heaped dispersions on ever since I first piloted one across the Piedmont. Wicked blind spots, missing 9-volts, fast food detritus: the average TV news van has all the charm of a bus stop. And it's that business of waiting I find so grating, for nothing slows time like the rough idle of a fully-striped live truck. Throw in these vehicle's natural attraction to black smoke and fresh traffic jams and you have a couple of reasons why I won't spend my retirement hunting rest stops in a motor home. I'd just as soon sit through all those groundbreaking speeches I left on the cutting room floor... again.

Luckily, most modern day news crews aren't as haunted as I when it comes to manning these outposts. In fact, some even prefer the environs of a remote locale, eager to wallow in near solitude as they process the atrocity of your typical news day. Take Scott and Sheeka. The other day, this intrepid pair positioned their craft outside the Davidson County courthouse and happily hunkered down for an afternoon of editing under glass. Despite my grumblings, I have great respect for that kind of work ethic, so when I finished with my clown convention/three-eared yak/mortuary camp story, I decided to hustle on down there and lend 'em my support... Okay so the suits insisted I go see if they could use some extra help, but hey, if you want a documentary, go turn on PBS, I'm talkin' here!

Now, so where was I? Oh yeah, clinging to the hull of an unmarked news van in the mean streets of Lexington. I only had to knock six times before my colleagues tore themselves away from their laptops long enough to let me in. Inside the lack of tension was palpable. From the looks of the ice level Big Gulp cups, this seasoned news crew has everything under (remote) control. Thus, I decided if I could not help them, I'd harass - er, observe them in action. Sheekers barely noticed, probably because she was locked in a staring contest with a progress bar that refused to blink. It didn't surprise me, as I've found Sheeka (Shakira, to strangers) to be proud, pleasant, poised. She doesn't even lose her cool when certain photogs climb the mast and scream for back-up. How do I know? She didn't even flinch when the fire department came to help me down.

Then there's Scott. A battle-hardened veteran of the South Carolina news skirmishes, Mr. Garrand is highly skilled - without that creepy thousand yard stare that tends to set in during one's second decade of deadline execution. Come to think of it, dude many be the cheeriest news shooter I've ever met - a fact which makes me truly like - if not trust - him. Heck, he didn't even get surly when I grabbed a reflector and tried to turn Sheeka's corneas to dust seconds before air! That's interior bliss, my friend. It's just the kind of cosmic feng shui all news crews should display in the field and I kept trying to let 'em know ()in my own special way) they had my respect and I had their back -- right until Sheeka tossed it to her piece, at which point both reporter and photog turned my way and, ever so kindly, asked me to leave...

Perhaps it was the vuvuzela.

Reflections of a Specter

If you've ever stalked a plate glass window, you might be a photog. Relax, I'm not gonna go all Foxworthy on you - but the above self portrait by Gulf Coast photog Chris Sasser sure makes me want to. Why? Because, there isn't a news shooter alive who hasn't framed up his reflection and hit RECORD for the heck of it. Oh, it ain't vanity -- it's boredom. Hey, YOU loiter in a box store parking lot pretending you're invisible, see if you don't use every prison yard trick in the book. I've been known to count the paces between fire hydrants, scan the perimeter for Rent-A-Cops and keep an eye out for chatty pedestrians.

"You, Ma'am - in the Smurf Island t-shirt - care to tell me your opinion on the moratorium the city's not building? No? Okay, how about your son there. Surely any young man brave enough to bare that much underwear in public possesses a cogent understanding of local events ... if not a belt. What's that? You're calling security? You're aware this is a Wal-Mart, right? You know I slipped the head Greeter a couple of TV station bumper stickers to look the other way? Yeah, it's Standing Operating Procedure for those of us in the Corps - I mean those audio/visual geeks who never grew into a real job. See, it's right here in the Photog Handbook, page three, right between 'How to Dress Slovenly' and 'Why You're Allowed to Drive Like A Cop.' Here, I'll read it out loud...

'When gathering man on the street interviews in possibly hostile parking lots, try to curry favor with the rental authority or volunteer retiree brigade through through the use of station freebies. Coasters, pencils, those logo'd propeller beanies that never really took off... Should they protest, it's often helpful to browbeat them with the name of your consumer reporter - or promise them the requisite goofy weatherman will gladly come to their child's classroom for a game of 'slap and tickle...'

How's that? You hate my station? You can't understand why the traffic chick outlines her lips in eyeliner? (Yeah, me neither.) Hmmm? Your husband is polishing his Conceal/Carry permit back in the El Camino? What's that?He won't let the fact that he's on full disability stop him from pistol-whipping a one person news crew???"

...I'll be over there recording my reflection if you need me.

Calf and a Half

In the justly underrated Young Guns sequel, a late-80's iteration of Billy the Kid (Emilio Estevez. Really?) informs a new victim of his impending immortality. "Yoo-hoo, I'll make you famous," he hisses before cocking his prop... It's an iconic line from a forgettable film and it's stuck with me through years of staring down debutantes and dirt-bags in the name of news. Today it burbled from my lips again as I peered into the abyss of a young calf's cornea. Of course the beast regarded me with udder indifference (sorry!), but the two fat green flies floating over his eyelid did dip and wink at me in some sort of cross-species solidarity. Then again, I could have been hallucinating. It was close to a hundred degrees and my day had turned weird an hour or so earlier, when I slept-walked into the morning editorial meeting only to see three cryptic words etched in dry-erase marker by my name:

Six Legged Cow

Hoo-Boy. Either I was about to point my lens at an after-market bovine or profile a local Emo band with the worst name since Panic! at the Disco. Either way, it was gonna be a hot ticket for nothing tweaks the show-stackers like imperiled animals or troubadours in guy-liner. Me, I'm for anything that'll get me to the end of a digital timeline, be it a little elbow fiesta in a courthouse hallway or a triple-lit sit-down with Bigfoot's sister. Yes, when it comes to assignments, I got no rock-bottom. The producer staff seems to test this theory at every juncture, which is how I came to recite bad movie lines to a three week old calf with two extra legs hanging off his haunches. At no time during my spiel did a young Jon Bon Jovi wander out dressed like some Anglo-American Indian and warbling about drawing first blood, but... truthbetold, had the chick metal heartthrob sprung forth from a rhododendron bush singing 'YMCA', it would have made the day stranger by only a couple of degrees...

But enough of MY drivel. It's YOUR turn to be severely weirded out:

Crazy from the Heat

THIS JUST IN: Summer is here and it's even HOTTER than Spring! I know, I know: it seems pretty obvious, but apparently the nation's TV viewers have a hard time wrapping their heads around this increase in heat and humidity. Why else would local affiliates lose their collective cool as they alarm the populace over this shocking change of season? I dunno...but I can tell you that Hell hath no fury quite like that of an overheated meteorologist. So, while I french-kiss this old water bottle I found in the floorboard of an abandoned news unit, please review the...

Top Ten Signs Your Station is Overdoing its Heatwave Coverage

10) The one guy still left in your Art Department spent the whole day rendering a seventeen second 'Exploding Sun' sequence - that will never air.

9) Worried their many reporter-photog teams were close to perishing in the midday sun, the managers got together and threw an ice cream party for the studio crew.

8) In a morning news satellite interview with Al Gore, the busty weather girl veered away from 'crazed sex poodle' talk long enough to ask a few questions about global warming.

7) The latest WeatherCenter promo looks like the egg-eating scene in Cool Hand Luke.

6) Officials with the local water park AND the nearby homeless shelter have taken out restraining orders against your field crews.

5) By replacing 'Apocalyptic Computer Glitch' with 'Spontaneous Pet Combustion', the Promotions Department people are pretty sure they can rework all those leftoverY2K pamphlets.

4) One of your more senior photogs got caught having carnal relations with the sat truck's air-conditioning vents.

3) The logo'd wifebeaters arrived!

2) The intern blamed for breaking the oversized prop thermometer was indeed forced to 'spend a night in the box'. Charges are pending.

And the Number One Sign Your Station is Overdoing its Heatwave Coverage...

1) Temps the Weather Pooch is sporting a new Brazilian.

Patti Gets Paid

Normally, when someone receives more than a million dollars in damages, it's customary to kid them about buying the next round. But one gets the feeling former photog Patti Ballaz would just as soon do without the money- and skip May 1, 2007 altogether. That's the date members of the LAPD lost their collective minds long enough to assault a group of journalists covering an immigration rally in MacArthur Park. Patti was wearing press credentials and wielding a KTTV fancycam when helmeted officers, apparently worried the Rodney King legacy of years past was fading from the nation's memory, went medieval on the Fourth Estate . It made no sense then; three years later, it makes even less...

Which, in my not so humble opinion, is why a Los Angeles Superior Court jury awarded Patti $1.732 million in damages - after a single day of deliberation. Sound excessive? Apparently, you've never been struck repeatedly by police batons and threatened at gunpoint just for doing your job. That job is one Patti has not returned to. Having received severe physical and emotional injuries from the attack, she opted not to settle her civil lawsuit and went to court instead. Now she has a million dollars to show for it, but even that amount won't render Patti whole...

“May 1, 2007 is a day that I will never forget, it is a day that has changed my life forever,” continued Patricia Ballaz. “My genuine hope is that this trial and its verdict will serve as a strong reminder to the LAPD to think twice about using excessive force in any kind of situation. Our free speech and civil rights are precious and if we can’t rely on the police to protect them, who can we trust?”

Good question, Patti. Should you ever get an answer, let us know. Meanwhile, I'll be respecting you from afar and reminding the official whiskey of Viewfinder BLUES is Maker's Mark, or if you insist, Knob Creek.

Just sayin'...

Nuts and Bolts

Cops, firefighters...hell, even mailmen have plenty of figurines etched in their likeliness. But TV News photographers? Not so much. Perhaps it's our portly profiles, or sordid contortionism or less than noble motives... Whatever it is, something is preventing your local Hallmark shopp from stocking up on tiny dioramas featuring the many adventures of Cecil the Intrepid Cameraman. Yes, if you're a photog looking for a pocket-sized doppelganger, I damn sure hope you like Legos. I sure do, but every once in a while I'd like my effigy with a little less square-face...

Which is why I kinda came unglued the other day when I walked by Weaver's desk (Yes, Weaver and I both have desks in the newsroom) the other day to find a most clever conglomeration of nuts and bolts posing as a neighborhood news crew. In a flash, I grabbed a still camera and framed the metallic 'talent' out of the shot, capturing instead the fierce concentration on the shooter's face. But then Weave got all grabby and the kind of tug of war that would embarrass nine out of ten grown men quickly ensued. I don't want to disclose who won, but let's just say there's a certain Emmy award winning photog who's not above kicking his bestest work buddy in the spleen -- even when said pal is tucked into a fetal position clutching a occupational tool sculpture...

I just wish he hadn't tased me.

~~~

UPDATE! As requested, a wider shot of said sculpture...

Anybody know where I can get one?

The Soggiest Watch

Hey, I'm no alarmist. Most mornings, I spring out of bed like a Ninja, snooze button unmolested. Okay, so I more closely resemble one of those wretched Geico cavemen before breakfast, but that's not what I logged in to discuss. No, I want to talk hurricanes. God knows I'd wish one on no land, but the harsh reality of it is WE. ARE. DUE. Yeah, I know the Gulf Coast is the current poster child for beleaguered regions (and rightly so), but I'm enough of a North Carolinian to remember when our own shores acted as magnets for every other storm with a nickname. Could 2005's Ophelia really be the last hurricane I covered? That seems impossible, but once you've spent a few days surviving on granola, Gatorade and gumption they all seem to blend together....

Which is fine by me.

Fact is, I got more hurricane stories than Jim Cantore on a bender (including a certain unplanned swim I'd sometimes like to forget). Huddling in stairwells, racing sheet-metal down empty beach boulevards, standing in sideways rain while some producer tells the talent to 'keep it short': why the memories are as fresh as a slicker-induced heat rash. Come to think of it, if I'm not careful I'm gonna break out in hives, for no matter how cool a war story that storm coverage will one day make, actually being there is an exercise in suck. Sleep deprivation, hotels that kill the power moments after you check in, gas station food. And that's before the headlining wind ever blows on shore. Once it hits, the real work begins. And with hollow-eyed homeowners standing in line for water, nobody gives one plump shit if the logos you're wearing are less than fresh.

It's almost enough to make this aging photog duck for cover the next time the meteorologist gets weatherection that lasts more than four hours. Almost.

But who am I kidding? I'm certain I'll be among the fools angling for marching orders days before the next storm threatens our coast. Why? Hard to say; it's thoroughly miserable business. In fact, the only thing worse than dodging trash can lids on deadline is watching from afar as your friends and enemies do so without you. Besides, who wants to stick around town and shoot bloodmobiles when the real action is on the coast. Not me - which is why my runbag is already packed. I just wonder what all that continuous storm team smotherage will look like in the age of Twitter accounts and flip cams. Will a new breed of iPhone warriors join the stoned surfers and prickly paramedics out there in the rising surf? Will the current generation of reporters be able to go live continuously - withOUT constantly updating their Facebook pages? Will all those hi-def lenses make the reporter's ass look fat? Or just really, really defined?

Lemme get back to you on that.