Some Kind of Monster

In an industry that keeps hiring younger and cheaper, it's almost impossible to age gracefully. And while I'm no longer the Velociphotog I was once was, I'm not quite to the Schleposaurus stage. So while I decide whether to chase another news story onto the fruitless plain or merely stumble off into the tar-pits, let's review the Top Ten Signs You've Been Shooting News Too Long...

10) Your first station-issued cell phone came with its own battery belt.

9) You were already working in television the year some of your current reporters were born.

8) You still feel bad about those silly-ass Y2K stories.

7) You remember when the station website was a test pattern.

6) That new photog makes you want to call everyone you worked with when you were twenty-two and apologize.

5) You'd pay good money for a few hours with a working three-quarter inch video deck.

4) You vividly remember quizzing strangers on camera about the shocking new Madonna Sex book.

3) You've spent a fifth of a century on-call.

2) You've watched the smartest people you ever worked with run like hell from this insipid business.

 And the Number One Sign You've Been Shooting News Too Long...

1) You find yourself writing about it on the internet.

Outstanding In His Field

He may not be the FUTURE of news-gathering, but Ed Scannell knows enough to be present. Maybe that's why I see him everywhere: ribbon-cuttings, train wrecks, ribbon cuttings that turn into train wrecks. There I'll be - deep in the sleeve, zooming in on something stupid and my 'slinger sense will start to ping... Blair,  Costner,  Scannell! Actually, I call him Scan-lon, a mistake this dapper cat has never bothered to call me on. I like that. Some on-air types I know bleed through their spleen whenever anyone mangles the name their agent gave them. Not Ed. Then again, he's no pampered hair-do with a latte in one hand and a stack of autographed glossies in the other. He's like me: a denizen of the trenches who shoots, writes and edit up to two minutes of television a day.

Except Ed takes it a step further, walking around  in front of the camera to expound on said subject as if a coterie of assistants lovingly placed him there. That explains the suits. And the hair. Even the voice. And what a voice! Ed's got the mellifluous tone of an off-screen announcer with a delivery that's crisp and devoid of any accent. It's hard not to hate him! And while other news shooters may curse his breed for not needing them, I know Ed to be a resourceful sort. a journalistic journeyman who's not pretending to be anything he's not. We photogs can lament the demise of the specialized lenser, but we shouldn't pass judgement on the likes of Scannell until we've walked a mile of debris field in his thin, possibly pinstriped socks.  

In fact, I'm so suddenly taken with this smooth operator that I've gone to the trouble of clicking on his station's profile page. There, within a few short paragraphs, I learned more about the man than he ever divulged while waiting for the rodeo clown/ body-bag to appear. Did you know Ed hailed from Boston,  worked for years in LA. radio and spent fifteen years as a professional musician? I sure as hell didn't but the very next time we're babysitting crime tape, I'm gonna act like I did. Maybe ask about his time at the Menendez brothers' murder trial, drop some knowledge on that Papal visit he covered, maybe even talk a little O.J.

Who knows? I may even get his name right.

Schmuck Alert: Penn State!

Hey, I'm not the guy to mourn the loss of a live truck, but after watching footage of Penn State students flipping one on its side, I'm reconsidering my long-held spite for these lumbering beasts. At least I can take solace in the fact that the WTAJ live truck lying on its side deserved such an ignoble end. After all, what else do you do when your university fires a folk hero? Express regret over a system that enabled a monster to stalk little boys for many, many years? Stop and consider that something as trivial as college football seems even more inconsequential in the face of serial child-rape? Volunteer to help the victims put their lives back together? Pen a thesis on the poisonous group-think that allowed a sexual predator to hunt children under the auspices of your hallowed university? Naaaaaah, you go out and party! You take to the streets in numbers and destroy everything in sight - all because a football coach you blindly worshiped seems to have little to no problem with pedophilia. Who couldn't get behind a cause like that? 

Well... ME. Then again, I didn't go to college, don't watch a lot of football and generally disapprove of grown men rodgering little boys. Maybe that's why I can't fathom why Penn State students would riot over the professional demise of an athletic coach - a coach! And riot they did, eventually toppling the very live truck that was unmistakeably the culprit in all this unrest. You know, at least the mob that tore Kadhaffi apart had decades of murderous subjugation to blame for their bloodlust. What do Penn State students have - less of a reason to tailgate this Saturday? Now, I've covered enough protests to recognize the extraordinary madness of crowds, but even this one baffles me. It pisses me off, too. I got friends who work in that market and I can only hope and pray that none were injured in this, the world's stupidest melee. Way to go, Penn State! You've forever sullied the name of a once great university, struck a blow in the name of perversion and made the very worst of the Occupy Wall Street crowd seem quite reasonable by comparison. I just didn't think that was possible.

Schmucks!

Tree of Strife

I've watched cops wrap crime tape around many different things: dumpsters, stop signs, dozing hobos. But an innocent set of sticks? It just seems so wrong - like a news shooter interviewing a Senator against a plate glass window 'cause he just don't give a damn. In fact, I wouldn't have thought such banner abuse was even possible, had this photo by KING-TV's Randy Eng not surfaced on the interwebs. Okay, it's no double rainbow, but what does it mean? WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

"A KIRO-TV photographer ran off to interview a person possibly involved with a shooting. Not long after he left, the officer (whose car the tape was tied to) had to leave. The officer was in a hurry, so he wrapped the tape around the closest object and sped away. It was a good thing the officer didn't wait: the tripod wasn't reclaimed until almost an hour later!"

Oh. I was hoping for something more... serpentine - like a photog went rogue, got cuffed and stuffed and pissed off the PO-leece so bad they charged his tripod with inciting a riot. Or maybe a news shooter clicked his heels and just disappeared, leaving authorities so confused they draped his camera stand in commemorative yellow. As it stands (get it?), it just sounds like a lazy cop - which is cool and all, as long as they don't try to arrest any news shooters when they find a squad car covered in extension cord. That'll show them.

The Saint of Crank

Frumpy, cantankerous, and wry. A personal hero. Rooney's reluctant brilliance and hand-chiseled rants first made me think about the words they used on TV. His were always sharp - whether he was railing against long-held dogma or opining on the pleasure of a pencil. War Correspondent, essayist, loveable curmudgeon; Andy Rooney lived a life that cannot be repeated. That a creature as he succeeded in television its a testament to the medium's early promise. He'd have an eve harder time today, when the vacuous and statuesque are spoon fed their rejoinders by an army of feckless scribes. Still, his legacy lives within the hearts of millions who savored his weekly missives, if most especially, me. My fourteen year old daughter  knows who Andy Rooney is. I'm proud of that. Thank you, Sir, for showing me how it's done.  

Snide Before the Fall

You there, with the lime green top and industrial size fanny pack. That thing between your legs is my tripod. You may have noticed it's holding up my camera. In fact, I put it here on purpose - a safe distance from said holy podium and safely behind the seats. Look around and you'll see others like me. We TV types may travel separately, but we gather in packs - especially at events like these. See, sometimes a simple semicircle will do. No jostle, no bother, no rattling knobs like you. I wouldn't feel comfortable saying that to a stranger, but since your every pelvic thrust is causing my lens to wiggle, I felt it was something we could share. Is there not a coat rack in the corner with which you can bump and grind? The view may not be as nice, but you're far less likely to have, say, a hamstring sliced by a TV station key-chain over there. Nooo, that's not a threat - just the self-expressed fantasy of the cameraman whose glaring holes through your threadbare sweater. Are those Garanimals? Ah, there I go again, dating myself: a province I suspect you know well. Really though, can I ask you one question, you know, before I unsheathe my Leatherman and do something your morning rag and my next newscast will both be forced to lead with...

Where does one find a fanny pack that size? And what do you put in it? Your Lincoln Logs collection? I mean, I know you still photogs like to come heavy, but I've done live shots from hot air balloons with less hardware. Anyway, you may want to unbelt that mother and set her down real slow-like -- before the blood loss kicks in and you topple over on us all.

Lavender Crush

Keep your wretched Sex and the City sequels; we need a movie about the modern news woman. Take Sheeka Strickland. As a general assignment reporter, she dashes from palace to crack-house and back again in the course of a single morning. Why her lowliest notebook contains the kind of rare characters and gory story arcs those Hollywood phonies would trade their spray-tans for - and that's just the stuff she remembered to write down! Most of that data traveled straight through the wireless microphone she wields like a diamond-encrusted laser-sighted truth beam. Hell, I once saw her use it to make an entire Wal-Mart parking lot freeze - and that was before I told her the batteries were dead. Yes, Tinseltown would be wise to stop bedding bimbos and instead dramatize the lives of interesting women the globe over. And where better to start than a certain Ms. Strickland?

Yeah, I'm a bit biased. Sheeka and I have logged many a news mile together, broken bread in a half dozen counties, even picked through misery as family members strapped on sidearms. Of course the last time we saw Sheeka, she was picking bits of Hurricane Irene from her lipstick and swearing off Granola bars forever. Now it seems she's in the middle of another storm - a roiling cloud of fancycams, fishing vests and middle fingers all directed at one John Edwards. That's right, none other than the feathery worm himself is making cameos in The Sheeka Strickland Story and I for one have urged her to lock her trailer late at night. Otherwise, she may need more than a posse of photogs to have her back - something any of the lensers who've accompanied this pleasant vet into the fray would be more than glad to do. Hell, we might even take a bit-part in her upcoming bio-pic...you know, provided we ain't gotta talk on camera.

We photogs hate that.