For Every Season...

With the season changing from Spring to Summer, the sun will shine a little longer, and bring a change in the chemistry of the newsroom. It happens almost every year in small markets: someone's contract is up, and they cast off the island, setting sail for prosperity and personal growth. I've watched it happen for the last 15 years. It's usually every member of the newsroom, save a photographer. Reporters, producers, and news directors all are in small markets for small amounts of time. It seems to represent a lot of how my life has gone. You make friends with someone, and they leave. It began in the first grade when we moved from St. Paul, Minnesota to Minneapolis. I met new people and made new friends; friends I would have until 7th grade when my dad's new job required us to pull up our upper-midwestern roots and move to the east coast. That was a rough adjustment for a pre-pubescent kid trying to find who and what he is. And since I wasn't good at writing (or calling), those friendships died on the vine. That was when I discovered a band called "Rush". I've been guided by their music, but especially by the wisdom and drumming prowess of their lyricist, Neil Peart. More on that in a later entry.

In the local news business many relationships are superficial. There's no wonder. The stories we broadcast and publish are limited to at most a minute and a half. Hardly enough time to get to know it. And that brevity comes across in the gathering process: you interview someone for the story, and when you know you have enough info to cover it, you stop. And because stations have cut back on employees, there are fewer hunter/gatherers. Hence, the name: "drive by media". Can you blame us? Some relationships run deeper, like if you work with the same people every week, you spend a lot of time in the car to and from the story, and you spend time in the newsroom and edit bay developing the story you're working on. After their inevitable departure, it would be easy for me to stop communicating. But, since technology has advanced past what George and Jane Jetson ever used, I have been able to keep many potentially dead relationships alive using just about everything we have: cell phone, texting, twittering, email, and this blog. In fact, today's technology has revived some relationships I thought were done forever. Thanks, Facebook. 

The people who leave are replaced by people you don't know, and even some people you do know. It's been said that the local news business, among others, operates in small circles. When someone leaves, you will inevitably be reunited with them. Usually at another station. Not this time. David Sawyer, who was our morning meteorologist here at WNCT, and one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet, left in 2003 for Mobile, Alabama, I think it was, and now he will be our chief weather guy starting next month. The sun will shine a little longer.

Pretty Real

This be the viewpoint of one thug.

Violence shatters an otherwise peaceful Sunday. At least 24 bullets screamed between this vehicle and the balcony behind the steering wheel. Most of the rounds went to the left of the railing, through the exterior wall, into someone's living room. One bullet made that trip and went through the steel front door and into the next apartment. The driver's side window is on the driver's seat and the parking lot. The windshield has two holes in it, the door frame to the left has two holes in it, and the dashboard has a hole the size of a fist.

45 caliber and 9 millimeter rounds did the property damage (with hollow point rounds!), and scared the crap out of a lot of people who live at English Village apartments. It's at the end of Peed Drive in Greenville, and managed by Wainright. Not good. The people who live there are very friendly and seem to know most everyone who lives there. They said one of the people who may have been involved only lived there a few months. Maybe Wainright has lowered their standards.

One man I spoke with across the parking lot said the gunfire woke him up at about 4:45 this morning. He wanted to see what was going on in his usually quiet neighborhood. As he opened the front door, POW-POW-POW! Three small caliber rounds hit the door. I noticed the location of where the rounds hit the door. If he had not moved, he would have been hit square in the chest, and in the head. There was a bullet casing lying near the front door. I asked him if he had any lights on, and he said yes. My theory is that this was possibly a gang initiation because a resident heard one of the thugs say: "I got one!" They find a mark, and protect the action from witnesses. They look for lights on at that time of day and cover it. Any movement, and let 'em have it. Just a theory.

Just before I arrived at the scene, I saw two cops parked a few blocks away. I turned to talk to them first. I asked them what they knew about a shooting that took place at the end of the road this morning. I was armed with that information when someone at the scene called our newsroom to tell us about what happened. They actually wanted to talk about it. They were angry enough to want to tell people that this happened in their little neck of the urban woods. Sometimes luck is on our side, sometimes it's on the side of the competition. Turns out, the station claiming to be the "breaking news station" did not have the story at six, even after I had posted it to our website at 1pm. The ABC station used a little bit of info from what I had gathered, and the best they could do with any video was a google image. Sad. The sour economy means a lot fewer resources for tv stations. And now I've just learned of a house fire on Harker's Island, close to a 2 hour drive. So, we won't have video of that, but the ABC station might.

What comes around goes around.

Emotion in Numbers

It was another one of those hot Eastern North Carolina days where if you just stand in one place for a minute, you can feel yourself melting into the tarmac, concrete, or swampland. A situation many would later acknowledge as a sacrifice.

I was among a few hundred of my fellow species pulled together by someone's brain child. Many made a pilgrimage of several hundred miles. Some are worth it, some are not. This one was.

Ninety percent of us had to sit and roast, while the weakest of the herd retreated to the edge of the tree line surrounding the site.

This was the dedication of a Vietnam veterans memorial that reported to be one of a few in the country to have all 58, 229 names of those who did not come home from the war.

Among the usual and expected ceremonial items like a color guard, band, national anthem, and pledge of allegiance, were members of each of the armed forces who spoke to the steaming crowd. Most were thoughtful enough to keep it to brief parables, a couple of them spewed harangues to move the masses into justifying why the project exists and why they should be happy to be fanning themselves with the one page program.

I was told to make a brief story out of this.(or a VOSOT in tv news lingo) But after realizing the scope of the event, it should have been made into something longer (a package with reporter audio). But I was also instructed to get a package on another event already in progress down the street. If I left the dedication ceremony when I needed to, I would have missed the best video opportunities. And I love good video like I love beef. (Don't read into that) The package story video, eventhough it was about drinking water, was as dry as the suicidal earthworms you find on the sidewalk.

During the gathering process of this story I noticed the number of names that are said to be engraved into the 65 glass panes of the memorial. With no strong visual reference to that number, it didn't get much of a reaction from me. When I saw the scope of the memorial, and how much surface area it took to accommodate all the names, the number 58,229 had me. When I watched a woman kiss her hand and lovingly touch it to the name of her loved one, it had me.

It's just a number, it's just a name scratched into a piece of glass. Only to the stoic. This work of expression is sublime. It is therapy. It ellicits powerful emotions, imparting a message from those most passionate about what it represents.

Here's a link to see my edited version of what aired.

http://www.wnct.com/nct/news/local/article/vietnam_veterans_dedicate_a_memorial_in_the_east/38571/

Is perception reality?

Is it just our frame of mind and attitude that determine our perception of things?

Today was one of those days where things were rubbing my fur in the reverse direction. It started at The Home Depot, where I worked a 4 hour shift in the garden department. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy working in the elements especially surrounded by thousands of plants. For some reason I did not want to be at that place on this day. Because while I am grateful for having TWO jobs ( a lot of people don't have ONE), committing 60 or more hours a week to two businesses can take a toll on a person from time to time. Anyway, little things began to add up: screaming children, customers who come in not prepared for what they are about to do (A man buys two 4 foot Yucca plants. He wants me to re-pot them, and somehow get them in his Toyota Camry), and learning even more about a company's cryptic computer system. I have a hard enough time remembering how to operate all the computers at the TV station. That's the trouble with two jobs: there is so much more to know if you want to be valuable to a company.

So throw those things into the mix, add a pound of Friday afternoon traffic,  pour in some lines at the gas station, let it cook in 90 degree heat for a while, then go in and negotiate the vast retail landscape of  Wally World for 8 items, then get into the "Express Lane." I had a choice between two of those lines. I picked the shorter one. Well, the shorter line does not always mean a faster line. When you are either in a hurry, or in a bad mood, someone will pick up on this and decide to delay the checking out process by paying with some cash, and some food stamps, and maybe a gift card to round it out. Well it was at time when I was standing in line with my 8 things wondering why we can take photographs of constellations so far away from here that one's mind will twist into a mustard flavored pretzel just trying to comprehend where the pretty grouping of lights actually is, but there's always a log jam at the checkout.

Well I know that it isn't always that bad. One just needs to know what time and day it is that one can take a wire buggy with a gimp wheel and jacked alignment at a leisurely pace through one of the most vile places in America, and not want to throw a jar of instant coffee through the freezer case. I do. And THAT would put me in a good mood.

Finally...

...I've joined the throngs of people who want to share what's on their minds. I've wanted to for so many years, but life happens, and I've found some time to make THIS happen. So, welcome to my blog, and I hope you find my entries amusing, if nothing else.

I've just cracked the bottle of Mad Dog across the bow of this vessel of scrawl, so please stay tuned for thoughts on current events, what's going on in my world, and, brain droppings.