A Grateful Head

Two of my Thanksgiving favorites: turkey and a fire.

Photo thanks to Ricardo DeAratanha of the Los Angeles Times

From time to time we are reminded of how lucky we are to have certain things. Today is set aside to put a little more brain power into it because we're better for it.

For me, I will begin with thanking all the people of the armed services, and law enforcement who are putting their lives on the line, or who are in foreign countries serving their own. Thank you for that sacrifice.

I am thankful for having such a good surrogate family at WGHP Fox 8. I feel very comfortable with my new job in High Point, NC. It offers me the opportunities to be creative, and the challenges I need to grow professionally.

I am grateful for having good genes that enable me to think about this stuff, type it up, and want to share it with others-even if only a few people read this blog. This also includes my good health during my 44th trip around the sun. So, thanks dad, mom, and all the others down the family branches who've made me possible. I am very thankful to my immediate family for their continued support throughout a very trying time in my life. The biggest shout out goes to my dad, who I think of as a modern day Mother Teresa. He has given me the gift of life, love, and time. I'm eternally grateful for that.

I am also very thankful for having Alexandra Poindexter in my life. Some things in life were meant to happen, and my relationship with her is one of them. She has helped me be the person I truly am. Every day she gives me boundless love and gut wrenching laughter. I could not ask for a better friend than who I have in her.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you.

Holy crap!

Save the Plane(t)

We live in an amazing and amusing world. We, as a species, like others before us, are only here for a short period of geological time. Unlike our predecessors, we have the ability to see the potential end of our existence. There are many who have taken up the cause to delay that end, or even stop it from happening. The environmentalists for one. But recent news headlines have shown the Japanese airline, All Nippon, taking it to new heights. They are asking people to lighten the load of their planes by evacuating their bladders pre-flight. If you can empty your pipes too, that would be even better. And, perhaps you could get a first-class upgrade if you jammed your finger down your throat and sacrificed your last meal. Hell, why don't they offer liposuction or kidney donation at the gate? There are so many benefits to reducing carbon emissions.

"Congressmen with Guts"

Not too long ago, few people had heard of these guys, Florida Democrat Alan Grayson, and South Carolina Republican Joe Wilson. That was before they chose to speak their minds bluntly. Wilson went first when he shouted "You lie!" at President Obama during his last speech to Congress on health care. That outburst is apparently what many Americans wanted to say, and finally, a congressman had the stones to do it when it counted--a high profile gathering of lawmakers and the public at home watching the event. For Grayson, a Bronx-born, Harvard-educated lawyer, his shocker fell out last week when referring to the GOP health care plan: "Don't get sick. And if you do get sick, die quickly." I'd like to hear more honesty. Not just on the hill, but everywhere. Honest opinions can lead to quicker resolutions to problems at many levels. Honesty may start a war, but it would be a necessary war. And if I do happen to start a war with this opinion, let's make it quick, I've got to empty my bladder.

Back in the Saddle

After countless years of dying, (remember my dictum: "you're either growing or you're dying), and 39 days without turning a story, I am in a new groove. A new market, city, station, gear, and people. All great things that have been that carrot just out of reach for so long. I could not ask for better co-workers than the people at WGHP. I've never felt so welcome and included. I have every opportunity to grow and learn more about the craft I have chosen. I am grateful to Karen Adams, the station GM, all the department heads who have been so warm and open with this new face--a photographer!? (New concept to this wavescribe of 15 years). But mostly, I am grateful to my mentor, chief photographer Keith Hale who is extremely generous and caring about the product and the photographers. He has taken me under his wing and made sure I was ready to fly with the rest of the flock.

Today I spent with weekend meteorologist and weekday reporter, Charles Ewing. Our story was about a proposed parking ramp for down town Greensboro. The gathering would be pretty easy at first, but we would have to wait until 3pm to get additional b-roll and sound, then cap it off with a live shot at 6pm at city hall. As this would be my first live shot too, Keith set up the shot, giving me thorough instruction as we went along. In the rain. I edited and fed the pkg and Keith did the live. There were some bumps along the way, but the day had lessons learned in it, and I am, once again, a better person for being here.

Accentuate The Positive...

...eliminate the negative. That's the gist of what a wise and fun-loving friend of mine, George Crocker told me tonight. (In the picture to the left, George sits with WNCT UberProducer, Rachel Gallaher and incredibly efficient editor Alexandra Poindexter.)

I had been reflecting on my 15 years in this market and said that there had been many bad events, but there were also good ones. The bad ones were really bad, like a nasty divorce, and the good ones were really good, like all the friends and experiences I've had with them.

In 15 years I've worked with at least 30 reporters and producers, and 7 news directors. I have gained a great deal of knowledge, much of it I have passed along to the reporters as they came through market 105. Most of them were grateful for it as they had the maturity to know that the advice was coming from the heart, and was meant for their edification and professional growth. But their acceptance also stemmed from an inherent sense of respect for someone who had made many more trips around the sun than they. On the other hand, there were others, including one reporter still at my former station who were above any advice. They thought of themselves as an island. They thought my counsel was condescension, and that their success would come from the superficial and naive notion that how you look or sound will make you an idol. I feel sorry for people like that, and I feel bad for people who have to hire people like that, even though there are better candidates.

So as I begin a new chapter in my life, I am reminded to remember the good things. I may never forget some of the bad things that happened, but those are not worth dwelling on. Those should be used as a moral. You've heard the phrase: If we don't remember the past, we are doomed

to repeat it. It was meant to reinforce positive behavior, and repel bad. I think it

works another way: If we remember the past, we are likely to repeat it--like my reporter friends Andrew Doud and Philip Jones hamming it up at a recent dinner in my honor, while another reporter friend Parul Joshi approves in the background. That's something I'd like to accentuate. And I will.

Tired, But Still Worth It

Just finished work day number 5 of what will be 10 straight. Six of them include my second job. I just hope that by the end of it, my ass can catch up to me as I will be going into 10 straight days OFF! and I want my ass to enjoy it with me. I need something to lay on while I enjoy my freedom from work, and freedom from marriage. This week I received the paperwork that officially declared the marital chain destroyed. The chain that tethered me to a very uncomfortable 19 year relationship.

During the average newsgathering day, a reporter, or reporter/photographer team will gather two stories. On most weekends, the lone hunter/gatherer, in our case, the photographer, will scrape up three or four stories. For me, Saturday was brought by the number 4. Three local stories, and one that required an hour and a half drive to the coast. I will never complain about having to go to the water--especially the ocean. Yes, even if hurricane Shaniqua is bitching her way into the coastline, I will still be there with my goggles, shorts and aqua socks to say:"ok, gimme sexy!" or, "you're a tiga" and paw at it. I've been sandblasted by every one of those swirlies since '96. Her name was Bertha.

Anyway, this time the water was covered with boats of all sizes, and some of them had cannons that were fired. Blanks of course. It was the re-enactment of when, in 1747 some bold Spanish pirates came into Beaufort, the oldest harbor in the state. They were met by some locals who put together a milita, and defeated the invaders. The event gave many an excuse to dress up like they might be going to a halloween shindig. Lots of people really got into it, and had a great time. I went into the day charged with making a long format nat sound package out of it. By the time I could legally park the car and walk several blocks to get to the action, it had already begun, and there wasn't enough ingredients to make a delicious nat pkg. We settled for a 30 second VO. Not much for three hours of driving, but sometimes, that will be the price of broadcasting an interesting event. And it reinforces a big reason why I do what I do: access.

Economic Manifestation

I don't know how the rest of the country is managing to tread water in this sea of economic turbulence, but here in eastern Nawf Cack I've noticed a couple of trends. The most notable being the escalation of  crime. It usually involves drugs. If not, then it's a violent crime committed against a family member (but even then it may still be about drugs). It seems more people have been shot this year than any other. Some of the victims happened to exist in the fringes of the darkness that is a perpetrator's realm. Like the two people killed earlier this month in downtown Greenville who were standing in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Most victims have immersed themselves in that darkness, rolled the bones every day, and eventually came up with snake eyes. Arguably, this demographic favors the young, black male. Thus, many of these, in their over-sized clothes and hats are stereotyped. I spoke with an African-American city council member the other day after a meeting with downtown business owners. They were trying to come up with solutions to the violence inherent with a large cluster of alcohol-serving establishments in proximity to a university. She was upset at how her nephew, who dresses like a thug is treated like a thug. She insisted he is not.  She is one of several narrow-minded politicians in this county who are quite comfortable with their head in the sand.

The other trend I noticed today while driving an hour south to cover a news event. Yard sales. They have cropped up this season like clovers. They come in all sizes too. Some you can wander through the entire yard and into the house, some are simply a man leaning against the back of his car with two items laid out in front of him with a sign that reads: "YARD SALE". I must have come across at least 30 of these "sales" in my hour drive. People are trying to get rid of all the crap they've collected. Whether it was useful at some point, or it was handed down, it no longer has a use in their lives, and their hoping it can be handy to somebody.

Some sell personal items, some sell euphoric diversions. One is benevolent, the other is not.

Flea Powder, anyone?

One of the many axioms thrown around in the South is:"You take the fleas with the dog." In my line of work as a news photographer, we occasionally come across people who either don't know what the purpose of local news is, or don't care. And if they can convince a green newsdesk to send someone out to their "event", then they can abuse the fourth estate, and they win.

Thursday night, by the assumed power of a "press release", I was sent to cover an "event". I don't know what the desk was thinking after hopefully reading said release, but they thought it was some kind of seminar, freeing people of financial burdens. "Leveling the playing field and getting rid of financial illiteracy, " was the mantra in the release and the female in charge of the seminar. And she said that exact phrase six times in the 20 minutes I spent there. The desk assumed it would be a well-attended event. It wasn't.

My plan was to arrive 15 minutes early so I could get my sound bite, then shoot the seminar and leave when I have my 40 seconds of video. There were four people with this group, and only one person showed up to see what it was about. It was to get people to pay these people to have a "personal concierge" at their beck and call, 24/7. If one had questions of any kind, all they have to do is call their personal assistant and they would do the digging and get back to you in minutes. It was a get rich quick scheme for the person who wrote the "release". So there I was in a conference room with these four people watching this one person look at a video presentation on a laptop. Feeling like a cheap whore, I started walking out. The leader stopped me at the door and wanted my personal cell number. Nice try, but HELL NO.

 

In this small TV market, with VERY little to feed a hungry news machine, our desk will take just about anything at face value. So yes, there are actually two problems here. But, there are fleas that some dogs just can't shake.

Every rose has its thorn

In addition to the title of this entry, the source of the title I find fitting. There is a song by the same name by the band Poison.  I don't know what the song is about, but my reference is downtown Greenville after the sun sets. There is a prickly poison inherent in the atmosphere of a bar scene, and it doesn't have to be adjacent to a college campus to be cursed with that toxin. Most nights, patrons can dance and move through their rose garden and never get stuck by a thorn. Sometimes, though, the thorns come out. Exhibit A: a man walks into a bar, (yeah, yeah,) gets thrown out of bar, drives by the bar, fires gun at people standing in front of bar, two of them die. WHY? When this person is found, he should not be put in jail for the rest of his life. That is getting off the hook. He took two lives, he should spend the rest of his life trying to make it up to those whose lives were affected by their loss. This is better than my first reaction: when found, shoot him in the head. That's the emotional reaction, the rational reaction is one of restitution. 

Big hair bands ruled the airwaves and the bars when I was in my college years in Okinawa, Japan. For me and my fellow Marine Corps friends, the bars were the places to go because at that age there was some inherent urge to alter your normal state of consciousness and live life as if that night was your last.  That motive is organic to the age. I've done things others would not, but none of those things was as serious as firing a weapon at someone. If someone made my blood boil, I would usually tell myself that that person is not worth the trouble; that they would get their appropriate punishment at some point, and I would turn and go on with my life. Sometimes, though, I would let my inability to confront get the best of me and I would later become a little destructive. Nothing major, just enough to make me feel better. But afterwards I would feel worse because I damaged someone's property. That story is probably played out today, but now we have people who were obviously brought up with a daring feeling of invulnerability, and without the emotional burden of a conscience. The answer to keeping the thorns away is a moving target. And it may not be possible.

With one exception, the 12-pack or so of people we spoke to about the events (reporter Arthur Mondale and myself,) all said the same thing: the high they get when indulging in the rose, outweighs the risk of getting stuck by the thorns.  Or, as the eloquent writer, Neil Peart believes, Danger + Risk = Fun. The amount of danger in an activity, plus the amount of risk you want to put into it, equals the amount of fun you will get out of it.

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.