Wednesday, February 24, 2010
SHOOT WITH YOUR EARS (the end)
After I sent Sagre's school board story to the control room, I sat in the edit bay moping. No one would touch my car hop story. But I knew better than any of them. News? That might be a stretch, but it was a good human interest story that people would talk about around the water cooler, if they ever saw it.
I popped the tape into the playback machine, and slapped the shuttle wheel on the edit control console. Zig-zaggy images rolled backward across the monitor at eight times normal speed. Sam spoke in high-pitched Russian until the tape reached the beginning. "My name is Sam, and I'm a car hop."
That was it! It was that simple. If no one else would tell Sam’s story, I would let her tell it herself! I shuttled through the tape for an opening shot.
A large finger entered from the top of the screen and pushed a small red button on a silver speaker box. “Welcome to Sonic, can I take your order?”
Cut to another close-up, burgers sizzling on the griddle. Grease droplets leap from red meat. The mic was so close I could hear the meat squish as a long, spatula pressed pink juice from the burger.
"Order up!" Another tight shot of an overweight cook in a paper hat hollering.
Fingers with red-painted nails dropped paper-wrapped burgers onto a red dinner tray.
Another hand set a chocolate shake on the tray.
Sam's roller skate wheel entered the frame, and rumbled quietly down the pavement. The camera moved down the sidewalk with it. "My name is Sam, and I'm a carhop."
I rewound the tape, leaned back in my chair and watched it.
Damn. It was a rough edit, but it was good. I closed the edit bay door and buried myself in the edit, trimming shots here, extending shots there, smoothing out audio transitions, weaving a seamless open for Sam's story.
The whole sequence took less than six seconds. It took me nearly 20 minutes to get it right. Then I pressed on with the rest of it.
Just like in the parking lot, I let the story speak. It told me where it wanted to speed up, where it wanted to breathe. My fingers flew across the edit console, splicing sound and pictures into the graceful dance I saw in my head.
I choreographed Sam's moves to a soundtrack of sizzle, glurb, tink, schwick and rumble. Sam's own words were the lyrics I hoped would pull viewers along until Sam would deliver the knock-out punch of this little feature film.
"Everybody should care.” Trays and shakes floated in and out of frame. Sam’s skates twirled on the oil-stained concrete. “I'm not just schlepping burgers from the griddle to your car. I'm providing a service.” Customers unwrapped burgers and chompped fries.
A quick tight shot of the customer’s smile, then it was back to Sam on the hood of my car to finish out her passionate soliloquy.
Cut to a shot of Sam pushing her way backwards from the kitchen into the parking lot and out of frame. "This is my job, and I'm gonna do it right."
Close-up. Sam’s skates pirouetted in front of another car. The window eased its way down. "Besides, the tips are better when I spin."
Close-up. Sam's face lit up the screen. "Hi my name is Sam. Thank you for choosing Sonic!"
I rubbed my face. I hadn't realized I was sweating. I eased back in my chair and shuttled back to the beginning of the story. I opened the edit bay door to cool off and punched play. I smiled, satisfied as Sam spoke her last line and exited the screen to reveal a soft-focus shot of the Sonic sign. I mentally amended my new mantra. “Shoot with your ears; listen to the story.”
"Cute story." Lou James’ voice-of-god delivery startled me. "Who shot it?"
"What?"
"It's a cute story." The weekend anchor explained. "Well shot, very well edited. Where did you find it?"
“Lou, what are you doing here at night?”
“Grip’s off. I’m filling in. It’s my chance shine. Work my way off the weekend shift and into the money!” His eyes sparkled. “So, where’d you find the story? I didn’t see it on the network feed.”
"I shot it this afternoon." I blinked, a little surprised at the compliment. "I just finished editing it."
"Doesn't look like your work. It's not blue."
"I don't know what happened. It just sort of all came together."
"I especially like the way you slipped in that little bit about an honest day's work. And letting her tell the whole thing is a brilliant idea."
"It's not my story. It's Sam's. I just helped her tell it. Too bad no one will see it." I slouched in my seat. "None of the producers want it."
"Those show-stackers don't know anything,” he answered with a dismissive wave. “Tonight, it’s my show. I want it in. It's late, but I'll make sure it gets in the ten o'clock."
"Late? What time is it?"
"9:38."
"Shit! I was supposed to take Susan to eat for her birthday." I ran past the anchor toward the back door. "Can you take the tape to the control room for me? Shit!"
"I'll handle it. Better not show up without flowers."
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
SHOOT WITH YOUR EARS (part three)
part one
part two
I had barely darkened the newsroom door when Ken “the ASSMAN” Roberts lit into me. "Where the hell have you been?"
"Uh, lunch?" I waved him off.
"Lunch!" He sprayed my shirt with spittle. "Who cleared you to take lunch?" The dome of the Assignment Manager's egg-shaped head glowed red. His shoulders bunched around his ears and the folds of skin hanging on to his jowls trembled. "I've got reporters without photogs circling the desk like planes around LaGuardia, and you stop for lunch?"
"A photog's gotta eat." Ken's tirades were the stuff of legend, but the ASSMAN's venom had never been directed at me. Thirty-five years in television news had turned a one-time star reporter into a seething gasbag. He ran the assignment desk like a concentration camp. A photog hadn't earned his stripes until Ken went off on him. "Doesn't look like you've missed too many lunches." I patted his belly and started toward an edit bay with my tape.
"Where do you think you're going?"
"While Bump ate lunch, I shot a feature story about a carhop on her way to a national competition, so –"
"No one told the desk about a feature story." Ken's head was buried deep between his shoulders. The vein in the middle of his bald spot throbbed.
"That's because it just sort of happened."
"News doesn't just happen! It's not news in this building until I say it's news!" He waved his assignment sheet in my face. "Do you see anything about a carhop on the assignment list? Then it’s not news!"
"But it's a good story."
"You wouldn't know a good story if it shit in your face. And you sure as hell couldn't shoot it, you blue video, out-of-focus-shooting, no-sound-getting rookie."
Weaver rounded the corner of the big granite assignment desk just in time. “What the hell –" I had already thrown down my tape and was about to lunge at ASSMAN. Ken had his fists up in a boxing pose from the 1920's.
Weaver stiff-armed me right in the bruise on my chest. Fire, like a .38 caliber slug, shot through me.
"Calm down!" Weaver yelled.
I crumpled into a chair at the nearest desk.
"You better get a handle on your staff. Let 'em know how things work around here." Ken huffed at Weaver. "I assign the stories! They don't just go off doing as they please."
"That asshole better learn to shut his fat mouth, or I'll shut it for him!" I struggled against Weaver’s arm to get up.
“Both of you shut the hell up!” Weaver held me in my seat with one hand and pushed Ken toward the assignment desk with the other. “Ken, get back to the desk. Rene, my edit bay. NOW!"
Inside edit one, Weaver let me have it. "What the hell do you think you were doing in there?”
“He started it.”
“I stick my neck out and hire you with no experience. I defend you every time your stuff has to be re-shot by someone else, and you disappear for an hour, then pick a fight with the Assignment Manager?"
"Weaver, it's a good story."
"I don't care if it's the second coming of Christ himself. You just don't go off and do your own thing."
"So if I see a twenty car pile-up on Hollywood, you're telling me to ignore it?"
"You know better than that," Weaver sighed. "You gotta let the assignment desk know what you're doing. Ken's got way too many things to keep track of without wondering if some photog is off freelancing a story that no one wants."
"I'm telling you Weaver, this is a great story. The girl is fantastic, the pictures are there; the sound is clean. I nailed this one."
"Why didn't you radio that in before you shot it? What do you think your chances are of getting it on air now?"
I hung my head. "Yeah, I'll talk to him about it."
"You've done enough damage. You need to let this one go.”
“But Weaver, the story is gold.”
Weaver shook his head. “It’s my own fault. I knew you were too eager when I hired you.”
Was that a chink in his armor? Was Weaver coming around to my side? I sat there and tried to look pitiful.
Finally, Weaver sighed. “I shouldn’t tell you this, but if you really want to this story into a newscast, try to sell it to a reporter and have them sell it to Ken. Make it sound like someone else's idea."
“Got it.” I bounced to my feet and headed for the reporter’s pod.
“But I never told you to do it.” he called after me.
"Sarge" Wilders trampled through the newsroom like the proverbial bull-dyke in a china shop. Sarge spent half her life as a public information officer in the Marines. Her short-cropped hair and don’t-mess-with-me stare could wilt the resolve of the saltiest photog, but I had to try. “Sarge . . . uh . . . How about trying something a little softer today – It’s already shot – All you have to do is voice it.”
She lit into me like . . . well . . . like a drill sergeant. “Soft? Who you calling soft? The school board is voting on which standardized test to give to the little hellions. I have to be there this afternoon.”
"But Sarge, this story is visual." I begged.
"Too bad kid, the school board is real news."
Dick Hicks had always been open to my ideas before. He panned my idea for an interview with the mayor about the city’s effort to ban noise. And Boyd Leffingwell, the newsroom’s other screw-up, was all a twitter about his big live report from the 4-H fair.
When Ken caught wind of what I was doing he assigned me to Sarge and the school "bored" meeting from hell. I squinted through my lens as board members blathered about Iowa Test scores, bell curves, normalized results and standard deviations.
Riveting television.
While I wasted tape, my mind constructed Sam’s story, the sound bites, scoops of fries dropping into paper sacks, soft-serve ice cream globbing into waxy cups, the crinkle of cellophane as a customer unwrapped an after dinner mint.
It would never see the light of day.
part two
I had barely darkened the newsroom door when Ken “the ASSMAN” Roberts lit into me. "Where the hell have you been?"
"Uh, lunch?" I waved him off.
"Lunch!" He sprayed my shirt with spittle. "Who cleared you to take lunch?" The dome of the Assignment Manager's egg-shaped head glowed red. His shoulders bunched around his ears and the folds of skin hanging on to his jowls trembled. "I've got reporters without photogs circling the desk like planes around LaGuardia, and you stop for lunch?"
"A photog's gotta eat." Ken's tirades were the stuff of legend, but the ASSMAN's venom had never been directed at me. Thirty-five years in television news had turned a one-time star reporter into a seething gasbag. He ran the assignment desk like a concentration camp. A photog hadn't earned his stripes until Ken went off on him. "Doesn't look like you've missed too many lunches." I patted his belly and started toward an edit bay with my tape.
"Where do you think you're going?"
"While Bump ate lunch, I shot a feature story about a carhop on her way to a national competition, so –"
"No one told the desk about a feature story." Ken's head was buried deep between his shoulders. The vein in the middle of his bald spot throbbed.
"That's because it just sort of happened."
"News doesn't just happen! It's not news in this building until I say it's news!" He waved his assignment sheet in my face. "Do you see anything about a carhop on the assignment list? Then it’s not news!"
"But it's a good story."
"You wouldn't know a good story if it shit in your face. And you sure as hell couldn't shoot it, you blue video, out-of-focus-shooting, no-sound-getting rookie."
Weaver rounded the corner of the big granite assignment desk just in time. “What the hell –" I had already thrown down my tape and was about to lunge at ASSMAN. Ken had his fists up in a boxing pose from the 1920's.
Weaver stiff-armed me right in the bruise on my chest. Fire, like a .38 caliber slug, shot through me.
"Calm down!" Weaver yelled.
I crumpled into a chair at the nearest desk.
"You better get a handle on your staff. Let 'em know how things work around here." Ken huffed at Weaver. "I assign the stories! They don't just go off doing as they please."
"That asshole better learn to shut his fat mouth, or I'll shut it for him!" I struggled against Weaver’s arm to get up.
“Both of you shut the hell up!” Weaver held me in my seat with one hand and pushed Ken toward the assignment desk with the other. “Ken, get back to the desk. Rene, my edit bay. NOW!"
Inside edit one, Weaver let me have it. "What the hell do you think you were doing in there?”
“He started it.”
“I stick my neck out and hire you with no experience. I defend you every time your stuff has to be re-shot by someone else, and you disappear for an hour, then pick a fight with the Assignment Manager?"
"Weaver, it's a good story."
"I don't care if it's the second coming of Christ himself. You just don't go off and do your own thing."
"So if I see a twenty car pile-up on Hollywood, you're telling me to ignore it?"
"You know better than that," Weaver sighed. "You gotta let the assignment desk know what you're doing. Ken's got way too many things to keep track of without wondering if some photog is off freelancing a story that no one wants."
"I'm telling you Weaver, this is a great story. The girl is fantastic, the pictures are there; the sound is clean. I nailed this one."
"Why didn't you radio that in before you shot it? What do you think your chances are of getting it on air now?"
I hung my head. "Yeah, I'll talk to him about it."
"You've done enough damage. You need to let this one go.”
“But Weaver, the story is gold.”
Weaver shook his head. “It’s my own fault. I knew you were too eager when I hired you.”
Was that a chink in his armor? Was Weaver coming around to my side? I sat there and tried to look pitiful.
Finally, Weaver sighed. “I shouldn’t tell you this, but if you really want to this story into a newscast, try to sell it to a reporter and have them sell it to Ken. Make it sound like someone else's idea."
“Got it.” I bounced to my feet and headed for the reporter’s pod.
“But I never told you to do it.” he called after me.
"Sarge" Wilders trampled through the newsroom like the proverbial bull-dyke in a china shop. Sarge spent half her life as a public information officer in the Marines. Her short-cropped hair and don’t-mess-with-me stare could wilt the resolve of the saltiest photog, but I had to try. “Sarge . . . uh . . . How about trying something a little softer today – It’s already shot – All you have to do is voice it.”
She lit into me like . . . well . . . like a drill sergeant. “Soft? Who you calling soft? The school board is voting on which standardized test to give to the little hellions. I have to be there this afternoon.”
"But Sarge, this story is visual." I begged.
"Too bad kid, the school board is real news."
Dick Hicks had always been open to my ideas before. He panned my idea for an interview with the mayor about the city’s effort to ban noise. And Boyd Leffingwell, the newsroom’s other screw-up, was all a twitter about his big live report from the 4-H fair.
When Ken caught wind of what I was doing he assigned me to Sarge and the school "bored" meeting from hell. I squinted through my lens as board members blathered about Iowa Test scores, bell curves, normalized results and standard deviations.
Riveting television.
While I wasted tape, my mind constructed Sam’s story, the sound bites, scoops of fries dropping into paper sacks, soft-serve ice cream globbing into waxy cups, the crinkle of cellophane as a customer unwrapped an after dinner mint.
It would never see the light of day.
to be continued
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
SHOOT WITH YOUR EARS (part one)
“You know, Baldilocks,” it was a pet name I had for our number two sports guy, “you’re just gonna pull a few more out like that.”
Bump continued checking his ever-thinning mane in the sun visor mirror. “Yeah, and I’m going to take hair advice from a guy wearing a mullet. I pull better looking shit out of my shower drain.”
“Leave my mullet alone.” I flipped my shoulder-length locks at him. It was a little Bald Cop/Hairy Cop game we played every time we worked together, which had been a lot recently. My knack for finding trouble made me an outcast in news circles. Ragging on Bump’s hair was better than talking quarterback ratings, RBI’s, or the sportswriter polls.
“That shit went out with hair bands. When are you going to lose that mop?” Bump complained, eyeing my mullet with contempt.
“At least I’m not counting follicles before every shoot.”
We had just wrapped up a less than riveting interview with the head baseball coach from Alexandria Senior High. I couldn’t help but wonder who Bump had pissed off to win my company for the afternoon. Six months of bone-headed mistakes had put me at the bottom of the photog food chain.
“I’m hungry.” Bump’s three-pack-a-day rasp interrupted my self-doubt. That rasp was amazing, considering he didn’t smoke. “Want some lunch? I’m buying.”
I couldn’t blame Bump or any of the other reporters for wincing when my name appeared next to theirs on the assignment sheet. Tape jams, blue video, broken mic cables, dead batteries, and head clogs stalked me. It was anybody’s guess how much longer Weaver could defend me when the suits in the front office bellowed.
“Yo! Buckwheat, I’m talking to you.” Bump slapped the back of my head. “That hair clogging your ears? I said, ‘I’m hungry.’”
He was always hungry. I turned to see the sun glint off Bump’s namesake, a large hump created by the drastic angle his over-sized nose took as it dove toward his upper lip. I dreaded lunch with Bump. He was a slob. When he offered to buy, it meant only one thing, Sonic Drive-In, big, flat, burgers eaten inside the car. At least it was free. I had been saving money for Susan's her birthday date.
I wheeled the turd-brown-Taurus into an empty stall at the Sonic on Lee Drive, and pressed the call button on the speaker box. Bump yelled our order from across the car. A few minutes later, a babe on roller skates glided our way, sandwiches, fries and drinks planted firmly on a red window tray. She stopped short in front of the car, pirouetted, and gave a deep bow. Not so much as a fry moved out of place. Then she skated to my door and hooked the tray to the window.
“Hi, my name is Sam. Thank you for choosing Sonic!” Her words practically jumped from her lips which she had painted to match our dinner tray. “Two Super Sonics, fries, a Coke and a Dr. Pepper, that’s seven-sixty-eight!”
Sam was way too excited about delivering burgers for a living.
“Hey, Sam.” Bump leaned across the front seat and dropped a twenty on the tray. “Thanks for the show. You still working on that ‘America’s Best Carhop’ routine?”
“Working on it? Won the regionals in Houston last week,” she beamed. “I’m headed to the finals at Sonic headquarters in Oklahoma City.”
“Keep the change,” I volunteered, “help pay for your trip.”
Bump shot me a look, but what could he do?
“Thank you. And thank you for dinning at Sonic!” Sam curtsied, “Ya’ll come back and see us soon.” She spun on one leg and sped back to kitchen.
"Why didn’t you tell me about her, Bump?”
He was already ear-deep in his burger. “Who, Sam?” A hunk of lettuce dangled from his lips. “She’s too young for you.” Bump wiped mayonnaise from his cheek with his sleeve. “Besides, what about Susan?”
“I don’t want to do her, you perv. And nothing happening with Susan.”
“Bullshit. I’ve seen the way she looks at you at the Gin.”
“Too much baggage with Ernie stalking her. We just party together when we bump into each other. Besides, who has time to date in this business.”
Bump gave me a you’re-full-of-shit look and licked ketchup off his fingers. “Then what do you want with Sam?”
“Sam’s got a great story – local carhop skates her way to national fame.” I fanned my hands across the windshield like I was laying out a headline.
“I don’t see it,” Bump gargled through another mouthful of meat and cheese.
“What do you mean you don’t see it? The skates, the tricks, it’s a great story.”
“It’s 1991. People want news, not a car hop contest.” Bump sprayed the dash with runny mayonnaise.
“Granted, it’s not like an intern giving the President a hummer in the oval office, but –”
Bump chuckled and dove into his fries. “Like that’ll ever happen.”
“You gotta admit it’s cute.”
“I don’t gotta do nothing, but finish this burger.”
I punched the button on the speaker box again and pitched my idea to the manager. A few minutes later, Sam was sitting on the hood of the turd-brown-Taurus snaking a clip-on, lavaliere mic under her uniform shirt.
I set my tripod to eye level. “Rock solid and on the sticks.” I repeated one of Weaver’s many mantras to myself. Each week during our tape reviewing sessions, Weaver would shake his head in disbelief at my misfortunes and try to sound positive. Sure, every week it was a different mistake, but with every piece of ruined tape, I could see my career as a news shooter slipping away.
The other photogs made it look so effortless. I, on the other hand, prayed every time I shouldered my big, orange Icky. I fumbled through each shoot and hoped I had flipped all the right switches. My amazing lack of aptitude put me first in line for the assignments no one else wanted.
Sam smiled sympathetically as I untangled myself from the mic cord. I peered through my lens, set the iris and flipped the white balance switch. At least everything would be the right color today. Inside the eye cup I framed a head and shoulders shot with the Sonic sign slightly out of focus behind her, and repeated another of Weaver’s favorites, “Composition, composition, composition”
I took a deep breath and hit record.
Sam answered my first question. I zoomed in for a head-shot and fired another question. She smiled and launched into a few sentences about Sonic’s made-to-order American classic burgers.
When she finished, I slid left – “Stick and move,” – and fought to lower the sticks. One of my tripod legs was stuck, so I bent over to grip the jammed lock mechanism.
“Whoa, whoa, WHOA!” Sam waved her hand in the direction of my lens.
I looked up from the stuck leg just in time to see Icky tilt up on its own.
Damn! Forgot to lock the tripod head.
Icky’s lens continued in its upward arc until it reached its tipping point. The locked tripod leg rose off the ground. There was no way Weaver could protect me if I dribbled Icky.
I dove.
Icky landed with a dull thud squarely on my chest. Bump screamed with laughter from inside the car while I flailed around on my back like a dying roach and gasped for air.
“Are you okay?” Sam slid off the hood to help me upright my camera.
“Happens all the time.” I wheezed.
Bump continued checking his ever-thinning mane in the sun visor mirror. “Yeah, and I’m going to take hair advice from a guy wearing a mullet. I pull better looking shit out of my shower drain.”
“Leave my mullet alone.” I flipped my shoulder-length locks at him. It was a little Bald Cop/Hairy Cop game we played every time we worked together, which had been a lot recently. My knack for finding trouble made me an outcast in news circles. Ragging on Bump’s hair was better than talking quarterback ratings, RBI’s, or the sportswriter polls.
“That shit went out with hair bands. When are you going to lose that mop?” Bump complained, eyeing my mullet with contempt.
“At least I’m not counting follicles before every shoot.”
We had just wrapped up a less than riveting interview with the head baseball coach from Alexandria Senior High. I couldn’t help but wonder who Bump had pissed off to win my company for the afternoon. Six months of bone-headed mistakes had put me at the bottom of the photog food chain.
“I’m hungry.” Bump’s three-pack-a-day rasp interrupted my self-doubt. That rasp was amazing, considering he didn’t smoke. “Want some lunch? I’m buying.”
I couldn’t blame Bump or any of the other reporters for wincing when my name appeared next to theirs on the assignment sheet. Tape jams, blue video, broken mic cables, dead batteries, and head clogs stalked me. It was anybody’s guess how much longer Weaver could defend me when the suits in the front office bellowed.
“Yo! Buckwheat, I’m talking to you.” Bump slapped the back of my head. “That hair clogging your ears? I said, ‘I’m hungry.’”
He was always hungry. I turned to see the sun glint off Bump’s namesake, a large hump created by the drastic angle his over-sized nose took as it dove toward his upper lip. I dreaded lunch with Bump. He was a slob. When he offered to buy, it meant only one thing, Sonic Drive-In, big, flat, burgers eaten inside the car. At least it was free. I had been saving money for Susan's her birthday date.
I wheeled the turd-brown-Taurus into an empty stall at the Sonic on Lee Drive, and pressed the call button on the speaker box. Bump yelled our order from across the car. A few minutes later, a babe on roller skates glided our way, sandwiches, fries and drinks planted firmly on a red window tray. She stopped short in front of the car, pirouetted, and gave a deep bow. Not so much as a fry moved out of place. Then she skated to my door and hooked the tray to the window.
“Hi, my name is Sam. Thank you for choosing Sonic!” Her words practically jumped from her lips which she had painted to match our dinner tray. “Two Super Sonics, fries, a Coke and a Dr. Pepper, that’s seven-sixty-eight!”
Sam was way too excited about delivering burgers for a living.
“Hey, Sam.” Bump leaned across the front seat and dropped a twenty on the tray. “Thanks for the show. You still working on that ‘America’s Best Carhop’ routine?”
“Working on it? Won the regionals in Houston last week,” she beamed. “I’m headed to the finals at Sonic headquarters in Oklahoma City.”
“Keep the change,” I volunteered, “help pay for your trip.”
Bump shot me a look, but what could he do?
“Thank you. And thank you for dinning at Sonic!” Sam curtsied, “Ya’ll come back and see us soon.” She spun on one leg and sped back to kitchen.
"Why didn’t you tell me about her, Bump?”
He was already ear-deep in his burger. “Who, Sam?” A hunk of lettuce dangled from his lips. “She’s too young for you.” Bump wiped mayonnaise from his cheek with his sleeve. “Besides, what about Susan?”
“I don’t want to do her, you perv. And nothing happening with Susan.”
“Bullshit. I’ve seen the way she looks at you at the Gin.”
“Too much baggage with Ernie stalking her. We just party together when we bump into each other. Besides, who has time to date in this business.”
Bump gave me a you’re-full-of-shit look and licked ketchup off his fingers. “Then what do you want with Sam?”
“Sam’s got a great story – local carhop skates her way to national fame.” I fanned my hands across the windshield like I was laying out a headline.
“I don’t see it,” Bump gargled through another mouthful of meat and cheese.
“What do you mean you don’t see it? The skates, the tricks, it’s a great story.”
“It’s 1991. People want news, not a car hop contest.” Bump sprayed the dash with runny mayonnaise.
“Granted, it’s not like an intern giving the President a hummer in the oval office, but –”
Bump chuckled and dove into his fries. “Like that’ll ever happen.”
“You gotta admit it’s cute.”
“I don’t gotta do nothing, but finish this burger.”
I punched the button on the speaker box again and pitched my idea to the manager. A few minutes later, Sam was sitting on the hood of the turd-brown-Taurus snaking a clip-on, lavaliere mic under her uniform shirt.
I set my tripod to eye level. “Rock solid and on the sticks.” I repeated one of Weaver’s many mantras to myself. Each week during our tape reviewing sessions, Weaver would shake his head in disbelief at my misfortunes and try to sound positive. Sure, every week it was a different mistake, but with every piece of ruined tape, I could see my career as a news shooter slipping away.
The other photogs made it look so effortless. I, on the other hand, prayed every time I shouldered my big, orange Icky. I fumbled through each shoot and hoped I had flipped all the right switches. My amazing lack of aptitude put me first in line for the assignments no one else wanted.
Sam smiled sympathetically as I untangled myself from the mic cord. I peered through my lens, set the iris and flipped the white balance switch. At least everything would be the right color today. Inside the eye cup I framed a head and shoulders shot with the Sonic sign slightly out of focus behind her, and repeated another of Weaver’s favorites, “Composition, composition, composition”
I took a deep breath and hit record.
Sam answered my first question. I zoomed in for a head-shot and fired another question. She smiled and launched into a few sentences about Sonic’s made-to-order American classic burgers.
When she finished, I slid left – “Stick and move,” – and fought to lower the sticks. One of my tripod legs was stuck, so I bent over to grip the jammed lock mechanism.
“Whoa, whoa, WHOA!” Sam waved her hand in the direction of my lens.
I looked up from the stuck leg just in time to see Icky tilt up on its own.
Damn! Forgot to lock the tripod head.
Icky’s lens continued in its upward arc until it reached its tipping point. The locked tripod leg rose off the ground. There was no way Weaver could protect me if I dribbled Icky.
I dove.
Icky landed with a dull thud squarely on my chest. Bump screamed with laughter from inside the car while I flailed around on my back like a dying roach and gasped for air.
“Are you okay?” Sam slid off the hood to help me upright my camera.
“Happens all the time.” I wheezed.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
THE GIRL WITH THE GOLDEN EYES
After my news unit spontaneously combusted, I need a beer. It was male stripper night at The Cotton Gin, the only bar in Alexandria not inhabited by old cotton farmers, and that was good enough for me. Weathered siding, faded feed store signs, and rusted tractor parts outside led newcomers like me to expect both kinds of music, Country, and Western. Inside, a day-glo pink palm tree guarded a Plexiglas dance floor which was lit from beneath by red, green, and blue Christmas-tree lights. Speakers on either side of the disc-jockey booth acted as a stage for go-go dancers and lubricated patrons who thought they were Michael Jackson.
And the music, a mix of .38 Special, Led Zeppelin, and Madonna attracted the strangest mix of mouth-breathers, wannabe sluts, and farmer’s daughters I had ever seen. Not your typical after-work bar, unless your workday ended when the credits rolled on the late news.
The dance floor jiggled and bounced with horny female flesh revved-up and ready to party with the eager-to-score poon-hounds flooding into the club after the show. Sure it was a meat market, but I wasn't looking for someone to grow old with, just something to erase the last two days. I grabbed a long neck at the bar before venturing into the fray. Someone tapped me on the shoulder.
“Couldn’t resist another chance to take your clothes off?” Little flecks of gold sparkled in her eyes. It took the edge off another long humiliating day better than a Bud Light.
“Nah, I do all my stripping on busy highways when the TV cameras are rolling. Which show did you like better?”
She squeezed her shoulders forward swelling her cleavage. Susan grinned a devil’s smile, “I was hoping for my own private show.”
She was the only good thing to happen to me all week. And she still hadn’t happened yet.
Her face was unremarkable. She had pairs of all the necessary parts: ears, lips, nostrils. It was her eyes that held me captive. Even in a dark and smoky night club, they glistened. Little flecks of gold swam in two pools of honey. And every time she smiled, they seemed to shower the room in droplets of light like a disco ball.
Her auburn locks were teased and starched like surf, frozen in time, over her forehead, a conscious rebellion against the grunge fashion of the day, as were her clothes. Painted on blue jeans accentuated the curve of her hips, and a red bustier revealed everything else I needed to know – her taste was way above my six-dollar-an-hour pay grade. Her smile, at the same time shy and sly, insisted that I give it a shot.
“Got any ones left?” I arched my back and leaned my hips forward bumping her thigh with my crotch.
She reached inside her bustier for a wrinkled bill, rolled it length-wise and pulled it slowly through her fist. Then she slipped the dollar inside the waist of my jeans and giggled, never breaking eye contact.
The music segued from Madonna to Twisted Sister “Ooh, I love this song.” She grabbed my hand and dragged me onto the dance floor.
She jumped and bounced and threw her fists in the air and screamed along with Dee Snider. “We’re not gonna take it any-mooooore!”
I must have been crazy to follow her. Women like this didn’t pay any attention to struggling photographers like me. They went after the pretty-boy reporter with the telegenic grin and thick wallet. But there was something about those eyes.
She didn’t care that we were the only ones on the dance floor. All I could do was watch as he tore into an air guitar solo. She whipped her hair in gonzo circles as she pounded her invisible axe. The crowd egged her on.
I wanted to leave, but I caught a glimpse of her devil’s smile. She stuck a defiant pose and slowly lifted her head. Her eyes glued me in place as they traced a straight line up my chest.
Maybe she did want me.
The world around us vanished. It was just me and the girl with the golden eyes. Butterflies fluttered inside my stomach like pterodactyl wings and the room spun around us.
I wobbled on one leg and caught my balance. It wasn’t the room; I was spinning. I stopped just in time to meet a corn-fed country boy with shoulders as wide as a John Deere. His fist was cocked all the way back into the next parish.
“Ernie, no!”
I don’t remember much after that.
When I opened my eye, I was outside. Sharp edges, like fingernails clawed at my face. The gravel in the parking lot crunched as I rolled onto my back.
Susan stooped to help me up. “Are you okay, Brock?”
“Yeah,” I grunted. I lied. Blood trickled from a cut under my eye and I fingered my aching cheek. My head throbbed. My ribs felt like a side of beef in a Rocky movie. And I actually saw cartoon birdies floating in circles around my head.
“Damn Ernie.”
“Wait,” I forced myself upright. “I just got my ass kicked by a guy named Ernie?”
“I’m the only one who calls him that. He’s my ex, Earnhardt Waltrip Petty.”
“Folks were big NASCAR fans, eh?” I pushed myself to my feet and slapped the dust off my jeans. My left eye had already swollen shut. “What happened?”
“It’s a long story, but ends with a jealous streak – ”
“Not with you two," I squinted through the haze inside my head. "Inside. What happened in there?”
“Oh, that. He does it every time we break up.”
“Every time?”
“You should get that looked at.” Susan prodded around the growing bulge under my eye. “Thank God for Nubby.”
“Nubby?”
“Duh, the one-armed bouncer. He pulled Ernie off before he killed you.”
“So you’re telling me a guy named Ernie just kicked my ass, and I was rescued by a one-armed bouncer named Nubby?”
“That’s about the size of it.” she winked and laughed. “Let’s get you out of here. I’ve got a bag of black-eyed peas in the freezer at my place.”
I threw my arm over her shoulder and leaned heavily on her all the way to her car. It was mostly an act, but for the first time all week, things were looking up.
And the music, a mix of .38 Special, Led Zeppelin, and Madonna attracted the strangest mix of mouth-breathers, wannabe sluts, and farmer’s daughters I had ever seen. Not your typical after-work bar, unless your workday ended when the credits rolled on the late news.
The dance floor jiggled and bounced with horny female flesh revved-up and ready to party with the eager-to-score poon-hounds flooding into the club after the show. Sure it was a meat market, but I wasn't looking for someone to grow old with, just something to erase the last two days. I grabbed a long neck at the bar before venturing into the fray. Someone tapped me on the shoulder.
“Couldn’t resist another chance to take your clothes off?” Little flecks of gold sparkled in her eyes. It took the edge off another long humiliating day better than a Bud Light.
“Nah, I do all my stripping on busy highways when the TV cameras are rolling. Which show did you like better?”
She squeezed her shoulders forward swelling her cleavage. Susan grinned a devil’s smile, “I was hoping for my own private show.”
She was the only good thing to happen to me all week. And she still hadn’t happened yet.
Her face was unremarkable. She had pairs of all the necessary parts: ears, lips, nostrils. It was her eyes that held me captive. Even in a dark and smoky night club, they glistened. Little flecks of gold swam in two pools of honey. And every time she smiled, they seemed to shower the room in droplets of light like a disco ball.
Her auburn locks were teased and starched like surf, frozen in time, over her forehead, a conscious rebellion against the grunge fashion of the day, as were her clothes. Painted on blue jeans accentuated the curve of her hips, and a red bustier revealed everything else I needed to know – her taste was way above my six-dollar-an-hour pay grade. Her smile, at the same time shy and sly, insisted that I give it a shot.
“Got any ones left?” I arched my back and leaned my hips forward bumping her thigh with my crotch.
She reached inside her bustier for a wrinkled bill, rolled it length-wise and pulled it slowly through her fist. Then she slipped the dollar inside the waist of my jeans and giggled, never breaking eye contact.
The music segued from Madonna to Twisted Sister “Ooh, I love this song.” She grabbed my hand and dragged me onto the dance floor.
She jumped and bounced and threw her fists in the air and screamed along with Dee Snider. “We’re not gonna take it any-mooooore!”
I must have been crazy to follow her. Women like this didn’t pay any attention to struggling photographers like me. They went after the pretty-boy reporter with the telegenic grin and thick wallet. But there was something about those eyes.
She didn’t care that we were the only ones on the dance floor. All I could do was watch as he tore into an air guitar solo. She whipped her hair in gonzo circles as she pounded her invisible axe. The crowd egged her on.
I wanted to leave, but I caught a glimpse of her devil’s smile. She stuck a defiant pose and slowly lifted her head. Her eyes glued me in place as they traced a straight line up my chest.
Maybe she did want me.
The world around us vanished. It was just me and the girl with the golden eyes. Butterflies fluttered inside my stomach like pterodactyl wings and the room spun around us.
I wobbled on one leg and caught my balance. It wasn’t the room; I was spinning. I stopped just in time to meet a corn-fed country boy with shoulders as wide as a John Deere. His fist was cocked all the way back into the next parish.
“Ernie, no!”
I don’t remember much after that.
When I opened my eye, I was outside. Sharp edges, like fingernails clawed at my face. The gravel in the parking lot crunched as I rolled onto my back.
Susan stooped to help me up. “Are you okay, Brock?”
“Yeah,” I grunted. I lied. Blood trickled from a cut under my eye and I fingered my aching cheek. My head throbbed. My ribs felt like a side of beef in a Rocky movie. And I actually saw cartoon birdies floating in circles around my head.
“Damn Ernie.”
“Wait,” I forced myself upright. “I just got my ass kicked by a guy named Ernie?”
“I’m the only one who calls him that. He’s my ex, Earnhardt Waltrip Petty.”
“Folks were big NASCAR fans, eh?” I pushed myself to my feet and slapped the dust off my jeans. My left eye had already swollen shut. “What happened?”
“It’s a long story, but ends with a jealous streak – ”
“Not with you two," I squinted through the haze inside my head. "Inside. What happened in there?”
“Oh, that. He does it every time we break up.”
“Every time?”
“You should get that looked at.” Susan prodded around the growing bulge under my eye. “Thank God for Nubby.”
“Nubby?”
“Duh, the one-armed bouncer. He pulled Ernie off before he killed you.”
“So you’re telling me a guy named Ernie just kicked my ass, and I was rescued by a one-armed bouncer named Nubby?”
“That’s about the size of it.” she winked and laughed. “Let’s get you out of here. I’ve got a bag of black-eyed peas in the freezer at my place.”
I threw my arm over her shoulder and leaned heavily on her all the way to her car. It was mostly an act, but for the first time all week, things were looking up.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
LESSON NUMBER ONE (the end)
part one
The Bentley Hotel was an homage to finery: gray stone walls and tall fancy columns, brass-framed glass doors, and a fancy-pants doorman dressed in a colorful uniform. I parked at the door and jetted inside to check things out, no use bringing all that gear until I knew where I was headed.
The lobby was just as lush: mahogany desk, elaborate chandeliers, Persian rugs, and a winding marble staircase to the second floor. “Hey buddy, where’s the Chief Justice speaking?” I asked the first bellman I saw.
The bellman took one look at my blue jeans and snubbed me.
“We require proper attire in the lobby sir.” A cheerful voice came from behind the desk.
I turned to see hypnotizing golden eyes eyeing my “attire” with disdain. There was something familiar about her gaze. Where had I seen her before?
“Oh, Brock, it’s you. You can’t just pop in to see me like this. Especially dressed like that.”
“Uh, yeah.” I fumbled for my next line hoping the blank look on my face didn’t betray my clulessness. “I . . . uh . . . forgot that you worked here.”
“Well, I guess I can forgive you. We were both pretty trashed.”
The girl from the bar. What the hell was her name?
“I don’t usually get that wild,” she giggled.
And what the hell did we do?
She leaned across the reservation desk and her cleavage peeked through her swelling blouse.
“Me either.” I stared at her chest . . . for a name tag. “Susan, I’m working too. I’m here to shoot the Chief Justice.”
“Do I have to call security?”
Still flirting. Must have been pretty good. “With a camera. I’m working for KALX.”
“That’s different. The Bar Association is lunching in the Pelican Ballroom, second floor.”
“Thanks.” I turned to dash back to the Taurus for my gear.
“Hey, I had fun last night. Wanna do it again?”
“Yeah,” I called over my shoulder. “Gotta go. Can’t keep His Honor waiting.”
---
Heavy velvet drapes and plush burgundy carpet sucked every foot-candle of light out of the Pelican Ballroom. I barged right in, mid-introduction. Every eye in the place bored through my cocky shell. I knew someone was going to sue me for disturbing the “speech,” but I soldiered on.
I stooped in the darkest corner I could find to assemble my gear. Icky clicked into its lock on the tripod. The big blue multi-pin umbilical cord stretched from Icky to my recorder. I connected the 30 volt sun-gun to the battery belt strapped around my waist, and bolted it to the camera’s light post.
I’d never seen so many stuffed suits in my life. Every lawyer in the state must have been there. They crowded around tables covered in frilly, white table cloths, their hair receding; their stomachs distending. They stood in unison as Chief Justice Wallace Christophe strode to the podium.
I squeezed my way between chairs and tables slapping my recorder against attorneys and counselors all the way to front of the room and set my tripod fifteen feet from the dais.
The judge opened a manila folder containing his speech, and I switched on my light.
They call it a sun-gun for a reason.
About a ga-jillion watts hit the judge square in the face. He raised his hands and swatted at the rays like they were a hoard of angry mosquitoes. His face squinched like he’d bitten a green persimmon, and he tried to blink gathering tears from the corners of his eyes.
My heart pounded against my ribs. I just blinded a judge. At least he couldn’t see me on the dark side of the light.
“I’ll see you in court,” the judge warned in a scholarly voice, “if I ever see again.”
The room erupted with laughter. I wanted to hide under my tripod. When the attorneys had all taken their seats, the judge lowered his head and barreled right into his speech.
It happened about three minutes in.
Hey new guy.
The Chief Justice froze.
Damn voice pager!
Blow off the judge.
Weaver’s words echoed in my head. “It’s a voice pager. It’s great.” Great my ass. The brazen voice in the little box on my hip drowned-out anything His Honor was trying to say.
We don’t want him.
I melted into a puddle and tried to soak through the heavy carpet.
“I don’t want you either, New Guy.” The judge said like he’d issued his decree from the high court’s bench. The lawyers guffawed and pounded the tables.
I grabbed my shit and oozed out, banging every lawyer’s chair along the way. The girl with the golden eyes called after me as I rushed through the lobby. I didn’t even bother to wave. I just wanted to be gone.
I threw my gear into the trunk without disconnecting anything. The sooner I could be out of there the better.
Inside the car, the two-way was already calling. Hope the judge hadn’t started talking yet. Just come back, Boyd needs a photog.
“The judge was in the middle of his speech. You told the entire room we didn’t want him.”
Sorry. You ought to turn your pager down when you’re shooting.
"Now you tell me." I threw the car into gear and floored it. My tires squealed, and I was gone in a puff of blue-gray smoke, jumping ever speed bump in the parking lot. I hoped no one took that “How’s my driving” sticker on my bumper seriously.
I took the long route back to the station to cool off so I didn’t kill someone when I got back.
Hey new guy. It was the radio. Someone just called from their car phone. They say your driving’s fine, but your trunk is smoking.
I checked the mirror. Thick white smoke billowed from the edges of the trunk lid.
“Holy shit, I’m on fire!”
I threw the car into park and jumped out in the middle of MacAuthur Boulevard. Cars zoomed past like it was normal to see a smoldering news unit on the main drag.
New guy, you okay?
I fumbled for the radio. “No, I’m not okay. I’m on fire!”
There’s a fire extinguisher in the back seat.
I grabbed the fire extinguisher, threw the trunk open, and put the fire out. It was minor, but my rain gear was now melted to my sun gun. The stupid light must have switched on when I jumped that damn speed bumps.
On cue, the hangover I’d been waiting for all day erupted inside my head.
I had been a photog for two days. I’d been stripped and hosed, fired, hired, humiliated by a judge, and caught fire. I could only hope the words Weaver had spoken were true and tomorrow none of this would matter.
I somehow doubted it.
The Bentley Hotel was an homage to finery: gray stone walls and tall fancy columns, brass-framed glass doors, and a fancy-pants doorman dressed in a colorful uniform. I parked at the door and jetted inside to check things out, no use bringing all that gear until I knew where I was headed.
The lobby was just as lush: mahogany desk, elaborate chandeliers, Persian rugs, and a winding marble staircase to the second floor. “Hey buddy, where’s the Chief Justice speaking?” I asked the first bellman I saw.
The bellman took one look at my blue jeans and snubbed me.
“We require proper attire in the lobby sir.” A cheerful voice came from behind the desk.
I turned to see hypnotizing golden eyes eyeing my “attire” with disdain. There was something familiar about her gaze. Where had I seen her before?
“Oh, Brock, it’s you. You can’t just pop in to see me like this. Especially dressed like that.”
“Uh, yeah.” I fumbled for my next line hoping the blank look on my face didn’t betray my clulessness. “I . . . uh . . . forgot that you worked here.”
“Well, I guess I can forgive you. We were both pretty trashed.”
The girl from the bar. What the hell was her name?
“I don’t usually get that wild,” she giggled.
And what the hell did we do?
She leaned across the reservation desk and her cleavage peeked through her swelling blouse.
“Me either.” I stared at her chest . . . for a name tag. “Susan, I’m working too. I’m here to shoot the Chief Justice.”
“Do I have to call security?”
Still flirting. Must have been pretty good. “With a camera. I’m working for KALX.”
“That’s different. The Bar Association is lunching in the Pelican Ballroom, second floor.”
“Thanks.” I turned to dash back to the Taurus for my gear.
“Hey, I had fun last night. Wanna do it again?”
“Yeah,” I called over my shoulder. “Gotta go. Can’t keep His Honor waiting.”
---
Heavy velvet drapes and plush burgundy carpet sucked every foot-candle of light out of the Pelican Ballroom. I barged right in, mid-introduction. Every eye in the place bored through my cocky shell. I knew someone was going to sue me for disturbing the “speech,” but I soldiered on.
I stooped in the darkest corner I could find to assemble my gear. Icky clicked into its lock on the tripod. The big blue multi-pin umbilical cord stretched from Icky to my recorder. I connected the 30 volt sun-gun to the battery belt strapped around my waist, and bolted it to the camera’s light post.
I’d never seen so many stuffed suits in my life. Every lawyer in the state must have been there. They crowded around tables covered in frilly, white table cloths, their hair receding; their stomachs distending. They stood in unison as Chief Justice Wallace Christophe strode to the podium.
I squeezed my way between chairs and tables slapping my recorder against attorneys and counselors all the way to front of the room and set my tripod fifteen feet from the dais.
The judge opened a manila folder containing his speech, and I switched on my light.
They call it a sun-gun for a reason.
About a ga-jillion watts hit the judge square in the face. He raised his hands and swatted at the rays like they were a hoard of angry mosquitoes. His face squinched like he’d bitten a green persimmon, and he tried to blink gathering tears from the corners of his eyes.
My heart pounded against my ribs. I just blinded a judge. At least he couldn’t see me on the dark side of the light.
“I’ll see you in court,” the judge warned in a scholarly voice, “if I ever see again.”
The room erupted with laughter. I wanted to hide under my tripod. When the attorneys had all taken their seats, the judge lowered his head and barreled right into his speech.
It happened about three minutes in.
Hey new guy.
The Chief Justice froze.
Damn voice pager!
Blow off the judge.
Weaver’s words echoed in my head. “It’s a voice pager. It’s great.” Great my ass. The brazen voice in the little box on my hip drowned-out anything His Honor was trying to say.
We don’t want him.
I melted into a puddle and tried to soak through the heavy carpet.
“I don’t want you either, New Guy.” The judge said like he’d issued his decree from the high court’s bench. The lawyers guffawed and pounded the tables.
I grabbed my shit and oozed out, banging every lawyer’s chair along the way. The girl with the golden eyes called after me as I rushed through the lobby. I didn’t even bother to wave. I just wanted to be gone.
I threw my gear into the trunk without disconnecting anything. The sooner I could be out of there the better.
Inside the car, the two-way was already calling. Hope the judge hadn’t started talking yet. Just come back, Boyd needs a photog.
“The judge was in the middle of his speech. You told the entire room we didn’t want him.”
Sorry. You ought to turn your pager down when you’re shooting.
"Now you tell me." I threw the car into gear and floored it. My tires squealed, and I was gone in a puff of blue-gray smoke, jumping ever speed bump in the parking lot. I hoped no one took that “How’s my driving” sticker on my bumper seriously.
I took the long route back to the station to cool off so I didn’t kill someone when I got back.
Hey new guy. It was the radio. Someone just called from their car phone. They say your driving’s fine, but your trunk is smoking.
I checked the mirror. Thick white smoke billowed from the edges of the trunk lid.
“Holy shit, I’m on fire!”
I threw the car into park and jumped out in the middle of MacAuthur Boulevard. Cars zoomed past like it was normal to see a smoldering news unit on the main drag.
New guy, you okay?
I fumbled for the radio. “No, I’m not okay. I’m on fire!”
There’s a fire extinguisher in the back seat.
I grabbed the fire extinguisher, threw the trunk open, and put the fire out. It was minor, but my rain gear was now melted to my sun gun. The stupid light must have switched on when I jumped that damn speed bumps.
On cue, the hangover I’d been waiting for all day erupted inside my head.
I had been a photog for two days. I’d been stripped and hosed, fired, hired, humiliated by a judge, and caught fire. I could only hope the words Weaver had spoken were true and tomorrow none of this would matter.
I somehow doubted it.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
LESSON NUMBER ONE (part one)
The sun burned holes through my ZZ Top Cheap Sunglasses as I waited outside the wrought iron gate. I was beginning to regret partying all night. I slid my fingers behind the dark frames and rubbed my bloodshot eyes while trying to shake off the remnants of my beer-induced buzz. I couldn’t help but gawk at the scene beyond my windshield. It was like nothing I had seen before – not the gate, the TV station behind it – and I had been in the business a whole week.
KALX-TV stood before me like the proverbial gleaming city on the hill: a sprawling, single story building of sparkling steel and glass. A massive orange and white broadcast tower, like an erector set on steroids, grew from the center of the building. Fifteen American flags waved down the long gated driveway to the front doors. Below each flag, a second flag bearing the KALX-TV 5 logo announced, “This is KALX Kountry.”
I cranked down my window and pressed the button on the speaker box. “Nicholas Brock, here to see Jim Weaver.”
“Yes, Mr. Brock, I’ll buzz you in.”
The receptionist buzzed me through the front gate, and my rusty Dodge Charger sputtered to a parking place near the tinted glass. I shook my head as I headed for the door. Was I dreaming? Was I still drunk from last night? I was about to start my second job at my second television station in two days. Another buzz and I was inside.
“I’ve told Mr. Weaver that you are here. He’ll be with you shortly.”
Mister Weaver? I squinted in the dim light waiting for my eyes to adjust, “Thank you, Miss, uh,” I searched for the name plate on marble half-wall that hid everything but the receptionist’s head, “Johnston.”
“Call me Jeanne,” she said with all the perkiness of Katie Couric, while she fished for something inside her desk. “Mr. Weaver asks that you please have a seat and fill out this application.”
So this was how the other half lived? No ragged out carpet. No leak-stained ceiling, no crappy RCA cabinet television from the 50’s. Unlike my former digs, the KALX reception area shined of polished marble and glass. My sneakers squeaked against the marble tile floor as I crossed the room to a leather and chrome arm chair. I dropped the application on an asymmetrical glass coffee table. Across the room, on a large television screen, sand drained through an hourglass as the announcer introduced the next soap opera, “. . . so are the Days of Our Lives.”
Then I saw it. I could feel my eyes getting wider. My pulse quickened. I stood and took a few tentative steps. The orange glow in the corner called to me like a siren’s song. Plaques and statuettes with names like Murrow, Peabody, and DuPont stared back at me from the chrome and glass trophy case. There must have been a dozen of them. And standing tall in a beam of white light atop the case, a gold-plated, winged woman in a flowing robe, her back arched, stretched her arms toward the ceiling. She lifted a gilded, wire-frame globe for all to see. The inscription read, “EMMY, Excellence in Television News Photography, Jim Weaver.”
I felt someone watching me stare. I jerked my head around to see Weaver grinning like a mule eating briars. “Just admiring the hardware.” I said, checking my chin for spittle.
“It’s just a regional,” Weaver apologized.
“It’s a freakin’ Emmy.”
“Just a shiny hunk of tin that says I did good work two years ago.”
I stammered at a few words in protest, but Weaver cut me off.
“Rule number one, yesterday’s story, no matter how good or bad, is gone. Nobody remembers it. Nothing matters but the story you shoot today. You hang on to that attitude and you’ll have your own shiny dolls to play with. Now, let’s get you signed in.”
I followed Weaver into the cavernous main hallway. Larger than life-sized photos of anchors and reporters smiled at me we I drifted past.
“That’s the Gripper,” Weaver explained as we passed the first head shot, “Bob Grip. He anchors the five, six, and ten. The blonde next to him is his co-anchor Darla Darling – cheesy name. Consultants picked it – but she knows her shit.” And so it went all the way down the hallway, “That’s Sarge; she’s an institution. Dick Hicks, nicest guy you’ll ever meet. Lou James, he does the weekend show. Watch out for him. Hammy, sports guy extraordinaire, and his side-kick Bump. And that’s Boyd Leffingwell. He’s a fuck-up. But he’s our fuck-up.”
The newsroom was as opulent and immense as my previous digs were ratty and cramped. Framed prints by Manet or Monet, or some other long-dead, famous foreign artist graced the walls. The assignment desk stood as mountain of granite in the center of the room. The news director and assistant news director holed-up inside glassed offices at the back of the room.
Weaver just stood there and let me take it all in. “It’s like the Taj Mahal of newsrooms,” I finally sputtered.
“Nah, that’s in Baton Rouge, but it’s comfortable. It’s time to get you signed in, Ass Man has an assignment for you, and you still need to meet Icky.”
“Ass Man?”
“Assignment Manager, never met one who wasn’t an asshole. You would be to if you had to direct whining reporters and grumpy photogs all day.”
Weaver steered me to the back hallway and into the equipment room, where he opened the last locker and pulled out something big and orange. “This is Icky, the Ikegami 730. Nothing makes a prettier picture. And it’s a whole lot lighter than that TK you were driving.”
“It’s orange.”
“You’ll forget about the color when you get it on your shoulder.”
Weaver handed me Icky like it was made of gold. I threw it on my shoulder. He was right. Icky was light, well-balanced, and comfortable, almost like it belonged there.
“Now gear-up. The judge is waiting.” He tossed me a set of car keys. “Unit 7, it’s the Taurus sedan in the back lot. Oh, and you’ll need this.” Weaver pulled a silver cube the size of a matchbox off his belt.
“What is it?”
“It’s the latest thing in beepers, a voice pager. If the desk needs you, they call the number, leave a message, and it comes out of this little speaker. No need to fumble with buttons or fight to read a phone number while you drive. It just spits it out. It’s great.”
I put the beeper on my belt, loaded the Taurus and radioed the desk.
Hey new guy, the radio crackled back. Head to The Bentley Hotel, the Chief Justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court is speaking to the Louisiana Bar Association. Just shoot the speech; a producer will pick out the sound when you get back.
And I was on my way to my first real story.
KALX-TV stood before me like the proverbial gleaming city on the hill: a sprawling, single story building of sparkling steel and glass. A massive orange and white broadcast tower, like an erector set on steroids, grew from the center of the building. Fifteen American flags waved down the long gated driveway to the front doors. Below each flag, a second flag bearing the KALX-TV 5 logo announced, “This is KALX Kountry.”
I cranked down my window and pressed the button on the speaker box. “Nicholas Brock, here to see Jim Weaver.”
“Yes, Mr. Brock, I’ll buzz you in.”
The receptionist buzzed me through the front gate, and my rusty Dodge Charger sputtered to a parking place near the tinted glass. I shook my head as I headed for the door. Was I dreaming? Was I still drunk from last night? I was about to start my second job at my second television station in two days. Another buzz and I was inside.
“I’ve told Mr. Weaver that you are here. He’ll be with you shortly.”
Mister Weaver? I squinted in the dim light waiting for my eyes to adjust, “Thank you, Miss, uh,” I searched for the name plate on marble half-wall that hid everything but the receptionist’s head, “Johnston.”
“Call me Jeanne,” she said with all the perkiness of Katie Couric, while she fished for something inside her desk. “Mr. Weaver asks that you please have a seat and fill out this application.”
So this was how the other half lived? No ragged out carpet. No leak-stained ceiling, no crappy RCA cabinet television from the 50’s. Unlike my former digs, the KALX reception area shined of polished marble and glass. My sneakers squeaked against the marble tile floor as I crossed the room to a leather and chrome arm chair. I dropped the application on an asymmetrical glass coffee table. Across the room, on a large television screen, sand drained through an hourglass as the announcer introduced the next soap opera, “. . . so are the Days of Our Lives.”
Then I saw it. I could feel my eyes getting wider. My pulse quickened. I stood and took a few tentative steps. The orange glow in the corner called to me like a siren’s song. Plaques and statuettes with names like Murrow, Peabody, and DuPont stared back at me from the chrome and glass trophy case. There must have been a dozen of them. And standing tall in a beam of white light atop the case, a gold-plated, winged woman in a flowing robe, her back arched, stretched her arms toward the ceiling. She lifted a gilded, wire-frame globe for all to see. The inscription read, “EMMY, Excellence in Television News Photography, Jim Weaver.”
I felt someone watching me stare. I jerked my head around to see Weaver grinning like a mule eating briars. “Just admiring the hardware.” I said, checking my chin for spittle.
“It’s just a regional,” Weaver apologized.
“It’s a freakin’ Emmy.”
“Just a shiny hunk of tin that says I did good work two years ago.”
I stammered at a few words in protest, but Weaver cut me off.
“Rule number one, yesterday’s story, no matter how good or bad, is gone. Nobody remembers it. Nothing matters but the story you shoot today. You hang on to that attitude and you’ll have your own shiny dolls to play with. Now, let’s get you signed in.”
I followed Weaver into the cavernous main hallway. Larger than life-sized photos of anchors and reporters smiled at me we I drifted past.
“That’s the Gripper,” Weaver explained as we passed the first head shot, “Bob Grip. He anchors the five, six, and ten. The blonde next to him is his co-anchor Darla Darling – cheesy name. Consultants picked it – but she knows her shit.” And so it went all the way down the hallway, “That’s Sarge; she’s an institution. Dick Hicks, nicest guy you’ll ever meet. Lou James, he does the weekend show. Watch out for him. Hammy, sports guy extraordinaire, and his side-kick Bump. And that’s Boyd Leffingwell. He’s a fuck-up. But he’s our fuck-up.”
The newsroom was as opulent and immense as my previous digs were ratty and cramped. Framed prints by Manet or Monet, or some other long-dead, famous foreign artist graced the walls. The assignment desk stood as mountain of granite in the center of the room. The news director and assistant news director holed-up inside glassed offices at the back of the room.
Weaver just stood there and let me take it all in. “It’s like the Taj Mahal of newsrooms,” I finally sputtered.
“Nah, that’s in Baton Rouge, but it’s comfortable. It’s time to get you signed in, Ass Man has an assignment for you, and you still need to meet Icky.”
“Ass Man?”
“Assignment Manager, never met one who wasn’t an asshole. You would be to if you had to direct whining reporters and grumpy photogs all day.”
Weaver steered me to the back hallway and into the equipment room, where he opened the last locker and pulled out something big and orange. “This is Icky, the Ikegami 730. Nothing makes a prettier picture. And it’s a whole lot lighter than that TK you were driving.”
“It’s orange.”
“You’ll forget about the color when you get it on your shoulder.”
Weaver handed me Icky like it was made of gold. I threw it on my shoulder. He was right. Icky was light, well-balanced, and comfortable, almost like it belonged there.
“Now gear-up. The judge is waiting.” He tossed me a set of car keys. “Unit 7, it’s the Taurus sedan in the back lot. Oh, and you’ll need this.” Weaver pulled a silver cube the size of a matchbox off his belt.
“What is it?”
“It’s the latest thing in beepers, a voice pager. If the desk needs you, they call the number, leave a message, and it comes out of this little speaker. No need to fumble with buttons or fight to read a phone number while you drive. It just spits it out. It’s great.”
I put the beeper on my belt, loaded the Taurus and radioed the desk.
Hey new guy, the radio crackled back. Head to The Bentley Hotel, the Chief Justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court is speaking to the Louisiana Bar Association. Just shoot the speech; a producer will pick out the sound when you get back.
And I was on my way to my first real story.
to be continued
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
EAGER
“You’re the naked cameraman from TV!” She screeched with sudden recognition, and shrank behind a rack of novelty bumper stickers, then peeked out. “Did I really say that out loud?”
“Yes, I am, and you did.” I punched the price of her cold drink and newspaper into the cash register. “One twenty-seven.”
Her eyes shifted nervously from the bumper stickers to my belt buckle to the front page photo. There I was, in all my black and white glory, hands raised like a suspect at gunpoint, but it was a fireman’s hose holding me at bay. Water droplets glistened in the tight curls of my frizzy mullet. No shirt, no pants, and a scrap of sheet stretched in front of the good parts. Emergency lights behind me created a halo-effect around my torso and projected a shadow of my twig and berries on the small sheet. A strategically placed black bar made the picture fit to print in a family publication.
She handed me two dollars and strained at a shy grin. “Must have been pretty cold.”
I nodded.
It had been that way since I’d arrived at work that morning. Just forty-five minutes into my shift and I was ready to crawl under a rock. I could handle the men; a bawdy comment about shrinkage was usually enough. But how do you answer a grandmother or co-ed?
“Yeah,” was all I could muster. I dropped seventy three cents into her hand.
“It must be fascinating being a cameraman. Running to wrecks and murders and meeting all those interesting people.” Gold flecks sparkled in her big brown eyes.
She was trying to flirt, but I just wanted her to leave. “I wouldn’t know. KELC fired me. And they had never actually hired me in the first place.”
“That sucks.” She wrinkled her nose.
“Nobody else would even answer the radio. I lugged all that gear three blocks, to get shots of that damned overturned tanker. Then, that bastard Weaver from the competition shows up, grinning like a possum eating shit and shoots my little striptease.”
“Sorry I brought it up.”
“Nah, I’m sorry. You didn’t come in here to listen to a minimum-wage cashier bitch and moan. It’s just that bastard Weaver took my gear when they packed me in the ambulance. Then, he uses my shots in his story. That son-of-a-bitch.”
“I thought he was a bastard.” She joked putting the change into her purse.
“He’s both. I wouldn’t piss on his guts if they were on fire. I’m sorry. Bitching again.”
“That’s okay. It sounds like you got hosed . . . Sorry, bad pun.” Her lips hitched between a wince and a smile.
“Yeah, really bad.” I shook my head and tried to disguise a smile. “But look, it’s my first smile of the day. Thanks.”
“If you need some cheering up, there’s a big party tonight.”
“I think I’ll stew in my own juices for a while.”
“If you change your mind, it’s at The Cotton Gin. You should come – it’s dark in there. Nobody will recognize you.” She dropped the change in her purse and bounced out of the store.
The slap of another newspaper on my counter dragged my attention back from the door.
“Good thing I’m not on fire.” Jim Weaver laughed from the other side of my counter. “You got balls.” He set his cold drink counter. “Not that I could see ‘em.”
I had met Weaver once before he made my privates public. He was a round man with round eyes, an uneven mustache, and bristly gray hair half way around head. His right shoulder sagged a little lower than his left, and his left eye squeezed into a permanent half-wink from years peering through the lens of a television camera.
“Really, I looked at your video last night.”
“Looked at it? It was all over your story.”
“You expected me to just hand it over to KELC? You needed a tripod, but it was good for a rookie. You’ve got a good eye – too good to be ringing-up newspapers in a shop-n-rob. You might make it in this business.”
“Tell that to Cranch. He fired me for the ‘over exposure.’”
“Yeah, I feel pretty bad about that, but I couldn’t not shoot it.” Weaver dug his hands in his pocket and shifted from one foot to the other. “Hell, you even shot it yourself. Or tried to.”
I had almost forgotten that I had rolled tape too.
“The focus was soft, and it was a little dark, but I used it in the story for the morning show, just to piss off Cranch.” Weaver grinned slyly. “Like I said, you got balls, kid.”
I wanted to jump across the counter and beat the crap out of him, but it was hard not to like Weaver.
“How’d you like to rub his face in it?”
“What do you mean?”
“One of my guys walked off the job two weeks ago. The News Director wants me to hire some hot-shot college grad who thinks he’s Edward R. Murrow and Cecil B. DeMille all rolled into one. I want you.”
“Why?”
“I’ve been doing this long enough to know that hiring a photog is like looking to score at The Cotton Gin – eager beats pretty, every time." He laughed at his own joke. “Anybody can point a lens and hit record. But you’ve got an eye, and what you did to get those shots – taking your own car, hiking in with all that gear, sneaking out of the command post – that tells me you’ve got the fire that makes a good photog.”
“How do you know about all of that?”
“I’d tell you, but I’d have to kill you. You want the job or not?”
“When do I start?” I practically jumped over the counter, this time to hug him.
“Don’t be too eager. We ain’t talked money.”
“Look around. It would be illegal to pay me less than I get here.”
Weaver laughed again and shook my hand. “When do you get off?”
“I can be off now.”
He shook his head. “No, no. Come see me tomorrow.” Weaver headed for the door.
“Eager, I like that,” he called over his shoulder as the door closed behind him.
“Yes, I am, and you did.” I punched the price of her cold drink and newspaper into the cash register. “One twenty-seven.”
Her eyes shifted nervously from the bumper stickers to my belt buckle to the front page photo. There I was, in all my black and white glory, hands raised like a suspect at gunpoint, but it was a fireman’s hose holding me at bay. Water droplets glistened in the tight curls of my frizzy mullet. No shirt, no pants, and a scrap of sheet stretched in front of the good parts. Emergency lights behind me created a halo-effect around my torso and projected a shadow of my twig and berries on the small sheet. A strategically placed black bar made the picture fit to print in a family publication.
She handed me two dollars and strained at a shy grin. “Must have been pretty cold.”
I nodded.
It had been that way since I’d arrived at work that morning. Just forty-five minutes into my shift and I was ready to crawl under a rock. I could handle the men; a bawdy comment about shrinkage was usually enough. But how do you answer a grandmother or co-ed?
“Yeah,” was all I could muster. I dropped seventy three cents into her hand.
“It must be fascinating being a cameraman. Running to wrecks and murders and meeting all those interesting people.” Gold flecks sparkled in her big brown eyes.
She was trying to flirt, but I just wanted her to leave. “I wouldn’t know. KELC fired me. And they had never actually hired me in the first place.”
“That sucks.” She wrinkled her nose.
“Nobody else would even answer the radio. I lugged all that gear three blocks, to get shots of that damned overturned tanker. Then, that bastard Weaver from the competition shows up, grinning like a possum eating shit and shoots my little striptease.”
“Sorry I brought it up.”
“Nah, I’m sorry. You didn’t come in here to listen to a minimum-wage cashier bitch and moan. It’s just that bastard Weaver took my gear when they packed me in the ambulance. Then, he uses my shots in his story. That son-of-a-bitch.”
“I thought he was a bastard.” She joked putting the change into her purse.
“He’s both. I wouldn’t piss on his guts if they were on fire. I’m sorry. Bitching again.”
“That’s okay. It sounds like you got hosed . . . Sorry, bad pun.” Her lips hitched between a wince and a smile.
“Yeah, really bad.” I shook my head and tried to disguise a smile. “But look, it’s my first smile of the day. Thanks.”
“If you need some cheering up, there’s a big party tonight.”
“I think I’ll stew in my own juices for a while.”
“If you change your mind, it’s at The Cotton Gin. You should come – it’s dark in there. Nobody will recognize you.” She dropped the change in her purse and bounced out of the store.
The slap of another newspaper on my counter dragged my attention back from the door.
“Good thing I’m not on fire.” Jim Weaver laughed from the other side of my counter. “You got balls.” He set his cold drink counter. “Not that I could see ‘em.”
I had met Weaver once before he made my privates public. He was a round man with round eyes, an uneven mustache, and bristly gray hair half way around head. His right shoulder sagged a little lower than his left, and his left eye squeezed into a permanent half-wink from years peering through the lens of a television camera.
“Really, I looked at your video last night.”
“Looked at it? It was all over your story.”
“You expected me to just hand it over to KELC? You needed a tripod, but it was good for a rookie. You’ve got a good eye – too good to be ringing-up newspapers in a shop-n-rob. You might make it in this business.”
“Tell that to Cranch. He fired me for the ‘over exposure.’”
“Yeah, I feel pretty bad about that, but I couldn’t not shoot it.” Weaver dug his hands in his pocket and shifted from one foot to the other. “Hell, you even shot it yourself. Or tried to.”
I had almost forgotten that I had rolled tape too.
“The focus was soft, and it was a little dark, but I used it in the story for the morning show, just to piss off Cranch.” Weaver grinned slyly. “Like I said, you got balls, kid.”
I wanted to jump across the counter and beat the crap out of him, but it was hard not to like Weaver.
“How’d you like to rub his face in it?”
“What do you mean?”
“One of my guys walked off the job two weeks ago. The News Director wants me to hire some hot-shot college grad who thinks he’s Edward R. Murrow and Cecil B. DeMille all rolled into one. I want you.”
“Why?”
“I’ve been doing this long enough to know that hiring a photog is like looking to score at The Cotton Gin – eager beats pretty, every time." He laughed at his own joke. “Anybody can point a lens and hit record. But you’ve got an eye, and what you did to get those shots – taking your own car, hiking in with all that gear, sneaking out of the command post – that tells me you’ve got the fire that makes a good photog.”
“How do you know about all of that?”
“I’d tell you, but I’d have to kill you. You want the job or not?”
“When do I start?” I practically jumped over the counter, this time to hug him.
“Don’t be too eager. We ain’t talked money.”
“Look around. It would be illegal to pay me less than I get here.”
Weaver laughed again and shook my hand. “When do you get off?”
“I can be off now.”
He shook his head. “No, no. Come see me tomorrow.” Weaver headed for the door.
“Eager, I like that,” he called over his shoulder as the door closed behind him.
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