turd fiction

HOLY CRAP!!!!

2011-12-29T08:14:00.003-06:00

Yep . . . If you came here looking for the old Turd, he moved. Check out the new-and-improved blog.

CREDIT (end)

2010-04-21T08:35:00.001-05:00

Weaver caught me in the parking lot. “Lemme guess, three-day suspension. You, not Lou.”

“Yeah. I don’t get it.”

“It’s how Finch operates. I tried to tell you to let me handle it.”

“Well, next time just stop me before I give a shit about a story.”
“No. Next time, don’t leave your story with Lou.” Weaver smiled and punched my arm. “Brock, you’ve got something special. A passion and raw talent that doesn’t come along often. Don’t let this thing with Lou keep you from caring about your work. That’s what makes it special. Lou’s jealous. He couldn’t crank that out if you did it for him.”

“I did crank it out for him.” I tried to laugh. “And see where it got me.” I just wanted to go home and cry on Susan’s shoulder, but I sucked it up for the boss. “Payback’s a bitch.” I had already started concocting ideas to torpedo Lou’s story the next time we worked together. His stand-up would look lovely a shade of sea-sick green. Or better yet, there had to be a way to embarrass him in front of his fans at the next live shot.

“You know I can’t let you do that, Brock.” Weaver had obviously seen the wheels turning in my head.

“That bastard deserves it.”

“He’ll get what’s coming to him. Guys like that always do.”

“Yeah, but I want to be around to see it.”

“You got the short end, and that sucks. But you gotta let this drop.” Weaver put his arm around my shoulder.

“Drop it? What about journalistic integrity?” I pulled away from Weaver. “Lou plagiarized. Where’s the penalty for that? What if that was to get out somehow?”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“I’m not saying I would . . . I’m just saying.”

“Okay, say this 'leaks' to the paper. There’s a big investigation. The station ends up with egg on its face. The only answer for Percy Finch is to fire both of you. Try getting a job after that. And after what you saw today, how sure are you that he’ll do the right thing? You’ve got to let this go and get past it.”

“I know, but how? I put my heart into that story.”

“And that’s why it was good. This business needs more guys like you. I’ll make you a deal.” Weaver’s tone brightened. “Ever heard of NPPA Boot Camp?”

“Nope.”

“Every March, the National Press Photographer’s Association holds a week-long training camp for photogs. The best of the best from places like KUSA/Denver, KSTP/Minneapolis, WBZ/Baltimore fly in to run you through the wringer. It’s a tough week, but it’s one that will change your life.” Weaver studied my face. I guess he liked what he saw, because he continued, “They just wrapped up this year’s camp. You keep working hard and keep your nose clean, and next year, I’ll send you . . . If you’re still with us.”

“What about Percy Finch?”

“It’s next year. He’ll forget about this by then, if you can drop it.”

“As long as I don’t have to work with that son of a bitch the day I come back.”

“I don’t think Lou will be asking to work with you anytime soon. Now start your vacation. Treat Susan to a room in that fancy hotel of hers.”

CREDIT (part 2)

2010-04-19T08:08:00.004-05:00

Weaver caught my shoulder from behind as I stepped through the doorway. “Now’s not the time, Brock.”

“Oh, it’s time.” I answered over my shoulder.

I zeroed in on Lou’s smug anchor’s grin. My cork was about to pop. I checked my hands – no fists.

“Th-thanks.” Lou leaned forward in his seat as he watched me enter the room. His gaze darted between the news director and me. His grin dimmed just a bit. “Uh, Brock did a heck of a job shooting it too.”

“Yes. Good job, Brock.” Percy Finch fanned a limp-wristed salute my way.
I was torn. Should I play it cool, give Lou a little rope, and watch him dangle before he hung himself, or –

“You sonofabitch!” Choice made.

I dove across the corner of the table. Lou scrambled from his chair, but I managed to grab a handful of his tie before he could hide behind the ASSMAN. Ken nearly tumbled out of his chair trying to dodge us. Two women producers screamed.

Weaver leapt with me. He threw his arm over my shoulder and across my chest, and he pulled hard to keep me off of Lou.

“Tell ’em, you son of a bitch! Tell ’em what you did!”
Lou’s eyes swung nervously from me to Weaver to Ken, and back to me. “What? Uhh, I – ”

“Brock.” Percy Finch stood, smoothed his tie, and buttoned his suit coat. “What is the meaning of this?”

Ken wrestled Lou’s tie from my grip, and Weaver backed me across the table.

“That no-good son of a bitch ripped off my story!”

Lou backed flat against the wall and tried to disappear.

“Tell ’em! Tell ’em how you put your lock-out on the end of the Sonic story! Tell ’em you piece of shit!”

“Brock, calm down.” Percy Finch’s voice remained calm as he ran a hand through his starched hair.

“I’ll calm down as soon as this plagiarizer gets what’s coming to him!” My hands were balling themselves into fists again.

“We’re not going to handle this in the morning meeting.” Percy Finch turned toward the producers and reporters at the table. “If you’ll excuse us. Both of you, in my office. Now.”

Percy Finch leaned way back in his chair and faked his most sincere smile. Until now, I had steered clear of the diminutive Director of News. At five-foot-three, his less than impressive stature mirrored his yes-man managerial abilities. Percy Finch hated conflict. “Gentlemen, can’t we solve this without fisticuffs?”

I couldn’t contain myself. “Lou had absolutely nothing to do with that story last night.” My hands waved wildly around my head as I ranted. “I shot it! I produced it! I edited it! And he goes and slaps his name on it!”

“I think I’ve heard quite enough from you, Brock. I’d like to hear from Lou.” Percy Finch bobbed back and forth in his chair, his stubby fingers intertwined across his tie.

“Well,” Lou started tentatively, avoiding eye contact with me. “We needed a kicker for the late news. Brock had this story.”

Percy Finch smiled.

“Brock’s story didn’t have a KALX lock-out on the end.” Lou looked nervously at my hands. They were folded in my lap.

I waited for what I already knew was coming.

“Brock was gone. So I recorded mine over the last line.”

I gripped the arms of the office chair to keep from flying across the room.

“He’s not even a reporter!” Lou explained, desperation in his voice. “He couldn’t have locked it out even if he was here.”

Percy Finch nodded. “Brock, stay.” He held out his hand. “You see, a logical explanation. Thank you, Lou. You may go.”

“What!” I jumped from my seat. “Is that all? ‘Lou, you may go?’ He took credit for my work! That’s plagiarism!”

Percy Finch leaned across his desk. “Lou, would you close the door on your way out, please?”

When the door closed, Percy Finch stood and shut the blinds all the way around his glass office. That couldn’t be good, but at least no one would see me pummel the runt.

He took his seat behind the desk. First, he studied the doodles that covered his desk calendar. He rummaged around his top drawer for a pen, and doodled another running cowboy stick figure.

I waited, breathing heavy to keep from shouting.

“Brock,” he finally said never looking up from his doodles, “what are we going to do with you?”

“Me? I’m the victim here!”

“You’re not a victim. You are a photojournalist. You shoot stories for reporters.”

I squeezed my lips and gritted my teeth. I wanted to take his head off.

“Lou is an anchor.” He continued. “He tells stories.”

“Well excuse the hell out of me for stepping out of my narrow job description. Isn’t part of being a photojournalist telling stories?”

“Well . . . yes, but you tell them with pictures and sound.” Percy Finch looked me dead in the chin.

“That’s exactly what I did last night! And that son of a bitch took credit for it!”

“Son, everything on tape here is KALX property. It’s not your work.”

“So it’s okay for me to record my name on one of Lou’s stories?”

“No.”

“It’s the same damn thing Lou did. Only he did it to me.” I pounded my fists on his desk. The blast nearly rolled Percy Finch out of his chair.

“Son,” Percy Finch fought to suppress the startled look on his face, “if you don’t learn to control your emotions, you’re going to have a heart attack before you’re thirty.” He leaned way back in his chair again. “I’m going to help you with that. You’re suspended. Three days, starting now.”

“Suspended! I do the work. Lou plagiarizes it. But I’m suspended!”

“That’s twice you’ve almost punched a co-worker. I can’t have you threatening my staff without penalty.”

“What about Lou?”

“Lou didn’t threaten anyone. He’s fine.” Percy Finch stood and opened the blinds all the way around his glass office.

For once, I was speechless.

“No hard feelings.” Percy Finch winked. “Leave the door open on your way out.”

to be continued

CREDIT

2010-04-16T08:41:00.005-05:00

I strode into the station the next morning confident in my abilities for the first time. ASSMAN’s drunken congratulations the night before was just what my sagging attitude needed. With Sam’s carhop story, I had finally broken the jinx. I had shot and edited a good story, one people would not forget when they switched over to Johnny Carson’s monologue. And Susan and I had agreed that I had been an ass, but an ass that deserved a second chance if he learned to pick up a phone when he was going to be late.

“Nice piece last night, Brock.” Sarge patted me on the back.

“Thanks, Barb. I worked hard on it.”

“You finally got that white balance thing down. All the colors on the school board meeting were right.”

School board? She was just jealous. After all, she had turned down the chance to do Sam’s story.

“Good story last night, dude.” Dick Hicks high-fived me. “Can’t believe you got it in. The ASSMAN was pretty hot you shot the thing.”

“Thanks. Lou helped get it in the late show.”

“Yeah, you guys rocked it.” Hicks headed to his desk to make his daily crime blotter calls.

I loaded Icky, with its duct-taped viewfinder, and the rest of my gear into the Turd-Brown Taurus.

When Weaver pulled in to the parking lot he was wearing a smile almost as big as mine. “Helluva job last night!” He pumped my hand. “I knew you had it in you! How’d you talk Lou into working it with you?”

“He stopped by the edit bay as I fini – What do you mean, talked Lou into working it with me?”’

“Nothing.” Weaver gave me a quizzical look. “I just mean you two knocked it out of the park with that story last night.”

“Two of us my ass. I shot and edited it. Lou just made sure it got back to the tape room.”

Weaver’s smile began to wane. It was obvious a light bulb was blinking inside his head. And it wasn’t one he wanted to see. “You . . . didn’t see the newscast last night, did you?”

“No, I was buying flowers and arguing with Susan.” My stomach knotted with a sudden realization that all was not well with Sam’s story. “Why?”

“You need to see this.” Weaver headed for the newsroom door.

“But, I know the story backwards and forwards,” I explained as I trailed him. “I worked on it all night.”

Weaver led me through the empty newsroom and into to the feed room. Lights and l.e.d.’s blinked and fluttered on complicated-looking electronics that were crammed, ceiling to floor, in two heavy racks opposite the door of the tiny room. Two wall-mounted video monitors flashed pictures from network affiliates around the country, and CNN. A third ran the KALX off-air signal. The fourth showed the competition, KELC.

In six months, I hadn’t bothered learning much about the room, except how to get video from a live truck to the switcher, and which tape deck the ASSMAN used to record the newscast.

Weaver grabbed the shuttle knob on the ASSMAN’s recorder and scanned backwards past the last commercial break in the 10pm newscast. Sam’s face wiped in over an out of focus shot of the Sonic Drive-In sign. She sped through the story doing all her spins and tricks backwards at sixteen times normal speed until Lou’s smiling face beamed from the anchor desk.

Weaver stopped the tape. He gave me a this-hurts-me-more-than-it-does-you look.
“What? Did the director fat-finger the switch and punch color bars over the beginning?” I pulled my hand nervously through my mullet. “What was so important that you can’t just tell me?”

“You’ll see.” Weaver sighed as he punched play. Lou delivered a sugary intro with a gleam in his eye and tossed to the story.

No photog credit. No big deal, the story had gotten back late. Maybe the graphics girl didn’t have time to whip up a fancy lower third graphic with my name on it. Photogs never got credit for their work anyway. That’s just the way the business worked. We were paid for our work, reporters for their name and poofy hair. Nothing to get bent over.

The story rolled, just like I had edited it . . . until the last shot. Sam’s lips moved, but the words didn’t match, neither did the voice. It was much deeper. Manly.

It was Lou’s standard lock-out. “Reporting from the Sonic Drive-In, Lou Jameson, KALX News.”

Sam disappeared from the screen.

Weaver paused the tape and waited patiently for me to react.

He didn’t have to wait long.

“That son of a bitch.” I whispered in disbelief. My heart began to race as I fought to keep my words measured. “That no-good piece of shit,” I said a little louder. My hands balled themselves into tight fists.

Weaver put his hands up hoping to keep me from boiling over. “Brock, stay calm. Let me handle this.”

Crack! My hand sent itself straight through the hollow-core door of the feed room.

“Stay calm?” I dug my hand out of the splintered hole in the door, and wiped a thin trickle of blood from my knuckles on the thigh of my faded Levis. “That no-good bastard stole my story! I’ll have his job, that plagiarizing son-of-a-bitch!”

“Brock! Calm down and let me handle this.”

“I’ll calm down,” I mumbled “just long enough to knock that bastard flat on his ass.” I made a bee-line for the conference room where reporters and producers gathered each morning to plan the day’s coverage. I could feel Weaver on my heels.

“. . . and hats off to Lou Jameson,” a perfect mid-western non-accent drifted into the hallway outside the conference room, “for a masterful bit of storytelling on that Sonic story last night.”

I poked my head in, just in time to watch News Director Percy Finch draw his midget fingers to his forehead and wave a flaccid salute toward Lou. Finch's small crowd of producer drones clapped dutifully, while Barb Wilders and Dick Hicks tried to avoid his gaze. At the end of the table nearest the door, Lou Jameson beamed in the adulation.

to be continued

I CAN HEAR YOUR HEART

2010-03-26T05:58:00.004-06:00

“Brock, what are you thinking?” Susan’s long hair dangled in my face and tickled my nose.

How do you answer that question? After I had ruined our anniversary dinner plans in a late-night edit session and only managed to save the evening with pancakes by candlelight, I couldn’t tell her what I was really thinking – not with her laying naked on top of me.

How do you tell a woman glistening in a thin sheen of perspiration and the after-glow of a particularly vigorous session that you’re thinking you want a beer and some sleep?

I gazed into her eyes and made something up. “You.”

“What about me?”

Dammit Einstein, you should have known better.

“You and me.” It wasn’t really a lie. I had been thinking a lot about her lately – just not right at that moment. Six months of co-habitation had gone a lot smoother than I had thought. Actually, our relationship had outlasted any of my other flings by more than three months.

Susan rolled off me and onto her side. She propped herself up on one elbow and looked into my eyes. “What about you and me?” Shadows created by the candles we had lit danced across her porcelain skin.

Maybe it was because she had seen me naked before we ever met – of course the same could be said for most of the city – or maybe it was the way Ernie beat the crap out of me the night we first kissed, or maybe it was that Susan was just different, but whatever the reason, hanging out together felt natural. I didn’t have to be careful what I said, or did. I wasn’t always on my best behavior like with most of the women I’d dated. And neither was she.

Nope, with Susan, I was free to be the same happy-go-lucky prick I was before we met. We never had to play the tiresome courtship games, unless of course we played them as a sarcastic slap in the face of social norms.

And I liked having someone to greet me when I came home at the end of the day. That that someone wanted to jump by bones was a plus, and the fact that she genuinely cared about my day made those romps in the sack special. As much as I liked to pretend these were just casual flings, I knew Susan felt differently. I didn’t like the idea of leading her on. But I liked the idea of her moving out less.

“I don’t know – just us.” I rolled on my side to face her. I brushed her hair away from her face with the back of my hand and let it linger on her cheek for a second too long.

Susan breathed a short gasp. “Ooh. You just gave me the yon-yons.” It was her favorite expression to describe the butterflies in her stomach when we kissed. Her face glowed with contentment. I just smiled and let my hand rest on her cheek a little longer.

Humor. That’ll diffuse the situation.

“Who would have thought that getting my ass kicked could lead to this?” I coughed a little laugh.

Susan’s face brightened and a loving grin gave way to a toothy smile. “You looked so helpless on the floor in the fetal position with Ernie pounding you and Nubby trying to pull him off.” She rolled on her back giggling.

I laughed along with her. The beating Ernie handed me that night was on par with the way my life had been headed at that time. I had flunked out of college. My naked cameraman routine made me a laughingstock in town. I was hopelessly lost shooting news, and I was bluffing my way through life. I knew it, and others around me were beginning to suspect it. I still couldn’t explain why Susan had hung around so long.

“Why’d you take me home that night?”

“I don’t know.” Susan stopped giggling.

I waited. “Sympathy?” Susan’s face went blank. I knew that hurt, but I persisted. “Revenge?”

Susan stared straight ahead with a puzzled look on her face.

What the hell was I doing? Susan was the first woman to have real feelings for me, and I was accusing her of throwing me a mercy hump, but it was what I thought about every time I thought about us.

She turned her back to me and pulled the covers up to her ears. He shoulders twitched. She was crying.

Good work Einstein.

I nestled in to spoon her, but Susan rolled onto her stomach.

“C’mon, Susan. You gotta admit,” I pushed myself sitting against the headboard, “we went from flirting, to bed, to roommates pretty quick.”

“Is that how you think of me? Your roommate?” Her voice held no expression.

“I don’t know what I think anymore.”

“That’s your problem, Rene. You think too much. Love isn’t rational.”

There it was again. The ‘L’ word.

“You think my feelings for you are rational?” Susan rolled to face me. Her eyes puffy, determined not to cry. “One minute I want to scream because you can’t remember to take out the garbage or pick up your smelly work shoes. Then I see your sexy smirk and I just want to kiss you.”

I wanted to smirk, but I couldn’t. I’d never seen Susan like this. Vulnerable. My shoulders slumped. My heart sank. What a prick.

“Then,” she sniffed, “I want to slap that damn smirk off your face when you don’t call when you’re going to be late, and when you finally come home, I want to hug you and never let you go.”

She looked me dead in the eye. She took a deep breath as if to stiffen her resolve. “You want to know why I took you home that night?”

It really didn’t matter at this point, but I was sure I was going to find out.

“Because I knew you.” Susan sat up.

I couldn’t look her in the face. My gaze trailed off somewhere around the nape of her neck.

“I knew you had passion. The way you ranted about being fired inside the store the day we met. Who says those kinds of things to a complete stranger? One look into your eyes that night at the Cotton Gin, one kiss on the dance floor, and I knew all I needed to know. I could feel it.” Susan’s voice brightened a bit. “It was more than the yon-yons. It was the way my heart fluttered. The way the world disappeared when I was in your arms. The way the room spun.”

I remembered those same feelings that night . . . right up until Ernie landed his first punch. “I think that was Ernie.” I tried to look coy.

“Why do you always do that?” Susan frowned.

“Do what?”

“Try to make jokes about something serious. Do you think my feelings are a joke?”

I stared into the sheets like a scolded kid. “No.” I finally sputtered. “It’s just all this talk is uncomfortable for me. I feel like letting you tell me you love me all the time is leading you on. I’m not sure what I feel.”

“You know exactly what you feel. You just don’t want to admit it.” Susan leaned in to me. Her skin was soft and warm. Her eyes begged me to give in. Something inside me melted.

Susan held me in her gaze.

Why was it so easy to listen to that passion at work but not at home? She could have gotten me to do almost anything if she had just asked. Instead, she pulled me down onto the pillows and snuggled into my side. She laid her head on my chest.

“I can hear your heart.”

“Oh yeah, what’s it saying?”

“That’s something you’re going to have to figure out for yourself. But don’t think too hard. Just listen.”

BLACK BOX

2010-03-08T23:30:00.004-06:00

Edi-turd's note: Taking a break from Brock's story for something a little different. My local writers' group tackled a little writing exercise. 600-800 words. Character opens a black box holding a secret. Lemme know what you think.

Tony gently placed a box on the table next to a large pair of scissors. His hands trembled as he ran them back and forth across the lid.

She never let him have his “little treasures” (as she called them). He always had to hide them.

Why’d she have to be such a bitch?

Once, she found one of his smut mags – another of her names for the many things she of which she disapproved – and immediately called her pastor over for dinner and a lecture.

What did he care what her pastor thought? Like he was any better, robbing little old ladies with his stories of miracles and promises of salvation.

That’s when Tony had started hiding his treasures in plain sight. She’d never think to look in the decorative black box wrapped in black and white speckled ribbon with curly-q ends. It had been sitting empty atop the entertainment center for three years.

Hiding shit in his own house. His check paid half the mortgage, the utilities, the groceries. He even paid for the expensive interior designer who’d re-done the house in colors he despised. It was all about her, and what she wanted. From the spit-shined brass knick-knacks on the mantle to the flowery wall paper in the bedrooms, to the potpourri candles that choked him every time she lit them.

Every time he took the box down to fantasize, he’d carefully untie the ribbon so as not to kink or tangle the ends and give away his little secret. And when he was done, he would re-tie the bow in exactly the same manner and fluff the loops so that she’d never notice the difference. Then he’d wipe off any fingerprints or smudges he may have left on the shiny surface and slip the box back into its place at the exact angle it had been before. He’d been doing that for almost two years now.

Fuck her.

He picked up the scissors and studied his reflection in the cold steel. His heart raced at the sound of the two honed steel blades grinding past each other, and he slid his hand down his pants to soothe his growing erection.

Snip.

It was music to his ears. He had waited so long for this chance. Now he’d finally get his release.

He watched the ribbon fall to the table.

Tony’s hand trembled as he removed the top.

“Tony, I’m home!” she called from the kitchen.

Caught in the act. But this time he was ready. This time it would be different. He, with his guilty pleasures, wasn’t the freak of the house. It was her with her spotless wine glasses, polished dinner table and floor clean enough to eat on, her alphabetized book collection, her closet arranged by color and size, her early morning cleaning rituals, her meticulous schedules.

She was the freak, not him.

This was going to rock her world.

“In here, Mother,” he answered trying to keep his voice from quivering. “You stupid sadistic fucking whore,” he added to himself.

“Can you be a dear and help me unload the groceries.”

“I kinda have my hands full.” The truth and irony of the line made him smile almost as much as hatching his little plan. He released his erection and reached into the box. “Can you give me a hand?”

“Tony Simon! The ice cream is melting in the trunk. You come out here this instant or you’ll be scrubbing the car!” Her voice grew louder as she left the kitchen and made her way toward the family room, “I won’t have sour milk spoiling my clean car.”

She rounded the corner into the family room.

The blast reverberated through the spotless home. Panes of sparkling glass rattled in their frames. Blood spatters marred the freshly painted walls.

She froze. All she could do was stare as Tony’s brains leaked over the rich brown leather of her sofa.

ANNIVERSARY DINNER (end)

2010-03-04T21:41:00.004-06:00

part one

The silence was worse than the fight. And knowing I had hurt her was worse than the silence.

I let my eyes drop from her face to a spot on the floor half-way between us. My body was drained, my mind blank. And through it all, Susan stared silently, her eyes dead, refusing to hint at what she was thinking, what I needed to say.

“When do we come first, Bock?”

Finally. A clue. I played out the options in my head. You’re always first. I hadn’t exactly acted that way. What was the other option?

I finally broke the silence. "I know I've taken you for granted lately. You're really important to me." I crossed the kitchen and stood in front of her. "But this television thing is tough. I've got so much to learn to catch up with the rest of the photogs. I've got to pay my dues. And it's still new."

“That’s what I’m talking about! Why do you always do this?”

“Do what? I’m trying to explain.”

“Why do you always make this about your job?” Susan sighed. “This isn’t about cameras or tape or news. This is about having a life. I’ve got a job too. But you don’t see me hanging around the hotel for hours after my shift. I have a life outside of work. I thought you did too.” Another tear rolled down Susan’s cheek. It was obvious she had been holding back these feelings for a while.

I wanted to tell her – to explain – but I didn’t know, myself, why I spent so much time at work.

“What is it that makes you spend night after night in that station instead of at home? Is it me? Am I smothering you? Did we move in too soon? Do you need your space?”

She brushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear while she waited for me to answer. I didn’t have a clue what to say. The last thing I wanted was for her to move out.

She dabbed at her eyes with a dish towel. “I’m not asking you to spend every waking hour with me. But a phone call when you’re going to be late would be nice. And once in a while, I’d like to be able to plan a nice date.”

Susan leaned back against the sink.

Thick, heavy silence filled the room. The kitchen was only eight feet wide, but Susan felt an ocean away. I didn’t know why it even mattered. We had only known each other six months, but what she thought about me and my non-life mattered more than I wanted to admit it. My heart pounded inside my chest. "I wish I could explain the rush I get from telling a good story.” My head reeled as I searched for exactly the right words. “Its adrenaline and anticipation and butterflies . . . It's like a first kiss."

Wrong words.

"Oh, so when you're kissing me, you're thinking about work!" She turned away from me and slammed her hands on the counter top. "Fucking brilliant!"

I put my hands on her shoulders and tried to turn her to face me. “No. It’s – ”

She pulled away. "That's what you said." She answered into the kitchen sink.

"It's . . . the excitement of creation."

“So, now you're god.”

"Just forget it. You wouldn’t understand.”

“No, I need you to understand something.” Susan sighed and slowly turned toward me. The anger in her eyes had softened. “I’m not trying to take you away from your job. I know that you love it. I see it on your face every day when you walk through the door.”

A whisper of a smile crossed her lips. Susan dangled her hand limply next to mine. My heart raced as her fingers brushed against my palm, and she let my hand wrap around hers.

“That excitement in your eyes why I come home every night. I work all day dreaming of the smile on your face when you get home. I want that smile to be for me, not some city alderman running for re-election. I can’t wait for you to come in with those big, blue eyes sparkling like a kid who just pulled one over on his teacher. But I don't get that when you don't come home.” She slipped her hand from my grip. “This all happened too fast. You need time to sort out your life.”

My chest ached again, but this time it wasn't the bruise from my falling camera. I knew exactly where she was going. Things had moved fast between us, but it was that passion that kept me going. Susan's belief in me and her support made facing the mistakes I made every day at work bearable.

Brock, call me at home. The small voice pager on my belt could not have squawked at a worse time.

I ripped it from my belt and sailed it across the kitchen. It hit the wall and broke into three pieces. At least it silenced the ASSMAN.

Susan frowned. “You better answer that. Ken sounds like he means it.”

“The ASSMAN can wait.”

“It's okay, call him. He probably wants you to go in early and work late tomorrow.” She tried to smile.

I put the phone on speaker and dialed Ken’s number. I wanted Susan to hear me tell him where he could stick his late-night page, but she retreated to the bedroom. Ken answered on the first ring.

“Great fushing story!” He was smashed. “Why didn't you tell me she was sho good?”

“I tried, remember. But you didn’t want to hear it.”

“You guysh did great! I always knew you had it in you. See you at work tomorrow.” And the phone went dead.

Silence hung in the room like the smell of cooked cabbage.

I walked over to the corner and gathered the pieces of my voice pager. The speaker lay near the wall under a small knick it had left in the paneling. The belt clip landed a couple feet from it near the stove. I picked up the cover to the battery compartment from under the kitchen table last and sat down to put it back together. Why couldn’t relationships be that easy?

I sat at the kitchen table, afraid to disturb the uneasy peace, and rewound the day. I had finally found a small degree of success at work. Ken’s phone call should have been great news. I should have been happy. But all I could think of was how I had wrecked Susan’s night. And the more I thought about that, the more I realized she was right.

Why hadn’t I just called to tell her I’d be late? Stupid question. That would have been admitting that I’d rather work than go out with her. Even though that’s the way it looked, it wasn’t the case. Telling a good story was like catching lightning in a bottle. It was urgent. If I didn’t do it right then, the opportunity would be gone forever. Susan, it seemed, would always be there.

I’m not sure how long I sat in the quiet of the kitchen asking myself if I really believed that and why it was that my mind worked that way. The longer I sat there, the heavier the silence became until it was unbearable. I had to do something, but what?

I pushed away from the table as quietly as I could trusting that the words would come to me when I reached the bedroom. I met Susan in the hallway. Evidently she was thinking the same thing. We stood there for a while, each waiting for the other to say something.

It had always been my experience that in situations like this one, the first person to speak was the one that lost. For some inexplicable reason I was more worried about losing Susan than an argument. I took a deep breath and looked her in the eyes. “I've been a dick lately. I should have called tonight.” I paused hoping my apology would sink in. “I'll do better. Don’t move out.”

BIRTHDAY DINNER (part one)

2010-03-02T22:05:00.004-06:00

I fluffed a small bouquet of tired-looking daisies and turned the ones with brown-edged petals away from the door. It wasn't much to look at, but it was all the grocery store had at 10:05 at night. I knocked three times – in the last six months, it had become my code – and let myself in.

Susan slouched on the sofa watching Lou James toss to Tommy Kay for the weather. She didn’t move as I entered the apartment. Instead of her usual skin-tight jeans and revealing blouse, she wore formless sweatpants. The neck of her oversized sweatshirt drooped across her shoulder revealing the strap of her lacy black bra.

“Oh, good. You’re watching the news. I want you to see the story I shot. It’s the kicker at the end of the show.”

She turned off the TV and hid her face as I bent to give her a hug.

“Hey, what’s the matter? I brought you some flowers for your birthday.”

She swung her head back to face me. Her golden eyes looked tarnished. Black mascara smudges ran down to her cheek bones. “Do you know what it’s like to be stood up on your birthday?”

“I . . . uh – ”

"I was worried sick. I just knew you were on the side of the road at some crime scene somewhere, dead." She stepped back and looked into my eyes. "I could kill you."

"I –"

"Where do you get off not calling me?” Her tears dried. It must have been the flames forming in her eyes. “You were supposed to take me to dinner tonight."

"I know but –"

"It’s my birthday!"

"Yeah, but –"

"I got all dressed up.”

“Yeah, nice sweats.” I handed her the pitiful flowers and plopped down in the La-Z-Boy across the living room.

She took one look at my peace offering and slung it across the room. “Flowers ain’t gonna fix this.”

“I know I –”

“I was in the edit bay.” She mocked my feeble attempt at an explanation. “Can’t you come up with something more original?”

“I was in the edit bay, and what’s it to you?”

"Lemme guess." Susan closed the door and faced me, her hands on her hips and fury in her voice. "Another story! What was it this time, Bock? A cat in a tree? The school board set a new, longest meeting record? Or were you repairing the damage you did to another sports interview?"

That last one hurt. But she was right. This whole routine was getting old. We had moved in together just three weeks after Ernie punched my lights out on the Cotton Gin dance floor. It was quick – maybe too quick. But there was something between us that neither she nor I could deny. And the sex was great.

"A carhop." I mumbled.

"What?" Susan screamed and stared straight through me. "I missed a night in a fancy restaurant for a fast-food floozy on roller skates!” Her arms waved wildly over her spray-starched hair. “I'm getting tired of this, Bock."

"I know."

"What's this make, seven, eight times we’ve canceled our plans because of your job?"

"I know. I'm sorry.” I hung my head. I didn’t have to try to look pitiful this time. I hated letting her down.

“I don’t want your damn apologies! I want steak Janon!”

The thought of the signature dish at the poshest restaurant in town made my mouth water.

“I want a night out with a boyfriend who wants to spend time with me!”

She was right. I had been spending too much time at the station, changing our plans at the whim of the ASSMAN. When we were together, it was perfect – except for when I screwed things up. It was a constant struggle to balance my love for my new job with my feelings for Susan. And it was not an explanation I wanted to tackle, especially with Susan this mad at me.

“I do want to spend time with you. You know that, but this is the way news works. I can't tell you when the next big story is going to happen."

"And what's big news about a carhop? I know,” Susan’s voice oozed sarcasm, “she ended world hunger with her serving tray!"

I had that one coming, I guess. My head sagged between my shoulders and I sighed in exasperation as I crossed the room and scooped the disheveled bouquet off the floor.

Susan’s eyes followed me almost daring me to speak.

I obliged.

"The carhop wasn't the big news part." I fought to keep a somber look on my face. I had to look contrite, but I could feel the edges of my lips giving away my true emotions. "It finally happened. It finally clicked! I told a good story!" I felt my face light up.

"Fan-fucking-tastic!" Susan stormed past me into the kitchen. I was sure she was headed for the knife drawer, but I followed her trailing limp flower petals anyway.

She spun to face me, the anger in her face tempered by desperation. "Let's stop the world because Bock has a good story.” Tears began to pool in the corners of her eyes. “What about us? What about our lives?” A fat tear cleared a fresh trail through her mascara, smearing a gray streak down her cheek.

I hadn’t really thought that much about us. I had it good. A job I loved. A girlfriend at home who loved me. She told me as much every time I left the apartment.

“We can't just put everything on hold every time someone has a story to tell.” Susan folded her arms across her chest and waited for me to say something.

I searched my brain. What was it that she wanted to hear? It wasn’t another apology. I love you? I wasn’t ready for that. I’ll move out? I wasn’t ready for that either.

I stood there staring back at her. Waiting. Hoping. Praying for an answer that would get me off the hook. I shifted my weight, first to my left foot, then to my right.

Susan didn’t budge. She wasn’t letting me off that easy tonight.

to be continued

SHOOT WITH YOUR EARS (the end)

2010-02-24T07:29:00.003-06:00

part one
part two
part three

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."

SHOOT WITH YOUR EARS (part three)

2010-02-17T08:33:00.003-06:00

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.

to be continued

SHOOT WITH YOUR EARS (part one)

2010-02-09T08:20:00.005-06:00

“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.

to be continued

THE GIRL WITH THE GOLDEN EYES

2010-01-21T07:03:00.004-06:00

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.

LESSON NUMBER ONE (the end)

2010-01-16T00:08:00.003-06:00

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.

LESSON NUMBER ONE (part one)

2010-01-14T08:34:00.003-06:00

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.

to be continued

EAGER

2010-01-05T08:03:00.002-06:00

“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.

BEND OVER 2

2009-12-31T07:47:00.004-06:00

Part one

“We’ve got a man down here!” A fireman wearing a white captain’s shirt shouted above me. “You okay buddy?”

“Yeah,” I puffed from all fours. “Just carried . . . this shit . . . three . . . blocks.”

“What are you doing here? This is a hot zone – emergency personnel only.”

My oxygen-starved brain strained for a plausible explanation that wouldn’t get me thrown out. “Shooting evacuation . . . Wrong turn . . . too much gear, too tired . . .”

“You can stay here till you catch your breath. Stay out of the way, and don’t let anyone see you. Then go back to your vehicle.”

Bingo!

I kept my face down not to show the captain my ear-to-ear grin and waited until he had rejoined the swarm of other police and firemen before pulling myself to my feet. I scanned the street beyond the parking lot for the inner perimeter of police cars; that’s where I always saw reporters on the news.

The tanker rested on the far shoulder of the northbound lanes, in the middle of the only section of McArthur that bent east to west. Apparently, it had managed the first half of the double-S curve leading into the first of Alexandria’s two traffic circles and flipped on its side while preparing for the second.

Two Louisiana State Police SUV’s parked akimbo blocked the south bound lanes of McArthur Boulevard. If I could get between them, it was a clean shot to the tanker, and an unobstructed view of the command post, the empty streets, and the ambulances. I had my spot. But I’d never make it there with all that gear. I decided to ditch the battery belt and tripod. The photogs in the movies never used tripods anyway.

I casually walked past firemen and E.M.T.’s scurrying at the edges of all the chaos. No one seemed to notice the gear-toting robot with the hitch in his stride. I kept to the shadows until I reached the service road, then crossed the small ditch separating it from the south-bound lanes, and slipped between the two trooper vehicles.

With the flip of a switch, TK’s eye cup blinked to life. Wisps of chemical fog evaporated from the blacktop around the crippled tanker less than 100 yards away. Strobe lights reflected off its red, black and white hazard placard.

I crouched down, balanced Icky atop the tape deck, and rolled tape: first a wide shot of the empty street and the semi. I toggled the zoom servo all the way across the median and the north bound lanes, for a tight shot of the truck. A trickle of clear liquid ran past the truck’s leaky valve and splashed onto the blacktop. “This is good shit.” I caught myself talking to no one.

Next, I trained my lens on the command post. Half a dozen moon suits erected a decontamination area complete with kiddie wading pools and showers. Brown-suited police and blue uniformed troopers hovered around the mobile command camper, and E.M.T.’s dressed in green and white loaded lawsuit-seeking drivers into a procession of waiting ambulances. At the back of the crowd, an overly logoed van with a telescoping mast and dual golden rod antennae parted a sea of emergency personnel.

KALX.

“Dammit!” I cussed under my breath. The competition had arrived. Didn’t matter. I’d beat them. They’d never get a good shot from there.

Then my curiosity got the best of me. Why hadn’t trooper inside come out to shoo me away?

I stretched my neck to look inside. Nobody home. I crept to the truck blocking the other south-bound lane. No one there either.

Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

“Hey you! What the hell are you doing? Get your ass outta there!”

Dammit.

“Hey! Get outta there!” The incident commander who was so helpful earlier hollered from the parking lot like a drill sergeant. “You’re contaminated. Get the hell away from there!”

I grabbed my gear and gave a nonchalant wave. Before flunking out of college, I had been a chemistry major. I had played with sulfuric acid. My eyes didn’t burn. I could breathe normally. My skin was the same ecru color it was earlier that morning. I was quite fine, and I had the shot.

“What the hell were you thinking? Move your ass!” The incident commander screamed the whole while I made the trek back, across the north-bound lanes, through the ditch, across the service road, and into the command post.

“STRIP!” The incident commander yelled, purple with rage.

“What?” I huffed, setting my recorder on the ground.

“You heard me!” He leaned in nose-to-nose with me, just like Sergeant Carter in those Gomer Pyle re-runs we aired after midnight. “You are contaminated! Now strip!” He turned to call a hoseman, then back to me. “Shirt, NOW!”

It was obvious I wasn’t getting out of this without at least a little embarrassment, so I laid my recorder flat on the ground and placed TK on top of it. I slipped my wallet under the front of the camera to tilt it up just a little and punched her record button before backing away. Hell, this could be the best video of the night.

I peeled off my sweat shirt and tossed it to Sarge.

He threw his hands up and jumped back like I was throwing the plague at him. “On the ground. You’re contaminated.”

The hoseman moved in.

“Holy shit!” Mist-like ice rained down, each droplet so cold it burned my skin and crushed my lungs. I sucked hard for a breath. Rivers of ice water ran down my chest and into my pants. Big Jim and the twins sought refuge somewhere in my abdomen.

“Turn around!”

I slowly complied with Sarge’s orders. Cold water sapped my strength. Goosebumps packed themselves tightly on my arms and chest, like legions of storm troopers in a Spielberg film. I completed my pirouette in time to see the lens of the blonde still shooter from the newspaper, and the sun-gun camera light of Jim Weaver, KALX chief photographer. He shined me a gotcha smile, then blinded me with his light.

“Pants!” Sarge barked.

“No way.”

“I said PANTS Goddammit! You’re contaminated!” A little blue vein bulged at the tip of his nose. I swore I saw steam rising off his buzz cut.

Maybe it was the fire shooting from his eye sockets, maybe I was caught-up in the moment, or maybe I wanted to prove to the other media that Nicholas Brock was no pussy, but whatever the reason, I loosened my belt and dropped trou in the middle of the parking lot. The hoseman moved in and we tangoed once again, he in his asbestos coat, me in my skivvies.

The water didn’t burn as much this time, probably because I was already a snowman.

“Underwear!”

“You gotta be kidding me.”

“Those briefs are contaminated. Now, STRIP!” He yelled it with gusto, like he enjoyed it.

Two E.M.T.’s rushed over with a gurney sheet, to shield me from the gaggle of motorists waiting for an ambulance. They stretched it taut – all two-and-a-half feet of it – between me and the cameras. At least it hid the essentials.

Until Weaver turned off his light.

Between the strobes and the work lights behind me, I was nicely back lit, and the tight white sheet made a perfect screen for an obscene shadow puppet.

After the hoseman did his thing again, the E.M.T.’s swaddled me in the sheet and crammed me into an ambulance with six other victims, none of whom were naked.

“Don’t worry about your gear.” Weaver shouted over the roar of the engines. “I’ll hold it for you.”

What a prince.

---

When I left the emergency room, I headed straight for the station.

Bend Over. Another day in broadcasting has begun. The blue and white sign over the sports guy’s desk that had welcomed me on my first day in the newsroom and the big tub of Vaseline beneath it mocked me. They were the first things I noticed when I set foot in KELC-TV one week earlier. I was instantly hooked on the aura of the shabby little station and its crew of small-town rejects. It was going to be the start of an exciting life – my ticket out of the corner shop-and-rob and into a career chasing history. Now, I fidgeted on bent folding chair inside Mr. Cranch’s tiny, glass-walled cubicle. A small ivy withered on the corner of his desk. Mr. Cranch sat staring holes through a faded Leroy Neiman Olympic print behind his desk. He rocked ever so slightly as was his habit, even when he was on camera.
I watched two flaps of Naugahyde separated by a diagonal rip across the back of his formerly expensive-looking executive chair.

“You’re fired.”

I waited for more. But that was all he said.

“I’m an intern. I work for free. You can’t fire a slave.”

“You violated protocol. Why didn’t you call someone?”

“I screamed on the radio for what felt like hours. Nobody answered. I buzzed Roosevelt’s pager. He never called back.”

“You took station equipment without permission. You lost your camera.” Mr. Cranch’s words clicked like a grandfather clock.

“Weaver’s got it. I just have to pick it up in the morning.”

“You crossed police lines. You exposed this station to criminal charges. And speaking of exposed . . .” he spun in his chair to face me. “You exposed yourself to the entire viewing area.”

“Yeah, about that –”

“You’re fired. Get out.”

Couldn’t he see that I was saving the day? Going the extra mile? Taking the bull by the horns and a hundred other business clichés? I wanted to explain, but it all felt empty. I sighed as I stood from the squeaky folding chair and marched through the silent newsroom.

At least I still had my job at the shop-and-rob.

BEND OVER

2009-12-26T08:14:00.004-06:00

I talked myself down.

If there was one thing the big tub of goo that called himself my supervisor had taught me in my first week on the job, it was to stop and think. Rushing led to mistakes. A mistake was something I couldn’t afford tonight. This was going to be my big break – the break that would send me from mild-mannered intern to actual employee.

I patted my TK's barrel in the passenger’s seat and ran through my gear in my head. I should have done it back at the station before I left, but there was no time. The way dispatch was shouting on the scanner, this had to be the end of the world.

I could see it all in my head: the flashing lights, the hoses, bodies strewn across McArthur Boulevard, acid eating a twelve-foot hole in the city’s main drag, and the lone camera of the competition capturing it all and broadcasting live while my station played MASH reruns. I could get the story for KELC-TV and save the day.

I fingered TK's blue umbilical and hoped I’d remembered everything.

I’d spent the last week watching Roosevelt and the others, studying their actions, mimicking their stance, marveling at their war stories, practicing their hundred-yard stare. Tonight, I’d earn my own.

Red, white and blue emergency lights ricocheted off reflective logos of the police and fire department vehicles ahead. A rookie cop with a flashlight and a whistle stopped me two blocks from the scene. He puffed up his chest and waved his flashlight, “Road’s closed.”

“Nicholas Brock, KELC-TV.” Dammit, I wish I had a press ID. “Lemme through.” I turned on the dome light inside my Ford Bronco and raised Icky so he could see I was a television photog.

“Emergency personnel only.” His voice squeaked as he tried to sound tough.

“I’m the press. Lemme through.”

“The area is hot. Nobody gets in.”

It never happened like this on TV. The biggest story of my week-long career was blowing up around me. Barney Fife wasn’t going to stop me. I threw my Bronco into reverse. I had to find another way in.

Barney faded from my rearview mirror, and I made a hard left into the neighborhood that backed up to the Albertson’s Shopping center. The streets were empty except for a few police officers knocking on doors, and one bed-headed resident stumbling across his lawn. I slipped into an empty driveway and turned off my lights.

The night sky glowed orange up ahead. An eerie peace had settled on the neighborhood. None of confusion from the spill site or Barney’s barricade wafted this way. I popped the hatch and loaded up: First I cinched a battery belt around my waist. Next, I loaded the tape deck’s pouches with extra batteries, locked my camera's umbilical cord into its multi-pin connector on the bottom of the tape deck, and slung the deck over my right shoulder. I dropped my tripod on top of that, threw my TK-76 on my left shoulder, and turned toward the street.

I took one leaden step.

The tape deck bounced back and forth against my left leg. My shadow looked like a bulky sci-fi robot spasming in the streetlights. My steps were just as mechanical. How the hell did the other photogs carry all this crap?

I steadied myself and took a short cut through the yard to the next block. I was missing all the good stuff: the haz/mat team in their white moon suits, thin streams of poisonous fog drifting from the crippled tanker, E.M.T.’s herding motorists chocking on toxic vapors into ambulances. My knees snapped, crackled, and popped like breakfast cereal, but I ran as best as I could with an extra sixty pounds strapped to my torso, ducking a branch here and dodging a tricycle there.

My heart pounded in my ears. Adrenaline flooded my veins. My breath erupted in short thick clouds of fog in the chilly October air. No more fetching Mr. Cranch’s coffee for me. No more strolling a darkened newsroom at night imagining myself the overnight photog -- the maestro of mayhem, rushing to fires, robberies, and the occasional drive-by “shoutings” in sleepy little Alexandria, Louisiana. This was my foot in the door, and I was about to kick it in. Good-bye shop-and-rob clerk. Hello television.

I paused trying to catch my breath before rounding the corner of the grocery store.
Generators coughed and sputtered to life. Trees of emergency work lights flooded the parking lot and the street beyond. Emergency vehicles from every agency in the city spilled into the streets almost exactly as I’d imagined it.

I took one step and promptly collapsed.

to be continued

BLAME AND FORGIVENESS -- the end

2009-12-15T08:23:00.003-06:00

Gerald’s head jerked as the guard swung the injection table upright. Leather wrist and arm straps dug into his flesh. Chest restraints tightened around his bare chest keeping him from sliding to the floor in a heap. He had no strength to fight it.

The white floor and walls magnified the bright fluorescent lights till everything in the tiny room glowed. The air was cold and sterile. A rubber tube hung from a needle in the vein inside his left elbow, another from his right foot. In the corner, next to the EKG machine, Reverend Rob recited Psalm 23.

“Won’t be long now Rev.”

Reverned Rob stopped praying just long enough to answer. “There’s still time to reconcile yourself with God, Gerry.”

Warden Johnson leaned over to whisper in Gerald’s ear. “I’m going to open that curtain. You’ll be able to see the witnesses on the other side. This is your chance to get right.”

Warden Johnson drew back the curtain. Gerald searched the small room beyond the glass for familiar faces. The district attorney sat on the front row. Gerald recognized two attractive, blonde television reporters and the frumpy newspaper man who covered his trial and appeals. He squinted to see into the last row. She was still hot after all these years.

A black fishnet veil hid Jennifer’s big blue eyes. Gerald smiled at the cleavage she flashed from her low-cut black dress. Daddy's little whore.

Warden Johnson moved a microphone in front of Gerald’s face. Gerald cleared his throat. “I guess,” the words hung hollow in the small room. “I guess I should say how sorry I am for what I done to Chastity. She was a special little girl. I loved that girl like she was my own. I ain’t never meant to hurt her.” Gerald stopped to glance at the back row.

“The Lord is my Shepard, I shall not want…” He heard Reverend Rob begin Psalm 23 again.

“I ain’t never meant to hurt her.” Gerald’s voice was almost a whisper. He breathed deep, so deep it tugged at his chest straps. All those years of torture and pain ripped at his heart. “But it wasn’t my fault! She wanted it! She begged for it!”

Father Rob clenched his fists. His face flushed bright red. He prayed louder. “Yeah, as I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil.” His voice quivered, but he continued. “For Thou are with me; Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.”

“That little whore. Best I ever had!” Gerald felt ice in his veins. He checked the clock above the window, twelve seconds past midnight. His thoughts sloshed in a flood of anesthetic. It had begun. His eyes were already feeling heavy.

“Rev!”

“Yes, Gerry.” Reverend Rob rushed to his side.

“Is it too late?”

“It’s never too late, Gerry.”

“I shouldn’t have done that to you and Jennifer.” His speech was slurred. “I hope ya’ll can fin’ peace in my death. After what I done to your daughter.”

“Are you asking for forgiveness? There is no peace without forgiveness. Please Gerry, ask the Lord for forgiveness.”

“Rev,” his voice was barely a whisper. “She liked it.”

****

More than a trench, there’s a chasm between blame and forgiveness. Gerald Blount skirted the rim of that pit for 25 years. He could never forgive himself for the way he tricked Jennifer into marrying him just to get close to Chastity. Or for convincing himself that Chastity wanted and deserved what he had done to her. He could only blame the person who took his son Gerry Junior’s future and caused his wife Lisa to commit suicide, the same person who forced Gerald to rape and kill a 13-year-old girl.

Gerald leapt into that chasm with a smile on his face, his unrepentant soul left to weigh heavy on the heart of the priest who molested 11-year-old Gerry Junior, Reverend James Robichaux of The Resurrection Episcopal Church.

BLAME AND FORGIVENESS 4

2009-12-10T07:01:00.008-06:00

The clock in the visitation room blinked 10:32. The fresh pine scent replaced by the choking smell of burnt tobacco. A thick cloud of cigarette smoke hung from the ceiling to the top of the cell door. Gerald sucked hard on another Marlboro, and held the smoke in his lungs. "58 minutes till they take me." He said to no one in particular. "I guess Gerry Junior ain’t coming.” He flicked ashes on the floor, and dragged the life out of the cigarette.

“I tried to talk to him yesterday.” Reverend Rob apologized. “But he wouldn’t take my call.”

“Can’t say as I blame him, after all that’s happened. I ain’t seen him since they stuffed me in the squad car. He must be ’bout 36 by now. I guess it’s best he don’t see me like this.”

"I talked to Jennifer yesterday.” Reverend Rob walked over to Gerald and rested his hand on Gerald's shoulder. “She won’t be coming either."

“Good! I wouldn’t piss on her guts if she was on fire. That cunt.”

“That’s no way to talk about your wife.”

“Wife? What kinda wife wears a wire for the cops an’ tricks her husban’ into confessin’ to somethin’ he didn’t do?” Gerald scratched a match under the table and lit another cigarette. “Lisa was my wife. If she hadn’t kilt herself, I wouldn’t be here. Jennifer was my whore.”

Reverend Rob winced at the tone of Gerald’s voice.

"So," Gerald took another long drag, "why you doin' this?"

"Doing what?"

"Sittin' with me. What do you care what happens to me?"

"That's easy, Gerry. You are a child of God. He loves you. You need His grace more than most right now." Reverend Rob rubbed his bloodshot eyes.

"That's a Sundee school answer if I ever heard one." Gerald chuckled and propped his feet on the table. He tossed his smokes to the preacher. "Really, why you doin' this?"

Reverned Rob dropped into the seat across the table from Gerald and sighed in resignation. “Gerry, nobody wanted to bother with you. It’s your attitude. You’re mean, nasty, and ungrateful. Worst of all, you want to die, and you want to die in sin.” He tapped a cigarette from the pack. “Whether you like it or not, everybody deserves a chance at redemption. Even somebody as ornery as you. God told me I was the one who had to reach you because of what I had done.” Reverend Rob smiled.

“The paperwork to get this assignment nearly buried me.”

“What makes you think I wanna be redeemed?”

“Because I know what it’s like. I’ve been where you are.”

“You don’t know shit! You ain’t never felt what I felt. You ain’t never been on death row.”

“Death row, no. But what do you think it’s like for a respected man of the cloth to disgrace not only himself, not just his parish, but his entire world-wide church?”
The flame danced on the match head as he lit up. “When those accusations about me came out, I was just like you. Deny, deny, deny. And my lawyers didn't help. They told me to keep quiet. Don't admit anything. For three years, all the way through my trial, I kept my mouth shut. I buried my sin deep inside.”

Tears pooled in the corners of his eyes. “I lost everything, Gerry. Lawyers took all my money. My wife, Jen, took our kid and left me. I lost my parish. My parishioners wanted nothing to do with me." He paused to clear a sob from his throat. "They packed me away in D-Block with all these other men who had nothing left. I lost my faith.

“I was like Jonah inside the belly of the whale, I thought I could hide from God and live the rest of my life alone and miserable. But He found me." Reverend Rob’s red eyes brightened, and a grin broke across his large face. “Actually, he bugged the crap out of me”

Gerald chuckled. He slid his feet off the table and leaned in attentively.

"I found forgiveness in the parable of the Prodigal Son. That son was me. I had squandered the gifts God had given me on pleasures of the flesh. Me, a preacher of His word. It took a lot of soul-searching but when I finally asked God to forgive me, he did. And I could forgive myself. God opened my heart to this ministry. God's grace saw me through my rough spot. Now, I'm trying to do the same for my fellow prisoners."

"That's a nice story Rev., but you ain't nothing like me." Gerald leaned in across the table. His nostrils flared as he spoke. "What you did – touching little boy’s dicks – was sick. Sick, perverted lust. They didn’t want you. She wanted me!"

“Wanted you? Wanted you! Then why did you rip her shorts?”

“We was excited!”

“And why did she scratch your face? Why did you have to hold her down while you pushed her underpants out of the way?”

Gerald smirked. The picture of his hand tearing at her bikini briefs with lacy frills around the waist band and “Daddy’s Girl” written in fancy black script across her tight, little cunt was sweet. He could feel her legs flailing over his back as he pushed his way inside her.

“You raped her, Gerry!” Reverend Rob leaned in nose to nose with him, his voice hoarse with rage. “She kicked and screamed and cried.”

“It was her fault!”

“It was you, Gerald! You forced yourself on her! You wrapped your hands around her neck! You squeezed her neck till she stopped breathing! You killed her, Gerald! You!” Reverend Rob stared, seething, into Gerald’s eyes.

“She wanted me.”

“She was 13 for Christ sake!” Reverend Rob pounded the table with both hands and stared deeper into Gerald’s blank glare. He paused to catch his breath. “I’m sorry, Gerald. The pressure is getting to me. You need to ask for forgiveness. I don’t want you to spend eternity in Hell.”

Gerald turned and headed for his cell.

to be continued.

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

BLAME AND FOGIVENESS 3

2009-12-07T06:45:00.006-06:00

Gerald bolted upright in his bed.

Reverend Rob was reading again. "When he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death!”

“What time is it?”

“You’re awake. Just in time for the best part.” Reverend Rob had not moved from his spot outside the cell door.

“It’s dark. What time is it?” Beads of sweat ran from Gerald’s forehead into his eyes making it look like he’d been crying.

“Quarter after eight.”

Gerald squinted to see the clock across the visitation room. “Clock over there says 8:13. Don’t cheat a condemn’ man outta two minutes.”

“You look like hell.”

“What the fuck you expec’? They gonna hook me up to the needle and juice me.”

“What were you dreaming about?”

“Nothin’.”

“It was her again.”

“She was scared. I told her I wasn’t gonna hurt her. But she was scared.”

“If you ask me, you’re the one who’s looking scared. You don’t have to be.” Reverend Rob rolled out his reconciliation sermon. “God’s mercy is a wonderful thing. If he can forgive me for molesting boys and help me find peace, he can do the same for you. That’s what the parable I was reading you is all about.”

“Save your breath.”

Reverend Rob went on undeterred. “This son had squandered his inheritance on loose women and was living in squalor. When he came to his senses and asked for forgiveness, his father killed the fatted calf and threw a huge party. It can be the same for you.”

“Only calf they gonna kill is me.” Gerald smirked.

“God wants to forgive you, all you have to do is ask.” Nineteen years of subtlety hadn’t worked; Reverend Rob tried a more direct approach. He turned to the Gospel of Luke and read a passage highlighted in yellow, “See, it says here, ‘I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.’ I can’t do it for you, Gerry.”

Gerald clasped his lips tight around another Marlboro. His lips trembled as he fought the urge to speak. He could see the tall grass dancing on the banks of the Amite River. He was on top of her staring down into those bright blue eyes, her ponytail fanned out in the grass beneath her head. The muscles in her throat quivered. She was so damn sexy. He leaned in and kissed her. She clenched her lips tight. She wanted to fight.

He pinned her wrists to the ground above her head with one hand and wrestled her shorts down with the other. Her eyes were wild, her breaths shallow and hot on his neck. She wiggled and kicked to get away.

He clawed and ripped at her shorts with his free hand. The button gave way. He pushed her shorts to her ankles and off one foot; he released her hands and went for his zipper to release his fury.

She screamed.

“My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear.” Father Rob read from Job. “I confess my iniquity; I am troubled by my sin.” He stopped to look at Gerald. “Your eyes look troubled, Gerald.”

“No. No trouble,” his voice faded. “I didn’t do anythin’ she didn’t want.”

Father Rob shook his head. He was obviously angry, but he never raised his voice. “Is that what you’re going to tell the Almighty when you meet him in four hours? You can’t rationalize sin away, Gerry. I tried it on D-Block, but it chased me down, just like yours is haunting you tonight.”

“Nothin’ hauntin’ me but you an’ your Bible verses.” Gerald threw himself to his feet and stormed out the open cell door. “Let’s do it! Let’s do it! NOW!” His eyes darted around the visitation room. “Guard! Guard! Damn it, let’s get this over with!” He tore off his shirt and ran for the solid steel door hiding the injection table. “Guard! Guard!” Gerald ricocheted off the door.

Reverend Rob dropped his Bible and ran after him. He wrapped his arms around Gerald in a bear hug. Gerald’s chest and back were slick with sweat. Reverend Rob wrestled him to the ground and wrapped his own legs around Gerald’s flailing limbs.

“There’s a deep trench between blame and forgiveness, Gerald,” Reverend Rob panted. “It’s time for you to step across to the other side.”

to be continued

Part one
Part two

BLAME AND FORGIVENESS 2

2009-12-03T07:39:00.004-06:00

Part one

The electric motors droned again. Why wouldn’t they leave him alone?

The dark outline of a man in black turned sideways and slid through the doors as soon as they cracked open. He carried a large Bible in one hand and a small, polished brass case of communion wafers and a glass vial of holy water in the other – everything he needed to assist a dying man.

Reverend James Robichaux, formerly of The Resurrection Episcopal Church, hurried across the waxed linoleum. Reverend Rob, as the lifers called him, was part of the state’s catch and release program. He earned his calling in prison ministries the hard way, touching altar boys under their cassocks.

Three years into a 10-year sentence at Angola, the reverend found renewed faith through the good book. When he finished his sentence, he left the confines of D-Block for death row. He’d been visiting the condemned and saving souls for the last 20 years.

He peered through the bars at Gerald’s hand resting on the bulge between his legs. “Don’t be ashamed.”

“Who said anythin’ ’bout shame? I’m rememberin’ good times, Rev.”

“Well, it’s just that I would think that a man at your stage in life would turn his attention away from the physical and toward the spiritual.”

Gerald reluctantly moved his hand.

“Have you thought about our last conversation?”

“Confession? Confession’s what got me in here. That cunt, Jennifer, was wearin’ a wire. Ain’t got nothin’ to confess to you.”

“I’ve met lots of innocent men in this prison, Gerry, but none as mule-headed as you.” Reverned Rob sighed and scratched his balding head. “I’m not asking you to confess to me. I don’t need it. You’ve got to make peace with yourself and with God.” He took a folding chair time-worn Bible to Ezekiel and read. “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.”

“Save it, Rev.” Gerald fished in his pocket for another cigarette. His mind was 19 years away. He could see the sweat glistening on Chastity’s neck, and he followed the beads inside her shirt between her small, perky tits. He stared at her swollen nipples. She turned to climb the steps of the trailer and flashed him a sly smile over her shoulder. She knew exactly what he wanted. Gerald followed her.

The scent of wildflowers in her deodorant mingled with the stale air in the unair-conditioned living room. Her bicep tensed in his grasp. She gasped, surprised he had followed her. Gerald knew the game. He lingered just a moment to savor the fear in her eyes.

to be continued

BLAME AND FORGIVENESS

2009-12-01T08:41:00.007-06:00

This was her fault – that bitch. Rage burned in his gut. She did this to him. And he let her.

Gerald Blount sat on a cold steel bench kicking himself. He gritted his teeth behind the butt of the cigarette in his lips. Tendrils of cigarette smoke, like the wilted ivy guarding the walls outside, tangled around his graying head.

This was all her fault – those fried-egg tits, that innocent smile – that fucking tease. Gerald grinned an evil smirk at the thought of her name. What parent names their kid Chastity? She had no choice but to grow up swinging half-naked around a chrome pole.

Gerald filled his lungs with smoke and paced through his new home. Four steps from one end to the other, but it was still bigger than his last room. The sting of pine disinfectant in the cool air made his eyes water. A stainless steel bowl and basin sparkled in the far corner. He turned and unrolled a fresh mattress across the shining slab of steel that was his bed. Inmates had scrubbed the concrete bricks inside and splashed a fresh coat of paint on the bars.

Angola’s death house was nothing at all like death row.

He stooped to look at his fuzzy reflection in the polished steel above the basin. Big purple bags puffed under his dark eyes. An atlas of wrinkles drooped across his sallow cheeks and forehead. Gerald set his Marlboro on the edge of the toilet bowl and cupped his hands under the faucet. There was a time when his hands were strong enough to choke the life out of a man. Eighteen years on death row, where the most strenuous activity was turning a page in his prison-issue Bible, had withered his hands and the rest of his once-rugged physique. His prison-issue blue jeans and denim shirt hung loosely on his scarecrow frame. She did this to him.

Gerald sneered at the tired face in the cold steel. He loathed the man he had become. And it wasn’t his fault.

Gerald’s reflection scowled back at him. Chastity wasn’t the only one to blame. Jennifer and Lisa were just as guilty. The thought of Lisa’s name tugged the corners of his mouth toward a half-hearted grin. Even though she had a part in this, he couldn’t hate her. Not like he hated the others. She was already dead; hating her served no purpose.

Brass keys clanged at the entrance to the death house rattling Gerald from his day dream. Electric motors rumbled their familiar, quiet call as they slid the heavy steel doors open. Through his cell bars and across the visitation room, Gerald watched Warden Johnson limp in and thank the guard. The guard twisted his big brass keys again; the electric motors hummed the doors closed.

“You got a sick sense of humor, Warden.” Gerald rasped as he hung one skeletal arm through the bars.

“What do you mean?” Warden Walton Johnson answered in his trademark drawl, equal parts good ole boy and televangelist.

“The way you leave the cell door open, like a convic’ got freedom to come and go as he please. Where I’m gonna go? Ain’t got but three rooms, my cell, the death chamber, and the visitation room. Ain’t nobody comin’ see me. Then, if I do sit in there, the Cajun Injector starin’ me in the face.”

“I’m sorry you see it that way Gerald,” the squat warden stepped through the open cell door. “We try to make an inmate’s last hours as comfortable as we can.” The warden checked his watch. 12:09. “We’ve got a little housekeeping to take care of, Gerald.” Gerald nodded and the warden continued with his standard death day litany. “The guards will come for you at 11:30. You know the drill: wrist and leg restraints.”

Gerald nodded again, “Last time I’ll be wearin’ those.”

“There will be three guards in case we have to carry you. It’ll be easier if you walk yourself.” He waited for Gerald to nod, but Gerald just stood there, his blank eyes fixed on the warden. “When you enter the death chamber, you’ll lie on the table, and the guards will remove your chains. They’ll put the straps around your arms, legs, and chest. Again, it’ll be easier if you don’t fight it.”

“Ain’t gonna fight. Only a guilty man scared of dyin’. I ain't done nothin’ she didn’t want me to.”

The warden just shook his head. “One of the guards will start an i.v. in your arm and another in your foot. You’ll have a chance to make a last statement. I suggest you apologize and ask forgiveness. Then, at midnight, we’ll start the procedure.”

Warden Johnson didn’t mince words. He described the process of killing a man like he was reading a procedure manual. “The first drug will put you to sleep. The next one will paralyze your entire muscular system. The last will stop your heart.” He waited for a reaction but got none. “Your spiritual advisor will be here later. He’ll sit with you till the end.”

“Don’t need no advisor, ’less he got a stay in his back pocket.” Gerald forced a grin.

“There’s comfort in the Lord, Gerald. Maybe the chaplain can help you find the strength to admit your sins and seek forgiveness.”

Gerald shook his head. “This ain’t my fault. That bitch did it. Ain’t nothin’ in that Bible you give me ’bout admittin’ somethin’ you ain’t done. I oughta know. I read it enough times.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way, Gerald. I’ll be praying for you.”

Gerald watched the Warden waddle out of sight, then lay back on his mattress. He thought of the last time he saw Chastity, and smiled a half-smile. She was a fine young thing: hair pulled in a big, blonde ponytail, short-shorts showing off the bottom of her tight, tanned ass, and a pink crop-top with “Tease” written across it in bubble letters – like anyone who saw her would have doubted it. She was standing in the dirt yard outside her trailer, her sandaled foot propped on the tire of a dead Cutlass 88. He could see her like it was yesterday.

Gerald traced the curve of her calf in his mind. Her skin was soft and smooth. He reached to hide the swelling in his crotch, just like he did on that day. She had a way of doing that to him. . .That bitch.

to be continued.

CH-CH-CH-CHANGES

2009-11-26T08:38:00.005-06:00

Surprise! Not the shitty screen you're used to around here, I know.

I've been tinkering and made a few changes. First off, the look. It's still growing on me. . . kinda like a fungus. But I needed something to signal a break from the past. Ya see, apparently work is like Vegas. They tell me what happens there is supposed to stay there -- but have no fear. I ain't gonna disappear.

That's the second big change you'll notice. No more daily diatribes from street-level grunts eking out a living with electronic lumps on their shoulders, now it's all fiction all the time.

Call it Turd-Fiction. I've been writing the stuff for about three years now. Apparently it ain't worth the cost of the ink a big-time publisher might spend printing it, so I'll just foist it on you guys here, where the most you've got to lose is a couple minutes and a few brain cells.

Look for the first one soon.

NEVER TOO OLD TO ROCK AND ROLL . . .

2009-10-29T05:59:00.012-06:00

. . . or too young for that matter.

Back in May when I took Krusty to the Bludgeon Your Head With Someone Else's Fist Fest, I told the Littlest Loaf Pincher I'd take him to see any group he wanted to see. I knew full well that the kid's an old schooler and he'd never pick anybody who was still young enough to strut it on stage.

He didn't disappoint. He picked his favorite band. No way on earth those guys would climb out of their iron lungs long enough to rock a sold-out arena full of thinning mullets and rock-show virgins.Boy was I wrong.

AC/DC can still bring it. And I aint talking some pansy-ass watered down, unplugged version of once-great stadium anthems. I'm talking two-plus hours of gut-wrenching, ball-busting, face-melting, throat-shredding rock and roll.

Sure, Brian Johnson sounds like Burgess Merideth filtered through a quart of rot-gut whiskey. But that's the beauty of the band from down under. You ain't gotta be able to sing to sing along. All you need is a throat and some wind. Lots of wind.Their hair is thinner, and their bodies aren't quite as tight as they used to be, but the music never missed a beat. From the first lick of Angus' Gibson to the last cannon blasts of "For Those About to Rock," The sixty-something rockers danced, cavorted, and sweat -- lots of sweat -- their way through all their classics.This may be showing my age a bit, but one of the best things -- aside from everything else -- was the fact that from the first notes of The Answer's opening set, to the trip out to the parking lot after AC/DC brought the house down, not one single four-letter syllable was uttered on stage. And that's refreshing in a world where posers think they have to be foul to be offensive. (What I muttered in the traffic jam leaving the show is another story.) Kids, take note. Lace you lyrics with thinly-veiled sexual innuendo and benign threats of violence if you wanna be a real rocker.I'll be deaf for days, but it was worth it. Not only for the first-class rock show, but for the look on the LLP's face as he banged his head old-school. Now if you'll excuse me, I've gotta go gargle with old razor blades. It's the only way I can think of that Brian Johnson recuperates between shows.

WAR PIGLETS

2009-10-19T08:14:00.006-05:00

Anyone who knows me, knows I gotta rock. The iPod is full of stuff from AC/DC to Zeppelin, B.B. King to van Zant, Marvin Gaye to . . . he's in a class by himself. If I'm awake, there's a tune floating around my big, empty nugget, and I'm on-stage in a sold-out arena somewhere rocking the mic and melting faces with my axe.

But with me, air guitar and off-key warbling is as far as it goes. Just ask any of my daily groupies.The LLP has inherited my penchant for performance, but he's doing something about it. He's been whacking the skins since he was eight.This weekend, he and 60 other like-minded future head-bangers rocked the stage at the St. George Church Fair. As venues go, it ain't Madison Square Garden, but the competing noise from the Tilt-O-Whirl aside, it's a great start.All these aspiring musicians owe their start to Baton Rouge Music Studios. A local music school that's thinking out of the box. Lessons just weren't enough for director Doug Gay. He wanted to find a way to give kids a chance to shine and his Young Band Development Program does just that.

I'm gonna shut up now.

If you like that. Check out all the bands on my Youtube Channel.

LAUNDRY SEASON

2009-10-15T07:04:00.005-05:00

Back in May when I penned my opus on the seasons, I left one out. It wasn't intentional, and technically, it's not a season most photogs mark. I'm talking, of course, about Laundry Season.

At Camp Polisher, Laundry Season begins in early October and lasts all the way through mid February. It is characterized by the sudden onslaught of piles of sweaty, smelly clothes in the overflowing baskets in the laundry room.

Living in a house with three dudes, Mrs. Polisher is very acquainted with our various fragrances. But Laundry Season has an air all it's own. Ya see, it coincides with the onset of wrestling season.It's a time when normally smelly teens kick it up a notch. Krusty can sweat through five sets of clothes a day, not counting the cute little spandex number his mom calls a onesie.It's a season of blood, sweat, and tears -- usually just beyond the laundry room door. But in Laundry Season you do what ya gotta do for the pin. Krusty is headed into the season in the best shape of his life -- 138 pounds and about 9% body fat. He's hoping to be the spoiler at the city and state tournaments this year.The road to the top goes right through his arch rival, Cade Leblanc of Zachary. To watch these two go at it, you'd swear they were fighting for the hand of a fair maiden or a king's ransom. And whatever they do to each other on the mat, there's always a hug and a handshake when it's over.That's probably my favorite part of Laundry Season, the sportsmanship. No trash talk. No endzone dance. Just six minutes of two sweaty guys manhandling each other, and a little mutual respect when the final bell rings.

That, and an assload of smelly sweats.

KICKOFF WEEKEND

2009-09-14T21:31:00.005-05:00

It was a big weekend at the Turdpolisher ranch. Sunday, the kick-off to the NFL season found me planted in front of the tube to watch Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints dismantle the Detroit Lions. Saturday, LSU slapped down the Commodores of Vanderbilt. I watched that one firmly ensconced in my beer-chair. Friday night brpught another round of high school football highlights to shoot.But team turd kicked off the football season Thursday night. It was the season opener for the St. Jean Vianney 8th grade Gators, and the first game of the Littlest Loaf Pincher's senior season.He's taken the DNA I've given him (which ain't much) and worked his way into a starting position on the defensive team -- outside linebacker at that.

The Gators took on some big-ole boys from the land of milk and hayseeds. Hell, their cheerleaders outweighed our offensive line. But that didn't stop the black and red from spilling a little Bear blood on the turf.

Gators lost the first half, but the offense took control in the third, and kept the ball for the full eight minutes, and forced the Bears into two 3-and-outs in the fourth. All-in-all, a decent outing against a team way out of our league. Final 32-6.

LLP? He had a decent game. Three tackles, a couple assists, and made a touchdown saving tackle.Actually, the big guy steam-rolled him, but LLP held on until he brought him down.

I gotta start feeding that boy, or give him some rocks to carry in his pants.

IT'S A CRAPPY JOB . . .

2009-09-14T21:27:00.005-05:00

X-Ray Ted threatened to do it. But somebody beat him to it.

From Newsblues.

There's an all-points manhunt underway at Raycom's WXIX-19-Fox in Cincinnati (Market #33), where staffers are on the lookout for a mystery dumpster who struck under cover of darkness.

According to an internal memo from Assistant News Director Marita Matray: "Last night, someone took a dump on the floor of the men’s room. Yep, you understand correctly. Someone took a big ole’ number two smack dab in the middle of the floor of the men’s restroom. No one on the 10pm crew seems to know who did it. The cleaning crew cleaned it up."

A furious General Manager Bill Lanesey has vowed to flush out the mad crapper: "With God as my witness, if I find out who did this, I will fire you. With prejudice!"

Not surprisingly, neither Lanesey nor News Director Steve Ackermann responded to our email inquiries. The culprit, we assume, remains on the loose, perhaps plotting a follow-up attack on Lanesey's desk.

THE CRADLE WILL ROCK

2009-08-05T08:00:00.001-05:00

My apologies to EvH and Mr. Roth for the title of this post, but there's a new king of rock at Camp Polisher, and it wears a bright red mohawk.Who knew the Littlest Loaf Pincher had pipes?

He's been banging the skins for more than five years now. Two years ago, he hooked up with a group of guys from the Baton Rouge Music Studios and, with the help of the music school, formed High Voltage -- a rag-tag collection of rockers from across Cap City. At age 13, the LLP is the old man of the group.

The group lost it's singer for the summer. Not good when the band has only seven weeks to put together a set for Summer Slam.

And Baton Rouge Music Studios upped the ante this year. At stake, studio time to record an original tune -- 50 CD copies of said tunage complete with artwork and liner-notes.

Without a singer, things didn't look good for the guys from High Voltage. At the first rehearsal, LLP filled in on Mississippi Queen and TNT, and never looked back.

At Summer Slam, he did two songs from behind the drum kit and stepped out front to close the show.

Now, is someone could just learn to stand back from the stage to shoot the damn thing, maybe you won't have to strain to hear him next time.Oh, the contest? Out of nine bands, High Voltage took the Runner-Up slot to a smoking band of high-schoolers. Hat's off to Time Traveler. You guys (and gal) rawk.

IT'S OFFICIAL . . .

2009-07-28T08:17:00.005-05:00

. . . I suck. At least at this blogging thing lately. Hopefully today, I will suck a little bit less.Ya see, I haven't been resting on my ever-expanding laurels. I've been busy. For the last 353 days I've been getting up early -- 5:30am early. And pounding the keys. Most days it came out jibberish. Occasionally, the monkeys in my brain were able to string together enough syllables, and I gave birth.Okay, a manifesto it ain't. But earth-shaking revelations aside, it's more than 200 pages of bluster and 'tude from a custy photog with a really cool handle.

I ain't telling you all this to so that you'll rush out and order these slick sheets of bathroom stationary. (Hell, I still gotta find someone who thinks it's worth the trouble of wasting all that ink to mass produce this turd.) It's more an explanation and an apology for leaving you in a lurch without your recommended daily allowance of fecal matter.Wish I had better news. Now it's time to edit this bitch. Probably gonna have to throw it away and start over. Shit!

IT'S THE LITTLE THINGS

2009-06-09T07:53:00.007-05:00

I've always said it's the little things that make life worth living. The smile on the face of a kid with an ice cream, a sarcastic comment from a friend when you're taking things a bit too seriously, a friend's hand on your shoulder when you're about to lose your shit.

Last night, Mrs. Polisher proved that again. It ain't easy living with a crusty old fart like me. Don't believe me, just ask her. I can be a real pain in the ass when I want to -- even when I don't. But Mrs. P has put up with me for more that 20 years now. Through the early years when I didn't have two pennies to rub together. Through the years when I took this crazy game of TV too seriously. Through the dark months after Hurricane Kartina when I lived every horror story I covered.

Through the missed meals, dates, holidays, and anniversaries that go with this goofy line of work. And late arrivals at the boy's baseball games. The nights alone while I was on a private jet winging my way to and from football games. The endless assignments that canceled trips to see the folks back home.

And after all of that, she still puts up with me. Some days she even likes me. And she shows it through the little things she does. Cooking dinner almost every night. Washing my smelly clothes after a day chasing calamity. Dragging the little loaf-pinchers to-and-fro. And thinking of me even in the most peculiar places.

Yesterday I came home to another one of those little things that remind me how lucky I am.With SwampAss Season under way, here's hoping the STW in your life can find an industrial sized bottle of Anti-MonkeyButt powder of your own. I ain't sharing mine. It's special.

FEST FOR ALL

2009-05-03T21:14:00.006-05:00

After my experience with the foul-mouthed crowd of people who call themselves musicians these days, I thought it would be a while before taking in another concert. But as a dad with teen-agers who live for guitar licks and drum solos, it was not meant to be. This weekend, the little loaf pinchers drug me to Baton Rouge's answer to Jazz Fest. A weekend of free music in the streets of downtown.The handsome dude pounding the skins is the Littlest Loar-Pincher. He and his band, High Voltage, took the kids stage for a four-song set. At 13, he's the old man of the group. The singer rings in at the tender age of 11.They're part of Baton Rouge Music Studio's Young Band Development Program. A chance for young musicians to shine outside their school band program. Besides music, the kids get a taste of what it's like to be in a band. Rehearsals, conflicts, communication, everything but the seedy dives and broken-down vans. And there's no greasy manager trying to rip them off.What's in their song set? Metallica? Disturbed? Kanye? Brittney Spears? Nah, these kids go in for the classics. Stuff written before they were even a thought. hell, I was barely older than an embryo when this stuff was written. But The Beatles are timeless.

Want more? Check out the entire set on YouTube. Or see them and all the other aspiring musicians at The Mellow Mushroom next Satruday, May 9, 4pm. Bring your mop wigs and Lennon sunglasses.

DON'T CALL US

2009-04-09T06:13:00.010-05:00

Nothing I can say can top the video. Imagine being the photog who had to make this call. Maybe 'slinger can come up with something poetic about this situation, but every time I watch it, it just gives me the willies.

Wonder if he's still got a job or just getting the suits for that furlough plan they concocted to save a little dough?

DISTURBING

2009-04-06T06:23:00.012-05:00

The last time I went to a rock concert, Ozzy was recovering from rabies. That doesn't mean this old turd can't rattle his brain with the best of them. So I piled Krusty and a couple teens into the Turd-Brown Taurus and headed south to what was billed as a celebration of heavy metal lifestyle.I always thought of head-banging as more of a quick way to get a headache than a lifestyle, but hey, I'm game. So we crowded the lot of the arena with several thousand like-minded live music fans to get down with the sickness. After all, this is the Music As a Weapon tour featuring Disturbed.I'm not sure what happened to music on my way to middle age, but it's changed . . . and not for the better.

Back in the seventies, The Who set the record for the loudest concert in history -- 131 decibels if my aging memory serves me correctly -- and you could still understand the lyrics. And the only four-letter words you ever heard were "rock" and "roll." Today, rock shows are about distorted noise and demonic hollering. And lead "singers," if you can call them that, fling f-bombs around like beads off a Mardi Gras float.Rock and roll used to be about music, lyrics, showmanship, and women. . . Okay, it was about women.Today it's about beating the crap out of total strangers.Women included.
At least Krusty had the good sense to stay out of the pit, though he did body surf to the stage and slap hands with some dude with dreadlocks and a microphone.

Rock and Roll used to be about rebellion. Individuality. And the contact high you could get walking past the door to the arena.Yesterday, I saw more thinning mullets and bad ink than on my last trip to Louisiana State Penitentiary. So much for being unique. And I actually heard one old coot complain when the guy next to him lit a cigarette.Yep, the audience at your standard rock show has changed. Pre-pubescent punks from the burbs decked-out in pasty make-up and black because they think it looks hip. They drag aging yuppies from the Beemer to backstage where the old fart hopes to prove to junior that he's still got the chops he had when he was in college. Here's a clue. Kid, that make-up makes you look gay. And Dad, old dudes in pony tails are creepy.

We saw 10 bands in just over 10 hours. All-in-all each one sucked a little less than the one before it. Only four put on any kind of show. While their "music" ain't my thing, Killswitch Engaged kicked major ass. And Lacuna Coil, has a sound just unique enough to make them stand out in a crowd of screamers.But for my money, the best music of the day had to go to four teenagers from Coweta, Oklahoma. Crooked X. Leif Garrett good looks and pipes to boot, combined with some face-melting guitar licks and just a really cool attitude won them a spot in my iPod.And of course thanks to Disturbed for helping me prove to Krusty that the old man can still bang his head with the best of them.

Now, please pass the Tylenol.

SNOT

2008-12-24T07:40:00.004-06:00

Edi-turd's note: This is not a new list of band names. As the title suggests, it is a tasteless trip in to the rather flavorful mucus clogging my head. You'll need a strong stomach to proceed.It's been a while. . . sue me. Truth is, I ain't felt much like nothin'. A glob of green slime has taken-up residence in my frontal lobe, and try as I might, I ain't been able to evict it. It feels like someone took an ice pick and jammed it up my left nostril. A searing pain sort of radiates from there and encompasses what's left of my face.

The past week and a half I've washed down three Benedryl with a shot of Nyquill and drifted into a medically induced coma by 8:30, only to wake up around 1am and do it all again.

If we weren't so damn short at work, I would have called in sick days ago. But the holiday season brings on all manner of off-time, and those who are left have to pick up the slack. . .

Sorry, had to spit. Not even Crayola has a name for what just came out of me. Remember the old spin painters when we were kids? Imagine a dollop of blue, yellow, green and just a dab of red sitting on the center when you turned it on -- delicious.

Where was I? Picking up the slack . . .yes. I cough and wheeze my way through each day, wiping the fungus flowing from my nose on the sleeve of my station fleece . . . hell, I'd wipe it on a flaming yule log that would make it go away.

Outside ain't so bad. Something about the cool temps and the humid air seem to mollify the drip. But as soon as I hit the door my nasal passages leak all the way to my belt. I may just start wearing a bib like I put on my kids while they were teething. By the end of the day, my goatee is glazed.

At night, it's another Bene-quill cocktail or two.

It's a good thing I don't whine when I get sick, or the STW would have thrown my ass out a week and a half ago.

WRESTLEMANIA

2008-11-18T06:56:00.004-06:00

No folding chairs, no smack talk, no busty blonde managerettes, just two guys in tights trying to keep it in a 25-foot circle.November marks the beginning of wrestling season on the Polisher Ranch, and after a killer rookie season, the St. Michael Warrior Wrestling team is expecting a lot from Krusty the Kid. Last year, Krusty was happy enough just to wrestle. This year, things are different.He ain't happy unless he's sticking some spandex to the floor.So from now until mid-February, you can find me in a high school gym screaming my lungs out at a room full of sweaty high school boys.

Did that sound creepy to you?

2 LEGIT 2 QUIT

2008-10-27T05:56:00.002-06:00

It's not much of a secret. Lately, I've had thoughts of flushing this shitty screed. The new restrictions I've placed on myself since my diarrhea of the mouth landed me in time out have taken some of the fun out of waxing craptastic. But Friday gave me hope and has liberated the turd-nation.

No longer must turdiacs cower in the corner or hide in the dark as they peruse their guilty. Friday, TV Jobs, the industry's employment clearinghouse, added a slice of respectability to this fecal-colored page with a link to a recent post.

Right on the front page, next to names like Broadcasting and Cable, USA Talent, The Bakersfield Californian, CBS News, the Fil-Turd waved proud.

Now that I'm a legitimate news source and all, I gotta clean up my act, start using $10 words, get respectable. . . Wait we already got one of those in the photog nation. Guess I'll just go back to calling it like I see it, through shit-colored glasses.

MCGUFF AND STUFF

2008-10-08T06:52:00.007-05:00

I don't know who Mike Mcguff is, or how he stumbled onto this shitty site, but one mention on his media blog sent my lowly shitcounter spinning way into triple digits.

Thanks Mike. I owe you a solid.

And while I'm at it, I got give a solid to the folks at a like-minded site I fell across by accident.

With my propensity for shit-talking and my turdpolishing career, I don't know how I missed this one, but the folks at Dr. Guff's Turdpolish seem like a natural fit. The promotional info says the poo paste lovingly laid by Dr. Guff himself will put the shine on any crappy product. And in his bio, Doc claims to be an engineer who was constantly being directed to rush product design and development to meet an unrealistic deadline. Sounds like a broadcast professional if I ever heard one.

And since I'm all out of Turd-L-Wax, I ordered my first can of Dr. Guff's Turdpolish last night. I'll let you know if it gives the news that same high sheen I'm used to.

And while I was at it, even though Swamp Ass season is almost over, I ordered a heaping jug of Anti-Swamp Ass Powder. But mostly as a novelty. You're gonna have to fight me for my Boudreaux's Butt Paste.

GO GATORS

2008-09-29T06:04:00.002-05:00

It's a feat never accomplished in the history of organized football -- even in the pros. A team goes up 21-0 without running an offensive play. It happened this weekend. Not on the plastic grass of paid professionals, or the groomed grid iron of the college ranks. Not on a high school football field in Cap City. No, it happened in the middle school game between the St. John Eagles and the St. Jean Vianney Gators. And it was something to behold.Through the entire first half, the Gators ran exactly zero offensive plays and racked up three touchdowns. The defense returned one punt for a score. Intercepted a pass for another touchdown. And blocked a punt which they returned for another six.

It brought me back to my days as bench warmer for the E.D. White Cardinals. I still remember Coach Mike Boyer, chaw firmly embedded in his cheek, egging us on.

"110. 110. 110" Our pre-pubescent voices warbled and creaked in a chorus of middle school machismo. But I didn't sign in to reminesce about the my own grid iron glory (even if I did hold the record for most yards per carry on my 8th grade football team).The Littlest Loaf Pincher is following in the big Turd's footsteps. An amazing feat when you consider he inherited his athletic ability from a man with the athletic prowess of Spanish moss.

And follow in my foot-steps he did, right onto the kick-off team. That's where generous coaches put the guys too small or too slow for the first team.That's him, number 34 tackling that Eagle schmuck who thinks he's going to score. Because it was a rout, he and the rest of the second string got to play a lot of defense.

In this day of high-dollar heros and grid-iron gangstas cavorting and showboating on the field, it was good to see kids playing for fun. Sure, they wanted to win, but the Gators and the Eagles came to compete and shake hands at the end of it all. Something that is sometimes lost on coaches and parents in the stands.And if Sunday's game is any any indication, the LLP may spend a lot less time on the bench than his old man.

Now have I ever told you about how I earned a 6 yards per carry against the Sisters of Pain and Agony 5th graders? Don't laugh, those girls were HUGE. . .

SPOOJITZU

2008-08-25T08:45:00.009-05:00

Not since Eddie Van Halen ripped off brother Alex's guitar and began shredding has a rock band made such a splash on the music scene. Well, maybe I'm drinking the Kool-Aid.Ya see, a few months back, sports dood rounded up a few hard-rock wannabes in an attempt to live out his life's dream: fronting a rock band. After a couple hastily arranged practices, the guys threw together a playlist right out of I Love the 80's, and a band was born. The only detail left was a name.A rose by any other name might smell as sweet, but in rock and roll, the name is everything. Don't believe me? Ya think Deep Pink could have rocked Smoke on the Water? Would Molting Crew have ever been bad enough to Shout at the Devil? Would you have followed Floyd the Barber to The Dark Side of the Moon? I think not.

So when it came time to name the band, these brave souls left it to the photog staff. Not a good idea. Ya see, I've also always wanted to be in a rock band, but I couldn't carry a tune if it had a handle. But I've made great use of the copious amounts of downtime we find in this business hanging around court houses, outside meetings, and kicking the curb at the cop shop. I've got a list of really cool band names.As a joke, I suggested my favorite. Spoojitzu.

But something happened after it was summarily laughed off the big blackboard of band names in the practice garage. Sports dood began to take a liking to the sound. "We're Spoojitzu. See you next tour."With one week to the big debut, it looked like a lock. Until someone in the band clued him in to the joke.The band debuted under the name SoundBYTE.

Appropriate for a bunch of TV guys making a lot of noise in a barroom. The Burbank Road tour wrapped up this weekend. My ears are still bleeding. As to why Josh Meeks is swinging boxers over his head? Let's just say he's got a thing for sweaty singers.

I'D LIKE TO THANK THE ACADEMY

2008-08-03T08:52:00.005-05:00

I GOT A TAWWDY! (Actually, I'm not sure what it's called, but hey, who am I to turn down an award?)

First I'd like to thank the Academy for this prestegious icon. Next, I must say thanks to Brian at newshutr's views for the nommination. You know, it ain't every day that a lowly shit shiner gets to set his eyes on something as lovely as a cartoon picture of a cubic zirconia statuet.

Next, I would be remiss if it didn't thank all the little people who helped along the way. Now that I'm famous, I'll be forgetting I ever knew you. But a year from now, when no one remembers my name, I'll be back bumming a five spot for a cup of Starbucks.

Actually, it's cool that folks think the blog is the shit. The way Brian explains it, a Tawwdy is the drunken brainchild of a friend of his. He ships Tawwdies off to folks whose blogs he finds "brillante." But there's a catch. Now I gotta pay it forward. So without further waste of electrons, here's my Tawwdy list, which, along with the aforementioned five spot will get you an overpriced cup-o-joe at a soon-to-be-vacant Starbucks near you.

Viewfinder Blues Stewart "Lenslinger" Pittman is The Don of the blogging photog "family." Pith, smarm, and big words abound on his groundbreaking site. You can blame him for this site and all the other photogs who think they can write. Lenslinger cranks out missives from the mundane to the macho. Whether he's tiptoeing around the widow's porch or lugging his stix on a tripod safari, Stewart makes you wanna be a photog, even if you already are one.

beFrank Brian Frank is the true anti-Turd. A cool guy with a great attitude that loves the TV business. Jump on his site and tag along in the sat truck as Brian does what it takes to get the story on the air. And the dood can shoot. One day, he'll rule the world.

tvnewsgrapevine Run by reporter coach Randy Tatano, this site is full of the do's and don'ts of the business. Randy serves up common sense solutions to newsroom delimmas, and he does it with the same wit and dry sense of humor that made him one of my favorite all-time reporters.

Stuff White People Like Take a walk on the mild side as the creators of this site poke fun at everyone lacking melanin. Written with a anthropologic bent, this site is a hoot and a first class primer for anyone looking to befriend a white person.

Skitzo Leezra A look at life from the feminine side -- sort of. Leezra is the kind of girl most guys wanna to hang with. She's loud. She's bawdy. She's hot. At least that's what comes through in her writing. Skitzo covers topics as diverse as dating, rednecks, pop culture, and news. Check her out if you got the balls.

Hippieville SPX Leave it to professional smart-ass El Guapo to deconstruct the life of a sports photog. From the Olympic trials, to the joys of biking around town, to the hippies that make his hometown of choice so damn much fun, Guapo's site is a hoot. But if you stop by, be ready for a foul-mouthed diatribe or two. Just the way I like it.

Toucey Land So you think you got it tough? Try being the mother of three. I met Hillary Toucey on a shoot about the ultimate LSU Fan, her then 3-year-old autistic son, Eli. Since then, we've kept in touch through this blog. Now, Hillary has started a blog of her own. Take a break from the business of life and learn what really living is about. Hillary reminds us all that life ain't about what you got, but what you give. Her posts from the hectic life of a mother of three will make you laugh and cry at the same time. Check her out.

Senator's Forum Fellow photog Big Rob Hollins is casts a big shadow whether in his favorite spot on the floor of the Louisiana State Capitol, or scanning the streets for random Pookie and Ray-Ray sightings. Say what you want on his blog, but make sure it's in the form of a question, did you know?

ZZZZZZZZ

2008-07-20T20:54:00.003-05:00

Sorry it's been a while, but the STW has been cracking the whip on this home remodle project. Starting the third week and the Master Suite is coming along. Got the ceramic floors in the bathroom, vanity, and closet and the wood in the bedrooom all this weekend.Yeah, I said wood. But I'm too damn tired to do anything about it.

Enjoy an old link while I'm sleeping it off.

PLUMB STUPID

2008-07-10T07:09:00.003-05:00

When it comes to handymanliness, I inherited a couple genes. Oh, I can handle a little rough carpentry, some painting. I can lay tile with a little help, and I have yet to electrocute myself changing a light switch. But when the Missus decided it was time to remodel our bedroom I was a little apprehensive.

We've re-done the rest of the house. I knew I could handle our bedroom. It was the our bathroom that had me sweating bullets. I knew the crappy wall tiles around the tub, and a leaky bathtub/shower faucet were going to be the death of me.

Ever the trooper, the Missus took to deconstructing the bathroom wall while I was out. (Figures she and Krusty would take the fun part) When I got home, the bathroom was down to the studs and my task lay exposed. Remove the old faucet, put in place when the house was built in 1974, and replace it with a new, un-leaky one.

I hate plumbing. Nothing ever works like it is supposed to the first time I put it together. Something always leaks. I always cuss. And that's with PVC. When it comes to copper pipes. I scream like a little girl.

I figured it was as good a time as any for some male bonding, so I called in the big guns to help. Pappa Turd showed up early with all his assorted tools. We shut off the water and commenced to sweatin' -- the pipes to remove the old faucet.

Then it was off to the giant Lowes-rent hardware store for a new one.
Back a the ranch our open pipe just laughed when they saw what we had in store. Assembly was easy. Sweating the shit back together was a bitch. Eight hours and 80,000 trips to the water main later. The damn thing still leaked.

Plumber showed up the next morning, disassembled our mess, installed new copper, and reassembled the whole damn thing in 20 minutes.

Guess who won't be installing our new tub.

WONDER IF HALLMARK HAS A CARD FOR THAT?

2008-06-16T08:30:00.004-05:00

I didn't know there was such a thing. The Swami of the Story Idea over at tv news grapevine juts hepped me to the fact that it's National Take a Photog to Lunch Week. I remember Randy Tatano when he was buying ice-cream for sweaty photogs in Mobile, Alabama. Tatano's joined the legion of suits that like to make a living telling others how to run their business, but unlike others, he hasn't forgotten what he learned on the steets. Namely, that the way to a photog's heart is through his gullet.

I'm gonna get Randy's post drafted into the form of a resolution and speed it over to the Senator's Forum post haste. Maybe we can make it official. Wonder if Hallmark has shit-brown cardstock.

VACATION

2008-06-07T08:48:00.011-05:00

Sorry to interrupt the expose on turd production so soon into series. With recent developments it would be easy to surmise that my big mouth has gotten me into trouble again. Thanks for your concern, but I was on vacation . . . a planned one.Last Saturday, Team Polisher packed the turd-brown Taurus and headed to the land of hayseeds . . . No, not Lower Livingston. I'm talking real hillbillies . . . Gatlinburg, Tennessee where the only way to tell between a local and a tourist is to count teeth. We hooked up with the pretty side of the family for a week of good ole American consumerism.The family spent weeks researching the best secluded cabin to stick 15 Coonasses, and settled on one far away from anyone else. The view was spactacular. The hike to the creek extreme. The drive to town long. Everything was perfect . . . until we tried to shower.

The water was less than fragrant. In fact, it smelled like it had been run through a sweaty photog's ass before hitting the shower head. When anyone in the 5-bedroom uber-house turned on a faucet, the resulting odor sent coonasses scattering for the doors like cockroaches at the apocalypse.

We were determined not to let a little ass-water funk up our entire vacation.We hitched a ride with Smoky Mountain Outdoors.Hiked Cade's Coveup to Abram's Falls.Jumped on an ATV or 5 to take in the back country.We took in a couple shows,Rode horses, raced go carts, bungee jumped, sling-shot a few cousins over the strip, sky dove in one of those wind tubes, and packed as much family action as possible into 5 days.

Yesterday, we returned to the Polisher ranch. After 11 hours on the road, unpacking, washing seven days worth of clothes for four, the STW and I snuggled into bed exhausted. The light-hearted days of Gatlinburg a distant past. The stresses of returning to work a looming reality. Mrs. Polisher even said so.

I cocked one leg and farted. Now our bedroom smells just like our cabin, and we can have a little vacation every time we have beans for supper.

I'LL BE BACK. . .

2008-05-16T06:55:00.000-05:00

eventually.