I admit a few things now. First, I had to look up the word disparate. Google says disparate used as an adjective means: "Essentially different in kind; not allowing comparison." So, I asked myself, 'what is my point of view.'
Next, I had to admit that I am writing this as a therapeutic mechanism. After all, I spent 16 years reading/reporting the news and now have absolutely nothing to show for it. But, I have had a lot of fun and sometimes not so fun memories.
So, I thought, 'Write those stories, but keep in mind there's no point in getting angry and bashing anyone. These are my memories and I'm 100% responsible for their ending."
So, my friend's 'disparate facts' critique was indeed an enlightening comment and that's what I always enjoyed about this guy. But, it's my story. So, I'll tell it as I remember it, disparate or not. Follow the dots, old man.
I ended off blog #3 with my patient instructor Mr. Cremedas and the banana/condom story.
The next phase of my education into the world of mass communications was the coveted internship. My internship was with WDSU-TV, channel 6 in New Orleans.
Working in TV news isn't exactly brain surgery. And as it turns out, an internship isn't either. The job's pretty much about just showing up on time, putting in your time and getting a supervisor to sign your papers.
I was expecting a lot more from my time at WDSU. To set the stage, WDSU or Channel 6 was in the famous New Orleans French Quarter. Just finding your way around the ancient building was a feat in itself.
My job as a news intern boiled down to showing up for a couple hours on Saturday and Sunday for a semester. That's because WDSU was a 'Union Shop.' If you weren't union, which I wasn't, you weren't allowed to do much of anything.
I had four jobs: Get lunch, log tape, make beat calls and practice writing scripts for the news. The only reason I got that practice writing gig was because Mr. Cremedas was actually WDSU's weekend, early news producer.
The job of getting lunch was actually a highlight. This was New Orleans after all, arguably the greatest eating city in the world. The 'go-to' place for the folks working the weekend was The Napoleon House.
I'd report for work. Mr. Cremedas would tell me "time to get lunch orders," and I'd literally go from person to person writing down their order.
Chris Myers was WDSU's weekend sports anchor at this time. He's now a hot shot with ESPN. I don't remember what he ordered, but whatever it was I fetched it for him.
My clearest memory is The Napoleon House Roast Beef Po-boy. Oh my. The menu read: Roast Beef: 1/2 or full. The 1/2 or full referred to the 'loaf' size. The loaf was, and probably still is, a loaf of crusty French bread. If done properly, the sandwich maker hollowed out most of the doughy center.
The sandwich came with paper thin roast beef kept hot and moist in a thick brown gravy. Whether you ordered the 1/2 or full po-boy, they gave you plenty. Then, you were asked possibly the most important question in NOLA.... "Dressed?" Dressed in this case meant, did you want lettuce, tomato, mayo and pickles. Without a doubt, you did. Believe me, you really did.
The Napoleon House Roast Beef Po-boy came wrapped in white butcher paper, which was usually enough to keep your desk free from the dripping gravy and mayo, but you always needed baskets of napkins to catch the drippings before drenching your arms, your clothes or your lap. It was so, so, so good.
A 'real' job I had during my internship at WDSU was logging tape. A few years later, while actually getting paid, I'd come to hate this part of reporting or producing. But at this time, I was happy to be doing something that seemed TV-ish.
Logging tape means that after the photographer films/tapes a scene, someone watches that tape and writes down what's called the 'time-code.'
I have no idea how, but somehow the camera while recording imbeds the time of the video onto the tape and the machine reads that time and shows the viewer (the tape logger) that time.
For example, video taken at 3:30 in the afternoon would look like 15:30:05 on the playback machine's 'time-code' light. The :15 is 3:00pm. The :30 is the 30th minute. The :05 is the fifth second.
The whole point being anyone could log the specifics of the video as long as they noted the 'time-code.' For example if you were logging a car accident in motion, you might write "Car flips @ :03:30:45." Then, anyone charged with editing a piece could simply look at the 'time-code' log to find that specific shots to edit into the video.
Here's where my claim to fame comes in. I was tasked with logging LOTS of video when the Pope came to NOLA and I was determined to be extremely precise.
This was 31-years ago. Pope John Paul II visited NOLA September 11-13, 1987. He was everywhere in the Crescent City. I was given dozens and dozens of 30-45 minute tapes to log.
All these years later, I remember very little about all my Pope logging except one instance. Because I was bound to provide the best log, I wrote details of information. But the one instance that stands out as a perfect example of my determination looked like this on the log sheet, a simple 9x11 yellow legal pad.
":11:21:06... Pope Mble strts trn rt canl" by this time I'm writing shorthand.
":11:21:11... Pope fnish turn."
But my favorite log looked like this:
":11:25:09... Pope mbl goes undr tree."
":11:25:12... Pope mbl comes out from undr tre."
Like I said, I was determined to be the best tape logger at WDSU. Needless to say, I was very happy when my shift ended and the Pope left town.
Making what are called the 'beat calls,' is about as boring as news gathering gets. This was a big city so I had lots of calls to make to police, sheriff and fire departments, etc.
"Hi, this is Bill at Channel 6. Anything going on?"
"Nope."
"Thanks, bye."
The producer and assignment editor sat with four or five scanners within their arms reach. If anything happened anywhere, they knew about it. I'm pretty sure the beat calls assignment was just to keep me busy for about 30-minutes.
I did get to write a few scripts that actually got read on the air, thanks to Mr. Cremedas. He'd say, "here are the details, go watch the video and write."
Sure enough, I'd get home and there might be about 35-50 percent of what I wrote actually reported on the air. No doubt that Mr. Cremedas cleaned up my novice mistakes.
Unfortunately for me, there was one Saturday that Mr. Cremedas was not producing and I had the nerve to presume I could write a script or two without asking the producer's permission. Big mistake.
I wrote one or two scripts, put them in the producer's basket and then probably went to the break room for a coke.
It wasn't long before I heard.. "Who wrote this f*&k%ng s$#t! Where'd this c+!p come from?"
Like I said, TV news isn't brain surgery. So, it didn't take a scholar to realized this 'unfamiliar producer' was barking about my writing.
I confessed that I wrote the scripts. The producer calmed down. But later that evening when the stories aired, I'm pretty sure that even my punctuation was changed much less my words.
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