You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
A news crew gunned down on live TV.
I am appalled. I am pissed. I want to punch something. I want to break something off in something.
I am in shock. I am angry. I want to kick someone’s ass.
I’ve been live. I’ve been vulnerable. It could have been me. It could be anyone I’ve ever worked with my whole life.
By now you know the damn story.
A jerk bag, cowardly douche hole, blasts a young reporter, her photog and a poor unsuspecting woman getting interviewed.
It was a morning fluff piece.
Nobody dies during a morning fluff piece.
But that all changed August 26th 2015 in Virginia.
That’s when a disgruntled, former employee shows up at a live shot at 6:45 am and he video tapes himself murdering two good kids.
Vester Flanagan was a 41-year-old punk ass bitch who apparently nobody liked. He was a Pills Berry dough boy of incompetence who felt threatened at work, threatened in life and persecuted in his own mind.
He wrote a damn manifesto like he has something to say, like it matters.
Who the F*** do you think you are Vester? The G-Damn Uni bomber?
You are nothing more than human excrement.
You took from this world something you had no right to take
You assonated 2 good people doing their jobs who didn’t do anything to anybody.
I’ve been doing this forever. It’s all I know. I’ve done so many live shots, I lost count at a million.
Most times the biggest problem is audio going out, or the signal fading or a train rolling by at an inopportune moment.
Every now and then a hot woman coming out of the CMA’s will fall out of her dress on live TV.
Hey lady, cover up that nipple, there’s kids watching.
Not often do you think that some schmuck is going to walk up to you, grinning ear to ear, like a piece of puke, and pull the trigger and pump you full of lead.
I don’t go to work thinking I’m going to die.
But you know what, almost every day, I have to consider the fact that it could happen.
I knock on doors for a living. I chase scum bags to pay my bills.
I am loved by some, and hated by others.
It’s the way of the world, my world.
I’m a crime reporter.
I’ve told this story a million times, but I often meet people in public.
They’ll say, “hey your Andy, right?”
Yeah, I’ll respond not knowing who the hell the guy with the sour face before me is.
I’m always at a disadvantage. That too is part of the game.
“yeah you did a story on me.”
“Oh yeah.”
“Yeah.”
“And were you the good guy or the bad guy?” I’ll ask.
“Huh?”
“Yeah, good guy or bad guy?”
“Why?”
“Because that’s going to dictate how the next few moments of this conversation go. You see if you were the bad guy,” I say taking a step back. “I’m going to assume you don’t like me and this is going to end badly. But if you were the good guy, then perhaps we got a chance.”
There’s often an awkward pause and then a smile and then a “No, you helped my momma out with a driveway issue.”
I’ll smile back, but in my heart, I’m ready to go.
I’m ready to punch this unknown quantity in the throat. I might need to drop him, and check for weapons later.
You see you never know when the big guy upstairs has your box punched.
Unlike a cop, we go to war without a badge, a gun or a vest.
I have is a note pad and hopefully a thick tie that might slow a bullet down.
“Always roll,” I tell young camera people. “Make sure you are rolling. It’s all we have to protect ourselves, to prove what happened, perhaps to show our kids, our next of kin.”
I hate those scenes on CNN where the bad guy beats the reporter into submission.
The reporter always looks like such a weakling.
I don’t want to be that guy.
Punch me in the mouth? I hope I punch your ass back.
Have I been in danger?
How many different ways? How many different cities? How many different TV stations?
It’s part of the job. We are fire fighters without the axes. We are police without the flashing lights. We are roadside psychologists, journalistic hob gobblins who have to be ready to cry with a grieving momma or throw down with the guy who fights pit bulls.
I’ve never had a man pull a gun on me during a live shot.
How would I react?
Probably no different from those poor souls who never saw it coming.
I was doing a live shot in the dark of night in Michigan once. It was a fire in the projects, and a baby had died. I remember staring into the bright light on the camera. All I see is sun gun, but all I hear is angry rumbling from the darkness beyond. The community is not happy we are there. The baby is dead. The fire is suspicious. Somehow I am the problem.
Suddenly there is an ice brick whizzing by my skull.
Never saw it coming. It would have crushed my face, turning me into a slithering crying elephant boy.
I was lucky.
Now back to you.
Let’s get the hell out of this hell hole.
My boss was crazy after the Virginia murders. He couldn’t get enough of it. He couldn’t believe the horror, that it could even happen.
All of us outside people looked at him with a curious stare.
What do you think we do every day?
While you are inside in the warmth, in the air conditioning, protected from the elements and the freaks and the curious idiosyncrasies of life, we outside people are meat on a stick.
We are dangling our raw ass bones over the open flame of what if.
We frequently get run off the road by idiots texting and driving. We often get yelled at by angry barbiturate swallowing whores. Homeless people with grand delusions curse us.
When I bang on a door, I instruct my crew where to stand. I often think how wide a shot-gun blast will be. How big a hole will it make through a wooden door from the inside.
How far back should we stand so the pellet array disperses enough to maim and not kill.
Yes, being a run and gun son of a bitch comes with its liabilities.
Death is a possibility.
I mourn for the poor kids in Virginia.
From what I read, 2 bright lights snuffed out by a piece of s***.
Why couldn’t the fool have gargled some rat poison and done us all a favor.
Once again, America mourns crazy people toting guns writing manifestos.
Instead of a movie theater, this time it’s a live shot on a who cares morning show.
Life is delicate. Life is fickle. Life is unpredictable.
I always think about what if.
What if makes me excited for the moment that I have.
Life’s Crazy™