you know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
The live shots that never were.
We are parked downtown. If it hits, it will surely hit here, right?
Wrong.
I roll down the window of the live truck and let the sounds of honky tonk drift in the massive truck.
The air is thick with juice. The warm funky breeze carries the smell of fire cooked hog meat and twang from a guitar.
People are swarming lower broad like inebriated ants wearing cowboy boots.
It’s in the mid 70’s and women are wearing sundresses and big sunglasses.
I see the darkening storm clouds beyond the Bat Building.
The storm seems to be brewing all around us as unsuspecting patrons cross the street, darting between honky tonks.
Earlier in the day, the meteorologists predicted bedlam.
So my name is in bright red on the assignment board. I’m suppose to go live at 4, 5 and 6.
We have interviewed a couple from Chicago, a husband and wife from Minneapolis and some teachers from Murfreesboro.
We have put together a nice story and we are ready to go live within the hour.
We have the live shot tuned in and we are listening to the weather people who are already on forecasting and storm-tracking.
I can’t see it, but I know what it looks like.
Swirling flashes of red and pink.
Words like hook and hail and tornadic energy are being tossed around.
“let’s put a storm track on that,” they will say over and over again.
I listen for 30 minutes in the front seat of the live van.
It’s a surreal visage as hell breaks loose in Maury County, an hour south. But here in downtown Nashville, the sun is peeking behind storm clouds and the pedal wagons flowing.
I know when I don’t hear any commercial breaks, any anchors, or any reporter packages that the newscast is probably in jeopardy.
All I hear is one storm track after another. The storm is coming from the South and the lightning count is phenomenal.”
“Your live shot is killed at 4,” the text comes.
“We’re dead at 4,” I tell my photographer who is scrambling to edit a package we planned to use.
“Relax. Take your time. We’ll toss to it at 5pm.”
I sit and watch the lights of the new intersection change. The cross walk allows people to walk diagonally as well as cross the street conventionally.
The signage is clear and the lights accurate.
Still, I watch a near mishap almost every green light. Cars go. People go. As the counter runs down, there’s a moment when I think calamity is a given and we will be covering a car versus pedestrian accident.
I watch this three stooges crosswalk for 90 minutes and decide that if the tornados don’t strike, I should do this story.
5pm is approaching and still no newscast; just weather people storm tracking across the cartoon channel of graphics and counties and arrival times.
“Your 5pm is dead,” the text comes.
“I knew it.”
“what?”
“The 5pm is dead.”
My photographer rolls his eyes. We have put a moderate amount of effort into the package we were going to air.
Now it’s cold as a step mother on Mother’s day.
By 6pm the weather people have been talking for almost 3 hours.
Meanwhile, Crews are out chasing damage to the south and sending back footage that has not aired.
Live pictures are available, yet we don’t take any.
It is one cartoon storm track after the next.
I see the emails banging into my in-box.
Other crews are trying to tune in signals and send in footage of trees on cars and trailers flooded in parks and lightning strikes on houses.
By 6pm, none of this has aired.
Crews in the field are frustrated.
The weather-casters will talk till almost 7:45 pm.
In those 4 hours, a few pictures will get on air. 2 live shots from reporters in the field will be broadcast.
Suddenly the angry calls from from viewers begin to ring into the news room. “Where’s The Wheel Of Fortune?” they angrily query.
At 6:30pm, after sitting in the live truck for 3 hours, watching 3 live shots dissolve, and documenting untold car versus pedestrian accidents at the city’s new diagonal cross walk, I call it a night.
“Let’s go back.”
We pull into the station at 7pm and it’s crazy town.
Tornado warnings are extended and coverage continues.
“Did you do anything today?” an editor asks me.
I laugh.
“Nope.”
In TV what you do is judged by what you get on air.
Today I did nothing except listen to the cartoon channel of weather prediction.
Life’s Crazy™