You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.™
Working with another human.
Man it felt good today.
Maybe you take human interaction for granted. Don’t.
My typical day involves a lot of socialized isolation. What that means is – I am around a group of people at work, I walk by them to use the restroom – they periodically ask me a question about a story – but by and large – I don’t regularly interact with them to accomplish my task.
I begin my day alone, calling a hundred contacts to find a story. I find my story alone, I cultivate it alone, drive myself to my story alone, I shoot and edit my story alone, I write my story alone.
At the end of the day, It is a lonely daily grind.
In the old days, every crew that gathered news was a 2 man crew. A camera man and a reporter. It was safer, it was social, it was the norm.
But now the industry has shifted. It’s a smart phone kind of world where social media and immediate gratification are necessary to survive.
Sadly 2 man crews have given way to one man bands.
Physically it is more exerting. You are doing the job of two people. You are carrying a tripod and toting a camera. You are loaded down with equipment and your mind is often focused on technical issues like lighting and sound when it should be on journalistic issues like fairness and fact finding.
But the one man band is easier than it once was to be sure. Cameras are half the size and they work like a home cam corder.
Point, shoot and record.
Even a monkey can do it. And I do it every day. Usually alone.
But today was a day to cherish. I was teamed up with my old partner in crime. A man I went to journalistic war with every day. For 10 years we saddled up and went and got it. We were a team. He knew my moves and I knew his. When I was down he lifted me up. When he was off his game I reminded him of the path.
Today for some unknown reason, we were a team again. The fortuitous winds of luck were blowing my way.
Maybe the story we’re on is important. Maybe it is time to send in the “A” team. Or maybe it was nothing that dramatic and the boss felt sorry for me.
Who the hell knows. Who the hell cares. But it was fun.
We went in search of clues to a possible murder mystery.
15 days ago a 32 year old woman was found dead a block from her home. She obviously had suffered some sort of head trauma as if she was pushed or fell out of a moving car.
The police say she was last seen getting into a yellow colored cab. Not a Yellow Cab, but a cab that was apparently the color of yellow, like a banana.
Detectives have been unable to find that cab driver who may hold the key to the case. He is probably the last man to see the woman alive.
Why can’t the cops find the driver? Because Nashville cabs are not GPS mandated. The cabbies are still on the honor system, hand writing a log of where they were, who they picked up and where they went.
It’s as if Nashville is in the stone age and our cabs are Flintstone Mobiles stopped and started with bare feet.
Some cabbies fill out the logs some times and some cabbies don’t do it at all.
That’s the story I’m working on. It is a three pronged spear. 1. the evolving and changing mystery. 2. The cab company reaction to one of its drivers being allegedly involved. 3. The city’s new desire to upgrade all cabs in a few months to GPS technology so this never happens again.
That’s the serious side of this. But for me, this is a vacation. It’s the fun of having another human being in the car to talk to, to share ideas with, to bounce interesting stories off of.
When I’m alone I’m making phone calls, getting directions, answering emails and writing my story for the web. And all at 80 mph.
Honestly most of the time I don’t feel safe doing my job. I need 3 hands. I need a chauffeur so I can do my job. More than once I have caught myself driving under a semi truck or driving off the road. I’ve told supervisors and they don’t want to hear this story because, well because it would compel them to act and to act means they would have to acknowledge the current system is not safe for employees.
But today that is not the case. Today I’m in the passenger seat and acting like the prince of journalism. I’m checking my phone and chit chatting like it’s a sunny day with all the time in the world. And when suddenly you only have to do half the work, there is all the time in the world.
We go to the Yellow Cab company and I feel like I can do anything. A crazy looking guy with tattered overalls meets me on the side walk. He looks homeless but also like a guy who would eat your face if given a chance. He is dirty and shifty.
I decide to out crazy him. My crazy mentor Schultz taught me long ago, don’t be a victim. Take the crazy right to them. Strike first. Keep them off balance. Living so many years in South Central, where I was a minority, where I was the guy shot at and spit on, that mentality, that psychological tactic, has served me well.
Instead of avoiding eye contact, instead of crossing away from him, I walk right to him. I am not loaded down with camera gear or a tri pod which is usually the case. My hands are free. If he wants to fight, I am actually ready for it, almost looking forward to it.
Man I’m dumb.
“What Up Bruddah man,” I say in a strange surfing accent.
I am wearing a double breasted Italian sport coat, a white collar and bold tie. I have on expensive cowboy boots and I am swaying with crazy adrenaline.
“Ah yeah,” he mumbles unintelligibly.
He veers away as if he has chosen not to engage my sphere of insanity, as if I’m the crazy homeless guy to be avoided.
Still got it I think to myself.
We go to the cab office. They are not thrilled to see us.The police have said they were the last company to pick up the woman before she was found dead. Police have pulled their records and their records are not well kept.
The manager is a fuzzy faced dispatcher wearing a Harley hat. I call him by his first name, I think it’s Earl. Of course it is. I tell him I like his beard. It looks like rabbits live in it. It’s scraggly like rusted Brillo. I still like it.
“You ever go crabbing in Alaska,” I ask him referring to the Deadliest Catch.
“Huh,”: he mutters
“Opilios Dude.”
The guy looks like an extra from a Grizzly Adams episode. I see his teeth smile under all that matted fur.
My buddy Al is laughing. The story is serious, and the company’s reputation is on the line, but I always have time for fun. I think it eases the tension in the room, kind of like it makes the crazy guy on the sidewalk veer away quietly.
Grizzly lets down his guard and suddenly, I’m not the enemy.
I’m sort of the dumb guy with the silly sense of humor asking some questions about a dead girl and his cab’s alleged role in the mystery.
As Al and I hit the door we both start laughing.
It was work, but it was fun.
“Does anybody else work a room like that?”
“Nobody,” he says. We both chuckle aloud.
As we get in the car we laugh about the time 10 years ago when we went to the office of the perp who was up skirting girls at the mall.
We are in the lobby of his business. I am holding a 8 X 11 mug shot of him.
The secretary says “can we help you?”
I say “yeah. We are looking for this guy.”
I hod up dude’s mug for all to see.
The women are shocked.
Before i can say another thing, the perp we are looking for steps into the lobby
“that’s him!” I shout.
He takes one look at us, his face turns white like fear, and he runs.
We chase him through his own work place.
we go down a hallway. Suddenly we are in a lunch room. Now we are in a stairwell. Emergency exit and into the parking lot.
He stops, panting, crying. “Why are you doing this to me?” he whines.
“why did you up skirt a bunch of girls at the mall” I counter.
Pay back is a bitch.
ha ha ha
Al and I reminisce about that story. Every corner is a memory. A dead body there, a prostitution sting here.
It’s nice to be working with another human. It’s especially nice to be working with Al.
And that is crazy.™