You know what’s crazy? I’ll tel you what’s crazy™
Public appearances.
I’m inside Nashville’s brand new convention center. It’s the city’s new crown jewel. It’s the size of a city block. It’s a spectacle, brightly lit, commanding attention like a guitar shaped UFO hovering over the city.
The Music City Center is 2 million square feet of state of the art architecture. The building is palatial, every square inch precisely designed by master craftsmen.
I walk into the massive building. The walls are glass, and the ceilings so high, it’s as if I am still outside.
I take an escalator to the 2nd floor. The vista is spectacular. The sunshine is beaming through the football field sized widows.
I look at the Music City skyline. It permeate the insides of this edifice. I think how the downtown vista is a part of the over all design.
I notice the walls and the attention to detail. All I can think is how ornate and opulent this edifice is. From the carpet to the intricately designed banisters to the one of a kind artwork on the walls, the building is a flawless masterpiece.
I am in one of the massive convention centers for the Southern Women’s Show.
It’s a maze of booths and people. I feel like a mouse, and there is cheese somewhere at the other end of the room.
I look around. I see tiny vacuums to dog collars, to clothing.
I’m lost in hundreds of thousands of square feet of clothing and pots and pans and salespeople selling everything that can be sold.
I am not interested in vacuums or women’s clothes or perfumes or carpet samples.
I am here only because I have been told to be here.
Our company has a booth in the middle of the room. On air people have been instructed to meet and greet and sign autographs.
I don’t like this part of the job. I didn’t get into the news gathering business to glad hand.
I realize it is a part of the job, but it is the part of the job that I don’t relish.
I am a reporter. My job is to sniff out stories, to dig up dirt, to shine light into the darkness.
I have always felt signing autographs is the job of an anchor. Anchors are the flashy hood ornament on the news mobile. Anchors read to kids. Anchors go the events and do speeches and sign autographs. I am a blue collar worker in my mind.
So here I am at the Woman’s Show
The moment I hit the bubble gum pink carpet, I am met by news fans.
I am surprised how many people know my name, slap me on the back, shake my hand.
“I love that you fight for the little guy,” One woman says.
“You look taller on TV,” one woman says. “But you’re cuter,” She adds trying to minimize her comment that is thrown out without a filter.
“I love your passion,” one viewer spews.
My job is like your job. I work for a company. We produce a product. We sell our product to the consumer. My job, unlike yours, is done in full view of the world.
But I rarely get feed back face to face. I rarely get emails that say “Atta boy! Way to go. thanks for what you do!”
My correspondence is usually from invisible critics who hide behind twitter handles and email addresses with no call back numbers.
“You are an idiot. You are the worst reporter ever. You suck.”
These are the calling cards of my existence.
So when I walk into the public, I don’t know what to expect.
I have had people come up to me and say, “You did a story on me once.”
I’m wary of these people.
I stay vigilant, angry, prepared.
“So were you the good guy or the bad guy?” I say with the steely determination of an angry pit bull.
“What?” They say, unsure what this means.
“Well how you answer will determine how the next few moments of this meeting are going to go?”
They will look at me oddly as I stoically and deliberately explain.
I watch them for signs of anger, for signs of a jail house tattoo, for signs of a weapon or shifty move.
“You see if you were the good guy, then it’s nice to meet you,” I continue. “But if you are the bad guy, a guy I walked down or whose door I knocked on, then this might get ugly quick. So which is it. Are you the good guy I met before or the bad guy I met before.”
Normally the person introducing themselves to me will laugh and say something like “Nah, you helped my momma get her car repairs done.”
I immediately feel a calmness wash over me.
It’s hard to be ready to fight every time you meet someone, but that is what I do. I never know who is who and what they are thinking.
Am I the son of a bitch they hate? Am I the guy they want their children to grow up and be like?
It’s a meet and greet crap shoot.
So on this day, I am on display. From 12:30 to 2pm, I am fresh meat in the butcher counter’s display shelf.
Old women walk by and say “Are you on the news?”
I smile back and say “Yes mam.”
I sign autographs and take pictures.
It’s an enjoyable 90 minutes that helps me remember why I do this. I see the people my stories effect. I hear how they are appreciative. So often I work in a void where the only feed back is from news directors and consultants who are not in touch with the real world.
This is a well spent 90 minutes that will help me remember that what we do is for the community and not for some suits in Los Angeles or New York.
Life’s Crazy™