You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
Predicting a calamity, covering a disaster, going all in journalistically, then losing the nerve to follow through.
That’s what was happening to me.
My news room was getting nervous and was about to pull the plug on a plan 3 days in the making.
Then my boss called and said something unusual in the news business.
I trust you.
And with that, the burden of execution and content shifted to me and my photographer.
I trust you, meant, OK, shut up and put up.
I felt energized like a new 9 volt in an electric tooth-brush.
My photographer and I moved to the corner and peeked our head around the side of the Bridgestone Arena.
The sky is full of promise. It’s heavy and saturated with electricity. There are flashes to the west and the wind is kicking up.
“What are you doing news man?” a voice says, floating on the quickening breeze.
The girl is short, wearing a mini skirt and carrying a pink umbrella.
“Storm coverage,” I reply looking past her. “Didn’t you see the forecast?”
“We’re from Houston,” she giggles. “She is wearing the fragrance of happy hour.”
“Be careful,” I respond.
She dances across the street. Nobody knows. Nobody has a clue what’s coming.
I lean on a wall quietly and watch the sky. A hundred people will cross the street from Rippy’s to Legend’s Corner.
“What’s going on newsman?” I will hear this over and over and over.
We interview a few people. The guy from Canada doesn’t think this is news. The guys from Chicago are all ready drunk, they don’t care. The girls from Georgia, they have a smiley face umbrella, they tell me they’ll be ok.
I hope they’re all wrong. Because if they are wrong, I’m right. I hope their dumb, insouciant asses get blasted by a fire hose of water and a jet pack of wind. I hope the Canada guy is blown down in the cross walk. I hope the Chicago guys are sobered up, I hope the Georgia girls get their mini skirts tossed over their Peach Tree Street heads.
Nobody seems concerned about the storm that my smart phone indicates is going to punch us all in the face in a few minutes.
I trust my instincts. I know that if it comes, for even 5 minutes, something dynamic will happen. All I need is 60 seconds, all I need is some wind, some rain and I got myself a lead story. If something falls out of the sky, rolls over, or squeals like a greased pig in the dark, I win.
The air feels humid and prickly, the way clothes feel coming out of the dryer.
“Here it comes,” I say to my photographer.
A raindrop hits the bill of my hat, then another, then another.
Plop. Plop. Splatt.
The drops are heavy, like they were formed in the gravitational stew of Jupiter.
Suddenly the drops are not measurable as they come down in a bucket of water, then a wall of water, then a collapsing building of liquified atmosphere.
The sky is a hungry vortex of fury. It is chewing up the air, dumping a lake of water, slapping the face of 5th and Broad in the jaw.
“Thar she blows,” I yell like a 1st mate on a sailing vessel going over the side of the Earth.
“My photographer is all ready racing down the sidewalk, capturing people scattering like roaches. They rush under canopies and duck into bars.
I am alive. I am energized. I know that Good TV, frenetic TV is happening all around me.
I run after my photographer, shouting at people, absorbing the wind and the night’s fury.
I am the Frankenstein monster.
“It is alive”
I hear the news Gods screaming in my soul.
My camera man is fearless, as he is pelted relentlessly. The gusts are hurricane like, at times reaching 50 and 60 miles an hour.
A river of water is racing down the street, overflowing the storm drains.
I reach into the water to show the force.
The sky is swirling and angry. The water is pounding me, sliding down my neck. I feel gusts of wind trying to pull my hat off my head. My boots are filled with water.
I see flashes of lightning in the sky. The wind is intensifying.
Is this safe?
The thought shows up on my frontal lobe for a moment.
Is this fun?
The thought dances a jig in my brain, stomping any fear, pushing any thought of safety off a cliff of who cares.
I begin screaming. I feel the excitement. I am energized by the wind and the rain and the monsoon conditions.
It is in this moment, that I know we have accurately predicted a moment in time. We fought the fight to stay in this location, to capture a moment that could lead a newscast.
I’ve seen a million lead stories that sucked.
This one has Emmy potential.
All I have to do is not screw it up.
We rush down the sidewalk. We yell at people running by us. They yell back. It’s a drive by shooting of atmospheric proportions.
Suddenly I’m in the middle of Broadway, Nashville’s signature thoroughfare. The street is empty having been transformed into a river. Lights are blinking from nearby honky tonks, reflecting on the mirror like reflection on the roadway. It is crazy and invigorating. I am stomping like a 6 year old in a gigantic rain puddle.
I am talking into the microphone as we run. My mouth is connected to a brain that is high on adrenaline and inebriated spot news jam. What I’m saying is anyone’s guess. The storm is rock concert loud.
I am across a street. The light is red, but there is no traffic. Cars have all pulled over, unable to see out their windshields.
I push open the door to Legend’s Corner.
The drummer, on stage with his back to the street, stares at me like I’m crazy.
A whirlwind of wet energy pours into the bar behind me.
It’s as if the storm belches me into the bar.
I stand up, water cascading off me, pouring onto the floor.
People are dancing, the music is blaring, drinks are thick across the bar.
I quickly notice that nobody here gives a damn about the storm, about the wind, about the lightning filling the sky.
This place feels all wrong.
It’s dry. It’s safe. It’s musically mundane.
Unless Legend’s Corner is hit with a wrecking ball, these beer stained wanna be cowboys are indifferent to the weather magic all around.
“The hell with this place,” I yell to my photog who is on my heels like a tow rope on a surf board behind me.
I push the door open.
the Honky Tonk twang dissipates as wind and angry rain pelt my face, once again.
Normally this would be trouble. Normally, the primordial building blocks of fight or flight would tell me to turn back. “Go back inside” it would scream. The air is filled with the unknown, blasting me in the eyes. What am I doing out here, again?
For whatever reason, I am drawn to it. It is a liquified magnet of chaos. Like a tractor beam it is pulling me back into its enigmatic clutches.
Suddenly, the little camera crew dancing in the magic storm is back in the street.
Lights? Green? Red? Who cares?
We own the night.
We race back across the street toward Rippy’s.
I stand on the sidewalk and continue my storm induced psycho babble.
Then it happens. It is abrupt, painful, all-encompassing. Like a fisherman’s hook to the eye, a siren wails.
Above the cacophony of wind a tornado siren on top of the arena begins to blare.
It pierces the moment like a pin popping a balloon.
I realize in the blink of an eye that this just got serious.
My photographer raises his camera, pointing it into the swirling sky as the siren fills his microphone.
He tilts down to catch two young men sprinting through the sheets of rain and angry darkness. They are smiling, but they look scared too, as they rapidly rip open the door and duck into the bar for cover.
Only my camera man and I are intrepid enough, stupid enough, to play in the lightning bolts and invisible tornadoes swirling somewhere above us.
If it was magical a minute ago, it’s gold now.
But there is a time and place for everything and the streets are empty.
The people are all huddled inside and that is now where the story has shifted.
“Inside here,” he shouts pulling the door open.
I follow behind.
It’s dry and chaotic. I sense a bar in confusion.
The music is off, a rarity in a honky tonk. People are leaving the establishment through a side exit. Half consumed Beers are left on the bar.
There is a nervous energy here. It’s wrong, like a metal fork inside a microwave oven is wrong.
A bouncer with a flash light is waving people out, directing them into an alley.
“Let’s go people let’s go.”
The alley beyond his light is dark. I see bricks and trash cans.
Is that the safest place? I think to myself.
“Should I pay my bill,” a woman from Georgia asks me.
“I wouldn’t mam. I’d take cover.” She is smiling, but she is filled with concern.
We talk to the guitarist putting his instrument in its case.
“They told us to stop playing,” he says with concern in his voice. He stands in front of a window. His face is surrounded by darkness and flashes of lightning. I can see the silhouette of the Bat Building illuminated in blue-white streaks of light.
It is ominous and exciting. Outside was magical. Inside is intense. Each a chapter of this story.
We follow people out the door. They are not calm, but they are not panicked either. The group of 3 dozen bar tenders, patrons and musicians walk 50 yards down the sidewalk. The siren is still wailing as the rain has decreased slightly.
The group stops at a door on the side of the Palm restaurant. It is a stairwell. Where it goes, I am unclear. People are inside, but there is little room for anyone else. It seems damp and claustrophobic. The light inside is not natural. It is a blue-green hue. It is uninviting. Out of all the options I have had tonight, this little space is the least appetizing to me. I suddenly feel the urge to stand in the middle of Broadway, and let Mother Nature have her way with me some more.
I want to bathe in sheets of rain and tornado siren. This closed space is for fear and people who wait for things to happen to them.
We are crossing the frontier of news, cutting our way through a path of what’s next.
This shelter is hell and I will not enter.
“Make room. Make room,” I hear someone shout.
The door opens wider and people push in. It’s a sardine can of safety?
I turn to my photographer. “Let’s go.”
We are both on an internal clock.
We have done what we said we would do. We captured 10 minutes of insanity.
We intersected a storm path and documented its furry.
We did our job. But documentation is only half the battle.
Getting it on air is the other half of the equation.
To capture a story and not show it to anyone? Well few things Fail harder than that.
We both jump in the live van.
Water is cascading off our coats, off the bills of our hats. It is a sweaty, hot, condensation night mare.
I feel moisture everywhere. It’s like we are inside the Apollo 13 spacecraft full of electronics and condensation.
“What do you want to do?” my photog asks.
My brain is racing. I look at my watch. It’s 8:30 pm. 90 minutes till I’m live. 10pm doesn’t care what I’ve been doing all night. 10 pm is coming regardless.
TICK. TOCK.
“Let’s go back to the station,” I respond. It’s our best chance to assimilate 2 cameras full of confusion.
“Yes,” he says as if I have read his mind.
40 years of dancing with the spot news devil gives one perspective.
I know editing in this claustrophobic van full of darkness and limited space is a mistake to do this story justice.
We race back to the tv station. We know we have gold. But it might as well be rust if we don’t get it on air.
As we push the live van through traffic, through flashing yellow lights and the miscreants that roam the streets in front of the projects, I know that we just delivered on a promise made.
The bosses last words: I trust you.
That meant a lot. I think it pushed us to prove that trust.
I’ve learned in my years of storm chasing. It’s hard to chase the storm. Sometimes you have to put yourself in front of it and be ready.
We hunkered down, and waited. And when the moment arrived, we executed with excitement and immediacy.
We enter the newsroom. It is full of its own inside energy. It is dry and warm. I see coffee cups and half eaten hamburgers the station has purchased for folks working hard.
The people inside are working hard. They are doing what they do. But it is just different. It is so so different. I am immediately struck by the difference as I walk in, my shoes squeaking, filled with water from a million rain drops.
The people inside hear about the storm when the phone rings and callers report something. People inside hear about the storm when someone props open the door and they take a quick peak outside. People inside find out about the storm when they look up and see a tv monitor full of character generated storm tracking.
People inside are covering a storm, but compared to what my photog and I just did, this is Disney Land. Compared to what we just went through, this is a sit down restaurant with fine table linen and filet mignon.
I walk in and expect a heroes celebration. After all, in my mind, we are the Apollo 13 astronauts returning from the Dark Side of the moon having just done the unthinkable, the impossible.
Nobody says much. Nobody knows what we experienced. They don’t know we possess the best footage in the Nashville market.
I laugh. I know what we have. I know they will slowly figure it out and they will marvel at the magic promised and the trust delivered.
“Did you get the sirens?” an assignment editor asks as I walk by.
I am soaking wet, water pouring off me.
“Ah, yeah. We got the sirens,” I say with a Cheshire cat grin.
I sit at my desk and load my P2 card into the system.
Over the course of the next five minutes the producer, the news director and the promo director will stand over me. They will watch the silent footage going in at mach speed. They are trained news consumers. They instantly know that we won our battle with the storm.
“Their footage is awesome,” I hear my boss yell to someone.
He’s right. It is.
It’s magic.
I spend the next 30 minutes editing the piece. I don’t even get to see most of the footage. There just isn’t enough time. That’s my only sadness, that I don’t have 30 more minutes to even look at the footage, to know what gold I’m leaving behind in the edit bay.
I grab segments right before and after the tornado warning. I know it’s good, but there is no time to really look at it, to second guess.
This is life at the speed of news. Fast. Faster. Fastest.
Don’t slander anyone!
I cut a time line.
My photographer takes 10 minutes to spice it up with shots only he knows he shot.
Then bam, we are back in the live truck, racing back to the same arena, we left an hour earlier.
The night is calmer. There is only a light rain in the air.
All the honky tonks are blaring country music. The street is awash in pinks and blues and flashing lights.
It’s hypnotic, beautiful.
“How was it out there?” the main anchor asks me at 10 pm on my live shot.
I laugh. I can’t help it. “It was crazier than heck,” I say. “So crazy, it actually makes this rain feel kind of nice.”
The anchors smile.
And the footage of my night beings to play.
I hear the intensity in my ear piece.
I know that people at home who huddled in their safe places, who stayed dry, who cursed their tv’s because we left programming to storm track are watching.
I know that I promised magic. I know they are getting to see it right now.
Life’s Crazy.™