Season on the Brink

Somewhere in America, an account executive is dreaming of life as a photojournalist. So it is really a shock that I spend four months a year fantasizing about making cold calls from the sanctity of an air-conditioned cubicle? Because I do. Don't get me wrong; I've ridden this planet around the sun enough times to know the grass is greener on the other side of the horizon. But with every humid June that arrives, I find myself questioning my (lack of) career path. Of course, those particular pangs of regret usually overtake me as I'm trudging through the jungle under a heavy load, Drug bust, state park profile, cadaver dog foot chase: the mission doesn't really matter. For once the very air turns aquarium sludge, I yearn for a term inside some politician's office, where the only hot air is that nonsense that spews from the cake-hole of whatever blowhard who just finished texting his wang to his every constituent. That's heat I can take. The hairdryer to the face sensation that is a Carolina Summer? Not so much. I don't know about where YOU live, but here in the Tar Heel state, Spring slams shut in the middle of May and until October, you think about your underwear about every fifteen minutes.

Why's that? Because, be it boxers or brief, the waistband of your skivvies seeps into your spleen. And while we're on the subject of sartorial swelter, can I just say I may be the one TV news photog who doesn't really like casual attire? Now I'm no clothes horse, but well into my middle age, I hoped I wouldn't have to spend half the calendar year dressed like a third grader on his first field trip. Oh, why can't I be fly? I'll tell ya why: I'm a sweater. No, not one of those horrible crocheted numbers foisted upon you every December by your Aunt Hilda. I'm talkin' transudation. See, as a fairly furry forty-four year old father, I can perspire with the best of them. Truth is, I sweat like a fat man zipped into a gorilla suit. It's embarrassing, really. I've had total strangers hand me their bottle of water, for fear the cameraman may soon pass out.  I never do, but if ever did drop, I'd spend my delirium flitting about some imaginary office park dressed to the nines and coiffed like a werewolf. 

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go lay out my Garanimals for the morning and crank the A/C to eleven. Then I'm gonna make sweet love to the ice maker. Heh, like YOU'VE never done that!

Early Herd Gets the Worm

Photo by Chad Tucker, Esquire

Perhaps the coolest thing about the crush of cameras outside John Edwards' indictment hearing is the fact that I wasn't there. (Instead, I was thirty minutes away,babysitting a big ole hole in a nearby Apple Store and wondering where in the hell everybody was. Now, I see.) That, friends, is a respectable collection of press representatives - one befitting a visiting prince, a shackled Sasquatch, or some preening worm who cheated on his dying wife with a (GASP!) vid-ee-OG-ruh-fer. That's right, I - like most North Carolinians - consider John Edwards to be a nothing short of a greasy orifice. Back when he was a media darling, we'd travel to his hometown of Robbins for a chat with his longtime supporters. There were none. Then there was the time I waited outside the Koury Convention Center for his limo to arrive. When it did, he bounded out, all teeth, dimples and feathered bangs. I didn't like him then. I don't like him now. Of course you might think my low opinion of the man would compel me to be present when a Federal judge laid six hefty charges on him. You'd be wrong.

See, a scrum of that number doesn't form without a few bumped shots and bruised egos along the way. Be it for a fallen lawyer or rising Idol, reception parties of that magnitude usually devolve into madness. Especially when man in the middle of it all stops for a few more seconds of face time. That's just what Edwards did today and while the world may have hung on his every syllable, I spent the interview scanning the backdrop for familiar, pain-racked faces. There - among the out of town stringers and network jet-setters - that guy ... who I see every week but whose name I've never learned. He looks...constipated. And over there, in front of that dude on the ten foot ladder, it's El Ocho's own Joe McCloskey! Why, he must be positively entranced with the political drama at hand, thrilled to be a part of tar Heel history, breathless with anticipation at what scandalous nugget will be revealed when Mr. Aqua-net emerges from the Hall of Justice. Isn't that right, Joe? ... Joe? 

"I was staking out one entrance for two hours, Duffer was at another one, and the Chief showed up and thirty seconds later... Johnny walked past his camera."

Ahhh, spoken like a seasoned professional who'd rather be anywhere but in the middle of it all. He should have joined me at the Apple hole. Chick Fil-A showed up and handed out free sandwiches. You don't get THAT at federal indictments. Do you?