The "bars and tone", as it were, of life in public access.

Working in television hasn't turned out to be nearly as exciting as one would expect.
Mostly I sit in front of a computer monitor.

Oh it has it's moments... no speeding to cover fires, earthquakes, national disasters, scandals in public office, and the occasional cat fashion show as a young person at a commercial tv station might; I have the joys of interacting on a daily basis with those that believe people want to watch them, or what they create, on television.

At this very moment I can hear the Lord's Prayer being chanted in a room up the hall called the "ready set" (a room which, despite the very tempting sign, has never been defaced with the obvious "go") by a German man who strongly resembles a Russian nesting doll, the host of a show sponsored by the local Republican Party with emmaculate snow white hair, and whoever this weeks guests are.

Any minute now a jokingly condescending man will come in and spend 45 minutes to an hour whistling, strutting importantly around our studio and control room before his live show with his pants belted somewhere near his third rib. He probably wont do any of the actual technical directing, he generally snares high school students who are impressed by the many monitors, blinking lights, vcrs, and a sound board that never gets used in the studio control room to do that for him; that way he can walk around talking in a too loud voice to todays guests and playing producer without the hassel of doing the work.
He'll crack a few jokes that aren't funny, possibly make a derogetory statement about women, question my ability to do my job, and then wander back across the hall.

I'll try to slip out the back doors shortly after his show starts to avoid a few eccentrics who would keep me snared in conversations on local politics, events, and the production of their shows for at least another half hour... but never in time to escape the shows intro music, an excerpt from "Funky Town".
So I'll probably spend the first 30 minutes to an hour of my evening wanting to "talk about, talk about, talk about moo-oo-ving" despite my best efforts not to.


That about sums up my average afternoon, but it's the extraordinary days that inspired me to start this blog. You never know when a young man is going to run screaming into my office in a jockstrap, gas mask, and cowboy hat with camera man in tow to startle me for his latest episode (yes, that has absolutely happened... twice), or the next time that the guys fromt he weekend creature feature are going to film giving eachother swirlies in the buildings mens room, which i imagine as HIGHLY unsanitary, with enough screaming and giggling to frighten the older ladies across the hallway (that happened on Friday)... but from now on, I'll keep you posted.