Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Case In Point



Courtesy City Room Blog

Contributing Photographer Jim Brown


WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?


Possible Conversation at the Department of Defense:


"Hey, it's a nice day along the coast. Why don't we take Air Force Two up over NYC, and chase it with an F-16 so we can get some good shots of the plane with the "Big Apple" in the background? We can pretend it's Air Force One."


"Shouldn't we tell somebody in New York we're coming? "


"Why, they probably won't even notice."


Just when we thought the old joke about "Military Intelligence" left our active lexicon.


But I've been talking about Columbine, and some of the lessons we should have all learned from the experience. And this incident in New York this week is the perfect illustration of what's been going through my brain.


"Time Heals All Wounds."


Pity the person who utters that adage in the face of anyone who has suffered grief. Time just allows your body to get used to the pain. Nothing is healed.


All of this we know, and I'm not here to arrogantly preach "The Way of the World" to anyone. It is just that the experience of being at the scene of the shootings, at several of the funerals, at most of the memorials, at maybe 50 of the news conferences, and looking for poignant sidebar stories every day, offers some revelations. Here comes another one I'd like to share.


In the media an event like Columbine has some elements of a class or family reunion. Journalism is such a small, tight, animated culture. People we know arrive from all parts of the country. We all have the same missions, find the stories, get them shot, recorded or written, and get them back to our newsrooms. But if you happen to be living or working here?


The circles of people I know in this community are large in circumference. And? Since an entire student body, faculty and administration were hiding from gunfire inside a school building? Since family members were rushing to the scene trying to get information? Since police, fire and paramedics in a 40 mile radius rushed to the scene? Well?


I have not talked to anyone in the past decade who didn't, at least, know someone who knew someone at least indirectly involved with Columbine. The ties were so great for local media it impacted the way we did our jobs. We, for the most part, did not shove microphones into the faces of grieving family members. We did not crash funerals we were not invited to. We did not stake out locations where we could jump out of a bush and ask a tough question of a victim's brother or sister or fiance.


But you know what? Reporters and photographers from out of town did. They had newsroom managers all over the country telling them to do what they had to do get the story, get it right and and get it first.


Am I being critical of all journalists outside the Denver Metropolitan Area? No! I can't say that if I had been covering an earthquake in San Diego that I wouldn't have behaved as those reporters might have behaved at Columbine. This is just a revelation that while "Time MAY contribute to healing?" So, too, does "DISTANCE!" And there appears to be a correlation between how distant and how emotionally affected you are.

I know my colleague and friend Hendrik Sybrandy offered up this thought in the newsroom at KMGH?

"No one will EVER tell a Columbine Joke!"


And to be honest I've not heard one in this town. And odds are small we'll hear any Columbine humor coming out of Grand Junction or Cheyenne, Wyoming. But Phoenix, Los Angeles, Houston, Kansas City? I'm not so sure. And I'd give odds jokes have been told in Miami and Vancouver.
And let's be honest, humor is often what helps us all cope with tragedy. But when that tragedy is next door? Distance seems as important as time in easing the pain.
We know from life experience that new generations will lighten the burden of grief. Then the mission must be, " don't let them FORGET Columbine or 9/11." If they forget those events and begin to take them lightly, they may happen again.

But what were those guys in Washington D.C. thinking. With those two planes they couldn't have been more than 20 minutes away from Broadway, even in bad weather. There can be no excuse. Look at it this way. NO ONE in New York would have approved a photo shoot over Manhattan. The DOD is lucky the New York National Guard didn't fire some missiles at Air Force Two or the F-16.
I promise to get back to lighter fare the next time I show up here.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Looking Back!


When Columbine High School was over taken by violence and intrigue, I put together a story with a former Colorado State Poet Laureate. I interviewed her two days after the shootings, and asked if she had expressed how she felt in verse.


"No, I've just been observing all the media coverage, taking mental, and written notes. I'll let the ideas simmer for a while and then start writing poetry."


I was drawn to the poetry angle of the story by what I saw and reacted to at the school. Makeshift memorials to the slain students were going up everywhere. And EVERYONE, big burly football players, snowboarders, student leaders, Goths, old, young, teachers, family members contributed to a massive volume of poetry. It wasn't all perfect pentameter, it didn't often rhyme, but it WAS all poetry.


I hope when those memorials got torn down someone hung on to all those printed tributes. Those poems document a powerful mass catharsis, and a warning to all of us that "it can HAPPEN here."


I can tell you where I WAS when Kennedy was shot, when Nixon quit, when 9/11 happened, when Martin Luther King was shot, when we sent men to the moon. But I find over time I oft get confused, mix up my locations by thousands of miles, trade off locations. But the day two disgruntled students started shooting up the Columbine campus?


Photographer Jim Weis and I are doing a drive thru at Burger King at Speer and Broadway(fine dining for news crews.) We were working a story on housing.


Jim: "You gettin' the usual?"


Paul: "Yeah!"


Speaker: "Welcome to Burger King. How can I help you?


Jim: " We need a double Whopper with cheese, hold the mayo...add mustard, and an ice tea."


(Jim always brought his lunch from home.)


Speaker: "That's a double Whopper with cheese, hold the mayo, add mustard and an ice tea. Is that it?"


Jim: "Yep!"


Speaker: "That will be four seventy five at the second window. Go ahead and pull forward."


Paul: "Jim did you hear that on the (police) scanner?"


Jim: " Yeah, what's all the commotion?"


Paul: "Somethings going on at Columbine High School. Sounds like a catastrophe. It has to be one of those doomsday exercises."


Jim: "Yeah it's got to be!"


Speaker: "That'll be four seventy five. Thank you. Here's your ice tea, and here's your Whopper."


Jim: "Thanks!"


Paul: "Jim, this Columbine thing is sounding really weird. We ought to at least make sure the station knows about."


As occasionally happens during a crisis, the assignment desk is already dealing with more situations than an air traffic controller could handle. This was one of those days. They hadn't heard about Columbine, so we asked to talk to the News Director or Assignment Manager. Turns out they were both out to a meeting 4o miles away. Mildly frustrated Jim and I looked at each other and knew we might be making career decisions...but we were in agreement...we were blowing off our housing story and screaming to Columbine about 30 minutes away.


I'm no spring chicken. I forget many things every single day. But, I'd be willing to wager a "pretty penny" the verbal language exchanges you just read are 95 percent accurate. This is a day every single person in the Denver Media has firmly imprinted on the brain, in memory centers, in emotional places. And we are not talking about what we were hearing on the scanners, rather what we saw and heard when we got to Columbine.


In my 35 years in broadcast journalism I witnessed many things that are tough to take. I watched suicides, I was within 3o feet of a drunken barricaded suspect who unwisely decided to raise up his rifle and point it at a swat team. He was hit by more than 20 bullets and died ten feet away. I coped with every one of those situations with journalistic distance. I might have gotten a little rattled when I got home, but it was essentially part of the job.


" Your job is to just tell the story."


But Columbine? Whoa! First of all it was the pure size of the crime scene.

There were police and firemen on the scene from every jurisdiction in the metropolitan area. If you are not from the Denver area, but from some other metropolitan area, just put yourself in an environment that attracted that size an emergency force.


The first official I ran into was the Public Information Officer for Denver Fire. Columbine, in Jefferson County, mailing address Littleton, is a good half hour drive from this guy's office. He had no jurisdiction at this scene. Regardless, I decided to do my job and ask him a few questions. Those questions were in vain. His face was wan, his jaw hung low, and he could only just shake his head. I got the same reaction from every cop, fireman, or paramedic that seemed to be in charge.


"Where was the Command Post?"


Nobody knew. There were several of them.


"Who was in charge?"
Nobody knew.


"How many gunmen?"


Nobody knew for sure.


"Had the shooting stopped?"


Nobody knew.


"Victims?"


Nobody knew.


"Fatalities?"


Nobody knew. (The number of fatalities and wounded wasn't sorted out for twelve hours. The reason for that is yet another story I'll save for another day.)


"Is any body's swat team going in?"


Nobody seemed to know.


The outfall from this event swallowed up all media resources in this 17th largest population center in the country for more than two months. Reporters never had to wonder what story they would be doing the next day. It would clearly have something to do with Columbine. (On the day of the shootings, one of the sports anchors spent all afternoon and evening coordinating live shots from the various reporters.)


I'm going to share some more with you in coming postings, as much for me, as for you. That is why I started this one with the poetry story. That poet needed to sort out her thoughts and feelings before she could appropriately express herself. That is what I've been doing.


Columbine left the community and the media many life lessons. One of them is clearly, " YES, IT CAN HAPPEN HERE!"

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Foot Fault



Two phrases that are cemented in my brain from more than three decades in journalism:

1. "Things like this just never happen here!"
(This is not a tease for a Columbine reflection. I'll deal with that separately.)

2. "If you don't like the weather here today, just wait an hour (a day) (until tomorrow)."

The photo up there? I'll try anything, but I'm pretty sure I've no shot at success as a foot model. But it was the best way I could tell you I comfortably walked out to get the paper this morning in my bare foot. (The other one is even homelier)

So what's the big deal? Let me show you what it looked like here three days ago.

I've lived in five states. I've been to all 50 of them. I've listened to radio and watched TV in most of them. I didn't take or keep notes but I'd take bets that I've heard both those phrases in at least 90 percent of those places.



There is no accuracy to the first phrase anywhere!

The second one....on the weather?


I grew up in Los Angeles where the weatherman seriously needed a gimmick just to fill the time he (no women in weather those days) was allotted. Were he to import that phrase into his forecast? It would read something like this.



"If you don't like the weather here today, just wait six months and we might get a half inch of rain."


But here in Colorado a Spring storm is a true example of the "be prepared for anything" weather reality. It does change quick and dramatically.

We had sixteen inches of snow when these pictures were taken three days ago.

Today all the golf courses are open, and men and women are playing on them. The tennis courts are dry. The grass is green. The tulips are smiling. The doves are back to their love and nest making. Thanks to the sun all the bike paths are cleared and next week we could be talking drought.

Just thought you'd like to see some of these snow pictures if phrase number two is just something they SAY in your neighbor hood. (Chicago Boston and Western Kansas can put on some incredibly quick and dramatic weather changes. I'll bet my friend Susan Kelley would include Detroit)

I'll bet I heard Phrase number one a hundred times during our coverage of Columbine. It impacted an entire metropolitan area, and ultimately the world. And for a while people stopped saying that doesn't happen here. I'm going to devote a separate entry to that horrible event later today. What I write will likely be more for me than you, but I also think it will be worth sharing.

Any way the Sun today, tomorrow maybe an up slope system will bring the snow back, and then on Thursday we'll get some Chinook winds that will dry everything up again.

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Opus Mopus




Remember the big kid that sat in the back of the class not fitting in his seat?
In this case it has nothing to do with the guy being a future offensive lineman with the Raiders. It is a case of the fella being a tad older than the other students? Will he ever graduate?



Well that is my beginners class Spring Piano Recital up there. How did I do? Well a one minute Allegretto duet turned into a two minute Allegretto when I had a brain &%$#* (some kids, I'm told, secretly read this once in a while).
But my teacher Rosemary and I have a plan should something like that happen. We number each measure, and if my mind takes a nap, one of us will whisper a measure number to the other to get us back on track? How'd that work?

On close observation you'd notice my mentor Rosemary and duet partner, wears reading glasses. I, too, wear reading glasses. Glasses don't fail us now.
Rosemary whispers, "Let's start at measure 26."
Problem is she points to measure 20 on my page which looks a lot like measure 22. Well you get the picture. We ultimately get back on track and find ourselves a crescendo.

TONGUE IN CHEEK ALERT:

Result? My concert tour has been put on hold. And my guest solo performances with the Denver Symphony are out. Seems I'm being replaced by fellow pianists Eric,







Elise,




and Nathan (this kid has fingers longer than my legs).


At least it took three of them to replace me.


TONGUE IN CHEEK ALERT IS BEING LIFTED
But the dream is alive.

Impact of the beard? A young pianist and vocalist I'd worked very closely with in the Fall? She taps me on the shoulder and says to me?



"Is that you?"

"Yep!"

She didn't say whether or not she liked it.

Bottom line? I loved the experience, and what a warm feeling I get being accepted by these kids. I'll be back.

Friday, April 17, 2009

Plink, Plink: Pluck, Pluck







PLINK, PLINK:


I've been very deep in thought this week. I'm writing this prior to my first piano recital at age 66. (TONIGHT IS THE NIGHT) It's funny, irony like funny, that the piece I'm playing with my music mentor, Rosemary Rogers, was composed by Carl Reinecke. It is funny because Carl started composing in Denmark at the age of seven. And, by contrast his work is about to be performed by some guy who is taking piano lessons with his social security check.
Anyway, the prospect of sitting down with Professor Rosemary, and playing Reinecke's Allegretto duet, is in and of itself a subject of deep musing. But you know what? It pales in comparison to the thoughts that keep racing through my brain about my beard. Like the piano, for me the beard is essentially a first.
PLUCK, PLUCK:

One thing I've noticed is, once again, I'm significantly behind the fashion curve. I'm journalistically embarrassed that I hadn't noticed about half of the male YOUs, already have one of these artistic natural formations. So, as I share my observations, a large percentage of you will be deciding this is a good time to make a tuna sandwich. And, hey, there's an accidental transition for you.

Tuna? Tuna is one of those nutrients that can cause great embarrassment if you don't immediately wipe your mustache following every bite. It loves to collect in the matting in very noticeable chunks (NOTICEABLE TO EVERY ONE BUT YOU) I don't drink milk, per SE, so you'd think I'd be beyond soaking the matting above my upper lip. But I do drink Soy Milk. The result is the same. Unless you have a pocket mirror, or have some gorgeous woman point at you and break out in laughter, will you be aware you SEEM to be foaming at the mouth.

Are you sporting the notion that women love beards and are dying to kiss the faces that own them? Slap yourself back into reality. Facial, hair I'm discovering, is far coarser than that which grows higher up. You can typically recognize a woman who knows a man with a beard by the rash on her cheek.

But this is not at all a negative muse. Even as trimming is considered, a beard really does cut down on the morning grooming session.

Having a beard does in fact alter your identity and impact your personality. I've been sitting her trying to imagine Freud without his goatee, Lenin without his creation, Ulysses S. Grant CLEAN SHAVEN. They were probably all three "type B's" without their beards.


I've already had quite a few people tell me I look a lot more sophisticated with a beard. I suspect that is why so many scholars, and men WANTING to be scholars, sport them.
Have you noticed how Maria Sharapova seems to delight in pushing strands of hair out of her eyes whilst playing tennis. By consent then, playing with your beard as you gesture your way through your professional day must be acceptable. I find myself envying those men with enough facial flora to twirl their chin locks.

I need to go practice on the piano one more time, but just one more bearded observation. Does a woman who is in close quarters with a man who has decided to sport a beard, ultimately get used to it, and in fact sort of like it?


"Peggy?"


"NO!!!!!!"

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

No! YOU LOOK!





"Look sweetie! It's a rainbow."


That is the meaning I attach to the word 'look'. One person is sharing a visual element of life with another. I think I'm open minded enough to allow the language to evolve. In fact I hope to have contributed to that end.


And yet, I'm not without my objections to change, especially if that change represents the supercilious copying of mindless linguistics from other cultures. The U.S. news media in the past decade has become comfortable using the phrase, "he's gone missing." It's bad enough that Bill and Jim and Mary and Tamisha "have gone missing." But when we add the pronoun 'IT' to the list, it gets a little silly. Come on now. How does IT go missing? (Well there was that IT gal/guy on the Adams family. He/She could probably go missing.) But beyond that? I know of few "ITS that have had either the passion or intellectual inclination to "GO MISSING." But what really honks my horn is that we've just borrowed the phrase from the Brit's who've probably moved on to something else by now. Come on you yankees. Get original. Let's hear some "VALLEY GIRL."



But let me not stray too far from the foam. That would be the foam dripping off my chin when I hear a politician start his speech or 'point making' with the word , LOOK! Does he/she want us to shade our eyes so we can get a good LOOK at the rainbow?

Their LOOK in fact has nothing to do with eyesight, or from my perspective, vision.


True, it's nothing new to us like "gone missing." There are few of us alive today that haven't heard from a parent or teacher the phrase, "now you LOOK HERE young man/lady." There is seldom a rainbow involved here either.


(Wouldn't we have had a lot of fun had we responded to that demand literally! I think I'll try it one of these days.)


But here's my gripe. I can't tell you which of the Presidential or Vice Presidential candidates started it, but let me be on the record as really resenting the fact it crept into the rhetoric of the campaign. Shame on you Senator Mc Cain, Vice President Biden, Governor Palin and yes, you too, Mr. President.


The LOOK you speak is universally mean, rash, defensive, and worst of all....? It is condescending! JUST STOP IT ,OKAY...I MEAN IS THIS THE REACTION YOU WERE LOOKING FOR FROM, LET'S SAY, PEGGY?




Let me once again go on the record, declaring this time for your sake, this is definitely NOT the REACTION you want from PEGGY.


Now that I've said all this? I am about to make a 180 degree turn and very much need you to LOOK!





Yes, it is ME. Life long family and friends must be in shock. I think there were a few times on three or four day hiking trips where I'd not shaved. But you'd have never known it. There wasn't enough pigment in my facial hair to open a lens.


Ah, but this time the GRAY is having its SAY. It's been a couple of weeks now, and I'm not sure where I'm going to go with it. As much as I enjoy our interactive opportunities, don't send me your vote. Peggy has already given me her thoughts whilst handing me my razor.


But this is an extremely personal issue. It has nothing to do with identity, or insecurity or MACHOCICITY (recently coined english word meaning 'tough guy'). It's like sketching, or painting, or sculpting with one's face, as if that face were a piece of paper, canvas or a hunk of marble.


Anybody missing the old me? Oh, I'll be back. I'll get bored with the mission, and keeping it looking neat is a lot more work than shaving it off every day.


LOOK! I think I see a rainbow.