On disinterest.

Reporters and hosts should never be directly, emotionally involved in the stories they cover.

Period.

This is the lesson for today.

I learned it -- as I learn *all* the lessons in my life -- the hard way.

I wake up to Elaine announcing that the El Rey Theatre is on fire.

I go back to sleep and wake up totally refreshed, ready to go, some time later, convinced it was just one of those weird work-related, "what if?" kind of dreams.

I get to the station and quickly find out that it *wasn't* a dream.

Three of Albuquerque's leading music venues are now closed for an indefinite period. One of them lies in ashes. Literally.

What do I bloody well care? I haven't been to a concert since Austin.

But anyone who knows me well knows my own personal "long story" regarding historic movie theatres in city after city where I've lived. It's weird what can emotionally hijack you, on air. You can report, day after day, about things you *do* care about, and make yourself credible. But then something turns up to stir up ashes from some long-forgotten, previous existence you lived years ago, and you're fully engulfed to your eyeballs in flames about some place you barely know in person.

Being in a radio station, I'm surrounded by people who care *deeply* about the music scene in this town -- which was just starting to go somewhere when in a single hour, half the music venues get shut down (probably for months, if not forever) by just one little fire that raged out of control, however briefly.

People are asking me every few minutes, all through the day, if I have any new information, or they're giving me people to talk to, or I'm talking to those people, or arranging to talk to them, or they're giving me background information I did *not* know two minutes before -- or -- or -- or.

Prometheus be damned.

Then there's the inconvenient fact that several concerts for which various music show hosts have given tickets away to listeners for the next few days have been moved somewhere else, or are in the process of being moved somewhere else.

Then there's the additionally inconvenient fact that a bar in the back of the building that's burned down was very probably *the* first gay bar in town, back in the 'fifties: I believe it was called "the Newsroom", as though there weren't enough layers to this simple enough "fire" story to begin with.

But wait! It gets better.

The woman who runs the theater gave up a successful career in Hollywood to come back to Albuquerque to run the building which has been in her family for three generations.

And -- the family that's owned the building for three generations is directly related to Giacomo Puccini -- yep -- the "La Boheme" and "Madame Butterfly" and "Tosca" *inventor* of "verismo" in opera, the precursor to "cinema verite" *and* Broadway.

The whole station -- and everyone in it -- goes totally somber. It's a "death in the family" type atmosphere. Feels like a funeral.

I allow it to affect my broadcast.

That's *my* mistake. I'll be damned if I let it happen again. Sooner or later, *something* I report will be more deeply personal. I might do well to listen back, critically, to live radio coverage of 9.11.01. (Miss Piggy, anyone?)

Other stories are happening.

But -- my job as host *isn't* to get wrapped up in any one single story. And I *do* line up other headlines. And read them.

But when I go on air, I sound like a bloody funeral director, regardless what I'm reading.

Conflicting emotions abound. I'm definitely doing a public service for listeners by reading out this "headline" about the fire that I've written that the AP hasn't even touched.

But I can't let one headline totally dominate the whole news broadcast. Again -- I learn this the *hard* way.

My voice sounds downright funerary. Even when I'm telling listeners that tomorrow will be "sunny and beautiful", my voice says "something's *definitely* wrong here". Like I'm *assuming* that anyone who hears me do one weather report during their commute will think me insufficiently respectful if I sound the slightest bit happy about the good weather. It's an absurd assumption. People listen when they listen; I'll be damned if it makes any difference what I happened to be deeply immersed in, some hours before.

Richard bumps into me in the hall somewhere between 6:06:30 and a 6:19. I admit to him "I'm a nervous wreck". He says "you can't let it affect your work", in that experienced broadcaster sort of way that sounds just enough like Wyler's "personality" comment that I think about it without letting it *totally* sabotage my next break. No one's called to complain. Is it personal?

I can either get all hurt and let it ruin my next break, or I can take the criticism as "contstructively intended" and move on to make my next break better. I take the latter option, not out of any particular wisdom on my part, but just because I'm getting bloody sick and tired of hearing myself almost break up on air over a stupid fire story.

It's an emotional rollercoaster just getting back into the Control Room at that point. I *can* take it personally, if I choose to, and become the radio equivalent of certain Channel Nine reporters who are now -- who knows, who cares -- where? Wyler's dispassionate words come back to me: "too much personality". I remember being eleven years old and moved by some on-camera person's sincere tears and grimaces, only to forget whatever story they were reporting. Not a garden path I want to follow.

Eventually it dawns on me -- I've let this single story *dominate* my day -- and I'm letting *my* day dominate the broadcast. And now I'm pushing off what dominated *my* day on the listeners. Not fair!

The story *is* important.

But it's not *that* important. Not to *everyone* who's listening.

Nothing to do now but save my next break. No more "happy weather" reported in my best "the world is coming to an end" tone of voice. Not to be cynical -- but no one died, and no one will, and no one who didn't hear the headline cares about the news who's only tuning in, right now, just to hear the weather.

I get one call from a listener who doesn't give his name to tell me that Santa Fe isn't clear, but overcast. God bless him, he brings me back to where I need to be, as well. The information source I'm reading for weather has *definitely* got some problems. It's not earth-shattering stuff, but damn it, my credibility is on the line.

Then at the bottom of the 6 o'clock hour I practically have to repeat the fire headline for anyone who didn't hear it earlier. It's mostly hard-core radio freaks (like me) who listen to both hours, every single day.

The *fact* is that *normal* people *don't* listen to eight hours of news each day. They just maybe kind of happen to casually tune in when they're driving wherever, and whoever tunes in from a whole different part of the state for their ten-minute commute who happens to hear my weather likely doesn't *care* whether I sound sufficiently sombre on the basis of a headline they didn't hear and won't know anything about 'til they get their morning paper the following day.

I stumble once -- over some inexpert writing -- on my part. But it isn't the leading headline at that point. I'm just repeating it, at the end, for the "turnover" audience that didn't hear it at the top of the 5 o'clock hour. And I do it in my "news" voice, however imperfectly. Not my "funeral director" voice. "Funeral director" voice be damned.

For my final weather break I read the weather, forward announce the music show that's taking over, realize I have nothing additional to say, and fade back up to network, with ten seconds to spare.

Sometimes the less you say, the better.

I *love* this job because it's *never* the same from one day to the next.

But I'll be *damned* if I ever let myself become involved emotionally again like I did today. It damn near sank me.

Tomorrow is -- to coin a phrase -- another day.