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.

Tristan rules.

Not just because he has a name dating back to Medieval literature, either.

I wrote up a yellow sheet on this. I'm a bit of a clock freak, as anyone who knows me knows.

Winds up the US Naval Observatory Clock "confidence audio" we're getting over channel two in Sat-2 is *actually* delayed by roughly 700 milliseconds between the time it's broadcast and the time it reaches us. (Satellites -- great, except when they are not.)

So the various "atomic clocks" in the control room *are*, indeed, variously inaccurate, as they tend to set themselves once or twice per day, in the hours immediately following whenever I go off air, which means they're generally most inaccurate when I am ON AIR.

BUT! I know *precisely* how inaccurate the USNO clock coming over Sat-2 on channel two is, now, thanks to Tristan explaining it to me.

Therefore -- I can correct for the clocks that I watch during any given broadcast based on what I know is the margin of error for the clock I can listen to.

My current ON AIR "running error" is cutting the network rejoin *way* too close.

I'm *almost* ready to do the "network in one ear, cue in another" trick.

Key word: "almost".

Why weather is an art.

Because we get national weather service reports that look something like this (this is an excerpt):

CURRENT MAPS...SHOWING BROAD NEARLY ZONAL FLOW ALOFT OVER NEW MEXICO...FLOW SHEARING THE BASE OFF HIGH AMPLITUDE NEGATIVELY TILTED TROUGH EXTENDING FROM GULF OF ALASKA SOUTHWARD TO THE SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. BROAD DIFFLUENT OUTLET JUST CROSSING OVER CENTRAL ARIZONA...AND THIS WILL WORK IN TOWARD WESTERN AND NORTHERN NEW MEXICO DURING THE DAY TODAY. FLAT PRESSURE FIELD AT THE SURFACE...WITH LIGHT WINDS AND A LITTLE PATCHY FOG NEAR THE TEXAS BORDER...AND A FEW LINGERING SNOW SHOWERS OVER THE NORTHERN MOUNTAINS.

MODELS...SOLID CONSENSUS WITH PLAUSIBLE SOLUTION...DEVELOPING COMPLEX MULTI SYSTEM EASTERN PACIFIC PATTERN AS SHORTWAVES DEVELOP IN SHEARING FLOW UNDERCUTTING ALASKA TO CALIFORNIA TROUGH.

SHORTWAVE DEVELOPING ON LEADING EDGE OF DIFFLUENT ZONE WILL ZIP ACROSS THE STATE THROUGH SATURDAY...AS NEXT UPSTREAM SYSTEM IN NORTH PACIFIC MAKES LANDFALL OVER SAN FRANCISCO BAY LATE SATURDAY AND THEN SIDESWIPES NORTHERN HALF OF NEW MEXICO THROUGH THE DAY ON SUNDAY. UPSTREAM RIDGE BUILDING FROM TROPICAL PACIFIC TO SOUTHEAST ALASKA ON MONDAY WILL CREEP SLOWLY TO WESTERN NEW MEXICO BY TUESDAY...BUT CONTINUED SPILLS OF SHORTWAVES ON DOWNSTREAM LIMB OF THE RIDGE WILL SLIDE SOUTHWARD OVER EASTERN HALF OF THE STATE. RIDGE FIRMLY IN PLACE BY TUESDAY NIGHT...BUT GETS MASHED DOWN BY LAST HALF OF THE WORK WEEK AS EAST CENTRAL PACIFIC SHORTWAVE MAKES LANDFALL IN PACIFIC NORTHWEST AND THEN AMPLIFIES AND CLOSES OFF OVER ARIZONA EARLY THURSDAY TO PUT BRAKES ON WARMING TREND FOR THE REMAINDER OF THE WORK WEEK.

Thanks for all that about California and Alaska and the Tropics and the Pacific Northwest. Thanks for all the drama of things zipping and affecting and impacting through a series of invasions and incursions by saggy back door fronts and upper low systems.

But -- what's the sky look like right now? Will it rain, or snow, and if so, where?

Dancing on the airwaves.

I'll try to keep it brief. Two recollections of two of the most meaningful compliments I've ever been paid in my life.

Tuesday: I go to the Z Machine rededication at Sandia. You know -- the leading edge inertial confinement fusion machine on the planet. The world's most powerful emitter of X-rays, plus lots of other scientifically defensible superlative adjectives. The project at Sandia that even the most dedicated anti-nuke people I know say *everyone* there has a *right* to be proud of. (They don't let the press in to talk with people in the Light Initiated High Explosives unit, as a rule; and also, therefore, as a rule, I take whatever chance I get to go out there.)

As I get back to the station, I realise I'd forgetten to turn in my security badge. My escort out is obligated to come get it from me. I'd have driven it back to him if I weren't set to go on air in a few short minutes.

He's clearly more a scientist than a PR type.

He walks in after my first newscast and asks me in what I take for amazement "how do you run that thing?" while looking at the broadcast board. "Simple. Practice, mostly." Or something like that. This from a man who's capable of splitting atoms.

Was it flattery? Maybe. But I don't think it was. Call it a gut feeling. If we hadn't spent the next few minutes talking about radio in considerable depth, or if he hadn't admired the record libary like he did, I don't know -- maybe I'd feel different. But this guy strikes me as a man who *definitely* knows his radio. He watches me do a weather break, then we have to part ways. I could have, would have, gladly talked with him for *hours*.

Then Wednesday at 6:20:30 I get done reading my weather report. I'm getting better at these -- in some ways, they're one of the hardest things to do, for lots of reasons I won't bore you with -- but I'm getting better, and I *know* it. I get a call from a listener who doesn't give his name. It goes something like this:

"What's the temperature in Chama?"
"I don't honestly know. I'll tell you why -- the website I'm using lists a current temperature for Chama, but at this point, it's three hours old. I don't want to read off a current temperature that's just plain wrong."
"Do they even get your signal in Chama?"
"I honestly don't know." Then out of nowhere:
"You are DANCING on the airwaves."

I go completely, totally, dead silent. Like I go if I'm not sure if my mic is on. Maybe this guy's recording me. I'm waiting for the punchline, or for the other shoe to drop. I'm acting like it's probably a crank call, guessing someone really *doesn't* like the way I do my weather and is trying to make me feel silly, which I *know* will screw me up for *hours* if I buy into his setup. Finally, the voice on the other side of the phone pipes up again.

"I'm trying to COMPLIMENT you. You sound *great*."
"Oh, well, uhm, thank you! I think. You kind of left me at a loss for words right there."

He did. Of course, then, I'm still in the "how-to-get-information-for-Chama" state of mind and tell him if he knows a better way to get current information I would *love* to read current conditions for Chama but, but, but.

No. Apparently, whoever he was, he really meant it.

Thank you, whoever you are. It means a lot to me.

Screwup.

Not a bad one -- but no screwup is good.

ATC tonight did something they haven't done before that I know of -- they had a piece at the back of segment D that was intro-ed during segment A. Normally segment D is where we run locally produced stories -- the network stories in that segment tend to be "soft feature" types of things.

But because they're having a Presidents' Day "quiz" during segment A, with answers in segment D, we can't just broadcast over the answers in segment D that they forward announce (thanks loads), or I'll be fielding angry calls asking *me* who the first president was to wear trousers. (I'm guessing President Yves Saint Laurent.)

What would normally be a process of "timing it out" to the post thus became a matter of "timing it out" beginning whenever such-and-such segment ended (not according to the time on the rundown) and then "timing it out" repeatedly for every local story that we played to the post which had moved since I previewed it two hours ahead of time on a station that ran that particular hour streaming.

It would have worked perfectly except for one small thing: the last piece to end before I had to join the network featured saxophone music.

And what did I choose for my "music bed"?

You guessed it -- saxophone music.

I should have seen that one coming a mile away.

So I'm sitting there with saxophone music going out over the airwaves and *different* saxophone music playing in cue and I get mentally jumbled -- it all sounds the same -- what's coming over the "PROGRAM" speakers above the board and what's coming from the "CUE" speakers beneath it. I *think* I hear the network going out over the airwaves, and fade down -- but no, it's the saxophone music I'm playing to pad 30 or so seconds. So to listeners -- they're hearing saxophone music, when suddenly, for no apparent reason, it goes away, and then comes back again, a second later, again for no apparent reason.

But -- I *do* join clean! The super-hard, some-would-say "impossible" thing to do, I manage. Bot only after fading out, and fading in the signal for no discernible reason.

Would you believe "technical difficulties"?

How about "gremlins"?

"Elves"?

Come on, people -- I'm running out of options.

Anyhow -- no one called to complain, so I guess it wasn't *too* bad -- though it did make me nervous, knowing it was coming for the first half hour.

If I'd just switched my music beds out, I would have been OK. I should have known to, given what I'd heard, before, when getting the outcue. Perhaps I was thinking it would make more sense to do something that would sound comprable in case I made some *other* mistake that I didn't. Radio is *perfect* for people who overthink everything.

Lessons learned for next time, I suppose.

Tomorrow -- Senator Domenici's coming to town to rededicate the Z Machine at Sandia. (Remember post hole convolutes?) There's a ribbon cutting open to the press and I'll be damned if I miss it. The timing is going to be *very* tight (not as tight as in the Z-pinch!) but I figure if I show up at the station early enough I can get some of the basic stuff out of the way, go to the event, and make it back *barely* in time to write out billboards and pull the more recent headlines. If I'm *very* lucky I can even write up a cut and copy on what happens at the event.

Correction -- I think.

Maybe.

Hindsight being what it is:

In my post from 6 February, the words "less than one-hundredth of one percentage point" should probably have read "less than one-tenth of one percentage point".

That is, unless I am confused, which probably, I am.

Reporter + math = disaster. That's the only equation I *really* understand.

I'm blaming lack of sleep, at the time, because it's convenient.

But you get the idea. At the time it was basically me doing the calculations and just figuring out there were super-tight margins. *How* tight remains an open question for people who can actually do the math. I may be off by a factor of ten, but that the margins are extremely tight I don't think is seriously in question.

Then again, I'm not a statistician, and am probably misusing the term "margin".

Please -- anyone who knows better -- correct me.

Four facts.

1. A brand new, full-powered radio transmitter with the call sign KBOM is now ON AIR, as of this afternoon, broadcasting at 88.7 MHz FM from Socorro.

2. KUNM has hired a Radio Production Technician on a "Full Time Equivalent" three-month term basis.

3. The first assignement handed to the new hire was to announce the new station's first legal ID.

4. I have a new job -- for the time being, at least -- and I *love* it like I've never loved *any* job in my life.

I'm the monkey.

Got paid today and paid the rent.

Went in and got everything lined up for broadcast.

Then I overdosed -- near fatally -- on the US Naval Observatory clock.

I put it in cue to double-check it against the clocks I'd be using -- it was about the same margin as yesterday. I should have shut it off right then, but I didn't. I find the clock strangely compelling. So I line everything up all super-neat and super-nifty for my broadcast, and for a couple of minutes, the clock helps me get into the rhythm. But then I go and let it run in cue for waaaaaay too long -- maybe ten or twelve minutes. By the time I shut it off, it's turned me into a nervous wreck. Five seconds! Fifteen Seconds! Thirty Seconds! AAAAAGH! I'm tweaking on the second-by-second clicks and announcements and beeps. NEVER AGAIN.

I read *sixteen* headlines toay -- wire rewrites and press-release rewrites. Way too many!

During my first newscast, I'm starting to get into habits, and they turn on me! I've been doing a bunch of stories lately with federal and state government budget amounts, but right now I'm reading about competing house and senate versions of a bill the governor wants enacted, but *only* if it gives him the power to appoint so-and-so. I come across the words "eleven member panel" in my copy and only mentally register the "eleven m-" while I'm reading, so it comes out "eleven million dollar panel". I actually stop and apologise for that, on air, and then correct myself. I don't apologise unless I have to -- but it could have been "heard" as an editorial comment, which it wasn't. It was just a mistake. But it was a *bad* one. Unbelieveable what the mind can trip over.

I'm feeling more on an equal footing with the network, though, which is a good thing. Makes things more seamless on my end and serves listeners better. I hear *all* the little mistakes on the network and it *definitely* makes me feel better. Today with the "Potomac Primaries" they did a bunch of live phone interviews -- and I swear -- at one point you hear them take off their headphones and say "that's it?", "yeah, it's over" before KTCHUNK someone SLAMS a mic off from the board ('round about :18:33). Which wouldn't probably be that super-big a deal, except they don't have their own internal music bed cued up. One -- two -- three -- four -- shit man, the *network* is feeding dead air. Since the next thing in line on my end is a cart, followed by weather, I fade out the network and just hit my cart. Then that gives me a few extra seconds for weather, which I get to read in my super-sexy weather voice that positively *drips* with "I can save thing even when the network can't" attitude.

So -- from screwing up, to saving it, to screwing up again.

I made a mistake I didn't know it was *possible* to make at the bottom of the hour during hour one, which is our second hour. 6:29:25 rolls around and I'm all set to go with a cart for 29:30, and billboard music and script for 6:30. I fade down the network after the ME promo to say something like "You can hear Morning Edition right here on 89.9 between five and eight tomorrow morning" before playing the cart. Perfectly routine.

Then I hit the wrong button.

It *shouldn't* be possible. The buttons are on *totally* opposite ends of the board. I should know better. I *do* know better. But somehow, I still managed to hit the wrong button, and my mistake is going out RIGHT THEN to EVERYONE.

I'm *supposed* to be playing a 30-second cart to forward-annoucne the Sunday Public Affairs program.

What comes through my headphones?

"Bah! Bah! Bum! Bum! Bah! Bah! Bum! Bum!"

OH SHIT. I didn't play the cart. I hit the billboard music! AGH!!!! Think fast. Do I fade out and juggle things and probably screw up the clock badly enough that I'm reading far-flung local headlines for the next four minutes while obliterating national headlines?

Uhm. No. I stop and breathe, I casually pick up the script I *had* planned to pick up 20 seconds later, fade up the mic, fade down the music to "background" and as casually as possible "tease" what's coming up in the next half hour, just exactly like that's how I'd *planned* to do it.

Then on air I start to break up laughing. It's fine to sound happy -- but my god -- look what I'm "teasing" -- kidnappings in Afghanistan and veterans' suicides. I get giggly, despite my best efforts reading through the Afghanistan "teaser" and skip the veterans' suicide line to go on to the Hollywood Writers' Strike line.

Then I play the cart, which is *really* out of place running right *after* the billboard, but I have to, because I've got 30 seconds I simply *must* cover.

It sounds weird. But it sounds better than it would have if I'd done something truly, monumentally stupid, precipitously, to try and save it, and fail. There's no stopping the clock.

On the rundown for hour two (our first hour) this afternoon there was a bit about the last "Super Tuesday" state to deliver results. (I'll give you fifty guesses which state that is.)
It said they'd be talking with Jeff Jones, who is the political reporter for the Albuquerque Journal.

I saw that on the rundown and actually had to leave the building just to avoid writing a sarcastic "billboard" tease. I thought I *might* mention Jones by name, or the Journal, but decided against it for no better reason than that (with very few exceptions -- coughNinaTotenbergAhhem) the tease should *not* be about the reporter or media outlet but about the story.

Then I'm running the network and up comes this story that I want to hear. And who's on the other side of the phone -- or the mic? (Sounds like a tape sync to me.) Not Jones, but "member station KUNM News Director Jim Williams". WHOA!!!

I go ECSTATIC. He's onto a whole story -- vastly more important, but *way* harder to cover -- than the usual "we're taking forever to count votes, well, 'cause we're New Mexico, and we just kinda do things slow here" story that seems to dominate the mainstream coverage of what's happening. He's been talking with county clerks and the Secretary of State and Democratic Party big-wigs to figure it all out. Real investigative *digging*. Winds up there are discrepancies between the lists used by the party for the caucus sites and the lists the county clerks say they provided which resulted in registered democrats in at least three different counties being forced to vote on provisional ballots, which are now in the process of being "certified" -- let alone counted -- before the certification deadline this Friday.

Sometimes, being on board, you are just the monkey to someone else's organ-grinder. You (hopefully) push buttons when you need to and sound good delivering the weather forecast and try to cover things as best you can. Your acquaintances who don't listen to news may compliment your voice and mean it and you'll be glad to hear it. But sometimes the best thing you can do is just be there so others can do the things that *really* matter, which they couldn't do if they had to be nursing the board, watching levels.

At its best it's a collaborative effort, all the way.

The temptation is *huge* to think "Ah-Hah! I am the silver-throated warbler of the News! The radio's Ted Baxter! People tune in to hear ME! ME! ME!" Uhm -- no. People tune in to hear the NEWS.

Reality -- humility? -- creeps in. Tonight, I mostly just pushed buttons. And given the news day at hand, what more could I have possibly done?

I *love* this game. Broadcasting. It's different every single day.

Whoa. "I will create the nationalist party." This from Michael Savage. Eleven at night. He's just spent twenty minutes letting a guest preach against Sharia law, which he clearly does not understand. "With God's will and your listenership . . . " -- what the hell am I missing?

I've made a point of listening to other leading stations lately. We're not just on opposite ends of the dial, we're on completely different wavelengths. Literally. Are we even competing for the same listeners? What the hell? I'm just wanting to hear people talk and my own station's all music right now.

Ads are INSANE. I've never been a fan of underwriter spots. But ads are NUTS. Either it's the store's owner talking badly for WAY too long ("we're a restaurant, and you can find us behind this other, way better-known restaurant -- again -- we're behind this other way better-known restaurant -- look for it.") or it's a *way* too slick announcer "o!ver!em!pha!size!ing! ev!ery!sing!gle! syl!lab!ble! NOT JUST ONCE, BUT THREE TIMES! NOT TWICE, BUT THREE TIMES! THREE TIMES!!! THAT IS, THREE TIMES, AT LEAST! THREE TIMES, MINIMUM! CALL NOW!"

From nationalist parties to UFOs. Radio's an interesting medium. But I've had enough for one day. I should find a way to listen to what's on the air the same time I am on the air. Heh, heh.

Sometimes the best days. . .

. . . are the ones that fray your nerves *almost* too thin, without quite breaking you.

Had to deal with all sorts of stupid stuff today (like paying bills and juggling my schedule so I can pay rent, and then explaining to the landlord why I won't have his rent until tomorrow -- basically because the lady of the house takes her naps right before I *must* be at the station).

Woke up to find my picture in the paper -- not under "pet of the week" -- but as a face in the crowd from when Ted Kennedy came to speak. The one decidedly non-hispanic-looking weirdo wearing headphones in the front row? Yeh. Yours truly. (Now I see why the stage manager didn't want me there -- if you didn't hear what got broadcast, it might look kinda like "oh, what's this? Another speech by a Kennedy -- time to listen to I-tunes.") Elaine told me that someone had seen me in the background, on TV, on caucus night too, when I was covering the Clinton party that fizzled in the midst of a media-induced information vacuum.

That aside -- it's award time again. So we get to submit stories for consideration for awards and judge stories from elsewhere. It's fun, really, and *very* instructive -- but it's nowhere *near* our top priority when news just keeps HAPPENING. (How dare it!) I've got a slew of stories I winnowed down to the strongest, which I plan to submit -- and who knows? I may get lucky on something. It would be nice, but winning a certificate I'll leave behind if I move on is *not* the point of what I do.

The process kinda sucks 'cause it winds up we submit stories that compete against those of the people we work with. I don't *want* to compete against Jim or Elaine in the same handful of categories. Our best work is all strong for *very* different reasons, and judges shouldn't have to choose between "does the reporter convey the importance of the underlying issue?", "does the reporter advance the story?", and "does the reporter make complex facts understandable?" in choosing. We all do, I believe, but in different degrees -- we all have our unique strengths. And, to be fair, we all have our weaknesses -- which whoever's judging is likely to pick up on, before they get our strengths. So it's kind of a craps shoot. Whatever happens, well, happens.

I just hope it doesn't come down to "he breathed in the middle of that word" or "ith that weird thing he does a thpeech impediment, or ith he just a fag from Teckthath?" type considerations, 'cause if it does, I'm pretty much completely screwed, for dumb reasons. Not that it matters *that* much if I win anything -- just hearing my best work, again, months later makes me *know* it was worthwhile, whatever the judges someplace else happen to hear.

What I *really* wish is that we had better categories we could submit for -- the ones we have are vague, and there's a *lot* of overlap between the different categories. It's better in other parts of the country -- they have categories like "best soft news feature" -- insert that engrossing 7-minute interview with a contemporary classical composer here -- versus "best hard news feature" -- insert that lucid 7-minute exploration of all the competing and conflicting interests in a controversial legislative matter there. Here, we've just got something like "best feature" to work with, and so, our best stories all kind of get lumped together. (I shouldn't be surprised, since we're in what, Market 69? Or is it 57? Something like that.)

Took care of some paperworky-type stuff, too. Minor annoyance -- had to re-fill out a form I'm *certain* that I filled out correctly. But heck -- when dealing with a bureaucracy -- what's it *really* make more sense to do? Fight it, tooth and nail, and shoot yourself in the foot in the process, getting into a shouting match with a paper-chaser over how they do their job? Or just play dumb and kinda hem and haw, and say "awww shucks, ah guess I didn't know that, since I just gawt off tendin' chickens at the farm" and fill it out again? I think some people call it "choosing your battles".

When I took over board today, I took over from a host I'd had a rough transition from about a month ago. I was lividly terrified, for most of that month, that I'd finally scared her off -- she's a hardened veteran of conflicts that predate my appearance by years -- and music hosts seem to *usually* switch off every other week. Winds up all that was lacking, at the time or our rough transition was communication -- on my part as much as anyone's. We have a little mutual apology session, both blush ourselves silly with embarassment in front of eachother, and so help me god, I'll never have a rough transition again. IT'S NOT WORTH IT. If the billboard starts a few seconds late, so be it. We don't have to be perfect. We just have to sound good.

The wire was super-thin all day today, with a winning lottery ticket being the top story for several hours. Almost all about sheriffs and their deputies or acquittals for questionable accounting practices at health clinics in far-flung parts of the state that our broadcast signal doesn't reach at all. That, plus the "if it bleeds, it leads" stuff -- gas-line explosions in trailer parks and the latest twists and turns in grizzly murder cases. All of which *does* matter -- but it's not what we're best at doing. Limitations of the medium, and all.

Got to give credit to KKOB 770 AM -- was listening to them in the car around lunchtime and they covered a space conference, along with a protestor who said it was all about weaponizing space. It wasn't how we would have covered it, but it *did* get covered, and not half badly, either, when we just plain didn't have the resources at hand to cover it, right then. (Belated New Year's Resolution: I will *not* feel guilty because we just can't cover *everything*.)

True to form, though, the wire came through with some important (but incomplete) stories in the final half hour or so before I'm set to go on air.

Spent a good bit of the day rewriting wire copy I never even went on to read, on air -- because it's *always* better to have too much than not enough. Better to read about the new Police Chief in Tucumcari (not to be confused with "Two Gun Harry, from Tu-cum-cari") than just have dead air. And better to have that story *ready* to go and *not* need it, than need SOMETHING to fill half a minute and not have it, ready to go. "Dead air" is called that for a reason.

Because Jim *knows* the legislature like the back of his hand, we take a woefully incomplete wire copy story -- "a bill has passed the senate which would. . ." (OK, which bill? There are multiple competing house and senate versions dealing differently with the same exact issue. Who sponsored it? Which bill are we even talking about, here?). He looks some stuff up, makes some calls -- *and* gets an interview with the sponsor of the bill that just passed to the governor. He gives me a clip to incorporate into my headlines tonight, and then does a separate piece for tomorrow morning.

Then he puts together a feature on this whole other bill that's not even on the wires, but which is *hugely* important, to *everyone* in the state. It's not a simple issue by any stretch of the imagination. I don't know how he does it, but he was literally doing the final edit and saving the file under two minutes to the one time in the whole show I can possibly air it. I keep hitting "refresh" in my playlist and still it's not there. If it *hadn't* shown up, I *would* have been reading wire rewrites about police chiefs in Tucumcari, acquittals for Dona Ana County Health Clinic officials previosuly accused of embezzlement, and Mora County officers accused of sex crimes for seven minutes, after headlines from the state capitol which first aired this morning. (I could have.)

Finally -- in a HUGE leap of faith -- I hear the network give me a chance to cut away *before* they forward-announce what we're hoping to cover up at the same exact moment I see him jump up from his editing station, so I fade up some nice harp guitar music, and whaddaya know! Ten or fifteen seconds after that, the story appears in the file list. I introduce it, and it plays. (It's a bit distorted in the bass, I am guessing because the mic levels across the glass are not the same as those in Santa Fe, but the information gets out there -- I just have to kind of "ride the board", meantime.) And I still wind up with ten or fifteen seconds on the backside, to pad with more nice music, and then hit the post for the national funders' credits.

Bingo! It sounds as if we'd planned it out that way, all nice and neat. (And really, we did -- it just takes a *LOT* of trust for people on the different ends of things to *know* that the other's going to do the next right thing -- and can probably *still* save it if some monkey wrench comes outta nowhere, which, not unoccasionally, it will.)

Thanks again to Steve for showing me the "tricks of the trade" on board, regarding how all I *can* manipulate the precious little time I've got to play with. KXJZ in Sacramento is getting one of the best. I figure "what goes around, comes around" -- and since I learned from him, by watching him, I figure it's not my place to object if I find myself being watched or wind up dealing with a last-minute story coming from through the glass.

On my end, the closest I came to *anything* like that tonight was dealing with a GAO report about Los Alamos. (Way more of my effort goes into just hosting the program, these days.) The GAO report was a veritable Haiku in the world of such things, at a mere 61 pages long. But it came in *very* shortly before I was set to go on air. It was critical of the lab, no surprise -- an accidental worker exposure to radiological material here, leaked confidential information there, missing electronic media somewhere else. You know, the usual headlines from some recent months and years ago.

Called the spokesman for Los Alamos and he talked to me about what was in the report and gave me the lab's take on it. To paraphrase: "all old issues, progress being made, in all these areas, but do agree insufficient data at this point to ensure progress continues on track in the future." Super. Thanks. Wrote it into my story and read it all live on the air, as the leading headline for both hours, since it wasn't on the wire yet, the "Journal" had just barely mentioned on its website that the report had been released without getting a lab response, and the watchdog groups hadn't yet had a chance to review the report. I advanced the story, however slightly, on short notice, while actively running a broadcast. I *love* covering the labs.

Good broadcast. I enjoy the pressure.

Last time I had this much fun, even remotely, doing something work related?

Working "bar" in tandem with Danielle, at Starbucks, Studio City, Store #573, on the double-tanked, copper-boilered La Marzocco Linea 4-AV on a three-hour long, 90-drink-per-half-hour rush on a Saturday morning for all the "beautiful people" TV and movie studio types:

"Uh-oh. I'm pulling 6 bar off tank one. Have to warm up again. Too much cold water. Low pressure. I can recalibrate grinders or let you take over shots, for now. If I recalibrate I'll *still* be pulling 12 degrees cold at low pressure and recalibrating again five minutes from now or whenever it warms up. Tell you what. Let my pressure/temp recover. You pull off groups three and four for the next ninety seconds or so. That should normalise the pressure in the tanks. Maybe sooner. I'll take readings, pull doubles when I can, and slide pitchers as needed. Tell me what you need -- milk. Mostly, I'll take calls, mark calls, pump syrup, steam milk, pour, and call out. Hand shots to me. I'll pour milk and call out."

"OK. Here we go."

"HALF-CAF TRIPLE GRANDE HALF-EQUAL EXTRA NONFAT LIGHT-WET CAP. Grande nonfat vanilla latte? Thank you. GRANDE NONFAT LATTE. DOUBLE TALL HALF-PUMP VANILLA HALF-PUMP SUGAR FREE VANILLA LATTE. Tall no-foam latte? Thank you."

"You *know* you're *wrong* about how Mr. Hooper died on Sesame Street."

"No way. He died in a TRIPLE TALL LIGHT-EXTRA-WHIP MOCHA surfing accident. ON THE OTHER SIDE. LIGHT-EXTRA-WHIP? THANK YOU. Double light nonfat macchiato -- macchiato, yes? Yes. Thank you."

"Dude! I'm telling you! He died of cancer."

"Maybe he did. But GRANDE LATTE, GRANDE NO-FOAM LATTE, GRANDE NONFAT VANILLA LATTE -- he introduced me to yoghurt, you know -- HALF-CAF TRIPLE GRANDE HALF-EQUAL EXTRA-NONFAT LIGHT WET CAP, ON THE BAR!!! You don't forget a thing like that. I love yoghurt. Grande wet cap? Thank you. But I *distinctly* remember -- tall americano, thank you -- the story on the show was that he died in a surfing accident in Hawaii."

"You're jacked. I *know* he died of cancer. TALL NO-FOAM LATTE."

"I'm not saying he didn't. I'm just saying they TALL NO-FOAM LATTE? THANK YOU! told the audience DOUBLE LIGHT NONFAT MACCHIATO, READY! THANK YOU EVER SO MUCH. that he died in a TALL NO-FOAM LATTE? YES, THANK YOU surfing accident."

"Dude. He was like ninety years old! How could he possibly have died in a GRANDE WET CAP! surfing accident?"

"I'm not saying he did, but that's what they GRANDE NONFAT LATTE! HALF-CAF! TRIPLE! GRANDE! HALF-EQUAL! EXTRA-NONFAT! LIGHT! WET! CAP! ON THE BAR!!! NOW!!! told the public. TALL AMERICANO -- LAAAST CALL!!! FOR THE TRIPLE! GRANDE! HALF-EQUAL! EXTRA-NONFAT! LIGHT-WET-CAP! Maybe he *did* die of cancer FOR -- HALF-CAF! TRIPLE! GRANDE! HALF-EQUAL! EXTRA-NONFAT! LIGHT! WET! CAP!!! THANK YOU. STANDING! ONNNN THE BAR. but that's not what they told the audience. He died in a surfing accident. RIIIIIGHT NOW!!! Surfboard hit him in the head. I'm back up to nine bar. I'll start pulling again now and we'll knock out these drinks in no time."

"Dude. He *totally* died of cancer. He was, like, ninety years old. I'm looking it up online. I'll prove you wrong!"

And so on for the next three or so hours.

By the way, Mr. Hooper *did* die of cancer.

I'm getting less self-critical now about stumbling over words, or doing less than perfect cutaways and joins. I'm still careful and self-critical, but the whole "ragging on myself because I cough" thing is just a bloody stewpid waste of time, at this point. I listen to the network now with an intensity I never *imagined* was possible. They talk on mic when they think mics are off and stumble over words, as well.

But I'll be *damned* if I ever do crossfades like they did today approaching the top of the hour for Rush Limbaugh. "I'm over time", he told the world. Yeah, thanks loads for going *further* over time to give us all that invaluable bit of useless information as to how your own control room fails to work. And then whoever was engineering on the network faded up the theme music right over him, while he was still talking (I presume into his gold-plated RE-27). Say whatever else you will about the man -- he bleeds over and misses posts. The mic does *not* make the man. With no disrespect to Mr Libaugh, he is neither a Murrow nor Winchell.

I am no longer striving for perfection.

I'm just striving to sound better than the network.

But the thing that *really* made my day -- the SAT-2 channel has been reconfigured for (a) providing a backup should SAT-1 ever go down, (b) providing a *separate* channel for breaking national stories, and best of all, (c) providing US Naval Observatory Time Checks, on a separate input channel.

I'm like a kid again.

When I was in high school, one of the Christian Brothers gave me a 1938 Philco radio receiver -- replete with vacuum tubes and dials -- which included a "Standard Broadcast" band, and also several different shortwave bands for receiving broadcasts from around the world. I could tune in, without a special antenna, to KTSM 1380 AM on it, back in the days when Karl Wyler still ran KTSM -- a commercial but community-oriented, three-station broadcast powerhouse *long* before the days of media deregulation. But, even then, listening to 1380 AM soon ceased to amuse me, even if that syndicated Larry King fellow *did* broadcast using a vintage chrome-finished RCA 77DX (and he *was* better in his radio days -- just like Amy Goodman), and even if Karl Wyler did give me my first piece of trinitite, from way back when he was among the first journalists ever to visit the Trinity site. (That ugly piece of glass moved me, if nothing more, to ask questions.)

So while most of my catholic boys' high school colleagues were -- I dunno -- smoking in the bathroom or getting Loretto girls pregnant or playing football or whatever it was that the "normal" kids did -- I was up on a ladder on the roof of my parents' house installing a dipole antenna I'd gotten from Radio Shack. Why? Because I was in love with the then 90-some-odd year old Karl Wyler, who'd built up two radio stations and one TV station as *the* most widely respected broadcast news outlets in the market from what began in the basement of a music company that no one remembered, despite being memorialized to this day in his stations' call letters. I'd be lying if I didn't say my first attraction to KTSM came from its TV station -- Channel Nine.

Karl Wyler was a *god* to me, when I was thirteen. He controlled the airwaves. And he *always* took time to talk with this kid of somebody he knew. Not just fifteen minutes, either. We'd talk for HOURS. My initial attraction was to TV. But he turned me on to radio.

The ABC TV affiliate (Channel 7) had, arguably, better TV ratings at that time,and I talked with that station's manager, too. (He was one of my father's former students -- my father knew *everybody* and got me into so many places I didn't belong I learned how to get into places.) But the Channel 7 manager was a relative latecomer to news broadcasting, and I knew it, even then.

Karl Wyler, on the other hand, talked at length with me about the virtues -- or lack thereof -- of Horst Longenecker as an anchor and Luis Patino as a reporter, both of whose stories I'd enjoyed. "Too much personality", he would say, dryly, and without elaboration, and I just had to think it over. What did it really *mean* when he *said* that, besides that he did not *like* them? Was it some personal conflict between them and him, or did they maybe introduce a bit too much of their personalities into their reports?

I came in having watched the TV news obsessively for what was "a very long time" for a 13-year-old -- maybe a couple of years. Karl Wyler moved me ever backward in time to where I got a sense of historical time, and understood the very foundations of the building we stood conversing in. Until I understood the significance of running a two-mile-long cable out in 1953 to carry the first remote live TV broadcast of the Sun Bowl Parade for the first "live remote" broadcast on network TV: a *huge* technical feat. (And that odd-looking camera still stood in the lobby, the last time I visited the station, while he lived.) He talked with me until I understood how FM stations came to be, in the first place. Until I understood what it meant to get a license at all when everything was "Standard Broadcast". He talked with me for HOURS, and probably for DAYS, over time. And more than once. He was *deliberately* passing something on that I am only just starting to understand.

And then, at home, enchanted by the radio, I'd sit for hours on end, every evening, listening to the most distant broadcasts I could possibly tune in to, trying to understand the foreign-language broadcasts, or the foreign-accented English-language broadcasts, or else I'd sit, enthralled, listening to the US Naval Observatory Clock, setting every watch and clock in the house to the second, almost every night. The kitchen clock was always expeted to run "about" five minutes fast, per my mother. So I set it, each night, *precisely* five minutes fast.

I behaved as a person my age might have reasonably been expected to act, shall we say, some fifty years before my time.

This new "SAT-2" setup in the control room is *much* easier, and also, "far* more valuable, in practical terms. All I have to do is switch the input, put SAT-2 output to "cue" and I can take a few seconds during "downtime" between breaks to figure out *exactly* how far off our radio-controlled clocks in the Control Room really *are*. (They are pretty damn close -- but they're never completely precise.)

Today, for instance, for my first cut to network, I was off by a quarter second. So I'm playing the billboard music on CD, reading billboard script over it, then letting it play out the final seconds 'til I cut to network at precisely 5:01:00 and -- surprise -- I'm fading in the music fading out on network that I just faded out on my end of things. It isn't terrible, but if you're listening anywhere *near* as intently as I listen, it sounds like there's a weird echo, or delay, or something else you can't quite put your finger on -- and if you don't know what all's going on, you still kind of wonder. All of which is a distraction from the news, which is the ONLY thing that REALLY matters. It's not a super-big deal, it's a question not of content but style, still, it isn't *seamless*. Then there's about a half second of silence 'til the national hosts come on and start talking headlines.

Then I read my two-fifteen of headlines and during the long break between headlines and weather, listen to the clock from input two on SAT-2 for about thirty seconds, and there's the problem, right in front of me.

Our clocks, which only set themselves maybe once or twice a day, are currently running between a quarter and a half second fast. The "beep" from USNO invariably comes *after* the clock hits the mark, but *before* it goes on to the next second.

Sweet. I can compensate for that, for the rest of my broadcast.

I do so, and my broadcast improves, by just that much.

Maybe in the 'fifties these things didn't matter. But there was no NPR in the 'fifies. And I bet even Pacifica didn't time out its national broadcasts that close, to the quarter-second, that stations which joined or cut early or late just sounded "out of it".

I've still got problems with NPR -- especially with some of its senior broadcasters, who however admirably pioneering they may have been in their day, still think of "New Mexico" as "a place . . . which is actually a state", or who broadcast inaccurate headlines which can throw in-state caucuses during major elections, only to broadcast corrections the next day for problems that their more "on-top-of-it" local affiliates *never* let air in the first place.

I wouldn't do anything else in the world. I am where I belong. It's not perfect, but come on, dude. What is?

I am where I belong.

That's a *really* good thing.

Democratic party caucus.

New Mexico style.

They ran out of ballots at polling locations across the state, used provisional ballots, xerox copies, and even hand-written names on scrap paper in some places, and still haven't got a final count. Looks like Clinton and Obama are running 65,845 and 65,728 respectively in NM -- a difference of 117 votes -- less than one-hundredth of one percentage point.

Democratic Party Headquarters say their computer crashed a couple of hours ago. I think I'll follow its lead -- for a couple of hours, at least. Going on 21 hours as it is.

Vocal warm-ups.

Or, "potential anthems for public radio news hosts".

It's weird the things that pop into your head when you're walking back and forth all day in a radio station, intensely focused on the news, but not immune to the musical sounds around you.

Thus, to the tune of "Little Bunny Fu Fu":

Speeding through the headlines,
Ninety miles an hour.
Scooping up the candidates,
And bopping them on the head.

And the ombudsman came down and said:

Little Anchor Fu Fu
I don't want to see you
Scooping up the candidates
and bopping them on the head.

And so on, until the primaries are over and you get turned into a goon.

Or my yet incomplete tribute to Pulitzer Prize-winning World War II newspaper correspondent Ernie Pyle:

I did often drive
Down this street before,
But the pavement always stayed beneath my wheels before.
All at once am I
Just three stories high,
Knowing I'm on the street where you lived.

Yeah, OK -- I won't give up my day job.

Tomorrow's the big day.

Now -- stop reading this drivel, and get out there and VOTE, damn it!

I'm covering ATC for the foreseeable future.

It's been a busy few days, with or without ATC.

Covered Senator Ted Kennedy's Obama endorsement speech at the National Hispanic Cultural Center when he came through town on Thursday. Always wanted to hear him speak in person. Say what you will about him or his brothers -- he's an orator in the grand tradition -- rhetoric in the mould of Quintillian, all the way. I'm sure for him this sort of stump speech is fairly routine. He didn't have anything but a few notes on index cards, and if he ever looked at them, I didn't see him do it. His speech came off as completely spontaneous, but it was both classically structured and rousing. At the event I covered, he literally made the building shake. Set off the fire alarm, in fact.

He won the crowd over with a cheerful, if flippant and and ultimately meaningless but graceful comment when that happened, which served to diffuse a tension that was unusual to us all. The automated alarm voice started announcing "ALERT. ALERT. AN EMERGENCY HAS BEEN DETECTED. USE STAIRWELLS TO EXIT THE BUILDING. DO NOT USE THE ELEVATOR." After all the security, and the stage managers "walking through" the entry and egress at least a dozen times, what can I say? The crowd got turned a tad bit uneasy. I mean -- look what happened to his brothers, and -- and -- and -- none of us came out to witness *this* kind of history!

He stands up, throws his arms wide in a grand Jolsonian gesture as if to embrace everybody in the room, and in in his booming, stentorian Boston accent announces "I cahn't think of a better crowd to go with!" The crowd goes wild again, and he hasn't even yet been introduced.

A question, in general, to stage managers at political events: are you dumb, or just stoopid? I'll get back to this, shortly.

Did some other things since that I barely recall 'cause everything's coming at me waaaaay fast.

Missed both Obama rallies, and the stump speech by President Clinton, all of which I wanted to see, if not cover, 'cause I'm just that much of a news junkie. Why'd I miss 'em? 'Cause I was at the station hosting ATC. Sometimes you just have to prioritize, or compromise, or something. Maybe it's just the next step in news-junkiedom.

Devon covered the Obama rally and Elaine got the sound from President Clinton. My job? To get it on air. It wasn't completely hopeless, either. Though I did miss the 5:04 headlines -- not 'cause I wasn't prepared -- but 'cause I slid down LS1 instead of SAT1, having both lined up, ready to go. I could have screamed. Maybe I did. I don't remember, 'cause the mic was off, and if the listeners don't hear it, it didn't happen.

Saturday I spent all day in bed. Too much noise. Needed time and peace and quiet to recover. Then Saturday night I went to Senator Clinton's event in the Highland High School Gym. First time I've actually been let through by people in the Secret Service. That was nice. The dogs sniffed my bag and I emptied my pockets and followed Evan in from KRWG. (It was his sound we wound up using.)

Got into an *amazing* conversation with an anchor from Univision, while waiting for the event to start. I hope she'll forgive me for saying she's gorgeous, but she truly is. More importantly, she completely blew apart my stereotypical public-radio-person assumption about "beautiful TV news people" being less than serious journalists. She is *extremely* dedicated. She *showed* me how it is that the Spanish-language media have a *completely* different take on things from English-language media. I'm not sure I completely agree with her analysis of the leading Democratic presidential candidates, but I do not for one moment doubt the veracity of it, based on her lived experiences. She gave me some advice I'll never forget.

"You don't do this unless you love it. It's underpaid. It's thankless. It *isn't* glamourous. It's hard. And *everybody* criticizes you. If you don't love it, you won't last a month."

And also, pointing at my microphone: "Your *ultimate* boss isn't your news director or editor or cameraman or station manager or network owner or anyone else. Your *ultimate* boss is who's on the other side of that thing."

With an attitude like that, she should be in public radio. And I mean that as a compliment.

Senator Clinton's speech -- once she arrived -- was good. Not inspiring, exactly, at least not to me, but she was extremely precise about what she would do and how she planned to do it, which let's face it, oratory notwithstanding, Obama usually isn't. The crowd's responses roared through the gym at decibel levels I am *sure* were unsafe. But I did get the tape, and made it out all in one piece.

Yesterday was Sunday so I hosted my usual Sunday shift and did other things inbetween the breaks.

Today I hosted weekday ATC and it's not *quite* there yet, but it's on its way to becoming "routine", which is what it needs, ultimately, to be. You know, the "pushing buttons" end of things. So I can focus all my energy on NEWS.

Tomorrow: long day ahead of me.

Now get out there and VOTE, damn it.

Now back to my question to stage managers at political events.

I honestly don't know whether you're dumb or stoopid. But if someone shows up at "your" event with a microphone, and only a microphone, it's probably *not* the brightest idea on earth to tell them when they sit up front (after all, they *did* show up two hours early) that they "might have to move to make space for a person".

Oh, right, I forgot, since I have a mic, I'm no longer a person.

Shall I go sit in the balcony with the fugitive slaves and the nonvoting women and non-landowning, indentured whites?

Apparently, since I'm not a person, I don't vote. Apparently, since I'm not a person, but just "the press", I'm not welcome at an event staged for the sake of the vast majority of voting persons who get their news from -- drumroll, please -- the press. (Dumb or stoopid? Pick yer poison.)

So apparently I don't vote. And neither, presumably, do the hundred thousand or so people who won't hear this sound I'm trying to record from your event -- *if* you insist that I patch in to your malfunctioning mult box that you didn't set up right because however much your off-brand Italian suit with last year's out-of-season lapels cost you off the discount rack at the Burlington Coat Factory Outlet in Peoria, you clearly couldn't plug a lamp into the wall without shocking yourself silly.

Yeah, you go right ahead and get your "sound man" who can't tell "male" from "female" XLR connectors, doesn't know the difference between "mic level" and "line level", and doesn't know an "input" from an "output" and we'll chat about the sound system and cables and recorders and decibel levels and see who sits up front at this "first come, first serve" PUBLIC event.

Or -- then when they try and put you behind ropes in some "out-of-the-way" spot, controlling the shots you can get if you're a cameraman or a photographer. I (being biased -- for me, it's *all* about the sound) can see *some* reason not to have the hulking cameras roving freely all over the place as they please, but must we *all* be set off from the crowd as though we're the last generation of Romanovs, out on display? Puhlease. Some of us -- I'd even venture to guess *most* of us -- might actually want to talk with real people at your carefully staged "event".

Or maybe your job isn't to facilitate dialogue but simply to control the message that gets out there. I wouldn't be surprised. And I don't wonder that most voters -- who can't go to such events, and depend entirely on the press for an accounting of what happens -- feel *deeply* disengaged from the phony "events" that you stage.

And that endless, booming music loop has *got* to go. A sad blend of roadhouse jukebox music from dive bars and straight disco doesn't do a thing for me, or *anyone* I know. Forgive me, but on this count, at least, I *do* have standards.

I'd rather hear the crowd roar passionately after a speech than hear the speaker's final words cut off immediately by upbeat pop music from thirty years ago. A crowd roaring, and the *quality* of a crowd genuinely roaring, speaks *volumes* more about a candidate's message and how it connects -- or fails to -- than whatever music you think yourselves clever enough to cue up.

Or is this what you hope we won't notice? Maybe you don't *want* the listeners at home to hear and understand that the roar of the crowd isn't totally hope, but hope mixed with despair, a primal roar you *can't* control, no matter how you try. Maybe you fail to understand what bullfighters do -- that the crowd is the beast. Not your candidate's opponent. Not the bull. The bull can be controlled. So can your candidate's opponent. But ultimately, you can *not* control the crowd. (After all, *that's* how elections are lost.)

Maybe you're trying to fool yourselves? "Then I saw her face -- now I'm a believer!" Do you *really* believe we don't see right through that?

Please do yourselves and the public a favour. Give up all this nonsense at once. We're not dumb. We're not stoopid. And neither are listeners. Or viewers. Let the candidates speak and the audience respond. Stage management, beyond the bare minimum, is plain bad for democracy.