Missed the post.

Twice!

The first time by an unmistakeable six seconds.

The second by a merely "sloppy" two or three.

My ledes were just too long. If I'd killed a clause or two between my first and second broadcast I *could* have pulled it off the second time -- but I just "read fast" instead, and *still* missed it. I'm sure some radio nut out there is laughing his ass off right now. (Thanks for the vintage mic link, btw.)

The newscast stories did work well together. But I literally *couldn't* hit the post. The timing was simply *too* tight. It might work well enough for a so-called "personality" like Limbaugh. For me, it just draws unwanted attention to myself. I know better now what my time limits actually *are*.

But we've *all* got a long way to go before we really sound good at this sort of coverage. At least we're all consciously working together to move in that particular direction. No one called to complain. I've still got to get it through my mind that it's better to run short than to run over.

But -- I *swear* -- I *did* hear the sound of the lightbulbs in the studio where we record coming through my headphones for every single local piece we did today.

My ears are getting *way* too sensitive.

Ulysses S. Grant.

Started out the day by interviewing President Ulysses S. Grant.

Some explanation is clearly in order.

The 1872 Mining Law -- signed into law by President Grant -- prioritizes hardrock mining as the *preferred* use of public lands, and allows miners to extract whatever minerals -- Gold, Silver, Uranium, Molybdenum, for instance -- without paying *any* royalties to the federal or state governments.

It made sense, possibly, in the days of Reconstruction when the nation had survived a brutal civil war and the call of the frontier served as a unifying national rallying cry, drawing independent prospectors.

It arguably makes little sense, today, and there are those who say its current effect is, in fact, profoundly destructive, particularly in watersheds. In New Mexico alone, there are 21,660 active mining claims, many in the headwaters of the Rio Grande.

A historian and his wife in Pennsylvania have taken to dressing up and asuming the roles of President and Mrs. Grant. When they are in persona, that is who they *are*. And today they visited Albuquerque to sign a proclamation calling for reform of the law.

A Bill which would reform the law has passed the House, and is now under consideration in the Senate. Both of New Mexico's Senator's sit on the Energy Committee -- one of them chairs it, and the other is the ranking member.

This was a *brilliant* event. The organizers took this very dry, wonkish, complex piece of proposed legislation, and made it not only understandable and compelling but actual *fun*. And gave a history lesson in the process. It was held at Alvarado Center -- the downtown bus station -- and a sizeable crowd gathered. I could *see* not just interest but delight and fascination in the eyes of everyone who walked by -- not one of them a professional policy wonk.

I think I was the only person covering it, not counting the TV cameraman. And the event was *perfect* for TV. For radio? A *bit* more challenging! But heck, I get to talk with all the people advocating for reform in considerable depth; and even if I didn't use the sound, but only wrote a headline, I *have* the sound I gathered for a story which I plan to put together for next week.

I wrote a headline and led both hours' newscasts with "President Ulysses S. Grant visited Albuquerque Today . . .", and then explained, as best I could.

Oh -- and I took the opportunity to bring along my original Thomas Nast cartoon from Harper's Weeky -- "The Crowning Insult to Him Who Occupies the Presidential Chair". Alas, the best picture I can find of it online is this low-resultion, tiny image, from the Smithsonian:To explain.

Thomas Nast *invented* the Democratic Donkey and the Republican Elephant. He was a brilliant artist, and a brilliant editorialist. I've got several of his original engravings, alas, rather more badly damaged over the more than a century it's taken them to come into my hands than the image above. But the image above conveys *very* few details, which the original's chock full of.

The head being lowered onto President Grant's is labelled "the scapegoat". The Republican fox has a book labelled "party catechism" in his pocket. The animals in the picture include a bear, a pig, some ducks, some mice, a rat, and of course, the democratic Donkey ready to pull away the chair out from underneath Grant. In the distance, which you can't see in the image, there's an ape, a giraffe, a monocled unicorn looking up at the newly-built Capitol dome, and of course, the barking bulldogs labelled "Press".

It's *very* far from being Nast's most complexly layered political cartoon. But I *can't* pass up the chance to bring it out while I'm covering a story involving someone depicted in the cartoon.

It's a hit.

President Grant, being presidential, declares he'll sign it on the back (it's mounted on foam board). I tell him, Mr. President, you read my mind -- Mr. Nast seems to have been a great admirer of yours. He says indeed, and tells me how he never hewed to the party platform. For the first time *ever* I get to *discuss* this particular image and its meaning with someone who clearly understands it *way* better than I do.

He signs it, on the back, "Best Wishes, U.S. Grant, President of the United States". Even the handwriting matches. Uncanny.

Then back to the station, after this welcome and all-too-badly needed step outside it.

Things keep happening.

The whole control room is disassembled fifteen minutes before my broadcast. I try to be a good sport about these things. It's not disastrous, it's simply annoying, and I'm *guessing* these things happen when they do because they know I try to be a sport about it.

I would be lying if I said it didn't fluster me a bit -- and I'd be lying further if I said it didn't affect my broadcast. But I just kept moving on. So what if I switched words that one time, or else got the state "Virginia" stuck in my head when I *meant* to say "Pennsylvania". I'm not gonna get all giggly about it, or apologise. I'll just correct myself, if I need to, and move on.

I am *over* apologising.

Or, as Charles would say, "I'm oves it".

Yet another fine day.

Give it enough time and this "radio hosts have to think positive" thing just seeps into your soul.

Started out meeting Michael, Public Affairs guy from Sandia, underneath the designated tree at the designated parking lot at the edge of the barbed-wire fence-ringed Air Force Base. The fence didn't stop a young burrowing jackrabbit from going onto the base to avoid the big scary radio reporter.

I'm slowly getting used to this. And *really* liking it. It doesn't have to be a big old "go to this building, go to that gate, go to that gate, go back to this other building, no, go back to the first building, now go to that gate" thing. I see the government van pull up and just know to pile in.

John Fleck from the Journal is there. He's the only other reporter covering the event. Apparently the TV cameras only show up, as a rule, if "really kewl" footage is *guaranteed*. Fleck's an *amazing* reporter. I learn something from every serious reporter I encounter. In today's case, it's "shut up and listen to the people who know more than I do." But it doesn't stop there. He's literally thinking certain stories forward by a *decade* at this point. (Now *that's* something to aim for.)

Senator Bingaman speaks. He's not at all like I'd imagined him. I've only ever even *seen* him once before. I've done the teleconference thing with him a few times and think of him as "talking in circles" in a "hard to edit" sort of way. Which he sometimes does, if he can get away with it. The setting's different today. He delivers a remarkable -- and major -- energy policy speech.

Then he takes questions from the audience.

My god -- those were some of the most amazing and incisive questions I have *ever* heard asked of a sitting Senator.

Every stereotypical characterization of "lab workers" just falls away. (Even if that one guy *does* happen to look like "Smithers". You know who you are.) ;)

The workers and the activists are coming at the same problem from different sides with different approaches, but I don't doubt for an instant that there's *way* more in common between 'em than either side will openly admit for reasons having more to do with how they have to relate to their internal communities than anything else. Lucky me -- it's just my job to facilitate dialogue.

Activists aren't "treehuggers" and lab-workers aren't "weaponeers". (I must admit that I increasingly dislike that second term, whenever I hear it. The irony -- hypocrisy, even -- of it being routinely spoken by certain persons with countless "nonviolent communications trainings" under their belts shows me that *something* is missing from those trainings -- apparently some people will extend nonviolence only to those people they tend, generally, to agree with.) But in general, people on both sides, with the best of intentions, can simply be *mean*, which is simply *not* helpful.

And -- oh -- there's that dynamic *in* the labs as well. It dates back, if I understand things right, to the wartime "compartmentalization" of the Manhattan Project. But at this point the labs all compete with eachother for funds on a year-by-year basis that makes ongoing research *extremely* difficult.

The labs are opening up. Slowly. One little step at a time. But what we're witnessing now is historic. Utterly unprecedented. It can not but be for the good.

I am, indeed, an *extremely* lucky reporter.

I was plagued by computer problems today. Jonathan came in and worked on my computer, getting something like 119 consecutive "error" messages at once. I just let him work and tried to do the "running between computers" thing that never bothered me when I wasn't getting paid to do it.

One slightly glitchy thing happened -- Tristan was working on the board right before I went on air. It wasn't major surgery. He said "tell me to get out anytime." As I still had a couple of minutes to spare, I figured, nah, I'll let him push whatever buttons he needs to. But now I know to ask him next time to make sure the board is "normalized" before he leaves. ;)

The inputs/outputs on LS-1 were set to other than default, with Channel 2 coming in through the board through "B".

It gave me a couple of seconds of "dead air". But when I saw the meter switcher registering levels from CMP as I ran the translator ID, I knew it was just a "buttons" level problem. Nothing to do but read the translator ID live. Fine with me, today, because I've got a full ninety seconds to spare, since DN actually started on time today.

Trick is I get through that and then get GIGGLY on air reading the billboards. Aw, hell. Just get through it and line up your next break. It's not the end of the world. And people will be tuning in for headlines.

I love my life.

Aired a piece Jim did which aired earlier this morning, after working up the sound from the Sandia speech into the most complicated "cut and copy" I have *ever* done. Voiced it for Elaine so she won't have to line up and play six clips in rapid succession tomorrow morning.

I hadn't even *heard* Jim's piece before I aired it.

But it was a downright nifty, comprehensive, total broadcast *package*. I talk about Bingaman's Energy Policy Speech. Then Jim talks with Sierra Club folks about energy stuff.

You might be forgiven, as a listener, for thinking we're all on the same wavelength, in the newsroom.

I think, increasingly, we really are.

Keeping busy. . .

. . . leads to weird dreams.

Which I'll get to, in time.

Elaine got sick at the end of last week. I've got *way* better "coverage" for my shifts than she does, since she has to be up by roughly four AM, while I get to onveniently sleep in. I *need* to get trained for her shift, if only because I live five blocks from the station. But any time either of us gets sick, it affects us all.

We ultimately *need* more people in the newsroom to maintain the quality of broadcasts listeners come to expect. Period.

My own ON AIR shifts go OK. Not perfect, but OK.

Then an email goes out marked "URGENT" to volunteers on Sunday night.

By the time I get it, I've had my first two consecutive days off in about two months and am jonesing for the ON AIR host mic. I get flip and casually agree to cover for "Overnight Free Form" if no one else offers. Part of me foolishly believes I still have to prove myself to everyone, even at this point.

I unfoolishly offer to play Wagner for most of it, figuring that will save me some late-night hours scrambling for music every three or four minutes.

And I get the word back: that's OK, *if* I just mix in all the different genres that I should, somehow, in the first part of my overnight shift. Which I do.

Last week left me completely and totally beat, what with finding out I won't get paid for three weeks (because I was too busy actually *working* to turn in my timesheet, while dealing with bureaucratic hooh-hah, more than half an hour late to make sure we don't get our broadcast license challenged with *legal* hooh-hah) and other assorted "stuff" that tends to happen when you work for the most powerful radio station in the state whose license happens to be held by the Board of Regents for the giant bureaucracy of a state university whose initials happen to be incorporated into your very call sign.

Annoying? Yes. But I am guessing, educatedly, that it beats working at the labs.

But at some point during being too exhausted to cover every important story I *know* matters, it *comes* to me.

The *only* thing that *really* matters is THE LISTENER.

Yes, I have been through fifteen dozen different kinds of wringers in about five days. But I *know* from *years* of personal experience that NONE OF IT can *possibly* compare with what MY LISTENER has probably gone through in one day, whenever he happens to tune in to hear two minutes, nineteen seconds (roughly) of sanity from me reading headlines and telling him current temps.

I'm damn lucky to be alive, let alone broadcasting.

The listener isn't tuning in to hear me sound tired, or flustered, reading headlines that barely affect him. He just wants me to deliver headlines that affect him directly, calmly, no matter what.

I admit. I'm *in love* with "the listener". After even the hardest day facing whatever distractions I face on a daily basis -- I can step out for a minute and *know* that "the listener" has, on average, been through FAR worse than I have on that day, and just needs me to sound sane, telling all the crazy things that routinely *happen*.

My overnight freeform shift rolls around. I start it out by letting the piece Ali started play at the end of "Global Music" because *someone's* going to just then be getting into it. If it pushes me over a minute or so on the "legal ID" I *must* let it do so, if I want to hold on to his audience. (Sure beats the "Tombstone Rock" crew I took over for that one time.) But I'm still close enough to meet FCC guidelines, as I understand them. There's a time to "cut in", but there's also a time to just let things "play out". It's not, at that hour of the night, like I'm so much a slave to the clock that I *have to* cut off Amy Goodman -- about whom I have some words, but for whom I will save them, for when I meet her in person, next time.

"Afternoon drivetime" and "after-midnight" are just different *enough*. I've done it *all*, at this point.

I go ON AIR. Give the legal ID. Introduce "a very special freind, from long ago, who's been with me from way before I ever started working in radio" and so forth. "It's my very special privilege, indeed, and honour, to introduce you to the one and only -- United States Naval Observatory Master Clock". Or something like that.

Radio geek joke. Just the sort of thing I can casually pull off in the middle of the night. But even then, I can't let it play out for more than a minute or so while I line up the next thing to play. After all, it's "precise", but *only* on the order of eight seconds (between myself and the listener) and 700 additional milliseconds (between the satellite, and myself) without spending *way* too long explaining it to people who don't care and who will eventually tune out.

If I let the USNO Master Clock play more than roughly a minute, I'll have to answer to people who find themselves setting their clocks and watches, only to find themselves such-and-such "off".

I actually broadcast the USNO Clock on "confidence audio" channel 2 on SAT-2, passing up the opportunities for all sorts of clever "shtick" to segue into a dance-club mix I happen to have found that seems to sound like a bomber crew honing in, second by second, on their target. How convenient an opportunity to practice my crossfading skills.

Then to a track from Radiohead's latest 12-inch "single" which matches, since it seems to be about nuclear war. "Too much, too bright, too powerful". Or something like that. Read it as a "political statement" if you want. Where I stand, it just made good sense in terms of cross-fading broadcast channels in the middle of the night when we have fewer listeners than pretty much anytime else.

Then to a nine-minute field interview I'd personally recorded *months* before but never aired from my tour of Sandia National Labs' Thermal Test Facility (TTF) -- complete with "warning" and "all clear" sirens bracketing explosions at Kirtland Air Force Base while the TTF's director talked about testing and simulation with another reporter from a specialty journal dealing with federal employees -- just because it was *way* too hard to incorporate into a news story the same day I recorded it. (Still wondering how much toluene I inhaled on that day.)

Then to this, and that other thing, and then that. I *want* to incorporate an Elmer Davis broadcast from WWII, but the sound from that website is just *way* substandard. So on the fly, I go in another direction, and play nearly half an hour of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, live, at Filmore East, in June 1971. Public radio cliche, perhaps, but it buys me some time. I am a NEWS man. Not a music man! God bless Zappa. he buys me time.

Then some Jazz that makes sense if you've listened to, I dunno, 40-plus years of our station's broadcasts.

Some bluegrass, winding up with "Sweet Sunny South's" song about "My Still" just as listeners stumble out of the bars.

But by now I've got it backtimed out so the closing refrain of Richard Wagner's "Das Rheingold" will meld *perfectly* with the opening sounds of the "Morning Edition" theme music from NPR.

I skip the John Cage -- which I probably shouldn't have -- and just casually play some Gamelan music. It buys me time.

I fade it down.

I do about seven minutes of a live reading from "The 13 and a half Lives of Captain Bluebear".

Thank gawd I gave myself a music bed.

I literally wound up gasping for air with some minutes to spare while finding out the pages didn't flip like I had meant them to. But -- I still sounded *damn* good.

I simply let the music carry me, and then take me out.

Then I "hit the post" starting "Das Rheingold", only to find I couldn't quite prounounce the name of "Sir Georg Solti", since by that time I was completely brain-fried.

Only to find Richard Wagner WAY THE FUCK MORE BOMBASTIC throughout "Rheingold" than I had remembered him.

But by now I'd kind of figured, what the hell, I'll set my levels and let it run, only to find out NO! I HAVE TO RIDE THE BOARD! I have committed myself to this.

Ali -- god bless him -- has a *gift* for backtiming. I'll spare you all the details how. But he looks at my second CD running down and checks the clock and tells me I'm going to be something like 2:37 over.

I trust him, but I don't trust numbers as a rule. I spend the next ten minutes crunching numbers only to realize he's right. I *will* in fact be roughly 2 minutes, 37 seconds over. I mean, within a few tenths of a second. Not that I trust my numbers. He does this calculation by closing his eyes and popping back three seconds later to tell you, without a doubt, "you're 2:37 off". I confirm his calculation by running numbers manually over a number of minutes and trying to figure out the math which frankly *baffles* me. Just enough to ruin everything I'm aiming for. Or -- just enough to plan for something for 2:37 inbetween this disk and that.

If I *don't* make up that time, somehow, my perfect "hit the post" between "Overnight Free Form" and "Morning Edition" -- backtimed roughly 2 hours, 22 minutes, and 11 seconds between three different CDs -- just *won't* work.

Ali's got a gift for numbers that is *uniquely* helpful in radio timing. It's like his mind is the slide rule we all want to design, but can't *quite* figure out. I may have done the calculations. But. If he says "you're 13 second over", or "you're 7 seconds short", you ARE. Period.

He tells me I have to kill this one track and "fill" for so long. In the middle of the night. Only Wagnerians *far* more dedicated than me will ever know I've killed this particular track to forward announce Morning Edition and read the weather.

He's a genius. For whatever reasons which I can't begin to know because I don't know how all the connections in the human brain begin to work. Ali *saved* my broadcast, and the timing of that broadcast in turn saved the day twelve hours later when I went ON AIR local hosting ATC from NPR -- after saving a broadcast of DN prior to ATC the previous day. He dislikes NPR rather more intensely even than I dislike it. But I don't *ever* want to work at a station that doesn't have a place for him. Yes, a conversation with him can go on for hours. But he's uniquely gifted, and priceless, in this environment.

I skip a single track in order to announce things -- and even read weather. I know my "post" at this point has shifted to such-and-such a time. I hit it. To the second. I've double-checked the calculation, but Ali has done the calculation in a few seconds, in his head, long before I've spent minutes checking it.

I couldn't *possibly* have done it without Ali. At the same time, I think he "gets" the whole "Wagner thing" way better than he might have if I hadn't been there to kill a few hours.

And I might have chickened out on the "Wagner thing", if he hadn't announced it.

Symbiosis, anyone?

Anyhow.

The transition happened -- pretty smoothly!

Elaine came in and took over my board.

And I went home to sleep.

But I had the weirdest dream:

Apparently some group of activists or other had secured the basement underneath Popejoy Hall at UNM -- I've never actually been *in* Popejoy Hall, let alone *underneath* it, so I have no idea how accurate my dream landscape may be -- but it was *definitely* Popejoy Hall, and they were there to hold a forum about the NNSA's "Complex Transformation" combined with the proposed closure and recovery at Los Alamos' radioactive waste dump at "Area G".

For some reason, I find myself, not there *reporting* the event, but dressed up as a Panda Bear (of all things). I find myself running around through underground corridors in a fursuit only to appear at this or that moment during whatever presenters' presentations. I distinctly remember running up through narrow staircases in the wings only to emerge someplace else to the amazement of my handlers who seemed to assume I would just appear "stage left" only to appear "stage right" or the like. No one can tell where I'll turn up.

Then -- in what I'll call a "dream within a dream" -- I envision my mother's house in Texas besieged by, of all things, a whole fleet of space shuttles. They fly over her house in formation and send down repeated volleys of arrows, such as might more reasonably be expected to come from medieval Japanese archers.

Then I wake up in her home. In the bedroom of my childhood.

I close all the blinds throughout the house. Carefully. Without panic. It is late in the day. A reasonable time to close the blinds.

After all the blinds are closed, I join my mother in the kitchen.

She's listening to public radio on the receiver that gets heard throughout the house.

But she hands me what amounts to an earbud, attached to a tiny receiver.

I ask her: "Police Skimmer?"

She silently nods, without saying it, "yes".

I put it in my ear. It's an "Auto-Cue" moment of realization.

In the ear *with* the skimmer, I hear a coded message in the lyrics of a pop music song, released the same day, which runs something like this, *a la* Karen Carpenter:

I hear a Panda Chewing up Bamboo
One or Two Popejoys gonna Fall
Panda digging up the Bamboo
One or Two Popejoys gonna fall

In the other ear, I hear myself reading headlines. Inexplicably.

And that's my dream.

You must read this.

Finally tracked down the source of my favourite quote, ever, which I originally happened across while looking at old microphones online:

It is not necessary to remind you that the fact that your voice is amplified to the degree where it reaches from one end of the country to the other does not confer upon you greater wisdom or understanding than you possessed when your voice reached only from one end of the bar to the other.

Perhaps that was true when Ed Murrow was addressing the RTNDA in 1958. Or maybe he was being diplomatic. But I think it's something we *should* be reminded of, every single day. Here's the whole speech. When I first saw the quote it reached out and grabbed me. It's *way* too relevant to me not to think he planted it as a time bomb to go off in my head fifty years later. It's an *amazing* speech, and probably more relevant today than when he uttered it.

Turbulent week broadcasting. Nothing personal. Things just kept happenning. I guess if I can't take it, I've got no business being near -- let alone *in* a broadcast newsroom. I'll spare you the details. I'll just say it was a challenge. I do feel comfortable in saying this, though -- it did *not* affect my broadcast. None of it. Of course I can do better. And next week, I will.

Now I have my first weekend -- two days off! -- since January. I plan to enjoy them. I will not even *look* at a microphone until Monday, so help me gawd.

Vernal equinox.

No telling if things will change since 11:48 yesterday when the Sun moved into Airies and Spring officially began.

But I'm keeping my hopes up.

In the last week I've run two solid hours of drivetime news broadcasts while major surgery got done between my breaks -- not just "on the board" in general -- but on the "host mic" module, resulting in my coming out of one channel *way* stronger than the other, until the engineer managed a workaround, which he did before the end of my shift.

Then tonight the host for the music show set to take over from me shows up late for reasons I never bother to ask him about -- leaving me to make a few frantic phone calls, do "legal ID" at the top of the hour, and then start a music show about whose genre I know *nothing* whatsoever.

Yep. A certain raging faggot (yours truly) started the reggae show tonight. Sure hope the most self-righteous, zealous rastafarians out there can live with that.

The host was kind enough on coming in to thank me for starting enough music to get him to where he could take over.

I don't care what some people (me? years ago?) say about rastafarians -- some of them just kick ass. :)

Even if they do show up a few minutes late on rare occasion.

New pics coming soon.

On the supplement.

Finally downloaded some months' worth of pics from my cameraphone, going months back. Some quite good. Can't finalize posting those 'til I'm on a better connection than this.

Tonight: decent broadcast.

Yesternight, similarly decent broadcast in the midst of major broadcast console surjery between my breaks. Technical difficulties not something I could control and didn't bring listeners' attention to if they happened not to notice that I was coming out of one set of speakers three to five times louder than the from the other, while my bbackground music came through both equally. No one called to tell me, so I figured "mistakes listeners don't hear don't count as mistakes".

Still -- I'm managing to make enemies everywhere conceivable.

Wish it weren't so, but hell, I'm a reporter. Can't help it. In the words of the Univision reporter from Venezuela which I'll never forget: "You don't do this unless you LOVE it. It you don't LOVE it, it will KILL you."

Then again -- lab workers continue to happen to show up and prove to me we're doing *something* right by them.

At the same time -- anti-nuke activists let me know when I'm not getting their voices on air quite enough to please them.

I figure if I'm making enemies on both sides equally while making myself available to all concerned, I must be doing *something* right.

Only freind I have on earth: the listener.

Perhaps . . .

. . . in time I'll "get a life".

Until then, though, I'll post my confessions in here.

My coverage of the Republican pre-primary convention was utterly substandard. I'm sorry to say I *literally* did not realize it 'til I heard it going out over the air, but I honestly didn't. Studio monitors and headphones just tell a world of difference in the quality of sound collected that one field headphone on 1/8th second delay in the field doesn't. There are worse feelings for a person, but not many. I sounded OK. But the sounds from the convention were just *bad* -- a fact I honestly didn't realize until it all went out over the air. Hard-limited or not -- I recorded you all under less than ideal circumstances. You deserve better. I know it.

Every Republican in the state of New Mexico has my personal apology for this. You deserve better sound, and you deserve better production from whatever person happens to shows up to cover *your* convention. Whatever failure may have happened is my own, and is due in no part to the station for which I work.

Perhaps if and when I get a life of my own my coverage will improve.

Hard to admit it, but I'm kind of up against a wall.

I lack perspective in the ways these things come naturally to "normal" people.

Therefore, I have to find my own "perspective" from alternative sources, the likes of which I doubt you can begin to imagine.

These don't come "naturally" to "normal" people.

But heck -- I still got every on-the-ballot candidate's voice "ON AIR" for both major parties, if admittedly, in short soundbites.

So please -- don't take my act of contrition *too* seriously. I know damn well there is plenty of room for improvement -- but I challenge you to find another single broadcast media outlet who's carried every single candidates' voice, in both parties, on air.

It's only the most complex election in the state's history, after all, and I'm only just a newbie at being on air.

If anyone else knows of anyone else ON AIR besides myself who's managed to air every single candidate of over two dozen in both major parties running for three congressional and two senatoorial seats, by all means, please let me know.

I've changed the blog's subtitle.

Yet again.

Whereas it used to read "Life in the Borogoves", it now reads "Life, ON AIR, in the Borogoves".

For those who have forgotten, prior to reading "Life in the Borogoves", it read "Nightly Adventures of the Doorman at Foxes", or something like that.

Alas, I haven't really, truly *lived* in the Borogoves since the apartment complex I used to live in got bulldozed to put in high-priced, "affordable" housing at the behest of the developers who really seem to run this city's government.

But it's become increasingly clear to me over these last few months that the whole narrative arc of my blog, such as it is, has increasingly less to do with me and my neighbours and ever more to do with being "ON AIR".

Hence the change.

Air check day.

Today was air check day in the newsroom.

That's when we pull a recent broadcast off the skimmer and sit down and review our "breaks" with the News Director (note the singular -- this is a good thing!) and the program director. We're trying to do these more regularly now -- they're an invaluable tool in just hearing how you sound on the air, without actually *being* on air, and getting the feedback from different sets of ears *without* the pressure of "I'm trying to line up my next break, here".

It *can* be a bit of a "sweatbox" -- you know, the unventilated, crowded closet underneath the stairs at the old Hyperion Avenue Disney studio in Hollywood, where animators would go over their pencil tests with Roy and Walt and their directors literally looming over their shoulders as they ran the rushes on a Movieola. But it doesn't have to be, and today, it wasn't.

I go in and carve out my "breaks" from the skimmer's sound of yesterday's brodcast. My first news break I literally take notes -- I tripped over the "K"s and the "P"s and still sound "halting" in my delivery. I'm *very* self-critical by nature, but at a certain point, just being so gets in my way.

Whoa -- back up. Look at the *big* picture. That's basically the advice I get. I need it. I'm obsessing over individual phonemes, and sticking my mind in the rut of thinking "sibilants and plosives trip me up", which winds up reinforcing itself in the way of a self-fulfilling prophesy, so that any time I see an "S" or a "P" or a "T" or an "F" in the script, let along a whole string of 'em, my mind gets pre-programmed to get jumbled. The air check is all about deprogramming my brain.

I just need to slow down and simplify. It's not about "reading the news" so much as it's about "telling a story" to one person, somewhere, out there. And of all the people listening, *whatever* I am telling them, some people will go "WHOA!", while others will go "WHAT?". So at the same time I am talking to *one* person, I am also talking to a *bunch* of people -- but it's *not* like standing at a podium and delivering a speech to the huddled masses.

And the whole "apologizing on air" thing. (Not that I did in my "air check", but I have been known to do it, in the past.) It isn't that it's "sloppy", which is how I *was* thinking about it, which invariably leads me down the garden path of apologizing for having apologized, ad infinitum. Wrong mental place to be, ON AIR. You wind up just gasping for air and waiting, with increasing desperation, for the post you have to hit to roll around.

It's *really* that apologizing simply *isn't* necessary *or* helpful. The instant you apologize on air -- even if you feel it's needed because you skipped or misread a crucial word -- you're introducing *personality* into the story. In some small but absolutely obvious way, when you apologise on air, the story ceases to be about the story and becomes *about* you, the host, and your sense of remorse and unworthiness at doing what really *is* a hard job most people would never even *dream* of doing. There are ways to smooth over mistakes which inevitably happen -- "rather" is a good one, maybe the best -- but if you start betraying your emotions on air, reading headlines, it quickly becomes less about the story and more about *you*. And the best way to prevent having to say "rather" is just to SLOW DOWN and TELL THE STORY.

My thinking is still, in some ways, that "air time is priceless", which, of course, it is! But that doesn't mean I have to read off current temperatures from *all* around the state like a Gatling gun. Amy does that in her end-credits -- and while I suppose it's sort of a verbal pirouette, when done day after day it's just too much getting thrown at you too fast, and you won't really *hear* anything. (Wait -- who produced? who engineered? I sure as hell do not remember.)

Got lots of other -- forgive me for saying it this way -- "pointers" on the details. I call them "pointers" because they're things I *can't* just turn around and suddenly incorporate into my broadcast, they're little, subtle shifts in the way I handle carts and stuff that will take time. One in particular -- about how to handle the current version of the translator ID -- will involve people in other departments before I'm really comfortable doing it the way I *know* it *should* be done.

I have been doing this long enough to establish some habits, and incorporating new suggestions and ideas takes changing some habits. That's a good thing! On both ends. On the one hand, running a broadcast is "routine" enough for me at this point I can *absolutely* do it every day. On the other hand, there are better ways to handle certain breaks -- indeed, better ways to *view* them, which involves "stepping back" from the crazitude of the Control Room from time to time for long enough to think about -- you guessed it! -- the LISTENER.

The breaks at 19 and 48:30 after, for instance, aren't technically "weather breaks". True, that's when I read the weather forecasts. But -- it doesn't mean I have to stick myself into a boring rut of fading down SAT-1, playing a 30-second cart, then fading SAT-1 back up to background while I come out of nowhere, breathing on mic, *desperately* trying *not* to sound *like* whatever cart I just played, to tell people the weather, and nothing *but* the weather. I can, instead, for instance, fade down SAT-1 and "take control" of the break with whatever happy thought happens to cross my mind at that precise moment. Oh, something like "This is KUNM, stick around for the Blues Show, coming up" *before* playing the cart. It takes a couple of seconds, and I didn't even *think* to do it until my last break at 6:48:30 tonight. But you know what? It sounded better! *Way* more fluid. And by the time the cart played, it was *my* break, already, because I had *established* that, *before* trying to "match" (or "de-match") my pacing and intonation to the craps shoot of whatever cart I'd just played. Instead, I matched my little "ad lib" to the network, and the whole broadcast improved.

I sounded better today than I sounded yesterday. The only reason is because today was air check day, and two different sets of ears besides my own were listening and telling me what crossed *their* minds. I hope we have another air check soon. There is *no* doubt in my mind that it helps us all improve.

New Mexico's a state.

No, seriously, it actually *is* a state, at least since 1912, when last I can tell the national media were more obsessed with a certain transatlanic "White Star" luxury/steerage liner hitting a certain iceberg than the latest state to join the union. Granted, that may have well made better news sense back in 1912.

If you don't believe me, take ten seconds to confirm the fact with your local NPR affiliate station's newsroom. They can be reached at (505) (that's the area code, in parentheses, which I'm assuming reporters in Pasadena or New York just somehow seem to get confused by) 277-8013.

Unless of course that's not actually your local NPR affiliate's newsroom's number.

I can't pretend to begin to speak to the network's accountability to its listeners, in general. I can only speak to my own listeners' responses to the network we air on their local network affiliate, which I host.

And I hope network listeners respond uniquely to the network in each single market.

They can only make radio better by so doing.

I could document responses and whatnot 'til I went blue in the face.

But I have to sleep, now, before hearing tomorrow morning's headlines.

Which I'll hear -- in greater detail than even most of the most dedicated news junkies, I bet.

Then I'll wake up and write my own evening's headlines.

The "Complex Transformation" is indeed just a tiny bit controversial.

Big surprise.

Now I sleep.

If you hate me, call me! My number's listed somewhere, up above. :)

Another good day.

Covered the morning hearing in Albuquerque on the NNSA's proposed "Complex Transformation". It's kind of a big deal 'cause it would do a lot of stuff that everyone has an opinion about, from possibly involving job cuts on the order of 20-30% across the nuclear weapons complex, nationwide, to consolidating all the sensitive nuclear material at something like five sites around the country, to designating Los Alamos as the nation's sole producer of plutonium pits. Just your standard anthill, here, in this part of the world.

No one seems to think it's entirely a good thing or entirely a bad thing, but there certainly are supporters and detractors, with *lots* of nuance to go around, and I had the distinct honour of speaking with several people on several different sides of the issue, today. At the same time, the NNSA's mission remains ultimately determined by Congress and the President -- a point acknowledged on mic not just by an activist but by the hearing examiner himself.

If you enjoy downloading PDFs from the web (and who doesn't?), you can download the entire Draft Complex Transformation Supplemental Programmatic Environmental Imapct Statement ("SPEIS") in 26 separate PDF files right here. (I'm a SPEIS gurrrl, honey.) And if you *still* just can't get enough of that PDF happiness, there are over 40 more site-specific fact sheets and appendices and whatnot for your edification and amusement.

Alternately, you can ask for a hard copy of the three-volume draft SPEIS from Ted Wyka at ComplexTransformation@nnsa.doe.gov (and no, he really doesn't bite, despite being barked at for a living). The trick is -- the public comment period ends April tenth. If you're planning to comment on the SPEIS, downloading the PDFs may well be your best option. (Unless, of course, you just want to do the lazy, ineffective thing and submit yet another form letter among thousands of others that basically say "whatever y'all is for, I's agin'it". Plenty of those floating 'round, which I'll leave it up to you to find, if so inclined. Subtle hint, if you care *anything* about your credibility: it hasn't been called "Complex 2030" for YEARS -- a fact I discovered the *hard* way between the sled track and Z Machine, which hasn't been the Particle Beam Fusion Accellerator for *years*.)

From there I head back to the station straight through a shortcut in the circuitously designed building so as to avoid walking for blocks back to my car. I wind up going straight through a HUGE National Bowling Association competition on the floor directly beneath the NNSA's hearings.

The only thing that could have added to the glorious surreality of walking through the MASSIVE bowling alley after talking with the deadly earnest activists and singlemindedly passionate scientists would have been if the bowlers (or at least *some* of them) had been wearing fursuits -- but alas, New Mexico seems to remain a *bit* behind the curve in just such things. Or, perhaps, I just happened by on the wrong day. Or perhaps fursuiters aren't really national bowling championship material. I honestly don't know! But it was *just* weird *enough* to put a smile on my face.

I smiled my way all the way back to the station, and remain smiling now.

Slight crisis in the newsroom -- the Associated Press stopped updating the wires on the website we routinely use to gather headlines. Jim helped me figure out a temporary workaround on that one (it involves a dot-matrix printer) and I *think* I managed to get a better workaround set up for the time being. That means our ability to gather headlines is severely limited. Oh well! Nothing to do but write our own headlines, meantime. I guess we have to act like a real newsroom now, huh? Forgive me if I *do* talk on the air a bit too much about the labs, but heck, there's *something* super-big and super-important coming out of the labs every day, and nothing else is on the wires even remotely affecting our listening area.

Too bad the network thinks the only worthwhile stories to come out of NM are "arts" stories. If devastating wildfires hits California, or New York gets tall buildings hit by aeroplanes, or if Louisiana get a nasty storm it's news for YEARS. As well it should be, because it all affects millions of people. But *if* the *only* story they run about any of that is about interpretive dance or experimental music, they would get crucified -- as well they should -- for trivializing catastrophe.

So -- how does the network handle the positively devastating bark beetle infestation that fuelled the catastrophic Cerro Grande Fire of May 2000 around (and on) Los Alamos which may have spread around some various and sundry national-lab-type nastiness into the drinking water all the way downstream to the Gulf Coast, not to mention over Oklahoma?

*That's* only newsworthy, apparently, 'cause someone from the Discovery Channel sees fit to do a so-called "story" about how someone managed to make "music" out of the sounds of the beetles, the infestation of which *may* have some tenuous connection or other to global warming, thereby conveniently securing grant funding from National Geographic.

But wait! It gets better! This "music" has gone on not only to be danced to in black box experimental theatres that no one attends, but has been *actually* played in Chiropractors' offices! Oh, how terribly clever and artistic are these provincial New Mexicans, who you *don't* need a passport to visit, and whose water is *actually* safe to drink! (It's not, really, but we don't tell fly-by celebrity reporters about that stuff unless they ask, which they apparently never think to do -- if they take a "what I don't know can't hurt me" attitude and combine it with "oh! I'm SO fearless for venturing SO VERY DEEP into this terribly dark wasteland, where no such creatures as jour-nal-ists even exist!", far be it from us to go out of our way to disabuse them of such notions. DRINK UP!)

Yes, I'm conflating several complaints into one post here. But you get the general idea.

Truth is *very* much stranger than fiction, and the truth in this part of the world far outstrips whatever convenient fictions lazy drive-by celebrity reporters (to give Limbaugh his due, even if he *is* sloppier hitting the posts than I am) might imagine the underlying "national" story to be from the part of the world.

You can *not* get the stories from this part of the world by just happening by.

You have to *live* here. Day in, and day out, for years.

I defy *any* New Yorker to tell me about the sex of Chickens in Dineh.

Oh, that's right. You don't know what "Dineh" is! Silly me.

So I'll give you a hint:

It's not lunch in Savannah.

Great broadcast.

I know. Not like Murrow on London's rooftops. But relatively speaking. Let's just say "compared to the last several days".

It's been a rough week for lots of reasons I won't bore you with.

Jim got back to town yesterday while I was kind of at my low point, freaking out on everything, *trying* to *force* myself to stay positive, which *isn't* how it works, 'cause if you do that you just talk fast and sound sing-songy. Not to mention it's an emotional rollercoaster to do things that way, which is bloody unfair to myself and surely doesn't do the listeners any favours, either. (Apologies to any listener whom I may have caused -- allegedly, of course -- to drive off into a ditch.) These are things that can *only* be learned over doing this sort of thing, day-in, day-out for a while.

There's some immense and glacial calm which is communicable in the newsroom now. I caught it yesterday, but only after the single most disastrous interview I've ever conducted in my life.

You can do this "broadcast news" thing one of two ways, as I see it.

You can go *totally* bipolar -- get cynical, but still sound *way* too happy when you *should* sound "moderately upbeat", turning *intense* emotions off and on like water from a spigot. Do it a few days running and your whole body will literally ache. Your eyes will burn. Your throat will grate. You will hear yourself in the headphones, as you speak, and whatever state of mind you are deliberately affecting, you will think "my god, who *is* this cartoon madman reading news *at* me?". I therefore do not recommend this particular technique.

Or -- you can be calm, no matter what. You can *breathe*. DEEPLY. In this state, you don't have to flip personalities between announcing tragic news and telling people about lovely weather. You *can* be calm, respectful, and appropriate, no matter *what* actually happens, *if* you've got enough clean air inside your lungs and insufficient phlegm to choke you up. You can achieve this state in under ten seconds. The slightest and most undeliberate change in speed and intonation will signal to listeners whether it's "good" news or "bad", and they won't *need* any over-the-top histrionics.

The simple fact is I don't like being in the former state, and *much* prefer being in the latter. Whether this is what listeners want, only time will tell. Pledge drive's a month away -- if anyone loves or hates anything I'm doing, this is my chance to hear about it!

The best way I can illustrate it is how very different actors play Hamlet, and specifically his soliloquies on stage. Are you DECLAIMING TIMELESS BRILLIANT AND DRAMATIC ORATORY TO THE HUDDLED MASSES sitting in the back row, in the hopes that your words will just *overwhelm* everyone else? Or are you really just talking to one person, and exploring one issue, for a minute or two at a time? Radio *isn't* theatre -- but there *are* some *crucial* similarities.

Then the accomplishment for the day -- a two-part report I am *genuinely* proud of my hand in, and, even more, for the newsroom as a whole, because it signals a major shift in how we work *with* eachother.

A regional hospital is considering an operating agreement with a Roman Catholic-owned chain of hospitals, and a bunch of groups in the community are worried about what will happen to end-of-life and women's reproductive healthcare under the new arrangement.

About a month ago we *might* have managed to send one person to a press conference, get someone declaiming angrily into a mic in front of TV cameras, and then called up the other side only to get a prepared statement in response. It would have been "thorough" and "balanced" in the lowest-common-denominator way such a story might ever be and still get the basic facts out there. It might even have advanced the story a bit. But I would bet money it would have impressed listeners about as much as dropping a brick on the sidewalk, only to find it didn't bounce. Even if it *could* be delivered without sounding like one omniscient reporter trying to moderate a shouting match introduced by a host who wound up sounding vapid for not having any involvement in the story beyond rewriting the lead, it would have ultimately ended with some variation on "so-and-so says you're doing this. Are you?" followed by "no, we're not." Thud. A clunker.

Elaine's the process-oriented, "issues" person in the newsroom. Get her talking sometime -- and just listen. Within three minutes she'll go from facts and figures through characterizations into what the broader social implications are and have you utterly enthralled at her analysis of how this little disagreement between parties you've never dealt with in your life really *matters*. Everything ties into something bigger, and given half a chance, she *can* make you understand *why* it's important.

I, on the other hand, am the detail-oriented faggot geek from Texas. I want clear answers -- yes or no, mostly -- on what the details of the actual contract are, and want to hear why so-and-so will not release them to the public for review, so I can edit it all down in under half an hour and go ON AIR with the hard *facts* at hand. And to be fair to Steve, I'm also "the host", and making my broadcast sound good is among my very top priorities -- "broad issues" are all well and good, but damn it, I have *got* to go on air in twenty minutes, and good luck getting me to understand the underlying issues between now and then while I'm lining up carts, billboards, bollboard music, funding credits, headlines, and weather.

As of today we are working *together* -- as opposed to just "in the same room". A *huge* part of the credit for this goes to Jim.

A couple of weeks ago it was a story about testing veterans for depleted uranium exposure. She worked on her end for *hours* with genetic mutations in the children of veterans exposed to DU. She gathered story after story. I just wanted to know whether DU was or was not the byproduct of Uranium enrichment, and which isotope(s) we were talking about, and the possible role of various "daughter" elements in the decay chain, and why DU was being used for munitions at all (it pierces armour), and what the funding situation was for the program in question.

We worked "in the same room" on that one. We never *quite* found common ground. The story got out, but if you may forgive me for saying so, it wasn't so great, in terms of the total broadcast package. I kind of thought she was crazy, and while I wouldn't dare attribute thoughts to her, I think she could be forgiven for kind of thinking *I* was crazy.

Today's story was *totally* different.

Elaine spent two hours in interviews -- a good chunk of it with people critical of the hospital's arrangement, and their lack of transparency in contrat negotiations. She comes out of interviews with advocates of this and that who want to ask the hospital some questions, which the hospital won't answer to their satisfaction.

I shut up for five minutes and just listen to Elaine, knowing little more than that there is some controversy here. I get a decent sense of *what* it's most important that I ask, without getting emotionally involved in the story. Jim acts as moderator. I get to use the "straw man" in an ethically justifiable way -- I don't personally care, all that much, about reproductive health or contraception or end-of-life care issues and how the Council of Bishops mandates "Christus Health" treat these things.

But -- as an emotionally disengaged reporter, I *can* casually call up and ask the spokesman for the hospital, on behalf of the people who *do* care personally, what they're doing to address these various concerns. It's *not* personal. It doesn't *matter* if I "like" or "don't like" the person I'm interviewing. He agrees -- on tape -- to give some information to me that the activists have not yet managed to get. That agreement gets broadcast to perhaps a hundred thousand listeners.

And I intend to check the inbox tomorrow morning.

So anyway -- we took what could have been a glorious clunker of a produced story about vague abstractions from "right to life" to "right to die" and an uninteresting lead about dull facts concerning contract negotiations and fiscal and ethical implications and tied it all together -- beautifully. It ran about twelve minutes long, from end to end. And the overall effect -- I don't "believe" this, I KNOW it, because I *heard* it -- was one of facilitating a dialogue that might not otherwise have happened. Jim moderated between Elaine and me, and between us all, we facilitated a dialogue, in considerable depth, that might otherwise have been nothing more than "allegations" and "denials".

MY GOD. I LOVE PUBLIC RADIO.

I still do not consider myself a "team player". When I see that very term, I think of Starbucks, and how people are variously managed -- expertly, or not -- into achieving goals that really do *not* matter, in the end. But -- I can not deny tonight's two-parter had an impact that no discrete, "boxy" single-reporter piece on so complex an issue *ever* could have.

I tell you what. I would bet *money* that a *lot* of people heard both of our stories all the way through, tonight, over twelve minutes, as one single "piece", who would *not* have listened to a five or seven minute "he said"/"she said" piece by one reporter, introduced by a host who sounds like he just doesn't "get it".

I am where I belong.

Read this:

KKOB Radio News Anchor Laura MacCallum Quits After Station Pulls Stories About Alleged Republican Vote-Buying Efforts

Ex-anchor Says Station Caved to Pressure From Heather Wilson’s Senate Campaign

Station Says Story Had No Legs

Not an easy headline, that; but it probably won't be long before I have to credit Dennis Domrzalski on air.

I make jokes about unwieldy headlines and difficult names.

Meanwhile, the above-named commercial broadcast journalist breaks a major story -- not on air, but in his blog.

The ironies, indeed, abound -- but I admit.

I am impressed.

Even keel.

On a bit of an emotional rollercoaster.

Saturday attended a day-long activist gathering on the NNSA's "Complex Transformation", which proposes consolidating sensitive nuclear material at a limited number of sites around the country but also provides for Los Alamos to become *the* sole manufacturer of Plutonium pits.

Saturday night my mother calls to tell me she's ready to put my aged and ailing father into foster care. I find myself in no condition to sift through six hours of tape, following that.

Sunday I go in for my broadcast, and mostly just watch the person that I'm training run the board. There are some rough spots, but he understands it. At the same time, he's not totally comfortable taking over, completely, on his own, just yet.

Sunday night my mother tells me tht my father's daughter's flying in from Mississippi and that family and freinds are coming in from all around to say "final goodbyes".

Monday -- today -- I go in figuring "this will be hard" but somehow get into it and sound OK.

Then I hear that I sound "a bit overdriven" on a weather break during my second hour. (Overcompensation, anyone? I'm reading current temperatures *all over* the damn place.)

I guess I do. The coffee has definitely gone to my head.

I wrap it up and hand it off and get home only to find my father has been transferred, now, to foster care. Not a teribly fun telephone conversation. My mother can barely breathe. But she's got someone there to help look after her, which is a *huge* blessing.

The best thing I've got going for me right now is the two hours every afternoon where I have *got* to keep an even keel.

Domenici retiring was *easy*. Covering ATC over Super Tuesday was *easy*. Let's just hope I can rise to this challenge.