The town folk have grabbed their torches and pitchforks and killed the monster.
Mike Shula has been removed as head coach. Jim from Tuscaloosa and Shane from Center Point have lost their punching bag. I-man from Montgomery is in the recliner listening and laughing.
What will Paul Finebaum talk about now? I love Finebaum's show. But all the Shula drama
put a dent in my favorite part of Paul's show....which is in when authors call.
What many people don't know is that Paul would probably trade any coach interview for 20 minutes with Harper Lee. I have a Harper Lee story. But if I tell it, I would have to kill you, me, and one of my best friends.
But I digress
Mike Shula did what no Alabama coach can do. Lose consistently to Auburn. From what we hear, his second sin, was presenting a plan to Athletic Director Mal Moore on how to fix things for 2007 which contained little, if any, changes to his staff and approach.
Shula apparently thought the old saying was "if it's broke, don't touch it and hope it works out."
It's too bad actually. He is genuinely a nice guy and the team would have been better in 2007.
But it was obvious they had some serious issues on the offensive side of the ball. When they had the ball at the three on their first possession against Auburn, raise your hand if you really thought they were going to punch it in the end zone. Also, raise your hand if you thought they would do anything other than run the plays they ran.
Thought so.
Shula issues a nice statement and signed off "Roll Tide." Mal Moore now looks for a coach.
One thing to remember. Most people live from paycheck to paycheck. A two-week delay in a paycheck would have most people scrambling. Shula has a four million dollar buyout.
To put that in perspective, if you got paid five thousand dollars a week, you would run out of cash in about 20 years. I would take the job for half of what they were paying Shula.
I've applied and am keeping afternoons clear for the news conference to announce my new position as the head coach at Alabama.
My news conference
"Coach Screws, what makes you think you can do this job?"
"I was at Alabama when Coach Bryant was here."
"Coach Screws, what will your offensive philosophy be?"
"Score more points than the other team."
"Coach Screws, my name is Squid Nater. I'm a television sports anchor from Birmingham, and I would like to ask that with all your experience as a coach working with the people you have worked with and the style of people you've seen coach, I was wondering with 11 people on a field of play and a staff of 22, would you, could you, see yourself as the head coach when you were a little kid playing football in the front yard in Hartselle, Alabama and as an Alabama alum what were your influences from the years you listened to John Forney as a kid trying to get out of raking leaves in your yard. Can you talk about that?"
This would be a good time to fall back on watching Ray Perkins do news conferences when he was at Alabama.
"Sure, I could, but you wouldn't understand it."
But the one thing I would do for sure....my master stroke as the new head football coach at Alabama would be to fight the battle for the hearts and minds of Tide fans. The biggest mistake Shula made....ok the biggest mistake outside of not beating Auburn....was lose the battle for the hearts and minds of Alabama fans. Here is what I would do....
"My first move as Alabama head football coach is to introduce my personal public relations assistant. Ladies and Gentlemen, meet Paul Finebaum and his staff of Jim from Tuscaloosa, Shane from Center Point, and in a move to give those that need it an extra hand up in life, here is Elmo from God knows where."
I think that would work.
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Friday, November 24, 2006
Nov. 24, 2006
I'm tired. Very tired. Glad for the week to be over. And I'm really not in the mood to do this right now but one of my fans....and there....ok...well...dozens of them emailed me and said
"Get off your fat aspirin bottle and do a blog."
So, in the interest of all the people who are hanging on every word I say and write, this is for you.
Ok..maybe this is for everyone who hangs on everything I say and write and isn't a relative.
Thanksgiving. Things that make me laugh and think.
1.)Dairy Queen Ice Cream. Makes me think of home.
2.)Cheap Trick. After 30 years, they are still rocking. David Mattingly called me to
go see them a couple of weeks back in Atlanta. Like Cheap Trick, David and I are still rocking as well.
3.)Seal-He and Heidi Klum had another kid. Their like rabbits. Heidi and Seal are trying to field their own softball team or come up with musicians for a stage show.
4.)George Allen. Politician From Virginia who lost his senate race. I'm thankful for him because I realize I am smart enough to run for public office.
5.)John McCain-Ok...Maybe I'm not smart enough.
6.)I know you are smart enough to know that I complimented a guy from the same party that
I just made fun of.
7.)Cold Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. It's five o'clock somewhere and in about five minutes it's going to be 5pm. (I came to work at 2am. Lighten up.)
8.)Hearing my daughter laugh at her dog.
9.)Hearing me laugh at my daughter laugh at her dog.
10.) Alabama fans who haven't wrecked their car cause the team was average.
11.)Bad golfers. I score the ball I can find.
12.)Smart sharp news people. If we didn't ask tough questions who would?
13.)Andy Griffith. Show for life. The funniest line in the history of television
is from the episode where the goat eats the dynamite. After a drunken Otis makes the goat mad, Andy jumps up on his table and says "Dadburn it Otis. One loaded goat is about all I can stand."
14.)Poker on television-I love watching people think themselves into and out of trouble.
15.)Christmas Shopping-Love it. Plus people come up to me and says "Do you really know
Jerry Hays?"
16.)What is cool...is that I do really know Jerry Hays!
Going home. More later
"Get off your fat aspirin bottle and do a blog."
So, in the interest of all the people who are hanging on every word I say and write, this is for you.
Ok..maybe this is for everyone who hangs on everything I say and write and isn't a relative.
Thanksgiving. Things that make me laugh and think.
1.)Dairy Queen Ice Cream. Makes me think of home.
2.)Cheap Trick. After 30 years, they are still rocking. David Mattingly called me to
go see them a couple of weeks back in Atlanta. Like Cheap Trick, David and I are still rocking as well.
3.)Seal-He and Heidi Klum had another kid. Their like rabbits. Heidi and Seal are trying to field their own softball team or come up with musicians for a stage show.
4.)George Allen. Politician From Virginia who lost his senate race. I'm thankful for him because I realize I am smart enough to run for public office.
5.)John McCain-Ok...Maybe I'm not smart enough.
6.)I know you are smart enough to know that I complimented a guy from the same party that
I just made fun of.
7.)Cold Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. It's five o'clock somewhere and in about five minutes it's going to be 5pm. (I came to work at 2am. Lighten up.)
8.)Hearing my daughter laugh at her dog.
9.)Hearing me laugh at my daughter laugh at her dog.
10.) Alabama fans who haven't wrecked their car cause the team was average.
11.)Bad golfers. I score the ball I can find.
12.)Smart sharp news people. If we didn't ask tough questions who would?
13.)Andy Griffith. Show for life. The funniest line in the history of television
is from the episode where the goat eats the dynamite. After a drunken Otis makes the goat mad, Andy jumps up on his table and says "Dadburn it Otis. One loaded goat is about all I can stand."
14.)Poker on television-I love watching people think themselves into and out of trouble.
15.)Christmas Shopping-Love it. Plus people come up to me and says "Do you really know
Jerry Hays?"
16.)What is cool...is that I do really know Jerry Hays!
Going home. More later
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
The Bus
Nov. 22, 2006
Starting this one with a disclaimer. I've had four hours sleep since Sunday at midnight, so please cut me some slack on grammar, spelling, and anything else. I would suggest that
you do what I use to tell my mom when I was a kid..."you know what I mean...don't you."
The call on the scanner ring with the clarity of a sterling silver spoon hitting a crystal glass.
"A school bus has gone over 565 and landed on Church Street."
A dozen or so people in the newsroom stopped what they were doing. Fingers quit hitting keyboards. Cell phones were put down quietly on planners. Reporters and photojournalists stopped work and pushed away from their desk and stood up. Standing up makes it easier
to hear horrible news when it's repeated.
The scanner crackled again.
"It's gone over 565 and it's on church street. There are priority zeros and priority ones"
Zeros are fatals. Ones are serious injuries.
The reaction in the newsroom was unlike anything I've ever seen in 26 years of television. Loud, rowdy, opinionated reporters who are not shrinking violets listened as the news of a school bus with children went off an overpass soaked into
their brains. Usually news of the day doesn't keep anyone up at night.
But the bus wreck of 2006 will leave many of us afraid to go to sleep at night for fear of what we may dream about.
A school bus. A vehicle that parents put children into every day to send them to school. A place to learn. A place to play. On this day, the bus turned into a tomb. And it was a story that
resonated through our community like a violently tuned metronome.
"Go, now. It's right there. You...go to the scene....you, go to the hospital...you...go to the school board."
Our assignment manager Keith Lowhorne ignited the coverage and jolted a newsroom into action.
"Amber, go to hospital now." Colby..Robert, get to the scene. Jeanine...call Wendell.
Need aerials. I'm calling now."
From there, almost eight hours of coverage unfolded. Ambulances delivered someone's baby and pride and joy to emergency rooms for life saving treatment.
We did a great job covering the story. But it comes at a price. Watching the pain of families endure four fatalities takes a toll. How we cope and manage that toll generally decides
how long we're in the business. I wonder about how someone like David Mattingly at CNN does it. For us, this is a once a decade type story and I will see the front page of the Huntsville Times for a long time as I go to sleep. David covers 15 stories like this a year.
What the story did immediately for me....was make me pick up the phone and call my daughter.
Knowing four fathers and four mothers lost a daughter is something I cannot fathom.
In fact, I called Emily three times on Monday. I will call her today. And I will call her again.
I'm at the point in my life where I'm trying to focus on calling people I care about more.
The bus wreck was the kind of story that the older you get, the more it stays with you.
The story is painful. Awful to watch unfold. But a wise man once told me that it's not just your pride, joy and happiness that makes you who you are....but it's your pain as well.
When I see the bus, and go to sleep and see that image, it makes me pick up the phone and call my daughter. And call her again. And again. And again.
Really tired. Going home. More later.
Starting this one with a disclaimer. I've had four hours sleep since Sunday at midnight, so please cut me some slack on grammar, spelling, and anything else. I would suggest that
you do what I use to tell my mom when I was a kid..."you know what I mean...don't you."
The call on the scanner ring with the clarity of a sterling silver spoon hitting a crystal glass.
"A school bus has gone over 565 and landed on Church Street."
A dozen or so people in the newsroom stopped what they were doing. Fingers quit hitting keyboards. Cell phones were put down quietly on planners. Reporters and photojournalists stopped work and pushed away from their desk and stood up. Standing up makes it easier
to hear horrible news when it's repeated.
The scanner crackled again.
"It's gone over 565 and it's on church street. There are priority zeros and priority ones"
Zeros are fatals. Ones are serious injuries.
The reaction in the newsroom was unlike anything I've ever seen in 26 years of television. Loud, rowdy, opinionated reporters who are not shrinking violets listened as the news of a school bus with children went off an overpass soaked into
their brains. Usually news of the day doesn't keep anyone up at night.
But the bus wreck of 2006 will leave many of us afraid to go to sleep at night for fear of what we may dream about.
A school bus. A vehicle that parents put children into every day to send them to school. A place to learn. A place to play. On this day, the bus turned into a tomb. And it was a story that
resonated through our community like a violently tuned metronome.
"Go, now. It's right there. You...go to the scene....you, go to the hospital...you...go to the school board."
Our assignment manager Keith Lowhorne ignited the coverage and jolted a newsroom into action.
"Amber, go to hospital now." Colby..Robert, get to the scene. Jeanine...call Wendell.
Need aerials. I'm calling now."
From there, almost eight hours of coverage unfolded. Ambulances delivered someone's baby and pride and joy to emergency rooms for life saving treatment.
We did a great job covering the story. But it comes at a price. Watching the pain of families endure four fatalities takes a toll. How we cope and manage that toll generally decides
how long we're in the business. I wonder about how someone like David Mattingly at CNN does it. For us, this is a once a decade type story and I will see the front page of the Huntsville Times for a long time as I go to sleep. David covers 15 stories like this a year.
What the story did immediately for me....was make me pick up the phone and call my daughter.
Knowing four fathers and four mothers lost a daughter is something I cannot fathom.
In fact, I called Emily three times on Monday. I will call her today. And I will call her again.
I'm at the point in my life where I'm trying to focus on calling people I care about more.
The bus wreck was the kind of story that the older you get, the more it stays with you.
The story is painful. Awful to watch unfold. But a wise man once told me that it's not just your pride, joy and happiness that makes you who you are....but it's your pain as well.
When I see the bus, and go to sleep and see that image, it makes me pick up the phone and call my daughter. And call her again. And again. And again.
Really tired. Going home. More later.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Say what....?
11-16-2006
I had a coach once who used to tell us "don't let your mouth write a check your butt can't cash."
Television news is like that sometimes. The pace is quick and words come in waves. Anchors get thrown scripts, breaking news, changes to scripts and even more breaking news with adjustments for scripts, scripts for breaking news adjustments, breaking adjustments for news, and you deal with script adjustments for local, breaking, national and international news.
Got it?
And then the day that the teleprompter breaks down. It's like baseball. With all those variables sometimes you hit a home run, and sometimes you pop up to the pitcher.
Sometimes the words that wound are self-inflicted.
*I knew an anchor once who used to pop out between the six and ten for a salad and two or six martinis. One Friday night, he emceed a charity event and overindulged by even his own prodigious standards. Being an old school tough guy, he could pull off the late show anchoring with a couple of drinks, but not this night. The first story out of the shoot was about prisoners being
"bagged and gowned" and not "gagged and bound."
*I was standing in the newsroom when an anchor I used to work with once said "they are burning this man in effigy...where is effigy." Most news people think this is an urban legend,
but I heard that one with my own earholes.
*The same anchor read a story about Meridian, Mississippi, and Yosemite National Park and pronounced them "Mare-a-Dan and Yoze-Mite."
*Worked with a guy who read the story about a crying statue of the Virgin Mary and said "Many people in the small town say they had an EP-A-Fanny." Funny...some people experience an epiphany...not an EP-A-Fanny... when they see those statues.
*One reporter was doing a courthouse live shot. He was frantically getting details in from a big trial and ran from the truck to the live location....picked up the mic and said "now joining me live is the prostituting attorney." Write your own joke.
*This one happened a long time ago. An anchor I worked with was trying to say "Sayonara Leonid Breshnev" and said "Saranada Leroy Breshnoo." So after that, every time someone asked who the interview was for a particular story, we all yelled "LEROY BRESHNOO!"
Sometimes the anchoring business is an inexact science. That's why I jealous of columnist at newspapers who just sit and bang the keyboard till they get it right. In television, we have to get it right, and get it right the first time. But remember newspaper pals...I just point that out cause I'm jealous of that advantage.
Going to the Alabama-Auburn game this weekend. More Later.
I had a coach once who used to tell us "don't let your mouth write a check your butt can't cash."
Television news is like that sometimes. The pace is quick and words come in waves. Anchors get thrown scripts, breaking news, changes to scripts and even more breaking news with adjustments for scripts, scripts for breaking news adjustments, breaking adjustments for news, and you deal with script adjustments for local, breaking, national and international news.
Got it?
And then the day that the teleprompter breaks down. It's like baseball. With all those variables sometimes you hit a home run, and sometimes you pop up to the pitcher.
Sometimes the words that wound are self-inflicted.
*I knew an anchor once who used to pop out between the six and ten for a salad and two or six martinis. One Friday night, he emceed a charity event and overindulged by even his own prodigious standards. Being an old school tough guy, he could pull off the late show anchoring with a couple of drinks, but not this night. The first story out of the shoot was about prisoners being
"bagged and gowned" and not "gagged and bound."
*I was standing in the newsroom when an anchor I used to work with once said "they are burning this man in effigy...where is effigy." Most news people think this is an urban legend,
but I heard that one with my own earholes.
*The same anchor read a story about Meridian, Mississippi, and Yosemite National Park and pronounced them "Mare-a-Dan and Yoze-Mite."
*Worked with a guy who read the story about a crying statue of the Virgin Mary and said "Many people in the small town say they had an EP-A-Fanny." Funny...some people experience an epiphany...not an EP-A-Fanny... when they see those statues.
*One reporter was doing a courthouse live shot. He was frantically getting details in from a big trial and ran from the truck to the live location....picked up the mic and said "now joining me live is the prostituting attorney." Write your own joke.
*This one happened a long time ago. An anchor I worked with was trying to say "Sayonara Leonid Breshnev" and said "Saranada Leroy Breshnoo." So after that, every time someone asked who the interview was for a particular story, we all yelled "LEROY BRESHNOO!"
Sometimes the anchoring business is an inexact science. That's why I jealous of columnist at newspapers who just sit and bang the keyboard till they get it right. In television, we have to get it right, and get it right the first time. But remember newspaper pals...I just point that out cause I'm jealous of that advantage.
Going to the Alabama-Auburn game this weekend. More Later.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Oatmeal, Poker, and the Iron Bowl
11-15-2006
It's 5:07 am here in the WHNT newsroom. I'm here to tell you. If I eat another packet of oatmeal, I'm going to scream.
At my advanced years, a doctor recently suggested oatmeal might be good for me health wise and more importantly from an appetite suppression perspective. Working overnight and early morning does strange things to my metabolism. Some days I forget to eat, and some days if Tallulah the chihuahua walks by to slow, I'm apt to start looking for sourdough bread for a quick snack. Also, working overnight and early morning, exercise is a key to staying sharp. But my exercise regiment of running and walking was severely hit when I finally downloaded a poker website. In the afternoon, I can run or play poker and for some reason, I play poker.
The poker explosion is very interesting from a television perspective. When ESPN came up with the "holecam"....the camera which allows you to see what everyone has, poker exploded.
My friends who aren't in the poker cult don't get it. But I think it's simple. The reason reality television is successful is that almost everyone loves to watch other people react to stress.
Watching poker you get to watch people think themselves into and out of trouble. Plus, you mix in real unique....ok downright crazy characters....you have a great mix.
And when they all start playing for huge sums of money, the stress and the players quirks are fun to watch.
Women playing poker. I can't wait for a woman to win the World Series of Poker. And it will happen soon. First of all, in the interest of full disclosure, I plan in poker tournaments. Tournament poker is an elimination match where you have to be aggressive as the stakes go up. But you are playing with play money...and then the positions pay out. So it isn't like you are sitting in a smokey room playing for your mortgage money.
But back to women playing poker. I'm always amazed. If you have 80 people to start a tournament, and you have 10 women playing, the final table will be split 50-50 with men and women. Women are great poker players. Actress Meg Tilly has already won two major events and her performance is drawing more and more women to the game.
My take on why women starts with their life experience. Most women have heard so much "stuff" from men their whole life that it's just about impossible to bluff a woman at the table. They know when men are bluffing, and if a woman raises twice in a hand...they normally have a strong hand. Women are usually cooler and calmer at the poker table, and it shows in how strong they finish in tournaments here locally.
Iron Bowl is this Saturday.
In this state, people are always interested in who you pull for on fall Saturdays.
"Are you an Auburn or an Alabama fan?"
In the this part of the south, it's kind of like being asked "who are your people and what church do you go to?"
I'm an Alabama fan. Graduated without honors in the class of 81. That would be 1981 and not 1881 as some have suggested in the WHNT newsroom. Pulling for Alabama has been filled with drama since Coach Bryant left us for the great stadium in the sky. I just tell people I graduated from Alabama but I don't wreck my car when they lose. If I wrecked my car when they lost like some do, that would be a ton of cars lately.
What has always been interesting to me is how the Iron Bowl rivalry is perceived by the rest of the country. I used to work in Richmond, Virginia. Loved Richmond, and we covered
Virginia and Virginia Tech regularly. In 1995, Tech and UVA played a game very much
like the legendary Alabama-Auburn game. Virginia won a game where the lead changed five
times in the fourth quarter. I was leaving the stadium and a guy with a Virginia hat slides up and says "hey Screws, how did that compare with all those Alabama-Auburn game you covered. This game was a classic don't you think."
I looked at him and said "well, the biggest difference between an Alabama-Auburn game and a Virginia-Virginia Tech game is that at the Virginia-Virginia Tech game the winners don't shoot at the losers as they run to their cars."
The Virginia fan with his orange hat and blue V on the front cocked his head and looked at him.
"Really? Do they really shoot at each other after games down there?"
I looked back at him with my black Davey Allison cap with the 28 on my head and said...
"Yeah buddy...want to see my scar?"
More Later
It's 5:07 am here in the WHNT newsroom. I'm here to tell you. If I eat another packet of oatmeal, I'm going to scream.
At my advanced years, a doctor recently suggested oatmeal might be good for me health wise and more importantly from an appetite suppression perspective. Working overnight and early morning does strange things to my metabolism. Some days I forget to eat, and some days if Tallulah the chihuahua walks by to slow, I'm apt to start looking for sourdough bread for a quick snack. Also, working overnight and early morning, exercise is a key to staying sharp. But my exercise regiment of running and walking was severely hit when I finally downloaded a poker website. In the afternoon, I can run or play poker and for some reason, I play poker.
The poker explosion is very interesting from a television perspective. When ESPN came up with the "holecam"....the camera which allows you to see what everyone has, poker exploded.
My friends who aren't in the poker cult don't get it. But I think it's simple. The reason reality television is successful is that almost everyone loves to watch other people react to stress.
Watching poker you get to watch people think themselves into and out of trouble. Plus, you mix in real unique....ok downright crazy characters....you have a great mix.
And when they all start playing for huge sums of money, the stress and the players quirks are fun to watch.
Women playing poker. I can't wait for a woman to win the World Series of Poker. And it will happen soon. First of all, in the interest of full disclosure, I plan in poker tournaments. Tournament poker is an elimination match where you have to be aggressive as the stakes go up. But you are playing with play money...and then the positions pay out. So it isn't like you are sitting in a smokey room playing for your mortgage money.
But back to women playing poker. I'm always amazed. If you have 80 people to start a tournament, and you have 10 women playing, the final table will be split 50-50 with men and women. Women are great poker players. Actress Meg Tilly has already won two major events and her performance is drawing more and more women to the game.
My take on why women starts with their life experience. Most women have heard so much "stuff" from men their whole life that it's just about impossible to bluff a woman at the table. They know when men are bluffing, and if a woman raises twice in a hand...they normally have a strong hand. Women are usually cooler and calmer at the poker table, and it shows in how strong they finish in tournaments here locally.
Iron Bowl is this Saturday.
In this state, people are always interested in who you pull for on fall Saturdays.
"Are you an Auburn or an Alabama fan?"
In the this part of the south, it's kind of like being asked "who are your people and what church do you go to?"
I'm an Alabama fan. Graduated without honors in the class of 81. That would be 1981 and not 1881 as some have suggested in the WHNT newsroom. Pulling for Alabama has been filled with drama since Coach Bryant left us for the great stadium in the sky. I just tell people I graduated from Alabama but I don't wreck my car when they lose. If I wrecked my car when they lost like some do, that would be a ton of cars lately.
What has always been interesting to me is how the Iron Bowl rivalry is perceived by the rest of the country. I used to work in Richmond, Virginia. Loved Richmond, and we covered
Virginia and Virginia Tech regularly. In 1995, Tech and UVA played a game very much
like the legendary Alabama-Auburn game. Virginia won a game where the lead changed five
times in the fourth quarter. I was leaving the stadium and a guy with a Virginia hat slides up and says "hey Screws, how did that compare with all those Alabama-Auburn game you covered. This game was a classic don't you think."
I looked at him and said "well, the biggest difference between an Alabama-Auburn game and a Virginia-Virginia Tech game is that at the Virginia-Virginia Tech game the winners don't shoot at the losers as they run to their cars."
The Virginia fan with his orange hat and blue V on the front cocked his head and looked at him.
"Really? Do they really shoot at each other after games down there?"
I looked back at him with my black Davey Allison cap with the 28 on my head and said...
"Yeah buddy...want to see my scar?"
More Later
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
I will have a blogspot omelot and a side of bacon.
November 14, 2006
Welcome in everyone to my blog. It's a two drink minimum. But with the hours I work as the WHNT morning show executive producer, the two drinks can be coffee strong enough to eat through the bottom of a 82 Volvo, or orange juice with a Powerbar cut up in it, or enough diet sodas to float the Intrepid which is currently stuck in a harbor.
I'm getting older. And it surfaces everywhere. For example, "all the kids" call it a blog. Older folks like me call it a diary, or a journal, which just happens to be on a computer.
Back in the dotcom boom I took, temporarily, a job with a company that spent way too much
money worrying about the colors on their website and not enough time researching why people would never turn off their television completely for a computer. The job was too good to pass up at the time. The guy who interviewed me said "Greg, I need someone to be a smartaleck and write for my website."
Easy job. But I digress.
I called my mom and explained this job was not in television anymore but was instead with an Internet company. After going through the process of this explanation, my mother had one question.
"Greg, where is that on the cable."
"Mom, it's not on the cable. It's on the computer"
"You won't be on television anymore Greg?"
"No mom"
"Well then, I don't like that job, and I don't think you should take it."
My mom's advice proved to be prophetic. After working with the budding dotcom company, I took another television job and my parents were again happy that the kid they thought was 50-50 to get out of high school with a GED was a member of the royalty that is local TV anchorhood. There was one thing I did miss about the dotcom business. Everyone thinks that all those dotcom boom businesses busted because of bad financing, being over leveraged, or
didn't have their software right. The reason most went under was that the workday was something like this:
9:00am to 11:00am
Decide which color blue to put on a logo.
11:00am to 1:30pm
Lunch at place which served big glass bloody marys and soy glazed salmon. Charge it to the company.
1:30pm-3:00pm
Talk about Star Trek
3:00pm-4:00pm
Decide what logo needs to be what color the next day.
4:00pm-5:00pm
Tweak The Mission Statement.
5:00pm
Drinks.
I did 25 years in local television and decided to recharge my battery. The United Way of Madison County took me in as part of their "Send me your huddle masses" program of job
trainees. The experience was an epiphany. Being a local television anchor, I just THOUGHT
I had a handle on my community. Working in a non-profit for 15 months taught me I need to stay dialed into my community in a much stronger way. It taught me that most people don't plan to be poor and in need of help, and most importantly, it taught me that most people are closer to needing help than they realize.
But like Michael Corleone in the third Godfather movie....."Every time I get out, they pull me right back in"....I decided to jump back in the television wars. I met Denise Vickers in a previous television life. In one of those moments that make you wonder how karma exactly works, Denise found herself in a new job as the WHNT news director. She called. We talked.
And like a moth to a flame, I jumped back in as the Executive Producer of the WHNT morning show.
The hours are bad. The people are great. More tomorrow.
Welcome in everyone to my blog. It's a two drink minimum. But with the hours I work as the WHNT morning show executive producer, the two drinks can be coffee strong enough to eat through the bottom of a 82 Volvo, or orange juice with a Powerbar cut up in it, or enough diet sodas to float the Intrepid which is currently stuck in a harbor.
I'm getting older. And it surfaces everywhere. For example, "all the kids" call it a blog. Older folks like me call it a diary, or a journal, which just happens to be on a computer.
Back in the dotcom boom I took, temporarily, a job with a company that spent way too much
money worrying about the colors on their website and not enough time researching why people would never turn off their television completely for a computer. The job was too good to pass up at the time. The guy who interviewed me said "Greg, I need someone to be a smartaleck and write for my website."
Easy job. But I digress.
I called my mom and explained this job was not in television anymore but was instead with an Internet company. After going through the process of this explanation, my mother had one question.
"Greg, where is that on the cable."
"Mom, it's not on the cable. It's on the computer"
"You won't be on television anymore Greg?"
"No mom"
"Well then, I don't like that job, and I don't think you should take it."
My mom's advice proved to be prophetic. After working with the budding dotcom company, I took another television job and my parents were again happy that the kid they thought was 50-50 to get out of high school with a GED was a member of the royalty that is local TV anchorhood. There was one thing I did miss about the dotcom business. Everyone thinks that all those dotcom boom businesses busted because of bad financing, being over leveraged, or
didn't have their software right. The reason most went under was that the workday was something like this:
9:00am to 11:00am
Decide which color blue to put on a logo.
11:00am to 1:30pm
Lunch at place which served big glass bloody marys and soy glazed salmon. Charge it to the company.
1:30pm-3:00pm
Talk about Star Trek
3:00pm-4:00pm
Decide what logo needs to be what color the next day.
4:00pm-5:00pm
Tweak The Mission Statement.
5:00pm
Drinks.
I did 25 years in local television and decided to recharge my battery. The United Way of Madison County took me in as part of their "Send me your huddle masses" program of job
trainees. The experience was an epiphany. Being a local television anchor, I just THOUGHT
I had a handle on my community. Working in a non-profit for 15 months taught me I need to stay dialed into my community in a much stronger way. It taught me that most people don't plan to be poor and in need of help, and most importantly, it taught me that most people are closer to needing help than they realize.
But like Michael Corleone in the third Godfather movie....."Every time I get out, they pull me right back in"....I decided to jump back in the television wars. I met Denise Vickers in a previous television life. In one of those moments that make you wonder how karma exactly works, Denise found herself in a new job as the WHNT news director. She called. We talked.
And like a moth to a flame, I jumped back in as the Executive Producer of the WHNT morning show.
The hours are bad. The people are great. More tomorrow.
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