It's Summer and I'm Rambling

I've just spent the past two weeks basically hanging around my house doing a whole lot of nothing. I guess I must have needed it, because it sure felt good. The upshot of this, though, is that I haven't watched much tv lately. Oh sure, while I was on vacation I rented a few DVD's. But I watched very few tv shows, and even fewer newscasts! It was good to disengage from the whole thing for a little while, because when you're involved in a news operation day after day, it can get to be a little taxing. As can any job, I'm sure, but news can be particularly aggravating. Ratings are involved, you see, and that lends so much more gravity to the situation.

So anyway, I thought I'd clean up a couple of loose ends, and just kinda chat with you. Maybe a little less of the constant bitching you get from me most other months.

The best news that I can possibly give to you is the thunderous reproach that the U.S. House of Representatives has given to the FCC. You may recall that in the June edition of this column, I took the Federal Communications Commission to task over their attempt to deregulate media outlets in this country to the point where huge corporations could have a virtual stranglehold on local markets. Well, by a vote of 400-21 (!!) the House voted to disallow the FCC rollback. Obviously, this is a vote that crossed party lines and ideologies. The bad news is that despite the glaring evidence that almost no one wants this to happen, the vote in the Senate will probably not be as lopsided.

Of course, the ones who want this to happen are Bush and his cronies, and Bush has threatened to veto any legislation that comes to his desk. However, if the vote in the Senate is even close to the proportions of the House vote, he can veto all he likes and it won't matter a hoot. So now it's time to once again write to your Senators, and let them know that you won't stand for these antics. It's easy to do. Every Senator and Congressperson has their own website, and a place where you can send them e-mail. Just write a few sentences about how you feel about the FCC and deregulation, and that you want them to vote against the recent FCC rollback. Take you all of a couple of minutes.

Of course, if you're a person who thinks that that kind of deregulation is good for the country, that's another can of worms entirely. My advice would be to enjoy this while you can. This media deregulation nonsense, along with bits of the truth about the war finally - FINALLY!! - coming to light, may mark the time when the Bush house of cards begins to implode. That, at least, would be the hope.

Let's pause to reconsider a fascinating fact:

Remember how throughout the entire Clinton administration, the news media never gave the guy a single moment of peace? That, of course, is that same "liberal media" that all of those vast numbers of conservatives in the media are always yelling about. Literally from the moment the man took office until the moment he left office (and beyond), he was hounded by the Republicans and the "liberal media." It was almost surreal the lengths to which the media went to prove that they weren't favoring Clinton. That's because the Rush Limbaughs and Bill O'Reillys of the world have turned "objectivity" on its ear. The word seems no longer to mean "fair, neutral, even-handed, considering all points of view." These days, "objectivity" seems to be defined as "not negatively critical of Republicans."

Contrast that with the kid glove treatment that Bush enjoyed even before 9/11. Yeah, he caught some flack over the economy, but for the most part Bush had a honeymoon with the press that Clinton never got. And after September 11, they didn't dare breathe a word that was negative. To do so would be unpatriotic, wouldn't it?

Slowly, as the lies become so big that they can no longer be swept under the rug or ignored, the media are starting to sink their teeth into this administration. Once that begins it'll be Katie bar the door, because these guys lie like I eat Doritos - once they get started, they just can't stop. Then, as the lies of the present are finally dragged into the light, then maybe the lies of the past will finally also be revealed.

In the end, Bill Clinton will end up looking like a choirboy by comparison. And maybe someday he'll be remembered as a Rhodes Scholar and a true centrist, and not as a guy who got a blowjob. Now, I'm not Bill Clinton's biggest fan, but as I've pointed out before, at least he won his elections. And unless historians succumb to the tabloid mentality of pop culture, Clinton will be remembered as a good president, I believe.

Goodness only knows what history will have to say about the present occupant of the White House.

I could drone on and on about how the Republicans have cowed the media, but if you've been reading this space for any length of time at all, you know all about it already. What's really on my mind is my new car.

I'm almost ashamed to admit it, but I'm nuts about this shiny new hunk of metal, glass and plastic now parked outside my house. It's the first new car I've ever owned, and after what I've been driving, it's like having my own private spaceship. I have a perfect analogy for the feeling, and if you don't mind I'd like to bore you with a little story.

As some of you may know, a few years ago the television station where I work moved to a new location. This is a massive, spectacular monstrosity of a task. Think of moving your house or apartment, and all the headaches that brings about, and then multiply that by about 100,000, and you'll begin to get a taste of how daunting and humbling a task moving a television station can be. Most remarkably, it happened without us going off the air for even a second. (I was actually running Master Control at the old building at the moment the new place went online, and was the one who turned over control to them. I noted it on the log, signed off the log, powered down the room and went home.)

Well, before I did what I do now at the station, I was a Technical Director. For those of you who don't know what that is, then your long wait is over. In tv shows and movies, sometimes you'll see a television control room. Up in front, sitting before all those monitors, is the Director. That's the person who calls the shots - "Take Two." "Roll VTR21." "Camera Three, zoom in a bit and center her up." - you get the idea. Next to the Director sits a person at a console with rows and rows and rows of buttons and little levers, too. That's the Technical Director. I was that guy.

I loved being a TD. In live television, when you're the TD, you are smack dab in the middle of everything, and if you make a mistake, everybody knows it. You have to be able to think on your feet, and when all hell breaks loose, as it inevitably does every now and then, you have to be able to stay calm and know what you're doing. For me it was a blast, and I do kind of miss the rush of it.

Anyway, the biggest drawback to being a TD in the old building was the switcher we had. The switcher is the console I was talking about before. The one we had was made by a company called Vital. The switcher had been bought in 1977. Vital went out of business in 1981. After a while, the station kept the thing running by buying up old, discarded Vital switchers and cannibalizing them for parts. The discarded Vitals were dirt cheap, of course, and far less expensive than a new production switcher would be. A former Chief Engineer once told me that it we ever powered down that switcher it would probably never power back up. "The steady current going through them is the only thing holding most of those circuits together. Damn things are so old, a surge of power through them would probably fry 90% of them," he told me with a grin. So you get the idea. The Vital switcher was a terribly outmoded piece of shit held together mostly by the constant diligence of some really great maintenance engineers.

When we moved, there in the spacious new Production Control was a marvelous thing. Two of them, actually. Mainly, though, it was the sparkling new BTS Diamond Digital 30 Production Switcher. The DD30 is just a wondrous thing. Thoughtfully laid out, and unbelievably versatile, it was a time warp for all of us who were TD's. Paired with the new switcher was a Pinnacle DVExtreme Digital Video Effects Unit, a three-channel effects generator that can do all kinds of amazing stuff.

So anyway, that's the same sort of feeling I have going from a 1989 Chevrolet Celebrity to a 2003 Honda Accord. I'm having an awful lot of fun. I look forward to driving it, and this is a feeling that is new to me. The trials of dealing with the Vital made me appreciate the DD30, and grateful to be able to use it. And now I get to zip around with some confidence, where before I could measure my 0-60 time with a calendar instead of a stopwatch.

Believe me, no one is more painfully aware that all of this means absolutely nothing. As I've said, it's summer and I'm rambling. I'll try to be more focused next month. But then in September, I'm going to be spending a week hanging out on a beach in Florida, and who knows what that'll do to me?

I think maybe I'll go for a drive.

(C) 2003 - Karl Cable