I have personally been on the receiving end of a Bill Clinton Waggle. Not that waggle. Jeez.  It’s worth noting, though, the influence our forty-second President has had on my career, both directly and indirectly. Bear with me, I’m going somewhere with this.

January, 1992

Bill Clinton was hardly a nobody the first time I met him, but he was in danger of being an also-ran, running well behind Paul Tsongas in the 1992 primaries. The man whose campaign slogan was “I’m not Santa Claus” was handily thrashing the former Arkansas governor. When I asked my news director if I could cover his speech at a fundraiser called Democrat Days, his thoughts on the matter were if I wanted to waste a Saturday night driving 150 miles out of the ADI to cover a sure-fire loser, then knock myself out.

The big lesson from that experience was if you’re hanging over the edge of a swimming pool with your camera, and the Secret Service is yelling at you to get down, the wrong response is to say you need to be there to get a good shot. I also learned if you need to get through a large crowd, the best way to do it is to turn on the most powerful light you have and let the heat of the bulb assembly clear a path for you.

It was so loud, when I shouted a question at Clinton as he approached, I couldn’t hear the answer. I trusted the microphone was picking up something usable.  I got what I needed, and scored the night as a win, but the big takeaway, though, was if a politician needs you, he’ll talk. Your value as a journalist to a politician is based solely on that criteria. My running gauge of the accuracy of this truism was my “relationship,” such as it was, with Bill Clinton over the Continue reading “Two, Two, Two Posts In One!” →

I don’t care what Bill Clinton says. I didn’t almost dislocate his shoulder. There, I said it.

The best part about figuring out how to acknowledge the otherwise most destructive elements of my personality and channel them into something useful is that I don’t have to spend a lot of time in therapy figuring out how to deal with them. I was twenty-one years old when I realized being a reporter, specifically a television reporter, was going to do me just fine when it came to scoring my fix. I also found I could acquire my drug of choice virtually anywhere. Sioux Falls, South Dakota? Sure. Pueblo, Colorado? Why not? Memphis, Tennessee? Absolutely.

My particular addiction was, and to some extent still is, The Puzzle. I know there are people who get into journalism because they want to change the world. There are others who want to be the center of attention. Still others need it to create their own flavor of what they see as art, to feel the adrenaline rush of a deadline, to experience the pleasure of working with people who have just as short an attention span as they do, and for any number of other reasons noble and reasons craven. Pick your poison.

For me, it was the challenge of solving The Puzzle. A puzzle with a shot clock. I’ve always said if I have only one skill (which may very well be the case, as I have yet to find another) it’s this: tell me there’s a bone in the yard, and I’ll find it. Being a reporter, for me, is the constant Continue reading “F. Scott Fitzgerald was Wrong” →

This week, I took two small but important steps to make this expedition I’m planning something more than words on a page. The first is a matter of simple necessity. I fished my passport out of the drawer where it’s been gathering dust, and it is now on its way to the State Department for renewal. So I can cross one item off of my to-do list.

The second is, to me, more exciting. I signed up for sailing classes with the Marin Sailing School. This is an incredible organization with a nonprofit arm that teaches basix and advanced sailing skills to people who are blind and visually impaired. I’m trying to convince them to let me bring a camera along when I take my first class on August 30. If I’m very lucky, this will dovetail with an effort to get part of the expedition sponsored by GoPro, a company that makes an incredible little camera that mounts to a helment, a handlebar or anything else you can think of to capture high definition footage of outdoor activities. I’ll write a lot more later about how I’m hoping to grab on to and retain any wisp of the photography skills I’ve learned over the years, and this may be at least part of a solution. The sailing instruction is something I see as vital when Continue reading “The Heavy Frog” →