I think the single distinguishing characteristic about my professional life\u2026 aside from how very professional it often is not\u2026 is how many unusual habits I\u2019ve picked up along the way.\u00a0 The fact I don\u2019t seem to know how to point, for example, or count, for yet another example in any way even approaching\u00a0 normal comes to mind.<\/p>\n
I spent roughly five months of my twenties working at Walt Disney World.\u00a0 Just five months.\u00a0 I still use the two finger sweeping gesture I learned there when I want to indicate where something is, rather than the eminently normal one finger jab.\u00a0 They drill the jab right out of you.\u00a0 The idea is that when you\u2019re showing somebody how to get somewhere, you don\u2019t want guests (always guests at the WDW, never customers) to think you\u2019re pointing at them.\u00a0 A sweep of the fingers is less offensive.\u00a0 An entire generation of new Disney cast members has been born, learned to walk, talk and drive, and has started drinking to excess for a shorter amount of time than I\u2019ve been using the two finger sweep instead of pointing.<\/p>\n
Counting down from three to one.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t set foot in a newsroom in almost a dozen years, and the reasons for doing a silent last third of the countdown don\u2019t even apply in that industry anymore once everything went digital, but after standing in front of a camera to do a standup and invoking the magic incantation, \u201cstandup in three\u2026 two\u2026\u201d and leaving off the \u201cone\u201d so that the editor can set his in point for the edit on the fly by listening for when you stop counting, I seem to have lost the ability to count down to one like a normal human when trying to take pictures at family gatherings, log flume rides or children\u2019s birthday parties.\u00a0 \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you say the number one?\u201d\u00a0 I have been asked this more times than I can count, and the reason I can\u2019t count is because\u2026 well, I can\u2019t count.<\/p>\n
At least I don\u2019t answer my home phone by saying \u201cnewsroom\u201d anymore.\u00a0 It took about a year to drop that habit\u00a0after I left the business, but I\u2019m finally back to \u201chello.\u201d\u00a0 However, there are still times when I hear the \u201cbreed breed\u201d of a Nokia two way phone and I almost say out loud \u201cThis is Michael, go ahead.\u201d\u00a0 Insidious business, news.<\/p>\n
I only bring this up because I was reminded once again just how difficult it is to plunk down a divider line between the different chapters of a person\u2019s life.\u00a0 Old habits die hard.\u00a0 If, as Dickens might have said during one of his more Copperfield-esque passages, this is the chapter in which I try to create a third act and learn new mental muscle memories, it seems I have a certain obligation to figure out how to incorporate those firs two acts and well worn habits into the mix.<\/p>\n
The crowdsourcing campaign is about to begin.\u00a0 For anyone familiar with journalistic no-no\u2019s, this is also known as Burying the Lead. Next week, we\u2019ll cover the Potter Box.\u00a0 Anyhoo, In addition to budgeting, training and the whole shmear of organizing this project, there\u2019s the little matter of the trailer video I\u2019m creating to promote it all.<\/p>\n
Working with a photog again, particularly one who establishes his chops at one of the local stations,. It was, for the afternoon, a return to The Life.\u00a0 I almost found myself reaching into my jacket pocket for my pack of\u00a0 Camel Reds.\u00a0 The news van was the only place where smoking was acceptable.\u00a0 Not permissible, but acceptable. It also didn\u2019t seem to matter I wasn\u2019t an actual reporter in this particular photog\u2019s newsroom\u2026 or in any newsroom.\u00a0 We have, however, covered the same stories, had the same grievances, shared the same gallows humor, and if there were a ten year long temporal archipelago between his stories and mine, \u00a0it didn\u2019t seem to come up or make any kind of a difference.<\/p>\n
The really disturbing part, though, was how easy it can be to slip into assuming, or at least noticing the worst about people, and how this creeps into your attitude about the world in general.\u00a0 News does that to you. When you don\u2019t just cover one story about a police officer trying to catch sexual predators by posing as a teenage girl in internet chat rooms and that officer later gets arrested for taking the same bait himself, and you don\u2019t cover this story once, but several times over the course of your career, you get a bit jaded when it comes to the thin blue line.\u00a0 When every newsroom has at least one person who wishes aloud for a good plane crash so he or she can have something to do, your standard of acceptable behavior tends to become a little fuzzy.\u00a0 There are only so many city council members caught smoking and selling crack you can cover before you just get tired of assuming the best of people.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why the second act of my life has been so cathartic.\u00a0 You say you want me to interview children about what it would like to be adopted?\u00a0 Absolutely.\u00a0 Your no-kill animal shelter needs a PSA to help feral cats find a loving home?\u00a0 I\u2019m in. \u00a0Your\u00a0mentoring program resulted in more than one hundred high school graduates?\u00a0 Where do I put the camera?\u00a0 I spent my twenties wading through snow, behind hurricanes and and around the periphery of every gruesome crime scene you care to imagine.\u00a0 That I spent my thirties with the same tools but around different stories was a form of therapy I don\u2019t think they teach you in Psych 101.<\/p>\n
So\u2026. this third act.\u00a0 What is it exactly.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m so glad that the second bit of big news this week does in fact find a way to thread the needle.\u00a0 I\u2019m happy to report the Australia leg of the Palette Project will most likely be in support of a fantastic new nonprofit called Employment Link. \u00a0Now, I don’t want to speak too soon because the proverbial dotted line still needs more than dots on it, but my goal over the next few weeks is to make sure that the Palette Project as a film and that I as an individual can be an advocacy partner to support their mission. \u00a0What I wrote abovve about trying to find the good guys after years of reporting on the bad ones? \u00a0These people at Employment Link – they’re the good guys. \u00a0This is an organization that creates employment resources and training for people with disabilities.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been interested in this organization ever since I got hooked up with their for-profit arm, a company called\u00a0 Adaptive Technology Services.\u00a0 This is the company that first assured me if there was any way for me to hold onto any of the skills I\u2019ve developed over the last\u00a0twenty five years, they were going to work with me to find a way to make it happen.\u00a0 Portable CCT\u2019s that help me use field mixers?\u00a0 There\u2019s a way.\u00a0 Electronic pens that record your voice and link the file with dime sized pads you can put on everything from different wattage Arri bulbs to P2 media cards – tabs that, when touched by the pen, let that pen speak to you and tell you what you\u2019re touching?\u00a0 Make it so.\u00a0 Optical character recognition apps that read everything from the menu at a diner to log notes in the field?\u00a0 Well dang, beam me up.<\/p>\n
As I\u2019ve written previously, this is the key.\u00a0 The key, of course, is not to be the story, but the storyteller. \u00a0Inasmuch as this film exists because of the perspective I bring to it, it finishes because of the stories we\u2019re finding along the way.\u00a0 Today, I can say that the first stories are actually, truly, not about me, and the reporter in me likes that.\u00a0 Unequivocally, the first leg of the trip is on behalf of a cause.\u00a0 that cause is the goal that everyone deserves the chance to do meaningful\u00a0work.\u00a0 Employment Link believes there is a way.\u00a0 So do I.\u00a0 What Silvana, the executive director of Employment Link, reminded me of is that although mine is an unusual job\u2026 it\u2019s a job, and it\u2019s a business.\u00a0 A business with a crew and a schedule and obligations.\u00a0 Self employment, in other words.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been reminded that this is an experience that, at its core, I should share with others who are trying to do the same thing.<\/p>\n
So in this effort to fuse urgency and action with outreach and awareness, the results of the Australia leg are easy to set. \u00a0We want to create jobs.\u00a0 I\u2019ll be working between now and March 8, our tentative departure date, to raise awareness\u00a0 for this issue.\u00a0 Support for this film is now also about support for this cause\u2026 and spoiler alert, there will be other causes.\u00a0 This is leg one and step one, and there\u2019s a vision here.<\/p>\n
Pun absolutely intended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I think the single distinguishing characteristic about my professional life\u2026 aside from how very professional it often is not\u2026 is how many unusual habits I\u2019ve picked up along the way.\u00a0 The fact I don\u2019t seem to know how to point, for example, or count, for yet another example in any way even approaching\u00a0 normal comes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Rim5-2G","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":244,"href":"http:\/\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166\/revisions\/244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}