Live at Five
Of all the work meetings I’ve blown off with extreme insolence, I am most happy about the one I skipped last week.
From what I understand, most of the news staff turned out to witness the on air brilliance of one of our local news anchors. Back in the day, such a meeting would have been considered unholy. Print reporters are supposed to detest the TV people the way a cat detests water. A mingling of the two groups was regarded as taboo, like a sexual relationship between siblings. Outside of Wilton, it just wasn’t done.
But these are different times. Struggling to maintain interest from a fickle audience, both print and television media outlets need this sick, sick relationship. And so the dashing anchorman breezed down to the newsroom to give the print guys a lesson in on-air broadcasting.
I know, I know! Most print guys aren’t on television for a reason. We don’t groom right and we’re all twitchy and spastic. We’re foul mouthed and ill tempered and we can’t be trusted to speak cleanly and smoothly to the television audience. We’d rather examine and dissect, process and deliver well-crafted news stories than simply look good reading them.
Yet there they were, all my Deliverance-cast-member colleagues mugging it up for the TV crew, learning how to speak with aplomb before the giant eye of the camera. From what I understand, not one of them tried to slip in a swear word. It’s despicable.
Still, there’s a chance you might see me on your local news broadcast because there’s no getting around it in this new age of sister humping cooperation. It might go like this:
Cute anchor lady who clearly wants me: “And now from downtown Lewiston, Sun Journal reporter Mark LaFlamme with a report on the sexual assault of a chicken during what was described as a ritualistic crime. Mark?”
Me: “… wearing only his socks. Back to you, Donna.”
So, if you live in the local area, brace yourself for that kind of riveting exchange. And even if you don’t live in the area, trust me on this: I may look sort of professional while babbling my news with all the poise of a meth addict outside a 7-Eleven. But down below?
I’m not wearing any pants.
January 19th, 2007 at 3:37 am
Well, nobody who knows you would be surprised at that … but who does wear pants at five? Or who’s even alive at five? You are speaking AM, aren’t you?
Besides, if a chicken got caught with only his socks on, what would one expect from an even-more-chicken print guy?
January 19th, 2007 at 6:01 am
Do you have a recurring nightmare in which the green light’s on and you can’t stop yourself from saying “ass” or “balls of steel” or something else mildly embarrassing? You know, not a totally outrageous thing that’s somehow manly, but just ouchy and … embarrassing?
I ask only because I know of another author and blog writer who has that fear on her book tours.
January 19th, 2007 at 11:16 am
Flamer, I gots two wrds fer ya’
http://www.wgme.com/Bios/bio_ichton.shtml
And Betty, your looking especially radiant this morning!
Is that a new shade that you are wearing
?
January 19th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
As I’ve asked the cops time and time again, what’s Diane Ichton got that I don’t got?
January 19th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Nah, I’m not afraid of cameras. I’m kind of a ham. I mean, have you seen my amateur films? Nevermind. Forget I said that.
January 19th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
Your amateur films? Oh, Mark The G Spot? Or are you talking about the one with you and that older woman, Jurassic Pork?
January 19th, 2007 at 4:12 pm
I’ve never seen any of your ameture films but, I do recall the night that you laid right out on the frozen ground of Ash St. to have your picture taken.
January 19th, 2007 at 5:30 pm
Mark, are you puffing a stogie in that picture or are you puckering up for the cute anchor lady?
January 19th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
Thank you for noticing the pic, Linda. I cracked up with that one.
January 19th, 2007 at 7:15 pm
Hey, if anyone wants to fill out a questionairre explaining why they don’t read that Sun Journal rag, write me and I’ll ship it to you. mlaflamme@sunjournal.com
January 19th, 2007 at 7:19 pm
You don’t need a questionaire to know why. There’s too little local news, in that there’s more news about area’s outside LA, not counting national news. I know people really do not care who is doing what on which board, who’s dog is biting who in Livermore, and which truck overturned in Newry.
Plus there is absolutely no investigative reporting anymore, and virtually no in depth reporting at all. If you cannot Google it, it doesn’t exist.
January 19th, 2007 at 7:35 pm
funny, I read about the overturned truck in Newry and the dope with the dogs in Livermore.. Since I’m so far away, I find it interesting what’s going on all over the area. Now and then I even come across a name I know. That just makes it all the more interesting. Walter, maybe you just need to recognize there is more to “local” news than just what goes on inside the Lew/Aub city limits.
January 19th, 2007 at 7:51 pm
Walter, write me so I can send you a questionairre. Put up or shut up, in other words.
January 19th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
So, anyway. After posting this blog, I interviewed a guy barricaded inside his house down in New Hampshire. That part was fun. But then I had to call Channel 13 and give them a soundbite, which flies in the face of what I’d written. One of our reporters asked me which sister I planned to hump. I mean, ouchie.
January 19th, 2007 at 8:09 pm
I’m going to get the questionnaire too. But I have to say that even though Wilton is — let me get this right — ON THE OUTER FRINGE OF THE SJ COVERAGE AREA — it’s my only daily paper unless i want the Waterville Sentinel and I can hardly even find Waterville with a compass and a picnic lunch. So in a man in Jay bites a dog, you know what, I CARE and I can’t get it on the internet either so cut me some slack. It’s hard enough to live in a rural area with all the joys that brings (you know, roosters crowing at 3 a.m., no trash pickup, hardly any restaurants, don’t get me started) without the people in the big smoke thinking they have a right to keep their newspaper entirely to themselves. If you cut us do we not bleed? Christ Walter, if you want more L/A news that’s fine, but don’t talk about cutting our so called news out of the daily paper.
January 19th, 2007 at 8:11 pm
Wilton and Farmington are really nice towns and our twice weekly paper is very nice too, don’t get me wrong. But …
January 19th, 2007 at 8:20 pm
Yeah, the Sentinel is on the decline, too. Ever since they were sold to the big boys.
January 19th, 2007 at 8:23 pm
what’s the purpose of the questionaire? who wants the info & why?(Maybe I should have asked that before I answered the questionaire)
January 19th, 2007 at 8:26 pm
It’s just an in-house thing. It won’t be made public anywhere. Just their way of seeking feeback.
January 19th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
oh, feedback.
well, tell them what you think, you guys!
January 19th, 2007 at 8:35 pm
oh, my son & I went to walmart (oh god) today and when we were waiting for the bus, we ate some of the peanuts we bought. They were salted but we realised most of the saltiness was int eh shells not the nuts themselves, so there we are sucking them before cracking them….We have this ongoing joke lately, about finding ways to swear without actually swearing.
“You suck Peanuts!”
sounds pretty funny to a 7 year old.
January 19th, 2007 at 10:49 pm
So Mark, what’s so bad anyway about sexual relations with relations? (Had to ask it as the token Wiltonian)
And can you give us a link to your moment of famousness on channel 13?
January 19th, 2007 at 10:53 pm
Brenda, why the “(oh god)” comment after walmart?
And what the flying fuck does sucking salty peanut shells have to do with the blog topic? I read your posts and then I have to sit back and wonder what the hell you are talking about. Then I have to stop. Because if I don’t, I’ll end up sticking a pencil in my eye, or killing someone. And apparently, “THEY” don’t like it when I do that. So please medicate before you respond.
January 19th, 2007 at 10:57 pm
since when was there a rule that peopel have to stick to the subject?
you suck p’nuts!
January 19th, 2007 at 10:58 pm
I don’t need mediccating, sounds like you do though
January 19th, 2007 at 11:02 pm
Gil, please don’t stick a pencil in your eye, OK?
January 19th, 2007 at 11:07 pm
if he does, he’s the one doing it, I don’t control anybody but myself.
I was wondering if anyone can answer this trivia question? What’s closing time for bars in Maine these days?
I haven’t gone out in years so I don’t even know!
January 19th, 2007 at 11:13 pm
I just heard Mark la-FLAme mentioned on ch 13! re: the tax-dodger story
January 19th, 2007 at 11:45 pm
There is no “rule”, merely an understanding that some part of your post might relate to the main topic, or to a response from a previous poster. To just come out of the blue with a peanut-shell-sucking story is bizarre. I merely pointed it out.
So there.
January 20th, 2007 at 12:10 am
Gil, You crack me up. Please don’t stick a pencil in your eye. Wanna go suck down a stogie together? And…”So there”…HA…you really do crack me up! I think it’s time for a Haiku! Bartender!
January 20th, 2007 at 2:45 am
People change the subject & come outta no-where with stuff all the time. I’m not writing papers for a college class, I don’t have to segue every paragraph. I can just say something I thought was funny if I want to. First amendment! Free speech!
I don’t care if you laugh or heckle me, gil, that’s your problem not mine. You are never happy no matter what and I am not responsible for your miserableness..
you don’t like it? get over it! or don’t get over it. It’s your own eye you are poking & you are the one who can decide. I have no control over your actions.
but for you to want to hurt yourself just because I made a joke? I certainly hope you were kidding. Or is it another Herb-icide?
January 20th, 2007 at 2:49 am
ps, gil, I am sure you really don’t want me to get started on walmart! so I don’t really need to answer that question?
January 20th, 2007 at 8:05 am
I’m sorry (cleaning coffee spray off the screen) — Herb-icide is absolutely hilarious. Brenda that was a good one.
January 20th, 2007 at 9:34 am
So give us the skinny on Wal-mart Brenda. Did they dis you in some way to make you not like them? What have they done to you? Were they the ones who implanted the listening devices in your head, forcing you to wear the tinfoil hat? Because I could have sworn that they were just providing low prices to their shoppers, and an assload of jobs throughout the country.
I don’t really care what you write Brenda. I think you are mad as a hatter and just like to point it out.
January 20th, 2007 at 11:04 am
“I don’t really care what you write Brenda. I think you are mad as a hatter and just like to point it out.”
IF you don’t care what I write then why WHY do you just like to point out that you think I’m mad as a hatter? What do you get out of that?
Your unprofessional evaluation of my mental status based on blog humor is irrelevant and pretty much off-topic also.
And what if a blogger were really having mental problems? Is this how you’d treat that person?
January 21st, 2007 at 1:59 am
“WHY do you just like to point out that you think I’m mad as a hatter? What do you get out of that?”
I am the king of the obvious.
“And what if a blogger were really having mental problems? Is this how you’d treat that person?”
Absolutely. See above
January 21st, 2007 at 2:54 pm
gil, like a walking bird, you are so full of shit you can’t fly….
(ok, I just read that one today and you give me a good reason to use it.)
seriously tho, you have no right or authority to actually diagnose a person’s mental status, it is just you talking shit, finding a way to undermine the credibility of those with whom you disagree, and to call someone crazy repeatedly is very undermining.
second, you admit that you are so mean you would harrass a person that really does have mental problems. That is despicable.
You are not worthy of respect.
January 21st, 2007 at 6:18 pm
Oh no, I have lost the respect of Brenda. Whatever shall I do?
(Swoons, hand to forehead.)
Dim lights, drop curtain
End scene.
January 21st, 2007 at 6:35 pm
I was just typing a comment when my dog interfered with the keyboard. He doesn’t seem to have actually submitted the comment so I will try again.
Gil, the other day AO asked you for a haiku and I was sure you wouldn’t let her down. So I got into my zen-like haiku reading mood, but it was wasted — nada! Please? wouldn’t you like to invoke the muse?
January 21st, 2007 at 8:28 pm
One for Linda
Brenda’s Haiku
A foil-lined hat
Bizzare remarks from left field
Sucking salty shells
January 21st, 2007 at 11:14 pm
hey, there’s no foil in my hat! You got me mixed up with some other brenda?
January 21st, 2007 at 11:22 pm
brenda, ? gil likes you! Writing poetry for you!
gil & brenda
hugging in a tree
es-you-see-kay-eye-yen-gee!
she says “shucks”
he calls her nuts,
we all laugh so hard we pee…
January 22nd, 2007 at 7:59 am
Now that is funny
January 22nd, 2007 at 1:07 pm
oh, yes. HIGH-larious. (sacrasm intended)- references -to -pee- humor is very appealing to a 5 year old.
;^}