I’m at MOXXEE Coffee. I have a frozen Carmel cafelado and a lemon pastry. I’m outside under an umbrella, wind whipping through my way longer than usual hair. Let’s do this.
I’m sorry I’ve been away. I work and work and work. Free time is a valuable luxury that I haven’t wanted to use on a personal blog that I only maintain not for attention per se, but for a chronicle of my life.
I am a TV producer. No longer training. No longer observing. I go to bed at 10 p.m. starting on Sunday. I wake up at 6:30 a.m. Read news and email from bed on the iPad, then shower. I’m at the studio by 7:30 a.m.
My first show is the Noon news. By 9 a.m. I have the B, C, and D blocks done. B is money and national news. C is health and entertainment. D is where I put the kickers. At 9:30 a.m. I am in the morning meeting, learning what local news and visual elements I’ll have for the A block. At 10:00 a.m. I am deciding the order A block stories will go in and putting in producer commands and graphics. Between 10:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. I am making sure scripts and videos and coming in. At 11:30 a.m. I am doing a walk-through of the show with my director to make sure we have videos and graphics. At 12:00 p.m. I am boothing my show. At 12:30 p.m. I am writing a quality control report, detailing what went right and what went wrong.
My second show is the 5:30 p.m. statewide news. Same process as above mostly. But this time I have to pull scripts and video from our three sister stations in Beckley, Wheeling, and Clarksburg.
I’m home between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. I read my Flipboard, I do dinner with the girlfriend, I watch something over Xbox. I’m in bed by 10 p.m.
That’s why I’m glad for the weekend. I constantly look forward to Friday nights at the Red Carpet, sleeping in Saturday mornings, and getting to MOXXEE on Sunday afternoons.
I look forward to bonfires, beer, homemade pizza, and friends.
After last night’s bonfire Thomas asked me Sunday morning if I was angry. He said I seemed quiet.
I wasn’t angry, but I was quiet. I was in observation mode, taking joy in my friends and their conversations. One bouncing her baby on her knee while two others were showing baby bumps of their own. Guys talking about Flattop lake and politics. Putting another log on the fire.
It was just peaceful. I don’t get too many moments of pure peace.
Monday through Friday is fraught with drama. Whether it’s trying to set up a last minute live shot, or getting into a Twitter debate over political tactics. Drama is inescapable during the week.
My big battle is trying to tell Republicans in this state that they need to come up with something better than tying state Democrats to Obama.
Yes, this state is in the shape it’s in because of the kinds of Democrats the residents have elected here over the last 100 years, but that hasn’t exactly prevented these people from putting the same people back in office. They’re either extremely stupid, or they don’t care. I think it’s because they don’t care.
Democrats have a 2-1 advantage over Republicans here, though both parties have seen their ranks diminish as people escape for independent status. Why? Because both parties suck in this state. And I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
Republicans he would much rather make snarky comments about Democratic elected leaders. These things they do are funny for sure, but how do these things get you voters?
There are seriously problems in this state, and the longer I live here the more a realize that neither party is actually committed to making things better here. If I want to see battles between two sides that include snarky one-liners, then the originally G.I. Joe cartoon is in Netflix. I’ll just watch that.
Speaking of streaming, I hate SNL anymore, but I did like last night’s episode with Mick Jagger. Worth it to see The Arcade Fire perform, including covering Ruby Tuesday for Kristin Wiig’s goodbye skit.
http://www.hulu.com/embed/5CFCft1xvzV6DxubD2M9hw?shared_ad_id=104486


























