Courtney Love Update

A few days ago, after watching the Pamela Anderson roast on Comedy Central, I wrote this:

There were too many comics reading their material. There was too much that wasn’t funny. And, if Courtney Love has really been off drugs for a year… wow, it’s just very sad.

It was sad… tragic to see. A train wreck with legs.

I have read some of Courtney Love’s writing, including a piece she wrote for Salon, aimed at a music industry audience. She’s really bright and well spoken. That only served to make her appearance more painful to watch.

Tonight I read this:

Tearful Courtney Love ordered into rehab facility

Aug 19 3:41 PM US/Eastern

By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A judge ordered a tearful Courtney Love into an in-patient substance abuse facility on Friday after the troubled rock singer admitted to violating the terms of her probation by using drugs.

Love broke down in quiet sobs as Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Rand Rubin warned that he was prepared to send her to jail because he felt she needed “to hit rock bottom” before she was ready to overcome her drug addiction.

The fact she tried to fool everyone only put off the inevitable.

I really wish her well. I know what she faces won’t be easy and she’s shown in the past, she’s capable of failure.

The Oscars

All week long I watched as Matt Drudge tried his best to stir up controversy with this year’s Oscar host, Chris Rock. Even after Rock opened the show, getting a standing ovation (sort of shooting Drudge’s concerns in the foot) and then asking the audience to put their asses in their seats, Drudge felt compelled to rail again. The show was still in progress and he was going off on Rock!

The must be some sort of Drudge grudge at work here.

I’m a big Chris Rock fan and I thought his opening monologue was great. OK, maybe he hit Jude Law a little hard, but the rest was really funny and I laughed aloud though I was watching in a room by myself. Of course the very stuff I liked was creamed in USA Today and lambasted last night by one of my co-workers, who was not favorably impressed.

The rest of the show was watched by me in ‘collapsed’ form off the DVR.

It was a fairly lackluster telecast. I was disappointed there wasn’t more of Rock in his other appearances during the evening. He needed to do more than hit and run. There needed to be one or two more extended pieces with him. That being said, I hear the ratings were very, very good. So, obviously, I’m not as good a judge as I’d like to be.

I was touched by the acceptance speeches of Morgan Freeman, Hillary Swank (“I’m just a girl from a trailer park who had a dream”) and Jamie Foxx. Then, this morning on CNN Headline News, I heard someone say Foxx had given the virtually same acceptance speech at two other awards shows. That’s not right.

Winner of the “David Niven Funniest Ad Lib Award” went to Jeremy Irons. Chris Rock introduced him, as “comedy superstar,” to which Irons replied, “It’s so good to be recognized at last.”

Then, as he was delivering his nominations, a sound… something like a gunshot, rang out. Without missing a beat, Irons said, “I hope they missed.” His timing was perfect.

Last night’s taped pieces, including the Johnny Carson tribute and annual “death medley,’ weren’t as good as I wanted, or had come to expect from the Oscars. Whoopie Goldberg was used in the Carson package, but why not Billy Crystal and Steve Martin, two recent hosts who had a lot of contact with Johnny.

I was also stunned that “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” won an Oscar. As I had written last April, it was one of the worst movies I had ever seen. What were they thinking when they made it and voted on it?

What strikes me as most interesting as bout the show was the rise in the ratings this year even on a night where few movies produced any kind of passionate following.

I wonder if Billy Crystal will be back next year?

Henry Gibson

I am working tonight, so I can’t watch “Boston Legal” as it airs. It is on here at work&#185, and I keep seeing it in monitors as I move around.

I am pleased to see Henry Gibson on tonight’s show. It looks like he’s playing a judge, but with the sound down, who can know for sure.

What makes Henry Gibson so interesting is, you can’t say his name without saying “Laugh In,” and that show hasn’t been on TV in over 30 years (1968 – 1973)! That his name is so well known, even now, might have something to do with his poems, which began, “A poem, by Henry Gibson.” So, he was not only seen, but identified by name.

I wonder if he minds being remembered this way and if, over time, “Laugh In” has been good or bad for his career?

&#185 – One of the seldom mentioned benefits of working at a TV station is virtually everyone has a TV at their desk.

UConn versus Army

There are more photos available from this blog entry by clicking here

I wasn’t going to let a sore toe stop me (actually, I would have, but the toe is getting a little better day-by-day). This was my day to shoot pictures at the UConn – Army game.

I left the house around 10:30 and drove to Rentschler Field in East Hartford. I knew where the field was, sort of. I had printed out directions off the computer, but chose to listen to the DOT’s radio station on 1610 kHz to get me where I was going.

Any time I’ve listened to DOT’s network of low power highway stations I’ve been disappointed. Usually, there was no usable timely info at all! Adding insult to injury, the broadcast is sometimes padded with time killers, moving you farther from the content you really want to hear. And the signal strength and audio quality are awful

Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?

This time was different. The station repeated a recording of simple directions to the field from all the major access roads. This is exactly what should be on.

I turned past the Pratt and Whitney property and followed the cars. If had no idea where to go with my parking pass, but the attendants along the way saw it and waved me in the right direction. I parked about 4-5 minutes walk from the stadium on what looked like well manicured grass.

Thank heavens it wasn’t raining! In fact it was partly cloudy and well into the 70s. In other words, perfect.

I met John Pierson, our sports reporter and Kevin Frederick (who normally shoots video for sports, but was at the game as a ‘civilian,’). I’m glad I ran into John because I don’t think I would have known where to go or what to do once I got into the stadium.

We made our way down to the field level. Both teams were on the field warming up. The stands were 25% full. By game time the teams would have left and returned for their official introductions and the stands would have filled closer to capacity&#185.

I carried my Canon Digital Rebel with the Sigma 70-300 mm lens attached. Over my shoulder was a small camera bag with an 18-125 mm lens, a spare battery and two extra compact flash cards.

By the end of the game… actually before the end of the game, all three cards were filled. That’s over 1 gigabyte of photos! The final count was 317 actual. That’s fewer shots than I anticipated by nearly a hundred. I’m not sure why this particular shoot created such big files.

If there’s one thing I learned at the game, it’s that I need one more card. The prices are down. I’ll order one later today.

John took me to the end zone section adjacent to where the Huskies would enter. He introduced me to four girls, including quarterback Dan Orlovsky’s sister. Then we went and met Dan’s father who has better seats than his daughter!

Dan Sr. and I chatted for a few minutes. Not knowing him, but knowing who his son is, I addressed him as Mr. Orlovsky. Respect under these circumstances is appropriate and fair.

I later found out he’s two years younger than me. Maybe the mister part wasn’t necessary?

There’s an interesting observation to be made here. I have often equated hurricane watching to seeing a car accident in slow motion. Watching Dan Orlovsky is like watching a Lotto winner in slow motion. You know it’s just a matter of time before he’s worth millions of dollars from the NFL. He’s got to know that too. He’s that good – probably a first round pick.

I was afforded an incredible amount of access and freedom on the field. Back a few feet from the out of bounds line and end zone was another line – a dashed line. As long as I stayed behind it, I was fine. It gave me an amazing view of the field.

I started shooting on the first play and soon learned it was very difficult to follow the action on a pass play with a lens. Following with a TV camera is one thing, but my still camera rewards someone who can anticipate where the ball will be in the fraction of a second it takes for the mirror in the camera to flip and the shutter to open.

Often, I’d have my camera at the ready as a play would start, but I’d never get anything to shoot. Other times the player would be turned away from me or blocked by someone else. Sometimes my camera, which is supposed to continually focus while shooting sports action, just wouldn’t focus quickly enough or would focus on something other than what I was tracking.

You can be the judge. I’ve taken forty of the best shots and put them in my gallery. The thumbnails don’t give you a sense of what was shot, so please click for larger versions.

At halftime I went under the stands to a small room for the on-field media. It was surprising to see a number of newspaper photographers downloading their shots onto laptops and sending them on their way. At least one photographer (New Haven Register, I think) was using Photoshop – processing and cropping her shots before an editor even saw them.

As I expected, I saw a lot of much faster lenses – big lenses with wide openings. One of the photographers had a humongously telephoto lens with f1.8 speed. He’s getting 8 times as much light as I am, giving him a great deal of latitude. On the other hand, I can still buy food, something I wouldn’t be able to do as the owner of that lens.

Most of these big lenses demand a monopod. They are too heavy to hand hold for long. The monopod is actually attached to the lens and not the camera body itself.

As the second half was starting I walked by the UConn bench and said hello to Jeff Fox, one of the players. I’m not sure if he got what I was trying to say… that we both had the same name (though one of us spells it incorrectly).

It is cool to have a player with the same name as me. He can’t be related though. None of my relatives, or their families, have any athletic ability at all!

By the time I was finished shooting the stands were back to being 25% full. UConn had cut through the Army like a hot knife through butter. It wasn’t a contest.

This was fun. I’d like to try again. I’m not sure I can quantify what I’ve learned from this, but I’d look back at my shots and try and figure out what worked and why and how I can do it again.

There are more photos available from this game. Just click here

&#185 – The game was a sellout, though that doesn’t mean everyone attended. There were plenty of empty seats.

Just Shoot Me Now

News ratings are dependent on a variety of factors. One of the most important, maybe the most important, is your lead-in. It doesn’t seem like it should be this way, considering how we all use the remote control, but it is.

Having a good lead-in means having a more prominent place to promote your show and the added spillover of those who were already on your channel when you come on.

It’s because of this that I am disheartened to see:

CHICAGO (AP) – Talk show host Oprah Winfrey celebrated the premiere of her 19th season Monday by surprising each of her 276 audience members with a new car.

Great. Unless Judge Judy solves the war in Iraq this afternoon, we head into 5:00 O’clock a little behind.

Boy Are My Arms Tired

On a trip, the most difficult thing for me is getting to sleep. No matter what I do, I always find a reason to put it off. So, it’s no surprise it was after 1:30 AM CST before I fell asleep. Actually, it would have been difficult to go to bed any earlier as I had a noisy neighbor in an adjacent room.

Good opportunity for some thoughts on The Grand Hyatt. The walls were paper thin – don’t like that. On the other hand the bed was very comfortable with good lighting when I needed it (like reading things on the nightstand).

The TV didn’t pull from it’s cabinet making it difficult to watch while using the computer (which was tethered to the high speed Internet line). The desk and chair at the DSL cable’s termination were excellent. The swivel chair was very handy and a nice touch… and it was comfortable .

I had never stayed in a room with the right chair for a desk area and it really makes a difference.

The bathroom was well lit with a good sized sink area. The shower curtain was cloth/plastic and hund from a rod that curved outward from the tub. That’s why Sunday morning, when I forgot to tuck it in, the floor was flooded. The water pressure was excellent. The towels were almost large and thick enough (water pressure and towel size/thickness make or break a hotel room for me).

My meetings started early Saturday morning and lasted all day. I am pleasantly surprised that I did get something positive from the trip. Most of the presenters were excellent, but not all. Most of the presentations were correct for the audience, not all.

That’s about all I can say. Sorry.

The meetings ended at 5:30 and after a break to wash my face, call home and check email, Kirk (my boss) and I headed over to WMAQ Channel 5, the NBC owned and operated station in Chicago. One of our former anchors, Darren Kramer, is now a weekend anchor there.

WMAQ is located in a brand new facility not far from the Tribune and WGN Radio. The building is an homage to 30 Rockefeller Plaza, the NBC headquarters in New York City. In a plaza in front of the building is a freestanding building containing a single studio with glass walls, like the one the Today Show broadcasts from. That studio is used for the morning news.

The newsroom, and studio used for the Saturday show is on the second flood of the building. The newsroom itself is large and contains a second studio used for Telemundo, NBC’s Spanish outlet. We met Darren’s co-anchor and the weekend weatherperson and then went upstairs.

WMAQ has three studios on the third floor – and uses none of them. One is leased to Jerry Springer, and I understand taping days for that show are a trip, to say the least. A second studio is used for Judge Mathis, a court show which used to precede our news cast (and provided horrible ratings as the lead-in). More interesting is what’s come of the third studio.

It is outfitted like 8H (Conan’s studio) in New York, with audience seating. On weekend nights, a live Sinatra tribute is performed (though not broadcast) from there. It’s a pretty cool idea. We were in the studio for a moment and the setup and performance going on were very impressive. The room was just right for what was going on.

Dinner was downstairs in an Italian restaurant. I’ve become pretty good at ordering while dieting. It was Caesar salad as an appetizer and a steak entr

Changing The Rules During The Game

I am not a meteorologist, but I do the same job as the three meteorologists I work with. Over twenty plus years, and with lots of study, I think I know what I’m doing… though that’s for my viewers to judge, not me.

A few years ago my boss thought it would be a good thing if my expertise in meteorology was acknowledged. He offered to pay the cost if I would obtain the Seal of Approval in Broadcast Meteorology from the American Meteorological Society. It would take a commitment on my part to complete a formal course of study to ‘legitimized’ my knowledge.

The best way to go about this was the Broadcast Meteorology program offered by Mississippi State University. I began classes in September 2002.

I am often asked if it’s an on-line program. The simple answer is, sort of. Lectures are given on DVD and video cassette. Tests, quizzes and access to teaching assistants is given on-line. There is a short trip to Mississippi required at the end of the 3 year program.

When I am finished, I will have 53 credits in meteorology and related subjects. The difference between this course and more traditional college meteorology programs is the math requirement. Here, it is fairly rudimentary with some statistics and algebra. In most other courses there is calculus involved.

There’s no doubt in my mind that Mississippi State specifically tailored this program to meet the AMS Seal requirements. Graduates of traditional programs often claim that the MSU program is inferior. However, for day-to-day broadcast meteorology, the MSU program is a magnitude order beyond what is needed.

I have often heard kvetching about how the MSU program cheapens the more traditional meteorology programs. And now, in an end around move, the AMS is changing the Broadcast Seal program in a way that will please the kvetches.

In a few years the AMS Seal will cease to be issued. Current holders (and hopefully I will be one by then) will be ‘grandfathered’ in.

Replacing the seal will be a Certified Broadcast Meteorologist program. The qualifications include passing a test and a degree in meteorology or equivalent. Right now, my guess would be that they will not consider the Mississippi State program equivalent, even though it requires more meteorology related subjects than most traditional programs.

This is a broadside aimed specifically at MSU. If this policy is enacted as proposed, the MSU program will quickly lose its reason for being.

I have been in touch with the director of the program at Mississippi State. A few weeks ago he seemed non plussed. Today I sense he is more concerned about what’s going on.

I have recommended that he make a personal presentation to the AMS boards which will make the final decision. A well thought out and prepared personal appearance might make a world of difference. He says that is his idea too.

Over one third of the broadcast meteorologists in the United States received their training from Mississippi State. Soon, I will too. I will have the qualifications for the AMS Seal late in the summer of 2005.

Emmy judging

I am a 7-time Emmy Award winner (OK – it’s the local rectangular base version, not that nice round national one – shoot me), so I have some sort of obligation to NATAS and will try and fulfill that by hosting an Emmy judging party for the St. Louis region next Saturday.

I found an email from the NWS in Taunton, MA and took all the email addresses from there. Hopefully, I didn’t miss too many people.

A long time ago, Helaine and I attended a judging session held at Channel 8. Good God! It is scary to think this is how it’s done. People were inattentive and we hardly ever got through an entire tape.

I hope to live up to that high standard at this session.

Here’s the letter I sent:

Hi (Insert Name Here),

I’m writing this extremely personal note on behalf of the Boston/New England Chapter of NATAS and the annual Emmy awards. As you may know, each year entries from our area are judged by our peers in other markets, where it doesn’t rain every day during the month of August and the dew point doesn’t stay above 70 for- – – oh sorry – – – I haven’t taken my medication yet.

Anyway, as we are judged, we are called upon to judge others. This year, it’s your chance to steal good lines and map drawing techniques as we watch the weather people from St. Louis, MO and environs.

Would you be willing to help judge? I have volunteered my house in Hamden, CT to host a judging session next Saturday (8-16) at noon. Pizza and soft drinks will be provided. Ivy the dog will be there for one-on-one petting sessions.

It’s your chance to meet some of your fellow weather people, tell us how awful your station’s owners and management are, and trash everything you see from St. Louis. You’ll get a better understanding why the Emmy always seems to go to some no talent… sorry… again no medication yet.

As an incentive to you in other states, many Connecticut State Police officers have pledged to write no tickets to anyone traveling below the current temperature (Celsius only). You folks in Boston should remember we schlep there every year for the actual Emmy ceremonies, so don’t kvetch.

Please let me know if you can attend. Detailed directions will be provided.

Your name and email address was actually plucked off an email from Glenn Field at NWS. If you’re now out of the business, selling cars, please excuse the intrusion.

All the best,

Geoff Fox

WTNH News Channel 8

ps – You know, most people read the “ps” before they read the letter.

Bob Hope – dead at 100

Bob Hope died last night at age 100. It was announced early today.

Over the past few years it has been sad to watch the Hope family milk Bob’s memory. It’s not like they don’t have all the money in the world already.

It’s been pretty well known that Bob was in sad shape for the last few years. Still, on the occasion of his 100th birthday the family attributed a pretty good ‘ad lib’ to him. Even in his prime Bob was written for. At this moment, who would believe he wrote the line at all? Why not let him live in dignity, without making up things to make him seem even larger.

As far as I’m concerned the true judge of Hope’s stature was his treatment on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson (I’ll use the show’s full name). Bob could walk in, at any moment, while any guest was on the air, and Doc and the band would play “Thanks for the Memories”, and Bob would sit down. And the other guest… too bad.

When Bob was done, he’d get up and leave. And he could do this anytime he wanted to.

That’s an achievement.