every time i see her now, in think of sneezing. in photos, she always has her elbow in front of her face. if it’s a video, she’s putting it in front of her face. if it’s a press briefing she’s having sticks moved around to puppet an elbow in front of a red, velvety face (i am desperately trying to avoid mentioning elmo here).
and when a national news guy sneezes into his hands, she manipultates (through her words and outraged facial expressions) his elbow too.
so the term ’secretary of sneezing’ came to mind this morning and as i ponder it more, i find myself looking for a more sleek, modern term.
secre-sneeze. sneezatary. secre…secre…secre-chooo.
kansas powerfrau (this isn’t negative, just german), former governor, pilates phenom and now sneezemander-in-chief.
anyway, let’s hope her efforts pay off. how can you not get nervous when you hear stories like the one we had this morning on kansas city’s morning news (weekday mornings 5-9 on newsradio 980 kmbz — tell a friend) — a 24 year old independence woman with the swine flu, died. 24 years old. 24!
scary stuff. and if it breaks out like they say it might, it’ll be nothing to sneeze at.
Uncategorized, the indoor voice chuck todd, e.j. becker, elmo, kansas city's morning news with e.j. and ellen, kathleen sebelious, sneezing
Got the new crackberry today from at&t and I’ll never get to sleep tonite because of it.
And the stupid thing keeps putting caps on words.
Oh well.
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if you listen to the show (and if you’re reading this, surely you listen to the show) you have a certain idea of how ellen and i communicate, because you hear it on the air. but that can be deceiving.
ellen and i work in a world where every 3 minutes there is something different to do, and it has to be done more or less on time and accurately or it sounds bad. if it sounds bad, we get annoyed. (if it sounds bad often enough, the big bad wolf comes huffing and puffing.) so there really isn’t alot of time to talk about things outside the execution of the show, yet somehow we manage.
the conversation ususally begins with a question (some time around 5:06 a.m.). if there’s time, the response will come before traffic and weather at 5:09. Undoubtedly the response generates another comment or question. depending on the morning, that might come zinging back across our luxurious mushroom-shaped desk while maj is talking or it may have to wait for brett’s best guess at what’s gonna fall from the sky that day. no time for a response again until after josh. see, josh brings m&m’s into the room and if we try to talk while he’s on the air, we get pelted.
anyway, another exchange or two between planning discussions and the mic is back open to do trivia with maj. the thing that seems to tickle ellen is when i’m throwing a comment back into her court (especially when i’m doing it emphatically) and mid-comment, i hit the red button and start the intro to whatever segment we’ve come upon — no break, no breath, no pause — straight from one topic into the next element. she always gives me this look like “someday you’re gonna hit that red button too soon….”
at some point, the discussion concludes and the next topic starts (and fits and starts). average length of a disjointed (yet complete conversation), probably less than 20 minutes. max. length, the whole show.
wonder what we’ll talk about tomorrow? tune in and find out.
rock’n'roll
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today provided one of those cool mornings where a big news event happens during the program and you have to figure out how to work the show around the fluid unfolding of events.
one of the high points was abc’s alex stone with us on the air as the airplane carrying the two ladies, just released from prison in north korea, rolled into the hangar in burbank california. alex had cancelled and re-booked the interview a couple of times in the 5 minutes prior because he didn’t know what he’d be doing (he has the fun job of actually being at the event but also has the most fluid of situations). then of course landing times change, you have to wait for the luggage to be brought off the plane and of course we have to let lisa ling on the plane before the important people get off.
all the while, you’re juggling the top of the hour news, sports, spots, monitoring multiple tv’s, listening to abc news make their warning calls over the loud speaker, checkin the internet, doing interviews and of course, traffic and weather on time, every time. (oh…and i gotta remember to tell neil we need another tv on the wall in there)
anyway, everybody finally comes off the plane, blah, blah, blah, yada yada and then the big surprise…nothing from president clinton. not a word.
humility? tired? or ordered not to speak before a debrief at langley?
these are the morning that make the job even more fun — when you come in expecting one thing and then everything turns on a dime. the key is to stay out in front and not to get hit in the apex of the turn.
thursday morning we have to remember to ask ann compton why the former president was silent.
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if the folks who layout the highways ever offer to let me be the guy who names the roads and determines where they intersect, i will seriously consider it. i will make sure this intersection is at least reconsidered before the signs go up.
at the very least, i will make sure there is a platform of some kind for folks who wanna take pictures so they don’t have to do what i did and smack the ticks off their legs after standing in the weeds.
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yes, i do see the virtues of a website like facebook when it comes to promotion of yourself or organizations (at the end of the day everyone is trying to sell something whether they recognize it, admit it or not) but i continue to lack understanding of the incessant use of this so-often narcissistic obsession in places and circumstances that seem so personal (to little old me of course, not to the masses who are looking to share every little shred of detail squeezed out of their existencae — the spell checker on this thing is worthless when it comes to pseudo latin) that you would want to take the opportunity to be “in the moment” (add that to the list of phrases that goes down in flames on my 737 (which is packed with words and phrases that annoy and then crashes into the deepest part of the ocean upon my command should i ever decide to give it) — it’s right up there with “outside the box,” i mean, think people…outside the box?) and share them with the people around you as opposed to the people you left back home because you didn’t want to be back there with the people you are otherwise forced to deal or work with on a regular basis and btw that’s why companies offer vacation so that you can get away from the grind and leave the crackberry behind (nice rhyme!) yet tweets or status updates or whatever f… — fb — is calling them now (whew, almost screwed that one up…and the b and the u aren’t even latitudinally close on the keyboard) flow from people on vacation. on vacation. on vacation.
well, if the people on the vacation with you won’t stop you, neither will this post.
rock’n'roll
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there are mornings you come in and think, “wow, more could be happening this morning” (drooping face, arms slack at sides).
there are mornings you come into the studio and discover that part of someone’s diary has been exposed to the public (rubbing hands together, evil smile on face).
and then there are the days when it’s the mayor’s wife’s diary that’s now out in the open (raised eyebrows, look of surprise, anticipation at the carnage that must be left on its pages). and it doesn’t disappoint.
of course, i don’t know how much she’ll make on a book that now everyone can read for free.
and yes, jeff bell makes it into the diary.
rock’n'roll
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i usually spend my evenings in front of the computer getting stuff ready for the next morning’s show. but sunday night i went into the office so that i could set up some equipment to do my bidding.
it’s odd to be in the office when no one else is there. it’s quiet. it’s peaceful. it’s distracting (because there’s nothing to distract you).
when we’re in there in the morning before the show, we’re all on our game. you know how it is when you’re under time pressure — one thing goes a little bit off-plan and everything that follows is outta whack? not so on sunday night.
there’s so little going on that you notice things you don’t otherwise see: you watch one of the 42 televisions that line every square inch of space on the walls in the room, take your time when you go to the filtered water machine (that makes the most disgusting tasting water you’ve ever had but it’s not the stuff coming outta the tap so you assume it MUST be better and go on drinking it even though it tastes worse and worse with each fill of the bottle…ick, ick, ick) instead of running because you have to finish writing business news or get back for traffic and weather on the 9’s (and they just keep coming, one 9 after another as if someone planned out that there should be 6 of the stupid things in an hour so that you can never really get a break of longer than 3-4 minutes and sometimes you need longer than that to warm up some food but you can’t because maj and johnny have to earn a living too) and you take a moment or two to search for that vacation package because you have time and the internet at home is so doggone slow (as a matter of fact i’ve already typed the words hazardous waste — which you won’t encounter for another 4 or five lines — but my internet connection is so slow that i’m only seeing THESE WORDS right now) and that leads to email, a check of the drudge report which undoubtedly leads to a story about some idiot who thought he was chatting with a 14 year old girl but guess what, it turned out to be a cop and the cop didn’t think the picture of his ‘thing’ was all that amusing which of course is followed by the story of the kid who fell into a vat of hazardous waste while texting and you actually begin to feel dumber for having come in on a sunday night.
that won’t happen again.
rock’n'roll
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it’s on a day like this, when i’m not sitting in front of a giant, red, digital clock that i realize how almost nobody takes time as seriously as we do. when ellen and i say it’s 7:02, it’s 7:02. period.
when, on your coveted day off, you go to latte land on the plaza for hot chocolate and a croissant and you arrive at 7:02 (the sign on the door lies that they open at 7), you’d expect to get served then. but no. latte land clocks actually run on an alternative time, at least five minutes behind everyone else’s.
it is now 7:11 and they’ve supposedly been open for 4 minutes.
so know ye this, when you hear us give the time, it’s the real time. when you ask for the time at latte land, you’re 7 minutes late…and still waiting on your coffee.
boy do i need vacation.
rock’n'roll
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if mark sanford is waking up this morning thinking, “who can i talk to about this,” the good news is the list is long and includes plenty of names we all know:
john edwards, gary hart, jim mcgreevey and elliot spitzer. and we haven’t even gotten into televangelists yet.
one thing’s for sure, if he loses his gig as the governor of south carolina, ellen agrees he has a potential career as a romance writer.
rock’n'nroll
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