Radiohead in Charlotte, USA

I'm not certain I have a favorite band. There are several bands I really enjoy for different reasons. Back when Launch.com started back around the turn of the millennium I was working overnights for NBC NewsChannel. I spent hours listening to bands I sort of knew, and bands I didn't know at all. All I knew of Radiohead was that song Creep which I hated because the girl I was in love with in high school told me that was going to be she and her boyfriend's wedding song. She ended up marrying another guy by the way, and I don't think Creep was played at her wedding. Anyway, I heard a few Radiohead songs on launch and decided they didn't suck so off I went to Border's one night before work, picked up their 1995 album called The Bends and I listened to it, and only it for damn near six months. Of course, that burned me a bit on the band until 2003 when they released Hail to the Thief and I was in love all over again. I wore that CD out that summer in my 84 Volvo that had no breaks, but a great CD player. Anyway, Radiohead has always been one of my favorites. Perhaps my favorite.

I bought for tickets to see last week's show a few months ago. Shawn, Campbell and his pal Tracy joined me Friday night. Shawn and I grilled out and got there early for pre-show beer drinking. When I went beer shopping Friday afternoon I grabbed a 12 pack of High Life Light. I wasn't certain that'd be enough so I grabbed a six pack of Milwaukee's Best Ice. I HIGHLY recommend Beast Ice for pre-show drinking. It packs an alcohol volume of 5.9 percent and really jump starts a good show. Well, maybe it was the Stanly County shine we found in Shawn's van. It was definitely one of the two.

The show was great. Sure they played a bunch of slow songs, but it was Radiohead. They do that a lot and it wasn't unexpected. They played one song from The Bends in the first encore. Planet Telex whipped a ton of ass and despite all of the slow songs, Radiohead did, too.

Cleaned Up

I finally broke down and got a haircut last week. I enjoyed the long hair, but there were moments when the breeze hit right and I quickly became the weird looking dude with long hair and male pattern baldness. I remember one time in Vegas between convention halls the wind got a hold of it and it stood straight up for several seconds. I bet it looked real weird with a six inch piece of hair towering over an obvious receeding hairline so my pal Amy cut it off. More than I thought. Now I've the same haircut I've had for most of my life. I'm older though, so instead of looking like Doogie Howser, I look like Lane Kiffin.

Cleaning Out the Cell Phone Part Two

Broders and I went to Charleston last summer for the CNN YouTube democratic presidential debate. It was surprisingly easy and painless to cover despite the amount of press. I remember the food being really good, too. We talked to Anderson Cooper and he was actually a heck of a nice guy. I wasn't expecting him to be rude or anything, but he was very cool. So cool that a local reporter embarrassingly asked to take a picture with him after the interview. Weak.
Broders got somewhat excited when we saw Candy Crowley. I had never seen or heard of her until that night. That's how much CNN I watch. I'm a Fox guy for news and MSNBC for politics. CNN has never done it for me. I think I remember her being pretty nice, too.
Our Raleigh Sports Director Jim Connors came down for the ACC tourney in March. I was running audio for the show when I looked up during a package and realized the size difference between he and Solarte. All it took was a couple of director's chairs to make Solarte look more of a giant than he already is.

I had a pretty good view of the NCAA regional final in Detroit between Davidson and Kansas. I wasn't sure if I could take a picture or not so please excuse this poorly framed shot. If you look closely on the far left, you can see Stephen Curry.

Lots of racin' the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned...

Cleaning Out the Phone Part 1

I miss having Jason Bronis around the QC. I also miss his wonderful blog he shut down a year or so ago. My favorite feature of his was Cleaning out the Cell Phone pictures. I had two hours to kill whilst waiting for Michelle Obama Monday afternoon so instead of blogging about that event, I decided to clean out several of the hundred or so pictures I had in my phone. Thanks for the idea, Bronis. Holly at The Gin Mill got Travers, Mark Campbell and myself tickets to see The Flaming Lips. This was last fall sometime. September maybe? Hell, maybe even August. I'd only heard wonderful things about The Flaming Lips' live shows and I took the day off to make sure I got in. A cooler of Milwaukee's Best Ice and this yellow coozie were my best friend that afternoon. I got a pretty good spot in line and drank the aforementioned beverages while I waited for the doors to open.
The four of us(Kathy literally landed from Ireland an hour before the show) rolled inside and were handed laser pointers. As soon as the show started they released fifty or so of these big assed balloons for everyone to volley around for the duration of the show. This of course was accompanied by several dancers dressed up in Santa Claus suits, robot suits and even a few bunny suits if I remember correctly.
The laser show was nuts. Everyone in the crowd had their own to compliment the ones they had on the stage. The entire show whipped ass from start to finish. The band even blew their system before their final song so they had to finish up acoustically. It didn't matter. I left this show feeling great about life in general. Perhaps the best show I've ever seen. Definitely in my top three along with U2 in 2001, and The Drive-By Truckers with Slobberbone in 2000 at The Double Door.
Did I mention Jennifer and I went to New York City in December? We both enjoy the city and had never been at Christmas time so we rented an apartment on Craig's List and spent three days up there doing a shit ton of walking, bag shopping, eating and bar hopping. In fact, I bet we had 20 drinks while we were there and each one of them came from a different bar. We had a great time walking around looking at Christmas decorations. Above we're standing in front of Fox News Channel. Tim Baier's bro hooked us up with a tour. Unfortunately Shep was in makeup. The McGraw-Hill Building is to the left of my melon. It's the home of Sirius! We couldn't get in, though. I also bought this rather gay looking toboggan since I left mine at home. Feel free to leave toboggan comments in the comments section.
We did get into Crumb's Bakeshop, home of the Artie Lange cupcake. It only cost about 4 bucks and it's freaking enormous. Tasty, too. We had a blast in NYC. Everyone thought we were going to come back to Charlotte engaged.

Disappointed

I continued my run of seeing local shows last Tuesday night. I screamed out of work and made it to The Visulite in time to catch most of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. I had been looking forward to this show for months. They play a lot of BRMC on Sirius and the band has been getting a lot of good hype lately. Unfortunately, they really sucked. Maybe it was just me, but they did nothing for me. I like that they were really loud, but Brian Wilson pointed out one of the singers sounded a lot like Shirley Manson who fronts Garbage. There's nothing cool about a dude that sounds like Shirley.

I went to the show solo figuring I'd run into someone I knew and I'll be damned if lots of good people were there. I was thinking earlier that afternoon I'd only been to the Thirsty Beaver twice. Dear friends of mine open a bar and I've been there twice in the four months it's been open. That's disgusting. I'm an asshole. At least I got to see Brian and Shelia at the show. Campbell was there downing Rolling Rocks and Dan Freakin' Dunn was there, too. Brian and I worked with Dan in Mooresville years ago and he now works for Speed. Danimal whips ass. Brian, Campbell and Shelia whip ass, too. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club doesn't.

What Happens in Vegas, Stays on This Blog Part 2

After spending Tuesday at the show, it was time to take a nap, hit the tables again and enjoy the annual CNN Newsource Party. It's at a hip club every year and LAX was a suitable location for this year's party despite the performance by Kool and The Gang. Typically these clubs are filled with people that look like the young lady in the red dress pictured above, but the CNN party is always filled with people that look like, uh, well those guys pictured above. Here's some commentary from Travers regarding the weird look on his face in that picture with the cocktail waitress.

"I was thinking 'what the hell should I do with my hand?' She's too hot to touch. I was holding my hand in a fist and I didn't know what to do with it," said Jim.

Most of you know I don't drink liquor since I love it so much and alcoholism is rampant in my extended family. I do make an exception for this open bar party, though. Seven or Eight Crown and Cokes later, I must say I felt great and had no hangover Wednesday morning! We left the party and cabbed it to the Hard Rock for some quality time at the $10 tables. We were playing with a nice couple from LA who were playing no less than $100 every hand. He wasn't winning but was still having a great time. In fact, we spent the better part of two hours at that table quoting Will Ferrell and Adam Sandler movies with these nice strangers. Vegas is nuts. I love it so.

Since Baier and I had the bright idea of taking the red eye back Wednesday, we had an entire freakin' day to "waste" in Vegas. We started at The Wynn for lunch and unsuccessfully tried sneaking into the pool. We did however lose some money at the tables while the married, middle aged pit boss awkwardly flirted with me. Out of nowhere she kept asking me if I was married and had kids and if I was going to come back to The Wynn for a bachelor party. It was weird and I think it affected my luck. We left and continued our tour of casinos spending an hour or so in the sports book at Caesar's. What a wonderful place that is. I could see myself getting into sports gambling if I lived in Vegas, so I'm glad I don't live there. Kinda. We left Caesar's and made our way through The Pallazo, Venetian and Paris.
Our final stop was The Bellagio. I've never stayed there but every time I set foot in that place I have a great time. Whether it's walking around the poker room watching pros play or watching the water shows, it's a good time. Tim and I sat down at the tables one more time and I made quite a run that made me feel a lot better about my time and money spent in Vegas.

Baier and I were in Vegas for less than fifty hours and slept maybe eight of those. It was the perfect amount of time there. I wish we'd had more time at the show and I wish I had more time to meet up with some photogs from across the country I'd really like to meet or see again, but there's so much to do it doesn't leave much time for things like that. I desperately hope to make this an annual trip. It's full of good times and that show never gets old. Don't get me wrong, Maine is beautiful this time of year, but it's tough to beat Las Vegas.

What Happens in Vegas, Stays on This Blog Part 1

Baier and I got back from Augusta that Sunday night shortly after midnight. 14 hours later we were on a plane to Vegas for NAB. Following the Hartsfield Airport Councourse A Bar Crawl, we got into Vegas shortly after nine, met up with Travers, hit the tables, drank beer for several hours, then got up six hours later to head to the big assed show. I mean BIG ASSED SHOW!
Panasonic's big assed plasma was one of the first things we saw. It really was a BIG ASSED PLASMA! And it looked freakin' amazing even though they were only showing safari videos.
My favorite part of the show is always the new trucks. Every photographer in the country that went to the show raved of WRAL's big blue one up there. It was one of the better Frontline trucks there. I'm loyal to Frontline since it's the only truck I've ever used, plus the rep's a good dude and brings new trucks to town when he has one.
My favorite truck was this Evolution sat buggy from TEC. A Ford Escape Hybrid with serious uplinking power. An inverter and satellite controller filled up the back hatch and you could drive all over the country without anyone knowing you could blast a broadcast quality hole through the atmosphere with your Ford Escape. That's badass. Unfortunately the TEC sales dude started his pitch by ripping other truck companies. That's a pet peeve of mine so Baier and I moved along.
115,000 geeks attended this year's show. I can't even begin to describe how big this show is. It filled three convention center halls. Two floors each and had so much neat shit in there we could have easily spent five days looking at stuff, never getting bored.

Twice in Lifetime

There's a pinnacle in every facet of one's professional life. For football players, it's winning the Super Bowl. For an attorney, I imagine it's winning a case in front of the Supreme Court. For the rapist, I mean therapist, it's helping someone who's at their lowest, become a happy, successful human being. For the news photographer who has played golf their entire life, it's covering The Masters Tournament.
A few months ago Tim Baier applied for credentials thinking we had little chance. Augusta National Golf Club doesn't sell any new tickets much less give two credentials to a cable news station two states away that has never covered the tournament before. A few weeks later, Tim got the call that we were approved by the club to cover the tournament. It took some selling to our news director, but thank God he sent us. This was indeed the greatest assignment I've ever received. The hallowed fairways of Augusta were greener than any hippie can pretend Earth Day is. Even the fescue several hundred yards away from the course where we did our live shots from was that green. We turned some feelgood stories about North Carolina golfers Johnson Wagner and Drew Weaver playing in their first Masters. We also did one with a guy from Greensboro who had been to every Masters tournament since 1977. That was good, but the best part was waking up knowing you'd spend the workday at the most beautiful place I've ever seen. I haven't seen a lot, but I can't imagine anything more beautiful than this golf course. The beauty, history, Tiger's presence, the big assed oak tree we stood under waiting to get sound every day, the way you can tell the difference between a crowd roar for Tiger and a crowd roar for every other golfer. All of these things made for an incredible four days. A four days I may never experience again since we're not guaranteed credentials again next year.
Augusta rules prevented us from shooting any golf, but we were on the putting green for the green jacket ceremony. It's not often I sincerely smile when behind my camera, but when Zach Johnson hoisted Trever Immelman's green jacket upon his Nike emblazoned shoulders, my smile was ear to ear and indeed sincere.

Davidson in Detroit Part Two

Thursday we were welcomed to Detroit with a shit ton of snow. It was really only about four inches, but when it was snowing, it was big assed flakes falling sideways. Here's a look at it from the 25th floor of our hotel. It snowed like hell.
It definitely sucked, but since we had no snow in Charlotte this year, I was alright with it. I suspect if I had to shoot video of the snow and feed it back, I would have not been ok with it.
If you're covering a major event, pray to Jesus Byron Goggin is running the Sat truck lot. He knows the deal and it shows the minute you pull in and he directs you where to park. Byron spent years covering sports. He's since seen the light and went out on his own a while back, but Ford Field hired him to deal with us the entire weekend. He rented a sweet generator providing us plenty of power, rented the riser with plenty of room for stations from five markets to do live tv and made sure we all had coffee and hot chocolate at all times. Efforts from Byron made this event an absolute pleasure to cover. It was in no way the enormous pain in the ass covering large sporting events typically are. We even had a fleet of golf carts and drivers to transport us from the sat buggy lot to the media entrance. It whipped ass. The NCAA, NFL and anyone else that deals with media for a large event should immediately hire Byron and all media will be happy. Even sat truck operators.
It's an unspoken rule in tv when on the road, you must drink. It's probably like that in other professions, too. Regardless of what kind of day you had, or how early you have to get up the next morning for live shots, you have beverages with your colleagues. More than one. Luckily the hotel bar had a dynamite staff, a kitchen that stayed open until 12:30 every night and buckets of Budweiser on sale for the duration of the tournament. DK, Welch, Ridley and others from Charlotte and around the country gathered downstairs every night for buckets. Hotel bars are a neat place. People drink with reckless abandon because they only have to make sure they can stumble to the elevator to get home. We kept it fairly calm despite multiple buckets each night.

Thanks to the efforts of David and Ryan, we were able to put make some spectacular television from Detroit. It's amazing what happens when you have three people that don't suck at their jobs and care about what their feeding back to North Carolina. We send nothing but top quality tape back home and I'm damned proud of it. I think when you're with people who care about what they're doing, they're better company, too. We had a blast together.

Parts of Detroit may not be much to look at, but the people are spectacular. The town is full of characters. Good characters who were friendly and sincerely welcomed us everywhere we went. It may have been Syed the barback, Byron the Truck Lot guy, Boy Wonder the golf cart driver or one of the many shuttle bus drivers that transported us to the field from the hotel and back several times a day. I loved the people of Detroit. It's enough to make me want to return for another event. I never would have thought that on the way up. I can sincerely say I mean it now.

Because of those wonderful people, I purchased a Detroit Tigers hat and became a fair weather fan for the summer. The Tigers promptly ran out to an 0-4 start. Sorry guys.

Davidson in Detroit Part One

Last Wednesday David Kernodle and I jumped in Sat Buggy 2 and got it up I-77 to Detroit to cover Davidson's run in the Sweet 16. I took the first tank of gas. David took the second tank. This may seem odd for a reporter to be driving a live truck but David's not your average reporter. He's the kind of reporter who pulls cable, power and sets up a light while you're raising the mast. The kind of reporter that would rather edit his own tape. The kind of reporter who got his start as a photographer. You know, the kind of reporter you hope you draw when heading on a road trip that would need efficient news gathering in order to create good television that will make the bosses happy. Needless to say, I'm glad David got the call.
The drive up was uneventful. I-77 through Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia and Ohio. West Virginia brought back some good memories of my summer trips to work on houses in High School. Ohio was boring but I felt comfortable since Jennifer and her family are from there. A few miles south of Cleveland we took the Ohio Turnpike west for one hundred dreadful miles to Toledo where we picked up I-75 north to Detroit.
Detroit is different. To be honest, of all the Midwest bracket destinations in NCAA history, I wondered why we had to draw Detroit. It was a town I'd heard few good things about. Why we couldn't go to Chicago or Indianapolis or Minneapolis or maybe a place I actually wanted to go? All I knew of Detroit was car sales are down which equals fewer jobs which economically equals bad things. As recently as a couple of weeks ago I saw a story on one of the national shows about a Detroit suburb where $300,000 houses were selling for $150,000 due to the heinous market conditions. I wasn't terribly excited about going to Detroit, but I kept an open mind. We arrived before ten Wednesday night, Welch picked us up and we headed to the hotel for food and beverages.
Ford Field will host the Final Four next year so this years Midwest Regional was a trial run for the venue. It was tremendous. 72,000 people could comfortably fit inside the building to watch the basketball games. Some of the seats were really, really far away from the court. Regardless, the setup was well done and looked terrific.

Seeing Davidson this far along in the tournament was great for news. It was great for me, too. When I worked in Mooresville as a sports director, all I covered was NASCAR, high school sports and Davidson. I shot every men's and women's basketball game at Davidson. The men's team never sucked. They were always a well coached group of smart Americans and others from around the world. This year was different thanks to a star, an exceptional point guard and the support of an entire nation. It was neat to see Davidson staff members I used to drink pints with at the Davison Depot get interviewed by CBS, ESPN and Sports Illustrated. Ten years earlier, I was trying my damnedest to get them to go on camera with me at PrestigeVision 4. From really small time cable to national darlings. It was great to see good people do so well.

The Return of Kathy

At least once a year I look forward to Kathy making her return to Charlotte, USA from Dublin. This time, she brought her entire family! Kathy, brother Keith and parents Dolores and Jimmy rolled into Charlotte and promptly bussed it down to Savannah for the St. Patrick's Day celebrations. For whatever reason I didn't get to see them the week they were in town until the night before they left!
We went to the Gin Mill for some send off beverages that consisted of cold beer and Kathy's favorite Stoli Vanilla and Diet Coke. She drinks a dozen every night when in America because she can't get it in Ireland for some horrible reason. Tons of people were there for the party including Jennifer, TV's Kris Cook, recently engaged Christy and Pete, Travers, Mark Campbell, Tim Baier and others. It didn't suck one damned bit.

I feel like an asshole very time Kathy comes to town. She always thinks of something Irish to bring me. This time it was a six pack of Smithwick's in cans, something I love and can't get here. She also brought Jennifer and I a set of Irish Silver napkin holders for an engagement present. It's those thoughtful, simple things Kathy always does that makes her great and makes me wish it was easier for her to live here in America than every freakin' illegal immigrant down South Blvd. Regardless, it's so good to have her here, even if it's only a few days a year.

Tunes

I'm continuing my effort at keeping my personal promise to go to more shows this year. I'm terribly glad I did. A few days ago I saw Stars at The Neighborhood Theatre. They only played for a little more than 90 minutes but it felt like three hours. They whipped a ton of ass for Canadians. Speaking of the Neighborhood Theatre, it used to be a neat place to see a show. Now it is a sensational place to see a show. They finally took the seats out main area creating a great place to stand and see a rock show. I hate sitting at shows and that was always my gripe about the Theatre. Thank God they've mixed it up.
A few weeks ago I saw Built to Spill at the Theatre. They are another band I heard on Sirius and really enjoy. Plus, the Meat Puppets opened. They were weird and I didn't really care for their music, but it was only three guys. A drummer, bassist and lead guitar and they were really loud and had a good time which means the crowd enjoyed them, too. Built to Spill was interesting. Five members playing some neat sounds brought together by the lead singer's unique voice. Speaking of the lead singer, it's great to see a short dude with male pattern baldness front a whip ass band.

These last couple of shows have given me hope for the music scene here in Charlotte, USA. It's rare a band I really want to see plays here. Normally they'll hit Asheville then head to the Raleigh area for another show. Maybe the promoters in town are realizing they can get enough people out for an indie rock show. The Stars and Built to Spill were packed. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club is next up in a couple of weeks.

Bubba

I've seen a lot of famous people in my lifetime. Even some presidents. Friday I was able to cross Bill Clinton off my list. He came to the smokey VFW on Central Avenue to pimp Hillary for President. He was scheduled to arrive at 12:30. Bill has never been famous for being on time so I figured it'd be around 1:00. After rounding up a few Clinton fans from the patio at the restaurant next door to fill up the room, Bill walked into the VFW around 1:30.
What an assclown. Instead of showing up on time he kept 80 war veterans and their wives waiting for him for more than an hour while he went to a watering hole for a veggie burger with his former chief of staff. DOUCHEBAG! I've never been a huge Clinton fan, but now I really don't care for him. He's an inconsiderate clown. Fuck Bill Clinton.

In other news, it was an easy day of work. No security. I was thirty yards from the president and realized later I had my Leatherman on me the entire time. Secret Service was there, but didn't sweep us. Weird.

St. Patrick's Day Part 2

We are loyal to the Gin Mill which meant we had to make it there for one pint before the last train left uptown. We waited a while for the train which gave Campbell time to catch a "nap."
Here's the inside of the train car which is like every other train car in America I guess. These don't smell bad yet since they're only a few months old. The train has been rather convenient since service began, especially after beer drinking.
Once at The Gin Mill, we had to work fast. We arrived at 12:52 and the last train left the Bland St. stop at 01:08. The three of us stumbled in to a small crowd finishing the last of their pints. I vaguely remember ordering two Smithwick's. Evidently I paid for them. Travers and I finished ours at 1:06, hauled and made the train despite Solarte trying to force another beer on us and Travers busting his ass as we got to the train.We jumped off the train at the Woodlawn stop, a mere 7/10's of a mile away from Travers' house. The walk was easy after so many beers and here's a picture we took only because of those many beers.

I got hammered St. Patrick's Day. Extremely inebriated. I haven't been that drunk since every Panthers game day from 2001-2005. I don't go out to get drunk, but once I got to Connolly's with a train for a ride and a place to crash it was off to the races. I even had two or three pints of Guinness which I never drink. It didn't matter. Looking back, I even did some dancing Monday night. I never do that either, which means I was indeed goober hammered.

I paid dearly for it Tuesday. I slept terribly, waking up several times shivering even though I wasn't cold and the walk back to the train station the next morning was brutal. 7/10's of a mile is much worse hungover. I had to stop at the Walgreen's to get a bottle of Gatorade and a bottle of water. Tuesday was a rather long day at the shop, too. Needless to say I got no sympathy from Jennifer.

I can't say I won't get that drunk again, but it won't be next week.

St. Patrick's Day Part 1

I'm not Irish. I don't think it's anywhere in my heritage. I love Irish beer, though. That means I love Ireland, their people and traditions like St. Patrick's Day. I was able to leave work around 7:30 and headed straight to Connolly's for pints a plenty. Travers, Campbell, Tim Baier and others were already there and had been for quite some time which made me feel I was way behind and needed to drink quickly. More on that later. Connolly's was pretty crowded, but not as crowded as I thought it would be St. Patrick's Day. Tim Baier was whipping the dance floor's ass. This attractive young lady was digging his moves so much she was embarrassed and didn't want her face shown on the interweb. Either that or she had a boyfriend in another town and was out pickup up dudes in this town. Either way, Baier owned the dance floor.
Clint Bowyer was walking around Connolly's for several hours waiting for someone to recognize him. I felt bad for him. Your average NASCAR fan wouldn't recognize Bowyer without a Jack Daniel's hat on. Despite Charlotte being the home of 75 percent of NASCAR, uptown isn't exactly a place where being a race fan is cool. Thus it would take someone like Weaver or several television news professionals like us to realize, "Hey, it's the #07!" He took time out from chatting up a young lady for Tim Baier to snap this picture. I tried to act like I couldn't believe it was really him. I figured it'd help him with the young lady. I'll assume it didn't. Bowyer was cool, but he's no Mr. Excitement. Your Friendly neighborhood police officer Tim took a few minutes off from text messaging to make an appearance. Tim recently led the CMPD hockey team to a 4-3 victory over the CFD squad a couple of weeks ago in front of several thousand fans at the Bobcat's arena. Tim scored a goal and fought the fire department's best player in the third period. It was a good, old fashioned hockey brawl that lasted almost a minute. It was an even fight that Tim actually won since he was on top when it was finally over. It didn't suck.
At one point in the evening, I went inside to get a pint and ran into Caputo as he was coming out. As we met, we both noticed this guy in a Portland TrailBlazer's jersey. Caputo was hoping for a Drexler, I was hoping for a Duckworth. When we asked the guy who Matt Hill was he informed us it was a good friend of his who died. A good ten to fifteen seconds of awkwardness ensued.