TV Time out

The inside of a television studio is a busy thoroughfare. I say, "thoroughfare," not only because it is a place where people are running about like decapitated fowl, each individual having it's own, fuzzy destination and wrinkle-inducing deadline. That's a given: a brightly lit tempest with a disposition as stormy or as clear as the weather report.

("Scotch, scotch, scotch. I love scotch." "How now brown cow?")

But in the wee hours of a Saturday morning, as the talent and crew prepare for the "morning show," it looks like a bizarro marketplace. There's a chef frying plantains in one corner of the room, which to an unsuspecting audience would appear as a fully functional kitchen. The sweet aroma of the sizzling tropical fruit pervading...In another corner, there is a full band warming up for a performance, which to the aforementioned, unsuspecting audience, would appear as if on a stage. In another corner, there is a collection of computer monitors and high-tech-looking gadgets that serve as the source of all those rumors of snowfall and the solemn predictions of below-freezing temperatures. The king of that castle, the meteorologist, can be seen easing a comb through his Ken-like coiff as he winks, making mental notes of the puns he will dish out on-air. Still, in another corner, the pretty-looking anchor sits under the studio lights and in front of a back screen painted to look like the city newsmarket. She's adjusting her posture and practicing a reading of her lover and crutch, the teleprompter. The producer flits in and out of the "marketplace" throwing scripts at people and yelling something about time and deadlines. The camera-ops whisper and giggle over the latest station gossip, or complain about their wives, depending on the mood of the studio.

That was the state of things when RM and I walked in Saturday morning. We were there at an obnoxious hour for a Saturday morning, under the pretenses that we were to coach Erin Harkes on the details of the Tim Gray Memorial Fundraiser (to be held that evening) as she went live on the show with her blues band. We were late, thanks to misdirections and lack of sleep. I drove and let RM off at the door. I found a place to park and ran in myself, not expecting to bust in on the bizarro bizarre that is Saturday morning at a television studio. Almost immediately, the producers hooked a wireless mic to RM and prepped him for air. The fact that RM was going to be on live television in a New York minute was even less expected from both our perspectives, but then again, it should have been. That's another thing about a live TV studio: if you're there and you know anything about the topic to be covered, you go on the air. Live, local and in your face.

As they beckoned for RM to step into the limelight, he mouthed a quick, "call my mom!" The dutiful girlfriend that I am, I waited until the next commercial break and surreptitiously punched his brother's number. He answered groggily, with as clear a head as one could have at 8 AM on a Saturday morning.

"Turn on Newschannel 13!"

"Who? Whaaa?"

"Turn on channel 13! Shit, I gotta go." I slammed on the end button just as the anchor started up her peppy dialogue concerning the most recent deaths in Iraq. I caught her stealing a glance at me as I tried to hide the evidence that I had made a starstruck phone call to mommy because my boyfriend's gonna be all famous on TV!

Real or imagined, I immediately took offense. After all, I've been on air as an anchor in the #3 market while she lords over measly market #55...of course my stint on the big air waves was in a student production on public television. Probably the only person watching was my great Aunt Joan out in Joliet, who called me up afterward and politely reminded me that the city was pronounced "Shih-caw-go" and not "Shee-cah-go," as my ignorant New York accent would have it. But my point is, I ain't no amateur. I can sell my shit at this market too!

And it turns out, so can RM. He told the Capital Region about the generosity of his good friend Tim Gray, and the appropriateness of a scholarship in his memory. The murder of Tim Gray was big news four years ago when it happened. Juicy fodder for newscasts, sadly: a young man murdered by his fiancee's jealous and deranged ex-boyfriend. RM had a few seconds to explain everything behind the fundraiser for this scholarship, and he did well, considering his interviewer (the anchor) asked him three seconds before air, "so you put this band together for the party tonight?" There was a split second that lasted an eternity where the only sounds in the air were the sizzling of the plantains and the sound of brains struggling to think. It was like RM swooped in and saved the day once the camera lights went red.

One of the first lessons they taught us in journalism school (besides checking the facts before going on the air) was that the world is a marketplace of ideas. Well it's a marketplace, for sure. After the show ended, the band left, the chef packed up his kitchen and the weatherman re-gelled his hair. Their wares sold, they called it a morning. We called it a morning too, and went back to bed as soon as we got home.