Behind the Scenes
Okay, so I pull up to the guard gate. An older gentleman comes out of his box and asks me who I am. My wife is already parked to the side, waiting for me because I got caught on I-75 behind a truck that had spilled something or other. He tells us to drive around the building to the rear. We get there and there's a little sign indicating the guest entrance. We pass by the deck where the weatherman stands outside to do the weather sometimes.
There's a phone on the wall once we go through a sliding door. The sign indicates I need to call extension 103. A man answers and tells me he'll be right up. Al Johnson is a 50-ish looking, well-kempt man with an earring. He opens the door and greets us and leads us down the hall to the green room. There's a television in the room high up in the corner, tuned to, of course, Fox 2.
We giggle and whisper to each other, sitting in a black leather love seat with a small coffee table between us and a wall mirror with a rectangle of globular light bulbs around it. My mind drifts to what I'll look like with all that pancake make-up on.
Al returns with two sheets of paper and tells us there'll be a teaser at 8:07 and that I'll be on the air with Anqunette at 8:13.
Suddenly this is real. My nerves are on par with how I feel just before the phlebotomist stabs the giant gauged needle in my arm and sucks out a pint of blood (I truly hate needles). But this is a good thing. Oh wait a minute--I guess donating blood is too.
Al steps away again and returns a few minutes later.
"You ready to go?" he asks.
"If you are," I say.
I look over at my wife and she's beaming. I have the sensation I have a deer in the headlights look and I follow Al out of the room. Al walks fast. I'm a little taller and have no problem keeping up. He takes me into a control room and into a glass box.
The lady sitting at the mix board or whatever it is doesn't look behind her, but she knows I'm there.
"Be with you in a sec."
Ben Bailey is doing the weather and when the time is appropriate, she turns and grabs a mike base (I'm guessing that's what it's called. I'm not wearing a tie or a jacket and she remarks on this as she has to get a little creative to mike me. She threads the mike underneath my shirt, clipping the bud about midway up. Al weaves around some more and we go into the studio.
He leaves me by the studio couch to go speak with a couple of union-looking guys behind the cameras. He comes back for me and has me stand behind the middle camera and exits. I could see the anchors from where I was, but now I can only see the tops of Alan Lee's and Anqunette's heads. Off to the right Kam Carmen is finishing a story on the President.
The first thing that strikes me should have been more obvious. There's a lot of time between read times for each anchor person. Even though I can't see Q and Alan live, I can see Al through the camera. His face is very... animated to say the least. The commercial break comes and Kam leaves the studio. We smile and say 'hello' to each other as she passes.
The bigger of the two union guys takes the 3 books I have and sets them on a small table in his area. The other one asks Q something in studio-jargon about a rattail or something else. She replies she wants the rattail. He wheels a table out like you'd see up against a window in a Starbucks, including two high-standing, low-backed stools.
Q leans over and waves for me to come on over. I step over the myriad of cords like thick lizard tales and look up to see her stand. She's a giant. I wouldn't have guessed she was that tall. Well, how tall I'm not sure as it is for the briefest of glances and she is wearing heels as she steps down from the platform where the newsdesk is. Best guess, I'd say she's 5'9". We shake hands and make chit-chat while I attempt to adjust to the glare of a floodlight's younger brother high up near the ceiling.
The break's over and Ben Bailey does the weather again. The camera must switch off him at some point because he rises from his seat next to Alan and walks over to the green screen. I watch the teleprompter thing that also shows what I would suppose what everyone tuned into the station sees and it's just a weather map. From my perspective, Ben's just put himself in time-out. He finishes his portion then kicks it over to Invisible Traffic Man. He does his bit then kicks it over to Guy in a Helicopter. The camera view changes to a high-up view of a section of traffic arteries at I-96. Ben walks over to a desk on the opposite side of the studio and while I'm looking at the televisions behind frosted glass, Q begins to speak.
I'm calm-nervous. My mind's racing a thousand miles a minute as to what I should and shouldn't say, should and shouldn't do. I'm grateful Q's got handwritten questions I can see. This is really about to happen and it's only seconds away...
