Polyester Suits, Pancake makeup and Teleprompters
I wrote about when I left working behind the news camera but I didn’t talk about when I started. I worked for just over 10 years in small market television in Bend and had the opportunity to watch it evolve from those dusty VHS days to full on digital broadcast. My best memories were back in the “Anchorman-style” days of polyester television.
The television production environment was the perfect little resting place for me at the time. Just a few years prior I was onboard a US Navy Frigate out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The first year of my military service was going to trade school. I lived north of Chicago at the military base, Great Lakes, which had the nickname “Great Mistakes.”
After earning my certification, it was time to choose the destination and I chose the one furthest away — Yokosuka, Japan — where my ship, the USS McClusky FFG-41, was forward deployed. I spent three years on that ship bouncing all over Asia and the Middle East, continuously out at sea and in and out of new ports, including Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, and Arab countries.
It was exactly what I wanted. My high school student exchange trip to Mexico primed my spirit to explore the world, and the US Navy turned out to be the perfect place for a guy like me. I was young, and hungry for travel and adventure.
Returning to civilian life was exciting, stressful, and lonely. I’d tell my stories of travel to new and old friends. At first, they appreciated my sailor stories of adventure, but eventually they were either thinking that I was trying to brag about my experiences, showcasing my feathers of travel, or they couldn’t relate, having no desire to listen what it was like to meet with celebrities in the Roppongi party district in Tokyo.
When I started working at the television station, I was introduced to a new group of people who were very accepting of my stories abroad. Half of them were local celebrities who were on the news. Though barely making enough to live, they had hopes of moving up to bigger markets and building a great resume tape at this small market TV station, where on-air mistakes were not career busters. Socially, they hung out with each other, and they enjoyed going out late at night while the folks in the bar peered their way. Most of them didn’t care about making new friends out in the community. They were about to leave, and the people who they worked with were good enough to keep life interesting.
The other half of the staff were production people who ran the show from behind the scenes. They ran the newscast, rolling the right tapes at the right time, then punching over. The most important part was rolling the commercials, all cued up in on a wall full of SVHS Machines that were set up to fire off the commercials like a machine gun, “Roll spots!”
I hung out mostly with the production crew. They were a rowdy and a nerdy bunch, much like my peers in the service, also not making much money but having a blast flying the cabin spaceship around at night. Pink Floyd, Widespread Panic, and the Grateful Dead were commonly played in master control, while Jeopardy and Law and Order aired. They’d often sneak out in back to smoke cigarettes or some pot, wearing a timer that was two or three minutes away from when they needed to roll commercial spots, enough time to wash their hands and stop by the vending machine.
The older people who worked in the control room were just as, if not more, interesting. Broadcast Technicians running around at the command of the chief engineer, and television news directors shouting out commands through the headphones to move the camera, cue the anchors, and fade in the graphics over the video. There was even a professional astronomer working in the control room, adding to my space cabin metaphor, who “moonlighted” as a master control operator.
Every day I would look forward to a new adventure of preparing three news shows for broadcasting, then working to keep the show running smoothly on the air, while enjoying the friendships with a quirky and fun staff. The job at the TV station helped me stay focused in school. The job also helped pave the way to my enjoyment of live performing and music.
After a couple years working and attending college, I had earned enough credits to transfer over to the University of Oregon. The last year I was working at the TV station was very special. The General Manager, decided to sell the broadcasting business to another broadcasting company. He, along with a small group of staffers still there, built the TV station in the mid 1970’s. The GM ended his time with the station with one last company holiday party. He rented an expensive room for each of the staff members at a local resort called Inn of the 7th Mountain, and had us all transported by bus up to Mt. Bachelor during the evening for a nighttime chair lift ride up to the Pine Marten Lodge. We dined and celebrated the last year of a television dynasty.
As the New Year arrived, a lot of the older staff retired. I prepared to transfer to University of Oregon and also said farewell, but would later come back after I got my degree in Journalism.