Jamey Tucker’s BlogSquat

Christmas eve has always been a little melancholy for me. While the kids have been so excited about Santa coming tonight and my wife getting all stressed out about getting everything under the tree and how much we’ve spent this year; my mood tends to get bluer as Christmas eve descends.

Tonight as we were sitting with my mom at our church service, and listening and singing those old Christmas carols, I was nearly moved to tears. I started thinking about time and how it keeps speeding up on me.

I start thinking of how many Christmas’ we’ll have with the kids in the house. How few Christmas’ are left when they get excited about Santa, and leaving milk and cookies and reindeer food out on the sidewalk. I think about how quickly they’ll be off on their own, spending Christmas with their own wife/husband and kids.

Each year I put together a video of everything that’s happened throughout the year. I videotape everything, tooth fairy visits, first days of school, birthday parties, dinners, halloween, school programs, vacations, and everything in between. These videos have captured our lives since 1994. Each Christmas eve we watch them in order and then premiere the new one.

Looking at the videos tonight, I realized that when I first started putting these things together, Lauren was just 3 years old. This year, she’s a senior in high school. Trey will be out of the house in 8 years, Delaney in 10. That isn’t an awful lot of Christmas’ left.

The kids are sound asleep now, probably dreaming of Nintendo games, roller skates and candy. I wonder if they’ll remember these Christmas’ as much as I will.

By the way, the Christmas segment I mentioned earlier played in dozens of churches this morning and tonight. I can’t post it to YouTube because of the copyright issue, so I’ll post the link below.

Merry Christmas everybody. Make it count.

link

I thought of that old song from the 80s tonight when we turned on the tv. Not a single Christmas show on the networks until Studio 60 re-ran last week’s Christmas episode. We haven’t even seen “A Christmas Story” which the Turner Networks had aired dozens of times by this week last year.

This is one of my biggest pet peeves: why the networks air re-runs of Christmas episodes in mid-July but nothing in December. Wouldn’t it be easy to dust off some of the great network Christmas episodes and air them in re-runs this week? I’d love to see Christmas episodes from “The Wonder Years”, “The Cosby Show”, “MASH”, “WKRP in Cincinnati”, “I Love Lucy” and even “Gilligan’s Island”. And how about episodes from “Everybody Loves Raymond”, “Cheers”, “Welcome Back Kotter”, “The Jeffersons”, “All in the Family” and “Seinfeld”.

Tonight we had zilch. Except for Studio 60, which by the way is one of the best Christmas episodes of any network tv show I’ve seen in quite a while.

Today was my last day of work until after Christmas. Finished the Christmas piece that will run Christmas Eve. My computer is back in the shop so the minister from Jackson who e-mailed me last week and wanted to know more about the episode should e-mail me again. I’ve lost those e-mails. Again.

We were watching “A Charlie Brown Christmas” last year with the kids when I came up with an idea for a story. Most don’t know that this show nearly didn’t get the green light from CBS back in 1965 because of Linus’ reading from the book of Luke. You know the part, when he tells Charlie Brown that he knows the true meaning of Christmas.

Well, CBS told Charles Schultz to forget it. Drop the Bible reading or the show. But Schultz insisted. The show won an Emmy and has been one of the top rated Christmas specials every year for the past 41 years. Shultz also dropped a sneaky reference in the show too. When Linus reads the words “Fear Not”, he drops his security blanket.

I’ve wanted to do this story for years but none of the tv stations would let me do it. I wanted to have someone read that passage for broadcast on Christmas Eve. Not an easy sell to be sure for a local newscast.

But this year is different. News 2 liked the idea, so we’ll air a reading of the Christmas story on Christmas Eve. I’ve been working on it for the past month or so and I think it’s going to be really good. My bosses also agreed to make the segment available to area churches for their own Christmas eve services. I don’t remember a station ever doing something like that, especially giving them a story to use in a service before it airs. So far, we have about 40 churches that want to use it.

I’ll try to post the video here sometime after it airs on tv.

I can’t find this anywhere online, but the FOX affiliate here in Nashville reported tonight that the University of Alabama interviewed Clemson head coach Tommy Bowden for its vacant hc office.

Well, if you can’t get daddy.

Of course most Alabama fans know that Bobby Bowden wanted the job years ago but didn’t get it. Now, he’s going to finish his career at Florida State. Terry Bowden won his first 21 games as Auburn’s head coach but then tanked before resigning (got fired) in mid-season and now works part-time with ABC. Tommy was the wide receiver’s coach at Auburn and a darned good one at that. I remember he coached the receivers to drag their back foot when making a catch near the sidelines. It helped win two games against Florida during the unbeaten streak.

Folks back then were saying that Tommy was the better coach of the Bowden boys but he hasn’t done a whole lot at Clemson and nearly lost his job there a couple of years ago. This will probably hit the Alabama papers tomorrow. Saban, according some reports, is still in the picture despite his denial, but if that were really the case, I wonder if bama would be interviewing Bowden.

One of my 3 loyal readers passed along a fairly new blog covering Memphis media. Mediaverse: Memphis is the work of primary writer Richard Thompson. Richard, according to the bio on the site, is a former journalist with the Commercial Appeal. Strike that: he IS A JOURNALIST, formerly with the Commercial Appeal.

The guy can write and he’s paying attention. Mostly MediaVerse: Memphis covers the C.A and what the C.A. covers. But he does keep an eye on Memphis tv stations too.

Definitely worth the time to read. If you’re going to read the Appeal, bookmark Richard’s site.

I’ve been fortunate to have worked at some television stations that throw great Christmas parties.

WJSU in Anniston was one of the best. Live music, cash bar, nearly everybody shows up, beef or fish and the traditional year-end video of the best bloopers to hit the air. Dixon Hayes and Perkins always did a bang up job on the blooper tape which was always worth the price of admission.

WHNT in Huntsville also threw great parties. I joined the station just before the party of 1992 and boy was I impressed with the folks I was going to be working with for the next five years. Live band, good food and of course, the blooper tape. I remember one year a bunch of us ended up playing quarters with the general manager! Karaoke replaced the live band a few years later. They awarded five and ten year employees and even gave away some big ticket door prizes.

The station also handed out Honeybaked Hams and Wal-Mart gift certificates (before the cards were around) as employee gifts. Not bad.

But as the years went on, some employees stopped going. By the time I left Huntsville, the Christmas party was no longer a no-brainer. I don’t know why it dropped off, but the party just wasn’t the same anymore. It may have had to do with a change in lower management. They just weren’t as much fun to be around.

WREG in Memphis threw a big party the first few years I was there. The first year (1997) was the best party for me. A live band, cash bar, awards for 10 and 15 year employees. No blooper tape though which was a downer. It wasn’t as much fun as Anniston or Huntsville. Again, probably because management wasn’t that much fun to be around, even away from work.

By the time I left, I don’t know if they were even having a Christmas party.

WKRN doesn’t have a station Christmas party anymore. The last one, I hear, was 2004. But this weekend we did have a party. Our general manager opened his home for every employee at the station.

It was great. I only noticed a few no-shows from our huge staff. Great food, open bar, live music (violinists) and the biggest jumbo-shrimp I’ve ever seen (or ate). But what really made it different than most of the other station parties, is that it was fun. Management at News 2 is fun to be around. My wife met our general manager and managing editor for the first time and really enjoyed talking to them. I didn’t catch anyone standing around complaining about anything. People were genuinely happy to be there and were having a good time. Lots of laughs all through the house.

Friday the station honored employees with 10 years or more service to the station with what appeared to be very nice gifts. Two people, when accepting their awards, were moved to tears while talking about the “family” they had at the station.

That is the most refreshing difference here. I’ve been in Nashville for almost a year. I’m more convinced than ever that this is a good place.

My main hard drive is gone. No virus or spyware, just age.

I’ve had this computer for at least five years and over the past several months things had begun to slow down. After my last big video project, my editing software refused to open. After a few weeks of updating then deleting then trying to re-load it, my computer started rebooting for no reason.

A trip to the computer shop and a conversation with the computer expert at the station, I was convinced the only way to get the program to run again was to reformat the c drive.

I exported and saved all of my contact information, addresses and such to a cd. After getting the computer back up and running tonight and attempting to load those files, I’ve had no luck.

So…all of my contacts, phone numbers, addresses, e-mail, calendar schedules, passwords, everything appears to be gone.

So, if you’re reading this and we’ve swapped e-mail sometime in the past 5 years, send me a note with your e-mail address and contact information. Otherwise, you’ve finally gotten rid of me.

jamey@raindogpictures.com

Before you answer that. Here’s the conversation I had with my 17 year old daughter tonight.

“Dad, you know I’m about to be 18 right?”
“Yes”
“I mean, I’m a senior, about to graduate and then I’m going to college.”
“Okay”
“So…don’t you think it’s okay for me to go to Panama City for spring break?”

Loooong pause

“Oh, come on dad. It’s not like I can get into trouble down there.”
“Huh?”
“It’s not like I can drink or anything. I’m under age.”

So, we can all rest easier now. They’ve cleaned up Panama City for the kids. It’s impossible now for a teenager to get into any trouble, and they’ve practically eradicated under-age drinking.

I don’t know what bothers me the most, the fact that she’s likely headed to PC for Spring Break, or that she must think her old man is stupid enough to buy her lame campaign. The girl was lobbying hard. “It’s either there or Cabo” she says to me.

Well the truth is, I went to Panama City when I was her age. The morning after graduation I hopped into my dad’s convertable with a buddy and we headed off chasing fun with most of the rest of our class. I don’t know how my folks let that happen to tell you the truth.

Now…I’m in their shoes. And it’s an uncomfortable fit.

Joe’s got a good post over at his website about funny moments that hit the air live. I hate to admit it, but I got the giggles one night while reading copy at WJSU in Anniston, Alabama.

The story was about an 80 year old man charged with killing his wife for hiding the remote control to the tv. I know, that’s not funny at all. But the next line in the story was “Police say the elderly man then tried to commit suicide by hitting himself in the head with a hammer.”

When the words came up on the TelePrompter, I clearly pictured this old man with claw hammer in hand. I somehow snickered my way through the rest of the story and tossed it to my co-anchor who was far more mature than I was. I’ve got the tape of that somewhere. Maybe I’ll post it on YouTube someday.

But this discussion also reminded me of the absolute funniest clip I’ve ever seen from a live tv show. It’s out of Holland and the anchor is interviewing a couple about sex with a handicapped spouse. The anchor is fine, until he finds he hears the man’s voice.