The Rise of Don Peso

Some years ago (never mind how many) I was a bright-eyed college graduate who got his first job in the fun and exciting world of television news. After four years of collegiate training, studying and winning awards, young Duff was ready to prove himself as the finest part-time tape operator that market 120 had ever seen.

My first experience as a paid employee of a newsroom was both strange and intimidating. As a tape-op, I hung out in the back with the photogs all day, and they were quite a rag-tag gang. There was a guy named Kash, and for several weeks I had assumed that I'd misheard his name, because who the hell would call himself Kash? There was this guy I went to college with, but who I never met, along with some dude that never talked to me. At the far end of the edit bays, there sat some douchebag that either made fun of me or ignored me. And finally, the guy who ruled over this wily bunch was some jackass who always seemed to be angry. Indeed, I had found myself in a strange and foreign place.

With time (and it definitely took a while), they accepted me as one of their own. Within a month or two, I became an (actually the only) editor, and a short time later, I ascended to the sacred rank of PHOTOG.

However, this tale is not about me.

This story focuses on that douchebag that sat at the end of the edit bays.

He went by the name of Peso. A fellow Oregon alumni and Bay Area native, he had been at the station for many years before my arrival. Over time, through a constant matching of berating insults, he earned my respect... which is to say he stopped making fun of me for being the tape-op. For that, I respected him.

A year and many months passed since my arrival, and the rowdy leader of the pack, the audaciously named El Guapo, declared that it was time for him to leave us in order to take control at a station in his native land of Sacramento. He was not missed. However, in his absence, the photog staff erupted into chaos.

During a brief-yet-violent upheaval, Peso attempted to take control of the photog staff, but lost the position to a man known only as Lil' Richter. A short time later, Lil' Richter mysteriously disappeared and the position was dissolved.

Peso was crushed, as it had been his dream to rule over a kickass team of photogs. In the coming months, the newsroom fell into a downward spiral of anarchy, as no one had been assigned the tasks of the former chief photog (whoops!) and given the current anarchical state, nobody was about to point out that fact. During this time, Peso came to understand what it takes to become a great leader.

A month or two later, Guapo recruited Peso to his newly acquired gang, and Peso broke his sworn oath with the crew that had raised him into the mighty news soldier that he had become. He left for the city of Sacramento to join a new family.

Without a leader, the numbers within the old crew slowly dwindled. Word had gotten out that the once mighty Sleezy Keezy photog staff was parting ways, and offers came from various other establishments in an effort to recruit Eugene's finest. I myself was lured to Guapo's Sacramento crew. Once again, I was met with Peso.

Since our last encounter, Peso had made a name for himself as a go-to guy; someone who could really get things done. You got a thing that needs dealing with? Peso will handle it. In the short time since I'd seen the two, Peso had become Guapo's Right Hand Man.

Since I was just the morning show newbie, I kept quiet about the dealings that I saw going down, but it was clear that they were running a top-notch ring.

However, it wasn't long before the pressures of running an international crime syndicate... I mean "photog staff"... got to Guapo. Heat from the Feds and various other organizations eventually forced Guapo to flee back to the motherland of Eugene, leaving command of his gang up for the taking.

This time, Peso wasn't about to take no for an answer.

With an iron fist and a pack of rabid dogs, Peso seized control of the gang, declaring himself the new Don of Sacramento.

Today, Don Peso walks the streets of Fruitridge with a newfound respect. At every street corner, little hobo children and hookers run up to him and say, in a hilarious Italian accent, "Don Peso, I bring you the finest malt liquor in all the land," or "Don Peso, I bake you this donut, a-fresh for you!"

There's a new boss in this town, so you'd better pay up your bribes while you can. And don't forget to ask him for a favor on the day of his daughter's wedding.

Welcome to the big time, Don Peso. Now give me a goddamn raise.

Goodbye to Heath

Throughout the 80s and early 90s, it was not uncommon to see a front page article on celebrities dieing from drug overdoses. It was just kinda what people did back then. The majority, it seemed, were either aging child stars or fat comedians (after Bellucci, Candy and Farley, I always wondered if John Goodman was constantly looking over his shoulder).

Today, as I cruised around the gym showing off my "pythons", I kept noticing Heath Ledger's name popping up on the news scroll. I figured he was doing some Batman promo, and continued to cruise.

Later, as I stood around with a smirk next to the drinking fountain, I caught the full headline: Heath Ledger Found Dead, to which I replied "Whaaa?" I pushed my way through people running on treadmills in order to find out more.

I was honestly shocked. You just don't expect that anymore these days (aside from a few choice celebrities. Now I never considered myself a Heath fan. I remember seeing him in 10 Things I Hate About You in high school and thinking "Who's this jackass?" He then later appeared in A Knight's Tale, to which I thought "Hey, it's that jackass from that girly movie". That's the basic history of me and Heath.

When I saw he was playing The Joker in the new Batman movie, I had my doubts, especially because he was going up against Jack, and nobody messes with Jack. He did a fine job in Brokeback Mountain (despite only having four or five lines), But c'mon... The Joker?

Then I saw the trailer and the posters:

...and frankly, I got excited to see what he could do with the character. It looks pretty twisted, and that's ok by me.

So I'm sorry to see him go, as I think I was about to start liking the guy. Who knows what he and others like Chris Farley would have gone on to do if they hadn't overdosed (Farley would probably the same old movies with David Spade... I approve!), but it's always sad to see a promising celebrity taken before his time, while others prove time and again that they're never going to die.

An Act of Brilliance

Now let me tell you, I'm not one to toot my own horn, but there are times when I surprise even myself.

Every once in a while, and it's not too often, I come up with a wacky scheme that I'm proud of. There's been bears left in offices, water balloons launched from dorm windows, and make-up kits held hostage. This one, in my humble opinion, tops them all.

It was a number of years ago, back in my college days. I was living with a couple of no-good-nicks, better known as Sam and Mike. Oh, we were quite a posse.

We also had a semi-retarded dog named Tobias.

Now that you're brought up to speed with the back story, we'll continue.

One day, I was checking the mail, only to find nothing but a hoard of junk. Not a single letter worthy of my attention. That's what got me thinking... there's a lot of junk mail out there. A lot of companies, organizations and movements looking to send random crap. Perhaps this can be taken advantage of in an act of hilarity.

Logging onto the internet, I scoured for any place that wanted to send me literature, stickers and a variety of other useless drivel that they were pushing in the name of some cause. Support Bush? Sure! Hate Bush? Why not! I signed up for it all. But here's where the smarts come in... each was ordered by a different hilarious and possibly offensive name. Mandar Scrotillicus, Titsy McSecksalot and Montigue the Baby of the North all received newsletters and ads in their mailbox. They all just happened to live at my house. Oh, and the roommates were not informed of this scheme ahead of time, so as the weeks passed, mysterious letters kept arriving in the mail.

We all had a good laugh, but the true brilliance to this evil plan is that, years later, junk mail still arrives in that mailbox addressed to preposterously named residents. And it will continue to for countless years.

I take a lot of pride in knowing that Boobsy Constantine is still getting "Support Marijuana Legalization" stickers in the mail.

Slow Times

Times have been a little slow. Maybe it's just me, but the past couple of weeks haven't presented me with any stories worth blogging about. I suppose everyone hits a slump every once in a while, so for those who make an effort to check in regularly, I apologize.

Tonight's story, for example, was about Cal State Universities moving their application deadline back to February rather than August, as a result of the budget crunch.

Certainly an important story, but not really anything I can write a joke about. Maybe I'm losing my touch.

So aside from Guapo's national television debut...

...and a joint birthday bash that I had with one of our finer reporters...

...nothing much has been going on.

So, for your sake more than mine, I've decided to delve back into my personal archive to find something we could all enjoy. And let's be honest... what's more fun to watch than a news blooper.

So here's a personal favorite, and an example of the dangers of writing a VO script too specifically to the video.

Hopefully something more interesting will happen soon. C'mon, 2008, is this all you've got? At least 2007 gave me this, which was way cooler than Guapo's appearance.

A Rant on Politcs and the Media

Tension is in the air, people are angry, and professional opinionists are spewing their professional opinions.

Ah yes, it's that time of year again. Actually, it's been that time of year for about the past year, and it'll continue to be that time of year for about the next year. I speak, of course, of election time! A time when every action, statement and grimace is analyzed, re-analyzed, cross-analyzed, and finally, over-analyzed, until a few days pass and nobody remembers what occurred in the previous days.

I'm sure that this is all gold for the 24-hour news networks. People constantly want to know... is their candidate moving ahead? Behind? Are they betting on the right horse? Well, cable news is ready to answer all those questions, whether there is something to report or not.

It's gotten to the point where these elections are drawn out for so long that analyzing the first 90% of it is pointless, ridiculous and a waste of time. Very little of it is actually spent looking at the candidates' stances on issues, unless it's some hot-button topic that's used to draw out voters, such as gay marriage, border control or, my personal favorite, evolution (Is this really a relevant topic for a presidential debate, or just another way to kiss the asses of the almighty Christian conservative right?).

Clearly, this over-analyzation has gotten out of control in the media this election season. A few months back, my old crony John McCain was pronounced dead in the water. Now, he's suddenly one of the major contenders after winning in New Hampshire. In addition, just last week, Hillary Clinton was given the same diagnosis after my boy Obama won in Iowa. The "professional analysts" had decided that it might be over for her, yet days later, she won in New Hampshire. To paraphrase my mentor Jon Stewart, we've seen the results from a bunch of cold white people, and from a bunch of colder white people. This is a very small and obscure portion of the country that (for some reason) was given the opportunity to lead the almighty primaries. While their opinions certainly matter, they are only a small percentage of those registered to vote, and as you can see from the results, their opinions differ greatly.

This election has already been going on for far too long, yet it is still way too early to have any clue who is going to win. Last night on A Daily Show (renamed due to the writers' strike), Lou Dobbs was shown presenting a poll that asked if viewers were sick of the excessive over-analyzation that the media has been presenting on the election. 95% said yes (although it wasn't exactly an unloaded question... "Oh, I think that the excessive over-analyzation of the election is not enough!"). On The Situation Room, Dobbs (who Wolf Blitzer constantly reminds us is part of the "best news team on television") said that they all owed the country an apology for the way that they had been blowing every minute detail out of proportion and making claims that certain candidates were dead and gone. I thought this was pretty cool... until the very next story was more he-said-she-said election coverage.

The bottom line? It's still an open field. Don't get so worked up over the early primaries, and don't get so worked up over the media's coverage. If the people of New Hampshire had, they would have accepted Obama and Huckabee as the presidential candidates, as CNN, Fox News and MSNBC had after Iowa. Remember back in 2004? Howard Dean was supposed to be the next president. He even won in Iowa... which, as Fate had it, turned out to be his downfall. John Edwards is right to let all this roll off his back... the headlines will read something completely different next week, and the week after, and the week after. There's still a long way to go, and there's still a lot of voices that need to be heard.

At this point, it's become clear that I've been watching this drivel, as I consider myself to be a minor political junkie. Granted, I'm no HST, but I do get excited about this stuff. I read political books, I look into the candidates' beliefs and stances, and I don't vote for anything that I don't fully understand. Yet my vote counts just as much as that jerk who saw some bullshit propaganda commercial and decided to do as he was told. What can ya do?

Anyway, I constantly find myself shaking my head at the TV, seeing more and more that insignificant over-analyzation is being fed into the voters' minds, without ever really addressing the issues. Howard Dean lost the nomination because of a "Heeyah!" that was played over and over again. I'm not denying that it was hilarious, but is that really the criteria that we judge our candidates on these days? The answer seems to be yes.

I can't help but feel that the news media's destroying the electoral process. Then I look at my bi-monthly paycheck and laugh it off. I try to tell myself that I am one of the good guys, someone who doesn't buy into all that over-analyzation media hype... yet I've covered more than one story that I'm not particularly proud of, as it isn't up to one lowly photog to make those calls. When it comes down to it, the news media have been deemed responsible for feeding the people what they want, not what they need to know. It wasn't too long ago that the same level of coverage was given to Anna Nicole Smith, a washed-up porn star.

The bottom line? Don't sell out any of the presidential candidates just yet. Several times in this election, "professional" television journalists have proven that they don't actually know what they're talking about. Their professional pundits spew their views, only to find that they were way off base a few days later, but by that time something else has caught their narrow attention span and it never gets revisited. Take some time, read up on the candidates and vote for the one that you feel would be best to lead this country out of the chaos that it's found itself in, all the while knowing that some douchebag that saw a commercial will cancel out your vote.

If you've actually made your way through that rant without turning off your computer in disgust, I thank you. I'm sure that plenty of people feel just as strongly about the opposite views of my own, and they're welcome to them. But for those of you still reading, your dedication will not go unrewarded...

Here's a video that I shot back during the 2006 election, when Howard Dean visited Eugene to rally the hippie votes. While he refused to give a good ol' fashioned "Heeyah!", he was kind enough to demonstrate his inability do do simple math. Here is an exclusive Photocalypse video, which you won't find anywhere else...

If I sent that to CNN, it'd probably be a headline tomorrow.

The Photocalapse Experiment

I don't know about you, but my memory sucks, especially when it comes to work. After a while, all the days just start blending together, and I honestly couldn't tell you what stories I've done over the past week. I can't imagine what it must be like for some old dude who's been doing this job for decades.

So, through a combination of curiosity and boredom (mostly boredom), I've decided to take a single picture from a story I cover every work day and line them all up. I figure I'll do it for a month, maybe more if I don't lose interest too quickly, and it'll be interesting for me to look back on when I'm done and see if I can actually remember any of them. For you, it might not be all that interesting, but if you get curious, I'll add a link under "Archive Collections" on the right side of the page.

Thus, I present... The Photocalapse Experiment.

Today's entry: Bus vs. Pedestrian Fatality.

Damn, we couldn't start on a happier note?

Energy On-Demand

Today's American society is heavily dependent on chemicals, and that's the way we like it. Is it healthy? Hardly! But it's convenient, and we're all so busy and important that we don't have time to do things the proper way. We wake up by consuming a beverage, we go to sleep by taking a pill. We drink wine to relax, drink beer to party, and drink Jager to dance. Oh, and let's not forget the little blue pill!

I myself am an admitted caffeine junkie, and it sucks. I just don't feel right until I get my morning latte, a cold energy drink, or (if all else fails) a quick packet of Gu (don't think less of me for this).

Coffee? That stuff's for Grandpa! We live in the X-Treme age. An age where Mountain Dew has replaced Orange Juice, snowboarding has replaced skiing, and kicking a guy in the nuts is a sign of comradery. If you can't handle it, then go back to the retirement castle!

During my travels through the depths of a caffeine-infused purgatory that I call daily life, I've come across many curious artifacts. The world of energy drinks is vast and often times ridiculous. They come in all shapes and colors, trying to pinpoint every niche in the caffeine-consumption market. Here are a few of my favorites, worthy of mockery and/or appreciation.

X-Treme Beverage #1: Ace Energy

A half-naked woman riding an A-bomb in front of playing cards? That basically sums up every one of my interests. It's nice to finally find a beverage that understands me. It tastes awful, but damnit, I look like a real man when I drink it.

Target Consumer: The everyday Man's Man

X-Treme Beverage #2: Full Throttle- Bad Mother

Hey, bad mothers need energy too. It ain't easy neglecting their kids, smoking dope, or refusing to purchase a Nintendo Wii. Well, their sluggish days are over, now that Full Throttle, the biker-based energy drink (made by the badass manufacturers at the Coca-Cola Company) has made a drink dedicated to their strife. Actually, upon closer inspection, you'll find that the line "nature is one..." is squeezed in there somewhere, indicating (barely) that it is an all-natural energy drink. A clever way to service two separate demographics with the same drink.

Target consumer: Bad mothers and hippies

X-Treme Beverage #3: Freek Maniac Energy

This one doesn't even try to be subtle. If you drink this, you will be a "freek" and/or a maniac. That's right, this is for the true hard-core energy fiend, not for the faint of heart (despite its delightful Torrid Tropical flavor). It's so extreme, that it even comes with a list of suggested post-consumption activities on the back:

That's right... Stay up all night! Sleep with your ex! Run cross-country! Woo! Definitely do not drink this unless you are ready to get your Freek(tm) on! As for me? Hey, I gotta work in the morning.

Target Consumer: Fiends, miscreants, dopers, punks, and general no-good-nicks.

X-Treme Beverage #4: Howling Monkey Energy Cola

This one is a personal favorite. Not because of its taste... it's actually quite terrible. I just can't say no to a hilarious label. Look at that monkey... how could I resist?? Its wacky vaudevillian-style decor doesn't hurt the message, either. It even comes with a three-step instructional diagram, just to make sure that you consume properly:

Look at that monkey howl! I mean, he's even wearing a tuxedo! What a wild scenario! I don't even want to imagine how that chain of events came to be! I'm sold.

Target Consumer: Monkeys looking for a kick-start to their work week, or those trying to quit.

Now look over your options and decide which market niche you belong to. And don't give me some crap about eating healthy and exercising... That's not the American way!!