Everyone has a defining moment, an event that changes or shapes a career.

When I first started working in television, I would take pretty much whatever job came my way. Didn’t really matter what or where it was, work was work, and as a tadpole freelancer, you don’t turn down work. You don’t know if that phone will ever ring again.

Once, I accepted two back to back jobs three hundred miles apart. After the first game, I drove three hundred miles, slept in my truck for an hour, worked the second game, then drove all the way home.

I would do pretty much anything, carry cables, pick people up at the airport, whatever it took. I was always interested in audio, so I started learning how to set up microphones for sports events.

I was called to do audio for an interview one day. This work is usually easy, mostly consisting of putting a microphone on a subject, then trying to stay awake while they talk and talk and talk. Since I’d worked every day that week, I was pretty exhausted. I barely managed to stay awake.

The producer looked over at me and said, “Were you just SLEEPING?”

“No, Sometimes I like to close my eyes so I can concentrate on the sound without distraction.”

“And your snoring doesn’t distract you?”

Sometimes it isn’t so easy.

The moment that made me decide that I wanted to mix in a TV truck instead of being outside the truck was another interview. I was working as an audio assist (A2) at a college football game. My job was to set up all the microphones for the mixer (A1) in the truck.

We had to interview the coach before the game. (I don’t remember his name, but this day is burned into my brain.) My job was to put a lav mic, a tiny microphone that usually clips onto a tie or shirt collar, on the coach.

I walked up to the coach, lav mic in hand, and said, “Hello, Coach. I need to put this microphone on you for the interview.”

Scowling, he untucked his shirt, indicating he wanted me to run the microphone wire up his shirt and clip it to his collar. Reluctantly, I started this unpleasant task.

Halfway up, I was convinced this guy was wearing a damp sweater under his shirt. That, or he was half man, half sheep. Whatever it was, he was HAIRY and it was GROSS.

As I was trying not to vomit, he looked at me and leered, “I bet you just LOVE that, don’t you sweetheart?”

And with that little statement from Freako the Sweaty Mammoth, I knew I was done. I couldn’t do this job any more. I needed to learn to mix.

And so I did.

Years after the UnderSweater incident.

A few months later, I was called by CNN to cover a press conference. Of course, being a freelancer with a day off, I accepted the job, without knowing what the job really was.

The press conference was for the resignation of Man-Beast the Disgraced Wooly Coach.

Author: frenchy