A lot of things have happened in the past few weeks to talk about. In fact, the queens somehow managed to beat the Packers, Barack Obama managed to whip McCain and that dumb ass hockey mom and is working on turning America into a commie nation (that is so funny that anyone believes that), I went to see Lenny Kravitz and Bob Dylan in the span of two days, the I saw the Riders get their ass handed to them in the playoffs, I got the results from my wonderful operation (no Donna is not pregnant), and McKenna broke her wrist on the playground yesterday fighting with an 8th grader who said something not very nice about the Green Bay Packers. Okay, she just fell off the slide, I just wanted to add a bit of drama. I am telling you though if some 8th grader started talking shit about the Pack she would totally take care of business. Word.
Okay one thing that happened this fall that I just heard about it the passing of Tedd O'Connell. Read the article here. Tedd was my News Director at WGBA in Green Bay. As you all know I usually spit vitirol about News Directors I have had in the past. Maybe in these pages later I will do a post describing the worst ND's I had. That would be good. Tell some of the crazy shit that ND's always try to pull. Now I know those of you who work in the 'real world' have shitty bosses also, but it is a weird breed of person who wants to be a ND. They really are mosty just mall cops who run news organizations. I hate mall cops.Tedd did not fit that mold, most of the time. Tedd was my ND for less than a year but I learned more about news, and more importantly journalism, than I have learned from any of the other Bozos I have worked for. Mike Chaussee, of the Bismarck Chaussee's, you are not included in the Bozo the Clown category. You are more into the Hamburgler the clown category. I am sooo funny. Anyway, Tedd knew his shit. He was also a hard ass. You knew where you stood with this guy and he didn't like anyone kissing his ass as most newsrooms and ND's are wanting you to do.
Check the jacket he is wearing in the pic above. You have to be a hard ass to be able to wear a jacket like that, ON TV! I also like the weather map in the back with the magnets on it. Old school. I tell ya, if stations would drop all this super doppler radar crap that reads the weather down to your street and went back to that I might start paying attention to them again. Seriously.
Tedd, was a no bull shit guy. I remember once when the Daryl Marquardt, of the Madison Marquardts, had his office upstairs (which was taken away by the dickhead ND who came after Tedd) a few of the shooters had some down time and we were in Daryl's office shooting the shit watching Braveheart when some Production weasel (who will remain nameless because I cannot remember his name), not Marty, walked by and thought we should not be all in one place let alone watching a movie. You know the old adage "A camera guy with out a camera on his shoulder is sluffing off". He went to Tedd and told on us. Tedd told this loser to go away and mind his own business. Sweet.
My favorite Tedd story is early on at WGBA when me and someone else(can't remember who, maybe Hauser?) were sent out to do a live last second in Oshkosh at the court house. The engineers had been working on the live truck all day so we jumped in and took off. Well, the generator that runs the thing is attached to the gas tank in the truck. If it gets to a quarter tank left the generator will not run so as you do not run your gas tank out running the generator then you cannot get home because you have an empty tank of gas.
I guess you can see where this is going. I did not look at the gas tank when we left. When we got to Oshkosh we started to set up and I went over to start the generator. No go. We tried shore power but the cable was not long enough. Needless to say we had around 20 minutes to get gas and then get back to get the live set up and on the air. Tedd was not pleased. We did get the shot up and on the air but it was hairy.
When I got back to the shop Tedd was waiting for me in his office. He tore a strip off of me up one side and down the other. He told me as he held up his index finger, and I quote, "Chris. That's your one. And you only get one." I said okay and started to walk out of the office when I remembered that we did get the shot up. I turned around and told him that despite all the difficultieswe did get the shot up and it all worked out in the end. He smirked at me and said "Yes you did. Now go home."
We did not have issues after that. I think he just wanted you to stand up for yourself and he respected that. The ones in the newsroom who were chickenshit and just wanted to get by he had problems with. Tedd had my respect, and I would like to think I had his.
Another thing I liked about him is the 'morning meeting newspaper phenomena'. In most newsrooms during the morning meeting all the 'decision makers' would sit around and read the paper for their news story ideas. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Hated that. By the time we do the story it is two days old. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Tedd told us that we were supposed to do the stories before the paper had them. While I was there Tedd would take the stories out of the paper that we did the day before and post them. If I remember correctly there were a lot of stories up on that bulletin board. The papers were watching us and copying OUR stories. Way cool.
Derek Venckus, of the Tenneessee Venckus's, has a great Tedd story...
Got a a hundred of em.....most of which are unsuitable for print, broadcast, or blog. Try this: We've just started up the news operation at WGBA. Our sports department consists of four people. Two of them are in Atlanta for the Olympics. That leaves Packers training camp two a days, etc to be covered by Bill Wixie and me. Well, this means six or seven day work weeks at about 10 or 11 hours per day. So, I hand in my time card with 20 hours of overtime and Tedd explodes.
Tedd: "What the f*** is this?
Me: My timecard.(bad answer)
Tedd (screaming); You think your smarta** bullshi* is funny? Well, it's not. I have a budget and you just fu**ed the whole thing up. And guess what?
Me: What?
Tedd: Because you f**ked the entire budget up, you're going to pay. You're not travelling to the Packers game this weekend so we can save the money you just blew. Maybe then you'll get your f**king act together.
Me: Let me get this straight, Tedd. I work my a** off covering Packers training camp...having the time of my life as a one man band. And, because I work my a** off, you're going to punish me by not letting me go to the game? That's absolute bulls***.
(Long Pause)
Tedd screams: Fine, then go to the fu**ing game.
Sometimes I think he enjoyed someone challenging him. Crazy dude.
Venckus
Great story Derek. Tedd was a one of a kind. Marty Frey, of the Hollywood is burning Frey's, sends his classic Tedd Story. Take it away Marty...
When old Tedd first got hired - he was picked because he was part of Mr. T's (Jim Tomlin - GM) good ol' boy network and was available.. I think T knew him from his years in Madison and he still had a respected name and was working as a News Director in a small market in Maryland. So - the first real meeting that we had together was with me, Mr. T, Jay Zollar and Tedd and we were talking about the promotion strategy for the news launch. I went through a couple of ideas and the launch of news was to co-incide with the Atlanta Olympics so - I had decided to tie-in Olympic awareness with NBC-26 news awareness - both of them being the biggest things to happen in many years. Not a real mental promotional stretch - but it was in the brilliance of the execution that I was hoping it would
pay off..
Well - T also wanted me to do something with Tedd where he was talking about the building of the newscast and he would be giving updates on the physical building as well as putting together the people that would make up the news and that seemed like a good idea to me as well.
So Tedd and I started doing these "Building NBC-26 News promos" together.. I would write up a script and Tedd would look it over for minute or two before we shot - but it was never tough to do and these were easy to finish and there was a logical progression to them..
After about a month of this, we met again to discuss everything about the switch and the building of the newscast and Jay Zollar said "I was talking with my wife and she really didn't get the promos with Tedd in them - she didn't know who he was, and it just didn't click with her and her friends". There was utter silence while Tedd reflected a moment with his pen tapping away like he always did... Looked Jay in the eye and said "Well - maybe your wife should be doing these promos, if we're going to be basing all our research on her and her friends". Then he calmly got up and left the room..
Jay's face was as red as a beet and Mr.T just looked around the room and
said - "Let's do this again next Tuesday"...
I believe there is still a scar on my tongue where I was biting it,
trying not to laugh..
Marty
Well Marty, glad you brought those promos up because I believe I have one to show everyone...
Shawn Hauser, of the Green Bay Hauser's, also has something to say about the passing of Tedd...
Hopper told me something about that a couple of weeks ago, sad day man....regardless of anything fromthe past.....I still feel the man was a genius and knew what the hell was going on!
Hope all is well up north, by the way.....keep your damn cold air up where it belongs!
Hauserinskinov
Thanks Hauser. Tedd O'Connell RIP.
NEXT:
James Grandy, of the Minot Grandy's sent me this note...After watching your rider clip, it must bring up the debate. Who are the best/craziest fans in pro football? RIDER or PACKERS. I was at Taylor field this summer (yes its still Taylor field), it was freakin nuts. A nice argument for sure, but even YOU would have to admit the green and white beat the green and gold.
James Grandy
Grandy Video Productions
Thank you James. Nice job getting the plug for Grandy Productions in there. Don't do it again, I am the only one that is allowed to plug. My site, my rules.
It is a debate that I have participated in. I agree with you on a few of your points. First, yes, it is called Taylor field. I hate all the corporate sponsorships that take away the names of great stadiums. Candlestick, Soldier Field, Lambeau Field will always be known under those names as far as I am concerned. Next thing I will agree with you on is the crowd is freaking nuts. You are correct there. They go all out. I have enjoyed every game I have attended at Taylor field. When you sit on the lower level you can totally get in the kitchen of the players if one chooses to. I, of course, ALWAYS choose to get in to a player wearing the wrong jersey grill. It is a must.
Now, as for the fans at Lambeau Field. The Packers have a huge advantage on the Riders. If it were face value as for being there no matter the weather, having a sold out barn even in the lean years, noise on the field factor, and I guess over all crazy it is about even.BUT, and this is a HUGE but. You can Taligate at Lambeau, you can't at Taylor. By tailgate, I
mean pull up in your rig, load out a grill and a cooler, then burn yourself some raw meat and tip yourself a few tasty beverages with around 71,000 of your closest friends. Toss the football around, toss a queen fan around, punch a bear fan, you know. Tailgate. Here at Taylor the closest thing you have is you come in, stand on the practice field, BUY a brat that someone else cooked(a good one I might add), BUY some beer at an inflated price (Pilsner, also very good), and stand there. It is nice, but it ain't tailgating. Sorry, the edge goes to the Pack. Thanks James for bringing it up though.If anyone else would like to share their opinion I will be happy to listen to it then disregard it completely. Thank you.
NEXT:
I just thought I would share a few Brett Favre things. First one is Terry Bradshaw speaking on what he thinks the Packers should have done and where they would be had the just kept Favre. Terry B is usually whacked out of his mind, which I kinda like in a rubbernecking kind of way, but he is right on in this video. He went off on Ted Thompson and Mike McCrappy. Said what I have been saying all year long. CLICK THIS LINK, type in Fired Up Favre on the search and then click on the Favre clip. It would not allow me to link directly so sorry about this weak instructions.
Now I want to show you a clip from NFL Network. I know a lot of you don't get the NFL Network so I will share. After the Jets game on Thursday Brett was on the set with the hosts. This is another thing I miss about Number 4. Just the way Brett is. Watch Favre on Set and see what I mean.
LAST:
Don King promo from hamiltongbp on Vimeo.
Here is a video that we did way back at KXMB TV in Bismark. Don King was in town to promote a fight that Virgil Hill was doing and we managed to get him on camera. This is how great a promoter he is no matter what you think of the man personally, he is a brilliant promoter. He was set to have a look at the Bismarck Civic Center and we had a camera there. He jumps out and with out anyone cueing him he spouts our slogan for KX. He did his research. He later did the promo in front of the sign with the sports guy. You know the sports guy did it because it was not lit and it is framed incorrectly. I have issues sorry.
We rush back and put this promo together thinking this would be great to have since he did not spout KFYR's promo, just ours. I think it is an okay promo for 1992 standards. The GM in his infinite wisdom told us to not run it because King was a convicted felon and it would 'reflect poorly on KX'. Moron. Anyway this promo never got any airtime, UNTIL NOW!!!
Enjoy and GET BACK TO WORK!!!!!
