by Rob Simpson
With the top story not ready, the producer, who stacked the show’s content, panicked in the control room. He scrambled to rearrange items, making the necessary adjustments in the show order, while the anchors shuffled their scripts on the set, trying to figure out where to go next.
Producers talk to anchors via earpieces they’re wearing, called IFBs (interruptible feedback), while the producer can obviously hear what the anchors are saying through their microphones.
The news is live television, making it imperative that reporters and editors always make their deadline. Missing a slot can screw up an entire show and make the anchors look like dorks. That’s the riskiest thing about anchoring news, sports, or weather. Regardless of who makes the mistake, when or where, the anchor is the one sitting in front of thousands (or millions) of people, potentially looking like the idiot.
Welcome to my personal hell. In this case, we were ultra-late. Not only did we miss the top-story slot, we missed the entire first block of news. Then, we missed the entire second block.
At each of the breaks, I got queasier. Bob Jones would swear, shake his head, and talk shit about my performance with the producer. Moon would just give me a “tsk” and look at me painfully. I didn’t need the humiliation. I was already so pissed off at myself I couldn’t stand it. While Jones moaned during the breaks, I’d lean back and yell down the hallway, “How we doin’? Done yet?” It may have been the longest fifteen minutes of my life.
My live introduction and three-minute recap came at the top of the third block. This is normally where a story about a one-legged surfer or a pineapple-picking competition airs, just before we tease what’s coming up in sports.
The story was everything I had dreamed of all day long. It was beautiful, it was thorough, and the preproduction worked perfectly. All of this meant absolutely nothing, since it was twelve minutes late.
When it finally ran, no one on the set paid attention to the story; everyone remained rattled. I hopped off the set when I was done and quickly left the building, embarrassed and fuming.
The added gnarliness to this whole thing was my relationship with Jones. When he had returned to the anchor chair and to running the newsroom the previous day, it came as no surprise when he indicated I was to be taken off the Inouye story. Jones was still putting me through his personal wringer for the eleventh straight month, for whatever reason, and in the limelight was the last place he wanted me.
His was a strange resentment I’ve never completely been able to figure out.
Maybe due to the “big fish, small pond” phenomenon, local anchors’ egos are gargantuan, even compared to most widely known national TV figures I’ve worked around, which makes Will Ferrell’s portrayal of Ron Burgundy in Anchorman all the more entertaining. Of course the movie was exaggerated, but much of the nonsense and self-centeredness rings true.
Reporters would mispronounce Hawaiian words, show up late, miss deadlines, and they’d never hear a word of criticism. I’d misspell a word in a script and I’d be threatened with a pink slip. My long-term strategy to deal with this weirdness was to hang low and stay as inconspicuous as possible. The Inouye fallout made that difficult. The recap delay screw-up made it almost impossible. Jones had a legitimate gripe.
The next day, I arrived to find the predictable email from Jones. I was incompetent, he was tired of the mistakes, and I needed to be fired. This I couldn’t ignore. It was ridiculous. It was my first error of any kind in months and the only major screw-up of my tenure. In my mind at the time, I had no excuse for messing up (although I actually had a couple) and I took responsibility, but the harassment had to stop. I replied to Jones’s threatening email with my own rebuttal, sent it to him and to GM Grimm, and then printed it out and put it on the newsroom bulletin board. It basically said, “Stop the bullshit and let me do my job.” It was the best note I’ve ever written.
Wednesday turned out to be easy, probably thanks to assignment editor Salgado looking out for me. I interviewed another woman from a women’s rights group, then conducted an interview on an unrelated topic, and finished up early. Thursday and Friday would be uneventful in terms of new developments and just as mellow, which was exactly what I needed.
~
Although not much of an actor, I auditioned for a play at a local theatre each night that week, which served as the perfect distraction from Bob Jones, Senator Inouye, and associates. Eventually, through the media/theatre grapevine, I landed speaking parts and a role as an extra in a few network television programs that were shot in Hawaii. Just like news reporters and anchors before me who managed to sneak onto Hawaii Five-0 in the 1970s (such as Bob Jones himself) or Magnum, P.I. in the 1980s, I snagged a couple of gigs on shows that would never go on to be as successful. One might draw a correlation between the failure of those programs and the level of talent they were using to round out the productions.
When they weren’t shooting on location, these productions shot the remainder of their material in a studio about six blocks from my apartment, over a hill behind Diamond Head where the Kaimuki neighbourhood ended and the Kahala area began.
I earned my coveted Screen Actors Guild union card for appearing on Raven, starring Lee Majors (the six-million-dollar man) and some dude named Jeffrey Meek, who played a special forces, martial-arts specialist. Local comedian Andy Bumatai played a character named “The Big Kahuna.” In one episode, I played the host of America’s Most Dangerous, a show on which Majors’s character is mistaken for a serial killer. I never was on set with any of these people.
Three years later I played a local TV sportscaster — quite a stretch, since at the time I was a local TV sportscaster — in a segment shot right on our news set. In the role, I introduced a story about a sumo wrestler who had been murdered; the show was One West Waikiki, starring Cheryl Ladd. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to actually work with her either.
In between, I was an extra on another show that never made it, The Byrds of Paradise, starring Timothy Busfield (the red-headed guy from Thirtysomething who also played reporter Danny Concannon on The West Wing). What jumped out of this production was the emergence of the people playing his two older kids. Seth Green played the eldest son and Jennifer Love Hewitt played his character’s sister. Green, among other things, went on to play the son of Dr. Evil in the Mike Myers’s Austin Powers movies. I did actually get to hang around these people on set and I remember thinking about Jennifer, this young lady is gonna be beautiful when she gets older. Yeah, I know, it didn’t take a genius.
~
Lie detector tests became the next angle on the scandal. Our police reporter, Jerry Drelling, handled that part of the story because it was retired Honolulu Police polygrapher, Mike Orion, who would be administering the tests and analyzing the results. Lenore Kwock took the test and passed with flying colours, reaffirming everyone’s gut feeling that Kwock was not a liar. Senator Inouye danced around the issue for a few days and then refused to take a polygraph.
Drelling asked the senator if he had any reason to doubt the expertise of Orion.
“I don’t know Mr. Orion, I’ve never met him,” the senator said. “I’m not aware of his credentials . . . I suppose he’s a credible person. But I saw part of his statement when he said it’s very reliable and he as a polygraph — whatever title you have — should know better than that. Can we go to something else?” Good idea, Senator.
Despite the lie detector refusal and the growing debate over the senator’s past, his lead in the polls actually grew a little bit with just over seven days to the election. Public sentiment seemed to be against Reed for his suspected role in bringing the scandal forward, more so than against the senator, even if many believed Inouye guilty. Part of this was simply “f’ing haole boy” versus local. Reed came across as a disingenuous haole originally from the mainland, while Inouye was as local-Japanese as local-Japanese could get.
One important resource wh
o wasn’t available during this entire mess was the senator’s right-hand man and spokesman in Washington, D.C., Nestor Garcia. Nestor had worked as a news reporter in Honolulu for a while but decided on politics instead. He knew our entire news staff rather well, was close friends with a few of my cohorts, but offered little or no help during these proceedings. His role during the campaign was hands off, an interesting dynamic. The Washington staff was kept apart from the Hawaii election staff, at least publicly, and this seemed to serve the senator well. Plus it meant the full-time staff could “play dumb” once they arrived back in D.C. and could avoid having to answer any questions.
While Garcia kept his distance in the final weeks leading up to the election in Hawaii, the role of public relations consultant, or media assistant, on the ground fell to hired hand Marie Reyko. Reyko was apparently instructed to make my job as difficult as possible, and she followed instructions perfectly. “Uncooperative and nasty” was my term for her performance during those couple of weeks. (Less than a year later, I ran into her at a concert and she admitted to being horrible, but insisted she was only doing her job. I couldn’t blame her. The most powerful public figure in Hawaii was footing the bill.)
Despite the Inouye camp’s obvious dislike for me and their lack of cooperation, our news management decided to put me back on the beat right before the election. The perfect capper came when Jones insisted that I handle the live shots and the interviews from Inouye’s campaign headquarters during election night. More of an intentional manoeuvre, I reckon, rather than an obvious error in judgement.
The evening unfolded as expected. Inouye won by a landslide, narrower than most of his victories, but still by almost a two-to-one margin.
The Democratic machine had chewed up the scandal and spit it out.
As the senator and his cronies celebrated with the crowd, I and the other TV reporters, who had assembled at various positions around the ballroom, set up for our final live shots. After reporting the results and the reaction, our last task would be to interview the victor.
Fat chance.
Inouye talked to Channel 2 for a few minutes, live. Then he briefly chatted with the Channel 4 reporter. When he finished, I tried to distract him, our on-site producer tried to grab him, as did one of his campaign assistants. Our camera was set up right inside the door to the building. The senator turned away from us, slid in between a couple of his very large Samoan body guards, and passed us like we had the bubonic plague. He didn’t even shoot us a look, just smirked as he passed by. The most powerful politician in Hawaii, and the prize interview of the night, walked right out the door.
Momentarily I was upset, at him, at Jones, at the whole damn scene. Then I realized it was over. I sighed.
A weight had been lifted.
No more mudslinging, no more runarounds, no more lies.
No more politics.
~
Rick Reed, living back in the state of Washington, is an executive at a marketing firm.
In December 2012, two years after winning his ninth term in 2010, Senator Inouye died at the age of eighty-eight. His body lay in state in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, only the thirty-first person, and the first Asian-American, to receive such an honour.
Not long after the 1992 election, nine other women alleged harassment against Inouye, via a female state legislator, but none would participate in a full inquiry. In 2014, two years after his death, Inouye was accused of sexually harassing fellow senator Kirsten Gillibrand.
COLLEGE KLEPTO
“Where the hell’s the 325 sign in left field?”
Central Michigan University Sports Information Director, Fred Stabley Jr., April 1985
That’s it, time to come clean. It was me, the radio play-by-play guy, the voice of Chippewa Baseball, who stole the 325-foot marker. My overwhelming sentimentality for the game got the best of me. More to the point, so did eight beers and a couple shots of tequila.
One day, I was sitting in the press box calling the action of Central Michigan University baseball, making reference to the 325-foot stretch down the right and left field lines, 375 feet or whatever it was to the power alleys, and 400 feet to straightaway centerfield. The next day, early in the first inning I went with, “It’s 325 down the lines here at Alumni Field . . . hey, wait, the marker in left field appears to be missing. That’s odd.”
Despite being hungover and a lousy actor, I got away with it. I was somewhat well respected in student media circles and a pretty decent play-by-play guy. No one in the press box that day would suspect me of stealing the sign the night before. My secret was safe, until now.
What happened in the dark of night between those two baseball broadcasts was a secret I had planned to take to my grave. Then my ten-year-old son asked me one day, “Hey, Dad, what’s that big metal sign in your closet mean?”
“Well, son, I was hammered one night, didn’t get laid, so I decided while I was walking home in the middle of the night to rip it off the outfield wall at my college ballpark.” This is the explanation I didn’t go with. I think I said it was a gift. Realizing I was just compounding the evil, I’ve decided to tell the real story, which begs the question, can I still be charged or punished?
Central Michigan University was an all-around delightful experience. The education was decent, not at the level of the University of Michigan or one of the bratty, small private schools around the state, but decent enough. We had a very solid regional broadcasting program. Just as important, it was a flourishing party school in those days, sixteenth on the Playboy national list of party schools, with horny and hot suburban and small-town coeds ready to experiment. Utopia, some would call it; the party atmosphere was the main reason I extended my attendance to five years.
Spring was obviously in the air in April 1985 when I met some friends at the “soccer house” on the north end of campus. The soccer house wasn’t an official designation; it was simply a small home on North Franklin Street where a number of the school’s soccer team members resided. Soccer was a club sport at the time, not varsity, so it wasn’t taken all that seriously. The house was legendary for its booze consumption.
The fraternity scene was lame for the most part, with just a small “Greek” population on campus, so most of the good stuff occurred at random house parties between campus and downtown Mt. Pleasant.
To get to the area, my housemates and I had to travel about two miles. We lived in a brand-spanking-new apartment complex called Chippewa Village, about three-quarters of a mile west of campus. It was townhouse style, each unit with its own private entrance, and we lived in A-1. They were all three-storey, five-bedroom bachelor or bachelorette pads, overlooking a central courtyard. Other pals from Thorpe Hall, our jock dorm down the street where we previously lived, also got past the waiting list and had hip pads at Chip’ Village. Scott Smith, or “Smitty,” whom I rode with to the party on the night of the theft, had the bedroom next to me on the top floor.
I don’t remember whom I drank with, whom I chatted with, or for how long I stayed at the soccer house that April night. I’m sure it was a combination of the semi-regulars I hung out with and some randoms; all I know is that the proceedings got very liquid. But I somehow remember the remainder of the night, after I left the party, like it was yesterday.
Smitty was long gone by the time I started stumbling home at about three o’clock in the morning. The CMU campus is flat and rather cozy. The soccer house sat just a few doors up from Bellows Street, which runs across the north end of campus. It’s only about a mile and a quarter south to Broomfield Street, which runs along the south end. Preston Street splits the difference, running parallel to the others, just a little north of centre. Just off Preston, in the heart of the campus, is where old Alumni Field sat.
I was a few steps north of the ballpark, meandering my way south, when I suddenly convinced myself I had to take a little piece of CMU baseball home with me. I mean, c’m
on, in my mind I was the next Ernie Harwell (Detroit Tigers legendary broadcaster), and if things stayed the way they were, I’d be the first kid ever to broadcast Chippewa baseball as the main play-by-play guy for three (and then four) years, starting as a sophomore. Baseball broadcasting was my life. It was only my junior year, but I had to have the large memento right then. In my sloshed mind, I had to give myself an early twenty-first birthday present.
Stealing that sign is the perfect example of an item literally being “ripped off.” It wasn’t easy.
Had I been caught, years three and four of my CMU broadcasting career likely never would have happened. On top of the impending theft itself, I was carrying a couple cans of beer as I proceeded to the scene of the crime: open beer on campus, yet another infraction. Logic, utter embarrassment, arrest, possible secondary discipline of all kinds, my future — none of this seemed to enter my mind as I sipped my cold frothy outside the ballpark down the left-field line. In my enthusiastically devious, plastered mind, this outfield sign would forever make a delightful wall hanging.
It should come as no surprise at this point, being a pathological dolt, that I then began to do my best Bluto Blutarsky imitation. Bent at the knees, wide stance, head on a swivel, arms in the ready-to-wrestle position, I hopped back and forth in semicircles while humming the related music.
“Do-do, do-DO, do-do-da-Dooooo.” I would pretend to be John Belushi in Animal House at least three more times during my escape.
At almost six-foot-six, I had an advantage. I could easily reach up to the top of the fence that ran along the outside of the playing field and pull myself up, and I was in decent enough shape to do so. But it was still going to require a pretty solid effort, and I’d have to do it quickly to avoid being seen or heard. I knew I needed a really good burst, and I knew I could get scraped up pretty good or snap a leg. Call it drunken adrenaline: if I hadn’t been loaded, I never would have tried it.