It`s always a special thing, having your friends and lover(s) perform for you in a TV show. Always a special thing, because you want to make the whole experience as painless as possible for them. If not for them, for whom then, right?

She was nervous. Who isn`t? Unless you are an experienced KGB agent, used to staring in the blinding light while strangers ask you silly questions, trying to determine ze position of ze nukliar feuerarms, you are going to be looking at that TV-light like a deer staring into the headlight of a speeding truck.

Your clothes itch, everything you say comes out wrong while the jerk is smiling at you and asking you more silly questions and you answer more silly answers and….blah!

The other members of the crew are usually there to ease the interviewee in. To help him/her. Tell a joke, offer a cigarette or just be very quiet in order not to disturb him/her even more. Usually.

There are what we call assholes extraordinaries. These are the people who has dissatisfying jobs, who wanted to be actors, politicians or scientists (or maybe all three) and when they ended up working as a sound technicians, they became very bitter. Very bitter indeed. So bitter that they used all of their excess brain strenght for moaning and commenting on other people`s business. Cause they know it all. They know how to ask questions, they know how to formulate answers, they know how to do EVERY SINGLE THING and they are not afraid of telling that to everybody. And I mean everybody. They are probably complaining even about the way their wives experience orgasms. They would do it different. They would have done it better.

It`s always hard to have such individual on your crew. Always. There is always a quarrel, you always have to play daddy and try to separate them (and these are men old enough to be my father) and in the end, the whole team looks bad. Like today.

The overhead noise was too strong. Being her first time in front of a TV camera, her voice was shaky. She was having problems formulating sentences. All the natural symptoms of a camera virgin. I know how it feels. I`ve seen it with my own eyes. And the crew usually helped overcome the fear of the “staring black eye“, the blinding light and others symbols of TV journalism. But not this guy. This guy did exactly the opposite. He bitched. All the time. Doing my job. Doing the camera guy`s job. One-man band!

I`ve also seen the reaction of the interviewee. They sweat. They squirm. They forget stuff. They buckle under the pressure. But not this one. This one took it for a while and then got up, said “That`s it.” and left.

This is the part where the experienced journalist in the field stops for a second for the audience to get the gist and then says “In all my years of TV journalism, I`ve never seen anything like that…”

Which is true.

There is something I like about those kind of acts. Getting`s up and leaving the scene. There is a feeling of independence and determination. A sense of self-esteem. I am not sure if I could do it. I`d adapt. I`d try to justify the behaviour of the asshole. Teen injury, car accident(s) and so forth. Anything to explain why someone is behaving like a complete hole de excretum.

But not her.

The result? We did manage to get three quarters of material. For the last quarter we`ll use magic. Maybe I should go ask the asshole. I bet he has tons of advice to give. Like always.