For some reason, “Cops” is on the TV behind me, and you can hear every heaving breath the camera man takes after a little jog into a field. You would think that for a show featuring on-site action and lots opf running around, they would hire a cameraman who doesn’t sound like he’s having a heart attack from any accelerated movement.
It’s like listening to some perv on the phone, good lord!
The cop is running after a crook. The cameraperson is running after a cop with pounds of camera on shoulder and pounds of battery packs around waist.
I’ve used those cameras before–the big professional ones–and they are pretty heavy. But not that heavy; this was barely a jog he was on. He ran all of about 30 feet. And he was winded for a good 3-4 minutes of airtime.
A bit off subject, but I can’t help it.
How about Cops? Don’t you just love it that 90%-99% of the chases they show end up with the cops catching the suspects? I especially love it when they show an officer with a GIANT gut who chases down a suspect without a problem. . . Then they show the suspect. A lot of the time, it’s a really lean, athletic, young guy. How often do you think that really happens?
We have a silly little TV show on local cable channel that is a take-off on “Cops”, I think it’s called “Blue Light”. Our local TV station puts on these community interest productions with much flair and effort. Usually they come across as one step above “Wayne’s World” on SNL.
I was unfortunate enough to have a cameraman ride in my car for a night shift. Apparantly by being out of the ready room reading the Sporting News in the john while the crucial assignment was being made by the shift sergeant was good enough for the entire watch to cast a “Yes” vote for me, in absentia. What a bunch of sorry assholes I work with.
Yes, as an answer to my prayers, this guy was a total police freak. Watched every episode of “Cops” and “Real Stories Of the Highway Patrol”. Did not understand why I watched “Friends”, “Frasier” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” instead of aforementioned, real, true-to-life, gritty shows. I guess any discussion of Shakespeare, one of my keen reading interests, was out of the question. The only thing he wanted to record verbally was the Macho Cop Attitude On Life, something I haven’t quite mastered yet. 
Failing that, I played with the radio and hummed popular tunes. After the 47th question about my service weapon, the Sig-Sauer P225, and his comparison/contrast theories to his favorite weapon of choice, the Glock19, :rolleyes: I was quietly counting down the time to my end of shift and quick escape from this idiot.
The night went by routinely, much to my satisfaction. However, Mr. Cameraman was not happy-- no action, no shooting, no bad guys. We stopped at one fishing spot on the Gulf side of my area and I talked with some old service buddies doing some night fishing. Not too exciting to him, even though my friend had just purchased a new salt rig from Wal Mart and was happily showing it off to anyone who ventured by the fishing pier. Mr. Cameraman asked me afterwards if I should’ve checked their fishing licences. I think my reply was “…yeah right” :rolleyes:
We finally got a domestic violence call six hours into the watch, with the husband fleeing the scene on foot. Mr. Cameraman had, in six hours, polished off quite a mountain of food from this monstrous cooler that took up a good portion of my backseat area. I was told to go on foot and meet with a K9 unit about six or seven blocks down this housing area. I run biathlons and 10Ks regularly, so I figured I’d take a quick run and told Mr. Cameraman to follow me if he wanted to. He belches once and moves his bovine ass out of the car trailing the videocam and a good segment of Hardees wrappers and condiments. From behind me I hear the sounds of a man who has not seen the inside of a gym in quite some time.
About halfway up the slightly inclined hill I hear a loud crash behind me. Mr. Camera had failed to hurdle a vicious garden hose that was placed in his path and basically had fallen and couldn’t get up. I checked to see that he was OK and was relieved to see that he was noisily puking up the contents of his lunch cooler. At least he was breathing and some blood was circulating. I left him to fend off a rather irate neighbor who was asking him why he was sprawled amongst her lawn ornaments like a beached whale.
After the incident was over, I met him at the car where he was recovering a decent part of his pasty pink coloration again. I voiced regret about his cracked camera casing and possible ankle injury sustained by secondary collision with gnome-shaped lawn ornament. I apologized to the lady who owned the gnomes and took full responsibility for waking her up at zero-dark-thirty. ("He’s with me ma’am, you could’ve been on Blue Lights, if he wasn’t unconscious!) I tactfully suggested to Mr. Cameraman that if he was going to truly be a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist enroute to that prime assignment to Fox TV, then he might want to get in a better physical shape. I pointed out that a lot of the cops in the big cities are young and fresh out of the Marines and Army Rangers-- they do love to run and hurdle fences! Thankfully it was a quiet trip back to the station as Mr. Cameraman soaked up as much A/C as his overheated body could muster.
Well, that was as close as I came to potentially getting on TV, even though it was only local cable access. Oh well, fame is a fleeting thing. 
Oh, man, Bluepony, that was friggin’ hysterical. If that ever gets on TV, be sure to send me a copy.
Still chuckling about the vicious garden hose…
Myrr-
I think what you’re hearing is the cop, not the cameraman. Think about it. The cop is miked (sp?). The cameraman is not. There’s no reason to mike him. So, what you heard was the cop running after the crimi about to have a coronary.
Those Gnomes and (likely) pink flamingos probobly tripped up the poor cameraman. He’ll probobly sue that poor lady! Great story, Blue! Cracked me right up
Zette
I saw one segment where they were chasing a stolen car, and the suspects ditched and ran into this really run down neighborhood, all old fences and overgrown shrubbery. The cops ran all over the place, and there were a few tense moments when they investigated a couple of empty sheds, but they could not find the suspects.
The main officer chatted for a bit with the other guys and they shrugged it off. “At least we got the car back undamaged. You can’t win them all.”
I didn’t expect to see that.
As I don’t have cable, I watch a LOT of Cops. You know you have officially seen too much, when you yell “Mercedes!” excitedly upon seeing your favorite Albuquerqueian nut-job on yet another episode. This chick calls the cops daily, and only speaks spanish. On one episode, her parrot attacked the English-speaking cop, and the spanish-speaking cop was laughing too hard to do anything. That’s good TV.