Talk by Michael A Smerconish

break, Alex had told me that the governor was running 3-5 minutes late, which wouldn’t seriously curtail the interview time, but meant there’d be no private words spoken between us off-air. We didn’t have a green room, and the control area where Rod and Alex sat was too cramped to hold guests for any significant amount of time. In the rare instances when I had an in-studio guest, I’d usually walk out into the adjacent hallway and say hello before we went on air. I’d try to be courteous while keeping the pre-air conversation to a few simple pleasantries, lest they say something interesting and then leave it in the locker room. But there’d be none of that today. With Tobias behind schedule, it meant whatever was spoken between us would all be in front of live microphones.
    On my side of the studio glass things were mostly business as usual. I was wearing my standard uniform: an Oxford cloth button down shirt, conservative sport coat, pair of Lucky jeans, and Bruno Magli shoes (no socks). (I stopped wearing them for a few years after OJ, that cocksucker, gave them a bad name. But they’re so damn comfortable that my protest ended after a couple of months and a lot of experimentation.) Normally I sat alone in front of the big electronic bank of blinking lights, knobs and switches illuminated in front me, but today I had the cameraman from the network morning show to keep me company. Notes and newspapers spilled out around me, and on my left were two computer screens, one connected to the Internet and logged on to the Morning Power web site or my Twitter feed, and the other showing me the information that Alex gleaned from callers. “Joe…on a mobile…from St. Pete…thinks you’re a jerkoff.” Across from me sat two chairs for guests, each withits own mic stand and pair of Sony headphones. I’d recommend you get a tetanus shot before you wear ‘em. When I was working in Pittsburgh, we had an old-timer who used to do a weekend Beatles show and he’d come into the studio with his own cleaning supplies and hose the place down, spraying Lysol on the microphone and headphones before he’d start. I used to laugh at him, but no more. The one thing I can’t afford to be in my business is sick.
    I sat with my back to a wall, looking at a landscape that consisted of the console, guest positions and finally, 15 feet away, the glass separating the broadcast studio from the control room, with Alex and Rod seated on the other side in close quarters. Alex was on the right, dressed in drab with a t-shirt that said, “There Is No Plan B.” A small looped earring protruded from her left eyebrow, and she wore a sleek headset with a mouthpiece that made her look like she was working in a call center in Mumbai. Rod sat a few feet away, wearing his bow tie, while his outstretched arms and hands ran “the board” as we call it. His job was to maintain audio purity, keep close track of time and play the commercials. It’s a job that demands attentiveness and organization, and although I personally found him to be a major ass pain, I had to admit that he was damn good at it. The obsessive nature of his personality was one of the reasons that I never wanted to see him outside the studio, and the same reason I wanted to make sure he was there when I was working. Rod looked suitably dour, no doubt at the prospect of a prominent Democrat having been invited onto our show.
    But today, Alex and Rod also had company. Jammed into the already narrow confines of the control room alongside them were three cameramen from the local Tampa network affiliates, plus two guys I assumed were print reporters more on account of their scruffy looks than their tablets. Funny how the mediaworld is evolving at a rapid clip, but the newspaper guys always look the same.
    â€œWe’re awaiting the arrival of Governor Bob Tobias here in the WRGT studios,” I began.