Not Live From Watertown

Video Link: If you care. That's Fox's live streaming feed; no idea when I'll be on, if at all.

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Couldn't sleep last night, even though I took two sleeping pills, which I never do, because it screws me up so much the following day. After laying in bed mind whirring from two to four a.m., I finally put on Anchorman, which usually does the trick. It engages me just enough to keep my mind from whirring, but I've seen it so many times I have little interest in focusing on it; so it basically blocks me from thinking and puts me out like a light.

I didn't make it past the scene where the boys come across Vince Vaughan and his crew. So, I knocked off around 4:15 AM.

The morning was hellish, still sluggish from the two sleeping pills, eyes red and bleary. Two RockStar diet energy drinks for caffeine (I hate the crap; just didn't want to deal with making cofee) and two Miller Lights to take the edge off.

Reviewed Jim Geraghty's remarks about Turkish media. He had a good discription -- "Think of it as the New York Post plus Debka [file] plus Krugman plus Coulter" -- but no one knows what the hell Debka is, so I had to try to think of a different way to convey this. What I said exactly I have no idea.

Got there late. Traffic on main route plus roadwork on secondary route. Only disk availabe was Magical Mystery Tour, so I just played Baby You're A Rich Man five or six times. Slim pickings on MMT.

Was supposed to be on 9-9:15 but due to lateness instead went on 9:30 to about 9:50.

Was in the Green Room -- always wanted to be in Green Room at some point -- and wanted to post from there, but of course I was locked out of the system and a tech guy had to come in and try to login. He eventually did-- right before they told me to come to the studio.

The studio was completely black, except for bright white lights in my face which also reflected in my glasses. I was supposed to keep my eye fixed on the camera, but I couldn't see the camera, or anything, really; they didn't like it that I kept looking down or around, telling me "People don't believe you if you look down." But it's hard to focus on something you can't even see. All I could see was black, plus bright white lights, which are worse than blackness.

So I looked down a lot. Might have ruined the whole picture part of the thing. Which, actually, would not bother me at all. Run my voice with the pics-- fine with me.

I don't know how I did; I can't even remember what I said. I could guess at what I'd be asked, and I had, more or less, answers ready; but no plan survives first contact with the enemy.

Name-checked Confederate Yankee and Strata-Sphere, who first brought to my attention the suspicious photos (not the doctored ones, the ones which were suspiciously dramatic and improbably captured, like the tricycles and the wedding dress). Also mentioned the burning Koran.

My mouth was dry as desert dust by the middle of the interview. No glass of water on the table for Ace.

Mentioned "multiple layers of painstaking editorial fact checking." Accused Reuters' global picture editor of unconscious bias. Noted that I was not merely an idiot, but an actual "moron," and that if the picture looked laughably fake to me, surely he should have caught it had he been exhibiting any sort of editorial scrutiny whatsoever.

Did NOT say pooter, even though I had an idea I might say com-pooter instead of computer. But I never said computer.

No Paul Anka references. Should have pre-written a way to work one in.

Anyway, that was it. I have no idea if they'll use the audio, the pics, or anything at all. I was not horrible, but neither was I on fire, and I didn't say anything brief and pithy enough to guarantee a soundbite getting on air. My answers were fairly cogent but fairly predictable, and not especially cutting.

I did call Reuters the Cadillac of anti-Israel bias, but I doubt they'll use that.

So, there you go.

If life is 90% just showing up, at least I showed up. So I won't feel bad about being left on the cutting room floor.

Again, thanks for everyone's support on this. It was really appreciated, and it really helped.

Whenever I got nervous, I just thought of bbeck's rack.

Not really. I should have though.

PS: I didn't mention LGF or My Pet Jawa or Left & Right because we were largely not talking about the p-shopped pics. We were mostly talking about possible staged or set-dressed photos -- in-camera special effects, as it were. The p-shops came up just to say, "If this is getting by them, what isn't?"

Per See-Dub's advice, I did not say "fuck." He told me not to say "fuck" before I first went on Rightalk, and I followed his good advice. Except, of course, for the one or two times I did say it.

But I didn't say it on TV. At least I don't think I did.

posted by Ace at 09:53 AM

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