I wasn’t a very intrepid cub reporter, but I did date the paper’s sports editor, a pugnacious and flirty young woman who, much to my consternation, seemed to have previous romantic attachments and dorm-room phone numbers for the football team’s entire defensive backfield. These connections helped me attach my byline to a scoop or two about Tennessee football, which in turn led an invitation to be a guest on a local sports-talk radio show.
The show’s host, Tony, was a fast-talking Italian guy with a bulbous nose and tightly curled black hair — a transplanted New Yorker who was trying to make inroads in the Knoxville market — and I felt pretty important when I put on headphones and pulled up a chair across from him.
“You done any radio before?” Tony asked, his glottal voice resonating clearly inside my headphones.
I shook my head. “Never.”
“Then we might be launching a career here,” Tony said, flashing a smile that revealed a mouthful of jumbled, yellowed teeth. The sentence he uttered next stings my vanity to this day: “You remind me of myself at your age — a smart kid with a face for radio.”
Turns out I not only had a “face for radio” but a voice for newspapers. After stammering through a half hour with Tony and his callers, I kept myself away from airwaves of all kinds for the next two decades. Television cameras make me self-conscious; microphones make me bitter.
Jill shares my disdain for broadcast-media outlets, especially when it comes to local TV reporters. As a newspaper photographer, she had her sightline blocked by many a cameraman and witnessed on-air talent devote more care to applying their makeup than working a story.
So when a TV producer at Phoenix’s Fox affiliate sent me an e-mail expressing her interest in doing a story about the whole “12 Legs” thing, Jill and I were wary. We feared a TV reporter might package our story as cutesy. We worried a TV appearance might reek of self-promotion. And, well, the thought of being interviewed on camera scared the hell out of us.
But the producer’s e-mail came at a moment when Jill and I were trying to figure out what we wanted this blog to be. We created it as a way to keep friends and family abreast of our travels. But, almost immediately, our professional pride took over, and we began writing and shooting as if our audience were much bigger than it was. Then, as we awoke morning after morning in beautiful places with no office to report to, we started daydreaming about how we might make a living out of this type of “work”.
We didn’t have an answer for that question — and still don’t — but we figured a good first step would be to increase the blog’s exposure. And what better way to do that than to go on TV? Besides, even if the story turned out silly, our respective mothers would get a big kick out of it.
So I returned the producer’s e-mail and told her Jill and I were game. We arranged to meet the reporter during a quick swing through Phoenix. On the day of the interview I washed the dogs and trimmed my beard; Jill put on makeup and a pair of big earrings.
It must be said that the reporter, Jayme King, laid to waste both our notion of TV reporters and our expectations about the interview. He arrived early with a courteous cameraman named Juan and interviewed us for more than an hour. He asked thoughtful questions, took copious notes and didn’t mind getting dog hair on his slacks. The fruits of Mr. King’s labor can be viewed below.
Tragically, I still have a face for radio. But I happen to think the camera loves Jill nearly as much as I do. Perhaps some producer from the Travel Channel or National Geographic will stumble across this video and make her the host of a web series, and our dreams of office-less globetrotting will come true.
More likely, though, we’ll just get a comment from my mom telling me to shave.
—Scott