How do you prepare for history in the making? Now, don’t for a second think that I believe that I am making history…just commenting on it. But nonetheless whether there are three viewers or three million, you have a responsibility to be accurate as well as entertaining. No easy task in the middle of the night, eyes glazed from staring at a four hour extravaganza shown on monitors in a studio located in the middle of nowhere, USA.
I am talking about my current role, just hours away in the wee hours of the night mountain time, as a color commentator for ReelzChannel’s coverage of the Royal Wedding. There is something surreal about the notion of ‘covering’ the Royal Wedding from Albuquerque (the corporate headquarters for ReelzChannel) while thousands of the world’s journalists descend upon London for a neck-craning, eye witness, ‘you-are-there’ experience. Still, I will be in the makeup chair at 1 a.m. and on the air by 3—cue the trumpeters and let the festivities begin! (Does anyone know a good middle of the night coffee hook up in Albuquerque?)
But as I said, this is history in the making—a follow-up to the fractured fairy tale that was the life of the late Diana, Princess of Wales. It is ironic that the last time hundreds of thousands of people lined the streets for a precession to Westminster Abbey was to follow the casket of Diana. Today, we have jumped a generation and pick up the story again with the Heir Presumptive, William of Wales and the woman who would be Queen…someday. And the wishes of the world are once again hoping for a ‘happily ever after’. And I will be forever able to say: “While I wasn’t there, I was on the air.” That is my little part, of being a part of history in the making.
But what do I glean from this experience? Hmmm? Perhaps it is what so many people are hoping for those of us who were witness thirty years ago to the Diana/Charles big day—closure. It is a chance to put a happy ending on a very unhappy story of the Wales dynasty.
Yeah yeah…fear not I am not going to be all poetry and tears. And yes I will dine out on the notion that I ‘covered’ the Royal Wedding—with anecdotes and ditties handed out to all the lesser mortals who simply sat in their jammies with a cup of tea and watched from the couch at home. Yes, I will forget that I was five thousand miles away, in a studio in Albuquerque, watching the same live feed that the lesser mortals were watching from home. To me, I will have always been there, witnessing history, putting my own spin on the situation. How do you prepare for history in the making? You can’t…but you can claim to be part of it.
Now, if you will excuse me…I have to run to the makeup chair. History waits for no man!
I am talking about my current role, just hours away in the wee hours of the night mountain time, as a color commentator for ReelzChannel’s coverage of the Royal Wedding. There is something surreal about the notion of ‘covering’ the Royal Wedding from Albuquerque (the corporate headquarters for ReelzChannel) while thousands of the world’s journalists descend upon London for a neck-craning, eye witness, ‘you-are-there’ experience. Still, I will be in the makeup chair at 1 a.m. and on the air by 3—cue the trumpeters and let the festivities begin! (Does anyone know a good middle of the night coffee hook up in Albuquerque?)
But as I said, this is history in the making—a follow-up to the fractured fairy tale that was the life of the late Diana, Princess of Wales. It is ironic that the last time hundreds of thousands of people lined the streets for a precession to Westminster Abbey was to follow the casket of Diana. Today, we have jumped a generation and pick up the story again with the Heir Presumptive, William of Wales and the woman who would be Queen…someday. And the wishes of the world are once again hoping for a ‘happily ever after’. And I will be forever able to say: “While I wasn’t there, I was on the air.” That is my little part, of being a part of history in the making.
But what do I glean from this experience? Hmmm? Perhaps it is what so many people are hoping for those of us who were witness thirty years ago to the Diana/Charles big day—closure. It is a chance to put a happy ending on a very unhappy story of the Wales dynasty.
Yeah yeah…fear not I am not going to be all poetry and tears. And yes I will dine out on the notion that I ‘covered’ the Royal Wedding—with anecdotes and ditties handed out to all the lesser mortals who simply sat in their jammies with a cup of tea and watched from the couch at home. Yes, I will forget that I was five thousand miles away, in a studio in Albuquerque, watching the same live feed that the lesser mortals were watching from home. To me, I will have always been there, witnessing history, putting my own spin on the situation. How do you prepare for history in the making? You can’t…but you can claim to be part of it.
Now, if you will excuse me…I have to run to the makeup chair. History waits for no man!
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