good morning John let's talk about
screwing up today first summer I was in
college I worked at Walmart and it was a
weird experience made a lot of friends
cleaned up a lot of poop but that is a
story for a different day second summer
out of college I worked at a community
access television station called orange
TV in Orlando Florida it was a pretty
cool job I got to do whatever I did
graphic design I did camera operation I
did sounds and I learned a ton that is
still relevant to my life today like for
example that it does not matter what you
know about lighting or screenwriting or
cinematography you are dirt if you don't
know how to properly coil a cable I also
learned a thing or two about screwing up
my very first assignment at orange TV I
went out and we were filming like this
Bank woody thing and that was on sound
and I could tell that the audio wasn't
great I I didn't know for sure that
something was going wrong but I was
pretty sure that it wasn't it wasn't
right later without me telling him about
this the camera operator checked the
audio and was like oh that sounds real
bad it was on the on-board camera mic
and not the handheld mic so all the
footage we take it at the beginning of
the shoot was completely useless he
managed to not go off which was
impressive instead just telling me if
something seems wrong you should tell
someone yeah good advice so the year
2002 back then I was 19 20 years old I
did not have great fashion so I still
don't also haircut done you know this I
wore a lot of thrift store clothes one
day a fair ways into my short tenure at
OU TV we were getting ready for a shoot
in a parking garage the shoot wasn't in
the parking garage we were shooting a
community event item
you don't care the producer on this
shoot was this little guy but he was
like super solid and he had a mustache
that was like perfect silver and like
very straight on the bottom as far as I
was concerned he'd been in TV since the
beginning of time I was very much
respected him we were just breaking from
getting our instructions and he comes
over to me he talks me in the shoulder
and he says Greene you outrank me I
looked at where he's poking me in the
shoulder and it's a patch and it looks
like that turns out my producer was not
always in television he was at one point
in the airforce I will never forget that
Greene you outrank me that he said to me
because like it was 90 percent joke
but it was 10% frustration the
frustration with me with society I don't
know but I was horrified like I knew
that I was wearing a military jacket I
hadn't even really considered that it
was once someone else's I also wasn't
worried about like stolen valor here I
don't think anybody was gonna confuse me
at 19 year old kid and too baggy jeans
shorts for a master sergeant in the Air
Force and my producer wasn't concerned
that I was portraying myself as a member
of the military he didn't think I was
trying to fool anyone but he had like
opened my eyes a little bit to the fact
that there were symbols on my body that
I knew nothing about symbols that were
part of other people's identity of their
of their work of their pride and the sum
total of everything I knew about that
was that it looked cool I still don't
know what a master sergeant is I didn't
even know that the jacket I was wearing
was from the Air Force it could have
been any branch of the military and
let's be honest like as a young lefty I
a little bit looked down on that career
path and yet I was wearing the jacket
because it looked cool John I remember
specifically that I kept that jacket for
a little while thinking I would probably
wear it again at some point but I didn't
every time I looked at it I thought you
know what I know is that I don't know
like I don't know in my producer poked
me in the shoulder and gave me that ten
percent frustration he had told me that
something didn't seem right
and what that thing is is not as simple
as whether we're on the on-board camera
mic or the handheld it didn't mean I was
a bad person it just meant it was
complicated and I didn't really know it
was up and it turns out there are other
jackets in the world so I wore one of
those John I'll see you on Tuesday