Anchoring on Newsradio WFLA

I should change the background of this blog, since the images came from 15 years, 30 pounds and thousands of hairs ago. Oh, well. Now I anchor news on the radio, so it's OK.

I started recording some of the newscasts I do at Newsradio WFLA in Tampa on my phone then marrying the video the aircheck audio later so that I could post them on my LinkedIn account. Last I visited LinkedIn, the videos had disappeared, so they have nowhere else to go but Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and the early millennium platform of Blogger.

Which was when I made this blog!

Radio and Music

Just not at the same time. It's been a while, hasn't it? You probably thought I had died. Actually, you probably didn't think about me at all. That's OK. I do enough of that for both of us. I might have mentioned (or might not, and I'm too lazy to look) that I work at WFLA radio in Tampa, and have since 2016, actually. I write and read newscasts on weekends, with the luxury of showing up in my gym clothes. I fill in during the week, which is where this behind-the-scenes look at me reading a newscast this week came from.



The schedule leaves me free for what I call my mid-life crisis of trying to make a go of making music, where I write and sing songs under the name John Allen James. Here's my song "Let Me Down Easy," which I figure came out OK, since if I play it without identifying it as one of mine, people will often ask who wrote it, surprised that it was me.



That song came from an album I released last year called "Fire Sky".



The >>| icon in the player will forward you to the next song. You can also hear the album on your favorite streaming service. Just search for "John Allen James Fire Sky" and it will come up.

Music Video - "Reborn"

Live in Concert

OK, not exactly a concert, but singing and playing in front of people. Videos shot by Dale Johnston, "The Mad Scientist."

Light of Day:


Better Day:

Live Music on a Stage Near You by Me

Hello again, dear strangers. I know enough time has passed since my last post that you had forgotten I was here. That's OK. Some days I forget I'm here, too. I spend much time playing music. Have I mentioned that I recorded an album? You can hear it at MrJohnMusic.com. You can also hear my play live at venues around Tampa. Last night, someone recorded a portion of my song "Reborn."

Listen to this. "Reborn" by Mr John. Damn beautiful....
Posted by Dale Johnston on Monday, March 21, 2016

I will share more, subject to my remembering to post here. Like everyone else I have too often forsaken writing blog entries for quicker blurbs posted to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Life is progress. Of some sort.

Buy My Album!

I have an album of original songs. You can listen, and even buy it, at my page on bandcamp.com. Please give it a listen.

Music Video - Lift You Up - and New Website

This never happened in TV news. In some spare time at work at Kelby Media Group, I shot a music video for my song, "Lift You Up." A coworker who heard me play it asked, in complete seriousness, if I was on a record label. "I know people who do music," he said. "And that song's good." When he had some downtime, he even wanted to help, and he did the camera on the moving shots.

How cool is that?

I shot the rest, and edited the video. Plus, I wrote, performed and recorded the song. You've heard the term "one man band"? This is nearly that in more ways than one!

"Lift You Up" is a painful song for me in a couple of ways. First, it deals with trying to support friends who have suffered catastrophic losses in their lives. Second, one of the people who inspired it, for whom I once had great affection, decided to sever ties with me, so I get a bittersweet feeling whenever I play or hear the song now.

Like the song itself, the video is not perfect, but I like it a lot, and I hope you will, too. Please take a look:



I have taken this music stuff seriously enough that that I bought a the domain name MrJohnMusic.com. For now it uses the basic layout of JohnMcQuiston.com, but it has the best of my songs there, and I plan to tailor a style just for it. Stay tuned. (See what I did there?)

Anchor of The Year?

So this happened. For the third straight year, I am a finalist for the Society of Professional Journalists Florida Chapter Anchor of the Year. I don’t know if this is good. I worked as at WWSB-TV in Sarasota for not even two full weeks of 2014, and my entry consisted of work from a single day’s ordinary newscasts. Either the judge really liked my work on a mundane news day, or only three people entered and all of us made the finals.

You may judge for yourself:

South Dakota Wants Would-Be Mars Colonists

I have not made this up. South Dakota has produced a video extolling its virtues compared to those of Mars for people considering the one-way trip to the red planet. South Dakota, it brags, is "progressive, productive and abundant in oxygen."

My Photos on FineArtAmerica.com

People like the photos I post on Facebook and on Instagram (@PhotoQuist). Now I'll see if anyone likes them enough to buy one. I've uploaded about two dozen to a website called FineArtAmerica.com, where artists can upload their work and the site takes care of the orders, of the making the prints, and doing any framing that a customer wants.

Check it out!

Baby Chimp Plays with Tiger and Wolf Cubs

Useless cuteness? Nah. No such thing. Happy Friday!

Lorikeets Play - Sony Power Zoom Lens Test

One cool thing about my job is that I get to try out cool gear like the Sony FE PZ 28-135mm G OSS lens. Some days I even get paid to go to the zoo and take pictures or photos! The Sony power zoom lens is designed with video in mind, so that's what I shot with it.

While shooting demo footage with the lens on a Sony A7S camera, I caught a couple of interesting exchanges between these colorful birds at Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa called lorikeets. I don't know if this is their version of wrestling, or if it's an attempt at mating. But it's fun to watch?



I did no color grading, correcting or sharpening in post. This is straight from the camera, rendered to an MP4 file. The part before the dissolve used the lens' auto focus. After the transition I manually focused the lens. This shot doesn't feature much of the zoom, but it worked well for me. I'd say more but since I will review the lens for my job, I don't want to steal anyone's thunder! But the result will go up on YouTube, and I'll post it here.

Prepare for the Best

A photo posted by @photoquist on Dec 12, 2014 at 4:16am PST

"Expect the best. Prepare for the worst," the saying goes. Prepare for the best, too. You'd hate not to be ready if it happened.

Oh, and follow me on Instagram: @PhotoQuist.

Flying Drones

First thing: This is not journalism, I know. This is a marketing video, and it's a lot of what I do now. The cool thing for me*, as you'll see in this video, is that I get my hands on some really cool gadgets and get to try them out.



*Also, they pay me.

Anchor of the Year? Update: Not Quite

Looking back at previous posts, I see that I mentioned that I was a finalist for the Society of Professional Journalists Florida Anchor of the Year. And I left you hanging.

Now I have this to hang. The award ceremony happened in Miami last month, and I finished runner-up. Second place for the second year in a row. I obviously would have preferred to finish first, but second place in the whole state is not bad for a weekend guy at a small market station. It will have to do. I have likely anchored my last TV newscast. If so, I feel proud of the work I did, and glad to see it recognized as good.

Even if not quite as good as I'd hoped!

Here is the entry I submitted:

Hello Again!

Hello faithful readers, from your far less than faithful correspondent. I cannot explain my absence, though not having anything interesting to say could explain some of it.

(Good rule of thumb: when you have nothing to say, don't say it!)

But I saw on Facebook, that vast wasteland of status updates thumbed on phones and viral animal videos, that a friend of mine had earned an award nomination for her blog.

But first, because I know this might be a long time away from Facebook, here's a viral animal video:



Now back to our programming. Here's the link to the blog award finalists: http://typeaparent.com/announcing-still-blog-award-finalists.html. Back in the day, I would have made a hyperlink so you wouldn't have to see the URL. Of course, back then, I could remember what URL stood for.

Turns out I should have spent more time typing in this space more often. My friend's name is Des Miller and her blog (again with the lack of hyperlink, sorry: http://stressfreebaby.com) actually makes her money. This is a wonderful but alien concept to me since my online scribblings have only made me trouble.

And she's not the only one. One of the other finalists, Carter Gaddis, is a former sportswriter for the Tampa Tribune who interviewed me when I got my job at WFLA-TV in Tampa. Forgive him if he does not remember me, for the occasion stood out far more to me than to him. I was so thrilled to get a mention in the newspaper without having to get arrested! Plus, it was in 1997, which at last count was 17 years ago.

Not that I do count these things, but I was much younger then. I'm not saying I'm old, but when asked my age, not only do I not like to reveal it, it takes me a while even to remember the number.

Old being relative. A former colleague of mine at WWSB-TV named Linda Carson was 75 when she signed a new contract with the station earlier this year. When (though at that age you must allow for the possibility of an "if") she finishes it, she will be one month shy of 79. And, knowing her, ready to sign another contract.

I'm nowhere near that age. I just feel like it sometimes when my knee sounds like Rice Crispies popping in freshly poured milk as I hobble up the stairs.

But where was I? Oh, yes. People making money from blogging. Pretty cool. They do have to put disclaimers on many of the posts about the free stuff, or free trips, or other payment or consideration for writing about them, while the only disclaimer I put here is that nobody would possibly pay for this mess of caffeine-fueled stream of consciousness.

I should probably mention for that one person who actually does follow this blog that I have found gainful employment again, in addition to my personal documentary business (at http://personal-documentary.com), though I better check the definition of gainful, because if it means making a lot of money, well...

Yeah, so it's like a lot of my jobs in TV news were.  This one is not in TV news but is a job that involves writing and appearing on camera. It's not secret, but if I say no more about it, maybe I won't cause myself any trouble!

You know what that means if I start to write more often here: lots of cat stories!

You can't wait, can you?

Don't answer that. I was just beginning to feel good about this.

Song in Progress

I have some lyrics that I wrote a long time ago that might fit with this one, but I'm not sure yet. It will take some re-working, both for the words and the music, for them to go together well. And the music itself is not finished, but it's a different kind of sound than I usually do.

"No Words":

Here are some other recent recordings:

"Hope":

"Wanted":

"Better Day":

No Arms, No Problem for Table Tennis Player

How do you play ping pong without hands to hold a paddle? This is how:



Video from ITTF Channel.

Anchor of the Year?

The Florida chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists has released the list of finalists for its annual Sunshine State Awards. I am one of two up for its "Anchor of the Year" award for my work with WWSB in Sarasota. In the whole state of Florida! See the list here.

Here is the entry I submitted:

Penn and Teller on Vaccinations

I am not a doctor. Or an epidemiologist. Or a health professional of any other kind. But I have interviewed them, and they worry about the increasing number of people who don't get their kids vaccinated. Warnings stirred up and spread online have erroneously blamed vaccines for causing problems, most notably autism. No study has ever shown such a tie.

What health professionals have told me as that people fear the vaccine when they need to fear the disease. Some, which vaccines had virtually wiped out in the U.S., have made a comeback thanks to parents failing to get their children their shots.

None of my stories on the topic explained it as well as the first 90 seconds of this video from Penn & Teller. As you can tell from its title, it includes adult language, but it's language that apparently more adults need to hear.