Mr. Emmet and I watch a lot of local news. I think it’s a Zen thing. There’s a comforting familiarity, a seamless sameness, to it. There’s a daily checklist:
* Five second mention of Important News about California
* Murder and/or tragic traffic death
* Dodgers/Angels/Lakers/Clippers face challenge, hope to prevail
* Thinly disguised commercial for Hollywood
* Plucky teen/dog/cat withstands adversity
* Dramatic car chase (note that the dramatic car chase can sometimes engulf all of local news and provide screenplay fodder, as happened this week).
It rolls on and on like the tideless seas of fairyland (which E. M. Forster said some of the music in Gluck's Armide is like, not that I’d recognize Gluck's Armide even if it baked me brownies for Valentine’s Day).
And the best part of the local news, the sparkle, the champagne, the part you always look in from the kitchen for, is the weather people.
This being Southern California, the production values are the finest, and our weatherpeople are stars. The camera loves them. The anchorpeople love them. They wave the weather around on their big maps, and tell us about weak lows and dirty highs and we all pretend to know what they're talking about. I fully expect to see Dallas Raines at the Oscars -- in Armani.
And by rights Jackie Johnson should be be presenting, maybe for Best Cinematography, this year.
Hell, Dallas's outfits and Jackie's dresses (always worn with a belt because that's how her mother raised her) deserve awards of their own.
But a big ole rock has been dropped into the serene pool of local news, and in particular, local weathercasting. More and more often, the five second mention of Important California News has to do with THE DROUGHT. The historic drought. The historic drought that's draining the reservoirs, that's hurting the farmers in the Central Valley (who all think, according to their homemade billboards that litter Interstate 5, that Nancy Pelosi caused it), that's saying Not So Fast to the burgeoning wine industry on the Central Coast, and that's stressing the beautiful old camphor trees that line our street. Snowpack in the Sierras was 25% of normal at the end of January (though it's improved a bit since then because of the precip in Northern California). If we don't get a lot of rain this winter, they may not survive.
It's not clear whether or to what extent this drought is, or is not a product of climate change. How interesting it would be to hear about that on...no, not local news. Or only five seconds at a time.
In SoCal, we had rain in December and early January, and since then, nothing but a few sprinkles. This week, in addition to no rain, we are getting the Santa Anas -- dry nose-scorching hot winds from the east. Raymond Chandler described the Santa Anas perfectly:
There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.
There's no sign of rain for the next ten days at least, and our alleged rainy season only runs through March. This situation is really, really grim.
And here's how our weatherpeople, many of whom are certified meteorologists (Dallas Raines for one), describe it:
What a delightful day; we got plenty of sunshine. Temperatures in the 80s; not bad for the wintertime. Kai Goldberg 2/8/15
It's going to get even prettier [i.e. hotter]. Jackie Johnson 2/9/15
Pull out the sunscreen. So it's February, whatever. Josh Rubenstein 2/10/15
What a beautiful weekend it going to be....Spectacular! random KTLA guy 2/13/15
They can't seem to get their heads around the disaster that's unfolding. They're the Kentucky Cave Fish of broadcasting.
Hot sunny weather = good.
Rainy cold weather = bad.
That's an unchangeable truth in weather world and they're sticking to it. They're not just drinking champagne on the deck of the Titanic; they're admiring the glacier as they go down.
Apart from a few passing references to the idea that we need rain, not now, of course, but later, the only consistent voice of sanity has been weathercaster/non-meteorologist Fritz Coleman. In a stunning departure from orthodoxy, he groused on Monday:
Now we're gonna have what we absolutely do not need..another high [Santa Ana]. Gonna drive temperatures ...very close to records. 2/9/15. Fritz Coleman
I don't know if it's a coincidence, but he's decidedly low on sparkle for this media market. And he used to be a standup comedian. Maybe that gives him the dark cynicism to be the Raymond Chandler of the Weather People, the austere courage to be the Galileo of the local news.
Eppur si muove!
Happy belated National Weatherperson's Day (it was February 5)! Oh, and check out tvdude's diary, Stay classy, TV News. He spent four years as a local TV god.