The outlaw

We here at "News To Me" go to great lengths to inform and to entertain. And, sometimes, the entertainment finds us. Our shoot last weekend had all the makings of a good action movie. But how you ask?

Eric is a professional. I mean, come on, he's got his own show on Headline News!! But even professionals screw up every now and then, especially when they are trying to deliver their lines. Hence we have to do numerous takes to get a single shot. In this particular case, it was basically like hitting the rewind button a good 15 or 20 times.

So anyway, Eric is saying his lines over and over... and over again. Oh yeah, while crossing a busy street!!! Now, one would think that we would wait until the coast is entirely clear. Not this team. Eric would start delivering his line while the last car would come within inches of him. He must have been using the power of the "dark side" to avoid getting hit. Whenever he would mess up, he would stop in the middle of the street, turn around, and walk back to the curb. I forgot to mention that the traffic light was green and he DID NOT have the right of way. So yes, technically, he was jaywalking. But I mean it's jaywalking. It's one of those things that's only illegal if you get caught... right? Well, we did.

Sitting on the patio of the restaurant right next to us was a fully uniformed servant of the community. Is it just me or do cops always have on sunglasses? Anyway, I see the officer get up out of the corner of my eye and I whistle and signal Eric to get out of the street. Then I hear the cop's voice: "Sir, get out of the street."

So Teague, Mike, Chris (the audio guy), and myself are on one side of the street wondering how we can sneak Eric out of this situation like our VBS correspondents snuck footage out of North Korea (you gotta watch the show this weekend to understand that). Eric is on the other side of the street chatting with the cop. What's funny is that his wireless mic is still on... so even though we are on the other side of the street, we can hear the whole conversation. It went a little something like this:

Police Officer: Sir, just what the #$*! are you doin'?

Eric: We're just shootin' leads for a TV show.

Police Officer: Do you realize you were jaywalking? Let me see your license.

Eric: Really? I didn't know. We do this all the time (as he points at us).

I took my headphones off after that. I look over at Mike and all he is saying is not to tell the cop that this is something we regularly do. That's like admitting you litter on the highway.

So after about three minutes, the cop and Eric start crossing the street in our direction. We are thinking we are about to get a ticket. Thankfully, the cop was pretty cool and let Eric (and the rest of us) go with out any citations or warnings.

For the record, in no way are we advocating jaywalking. I think I should have put a disclaimer: "do not try this at home." The only thing we CAN advise you of is your right to be silent, your right to an attorney and we STRONGLY advise you to watch "News To Me" this weekend.