Topless Iowa City
I was away for the weekend, but I was here for the money shot of a storm that dropped funnels in a pick-and-choose fashion reminiscent of the Price-Is-Right game where you punch out plastic holes on a large board. After chopping the tops off two buildings in a row it would hop up over a parking ramp and an apartment building and rip the roof off St. Pat's church. It's amazing there were no deaths. The tornados smashed up a lot of older brick buildings and some not-so-solid older wood building, and none of it killed anybody. Even the homeless guys came out ok and amazed.
Where I was, I had a little pea-sized hail; Carter was at a play on the UI campus and got hustled into the basement for a couple hours. Once the all-clear sounded, the actors dutifully marched up and finished the thing. I haven't talked to Will yet but he's blogging, and isn't that a sure sign of life? David spent a long night with Noodles and Zazu in the basement, but all are well; and Jer was safely ensconced at work, taking occasional breaks to go to the 7th floor and watch parts of the power grid around town fail. Ian was nestled in his Northwestern dorm; he got to watch it on the news.
I did my share of watching too. David doesn't have cable where he is, so I was calling him to let him know if Frary, Schnackenberg and company were to start waving their arms and shouting "Jump into a bathtub!" "Drag the mattress over it!" "Smear yourself in peanut butter!" Watch it, Frary. But after the alerts started to wind down, the tv slid back into familiar patterns. David, however, had all the poop; he'd been listening to local radio station KCJJ and people had been calling in. He'd heard eyewitness accounts of the obliteration of the Dairy Queen (a real classic one, not one of those DQ clones), the smashing of Linder Tire, the partial collapse of St. Pat's. The tv was smiling and saying that there were reports of some damage around town.
On Thursdays there's a Public Access show here I occasionally look in on called Tonight With Bradman. Bradley Laborman is a local radio guy who is taking his stab at Howard Stern-dom with a live hour every week on PATV. It's mostly thought up on the spot and ends up being the stuff you can't say on the radio, but this Thursday, Laborman connected with viewers in a way he never had before.
Previously, callers were people he already knew. Some folks would prank the show and all that, but the people he talked to he knew already. Thursday, he spoke to everyone. Partway through his hour, the host was told that a tornado has struck his apartment complex in downtown Iowa City. Instead of ending his hour and going to look, motivated (as he stated later) by the thought that if he ended the show he'd have to go see all his stuff wrecked, Laborman stayed on. PATV deserves a lot of credit in pre-empting the remaining programming for the night to let Bradman take calls, provide helpful information about shelter, and for sticking cameras in the hands of people and sending them into the aftermath to show the rest of us what was going on.
As it turned out, Thursday night was also the night of the Iowa City Documentary Festival at the Englert downtown. Some folks had cameras with them, including the person who got the key image of the tornado in action. Some of the rest went down to PATV to see what was happening. By pure chance there was a surfeit of able camera people with a taste for the real at hand. It's interesting viewing. I taped the bulk of it.
Throughout the night, in between the calls of people asking about the status of various places and people, were the prank callers. He always has some, but this night brought out the devil in more than a few watchers. Laborman got exasperated pretty quickly with them; even now, he must have been thinking, even now some of these people will elevate their jollies over the suffering of people they might even know.
But to his credit, Laborman soldiered on. It's tough to get serious when you're usually the merry one, especially when it's your puss on the tv the whole time. I don't intend to elevate Laborman's Thursday night efforts over the suffering and loss of others, or even of the people who banded together to help with the cleanup; he wouldn't care for that either. But here in this blog, I'm going, for just a moment, to thank Bradman for what he did. He and his TWB team brought the impact of the storm to people who weren't right there at a time when it meant the difference between having some people motivated and moved into helping, and having a lot of them. Thanks, Bradman.
UPDATE: I should read the local paper more. Turns out Bradman only lost a window, but his heart was in the right place nonetheless. Also, it wasn't the doco-crowd that took up cameras to go afield, but a class on handling a camera that was going on at PATV at the time. And frankly, that's cooler.
Where I was, I had a little pea-sized hail; Carter was at a play on the UI campus and got hustled into the basement for a couple hours. Once the all-clear sounded, the actors dutifully marched up and finished the thing. I haven't talked to Will yet but he's blogging, and isn't that a sure sign of life? David spent a long night with Noodles and Zazu in the basement, but all are well; and Jer was safely ensconced at work, taking occasional breaks to go to the 7th floor and watch parts of the power grid around town fail. Ian was nestled in his Northwestern dorm; he got to watch it on the news.
I did my share of watching too. David doesn't have cable where he is, so I was calling him to let him know if Frary, Schnackenberg and company were to start waving their arms and shouting "Jump into a bathtub!" "Drag the mattress over it!" "Smear yourself in peanut butter!" Watch it, Frary. But after the alerts started to wind down, the tv slid back into familiar patterns. David, however, had all the poop; he'd been listening to local radio station KCJJ and people had been calling in. He'd heard eyewitness accounts of the obliteration of the Dairy Queen (a real classic one, not one of those DQ clones), the smashing of Linder Tire, the partial collapse of St. Pat's. The tv was smiling and saying that there were reports of some damage around town.
On Thursdays there's a Public Access show here I occasionally look in on called Tonight With Bradman. Bradley Laborman is a local radio guy who is taking his stab at Howard Stern-dom with a live hour every week on PATV. It's mostly thought up on the spot and ends up being the stuff you can't say on the radio, but this Thursday, Laborman connected with viewers in a way he never had before.
Previously, callers were people he already knew. Some folks would prank the show and all that, but the people he talked to he knew already. Thursday, he spoke to everyone. Partway through his hour, the host was told that a tornado has struck his apartment complex in downtown Iowa City. Instead of ending his hour and going to look, motivated (as he stated later) by the thought that if he ended the show he'd have to go see all his stuff wrecked, Laborman stayed on. PATV deserves a lot of credit in pre-empting the remaining programming for the night to let Bradman take calls, provide helpful information about shelter, and for sticking cameras in the hands of people and sending them into the aftermath to show the rest of us what was going on.
As it turned out, Thursday night was also the night of the Iowa City Documentary Festival at the Englert downtown. Some folks had cameras with them, including the person who got the key image of the tornado in action. Some of the rest went down to PATV to see what was happening. By pure chance there was a surfeit of able camera people with a taste for the real at hand. It's interesting viewing. I taped the bulk of it.
Throughout the night, in between the calls of people asking about the status of various places and people, were the prank callers. He always has some, but this night brought out the devil in more than a few watchers. Laborman got exasperated pretty quickly with them; even now, he must have been thinking, even now some of these people will elevate their jollies over the suffering of people they might even know.
But to his credit, Laborman soldiered on. It's tough to get serious when you're usually the merry one, especially when it's your puss on the tv the whole time. I don't intend to elevate Laborman's Thursday night efforts over the suffering and loss of others, or even of the people who banded together to help with the cleanup; he wouldn't care for that either. But here in this blog, I'm going, for just a moment, to thank Bradman for what he did. He and his TWB team brought the impact of the storm to people who weren't right there at a time when it meant the difference between having some people motivated and moved into helping, and having a lot of them. Thanks, Bradman.
UPDATE: I should read the local paper more. Turns out Bradman only lost a window, but his heart was in the right place nonetheless. Also, it wasn't the doco-crowd that took up cameras to go afield, but a class on handling a camera that was going on at PATV at the time. And frankly, that's cooler.
posted by John Ira Thomas at 6:47 AM
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