Last Saturday evening, the University of Michigan and the University of North Carolina played a basketball game on the US Navy aircraft carrier Carl Vinson to cap Veterans Day observances around the country. Whether converting the flight deck of the Vinson to a basketball arena was the highest possible use of a billion dollar weapons platform is a debatable topic, but one for another time.
There are life lessons from sports that have nothing to do with sports. One of the most amazing things about the Carrier Classic, for me, was watching the ninety (or so) second time lapse video that depicted the transformation of the ship which aired (seemingly) as part of every bump on ESPN for the days running up to the game. I didn't know it at first but learned--the clip was shot and edited by a US Navy Sailor, working as a videographer and producer, Lowell W..
I met Lowell when he and his colleague, Sally F, came north east almost two years ago for a project in which I was only tangentially involved but received a large amount of credit for when it was a smashing success. Who's your daddy? Turns out, I was. REMF rule! I spent eight years hating 'em all and in my dotage became one. Who says God has no sense of humor?
Each branch of the service has a very small number of active duty military who work in the audio visual arts and sciences (yeah, that sounds pompous, but it's true). They put in long hours for short money and no glory. You don't even realize they're there until they're not. All those Victory at Sea episodes and the aerials in Top Gun? All courtesy of military broadcasters, photographers and mopic maniacs. You know more of them than you think, and if you don't, Nat, Lee, Dave, Floyd, Rik, Roger, the other Bill, Chris, Sara J and MVT, can help you make a list.
Anyway, Lowell's clip blew up-I think that's what the kids call it when folks like something a lot. He didn't have Justin Bieber in it, no cameo by Katy Perry and everyone kept all their clothes on and still at some point by game time last Saturday night a quarter of million hits had been registered on You Tube. Not meaning to get all mathy on you, but that's about 250,000 more hits than you and me, together, have gotten even counting those Rick Rolled clicks.
Maybe Steve B. knows how we roll and then some. Who? This guy, and watch carefully and listen even more carefully at 1:23 into a feature on a Fox LA TV morning show. "That was my time lapse," says Steve. And that's the truth, except for the lie part, which is the entire statement. You'll notice when you watch Steve's upload to You Tube the imposition of his corporate logo on the original U. S. Navy Video credit. Well, that is awkward.
Yeah. Zero points for original effort and even less than zero for ham-handed theft, badly if brazenly executed. I'm not a cowboy, but I know that aroma and contrary to Duvall's contention, it's not victory. Don't stand down wind of Steve or you'll never get that smell out of your clothes.
-bill kenny
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