California cool

YOU know… for as long as I care to remember, I’ve considered myself ‘cool’.

I really have.

When I was younger I had long hair, and I actually thought I was Kurt Cobain.

And as I’ve grown older I’ve felt I’ve maintained that hip stance.

I’ve played guitar since my early teens, I’ve always liked good music and movies, I’ve hung out with other ‘cool’ people, and I like to think I still dress well, um, ‘cool’.

I even think my parents – my dad being a huge blues fan – are pretty up there too.

But any belief I had in all that has faded like old fat kipper ties in the wardrobe during the last few weeks as Jacks and I have explored San Diego, and indeed California.

In the last few weeks we’ve met ‘cool’.

And his/her name is Chad… Arthur… Roxy… or something even cool-sounding.

These guys… they’re ‘hipsters’.

They’re the epitome of cool and hip, or whatever you call it in this age.

They have at least a couple of tattoos, androgynous hair styles and they boast the finest groomed moustaches or beards a man could cultivate.

They wear colourful Ray Ban sunglasses with thrift store purchased skinny jeans and faded t-shirts or lumberjack-style shirts. And they all seem so thin and pale even their fatigued figures seem fashionable.

Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE also seems to naturally be in a band.

The girl who served us a slice of pizza in Golden Hills, SD, was in a band; the kid with the skateboard was in a band, and of course the girl smoking on the sidewalk (pavement) walking the dog in North Park was in a band.

It’s much like how everyone in London seems to work in PR.

“Who are these people?!” I asked a friend during the recent Golden Hills Street Fest we attended.

“Hipsters…” she replied.

“… Californian, hipsters.”

The one and only thing which seems to make me cool and interesting to others is my English accent – but even then people seem to think I’m Australian.

Sadly, I can’t compete - no matter how hard I try...

Fail

Oh well.

When did everyone become so bloody cool? Was I asleep? Was I not paying attention? Was I in TIJUANA?!

I’ve seen a few of what I’d call ‘hipsters’ before in England– or at least people who thought they were hipsters – but here is where they seem to live and breed.

Even their pets are cool, and they could quite believably also be in a band.

So yes, Jacks and I have been out exploring San Diego, and meeting people.

It takes time to get to grips with new surroundings. And of course to meet people you’d call ‘friends’.

Where’ve I been? Where did the blog updates go…?

Well, we got married.

Ay caramba

And then we went on our honeymoon.

Life's a beach

There, that’s a good excuse right?

Without boring you all too much, our wedding was pretty much perfect.

There was no fear of it ever raining on our wedding day here in San Diego because, well, it just doesn’t really rain here.

It was a short and simple affair carried out under bluebird skies among the company of new friends and family.

The ceremony completed the amazing fairy-tale story which we’ve been living for the past 18 months.

And then we buggered off to Fiji to spend time on a near-deserted island for a couple of weeks.

Note: Isn’t it funny that within 30 seconds of being married people begin to ask you about babies?!

Sheesh… yes everything’s happened in a very short space of time but hey, give us a break!

Aside from all that I’ve come back to work on the most exciting and amazing project of my career.

The hugely talented Alejandra Cerball and I now co-anchor U-T TV’s U-T San Diego News from Monday to Friday.

News team assemble

It’s a new hour-long prime-time show which airs from 5pm (1am GMT) and then re-airs at 7pm (3am GMT) on U.S. cable and online.

If you want to see it, tune into Cox 114 or AT&T 17/1017 on U.S. cable, or watch it live online at www.utsandiego.com/tv/.

On air

So there you go.

I’m an anchorman in San Diego… and no, my apartment doesn’t smell like rich mahogany.

@tristan_nichols

News team... ASSEMBLE!!!!

IT SEEMS that man Andy Warhol was on the money when he asked the question: “Does life imitate art, or does art imitate life?”

I’ve pondered that question a few times in the last eight weeks since starting work as an anchorman in San Diego.

Of course, when I mentioned my new job role out here my friends, acquaintances and former colleagues – naturally – laughed and joked… “anchorman”, “Ron Burgundy”, “Stay Classy San Diego” etc etc.

In two months I’ve had much of the film’s script shouted/texted/emailed at me.

I laugh as much as the next person, so it seems only natural to write about it all.

Finding myself living and working in this strange new world, I can’t help but try and relate to what I know about the city – thanks largely to Hollywood.

A). San Diego was of course the home of Ron and his Channel 4 News Team.

B). Much of the film, Anchorman, was shot here, including the iconic “BAAAAAAXTER!!!!” scene on Coronado Bridge.

"Well guess what... now this is happening..."

C). ‘San Diego’ translates to a “whale’s vagina”.

No wait… one of those is clearly wrong.

In getting to know the city I’ve actually been amazed to learn about how much of Anchorman's story imitates life here in America’s ‘Finest City’.

For instance, San Diego Zoo DOES have a ‘Panda Watch’ as highlighted in the movie.

'Panda Watch'

This week U-T TV used the footage of the amazing water-skiing squirrel as featured in the movie.

And comically, San Diego does have a crazy abundance of television news networks.

You remember the fight scene in the movie? The scene which involved a stupid amount of news crews?

While I haven’t seen a real fight between the networks here, it’s fair to say each and every one is fighting for the position of the city’s top news channel – including my very own U-T TV.

I’m from a UK city about a tenth of the size of San Diego.

On a typical high-profile news story there you’d probably see reporters from two newspapers, a couple of photographers from a newspaper and/or an agency, one or two radio stations, and no more than two television news networks.

Here, U-T San Diego is the only newspaper in the city, so on a typical news story you’re only likely to find one newspaper reporter and one photographer.

I’m yet to meet a radio news team on a job but – I kid you not – if a press event is called there will be at least six or seven television news channels represented – all covering the same thing for the same San Diego audience.

It’s a TV media circus and I lose count of the number of stations.

Media scrum

From what I’ve learned so far, there is Channel 5, Channel 6, Channel 7, Channel 8, Channel 9, and Channel 10 - and numerous others, depending on what story is breaking.

Of course each and every one claims to be the ‘local source’ and ‘leader’ in offering breaking news.

I can’t keep up with the number of networks which operate here in this county.

Attending these jobs and seeing the mass television media presence, I can’t help but laugh.

Last week the scene of a burst water main in the city resembled a scene from the Cannes Film Festival.

I actually heard a resident warn her friend, “don’t go north, you’ll get filmed…”.

When the mayor of San Diego called a press briefing at Balboa Park earlier on last week, he wore so many TV radio microphones on his shirt he looked like a human cyborg.

These types of scenes make me laugh each and every time.

And they remind me so much of the ‘fight’ scene in Anchorman.

You could argue that I’m biased, but in terms of presence and appreciation among typical San Diegans, the U-T is hard to ignore given its proud history and its newspaper/web/TV offering.

Anyhow, much of the buzz about town recently has been involved with Anchorman 2.

My first reporting job for U-T TV was actually covering the Anchorman 2 casting call in the city on a Saturday morning.

"When in Rome..."

For one morning this otherwise ‘quiet’ area of the city became a haunt for every potential Burgundy wannabe on the west coast.

With the possibility of being cast as an extra in the forthcoming movie, people travelled from far and wide to be a part of it.

Some extended their Friday night’s drinking and partying by staying awake through the night to attend the casting call; some queued for the sake of it without actually knowing what the queue was for; and others came properly dressed for the occasion with some pretending to be Burgundy’s long-lost brother.

Weird.

Getting interviews with these people for U-T TV was easy as every single one of them was there for one purpose – to be on camera.

It was easy pickings and I can tell you, it was a WHOLE lot of fun.

People began queuing at 4am. By 10am there were roughly 2,500 people.

That escalated quickly...

At one bizarre moment U-T TV was stood alongside two other networks and out-of-town channels in the same spot. So naturally, we all interviewed each other for a laugh.

What did we discuss…? The sugar in our coffee? The best bad song in the last 20 years? I can’t recall. It was a surreal and funny moment nonetheless and the nature of the casting call’s movie only enhanced the comedy value.

As you can imagine each person who was selected as an ‘extra’ was sworn to secrecy.

The story goes that the extras found out the details an hour before the event via text or email.

We know one scene was shot at SeaWorld (with Ron involved in a ‘fight’ scene reportedly with a dolphin?!), and another was shot at Harbor Island, also in San Diego.

Will Ferrell at SeaWorld in San Diego

Sadly no-one could get an interview with Ron, sorry… Will Ferrell, so we’ll all have to wait and see how much of the movie is based here in San Diego when the film eventually comes out.

Ron and Veronica

One thing’s for sure though. With me in my new role, coinciding with the forthcoming release of Anchorman 2, the jokes and fun times will continue for a while yet.

Stay Classy… WORLD.

Oh, news just in... a new Anchorman 2 trailer has been released in the last few hours.
Copy the link into a web browser and take a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Elczv0ghqw0.


Twitter: @tristan_nichols

California dreaming

PINCH me I'm dreaming.
I mean, I must be... Did I really quit my job, house and life in the UK to land a Latin fiancé and a TV career in California?!

In San Diego? An ANCHORMAN in San Diego...?!
I'm sorry but that shit doesn’t happen.
Normally.
I currently find myself in the somewhat enviable position of having realized a dream.
A dream I guess I never dared to dream before.
Now, I'm not going to kiss my own ass and make out like “everything’s amazing, isn’t life great... la dee da...”
(Because everyone knows how the English hate someone who's found success and happiness), but wow... what a ride it’s been.
Today I can finally reveal the full detail of what the hell has been going on with me for the past 10 months.
As you all know I quit everything I’d known in the UK last June after meeting the beautiful Jacky.

I moved to Tijuana without even a hint of a plan, safe in the knowledge that ‘I’ had become ‘we’ (TJ team).

After two months of sitting in the house doing relatively little I dropped an email to the U-T San Diego (neighbouring San Diego’s biggest newspaper) asking if I could pop in to take a look at their set up.

The U-T had, at that time, just launched its own web and US cable television channel and as a result, fully integrated itself with web and TV.

It was something my previous employers at The Herald in Plymouth, had talked about doing but – for one reason or another – had not quite achieved.

So, out of pure curiosity, I popped over the border and visited the U-T.

And the conversation went something like this:

U-T: “So... um... remind me again why you’re here...?”

Me: “Well, see I met this Mexican girl and...”

*cue startled glance and paper shuffling.

U-T: Wait, wait, wait... hey... HEY GUYS... have you heard this? We’ve got a crazy romantic Englishman here... can we get him a job?! Do you want a job?!”

To cut a very long story short I met the U-T’s TV guys who asked if I could pop back the next day for a screen test.

I guess they must have seen something they liked because moments after the test I was offered a position.

And then came the visa application. And seven months of being in limbo.

Annoyingly everyone who has ever got a tourist visa stamp abroad thinks they are experts on immigration law and, at times, my head was spinning with conflicting information.

“You should have done this or that...”, “you should have changed lawyers...” “you don't need that visa you need this one..."
Jeez.
Okay... how about we play a game of f#ck off... and you go first.

So after seven months of providing US Immigration with everything they needed, about a month ago we finally heard that my O-1 visa application had been approved.

For a moment I was afraid that Piers Morgan’s views on US gun laws, and the resulting calls for his deportation from the US, had scuppered any plan for an Englishman ever to be shown the green light.
But thankfully not.

Three weeks ago I flew to Canada to get the visa stamp, which was an unexpected treat in itself. It also afforded itself its own hilarity.

On greeting me when checking into the Toronto hotel the guy on the front desk (who later turned out to be Argentine) said: “Ahhh... you're from Plymouth?”
Me: “Yes.”
“Aha, yes, your team is not very good...”

This man clearly knew too much about Plymouth and it’s football – or is that ‘socher’ team.

Anyway, sorry I digress... after a week in Canada I flew back to TJ, two days later I crossed over to San Diego, and a few days after that I started work officially.

“What the hell have you been doing for nine MONTHS in TJ?!” a lot of people have asked.

Well, I learned a bit of Spanish, became an expert in immigration law, got a bit of a tan, oh... and I got really good at playing Candy Crush.

So fully charged, SUPER excited, and still pinching myself that this is all actually real, I find myself sat in a downtown coffee shop having just completed my first week as a ‘show host’ at U-T TV.

Being in limbo for that length of time wasn’t good for the soul, but it just goes to show that sometimes you’ve got to leave your comfort zone to see what’s possible in life.

I mean, ME... a TV presenter?!

Crazy huh?

So now it’s a case of ‘ding ding’ round two.
I now need to source an apartment, a social security number, a car, a bank account, a phone (or is that ‘cell?’) contract or SIM, a TV, sofa, bed, other home furnishings, oh and of course a kettle... (that’s got to be easier this side of the border right?!)
Oh and I need to retake my driving test (theory and practical) because Californian state law doesn't recognize the international driving permit). Grr.

So I’m a British citizen, engaged to a Mexican girl, who is now living and working in America. Oh, and I flew to Canada to get the visa.

Officials on the Mexican/US border ask a few questions let me tell you...
We’re still working out the details of what exactly my new show will be about for U-T TV and it’s in development.

This week I’ve been finding my feet, explaining to my co-workers what the hell I mean when I’m saying things like I’m ‘cream-crackered’ (i.e. knackered... i.e. tired), and doing news reporting slots on U-T TV’s PrimeTime show.

A few members of the PrimeTime crew on set

In the next blog I’ll bring everyone up to speed with some of the crazy antics this past week has witnessed.

Where the magic happens...

Do you want to check out what The U-T San Diego and U-T TV is all about?

Those people that aren’t in the US can watch U-T TV live online by visiting http://www.utsandiego.com/tv/. Click on the ‘Watch Live’ link and you’re all set.

For now though I’m going to order another latte, breathe a little sigh, sit back in my chair, and carry on (California) dreaming.