How I Suffer for My Art

This is a post from another blog I used to write.  Happened in California, back around 2006.  The names of people and businesses have been changed.  Just...because. 

Dang! How do I get myself into these things? 

After having taken about a five-year hiatus from writing dorky magazine articles (aka advertorials), I received an email from the editor of a local magazine last night:

Hi.  You still "in the biz?" :) 

I have a quick story with a health angle (nutrition and skin), complete with list of two to three experts to call ready to go... About 800 words... Due Thursdayish? Pay is 12c per 

word. Probably wouldn't take you any time at all.

Let me know if you are interested.

Thanks,

T. Editur

A hundred bucks? Sure. Why not? Right? So I say yes.

She writes me back:

Great! Here's the angle: 

With so much talk about how to improve our looks on the outside, what do these experts suggest as far as improving our looks (age/skin, etc.) from the inside? Nutrition, supplements, particular food, sleep, diet, excercise, ??? 

Heavy on the quotes, with a credibility statement (short, i.e. Dr. Whitehead, a dermatologist with 20 years experience,...) for each...

Here's the contact list:

Dr. Whitehead's Dermatology - 555-3686

The Bottom Line -- Health - 555-2900 , Kathy Krabs

Inze Black of Sagacious (she might not "fit" - she is a natural store that sells pure aromatherapy stuff, etc. - however, if "stress" is an angle, it might fit well. ). cell: 555-5989

Thanks for the last-minute assistance!

T. Editur

Piece of cake. Right? Ahem. I just shot off the following to my editor:

Dear T. Editur,

Holy crap! Wait. Maybe I should rephrase that. 

I shoulda asked you what The Bottom Line -- Health was. I just interviewed Kathy Krabs and started out by saying, 'Now, Kathy, first please tell me what is it you do and what The Bottom Line -- Health is, because I'm not familiar with it and want to make sure I get 

everything right.'

I'm all poised with my nifty little pen and my notebook.

She says, 'Well, I'm a certified colon hydrotherapist and I've been doing this for a little over nine years, and...'

'Waiddaminnit. You're a what?'

'A certified colon hydrotherapist.

Like I don't know what that means.  She gives enemas.  BIG enemas.

'Oh! Okay. I thought that was what you said, but wanted to make sure.'(snicker)

Then she told me all about it and ambushes me with, 'What are you doing tomorrow at 11 o'clock?'

Think! Think! Think! 

Damn. I couldn't think fast enough.

'Um, uh....nothing?'

'Oh, great! Then I insist you come in tomorrow for a complimentary session.'

'Oh, thank you, Kathy, but that's just not my cup of tea.  But, hey!  You know my husband? He's got irritable bowel syndro.....'

(Yes, I know. That was an evil thing to try and probably why I'm no longer  married.)

She'd have none of it. 

'Forget your husband,' she says. 'I want you to come in and have a session. That way, you'll be able to write about it better.'

Egad! I knew writing articles could be a pain in the... Wait. Let me rephrase that.

So, dear T. Editur, do I get combat pay for this? 

I'll let you know how it all comes out tomorrow.

Waiddaminnit.....let me rephrase that.

me

So then my husband says, "Hey! don't you have an appointment with Dr. Baba tomorrow?"

"D'oh! Yeah!"

So when Kathy Krabs calls me back to finalize the appointment, I say, "Um, hey. How long is this gonna take? Because I just remembered I have an appointment at noon tomorrow."

"Ohhhhh, dear. It takes at least an hour and a half. Is it something you can cancel?"

Big Sigh of Relief. Shew!

"Nope. Sorry. No can do. See, it's with my shrink and if I miss it I have to pay for the missed session. $400 an hour and all, you know? (Before you ask, heck no I don't pay my shrink that kinda money.)

"Oh, well."

Heh, heh, heh. I'm all proud of myself for shagging outta that one when she says, "But, hey! I could squeeze you in at 3 p.m. How about that?"

Dang! Did she just say, "squeeze it in???  Ew!"   I was so shocked, all I could manage was, "Um, uh, yeah. Sure."

"I'm so excited," she says. "Aren't you?"

"Yeah," I laughed right out loud. "I can hardly wait."

Toopid! Toopid! Toopid! I've GOT to learn to think on my feet better than this.

The blessed baptism of my colon is a whole 'nuther story altogether.  Which I may or may not tell at some point in the future.

Exit stage left:  squish, squish, squish...

Famous Friends! Jane Rule Burdine

I just learned that a dear friend -- Jane Rule Burdine of Taylor, MS -- has been featured in a magazine.

And it's not just any magazine -- it's Oxford American Magazine!

She's a wonderful photographer, and a Mississippian, through and through.

Ya'll check it out!

http://www.oxfordamerican.org/articles/2014/jan/21/jane-rule-burdine/

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Photos by Elodie Pritchartt

To My Father on Veteran's Day

Daddy was in intelligence and reconnaissance in the European theater in World War II.  Although he didn't realize it at the time, he had a pretty dangerous job, going ahead of the troops to scout and report back what was happening towards the front.   And while he never experienced battle, firsthand, he was always within earshot.

"It sounded like thunder," he recalled.

I always enjoyed listening to his memories of the war -- the small, human experiences that stayed with him.

One of my favorite stories was about coming into a small, burned-out village somewhere in France. His company had come into town after a long march.

"Every building had been damaged or destroyed," he said.

He told me that there was this one little shop still untouched, the big picture window still intact.

"I was so tired.  And I sat down outside the shop and leaned against the window and it shattered.  The shop owner came running outside, crying and cursing in French.  Every time I think about it, I feel bad," he said.  "I felt so bad for him."

Another time, he remembered a German woman calling to him, shouting, "Schießen die katze!"

"Nazi?  Where?" he asked.

Then he noticed she was pointing at two cats mating.  She wanted him to shoot the cat that was violating her female katze.

"Nein," he said.  "I couldn't shoot a cat."

He loved animals.  His grandmother wrote to him while he was in bootcamp that his little dog, Tippy, had been hit by a car.

"She shouldn't have told me," he said.  "I went behind the barracks and cried and cried.  I couldn't eat for two weeks.  I lost weight."

When I looked up his army records not long ago, it said he weighed all of a hundred pounds when he shipped for Europe on the Queen Mary.

"The ship zigzagged all the way across the ocean," he said, "…so it would be harder for submarines to fire on us.  It took about 15 minutes for the ship to list to one side, then 15 minutes for it to list to the other.  I've never been so sick in my life.  I took my pack and climbed into a lifeboat to sleep."

My dad loved guns.  And all he wanted to do was collect as many German guns as he could while he was there.  He didn't smoke, so he often traded cigarettes for weapons.  Once when I was home visiting from California, he told me a story about bringing some guns home.  He was somewhere in Germany in a bombed-out castle.  He was trying to find something to wrap up some guns he'd found lying on the ground.

"I saw these two paintings," he said.  "So I took my bayonet and cut them out of the frames."

Then he brought them out.  I couldn't believe my eyes.  Here were two large paintings -- one of Himmler and one of Goering.

Liter-size bottle for perspective

Hermann Goering

Heinrich Himmler

Because it was close to the end of the war, he said he never saw any American bodies but plenty of German bodies.

"They'd leave the German bodies for the morale of our troops," he said, and to demoralize the German troops."

He remembered being encamped in a little house one freezing German night.  

"There was the body of a young soldier in a room in back," he recalled.  He couldn't have been more than 17 or 18."  My father was only 18 at the time.

"We came back through about three weeks later.  The body was still there.  It was cold, so it hadn't really started to decompose.  I just remember being struck that he'd just turned green, nothing else.  You know, it didn't bother me at the time.  I guess youth is rather callous.  But I still see him now, and it bothers me a lot.  He was someone's child.  How could I have not been bothered then but so bothered now?  I see him a lot now.  And it bothers me."

My father was a talented artist, though he never really used his talent for much.  But he had a great time making fun of his commander and other officers during training.  He'd draw cartoons of them and pin them on the bulletin board at night when everyone was asleep.  It infuriated the officers.  Everyone else thought they were hilarious.  

They never did find out who the rogue artist was, but he brought those drawings home, and I think he might've missed his calling.

He was just a child, himself, in World War II.  After everything was over, he was assigned to watch some German prisoners.  He got in trouble once for his trusting, naiveté when he asked a German prisoner to hold his gun for him while he tied his shoe.  :)  The prisoner held it for him and returned it.

He remembered the German officers who were prisoners, and always saluted them.  I think he felt bad for them.

"They all carried those little weiner dogs with them," he said.  Daddy liked anyone who liked animals.

I miss you, Daddy.  Thank you for your service on this Veteran's Day.

An Old Book; A New Chapter, Part II

I don't really have time for a long blog post, but this entry was so delicious, I just had to share:

Wed. June 3

I got out of General [Leonidas] Polk the story of his celebrated adventure with the ____Indiana (Northern) regiment, which resulted in the almost total destruction of that corps.  I had often during my travels heard officers and soldiers talking of this extraordinary feat of the "Bishop's."  

Gen. Leonidas Polk

The modest yet graphic manner in which General Polk related this wonderful instance of coolness and bravery was extremely interesting, and I now repeat it, as nearly as I can in his own words.

"Well, sir, it was at the battle of Perryville, late in the evening -- in fact, it was almost dark when Lidell's brigade came into action.  Shortly after its arrival, I observed a body of men, whom I believed to be Confederates, standing at the newly arrived troops.  I said, 'Dear me, this is very sad, and must be stopped;' so I turned 'round, but could find none of my young men who were absent on different messages; so I determined to ride myself and settle the matter.

"Having cantered up to the colonel of the regiment which was firing, I asked him in angry tones what he meant by shooting his own friends, and I desired him to cease doing so at once.  He answered with surprise, 'I don't think there can be any mistake about it; I am sure they are the enemy.' 

"'Enemy! I said,' 'why I have only just left them myself.  Cease firing, sir; what is your name, sir?'

"'My name is Colonel ____, of the ____Indiana; and pray, sir, who are you?'

"Then for the first time I saw, to my astonishment, that he was a Yankee, and that I was in rear of a regiment of Yankees.  Well, I saw that there was no hope but to brazen it out; my dark blouse and the increasing obscurity befriended me, so I approached quite close to him and shook my fist in his face, saying, 'I'll show you who I am, sir; cease firing, sir, at once.'  

"I then turned my horse and cantered slowly down the line, shouting in an authoritative manner to the Yankees to cease firing; at the same time I experienced a disagreeable sensation, like screwing up my back, and calculating how many bullets would be between my shoulders every moment.  I was afraid to increase my pace until I got to a small copse, when I put the spurs in and galloped back to my men.  

"I immediately went up to the nearest colonel, and said to him, 'Colonel, I have reonnoitred [sic.] those fellows pretty closely -- and I find there is no mistake who they are; you may get up and go at them.'  

"And I assure you, sir, that the slaughter of that Indiana regiment was the greatest I have ever seen in the war."


From the book Three Months in the Southern States, April-June, 1863 by Lieut.-Col. Arthur Freemantle, published by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh and London, 1863

See also Part I - Old Book; New Chapter