Veterans Residence at home, Snow Leopards in Afghanistan

I've always done my charity thing --one step removed. I write checks annually to Habitat for Humanity (I am from a family of carpenters, so I like the idea of building homes). I write a check to the Salvation Army because they are the only organized religion that doesn't bombard you with dogma, they just go around doing good (well, maybe except for the band playing). I send money to buy mosequito nets to keep malaria away from African children. But earlier this year my own darling Nicole went to Africa. While there she spent her personal money to buy diapers for AIDS babies and loved on them all in posted pictures. It changed her, that first hands-on trip. She has formed a non-profit called WOW, Wells of Worship to get clean water to the babies. So I thought I'd get my hands into some personal movement. I cannot convey how wonderful this season has been for me because of a couple of things I've done personally. My friend, Lt Colonel Melinda Morgan and her Snow Leopards group in Afghanistan needed a bunch of stuff to make the conditions better. Shopping for them was better than going to Tiffany's for myself. Then there is the Veterans Residence Hall for military women. They have fourteen beds and nine residents at the moment. Going through my closet and taking out dozens of coats, sweaters, hats, shoes, scarves felt good, but nothing prepared me for the look on the face of the young veteran to came out to my car to help get the stuff from the car when she said, "You know they forget about us." My vow was "I won't." And I never will. Circumstances have changed for me in the last few years. I don't live in Bel Air anymore, I live in the hood of Jefferson Park, I don't have the kind of money I used to have, but right here, right now, I have way more than any of these people who made it safer here in America. I'm the grateful Ruth Adkins Robinson

2009 -- what it meant to me and mine

There's no real way to explain why such a feeling of happy expectation has taken over me as I press my face against the window of tomorrow. I decided to think of happy moments for this year past. I started off the year writing the Commander-in-Chief's Inaugural Ball, held at the Building Museum where the brand, spanking new President seemed dusted with moonbeams as he walked in to stand on the Presidential Seal and talk to the troops in Afghanistan. I cried and felt glorious, part of history. When my angel Nicole went to South African to hold the AIDS babies in her embrace and return home to decide that as the missionary she is her mission is to get water to the world's children. She has established WOW, Wells of Worship to get that done. My daughter got her first "A" in a major final in culinary school!!! My grandson becoming my coach and helping me with my fight against illness; Cecelia intently working her massage magic on my swollen hands and feet. Watching Annie with Nevaeh, patient, serious --a perfect mother. Listening to my friends cooking up some scheme du jour==for us to kick dust up is fun, fun. Kamili Sams working her docudrama on those impossible bank folks and yanking my loan mod through the mess that banks like to make. Charles Dickson's amazing art, Brenda Tyson's never flagging spirits and skill, Charmaine Jefferson's brilliance; Cheryl racing around with her new doggy Faith, getting rid of some old baggage and embracing some new makes me think 2010 will be the best year ever. Happy New Year, my friends and my enemies.

Who Are These People

My old high school friends Janice and Bill Schroelucke sent me our high school yearbook as a terrific Christmas present. I didn't remember any of the girls at all, just a lot of the boys because I was in all boys classes --architectural and mechanical drawing, etc. In an earlier phone convo with Janice, she had suggested that I didn't remember any of the girls since I was heading away from KY asap and they just weren't on my radar. That's true. I always thought I was a nerdy girl, brainy teacher's pet material, but Janice said mostly the girls were jealous of me because I seemed so independent and definitely not husband shopping like so many....lol. Wow perception is a bitch. But I looked through it hoping to find a face familiar, hmmm, but my memory seemed so clouded. Of course, I did get a good laugh at myself. Funny thing about habits, you don't really know when they started to become habits. But I have one that is funny for a girl who has spent a lifetime being as much of a hermit as being part of the media would allow. I so do not like photos snapped of me. That's why you see me deep in conversation with someone when a photo is taken. Apparently I was always like that, even at 14. I had joined some of the clubs --Latin Clubs, Gamma Sigma, Jr. and Sr. Council and more, but no where were there any pictures of me in any of those lined up-stare straight ahead snapshots. I was not in one picture, except for the mandatory black sweater and pearls number. My oldest friend whom I have known since I was five years old, that dashing Phil Hibbs has always sworn I never smiled. He was right on the money in my senior pix. There I am, not a smile in sight..looking out into the future that never thought it would find me here in Hollywood, sitting backstage and smiling.

I Love This Blogging Business

It seems I was not clear on my last post, so let me fix that. I will keep this blog going because I actually love it. But I'm fairly certain that I cannot manage to do my autobiography as my rep, the persistent, mercurial and wise Frank Mercado-Valdez has urged me to do--repeatedly. I started it once with this: "It was only two in the afternoon that Saturday, but it was pitch black in Ray's office. I stretched out on the desk, looking up at the skylight that looked like a moon and turned at the sound of the door opening. The wannabe moonlight illuminated Joe's sign For Colored Only. Ray had been humming Vaughn Monroe's Racing with the Moon coming out of the shower...." I'm the hesitant Ruth Adkins Robinson.

Babwa, Babwa, Babwa

I am watching the Jonathon Ross show on BBC America. In case you don't watch this, Ross has a speech impediment, along the lines of Babwa Walters. He is very, very charming however and today his sole guest was, wait for it....Babwa Striesand. I'm glad I was in my home when listening to him call her Babwa, while talking to her about Wobert Wedford. Help me, I laughed out loud while solitary in my living room and would have no matter if I'd been sitting with thousands, in fact. While I have always thought Striesand had a glorious, extraordinary voice, I didn't like her much in the human being department. Ross's interview of her revealed a kinder, gentler Striesand than my experience with her long ago at VH1. I'm happy for that and for the people like me who want to like her. The other day when looking at YouTube entries, I saw duet between Barbra and RC that was so amazing and intimate that I played it about half a dozen times before I could get enough. Music still makes my soul dream. I'm the songwriter Ruth Adkins Robinson

Too Much for the Private Ruth

Ok, at the urging of all the people who want me to write a book, I opened up a little on here. That was not easy for someone as private and hermitlike as I am, but so many of my pals said oh yes, the way you write....and the wonderful and horrible things that have happened to you why that would make juicy reading we bet. It's just not gonna happen. Too much feedback from the one blog entry, which I confess I started to see how my life would look in print. So I've decided the rest of my secrets will disappear into dust. Over here in Los Angeles, keeping my own counsel, I'm Ruth Adkins Robinson.

Two Good Old Boys Named Willie & Ray

When we were working on "The Apollo at 70: A Hot Night in Harlem," I was running out of the room every hour or so to sob out in the alley on 126th St. because trying to write that tribute to Ray was killing me. I couldn't tell anyone that he was dying, sworn to secrecy as I was. Finally I told the producers Don and Suzanne because they had to know how to cut it and I had to write it so what was said would work if he were still alive or had already died. Don got Willie Nelson to drive 1,500 miles across the country to come and repeat what he had said on many occasions-- that Ray Charles had done more for country music than most anybody. Rehearsal night, Willie and I sat in the Apollo and talked about "Seven Spanish Angels," the duet Ray took down to Willie and they recorded. At the time, I didn't think it was really a duet song, but Ray never listened to anyone anyhow, so down he went and of course Willie sang it. There is a clip on YouTube now with Leon Russell, Willie and Ray singing, "Song for You," and during most of it, Willie is staring at Ray like a little brother looking up to his older sibling with rapt adoration. At one point, he seemed to have tears in his eyes. After Ray started, Leon and Willie for the most part sat out and Ray did his thing. They seemed to be just two good ole boys when they were together, in whatever smoke-filled room wherever it was. Willie's band would do little musical things to see if Ray would hear. It delighted everybody when he did and that was each and every time. Willie cried full out at the funeral. There is a line in "Song for You" that goes, "And when my life is over, remember when we were together and I was singing my song for you." I hold those memories close and I'm thinking Willie does also.

Secret Park

When Antoinette told me she was having the baby's birthday party at Kenneth Hahn Park, I said why? I had never been to the park but when we went up there today, I fell in love with the place. Can't say I like the $6 parking fee, but I was already computing how much it would cost to go there and walk the 'health trails' every day. Then I discovered those fees are only for weekends and holidays, so if you are looking for me in the daytime during the week, you might just find me at the amazing park, zipping (well, sort of) through the health trails. The baby's party today was lovely. I've decided I like Evan, I'm ever more enamored with Nakia, the Twins have some terrific friends, beautiful, nice young ladies. I walked the trail today so I'm feeling fit Ruth Adkins Robinson

My Favorite Holiday

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I'm Southern so naturally some of my preparations are going to echo the South in their preparations. There will be some green beans, cornbread, mac and cheese, candied yams and mashed potatoes, of course. But this year I'm adding some of the influences from other parts of my life's experience. Most of you who know me are aware that I was once married for six weeks and never again. But I don't talk much about that husband, but i can say he was a way better husband than I was a wife. I never wanted it and vowed I'd never do it again. I didn't. Lorenzo Flores was the handsomest man I'd ever seen, jet black curly hair, eyes just as black with a dazzling smile that I saw from across the room and went weak in the knees. Larry was born and raised in Minnesota, where his parents had migrated up from the Valley of the Moon in Mexico. At that time in my most ignorant teenage state, I didn't even know there were Mexicans in MN. What you don't know at 16 fills volumes and volumes. Ok, so when I met Larry and fell in lust it was that time in my development when I wanted to get inside the very skin of the person I loved (think back for a moment and you'll remember that time). I wanted to discover everything there was about the Mexican culture. I learned to make tortillas from scratch, to refry beans and to make tamales....and so here we come full circle. This year I'm making tamales and stuffing my turkey with those tamales. I've done it before and it's a great tasting surprise. I'm also doing Arroz Rojo (red rice), chillied corn and mango/cranberry salsa to spoon over the turkey and dressing. My mouth is over here watering. I'm the very multicultural cook and somewhat smarter Ruth Adkins Robinson

Mary Adaline Hall

Today was surreal and strange. I was contacted on Ancestry.com by someone asking me if I was the daughter of Ruth Burns whose father was William James Burns. Yes, that is true, I offered. She came back with much information about the side of my family that has been secret to me, hidden from me. I spend many years searching for my elusive wisp of a mother. There were many hours spent in dark rooms, pouring through stacks of microfische and microfilm and rusty, dusty old documents. Couldn't find her in any dimension. I found her birth certificate and her death certificate on the same horrible day, but that was all, not much info on them. So Ruth Lavida Burns remains a stick figure, no depth, no info. But my new cousin told me she has lots of information and the first thing I asked her was my grandmother's name. Her name was Mary Adaline Hall. It takes my breath away to type it. Who was she? What did she look like, who were her people. It all ties into my search to know who I am and where I'm from. I'm the searcher Ruth Adkins Robinson.

Billy Wilkerson is Spinning Like a Top

Billy Wilkerson must be spinning like a top in his grave at the news. His baby, The Hollywood Reporter is disappearing into cyberspace. I'm with you Billy, I can't imagine not holding the paper in my hands. Grabbing THR and scanning down past the red logo for my byline always took my breath away. There have been few greater thrills in my life than walking in the doors at 6715 Sunset Blvd. each morning and seeing The Hollywood Reporter and Daily Variety on my desk, fearful that Cynthia Kirk at Variety might have the same story or if I had scooped her. The ten years I spent at THR as its music editor were heady and like a rocket ride into the stratosphere where superstars sing, dance, hold your hand and take you with them. I love that publication more than anyone could imagine. Because of it, I met everyone who mattered in the music business, on their way up and on their way down. Covering the business of music, I went around the world so many times, to every European country at least once, to France and England 20 times, to Santo Domingo, to Japan, to all the Islands in the Caribbean. I once counted and checking off the countries went up to 30. I met the greatest performers in the world and some became friends, some are to this day. Everybody wanted to be in the pages of the publication that often only numbered 16 pages. What Billy Wilkerson had created when he started the FIRST entertainment trade daily was extraordinary and way more powerful than even he could have imagined. Yet Billy was a visionary, and I am certain his vision did not include seeing the paper disappear. I'm one sad Ruth Adkins Robinson.

Staying at the Dock

For those of you who appreciated my appreciation of Trains and asked what other methods of transportation I liked and didn't like, I hate cruising. I've only taken three cruises, which is two enough, thanks. The first was a trip on the Azure Seas during a shoot for some tv program or other, which I cannot really remember. It was very short, just down to Ensenada for a day or two. The other was a miserable cruise in the inside passage of Alaska. Why do I hate it so? Somebody said, being on a boat is like being in jail, only you are surrounded by water. That's about right. Jailed, trapped, can't get back to civilization. That's kinda the way I felt when I went to live in St. Thomas. Jailed, trapped and couldn't get back to civilization very easily. Funny thing, St. Thomas is not much bigger than a couple of cruise ships strung together. It's the number one port for cruise ships. People rush off the ships and run through the shopping area and head back to the ships, urged by the taximen who shout 'back to the boat' over and over again. I'll never return to the hot little atol in the middle of the Caribbean Sea, ever. My favorite cruise was down the Nile River. It was very civilized, but of course I am very fond of Egypt in general and have visited many times. Not lately of course, the last time I was there there was an event shocking enough to be considered a warning--, one day after I left the reception area in the hotel where I'd stayed was bombed. I so wish the Middle East would calm down so I could return. It's a magical place. Sometime soon I will tell you the story of me and Jermaine Jackson shopping in the Souk and other challenging events surrounding my trips to Egypt. I'm the traveler Ruth Adkins Robinson

Train Me

I like trains and have taken a train trip on every continent I've ever visited --the Bullet Train in Japan and the Blue High Speed train in France are two of the better ones and was stuck on a local milk run from Germany to Paris as punishment for making someone mad (that's another story for another time) . I used to take the train back and forth to Las Vegas every weekend and wish they would start that up again. Yesterday my friend Brenda Tyson and I rode Amtrak to San Diego to see Obba as "Sammy" at the Old Globe (he was magnificent!) It was a fantastic trip in business class that's a bit pricey but worth it. One of my favorite train rides was a while back taking the train home from New York, after my plane kinda crashed at JFK. Actually the wheels only collapsed on landing causing a bad skid narrowly missing a building that would have hurt us seriously. That was close enough to a real crash to make me reluctant to get on a plane. So the train it was. You can't take a direct train, it had to be a sleeper overnight to Chicago and change to the Southwest Chief for the rest of the trip. I had a great stateroom with a recliner and giant window to watch the world roll by, a bed made up by the lovely steward and my food delivered to the room, I was ready to be productive--writing across country was the idea. I didn't count on the scenery, the rhythm and the rocking of the train. Lulled into sweet comfort, sleep called me and called me again. A wonderful experience and the next time I have three days that I can disappear, look for me rockin to the clickety-clack. I'm Ruth Adkins Robinson

World War II

Yesterday I got a package in the mail from Joe Bonsall of the Oak Ridge Boys. It contained his book, "G.I. Joe and Lilly" along with the CD. I had bumped into the song on YouTube and sat listening and crying over this American Love Story of a soldier in WWII and his WAC bride. Since I used to know the Oaks well, I sent Joe an email and he generously sent me his book and the CD. I played the song about ten times feeling Joe's pain each time. WWII is in the forefront of the news today with the big Tom Hanks movie opening at the National WWII Museum in New Orleans, in 4-D. Hurrah, Hanks. He said what had to be captured, "without question," were the economic and human costs and the war's roots in the civil rights and women's rights movements. "We had a Jim Crow society when all that happened," Hanks said. "We still had segregated armed forces ... We asked guys to go off and risk their lives and come back home and ride in the back of the bus. There was no way that brand of injustice could continue in our country after that war." Injustice did continue and does continue, Tom, but we applaud you for your efforts. Joe's emotional tribute to his parents, GI Joe and Lilly moved me so much perhaps because my Daddy also went to War, enlisting after the bombs fell in December. He joined the Navy, a young boy of 16 when he went to War in 1942, trying to be a man. The war left him with scars on his leg, foot and soul as it did in many other American stories. Some of those wounds have not healed in the 60 odd years, perhaps they never will. Maybe so. Hope is everlasting. I'm WWII vet Estil Carl Adkins's daughter, Ruth Adkins Robinson

Getting Flayed while not Writing

Pundits say that those of us who work in entertainment are safe in a bad economy due to what is called "The Shirley Temple Effect." See, the curly-haired darling who could sing and dance was so appealing that in the darkest hours of the Great Depression, people would take their pennies to sit in the movie theatre and watch her dance up and down stairs with Bojangles and the rest. The theory is that people will spend money to be entertained, even when money is hard to come by. But those of us who live in the variety world don't know if that is really true. What seems to be the most appealing now is the reality of what's cooking. Once upon a time there was the Food Network and that was about it. No budget, not a lot of production value, but things changed. "Top Chef" sort of ushered in the craze. The extra foul mouthed Gordon Ramsey cursed everybody out regularly on BBC America and then moved to America .. The wonderful Emeril is now on Fine Living and I think there are even reruns of his old Food Network shows airing too. Why not, there's no shelf life on cooking demos. I admit food is important in my house. My daughter is a personal chef and I consider myself a great cook. But there I am glued to every cutthroat competion on Iron Chef, Hell's Kitchen, Chopped and Iron Chef America, Throwdown with Bobby Flay (at least this one is really good natured and about cooking). I'd say that at this point we have to say that the Shirley Temple effect and has been replaced by the Julia Child effect and I'm not even mad at it all. I love it, but would like a return to scripted shows (hey I need the WGA hovering around my bank account) and in that bastion of wisdom, my beauty shop, I was told yesterday that reality is about over and variety is on the upswing. Course, like a lot of people, this particular person had no idea that variety tv actually has writers. Whoa, everything has a writer, truthfully, including reality tv. I'm the writer Ruth Adkins Robinson who'd like to have a script to write, right now while I watch Bobby Flay try to make a better Mac & Cheese.

More Time Working

When do workaholics stop? It has been noted that no one, at the end of their life, ever said I wish I had spent more time at the office. But for my entire life I have worked, worked, worked often missing my family. Don't get it wrong, beginning with Larriann's first recital at two, I made all her shows and every performance the Twins gave at the Performing Arts Magnet at Hollywood High--plus all the holidays and birthdays of everybody. But I missed a good chunk of time just sitting around talking and listening. I've decided to make some changes and was very forcefully aided in this decision by my birthday celebration this week. I've had some amazing celebrations in the past and missed many celebrations by going to work in some country or the other. But this week, I had the choice of going to the reception for the Tavis Smiley driven "America I Am" exhibit at the California Science Center or staying home with my big, boisterous family to be the center of their attention. I stayed home and my daughter the chef prepared us a feast, old people drank bubbly and little kids drank bubbling apple cider. The hugs and laughter and all good feelings lasted into the night and I've resigned the title of workaholic. I'm Ruth Adkins Robinson.

Could Have Been Me & the Loan Mods

When I read in the LA Times that Five people face multiple felony charges in connection with the beating and torture of two loan modification agents, it was one of those "There for the grace of God goes me in handcuffs" moments. Two guys Daniel Weston and Gustavo Canezs were charged with two counts of torture, two counts of false imprisonment by violence and two counts of second-degree robbery in the alleged attacks against Lamond Dean and Luis Garcia. They had a gun and apparently were pretty pissed. It is something that if you go through it might make you crazy enough to whip out the wooden knuckes and beat up on someone--practically anyone just standing around would do. See, I waded through this process of trying to get a loan modification for NINE months. I don't know if Dean and Garcia were at one of those companies that promise to get you a loan mod and just keep taking more money from you--a growing business opportunity in this depressed housing market. But I know I would have screamed obscenities through the phone at the mortgage holders, so I had a go-between as well. What she had to go through and what I had to go through to satisfy their every request was unbelievable. They looked so hard down my shirt and up my skirt I told my agent they might as well squeeze something while they were at it. At the end of all that pain and suffering, I got my loan modification thanks to the patience and hard work of my agent, that miracle worker. I feel sorry for the people who weren't so lucky and hope somebody does something about making the banks more responsible to homeowners. I'm Ruth Adkins Robinson, curled up in my house and happy

David Oliver was Amazing, the Jerk

Running through YouTube looking for my fav Otis Redding's "These Arms of Mine," somebody suggested David Oliver. I clicked on him. His voice soared --all four octaves. Oh yes, he could sing. In 1977, I wrote an entire album that ended up entitled "Jamerican Man" with my themesong "MS." There is a line in the song "She's climbing high mountains just standing on her own two feet." That's me, then and now. I was careful and I did all the paperwork right. My name is on every form and on the record and the joke is that the album did pretty well, MS went pretty high on the charts and I never made a dime from the sales. Mercury even released it again on some package and they wouldn't pay me for that either since I waited too long. Oh, even all these years later, I still get writers royalties from BMI for "Friends and Strangers," because Ronnie Laws recorded it the year after David. But nothing from any Ronnie Laws sales, either and nothing from the lying, cheating others. When I realized that I was going to be screwed so hard by David, Forest Hamilton, Mutt Cohen and Wayne Henderson, I knew I had a choice--I could take a gun and blow them all to hell or just stop writing songs. I stopped writing songs and started writing other things. David had the most amazing voice, but no honor and he died badly when he was 40. Forest died too. The other two are still around, but I am a very patient woman. C'mon did you ever know a Scorpio to forgive or forget? I'm Ruth Adkins Robinson.

Who Am I

I was ego surfing just now and found a listing on a site I have no memory of ever joining. I described myself: I am a workaholic, loving to see my words come to life on the page or on the screen. I am the matriarch of my family; Genealogy fascinates me. I'm a collector of military challenge coins, English bone china, fine watches, US Navy stuff; I'm a museum curator and a Motown expert. So a word about one of my hobbies: genealogy. About ten years ago, I was trying to track down that mystery, my mother, Ruth Lavida, and while I was not able to do that, I found my father's side of the family all the way back to Ulrich Kessler, who arrived in the US in 1795 on a ship called the "Sandwich" which sailed from Switzerland to PA. Where did I find this? In the basement at the Mormon Church out on Santa Monica, where the angel Moroni is standing on the top of the building, pointing East. There they have every kind of document imaginable. I found eight generations of the white part of my father's line, but nothing else. I took a break from looking recently. Maybe I'll just do the DNA test. Who knows who Ruth Adkins Robinson really is? Why does it seem to be so important to so many?

Define Feminity

For my entire adult life, I have been asked if I am a dude, even before it was 'ok' to publicly admit it or watch women kiss it up on tv. For the first or fifteen hundredth time that happened, it's always been a puzzle to me. Do people think that because I'm not docile or accepting of bull or will go anywhere on any continent by myself, or some other stupid reason? So yesterday, when a friend said I was channeling my inner lesbian, I asked him why did he think that. His answer mimics what I've been told. See, I always work in 'men's jobs.' I've never needed a mate to complete me and for most of my adult life I have always had multiple partners (all men, btw). Then I can talk football with anybody, watch games by myself, know how to wield a hammer or saw and will jump in your face challenging anything. None of these seem to be feminine traits. Who said? And even if they are not, what about the fact that I do a lot of girly stuff like:collect dainty bone china and can identify specific patterns a football field away, can throw a frypan with vengenance, have a whole coterie of men who love me still even after a breakup; I'm a fantastic mother and grandmother, crochet, paint furniture and decorate a home with great elan. I'm not frilly and don't wear a lot of colors but that is as much to do with a slight case of colorblindedness as anything else. I have problems with people who lump people into categories either by how they appear or what you think their behavior looks like. I'm a woman who likes men, sometimes in bed, sometimes flat on their feet, but who doesn't tolerate wrong behavior from anyone male or female. Ok, so I'm ranting Ruth Adkins Robinson

No Good Home Training

I walked into my office today and tripped over an electrical cord that was hanging out of the back of the monitor. Someone had disconnected my viewing station hookup and taken it away to use in another part of the building. That's fine, it's not exclusively mine, but when they brought it back, they just shoved it into the room --not in the same place they found it of course and not with all the connections connected. This is an example of what Coy Lee Burriss Oakes, my Big Mom, would call 'no good home training.' Her admonition to me always was "Leave things better than you found them." Yep, she was big on manners and the reason I'm never, ever, ever late. She used to say people will think you think more of yourself than you do of them. (back in those days, opinions mattered to people) Her voice echoes in my brain often. When you are young some things that are said to you make you screw up your brain in knots trying to figure out what that means. For instance, she used to say "Once a man and twice a child," what a puzzle that was until I saw my first old person suffering from dementia. My Grandmother only raised me for 14 years before she was killed, but her home training still echos. I always try to leave things better than I found them. Now if I could just get these jabonies who figure in my life to do that as well. I'm Ruth Adkins Robinson.

Who the freak is on AOL

I was reading the headlines on AOL, where I have been a customer for at least ten years. What have I been thinking?Casually I took a poll, it said Fox presented the news fairly. Huh, what Fox News are they watching? Ok, I took another poll, the results said America had the best health care system in the world. Ok, folks, don't get sick. Then I took another poll that said Obama had done a horrible job so far and a few others that all leaned towards the extreme Right. Ok, these are not the birds of my feather. I lean extremely to the left, the radical left in fact. So it must be time for me to change my service. Did they know who I am when they left me in? On a search for a new place to hang Ruthiewrites. I'm Ruth Adkins Robinson.

A Roll named Esther and the Cheesecake

Channel Surfing last night provided me with a real surprise. I have never thought Wanda Sykes was funny and there I was kinda stuck on her one woman show waiting for the Chris Rock special next in the queue. Within 30 seconds, I was laughing out loud, by the first minute tears were escaping, I was laughing so long. She got me first by the exquisite way she gave her midrift bulge a name of its own: esther (no explanation, if you got it, you got it.) It had its own voice, kinda of a rough growl when demanding "cheesecake and alcohol." The roll named Esther brought me to tears when trying to escape to meet Jay Leno. Then the old woman doing the "dead dick" dance got me whooping! Wanda eased a little social commentary in there when she said we've been marching for breast cancer for ten years but men don't march for their balls, when the dick is broken, they just fix it. So she got a quick 'amen' from me, and then it was back to screaming with laughter when she told us all about her waxing experience, I was up walking around the living room, yelling with glee at the tv. We've seen/heard a lot of routines about getting a bikini wax, but nothing ever came close to what Wanda was talking about. Her facial expressions, her body language and her explanations were nuanced, fresh and funny. And when it was all over, the expression on her face as she basked in the wild cheering from the crowd, won me totally. I enjoyed her so much that I turned off Chris after the first five minutes, I wanted to rewind Wanda and laugh loud again. I'm Ruth Adkins Robinson, a Wanda Sykes fan.

Plus This

Fashion is interesting, I guess. Mostly I think some aspects of it are stupid, but there I am watching "Project Runway." I like it because it's basically pretty stupid and the judges are obscenely impressed with themselves. The 'designers' don't make anything a real woman would wear, but I guess that's the design of designers. Now I'm a big fan of Heidi, she's created a megamillion dollar empire on the strength of that runway walk and her unflappable straight ahead ability to push the entrepeneurship button to ever higher marks. But this post is all about what defines a plus size. On the other end of the spectrum, it's so ugly to me to see these painfully thin, obsessed little girls parade around barefoot in slips in their very own show called "Models of the Runway." Whether it is the producer's deft hand at cutting or perhaps the girls truly are that shallow and stupid, no way to know for sure. Models, it has seemed are expected to be at least semi anorexic, yet suddenly there is a big backlash over the anorexic models that are the norm for most 'walkers' and oh my the fuss when Glamour magazine put a plus size model inside their September issue. It's the description that bothers me. Let's get this real straight, from jump. I am a plus size. No doubt, not up for discussion. But who makes that determination? Glamour Magazine now has boldly taken the step of doing a whole spread of naked plus-sized models. Get ready for a whole spate of comments and observations about all the plus size women. Huh? Mostly the women who are labeled plus sized wear a 12 or 14. So when did those sizes fall under the plus size label? Oh yeah, I guess when they came up with the description for anybody over a size 14 as being morbidly obese. No wonder little girls start starving themselves at age ten. I'm Ruth Adkins Robinson

Obba is Sammy

My producing partner, Obba Babatunde is Sammy Davis. Actually he turns into Sammy at the drop of a pair of tap shoes, but these days theatregoers in San Diego are getting to see him do that since he is starring in the title role at the Old Globe in San Diego in Sammy's world premiere. The new musical's book, music and lyrics are from Leslie Bricusse, with additional songs by Bricusse and Anthony Newley. Sammy will run through Nov. 8, so you don't have all that much time to get on the freeway and go down. Sammy introduced me to Obba back in 1984 telling me that "Obba was the only cat that can do everything I can do." If you have never seen Obba turn into Sammy, get ready to have your breathe taken away. I'm going down for my birthday and Obba says bring two hankerchiefs because he knows how much I've missed Sam in the last nineteen years. Yeah, that's right. Mr. D died 19 years ago.

Maria, my girl

It makes me smile to see Maria Shriver with her phone to her ear while driving. It's always good to see someone so lofty behaving like the rest of us. Oh, don't shake your head, you know you drive and talk on the phone. I happen to like the First Lady of California, although I was truly bummed when she married Arnold, this child of my childhood political heroes, the Kennedy Clan. But she did something once that made me know she was still a Kennedy and that blood is thicker than a wedding ring. It was during a Rethuglican gathering and she was sitting close by while the talking heads were talking and she had her young children seated with her. When whoever was speaking said something particularly unpleasant about Uncle Teddy and the cameras swung right on her tight. People were applauding and her child started to join in the applause. She put her hand on the child's shoulder, whispered something in the ear and the kid stopped. I can't help but think she said something along the lines of 'remember you are a Kennedy too." Of course I don't know if that's what really happened, but that's what I read into it. I also like Maria for her tireless work on behalf of women. She really reinvented the California Congress on Women, it's a big thing now. She reflects her family's habits of doing good for children and I gotta tell you when Arnold endorsed John McCain and she came out blazing for Barack Obama at that party at her cousin Caroline Kennedy's house, I laughed and cheered at the same time. She married him, but she is very much her own woman. Go ahead and talk on, Maria. I'm Ruth Adkins Robinson

Drive Through Mastectomy

October is a very interesting month for me. Lots of milestones. My birthday is on the 29th, the anniversary of my back surgery is the first, I got polio in October and it is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The first time I was aware of this was in October 2001 when I thought I was being tormented with all the ads, movies of the week, songs, marches and speeches about breast cancer. I was suddenly aware of it because I still had the bandages on from my "Drive Through Mastectomy." I didn't notice breast cancer until I got my diagnosis. October makes you extra aware. I don't think about the cancer coming back like I used to, which was every minute of every day for a long, long time. These days it generally only hits me in the late night heebie jeebies. Every once in a while, I rub my scarred chest and thank it for letting me know about the lump that threatened my life--in time for me not to die. Hey you, do something to help--particularly the drive through mastectomies. Imagine how horrible it is to be shoved out the door of the hospital, still groggy from the surgery, bleeding from where they sliced and diced you grasping instructions on how to drain and change the bandages in one hand, pain killers in the other hand. I'm a woman who beat cancer and want way more women to be able to say that. I'm the cancer-free Ruth Adkins Robinson.

Peaceful Obama

My President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize and I wept. It's the first time in a few months that I've felt the same tearful emotions that swept over me when he took the stage at Grant Park in Chicago last November. While I was part of the festivities at the Inauguration, having written the Commander-In-Chief's Inauguration Ball, some of the magic had slipped away in the months since then. Am I nuts? He made me feel proud to be an American, after hiding my passport for years the Rethuglicans were in office. All of my friends in all the other countries that I keep in touch with still say how amazing he is, how he has given us back our pride with his great acceptance of other religions and creeds, how he is so much smarter and wiser than Bush and the Prince of Darkness Dick. I got an email from that darling rabble rouser Michael Moore that said in part, I think the Nobel committee, in awarding Obama the prize, was also rewarding the fact that something profound had happened in a nation that was founded on racial genocide, built on racist slavery, and held back for a hundred-plus years by vestiges of hateful bigotry (which can still be found on display at teabagger rallies and daily talk radio). The fact that this one man could cause this seismic historical event to occur -- and to do so with such grace and humility, never succumbing to the bait, but still not backing down (yes, he asked to be sworn in as Barack Hussein Obama). Count on Moore to crystalize it for us. For God and Allah and Buddah's sake, the man has only been in office nine months. The Rethuglicans fucked us for 20 years, particularly painfully so with Bush/Cheney. When he stands before the King to accept his Peace Prize in December, I'll be over here in Los Angeles yelling and cheering!!!! I'm Ruth Adkins Robinson.

Screaming over David Letterman

I don't watch David Letterman, except once in a while by default if the news is on. He's a little doofus, a little Buster for me. There is nothing however, simplistic about his actions with the women who worked for him. He is no better or worse than most men who sit in a seat of power and misuse the power for sex, or just misuse the power in general. That he is making it all into a rating bonanza for himself by continuing to talk about it is venal, but what do you expect? But what got me into a frenzy today came as I was in my genius hairdresser Maria's chair. I am sitting there waiting for the bleach to cook; two old women were discussing Letterman. One of them dismissed it all as "well, it takes two to tango." The other one agreed that the women didn't have to sleep with him if they hadn't wanted to. At that one, my head whipped around like the possessed one in "The Exorcist." "Are you totally nuts?" I demanded. I proceeded to suggest that since she was a Beverly Hills matron and never had to work for a living could be she had never been subjected to a man weilding his power over her money and position. Wait! Beverly Hills? Ok, sister, have you always done what you wanted to do or did the fact that your husband held the big ole purse strings cause you to do anything you didn't want? Oh wait, again. Tell me you only slept with your husband when you wanted to, never when only he wanted to? I was shrill and they were glaring daggers. One of them said "What makes you think they weren't just trying to get ahead in their career?" Maybe they were trying to use the position they found themselves in --flat on their back with their feet up in the air -- to help with their career. But what if they weren't? These old girls, and sadly, many others think the women in Letterman could have done what they wanted to do, weren't coerced or manipulated. Consenting adults means different things to different people at different times. I'm Ruth Adkins Robinson

The Skip Diet

When I was sitting a few feet away from Skip Miller's coffin at Holy Cross, I kept thinking he was way too young to die. I decided later on that night, I was going to stop screwing around and actually go on a food program to keep from dying myself. I decided to call it the Skip Diet. I figured to stop making excuses, pay attention to my own diabetic behind and get with it. After all, I've been a diabetic for over 25 years, there's not much I don't know about what I should and should not do to get the glucose numbers down and keep them there. But I've been playing at it. I did stop salt altogether, dead stop, cold turkey the day I got the diagnosis. My zillionaire then friend Meschulum Rickless, Pia Zadora's then husband, decided he would send me to the Rice Clinic in North Carolina to cure me right away. So I went for two months and came back all sparkly and healthy. That only last two months before I got smashed up in the car crash and went to live at Cedars Sinai. You just can't do much in the way of exercise when they've slashed your back open three feet. So gradually I got fat again. But every once in a while I talk to somebody--like Bill Dern who had an amputation from diabetic complications, get the hell scared out of me and act ok for a minute or two. But this thing with Skip was something else. So in the last two weeks, I have stuck to the program --my Skip Diet. It's simple really. I can eat anything that is green, swims or flies. I figure I have had all the indulgence anybody ought to have ever had and then some. So for this birthday on the 29th of the month, I am going to celebrate having lost some weight and added some years to the life expectancy of Ruth Adkins Robinson.

I Smell Ya

The sense of smell is stronger than any of my senses, I think. I just caught a whiff of Roger Gallet room spray and was instantly transported back to France vividly remembering the first time I smelled the exact smell in my oceanfront room at the Majestic. What a time that was. Jeffrey Miles had cajoled whoever was the editor of The Hollywood Reporter at the time into letting me go to cover the Marche de Disques et Editions Musicals, better known as MIDEM and off I went, bright and bold and very excited. I didn't know one word of French. When I got to the airport in Nice, got my luggage into the car whose driver had held up my name on a card, I was feeling a little uncertain about how this trip was going to turn out. The driver struck out for Cannes at breakneck speed down the all but pitchblack stretch of road and suddenly I knew I was going to die that night in the South of France. Sadly I was sure, after the headlong plunge off the side of one of the cliffs, I wouldn't even be able to tell them where it hurt because they wouldn't understand my English. That first trip set the stage for the 20 or so that followed and every time I loved every minute of it. The Majestic Hotel (oh, how I love how it rolled off their tongues Ma=jest=tique. At the time, it was way down the Croissette from the Palais before they built the new one, but I didn't mind walking. There were sights to see that simply didn't exist in Hollywood, although people often call Cannes, Hollywood on the Riviera. Nobody is bathing topless on the beach in January, but they were that year in Cannes and I gasped, but quickly recovered. I couldn't let anybody see that I was a bumpkin. Later on, hanging out with Julio and others, topless would come to mean nothing to me and in fact, I dove into it myself on a farflung beach or two. But this magic time in Cannes, made even more magic by the fact that the exchange rate was five FF to the USD, was a blur of images and events that I scrambled to figure out. This was before the days of easy Internet access and sending copy back from your laptop. I had to type my articles on a selectric typewriter, take it to the Post Office where the man there who didn't speak English at all, would send it via Telex back to the Reporter. Looking back it seems a miracle that anything ever got filed, but it did and for the most part, it was amazing. I have just made myself want to go to France again. We will see where January 2010 finds Ruth Adkins Robinson.

roman the rapist

Here's what I think.... Roman the Rapist needs to go to jail and become Bubba's new girlfriend. Then he can see just how much fun being raped really is!!! All the people protesting his arrest can kiss my ass. He did the crime and he should do --oh maybe one year for every year he's gone free since drugging and raping that 13 year old. I don't care how mature she seemed--SHE WAS THIRTEEN YEARS OLD... HE PLED GUILTY. SEND him to prison where he belongs. I'm an outraged Ruth Adkins Robinson

Am I Islamophobic

When I heard about the planned prayer by Muslims in Washington, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. George W. Bush is the president who began hosting a Ramadan iftar, which is the meal that breaks the daily fast during Ramadan, but the stupid Rethuglicans don't care about that fact, they just want to crucify President Obama as a Muslim. This year the anniversary of 9/11 came just before the end of Ramadan, which was marked by a commemorative stamp and an iftar dinner at the White House. That whipped the haters into a fury, prompted all kinds of viral e-mails and blog postings critical of Muslims and Islam. I am mystified by Muslims. I have problems with the horrific treatment of women. I understand, however, why they hate us and want us out of their country. I don't like it that the nightly news is peppered with some new bomb threats and yet another bearded terrorist with the name Hussein arrested --all Muslim radicals wanting to kill us all. Not only do they want us out of their country, they want us dead in our country. I want them to just go home. When I was typing this, I was trying to remember if I had any Middle Eastern friends. I have always had followers of Elijah Muhammad as friends. Yet so help me, I am guilty of racial profiling I think. What do I do about this?

Faith followed Annie Home

The little black Pom mix followed Antoinette home from church, two miles, lots of stop lights and some serious traffic and Annie was sure she give up, but the little dog kept coming, right up to and through the gate. Knowing I never wanted a dog in the house, Antoinette got the beautiful young Cecelia to come and beg me to let the dog stay. "Lemme see the dog."They brought the dog. Ok, she looked up at me with those big brown eyes and I was done. So I said she could stay--for a while. The first thing the dog did was sit as close to me as she could without sitting on me, she followed me from room to room. Ever the one to let my imagination build a story, I decided that the dog had been the beloved pet of some lady who had died because the dog never wanted to let me out of her sight--ever. She barked when I left the house. Now the problem in my house is that nobody here is a dog fancier. These people love cats and of course we have a couple of those. I don't like them either, but what can you do. So my dilemma now is that the Twins have their own apt., Cecelia and Elijah are now all day at school and Larriann is over at chef's college learning to stuff, chop, and all the other things that they must do. I am gone from morning to night and the dog is lonely. So I ask my old, dear friend Cheryl Dickerson who is 100 percent a dog lover if she wants to adopt Faith Banks. She said she'd audition the dog for a week to see if the two of them and her other puppy liked each other. When I told my family, they were all huffy puffy wanting to know how could I give the dog away. My reply was the dog needs attention, which she can't get here. So I pack up the food, the leash, the brush, the dog perfume and off to Sherman Oaks I go, Faith curled up in the back of the car--practically grinning at getting to go for a ride and sticking her head out the window. Cheryl thinks the dog is cute and tries to be friendly. But Faith, knowing something is in the wind isn't having it. She is looking at me like, what are you doing. I decide to leave, sneakng away like a thief in the night and when I call Cheryl 15 minutes later, she tells me Faith has been sitting by the front door, barking ever since I left. I'm not sure how this audition is going to work out at all. Holding my breath, I'm Ruth Adkins Robinson

Doin' A Happy Dance

It's been a hard year this first nine months, and I had told my ace Charmaine Jefferson that I'd be happy if just one little area of my life could get straight. Really, everything, everywhere and everybody seemed so screwed up for months on end. But suddenly, the skies opened up and it started raining good stuff on my head. At one point, I looked up wondering if Skip had just gotten so tickled at my silliness at his funeral that he had opened up the locked floodgates for me. Could be. After nine long months, my loan modification documents came through, I got a new literary agent, I jumped into discussions on a screenplay that I do want to write, I got the greenlight on a project with SdP and somebody actually paid me some money they'd owed me far too long (the rest of you can step up here and do the same). So I am going to treat myself to a Thai massage and then wrap myself in words to complete the October issue of Museum Notes and that book treatment and the unfinished chapter on the book I already have in the works. But first, look over here, this is me doin' a happy dance. I'm Ruth Adkins Robinson.

Mo' Joe the Schmo

Yeah, yeah, yeah, his Daddy's not a racist says Joe the Schmo's son. Of course, Joe's little boy is running for attorney general in South Carolina, home of some of the most notorious racists ever to creep into a black bedroom. So everybody black needs to run for the hills if Sonny Boy Wilson wins -- imagine the prosecutions and legislation headed in the wind. But to further make the point about Schmo's true views, back in 2003, Wilson called it "unseemly" and a "smear" for Essie Mae Washington-Williams, the illegitimate daughter Strom Thurmond had with the 16 year old family maid to tell the world the old dog was her Daddy. Excuse me?? What was unseemly was old Strom sticking it where Southern gentlemen have been sticking it for the last couple of hundred years--statutory rape and all that be damned. How is it a smear to call your Daddy your Daddy? Of course Strom, who practically wore white Klan robes right on the floor of the Congress didn't want anybody to know about Baby Girl. He did pay for her education and some other stipends. And, oh Lordy, Lordy, his 'other' family recognized her and she is listed on the monument to him, right alongside his white children. She should be grateful, I guess Joe thinks. After a lifetime of keeping it hid (she was born in 1925) I think she was brave to acknowledge him. I wonder if she ever sat and looked at the veins in her hands and wondered about the blood coursing through them? Whose blood, whose genes? Imagine a life of knowing your own father thought anything black was subhuman and had no rights or liberties. Painful. I'm Ruth Adkins Robinson.

Who Is a Liar?

Richard Nixon lied to everybody alive, including himself for several years before he fled the White House in disgrace. Nobody ever screeched at him in Congress. My boy Bill lied and as vindictive as the ReThuglians and Ken Starr were to him, nobody was screaming at him in Congress either. This oinker from South Carolina would never have screamed at the two white Presidents you can bet. But clearly Joe Wilson thinks it's ok to insult the black President, I guess because he's still reeling that a black man is now the most powerful man in the world. I'm sure his hillbilly butt can't stand it. After all, he disrespected the man and the office without any thought they just might haul his sorry self out of the building. These are the peole they address as "Distinguished Gentlemen." Well, maybe Joe doesn't really fit that tag. Think I'm kidding about this? This racist hillbilly voted against removing the Confederate Flag from being displayed over the state house. Why would I doubt that he has black friends back home in South Carolina. What happened to Wilson in the wake of his bad behavior? Jerk gets off with a little bitty slap on the wrist. Ok, so big deal, the House has voted to admonish Wilson over his "You lie" outburst to President Barack Obama during the President's health care speech to Congress last week, but it doesn't begin to do enough. Wilson is the liar here. He's a liar to all the people who voted for him in his state who could use some help with their health care situation. Like all the criminal deeds done by the Republicans of late, this will have no traction, nothing will really happen to Wilson as a result of this, but we can all hope that when he gets back to his natural redneck environment, somebody just kicks his ass on G. P. I'm Ruth Adkins Robinson, happy to be a Democrat.

There are times when only grease will do

Skip's funeral today and the repast where I saw some old friends and some old enemies made me want to live in this moment.... right now.... today. So I cooked and ate and listened to music. I didn't count anything that remotely resembled a calorie, a carb or fat content. In the South where I am from, they say "There are times when only grease will do." So I fried some chicken, made some green beans, fried some corn and okra and made some Johnny cakes. I slathered everything that needed it with a ton of butter and presented it to myself on my favorite bone china, Royal Albert Old Country Roses. While I ate, I listened to Otis. Only his aching heart felt right for my own weary heart. Then I took a nap on my couch. Old comfortable habits feel especially good when the freaking world seems haywire. I'm up now, with some writing to do before morning, because life's needs make you keep moving. I'm tired and want to sleep but duty calls and I always answer. I'm Ruth Adkins Robinson

The Weekend of My Embarassment

On Saturday during the day, I had the enormous pleasure of hosting "Conversation at CAAM" where a World War II fighter pilot, bank president, NAACP area president, Police Commission Board chair and all around brilliant lawyer Elbert Hudson spoke of the past and the future, patterns of behavior established by his family, and offered footsteps to follow. He is a hero to me for his lifetime of service, his personality and his commitment to the race and the community. I was proud Saturday afternoon. Then things changed so hard, I wanted to hide in my house because of the beyond stupid actions of Kanye West and Serena Williams. You never know what ignorant behavoir Kanye is going come up with (although when he said on live tv that George Bush was a racist, it made me chuckle). But running up on stage to embarass every living body at the Video Music Awards ranting and screaming is beyond the pale. We know he's nuts and somebody ought to call the rubber truck to come get his behind. But what he did doesn't bother me as much as Serena's antics. She and her sister have always been golden, charmed, blessed. Well, until yesterday. Everyone who is waving the John McEnroe flag in comparison ought to check the facts. Mac was entertaining and even on his craziest day never said fuck you and threatened to kill the line judge. He got his share of bad press and it was all sort of 'ok, he's got a bad temper, but we like him anyway.' But the people who do not like Serena have been waiting for the opportunity to blast her. Sports writers are saying she has no dignity and no sportsman like qualities she's a coward and was beaten by a player fresh off maternity leave. In general they damn her saying although she has called herself the best player who ever held a racquet, she isn't, never was and needs to sit her behind down and stay there. Well, let me tell you, I'm old enough to remember when tennis was a white athletes game. They let 'the one' in, Althea Gibson. There was nervousness when Arthur Ashe got into the game, but soon there were sighs of relief all around because both those players were exemplars of sportsmanship, dignity and class. There've been people waiting ever since for black players to show their asses to prove it wasn't a wise idea to let just anybody play the game. Sorry to say, Serena's ass is showing. I'm Ruth Adkins Robinson.

Black Exotic Dancers

I was giving the visual arts curator Michelle Lee a hand with her upcoming CAAM exhibition on the "Harlem of the West" the Fillmore in San Francisco earlier today. In her section on burlesque, I was appreciating the beauty of the women, Lottie The Body and Toni Elling. Then I remembered the first exotic dancer I ever saw. Talk about beauty! There once was a whole grip of clubs in Los Angeles where you could go and dance your legs off and also watch some professional dancers. This one night somehow I got a seat up close to the night's performers. I was still pretty naive and when my date, Cornell, told me the dancer was a man, I didn't believe him. Embarassed and curious, I peered closer at Sir Lady Java. Nothing about that dancer said man to me. His skin was velvet. His shape as curvy as mine and stare as hard as I could I just couldn't find any evidence of any male equipment. It got me thinking about what propelled him up onstage changed from man to woman. Over the years, I've talked to female impersonators and found many different reasons for their choice to perform. One year when Sammy Davis (pictured here in the Fillmore) judged a female impersonator's competition, he and I talked about how stunningly beautiful some of the contestants were. That's it. It all goes back to beauty I guess. Men like Java were too beautiful to live 24/7 as men, I think. But gender identification is curious and confusing. Take the case of Caster Semenya, the runner who has been challenged over gender issues. She runs too fast to be a woman, so let's subject her to total humiliation. This person who is 18 could be forever damaged by what she was subjected to this week. I have no idea what will happen to her, but I wish people could just appreciate the beauty of her running and let her be. I'm Ruth Adkins Robinson

What Happened to Civil Rights?

Lubna Hussein would rather go to jail than pay a fine because she wanted to make a point about the Civil Rights of women, which pretty much doesn't exist in the Sudan. So instead of popping for the 400 bucks, off she went. That used to happen here, but doesn't so much anymore. I was talking to John Mack, president of the Police Board and longtime head of the Urban League about what happened to the country. We were rabid marchers and protesters when John and I were young. There was fire in bellies of the young. Who blew out the fire? It is like somebody said, "Ok, we have our Civil Rights now so let's get on with the party and making some money." Who are the Civil Rights people now? Can't think if any? That's the point. In our weekly get togethers Regina Jones and I were talking about the very same thing. She bemoans the fact that people write emails to each other but do little else. Where is the leadership, she asks? I don't know either, but I can't imagine why people think no action is necessary. There are sharp reminders of a past neither dim or distant. My favorite JAG colonel, William John Glasser was perhaps to be posted at the Pentagon again and I asked him how it was in that building. He said, "Oh, it's just a building with too many bathrooms." Sound puzzling? Well, remember when the Pentagon was built, colored and white had separate facilities. Does that mean black officers couldn't pee alongside enlisted white men, they could only pee with the brothers? Yes that's what it means then and now, really. Just one stat to leave you with on this cool Wednesday. In the highest rank of four star general in the air force or even the three star, how many black officers are there? Consider this, President Clinton awarded Benjamin O. Davis his fourth star after his death, 'cause despite the fact that he was commander of the Tuskegee Airmen and many other notable accomplishments, he only reached 3 stars. Groaning and wishing for equality for women in pants and people in uniform, I'm Ruth Adkins Robinson

Bashir's Got His Freaking Nerve

I'm watching Night Line and they are doing a tribute to all the people who have died this summer. Tributes are appropriate for this long, hot summer of loss. So many have left us, young and old. But for that snake Martin Bashir to be sitting there looking all sad about those who died makes me queasy. " He spent eight months following MJ around and the end result "Living with Michael Jackson" twisted the public's viewpoint. Bashir started the downspiral into accusations of molestations for MJ. It made your American career, didn't it Martin? Turned you into a bigger than life talking head anchor. As surely as the doctor who shot him up, you pulled the trigger on Michael Jackson. How well do you sleep, anchorman? When I used to be a journalist, it was to report the news, not twist it to suit your fancy. Be careful should the tide of public opinion turn against you. Look closer Bashear there's a lot of people like me jeering. I'm Ruth Adkins Robinson.

Between the Dashes

I've been reading all the comments about Skip Miller and idly wondering what will they say when I die. Skip was a gentleman, endlessly gracious and giving and while nobody much has said it, Skip was fine as wine. Maybe that sounds flip to some, but it would make Skip grin, no doubt. No bad posts or thoughts for Skip. Not many people will that be true about. I remember on the occasion of the death of a pretty famous member of a singing group, we were standing at the funeral and one man said "I'm waiting for (group leader's name goes here) to die, because I want to go piss on his grave." Whew. That was funny and it was also deep. Do I have a chance to change things in case anybody wants to piss on my grave? Well, they say about me in life that I have talent and a bad temper. I am devoted to my family and to work. But there is never enough time to max out the talent, to do all the things you want to do with your family. Pundits always say it's what you do between the dash (your birth and death dates) that counts. Skip was given 61 years between his dash --not nearly enough for those of us who could use some more Skip. Not enough for KC and the kids or Tony or Miller or Suzanne and so many others. If you ask a little kid how long 61 years is, he will just stare at you trying to imagine such a giant number of years. If you ask a retiree how long 61 years is, he will say not nearly enough. Time seems to be moving slowly this weekend. Maybe I'm just running through Jello. I can't seem to focus because one more death seems like the straw for this camel. Can't clean up, can't fire up my creative self. Not much Labor happening on this Labor Day. When I told my dear friend in Argentina that I was taking this harder than I expected. He said, "maybe you will rearrange your priorities now." Hmm. Not knowing how much time I have, I've just chosen to waste some of it--thinking about what's between my dashes and what I need to do about it. I'm suddenly hoping I can do some things so folks will be somewhat kinder when talking about Ruth Adkins Robinson

Tell the Truth, Ruth

Facebook haters must all be twelve and never fell out of touch with anyone they considered a friend. Without a clue to where they've gone, or where to look, friends get swallowed up by the mists of time. Then suddenly they are on the pages of Facebook. Fantastic. Today is a prime example of what I mean. I got a FB friend request from someone I knew in my 20s when I was trying to be a songwriter. The request said "Tell the truth, Ruth" and it came from Sigidi Abdullah. He sent me his phone number and I called him in a split second because he's one of those people that I truly missed having in my life. I grinned to myself while dialing remembering what he looked like back in the 70s. He seemed about six eight or so, all Afrocentric and skinny. Sigidi's hair was also about six eight or so--sideways. He had this loping walk and his hair would lope right along. He was also a fantastic songwriter/musician. There was a group he led called Conjur. I always got a kick out of the names of the group members: Sigidi, Ronji, Umbagi and Harold. I loved the way the names rolled of my tongue until you got to Harold! Our Harold was killed a few years ago by some silly bitch who rolled through the intersection of Pico and LaBrea at too high speed. Anyway, Sigidi and I wrote some songs together and one called "Willie Pass the Water" was recorded on somebody or other, it might have been Conjur, I don't remember. But since writers can't help themselves, Sigidi had to tell me the lyrics to a song he'd just written and I laughed outloud in pure joy--from having to listen again and because the song was so great. It's all good, Sigidi. Also coming out into the light, my old friend Fred Wesley from back in the day when I taught Sam & the Goodtimers their first choreography. Of course, you know Fred from James Brown and George Clinton fame. Just the greatest trombone player in the world. There are others, wonderful newsman Larry Carroll for instance. More on this subject later from Ruth Adkins Robinson

Lost My Warrant, Lost My Mind

So in June, the State of California stopped paying people like me who work as independent contractors. Everybody who isn't living in a cave knows they started issuing IOUs to us dumbbutts. I'm not good with pieces of paper so I've lost the two IOUs that I've received. Of course you can guess what madness ensued when I realized I'd lost them. Because of course they weren't really lost, I had just put them up somewhere safe. It is the story of my normal, insane pattern of doing things. Put it up somewhere safe. So I dedicated the entire last five days to finding those two unremarkable looking slips of paper. My house now looks like a bomb went off in there and only after I looked in the same place that I had looked ten times earlier did I find ONE OF THEM. Right there in my passport case, I found very neatly folded up a State of California warrant for some thousands. So today I gave in and simply filed a notice of loss for the other one because I must get on with the other parts of my life, languishing for the last five days. Of course, I have lost many things by putting them up 'somewhere safe.' A diamond ring that I especially liked, I've had to get my birth certificate from the Department of Vital Statistics of Kentucky so many times, they probably think I'm selling the thing, all kinds of memorabilia, and very often I discover that which I have put in safekeeping. So this weekend, I bought a fireproof box to keep in the house to put things in. This is not to be confused with my safety deposit box at City National, where I keep important jewelry and other secret stuff. See, I put the safety deposit keys up somewhere safe and until I find them, the new little box will have to do. I'm Ruth Adkins Robinson

Word Challenge and Vespa Madness

At the bottom of the page here, it shows you "labels for this post: e.g. scooters, vacation, fall." Since I rarely enter any "labels for this post" I wondered, casually, if I could appropriate the explainers, "scooters, vacation, fall" with a true story. I found I could. I bought myself a scooter after seeing the deathmatch that is scooters on the streets of any sized Italian city. The mighty Vespa rules the road and since Italians simply ignore those silly signal lights, you and your Vespa might be run down in any given moment. Part of the appeal was seeing all those curvy, stylish Italian women dashing around wearing dresses, hair contained--not by some ugly helmet, but by long silk scarves, billowing in the warm Italian breeze.

The scooter pictured here is not mine but one rather carefully restored and painted blue and white and very valuable. Mine was used and had been painted a bright yellow color. When I asked about the yellow (not my favorite color) the seller said it made the scooter more visible on the road. Sold. I certainly hoped it would help me be seen on American roads unused to wannabe Italian women in scarves. But after one near miss by a large truck that nearly sent me into a ditch, I decided not even the bright yellow would save me twice. So I sold my scooter. If I had kept it, I could sell it now on eBay for enough to take another vacation to Italy and watch the authentic Scooter traffic dance. Alas, not this Fall. I'm Ruth Adkins Robinson.

Who wants to be First

Mostly, I like to be first. Well, except in grammar school when at the beginning of each school year, I got an earnest lecture from my newest teacher about how I would have to be brave and set an example for the rest of the children. See, my name was Adkins so I was always first in line for all the shots we got each year. I have no idea what they were, but small pox, measles, and a whole lot of other innoculations that haven't been seen in schools for a while, I'm guessing. It was during one of those brave days that I got the polio vaccine and caught polio. There is no way to prove that I got it from the shot, but so did a couple of kids who got the shot from the same people on the same day. Back then, nobody thought of suing people who hurt you in that way , so my grandmother never thought of suing the school, suing the medical people, suing Dr. Salk--as would be the case now. If she had, I would own Kentucky. But no matter. My polio was way better that the beautiful Martha McIntire, who spent the rest of her life in an iron lung, right in the house next door to me. What happened with me was no fun, but I recovered with few damages, stenosis of the spine, left leg shorter than the right and atrophied muscles in the left side of my back. Now all of you who know me have never noticed these shortcomings. I always work hard at appearing normal with varying degrees of success when it comes to both mental and physical. But the reason that I've been absent from posting the past little while is that I've been trying to get through this latest polio dance. It's called post-polio syndrome and many are suffering now. Symptoms include slowly progressive muscle weakness, unaccustomed fatigue (both generalized and muscular), and, at times, muscle atrophy. Pain from joint degeneration and increasing skeletal deformities such as scoliosis are common. Nobody seems to know why it comes back, but there are support groups and the like for it. But me, I'm not going to go to any support group, every time I feel weepy or pissed off, I think about Martha. I'm lucky Ruth Adkins Robinson.

Sliding Time

It does go forward and backwards and depending on where you are standing when time is rushing by is how you are judged. Some people are way ahead of their times and some never catch up to it. I had an Aunt Delma, who was married to my uncle William Howard Taft Adkins. In those days, it was very, very popular to name one of your children after some president or the other. Why my Big Mom named her eldest son after a president that nobody except "Jeopardy" contestants ever heard of beats me, but she did. Aunt Delma, I have to say, was ahead of the time curve and its public opinion. She believed children should only wear diapers once. So she threw them away after one wearing. There was a lot of throwing going on because Delma and Taft had twelve children. Jackie, Joyce and the other ten. Understand this was before disposable diapers, so this particular bunch of the Adkins clan just scandalized our name. Then comes John Travolta, who only wears his white tee-shirts once. Then the crazy guy does something with them. Who knows what? But because he's got so much money, it's not a scandal when he tosses them to the wind after one wear. Money could be the key here to whether this is a ridiculous practice or not. I got one that involves money and it's still ridiculous. A friend of mine told me recently of two young women who spent a couple of thousand dollars on clothes each month at just one store where she also shopped. The 'sales associate' confessed to her that one of those young women was her daughter. A few months passed by before she also confessed they spent so much money because they just threw their clothes in the garage after one wear and went and bought some more. Ok, I heard you, how does the daughter of a clerk roll that hard? Seems the young lady was using the equity in her house as a clothing budget. Yes, she lost the house, but there was a lot of stuff in the garage that made somebody some money. I swear this is a true story, ridiculous as it reads.

Missed Fred

I clicked on Deaths in 2009 a minute ago. I wanted to see something about Don Hewitt and hit that box. Suddenly I saw Fred Travelena's face. It was a shock because I didn't know he had died. One of my funniest memories is of being in Sammy Davis's suite at the Aladdin Hotel. Sam always took his own personal pots and pans when he was working anywhere and often would invite some pal or other to cook. Off Brian Dellow and I would go to the market and buy all the stuff for me to cook the Puerto Rican Arroz con Pollo that Sam liked. On this particular day, I'd made it too hot for Sam and he was yelling at me when Fred came in. They started doing a routine of various people complaining that my food was too hot. Master impressionists both of them and we laughed and laughed as a long list of characters said bad things about my cooking. Too soon it was time for Sam to get ready for the night's show. I ran into Fred on a flight to somewhere about five years after Sammy died and we just hugged and remembered our friend and that silly day and how special it was. Rest well, Fred. I'm Ruth Adkins Robinson.

Cut Off From the World

I can't say I didn't have a warning. I did. When I was in Las Vegas, I lost my phone. I couldn't function. And it's not like I do a bunch of things with my phone. I am not on the Internet with it, I rarely text, I just phone. It's not my life. But as it happens, I also had no Internet access because the freaking hotel blew up my baby computer. So I was really screwed. The only savior element is that Elijah had his phone and I was able to talk to my family. I was practically bumping into furniture in my disorientation. What could I do without my phone and Internet? Well shopping seemed a good way to occupy my time and there is that great Fashion Show mall, where between Starbucks, the Oxygen Bar and a couple of massages, I calmed up and down.. Happily, I was only crazy and weepy and cut off from the world for 24hours, I got the little Sony Ericsson that I love so much back. It had been turned into security and I could reach out and touch once again. When you are all agitated, you make these vows If I ever get my phone back, I'll make a copy of my sim card so I won't be nuts again. Did I? What do you think? Of course not. I just started calling all those people who called in the previous 24. . So I came back to Cali and yesterday I was in the bike shop getting this cute little basket on my beach cruiser and must have put the phone down. Whoosh, it was gone in a split second. So here I am, phoneless and miserable again. What do I have to do now? While I wait until AT&T sends me another one, I have to pour over my old phone bills and see if I can guess who you are. So, if you get this strange call from me next week asking you to tell me your name, it's because I have no idea on earth whose number is whose. Take a tip. Dump your numbers off on a thumb drive or somewhere, so you won't sound like a fool trying to regroup. Meanwhile, I'm having it shut down so calls to Russia and Santo Domingo and the like won't end up on my bill. Yearning for my phone, I'm Ruth Adkins Robinson.

Oh Yeah, I Got Soul.

Back in the day, there was a magazine called Soul. It was something so important in our world, it might be hard to even believe the impact it had, to imagine what Soul made you feel when you held it. You knew you were gonna find something inside that you'd never get anywhere else. The articles were always longer than what was in the other papers. It made your own soul feel better to pour over the pages. If you were in the black entertainment business, you had to be in the pages of Soul Magazine. If you were black and wanted to write for a major publication, Soul was the place to polish your craft and hang out with some superstars in music, film, tv and other areas. I wanted to be the editor of Soul Magazine. But too shy me didn't have nerve enough to do anything about it. The co-founder of Soul, Regina Jones, told me yesterday she was sure Ken would have given me the job if I had asked for it. I have urged her for at least ten years to do a book about the magazine. Now Regina has one-upped my long ago dream, she is going to do a book and she is going to do it with one excited Ruth Adkins Robinson.

Apollo Anniversary fills up CAAM

Today was good for me. Almost every chair was filled with people who wanted to celebrate Apollo's 75th Anniversary, as seen through the eyes of the people on stage. Cornelius Grant showed a 20 minute clip of the very first MotorTown Revue to play the Apollo. As is the custom, the unknown acts open a show. This time it was the "no-hit Supremes." They looked pretty good, but Mary, Florence and Diane didn't have the choreography to any state where they were comfortable with it and the song was certainly not memorable. It was great to see Bill Murry the comedian who was then the "voice of Motown" handling the emcee chores. The CAAM crowd laughed long and loud at Marvin Gaye, second on the bill, as he went through the gyrations of "Hitchhike," and were amazed by how tiny 11 year old Stevie Wonder was and how fluid his playing was. Cornelius, of course, was the guitar player with the Choker Campbell band, dead center, hair conked out and guitar pick in hand. When he talked about some of the people on the Apollo stage now gone forever, he was very emotional. The audience loved him as they did Tony Neuton, the bass player with Smokey Robinson, Thelma Houston and as the photo said one of the Funk Brothers during the international tour. I stitched the day together with memories of working at the Apollo, first in 1985 for the 50th Anniversary; then again for six years as the writer and episode producer for "Showtime at the Apollo," and for the "Apollo at 70: A Hot Night in Harlem." We shared some good things, funny and uplifting things and spent almost an hour taking questions. Guess nobody gets tired of old Motown memories or of the place in Harlem where "Stars are Born and Legends are Made." Doing something is rewarding, getting to relive it with an appreciative audience is sweet icing on the happiness cake. Icing all over my face, I'm Ruth Adkins Robinson.

Feedback feeds my Head

I've been writing the blog now for about 70 days. I started with it because I took a class that told me this would be a good thing. I had no idea what a GREAT thing it could be. I get to say whatever I feel, think or suspect. There's been some great feedback, and I always appreciate the things said by other writers I love (trust me, that's not a big number). One such is an old friend, the very talented and insightful Steven Ivory. Look at what he said: "I love what you're doing with the blog. I've always loved the matter-of-fact elegance with which you tell a story. I had no idea about Whole Foods. I'd heard a bit about the union thing, but like so many others, I basically bought the Whole Foods post hippie goodness thing. I didn't shop there a lot in the first place, but I'll certainly keep my black ass out of there now. Love you, Steven" What a thrill to have him say that and how amazing to provide information to the informed. Got the big head today, I'm Ruth Adkins Robinson

Happy Birthday, Lioness

I called my best girlfriend in Miami today and sang, "Happy Birthday to You, Happy Birthday to You, You're Now As Old As me." We laughed because age seems to be in the forefront of our minds lately. She's actually in better physical shape than I am, but Health Care is on our mind and not just because the insane Republicans are practically rioting at those town hall meetings. My Daddy used to say when you get 50, everything you got falls down, out or off. That's the truth and Lydia and I are feeling the effects of travelling the world for so long with things dropping down out or off all along the way. She lives in Fla now, but I met her in Los Angeles when she was the editor of a magazine called "Celebrity Focus" and she hired me as its music editor. We got along instantly because she is a colorful character, like me. Lydia speaks perfect English with a Spanish accent. She was born in Puerto Rico, but she's not Puerto Rican. One of her husbands was Cuban, but she's not Cuban. Her father had a business in Venezuela but she's not Venezuelan either. The unsimple truth is Lydia had one Italian parent and one Jewish parent. She's smart as a whip, has a long history of working in tv and print and I'm thinking of moving to Miami to work on a book with her. Subject of the book? Well, since she was the producer of hundreds of segments on Michael Jackson for ABC and has written a trunkload of articles about him and I know what I know, perhaps him. Or, perhaps a book on women writers in a man's world. Or maybe something about single mothers in the 60s or maybe even "How to thrive and survive after everything you've got has fallen down out or off." We usually talk two or three times a day and when I last spoke to her, her cousin Annie was taking her to dinner. To tell you what kind of person Lydia is, while Annie's parents were both dying at the same time, L drove miles every day to sit with, deliver, take care or just offer comfort. She's generous, kind and caring and I'm glad the old girl is the best friend of Ruth Adkins Robinson.

Bad Taste from Whole Foods

I haven't shopped in Whole Foods for several years --ever since I walked out and left my wallet on the checkout counter and turned around 30 seconds later and it was gone. I did some yelling but got nowhere with the cashier or bag stuffer. Later I realized they were working in such bad conditions for such pitiful wages, stealing must have become a viable option. Whole Foods pays its hourly employees the equivalent of 1960s minimum wages (when gasoline was 19 cents a gallon). They have fired people who've tried to organize a union. They lie about the quality of the food, won't promise to use only shrimp caught in turtle free nets, sell tuna so toxic it shot the mercury levels of one customer up so high, the Center for Disease Control workers were shaking their heads. There is a lot of other mess, but it all points directly back to the man at the top. Imagine a guy who assumes a fake identity and goes on line to trash his competitors, praise himself and snipe at his own employees. Where does he place on the scumbucket meter does he place lower than one of those predators who tells a little girl somewhere that he's a 17 year old football star.? Yeah, for my money and that of Daily Kos it would seem Kos said of this, "The very idea of the founder and CEO of a major national corporation hiding behind a pseudonym to lambaste one of his own hourly wage earners on an online message board says something about the personal moral integrity of union-busting executives. That John Mackey would step out against the healthcare reform is just another way of saying screw his employees. Let that despicable little man Mackey go out of business. Shutter Whole Foods up and let him try and live on what he pays his workers. Headed for Trader Joe's, I'm Ruth Adkins Robinson

She's A Brigadier, Dear!!

It was one of those events that you felt in your gut and your heart. The air was electric because for the first time Colonel Stayce Harris was about to be pinned with her stars for the rank of Brigadier General. The room was filled with friends, high-ranking everybodies and her relatives. This entry would be ten pages long if I started to record all her credits. But here's a few, Stayce was the First African American female to fly the B-747-400, the First African American Female to command an Air Force Flying Squadron, taking command of the 729th Airlift Squadron in February 2001 at March Air Force Base, Ca. She was rated as a C-141B aircraft commander logging over 2500 hours and actually landed that aircraft on Antartica. There is much ceremony to the pinning --six separate times the stars go on-- two for her uniform jacket, two for her shirt, two for her hat. I heard a lot of wonderful things said about her this night, but the grace note for me revealed more about her than any words. The person pinning stars on her uniform was a pioneering Air Force nurse. It happens that the nurse is elderly and tiny. Unconsciously, Stayce bent her knees so the Nurse would not have to stretch, to be able to easily pin on those stars. She is altogether a trailblazer, but also a well rounded human being--her interests in travel, jazz, her soro, the Links and others were all identified by cheering sections. At one point as I wiped away my tears, I looked around and saw a bunch of ranking officers doing the same thing, all of us overcome by the history being made in the room. The General said she waited four months for the actual pinning ceremony because she wanted to have it take place at the Tuskegee Airmen Conference, because they were her heroes. Personally, I was no more good when she asked the entire front row of women to stand. Imagine, they were all pilots of extraordinary achievement, including the first Black female combat, yeah COMBAT, pilot. You can bet that Stayce was a hero to those women. She's poked holes in the ceiling and the sky so young women like my granddaughters can fly at whatever they dream of doing. When I was young, no such thing was possible, so she's a hero to me, too, I'm Ruth Adkins Robinson.

Thinking About Bob Jones

When I got back to a computer after a week in the desert, there were hundreds of emails and almost a thousand spam entries. Slipped in the mail I actually read were a few chain letters and they made me think of Bob Jones. After he was uncermoniously fired from the Michael Jackson organization, Bob had a lot of time on his hands and started sending out chain letters. There are few things I hate about the Internet as much as the cyber version of chain letters. They make me crazy, but I was also crazy about Bob, so what I would do instead of sending them on to other people who would hate me for doing so, I'd just send it to myself with a copy to Bob and only Bob. He didn't know what I was doing and it was harmless, didn't hurt anyone. I thought Bob had been hurt enough anyway. I never quite got over the way he was dumped by MJ. Bob loved Michael like a son and had devoted his life to MJ for more than 20 years. Mike never fired anyone personally, so one day, without notice, some thugs delivered a pink slip and took everything with MJ's name on it out of Bob's house. Bob could have really told the dirt in a book, because he was the only one around without a confidentially agreement. I think he might have wanted to, I think he might have even tried, but he couldn't do it. He'd been protecting Michael for too long, Bob just couldn't hurt him in print. Three weeks ago when I learned of Michael's death was the first time I was glad Bob was no longer around. It would have broken his heart. I'm Bob Jones' friend, Ruth Adkins Robinson

Lost

I am back from Las Vegas just now where I exploded my computer, lost my phone and my mind and left my meds back in Cali. I will be catching up here when the clouds roll away from my brain and I can coherently speak bout the last week.--I think I am Ruth Adkins Robinson

Tuskegee Top Guns

Last night in Las Vegas the Young Guns Team saluted the The First United States Air Force Top Gun winners--two Black men. Yeah, that's correct. Black guys from the 332nd Fighter Group. The first national fighter gunnery competition took place here in Las Vegas at what is now Nellis Air Force Base. This was back after WWII in 1949. Each operational USAF Fighter Group in the US was to send three pilots to compete. It was a ten day meet with big time shoot outs for top honors in two categories Group and Individual. The pilots representing the 332nd Fighter Group were Cpt. Alva Temple of the 301st, First Lt. Harry Stewart of the 100th and First Lt. James Harvey of the 99th and alternate pilot First Lt. Halbert Alexander of the 99th. Top Team Honors in the Convention Class with the to the 332nd. Top Individaul Honors to Lt. William Crawford of the 82nd and Captain Alva Temple of the 332nd in second place. There's a funny story attached to this win...somehow, someway the powers that were didn't want the world to know these particular people won, so accidentally the trophy was missplaced. It stayed missplaced for decades. Sitting in awe of the two heroes honored tonight James Harvey and Buford Johnson, I'm Ruth Adkins Robinson

Gotta Stop Micro-managing

Today I did a lot of walking and shooting and sweating. Well I did a lot more sweating than walking or shooting. I had assigned myself the job of second camera on today's shoot because I'm trying to let go of my tendency to micro manage everything. I don't know why other people hover, but for me it's just pure ego. I really do think my ideas are the ideas that work best. Yet today one of my favorite people Maurice James (MoJo Films) was the director and I was letting him insert his ideas for what the production should feel like and look like. I am so amazed that I actually walked away and let him do it. That's a first. I nearly had apoplexy when I was unable to go to New York for one of the "Showtime at the Apollo" re-packs and he went in my place. I was obsessing the entire time he was gone--telephoning him way too much. He's a calm guy, good-natured and let me rant on long distance. He came back with good stuff. When he worked on the Black Music Awards, he was fantastic. In fact that was one of the greatest teams ever. Sean O'Hare, the editor, Simon Fuchs, the post super. We actually slept in rotation on the floor on Sean's air mattress. So maybe it's just a trust factor. Plus, I'm getting smarter as I'm getting older--running and sweating in LA in August. Not too clever. Plus when you've got talented folks, you can ease up. But wait, what am I'm gonna do when it gets to editing. Keep repeating, I'm not obsessing, I'm not obsessing. Uh huh, I'm Ruth Adkins Robinson.

Ole Blue Eyes, the Flu and the back of the Rolls

Getting ready to go to Las Vegas for the Tuskegee Airman convention this week let loose a stream of thoughts about back in the day when I went there every single weekend....and what a different town it is now. One particular tale is worth telling here. The marquee simply said, "He's Back" and that meant Sinatra was at Caesars. For some reason I don't remember I didn't stay at Caesars this trip. I was at the Tropicana. I had gone to see Frank and while sitting in the dressing room at the end of the evening, I started feeling feverish. I got really sick, really quick. So Lee Solters said he'd take me back to my hotel. Because I was sweating, I took off my prized diamond and opal ring and put it in my purse which, then and now, holds my entire life-- airline tickets for Paris, several thousand dollars, passport, etc, since I was leaving the country in a few days. Somehow, I got out of the taxi without my purse and didn't even know it until I got deep in the lobby. I turned to Lee and he said "Just Sit." He went to the phone and called Frank's man Jilly Rizzo and within fifteen minutes my purse was delivered to me--with everything in it! I had the flu and couldn't fly back, so I rode to L.A. sleeping in the back seat of Norman Winters white Rolls. I got home, wrote a review of Frank sent it in and left town. When I returned two weeks later I had mail. I think I was one of the few newspaper people Frank liked, he sent me notes from time to time. This one said, "Forgive the delay in getting this to you, but I had the goddamn flu. Your review was so lovely, please consider this my love letter to you." it was signed Francis Albert. Nobody ever knew until now that I always felt guilty about hugging and kissing on Sinatra and giving him the 'goddamn flu.' --I'm Ruth Adkins Robinson

Check That Email Before You Send It

Check the email before you send it and know what is down in the body of it when you do. You know all the everybodies who have commented on it as it is forwarded to this one and that one. Today, someone sent me just an email with about 20 added entries. One comment wasn't that kind . Nobody seemed to notice. Usually I don't notice, either. Call it self preservation. I don't because some years ago one of the people I'd known forever sent me an email with a truly ugly comment about me contained within it. What was said about me wasn't even true. God knows I have lots of faults and flaws and if one of those had been pointed to and snickered at, well, what can you do. Truth doesn't move. Oddly enough I didn't get mad at the jerk who made the comment. He's one of those snarky little bitches who enjoys being nasty. I got mad at the person who was supposed to be my friend. I simply stopped speaking to her because she never said anything in my defense. She could have. But she didn't. Which is a puzzle to me. Isn't a friend supposed to be a friend when you are there and when you are not? I am a great champion for my friends. But I'm a very confrontational person. Long ago, I tried to understand that everybody is not me. And I wouldn't want them to be, but I do think people should stand in defense of friends. I'm Ruth Adkins Robinson.

What Happened to My Spelling

They call me the English Police. Not that I’m a London Bobby (after that famous Home Secretary Robert Peel), no I’m just serious about grammar and spelling. I used to be so fierce about it that if an unaware publicist sent me a press release at The Hollywood Reporter or at BRE that was misspelled or grammatically incorrect, I'd toss the offending piece of paper in the trash. But first, I'd call the person and tell them what I was planning to do. It was actually good training for the careless. And, it was easy for me to spot something spelled wrong. I have always been a champion speller. Suddenly I have to look at a word once or twice to see if it is spelled correctly. Bob forbid, if I am someplace without spellcheck, I now find myself in trouble. When did this all go wrong? Did I just get lazy? Once outraged at online people who couldn't be bothered to capitalize the necessary places, I now have my settings adjusted so they will do that for me before I send anything. Today during a post, I couldn't think how to spell something, so I just substituted another word that I could spell. This is, no doubt, the first step on the slippery slope on the pathway to Hell - for Ruth Adkins Robinson.

Eleanor Roosevelt, A Hero of Mine

When we had one of those high school assignments to pick a hero, I picked Eleanor Roosevelt, child of privilege, niece of President Teddy R. When she married the philandering Franklin, she had about half as much in income as he did, very rare in those days. She could have simply indulged herself with whatever other society matrons did back then, but she didn't. Off she went to fight for the rights of women and underprivileged. When I read about her support of the opera star Marian Anderson, it fascinated me. Imagine in 1939, those most racist Daughters of the American Revolution wouldn't let the Diva in Consitution Hall, Eleanor fixed it by helping to arrange for the concert to be held on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Then she appointed Mary McLeon Bethune as head of the Division of Negro Affairs. In WWII, the heads of the military would not let anybody "Negro" fly in combat. They weren't smart enough, were afraid of the dark, highly superstitutious and other reasons to keep them out of the air. ER wasn't having it. She fought for the Tuskegee Airman to be allowed, to well, fly. On a trip to Moton Air Field training facility, she asked Chief Anderson if blacks "Could actually fly a plane." When he said he'd show her, the Secret Service were apoplectic, but up she went and flew around for an hour. She went straight back to the White House and gave FDR an opinion. The Airmen went to war. FDR like men before him and men after him couldn't keep it zipped. When Eleanor found out about his first recorded affair, she threw him out of the marriage bed and never let him back in. But she was the model of devotion, taking care of him when he became paralyzed. Over time she became a towering figure--and always a champion for women's rights. She is one of only two First Ladies to be named honorary members of the Black Women's Sorority, the AKAs. Eleanor was first, Michelle Obama second. Tons have been written about Eleanor, seldom does her sense of humor get mentioned. Watch this: Eleanor had a rose name after her. She notes she was "flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: no good in a bed, but fine up against a wall." Smiling at the greatness of one of my oldest heroes, Eleanor R, I'm Ruth Adkins Robinson