Work Cures All

Work Cures All
I wear a baseball cap on the weekends, glamour is not me so much. Today it was the cap given to me at the Revlon 5K a few weeks ago. Its color is different from most of the issued caps because there is a discreetly embroidered "survivor" at the end of the brim. A woman in line at the market nodded at my cap and said "me, too." It took half a beat before I knew what she was talking about. Uh, oh, the cancer. I smiled at her. I've been asked why I've never written about having breast cancer. A few reasons. First of all many people have already written about it better, smarter, deeper most likely. Could be that I have some survivor's guilt--why did the woman next to me die and not me? Well, here's a little of my experience. I felt the 'something' in my chest while I was taking a shower. I called Regina Jones who then worked at Crystal Stairs and asked about the screenings they held. She fixed me up and suddenly I was sitting endlessly at the computer to find out everything I did not want to know about breast cancer. I brought a tape recorder to the sessions with the surgeon and the oncologist and also took my boyfriend since I knew both those doctors came from cultures who dismiss women. I was right. I asked the questions but they directed the answers to him. Within the week I was in Queen of Angels surgery for my 'drive-through mastectomy.' They tossed me out within a few hours and I cried the entire way home from the pain that the residual anesthesia couldn't help. The oncologists decreed that I should have 42 radiation treatments and chemo. I declined the chemo, calling the doctor by his first name, I opted for the radiation. I drove myself to the hospital each day, waited outside the radiation room, walked in at one minute to ten, refused a hospital gown, took off my shirt, turned left to get zapped, turned right for them to zap me again. Since they can't cure you on the weekends, I went five days a week through February. I refused to join any of the 'why me' groups and tried to get on with my life. My unbelievable Twins took care of me, one bathing me, one changing my bandages. My chef daughter cooked for me, sometimes I could eat. I went back to work with the bandages still on my chest --at my job as the producer of Smokey Robinson's radio show on 92.3. Work is always what saves me. I've been cancer free since September 4, 2001. I believe Work cures all, since work got me through the cancer as it has done in other tragedies, great and small.

Scheduling Makes My Head Ache

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Scheduling Makes My Brain Ache
Scheduling Makes My Brain Ache I've never been the kind of person who likes fitting my schedule around others. I've always thought it was because I HATE to wait and everybody knows it. One angry friend shouted at me once "You wouldn't wait fifteen minutes for Jesus to come down off the cross and say hello." That's likely overreaching, but truth is fifteen minutes is pretty much max waiting time for me no matter who you are. David Bowie was giving me the only exclusive interview he was doing in LA one year and at the fourteen minute waiting mark, I was packing up to go. The door opened, he walked in and said "Hi, I'm David." Ok, so I sat back down-- transfixed by those different colored eyes and secretly I'm a Bowie fan. --- I'm not totally unbending after all, and now the question this past week could I fit myself into a schedule at all? I've never had an alarm clock, getting up when I need to seems logical. But out I went to buy one, , got sidetracked over a spur of the moment lunch with a bumped-into old friend. When I told him what I was trying to do, he laughed out loud, suggesting it was waaay harder than it looked to schedule yourself down to the last minute. Ok, here's the deal I've set out to learn new things--maybe Spring kicked in, who knows. It's not always easy to tell the seasons in Southern California. I've signed myself up for classes, bought a Pilates Power Gym, actually opened the Rosetta Stone system I bought a year ago and bought 12 giant plants to further turn my yard into the English garden. I took my first class on "Writing for the Web," signed up for PitchFest, bought enough organic food for a week and finished off a couple of writing assignments. Then I needed to figure out the schedule. I tried, I really did but my conclusion is that nightbirds like me need to write all night, don't need an alarm clock, can eat, watch tv and race around with the kids when I should do. Those big plants are going to get put in the ground by the gardener. I'll inhale the Kentucky Derby Roses deeply as I pass them. The only solidly scheduled anything is my nightly session with the Pilates torture rack. I do the half hour while staring through my knees at the news. The news broadcast is so painful, I barely notice the Pilates pain. That's it though, I've decided that Scheduling Makes My Brain Ache and I can't do it

Sinatra in the Jungle

When Lee Solters died this week, I started remembering all the amazing stories he used to tell. I jumped in the way-back machine and it swept me back to Santo Domingo at the end of the '80s and the sweltering heat of a weeklong party for the opening of the Altos de Chavon Theatre. Lee had taken a contingent of press for the taping of a show for Paramount called "Concert for the Americas." The open air theatre was literally carved out of stone, tropical jungle and time. As I stood on the edge of the balcony, it seemed that if I stepped a few inches into the trees, the jungle would simply close up behind me and that would be the end of the music editor of The Hollywood Reporter and my big journalistic career would be over before it ever started. I was trying to find the coolest thing I had brought with me to the luxury of the Casa de Campo Polo retreat when Lee started pounding on my door with the instructions to "C'mon, Frank is going up to rehearsal." Yep, Frank Sinatra was the headliner, the next night was Carlos Santana and Heart. This afternoon, though, it was time to stand next to Frank and have a conversation. He talked, I sweated and listened to his views on the future and wrote the piece in my head. Night soon came , torches lit up the sky, Sinatra shared favorite songs and songwriters with an adoring crowd. Later my feature ended up as a banner in the Reporter, the headline read "Blue Eyes Sees Blue Skies for Cable Programming," and it was a side of Sinatra the public hadn't seen-a man up to date on technologies, consumer buying habits and history. He signed his letter thanking me for the story, "Love, Francis Albert." It was the first of many trips with him, Spider, Beans, Jilly and the guys. Francis Albert Sinatra was a good man with a song and his publicist Lee Solters was a good man with a story.