Shellshocked

Somebody said we are all shellshocked. I guess that must be the reason that keep doing absent-minded things. I walked away from a counter with my credit card and bank statement on it. I have not been able to pay attention in meetings. Writing is useless right now. I tried to write something clever today and instead of saving it, I hit the delete button. A simple declarative sentence is more than I can do. I will not go to the funeral. I have said that the next funeral I go to will be my own because I know my loving family will have one for me although I'd like to be cremated and have my ashes scattered somewhere. Perhaps in my Pacific Ocean. --Ruth Adkins Robinson

The Ghouls Around MJ

Driving down Crenshaw today, there were hucksters on every corner with every conceivable image of MJ on tee-shirts, hats, cups, you name it, they've got it. Turn around time for ghoulishness is only about 48 hours I guess. Moron talking heads, people jockeying for the title of I was closest to him, I knew about his death first and I always expected this all this turns my stomach. I listened to one woman holding herself out as an expert on what happened on "Motown: 25" but I have to say I never saw her there, how did she get to be the expert on our TV show? I'm the writer --Ruth Adkins Robinson

Talking About Michael

I tried not to do any interviews about Michael Jackson, but couldn't turn down Karen Slade at KJLH and then when I got on the phone with Kevin Nash, I couldn't shut up. Instead of one short pithy comment about Michael, I talked for seven minutes. My phone rang and rang and rang when it was over. I was told I sounded great and not weepy. That's good. Hard not to be weepy and fearful of how people are going to be acting soon--Ruth Adkins Robinson

Michael

The heart of music skipped a beat today when Michael Jackson left us. The day makes no sense. Memories come back and when the haze goes, I'll try to make some sense of it and put it to paper, but not now, not now.

Get In the Car, Turn Up the Music

Maybe it's a throwback to all those "rock and roll will make you deaf" warnings, but I don't like iPods and MP3 players. I like my music so I can hear it with all its grandness and whispers, hints and bowl me overs. So I like to play it in my car while I drive and today while I was pulling some CDs to take with me, I decided to put together some lists. First up, my favorite female singers of all time. And since I know most of them well, I'm not fool enough to put them in any order. Aretha Franklin,(everytime she opens her mouth to sing, the heavens open up) Sade (love her dark tones and personal grace), Nora Jones (nothing finer than the duet she did with Ray), Diana Ross (I've worked with her and I'm a fan), Patti LaBelle (when she glisses up over Middle C, oh my), Etta James (extraordinary for longer than most have been around) the much over-looked Mavis Staples, who calls me 'baby sister' and can rock any house; if you have not heard Jessye Norman do Ellington's Sacred Concerts, you've truly missed a treasure and today I put on Gladys Knight, who won the Major Bowles Amateur Hour when she wasn't as big as the trophy they gave her and can make any man believe If She Were Your Woman, there'd be no other woman... yeah, I love me some Gladys and wish we had finished the book together, G. --Ruth Adkins Robinson

I Like Democrats I Guess

I have had photos taken of me with most of the Democratic Presidents. President Barack Obama, President Bill Clinton, President Jimmy Carter. I posted the one of me and William Jefferson Clinton talking after a show I produced for the Black Caucus. He loved it! Who wouldn't. It was all Motown.

Let's Try Playwriting

Somebody today asked me when I started writing. I don't know an answer. It seems that I have always been writing something even before I knew I could make a living at it. I was writing poetry before I started writing songs before I took a turn at a reporter's life, before TV came calling and radio too. Very happily I am one of those writers who can write almost anything that requires words. I'm lucky. At the moment, I have the book, a project for the Air Force, a museum project and a children's show to work on, when all these are done, I might try playwriting. --Ruth Adkins Robinson

Remembering the Secret Service

I came across my Secret Service ID for the Inauguration. I held it carefully. Not all that long ago, this little piece of plastic was a treasure above all others, representing an amazing time in my life, working on the Commander In Chief's Inaugural Ball this past January. There were a lot of factions involved, we were the three women of dePasse Ent. There was the Presidential Inaugural Committee, all five divisions of the Armed Forces, the Secret Service, the Senior Enlisted guys who were co-hosting the event, the big dogs from the Pentagon Channel, the various ranking people from Public Affairs and the President’s detail. Lots of rules and regs.

We took our credentials for granted, but soon found out that mysterious something called “the Underlay” was akin to the Holy Grail. People couldn't get from here to there without it. And we had to get everywhere. In hotel lobbies and banquet rooms, on dinner tables and couches with cell phones sometimes at both ears, we patchworked the event. One very sobering moment came at a meeting with the President's own detail who were very lowkey while outlining what could and could not be written down in the script. "People are watching, people are listening and they are not all our friends." Somewhat different that our usual TV show problems.

But we pulled it off and our Ball was the one the President and the First Lady stayed at the longest, danced with a couple of enlisted personnel and were gloriously received by the audience of the military thrilled with saluting their Commander In Chief for the first time. Tomorrow I'm going to put my camo jacket back on, and hang my Secret Service clearance on a lanyard under my Navy shirt and wear it all around. What an experience for Ruth Adkins Robinson.

Whistling in the Dark @ 2107 West Washington Blvd.

Everybody in my family sang, played an instrument or played an instrument while singing. My Aunt Lena played the upright bass, truly funny because every bass ever made was taller than she was at about 4' 10". There were many different versions of our family bands. Lena and her three brothers, Uncle Paul, Uncle Taft and my Daddy, Estil played together. Then each of them had a band with kids and cousins. They sang in church and played around at local gigs. So you think I'd be genetically programmed to sing, dance and play. Wrong. While I admit to singing at the top of my lungs, with all my heart very often down through the years, people haven't always appreciated it. Ray once said, "Now, little Baby, you know I love you, but I have to ask you one thing, Don't Sing." We were actually sitting in the falling darkness at 2107 West Washington and I was looking up at the skylight that looked like a moon and trying to show him another song I'd written that I wanted him to record. After all my song, "I Can Make It Thru the Days," had made it up the charts to the Top Twenty and I wanted a repeat. I like songwriting, even if I can't sing what I've written... oh well.--sitting here whistling, I'm Ruth Adkins Robinson.

pitch, pitch, pitch until your arms fall off

it was like speed dating for writers. no, not trying to date other writers, just getting producers to want to date your project. So palms sweating, a step away from hypervenilating, my Show and Tell (Cornelius Grant) in tow, in I went. I've never had to pitch, there've always been somebody looking for what and how I write. But I decided I needed to do this and away we went. While other people were muttering about lack of interest, six of the people I pitched my project about "Love, Dissapointment, Music, Race and Friendship" were interested. Incredibly, six out of seven. The day was a blur and I'm trying to sort it all out in my head. How odd to take a script there that I wrote eight years ago and stuck in a drawer because it wasn't good enough and have all this interest. Well, I'm ready for my rewrite.... --Ruth Adkins Robinson

Living in Seconds

Time is a funny thing. Right now I'm living it out in seconds. Doing voice overs on the video. "Ok, Nacho, I think I need six seconds of coverage." We find it and minutes later I'm pulling my hair out because the transcripts don't match the burned timecode on the DVDs. So we search frame by frame almost to see where to punch it. We find what I'm looking for and I push up to the playback to see if it works. It does and I'm triumphant... well until the next six seconds. Caught up in the edit, I'm Ruth Adkins Robinson.

Pitching in Burbank

I went today to the Great American Pitchfest in Burbank which basically is a lot of writers running around, all jostling for attention, trying to figure out who wanted what and how to get them that thing they want. We all got to sit at tables and pitch to other writers and then have them pitch to us. I was semi-hysterical at the thought of trying to sell my concept to anybody....ANYBODY. But i sat down and went ahead. I got three pitchs under my belt in preparation for pitching tomorrow to the BIG MEN/WOMEN who will be on hand staring at us across the table. I want a drink...but then I don't drink...but if i did, I'd do it tomorrow--Ruth Adkins Robinson (terrified writer)

The Four Tops & Me Up on 126th Street

There's so much news right now about the 75th anniversary of the Apollo Theatre in Harlem my head keeps thinking about time spent there--good and bad. The stage door at the Apollo is unassuming, just a black door that exits out onto 126th Street. The night we were taping "Motown Returns to the Apollo," I was standing out by the door watching the crowd moving so much it looked like they were actually pulsating behind the painted barriers. There were tents alongside the theatre and the crowds were screaming if they recognized anyone coming out the stage door and entering the tents. Unfortunately, I was standing there as New Edition passed by and suddenly the crowd broke through the barrier and rushed the place. I got thrown up against the brick wall, knocked half senseless. I staggered back inside the building and Tony Jones looked at the goofy expression on my face and told me I should go back to hotel right away. I asked who could I catch a ride with? Levi Stubbs was walking past and said, "Ruthie can come with us." So I limped over to their limo and the guys --Obie, Duke and Lawrence wanted to know what was wrong. After I told them what had happened, one of them said they knew what would fix me right up. Off we went to Sylvia's for an order to go. Where I am from in the South, they say "There are times when only grease will do." This was one of them so I told the fellas 'Fried chicken with everything." They bought it and brought it back and for the half hour/45 minutes it took to get from Harlem to the Intercontinental Hotel in Manhattan, the whole car was filled with all the soul food smells that always seem comforting. In we went to the Intercontinental dripping greens juice on the Oriental carpet. Soon I was in my bed dripping greens juice on the luxurious duvet, laughing at the truth in the fact that the Tops knew what would fix me right up. When Levi sang "Still Waters Run Deep," all there is to say is "Yes they do." Obie, Lawrence and Levi, now gone were extremely talented, down to earth, gentle-men--and so is Duke --Ruth Adkins Robinson

Thinking my way to Pasadena

When I was little, I had a little girl/big girl crush on Verna Faye Amerine my older next door neighbor. She was a cheerleader who, honest to god, married the quarter back on the highschool football team. He joined the Navy and away they went to San Diego, only to come back to Louisville with tales of Southern California. It could be Verna Faye is responsible for me coming here when I ran away from home as a teenager. I know she wowed me talking about driving on the freeways. The four leaf clover interchange was as mythical and magical to me as the Empire State Building or some such. Apparently she whipped with ease though the all the lane changes and I wanted to do that as well. And I did when I first came here, but I don't drive the freeways anymore because either they are parking lots or full of people with no driver's license or insurance but clearly have a death wish and want to take me with them. Most of the time I do fine on the surface streets, but when I get sidetracked, bad things happen. My advice is not to put your behind behind the wheel of your car while you are thinking hard. I did that yesterday headed for Burbank and the next thing I knew, I was at the intersection of Figueroa and Colorado. Soon thereafter I was rolling past beautiful Pasadena homes, that fell away to some dangerous streets and the person trying to direct me out of there said roll your window up and drive fast... I did. It didn't help since it took me a full two hours of circle driving before my car turned itself into Starbucks where I could sit and calm down. Rarely do I get flummoxed. Yesterday, I was. After driving in SoCal all of my adult life, I ought not to get lost. Verna Faye is probably chuckling to herself somewhere.--Ruth Adkins Robinson

Part of the Brain

I have a theory. People who are extra-creative have a part of their brain missing--the comon sense part. Could it be the brain matter responsible for creativity, pushes the part in charge of relationships and good sense out the left ear or squeezes it over in a corner under the earlobe, making it unresponsive to ordinary people situations. Take a second and think about it. Who do you know who is talented in public areas but sucks in private? Me, I know lots. Maybe one in the mirror.

Aretha Does Motown

I was looking at a photo of Aretha Franklin tonight and got to thinking about the de Passe show "Motown 40."How did I get Aretha Franklin who was not even signed to Motown Records to solidly agree to talk for the camera? The best way to get somebody to do what you want is to let them do what they want in the process. My plan hinged on knowing that Aretha viewed herself as a Detroit Ambassador, rightly. My letter to her couched itself as an opportunity to talk about what Motown meant to the city while it was there, and when it left. Aretha knew me from The Hollywood Reporter, from a column I wrote called The Last Word that she read weekly and also from a great night at the Fillmore when she pulled RC onto the piano bench to do "Spirit in the Dark" with her. She agreed and by the time the production moved to Detroit, I was semi-hysterical. Aretha's favorite restaurant was secured for the location for shooting. Her favorite pink roses were in placed on the table, the restauranteur made her favorite snacks. We laid track for the camera next to the piano although she had made it clear she wasn't going to perform. All week preceding the day-- tiny-minded folks kept saying things like "You watch. She's gonna be so late, she'll throw us off schedule... if she shows up at all," and even if she does come, "she'll have her titties all hanging out of her dress." de Passe advised me to just be steady and for god's sake stop pacing. No more than ten minutes late, in she swept like a true Queen, dress all buttoned up to her chin, hat on her head and I started breathing again. One of the producers tried to talk to her but she swept past him heading staight at me. She glanced at the booth and the food as I pointed them out....but I also said, you might be more comfortable sitting at the piano and if your hands should fall down on the keys, that could be good... she laughed and went to the stool. I snuggled up against the inside curve of the baby grand with the camera a whisper away. Behind me, de Passe and Coston were whispering what to ask her, but I was in full tilt boogie mode.. I'd interviewed her on camera before and done hard research on what writers and artists she liked. She started talking about songwriter Robert Bateman and the amazing Four Tops and the people behind me let out a collective gasp when she started to play "Still Waters Run Deep." For the better part of the next hour, Aretha did Motown, just for us--a personal, brilliant miniature concert. There are sometimes major rewards for working your ass off and scheming to make things happen...which I guess is why you sometimes get to call yourself a producer. On "Motown 40" my credits read "Consulting Producer" and "Writer of Special Material." --Ruth Adkins Robinson

Why is all that rotten food in my fridge

I do not do well shopping for food, well fresh stuff anyway. It sits in my refrigerator and goes bad. I really don't do well at Farmer's Markets either. I used to go to the Farmer's Market in Hollywood faithfully. Inspired by the promise that all this organically grown food is going to make me healthy, wealthy and wise, I buy and buy and buy. So it sits in my refrigerator and rots and rots and rots. What is that? Why do I do that? There's no famine in my future. I am somewhat narrow in my focus regarding the foods I like to eat regularly, although I will eat just about anything once. Well, not bugs, but most everything else. Well, not rabbits, but most everything else. Ok, dammit, I'm picky.
Besides, aside from my hysterical desire to improve my health, there's not that much choice at the Farmer's Markets other than the endless tablesfull of tomatoes, lettuces, plums, onions, cabbage, sprouts, apples, strawberries and other fruits there are flowers, breads and in some places fish. Then down on the end there is always somebody selling herbs that I always buy and let die before I can transplant them. In the spirit of conservation, I tried planting my own garden. I am doing very well with my tomato plants and my serrano peppers(if they would just produce some produce). I do have three peaches on my dwarf peach tree without one clue as to when I can eat them. But they are pretty. Face it, I am not the stuff of Victory Gardens, I'll just go back to the Farmer's Markets and let stuff rot. -- Ruth Adkins Robinson

soft, fluffy shoes and scarves for the edit bay

I love the Edit Bay.  Maybe it's the smell of the machines all buzzing or the stacks of dvds waiting to be dealt with or just the magic of knowing in a minute or two, creating will begin. Before that though, I have to get comfortable.  Everybody who knows me knows I carry a huge bag with the kitchen sink in it. Today it's scripts, copies of photographs, two Pashmina scarves and some soft, fluffy shoes.  I have to have soft shoes on my feet while I work, call it a fetish if you like.  I have shoes for every purpose, believing the one thing you can never have too much of is shoes. I do pull the plug at 200 pairs and ship some of them off to where women trying to get back in the work force can better use them.  There are some that stay with me, go with me and one such is my pair of edit shoes.  Now while my editor Ignacio Genzon is rendering, I can jump on the couch, wrap me up in a Pashmina and snooze until he finishes.  We've been working since first light (well first light for me anyway) and have made great progress.  Two, 2 1/2 minute videos are rounding the bend for home. One is called "The Road to Tuskegee" and the other is "One Woman's Journey."  These and three other videos are part of my work on the upcoming CAAM exhibit: "Tuskegee: Journey to Flight."  It opens on June 18 and I swear, I really swear all the videos will be finished by 10AM on the 18th.  I always make my deadlines.--Ruth Adkins Robinson

Art Inside Your Head

The reception tonight for "Inside My Head" Intuitive Artists of African Descent was a big success. The 32 artists were so thrilled to be exhibited at CAAM. They are so deserving. There are artists that I collect and artists I can't afford. Toni Scott's masterful bust from carrera marble is a major piece, but I can't muster its $50,000 price tag. I am especially crazy about Charles Dickson who has a work in acrylic that sits in the corner of Bill and June Pajuad's house that I'd pay anything for, but it's not for sale. I'm gonna get me a piece by Dickson, you watch.
It's been a great day and I'm due in edit at 10 in the morning... so i'm out. --Ruth Adkins Robinson

Flying and Scavenger Hunts

A facebook friend asked me how many times I've been around the world after looking at one of those little surveys on fb and noting I'd been to 100 cities or so. When I said, "a couple of times would be my guess," he said 'what did you like most about it?" The answer used to be flying there. Back in the day, there was nothing like First Class air travel. PanAm was great.. MGM Grand Air with the sleeper beds and Regent Air were incredible. When I flew Virgin Atlantic's Upper Class the first time, I became a fan. So I was on the first flight of Virgin America from LAX to NYC. And I've flown their FC at every opportunity.but coming back from the Inauguration, I couldn't get a FC seat and had to endure being scrunched in between two rather large men, even though I paid an extra $100 for extra room. I'm still looking for the 'extra,' and I had said I'm not flying them again until I figure out a way to get FC. Except now, those cheeky devils have figured out a way to get me back up in a seat. They are having a scavenger hunt on the WiFi in the air!! I love scavenger hunts. Actually I think to be done properly, they should come with an English roadster, a manor house and Jeeves or another of his compatriots. But looks like there's an outburst of the things, many taking place at museums. Odd, but fun perhaps. Quite often I win at scavenger hunts, although I'm not sure what skill set you need to that. Powers of observations and agressiveness, perhaps. Ok, I qualify. Tomorrow it's off to edit early, so I'm off again. -- Ruth Adkins Robinson

Infomercials in the Dead of Night

I actually didn't know infomercials run in broad daylight-- I thought these insidious things only ran in the dark of the night where people like me can dial in secret-no witnesses to our madness. But here I am watching one that guarantees me this gadget will renovate my house without breaking a nail. I'd have to twist my own arm to keep from dialing 1-800 sucker. My god, I want this power tool. Not that I will ever use it, but they made this nearly irresistible to someone like me who has spent a large fortune fixing up my 100 year old Arts & Crafts home. Watching this I salivate at the rasp attachment's potential for removing my old linoleum floors. Well, if I had any old linoleum floors, but I do have junction boxes and sheet rock (or as my Daddy used to call it drywall). There I go dipping into the past missing the opportunity make Internet millions say the two airheads taking up my big screen.. Oh, change the channel skimming past all the opportunies to Home Shop. But my most secret and guiltiest pleasure is eBay--since 2001. They are so helpful--they even tell you how many items you've bought, well sort of. I've made so many purchases they say 'just 220 until you reach Purple Status.' When I was in the middle of my serious budget cutting in January of 2008 (after "Showtime at the Apollo" was cancelled), I decided I'd stash $5,000 USD in PayPal and pretend I didn't have it. I promised myself I'd use it for one year, little bitty things that I couldn't resist and, see, buying them wouldn't diminish my bank account. It was so much fun having the money sitting there, I stopped buying anything. Well, kinda. There are still those lovely infomercials. I've got to figure out a way not to buy anything to fix my house or my erectile dysfunction. Trying to protect yourself from yourself is tough.--Ruth Adkins Robinson

Hal, Buenos Aires, Gay Guys in Hawaiian Shirts

Last July when we thought Senator Obama was not going to win the election, my pal Hal and I were mulling over the future while bolting down more sushi than normal people should eat, talking about where to move to get away from the Republicans. Canada hadn't worked out and talk turned to Buenos Aires. I suggested one of us should do a recon trip to see if BA lived up to the New York Times article about the joys of the city. Later that night Hal called to say he had a ten a.m. flight to Argentina. The old trick of flying on the actual day of a holiday seemed to work, even on the 4th of July. Who knew? But off he went for 10 days to check everything out. Three days later, Hal called and said he might not come back at all. Seems he found his true love and there was no way he was coming home alone. I chalked it up to momentary heat, but as the months passed, I was convinced. Every day he unrolled another glamorous tale of life inside Buenos Aires. But finally, seven months later, they both came to Los Angeles and I'm about to go have six or seven pounds of sushi because I have truly missed Hal.

Let me tell you why. He and I are road buddies. We travel together on long and short trips, out of the state and out of the country and sometimes into the heart of darkness. When I got my cancer diagnosis, one of my celebrity friends sent me to a church where he felt he'd been cured of something or other. So Hal and a friend of his went with me to an evening service. They didn't know all that much about Southern churchs, they are gay and it was warm, so they wore very fashionable flowered Hawaiian shirts. The preacher was in the midst of Praise and Worship and kept glancing at us. First he spoke about what a whoremonger he had been, taking drugs and getting really filthy. The Preacher said he had meant to talk about that this night but instead decided he'd talk about how homosexuals were going to Hell, there to burn forever and ever!!!

Well, I sat there and looked at Hal who had been with me to all the scary consultations, to the pre-procedures and doctors' blah blah blah, telling them all he was my brother and he was staying in the room, dammit. He kept making me laugh hilariously all the time. I looked around and thought 'How the f*&k do I get out of here without making a scene?' As the preacher continued his vitroil, I decided I didn't care what kind of scene I made and stood up, told Hal we were leaving and headed for the door. Two days later, Hal was driving me home from the 'drive-thru mastectomy' and maybe it was the anesthesia making me goofy, but I'd swear he had tears in his eyes but he wore a Hawaiian shirt just to make me laugh....One of these days I'll write about our insane trip to Seattle where I jumped out of the car on the highway and tried to yank a guy out of his car, got pulled off by the cops while yelling "I'm sorry about the size of your dick!!!!" But that's later. - Ruth Adkins Robinson

Old Black Men & Me

Morgan Freeman turns 72 today and I was thinking about how sexy he is. Whoever thought I'd think somebody over 70 was sexy? Oh well. Brains do it for me every time, whatever age.

Morgan came to rehearsal for the Image Awards to run through a segment in tribute to Sidney Poitier. First written as "Sidney Poitier defined Black Cinema in the '60s." Somebody insisted it be changed to "Sidney Poitier defined African-American Cinema in the '60s." I tried to point out that there was no 'african-america cinema' in the '60s...to no avail. In comes Morgan and the first thing out of his mouth was "I'm not saying this, there was no African-American Cinema in the '60s, it was Black." Vindicated, I threw my arms around him and planted a big whacking smack on his cheek while explaining that was what I had written in the beginning. He grinned, others looked sheepish. I laughed out loud.

Sidney P is also a sexy old man. He's also one of the few thousand celebrities who is exactly who he seems from afra--Elegant, gracious, professional. Maybe de Passe has had me write a dozen tributes to him over the years, and they all stick in my mind, but this day for the "2005 Black Movie Awards," he came in and asked me if I'd take a look at the acceptance speech he'd written. Ok, I have written with and for two of the most important screenwriters in our world--Suzanne de Passe ("Lady Sings the Blues") and Lonne Elder ("Sounder") but I thought I'd died and gone to Heaven at the possibility of so much as crossing a T on anything by SIDNEY POITIER. To tell you the truth, I did'nt do more than that--but all that mattered was he had asked me! Later on that day, we'd run his lines at the Teleprompter and I told him, "Valdez (stage manager) is about to come get you, and I'd give you a kiss for luck on that speech, but it would mess up your make-up." He smiled and said "Yes, and it would also leave me all atwitter"...and then he chuckled and walked away with that big rangy stride. Well, I was no more good. I just stood and laughed as well.

For the past couple of months, I've been spending my time with a bunch of really old men and one lady. Four of the remaining Tuskegee Airmen and the widow of another. We are opening an exhibit at the California African American Museum called "Tuskegee: Journey to Flight" and I am writing and producing five videos as part of the installation. Mitch Higganbotham, Elbert Hudson, Maysie Herrington and Ted Lumpkin are in their late 80s. Claude Davis will be 90 in a few months. Most of them brought photos of themselves in their Tuskegee gear or photos or pictures from the era that I'm using for B roll, looking dashing. But the stories they told of those times gave me chills. Now, I'm officially a card-carrying Civil Rights too-young-to-drink-old-enough to-get-knocked-in-the-head Protest Marcher and consider myself something of a historian, but most histories fail to include such antics as what happened when six young men in uniform--during War Time-- walked in the front door of a doctor's office, sat down in the waiting room and were accosted by the yelling receptionist who said to get out of there and come in through the back door. They did, only to sit in the same freaking place they were sitting in when she made them exit. Huh? What?? *#@!&*

It's been 60+ years since those days but the people and all they endured should not be forgotten. What I did was to flirt gently with the men because while they were remembering those racist, difficult and war-torn days, I wanted them to remember some of the fun as well-- those dashing young men in their flying machines. You could tell by the twinkle, they got it.... Never discount the power of ribbons, medals and citations....Brains and heroism...there's no clock on that brand of alluring.---Ruth Adkins Robinson

Under the Stage at the Apollo, Don't Look Down

I got an email from a friend at the Smithsonian about an upcoming exhibit they are doing celebrating 75 Years of the Apollo Theatre in Harlem. I was able to point them in a few needed directions like where they could get the mouthpiece from Dizzy's horn, who has the best backstage photos and other items. It all made me miss all the time spent onstage, backstage and under the stage working on "Showtime at the Apollo." There are some stories to be told about those years, but I'll save them for another day. Other events take up this space today. As she has done consistently for 25 years, Suzanne de Passe grabbed me to work on "Motown Returns to the Apollo." They were in the middle of a renovation, so we taped the show with no carpets on the floor and other fun stuff. Sammy Davis Jr, Bunny Briggs, Sandman Sims, Harold Nicholas and a couple of other old hoofers performed the Dance Challenge Segment that I always thought was the genesis for the film "Tap." During rehearsal Sam brought me a young man he introduced to me like this "this is the only cat who can do everything I can....Obba Babatunde." The years would roll out and Obba would prove that he does sing, tap, act, do comedy, ride in the rodeo, do impressions of everyone, but the greatest impression ever is when he turns into Sammy. About five years after Mr. D died, Obba came over to where I was producing "Oscar's Black Odyssey," turned his back and turned around and WAS Sam. The impact was so great I burst into tears. Even now, he will call me on the phone as Sam and it unnerves me. That was a show that won another Emmy and other related awards. Three of the people involved in that were also involved in "The Apollo at 70: A Hot Night in Harlem," the great, charismatic producer/director Don Mischer, SdP and me. Writing on that show was insane because I knew Ray Charles was dying, but couldn't tell anyone. So I had to write his tribute in words that would work if he was still alive or if he had died. Either was possible, we were taping in March and it didn't air until mid-June. The segment was amazing, Willie Nelson drove 1500 miles to talk about Ray and country music. Blair Underwood flew all night from his location in Texas to come do the 'talk' and James Ingram, once Ray's drummer, sang. As it turned out, Ray's funeral was on Saturday and the show aired on Sunday. Mischer and de Passe had gone in to do another edit at the last minute. I don't want to talk about the funeral except one note. I stood by Stevie Wonder and said "I don't think I can walk by the casket and look at him." Stevie said, "We'll walk down there together and neither one of us will look down." That sillness gave me the strength to walk and get out of the building before falling apart. Next to me was Sandrine Follette, the Frenchwoman who'd flown here for the first time in ten years. She was my friend even when she leapt into his bed. Neither one of them knew that I knew. Friends close, enemies closer. At differing times, both of them were both.--Ruth Adkins Robinson