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.