Opening Lines

I often get into conversations with people who want me to write their book for them. We talk. I always make a point of saying they have to swear to tell the truth. Everybody swears they want their truth out there. Ok. We go to contracts. We often get advances based on a proposal. Then, when it gets right down to the nitty gritty, the brakes come out. Everything gets stopped. This has happened enough times that I decided I was done. Not another one. But an old friend asked me to do it and I thought ok. I spent six months working on the proposal. I had to do all the research. He couldn't remember anything. Then this week, a rep for this guy actually, I swear to bob, said to me that I used "too many two dollar words" in the book proposal So guess what. I have no patience for fools. So his book will never see the light of my day. When I told my honey this latest turn of events, he said "good, that will give you some time to write the Ruthiewrites book." Hmm. That's such a problem because my early life reads like a extra bad novel. Who would believe it all? Should I open my book writing that I sat in the grass near the white washed oak trees watching my mother get in the car with her luggage. It was the last time I ever saw her. I was three. Whoa, the truth just flew out the window. No, I don't want to do that or write about the horrors that checkered my young life after she was gone. I want to write about the good things, the things that make me smile, not the things that still make me weep even after so many years. So if I write about the good things, I might start the book with I was laying naked across Ray Charles' desk looking up at the skylight that looked like a moon. I thought that one would make the book into a real page turner for a book about Ruth Adkins Robinson..

The Airmen in Las Vegas

I am excited about my upcoming trip to Las Vegas. Next weekend is the Tuskegee Airmen Convention and it's gonna be fun, fun, fun. Like way too many people, I didn't know much about the Airmen until I got knee deep in the Tuskegee: Journey to Flight. Most of the fascinating people I met lived through struggles in Times of War and Times of Peace. They chose carefully what they wanted to say about what life in the South during World War II was like, the humiliation they received at the hands of white officers or the outrage of seeing German Prisoners of War being allowed to ride in the front of the bus or eat at white lunch counters while they, fresh back from fighting for their country, were not. But the pain was there, still close to the surface --almost seventy years later. For months I was working on producing five videos that became part of the Exhibit. But then I was only talking to people from California, since the museum is the California African American Museum with a focus generally on people from this area. In Las Vegas, I'll be working for the military and talking to Airmen from all over the country. The CAAM Exhibit is open through the end of November, so if you are reading this, come by the museum and check it out. Off to salute the Black Warriors of World War II, I'm Ruth Adkins Robinson.

The Race Card Plays

The dreamers, the hopeful even some of the jaded saw Barack Obama's election as the beginning of the post-racial era in America. It was not. Race still matters, the Race card still plays although the "browning" of America is taking place at an increasingly rapid rate. The simple truth is my 14 year old grandson, Jean-Pierre Elijah Chance, has a greater chance of being arrested than the blond kid across town. Sometimes what you have to tell children is hard. Elijah wanted a paint ball gun and I had to explain to him he couldn't have a gun like that to carry around in the neighborhood. He's tall and from a distance looks like a full grown man. He could get shot. He will always have to be just a little more wary, even if he should grow up to be a college professor, like Henry Louis Gates. Race played a major part in that brouhaha and so did class and priviledge. The distinguished Dr. Gates was able to get a high profile attorney and the attention of the President after being taken out of his own house in handcuffs and booked. He got lots of media attention because of who he is and who he knows. If "Skip" lived next door to me, not so much noise would have been heard in the land. He also would have had enough sense to shut up and not smart mouth the cops. Dr. Gates behaved like many white professors would have, but his outrage didn't play well even in the rarified college air. Face it, outrage doesn't play so well in individual circumstances--if those circumstances happen to be Black. I'm guessing a few more generations will have to pass before a little boy can simply be free to be a little boy and not a LBWB ( little boy while Black). Perhaps PWB (Professoring While Black) also. Maybe the grandson of Ruth Adkins Robinson's grandson will see a true post-racial America.

Otis, Otis, Otis

I had planned some months ago to do one blog about the Top Ten Male singers who give me a thrill. Sidetracked, it didn't get written, but when I stuck Otis in the CD player today, I thought I'd just write about him. Jeez, "I've Been Lovin' You Too Long, I Can't Stop Now," written with the Ice Man, Jerry Butler makes everybody wish they had love like Otis. There's "I've Got Dreams to Remember." Everybody remembers "Sitting on The Dock of the Bay," "Try A Little Tenderness," "Shake" and probably "I Can't Turn You Loose," although he sang it as Turn You A Loose. But there's also call me "Mr. Pitiful" and "These Arms of Mine," which gives me chills and if I hadn't been stuck in high school and had known where, I'd have chased him down and helped get rid of those arms that were so yearning. He was only 26 when he died in the plane crash. He'd be 67 this year. What is it about his talent that makes him so present even now, 40 years later. His power, raw power, pure talent as a writer, his charisma on stage? Yes. In the years since his death, he's been inducted into the Rock Hall, the Songwriter's Hall of Fame, got a postage stamp commemorating his talent, received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and the Rock Hall listed THREE of Otis' songs among its list of the "500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll." All good, proper recognition of his monumental talent. I'm listening right now to this great Rhino boxed set. The hard thing about listening to him and trying to write is that he is never background music. You have to listen because when he sings, you believe him, feel him. He lets me know what he is going through, thinking about, feeling. No doubt, Otis is missed and loved by Ruth Adkins Robinson.

Black Radio

Radio used to be a wonderful part of my life. When I was a kid, I'd listen way over at the end of the dial to "Big Ed" talk about what he wanted to and play what he wanted to play as an accompaniment to my homework. Later driving that pale blue Cadillac convertible (that I was neither old enough to drive nor old enough to own) from Louisville to LA, I turned the radio up as loud as it would go and sang at the top of my lungs with all the stations that I found along Interstate after Interstate. This must have been the golden days of graphic names of the jocks across the country from that time. "Jocko Henderson," "Fat Daddy Johnson," "Frankie Crocker,*the Chief Rocker," Eddie O'Jay, "Sunny Jim" and so many others played the songs that we loved and made hits out of them. They had control of their own particular airwaves. When I got here to Los Angeles, I listened to Magnificent Montague ("Have Mercy") and Hunter Hancock on KGFJ. No doubt that I love all kinds of Black music and Black Radio, after all I was editor-in-chief at Black Radio Exclusive for ten years or so, and have written probably 300 cover and feature articles over time. I wonder what people writing about radio have to say these days. Real radio seems to be getting scarcer and scarcer. I don't know what's happening at KJLH right now but with the addition of Steve Harvey to the lineup, my friend Karen Slade might see a little more Kindness, Joy, Love and Happiness coming her way. From time to time, I long for "Big Ed" and his soothing radio style--Ruth Adkins Robinson

Twins, Twins, Twins

There are lots of myths, legends and superstitutions around multiple children like-- Multiples come through the mother's bloodline. Twins skip a generation. There are many kinds of twins, idential, mirror, fraternal and their birth has many meanings. Our twins are Antoinette Ruth and Nicole Renee and watching them grow was endlessly fascinating. When they slept, if one had one arm up facing her face, so would the other, if one turned over, within seconds the other would also. Like in the myths, they did have a twin language and interestingly they still resort to it today if they need to say something better unheard by others. When they were put in different classrooms in third grade, Nicole would leave her room and go stand in the doorway of Antoinette's just to make sure her twin was there. As they grew, they got high school jobs, one store apart near the Hollywood High Performing Arts Magnet where they were stars. One day an African man approached us and spoke at length about how Twins were a special blessing on us and told Nicole that as second born, she was actually the oldest because she sent her sister out to take a look to see what the world was all about. When Nicole went to the land of that myth two weeks ago, it was the first time they've been apart for more than a day or two. Left handed mirror twin Antoinette is the serious and in control Twin and she might not have cried while her sister was gone, (If so, she'd never say so) but she can't stop smiling at the prospect of seeing Nicole tomorrow. The rest of us were crying at the drop of a hat, fearful and goofy over our girl being gone so far away. These beautiful, brilliant, interesting young women endlessly fascinate me. I know there are many trips and adventures for them in the future. Meanwhile, I'll grab the chance to sit and look at them as often as I can because I'm their Grandmere Ruth Adkins Robinson

Mint Julep, Pim's Cup, Kir Royale

I caught a show on the Fine Living Network tonight about cocktails and places people enjoy them. Keeping with my theory that 'smell' is the most intense of all the senses, I gave some thought to what I smelled when I drank what I drank. The smell of mint made me think about the Mint Julep of Kentucky Derby Fame. I still have one that I very cermoniously make on the first saturday of every May and drink it during the "most exciting two minutes in sports." I drink my Julep wherever I happen to be that saturday in May. Cucumber comes to mind for another favorite. When in England, I always drank a Pim's Cup, which is Pim's liquer, ginger ale and a cucumber wheel and I substituted champagne for the ginger ale most of the time. Pim's is the drink of big tennis competitions. And when the music business was in full swing and Le Dome was where you went if you were anybody, I drank a thousand kir royales that my favorite waiter, the Belgian Henri would put on my table when I walked through the door. The smell of the framboise in that drink still makes me dizzy. I so enjoyed the fun of sharing a drink with friends, but diabetes put any serious drinking in my past, except for my yearly Julep. However, recently my doctor told me that a glass of red wine every day was fine. Any suggestions for Ruth Adkins Robinson?