Michael, Madoff and Palin

I've wanted to write something about covering Michael Jackson and the Jacksons at Madison Square Garden many years ago. But I couldn't recall the exact concert dates. So, I put off posting anything, Then I remembered I had a T-shirt from the event stored away in one of the dozens of boxes in my garage. And lo and behold! there it was, in the box neatly labeled T-shirts, and looking brand new. Guess I never even wore the thing. But at least it confirms that I didn't imagine covering that concert for WNBC-TV on either the 18th or 19th of August in 1981.

What I remember most vividly about that night was spotting Katherine Hepburn in the MSG audience. She was seated a few rows away from me with her grandniece, and when the concert opened with the wall of sound, the fantastic lights and pyrotechnics, the Jacksons all rhinestoned-up, sliding and gliding and bumping and grinding to "Can You Feel It?", Ms. Hepburn looked startled and rushed to put her hands over her ears.

From New York, the Jackson tour went on to Boston. Thanks to a friend who was one of Jackson's managers and arranged my interview, I got to see the concert a second time. Both times--- when I was granted a backstage "audience" with Michael at MSG and when I witnessed the Jackson arrival at the arena in Boston--- what left a lasting impression on me was how my friend and everyone connected with the Jacksons tip-toed around Michael. Whatever he said, was the final word. Whatever he wanted, was granted. All the adults seemed cowed by the kid.

In short, it seemed even to me---an outsider--- that nobody said "no" to Michael. Nobody who wanted to keep their job or stay in his good graces. Michael seemed to have learned early on that his talent was power and with that power he could bend people to his will.

I think it's not too big a stretch to say that what was true of the King of Pop, could also be said of Bernard Madoff, the King of Ponzi Schemes and of Sarah Palin, the Alaska Distractor.

Like Michael, the quintessential performer, Madoff and Palin have displayed blinding performance skills in their respective fields of finance and politics. Madoff convinced his investors that he was the master of money, that he could make big bucks for them even when just about everyone else was losing theirs. And Palin, well, she could deliver a speech--written by somebody else and read off Tele-Prompt-R---better than all the high profile Republican presidential wannabes combined, and could draw crowds that cast candidate John McCain in the role of second banana on his own ticket.

Now Michael is dead. Madoff is behind bars for 150 years. And Palin, though she has left the building and gotten rid of the governor title, is still on the loose. Still looking for the best way to leverage the extraordinary magnetism she is said to exert on some people.

I think it can also be said that Michael, Madoff and Palin are/were extraordinary in a couple of other ways First there were the numbers each could command. There was Michael rocking the music world with Thriller, his 110-million ( or is it 90 million?) best seller album plus all his other albums and hit singles. Then Madoff , said to have guaranteed 13 to 20% annual returns to his investors. One of whom, in a telling quote, said people invested in Madoff, not with him. And Palin ,warm up act and main attraction for stadium-filling fans in the tens of thousands who tended to drift off whenever she turned the mike over to the man responsible for luring her into the GOP spotlight.

And for the news and entertainment media, where numbers rule, these three--in life, in death, in handcuffs---were like manna from ratings and sales heaven. How to explain the over-the-top coverage of these folks? Well, blame it on their ability to attract the numbers. Or as Rachel Maddow put it one evening on her MSNBC show, "The reason she (Palin) is so newsworthy is because she is so popular."

Aah yes. Popularity. Like so much in this life, popularity in moderation feels good. Extreme popularity, on the other hand, can kill you. Or land you in jail. Or have you believing you are all that even when the hard evidence clearly says you are not.

Hey, Nurse!

There are real nurses. And then there are reel ones. Fifty-three years ago some of us who earned our stripes in nursing entered what might be called the marine boot camp for nursing students: The Bellevue School of Nursing.





In recent weeks, one of the networks debuted a dramatic series with a nurse as the lead character, HawthoRNe. Just in case you missed it, this nurse is not only an RN, her professional title is embedded in her last name. Clever, right? She's played by the beautiful Jada Pinkett Smith. Ms Smith---the wife of actor, Will Smith--- is also the show's executive producer.





On another channel, another nurse drama, Nurse, Jackie. ( I almost slipped and said Nurse, Judy but Judy's a judge in one of those reality shows headlined by people in black robes, not white lab coats.) Edie Falco stars as Nurse Jackie. In reel life Ms Falco was the beleagured wife of Tony Soprano.





Now, I admit I haven't seen either of these shows. But I have seen some Hawthorne promos and I caught Ms Falco on The View and heard her in an interview with NPR's Terri Gross. And one thing I observed that these reel nurses have in common: they are both tough cookies! In one of the Hawthorne promos our heroine is being manhandled by somebody in what looks to be a hospital corridor or maybe it's a police precinct. Her hair is messed up pretty badly, there's blood down the front of her lab coat and she's screaming at the top of her lungs: "Let go of me, I'm a nurse." Maybe she's being arrested or just having a bad day in the ER. In fairness, there are other promos with Ms Smith looking very subdued as she looks out at us--her audience-- and assures us, "I'm on your side." Or maybe "I'm always fighting for you." Something like that.





Ms Falco, making the rounds to promote her show, looked great on The View. Like a woman proud of her shapely legs and anxious to show them. But she was decked out in a dress so tight and so short that it was distracting to watch her spend half her talk time tugging at her hem. On radio, where legs and hems don't matter, Ms Falco made a point of saying that she likes acting parts of tough women of very few words. Or something like that. Anyhow in a clip from the show, Ms Falco as Nurse Jackie was giving a big shot doctor hell. I think she may have reversed one of the doctor's orders because she believed his prescribed treatment wouldn't be good for the patient. I almost fell off my chair when I heard that exchange. Actually is wasn't really an exchange because I think the doctor was mostly speechless.





I know nursing has changed a whole lot in the 50 years since Bellevue awarded me my diploma. But I can't believe today's nurses are telling doctors to drop dead, or something like that. Less than a month ago, I had a chance to interview and spend time with dozens of my former classmates---many of them retired now---and not a one sounded anything like Nurses Jackie and Hawthorne.





Real nurses from back in our day, remember when women's career options were limited to nurse, teacher and social worker. All of the so-called "helping professions." Today, it's a whole different story.





That's a point I made when I tried to get a couple of news organizations to cover the reunion of my class on May 16. I thought there was a story worth telling about women who came along in the days before "women's lib", who were members of one of the largest classes of nurses-in- training in the history of Bellevue Hospital, itself one this country's oldest public hospitals. In it's day, Bellevue attracted the best and the brightest from all over (not being immodest here) and on graduating they served in all sorts of situations: clinics, ORs, ERs, Viet Nam, the US Senate, schools, Indian reservations. They assumed leadership roles in the profession and helped educate students and younger nurses. Some got married and raised families and continued working.





But guess what? There was no actionable interest in these real nurses. Fugeddabout it! Who gives a darn about people whose work is helping save lives, not taking them.?Or about women from the 60's who are over 60 when that 60-seconds of air time on your average news and talk shows could be spent on murders and celebrity hotties in thigh high dresses. The real life adventures of nurses were not reel enough. And since I started this post, Michael Jackson has died! Michael Jackson 24/7 on MSNBC puts the lie to the often heard media mantra, "Oh, we don't have enough time for (fill in the blank), or "We're running out of time, could you sum up your remarks in 10-seconds?"





I'm not expressing sour grapes here. I spent almost 30 years covering all sorts of breaking news and features as well as so-called "human interest" stories (a dumb term if I ever heard one. Any story lacking human interest has no place in any news outlet). So I know a good story when I see one. I thought some other folks might, too. But they were busy with the swine flu, or some other panic story that had not yet materialized.





More than ever news stories are about what "may" happen, what "could" happen. What "is"
happening is just too....uhmmm, too boring. Not scary enough. Today's reporters need to be predictors, crystal ball gazers. It's not enough to be here now, one must be way ahead in the future. Speculating, for instance, about who will be running for president in 2012!





I fear that many American have reached a point where they prefer the reel to the real. How else to explain the popularity of the mis-named "reality" shows? Or of Hummers, the military vehicle-style for people who wouldn't be caught dead on a real battlefield say in Pakistan or Afghanistan.



Here we are smack dab in the middle of a national debate about reforming our health care system and the delivery of health care so that all Americans are not only covered, but can get quality care without bankrupting the nation and where are nurses' voices being heard? Not on Face The Nation, Meet The Press, This Week....or any of the media platforms that supposedly educate the populous and give exposure to opinion-makers.

Nurses are and have always been important actors on the health care scene! And I'm talking about real nurses, not the people who play nurses on television.

A Winning Shot

Haven't we all fantasized about being the one to hit the game winning shot just before the buzzer sounds?


Lebron James did that in real life when his Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Orlando Magic in the third game of their battle to be the best in the East in the NBA playoffs. With only one second left on the clock, James caught an inbounds pass from teammate Moe Williams, turned just a tad to avert an opponent, and sank a 3-pointer. Nothin' but net! Game over! But that turned out to be the Cavaliers only win against the Magic. No title for the Cavs this year.

Still, each time I watched a re-play of that miracle at the Q Arena, I got goosebumps. James' poise (and Williams', too) under pressure was incredible. Inspiring. How does someone so young ---he's 24 and went directly from high school to the pros 5 yrs ago without missing a beat--remain so fearless, so cool?

Well, I could put that same question to LA Lakers guard Derek Fisher. At 34, he's 10 years older than Lebron and considered "the old man" of his team. But it was Fisher's 3-pointer with seconds to go in the Lakers 5th game against Orlando that sent the game into overtime, and still another 3-pointer in OT that put the Lakers a game away from the NBA title.


"Old man" Fisher has something like 40 career 3-pointers in NBA Finals under his belt. In other words Fisher's had lots of successes--- the result, for sure--- of lots of practice. Everyone has heard that old saw "practice makes perfect." In his book, "Outliers" writer, Malcolm Gladwell, one of my writing heroes, examines the makings of success. He cites the successes of athletes, software developers and musicians---all of whom posess innate talent and who have had opportunities. But it is practice, practice and more practice that separates the most successful in their fields. Up to 10-thousand hours or more of practice.



Let me say that again, ten thousand hours! I calculated that to be 1,250 eight hour days. Now, I'm thinking, "What have I spent that many hours practicing in my 70 years on the planet? Worrying, maybe. I have lots of practice in worry. Procrastination? I'm practiced in that, too. I can't say I've put in a whole lot of hours getting good at the things I profess to want to get good at like writing, thinking, playing the flute, cooking, drawing, gardening, playing a jumbe drum, mastering Microsoft Word, sufing the internet. Just today I gave up in frustration trying to set tabs for a My Documents work.



I do talk about practice, though. My Buddhist practice. The writing practice that Natalie Goldberg, one of my favorite teachers teaches. I'm fascinated with practice---that is the idea of it. Even the idea that one can practice something incorrectly and get good at that. Something a long-ago flute teacher picked up and pointed out to me when I went home from a lesson and practiced the wrong note for a week! Even Malcolm Gladwell failed to point out that it's not just a matter of those ten thousand hours of practice that make for success. It's the right practice!



I was rooting for the Cleveland Cavaliers and their star, Lebron James (we're from the same hometown, Akron, Ohio) to make it to the NBA Finals. Had the Cavs gone up against Derek Fisher and Kobe and company I wonder if the Cavs relative youth might have undermined them in the end. Would they have been still too young to have put in all the needed practice time?

Bellevue Class of '59

People who know anything about nurses or nursing history recognize the Bellevue School of Nursing cap, or "organdy cupcake" as it's affectionately known.


I was presented with one nearly 52 years ago, during the capping ceremony that marked our classes' first year of training. How young we were. Most of us only a year out of high school. But how we matured in that year and over the next two. We took on serious responsibilites at an early age, not just for ourselves---away from home and on our own for the first time---but for the patients for whom we would learn to care.


Care, that was the byword then. And the people who came to Bellevue back then needed care in the worst way. They were mostly poor ---today they would be called "medically underserved"--- which usually meant they had not received much in the way of medical attention before they arrived at Bellevue. And what a place that was---the old Bellevue as everyone called it because its new replacement was talked about for years before it materialized.


A teaching hospital, renowned for it's many "firsts', Nobel prize-winners , leaders in medicine---and of course its psychiatric pavillion--- Bellevue is the nation's oldest public hospital. And for someone like me from the mid-west who had never experienced an institution of such giant size reputation and physical structure, Bellevue was also the scariest. With it's large medical and surgical wards and dim corridors, it seemed bathed in a gray cast really downright spooky. That is until you got to know your way around its many buildings. Though some parts of the hospital always appeared brighter to me than others---the pediatric wards, for instance and the OR.


Just as we learned the meaning of care as nursing students, our training at Bellevue also taught us to improvise. Being a city hospital, we were always running short of something, washclothes, pajamas, sheets--you name it.


If getting "capped" was the highlight of our academic experience at Bellevue, and a measure of our progress toward the goal of becoming RN's, then the low points, at least for me, were the times when I lost a patient--suddenly and unexpectedly, when the efforts of interns and residents and experienced nurses was not enough.


It was just such an experience one night working per diem in Bellevue's ER that became a turning point in my nursing career. A night that I witnessed the loss of life of a 20-something sister and brother, injured in a car accident, dying within minutes of each other. I realized I didn't have the right stuff for the kind of nurse I thought I should be.


Years later, I would realizewhat great preparation my nurses' training had been for my new work as a newscaster.


On May 16, I'll be joining about 90 former classmates to celebrate the 50th anniversary of our graduation, the class of '59. We'll be cruising on the Hudson, all the way west from our old stomping grounds at 440 East 26th Street. You can bet we'll have a lot to talk about.

Lipstick on the Queen

Was this a faux pas or simply the friendly gesture of one young woman toward a much older one?

I'm talking about America's First Lady, Michelle Obama, putting an arm around the back of Britain's Queen Elizabeth . It happened when eager photographers snapped the two women together at a reception after the Obama's visit with the British monarch and her husband. The couple's Buckingham Castle stop was on President Obama's G20 economic summit itinerary.

To hear CNN and other news media tell it tonight, Michelle Obama committed a newsworthy no-no by laying an arm and hand on the queenly back. It's considered out of line for a mere mortal to touch the occupant of the British throne, no matter how well-meaning the gesture. Never mind that the 6-foot Mrs. Obama could have been feeling a bit of compassion for the tiny Highness. Think about it. The Queen's been stuck in the same job for almost 60 years, has to wear white gloves most of the time and constantly carry a pocketbook (what could she possibly have in it?) even while meeting people in her own castle! Worse than all that, the Queen looks to have become the incredile shrinking woman. Although, next to the Obama's, both of the royals look...well, Lilliputian.
Which just goes to show that nature runs its course no matter what titles we humans bestow on one another. Queen, King, first lady, or president---we all grow old and shrink over time. Underneath all the titles, the pomp and circumstance, we are all only human, subject to human frailty.

In 1965, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip paid a visit to Trinidad, a former colony. It just so happened that I was there, too, on my honeymoon in Port-of-Spain. Because my then-husband's aunt held a high post in the Trinidadian equivalent of the US Veteran's Administration, he and I got to stand among the veterans to be reviewed by the royals in a local park.

As the designated hour arrived, several dozen neatly uniformed schoolchildren standing just outside the park and holding miniature flags of both countries began waving them. In the waiting crowd a wave of sound built to a roar that continued to swell as the royal entourage approached in their gleaming black Rolls Royces, pulled up and came to a stop. Out stepped, what I could only guess were the Queen's ladies-in-waiting and her consort's aides, and the monarchs themselve. Inside the park, the Queen, trailed by Prince Phillip passed slowly down the line of elderly WW11 veterans. The old gents bowed as the royals passed. But I, ever the curious reporter, decided at the last minute to continue unbowed in order to get a close up look at a real queen. What I remember most about her, was the downy fuzz of hair on her forearms, her pale complexion, her immaculate white gloves, a pocketbook hanging from one royal wrist, and her smile, especially her smile. I will always remember her smile because there on one of her front teeth was a very noticeable smear of bright red lipstick!

That dab of wandered off lipstick showed me that all of us, even queens with ladies-in-waiting, will have our off days.

Writer's Conference

I'm fired up, having spent the day in Allentown at "The Write Stuff" a conference sponsored by the Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group. It was my first time at one of these things. I've been a poor networker most of my life. Nothing to be proud of. I'd just developed a habit over the years of being a lone wolf when it comes to writing. But when a friend of a friend said the GLVWG gathering was one of the best writer's'conferences he'd ever attended, I decided to give it a try. Now, I'm patting myself on the back for having made a wise investment.

One thing I want to tell you about now, and I'll save the rest for later, is this: One of the presenters, Matt Birbeck, an award-winning investigative journalist and author has just signed a movie deal for his book "Deconstructing Sammy."

Birbeck shared the news after I asked him if he thought his book on the tragic life of Sammy Davis, Jr. would be movie material, and if that explained his use of the term "back story"when he described his layered approach to writing about one of the most versatile and troubled entertainers of our era. Sure enough, Birbeck admitted that he started thinking "movie" soon after he started turning up some of the unexamined pieces of Davis' life.

And who might be cast in the role of Davis? C'mon, that to me is a no-brainer. Who else but Jamie Foxx?(he'd have to lose about 60 pounds first, though)

Sammy Davis, Jr's birthday and mine are the same: December 8. That made him someone special to me. As a kid growing up in Ohio, I kept up with Sammy and his career starting from the years he and his uncle tap danced as part of the Will Mastin Trio, and I cried hard when he got hurt in a car crash that caused him to lose an eye. Years later, at Birdland ,the Manhattan jazz club, I spotted Davis at a table with friends and politely approached him and asked for his autograph. Let's just say he wasn't very nice.That encounter left me promising myself that if I ever became well known and somebody asked me for an autograph I would try not to be like Davis.

If a movie does get made from Birbeck's book, it could go a long way toward re-establishing Sammy Davis, Jr's reputation as a multi-talented entertainer, a gifted dancer, singer and actor who today, is mostly a forgotten man.

Who Would Have Imagined It?

How much of our current economic meltdown sprang from some one’s imagination? Or from a failure of imagination on the part of the rest of us? As we try to pull ourselves back from the brink, it might be wise ---and even productive----to put that question to members of Congress, to business executives, shareholders, regulatory watchdogs, the news media---and to ourselves, you know, us ordinary citizens.

At any moment--- for good or ill--- incredible deeds rooted in imagination shape and re-shape our world. And make us see anew what is possible. Two stunning examples stand out in my mind. Their only connection is a set of landmark buildings. My connection was as a reporter.

In 1968, on one of my first assignments for Channel 7 Eyewitness News, I took a camera crew to lower Manhattan where construction was underway on the Twin Towers site of the World Trade Center. All I remember of that assignment is how the sound of my voice on the film soundtrack made me almost sick to my stomach. That alien voice couldn’t possibly be mine, could it? Surely, there must have been a problem with the soundman’s equipment. But no, the slow, painful-to-listen-to voice was mine and the 6 o’çlock tv news audience would soon get a dose of it.

Fast forward to June 24, 1974. I and my camera crew are sent to cover a young Frenchman who is drawing crowds and stopping traffic in midtown Manhattan. He is juggling and performing magic tricks and aerial stunts on 59th Street and 5th Avenue along a stretch of sidewalk near the grand Plaza Hotel.

I’m not happy with this assignment. It seems like scraping the bottom of the barrel on a slow news day “Why am I the one they send on this corny stuff?” I grumble in the crew car as we make our way through heavy traffic, and unload the gear where a crowd is gathered.

I direct the cameraman, the electrician and the sound man (remember this was back in the days of 16mm film, before one-man-band video tape news) to get shots of the impressive Plaza Hotel, and the usually blasé New Yorkers--- now turned into laughing, applauding gawkers--- and a spritely young Frenchman who has the crowd in the palm of his hand. At one point, he stretches a tight rope between two trees, and to the crowd’s delight, proceeds to walk it. We capture all of this on film.

The man’s name is Phillipe Petit and his performance and personality win me over. This is not a bad story after all. So, microphone in hand, I approach the young artist and proceed to question him, or try to.

He just grins and shrugs, but says nothing. I keep trying. And when I give up, he laughs and hands me my wristwatch. The joke is on me. I never felt him relieve me of my watch. The crowd laps it up.

Fast forward, again. It’s August 7, 1974. I’m not due at work until late afternoon, and so I’m still lying in my bed. The radio is tuned to an all-news station. It’s 7:17am and a reporter is saying that a crowd has gathered at the foot of the Twin Towers. People are watching a man walk a tight rope between the two 110 story buildings. The man is Phillipe Petit. My heart speeds up. I am holding my breath. I am stretched out less than a foot off the floor, but I am as tense as if I were upright, walking that steel wire a quarter of a mile above the street. The daredevil up there is no stranger. He is the engaging street juggler from my non-interview news story. I cross my fingers and pray: “Please, please let him make it across that wire.”

He is up in the air for 45 minutes, walking, dancing and lying down on the wire.

This year marks the 35th anniversary of that thriller in the sky. Phillipe Petit is sought after for interviews. And "Man on Wire", the film documenting Petit’s exploit has won an Academy Award.

His book, "To Reach The Clouds" came out a while back (I bought it on sale and it was fun to read on pg99 his version of our encounter, somewhat different from my memory of it.) The words and photos in his book are gripping and terrifyingly beautiful. So powerful they bring the reader right up on that steel wire with him. Who could have imagined such a feat? Phillipe Petite did and carried it off. Brilliantly.

Fast forward, one more time. September 11, 2001. Two airplanes reduce the Twin Towers to rubble. In the aftermath of that terrible event, former Secretary of State Condolezza Rice and other Bush administration officials said ”no one could have imagined” flying a plane into the World Trade Center. But some people did imagine it, and they carried it out. There is imagination. And then there is failure of imagination.

In her 911 Commission testimony, Dr. Rice also said: “A band of vicious terrorists tried to decapitate our government, destroy our financial system, and break the spirit of America.”

The vicious terrorists of Dr. Rice’s description failed to accomplish their goal. But a band of greedy domestic robber barons may do that for them, abetted by a business-cozy US Congress, a corporate media and an unwitting citizenry. It is not foreign terrorists, but home-grown predators who have made our country less secure and its citizens angry and afraid. In their unbridled avarice they concocted sub-prime mortgage schemes of criminal proportions, schemes which have escalated and spiraled out of control and now threaten to unravel the US financial system along with the entire global economy. Who would have imagined it?

Did you? And when you think about the economy and the future of our country, what’s on your mind?