Among the many blessings I can count, membership in my critique group ranks high.

 

We call ourselves the “Holey Roaders,” a tribute to our first regular meeting-place, located up what surely is the deepest-rutted road in the Washington DC area. Members include some of the most talented writers and critics I know. We’re not all published (yet), but the number keeps growing.

 

About half are “old settlers,” in from the early days (that includes me). Groups like this tend to shrivel and die over time, but we’ve been together some 10 years and we’ve actually grown. We’re currently 14 strong.

 

Self-interest is the reason: We give (critique) so we will get (critique).

 

But critique is tricky stuff. You ask for total honesty but you don’t turn down fawning praise. You bare your virtual chest, point to your virtual heart and say, ‘Stab here,’ hoping they won’t — or, if they do, that they remember to bring along a first-aid kit of ‘on-the-other-hands’ and ‘but-this-part-I-loveds.’

 

It takes time — years — to come to a place of trust with one another. Yet now that we’ve gotten to that place, ironically, we’ve become such pals we’re tempted to pull our punches. That doesn’t do the critiqued one any good. We may want unconditional love; but what we need is tough love.

 

Which is by way of introducing today’s topic: ‘Critique’; or, ‘Ha Ha on You Guys’.

 

A long time ago, as an assignment for a workshop at the Writers Center, I wrote a story called “Skin Deep.’ It’s about an ugly guy who wants a baby so he kidnaps a doctor who clones one for him. Themes of beauty and injustice. Blackest of humor but hilarious. As I wrote it, I laughed out loud.

 

Everyone hated it.

 

Others in the workshop hated it. The instructor, John Morris, didn’t exactly hate it, but he neither did he bubble with enthusiasm.

 

Carol hated it. Said that, as my spouse, she thought she knew me; but reading this story, apparently she was mistaken.

 

So in due course, I submitted it to my fellow Holeys, who … hated it. I mean, some of them may have liked aspects, but the consensus was: Eeewwww.

 

I deeply respect these people. Their critical faculties are superb, Put a dozen of ‘em in a room to hash over something you wrote and, at the end of three hours, they’ve probed every soft spot. That happened recently when they critiqued the near-final draft of TO WALK HUMBLY, the second novel in my “Chicago Trilogy.” They unearthed the soft spots, all right; weeks of work lie ahead, whipping the manuscript into the shape I’d like it to be. On balance, though, they and other advance readers were positive. Whew.

 

But the Holeys didn’t like “Skin Deep.” And despite my reverence for their critical faculties, I did. What to do?

 

Nothing. I did nothing. The story sat on my hard drive. For years.

 

Then one day, browsing through old files, my eye fell on the title and a smile formed. I opened it, re-read it for the first time in ages, and … laughed my a** off.

 

I started submitting it around. The seventh or eighth place I tried was Scribble, the magazine of the Maryland Writers Assn., which published it.

 

I think there’s a moral here. It might be, Believe what you hear except the part that’s wrong. Or better, Heed well-meaning, open-hearted, honest critique, except when you think your stuff is the funniest, yet most touching, English prose ever written.

 

Well, heck. As they say on Fox News, “You decide.” Here’s the first page of “Skin Deep:”:

 

-0-0-0-

 

Meet me: George. I’m 5 foot 2 but eyes aren’t blue. More like a watery green, and I squint a little. Add in the bald patch on the left side — a spot the size of a silver dollar where no hair ever grew — and then there’s the liver-colored mole on my lower lip. I’m not much to look at. I could tell you I have a beautiful soul, but why would you believe me?

 

I work for the IRS. Every day I go to a windowless office and call taxpayers, posing questions that are none of my business. Of course they’re all cheating crooks and deserve the worst. But that doesn’t raise my popularity either.

 

You can guess what I come home to. A hot plate and a can of aerosol cheese.

 

I want a baby.

 

I mean, my biological clock is ticking, too. I’m 23. I hear all this agonizing from the girls at work. What’s so special?

 

I listen to them, but nobody listens to me. You know why. They flit past my desk like they’ll risk pneumonia if they linger. Ugliness isn’t catching, but try and tell them.

 

-0-0-0-

 

Want to read the rest? Order Vol. 8 No. 1 of Scribble ($6 + $1.50 P&H + $.36 sales tax if you’re a Maryland resident), or subscribe for one year (3 issues) for $16.

 

Frank Joseph

www.tolovemercy.com

 

P.S. Remember the anthology that published my poem, “Beauty and the Beast Visit Elizabeth Arden?” It’s coming out in April, National Poetry Month. Copies are $12.95 each but you can advance-order at a 20% discount — $10.36 + $3 P&H + $.62 sales tax for Maryland residents. Order here:

 

http://www.marylandwriters.org/2011-anthology-pre-order.html

 

Pre-order now. Books start shipping April 1, 2011

 

Greetings from Guanica, Puerto Rico, where I have just smoked a cigar.

I bought the cigar in Old San Juan from the guy who rolled it:

It may be the only hand-rolled cigar I ever smoked. It is certainly the only cigar I ever purchased directly from the person who made it.

I don’t smoke cigars as a rule. As a rule, I don’t smoke anything, and haven’t since I was 27. I started smoking at 15 and soon developed a hellacious habit that lasted 12 years. I smoked cigarettes, cigars, even pipes (ah, Balkan Sobranie, how I remember you!). At my habit’s unbelievable peak, I was up to four packs a day of unfiltered Camels, smoked down to the bloody stubs. I coughed, of course; my fingers were yellow, naturally; and in those long-ago Chicago winters, I’d come down with a sinus attack once a month like clockwork.

By my mid 20s, I wanted desperately to stop; I actually succeeded in doing so for 6 months before starting up again. Then I met Carol; but for her, I might be smoking still (or dead from the habit). Carol didn’t exactly insist I stop smoking but, when I’d go to kiss her, she’d wrinkle her nose and turn her face away. It was the rejection that pushed me over the edge. But it would be 10 more years before I finally stopped craving a cigarette.

As a smoker, I’d smoked the occasional cigar though I didn’t like them much. But as an ex-smoker, cigars fall into a special category. For one thing, you can enjoy them without inhaling. (Sure, you get cigar smoke into your lungs, but not nearly as much as with cigarettes, which are pointless to consume unless you inhale.) For another, you buy them one at a time, not 20 to a pack. (And this one cost $6, so it’s a habit that can run into money.)

But the dirty secret is that, in this era of political correctness, smoking a cigar is one of the last ways a guy can act, well, macho. (Riding a Ducati also qualifies.) So on special once-a-year occasions - ski trips with son Sam and friend Bill Tetzlaff that fall on my birthday, say - I’ve still been buying, and sharing, cigars.

While in Old San Juan, I bought three beautiful Macanudos in sexy tin torpedo cans for the upcoming ski trip. (This year’s trip happens not to fall on my birthday, but now I have a macho tradition to uphold.) I didn’t plan to buy a fourth cigar but, when I saw the guy on the street hand-rolling, for the heck of it I decided to buy another to smoke by myself after we arrived at our second Puerto Rico destination, the Copamarina Beach Resort. located on the tranquil, un-touristy southwest coast 90 miles from San Juan..

We are at the Copamarina. I am traveling with Carol and her sister (my sister-in-law) Gerry. In the room, I slip the street-rolled cigar out of its ziplock bag and carefully slice off the end with the 2-inch blade on my key-ring. I manage a pretty clean cut considering the implement I’m using, smooth except for one small ragged shred.

The newly cut cigar gives off a scent of cherries. Carol and Gerry each take sniffs and confess it smells way better than expected, but politely decline my invitation to come outside and watch me smoke it. They explain they have more important things to do, like unpacking and watching CNN.

I light the cigar and stroll to the narrow beach. The moon, though only a quarter-full, is so bright it lights a path along the sand. The waves play their background music as I stroll, puff, stroll. I walk by moonlight to a place where beach becomes rocks and tree-roots before I finally turn back.

By now the cigar has grown a full inch of ash, a tribute to the cigar-maker’s art. When at last the ash falls soundlessly away in the dark, I don’t notice until I puff again.

Other cigars turn rank as you smoke them down. By the end, your mouth is a slimy sewer. But this cigar seems to grow sweeter as it smokes down. However, my experience no longer is about the cigar. As I look up, Orion filling the sky overhead, I am utterly alone but for my thoughts. The cigar is only a smoke.

But what a smoke it was. The second ash had grown even longer than the first when heat and gravity at last undid its matrix. I ground the cigar’s remains respectfully into the soil, and thanked it for having done its job.

Frank Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

P.S. Next: The story.

When I was in fourth grade, my teacher looked at the thing I was painting and told me I had no abilities as an artist. From that day to this, I have maintained to the world that I am not an artist.

My wife Carol, who is an artist and sculptor, has urged me to try drawing and painting and sculpting all the same, and I have — just an itty bitty bit, with incredible reluctance. She says what I created was good. I say she must be wrong because, as stated above, I Am Not An Artist.

By the same token, I Am Not A Poet. I am many other kinds of writer — ex-journalist, novelist, writer of short stories, creator of direct-marketing promotion pieces till hell won’t have it, and not a few of these blog postings. But no poems since college.

Because boy, was that college poem a doozy. I remember much of it, especially the refrain “Littlegirl, Littlelegs.” When that line floats back, I burn with embarrassment.

I didn’t need a teacher to tell me how ghastly it was. I just swore off poetry. I didn’t get it (or so I thought), and I had certainly proven I couldn’t write it. Anyway, I was more interested in other literary forms. I consigned poetry to that dusty drawer where we put the things we put away.

But poetry was sneaking up on me.

Writing headlines is a form of poetry, a fact I realized while I was still a working journalist. Song lyrics are the poetry that’s all around us, and the advent of rap and hip-hop have sensitized us even more to the rhyme and rhythm of language. When I write prose, I micro-focus on language the way poets do. And I’ve always been a sucker for vivid metaphor.

A while ago, at a discussion, a panelist said something that rang my poetry bell. Catherine “Madame” Mayo, travel author and memoirist extraordinaire, asserted that taking a poetry workshop had done wonders for her prose. It sounded like a good idea. I signed up for a poetry workshop at the Writer’s Center near my home.

Not that I was trying to become a poet. I Am Not A Poet, remember? But I was curious. Are there rules that distinguish a good poem from a bad one? Or is it like the Supreme Court justice who said (of pornography), ‘I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it’? What about form? If a poem doesn’t rhyme, doesn’t have a beat, and seems no different from prose, what makes it poetry? Because the poet says so?

Turns out I knew more than I realized. As an English major, I must have learned more about poetry than I’d realized because terms and lore started coming back.

So did poems — tons of ‘em. Most were poems I’d read as a kid. (The boy stood on the burning deck …) I’d read a lot of poetry as a kid, another fact I’d forgotten. My parents both enjoyed poetry and literature, and both of them wrote — semi-seriously, in the case of my mom.

Some of what came back were poems I’d read in college classes (In the room the women come and go …); some were just poems I dug (BOOM-lay! BOOM-lay! BOOM-lay! BOOM!). As the workshop progressed, I read more poetry than in decades and the poems bubbled out of their hiding-places. I strode around the living room declaiming. Carol was charmed.

As the workshop drew to a close, the instructor, Liz Rees, a warm and funny woman who also knows how to get tough when necessary, gave us the following assignment: Each write down an idea on a slip of paper, mix up the slips, then everyone draw a slip and write a poem based on the idea.

The idea I drew was: ‘Beauty and the Beast go to a spa.’ Here’s what I wrote:

-0-0-0-

Beauty and the Beast Visit Elizabeth Arden

She asked me to come, pleaded,
so I did.
To please her
is my only wish.

I rose from my den in deep woods
and loped the familiar path
to her palace,
glad to be summoned,
sick with love.

Her face when she saw me
was all the sun I wanted.
Her cheek on my muzzle stirred memories
of things I never knew,
as it always does.

Yet this place frightens me.
It stinks like the cherimoya
that falls to the ground and rots,
not the rain-soaked leaves and sweet grass
where I lie.
These unguents clot my fur,
cause my eyes to itch,
and the harridan who rubs them in
has cruel hands.

Still I endure it all
for her sake.
I would endure much more.

She receives the lotions
and emerges glowing.
O Beast, she says,
touching my paw with her dear hand,
am I not more beautiful than before?
I am too ashamed,
under my coat of oil,
to tell her what is true.

-0-0-0-

So yeah, I thought it was pretty good. And yeah, when the Maryland Writers Assn. put out a call for submissions to its first-ever poetry anthology, I submitted it.

And yeah, it got accepted. The yet-to-be-titled anthology will be out in time for Poetry Week 2011 (next April) and I encourage you to buy a copy. They’ll be available at www.marylandwriters.org and in bookstores.

I haven’t written any more poetry since the workshop ended though. Even though I now can brag that I’m an about-to-be-published poet, in my mind, I Am Still Neither An Artist Nor A Poet.

Old self-images die hard.

Frank S. Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

P.S. And I sold a story! And the novel is finished! More to come …

Dear Friend of Frank,

I haven’t communicated in months and there’s tons on my mind, but let’s ease back in:

Watch “The Sing-Off” tonight. NBC, 8 p.m. Eastern (check local times of course). Carol and I stumbled into it for the first season last year and became addicted. It’s only five or six episodes total so I’m not talking long-term commitment here. I guarantee this charming show will wipe the pre-holiday Scrooges from your parched souls.

Frank S. Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

P.S. Everyone hated it but SCRIBBLE published it. Take that, critics! More to come.

P.P.S. The redraft of TO WALK HUMBLY is 37 pages from being completed and I could even cross the finish line today. More to come! More to come!

Sorry, this is shameless self-promotion.

I have won First Prize, Best Non-Print Marketing Effort, in the annual Specialized Information Publishers Foundation competition, for “Who Was Ron Wayne?”, an e-mail marketing effort that launched the investment advisory service known as “Portfolio 2020.”

This is the premier award in what used to be called the newsletter business (now known as the specialized information publishing community), where I’ve been happily ensconced as journalist, publisher, marketer and consultant since leaving The Washington Post in 1975.

My client, Capitol Information Group Inc. of Falls Church VA, publishes “Portfolio 2020.” All credit to the investment advisory folks at Capitol Information Group: my direct contact on this project, Product Manager Julianne Johnson; her many talented colleagues, including Portfolio 2020 editors Roger Conrad, Elliott Gue, Yiannis Mostrous and Ben Shepherd, and Senior Product Manager Heather Snead; and Publisher Phil Ash, for unparalleled support, in this and every project we’ve worked on.

Here’s the lead of the winning piece:

 

Who was Ron Wayne?

 

And what does he have to do with

 

563% gains in six months???

 

 

You know who Steve Jobs is. Everyone does.

You probably know who Steve Wozniak is, too, or anyway his name may ring a bell.

 “The Woz” designed the Apple 1 computer, the first product from the company now known as Apple. It was a kit, not a ready-to-use device, and those first Apple 1’s all were hand-built—by Wozniak—at Apple world headquarters, then located in the Jobs family garage adjacent to 2066 Crist Drive, Los Altos, California.

   

But who was Ron Wayne?

 

-0-0-0-

 

If you want to know who Mr. Wayne was and read the rest (and subscribe to Portfolio 2020 of course!), the most recent iteration is posted at www.kci-com.com/lp/port2020/1109/wayne.asp?eff=983 .

 

Frank Joseph

www.tolovemercy.com

 

P.S. When I’m not writing novels or playing tennis, direct-marketing and publishing consulting  is what I do for a living. I’m known professionally as “Mister DM™” and I’m available for your projects. Call me at 301-656-8753 or email Mr.DM@Verizon.net.

 

This morning, precisely three months — THREE MONTHS! — since I had my right knee totally replaced, Dr. Connell gave me the green light to quit physical therapy and get back on the tennis court. Doubles OK now, singles when you’re feeling up to it.

 

THREE MONTHS!!!

 

Before I go further, I must issue a gigantic caveat: Your Mileage May Vary. Indeed, your mileage almost certainly will vary. I am what the medical profession calls an outlier — a statistic at the far end of the bell curve. I’m an outlier in a good way, thanks be to the healing gods, but Dr. Connell makes it clear that only 10% or so enjoy this miracle recovery.

 

Not to brag. Luck is no small factor here. But there’s more.

 

All the studies say you do better in surgery if you’re in shape, and I try to stay in shape. I have a gym membership. I shoot for some sort of physical activity every day. Most weeks I’m successful 5 or 6 days out of 7.

 

Furthermore, I’m a good candidate for surgery. I am not making this up. They’ve developed a profile that adds up a bunch of factors such as physical condition, mental attitude, pain tolerance, gender (right, gender — on balance, males apparently have better surgical outcomes than females) — and I fit the profile to a T. My past surgical outcomes have been good to great.

 

And one other thing.

 

Prior to surgery, I had two sessions of massage and stretching with James Graffenberg, a licensed massage therapist and follower of a modality known as Active Isolated Stretching or A.I.S., about which more presently. One session was three days prior to surgery; the other was 24 hours prior.

 

I’ve been going to James since, many years earlier, he performed a miracle. I was doubled over with back pain — could barely walk — and James said he could fix it in three sessions. He fixed it in two.

 

I don’t go often though. James is a massage therapist, remember; what he does isn’t reimbursed and, at $290 for two hours, it isn’t cheap. Physical therapy is reimbursed and PT is terrific too. PT has similarly saved my cookies on more than one occasion. These days, I usually take my aches and pains to PT.

 

Not prior to surgery though. Deep massage and stretching loosens and warms the muscles, leading to a better surgical outcome. As James says, “It’s easier to cut, so the surgeon doesn’t have to cut as much.”

 

James’s theory makes sense to me but I don’t know whether it’s right or wrong. No studies back it up, to my knowledge. However, the philosopher William James, in his case for the existence of God, argued that, if you pray and God exists, you do yourself good for Eternity; and if you’re wrong, well, you aren’t really out much. On that theory, I figured, what the heck: If James is right, I get a better outcome; and if he’s wrong, well, I’m out $580 but I still get two great massages.

 

Flash forward to today. I have given James’s contact info to both Dr. Connell, who doesn’t seem very interested, and Beth Ann the PT, who does. I’ve also given Beth Ann’s contact info to James. If A.I.S. really does have value, shouldn’t organized medicine be aware of it?

 

Well, looks like organized medicine now is.

 

Beth Ann has a long phone conversation with James. She is aware of similar stretch modalities, but this time it’s different. She now has a patient (me) who is a poster child for total knee recovery, and who got stretched prior to surgery. She’s planning to meet with James, see what’s in his bag of tricks.

 

This morning, at our final PT session, Beth Ann recounted all this. She was quick to note that, despite my terrific recovery, everything is anecdotal at this point: One great outcome doth not a modality make. But she is now curious and open to the possibility that A.I.S. might speed surgical recovery — to the point of maybe recommending A.I.S. to an upcoming knee-replacement candidate. If it helps, well … might controlled studies lie ahead?

 

I’ve continued going to James post-surgery, despite the expense. He claims A.I.S. will speed my recovery too, and who’s to say it hasn’t?

 

Besides, I DO love a good massage.

 

 Frank S. Joseph

www.tolovemercy.com

 

P.S. The Active Isolated Stretching guru is named Aaron Mattes. He has a clinic in Sarasota FL (http://stretchingusa.com) and practitioners scattered about the country. If you live outside the D.C. area, you may be able to find an A.I.S. practitioner locally by contacting the Mattes clinic.

 

Inside the Washington area, I can’t say enough good things about James Graffenberg. His website is http://stretchingtheworld.com. He practices in the medical building at 4701 Randolph Road, Suite G-1, Rockville, MD  20852. His phone is 301-770-9199 and his email is jgraffenberg@yahoo.com.

 

Watching TV.

All day.

Well, six hours anyway. I wouldn’t miss tomorrow’s health care political extravaganza. I’m planning to crack open a brewski and a bag of Cheet-Os, and splay out in front of the boob tube for the full six excruciating hours. C-Span on steroids.

What’s wrong with me? Don’t I know health reform is dead? Don’t I know the Obama administration was dumped into the dustbin of history following election to the Senate of Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown, which overturned what all viewed as a permanent Democrat/Kennedy lock on the ultimate safe seat?

Oops, there I go, getting wonkish. Well, that’s what it is with me. I used to cover health policy – wrote, edited and published a newsletter called “Health Policy Week,” for God’s sake – and I can’t get it out of my blood. The issues I covered during 1982-86 are, basically, the same issues as today. They weren’t resolved then – indeed, the solutions of the ‘80s and ‘90s (managed care, prospective payment) may have made things worse – and there’s a fair chance they won’t be resolved this time.

But that doesn’t have anything to do with my plans for tomorrow. Sure, I believe passionately that health reform must pass or this great nation will go bankrupt. And yes, in my opinion the current compromise pretty much stinks, may not work, needs the public option or something like it, yada yada yada. Health policy does indeed matter to me. But the reason I’ll be glued to the TV tomorrow has more to do with spectator sports. What NFL football and NBA basketball are to others, health reform is to me. Even if I had a full schedule, I’d cancel all engagements.

Now, as it happens, I don’t have any engagements tomorrow. The decks are clear for stultifying TV. I’ve been home from the hospital since last Friday, recovering from total knee replacement.

Thirty-plus years ago, skiing, I ripped the cartilage in my right knee. I had surgery and did great for 25 of those years, but the bill came due at last.

How did I make ready for the impending operation? By strapping on my rusty-trusty brace and going to Colorado with son Sam and buddy-from-college Bill Tetzlaff, where we skied our brains out. We had a spectacular week, my skiing was about as good as it ever is (not all that great), the knee held up pretty well considering, and I got off the plane at Dulles barely able to walk. For the next two weeks, I’m pleased to report, it hurt like a son-of-a-gun. Constantly. So when they gave me the gas, I had no regrets. Goodbye, right knee, and good riddance. You served me well but it’s time for you to go.

What does this have to do with health reform?

I haven’t gotten any bills yet, but wonder how much I just cost Medicare? $35,000? $45,000? $55,000? Don’t matter to me; I ain’t paying a penny. Medicare is the best health insurance I’ve had since the golden days of Blue Cross in the ‘60s. For total premiums of around $6,000 a year (today’s dollars), Carol and I have health insurance about five light-years better than what we were paying $18,000 a year for in 2004 dollars. Given the steady advance of health cost inflation (7%-10% a year, vs. a CPI advance of around 2%-3% a year), that $18,000 would be about $30,000 today.

It isn’t costing me a cent for an operation that (a) didn’t exist when I originally injured my knee, (b) is as high-tech and invasive as any you’d care to list, and (c) is really, when you think about it, elective surgery. Sure, if I didn’t get the knee replacement, eventually I’d have to stop playing tennis, skiing, walking and standing, but hey: I’d live.

The person who’s paying for my delightful knew knee, Dear Reader, is you. Us. The American taxpayer. And we can’t keep doing it. When one sector of society keeps gobbling up GDP at a 7%-10%/year rate, eventually that sector gobbles up all of society. I get a knee, you (and your kids, and your kids’ kids) get bankrupt. Even I, the guy enjoying the knee, knows that isn’t fair.

So what the heck. Let’s all take tomorrow off, watch TV, and root for the good guys.

Frank Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

P.S. This wouldn’t be a blog posting without a little marketing thrown in, so here it is. Assuming I’m on my feet by then, I’ll be appearing Wednesday, March 10, at 7:30 p.m., at the Duncan Library in Alexandria VA. If you’re in the D.C. area, please pack up some rotten eggs and tomatoes and come on over. Here’s a link to the Duncan Library: http://www.alexandria.lib.va.us/branches/duncan_map.html

P.P.S. Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s been forever since I posted anything to this blog or e-blast or whatever you want to call it. But here I am again, homebound and missing you all. To remind you, you are receiving this love note because, in the mists of the past, you agreed to do so. I hereby reiterate my standing promise: I will not share or otherwise abuse your e-mail address and, of course, you can opt off any time you want, no hard feelings.

I’d like to bring your attention to an event 700 miles away, but one you may wish to attend just the same — Chicago Day at the Bethesda (MD) Library on Saturday, Oct. 24.

There’ll be Chicago-style hot dogs, deep-dish pizza and headliners galore, including –

• Scott Simon of NPR on Chicago politics. Simon is the author of a hilarious new novel on Chicago politics, “Windy City.”

• Clarence Page, Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago Tribune colunmnist, on Chicago’s storied and stormy journalism.

• And a Cubs-vs.-White-Sox smackdown pitting David Broder, Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post columnist (for the Cubs), vs. Mark Plotkin of WTOP (for the White Sox). The moderator is Paul Dickson, author of the recently released Third Edition of “Dickson’s Baseball Dictionary.” Dickson is at work on a biography of Bill Veeck, under whose ownership the White Sox had their most glorious of glory days.

Also: A panel on Chicago after the Great Fire; a panel on the two world’s fairs, the 1893 Columbian Exposition (subject of the best-seller “The Devil in the White City”) and the 1934 Century of Progress; and long-lost, much beloved Riverview Amusement Park. I’m moderating the Riverview panel. I’ve invited two old pals to join me — Elliot Greene, whose family ran a hot-dog stand across from Riverview, and Bill Costanza, who attended Lane Technical High School across street from Riverview.

The all-day event begins at noon and ends with a meet-the-speakers-and-eat-the-pizza reception 7-9 p.m. at the Edgemoor Club, three blocks from the library. View the flyer at http://f1.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/0L_ZSqvQsrwKIu0BNzDwNKaozhu8O68zPjhPKi-k2Y4vAayKoXqOEbu4QWKlKsHXoI7MOnmUMa9J9affFyBXDK8Yskckp1FHQwiy/Chicago%20Day%204.pdf

The library is at 7400 Arlington Rd., Bethesda, MD 20814. Here’s a link to a Google map:

http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/Apps/Libraries/branchinfo/be.asp#map&ved=0CA4QngIwAA

For more information, please contact me at keycom@verizon.net or 301-656-8753.

Hope to see you there!

Frank S. Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

P.S. It’s ages since I posted to this blog — not because I didn’t want to, but because I’ve been hugely busy doing other (good) things. I’ve almost finished writing TO WALK HUMBLY — might even write “The End” this coming week. When it happens, you’ll know. And maybe at that time I’ll start posting more regularly again.

I received quite a few responses to my last posting, “Traffic Court.” That’s typical. There are about 850 people on this distribution list and they (you) respond in droves whenever I post. (I post on the Web too, at http://tolovemercy.com/frank_joseph_blog/, but I don’t think anyone reads it there. I’ve spoiled you all.)

The responses are gratifying indeed. Despite the salutation, I don’t actually have 850 personal friends (though nearly everyone on the list is at least an acquaintance, if only via email).

My postings have diminished sharply in the last year, as long-time “Friends of Frank” are aware. When I started this list about three years ago, in the rush of early discovery I posted once a week or oftener. Then the frequency started to decline, eventually dwindling down to less than once a month. As they say in email-land,  .

The principal reason the postings have declined is simple and crass: This blog or e-blast or whatever you call it was for the purpose of marketing my first novel, TO LOVE MERCY. And it worked. Many of you guys bought, read, and (if you’re telling the truth) loved TO LOVE MERCY. Not only that, you advocated for it, posted lavish praise for it on Amazon.com and BN.com, became my ambassadors. Thank you, thank you and thank you again: I am forever in your debt.

But TO LOVE MERCY, like most novels, had its day — and that day has passed. Right now, with TO WALK HUMBLY still not finished and TO DO JUSTICE a mere distant gleam in my eye, I ain’t got nuttin’ to market. So, few posts. How’d that go again?  .

There’s a lesser reason why I’m not posting very often, and that is that it takes way more time than you’d think. I get 20-30 responses, say, and of course I must reply. Some of those replies are no more than a  :)  or a  , but even that takes time.

And when, in response to something I’ve written, someone pours out his or her heart, or takes me to task, or riffs on my riffs, why, I have to respect that, take focus and respond appropriately. That takes LOTS of time. When I was posting a lot about race a year or two ago, for example, I sometimes was responding for 2-3 days following a particularly provocative posting.

This last posting, I retold a personal experience (in traffic court) that startled me. FYI, I wrote almost the entire draft of that post in the 20-30 minutes it takes the Metro to get from Judiciary Square to Friendship Heights. I finished it sitting in the sun at a table outside Starbucks: Total elapsed time, no more than 45 minutes. It was fresh in my mind and it poured right out. As I wrote, I realized it was great material for a short story almost as written, and I plan to turn it into one.

You guys responded vigorously, as usual, and — as is often the case — many responses were surprising. You didn’t always read my story the way I thought I wrote it. Some of you focused on aspects and drew conclusions that didn’t jibe with what I thought you “ought” to think and feel. But hey, that’s the fascinating thing about writing. It’s always that way, and writers like me ought to get a life, pull up our socks, sit back and enjoy it.

So now, presenting … the response I enjoyed most. This is from Lynn Rotman Ansfield, one of the many on this list with whom I went to high school. (Yes, I promoted TO LOVE MERCY to my fellow Rich High alums, and boy was THAT a good idea. I wrote an email to the high-school alumni list that I still think is one of my most brilliant direct-marketing pieces ever. It had my 18-year-old, crew-cut graduation photo on top, and the headline was: “Here’s How I Came Out.”)

Lynn now lives in Madison WI where she has a happy life indeed, married to a doctor, three great kids, a long and successful career as an aide in the Wisconsin Legislature. All three of her kids are writers in one way or another, and she says that writing was her secret ambition. I’m not surprised. Read what Lynn wrote:

Dear Frank –

I, too, received a speeding ticket this year after 50(!) ticketless years of driving. I deserved the ticket and sent in the fine without complaint. But I have to tell you about the ticket I didn’t get.

I was driving my 16-year-old grandson to a Wendy’s Drive-in just minutes from his high school, after driving him all the way home. He became “starved” for his usual after-school three cheeseburgers the minute we entered his home. As I retraced our route back past the high school, we discussed a movie he wanted to see, and I missed a stop sign that I had seen nearly every day for years.

I stopped just past the intersection and called the local police on their non-emergency number. “I just ran a stop sign with my grandson in the car,” I told the dispatcher.

I could hear in her voice her recognition of the lesson I was trying to teach my grandson. She told me that she couldn’t issue a ticket, since my offense wasn’t seen by an officer. “But,” she told me, “take this as a personal warning and concentrate on your driving.”

I turned to my grandson for his approval of my honesty. “Grandma,” he said, “that was the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen you do.”

On second thought, he probably is right.

– Lynn

Frank Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

P.S. No P.S. this time. Ain’t nuttin’ to flog. Direct-marketing secret: Did you know the P.S. is widely believed, among direct-marketing practitioners like myself, to be the second most powerful place in any sales letter? That’s believed to be so because prospects read the opening, then drop immediately to the P.S. — looking, presumably, for the juiciest stuff.

P.P.S. Oh what the hell. All right, there IS a P.S., and here it is: I have a carton and a half of copies of TO LOVE MERCY sitting on the credenza behind me that’d make great presents for, um, Memorial Day. Or Independence Day. I mean, whatever. Just buy ‘em. The cover price is $14.95 but for you, dear Friends of Frank, this week only, such a deal, $9.99 (OK, $10) but I eat the postage. And autographed! Try to beat that on Amazon.com, I dare you.

I appeared in Traffic Court today. I’d been stopped for going 44 in a 30 zone. I was guilty but, naturally, crestfallen. Despite the careless way I drive (anyone will tell you so), I hadn’t had a moving violation on my record for a long time — 10 years or more.

That’s what I told the officer — minus the part about the habitual carelessness, not to mention a certain insouciance regarding traffic laws in general. She said, “Why don’t you go down and tell that to the judge?” “Would it do any good?” I asked. “You never know,” she replied.

So I suit up — one always wants to look one’s best in court; if you doubt it, watch any random episode of Judge Judy — and find myself before Hearing Examiner Mark Green in Rm. 1145 of the D.C. Municipal Building, Bureau of Adjudication. It’s more like a large office than a courtroom, with the hearing examiner seated behind a desk with a keyboard and screen in front of him. Along each side wall are rows of chairs where we miscreants sit. There are only two of us.

The other is a large and bulky white woman of advancing age. She is very white indeed. Her white hair flies around in unruly fashion. She wears a men’s dress shirt with blue and white stripes, exaggerating the pale effect. She is squeezed into a pair of jeans a size or two too small, and she is a woman who should never wear jeans to begin with. She has on brown suede sneakers that don’t go with anything else. Her head is a mallet. She looks for all the world like a female version of Arnold Dornfeld, my sainted editor at City News Bureau of Chicago a lifetime ago. If she wore muddy work boots and a red-checked flannel shirt, I’d have taken her for Dornie.

On her large bosom rests a large brown wooden cross, the kind you see on nuns in mufti. Given her lack of courtroom style sense, I think, maybe that’s what she is.

Her case is called first. She has been accused of running a stop sign in Northwest D.C. a few blocks from where I was stopped, though on a different day. As she takes her seat at a long wooden table in front of the judge — the only courtroom-like accessory in the room — she slips me a conspiratorial look. I respond with a perfunctory smile and look away, annoyed. I am not her ally.

She pleads not guilty and explains at length, punctuating her testimony with digressions, asides, and inappropriate laughter. She goes on and on, saying too much, laughing when she shouldn’t, looking sidelong toward me for support. But my gaze is now directed purposefully toward Hearing Examiner Green and Officer Santos.

She winds down at last. The hearing examiner taps and taps at his keyboard, for minutes. What in the world is he writing, a novel?

Finally he looks up and asks whether she has anything to add. She looks flustered for the first time, as if she’s been asked an unexpected question by a severe teacher. She flounders a bit, then says no. He taps more. She squirms with discomfort in the silence.

Then she starts to talk. She repeats portions of her story, adding semi-snide commentary. She makes a point about the black SUV in front of her, if you want to see someone who REALLY ran that stop sign. She reminds the hearing examiner how small her car is and how defenseless against SUVs like that big black one. It’s red, she says, not for the first time. A Festiva. 1994.

More taps. She squirms again, then launches into a complaint about how many hours, days actually, it took to schedule this hearing. The hearing examiner looks up inquiringly. “Of course,” she says, “you probably can’t do anything about THAT.”

More taps, more silence, then the ruling is rendered. Hearing Examiner Green recounts the facts, the applicable section of the D.C. Municipal Code, and pronounces his decision: Waive the points but pay the fine. Wow, lady, I think, you lucked out.

I hear a sound and shift focus from the hearing examiner to her. Her shoulders are sagging from their cocky elevation into a slump, and she is sobbing.

“That’s an awful lot of money,” she chokes out.

No one says a word. In the silent room, her sobs are the only sound.

After a minute or two, she regains control enough to ask what’s next. the hearing examiner says she can go to Rm. 1157 and pay the fine.

“Can I use a credit card? That way I won’t have to pay until next month’s Social Security check comes in.”

The hearing examiner doesn’t seem to know. “You can pay on line too,” he says.

“I’m not on line,” she says.

She stands up; collects her giant blue bag with stuff overflowing from it and the blue plastic water bottle she filled at home; turns, opens the door, and stalks out. The hearing examiner calls me to the chair. As I’m getting seated, the door opens behind me and she sticks her head back in the room.

“Thank you,” she says, and closes the door.

Frank Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

P.S. I admitted with explanation, told my story, and asked that he waive the $100 penalty because I’d misread the website instructions. He waived the penalty and the points but let the $100 fine stand. I said thanks, picked up my stuff and headed out the door, thinking I’d had a pretty good day.