Weekly Wilson - Blog of Author Connie C. Wilson - Welcome to WeeklyWilson.com, where author/film critic Connie (Corcoran) Wilson avoids totally losing her marbles in semi-retirement by writing about film (see the Chicago Film Festival reviews and SXSW), politics and books----her own books and those of other people. You'll also find her diverging frequently to share humorous (or not-so-humorous) anecdotes and concerns. Try it! You'll like it!

The World Premiere of a mobster film shot in Chicago by recent graduates of Chicago’s Columbia College premiered on Saturday, October 10, at the Chicago Film Festival.

The film features Frank Vincent, well known both for his work on television’s “The Sopranos” (31 episodes as Phil Leotardo) and for his work in the film “Goodfellas.” The 70-year-old Vincent plays Lou Marazano, a hit man for the Mob who, as the movie opens, has not actually gone on a “hit” since 1986. He is a dinosaur in the world of crime, but he takes one last job to bankroll himself and his daughter and grandson so that they can have a brighter future. Former “Sopranos” cast member Kathrine Narducci (Charmaine Bucco) plays Lorraine Lionello, Lou’s twenty-year romantic interest who always provides him with the alibis he needs.

The 6 young filmmakers behind the concept and the script met while students at Chicago’s Columbia college and began making short films together their freshman year. In fact, the group headed by Director Brian Caunter (age 26) and with a script whose first four drafts were written by John Mosher and Brian Caunter (later assisted by Andrew Dowd and Josh Staman) formed Beverly Ridge Productions. Their first production was a short film based on Ray Bradbury’s story “The Small Assassin,” but “Chicago Overcoat,” premiered on October 10^th, is their first full-length feature film. In fact, the sextet even dedicated the film to their Columbia lighting teacher, Chris Burrett, who died recently at age 60. “It was Mr. Burrett who had to give us permission to take all the lighting equipment out to shoot sometimes, so it was nice to be able to salute him this way after the way he helped us,” explained Director Caunter.

The money to make the film was raised largely by Cinematographer Kevin Moss’ mother JoAnne Moss, who runs a real estate and investing firm in Chicago. With the $2 million budget, the group secured starring talent like Vincent, Mike Starr— (who played 45 episodes as Kenny Sandusky from 2000 to 2002 on television’s “Ed” and also was Detective Russ Millard in 2006’s “The Black Dahlia”)— and cameos by Armand Assante as a jailed Mob boss and Stacy Keach as a retired honest cop.

I went into the screening not expecting much. I was pleasantly surprised. The group has pulled a Clint Eastwood twist by exploiting the fact that their lead hit man is aging and considered a has-been by the younger generation. Yet Lou (Frank Vincent) is still quite cold-blooded when he has to be, and he feels he has it in him to make one last big score so that he can retire to Vegas and finance his daughter’s attempts to start over with her small son, far away from her ex-husband, a small-time hood and drug addict.

One of the most impressive things about the film is the cinematography by Kevin Moss, who uses Chicago’s breathtaking skyline to create a film noir feeling, shooting in locations that, as he said in the after-film Q&A “have never been put on film before.” Female co-star Katharine Narducci summed it up well when she said, “It is shot so beautifully. It is poetic. Absolutely stunning.”

The performances also held up. Vincent was well cast and the Director said, during the after-film Q&A, “We had Frank in mind when we were writing it. We had no other actors in mind. We always wanted Frank.”

Originally cast in the role of the tough cop Ralph Malone who tracks Lou (Frank Vincent) was Joe Mantegna, a Cicero native. Unfortunately, Mantegna had to drop out weeks before shooting was to begin, when he took a recurring role on CBS’s “Criminal Minds.” Enter Danny Goldring, a Chicago native who played the last clown killed in the opening bank heist sequence of “The Dark Knight.”

Goldring reminds of an even more mature version of Robert Redford, all craggy skin and gruff demeanor. He turns in a solid performance as the cop who won’t quit tracking the corrupt police pension scandal that ultimately reaches into the highest places. When murders suddenly start occurring again within the ranks of crime bosses who could implicate those in power and flowers are sent to the victims’ homes immediately after their deaths, (an M.O. not seen for 20 years or more), Ralph Malone (Danny Goldring) is convinced that “the flower killer” is back on the job—or someone who is doing a very good job as a copycat killer. Because he, too, is a veteran of the force, he remembers the first wave of “flower killings.”

Frank Vincent, the New Jersey native who plays the old pro Mafia hit man drew on his years as a drummer for Del Shannon and Paul Anka in the 60’s, when he met many real Mafiosi, to play this part and his other gangster characterizations. As he told Ed M. Kozlarski in an October 8 “Chicago Reader” interview: “They (Mafia) all have a way of looking at you, of intimidating you. They’re all evil. I can give a look or a stare that people read as evil.”

One of the best bits of dialogue occurs near the film’s climax, when Lou (Vincent) faces off against a mobster sent to kill him and seems to be in imminent danger of being fitted for the dreaded “Chicago Overcoat,” Prohibition era slang for a coffin. The armed and deadly opponent tells Lou, “I promise you an open casket. All you can give your family now is your dead body.” Lou (Frank Vincent) defiantly responds, “F*** that! I’m going to Vegas!” and opens fire with an antique Tommy gun that is just as effective now as it was in its prime, a metaphor for the three mob hits the aging gunman has just successfully executed.

As the Q&A ended, veteran character actor Mike Starr (the hefty bowling alley employee from television’s “Ed”, 2000-2002) said, “They (the young filmmakers) have such passion. They really have it together. You’re gonna’ be amazed. I told the other guys, ‘You’re not getting in to some amateur production. This is as good as it gets.”

The only question now is whether, in this depressed economy, the film can find a savvy distributor to help it recoup its $2 million budget. Todd Slater of the Los Angeles-based Huntsman Entertainment is shopping it, but, as Associate Producer Chris Charles said, “We’ve had a lot of offers from smaller companies but we’ve been waiting patiently for the right buyer. We want an offer we can’t refuse.”

Second Annual Route 66 Festival Held at the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge in St. Louis on October 3, 2009

By Connie Wilson

On October 5, 2009

In Books, travel

The Second Annual Route 66 Festival at the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge was held on October 3 in St. Louis, and I was one of the featured speakers at the event.

My husband and I had to take “the scenic route” to St. Louis, via Route 61, in order to pick up Volume II of Ghostly Tales of Route 66, which was hot off the presses on Friday. This second volume in the trilogy documenting ghostly tales along the Mother Road has one story that revisits the Hanging Judge of Fort Smith, Arkansas, a precursor to Route 66, as outlined in the history of the road (p. 17).

Many of the stories were told me during the November 15, 2008 Ghost Tour at Fort El Reno, Oklahoma. Those include “Fort El Reno, Communing with the Spirits,” which tells the story of a very weird occurrence that happened to me during the four to five-hour tour; “The Buffalo Soldier of Fort El Reno, Oklahoma”; “The Mysterious Major of Fort El Reno”; and “The Strychnine Specter of Fort El Reno, Oklahoma.”

After the Oklahoma stories, the book moves on to the Texas Panhandle, New Mexico, and ends at the Arizona border. The final book in the trilogy will pick up in Arizona and take the readers through California, documenting stories told me as I traveled the route.

Pictured here are some pictures of the 70 vintage automobiles that were parked on the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge during the Antique Auto Contest. There were vendors…including the man with the seventy-pound pumpkins! (He was selling them at 40 cents a pound.)

After trying out the AmericInn Casino nearby, we all were thankful that, although it was cooler than last year’s Festival, there was no rain. A good time was had by all.

Loss of Cell Phone Can Cause Loss of Mind…for Mom

By Connie Wilson

On September 27, 2009

In Pop Culture, Science and Medicine

The young man on the phone asked for my daughter, with whom I had just been speaking….

Me: “She doesn’t live here. She was in college in Nashville and now she is working there. Can I help you?”

Verizon Guy: “Well, I’m from Verizon Wireless. We noticed that she just suspended her service with us, and we wanted to ask her why.”

Me: “Well, you should really be asking me. I’m the one who paid her phone bills all these years until she graduated August 14^th. What’s your question?”

Verizon Guy: “We wanted to know if she was dissatisfied with the service or….? Why did she break her contract with us?”

Me: “The service is great. The cost could definitely use some cutting, but the service was fine. She had to quit using Verizon, because she is going to be selling Sprint phones, and they frown on their employees using another service, which I’m sure you can understand. In fact, I was hoping that this fact would give her Papal Dispensation to not have to pay the breaking off fee or something… If you want to ask her about her experiences using Verizon over the years—which have been many and varied, including losing 9 cell phones and having her phone taken away twice in high school (service suspended) for failing to maintain a “B” average…I’ll be happy to give you her cell phone number. Trust me: it will be either in her hand or at her ear or mouth 90% of the time, so it shouldn’t be any problem for her to answer…And, by the way, suspending service is really a pain in the neck. You guys should work on making that an easier process; it works like a charm.” (A pause) I can give you her cell phone number…”

VG: “Oh, we’re not allowed to call anyone on their cell phones. If they’re driving, they might get in an accident.”

Me: “Trust me. I just hung up. She’s not driving. She’s sitting around at her boyfriend’s eating bon bons and waiting for him to get out of the shower so she can take him to work, because his car broke down. Go ahead and call her. I’ll give you her number…but I can tell you why she quit Verizon…, which, by the way, we are THRILLED about.just THRILLED. Do you know how much money we’ll save in just a month? True, she had to pay $140 to get out of her contract, but we’ll make that up in one month or less and, from now on, she will have to pay for her own phone bill and…more importantly, her own lost phones.”

VG: “Did your daughter have the insurance for lost phones?”

Me: “Yes, she did, but she used it entirely too frequently. Let me run this down for you….Phone #1: dropped it in the bathtub.

Phone #2: Dropped it in the toilet.

Phone #3: Dropped it in a swimming pool….

Now it gets more interesting and varied from this point on.

Phone #4: A man at Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard in Colona, Illinois called us up late one weekend night. He said, ‘A gentleman just found your daughter’s phone in a ditch outside and brought it in the store and we called the ‘home’ number.’ My husband went out and picked it up and thanked the kind man. How did her phone get in a ditch outside a Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard in Colona, Illinois? Beats the hell out of me!

Phone #5: Left it on the counter at the Coop Tape and Record Store in Iowa City, Iowa during her freshman year in school. (That one we got back).

Phone #6: Dropped it in a Porta-Potty at the fairgrounds. (That one we did NOT get back…nor did we WANT it back.)

Phone #7: Was stolen from her glove box while her car was sitting in our driveway, unlocked.

Phone #8: Left it in a cab in Chicago…a cab that drove away. Never got it back, but picture her running after the cab like a dog trying to bite the tires. Called the cab main office. Never saw the phone again.”

Phone #9: A bus ran over it in New York City while she was there doing a music business internship. Yes, we had the insurance for lost phones, which we always made her pay herself. Did it help? What do you think?

Now, she does not have insurance for lost phones because she chose to purchase a used cell phone on Craig list rather than pay $500, but she does get a special employee discount plan.

All the years she had her phone with Verizon, the bills were astronomical. It wasn’t until quite some time along that we found out we were paying 10 cents per text message and she had set the World Speed Record for texting. I swear to heaven, I don’t know how that many text messages can be sent in one day. No one at the store ever mentioned that there was a better way to pay for this, so we just kept getting astronomical bills until my sister-in-law clued me in that there was an “unlimited” option that would help.

However, when Verizon had their Blackberry Storm special, we both got them. This was right after the unfortunate city bus accident in New York City. We both took them back. Neither one of us liked them. I couldn’t work it at all. I need a button or a toggle or something. That flat screen was a mystery, and who wants all their computer messages scrolled across their phone without a password? Not me, said the Little Red Hen. What’s the point of having a password if the cell phone computer messages are just there for the world? Kind of defeats that option of the Internet, doesn’t it?

My husband and I got the simplest phone they had. . I don’t text. I don’t know how to take a picture. I can just barely work the message function. Hers? With a little tweaking, she could put herself in orbit!

When we found out that she was going to be working for Sprint, we were ecstatic! I said to my spouse, ‘I’ll bet you that we save at least $150 a month on our phone bills now!’ My husband doubted my claim. It escalated into one of those old-married-couple fights over who was right. I made him get the bill from last month out. It was over $300. Her share of that bill? $157! So, we are DELIGHTED that she is now going to be paying for her own cell phone usage AND her own cell phones, on her own dime. And how much will this service cost her, with the Super Duper phone that sends the Internet to you and all that rot, with Sprint? $35. She just has to hope she doesn’t lose Phone #10.”

VG: (Suppressed laughter). “What did your daughter say when you asked her about all the lost phones?

Me: “Well…I have always said she should become an attorney, because she LOVES to argue. She believes that “the best defense is a good offense.” She always tries to ‘deflect’ criticism away from herself by going on the attack and accusing you of something, sometimes something totally unrelated. She said to me: ‘Well, YOU lose things, too.”
VG: “What did you say to that?”

Me: “I said, ‘Yes, I lose things, but I have NEVER EVER lost a cell phone. Not that I couldn’t, but I just never have. Yet she has lost 9 phones since she began using one at about age 13, at a rate of one phone per year. Do you know what she said then…when I protested that neither her father nor I had ever lost OUR phones?

She said, ‘Well, I use my cell phone a lot more than you do.’

What’s that got to do with LOSING the phone you claim to use more than me? Wouldn’t that make you MORE careful about hanging on to it, since it is attached to the end of your arm (or ear) permanently? (Apparently not.). See what I mean about how she should go to law school and learn to argue for a living?”

There was a long pause.

Then the Verizon Guy said….

VG: “If she is at her home, could you give me that cell phone number, please?”

Me: “I can, and I will. I am delighted that someone other than me is going to have a conversation with her about her cell phone usage. Good luck with that, then.”
And I hung up.

R.I.P, Guido..and Good Luck Riding those Harleys to the Funeral

By Connie Wilson

On September 26, 2009

In Uncategorized

I don’t normally regale AC with stories of “personalities I have known and loved,” but I can’t help but comment on an obituary that recently appeared in a local paper, (which shall remain nameless.) It provided much food for thought. I mean no disrespect in my comments. I am apologizing in advance, so you know that someone will take me to task but remember: the names here (for the most part) are fictional.

I was sorry to see that a former student passed away at a relatively young age. (Defining “relatively young” is difficult. For me, it is anything under 100, but the former student was 52.)

What I remember about this student from my very first year of teaching is that, when I…. a brand-new teacher struggling to come up with creative writing assignments…. put 6 possible theme suggestions on the board, taken from a Scholastic Books Teachers’ Guide book I had been given, for the year’s first writing assignment, they all incensed the deceased. The deceased (well, NOW he’s deceased; at the time he was very much alive and kicking) protested that writing on ANY of these topics was “an invasion of my privacy.” Then he marched off to the Principal’s office.

The topics in the Scholastic Teachers’ Guide included a number of situational ethics ideas, which someone other than me who wrote for Scholastic Books had thought up. The topics seemed to make him uncomfortable. Here’s one example: “If you knew that your best friend had cheated on a test you were both taking, what would you do, if anything?”

There was also the hoary theme assignment (please no “hoary” jokes here), “What did you do over your summer vacation?” (I was really struggling and only 21 years old at the time to come up with interesting writing assignments, so bear with me.)

But nothing suited the young man, who protested the assignment by marching to the Principal’s office to loudly complain about the theme assignment, and I was then, of course, called on the carpet by the administration (although not as quickly as today’s teachers would be. Now, it is instantaneous to side with Junior and teachers are constantly hauled in to defend anything and everything! In my day (1969-1985) the administration was slightly more supportive. I explained why I had made the assignment and showed the Principal the book from Scholastic that he had given his first-year teacher to use. What he said to the student I do not know. Whether he wrote the paper I do not remember.

My take on this protest, from the vantage point of decades later: said student was trying to get out of writing a paper. Period. He had 6 choices and one of them was as tame as they come, unless he had spent his summer hijacking cars.

What I DO remember about the family and the children I taught (yes, there were 3 of them) later, his sister was shot in the butt in a “drive-by shooting” (pellet-gun) in a nearby city—okay, it was Rock Island, Illinois— very late on a Friday night. She was 12 at the time. For that matter, the deceased, Guy or “Guido,” if you prefer, was 12 at the time, too, and was with her at the time of the shooting. They claimed they were “caught in the crossfire” of a gang-related shooting.

Later, in a MacKenzie Phillips moment, the sister accused her father of incest, but then recanted before the in-house authorities would have had to notify the Family Services. These anecdotes may give you an idea of what I was dealing with in trying to teach English to 7^th and 8^th graders as a first-year teacher. (Five of my former students were on Death Row when former Governor George Ryan abolished it, just before going to jail himself for the drivers’ license scandal in Illinois.)

But what really struck me about this obituary I will reprint pretty much as it appeared, (minus the real surname(s) and some of the first names, of course.) “Guy was a commercial fisherman and worked construction in the Florida area. He never married. Since he loved living in Florida, and all his good friends are here, the family has decided to celebrate his life by riding Harleys to Florida next summer (written in early September) and chartering a boat to spread his ashes at sea.”
Every single member of the immediate family had a nickname, duly noted in the obituary. Furthermore, the entire family (men, women and children, are going to drive Harley Davidson motorcycles all the way to Florida (from the Midwest) for the funeral? Is this a cost-saving measure? (No casket, ergo, no funeral fees?)

I think of my 91-year-old mother-in-law on the back of a Harley. It just does not seem like a good plan. She fell down last week while walking across her lawn and got a concussion. Is everyone in the Vandella family young? I wonder what would happen if my mom or my husband’s mom or…perish the thought, me… were to try to come to a family funeral several states away on the back of a Harley, especially one driven by the individuals mentioned in the rest of the article? Would they risk being shot in the butt by a pellet-gun…or worse?

Is it even legal to scatter someone’s ashes at sea in this day of “let’s clean up our oceans” and anti-pollution sloganeering? [Don’t know; can’t tell you.]
But let’s read on, (with some of the first names and the last name definitely changed to protect the identity of the family):

Guy “Guido”Vandella, 52, of (fill in your own Florida city here) passed away at Solaris Innovative Hospice Care on (Fill in date of your choosing).

Per his request, cremation followed. (This was followed by information about where memorials could be made.)

“Guy was born on (fill in your own date here) in (fill in your own small Illinois city here). He was never married. He was a commercial fisherman, worked construction, and loved living in Florida. Since his friends are there, the family had decided to celebrate his life by riding Harleys to Florida next summer (written in balmy September, mind you) and will charter a boat to scatter his ashes at sea.”

This gave me pause. Especially when the survivors’ names followed:

Amy “Rose” Vandella (sister); Beth “Sissy” Vandella; John “Johnny Boy” Vandella; Kenny “The Hammer” Vandella, Brooklyn “J.K” Vandella, Myrna, “Big Momma” Vandella, and, my own personal favorite, Judy “Butch” Vandella.

Does anyone wonder why I quit teaching in this district? More importantly, does anyone want to be a fly on the wall when this family group gets on their Harleys, en masse, (come spring), and starts the trek to Florida from Illinois? Does anyone, (besides me) wonder why they don’t ride their motorcycles down there NOW, since it has been unseasonably warm and balmy? Why wait several months? Is the family motto “Better late than never”?

I know one thing: If I were going to this funeral, I would not want to be riding shotgun on Judy “Butch” Vandella’s Harley.

Republic Windows CEO Arrested in IL/IA Scandal

By Connie Wilson

On September 19, 2009

In Local, Of Local (Quad Cities') Interest

Last winter, in North Side Chicago, Republic Windows abruptly closed, leaving its employees in the lurch. The employees, led by their union representatives, refused to leave the premises, demanding that they be paid and saying that they were not given appropriate notice of management’s intent to close the plant. They refused to leave the premises and they refused to let the managers back into their offices.
That last bit of bravado in the case that received national attention is now turning out to be instrumental in what, according to Annie Sweeney and Matthew Walberg of the Chicago Tribune (front page, Friday, September 11, 2009), has turned out to be an unbelievably greedy and self-serving plan by Republic Windows CEO Richard Gillman to take the company’s equipment, transfer it secretly to Red Oak, Iowa, and continue being a window company…just not one that paid its employees for services rendered nor did anything else the “right” way.

Richard Gillman has been arrested and is being held on $10 million bail in the Cook County Jail. Prosecutors say, in a 56-page filing, that Gillman stole the assets of Republic Windows and then secretly trucked the equipment to the rural town of Red Oak, Iowa (population 6,000), where Gillman took over a company that had been in existence since 1986.

Ted Schoonover, the Mayor of Red Oak, whose wife was one of the employees of the window company, said that Gillman and Company then shut plant in Iowa down suddenly in February of 2009, throwing about 100 people in Red Oak out of work, 25% of whom are still unemployed. Said Schoonoever, in the Tribune 9/11 issue, “It was a very viable business. That’s why it was such a shock. It was pretty devastating, especially the way the economy was. To lose 100 some jobs in that economy was pretty tough.”

Gillman had taken over the Red Oak location, which was named Echo, on January 1^st, 2009, and he had promised to keep things running.

If the charges hold up in a court of law, Richard Gillman will not only have defrauded the employees of Republic Windows, but also those of Echo Windows in Red Oak, Iowa. Investigators have credited the Republic Windows employees who occupied the building, drawing national attention to the plight of the workers and those owed money by the company, [which added up to about $10 million to creditors (and employees) and more than $200,000 in cash that management misappropriated] with preventing management from re-entering the building and destroying the evidence that will now be used to (hopefully) convict them.

Management also loaded up 7 trailers and stored them at a secret location on the South Side of Chicago (Republic’s plant is on the North Side). Three of those trailers were driven to Red Oak. (Employees actually followed the trucks removing equipment, to see where it was being taken). Investigators have seized those trailers still at the South Side site as part of a search warrant executed on Wednesday, September 10, 2009.

The lengthy prosecution case rests on internal documents (those that were not able to be destroyed because the workers had taken the plant), including a Power Point presentation entitled, “How do you plug a $4 million hole?”

The sit-in drew national attention. The sit-in had support from politicians and officials from the banks that had lent Republic money to hammer out a solution with its disgruntled (and unpaid) employees. Eventually, the banks agreed to cover the costs of union workers’ severance pay and vacation pay, as well as 2 months’ of insurance for the shafted workers. It is reported that, at those meetings, Richard Gillman asked for a severance package for himself as well as a $90,000 allowance for his automobile.

Gillman’s attorney, Ed Genson, says that Gillman has “nothing to hide” regarding the sudden shuttering of Republic Windows, which makes you wonder how secretly raiding the equipment and till of the now-bankrupt company can be something that will speak in Gillman’s favor? Hiding 7 tractor-trailers of equipment across town and then secretly moving then to a new location to start a similar business (which closed within 2 months) doesn’t seem quite “kosher.” Genes, Gillman’s attorney, maintains, however, that GE (the company that held the plant equipment as collateral) knew the equipment was being removed. Said Genson: “We have the guy who notified GE. They knew the stuff wasn’t being stolen. It wasn’t a diversion of assets. GE knew they were doing it.”

This may be true, but it does not speak to the failure to properly compensate the Republic employees, nor to honor the word given to the city fathers of Red Oak when Gillman launched Echo Windows. Prosecutors have what they refer to as “the smoking gun,” a document that lays out the plan to spirit the equipment away without the knowledge of creditors. The term used by company management in “the smoking gun” plan: “blitz” moves. (Certainly sounds like an up-and-up operation.)

Interestingly enough, Ed Genson, Richard Gillman’s attorney said: “He (former Republic CEO Gillman) gave a statement to the Bankruptcy Court without a lawyer. He gave a statement to the attorney general without a lawyer, and he gave a statement to state’s attorney without a lawyer. He hasn’t been stonewalling. He did it because he has nothing to hide.” (A cynical reader is tempted to say, “Either that, or he made a very stupid series of statements.”)
(*Stay tuned for further developments as the case moves through the courts. And please feel free to comment.)

Please Do Not Feed the Water Fowl

By Connie Wilson

On September 14, 2009

In Books, Local, Of Local (Quad Cities') Interest

Eight of them, silhouetted against the paddlewheel steamboat…four boys, four girls.

They slouch there, ill-at-ease in their unaccustomed finery.

The I74 bridge looms behind them in the distance.

One girl, chilled by the spring breeze, wears her date’s jacket slung casually around her shoulders. She stares at the ground. Is she thinking about the night ahead? Is she thinking about the future, as she shivers, clutching her evening bag?

“Are we grown? Are we ready?”

The blond athletic-looking boy in the white Saturday Night Fever suit and white shoes wears a turquoise tie and matching handkerchief. He coordinates with his date’s turquoise strapless formal.

Willl they always be this in tune with each other, this harmonious? Are they a couple only for now, only for tonight, only at this moment in time?

He squints, staring at the camera.

“Are we grown? Are we ready? Are we having fun yet?”

What lies across that bridge…across the Mississippi River…across time?

What does the future hold when Prom night ends?

“Are we grown? Are we ready?

In youth, the future stretches out forever, spins on like an endless ribbon, an eternity of time, an infinite river of days and nights and dances and dates. But this is Prom night, and the end of high school is near.

“Are we grown? Are we ready?”

The sign reads: “Please do not feed the waterfowl.”

If only there were other signs. Signs to instruct. Signs to warn about the future.

For now, it is just “Please do not feed the waterfowl.”

(Public reading at either the Midwest Writing Center or in the Rock Island District at 7 p.m. on Thursday, October 22nd. I will be present with copies of 3 of my previous books: “Both Sides Now” (some poetry included); “Ghosts of Route 66” (Vol I); and “Out of Time,” a novel.)

U2 Launches Tour in Chicago’s Soldier Field on 9/12 and 9/13

By Connie Wilson

On September 14, 2009

In Music, Reviews

After U2 kicked off the American leg of its current tour in Chicago at Soldier Field on Saturday, September 12^th, the term “suit of lights” will have to take on new meaning. It always used to mean a toreador’s suit in the bullring. But in the three-song encore portion of U2’s fantastic new show, Bono is attired in a suit of actual lights…red ones…and he uses a round hanging microphone that intermittently glows red or blue and from which he dangles, at one point.

The arena show is groundbreaking in another respect: the huge claw-footed space-age spaceship stage. The stage looks like a reject from the Terminator movies or half a lobster. The creative team, headed by show designer and direction guru Willie Williams and executed by Mark Fisher, (who has been integral to the band’s creative sets since PopMart and Zoo TV allowed video to really add to a show’s impact), was immense, and was originally assembled in the tiny village of Werchter, in Belgium. That is because it was built by the Belgian company Stageco, using a high pressure hydraulic system. According to details on U2’s website (www.U2.com), the stage center pylon is 150 feet tall and the rest of the stage is 90 feet tall. It will support 180 tons of video screens, made up of 1 million pieces which take 4 days to assemble. The screen is 500,000 pixels and has 320,000 fasteners. It takes 12 days to load in the screen, stage and universal production equipment, 6 hours to dismantle it, and 2 days to dismantle it and load it out of the stadium.

The next concert, after Chicago, is at Rogers Centre in Toronto on 9/16 and 9/17, followed by Foxborough’s Gillette Stadium on 9/20 and 9/21; Giants Stadium in East Rutherford (NJ) on 9/23 and 9/24; Fedexfield Landover on 9/29; Scott Stadium in Charlottesville on 10/01; Carter-Finley Stadium in Raleigh (NC) on 10/03; Atlanta’s Georgia Dome on 10/06; the Raymond James Stadium in Tampa (FL) on 10/08; the New Dallas Cowboys Stadium on 10/12; the Reliant Stadium in Houston on 10/14; the Oklahoma Memorial Stium North on 10/18; the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale (AZ) on 10/20) ; the Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas (NV) on 10/23; the Rose Bowl in Pasadena (CA) on 10/25; and BC Place in Vancouver (British Columbia) on 10/28. All those places are in for a treat!

The program quote from Williams: “Mark Fisher has been my Siamese twin in the thinking behind U2 productions since PopMart. He’s an architect with unrivalled experience in building rock shows, so his sense of whether something will work is critical. He sent me some initial sketches of the LAX Theme Building across a football pitch…It’s the Theme Building at LAX, Los Angeles International Airport, that crystalized it for me. It’s a very space age looking restaurant with four legs and very sleek curves, and when I imagined it straddling a football pitch (field), I knew I was on to something.”

Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullins, Jr., were definitely on to something and greenlighted the idea in April after it germinated for quite some time. The something they were on to added up to a spectacular sound-and-light show for the stadium crowd, with the band starting off with songs from their newest album (I only like “Boots,” which they played on “Letterman” and elsewhere). They moved on to the crowd favorites for the final 2/3 of the show, such as “Beautiful Day,” “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” “Vertigo,” “Sunday, Bloody Sunday,” “Where the Streets Have No Name” and (as one of the three encore numbers), my personal favorite, “With or Without You.” Their lead-in act was Snow Patrol (at 7:00 p.m.) and U2 played from 8:30 p.m. until approximately 11:30 p.m. with no real intermission.

During the playing of “Walk On,” audience members were encouraged to place a pop out life-sized facemask of Aung San Suu Kyi (contained in the program over their own faces. Who, you ask, is Aung San Suu Kyi? She is Burma’s democratic leader and a Nobel Peace Prize winner whose party, the National League for Democracy, won the elections in 1990, after which the ruling junta placed her under house arrest, where she has remained for the past 14 years. With an election looming in 2010, Aung San Suu Kyi will not be allowed to run for office because she would win. The other program notes of a political sort detailed how the military dictatorship is trying to wipe out ethnic people in Eastern Burma with 3,300 villages destroyed in the past 15 years and rape routinely used as a weapon of war against females as young as 5. More than 2,100 political prisoners crowd Burma’s jails while an oppressive dictatorship and ruling military junta continues in office, refusing to give way to those democratically elected.

On a happier note, reviews of the show, which premiered on U.S. soil in Chicago on Saturday, September 12^th, from Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune were glowing. Kot declared that the 70,000 plus audience had seen “one of the best stage shows of the past 10 years” and further noted in his review, “Stadium concerts usually tend to feel puffed up and bombastic, but this was downright strange—and wonderfully so.”

During the “Vertigo” and “Elevation” tours, Bono physically ran a track-like stage that was circular in one case and heart-shaped in another. There were also hanging light-up emblems denoting the world’s major religions dangling as changing lighted strands in the indoor show, but this arena show had a huge circular speaker/screen nestled amidst the lobster-claw legs that projected a green clock upon opening, followed by both close-ups of the band and film of space from NASA. The rest of the time, the screen either changed colors dramatically or depicted the band members.

There were also a couple of small bridges (I immediately thought of the Stones’ “Bridges to Babylon” tour) and, at one point, Bono ran the track with a small boy from the audience, only to collapse as though exhausted and lie there for several long moments before resuming singing.

Bono declared, “The 360 Show was designed to make our audience the 5^th member of the band.” Even from the second tier of seats, you entered into the spirit of the sold-out show. One program note declared, “There may be another band with the imagination, ambition and courage to do something like this…but I can’t think who they would be.”

For the far more veteran Rolling Stones, those might be fighting words, as their Steel Wheels Tour way-back-when featured an impressive array of pyrotechnics and a huge proscenium stage, but we’ll all have to wait to see if the gauntlet that has been verbally thrown down by U2 is picked up by the much more senior bad boys from Britain.

Hawaii Writers Conference

By Connie Wilson

On September 13, 2009

In Books, travel

Joe Wilson (R/SC) and Lying Liars Everywhere

By Connie Wilson

On September 11, 2009

In Politics

Someone smarter than me on www.FactCheck.Org said it first: “If there’s anything the health care debate has made clear it is that the public is starving for the truth.”

I am tempted to say, by way of a humorous aside, “Ain’t it the truth?”

I watched President Obama’s address to Congress on Wednesday, September 9^th along with the rest of the nation and applauded when he said, “I am not the first president to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last.” There were other stirring lines which I could repeat here, but the Big Debate to come out of the night concerns the outburst of Representative Joe Wilson (R, South Carolina) who blurted out “You lie!” when Obama said that the health care bill would not cover illegal aliens.

Truth is in short supply now; perhaps it has been ever thus.

This episode during Obama’s Congressional speech came on the heels of several lies I, personally, experienced recently.

First, I was lied to, in print (I have the e-mail of Aug. 25^th), by a Pulitzer Prize winning writer (who shall remain nameless). Ironically, this very same well-known writer (I heard his latest book has risen as high as Number 4 on the New York Times list) then proceeded to give an address in which he delivered a message to the effect that he “could not live in a world without truth.” My advice to this guy: try telling the truth, yourself, then, for a change! I’d like to be more specific about this writer’s identity, since it was obvious he was working behind-the-scenes hammer-and-tongs to pull a fast one, but was lying about it in writing. And that same nonfiction writer, Mr. Pulitzer, then lied to me to my face. What have we cone to, as a nation, if you can’t even trust those we elevate to pedestals? Whatever happened to George Washington and the cherry tree story, apocryphal though it may have been?

Second, I listened to a speech given by one of my favorite writing conference speakers, James Strauss, who has been or is a writer for “Deadwood,” “John from Cincinnati,” “House” and other television shows. Now writing novels (The Boy), Jim—who lives in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin because (among other reasons) he cannot abide the incessant stream of untruths that emanate from Hollywood types—told a story about Hollywood wheeler-dealers in which he quoted Hollywood PTB as saying, “We lie, and we tell you that we lie.”

From there, Strauss went on to relate a story of how David Morrell of “Rambo” fame had commiserated with him at a writing conference about the rights to all subsequent “Rambo” films being stolen from him by a famous Hollywood producer “after the first one.” I have heard Morrell speak (“Love Is Murder”) about how having a savvy lawyer when dealing with Hollywood is absolutely essential. I remember, while interviewing Morrell by phone, he was waiting for his agent to call with news of the plans to make yet another “Rambo” movie (the last one), something the author of the piece had learned about only secondhand. Sad.

Thirdly, I received an e-mail from an ex-collaborator claiming he had been responsible for a Joe Hill interview. I wrote the entire introduction for the interview (and more than half of the questions), and also set it up, in person, solo, with Joe’s agent, Seale Ballenger and Joe, himself, at a BEA Conference in New York City. Yet, in O.J.-like fashion, this individual (who did not even know that Joe Hill was Stephen King’s son until I clued him in) has somehow convinced himself that he alone did the real work on the interview. He also sent me forth to do the lion’s share of the work under false pretenses, telling me that he had sold the interview to “Cemetery Dance” magazine. I set up the details of the interview under this assumption. Once again, I had been lied to. The interview had not been sold to “Cemetery Dance” at all, but to a far less respectable magazine, one so lurid you really don’t want to have copies of it lying about in your house where someone might see it. So, I was lied to about the journal where the interview was going to appear. Therefore, unintentionally, I misrepresented the journal that would be publishing the piece to Joe Hill and his agent. [I wish to apologize to Joe and Seale with the explanation rendered here.]

So, we’ve established that lies and lying liars abound in the land. It’s not confined to low-lifes if Senators and Pulitzer prizewinners are equally guilty. The recent hearings that went on around the country, where organized groups shouted down their elected representatives as those representatives tried to explain the proposed health care bill was a particularly egregious example of lies and lying liars. Senator Chuck Grassley (R, IA) and his “pulling the plug on Grandma” comments to constituents made the news. (I noticed that the camera did not find Senator Grassley during Obama’s history-making address to Congress, only the fifteenth time since 1952 that such a joint address to Congress by a sitting president has taken place.)

I watched the Obama speech with appreciation of its tone and the statements made. I also listened to Charlie Rose and a panel dissect it, later, and declare, “the weakest part was the cost section.” Joe Scarborough said (on Charlie Rose), “The speech went well. I thought it was a great speech,” but all on the panel agreed “It is going to be a very messy process for the next 7 weeks.” As good as the speech was, when there are Representatives in the crowd who don’t understand that civility in the face of disagreement is still necessary, the final result is going to be a Joe Wilson who came up with what Senator John McCain (R, AZ) declared was a “totally disrespectful” example of what the majority party is up against.

For the record, Joe Wilson’s apology went something like this: “This evening, I let my emotions get the best of me when listening to the President’s remarks regarding the coverage of illegal immigrants in the health care bill. While I disagree with the President’s statements, my comments were inappropriate and regrettable. I extend sincere apologies to the president for this lack of civility.”

First of all, www.FactCheck.org on September 10^th, 2009 determined that the president was not lying. “Obama was correct when he said his plan wouldn’t insure illegal immigrants. The House Bill expressly forbids giving subsidies to those who are in the country illegally.” The specific section of the bill is Section 246, where it says, “Nothing in the subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States.” Of course, the Republican organ www.Newsmax.com interviewed Steven Camarota, Director of Research for the Center for Immigration Studies, who said, “Wilson’s comment is correct in that the normal enforcement mechanism was excluded from the bill. I think that’s the fundamental question.”

Not me. I think the fundamental question is lying as a national pastime. If you can’t trust your Pulitzer prize-winning journalists and your Senators, and people you are trying to collaborate with while doing 90% of the real work and, of course, some of our presidents (yellow uranium cake ore, anyone?), who can you trust any more?

Man with Butcher Knife Takes Hostage in Downtown Chicago and is Shot and Killed by Police

By Connie Wilson

On August 27, 2009

In News

As I was driving in to Chicago today, about 1 p.m., the WLS team reported that a 6’ 7” inch male in his fifties had been shot and killed by Chicago police in the downtown theater district, near the Chicago Theater at State and Randolph Streets. The WLS team was agog that the shooting took place less than 50 yards from their offices.

Two Channel 7 photographers were outside smoking and, as a result, ended up as witnesses to the entire event. (“Thank God people still smoke!” said one on-air talking head.)

The man who was shot was described as “an over-aggressive panhandler” who was apparently using a large butcher knife to make his point. This caused understandable stress for the streets, which were full at the time, as it was the lunch hour. Because it was the lunch hour and the original Marshall Fields (now Macy’s) flagship store and a Border’s bookstore are nearby, there were a number of people in the street who witnessed the incident.

Pepper spray was initially used on the man, but it did nothing. The man with the knife took an older gentleman hostage and, in preliminary reports, the radio people said that he was pulled from the man and then held the knife to the throat of a woman, who was described as “curled in the fetal position against the curb” before she was taken away by ambulance. I watched the news later in the day, and there was no mention of a female hostage, but the fact that a man with a butcher knife was menacing people in broad daylight in one of the busiest parts of town went unquestioned.
The real kicker to the story is that 5 to 10 shots were fired, and one of them hit an officer who, fortunately, was wearing a bulletproof vest, so that he sustained only minor injuries. (A local police official said the bullet did not penetrate the vest and the worst the injured 11-year veteran officer might have suffered would be bruised ribs and a bruise at the site of the shot.) The two officers firing their weapons had a combined total of 27 years of experience on the force, and the commanding officer conducting the news conference on the 6 p.m. news, when asked why the officers did not use tasers, said the policemen did not have tasers with them and, “We had a man who was trying to murder someone right in front of officers,” which the officer seemed to be saying justified shooting the panhandler up to ten times.

Anthony Porse, a young African-American bystander who was interviewed by the WGN newscasters on the 6 o’clock news said, “I never saw anything like this happen in broad daylight.” (near State and Lake). Bobby Polk, another eyewitness interviewed said that he heard four shots and vouched for the fact that the officers told the man with the knife to put down his weapon and release the hostage three separate times.

I will not be shopping at Macy’s downtown store in the foreseeable future.