Tag: Connie Corcoran Wilson Page 9 of 11

Book Signing(s) in Chicago for June 12, 13, 19

On June 11, 2010

Author to Sign Books in Drury Design June 19^th from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. During First Glen Ellyn Book Fair

Author Connie (Corcoran) Wilson will be signing 6 of her most recent book releases within Drury Design from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m. on Saturday, June 19^th, as part of the first Glen Ellyn Book Fair. Nearly all of Mrs. Wilson’s books are priced at (approximately) $10, (with the exception of her 80,000 word novel.) Three form a trilogy of true ghost stories, including pictures taken during a 2,800 mile journey along Route 66 in November of 2008 that took the author on the Fort El Reno (Oklahoma) Ghost Tour, the last tour of the Fort’s season.

Connie will also be at Table #164 (Quadrant #2) on Saturday, June 12, from 10 to 2, and on Sunday, June 13th, from 2 to 6 p.m., at Printers Row in Chicago, downtown on Dearborn Street.

Wilson is a long-time writer (54 years) of both nonfiction and fiction, with a teaching career spanning 41 years spent as adjunct faculty at 6 IA/IL colleges. She has published 8 books covering many genres. There’s literally “something for everyone” in her books published by 6 small independent publishers since 2002.

She began writing at age 10 for her hometown (Independence, Iowa) newspaper and continued writing in high school, college and beyond, while studying at Iowa, Berkeley, Northern Illinois University and the University of Chicago..

Connie attended the University of Iowa on a Ferner-Hearst Journalism Scholarship and graduated as an English major with a Journalism minor. She taught writing both to junior high school students and to college students in writing classes at every college in the Illinois/Iowa Quad Cities. She has also interviewed many famous writers for publication, including Kurt Vonnegut, John Irving, David Morrell, Anne Perry, William F. Nolan, Frederik Pohl and Joe Hill. Recently, she attended the Hawaii Writers’ Conference and she will be at Table 164 at Printers Row on June 12 and June 13. On May 8^th she helped head up the First Annual Quad City Book Fair in Davenport, Iowa.

Wilson’s early writing was primarily for 7 newspapers, including 15 years (1970-1985) spent serving as the film and book critic for the Quad City Times (Davenport, IA) while employed full-time as a teacher at Silvis (IL) Junior High School. In 1987 Connie founded the second Sylvan Learning Center in the state of Iowa (Bettendorf, Iowa) and in 1995, she founded a Prometric Testing Center. She served as CEO of both businesses while also writing humor columns for the Moline (Illinois) Dispatch and raising 2 children with her husband of 43 years, Craig.

Today, she writes regularly for 7 blogs, including Associated Content, which named her its Content Producer of the Year for her political coverage during the 2008 presidential campaign (AC is a Top 50 blog and was recently bought by Yahoo). She also has her own blog, www.WeeklyWilson.com. You can find more information about the author at www.ConnieCWilson.com.

Today, Connie continues to review film and television for www.GetYourGoodNews.com , an online newspaper in the Quad Cities, and she has written for www.blogforiowa.com (archived); www.speakaboutit.com (archived); www.JollyJo.com (second coming stories); and www.helium.com (archived). On March 20th of this year, Connie was named the Writer of the Year by the (Davenport, Iowa) Midwest Writing Center, receiving its David R. Collins Memorial Award.

With the sale of both her businesses in 2002, Connie (Corcoran) Wilson has turned her attention to writing longer works. She has published 6 books since 2002 and 8, total (none of them self-published).

Her most recent release is the third book (Volume III) in a trilogy of true ghost stories set along Route 66, entitled Ghostly Tales of Route 66. (www.GhostlyTalesofRoute66.com). The books are PG-rated, small and amply illustrated, beginning in Chicago with Volume I and moving along the Mother Road as far as Oklahoma. Volume II picks up in Ft. Smith, Arkansas, site of an earlier version of the route, and takes the reader to Arizona. The final volume (Vol. III) goes from Arizona to California and was just released on June 4th.

On May 27^th, Connie was at BookExpo America signing copies of her short story collection Hellfire & Damnation (www.HellfireandDamnationtheBook.com), a collection of short stories with the unifying theme of the sins punished at each of the 9 circles of Hell in Dante’s Inferno. With an introduction by William F. Nolan, the 15-story collection has been widely praised and is nominated for the Horror Writers’ Association Bram Stoker Award this year.

In 2004, Connie collected her previously published Dispatch humor columns to produce Both Sides Now, a collection of David Sedaris-like humorous essays. In December of 2008 Lachesis Published her first collaborative novel, a romantic sci-fi thriller entitled Out of Time (www.OutofTimetheNovel.com), which was pitched to the producer of the Transformers movies in Burbank, California in June.

By August, ARCs (Advanced Reader Copies) of It Came from the ‘70s: From ‘The Godfather’ to ‘Apocalypse Now’ will be released from a small Rhode Island publisher (The Merry Blacksmith). The book is a 250 page nonfiction compilation of 50 movie reviews Connie wrote for the Quad City Times between 1970 to 1979, with an illustration every 3 pages, major cast, and interactive trivia (“Who did the studio really want to play Rocky in the movie of the same name?” Answers are upside down on the page; no fair cheating.)

As she said of the book, “Each review is like a tiny time capsule; the book could never be written this way today, as the reviews were written when movie classics like The Godfather, Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Alien were new. It might mention that Sally Field was on Johnny Carson that night, talking about Alien, for instance.”

Stop by Drury Designs and get a signed copy of Connie’s books. The ghost book trilogy, if purchased as a set of 3m receives a $5 discount from the individual price of $9.95. Check the blogs above, as video trailers appear there for Hellfire & Damnation and Out of Time.

Since 2004, Connie has also been the owner of a condo in the Central Station District of Chicago (Lakeside on the Park), keeping her in touch with her 14-month old twin granddaughters, who live with her son, Scott and his wife, Jessica, in Bridgeport.

BEA (Book Expo America) in New York City, May 25-May 27

By Connie Wilson

On May 23, 2010

In Books, Pop Culture, Reviews, travel

http://edelweiss.abovethetreeline.com/ProductDetailPage.aspx?audienceGroup=6098&sku=1935590073

Follow that link and read about the book I’m taking to the BEA, “Hellfire and Damnation.” I’ll be signing on May 27th at 2 p.m.

Clarification of Review Below

By Connie Wilson

On February 3, 2010

In Books, Reviews

In response to a reader’s comment, I wanted to clarify that the review of Hellfire and Damnation (www.HellfireandDamnationtheBook.com) that appears below, it was sent me by the reviewer, Adam Groves, who agreed to review the book in electronic format (early). As he states, it is posted on his his blog at this time, where you can (also) see it.

REVIEW of “Hellfire & Damnation” (www.HellfireandDamnationtheBook.com)

By Connie Wilson

On February 2, 2010

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

Just letting you know that my review of HELLFIRE AND DMANATION is now up at http://www.fright.com/edge/HellfireAndDamnation.htm

I liked the book a lot–hopefully my review will help spread the word!

–Best,
Adam Groves
On&off Productions

HELLFIRE & DAMNATION
By CONNIE CONCORAN WILSON (Sam’s Dot Press; 2009)

In horror fiction, as in most any other sort, true originality is an increasingly rare commodity. But it does exist, as proven by Connie Wilson’s HELLFIRE AND DAMNATION, an anthology that is genuinely, blazingly original.

The collection is rigorously structured around the nine circles of Hell as laid out in Dante’s INFERNO, yet the contents couldn’t be more varied in subject matter. What unites them is the unerringly rational, straightforward prose, which is unlike anything else in horror fiction (usually typified by subjective “you-are-there” descriptions). Stylistically it’s not unlike Wilson’s previous book GHOSTLY TALES OF ROUTE 66, a journalistic compendium of American folklore that was likewise distinguished by its novelty. HELLFIRE AND DAMNATION, however, far outpaces the earlier volume in every respect.

“Hotter Than Hell,” categorized under the Gates of Hell, starts things off. Inspired by the final words of real death row inmates, it’s a gritty and depressing account of prison life.

From there we move into the first circle of Hell, where Pagan souls reside. Illustrating this is “Rachel and David,” set in Webster Groves, Missouri, and apparently based on folklore from that region. It’s about a young couple and their fateful meeting with two odd kids.

In Circle Two, Lust, we have three stories. The first, “Love Never Dies,” is a strange little number set in ancient Rome and headlined by an undead prostitute! “Konerak” takes a real-life incident, of the man who almost escaped the clutches of the late Jeffrey Dahmer, and spins a wild tale of Oriental sorcery emerging from the Hmong of Laos, who fought for the United States against the Viet Cong (obviously this is the only place you’ll find Eastern mysticism, Jeffrey Dahmer and the Vietnam War combined). “Effie, We hardly Knew Ye!” is another folklore-based tale, this one of an Oklahoma City hotel haunted by the spirit of its founder’s wronged mistress.

Circle Three is Gluttony, as represented by “Amazing Andy, the Wonder Chicken.” In this tale a chicken gets its head cut off and still lives–and I’ll leave you to discover the rest of it on your own.

From there it’s on to the circle of Hoarders and Wasters, with “The Lemp Mansion Curse,” a jaunty account of a family curse, and “Queen Bee,” about an all-too appropriate revenge taken on a woman whose personality and social standing are accurately encompassed by the title.

Circle Five is the Wrathful. It contains “The Ghost Girl of Howard “Pappy” Litch Park,” set along the author’s favorite highway, Route 66. Here, in what may or may not be a fact-based tale, a father’s wrath causes his young daughter to be whisked away…but glimpses of the girl can of course still be seen in the area.

Heretics populate the Sixth Circle, containing the quietly unnerving “Hell to Pay.” It combines a look into Amish life with an intriguing speculation on the origins of schizophrenia and multiple sclerosis. Also in the Heretics circle is “On Eagles’ Wings,” concerning a weird cultist, a young girl and an unhealthy obsession with birds.

Circle Number Seven is reserved for The Violent. It begins with “Going Through Hell,” about a serial killer and his woman police officer victim, and continues with “Living in Hell,” about a young boy who visualizes a serial killer’s crimes in nightmares. This tale is particularly shivery: the concept isn’t terribly original, but the nasty subject matter and clinical prose make for a skin-crawling read.

Circle Eight consists of The Fraudulent, represented by “Confessions of an Apotemnophile.” That word refers to an person desiring to amputate his own limbs, in this case a man who’s harbored an all-consuming desire to lose his legs ever since conversing with a like-minded individual as a child.

Circle Nine is the final circle, featuring “An American Girl,” the collection’s creepiest story. Its subject is the factual murder of a teenage girl in snowy Illinois, with the bulk of the tale taken up with a methodical depiction of the pubescent killers’ attempts at disposing of the corpse.

You won’t find another collection like this one. Some readers, I’m sure, will be put off by its oddness, yet it fulfills most every expectation one might have for a horror anthology, being readable, entertaining and deeply unsettling in a manner unique to itself.

Fifty Fun Facts Featuring Elvis

By Connie Wilson

On January 17, 2010

In Humor and Weird Wilson-isms, Movies, Music, Pop Culture

Elvis recently had a birthday (he turned 75) and I ignored his birthday, at the time, just like I try to ignore my own birthdays.

A McCarthy newspaper writer named Valerie Kellogg wrote “75 Things You May Not Know About Elvis” at the time of his birthday. Some of them amused me…not all, but some. Plus, we recently visited Graceland in Memphis, so I decided to throw out the less-interesting or more well-known “things you might not know” about Elvis, insert a few of my own, and shorten Kellogg’s article to a mere fifty. So here goes:

1) Elvis’ first 2 recorded songs cost him $4 at Sun Studios in Memphis, where he recorded “My Happiness” and “That’s When Your Heartaches Begin” as a gift for his mother, Gladys.

2) Elvis is Norse for “all wise.”

3) When he was 15 months old, Elvis almost died in a Tupelo, Mississippi tornado, which would have meant that he would have joined his dead-at-birth twin Aaron.

4) At age 1, Elvis enthusiastically joined an Assembly of God church service choir in singing, wriggling away from his mother’s grasp to do so.

5) At age 10, Elvis placed fifth singing “Old Shep” at a children’s talent show, thereby surpassing Michael Jordan, who got cut from one of his first basketball teams.

6) Songs recorded: anywhere from 600 to 1,200. [With mixes like “A Little Less Conversation” being released many years after his death, that number could change.]

7) Sometimes, Elvis would sign “Elvis” on a female fan’s left breast and “Presley” on the right. (There is no truth to the rumor that this gave rise to the term “double-breasted.”)

8) Elvis’ maternal grandmother was Jewish, so Elvis added a Star of David to his mother’s gravestone in the mid-sixties. (Since most of the family is buried out back at Graceland in a weird circle that tourists visit, I assume it is this tombstone. It is just a stone’s throw from the really small tea-cup-sized swimming pool that looks like it belongs behind a Hampton Inn in St. Louis.)

9) Other ethnic derivation for Elvis Presley: Scottish, Irish, German, Welsh, Cherokee Indian and French. (A little something for everyone.)

10) “Can’t Help Falling in Love”, a 1961 Presley hit, is set to the melody “Plaisir D’Amour,” an 18^th century French love song.

11) Presley hated fish. He wouldn’t allow Priscilla to eat fish at Graceland. We all know he loved fatty, deep-fried goodies, and he also loved biscuits and gravy, potato/cheese soup and meatloaf with mushroom gravy. The dining room table at Graceland, however, was not very large, (considering Elvis’ fame and fortune). It is hard to imagine seating more than 11 or 12 comfortably in the cramped dining room. The room isn’t big enough and the table isn’t big enough.

12) Presley preferred sponge baths.

13) Presley worked as an usher at Lowe’s State movie theater in Memphis. He was fired when he was discovered taking free candy from the girl working the concession stand.

14) Presley was honored, while in the Army, by his commanding officers for “cheerfulness and drive and continually outstanding leadership ability.”

15) Germans called Presley “the rock-and-roll matador.”

16) Elvis smoked thin German cigars.

17) Elvis’ big disappointment while in Germany in the Army? He never got to meet Brigitte Bardot. (I think we can all relate to that.)

18) Presley’s movie idol? Tony Curtis.

19) Hair dye used? Miss Clairol 51D, “Black Velvet” and “mink brown” by Paramount, to make his hair look black onscreen in movies. He once dyed his hair with black shoe polish in his do-it-yourself days. He also dyed his eyelashes, which caused him health problems later in life. (Good thing he didn’t EAT the dye).

20) In 1956, Elvis made “Love Me Tender” and in 1957, he did “Loving You.” In the hiatus between filming these two epics, he had plastic surgery on his nose, had his teeth capped, and had his acne professionally treated.

21) Elvis dated Natalie Wood, but only for a very brief period. He said he didn’t like the way she smelled. (No report on what Natalie Wood thought of the sponge-bathing Elvis’ scent.)

22) “Unchained Melody” was a song he only performed during the last 6 months of his life.

23) Unverified reports claim Elvis’ range spanned three octaves, but unverified reports of the day also said that the Colonel (Tom Parker) would have another singer interpret the song while Elvis listened and then Elvis would record the song after hearing it sung by someone else. It is also true that Elvis never did a World Tour, which was because of legal problems that Colonel Tom Parker, his dictatorial manager, faced in travel outside the country. (The Colonel had passport problems.)

24) Presley had a slight stutter.

25) Elvis used A&D ointment to keep his lips soft.

26) Elvis recorded 15 songs with the word “blue” in the title.

27) Some strangely titled Elvis songs include: “Queenie Wahini’s Papaya,” “Yoga Is as Yoga Does,” “There’s No Room to Rhumba in a Sports Car.”

28) Elvis began using “Also Sprach Zarathustra,” a 19^th century Strauss tone poem and theme of the 1968 movie “2001: A Space Odyssey” because he liked its rhythm and movements.

29) UK viewers couldn’t see Elvis much-vaunted TV special “Aloha from Hawaii” because the BBC refused to pay the price for the 1972 concert.

30) Presley and the Beatles met at his BelAir, California house in 1965, after Colonel Tom Parker forced Elvis to invite the Fab Five over. That same year, Elvis talked about joining a monastery. No word on whether he discussed entering a monastery before or after meeting the Beatles, who ended his reign as undisputed King of Rock ‘n Roll.

31) Presley met Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys in 1975 but Wilson says that the meeting went badly. Wilson made an unexpected karate move on Presley, after Presley had asked him specifically not to do so. (I now understand why Brian Wilson spent so many years alone “in his room”).

32) When Presley met Richard Nixon in 1970, Tricky Dick said: “You dress kind of strange, don’t you? Elvis replied, “Well, Mr. President, you got your show, and I got mine.” We didn’t find out the extent of Nixon’s “show” until Watergate, but it’s not hard to imagine Elvis drawling that statement to Nixon.

33) The Washington Post broke the news of that secret meeting between Nixon and Presley. [I think we’ve all heard the stories of Presley’s fascination with law and law enforcement, his desire to be named a ‘special agent,’ etc.]

34) When Presley met Muhammad Ali, he gifted the boxer with a robe that said “The People’s Champion.” Ali, for his part, gave Presley boxing gloves that said, “You’re the greatest.” [This surprises and confuses me. I thought Ali was “the greatest?” The two probably should have traded gifts.]

35) Once, after receiving a kidnap/assassination threat, Elvis performed with a pistol in each boot.

36) In the early 1970’s, Presley would impersonate a police officer and pull people over and hand out autographs. He had purchased police equipment for his 36^th birthday.

37) Some members of the Memphis Mafia called Presley “Crazy.” He turned down the opportunity to play Kris Kristofferson’s role in “A Star Is Born” opposite Barbra Streisand, because the Colonel wouldn’t let him take the part. The chance was a career-making comeback opportunity, and ex-wife Priscilla urged him to take the role. Now THAT was “crazy.” What was NOT crazy was the way Priscila turned Graceland into a moneymaker after Elvis’ death.

38) Once, while showing a woman a karate move in his Las Vegas hotel suite, he broke her ankle. (Sounds like an instant replay of the Brian Wilson bad meeting.)

39) In Chinese astrology, Presley’s sign was “the dog.”

40) Four psychics told actor Patrick Swayze that Elvis was his guardian angel. If so, Elvis didn’t do a very good job of watching over the recently deceased actor, who died too young of pancreatic cancer.

41) The year before he died, Presley was prescribed about 10,000 pills. (I wonder what the count against Michael Jackson’s final year would be: which would score highest?)

42) When Presley played Madison Square Garden in 1972, he rented the New York Hilton’s top floor.

43) Presley’s pet turtle’s name was Bowtie.

44) Other Presley pets: a basset hound, 2 Great Danes, a Pomeranian, several horses, some donkeys, some peacocks and guinea hens, ducks, chickens, a chimpanzee, a monkey and a mynah bird. His golden palomino, Rising Sun, is buried at Graceland, along with his parents, his grandmother and his twin brother who died at birth.

45) Presley’s pet chimp, Scatter, is thought to have died of liver disease, since the chimp had developed a drinking problem. Some think a maid, whom he had bitten, poisoned the chimp. (Wonder whatever happened to Bubbles, Michael Jackson’s chimp?)

46) Presley believed he would die in his forties like his mother, Gladys.

47) Presley had a strange “Madonna/whore” fixation. According to Priscilla Presley’s autobiography, once she gave birth to Lisa Marie, he no longer considered her sexually desirable because she was the mother of his only child. Presley did have a longstanding attraction to co-star Ann Margret, though, and always sent her a large floral tribute whenever she opened in Vegas.

48) When Elvis was alive, there were about 170 Presley impersonators (1977). Today, it is estimated that there are around 250,000.

49) Presley had one room of his Graceland mansion (the house that grew like Topsy and has many wings that were added to the sprawling structure) completely carpeted in shag carpeting and sometimes recorded there. The Jungle Room, a strange futuristic circular bed with fake fur: many “Elvis’ taste was all in his mouth” moments while touring Graceland.

50) Elvis’ last words (to his girlfriend Ginger Alden, who had cautioned him against falling asleep reading in the bathroom) were; “Okay, I won’t.”

FBI Investigates Rock Island County Clerk Richard “Dick” Leibovitz

By Connie Wilson

On January 16, 2010

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

FBI Investigators are looking into the activities of retiring Rock Island County Clerk Richard Leibovitz and his office. Leibovitz has been in office 22 years. A probe of the Rock Island County Clerk’s office is long overdue. The current charges stem from Mr. Leibovitz’s profiting through companies he founded, (he is registered with the Illinois Secretary of State as President of American Election Systems, Inc.), but Mr. Leibovitz never disclosed this business on required forms. Brad Ware of the FBI office would neither confirm nor deny reports of the investigation into illegal practices in the Rock Island County Clerk’s office.

Richard Leibovitz didn’t feel it was necessary to help a first-time office aspirant (i.e., me) in any way, shape or form, either. He gave me inaccurate information about how to challenge a vote I knew to be bogus, a vote after a very close primary election that changed dramatically overnight and was announced as a “fait accompli” for the incumbent in the morning papers.

The incumbent was actually proven to have lost the popular vote during a recount. (It’s never a good sign when you leave your own “victory” party in tears, as Helen Heiland did.) County Clerk Leibovitz did his best to derail the challenge to 1^st Ward incumbent Helen Heiland, every step of the way.

It was the rigged absentee ballots that tipped the scale in Helen Heiland’s favor, so that she could remain in office to this day, where she has been instrumental in supporting the ambulance service that East Moline residents do not want and also is a member of the City Council that recently failed to get the downtown area of East Moline placed on “the Loop.” [The Loop is a recently- announced new diesel bus service which will transport tourists around the loop of the Quad Cities…but not to East Moline. ](It’s now accurate to say, of East Moline, “We’re out of the loop.”)

I’m sure the business owners of downtown East Moline are really happy about that development, courtesy of incumbent Mayor John Thodos, 1^st Ward Alderperson Helen Heiland, et. al. Heiland and Thodos ran as a team and spent massive amounts of money with a firm in Iowa that campaigned for George W. Bush, all in the service of a very dirty campaign against popular incumbent Mayor Joe Moreno (who probably was also railroaded, but would have had a harder time proving it.) Since then, Ms. Heiland has whined in print letters to the editor about not succeeding John Gianulis as County Democratic Chairman, despite the fact that Gianulis retired due to the ravages of old age, and Helen Heiland is not far behind him chronologically.

Now, during the heat of a three-way race for Richard “Dick” Leibovitz’s seat, a race between Larry Toppert, Nick Leibovitz (son of the incumbent), and Karen Kinney (scheduled to go before voters in a February 2^nd primary), comes the news that Liebovitz has been profiting mightily from his position as County Clerk over his 22 years in office. Invoices that bear Chris Leibovitz’s name (his son) have surfaced. Son Nick, who works in the County Clerk’s office has been using campaign signs with just his surname in his bid to succeed his father. He was featured on tonight’s Channel 6 news reading haltingly from a typed statement about “restoring his good name and reputation.” At least he was reading—partially thanks to me. And one assumes, since he works for his father in the office, that he can also write (more thanks to his English teachers.) Perhaps I should have given the young Leibovitz boys poor instruction, rather than working hard and honestly as I did for 17 and 1/2 years in the Silvis Public Schools, only to be given poor and dishonest service (as my reward) by my elected county clerk, their father. (And the public wonders why teachers quit!)

Leibovitz’s company markets an Auto Poll Book, according to a website, and it is described as a computerized tool to make it easier for election officials to look up voters. Whether federal HAVA money was used to develop it will be determined. One thing is for certain:

The voters that were being looked up during my one-time-only run against long-time incumbent Helen Heiland were mostly “the lame, the halt and the blind.” If the voter was near death, someone in the incumbent’s camp raced out to get the nearly-dead to sign an absentee ballot. Some of those absentee voters, to whom I personally spoke, (who were undergoing chemotherapy at the time and were not totally “with it.”) had little or no idea what it was that they had ostensibly signed. The count announced for absentee voters was totally wrong, and I knew this going in, since I was given almost no absentee votes, when my entire family group had voted for me absentee and totaled more than the number the Clerk’s office wished to give me credit for; and there were others, as a door-to-door search with an attorney to notarize their statements later proved. However, when each and every voter, who has signed a notarized statement that they voted for you, is required to show up in a courtroom the very next morning, with no time to subpoena and no time for some to return to town and some too infirm to leave their homes, the deck is stacked.

So, this was your County Clerk’s office in action under incumbent Richard Leibovitz for the last several years, years dating back to 1988. Rock Island County Board Chairman Jim Bohnsack has been subpoenaed to appear in Peoria on February 27th before a Federal Grand Jury to testify in the ongoing investigation.

One area of concern is the possible of federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) grant money by Leibovitz to develop computer software which his private company then marketed and sold for a profit, according to assertions made by Larry Toppert, who is currently running for Leibovitz’s seat.

There are invoices bearing Chris Leibovitz’s name and checks written to American Elections, Inc. dated between April and October of 2008, although the company was allegedly dissolved on September 7, 2007. [American Elections Systems, Inc., was incorporated on May 19, 2009.] The HAVA funds were established in 2002 to aid states in improving the running of federal elections. They distribute millions in grant money each year and those funds are distributed to counties for use in improving their election processes. If my experience is typical, the funds were used to keep the rightfully elected out of office and maintain the status quo desired by then-incumbent Democratic County Chairman John Gianulis, now retired.

According to Friday’s Quad City Times, state records list three officers and directors for American Election Systems, Inc.: Richard Leibovitz; his son Christopher of Lenox, Illinois (listed as director); and James Harmening of Orland Park, Illinois, company secretary. Harmening is also president of a Chicago-based information technology company called Computer Bits, Inc., which has provided “consulting services” to the County Clerk’s office. Computer Bits, Mr. Harmening’s company, was paid $48,969 since 2008 by Rock Island County, including $35,280 in federal grant funds.

When I ran against 1^st Ward (East Moline) Alderperson Helen Heiland, there were numerous documented irregularities in the election. In fact, Democratic insiders (who know the story to be true) told me at the DNC in Denver, on condition of anonymity, that it was quite well-known (behind-the-scenes) that strings were pulled to defeat me when I had actually won. Absentee votes were the weapon of choice, although there were also irregularities at both polling places, including 3 people entering the voter’s booth together, in one instance.

I had run as a newcomer to politics, a naïve idealistic person who thought that elections in Rock Island County would be run fairly. I soon found out differently, as I went door-to-door speaking with every single absentee vote cast and uncovering fraud at many levels, including a non-existent male voter at one duplex in East Moline where the young girl who answered my question about whether someone with this name had voted absentee from this address told me, “Oh, nobody by that name lives here. Only my mom and I live here, and she wouldn’t vote absentee because she works for John Gianulis at the Courthouse.” (Interesting).

Then there were the people bussed in from the retirement home that is not in my district (two of them the parents of the man who was then Kaplan College’s President) and those voters whose absentee ballots were secured while they were dying or close to death.

When I decided to challenge, I had to work with the County Clerk’s office. First, I was given wrong information about how long I had to file a challenge. I was told in a phone call to come file much later than the deadline. Luckily, I followed my instincts and went down immediately.

When I showed up, in person, to secure the necessary paperwork, the form was mysteriously unavailable and they offered to “mail it” to me. (They said they had to “retype” it). I asked for the form and told them I’d retype it myself. Ir was after this that I really learned how low the Clerk’s office would really stoop to defeat someone that then- Democratic County Chairman Gianulis had decided was not going to be allowed to win. I was given paperwork that contained the wrong statutes. It was by the merest of coincidences that I ran into a lawyer friend on the way home, who, in looking over the challenging petition, informed me that I had been given paperwork with all the wrong statutes. If I had filed them as they were given to me, the challenge would have been thrown out on a technicality.

I was able to file the correct paperwork with the corrected statues but no thanks to the County Clerk of Rock Island County. All election experts in the state told me I must gain access to the absentee ballots because “that’s where they cheat.” Mr. Leibovitz refused to give me the list of absentee voters (where the cheating mainly took place) and made this verbal refusal while television cameras turned. (I had to ultimately hire Nelson, Keys and Keys Law Firm and get a court order to secure the absentee voters’ names).

I was particularly shocked to be treated so dishonestly and so uncooperatively by the clerk’s office, as I taught at least one of Mr. Leibovitz’s sons in school when a teacher at Silvis Junior High School.

This is your current Rock Island County Clerk’s office in action, Folks. If you want more of the same….(finish that thought).

“American Idol” Auditions in Atlanta on January 13, 2010

By Connie Wilson

On January 14, 2010

In Humor and Weird Wilson-isms, Music, Reviews, Television

[*With thanks to all the hard-working English teachers who collated and contributed the actual analogies and metaphors from their high school students’ essays into one hilarious article, which I am going to “lift” for my analysis of January 13, 2010’s “American Idol” Atlanta tryouts. If you are the nameless student, condolences and apologies.]

Mary J. Blige joined the regulars as guest host. Ellen DeGeneres won’t join the judges until February 7^th, when the contestants reach Hollywood.

First up this night was a 27-year-old African American singer (I use the term “singer” loosely) named Dawon Robinson who said that his uncle had discovered Gladys Knight and the Pips and his father was known as Motown Bobby. Dawon kept pronouncing the word “lady” (while singing) as “lay tee.” The free associating thoughts Dawon shared tumbled in his head “like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.”

Another black male singer who sang in an extremely high voice, like someone who has undergone castration, followed Dawon. We were saved by the appearance of Keia Johnson, who wore bright lime-green pants and was once named Miss Congeniality in a preliminary to a Miss America contest. (Simon ventured that, were it him, he’d rather win the beauty part.) Keia sang the love song from “Titanic” and she sang well. Keia was given a golden ticket to Hollywood and was followed by singers named Meriam Lemnoumi and Noel Reese.

Then came one of the diamonds of the day, Tisha Holland, 18, of Georgia, a waitress. She was followed by another star, Germaine Sellers from Joliet, Illinois, a 17-year-old church singer who cares for his mother, who suffers from spina bifida. The comments? “I think that’s the best we’ve seen all day.” Germaine sang Joan Osborne’s “What If God Is One of Us.” He’s going to Hollywood. Mary J. Blige said, “You’ve got skills. Best we’ve seen of all the cities. That was incredible. It was anointed.” Plus, Germaine has the all-important back-story that this year’s competitors seem to need. (Talent, alone, isn’t going to be enough, it seems.)

A TV hostess from “Hotlanta,” Christy Marie Agronow, then regaled the group with a Pat Benatar song. The revelation that the judges did not share her feeling that she was a great singer hit her “like a guy who goes blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.” She left in a huff. (“How dare they!”)

Next up was Vanessa Wolf, who shared the news “I jump bridges.” She is either from Baltimore, Tennessee or Vonore (population 658) and shared this sad statement: “I’m stuck in Vonore. I can’t get out.” She had purchased her dress for $4.50 at a Dollar General store in Smyrna, which I seem to remember was Julia Roberts’ birthplace. Tennessee must be so proud, at this point in time, of the way their state is being portrayed. Vanessa was very likeable, but “her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.”

Jessie Anison, 26, of Alabama, #99342, shared several near-death experiences he had recently endured, which allowed “American Idol” to make several “cheap dramatizations” related to Jessie’s riveting stories. Jessie grew on us “like he was a colony of e coli and we were room temperature beef.” As for his audition, it didn’t help that Jessie couldn’t remember any of the words in the song he had selected and had never before sung in public. Mary J. Blige collapsed in helpless mirth and had to be comforted by Kara. Jessie had a mind “like a steel trap, but one that has rusted shut.” ”The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and ‘Jeopardy’ comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30 p.m.” Jessie, also, left in a semi-huff. He traveled down the 47 stories in the elevator, “hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.”

After Jessie and the “cheap dramatizations” (once, at band camp, Jessie was almost hit by a stray bullet or a falling flute or some damned thing) we were treated to Holly, age 27, who sang Loretta Lynn’s “You Ain’t Woman Enough to Take My Man.” Holly proclaimed, “I’m the next great thing.” She was as modest as Donald Trump during one of his Rosie O’Donnell rants. “She had a deep throaty voice like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.” Holly made it through to Hollywood.

At one point, Simon actually said, to one contestant, “You sound like a cat barking; it shouldn’t happen.” The gargling noise of contestant Hansel Enriquez was not well received. Blake Smith of Covington, California came to his audition attired in a tee shirt that read “Britney Spears Changed Her Life.” (It didn’t change Blake’s). “Guitar Girl” (attired in a guitar outfit with guitar glasses) lucked out. She caught your eye “like a wet nose hair glistening after a sneeze.”

Tony Skiboski, contestant #91870, actually could sing, but his attempts to make himself sexually appealing, in the process of singing “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” by Marvin Gaye were about as enticing as “ maggots just before you fry them in hot grease.” When it was pointed out to Tony Skiboski that he was missing a letter on his shirt, he replied, “That’s what they’ve got discounts for.” Skiboski actually made it through, which seemed “as unlikely as a little boat gently drifting across a pond, exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.”

We were treated to Loren Sanders, age 19, of Baxley, Georgia, and her BFF Carmen Turner, 19, also of Baxley, Georgia. Unfortunately, only Carmen sang well. The news that she was being cut from the competition hit Loren as a rude shock, “like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.”

Police officer Bryan Walker sang “SuperStar” and earned a golden ticket to Hollywood, but he looked very old. “He looked as old as a 60-year-old retiree.” (Or as old as General Larry Platt).

Lamar Royal sang Seal’s “Kiss from a Rose” song. Before he went up in the elevator for his audition, Lamar was quite pleasant, saying how much he was looking forward to meeting Mary J. Blige. After Lamar delivered the loudest version of a Seal song ever heard and would not shut up (security had to be called to stop his audition), he changed his tune considerably and uttered the night’s most hostile remarks, yelling, “F*** Y’all” as he left. This earned him a round of applause from a passing carful of motorists. (At least Lamar said “Y’all”).

Last, and certainly least, General Larry Platt, age 62, sang his own original composition “Pants on the Ground.” “General Larry was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But, unlike Phil, General Larry actually works.” General Larry earned praise for his attempts to break dance for the judges, although, in his case, the word “break” is meant literally.

And congratulations to former contestant Jason Castro, who, in addition to his budding career as a performer, got married. I noticed his smiling dreadlocks on the “American Idol” website while scoping out the schedule, and it reminded me that I heard this news somewhere. Ah, young love. “Jason fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River.” Imagine “the star-crossed lovers racing across a grassy field toward each other, like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 66 mph; the other from Topeka at 4: 19 p.m. at a speed of 35 miles per hour.”

Stay tuned for next week’s shows on Tuesday, January 19^th, from Chicago and on Wednesday, January 20^th, from Orlando

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.

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.)