Ridiculous, Crazy Faith

Artists Wanted.  © 2011 Maria Peterson Photography

create.

A reporter being given a new assignment says in Overheard in the Newsroom: “I’m kind of glad to get away from pot for a while and move on to perverts.” 

Sometimes you feel so stuck that even covering stories about sadists and rapists brings a needed change.  

I'm about ready to go back to covering perverts.

I thought freelancing would give me more time to pursue creative dreams.  Writing children's books. Studying photography. Acting. Baking. 

I was wrong. 

"Being a freelancer means being a hustler," my friend Patrice says.*  "If anyone tells you that being a freelancer is easy, they are on some serious 1985 cocaine."

I'm not good at hustling so on top of freelancing, I took a coporate job writing marketing materials and the work has exploded. But there's a cost to doing work you're not passionate about. In time, the artist inside revolts.  A sense of futility sets in.  A crisis of faith hits.
 
"Being a freelancer takes a person of ridiculous, crazy and often stupid-looking faith," says Patrice.  

So we cling to this ridiculous, crazy faith that God is working out His plan...and because the true artist will continue to create - must create - even when there is no paycheck.

*Read Patrice Patrick's post on freelancing here

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Most Wanted: Whitey Bulger

James "Whitey" Bulger as a young mobster

I've been mourning my losses.  Well, not exactly my losses but what could have been my gain if I'd been more observant of my neighbors.

The press is reporting that a former beauty queen named Anna will get the $2 million reward for the tip that led to the capture of mobster James "Whitey" Bulger.  Bulger, who ran the Boston Winter Hill Gang, had been on the FBI's "Most Wanted" for the murders of 19 people in the 1970's and '80's.

I walk by Bulger's apartment nearly every day on my way to the beach. The area is unremarkable except for it's proximity to the ocean; mostly 70's apartment buildings along a wide, palm tree-lined street.  

Posing as a retiree, the mob boss had been living "in plain sight," as cops put it, for more than a decade. 

Seems simple "girl talk" brought down the most wanted fugitive who'd been right up there with terrorist leader Osama bin Laden.  

"Anna had befriended Bulger's girlfriend after the two women took an interest in a stray cat," says writer Randy Economy. 

Anna turned in the 81-year-old Bulger and his girlfriend after seeing them on a TV report. She's now $2 million richer and certainly the heroine of a future movie.  The TV crews are gone for now but I'm sure they'll be back when a deal is struck. 

During the raid on Bulger's place, the FBI found a tidy nest egg stashed in the walls of his apartment, along with an arsenal of weapons.  Forget Bingo - wonder what else those retirees across the street are up to? 

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After the Vows...

Wedding day.  Photo: K. Lewis 

If marriage is God's design, why does it seem so hard to make it work? And virtually impossible in Hollywood?  

I got to thinking about this as a friend announced her engagement; the same day another friend announced her break up. 

Sadly, I've seen as many endings to marriages as beginnings.  Covering the crime beat, cops will tell you some of their riskiest responses are when one partner is trying to leave the other.

To make ends meet at my first small market TV news gig, I took a part-time job at a women's shelter.  Police brought in most victims with only their kids and the clothes on their backs.

I never got used to seeing the swollen faces, black eyes, bruises...I didn't understand how mothers stayed with men who shattered their kids' bones, or worse. 

"They feel like they have no choice," the director tried to explain, "Most go back."

Later, I was the one dialing 911 for a friend fleeing an explosive husband.  She was terrified he'd come home and find her packing. 

I'd been there when they met.  Celebrated their engagement.  Helped pick the wedding decorations.  We saw no warnings; the beatings started after the vows.  

"I'm calling the police," I said, "That'll give you time to get out."  I'd covered enough crime stories to know this one could turn fatal.

My friend's experience is common; one in four women are in abusive relationships.* The reasons a marriage goes from flowers to fists are as intricate as the lace of a wedding dress.  And love's promises - to have and to hold, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish...until death do us part - just as fragile. 

*Domestic Violence Resource Center www.dvrc-or.org

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She Still Stands

The LA Times is running this photo I shot outside a West Hollywood antiques store.  The owners display collectibles and old movie props  but weeks have passed without a buyer for the 8' statue.  

Just before the 10-year anniversary of 9/11, Lady Liberty reminded me...

As journalists, we make a living reporting other peoples' tragedies.  Lost lives usually mean bigger ratings; 9/11 was no exception.  Except it was our tragedy, too.  There's a saying, "History always leaves a witness."  We were all witnesses.

I lived near the Golden Gate Bridge at the time.  The area around the monument went into lockdown.  The F-14 military fighter jets flying overhead made a threat to our lives seem imminent.

Tears are of no use in the newsroom; mine would not stop.  Only one other story had hit me so hard: the crash of TWA Flight 800.  

I'd instantly felt the explosion that killed 380 people was not an accident...even before I learned that my friend, detective Sue Hill, was on board; we'd met years earlier working the same crime scenes.

No tributes mark the crash site of Flight 800.  No monuments honor the victims.  No one can prove whether a missile or mechanical failure brought down Sue's plane but I'm convinced  these tragedies five years apart - on 7/17 and 9/11 - were somehow linked. 

These lost lives remind us of the price we pay to live in a free country - by no means perfect, her leaders are often wrongly motivated; her people often selfish and arrogant.  Yet, despite terrorism, catastrophe and war, her Light still shines.  She still stands.

*"The Mysterious Death of Detective Sue Hill," The Rap Sheet, Nov 2005
http://www.portlandpoliceassociation.com/rsissues/Nov05Rap.pdf

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With This Ring

Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith. Photo:  Mr L. Davis

It's impossible to live in Hollywood and avoid celebrity gossip like the Will Smith and Jada split rumors.

The Smiths have stood out as a triumph over divorce statistics - especially for African-Americans. We apparently have the worst rates of any racial group, according to an article, "Marriage is for White People."*

"This author is writing a story on the state of relationships between men and women," said a colleague who called to ask me to be interviewed for an Essence magazine article.

The subject matter made me skittish. Truth is journalists often make lousy partners. Constant deadline stress, long separations from home, traumatic experiences - our relationships pay the price.

The numbers are especially dismal for highly educated black women - we're the least likely of any group to marry.* 

But I don't want statistics to keep my heart locked up.  Just because we screw up marriage doesn't mean the plan is flawed any more than a car wreck means the engine design is defective. No matter how "hostile" - the Essence writer's description of male/female relationships - I believe the vows still matter.

Due to  the magazine's lead time, the article won't come out for a few months. Maybe Will and Jada will be on the cover - celebrating another anniversary.

*Marriage is for White People, Joy Jones, The Washington Post

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Fighting Fires

Most girls I knew wanted to grow up to become teachers or lawyers or wives.  I dreamed of a less traditional path - like a superhero. or a firefighter. 

Shay at Firefighter Training School

As kids, my brother and I would race outside at the sound of sirens - chasing red trucks down the street to watch firemen save a life...even if it was just a cat stuck in a tree (our small town firefighters really did rescue pets).

Most of us outgrew our childhood dreams but I sometimes wonder what if we'd followed those paths? 

Me? As a journalist, I chase fire trucks for different reasons now. Maybe the signs were there all along that I'd become a writer.  A shy kid, I'd preferred Reader's Digest over boys. did crossword puzzles in ink. laminated my library card. 

Ironically, my job as a journalist let me experience my childhood fantasy of fighting fires and saving lives.  I jumped at a chance to attend Firefighting Academy for a series on why there so few women pump hoses for a career.

I'm not sure where the Academy dug up gear small enough to fit my frame but there I was at roll call, along with several mostly-male journalists and a class of new recruits. 

One test required rescuing a 200-pound man (a REAL one acting unconscious, not a dummy!) from a burning house. I don't know anyone petite woman who could carry that much weight - also wearing 60 pounds of gear, including oxygen tank and mask, AND racing a stopwatch.   

So I did the logical thing. 

The trainer stopped me - apparently dragging a man by his arms down a flight of stairs is not the correct way to rescue him.

Another test required saving victims from a wrecked car using the Jaws of Life.

So again, I did the logical thing. The trainer stopped me again - apparently hoisting a 75-pound hydraulic tool with one's knees is not safe technique.

 Shay at firefighting training

Then there was a test to reach occupants in a burning highrise, which required climbing a five-story truck ladder and dangling over the concrete below without a net or harness. 

This time the trainer did not have to stop me. I made it only part-way before fear won out. 

But this test wasn't about strength.  While I may not be able to carry a 200-pound person or manhandle a monster tool, this test didn't require muscles; it required courage.

"Let me try again," I asked the captain.  Made it to the top (higher than any other non-recruits) but failed at the last step - my shaky legs and arms of jello couldn't be trusted to hold me five stories in the air.

The truth is that while many women lack the physical strength firefighting requires,* we are often filled with a heart and determination that can change the world.

*Less than 3% of firefighters are women (LA Weekly)

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Hollywood johns & egos

Reason #316 I'm grateful to live in our great country:  plumbers on call 24/7.  

My throne room flooded at midnight. "Turn da wata off!" the plumber instructed in response to my emergency call. No use. Niagara Falls kept flowing.  The plumber trekked out at 1 am.

Ironically, I'd just been reading about Hollywood johns, egos and the problems they cause. In his blog, The Hollywood Railroad,  my friend Karl writes about a $200,000 private bathroom that led to the downfall of a TV exec.

"I have seen this sort of deluxe doghouse/executive bathroom before not 60 feet from my news desk," Karl writes. "Not a six-figure model, but it did house a lot of...hand-lotion."

I think I know the one; worked at the same magazine. I vowed to keep quiet about industry secrets (until I'm paid to write a TV show) but for the record, this exec did keep a bizzare lotion stash - dozens of bottles lined in near-obsessive rows.

A perk of working at the magazine was tickets to red carpet events. The top exec would leave early to get ready but the rest of us often worked right up until show time.

That's when it paid to know the Guardian of the Executive Loo.  She'd slip us the key after the exec left so we could  use the shower in his office. As Karl said, this john wasn't a six figure model like the one at NBC, but it sure beat baby wipes.

And for the record, I never touched any of that lotion.

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