Friday, December 25, 2020

A DMZ Christmas 50 Years Ago

 Back in the early 1960s, in the wake of Sputnik and such fanciful terms as "the Space Race," the "Missile Gap," and Pupnik (Sputnik 2 carried a little Russian terrier named Laika), and, in the words of one of the old geezers (gee, he must have been at least 50!) at Jack's Barber Shop on Highland Drive, "if they can put a dog in space, they surely can send a missile over here." When you're 12, and sitting on the wood board the barbers used to elevate children in the big (and mechanically quite amazing) 'barber's chair', words like that from the geezer seemed to carry a lot of weight. Like all the men in that room, he had unquestionably served 15 years before in World War II, and may have even been a witness to the sound, light, and destruction show known as Stalin's Organ. ( A multiple tubed rocket launcher which fired, depending on design, up to 4 dozen rockets all at once, a blizzard of terrifyingly howling explosions and noise). Post Sputnik, when the US briefly expressed regret that the Soviets hadn't waited until early 1958 to celebrate IGY (the International Geophysical Year, a period of joint exploration and research) but had just gone ahead and launched their first satellites without waiting, wanting to let the world in general, and the US in particular, know that their science was as good as our science. It led to a remarkably nimble jump in American education: all of a sudden the late 50s and early 60s were producing one advanced science or math program after the next. I was pretty good at math, not bad in science, and from '58 onwards thought I would be spending my life building rockets for the US space program. The new programs were innovative (I remember the 8th grade Math workbook, created by U/I Champaign Campus) and we students felt pretty juiced. I even knew what integrals and derivatives were, long before those words became popular in the rest of society. (And today, I know they exist, but remain incapable of even describing them.) I was in AP Math the whole of high school, and Mr Barton, the much beloved math teacher at Olympus High School, was our leader. He'd flown helicopters in Korea, and applied many of the little things he learned to math in general, and life in particular. He once described the subtle talent needed to fly a chopper. "You can't," he said, "actually MOVE a control on a helicopter." That would be too much. Over correction. You just have to THINK about it, and that will be about the right amount of pressure." Stuff like that, uttered in a flurry of theorems, has stayed with me for these 55+ years. Most of all, he implored us to slow down, and to "think clearly." For years, on the back of my Nikons, in the 70s, with the arrival of the Dymo label maker, I had the words "Think Clearly" sitting just below the viewfinder of my F and F2s. Our little home room Math class was full of geniuses: Don, Diana, Randy. We were only about a dozen in the class, but we knew we were lucky to be there. My senior year, I placed 11th in the State Math Contest. Not bad, you say, and I would have to agree. But in fact I was only 4th in my Home Room. Yea, it was that kind of crowd.

I probably would have gone on to build rockets ( which no one really did, but you might have the chance to design the buffer valve on a LOX tanking connector for a Saturn V F-1 rocket engine) but my sophomore year Calc professor mumbled as he tried to explain the dark secrets of advanced math, and I fled in a panic to Poli Sci, which became my major, and left me free to pursue photojournalism, my other great interest, which grew from working on the high school yearbook Junior and Senior years. I had a great break in the winter of my Senior year of high school. The little local weekly paper for whom I'd been shooting the odd assignment, and getting paid a whopping $3... or was it $5? was purchased by new owners. (Was it $3 or $5? ... either way, it was enough to keep me interested.) The 'break' part of that was that the two guys who bought the paper were my mom's cousins. And when they enquired about the source for pictures in the paper, the young woman who assigned me, and took delivery of the pictures, told them it was a neighborhood kid, Dave Burnett. What a frolic of serendipity. They needed someone to shoot pictures, and I needed someone to publish them. I worked all spring and into the summer of my Senior year (yes, 17 year olds DO think they know everything!) and it was a wonderful, engaging, exciting thing to see my pictures run each week. The one sucky job was the day-long traverse of the city to shoot pictures of houses for the real estate page. The ads apparently made a fair amount of dough, and offering to photograph the house for the display ad was a marketing plus. It was still an era of minimalism, and if I had 16 houses to shoot, I would start in North Salt Lake, and work my way south over the next few hours, with a book of maps in hand (news flash: there was no Google Maps in 1964!) For 16 to 18 houses, I could shoot two frames of each place and end up with one roll of film. It was a lot of driving, very little shooting, but I had the order right on my poop sheet, and the right houses' picture always seemed to accompany the correct write-up. The one time I freaked out was due to a darkroom error which could have gone horribly wrong. I spooled the film onto a Nikkor reel, dropped it in the tank, covered the tank and put the lights on, only to discover I had put it in the Fixer. Holy Shit, John Wayne, what do I do now? Lights out, cover off, pull reel... rinse in water, put in D-76. Incredibly, it actually worked, and I was saved from having to drive the 16 house circuit yet one more time. For any photographer of my era, if you didn't put the film directly in the fixer, with the lights out, at least once, well, hell , you're not really a photographer.
It was a fun time, and I only wish I had been a little better on captioning. Lack of precise information, which at the time didn't seem like such a big deal, is something which has followed me for decades. I still admire the wire service and daily paper photogs who knew that no picture of theirs would ever be seen if it didn't have a proper caption. Working, as I ended up doing for six decades, for magazines - weekly and monthlies, it never seemed THAT important. Pictures in magazines seem to fill a slightly different role, and the necessity of detail was not as demanding as the daily press was. For that I remain somewhat sorrowful, as the stories behind the pictures, those little picayune details, eventually offer greater illumination than the image alone can provide. The arrival of the online world of photography has provided a few very positive moments for me. About five years ago, I had a message to call a guy in Illinois, who had called the Contact office in New York, looking to speak with me. When I called him back, we spoke a long while, and he told me how, forty-odd years after his time as a grunt in Vietnam (1970-71) he would often start to think of his friends, especially those who didn't come back, and that around Christmas, those moments came with greater frequency. He had been stationed on the old ConThien base on the DMZ, and had won a lottery his Sgt. had held for two guys from that base - out of a couple hundred - to get flown south to Phu Bai, and attend a Bob Hope Xmas Show. He described how, a few nights earlier, being unable to sleep, he hopped on his computer late that evening, and typing in "Bob Hope Phu Bai 1970."
A cool picture popped up of a bunch of GIs in a large crowd, watching the show. The picture wasn't Bob Hope or Johnny Bench or Joie Heatherton. It was the soldiers. The audience. A very energized audience. And as he looked at the picture, and blew it up, he realized he was IN the picture. Our conversation went on quite a while, became very emotional as we spoke of those long ago days. I told him that I'd had to leave the Bob Hope show early to catch a chopper back to Alpha-4/Con Thien, the same base where he had been stationed. I got there in the early afternoon of Christmas Eve, wandered around a good bit, spent some time in the TOC (the Tactical Operations Center) before getting a bit of sleep. UPI had sent one of their guys, Barney Siebert, to do a feature on the DMZ at Christmas, and we all spent much of the evening trying to make sense of it all. I recall that they flew in turkey dinners for the troops, yet it was anything but a White Christmas. Early the next morning, the first chopper in brought a crusty old Naval officer who hopped off the bird, and within minutes was cutting up with some of the enlisted guys, the ones who looked like they might have been staying up on guard duty all night. The Admiral, whose craggy face and puckish smile I still remember, was named John McCain. He was CINCPAC (commander of the Pacific forces), and as he hoisted a breakfast beer, and joked around with those enlisted guys, his son, another John McCain was a prisoner in Hanoi, a few hundred miles to the North. In 2008, I shared this story, and picture with Senator McCain, and he was grateful to have this photograph on the wall of his office.

Admiral McCain (CINCPAC) Christmas 1970


The young soldier who found himself in my picture, Terry Knox, also gave me a gift, 45 years later. We spoke of all those things: being a grunt, Con Thien, the unlikelihood of being chosen to attend the show, his great surprise years later at realizing he was IN the photograph I'd shot. When I had a job in Illinois a couple of years ago, he drove down, and we had a coffee, a catch up, and a very big hug. Sometimes those hugs are really the grist of what we come to appreciate in this life.
I am constantly amazed at the reach which the internet has created, even for those of us who were really lousy caption writers. One of the assignments I did for the weekly paper - The Rocky Moutnain Review - in Salt Lake in the summer of 1966 was to spend a part of an afternoon at Ballet West, a company of talented dancers under the direction of William Christensen (even 54 years on, I remember his name without having to look it up!) During that afternoon session, a couple of rolls of Tri-x (in the era when there wasn't a story you couldn't DO with a couple of rolls of Tri-x!) I photographed a young dancer at rest, at the barre, on point, and looking like a cocked slingshot, ready to be fired at a passing mailbox. We never spoke (yea, that's a whole other essay) but I found her visually charming, adorable, and eminently photogenic. I got her name, we ran a picture - or maybe a couple, I don't remember, a week later, and I felt like I had actually come up with a cool picture just by being there, and looking around. Looking around is the key. My old pal Joe Cantrell, who had Cherokee blood in his background, had taken a name which I have always felt perfectly summed up our mission. In those moments, he would call himself "Walks Slowly, Looking." It is what we do, when things go right.
Suki Smith / Ballet West 1966
photograph ©2020 David Burnett/Contact

So my picture of young dancer Suki Smith ran "not quite as big as I would have liked" in the Rocky Mountain Review, and for 54 years that was pretty much that. Then a couple of months ago my brother in law, Larry Cofer, newly armed with an Ancestry account, tracing his own families' story as well as ours, took a minute to look for my dancer. It became a long and not uncomplicated process, but at one point I found what looked like a connection to her, and wrote a note on FB. (I always look for the first names that are the least common. That gives you a chance, at least.) And tonight I received this message:
"Oh my goodness, this is amazing! Suki is my mother & was still dancing up until a few years ago. Thank you so much for sharing this with me."
Photographers view the world slightly differently than most. We see, we stop and look, we notice, and above all, we try to take that wonderment of what we see, and preserve it, to give it a fuller, extra life, one which we hope can be shared. Pictures tell their own stories, and when they give you a chance to cross the chasm of time, in this case, 54 years, it's like a gift. Photography is.... Memory.

Sunday, December 20, 2020

No Longer Youngest

 You can’t get to my age and not think about what you want to accomplish in the years you have left on this planet.  When someone says he/she went to the other side, I find this description is so much more palatable than; Oh, he/she died, kicked the bucket, passed away, or was terminated by the Mandalorian.  What was really on my mind was,  “why am I thinking I need to accomplish anything”. As it happens being a fourth quarter queen has been quite satisfying.  But in the back of my mind I keep thinking about something Judith Viorst wrote in her book “When Did I Get to be 40 and Other Atrocities”  At some point when she is describing her life she mentions that she will never be the youngest to do anything anymore.She also says that real love is when your husband is late and you wonder whether he was having an affair or he got hit by a truck and you hope he got hit by a truck.  Needless to say, Judith Viorst is one of my favorite writers. 


 Moving on... or moving back to the accomplishments part of this blob. There comes a point when we no longer put our age on a resume.  In addition,  we try to avoid anything that makes us look ancient, which is quite difficult.   If a stranger looked at my resume they might think, geez how did she do all that?  Obviously, the answer is — wait for it,  she got old.


There are some things that I would still like to accomplish, like getting “Gefilte Fish the Musical” produced, but again Judith expresses my feeling better than I ever could:


I used to rail against my compromises.

I yearned for the wild music, the swift race.

But happiness arrived in new disguises:

Sun lighting a child's hair.  A friend's embrace.

Slow dancing in a safe and quiet place.

The pleasures of an ordinary life.


I'll have no trumpets, triumphs, trails of glory.

It seems the woman I've turned out to be

Is not the heroine of some grand story.

But I have learned to find the poetry

In what my hands can touch, my eyes can see.

The pleasures of an ordinary life.


We used to make fun of the people who went to Florida, or if you lived in the West, to Palm Springs or Palm Desert.  But now I get it — the cold and the snow are simply too much work.  What"s funny is that when my parents did their yearly migration to Hallandale Fl. we thought that they, and their friends were old.  In fact, you had to be older or you weren’t allowed past the Georgia border.  


So what does all this rambling mean.  Nothing really, except I only want to stay on this side for as long as I’m functional, healthy and able to enjoy each day.  And the fact that I will not ever be the youngest to achieve anything, isn’t too painful anymore.  We’re just sayin’ ...Iris

Monday, December 14, 2020

Those Holiday Movies

 So I promised to write every day. I Lied. It's just that there is so much bullshit to sift through its hard to get my balance.  Yesterday the TV miraculously went on and was tuned to MSNBC, my news channel of choice -  not really - its just that all the networks do happy news and its hard to be happy when another 3000 people died, and are dying everyday.  Anyway Ali Velshi was in Michigan watching trucks leave the lab with the Covid vaccines. As it happens he was interviewing an expert on immunizations who was talking about how it took seven years to develop the covid vaccine, not seven months.  Because the research was based on Ebola and Sars data. At some point while the Dr. was talking, Velshi said, “We need to take a break from this discussion to see the trucks leave the lab. Its an historic event.” 

Whats wrong with this picture?  It is seriously warped to call trucks leaving a lab, Historic. Its kind of like the “breaking news” label.  Everything is "breaking news."  My guess is the label is supposed to make people think that they are going to hear something unusual, important, even startling.  That is never going to happen because when everything is soooooo impactful, then nothing's impactful. This is why people cannot possibly take the news seriously.  Right now there are several kinds of “news.” Happy news, Entertainment news, and Biased news, depending on what you read and what you watch.  Probably the closest you will get to real news is PBS, but even that information can be editorial rather than facts.  For those of us in the receiving side,  all this bullshit information is simply noise.


Now let’s talk about real news.  As many of you may remember, Hallmark and Lifetime holiday movies, are among my favorites.  The casting in the past has been pretty much plain vanilla. By that I mean Handsome straight white people. But in the past few months there has been a change.  The lead characters are sometimes Black or even Asian, and even interracial and .....hold your breath... sometimes they are gay.  Lifetime movies are a little more overt with their single sex couples. Also, not all the people are attractive. Sometimes they are downright unattractive or on the pudgy side.  What a relief. All those years that we aspired to be perfection zapped in a single holiday season. Here’s a fact:  The absence of people of color was noticeable. What was more noticeable was that most of the people of color (black asian,brown, red) looked like handsome white people with lots of make-up. It cannot be that I am the only person who was disturbed by this.  


Anyway, those movies should probably be boycotted but I simply cannot resist the totally mindless entertainment in this fantasy/other reality, with the same script repeated in every single one of these dramas, whether they are happy or sad.  They don’t touch my heart, but the good news is that they also don’t touch my mind.  Happiest holidays. We're just sayin...Iris

Tuesday, December 08, 2020

More Than the Speed of Sound

 As you start to become a person about whom it can be said that you are 'of a certain age,' the definition of "certain age" can take on a lot of different meanings.  We spend so much of our lives imagining that we might live to a ripe ol' age, and barring accidents and illness, we just might.  But in a world where the news is instantaneous, a mile wide and a half inch thick, the passing of notables is something which briefly grabs our attention, usually very briefly, and lets us reflect on their lives and contributions.  Sometimes the contributions are concrete - discovery of a star system, or creating of a vaccine against a raging disease. Other times it is a bit more metaphysical - just try governing a country with 400 cheeses.  I remember how in his late 70s my dad started to get tired of his friends passing away - golf buddies, friends from the jewelry business. He just didn't want to think about it after a while.  I have always thought it might have something to do with how we acknowledge that in our friends, we see ourselves, and start to feel our own vulnerability, and mortality.  This week with the passing of former French President Giscard d'Estaing, and General Chuck Yeager, we see two notables, their life's work now ended.  I spent a lot of time photographing VGE during his 7 years presidency, and it remains a memorable time for me, especially when I see the ridiculous moustache and hair I was sporting in the 70s.  (What was I thinking?)    In the 1990s, at the apex of my advertising career, I photographed Chuck for ROLEX.  (Yea, my dad worked for OMEGA for years, but hey, business is business!)  Most of the people I photographed for ROLEX (Cynthia Gregory, Placido Domingo, Picaboo Street among others) were top-notch, easy to work with, and considering that there was nothing to look at on the back of my camera except the tab from a film box, very patient.  (That's why we had light meters!  Try it sometime.)  


With Chuck, it was agreed that we would all meet at an airport in central Florida. "We" meaning Chuck Yeager, my art director, the guy who owned the P-51 (painted to resemble Chucks WW2 plane, the Glamorous Glennis) and the account rep. (The account rep is the person who handles the $3000 watch during the photo shoot, though in this case, I think Chuck brought his own.)  It was a crisp mid morning light that graced us, and as usual I had no assistant, no lights, no nothing. Just a chance.


We shot in front of the wing for a while (the ROLEX ad), then as he slowly tired of the moment, moved to the back othe plane where he could throw a glance up at Glennis' tailplane.  It was all over in 20 minutes or so, and afterwords, sitting in the car, I made damn sure every roll of shot film made it into a  caption envelope.  The stuff was treated like gold.  


We sometimes have this passing moments when you are in the company of greatness. It's never really been my way to ask for autographs, at least for myself.  But merely breathing the same air as VGE or Chuck Yeager, or any of the last ten Presidents, lets you share a moment to which you hope you can add a photograph, or two.  Those are the momentos, those are the autographs.  It's a gift to be a photographer, and one which we don't take for granted.  We're just sayin'...David


Wednesday, December 02, 2020

But For the Grace of God

There was some shopping to be done today so I volunteered to do it. I Got all my Covid paraphernalia organized. Mask,check, wipes check, gloves check. You know the drill and are probably just as sick of it as we are. The checkout line was not to long, there was only one woman in front of me on line. She had a moderate amount of stuff and then proceeded to go carefully though the items deciding how much she really needed them. It was a little tedious and I almost said something, but as I watched how painful it was for her to have to make the decision about what she could afford, I just kept quiet. How lucky we are not to have to decide between food, clothing and medication.


The last time we were in New York we were struck by the number of small businesses that had closed. And struck by the increase of people who were homeless and just seeking a little help. It is truly heartbreaking. It is also frustrating because no matter how much we can give, there is no way we can help everyone. We are somewhat comforted by the number of public service organizations that do provide meals and  places to stay. But it seems not to be enough. Before the pandemic there was an older woman on First Avenue who was the person to whom I gave a dollar or two every time I saw her. (It was very “there but for God go I”). Selective giving was a lesson I learned from my friend Phoebe when we were together in Calcutta. The poverty was overwhelming and I asked her how she was able to deal with so much pain. She told me that since she could not give to everyone because there were hundreds of people asking for help, she decided to pick out one person, usually a child, and give her a small amount of money every day. While we were traveling through India I joined her in this effort. It never occurred to me that I would have to do that in this country as well. In addition, where there was one woman on the corner, now there are five.


There is no safety net for people who are out of work, who are getting evicted, are homeless, sick or can’t feed their families. Witch McConnell and the rest of the republican senators, who have warm homes, lots to eat, and don’t have to worry about when their next paycheck will arrive, basically do not give a damn. They will use any excuse not to come up with a solution for all the people who are struggling. They know that this situation began with the pandemic and continues to be more complicated as time passes. What are they thinking? The answer is they are not thinking at all. Or at the very least they are totally without compassion.

The President, who thankfully will not be there for long, plays golf and tweets about how the election was stolen but then to his credit, the economy is great. Just look at the stock market he says, He and all the elected republicans should be ashamed of themselves. Maybe we should all be ashamed of ourselves for not taking care of our own and having to select one person everyday to help.  We’re just sayin.’...Iris

Sunday, November 29, 2020

And Thanksgiving To You and You and You

 It was a unique and special Thanksgiving.  At first the idea was to go to a closed restaurant and sit at small socially distant tables. It would have been lovely but due to circumstances beyond anyone’s control that was vetoed and an alternate plan was activated.  No one was in charge, which meant everyone was in charge.  Salads were ordered, cooking started, desserts were in overwhelming supply. We had enough food to feed all the Pilgrims with their Native American friends. 

Lets start backwards from last course to first.  There was a lemon creme brûlée pie, a two layered carrot cake,  blueberry, apple, strawberry rhubarb pie, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, and a dark chocolate mouse cake. We didn’t, bother with the Dairy Queen ice cream cake because that seemed like overkill.  The main courses included, turkey, a ham, and a brisket.  Side dishes were potatoes— sweet with marshmallows and mashed, string beans with those fabulous fake onions and mushroom soup, stuffing, cranberry sauce and gravy.  For first course there were two kinds of salad and an Italian antipasto, cheeses, meats, peppers and olives.  It sounds like a great deal of food for an small army of hungry guests. And so it was. only none of us ate together.  It was COVID sensitive. We all brought the food. Carmen made the turkey. Amy made her extraordinary sweet and mashed potato’s and the ham. Joannie was responsible for the appetizers and desserts and I made the string beans. There has never been a Thanksgiving when I did the least amount of work until yesterday. There was no stress or drama. We all arrived separately between 4:30 and 6:15, picked up whatever food we wanted, yelled hello to Billy our host who stayed upstairs, and took the gargantuan amount of whatever we desired to our own homes.  It was fantastic.  Dr. Fauci would have been proud.  

The alleged greenbean casserole before application of crispy onions
Dessert?  Possibly.... clockwise from upper left: choc cake, trio of pumpkin, apple, and strawberry-rhubarb, creme brulet tart!


The interesting thing was that somehow, with everyone doing something, me the least, it was a take home dinner with all the love invested in the food and all the concerns for health respected. For the last seven or so years we have celebrated all the holidays and special occasions at my cousin Billy’s. He is a great host. He spares no expense and seems to enjoy the festivities as much as the rest of us. But this was the first time I can remember that we delivered and took away the food.  Sure we missed the bonding but it was a round robin of sorts... even though the food was in one place, different people dropped and took home the goodies. 


We did take a moment to remember that on Thanksgiving we always took mom to the hospital. And for the years before she moved all the friends had dinner with their families and then gathered at my house for desserts. We also took a moment to remember the empty seats at the table for people who are gone now. We also celebrated all the family who participated in this ever memorable holiday. Hope your holiday was equally enchanting.  We’re just sayin’.....Iris

Friday, November 27, 2020

From the annals of "I wish I'd been a better photographer.." in the spring of 1970 I was living in Miami, not a lot of work coming my way, but still stringing with some regularity for TIME. I was living in tropical splendor in beautiful Miami Springs near the airport (I could bike over and see some very cool 1940s planes, most of which were being flown by outfits from Salvador/Guatemala/Panama, and serviced in Miami.) One day I got a call to join the local TIME stringer, Bob Delaney (who also was a big star in local news radio, and he always signed of with "....total information radio!...." which I thought was a pretty good attitude for a news guy.) Our assignment was to drive north a ways (one of those trips where you realize how big Florida is...) to Bartow where we would meet a guy who ran a little soda shop, and who claimed to be the oldest living American. I'd heard of Charlie Smith, but didn't really know that much about him. (Yes, this was in the days before Cable News, and 24 hour cycles. In fact it was only five years after the first Mustang!) Bob was determined to get to the bottom of this story, and share it with his "total information radio" audience, as well as the twenty or so million TIME readers. We'd heard there was this guy in Florida who claimed to have come from Liberia in the 1840s, and was the last surviving American slave. That he was 128 years old. That was something. So we drove and drove, eventually arriving in Bartow, a little backwater town, and it didn't take a lot of asking around (yes, this was before Google Maps) to find the little shop where Charlie Smith sold Pepsi. What I'll never forget is the opening of the interview. Bob said " Charlie, they tell me you're a hundred and twenty eight years old, is that right?" After a short pause Charlie answered with great determination. "No, no..." he started, and at which point I thought, 'this story is SO not happening....it sounds like a wild goose chase.." But then Charlie continued, "No, I'm a hundred twenty seven."

Charlie Smith, Bartow FL aged 127

Charlie Smith, Aged 127 1969

It was one of the coolest conversations I've ever been a party to, if only as witness. They talked for a while, Bob got a couple of "total information radio" worthy quotes, including Charlie talking about seeing Abe Lincoln as a young guy. And it was then my turn. Charlie's son came by, and if I remember right, he was in his 80s. But I kind of blew it. I didn't really think, I just reacted to what was, rather than try and make something a bit more incisive. Years later Carl Fischer made a portrait (I believe it was him) for Esquire, and when I saw that, I realized I was just a little too much "along for the ride." In the end, I got a few pictures, and while it could be said I was under equipped (I tried shooting something inside the shop, lit by one little dangling light bulb - not very successful) it was more a lack of inspiration than equipment. That tends to be the real issue when things don't work out. You just don't give it the 110% that it deserves. Since then, I realize that when you re doing portraits like this, one thing to remember is - keep moving. Change angles, distances, lighting. Keep it all in flux, and when you see something good, work the hell out of it.
I wish I'd done better with Charlie Smith, but if I live to 128, at least that gives me a good chunk of time to practice what I learned that hot day in Bartow.
photograph shot 1969 ©2020 David Burnett/Contact

We're just sayin'... David

Thursday, November 26, 2020

The "Thanks" in Thanksgiving

 Yesterday my brother Jeff and I were talking about my Aunt Irene’s estate. As the executrix or administratrix, we have had to deal with lots of things about the graves. You never think about the plants on the grave or having the headstone (Aunt Peppy always called it a tombstone) carved.  When Mom died we found an engraver who was fast, and made it uncomplicated. One, two, three and it was done.  Not so with Aunties' grave.  She died a year ago and the grave remains uncarved. When Lovey and Suzie went to say Kaddish (the prayer said when someone dies over every relatives grave) they found that the dirt in front of it was still piled up. Disgraceful.  The yearly travel to all the distant graves has been a thing that all the aunts did,  but now it's only the two cousins.  And we are all grateful that someone still does it. 

One of the things I always loved about my family is that they were able to find humor in everything, especially death. When mom died and she was on Bainbridge Island, off Seattle. The funeral parlor had to take a ferry to pick her up.  This made it necessary to sit with her body until they arrived.  What do you do when you’re sitting with the body that is no longer your mother?  You talk about all the hilarious things she and her sisters did as we were growing up.  Like the time Stevie and I took a $50 bill out of Aunt Sophie’s purse to buy camping equipment. We thought she wouldn’t notice.  This was $50 in 1952. We were six and always in trouble. It was as if we were sharing the stories with mom, and we knew she was enjoying them with us.


Anyway, at some point in the history of the family, my dad had to have his leg amputated.  The doctor who did the surgery was an idiot, and told us that it didn’t matter because he didn’t ambulate anywhere. We explained to the insensitive fool that he might not walk but he balanced on both of his legs.  We knew he needed the surgery but we hated the doctors indifference.


We never thought too much about it until we had a discussion about burials.  We had asked mom to think of a site that was not in the middle of nowhere Long Island. She agreed and immediately did exactly what we asked her not to do.  In the Jewish religion, the whole body needs to be buried together, and she had buried my dad’s leg in the cemetery about which we objected.  This meant that they would both spend eternity on Long Island.  When we asked her why she decided to do that, she said that we would never visit them anyway.  This was not true. We do schlepp all the way out there whenever we can. Usually on the way to the airport. 


You may ask why am I writing this on a festive holiday.  Well, if you worried about the pandemic, and are inordinately careful,  it’s not that festive. People are forming pods, which means that you get to see the people in your pod, but no one else unless you are going food shopping.  Some people are calling this period of time the “new normal,” but I’m not, because there is nothing normal about it.  The question is, will things ever be the same again?  Will we be able to walk down the street without a mask?   Will we be able to hug the people we love?  Will offices, restaurants and small businesses even survive?  No one has any idea.  We know that things will certainly not ever be the same, but I’m not ready to call anything, until theaters open, normal.  We're just sayin'.... Iris

Tuesday, November 24, 2020

Peter, and Olivier, and lil' ole me

It was my intention to write Christmas memories, but that will have to wait. Today David told me that one of our dear friends died.  Peter Howe was a photojournalist who I met separate from David, and was he cute, yes!  There were two photographers who I met and bonded with even before i knew David.  They are both gone now. What a loss for everyone who knew them..  Olivier was a French photographer who died in the early 80’s. He was in El Salvador and he stood up instead of staying under cover.  He told me that he wanted to do what he thought David would do, but of course David would never have done that.  He was shot and brought back to Hialeah Hospital where he was supposed to be alright. Until he wasn’t.  I visited him every day and was sure he would heal. He didn’t.  A few days after I arrived in Florida and was staying with my mom, she came into the living room and said, “I’m so sorry about your friend. The one who was in the hospital.   He passed away.”  That didn’t make any sense because everyone expected him to get better. 

 

Peter Howe was born in England. He was a former New York Times Magazine and Life magazine Picture Editor, and the author of two books on photography, "Shooting Under Fire" and "Paparazzi." He was also the author of the Waggit’s Tale series, about an abandoned dog and his pack who live in Central Park. 


These two characters were nonstop  fun. Two quick stories to give you an idea:


The three of us went to the Republican Convention in 1980, in Detroit. They were shooting, and I was invited because I was the Director of Security for that year's Democratic Convention in New York.  We hung out the whole time, and entertained each other because the Republican Convention was, you guessed it,  pretty dull.  At one point we went to a reception for Delegates.  The two of them were quite adorable, and the older female delegates couldn’t resist knowing who they were, where they were from. It is unclear how it started, but at one point one delegate asked Olivier a question. Peter jumped in and told her that Olivier's  English wasn’t very good, so we started to do "simultaneous translation."  First the woman asked Olivier a question in English, and Peter (who IS English but also a man of the world) turned to Olivier and repeated the question in English English. Olivier then turned to me and answered the question in English but with a heavy French accent.  I then turned to the woman and answered the question in English. This went on for at least a half hour with other female delegates participating.  Needless to say, we spent the next three days laughing until our stomachs hurt. 


Second story.   Peter called me one evening because he was shooting in Denville, NJ and I was staying with my mom at our old homestead in Boonton, NJ, only twenty minutes away.  The event was a heavy metal rock concert.  Peter explained to me that we needed to wear ear plugs because the venue was small and the concert was going to be really loud.  We put in our plugs and I waited in the rear for him to finish.  As he walked up on the stage I saw he was bending down.  His earplugs fell out and he stepped on them, making it impossible for him do do anything but shoot while his ears bled.  After the concert we went out for a drink, but we were yelling, instead of talking, and the bartender finally asked us to leave. 


1980 Rep. Convention / Detroit

Olivier Rebbot helps Peter Howe up to a photo position, and further merriment

photograph ©2020 David Turnley




These stories do not in anyway due justice to the essence of the these two amazing talented, sensitive, men. For whatever reason photojournalists seem to be exceedingly attractive.  They don’t have to be handsome because they are mysterious.  But these two guys were sexy and cuddly, if thats possible.  The three of us were playful friends.  Always ready to do anything for a laugh, it did not matter the event. Sometimes they were shooting and I was on the other side of the ropes making sure that they would have the picture they wanted to take.  We were pals.  Even though I may not have seen them for months at a time, we always picked up where we left off. 


It has never been easy for me to say goodbye, so I won’t. I will just love them forever wherever they may be.  We're just sayin'... Iris




Sunday, November 22, 2020

A Wedding in the Time of Ickiness

 It is said, by someone somewhere and we will never find out by whom it was said, that everything happens in threes.  It is hard to remember whether it was bad things, or good things that  happen in threes, but I’m going with good things for the purpose of this blob.  Yesterday the last of my three nieces was wed.  They are actually my cousins, but they feel like my nieces so thats how I think  about them.  

Each of the weddings was unique because it is an unusual time with the pandemic still raging. The first of the three was in July.  It was a zoom wedding with only a few people inside the temple and a larger group waiting outside the temple to throw things at the happy couple. We weren’t there but it looked like rice.  How did the tradition to throw like rice begin? We watched it on zoom. Considering most of the guests  were hundreds of miles away, it was quite intimate.  Everyone on zoom felt like they were a part of the happiness.  The bride looked spectacular.



The second wedding was outdoors in a lovely setting overlooking the Hudson River.  There were only a few people at the ceremony, all social distancing. After the ceremony the friends and family, mostly family threw flower petals.  I was not fast enough, but I was determined, so I chased the happy couple around the corner and well into an area where they  were taking pictures.  Did I feel stupid? Never, when it is a joyous event.The food was amazing.  We all sat at small tables  and the wait staff came table to table with the food courses.  The tent, under which we all sat, looked like we were in a house with large windows. It was neat.  The timing was perfect because by the time we were getting cold, the celebration was over.


The third wedding was last night.  The guests were spread out in the Synagogue. The chuppa (a symbolic tent) was gorgeous.  It was covered with flowers and the backdrop was white with pearls.  After the ceremony we didn’t throw anything.  We went to a local chic restaurant, where there was a private room and again small tables to social distance.  Everyone wore masks but since that is a new reality, it was fine.  The meal was endless. First a series of appetizers, next sherbet to clean the palate and finally a delicious entree, steak or halibut.  The bride looked stunning.


These young women are  special. They are cousins and very close.  The wonderful thing is that they all married remarkable men.  At each wedding you could feel the love was enormous and the happiness contagious.  Each wedding in its own way was perfect, and filled me with joy. 


Once we have a vaccine and the pandemic is under control, it will be easier for young people to express their love without having to cut their guest lists to very few people, and covering their faces with pirate-like face coverings, but these kids were determined to get married and celebrate.  We can all learn a lesson from them about persistence and bliss.  We're just sayin'...Iris

Friday, November 20, 2020

Hooking Up With An Old Friend

Among the terrible things about the pandemic is that you have to work very hard to make new memories. Over the course of the last several days, since my birthday, I have reconnected with old friends, colleagues, and former students. It has been amazing. Mostly, it has been amazing to talk about memories that have been forgotten or at least buried somewhere until there is a trigger that causes them to materialize once again.  You may have noticed through my writing that I have been a little blue. It’s over, I have put on my leather looking stretch tights and moved on to a better place.  In a really better place I might have seen my parents, friends and aunts and uncles, but I am not ready for that place.  In addition, it is not like me to mope or feel sorry for myself, not when you have had the kind of life I have had. And it’s not over.


Last night I talked to a brilliant young man with whom i worked USA Networks.  I think it is a better description to say “with whom I worked” instead of "who worked for me."  The young people who worked in PR and Public Affairs with me were so much smarter than me.  Anyway, I sent Matthew to CA because we needed a talented person, and he wanted to go. Its funny how things happen.  The other day someone mentioned the Soup Nazi in NYC.  The people who worked at USA often went to this little soup place a few blocks away, that later became famous in the Seinfeld series.  Along with soup you got bread and often fruit — unless you didn’t move the line along at a lighting swift pace.  The first time Matthew went, he didn’t know about moving swiftly along part.  There was a reason they called him a Nazi.  First he yelled at Matt.  Yes, it was probably embarrassing, but the retribution was more painful. Matthew never ever got bread or fruit after that.  It didn’t matter how fast he moved or how much he ordered.  There was never bread or fruit.


At the sometime I was talking about Matthew, he was reaching out to find me.  And was it fun to remember the silly things we did.  You are probably not going to believe this, but there was a time I was a little outrageous.When I worked at USA, and had to visit our LA offices for the programming we were producing there, I didn’t exactly go to the physical office.  It was much more convenient to stay at the Four Seasons (not the landscaper!)  and have my meetings there.  The staff liked it better as well. My day often started with two scheduled breakfasts, at least two or three lunches, cocktails and dinner.  When i wasn’t eating or drinking, you could find me on location with David Hasselhoff or any of the stars in our shows.  People who work in LA have a totally different mind set than people on the east coast.  


At some point Jack Germond, a political reporter and dear friend was in LA and I asked Matthew to drive him around.  Why he was there was a mystery. Since Jack had my car, I decided to take a bus.  No one in LA takes a bus. I thought it might be colorful. How far could it be from Santa Monica to Venice. It was far, an required a bus change. Needless to say, I got lost,  and had to have one of the LA staff pick me up in the middle of nowhere. (This was before Lyft/Uber!)  We all had a good laugh — I think. 


That job was terrific, and if it hadn’t been for Barry Diller buying USA and firing so many of us, Televison rather the all the other things I did might have been my career.  The memories just keep on coming and I am having a great time. Oh, I wanted to mention that Matthew is involved with a new technology and working with the WWF ThunderDome.  It has so many uses and potential that if someone called me back I would share it.  It’s about putting thousands of people around the globe in seats at a venue.  The Link https://twitter.com/sportel_awards/status/1321170717963100161?s=10

There is also Business Insider piece that explains  the technology

https://www.businessinsider.in/sports/news/the-inside-story-of-the-wwe-thunderdome-a-futuristic-arena-built-for-the-pandemic-which-already-has-130000-fans-waiting-to-get-in/articleshow/78410132.cms


The cool stuff is still coming.  We're just sayin'.. Iris

Sunday, November 15, 2020

Sit Down, and SHUT UP

 For all my friends who said such lovely things about me, thank you. Believe me I was not looking for compliments, but it was really nice to read them with the birthday wishes. Again, thank you.  


Today The Monster admitted that Joe Biden won the election but, wait for it, he was not conceding because the election was rigged.  For Christ sake, even the fat guy at Justice said that there was no fraud.  So you know what, it’s time for him to "sit down and shut up."

 


The first time I ever thought about "sit down and shut up" was on a flight to Seattle to see my mom. People were hovering in the aisles, not satisfied about I don’t know what. But they were standing, so the plane could not take off. It was incredibly frustrating, and before I started to meditate and I swear to you I was ready to yell, just 'sit down and shut up.'


Just when you think you are rid of the Monster, he says he didn’t win, but he’s not conceding. In the meantime there are citizens who are armed and ready to defend the nation - from who?  From me for sure, and you, and any reasonable people who believe that the election is over. And if the Monster is not going to go away, he really should just sit down and shut up.


What is there to do. My team is prepared to clean house at all the agencies and departments, but the Transition Team has not answered either phone or text messages.   We are all frustrated by the lack of movement in what we perceive to be the transition but since we don’t know what they are doing, who’s to say. The most interesting thing for me is that I do not know one person on the transition team. Hopefully that means it’s a whole new cast of leaders. It is my hope that they understand how dangerous the Republicans who are now in positions of power - and who I hope will be discovered and made to go away.  One can only do what one can do. But honestly, I thought the Monster had come to terms with his loss.  All we can do is hope he will  - sit down and shut up.  We're just sayin'... Iris

Saturday, November 14, 2020

A Birthday Girls Reflection

 When my mother was in her early eighties I caught her staring  into  the mirror. “What’s up mom”, I asked.  She kept looking at her reflection and finally said, “When I look into the mirror I don’t recognize who I see”.


“What do you mean mom, you look great.”  


“But what I’m seeing is not what I was expecting. I guess I expect to see someone younger and with some pizzazz.”


“For your age, you look terrific.”


“For my age, is the issue.”


To be honest I didn’t really understand, until lately.  When I look in the mirror I don’t recognize who I see either.  Luckily I’m friends with people who I have known forever. Long time friends see you like you were when you were in high school or college. At least they say so.


When I look in the mirror I see a stranger with Clarabelle like blonde hair, many wrinkles and my nose looks big. Was my nose always big. It’s hard to remember. Today for my birthday I did six loads of laundry, raked the leaves, made my bed and cleaned the basement. There is so much paper on my desk it’s hard to remember where it all came from. So tomorrow my plan is to sort all that paper. 


Remember when you were little, and had kids’ birthday parties. We were luckier than most kids ((me and Stevie) even though we were only two weeks apart and we lived together we each had our own party because that was the law. We had the same relatives and the same friends but we always had our own parties.  We probably shared presents, and there was always entertainment (us) usually dancing on the couches.  And we were absolutely adorable. This is no longer the case.  


When I realized I would never be a great beauty that was ok because I had a case of terminal cuteness. When did that go away?  Over the years these things happen. It’s usually subtle, but then one day you look in the mirror and there’s a stranger staring back. Oh, there are remnants of the person that used to be, but not so many.  My wish over the years was to be able to grow old gracefully. I have numerous friends who have been able to do that and I admire their casual attitude about it. Maybe the work I chose over the years required a young person to succeed. Someone with unrelenting energy.  At some point the energy diminishes and things that you used to do simply can’t be done. I can still read papers on another persons desk upside down. It was a learned skill that no one can take away, regardless of age, but my eyesight is not so good anymore.  And I am still quick witted, some would even say funny. Oh yes, I can still come up with wacky ideas, and am willing to participate no matter how wacky.  That is innate and comes with a sense of humor, and a friend who always insisted we think, not only out of the box, but out of the universe. 


So what does this all mean?  Nothing really. Understand that I am not whining. My life has been terrific, many firsts and more seconds. It’s just that without serious face work, I’m never again going to be the cutest kid on the block. Good news is, I don’t need to be, because I am happy, active, meditating and just the person I want to be.  A Democrat with a conscience and a moral core will lead the nation when fatty, fatty 2x4 finally goes out the White House door. My cousin with whom I shared those birthdays said, all that needs to happen is the secret service says “we are out of here.”

How lucky am I, how lucky are we all.  It’s my birthday:  Time to eat a Diary Queen. We’re just sayin’....Iris

Thursday, November 12, 2020

Does This Ever Get to End?

I changed my mind.

He stood out in the rain without an umbrella. He paused to gently touch the wreath he had just put on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  If you didn’t know that it was all for the cameras, kind of like holding a bible, after they cleared and gassed the peaceful protestors, you almost would have thought it was a special moment.  It's the first time he has been out of the White House since he lost the election.  Yes, despite what you may have heard from Republicans and political appointees, he lost the election.  


Have you been waiting for the Monster to come to his senses?  Let us not forget, he has no sense, yet alone senses. We all need to remember that he has been saying that if he lost the election it was because there had to be fraud.  He couldn’t just lose the election because people understood that given the choice between a hollow shell, who knew that the entire nation was in danger from the pandemic, and a human being, who cares about the health of the people and the health of the nation, they would chose the latter. 


The thing that still puzzles me is why would any woman or any minority or any immigrant would vote for someone who didn’t care about their human rights. Maybe its me, but when I worked for the Carters and saw that even when people had something to lose, they would choose human rights over expediency.  The Carters were serious about human rights and human dignity.  Its why he’s the best ex-president ever.  And when Hillary said, "womens' rights are human rights," she meant it, and changed a great many lives.  In the 60’s we marched for every injustice. Whether it was the war, women’s rights, or civil rights, we went out on the street and yelled about it.  How could any woman vote for aperson (that’s the nicest i can be), who talked about women the way he did on that infamous Access Hollywood bus interview. If he’s not a rapist, he certainly took liberties with any number of women over the years.  He has no respect for what he calls ugly women, dirty immigrants, or minorities who are poor. Guess he hates white people who are poor, or anyone who is not in that  2% of people who are really really rich. Remember when is was pro-choice and a Democrat?  Even then he was a fop but not dangerous.  Oh, how things change when a brat realizes he has some power, and all he has to do is lose his moral core.  Not that he ever had one — which does make it easier —but based on the last four years, it appears he never did.


This inability to admit he lost.  That he and his many “monsterettes” are not going to be able to use their power and position for anything other than entertaining one another.  What must it be like to suck the blood of an entire country, and then when you still have blood on your face, deny that you did anything evil.   Guess Ivanka will have to sell her own clothes and jewels without being the daughter of the President.  A few weeks ago I saw one of her Ugly dresses in TJMaxx.

And the lovely husband who always looks like he’s smelling farts will have to go back to knowing nothing without his father-in-law giving him assignments which are clearly beyond his minimal ability.  It will be good not to have to listen to their foolish ranting anymore. 


Now i will have to go to sleep knowing that tomorrow he will fire good people and replace them with dolts and political imcompetents.  We can only hope that he will not sell top secret information to his pal Putin in exchange for a hotel in downtown Moscow.  We're just sayin'...Iris

Tuesday, November 10, 2020

Kick Ass - No Prisoners: It's Transition Time

 Let’s pretend that President-elect Biden asked me how should he answer the Monster who is not leaving the White House any time soon.  The Secretary of State said today that there was no need for a transition, because Trump would be staying for another four years. We all know this is crazy town but those of us who were well-versed in crisis communication would tell you that there is something dangerous for all of us by allowing the Monster to craft the narrative.  Which goes something like this:    He won, and they are filing lawsuits, because if he hadn’t won, there wouldn’t be so many people supporting his effort to prove fraudulent voting.  These people are Republican elected officials, political appointees, and people who voted for him.  Should Biden allow the Monster to get away with more lies and false narratives?  


Tonight Biden laughed at Pompeo, the Secretary of State for another 70 days.  The Justice department, I don’t have to tell you.  But the Monster is making very dangerous people  in positions at the Defense Department.  And further, Biden isn’t receiving the kind of international briefings that is usually given to the President-Elect.  That in itself leaves the US exposed to some Despots and Thugs, friends of the administration who have depended on Trump not to make waves or change.  Putin comes to mind, but there are others.  


A few years ago, stop me if I have already told this story, Pamela Harriman called me to find out how she should comment on a supposedly scandalous book that was going to be released about her life.  What I told her was not to comment at all because no matter what she said would be a problem. She took my advice and when asked what she thought about the book, she said,  "no comment," and the book went away,  Would I suggest to Biden that he was playing it exactly the right way by ignoring all the accusations of fraud?  This is a tough one, because it is not in his DNA to be confrontational.  But I don’t think you can allow the Monster to craft the narrative. In addition, People don’t want to think of the President-Elect as a wus.  So he needs to do something.  Maybe not himself, but he has some very strong message people, and surrogates.  The Lincoln Project comes to mind as a  possibility for crafting a Biden narrative, along with some very strong surrogates, like Obama and the Leaders of the Black churches and organizations.  


This is not a matter of ignoring - this is a matter of laughing at the Monster.  He hates to be ridiculed almost more than anything else.  He is a fool, and that needs to be made clear to the American public. The rest of the world already knows it.  Why is he not conceding?   We know he hates to lose but there has to be something else.  It’s all about the money.  He is raising money for PACs, for his new Party, for his new movement.  Since he never released his taxes, we have no idea if he has any private funds. My guess is he does not, and this intentional delay in conceding is because he needs the money, and really, there is no better platform than the White House to make a financial pitch.  Let us not forget the man has no moral core, so this is a perfect scam, much like Trump University. (A deep dive on their new "Fund Raising to Fight Fraud" money operation makes it clear that almost none of that money goes to the Fraud Fight, it's going to Trump bill paying.) 


Biden should keep doing what he’s doing, but the people who are communication experts should not let this pass.  We need to take back the narrative, and craft a message that makes all these Republican yahoos look like the idiots they are.  In one of my last blobs I disagreed with Vice President Biden, and said that the opposition is the enemy and it’s time for us to, as I said before, kick ass and take no prisoners.  We won:  we don’t need to be nice, its a waste of time.  We're just sayin'....Iris