Letter From Elba

Applesauce

Posted on July 13, 2014 by Ellen Ross

Did you ever read Andrew Solomon’s monumental work Far From The Tree? The title alludes to the old adage “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

In this case however, Mr. Solomon brilliantly and sensitively documents the stories of parents who have had to learn to deal with children who are born very different than they are.

His book limns the lives of kids who are prodigies, some children who are transgendered, some who were born autistic or deaf.

And the “apple” has definitely rolled out of the home orchard in all these families’ cases.

There is, of course, one commonality in all his case studies. All the parents portrayed in the book loved and desperately wanted the best for their children- even if they didn’t always understand them.

Man, this really hit home for me.

I was a conundrum to my mother, who neither understood, nor appreciated, my quirky verbal gifts and creative abilities. She wanted a clone of herself. And she vastly preferred nice, sweet, good-to-their-mothers little girls who were quiet, well-behaved and always knew their place.

(I knew my place, too. Either in my room reading- or OUT- as soon as I could hit the bricks.)

Being “different” wasn’t fun in my family. And certainly not a point of parental pride. I was always questioned and compared- and found wanting. From my earliest childhood, my mother wished me to be anything but what I was.

Now, how can you be something you are not? This leopard couldn’t change her spots. (And didn’t want to- no matter how much easier my life would have been.)

So I learned to ignore the static and let my caravan pass by.

I also swore a vow that if/when I ever had a daughter that I wouldn’t compare her to me- or anyone else, for that matter.

I was firm in my resolve to respect my future little girl for whoever and whatever she turned out to be.

And it was a good thing that I swore this vow because my daughter, Natasha, is WAY different than me.

We are apples and oranges. No- make that apples and leopards.

Longtime readers of this blog may remember my daughter as the stern, penny-watching, mini bar policeman who carefully monitors every expense of mine with the nay-saying heart of a born CFO.

She has also graced these posts as the navy blue and green preppie who never met a bright color she liked- or wore. And let’s not get her started on poor little pink. She’s ruthless in her anti-pink campaign.

She’s still cringes when she recalls the Christian LaCroix cerise suit that I wore to Parent Weekend at St. George’s. (That suit rocked, btw. Natasha was mortified. She felt that I should have chosen dark green or dark navy when I made my appearance on campus, and she still holds that fashion choice against me. Don’t believe her. I looked great.)

But you see, that’s the problem when the apple is from Whole Foods and the tree is from Fauchon. There’s bound to be differences in taste.

I continually let her down in the Wedding Department, too.

Let’s look at some stats, shall we?

Mother Marital Box Score:

Hmm…How shall I put this? Let’s just put down “more than once.” And I’m not entirely sure that I am done with my visits to the altar, either.

Mother’s Business Career: An artiste. I am not a tycoon.

Again, a disappointment, I’m sure. Natasha would probably love to have Sheryl Sandberg, or better yet, Martha Stewart as her mère.

Quelle dommage.

I can think of a million and one ways I disappoint her. She’s traditional and conventional. Serious and quiet.

I love the limelight. She shuns it with a vengeance. From childhood on, she was always in agonies of embarrassment whenever people stopped me on the street to tell me that they liked what I did.

She thinks I’m “unusual” and it irks her no end. Yet I know she loves me- even if she would vastly prefer a mom who looked frumpy, haimisha and made brownies instead of wisecracks.

But don’t feel too sorry for me, dear readers.

This past Wednesday night, at 11:09 pm at a hospital near Boston, my grandson, Samuel Ross- all 7 pounds 15 ounces and 19.5 inches of him- was born to Natasha and Zachary Tofias.

Congratulations and love to all.

And heads up, my darling girl. The baby might share some of my talents and tastes. He could have a great sense of humor. Be a born writer. Love movies, trivia, dogs, cars, skiing, history, crossword puzzles and spy novels as much as I do.

Who knows? Sam just might turn out to be plucked right out of this grandmama’s home orchard.

It’s sure going to be fun to find out.

Psst, Mr. Soloman.

I get another bite of the apple!

Posted in books, Memoir, pop culture | 44 Comments

Win Win

Posted on July 10, 2014 by Ellen Ross

This past May I got invited to a charity concert event hosted by Sherren Leigh, publisher of Today’s Chicago Woman. (Click the link if you wanted to see photos. That’s me- first row on the right- with two of the concert musicians.)

I didn’t want to go. Well, to be more accurate, I couldn’t afford to go. I have gone from the spoiled wife of a “rich millionaire” (thank you, Billy Wilder and Some Like It Hot) to a penny-watching worry wart. (My finances took a catastrophic nose dive in the four year court battle to overturn an egregious, one-way divorce settlement. Nothing like a trial to wipe you out fast.)

Nowadays, I subject every discretionary expense to a long, hard, Scrooge McDuck look before I okay it.

And charity concerts- no matter how fine the cause- are still on my proscribed list. I was weighing the pros and cons of accepting this pricey invitation with my son, Nick, when he jumped in with the deciding vote.

“Uh, you have to go, Dude. This is business,” he advised. “And Mother’s Day is coming up. I’ll buy the ticket for you. Don’t worry about it.”

Sidebar: If I re-live all the conflicting emotions that went through me when he offered to pay for the ticket- shame that I’m so hard up, pride that I had given birth to such a mensch, I would start crying all over the keyboard. So let’s move on.

So I took him up on his generous offer, and soon TCW informed me that my name was now on their guest list. The event was called for six o’clock downtown, and coincidentally, I had plans to meet up with Nick- in town on business from LA- that very same night at Luxbar at 7:30.

Win win.

The evening was gorgeous, I hit the doors promptly at six, and the cocktail hour got off with a bang. RL, one of my fave restaurants in Chicago, was in charge of the catering, and soon I was being plied with yummy appetizers of all description. I passed and passed- until they passed around the sliders- my absolute must-have hors d’oeuvre.

(See above photo link. That’s them in the second row far right. )

I had two. They were awesome. (I also thought that the more I ate on TCW, the less I would cost NCR at Luxbar later. He’s a working man, after all.)

I mixed and mingled and met some very nice people. And then it was time for us to take our seats for the concert. Because I knew I was going to have to duck out early, I sat in the very back row on the end of the aisle.

Sherren got up and quickly thanked everyone for coming. The she turned the floor over to Carrie- her editor and assistant- to tell us exactly where our (read Nick’s) hard-earned money was going to be spent.

Carrie told us that all the proceeds would go to aid women and children’s charities. The ones that were typically overlooked and underfunded. Nice. (I can relate to that- on many levels.) And then she announced that there was going to be a raffle and she asked the gentleman from RL to step up and pick the winner.

I wasn’t too invested in the procedure. 1. I never win anything. 2. I hadn’t bought a raffle ticket.

The guy from RL reached into the proffered bowl, fished around and drew out a ticket. He gave it to Carrie to read.

“The winner is …Ellen Ross,” she announced.

Huh?

I couldn’t have won. For reasons 1. and 2.

The whole theater turned around and stared at me.

“Uhm, thank you!” I wittily ad libbed.

Then Carrie delivered my prize- a white business 8×10 envelope. I opened it.

In it was:

1. An $100 gift certificate to Gibson’s

2. An $100 gift certificate to Piccolo Sogno

3. An $100 gift certificate to Piccolo Sogno Due

4. An $100 gift certificate to Salpicon

And …

5. An $100 gift certificate to Luxbar

What were the odds? I floated out of there all the way to Luxbar.

And when Nick walked in, I grinned and threw down the gift card.

“Dinner’s on me. Look what I, I mean, we just won,” I announced.

He looked and grinned right back. “Sweet.”

That night we lived it up.

Win win.

Wouldn’t you say?

(And I’ve still got forty bucks left on the Luxbar card.)

Posted in Memoir | 10 Comments

Public Service Announcement

Posted on July 6, 2014 by Ellen Ross

It happened again tonight.

At a perfectly lovely Fourth of July party at the country club. Just thirty minutes in, a woman who I hadn’t seen in ages, strolled over to me, cheerfully greeted me, and then started telling me that she knows all about my daughter Natasha’s doings because she plays golf with…Cruella.

My ex husband’s third wife.

Ugh.

Like I wanted to know that?

“Look, Christine,” I said wearily. “I have no interest in who you play golf with. Why would you think I’d want to know this? Don’t tell me.”

She seemed startled. I walked away disgusted and fed up.

It’s four hours later and I am still fuming. The fireworks going off outside my window are nothing to the ones going off inside my skull.

And I am writing this on behalf of ALL divorced people everywhere. Take a good look around you. Even if you’re lucky enough to count yourself in the “happily married only once” group, chances are you know someone- friend, brother, sister, father, mother, child- who can not say the same thing.

I hereby, out of necessity, appoint myself spokesmodel for all divorced people everywhere. It has to be said.

NOW HEAR THIS: WE DO NOT WANT YOU TO TELL US WHEN, WHERE, HOW OR WHY YOU LAST SAW OUR EX SPOUSE- OR THEIR CURRENT MATE. EVER. NO EXCEPTIONS.

We don’t want to hear that you “just bumped into him in Naples” or “saw him walking down Michigan Avenue” or “had dinner with him just last week” or “ran into her at the club” or “played golf with her on Hilton Head last summer” or “said hello to him in the dining room” or any other damn thing.

I’m sick of it. And I know that other people in the same boat feel the exact same way.

Why do people do this? Why do they feel the need to bring me up to speed on someone whose whereabouts and activities do not interest me in the least? In fact, knowing them does me no good at all.

Are they that f-ing stupid? Tone deaf? Socially backward? Mean? Vicious? Silly? All of the above?

Most of the time, this social gaffe is perpetrated by the ignoramuses who have never been through the hell of a divorce court themselves. Usually they’ve only been married once.

But not always. Sometimes insensitive and unfeeling people who have actually been through it- or a version of it- will actually ask me “if I’ve seen Bill lately?”

Yeah, I have.

In my nightmares.

No joke.

And while I’m about it, let me add that the pain and suffering that I- and my kids- go through is not all in the past.

We’re left with the ramifications of his actions every day.

My children constantly have to deal with the heartbreaking sadness that occurs when outright warfare is declared between your mother and your father.

They have to chose which parent to spend Christmas with. They’ve had to negotiate the land mine of weddings and birthdays and holidays- and a million more other bitter circumstances on an on-going basis.

For the rest of their lives.

I can not tell you how many times I have been suckered into a conversation with a smiling “friend,” who then somehow feels the need to tell me that they “just saw Bill at Joe’s the other night.”

Enough. I’ve had it.

If I wanted to know what he was doing today, I would have put up with his high jinks for twenty more years. But I didn’t.

And now, on this Fourth of July, eighteen YEARS after the fact, I want the freedom to enjoy the airspace around me. Free from the pollution of the memories and the betrayals and the pain that your casual mention of his name invokes.

Can’t you think of anything else to say to me?

Tell me why do you do this?

Better yet, don’t tell me.

Posted in Divorce, Memoir, pop culture | 26 Comments

Nyuck Nyuck Nyuck

Posted on July 3, 2014 by Ellen Ross

Okay, ladies. That’s your cue. It’s time to bounce.

Take five to book a mani/pedi, or text your daughter, or wash your lingerie. Any girlie thing you want to do right now, because I guarantee you’re not going to give a darn about today’s post.

But guys, listen up. It’s time to pay homage to Larry Fine, Curly Howard, Moe Howard- and okay- Shemp Howard.

AKA The Three Stooges.

As as kid, I liked the Stooges.

Special Favorite Memories Sidebar: Curly inside the radio, the plumbers making all the water come out of every appliance, the law firm of Dewey, Cheatem and Howe, the witty dialogue- Larry: “I lost my bah-LANCE.” Moe: “Oh, yeah? Well, go and find it.” Shove into the water.

But my brother Kenny LOVED them. Every afternoon at four he would hunker down in front of our TV set, cross his fingers that it wasn’t a “Shemp,” and then he would get hysterical. I mean howl with non-stop laughter.

And to this day, all I have to hear are the opening notes of “Listen To The Mockingbird,” or “Three Blind Mice,” and I start to laugh. That’s a result of all my early conditioning.

Let’s not even talk about the sound effects of the group slap, the Moe Eye Poke, or the sound of Larry’s head getting hammered.

And while we’re at it, who could ever forget Curly? With his special finger-snap-hand hitting his other hand gesture along with his famous “nyuk nyuk nyuk” and “why soitanly!” Along with his backwards, one-legged moon walk/skip- all of which I can do perfectly- for a girl. (But I can’t quite seem to describe.)

Anyway, you have to see Curly in action to believe him.

But that’s the thing about The Three Stooges. You really have to possess a Y chromosome to dig them. It’s issued at a baby boy’s birth- along with the mitt, the fascination with boobs, and cars- and an indifference towards ballet.

Stereo-typing, you say? Oh, yeah? Well, I seldom meet a guy who knows who Diaghilev is.

But they always know Jules White.

I could go on and on. How the Stooges quit that drunk Ted Healy, struck out on their own and became stars. How they never got a pay raise in twenty-three years from Harry Cohn, Columbia’s CEO and resident SOB. (Cohn kept their wild success a secret and always threatened to fire them. Cowed and intimidated, the guys always re-upped one more year for a pittance. Sad.) How they had to tour all the time and never really knew how beloved they all were.

But enough Stooge-deconstructing. As Moe would snarl, “Spread out!”

And watch this.

I can hear Kenny laughing already.

(Alright, ladies, you can come back now.)

Happy and safe Fourth, everyone.

And don’t get hit with any cream pies.

Posted in Memoir, Movies, pop culture, Television | 35 Comments

This Is Dedicated To The One I Love

Posted on June 29, 2014 by Ellen Ross

Before I start to sing the blues, let me give a shout out to everyone at LillStreet Art Center. It was great taking part in the “Booze and Blogs” panel on Thursday night. I had a blast, guys. Thanks.

And now let me get back to the topic at hand. Broken promises and broken hearts.

Sigh. Ever carry a torch? Well, if so, this one’s for you, baby.

Lately I’ve been listening to Aretha Franklin’s killer rendition of “Until You Come Back To Me” (That’s What I’m Gonna Do).

And if you don’t know this song, you’ve probably never been bluesin’.

It was written by Morris Broadnax, Clarence Paul and Stevie Wonder, and it was originally recorded by Stevie back in 1967. However it didn’t make it onto an album until his 1977 anthology Looking Back.

But in 1973 the First Lady of Soul had a million-selling top ten hit with it on both the Billboard 100 and the Billboard R&B charts.

Here are the heartachy lyrics:

Though you don’t call anymore
I sit and wait in vain
I guess I’ll rap on your door
tap on your window pane
I wanna tell you, baby
changes I’ve been going through, missing you, listen you
’til you come back to me that’s what I’m gonna do

Why did you have to decide
you had to set me free?
I’m gonna swallow my pride
and beg you to please, baby, please see me
I’m gonna walk by myself
just to prove my love is true, all for you, baby
’til you come back to me that’s what I’m gonna do

Living for you, my dear
is like living in a world of constant fear
hear my plea
I’ve got to make you see that our love is dying

Although your phone you ignore
somehow I must explain
I’m gonna rap on your door, tap on your window pane
I’m gonna camp by your steps
until I get through to you
I got to change your view, baby
’til you come back to me that’s what I’m gonna do
’til you come back to me, that’s what I’m gonna do
’til you come back to me that’s what I’m gonna do

I’m gonna rap on your door, tap on your window pane
open up, baby
I’ll gonna rap on your door, tap on your window pane
I’ll gonna rap on your door, tap on your window pane

That about sums up my love life situation.

And, baby, you know who you are.

Now let’s hear The Queen of Soul plead my case. Sing it pretty, Miss Ree.

And make it count.

Posted in Memoir, Music, pop culture | 19 Comments

Just Desserts

Posted on June 26, 2014 by Ellen Ross

I am a dessert voyeur. I seldom indulge. I really only like to read the menu. (Now some of this may sound familiar to many of you. But please hang in there with me. This is a new post but I’ve gotten so many subscribers lately that I’ve got to go over some “get acquainted” grazing ground.)

Skipping dessert has always been easy for me. I don’t have a sweet tooth, and to quote a semi-famous blogger, “I’ve never seen a brownie that looks as good as a Chanel suit.”

I’m well aware that not everyone feels this way. A former husband’s former mistress always looked at the menu’s dessert section first. I found this fascinating.

And sometimes she would order it first. (Like a chocolate souffle that needed forty minutes. She wouldn’t actually eat it first.)

But enough about her eating habits. I am just not easily tempted by the dessert course.

But the other reason that makes it so cinchy to skip the dinner finale is that all my favorite desserts are now in Restaurant Heaven. Along with their dearly-departed places of origin.

Alas, so many of my scrumptious “afters” have departed this planet- leaving only a memory of their deliciousness behind.

(Much better for my behind, btw.)

But I’m feeling peckish today, so here’s a tasting sampler from my long-gone sweet table.

1. My ALL-TIME Hall of Fame dessert just might be the mocha, chocolate chip, angel food cake at the Patio in Winnetka. Alas, this darling little luncheonette/tea room is with us no more. But the memory of their chicken salad, lemonade (no pop) and this fabulous dessert lingers on.

2. Pumpernick’s Cheesecake, Miami Beach. OMG! (Or should I say “Oy Vey?”) I loved this stuff- and actually lived on it one whole winter. It was so calorific that I would eat nothing all day, and then promptly at five, I would belly up to the counter and order one slice. For the next thirty minutes, I was in Hog (Oops. Trayf.) Heaven as I would alternate bites with swoons. Good thing I finally left Miami. I had to break my sick Pumpernick’s addiction.

3. The chocolate pudding at the old Bub City on Weed Street in Chicago. I know that a new incarnation exists. I want my old pudding back. Like the Jello of my childhood- only better.

4. The Dobos Torte at the Bon Ton Bakery on State Parkway in Chicago. This is an Hungarian dessert named for its creator- Josef Dobos- and it was csodalatos. Many, many intricate layers of bittersweet chocolate topped with caramel. (And I want to look the way I did when the Bon Ton still existed. I was pretty gyonyoru back in those days, too.)

5. The Bun Bar at Mary’s Cupboard, Winnetka. Ok, I have a major obsession with this place- and its cole slaw. But at the end of a perfect meal (usually barbecued beef) I really liked scoping out the glass case in front of the cash register. I always picked the same thing- the Bun Bar. I was ten. It never tasted sweeter.

6. Any dessert at Indian Trail in Winnetka. Another genteel (no spelling mistake) tea room/restaurant that was my go-to when I was a kid. I loved every single thing on the menu- especially the chicken croquettes, the turkey fricassee, and the Chicken Kiev. And their salad dressings- Green Goddess, poppy seed and their Thousand Island- killed me. I barely had room for dessert, but they were all homemade and to die for. As were their rolls. I did not play favorites. But anything with rhubarb if they had it.

7. The Hot Fudge Sundae at Wil Wright’s in Sherman Oaks, California. Their slogan was “It’s Heavenly” and it was. And now it’s in Restaurant Heaven(ly.)

8. Fritzel’s -at the corner of State and Lake in Chicago- was the greatest. It closed in 1972, and with it went a lot of good times. Do I remember a “snowball”- ice cream covered in coconut with bittersweet chocolate sauce? Or was at that the Pump Room? No matter. I always felt grown-up and glamorous when I was either one of these two great landmarks. The other diners- sexy and fun- were the dessert.

9. Ile Flottante at Jimmy’s Place on Elston Avenue in Chicago.

French Teacher Note. I know that the “I” in “Ile” is missing its circumflex. Je suis desolée. My computer is refusing to cooperate with this mark no matter how may times I try. Quelle dommage.

This delicious custard/meringue covered with crème anglaise was superbe. Hand made by Jimmy Rohr himself. A rare occurrence. Just like Jimmy. I miss him.

10. Cotton Candy at Riverview Amusement Park. My little brother and I out with our dad. Need I say more? Take a look for yourselves. (Ignore the green-faced guy. He goes away when you hit the link.)

I’m going to wrap this up. I’m gaining virtual weight as I type.

(The ex mistress would be eyeing the dessert cart by now.)

Bye bye, all you sweet things.

Posted in food, Memoir, Restaurants | 26 Comments

“Like”

Posted on June 22, 2014 by Ellen Ross

I was a Johnny-come-lately to the social media phenomenon known as Facebook. I just wasn’t interested in joining any on-line group that would have me as a member.

(Thanks, Julius.)

I couldn’t get excited about it. I needed live interaction.

My last husband, The Kid, introduced me to MySpace. He had been a very early member, and it was good promotion for his band. He networked with other musicians on it, got gigs, kept in touch with friends and even found and auditioned singers through its pages.

He wanted me to join up.

Uh, no.

Back in 2003, this was state-of-the-art social media. No one had heard of Twitter, and Facebook was just for college kids.

Or so I thought.

Little by little, I noticed that my peers were going on it and “friending” people like mad. They were putting up vacation pix and kid photos, and it started to dawn on me that FB was not just for sophomores anymore.

But still I didn’t join it.

My life wasn’t in that hot condition. I had zero impulse to broadcast my personal news all over the internet.

Au contraire. I wanted to keep a low profile. There was nothing remotely envy-making about the shape I was in, and even I’m not that good of a spin doctor or image consultant to craft a whole new persona for the virtual world to admire.

I wasn’t taking expensive vacations, my real estate holdings had gone bye bye as payment for the court battle with Bill, the kids weren’t that adorable anymore. There were no grandchildren- at least none that I knew about.

What the heck would I want to be on FB for?

I got the answer in 2012.

The first thing the book agents told me- one minute after they read my book proposal- was to get a social media presence.

ASAP.

(Facebook and Twitter being at the top of their short list.)

This was mandatory. Self-help was the new name of the book promotion game, and if I wanted them to buy my book, they were going to have buy me as a prepackaged name brand.

Sigh.

I reached out to my IT guy. My son, Nick.

“What’s up, Dude?” he answered my SOS call.

“I need to go on Facebook and Twitter pronto. Can you help me?”

“I’m not surprised, Dude. You’ve got to market yourself. Yep. I’ll hook you up. Meet me at my office. We can go to dinner after.”

So I met him there, and he proceeded to take a hasty picture of me- posed against a neon lime green wall. Then he set me up with the two accounts.

“What do I do now?” I asked him.

“I don’t spend any time on Facebook. I don’t know…”

But no sooner had the word left his mouth than I got a FB message. Someone had just “friended” me within a minute of me going live.

Nick and I both stared at the computer screen.

That was only the beginning. It wasn’t a deluge- more like a small stream at first- but little by little, people were responding to the fact that I was now on Facebook.

“There you go,” said my son. Let’s eat.”

“But what do I do with it? How do I market Letter From Elba? What do all these buttons and icons mean?”

“Go home and play with it. You’ll figure it out. You’re smart. And if I were you, Dude, I’d just jump into Twitter. But don’t be a hog.”

“What? What does that mean? I’m scared of Twitter! What if I tweet something and it causes a furor?”

“Don’t worry about that, Dude. No one is following you. Just play around with it and you’ll get the hang of it. I’ve got confidence in you. You’re good at things like that.”

Oy vey is meir. (How many Twitter characters is that?)

This wasn’t exactly the tutorial that I was hoping for.

I’m going to leave Twitter for another post. Nick was right, however. I do love it- and no, I don’t tweet what I just ate for lunch.

But Facebook was a whole other ball of wax.

It was as if I had opened Pandora’s box and all sorts of things flew out.

The Upside: Photos of people I hadn’t seen for eons. It reunited me with some old friends and let me catch up with new additions in the way of wives and babies.

Little kids I once knew who had grown up- and now had little kids of their own. This was really fun.

FB became one long class reunion and caught me up with people I hadn’t seen for a long time.

And I’ve cyber-met new friends. And that’s been a blast.

The Dark Side: It popped up photographic evidence of things I wish I had never seen.

(Again, I’ll save that for a rainy day.)

But the real downside of Facebook was that it was so phony. A child could see that people were expected to “like” your lamest, most-self indulgent, self-referential posts.

Your Facebook friends knew the drill when you put up photos of your:

1. Pets- especially cats

2. Grandchildren

3. Aged parents

4. Preferably a photo with all three.

It was then that I learned that there were two kinds of “likes” in the world. Real ones- and Facebook “likes.”

Anniversaries, brand new babies, family reunions- all lovely life events. But not unique, or indigenously special in any way.

I started to notice the FB abusers. Here was their rationale:

If these life events happen to you, they are no big deal. But if they happen to me, well that’s different.

That’s special.

You all know who I mean. The people who put up every event- in real time, no less.

The party, the outing with little Pierpont, the trip to the Cape. The luncheon, the three year old’s kazoo recital, the cute thing their grandkid just said.

And people actually “like” this drivel.

(Or at least they know the drill. Hit the “thumbs up” button and everything is right in the FB alternate universe.)

Now don’t get me wrong. I’ve done my share of FB posting.

Twice a week, my latest Letter From Elba goes up and people read it on Facebook.

Or don’t.

Sometimes they “like” it.

Sometimes they don’t.

But I’ve learned to take both the compliments and the pans with a big grain of salt.

It’s Facebook, after all. Not reality.

All my friends know my take on the sham that is Facebook. I have complained long and loud about what hooey it all is.

Facebook is a shallow, time-wasting construct where the honesty never lives. I never take anything I ever see on it to heart.

Until last week.

On one of the sites which I enjoy- “You lived on Chicago’s North Sh0re if you remember…”- a very cute guy from New Trier High School posted: “Ellen, we were in the same class. Don’t think we knew each other. Took a look at your graduation photo. One of the best looking girls in our class, if I might say so.”

Hmmm.

I take back everything mean I have ever said about Facebook.

Facebook is the greatest thing that ever happened in the universe.

And every single thing on it is TRUE.

Posted in Memoir, pop culture | 26 Comments

Mongo

Posted on June 19, 2014 by Ellen Ross

IMPORTANT LETTER FROM ELBA ANNOUNCEMENT: I would like to thank Marie and Valerie, and all the talented people at Lillstreet Art Center. responsible for getting next Thursday’s “Booze and Blogs” bash launched. The event is already sold out and I’m excited to be a part of it.

They’ve set up a terrific evening of craft cocktails and a panel discussion featuring Chicago bloggers Dana Bassett, Noah Berlatsky and yours truly.

It’s going to be a short course in “Everything You Have Always Wanted To Know About Blogging But Were Afraid To Ask.”

And even though the event is SRO, if you’d like to take part, please put your name on the wait list. (I feel like a rock star.)

Click here for the evite.

Thank you- and now back to our regularly scheduled program…

Does the name “Dr. Hans Zarkov” mean anything to you? If you think he’s the new Georgian member of the United Nations Security Council, you may want to skip this post.

But if his name send chills of excitement down your spine, you’d better put your space ship into warp drive. We’re blasting off to the planet Mongo.

With Flash Gordon.

When I was a kid I was just crazy about him. And beauteous Dale Arden, scheming Queen Azura- even the creepy, Playdoh-like Clay People.

They all starred in a serial brought into my home via the television waves. And were they sponsored by, who…? I just remembered. Larry Goodman and the Community Discount Store.

But although blonde, blue-eyed polo-playing Yalie Flash – played by Olympic swim champion Buster Crabbe- was the very picture of WASPY hunkiness, (thereby setting a standard in astronaut good looks that NASA clung to for decades) my heart was stolen away by Ming the Merciless.

Long before there was Khan on Star Trek, or Darth Vader in Star Wars, there was bald-headed, Fu Manchu-ed mustachioed, goatee-sporting Charles Middleton as the evil emperor of the planet Mongo.

Just his name- Ming the Merciless- was fabulous! What alliteration. It fairly dripped with menace. It was enough to make my kiddy flesh crawl.

In 1955 Flash Gordon was the highest tech thing ever to beam into my black and white Sentinel TV set. And it really didn’t matter that we didn’t have living color because the serial itself was in a moody, other-worldly, eerie, grainy black and white.

Security Clearance Background Check On Space Traveler Gordon: The series, based on the cartoon by Alex Raymond, was produced at Universal Studios and first shown in movie theaters in 1936. (It has the distinction of being the only serial selected for for film preservation by the United States National Film Library,btw.)

Along with Buster, there was Jean Rogers, (another actress briefly played her in the first series. But this Dale Arden was my pinup girl) Frank Shannon was the semi-mad Werner Von Braun-like Dr. Zarkov and Priscilla Lawson, the sexy, spacebabe, Azura- who was always lusting (fruitlessly) for Flash.

But it was Charles Middleton who stole the show.

As well he might.

The only true actor among them- he had been in such great film classics as Gone With The Wind and Abe Lincoln in Illinois- he could act circles around Buster Crabbe- who though handsome when you dried him off, had learned his craft at the Johnny Weissmuller School of Leaden Acting.

Ming, however, had chops. And he could eye Dale Arden hungrily and threaten the earth people evilly and oh, how I loved him. He was camp and scary at the same time.

A perfect villain for an eight year old North Shore kid.

And let’s never forget that great Flash Gordon theme song.

I used to incite the Avoca school junior orchestra to play it. Me: flute. Who’s big idea was that, btw? Glasses, braces and a woodwind. The epitome of uncool. I must have been some sight in the third grade.

I never could really coax what you could call “music” out of that flute, either. I was much better on the Tonette. But still, every once in awhile when I was really in an impish mood, no matter what melody we were supposed to be playing, I would break out into the “Da da da, dadadada dah” Flash Gordon theme song and hijack the whole band with me.

It was fun.

And the other characters were fun, too. Prince Barin, (isn’t that a contradiction in rank?) Queen Desira, the Shark Men, (divorce lawyers?) the Hawkmen -ruled by Prince Vultan.

And in the dysfunctional Family Feud of all comic time, Princess Aura- Ming’s lovely daughter (no goatee) married Prince Barin – one of the good guys- and together they toss her old man off the throne of Mongo and rule peacefully.

Ming was always trying to make a comeback and overthrow his duplicitous daughter. He and his henchmen were always staging a palace coup- episode by episode.

I could go on and on. But a serial clip is worth a thousand words.

Let’s join our hero, Flash, as he meets Ming the Merciless for the very first time.

Oh, and if any of you know the theme song, don’t be shy. Hum along.

Fasten your spacesuits.

Prepare to be amazed.

And hope to see you all soon. If not on Mongo, at Lillstreet.

Posted in Memoir, Movies, pop culture, Science Fiction | 27 Comments

Where’s Poppa?

Posted on June 15, 2014 by Ellen Ross

As many of you already know, our dad, Ben Roffe, died in May. So this is our very first Father’s Day without him in 3D.

His funeral was a small, private affair on a sunny summer-like afternoon. A beautiful day.

Thanks, Dad. You were always thoughtful.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the cemetery. Here’s how it went down: (Sorry.)

When my phone rang at at 11:50 at night, I knew it could only mean one thing.

And it did.

It was Brentwood Nursing Home telling me that my dad was in extremis.

I called Kenny. He, too, had just been alerted.

“Let’s go,” I said. And ten minutes later we were on our way to Deerfield.

The ride out there was a little surreal. Dark, empty of cars, and we still didn’t know if Dad was alive or dead.

Probably the latter- but we were both prepared for it.

Even still, that news always heralds a tectonic shift in one’s life. We were going to be Dad-less.

And that was going to take some big-time getting used-to.

(But that was all in the future. Right now, it was just important to get there and see what was going on.)

A kind male nurse met us at the nurse’s station and explained that Dad had passed away in his sleep.

Thank you, God.

No suffering. No fear. A king’s death.

Dad and I had discussed it- we talked about everything- and this was what he always said when someone was lucky enough to shuffle off his mortal coil in this fashion.

He got it.

I wanted to see him. Kenny took a pass.

I needed the closure. And I’m glad that I did.

Dead, he still looked better than I did. (No lie. I’m not so hot at one a.m.- and I have more gray hair.)

I didn’t stay long. I returned to the nursing station just in time for the guy to explain to us the Lake County rules of corpse management.

Quincy M.E. Sidebar: When Natasha was a teenager, she had a summer job working for the Illinois State Comptroller, Loleta Didrickson. She assigned Natasha to the agency that oversaw cemeteries and funeral homes. A very important post, btw. We all have been disgusted by scandals in corrupt, venal and mismanaged institutions.

Natasha had to learn all the rules that govern these bodies. (Sorry.) And one day, she casually remarked that she and her fellow interns worked in “The Dead Department.”

Bingo! There was her college essay theme. But that’s another post.

Back to Brentwood…

So this guy now tells Kenny and me that there is a four hour window to transfer what used to be Ben but will now be referred to as the deceased to a mortuary.

And then he asked us the name of our funeral home.

Huh?

Funeral home? Uh, we didn’t have a favorite.

And Yelp, my go-to app, somehow didn’t seem appropriate in this case.

Kenny and I stared at each other. And then he remembered that he had been to a funeral conducted by a cousin of his wife. And that he liked the way the cousin had overseen things.

But he couldn’t, for the life of him, (sorry) remember the name of the mortuary.

My iPhone to the rescue. I googled the name of the dearly departed and found the obituary. In it was the name of the funeral home.

And a photo.

“Is this it?” I asked Kenny holding the phone up to his face.

“Yeah, that’s the place,” he confirmed.

So we gave the nurse the pertinent contact info and left Brentwood- and Dad.

And we felt pretty okay about it. We knew that our father would be treated with respect and consideration by Mary Lu’s cousin.

The next morning Kenny called me.

And he was laughing.

“Oops,” he said. “We made a mistake. We lost Dad.”

“What do you mean ‘we lost Dad?’ What happened? ” I asked. I wanted to know what was so funny.

“We sent Dad to the wrong place,” he said.

“How could we do that? Where is he?” I was confused.

“I called the funeral home this morning to make the arrangements. This guy, Irwin, answered the phone, and I told him that I wanted Amy to do the service. But he told me that she worked for another funeral home.”

“How is that possible?” I asked. “I showed you the picture of the joint and you said that was the place you had been.”

“Yeah, I asked Irwin the same thing. But he told me that they share facilities with another firm and she works for the other funeral director.”

“So then I asked him what I should do. And you know what he said? He said ‘I don’t know what you want to do, but I’ve got Dad.'”

So I said, “Well, you’ve got him! You keep him! What was I going to do? Have Dad drop-shipped to some other place?”

“No, you did the right thing,” I agreed. Now I was laughing.

“By the way,” Kenny continued. “I picked out the casket on-line. It was the model named ‘The Benjamin.”

“Good call, ” I concurred. “The logical choice.”

“Yep, Irwin said that in twenty-five years of doing funerals, this was the easiest funeral he had ever planned. And I said, ‘That’s our dad. Easy-peasy.'”

Now some of you may be thinking, “Really, Ellen? Too soon.”

I just want you to know that my dad would have been the FIRST one to laugh at his MIA snafu. He had a fabulous sense of humor.

He was the one who turned me on to The Marx Brothers, Sid Caesar, Terry-Thomas, Peter Sellers, Buddy Hackett, Rodney Dangerfield, Jack Benny, Steve Allen, Louis Nye, Ernie Kovacs…the list of great comedians he admired was endless.

And he never ever lost his own sense of the absurd. Whenever I saw him in his last days, I’d bounce in and say, “Hi, Dad. What’s new?”

It invariably got a laugh.

He’d look around at his surroundings- and circumstances- and say with a Jackie Mason inflection,”What could be new?”

It always made me smile.

So if you have ever laughed at anything that I’ve ever written, you can thank him.

Happy Father’s Day, everybody.

May today be filled with laughter.

And love.

Easy-peasy.

Posted in Comedians, Memoir, pop culture | 30 Comments

Let George Do It.

Posted on June 12, 2014 by Ellen Ross

My sister-in-law Mary Lu has an unforgettable birthday.

1/1.

(And now you’ll all remember it, too.)

For this year’s gift, I wanted to buy her a tree in New York City. You know, from Bette Midler’s plant-a-tree foundation. I thought it would be a nifty way to commemorate her many contributions to that city’s rich cultural scene.

(For those of you who are new to these proceedings, she is a three-time-Tony-Award-winning Broadway producer.)

But time kind of slipped away from me, and six months later it was still on my “To Do” List.

I never purchased that tree.

A funny thing happened on the way to the arboretum.

I met George.

Doctor George Barany, that is. Distinguished McKnight University Professor of Chemistry at the University of Minnesota.

Math and science whiz, devoted son, loving husband, proud papa, brainiac.

And crossword puzzle master with a black belt.

Now hold up!

Before those of you who are NOT interested in crossword puzzles bail out of here from boredom- and with the exceptions of Bob Boehm, Steve Wolff and Herbie Loeb- I don’t think any of you are cruciverbalists- just trust me.

Keep reading.

George and I “cybermet” over a post I had written and put up on the National Puzzler’s League page on Facebook. He read it, liked it and got in touch with me.

With a proposition.

(I told you that you were going to like this. But no, not that kind of proposition.)

He wanted to know if I would like to collaborate with him on a puzzle. He asked me to choose a theme- and then we could do it together.

I was stunned. Simply flabbergasted. (How does one flabber a gast, btw?)

I love doing them, but never in a million years did I think I could ever construct one. In fact, I knew I couldn’t. I tried once. Ha. What a joke.

But the prospect of being able to choose a topic interested me.

Now you’re talking.

I had so many ideas that my head swum. (It did the butterfly.)

And I started running them all by George by email.

Edward Snowden Sidebar EYES ONLY: I would gladly list all the ideas that I had, but in the covert op world of puzzle-making, topics are king.

They’re highly-guarded state secrets because you don’t want some other nerd making it onto Will Shortz’s short list before you do. So just use your own imaginations here. (And if you have a great idea, see me.)

George liked some, shrugged some off, told me about puzzles he had already done on the same topic, was mildly interested and then…

I casually mentioned that I owed my sister-in-law a birthday present. And that it was six months late. And that she happened to be a three-time Tony winner. Would he be interested in making up a puzzle about her?

Lightning struck.

Would he???!!!

Little did I know that I had hit the excitable show biz Barany nerve.

Bu that was only the beginning of what I didn’t know about George.

To wit:

He is the son of two brilliant scientists who cheated death twice. First at the hands of the Nazis, and then fleeing Hungary- where George was born.

The family relocated to New York. Later, in Chicago, both his mother and father did such smart things in research that I can’t even spell them.

Pierre and Marie Curie Sidebar: George’s parents’ achievements, honors, discoveries and scientific and humanitarian accomplishments would take up this entire post. But in my mind, his mother’s greatest triumph was that she was both a brilliant scientist and a great mom. (Not easy. I’m not so hotsy-totsy at either one.)

George is no slouch in the Mensa department, either

Get this. He skipped college.

Went right for his PhD when he was sixteen. Think Good Will Hunting and you’ve got the picture.

He’s also the world’s leading authority on peptides. What exactly are peptides- and do we really need them? (My brother Kenny thought that they were like Tums. I thought they were toothpaste.)

What I did learn throughout our intensive eight days and nights of collaboration was this:

George is a horrible, mean, slavedriver whose brilliant Dr. Xavier exterior hides the soul of a rabid Marxist.

Groucho, that is.

While he should have been overseeing vital research experiments and finding the cure for the common cold, he was busy instead tossing off one-liners, making with the puns and harassing yours truly to come up with better clues, obits for long dead Broadway stars and nicknames of play doctors.

He wanted me to dig up the bar mitzvah speeches of Sir John Gielgud and Lord Olivier. And he demanded that I get out of a bubble bath ASAP and check to see whether the late Julie Harris had had her appendix out or not.

He knew EVERYTHING ELSE. There wasn’t a topic, theme, clue answer or footnote in history to which he didn’t have at his wily fingertips.

Usually, I’m the human Wikipedia. Nope, this time it was all about him. He did the real heavy lifting in this puzzle. But this was way more complicated an endeavor than I had ever realized.

My innocent comment about Mary Lu set off an avalanche of brain work.

(No exaggeration, btw. In order to make the the Tony Awards telecast deadline this past Sunday, we worked 24/7. I didn’t even have time to wash my hair. And it took my computer, two iPads and my iPhone to get ‘er done.)

Not what I had in mind at all. I sort of envisioned a People Magazine level thing. You know, where you spell out C-A-T and K-I-M. (Btw, not sure if K-I-M can spell C-A-T.)

But it was as if I had asked for a toy paper airplane- and George built me the space shuttle instead.

And don’t get me started on links.

OMG.

Remember in the junior theme and how we hated footnotes?

Even today, the words “ibid” and “op.cit” make me anxious. And that damn bibliography page? I detested that freakin’ thing.

But George has a scientist’s love of the precise, and thus he is obsessed with linking. Every single word in the puzzle- and its midrash ***- had to be linked.

*** George’s word for the puzzle’s answers, it’s backstory and general interesting trivia pertaining to it . The word is a Hebrew one, and it is a collection of stories used by Jewish sages to explain sections of the Bible.

But enough kvetching about the mad scientist.

Take a look at the puzzle, click on all the underlined words, and tell me what you think. Remember, when you look at it, be sure and click on everything that’s underlined. You’ll make George so happy.

It’s pretty cool, though.

Honest.

And what’s a nine letter word for what I’m feeling about George?

SPOILER ALERT: It starts with a “G” and ends in “TUDE.”

Please, Dear Readers, Check This Out.

Posted in Crosswords, Memoir, Movies, pop culture, Theater, Tributes | 30 Comments