Getting the point across

This photo appears on the back of my new novel, One Shoe Off, which hits the bookstores December 1. I asked my friends on Facebook to guess what it is and lots of people assumed it had something to do with the shoe in the title. A shoe horn or some repair apparatus. A meat hook.  Or a hook for hay bales. But several also mentioned it looks pretty lethal.

When my journalist friends spotted the picture, the jig was up. Newspaper people recognize this as a spike. Back in the days before computers, a lot of paper piled up in a newsroom, especially on an editor's desk. All those stories typed on all that copy paper needed to be corralled. When an editor was finished with a story, he would put it on the spike.Evidently some must have used the spike to hold rejects... ie the phrase to "spike a story." But the editors I worked with used it as a way to file used copy, a sort of purgatory before the waste can where copy could be retrieved if there was a question later.

I remember spikes standing straight up and sharp, like a very long nail. And more than one person got nicked when they slapped a piece of paper on the spike.  The spike in this photo -- which I inherited from David Nicolette's junk drawer at The Press -- has been bent over to avoid such accidents, possibly in response to OSHA regulations.

The spike on the back of One Shoe Off represents that dangerous, lethal aspect of journalism. A spike figures into one of the scenes in the book when a reputed mobster confronts a crime-fighting editor. "Too bad she has to see blood before she regrets the damage she's done. Some people are like that. Blood's the only language they understand."

Christmas Carol chuckles

OMG is Christmas coming to Grand Rapids Civic Theatre! I visited the theater last night as part of the Inside Dish program that gives local media the inside track before each play opens. The official program for the evening was all about flying actors in the upcoming musical, "A Christmas Carol." We got to see Flying by Foy's patented harnesses that are specially fitted to each actor. Actor Michael Dodge calls the awkward underwear a "chastity belt," but it's so top secret that we were warned not to take pictures. 

But one of the fun things about being in the theater before opening night was seeing the backstage preparations without all the sets and costumes. And at this time of year those backstage preparations spill over into the lobby where boxes of ornaments are lined up waiting to be hung on the Christmas tree. Wreaths lean against the wall and garland stretches across the floor. And up on the staircase, executive director Bruce Tinker is stringing lights.

And who is that posing for pictures over by the Christmas tree? Why it's Scrooge (Steve Place) and Tiny Tim. (William Mathias). I even got my picture taken with a rather cheerful Scrooge.

That's just a hint of the festivity that awaits when Civic opens "A Christmas Carol" on Nov. 16. Never let it be said that Civic doesn't know how to celebrate Christmas.

Laughing for Newspapers

My newspaper career has been spent on the receiving end of  laughter while Miami Herald columnist  Dave Barry dedicated his newspaper career to making the readers laugh. Even when the subject is serious. I just laughed and cried over an item in his latest book, I'll Mature When I'm Dead. The item -- “A Practical, Workable Plan for Saving the Newspaper Business”  -- strikes very close to my heart. All of us in the business have seen our publications shrink and our friends lose their jobs. His very funny -- and frighteningly true -- analysis opens with  “The American newspaper industry is in serious trouble. How serious? Consider: In 1971, when I was hired for my first newspaper job, there were 62 million newspaper subscribers in the United States; today, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulation, there are 12, an estimated five of whom are dead and therefore unlikely to renew. What the heck happened?” 

It's a topic everyone is talking about. Just the other day, I spoke to a luncheon group about my memoir Laughing for a Living. In the Q&A afterwards, everyone wanted to know why theater and other local entertainment wasn't getting as much coverage as before, why wire copy was replacing local copy, and basically "What the heck happened?"

I should have told them to ask Dave Barry. At least they'd be laughing.

Signing in the Waldenbooks by Parnell Hall

I'm usually laughing at theaters, but now that I'm writing books, and going to book signings, I have to laugh at the humor of Parnell Hall.

Laughing by the side of the road

I'm the last person who should write commentary on baseball, or a play about baseball broadcaster Ernie Harwell. But I have to admit Mitch Albom's one-act tribute to the Voice of the Detroit Tigers is an entertaining evening even for non-baseball fans like myself. Harwell, who died in 2010, was a likable character and Albom's play, Ernie, which opened last night at Wealthy Theatre, captures him very well. Michigan actor Will David Young bears an uncanny resemblance to Harwell and has his sorta southern drawl down pat. Albom's script is packed with Harwell quips like "two for the price of one" (double play) or "that one's long gone" (home run.) So to paraphrase Ernie, don't "stand there like a house by the side of the road" and watch this one go by. Performances continue through next weekend.

Grade A laughter

Laughing is my life's work. And I was working overtime tonight at "The Dixie Swim Club" at Grand Rapids Civic Theatre. This show has some hilarious lines such as "You couldn't wear that dress to a phone interview." In my job as a theater reviewer, I see all sorts of humor. Slapstick. Campy. Insulting. Vulgar. But my favorite is witty repartee. Sassy barbs bouncing back and forth like a tennis ball. The kind of lines that sneak up and slap you silly. That's what you'll find at "Dixie Swim Club." And not a curse word in the bunch. Just good clean fun. Dive in. The water's fine.

Laugh lines

I'm not in any hurry to grow old, especially after getting a preview recently of what I will look like with a few more wrinkles. In preparation for "Dixie Swim Club," the season opening show at Grand Rapids Civic Theatre, several of us were invited into the dressing room to use makeup to accentuate our wrinkles instead of covering them up. We learned some of the techniques that makeup artists will be using to help the five actresses in the show to age 33 years in two hours. In this photo, the laugh lines of talent agent Malinda Petersen have been accented with dark makeup. That's me, right behind Malinda. I'm a little concerned that I may have even more serious laugh lines since I've been Laughing for a Living for more than a decade. Oh well, every job has its downside. Check out some more photos from our evening of aging on Mlive. "Dixie Swim Club" opens Friday and continues through Sept. 22. It's about five women whose friendship survives 50 years, pregnancy, divorce, hurricane and dementia. Now that'll give you some worry lines!