FINAL INSTALLMENT:  "IF YOU CANNOT FIND OSAMA: BOMB IRAQ!"

By Connie Corcoran Wilson, M.S.

(*Recap of our previous three installments:  Connie sings "If You Cannot Find Osama: Bomb Iraq" on public radio station WVIK (see 4/25 blog entry). Station has a cow. Connie takes song to Penguin's comedy club. Patrons have a penguin. Connie takes song and accordion to anti-war rally. Students in attendance fall off chairs laughing. Husband is not amused. Now, Connie includes the story in her book Both Sides Now, and attempts to begin marketing her mostly-funny book….only to learn that……..READ ON…..(The excitement mounts)…..!

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If you want to read the ENTIRE book by this Uber-Patriot (Whoops! Bad choice of words. Sort of like W's "crusade" slip. My bad! Make that SUPER-PATRIOT), order Connie's book at www.ConnieCorcoranWilson.com or at Amazon.com or at Barnes&Noble.com, or from the shelves at Border's Book Store in Davenport, Iowa….It's funny! It's serious! It's Patriotic! It's all those things in a delicious mélange of penguin and cow!…

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HEY…and leave some comments on the blog for me….OK, already? I'm working my fingers off for you, here, but do you write? Do you call? Nooooooo. You CAN write me at EINNOC10@Aol.com if it's nice stuff. If it's insulting and nasty, send, instead, to the www.WhiteHouse.gov. When you do write to EINNOC10, put "Comment from Blog" in the title part…Thanks for hanging in there through this entire story!

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 If you are still reading about the "night the lights went down on Iowa" (i.e., the night I sang the title song on the air at WVIK (which is actually in Illinois, but which carries to nearby Iowa) …and suffered the consequences…let me now tell you, as Paul Harvey used to say, "the rest of the story"…..

 But, first, I must take you back in time to 9/11/01, when I was at a Sylvan Learning Systems Conference in Baltimore, Maryland, residing on the thirty-eighth floor of Baltimore's tallest (and newest) hotel, directly across the street from Baltimore's version of the World Trade Center. Terrorists had just hit the twin towers of New York City with commercial airliners. I realized that life as we knew it would never be the same, and sat, clad only in the towel from my just-completed shower, watching in horror!

 I didn't leave my room for hours, watching both assaults on the Twin Towers "live" until I was called by my employee, Chris, from the hotel lobby.

 "Aren't you coming down?" she asked.

 It was now about noon. I explained that there wasn't a workshop or a Sylvan speaker of any kind who could hold my attention when history was being made on television, and our world was seemingly spinning out of control! 

 She said, "They evacuated every floor above the fourth floor hours ago. The authorities aren't sure whether there are any other Eastern seaport cities that have been targeted by the terrorists, and they are taking the precaution because this is the tallest building in Baltimore, directly across the street from their World Trade Center."

 Oh. Well. Nobody had 'splained it to me like THAT, before!

 I quickly hustled down to the lobby and we set off to find a restaurant that was still open. Which wasn't easy. We ended up at Hooters, the only restaurant operating in Baltimore's Inner Harbor on 9/11/01.

 How surreal is it be watching the airplane attacks on the World Trade Center replaying, over and over, on national television, while a jiggly blonde in tight, short shorts asks you for your order in Hooters-speak?

 "What's wrong with this picture?" I asked Chris, my companion.

 "W is exhorting the nation to remain calm, and I am ordering buffalo chicken wings from someone in microscopically tight shorts with the name 'Bambi.'"

 As we ate, I began hatching a scheme to do something to help. Anything. I think we all felt this way on 9/11. First, I tried to get the Sylvan franchisees present at these pre-conference activities organized to give blood. (This never quite materialized for a variety of reasons, which seemed mainly to be because it had been my idea and the PTB were angry with me for saying, "Where's OUR Ronald McDonald house?" at a conference meeting the day before).

And so it was, on this fateful moment in our nation's history, that I hatched the idea of a patriotic "Sing-Along" money-raising event called "Celebrate Citizenship!", which would feature the BEST junior high school band in the state of Illinois (the East Moline, Illinois, Glenview Junior High School Band had just received that honor), speakers, things sold to profit the orphaned children of the WTC bombing victims. All this would occur in just two months' time, on Veterans' Day, 11/11/01.

 So it was that, after two months of organizing, I did secure the Glenview Middle School Band, under the direction of Director James Weir. I rented the Pleasant Valley High School auditorium (stadium seating), putting up all insurance money(s) and payment fees. Local Channel 4 WHBF newswoman Andrea Zinga signed on first to MC and speak. Then, the Daily Dispatch agreed to print thousands of flyers to publicize the event. We secured "Happy" Joe Whitty, local pizza king, as a speaker and his daughter Krystal to sing. John Marx, local columnist for the Dispatch spoke. A young sports reporter from KWQC, Channel 6, named Ryan Nolan took part. (I was kidding him, though, when I said that one of my students had brought a baseball for him to sign. He failed to "get" the joke, and, afterwards, said, "Where's the kid with the baseball?") There were Sylvan kids everywhere….just not with baseballs. (That was a joke, son.)

Our Sylvan students had written about the WTC bombing(s) and several of them read touching selections, in between the musical numbers, where we all sang our little hearts out, accompanied by a full band. Except for a couple that I had to play the piano to accompany, because Jim Weir didn't have the arrangement(s) for a couple songs.

We sold red, white and blue popcorn. We sold patriotic pins. Krispy Kreme doughnuts gave us doughnuts at cost to sell. Happy Joe's donated ice cream. We sold tee shirts. Any profit from the sales of these items on November 11, 2001, …appropriately, Veteran's Day and two months out from the bombings…. was to be matched by our corporate parent company and would go into a "special" fund, administered by Sylvan Learning Systems, a fund for the education of the orphaned children of the World Trade Center victims. I have always felt that was the company's response to, among other things, my nagging that we needed to do more community-oriented charitable acts. Good for them! Good for us! Finally, "our" Ronald McDonald house!

 So, sing we did. And raise funds we did…thousands of dollars, in a burst of patriotism which would soon be crushed by the subsequent actions of our bumbling war-mongering pResident.
 
 It cost, me, personally, as the CEO of Sylvan Learning Center in Bettendorf, Iowa, several hundred dollars to put this patriotic event together (permits, insurance, items to sell, tee shirts for band and for sale, pins, advertising costs, etc.)

 I wonder how much Dwyer & Michaels personally shelled out to "help" after 9/11 and what they did, at that time, to "Celebrate Citizenship"? Because the radio duo, when asked to possibly interview me on their show and cut commercials from the "live" interview, pronounced me "unpatriotic" because I dared question the U.S. bombing of Iraq and Bush's getting us into another Viet Nam quagmire. And, boys: I'm old enough to remember Viet Nam up close and personal? Are you?

 They said I was wrong to dare to say, way back before the bombing began, that perhaps we, as a nation, were acting on wrong information and were making the wrong response. I wasn't "supporting our troops," even though I had just, also, sent off several CARE packages, containing sun glasses from a recent party, for one thing, and playing cards, and hand lotion, and all sorts of things that I had read were wanted. Old unpatriotic me.

 So, imagine my surprise, when, in attempting to get the area's Top Morning Duo, Dwyer and Michaels, to cut (really expensive) paid commercials for my book Both Sides Now, I was told that "Dwyer and Michaels don't want to interview you or do any spots for your book because you are unpatriotic." (This from the ClearChannel representative, whose e-mail I still have.)
And what caused this judgment of MY lack of patriotism?

 Why the ditty, "If You Cannot Find Osama: Bomb Iraq!", of course, which I didn't even write, but merely sang, because it was just too good not to be heard.

 When logical and thoughtful dissent over rash actions (like bombing Iraq without cause) is cause to label good citizens like me "unpatriotic,"….(ME who organized the "Celebrate Citizenship" event, single-handedly, at her own cost, and who loves her country dearly)…Hitler's deputy Himmler would be proud, because that is exactly what he said one should do to dissenters: pronounce them "unpatriotic" and let them be swept away and put down in the militaristic fervor and hysteria of the moment".

Let's just say that I don't listen to that station any more. In fact, ClearChannel, in general, is pretty much off my list. And I don't mean my Christmas list. 

If you want to continue listening, go ahead, because, for the moment, this is still a free country where we can each speak our minds. But just barely. BUT, for my part, I took my business to B100 and Jeff and Missy in the Morning, who did a wonderful job both interviewing me and making commercials from the interview.

Jeff and Missie also thought "If You Cannot Find Osama: Bomb Iraq!" AND my book were amusing.
I hope you do, too.

Thanks for reading! Keep those cards and letters coming. And watch for me on Mondays on the www.blogforiowa.com.
  
The End

Copyright 2004 by Connie Corcoran Wilson, M.S. All rights reserved. You may recopy this article, as long as you do not change the content and give full attribution. And don't forget that the story itself is in Connie's book Both Sides Now, available, as stated earlier, from all major bookstores online and at Connie's website www.ConnieCorcoranWilson.com. See you next Monday!

If You Cannot Find Osama: Bomb Iraq!

Part Three

By Connie Corcoran Wilson, M.S.

(*As Installment Number Two ended, our fearless heroine was returning to her humble cottage, where her husband, a dyed-in-the-wool Republican, impatiently waited to crank up a video. She was supposed to have been "having tacos with the girls" from 5 to 7 p.m.; it was now 10:30 p.m. Our accordion-toting adventurer lugged this 100-lb. monstrosity (her accordion; not her husband) across several snow banks in downtown Rock Island, Illinois, in order to regale the anti-war folks assembled at the Midwest Writing Center with several choruses of  "If You Cannot Find Osama, Bomb Iraq!"  We open on a decidedly untranquil domestic scene where the lateness of the hour has failed to endear her to her long-suffering Republican husband. . . .
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When I came home late from "tacos," my husband wanted to know where I had been.
 
I said, "I was playing my accordion at an anti-war rally."
 
He said, "Sure you were," rather wryly, and walked off, noting that he had expected me home hours ago, so that we might watch "Kill Bill: Volume I."

I also made a stand-up appearance at our local comedy club, Penguin's, on the final Wednesday of February.  I worked this in during the Wednesday night "taco night" with the girls, so that my husband would be none the wiser.  I did so on a dare. ("You wouldn't!" A:  Oh, yes, I would!)

My 36-year marriage is a little like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver's, only without the support for Arnold from Maria.  So, I try to keep a low political profile whenever possible.  (Which is why I am writing for this blog.)

I included a lot of political humor in my Penguin's Club routine, along the lines of, "What did Gennifer Flowers say, when asked if her affair with Bill Clinton was similar to that of Bill and Monica Lewinsky's?"

A:  "Close, but no cigar."

I also shared the joke that historians had decided to call Bill Clinton's eight years in office "Sex Between the Bushes."  But never mind about that. I find myself reminiscing for "the good old days" when our biggest problem was whether a blue dress was or was not dry-cleaned, rather than whether 707 servicemen are dead and another 3,800 or so wounded on foreign shores.

On that last Wednesday in February at Penguin's Comedy Club in Bettendorf, Iowa, it was my singing of "If You Cannot Find Osama: Bomb Iraq!" that was the featured set-piece of the evening's festivities.  My tale of how Mr. Pin-headed (OK…pin-striped) Engineer Person pursued me into the parking lot of WVIK (next time: mace, I'm thinking) was greeted with chuckles.  I also told about the after-math of my "daring to be different" on the air.

The morning after my radio faux pas, I got a phone call from the woman who was the volunteer coordinator.  Unfortunately, she chose to call me at 8:00 A.M. and it is well-known amongst friends and acquaintances that calls to me before 10 A.M. are ill-advised.

She went in to a long, droning speech about how we couldn't have this sort of shenanigans on the air.  I was half-asleep and so tired that, at one point, I laid the telephone down on the pillow next to me until the droning stopped.

Then, I picked up the phone and shared the information with the nice lady that if Mr. Pin-headed Engineer Person pursued me in to the parking lot, screaming and yapping at my heels one more time, I would be forced to use mace. Or, barring that, I would kick him right in the b-lls. (Can I say "b-lls" on a blog? Oh, well. I just did. Please gasp in unison and think of beach balls.) I cheerily asked her to pass this information along to Mr. Pin-headed Engineer person, for his own health and safety.

I also spent long, futile hours making phone calls to various mucky-mucks affiliated with the station, in a vain attempt to find out exactly what the FCC "rules and regulations" actually were. Or where.  I remember asking, "Was it my singing? Was that what set him off?"

I never found out what the FCC rules and regulations were. After the early-morning phone call from the previously nice (now decidedly frosty) volunteer lady, I got a letter from her, warning me that political commentary of this sort had no place in a democracy, since my opinion did not support our fearless (and thoughtless) leader's (George W's) bombing of a nearly defenseless country that hadn't attacked us first.

After we actually bombed these poor schmucks back to the Stone Age, in keeping with George W. Bush's "Whack-a-Mole" foreign policy commitment (That is what the experts actually call it!), I gave up any thought that the lives of innocent civilians and servicemen could be saved by the likes of me singing and playing the accordion.
 
But I still think it's a keen song, and I want to give public credit to the author of the ditty, whoever he is and wherever he may be (and you know who you are) and say, "Hey! The blind and visually-impaired listeners with a special receiver within a ten-mile radius of WVIK in Rock Island, Illinois, thank you!"

I also wrote a letter to the previously nice volunteer coordinator lady, saying that I didn't really think that the walls of WVIK would come tumbling down just because I sang two stanzas of "the forbidden song," as I now call this ditty. A song which goes right up there in the annals with the "forbidden dance," the Lambada.

And, if all else fails, and you cannot find Osama: Bomb Iraq! 
 
Nothing else left of value there now, anyway!

(*Next installment, local disc jockeys Dwyer & Michaels refuse to do "spots" for Connie's book, because, they say, the story above makes her "unpatriotic." Learn about this, how to play the accordion in ten easy lessons, and how not to continue on the radio in any capacity in our next installment.  I'm really just making the part about the accordion up to see if you are reading this.)

Copyright 2004 by Connie Corcoran Wilson. All rights reserved.  Feel free to duplicate or distribute this file, as long as the content is not changed and this copyrighted notice is intact. Thank you. Check out Connie's book Both Sides Now, from which this is excerpted, at www.ConnieCorcoranWilson.com; at Amazon.com or at Barnes&Noble.com. Send nice notes to Einnoc10@Aol.com. Send nasty notes to GeorgeWBush@. . . I'll let you look it up for yourself.

IF YOU CANNOT FIND OSAMA: BOMB IRAQ!

PART II of the Saga- continued

(*When the first installment of our story ended, our heroine, Connie Corcoran Wilson, intrepid reader to the blind and visually disabled on WVIK's public radio station at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois, had just been told to stop singing the title song on the air. "Was it my singing? What?")

She has left the station in shame, pursued to the parking lot by Mr. Pin-headed Engineer Person yapping at her heels, only to discover---(horror of horrors!)---that she has left her sweater in the broadcast booth! There is some concern for Connie's possible banishment to Cuba and Guantanamo Bay holding cells, potential tying to the nearby railroad tracks, or---God forbid---compulsory attendance at the Republican National Convention! (Connie is unsure that she could take any additional stand-up-and-wave appearances from Ozzie Osbourne in a neck-brace, nor singing by such golden oldies as Shirley Jones, who will, no doubt, be among the "hippest" of the Bush entertainment troupes come summer.)

We pick up the story of our vocal victim with her re-entrance to the hallowed halls of public radio station WVIK to reclaim her sweater…..

I drove back up the hill to retrieve my sweater, which I had left in the broadcast booth. There were now five engineers all huddled together outside the door of the studio.  They were all a-flutter-twit!  As I entered I said, "Gee! This must be the most excitement you guys have had in years!" 

My favorite engineer, Gary, quickly ducked his head and scurried down the hall, but Mr. Pinheaded Engineer-Person, again, pursued me (sweater now in hand) to the parking lot, practically apoplectic. It was all "FCC this" and "FCC that." 

Interestingly enough, although I made several subsequent phone calls to various mucky mucks (most notably Don Wooten, the founder of WVIK's radio station), trying to find out exactly WHAT the FCC "rules and regulations" might be, and WHERE they might be housed, the FCC rules and regulations could never be located.  I probably would have to personally correspond with Colin Powell's son (the head of the FCC) to find out what horrible fate awaited someone like me, who dared to sing a satirical ditty on the air that was not P.C. (politically correct) at this moment in our nation's history, when we are all about marching into countries that are leaving us alone and taking them over.

About this time, various anti-war demonstrations were taking place around the Quad Cities area.  An old Berkeley student from the Mario Savio days of the sixties (more to come on that topic in future columns), I chose to join the one at the Writers' Studio, which I knew would (probably) be full of people who might, in turn, (probably) be very full of themselves, many of them pontificating on the subject of war in original verse. 

Original verse had been requested, as the price of admittance to this anti-war soiree. I had no "original" anti-war verse, but I did have "If You Cannot Find Osama: Bomb Iraq!" and I loved it!  GOTTA SING! GOTTA DANCE! (Well, no dancing, but you get the idea.)

During the poetry-reading part of the festivities, where various local college students who were getting "extra credit" points from their teachers for attending (many yawns and blank stares; some actual nodding-off, a là church-goers), only Lawrence Ferlinghetti's poems held my attention.  When I got out my accordion and invited the crowd to join me in a sing-along, let's just say that it got the attention of the crowd.

I had inherited the accordion from my cousin Lois's husband Larry on the Fourth of July, when we traveled to St. Louis to visit him for the last time, as he was terminally ill with liver cancer.  Larry and I had for years shared a secret hatred of the accordion, which both of us were forced to learn to play against our will.  We smuggled his old accordion down from the attic and in to the trunk of our car while my husband was in the bathroom.  Since then, I had been having a great deal of fun getting it out and thinking up devilish ways to use it. This was partially because my husband, upon discovering, back at the motel, that there was a very large accordion roughly the size of a small freezer completely filling the trunk of our car had said, "You'll never use that thing!" (Aù contraire, mon frêre!)

I also remember that each and every other participant at that night's event spent at least ten minutes introducing himself (or herself), going on about how he (or she) taught here (or there).  As I write this, there is no college or university in this area that I have not been affiliated with, in some capacity.  I, however, chose to remain anonymous. 

And so it was that, in the next morning's paper, as it wrote up the event, it said, "An anonymous woman with an accordion took the podium." 

And the paper went on to recite the first couple of stanzas of "If You Cannot Find Osama: Bomb Iraq!"

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(*Don't miss out on the next exciting Installment, Number Three, of "If You Cannot Find Osama: Bomb Iraq", in which our heroine, the vocally-challenged Connie Corcoran Wilson, returns home three hours late from what was supposed to have been "Wednesday night tacos with the girls,"  and  tries to make this excuse fly with the Republican in-house: "I was playing my accordion at an anti-war rally." (His response: "Sure you were.")

If you really cannot WAIT to find out what happens next (the excitement mounts!), order Connie's book in its entirety from her web-site:

www.ConnieCorcoranWilson.com. 

If in the Davenport, Iowa, area, hustle on over to Border's bookstore where it is on the shelves. And, failing that, you can write Connie herself at Einnoc10@Aol.com or order from Amazon.com and/or Barnes&Noble.

Copyright 2004 by Connie Corcoran Wilson.  All rights reserved.  Feel free to duplicate or distribute this file, as long as the content is not changed and this copyrighted notice is intact. Thank you.