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December 19, 2005
An Open Letter to Scott Simon
Dear Scott,
You did me a big favor twenty-eight years ago, so I thought it would be OK to write and ask for another one. Sure, I haven’t done anything for you in the intervening decades—in fact we haven’t even spoken. But why should a quarter century of silence matter among friends. (Actually, “slight acquaintances from a very long time ago” is more accurate, but what the heck.)
Won’t you PLEASE have me on your radio show to talk about my new book?
In 1977 I was a senior at Dartmouth. I spent the spring as an intern at NPR—that’s where we met. (There was a big hubbub over the fact that this 20-year-old intern (me) was doing on-air pieces for “All Things Considered.” Bob Siegel and Bob Krulwich were at each other’s throats over it—tell me you haven’t forgotten!) In December I traveled to Chicago for Christmas with my classmate Mark Tomizawa. We were both eager young guys knocking at the door trying to get into broadcasting.
You were kind enough to write us letters of introduction. Funny, charming, witty letters of introduction. Remember? Well, it was a long time ago. So I’ll show you. Here's one. Here’s the other. See? You must have liked us to say such nice things. You are the only person who ever compared me with H.V. Kaltenborn, despite the fact that he and I both worked in radio and have Germanic names. And you know, I eventually got a job at one of the places where you sent us. So it all worked out, and I’m grateful.
Still, I could use a little more help today, and as they say, what have you done for me lately? (I haven’t done anything for you either, but is that really relevant?) I’m a documentary producer and author, and Harper Collins published my latest book about a month ago. It’s called The Greatest War Stories Never Told: 100 Tales from Military History to Astonish, Bewilder, and Stupefy. The book is a collection of surprising, quirky stories from the annals of military history, like the elite fighting unit that was 100 per cent gay and the international crisis created by the shooting of an elderly pig. In my opinion, and I think I can be completely objective about this, it would be absolutely perfect for your show.
So what do you say? People say I have a face for radio, so that should help. I don’t stutter, and in fact I’ve done lots of interviews that folks seemed to find entertaining and informative. I have a great passion for history, and a desire to share that passion with others. I love your show—I’ve been an avid listener for years—and I just know this would work well on it. Did I mention I love your show?
Maybe you need a reference to make sure I’m not a total kook. (Well, actually…) Jacki Lyden can vouch for me, if you can figure out what war-torn part of the planet she’s off to today. John Ydstie (what kind of name is that?) interviewed me on Weekend ATC and-a-half years ago when my first book came out, so you could ask him. Smoky Baer might remember me from years gone by. Or you can just do the modern thing and check out my website.
Look, Scott, let’s be frank. After all, we’ve known each other (sort of) for a long time. I’ve got a daughter in college (a Tulane refugee who is going back in January) and a son who will be in college soon, and those tuition payments are crushing. I have to sell a lot of books! Sales have been good, but they can always be better. So man, I’m begging ya…
I suppose I could have gone the old fashioned route and sent this to you by mail, or even email, but didn't want it mistakenly intercepted by some well meaning assistant trying to protect you from the pathetic pleadings of self-promoting authors—thank god I don’t fall into that group! So instead I sending it out as an online message in a bottle, floating it off into the virtual world and hoping it gets to you by hook or crook. If it does, Scott, call me on my cell, 781-801-3261, and let’s set something up.
After all, one good turn deserves another…and it has been 28 years.
Sincerely,
Rick Beyer
Posted by rickbeyer at 03:15 PM | Comments (0)
Big New York Media Day
The couple was clearly drunk. Not obnoxiously so, but enough to make their voices far louder than normal. It was 1:30 AM and they had woken me from a sound sleep, their conversation in the corridor carrying quite clearly into my room at the Omni Berkshire. They were locked out and awaiting assistance. By the time they got it I was wide-awake, and I never really got back to sleep.
Just a little less than four hours later, I was dressed in my best interview clothes and walking out the door of the hotel, stepping out from under the awning into the pouring rain. The time was 6:20 AM. Beth Mellow from HarperCollins and I were on our way to the day’s first interview, and in fact, the big fish of the last 8 weeks—a national TV interview on “Fox and Friends,” the popular morning show on Fox News Channel.
The walk from the hotel to the Fox studios on 6th Avenue was a short one, and with a borrowed umbrella from the hotel offering suitable protection from the elements, we were there in a few minutes. After a small hang-up at security, a producer named Tiffany ushered us into the green room. “This is Rick at 6:50” announced Tiffany, and Claudia, the make-up artist, said “Hello Rick at 6:50,” and I was into make-up.
Ten minutes later, just as Claudia was finishing up, Tiffany came back to escort us into the studio. All of a sudden time started speeding up like crazy. A soundman was putting a wireless mic on my lapel, and I heard someone saying: “Rick Beyer…is he here with us?” A floor director was calling out “30 seconds” as I was being escorted to the set. I barely had time to shake hands with hosts Julian Philips and Andy Napolitano (who turns out to be a law school classmate of Jerry Fritz) before Andy was reading the intro and we were into the segment.
The interview seemed to go by in a flash. Suddenly we were done, and I was being escorted out. To come into the building we had to go through security in the main lobby, but there is a second door by the studio, and about 30 seconds after I got off the air we were standing out on 6th Avenue in the rain! Hard to believe that in the three or four minutes between the green room and the street, the conversation I had in that small studio was beamed across the country and seen by hundreds of thousands of people! (And you could see the impact by watching the book shoot up on the Amazon rankings…hitting a high of 161.)
Later in the morning, a Mercdes limo driven by a jovial, white haired Lithuanian named Constantine took us to Port Washington, where I was to speak at the library. When we arrived, it turned out that the library was expecting me to talk about the first book, not the new one we were promoting. I, of course, was prepared to talk about the new book—but they were quite insistent that the talk be about the first book, since that is what they had promoted, and that was the book they were going to sell afterwards. After a momentary attack of fear and panic, I headed off a quiet corner where I took out a pad of yellow paper and fashioned a talk that focused on the old book while mentioning the new. I finished my notes with about ten minutes to spare.
The talk went amazingly well. Everything seemed to flow; the audience of fifty or so participated enthusiastically, laughed at my jokes, and bought plenty of books afterwards. It was hard to imagine a talk going better. Maybe it was the shot of adrenaline that the panic gave me.
The audience included my uncle, Ed Smith of Massapequa; my book editor, Mauro Dipreta, from Harper Collins, and a veteran of the Ghost Army, Tom Roche. Another audience member made a sketch of me that you can see here.
After I signed all the books they sold, it was back to town for one more interview at ABC News Now, a cable/online offshoot of ABC.(Once again we were met at the door by a producer named Tiffany--it was Tiffany kind of day!) Then I hit a few Barnes and Noble bookstores to sign books before heading back up to Boston by train. A long and profitable day!
Posted by rickbeyer at 02:45 PM | Comments (0)
December 15, 2005
Fox and Friends
My appearanceon "Fox and Friends" on the Fox News Channel will be at 6:50 tomorrow morning (Friday December 16th.) A bit earlier than I thought...but quite good.
Posted by rickbeyer at 08:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 05, 2005
Newton Free Library
A belated note that I amspeaking at the Newton Free Library in Newton Mass Wednesday December 6th at 7:30 PM (617) 796-1360
Posted by rickbeyer at 09:00 PM | Comments (0)
December 01, 2005
Remembering Ellen Beyer
This is a sad week for the Beyer family.My mom, Ellen Beyer, died on Monday. She was 84. This is a picture of my Mom and me on a happier day. My sister Cathy Hurst wrote a wonderful rememberance of her that appeared in yesterday's Providence Journal, and I reproduce it in full here:
Ellen Beyer's lifelong love of cooking led her to amass a remarkable cookbook collection of nearly 4,000 volumes. And as the wife of Brown University professor Robert Beyer, Ellen applied her college chemistry training, and her interest in good food, to cooking not only for her own family, but also for Brown faculty, Cub Scouts and Brownies, numerous lucky classmates of her children, and generations of foreign students who attended International House potluck luncheons or were invited to her home for Thanksgiving feasts.
Mrs. Beyer died on Monday at Roger Williams Hospital. She was 84.
But her memory lives on in the stories her family and friends have about her cooking. 'I cook like a chemist,' Ellen frequently stated - and to her that meant cooking with discipline. But she also had a flair for meal planning and recipe selection, and her eclectic cooking interests led her to start buying cookbooks. The bulk of her collection is now shelved for future generations of cooks at Johnson & Wales University. 'I've spent 50 years of my life putting this collection together,' said Ellen at the time of her donation. 'I wanted to ensure that my books have a good home and are used as a resource. I know they're in good hands at Johnson & Wales.'
Ellen's cooking took her from a tiny apartment with a shared bath that she lived in as a new bride to the sunny kitchen with stainless steel appliances that was the result of a remodeling at their East Providence home in the 1980s. 'I finally got the kitchen I always wanted!' enthused Ellen.
Ellen was born in 1921 to Richard and Margaret 'Bess' (Logan) Fletcher in New York City, the oldest of three children. She grew up in Floral Park, NY, where she lived until she was married - except for a stint in the 1930s. Her father decided during the Depression to 'go back to the farm', and took his urban family to live in Salisbury, MD for four years, where Ellen gamely worked the land, fed the animals, and helped her mother to can fried chicken. 'I never wanted to touch dirt or eat watermelon again,' she said. Ellen's relationship with her mother was memorialized in a sweet and witty story entitled 'A Plate of Peas' written by her son, Richard, and included in a 2001 anthology of stories edited by Paul Auster. It contained an immortal line of Ellen's: 'You ate them (the peas, that is) for money, you can eat them for love.'
After graduating from Sewanhaka High School in Nassau County, NY, Ellen went on to Hofstra University in Hempstead. Hofstra offered Ellen the opportunity to apply her considerable academic skills (she earned her B.S. there in 1943) and also to meet her future husband when their paths crossed in physics and chemistry classes. Bob graduated first in their class and Ellen second - Ellen said it was because she was having romantic problems that a few Bs were able to slip in among the As in her transcript.
After graduation, Ellen went to work as a chemist at Pfizer until she married Bob on Valentine's Day in 1944. The new bride moved to Ithaca while her husband completed his doctorate, and then to Providence in 1945. As a Brown University faculty wife, Ellen threw her- self into university activities, including active membership in the Ladies of the Faculty.
When the Beyers moved to Riverside in 1950, Ellen joined the League of Women Voters, and also started an active career as a volunteer with Scouting. She also began visiting patients on Sundays at the Hattie Ide Chaffee Home in East Providence, where she was a regular for more than 35 years. When the Beyers moved to East Providence in 1963, Ellen and Bob became communicants at St. Martha's, and Ellen turned her considerable volunteering skills to supporting her new parish.
Ellen was fiercely devoted to her family, and her son Richard recalls a letter she wrote to him when he was having problems in college: 'Mothers are for sharing sorrow as well as joy, failures as well as successes.' She was an equal partner in an amazing, unshakeable marriage - Father Jude McGeough, their pastor at St. Martha's, described the Beyers as 'two hearts beating as one.'
One of the perks of college life was the opportunity for Bob to take several yearlong sabbatical leaves. The Beyers spent sabbaticals in Los Angeles, CA; Stuttgart, Germany; Birmingham, England; Austin, TX; and State College, PA. Each of these was an occasion for Ellen to pack up her home and cart her children off to a new community with new schools, new friends, new grocery stores, and new recipes! Her daughter Catherine particularly remembers the trip to Germany: 'We had 17 pieces of luggage, including cases of formula for my 6-week old sister. It's hard for me to imagine now how any woman with four children including a baby could so calmly board that boat in New York for a year in a foreign country, but she took it all in stride.'
In 1974, Ellen and her daughter Margaret started a tradition of taking each grandchild to Disneyworld when he or she turned six, a tradition Margaret intends to continue with Ellen's youngest granddaughter. 'She had such a fun-loving side,' recalls Margaret. 'She loved to dress in costume at Halloween, and would break out in song at a moment's notice. Two of her favorites were 'Alice Blue Gown' and 'Among My Souvenirs' and we've all learned the words!'
Ellen derived great pleasure from her grandchildren. She was especially supportive of the adoption of two Chinese baby girls by her daughter, Mary. 'We always had all those international students around the table,' recalls Mary. 'That really planted the seed in me that ultimately blossomed in my making the choice to pursue a Chinese adoption.'
Mrs. Beyer leaves her husband, Robert; four children: Catherine Beyer Hurst of Cambridge, MA; Margaret Beyer of Rockville, MD; Richad Beyer of Lexington, MA; and Mary Beyer Trotter of Olympia, WA; and seven grandchildren: Brian and Timothy Hurst; Roberta and Andrew Beyer; and Julie, Rachel, and Faith Trotter.
Her funeral will be held Friday at 9 AM from the PERRY-McSTAY FUNERAL HOME, 2555 Pawtucket Avenue, East Providence, followed by a Mass of Christian Burial at 10 AM in St. Sebastian's Church, Cole Avenue, Providence. Burial will be in Gate of Heaven Cemetery, East Providence. Calling hours Thursday 5-8 p.m. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to International House, 8 Stimson Avenue, Providence, 02906 or Hallworth House, 66 Benefit Street, Providence, 02904.
Posted by rickbeyer at 07:59 AM | Comments (0)