I'M NOT A REAL  AUTHOR,
BUT I PLAY ONE ON THE INTERNET
(Part One)

By Steve Ludwig

I'm not a real author, but I play one on the internet.

I'm actually a member of the greatest, most rewarding profession there is--TEACHING.

But, write a book I did...At least that's what it says when I google my name.

I prefer to think of myself as a teacher who wrote down his experiences about open-heart surgery, and it got turned into a rectangular thingy with pages.

Back in 2006, after I returned home from the hospital and my quintuple open-heart bypass procedure, I started keeping a journal. 

Although it did physically pain me to sit and put pen to paper (even more so when I'd attempt to sit at my computer and type), it was my only choice if I wanted to keep track of my experiences.

I had first tried speaking into a tape recorder, planning eventually to transcribe my spoken words into written; but, ya see, I got into a bad habit of downing these things they call Percosets whenever I felt pain from my days-previously sawed-apart, then stapled, wired, and stitched-together chest and rib cage.

So with my percs quite effectively doing their job and numbing my pain, they pretty much also numbed my ability to speak clearly. My vocal chords produced slurred, stoned gibberish into my recorder, and on playback the next day, I didn't know WHAT the heck I'd said. 

So I bit the bullet (and downed more percosets) and wrote into my notebook all the things I'd been through before, during, and after my five clogged arteries were bypassed (but not removed, incidentally) with five new ones taken from other veins in my body.

Before long, I had quite a thick journal.
Now ever since I was in grammar school, I remember telling my mom that someday I was gonna write a book.

When I looked at my journal, I thought to myself,  Hey, I think this is my book!

Unfortunately, my mom, in a display of unmitigated nerve, passed away before I had written my book; so she never got to see the final product. (By the way, my mom would've laughed her head off at what I wrote about her "unmitigated nerve," so please don't think I'm unfeeling. But thanks for nothin' just the same, Mom! Ah, if there is one, I'm goin' to Hell anyway...Hope to see some of you there! We'll have a helluva hot time!)

My friend (and retired, fellow teacher), Mike Spina, had written a great book called Teachers Under Attack: How NJ Governor Chris Christie's Personal Vendetta Against Teachers Will Destroy Public Education (It's available, so check it out!). When I was ready to formally write my book and try to get it published, I asked Mike what he did.

He said he had self-published the book (which means you pay the publisher to print it), and he hooked me up with the publishing company that did his book.

Initially, I figured I'd send my manuscript to a publisher such as Random House, Penguin, one of those, and they'd publish it for me on their own dime.

Then I slapped myself back into reality and decided I didn't want to receive a ton of rejection letters, nor did I want to wait forever to have a publisher accept my work; I wanted my book published as soon as I finished it!

And after I had done a bit of research and discovered some of the authors who had self-published their first books -- Mark Twain, Edgar Allan Poe, Virginia Wolf, Stephen King, Gertrude Stein, William E.B. DuBois, Beatrix Potter, Upton Sinclair, to name just a few -- I figured, OK, I'm in for self-publishing!

Another neat perk of being self-published is that I own all the rights to my book. If in the event a newspaper, magazine, etc. ever wanted to reprint a section of my book, they wouldn't have to contact a publisher; I own the rights forever, so I give them the permission.

From the start, when I convinced myself to publish what I had written, I decided that I didn't care if I ever sold a single copy; all I wanted was to finally have a book published and have a book number in the Library of Congress.

And...

But before I get too far ahead of myself...

My book turned out being titled See You In CCU - A Lighthearted Tale of My Open-Heart Surgery. But originally it was going to be called Fun With Bypass.

I changed the title to See You in CCU for reasons that I never put in the book, but I have explained to reporter Lynn Paret first, then later at one of my book readings and on one of my radio show appearances. 

And the cover turned out differently than was originally planned.

Here's the cover I used:

But, at first, I wanted a cover that included images that, when I was initially brought to the emergency room, made me laugh. You may have seen these if you've ever been a patient:

Now to me, these little guys are hilarious. The zero guy is so happy, carefree, life is great. Then check out the four guy. He's got that "hmmm...uh oh...ummmm, I guess things could be better" look.

So I was gonna have the faces as part of the cover, but without the numbers and the descriptions. BUT I was gonna make a little change to their appearance. I, Steve, have a very slightly receding hairline. (If you're reading this and you know me personally, you know I'm lyin' through my teeth right now. If you don't know me personally, I hope we can meet in person someday, but if we don't, think of me as having a full head of hair...)

Anyhow, the change was going to make my smiley (and not so smiley) friends look more like me:

Check out their hair. Hehehehe...

I also had some wiseass comments for under the faces, but they never made it into the book. However, I will have a separate chapter in my upcoming book that tells what those goofy new comments were. 

While I'm on the subject of my new book (although I still don't consider myself an author), the title is going to be Feeling Well: Surviving Life and Stupid Puns. It should be ready by Summer 2013. It's gonna be about things I've gone through in life, but things that I feel we've all experienced at one point or another, so it's not as much a me book as it's gonna be an us book.

How often have we wished we could just snap our fingers and be where we want to be without having to do all the preparation that goes with it? Or have a job be finished with the snap of a finger? Once I had my manuscript typed up, I wanted to wake up the next morning with the completed book in the bookstores and available online. 

No such luck, right? Once I emailed my manuscript to the publisher, and they formatted it, etc., I had to proofread their edits, and then show them my corrections to what they had sent back to me.

Here's a copy of one of the pages I sent to them. My corrections are in the far right column. The column to the left of mine is what I wanted changed after I received their formatted edits:

This was merely one of thirty-three pages of changes I needed to submit.

However, looking back now, it was worth every minute of work to get my book published; I just never would have guessed all the work, besides the actual writing of the book, that went into getting a book published.

I assure you, if I did it, you can do it!

 OK, so I sent in my manuscript; I knew nothing about the behind-the-scenes stuff of publishing a book. Part of my "package" that I'd selected from the publisher was an email marketing campaign. It sounded like a good idea. The release of my book would be shared with thousands of emailers who subscribe to "newly released books" sites. But I was stymied by some of the questions I had to answer:

Hmmm...What are the selling points? Uh, let's see. I really don't know! Who will be most interested in your book and why? OK, that one I figured would be heart patients, but then I felt I'd be narrowing my audience...Mommy!! Help!! Oh, wait, I forgot...My mom had the unmitigated nerve...

Then I had to choose TWO of the following million areas of interest...

Huh? Wha?! I mean, OK, Health and Fitness seemed obvious and so did Doctors and Fitness. Then I thought General Female and General Male might apply, but I found it difficult to define General. And with the doctors and fitness gurus, I would have used up my two choices. So I think (I really was confused about the whole thing) I chose Health and Fitness and Entertainment.  I'm clueless as to why I chose Entertainment.

Later on, I found that my book was marketed to the physically-standing bookstores as a Biography. Wonderful! I'm sure the Tuscon, Arizona Barnes and Noble bookstore patrons will specifically be looking for the story of that well-known eighth-grade Language Arts teacher, Steve Ludwig...

It was in situations like these that I kept reminding myself of my mantra: I don't care if I sell a single book...

Then I'd hear from some family members and friends that I should be more aggressive in selling my book; that I'd worked hard on it, and people would want to read it. 

Well, I do remember thinking, I do love them all, but I wish they would SHUUUUUUUUTTTTTTT UUUPPPPPP!!!!!!!

I just wanted to be lazy about it; I wrote my book, case closed. But soon enough, what my family and friends starting saying to me started to sink in.

I'll tell you all about my grass-roots campaign (which sometimes became quite embarrassing) to sell my book in my next blog.

See ya then!!

Follow me on Twitter:  www.Twitter.com/LudGuy.

I'd like to thank the 10,000-plus of you from around the world who have read my blogs. I truly appreciate it!

If you like pop culture, you may enjoy listening to my radio show, STEVE LUDWIG'S CLASSIC POP CULTURE. It's at www.PlanetLudwig.com. Thanks!

AND, HEY, IF YOU'D LIKE TO READ MY ACTUAL PUBLISHED FIRST BOOK, JUST GO TO MY WEBSITE:  CCUBOOK.COM.

YOU CAN BUY IT HALF-PRICED THERE (PayPal, check, or money order).

Aside from my friend Mike Spina, whom I mentioned above in my blog, writing a book, another friend, Theresa Iannantuano just had her first book published.

It's called Who Took My Lunch? It's a really delightful children's book!

And I can't forget my cool brother Tom's blog site:

It's called "Second Grade Minds," and Tom and he buddy since the second grade do a point-counterpoint blog on all things political, sports, and pop-cultural. Check it out at www.secondgrademinds.wordpress.com.

THANKS EVERYBODY! Steve Ludwig

                                                       

ABSOLUTE ELSEWHERE

The Words of John Lennon

It just seems impossible that it's been thirty-two years since John Lennon celebrated his last living birthday.

His words spoke (and still speak) as loud as his actions.

His Beatles days were spent writing songs with, of course, the great Paul McCartney. As most Beatles fans know, whichever Beatle (including George and Ringo) sang lead on a song usually was the one who wrote the majority of that song's lyrics. 

If John would hit a snag, Paul would offer a line or two or even many more to help the composition along; John would do the same for Paul. 

So, a "John song" could also partly be a "Paul song."

But after the Fabs split, John, Paul, and George's solo works were theirs and theirs alone. Ringo would pen some original tunes, but he would also gladly accept the help of some friends along the way.

So I want to praise John's solo words on this blog commemorating what would have been Dr. Winston O'Boogie's seventy-second birthday. 

I've chosen lines of songs that may not be as widely known to the general public as some of his better known. The song titles may ring a bell, but some of the lines may not.

Of course, if you're a bonafide Beatlemaniac like yours truly (and I say that with great pride!), these words will look familiar.

Familiar or not, the words only magnify the genius that is Rev. Fred Ghurkin (one of John's many pseudonyms).

And it's amazing how relevant they remain more than three decades after John's murder...

I've had enough of neurotic, psychotic pig-headed politicians

All I want is the truth

Just gimme some truth

                            -Gimme Some Truth

Why in the world are we here?

Surely not to live in pain and fear 

                     -Instant Karma

Millions of mind guerillas

Putting their soul power

To the karmic wheel

             -Mind Games

Everybody's hustlin' for a buck and a dime

I'll scratch your back, and you knife mine

                                                                    -Nobody Loves You (When You're Down and Out)

Hatred and jealousy is gonna be the death of me

I guess I knew it right from the start

                                                                     -Scared

Bless you wherever you are

Windswept child on a shooting star

                                                                  -Bless You

Trying to shovel smoke with a pitchfork

In the wind

                                                           -Old Dirt Road

Now I am older

The more that I see the less I know

For sure

                                               -Borrowed Time

More song lyrics in just a bit. But let's take a quick look at some of the wit and wisdom of the Literary Lennon, OK?

The Honorable John  St. John Johnson wrote three books in his lifetime.

Two of them -- In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works -- were written during his Beatles years. And just to make sure we didn't forget Johnny was a Beatle, the cover of his first book reminded us!

Yup, that's right-- John's the Writing Beatle! (The reissue has a pretty neat new intro by Yoko).

To the uninitiated, all you need to do is turn to the back cover to get a sample of John's inspired lunacy:

                                      

ABOUT THE AWFUL

I was bored on the 9th of October 1940 when, I believe,

the Nasties were still booming us led by Madalf Heathlump

(who only had one). Anyway they didn't get me. I attended

to varicous schools in Liddypool. And still didn't pass --

much to my Aunties supplies. As a member of the most

publified Beatles my and (P, G, and R's) records might seem

funnier to some of you than this book, but as far as I'm

conceived this correction of short writty is the most wonderfoul

larf I've ever ready.

God help and breed you all.

Get the idea? 

His second book. A Spaniard in the Works, is more of the same, except, in John's words, "It won't cost as much."

His final book, Skywriting By Word of Mouth, is a collection of writings and drawings by John after the Beatles. It's much more literal than his first two (although word play still runs rampant), yet in many ways it's even zanier. 

At the end of one of the lines in the book, John writes parenthetically,

(discontinued on page 94).

He requests, 

         Bend over and look at me while I'm talking.

Yet Skywriting does have its sobering moments:

It's amazing how low you go to get high.

Still, most of us know John through his songs. Let's get back to some more...

There's room at the top they are telling you still

But first you must learn how to smile as you kill

                                                                       -Working Class Hero

Children, don't do what I have done

I couldn't walk, and I tried to run

                                                      -Mother

Don't despair

Paranoia is everywhere

We can shake it with love

When we're scared

                                                               -Bring on the Lucie (Freeda Peeple)

Come Monday. mama

And I just gonna run away

You know it's such a drag

To face another day

You don't know what you got

Until you lose it

                                             -What You Got

You're looking for oblivion

With one eye on the Hall of Fame

                                                     -I Don't Wanna Face It

Snake doctors shakin'

Like there's no tomorrow

Freak City

Chickensuckin', mothertruckin'

Meat City Shookdown, USA

                                                   -Meat City

Something precious and rare

Disappears in thin air

And it seems so unfair

Nothin' doin' nowhere

                                                -Goin' Down On Love

You can live a lie till you die

One thing you can't hide

Is when you're crippled inside

                                                 -Crippled Inside

I didn't mean to hurt you

I'm sorry that I made you cry

I didn't want to hurt you

I'm just a jealous guy

                                           -Jealous Guy

But if I'm going to celebrate the lyrics of Booker T and the Maitre D's or Kaptain Kundalini or Dwarf MacDougal or Mel Torment or Dr. Dream (or any of the other cool monikers JL used),

I simply can't leave out a few of his most famous, and endearing, messages.

I'll leave you with these final classic Lennon thoughts...

All we are saying is 

Give Peace a Chance

War is over

If you want it

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will live as one

Life is what happens to you

While you're busy making other plans...

***********

Do you like pop culture? Then you may very well enjoy listening to my radio show! It's called STEVE LUDWIG'S CLASSIC POP CULTURE, at www.PlanetLudwig.com. Thanks!

THANKS TO THE OVER 10,000 OF YOU WHO HAVE READ MY BLOGS.

FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER:  www.Twitter.com/LudGuy.

IF YOU ENJOYED READING MY BLOG, WOULD YOU KINDLY CONSIDER BUYING MY BOOK, See You In CCU - A Lighthearted Tale of My Open-Heart Surgery  ? 

YOU CAN BUY IT FOR HALF-PRICE AT MY WEBSITE:

                            ccubook.com

YOU WILL CONSIDER IT? IF I MAY BORROW SOME WORDS FROM THE TIN MAN: "Oh joy! Rapture!!"

MY BROTHER TOM ALSO HAS A COOL BLOG THAT HE WRITES WITH HIS BUDDY FROM WAY BACK SINCE THEY WERE IN SECOND GRADE. 

YOU CAN FIND IT AT: www.secondgrademinds.wordpress.com  .

As always, thank you so much for reading my blogs...

Steve

  

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD:
 "SCOUT" PHONES MY HOUSE

By Steve Ludwig

Way back when, before it had news shows starting at 4:00 in the afternoon as it does now, ABC-TV had "The 4:30 Movie" from 4:30 till 6 PM.  The silhouette of a revolving cameraman in the opening segment is forever stamped into my memory.

Usually they'd show a movie that they could fit it to a ninety-minute slot (meaning, at times, there were some unceremonious cuts of a few scenes in a few of the movies.).

However, for a relatively longer movie, they'd show it over two nights, in a couple parts.

This is what they did whenever they would show TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, one of my Top Five movies of all-time.

It was, of course, based on the Pulitzer Prize winning novel of the same name, written by Harper Lee.

I've seen the movie numerous times since The 4:30 Movie, first on VHS tape, then on DVD, and just recently, on BluRay (an incredible viewing experience!).

With its cast led by Academy Award winner Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, Brock Peters as Tom Robinson, Phillip Alford as Jem (after whose character my wife Sue and I named our pug, Gem), and the adorable Mary Badham, who played tomboy Scout.

Well, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD is not only a Top Five favorite of mine, it's Sue's all-time favorite (followed closely by SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS).

And Gregory Peck and Mary Badham played Sue's two favorite characters in the movie.

I could write two, three, even four blogs about the wonder that is TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. But for this blog, I'm going to tell you three occasions in our lives that centered on Mary Badham...Scout.

In 2004, it seemed a dream would come true for Sue and me when Mary Badham was scheduled to appear at a movie convention in Secaucus, NJ. 

Saturday, October 30, 2004, couldn't come soon enough for us. We got our tickets well in advance; I kept them in the glove compartment of my car so I wouldn't forget to take them on the day of the convention. The plan was to get a picture taken with Ms. Badham, and have her autograph an 8 x 10 photo of herself.

John Lennon said it best in his song "Beautiful Boy": 

    Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans...

On October 29, one day before the convention, my dear, sweet beautiful mother passed away...

My mom, Mildred, had been in a coma for a few days before, in a hospital in Toms River, NJ, the town in which she and my dad lived.

Sue and I were at her side at her hospital bed when she left us.

The next morning, October 30, after having made funeral arrangements with my dad and two brothers, Sue and I drove back up north to get some fresh clothes, as well as clothes to wear at Mom's wake.

If you've been in my position and, sadly, I'm willing to bet too many of you reading this have gone through the heartbreak of losing a parent, you can understand how Mary Badham was suddenly not high on my priority list.

My mother had known, before she fell ill, that we had plans to see "Scout," as MOCKINGBIRD was also a favorite of my mom.

As we got closer to our home in Fort Lee, NJ, we saw the exit for Secaucus, NJ (where the convention was being held).

Sue said something to the effect that, "You know, Mom would have wanted you to meet Mary Badham."

"Sue, you know we can't. It wouldn't be right."

I knew I would feel guilty about it. My mother is all that should be on my mind right now, is what I felt.

But as we got even closer to the convention site and Sue's words echoed in my mind, I don't know---I just turned the car to the Secaucus exit and said to Sue, "OK, just Mary Badham and then we get home to get our clothes."

"Mom would be happy," Sue said.

Parked the car, gave our tickets in, and got on the long line for Mary Badham. She was signing in a separate room. The line was out into the hallway, so we couldn't see Ms. Badham from where we stood in line.

We were on line for about fifteen minutes when I turned to Sue: "I can't do this. Let's go home."

I was wracked with guilt. 

Although I knew Sue was right about how my mom would have felt about the whole thing, I just didn't feel right standing on that line.

So we left, never having seen or spoken to Mary Badham.

Fast forward to 2010. 

Shortly after watching MOCKINGBIRD for the umpteenth time, with both of us wiping away the inevitable tears that always accompanied a viewing ("Hey, Boo..."), I went online and searched for Mary Badham.

Sue's birthday was coming up, and I wanted to surprise her for her upcoming birthday and get Sue an autographed picture of Mary Badham.

In my searches, I found a website (HollywoodIsCalling.com) that said, for a relatively reasonable fee, a movie star or personality would call someone, live on the telephone, for a special occasion, such as a birthday. Hmmm...How great would it be for Mary Badham, ("SCOUT" herself) to call Sue and wish her a Happy Birthday? 

There was no doubt in my mind what to do. I got out my credit card and made the arrangements. What made my purchase even nicer was that Mary Badham donated all of her profits to charity.

The website asked what message I would want Ms. Badham to say to Sue, and they suggested we not pick up the phone unless we recognized a friend's phone number; this way the answering machine would record Mary's message, and we could keep it forever!

All I asked Sue was that she not pick up the phone on her birthday, that I had a little surprise planned for her.

It went PERFECTLY!!

Would you like to hear the message that Mary Badham left for Sue?

Click right here!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_Y1FP5zyxg

Pretty neat, huh?

Now, about two weeks after receiving my BluRay edition of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, I thought to myself, "Ya know, come to think of it, Sue still hasn't got an autographed picture of Mary!"

That brought me to MaryBadham.org. 

Sure enough, one of the things offered on her website were autographed pictures. I simply had to specify what message I would like for Mary to write to Sue.

About ten days later, Sue received her autographed picture in the mail. Here it is:

On it, she wrote, "Dear Sue, Thank you for being one of my most loyal fans. Mary Badham 'Scout'."

 Very hopefully, one day we'll be lucky enough to, as Mary said in her phone message to Sue, "...meet in person one day."

And when that day does occur, you can expect to read another blog, with a whole new chapter to this story of the wonderful Mary Badham!

Thanks to the over 17,000 of you who have read my blogs!

FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER: www.Twitter.com/LudGuy.

Do you like all things pop culture? You might enjoy listening to my radio show, STEVE LUDWIG'S CLASSIC POP CULTURE, at www.PlanetLudwig.com.

IF YOU ENJOYED READING MY BLOG, THINK YOU'LL WANT TO READ MY POSITIVE, LIGHTHEARTED TALE OF MY SURVIVING QUINTUPLE OPEN-HEART BYPASS SURGERY?

 MY BOOK IS CALLED SEE YOU IN CCU - A LIGHTHEARTED TALE OF MY OPEN-HEART SURGERY.

IF YOU BUY IT DIRECTLY FROM ME AT MY SITE, IT'S ONLY $7.99.                CCUBOOK.COM

AND, HEY, MY BROTHER TOM HAS A BLOG OF HIS OWN~ YOU CAN CHECK IT OUT AT:

      SecondGradeMinds.wordpress.com.

As always, thanks to all of you who read my blog!

  ~Steve