Flashback 2012: Chicago museums have military kin covered

     

   This is a fun story from the summer before this blog began. Checking on the family involved, I see Peter Blake retired from the Marines a year after this was written. If you want to know more about Molly Blake, at that time she wrote an essay in the New York Times.

     You may not consider the Thorne Miniature Rooms — those finely detailed dioramas in the basement of the Art Institute — to be one of the more thrilling examples of art to be found in that institution.
     But then you are not the Blake sisters, Helen and Leah, of Yuma, Ariz., who visited there Thursday morning.
     “Pink! Pink! Pink! It’s pink!” enthused Helen, 7, clasping her hands together and bouncing, almost levitating, with excitement in front of the Pennsylvania Drawing Room.
     “Momma, look at that!” Leah, 5½, called to Molly Blake, pointing at another room. “Stairs!” Their home has none, so she identified stairs again and again, with wonder.
     The three were in town visiting Molly’s parents in Westmont. Her husband, Peter, is a Marine Harrier pilot, just returned from a six-month tour in Japan. Right now he’s back at the Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma.
     Blake and her daughters visited the Art Institute thanks to Blue Star Museums, a program set up two years ago by Blue Star Families, a group that supports military families. Blue Star Museums invites military personnel and their families to visit 1,800 museums across the country, free of charge, between Memorial Day and Labor Day. All they have to do is show their military ID.
     “They’re all over the place,” Molly said.
     In Chicago, the Art Institute, the Museum of Contemporary Art, plus 11 smaller museums take part (but not the Museum of Science and Industry or the Field Museum, though the Field admits active-duty military personnel for free year-round).
     “We’re really proud to participate in the program,” said Erin Hogan, Art Institute spokeswoman and herself “a military brat.”
     “My dad was unexpectedly deployed,” she said. “It can be tough on military kids, you move around a lot, especially in the past 10 years. It’s very tough.” Here museums can help. “We see it as a way for families to spend positive and enriching time together.”
     You can never predict what kids will notice at a museum. The Blake girls blew by Grant Wood’s stern couple in “American Gothic” without a glance, then stopped to study the couples dancing in Archibald Motley’s jazzy red Harlem Renaissance “Blues.”
     “They’re about to kiss!” explained Helen.
     The girls are among nearly 2 million family members of our country’s 1.4 million active-duty military personnel. These families face all kinds of trouble stemming from the service of their loved ones. Blue Star Families did a survey of military families and found concern about the effects of deployment on children was cited as their No. 1 worry more often than even post-traumatic stress was mentioned. Families try to stay positive.
     “There are times of stress,” said Molly Blake. “But we’ve worked hard to educate them about why we go through these things and why Peter deployed, and try to instill pride in them. We don’t focus on the negatives. We focus on some of the fun things we do while he was gone.”
     Nor is the stress limited to children. The Harrier is known as the “widow maker,” but Molly says she tries not to worry anymore.
     “I’m used to it by now,” she said. “The ejection seats work really well.”
     The trio took in the Roy Lichtenstein special exhibit, giving his large pop art canvases of cartoon pilots a more literal analysis than the typical art connoisseur might conjure up.
     “Some of the pictures are of military pilots, just like daddy,” said Molly Blake.
     “I don’t get it,” said Helen, of “Seascape,” a 1964 field of blue dots. “It’s art,” her mother said. “You don’t have to get it.”
     This being an art museum, however, some works demanded a certain parental finesse, such as Lichtenstein’s enormous canvas of naked women playing volleyball. “Oh my gosh,” said Molly, quickening her stride. “What are those girls doing?”
     Leah didn’t notice. Helen crinkled her freckled nose and said, “I would never, ever do that.”
     Later, in the Thorne rooms, Leah skipped past Virginia Keep Clark’s oil portrait of a grand, tight-mouthed Mrs. James Ward Thorne, and tossed off an opinion that is perhaps unique in the painting’s 97-year-history.
      “That girl’s pretty!” she said.
     About 300,000 service-member families took advantage of the program this year, and while it is fitting to salute the museums that participate, it’s also appropriate to remember that not enough people even consider the families of the military and what they go through when their loved ones deploy, as Lt. Col. Peter Blake has done five times already.
     The Blue Star Families asked those it surveyed whether they agree with this statement: “The general public does not truly understand or appreciate the sacrifices made by service members and their families.”
     A whopping 95 percent said yes, they do agree, an answer that may shock, but shouldn’t surprise the public. Or it would shock, if they ever paused to think about it.
     — Originally published in the Sun-Times, July 22, 2012

I remember liking this photo, with Molly gazing into the glass, and her daughter's reflection
staring back.

Looking for something more current? Try Eric Zorn.

     For many years now I've had fun sparring with Eric Zorn, first of the Tribune, now of The Picayune Sentinel. Our friendship did not preclude him from trying to take advantage of my disability, as this post, written by the man himself, proves:

 

    Well, I guess we know what Neil Steinberg's priorities truly are -- his own comfort rather than the needs of his public. He would rather laze around his comfortable home in a leafy suburban paradise recuperating from surgery on just one shoulder -- what, he can't type with his other hand? -- than meet the needs and expectations of the readers whose attentions have sustained him for decades.
     No, no, we get it. "Every Goddamn Day" is just another broken promise. More fake news. How about "Some Goddamn Days"?
      For intellectual sustenance, amusement, inspiration and guidance during Neil's period of repose, readers will simply have to turn to the archives of The Picayune Sentinel where I deliver on all my promises and produce content even when afflicted by discomfort and anomie.

Bored with re-runs? Return to the present day with John Williams

     Not everything has gone to hell. Weekdays from 10 to 12 and then, after a civilized break for lunch, from 1 to 2 p.m. John Williams still shares his piercing intelligence and big heart via that 50,000 watt blowtorch, WGN 720 AM. I know I've knocked it out of the park in my column when John Williams calls and wants to talk about it. 
     Of course, he agreed to join my media friends wishing me well in my recovery. The floor is yours, John:

     Well…I for one am glad Neil is laid up with — wait for it - “rotator cup surgery.”  So now he can’t hit a tight end over the middle or even type on a lap top.  So he needs to take a couple months off.  Rrrrright.  I’ll never forget the way he thrilled the nation, with his “T” punctuation. 
     

John Williams 

But, assuming this really is legit, and knowing how committed he is to the city and his craft, I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt.  And,  I’m going to  take  advantage of the opportunity to plug my radio show and podcast.  Neil regularly guests on both and it is a marvel to see and hear his bright, sharp and often funny remarks.  Should you, his humble reader, be so starved for similar (but not comparable) commentary, I invite you to download The Mincing Rascals podcast, “…the podcast for people who care about Chicago.”  Our July 22 Ep features WGN’s Steve Bertrand, the Picayune Sentinel’s Eric Zorn and award winning journalist turned community activist Marj Halperin. This week we’re taking about the anthem slap at Wrigley Field on Sunday, who should pay — literally pay us — for the smog (Blame Canada!), illegal voters in NJ and explosive….conversation.  NOTE to Chicago Medical providers.  Fix this dude’s turf toe or whatever; keep that might as is.

Tired of this shit? Check out Chicago Public Square

Charlie Meyerson (photo by Todd Bannor)

     This blog owes a lot to former WXRT newsman Charlie Meyerson — it was he who convinced me to send out a morning email link, extending my reach to literally hundreds of readers. When I wrote that I was having surgery, he reached out to say, in essence, "Hey asshole, how'd you fuck yourself up so badly?"
     While I had his attention, I asked if he wanted to use one of the infinity of days I have staring me in the pain-twisted face to plug his own contribution to Chicago's media blogosphere, and he of course snapped at the opportunity, because that is what we do. Take it away, Charlie:

     Consider for a moment the hubris involved in promising to post something to a blog every … goddamned … day—a commitment from someone evidently unable to envision a time when rotator cuff surgery would leave him potentially unable to type for six weeks.
     Dear Reader, I give you Neil Steinberg.
     His lack of foresight has put him in a position to seek the kindness of friends and fans, like me, to slap together something—anything—to fill this space.
     As a survivor of that surgery myself—hey, 20 years ago this summer, after what I sarcastically refer to as my last skiing injury ever—I’m happy to help:
     Going through Steinberg withdrawal? You’ll find fresh news and commentary awaiting you daily (well, almost daily, because I’m not so committed as Neil) via my free email newsletter, Chicago Public Square, which has over the years been acclaimed by the Chicago Reader as the “best free daily roundup in your inbox” and by his and my former colleague Mark Jacob as Chicago’s “smartest daily news aggregation.”
     Me, I just think of it as my honor to share journalism from some of the smartest (and funniest) people tracking news of importance to the Chicago area.
      I look forward to the day when you’ll again have direct access to Neil’s insights—every goddamned day.
      Speedy recovery, sir.

     Do you have a venture you want to ballyhoo? You see how minimal it can be. Send it along and I'll consider posting it, as much as I can consider anything through a fog of narcotics.*

     * Comic exaggeration. The pain ebbed after the second day and I’m getting by on Advil.

Flashback 1998: Entertainment legend dies of heart attack at 82 - Singer's life, style set tone for millions

 

     I had rotator cuff surgery Wednesday, so with my left arm in a sling, I'm going to take a bit of time off to let the repair heal. How long? I don't know. But I know it’s still too soon to park myself in front of the computer for any extended period of time, even typing with my right hand. Luckily, I have a deep bench. I've never posted this before.

      Frank Sinatra, the combative entertainer who always managed to change with the times, from teen singing sensation to motion picture star to jazz balladeer to king of Las Vegas cool, died of a heart attack Thursday at age 82.
     Mr. Sinatra, who had not been seen in public since a heart attack in January, 1997, died at 10:50 p.m. (12:50 a.m. today, Chicago time) at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said his publicist, Susan Reynolds.
     Earlier in the evening, he had been taken to the hospital by ambulance with an unspecified distress. Mr. Sinatra's wife, Barbara, was with him when he died.

      Mr. Sinatra's songs provided the soundtrack for a million lives and loves: "Summer Wind," "One for My Baby," "All the Way" and "Strangers in the Night" to name just a few among too many to mention.

      More than just a popular vocalist, Mr. Sinatra represented a style, the entire laid-back, snap-brim, swinging 1950s of martinis and convertibles.
     Later in life, he came to represent a dark side of top-suite celebrity as well, vexed by constant accusations of arrogant behavior and ties to organized crime, mocked for a lifestyle that suddenly seemed brutal and out-of-date.
     But whether loved or hated, whether raising millions for charity or gambling millions at the baccarat tables, whether helping handicapped children or brawling in hotel restrooms, Mr. Sinatra lived life by his own standards. It was no accident that the song Paul Anka wrote for him was called "My Way."
     Francis Albert Sinatra was born Dec. 12, 1915, in Hoboken, N.J., to Anthony and Natalie Sinatra, a pair of Italian immigrants.
     Without any formal vocal training and unable to read music, he was inspired to try his luck at a singing career after hearing Bing Crosby on the radio. Mr. Sinatra made his debut on Major Bowes' radio amateur show as part of a group called the Hoboken Four.
     While it is often said Mr. Sinatra achieved instant fame, the truth is he struggled for many years before he found success, singing at local roadhouses and on the radio, sometimes for nothing, hoping to attract attention.
     On Feb. 4, 1939, he married his childhood sweetheart, Nancy Barbato. They eventually had three children. That same year, he was hired by Harry James, Benny Goodman's trumpeter, who had started his own band.
     Unhappy with the progress of his career with James, Mr. Sinatra jumped to Tommy Dorsey's band in 1940. He stayed there three years, in the process becoming a singing sensation on a scope unmatched by any other singer in popular culture except, perhaps, Elvis Presley.
     The Sinatra phenomenon began in earnest on Dec. 30, 1942, when he appeared with the Benny Goodman Orchestra at the Paramount Theatre in New York. Mr. Sinatra's publicist hired several teenage girls to sit in the front row and scream and cry and swoon, and they touched off an unprecedented national epidemic of teenage female frenzy at his appearances.
     For the next few years, throngs of as many as 25,000 fans would mob Mr. Sinatra's appearances.
     Five hundred "near-hysterical jitterbugs" were waiting for Mr. Sinatra when he pulled into Chicago's Dearborn Street Station aboard the Santa Fe Chief on March 28, 1944. He tried to flee in a cab, but teenage girls climbed over the hood, roof and running boards until he paused to sign autographs.
     He began recording with Columbia; "You'll Never Know" was an early hit.
     Mr. Sinatra performed in a variety of mid-1940s musical comedies, none memorable, while playing the top places of the day, such as the Hollywood Bowl and the Waldorf-Astoria.
     His first movie of note was "Anchors Aweigh" (1945) with Gene Kelly. He won his first Academy Award for his short patriotic film, "The House I Live In" (1945).
     While the time immediately after the war was big for Mr. Sinatra — his $25,000 take for a week at the Chicago Theatre in 1946 set a record — soon afterward, his career went into a steep decline, beginning with being dropped from his Old Gold radio show in 1947. Although the sponsor cited poor ratings, Mr. Sinatra's tempestuous personal life, including a notorious fistfight outside a club with columnist Lee Mortimer, plus his personal politics, considered radical at the time, did not help.
     Mr. Sinatra bottomed out in the early 1950s. He divorced his first wife in 1951, and, a week later, married film star Ava Gardner. That stormy relationship lasted two years.
     His films of the period were flops, and he had no hit records. The Internal Revenue Service audited him and slapped him with a $90,000 bill for back taxes. He was having trouble with his vocal cords. By 1952, he had no manager or film and recording contracts.
     He revitalized his career through the role of Maggio in "From Here to Eternity," a performance that earned him an Academy Award and put him back on top. He had two hits in 1954, "Three Coins in the Fountain" and "Young at Heart," and a hit album the next year, "Songs for Swingin' Lovers."
     More hit songs — "Love and Marriage," "All the Way" — and more hit movies — "Guys and Dolls," "The Man With the Golden Arm," "Pal Joey" — followed. He recorded a series of jazzy albums for Capitol Records.
     Between marriages, and sometimes during them, Mr. Sinatra was linked romantically with many of the great beauties of his day, including Lana Turner, Judy Garland, Gloria Vanderbilt, Marilyn Monroe, Lauren Bacall and Juliet Prowse, as well as an endless chain of anonymous actresses and models.
     In the late 1950s, the storied Rat Pack formed around Mr. Sinatra — Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Joey Bishop, Shirley MacLaine — and they were to share the stage, and friendships, for decades.
     "Friendship" with Mr. Sinatra was not friendship in the ordinary sense of the word. He was not reluctant to use coercion to keep his friends in line, usually by ousting them from his inner circle..
     Mr. Sinatra was close to politicians for decades, beginning with his having tea with Franklin D. Roosevelt. He was particularly friendly with John F. Kennedy through Rat Pack member Peter Lawford, who was married to Kennedy's sister.
     Mr. Sinatra's song "High Hopes" was Kennedy's campaign song, and Mr. Sinatra arranged the entertainment at Kennedy's inauguration party. The president soon distanced himself from Mr. Sinatra, however, after being warned about rumors of mob ties.
     The allegation that Mr. Sinatra associated with gang figures dogged him, despite his frequent denials.
     Nevertheless, Mr. Sinatra was stripped of his gambling license and forced to sell his stakes in the Sands in Las Vegas and the Cal-Neva Lodge, a Lake Tahoe casino, because he allowed mob boss Sam Giancana to reside there in a chalet.
     "Sinatra hobnobs with the Mafia's elite," the Wall Street Journal wrote in 1968 — an article that scotched Mr. Sinatra's plans to take an active role in the presidential campaign of Hubert Humphrey.
     Mr. Sinatra was forced to appear before a grand jury in New Jersey in 1970 after his name turned up on FBI wiretapping tapes of gangland figures.
     He was vindicated at least once in court, receiving substantial damages from the British Broadcasting Corp. for suggesting in a telecast that he used mob connections to land his career-saving role in "From Here to Eternity."
     The Vegas scene became his refuge from media scrutiny and the culture-shattering arrival of rock 'n' roll. Mr. Sinatra had only one No. 1 hit in the 1960s — "Strangers in the Night" (1966).
     Mob allegations were not the only kind of trouble that followed Mr. Sinatra. He was a pampered brawler used to getting his own way immediately, and there were countless incidents, from an elderly waiter being roughed up for getting a meal order wrong to a casino owner being threatened.
     Usually everything was hushed up, but occasionally there were repercussions. Mr. Sinatra lost his two front teeth when he was hit in the mouth by a Sands Hotel manager in 1967, after which he ended his 16-year association with the hotel, moving to Caesars Palace.
     The normally reserved Prince Charles, upon meeting Mr. Sinatra in 1974, described his entourage as "goons, creeps and Mafia types."
     In 1966, Mr. Sinatra wed 21-year-old Mia Farrow, but their stormy marriage lasted less than two years, breaking up when the filming of "Rosemary's Baby" interfered with a movie Mr. Sinatra wanted to do with his wife.
     Mr. Sinatra announced the first of several retirements in 1971. He returned — partly at the prompting of President Richard Nixon — in 1973, with the album "Ol' Blue Eyes Is Back," which rose to No. 13.
     Mr. Sinatra constantly battled the press — most famously in 1974, when his tour of Australia was interrupted and nearly scuttled after the first show, during which he called the Australian press corps "pimps" "whores," "fags" and "buck-and-a-half hookers."
     He found himself stranded: Stagehands announced they would refuse to work any more shows; three Australian unions refused to fuel his private jet; even the staff of his hotel, the Southern Cross in Melbourne, would not serve him. Delicate negotiations with the Australian unions permitted the tour to continue, though one show had to be canceled.
     Mr. Sinatra got married for a fourth and final time in July, 1976, to Barbara Jane Marx, the ex-wife of comedian Zeppo Marx.
     He had another hit in 1980, with "New York, New York," which became something of an anthem for him, and released a popular three-album set, "Trilogy," that year.
     In 1985, he received the Medal of Freedom from President Ronald Reagan, who had persuaded Mr. Sinatra to switch to the Republican Party 15 years earlier.
     In September, 1986, Mr. Sinatra reopened the Chicago Theatre with several concerts. He continued to tour throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, and was always popular, though critics agreed his voice sometimes showed the ravages of time.
     Mr. Sinatra was an insomniac who would commission a jet and fly to Las Vegas for the evening, returning at dawn.
     "I'm for anything that gets you through the night," he once said, "be it prayer, tranquilizers or a bottle of Jack Daniel's."
     Survivors include his wife and three children, Frank Jr., Nancy and Tina.
     A private funeral was planned, his publicist said.

         — Originally published in the Sun-Times, May 15, 1998

Flashback 2011: Potter’s field burial not so lonely after all

Homewood Memorial Gardens

     I'm recovering from surgery, so we're raiding the archive until I'm back in the saddle.

     Death isn't my beat, but you can't work for 39 years at a newspaper and not encounter it, whether watching a body being pulled from the river, the medical examiner performing autopsies on Harrison Street, or Loyola medical students studying cadavers at a gross pathology class. This emerged from that last story, a potter's field burial. Mitch Dudak quoted the story at the end of June in a fine obituary of Tim Kowalski, mortuary science teacher, and I realized I'd never posted it here. And as a reminder pulling one thread leads to another, it was wandering around the Homewood cemetery that I happened upon the grave of the "Martyr to Radio."

     A boxy U-Haul truck wends its way slowly along the curving roadway of Homewood Memorial Gardens, to a group waiting by a large, shallow hole in a section of the cemetery known as The Garden of the Good Samaritan No. 11. The sun is bright, the sky blue, a pleasant day for November.
     The truck backs up to the lip of the hole. The rear door opens to reveal 24 plywood coffins. A corrugated metal ramp is run from the truck into the pit.
     A smell rolls out that I’ve come to think of as “refrigerated death,” a queasy blend of meat and bleach. The bodies are fresh from the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office on Harrison.
     Last month I wrote a column contrasting the dignified ceremony that Loyola conducts for its medical school cadavers, complete with poems, prayers and priests, with what I imagined to be the lonely burial at potter’s field: “the sack shrouded body is tossed into a pit with a minimum of fuss.”
     Even as I typed those words, it struck me: I had overstepped what I actually knew and launched into speculation — dangerous for a journalist — and if I was going to comment on this, I had better go see what I was talking about.
     The burials are conducted monthly. These two dozen bodies had arrived at the morgue in July, and their relatives either couldn’t be found or refused to pay for a funeral. The medical examiner, Dr. Nancy Jones, wants to donate such unclaimed bodies to science, both to fill the shortage of medical cadavers and save the county the $289 per coffin paid to Homewood. But there was a public outcry, and such donations have been temporarily suspended while she re-evaluates the procedures.
     The hole is shallow, about 3 feet. Homewood is built upon stone; anything deeper must be jackhammered out of rock. Illinois law requires only 18 inches of earth over a coffin; to comply, the soil is mounded on graves.
     Four gravediggers — Adam Springer, Michael Scott, Gregory Blackshire and Eli Martinez, who wears a kerchief over his face to ward off the smell — muscle the pine boxes down the ramp, aided by four students from the Worsham College of Mortuary Science, in Wheeling — Chris Nelson, Nikkia Brown, Addie Cassidy and Darrell Randolph, who wears a nice suit for this dirty job, which earns them extra credit. Some of the coffins are very heavy — corpses are fatter nowadays. The coffins in the truck are leaking.
     “We do wash it out and bleach it,” says Homewood’s Kelly McCarthy.
     The pine boxes squeak, dragged against each other, then rumble down the ramp, splintering as they go. As each is pulled off the truck, a number is read off a small round brass tag.
     “Two ninety-five, got it,” says McCarthy. “Oh yeah, he’s a heavy one,” grunts Scott. “He’s a biggie.”
     In 30 minutes the work is done. The grave diggers, the students, McCarthy, plus someone from the ME’s office, sent to keep an eye on things, gather by the grave containing the remains of 20 men and four women.
     Tim Kowalski, who teaches at Worsham, reads from a black binder.
     “Bless me God,” he begins, then recites the 23rd Psalm: “I walk through the valley of the shadow of death . . . ”
     “We commend to God the souls of these individuals whose mortal remains lie before us and to commit their bodies to the earth . . . ,” he continues. “We did not know these people. Many things about them will remain always a mystery to us. We do not know what were the circumstances of their lives . . . . Many may have died in poverty. Others might have simply outlived their families. Our beginnings do not know our ends. . . . We do not know any of these things, but one thing we do know, they were human beings, and at the end of their lives they deserve to be treated with respect. Our common humanity demands that these lives should not pass from the earth unremembered.”
     He asks for a moment of silence and, as if on cue, birds chirp. The 24 names and numbers are read aloud. Then we who are not dead return to our lives on this crisp, bright autumn day while the backhoe does its work.

     — Originally published in the Sun-Times, Nov. 7, 2011

Flashback 1997: Here's the ugly truth about plastic surgery

"Janie" by Clarity Haynes (National Portrait Gallery)

     I had surgery Wednesday, and while I'm healing thought I'd share some of my surgical stories from over the years. If my surgeon finds himself reading this, rest assured that I have a far more positive view of the medical profession now that I'm carrying around a good-as-new spine, and hip and now, please God, shoulder.

     For a while I was writing a lot of stories about medical procedures. I watched a heart transplant, which was thrilling, and a lung transplant, which was less so, since the patient died.
     I sat in on plastic surgeries: a nose job, a breast lift. I spent 10 hours at the Cook County medical examiner's office observing autopsies. When they brought the baby in, I decided to take a coffee break instead of watching, a decision I'm immensely grateful for today.
     For those eating their morning breakfasts, I'll spare you the details (though there will be some graphic images later, so you might want to finish your poached egg before continuing), other than to say that the procedures were pretty grim viewing.
     Particularly the nose job, which was more than grim, it was grisly. At one point I felt myself about to faint and wanted to retire from the room with my manly decorum intact. "My pen is running out," I lied, slipping toward the door. "I'll be right back; I've got another in my clothes" (I had changed into one of those green hospital scrub suits).
     "Oh, here," said a helpful anesthesiologist, pulling a pen from his pocket and waving it toward me, "you can use mine."
     "No, no, thank you," I said, backing out in to the hall, where I sat for five minutes with my head between my knees. "I need to use my own pen."
     Imagine the comment after I left: "Now there's a strict union for you."
     Of all the procedures I've witnessed — and I'm including the young student podiatrists from Dr. Scholl's College working on the stinking feet of the homeless in a closed room — nothing was as revulsive as a liposuction, a procedure brought back to mind last week by news of a California woman who died after liposuction surgery.
     The California case took place in March, but was just revealed recently. The doctor removed 20 pounds of fat from a woman, who bled to death while the surgeons allegedly did nothing.
     In the 15 years or so it has been performed in this country, liposuction has become an incredibly common procedure — it is the most common form of plastic surgery — and, in my view, testimony to the greed of the medical profession, since it is entirely unnecessary.
     During a liposuction, an aluminum probe — a cannula — is inserted through an incision in the skin into the fatty tissues, which are sucked out by a vacuum pump. It is a very high tech way to lose weight and as sensible as a dentist cleaning your teeth by removing them, scrubbing them down, then putting them back, surgically.
     The official party line on liposuction is that it is used for pockets of fat that can't be reduced through dieting. That's a lot of hooey. The woman whose liposuction I saw was zaftig. She was heavy. Not heavy in certain isolated pockets. Heavy all over. What she needed was to eat less and exercise.
      That's how you lose weight: eating less and exercising. It isn't easy, but it sure is preferable to going under the knife.
     The California woman who died was 150 pounds on a 5-foot-3-inch frame. That isn't isolated pockets. That's fat.
      Liposuction, as the surgeon I watched performing it noted, is "an indelicate procedure." The doctor got that cannula under the woman's skin and really worked it. The table shook. In my memory, the surgeon put his knee on the gurney to get better leverage, but that has to be a phantom of my general revulsion at the procedure.
     "Doesn't that damage nerves?" I asked the surgeon, as he worked up a sweat with the cannula. "Aren't they delicate?"
     "Nah," he said. "The nerves are tough — the cannula just pushes them out of the way."
     Right, I thought. Of course it does. Absolutely.
     I wish the patient could have been awake to see just what was being done to her — the plastic surgeon, laughing and joking as he worked. "This is the schmaltz," he said, holding up a jar of reddish-yellow sludge and using the Yiddish term for "fat."
     Anybody contemplating such surgery should, at the very least, watch it performed first. Don't be satisfied with a film. Get yourself into the operating room. Dieting will suddenly look very attractive. Exercise will take on an appeal it never had before. The pounds will fly off.
     Because I can promise you: Nothing will turn you off to plastic surgery as much as watching it will. A life of obesity seems positively jolly compared with the reality of liposuction. Any elective procedure should first be observed before being considered. I've got a good-size eggplant of a Jewish nose jutting out from my face, but after watching a nose lift, I can honestly say that I wouldn't go through a nose job if my wife and the assembled array of the world's womankind gathered with their arms linked and in unison begged me to.
     Every line I see in the mirror, every new wrinkle and sag, will be a welcome visitor compared with the alternative.
     — Originally published in the Sun-Times, May 7, 1997