William Elliott azelgrove's Blog, page 25

Doing Live Television

The first question on any interview. Is it live? Yes. Ok. No problem. So you arrive early by about an hour and hang around the parking lot and try not to move to much. No sweating allowed. Six thirty is makeup and lighting. So you go in about six fifteen and go to the Green room to wait. The famed green room looks like a conference room with a long table and  a big screen to watch the show on. You sit and it is not so much you are nervous it is just you cant quite get straight in your head what you are going to talk about. You will have eight minutes for your segment.

The other guests arrive. A Bush transition team and some professors to talk about the Electoral College. You are the kicker. at the end. The fun interview. The Author. You kill time looking out a window overlooking the studio. It is still dark and looks like an industrial warehouse with alien cameras on the floor and lights hanging from the rafters. The set looks a bit cheesy but then the illusion is not in place. The girl calls you for makeup and you go downstairs where it is much cooler and quiet.

Lots of base. Lots of base. Skin is not flawless and high def requires pancake makeup. This ends and you go in for a light check.  The studio is lit and you stare into a camera while they adjust the lighting and then you are back upstairs. You watch on the monitor as the other people go down the stairs and magically appear on the show. Now you have a problem. You are beginning to sweat. Not Albert  Brooks sweating but glistening. The girl sees this and dabs more powder on your face. You are last and yes you are getting nervous.

Ok Its time. You go down the stairs and stand behind a wall. The door to the control room is open and you hear people counting down. Go Camera 1 Go Camera 2 Cut to one on one. You stand trying not to breathe because you are clearly sweating now. The other guests troop by. You envy them.  They are done. They didn't freak out. You hear the control room. Set up for the author. The girl takes you in to the set. To your right are men with computers and monitors just off the set. You see yourself. You don't do that again.

Just relax the the host says while the music plays. You unbutton your coat then button it then unbutton it. The host looks at the camera and starts talking and then the camera moves and flashes red. You talk for eight minutes and it goes by fast. You don't even remember it. The music comes up and then it is over. The lights in the studio come on and the host shouts out, Goodnight everybody. He i's gone. People are clearing out like mad.. It's eight o'clock at night. Time to get home. You are taken out by the girl and then you are back in the parking lot and it  is very quiet.

Your phone rings.

Madam President The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson


"Rocket Man is the funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man."

Chicago Sun Times


"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning

Madam President has almost a million votes more....does it matter?

 My grandfather was an elector in Virginia. He never had to vote against the majority to my knowledge. But almost a million people voted for Madam President over Donald Trump. But she lost the electoral vote. So now what? I was on Chicago Tonight and in the green room were two people there to discuss the essence of the electoral college. Their take. It is an anachronistic dinosaur that should have been abolished years ago. Apparently it was only created to protect the slave holding states. That was it. Other than that there is no reason this system of electors should exist. In ever other election in our country it is a plurality vote. Mayor or governor or Senator they are elected by the numbers.
But this is the whining of the loser people say Maybe so. But still it is a stunning turn of events. If Donald Trump had  won the election by a million votes and lost in the electoral college, what would have happened? Well he would not have accepted the results. Would that have mattered? No, not really. Would people demonstrate? Yes. The two men who were on Chicago Tonight pointed out that the problem with the electoral college is it was based on a country that had much less people. Representation was an issue then. 
I asked them right before they went on if the electors would vote differently on Dec 13 and select someone other than Donald Trump. They shrugged. Historically this has never happened. A few electors might peel off but the main vote for the candidate. So to the victor belongs the spoils. At least in the electoral college. 
Madam President The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson

"Rocket Man is the funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man."

Chicago Sun Times


"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning

What Really Happened to Madam President

Think back to 2008. Remember Hillary was running as an agent of change after George Bush. She was  going to be the first woman president and bring us into the light after the Bush years. And then, then there was this skinny African American Dude. I remember because I was voting for Hillary. She was going to be the left progressive woman president who would be the breath of fresh air. Barack Obama came on slowly at first and then the wave of change swept away all that had been before .I realized along with everyone else that we didn't need a little change but A LOT OF CHANGE. So I switched my support to Obama and the rest is history.

 It was an amazing end run around the First Woman President. Her change seemed suddenly like establishment politics. But when that happened I wondered if Obama would do the hard grunt work of politics. We found out he didn't care for that too much and Hillary if nothing else is a soldier. But it didn't matter she had been outflanked and so she became Secretary of State and waited. And her turn came back up. This time she would not be outflanked because Mr. Change himself was for her. And Donald Trump was tearing up the primaries on the other side. A walk in the park.

Besides Trump was crazy. He was a renegade. He was change with a Molotov cocktail. No chance he will get the primary .Meanwhile Hillary and Obama consolidated by eliminating the only threat they could see...the Socialist from Vermont. He was poised to do what Obama had done and run around Hillary. Not again. He almost pulled it off but lost gas at the end. The far left end run would not happen. Bernie was onboard or at least neutralized. And Trump...who wanted that kind of change?

But then...then...those rallies. That assault on the Midwest of pickup trucks and factories. Democrat land. They sure flocked to those rallies. But a change agent. Not a chance. Obama was change and Hillary was now Obama. The African Americans, women, and Latino know what side their bread is buttered on and they would vote for the change coalition. Still... those rallies.

The election night then. The strange rumblings as the firewall of blue Midwestern states crumbled. Could it  be. Those rallies This this...Trump...change? Yes. The end run this time by the billionaire. He caught the pass and went to the left of Hillary's flank from the RIGHT. Brilliant. But it was the same end run of  2008. Change you want change..well we need more than a little change WE NEED A LOT OF  CHANGE.  Hillary heard the wind and you cant help but wonder did she flash back to 2008 when the Obama scampered around her left just like Trump did eight years later.

 So the end run of change is now the politics of two elections. Stanad in the center at your peril. Madam President is the cautionary tale of playing it safe. Not now. Probably not ever again. Someone will grab the microphone lest you strike out a bold position. The era of establishment politics is over forever.  And that is what happened to Madam President.

Twice. Sigh.


Madam President The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson













"Rocket Man is the funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man."

Chicago Sun Times


"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning

The Hangover That Won't Quit

You wake up and there is something wrong. You feel like you were drinking the night before. A heaviness that pulls you down. A dark cloud on your soul. What the hell was in that drink? And then your head clears and you realize that you didn't drink a thing. You went to bed early not believing the television. Like a thunderclap it comes to you and you don't quite believe it. Not really. Maybe a bad dream but no... it is true.

You go back to the thousand conversations. All those hours watching debates. Your remember thinking that at least it was good television and that eventually the serious candidates would take over. But then there was that night. You just stared at the television and watched the walls fall down. It was like a virus taking over the electoral map. How could all that red subsume all that blue. But it did.

Finally you could watch no more. You woke hoping that somehow someway it was a mistake. No the electoral college had done in America. The popular vote told the tale but it didn't matter. The  man who no one could fathom ever getting close to the presidency had just been elected. You might as well start drinking because the four year hangover has just begun.

Better get some ice.

Madam President The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson


"Rocket Man is the funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man."

Chicago Sun Times


"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning

The Long Road for Women

Hillary Clinton was close. There seemed no way around it. She would be the First Elected Woman President. She would be the logical conclusion of the march for women's rights begun by Susan B Anthony and Alice Paul. Even while Edith Wilson was running the White House the suffragettes were chaining themselves to the White House gates. Those women stayed out there in rain and snow to the point President Wilson offered for them to come in and get warm. They refused.

And then Alice Paul decided more extreme measures were needed. That men would never give women the vote unless forced too. So she began to lie down in the road leading to the White House and was eventually arrested. She then went on a hunger strike and was force fed. Then they committed her to an insane asylum. But she persisted and won the war of public opinion. Women did get the vote in 1921.

And it would seem after all the Gloria Steinem's and Geraldine Ferraro's that the White House was in sight for women. But power is never given up easily. Some say a woman following an African American was just too much. Some say Hillary overplayed her hand. Most just don't know what happened. But it was close. Women made it past the White House gates this time...next time they will go all the way to the Oval Office. 2020. It does have a ring.

Madam President The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson


"Rocket Man is the funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man."

Chicago Sun Times


"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning

Our First Woman President

Edith Wilson stayed up late deciphering code from messages overseas while her husband Woodrow Wilson lay in his bedroom ravaged from the effects of a massive stroke. The first woman to wield presidential power did not vote. She couldn't. Edith took over in 1919 and women would not get the vote until 1921. The women who demonstrated out in the darkness  by the White House gates for the right to vote had no idea they had hopscotched to the highest office in the land. When they did get the vote two years later they still had no idea that a woman had been running the government and given them a helping hand behind the scenes.

Edith governed when women were second class citizens. African Americans had the vote for forty years already but women did not enjoy the basic rights their husbands did. Edith had to deal with men who saw her as the Presidents second wife, his girlfriend, someone who did not know anything about politics. But Edith was tough as she had to be. She solved the problems she could, delegated away others, and threw some to the side. All the while she fought to keep her husband alive.

And now almost a hundred years later we have the prospect of the first elected Woman President. Edith had to rule at a time when women had no say at all. She had to push through the equivalent of a Jim Crow South to get basic things accomplished. Alone, isolated, burdened with an invalid, Edith Wilson gritted it out until 1921 and lived for another forty years. She never once complained or mentioned she stepped in and ran the country. The patchwork quilt leading to Hillary Clinton certainly has the needlepoint of Edith Wilson.

Madam President The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson


"Rocket Man is the funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man."

Chicago Sun Times


"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning

Vote Like Your Life Depends On It....

We are at one of those crossroads in history. Ernest Hemingway and the ex patriots in France whiffed it after the carnage of World War I. The world would never be the same. Modernism arrived with tanks and the awful mass death of the trenches. The mechanized world demanded a new way of interpreting the world and the artists responded in kind. The old Victorian world was dead and in a way literary poetry and ethereal language died under the hard bitten prose of Hemingway. The world was dry and hard and remained so right up to World War II.

And we emerged victorious and frightened because nuclear arms might obliterate the planet. We lived under that shadow a long time. And then it seemed to lessen and the world seemed to put it all behind us. But we now have this. The world has changed again. People are being marginalized by technology. The Internet has literally squeezed the profit out of everything and so nobody can afford to carry anyone. The old world of the blue collar job has gone to India and robots have sopped up the rest. Our first African American president gave us a ray of hope and then collapsed under the forces that will not rest.

And now we must vote like our lives depend on it. The very dark clouds hiding under uber nationalism are the same ones that gathered in 1939 and plunged the world into darkness. The same pointed fingers that exterminated six million people are now fingering others as the root of our problems. It is a canard but it doesn't matter. People need someone to blame and there are always others willing to show us who. So vote like your life depends on it.

It might.

Madam President The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson



"Rocket Man is the funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man."

Chicago Sun Times


"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning

Madam Presidents Odds Same as Kicker on 38 yard line

That's right. Think of Robby Gould going up to kick on the 38 yard line. You assume he will make it. You assume he wont hook or someone will break through the line and get a hand on it. But there is always that possibility. In Solider Field there is wind off Lake Michigan. It gets cold. Hands get slippery. The kicker might not place the ball correctly. The ball could come off the kickers foot at an angle. It could hit the goal posts. He might just shank it.

But nine times out of ten a thirty eight yard kick  is a walk in the park. No one really doubts it. When a kicker doesn't make a kick like this people shake their heads. Some see it as  just bad luck. Others say it was not meant to be. The Gods were not on their side. They were not meant to win. Or maybe the kicker has lost it. Maybe the kicker like Robby Gold should be traded away. Maybe he is in a rut.

Madam President should have this in the bag. After all thirty eight yards is nothing The ball should fly right through the goal posts and we should have our first woman president. But things do happen. Robby Gould was the Bears go to kicker for years and then he blew some keys kicks and just like that he was traded. He doesn't even play anymore.

Madam President should take nothing for granted.

Madam President The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson







"Rocket Man is the funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man."

Chicago Sun Times


"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning

"Rocket Man is the funniest novel since Russo's Straight ...

"Rocket Man is the funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man."

Chicago Sun Times


"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning

Madam President The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson Chosen as Literary Guild Selection

 FOR RELEASE: CONTACT: Loren Long Nov 4, 2016 Loren.Long@Regnery.com 202.677.4420
Madam President is a Literary Guild Selection
Revealing the Hidden History of Edith Wilson in the Oval Office
Washington, D.C.—Madam President The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson has been chosen as a Literary Guild Selection. Released on Oct 17th by Regnery, the highly researched narrative is already a History Book Club Selection with a Five Star Foreword review and an endorsement by the Washington Post. The story of the First Woman President is gaining steam. After a CSPAN filming at the Woodrow Wilson House in Washington DC, Author William Hazelgrove is making ripples with his story of Americas First Woman President.
 According to acclaimed author, Hazelgrove, if  Hillary Clinton is elected, she won’t be our first female president. Edith Wilson took the mantle of First Woman President almost a hundred years ago. Months before women won the right to vote, a woman was secretly running the Executive Office. Few know the hidden history of Edith Bolling Wilson’s presidency – until now. Author William Hazelgrove provides an engaging portrait of the woman who became the acting president of the United States in his new book Madam President: The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson (October 17; Regnery Publishing; 978-1-62157-475-0; $29.99).
Assuming the authority of the Oval Office after President Woodrow Wilson suffered a debilitating stroke, Edith’s presence was quietly acknowledged in D.C. circles at the time, but since then her legacy has largely been forgotten.
A senator during her time called her “the Presidentress who had fulfilled the dream of suffragettes by changing her title from First Lady to Acting First Man.” Now, the full history of America’s first female president is finally revealed.
In Madam President you’ll discover:  Who America’s real first female president was  How Edith Bolling Wilson undertook the office of the president  Why Edith Bolling Wilson’s presidency was kept secret  Why the history of America’s first female president is so significant in 2016  What Edith Bolling Wilson’s presidency did to lay the groundwork for women in government
### To schedule an interview with William Hazelgrove please contact Loren Long at
Loren.Long@Regnery.com or 202.677.4420
Madam President The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson

"Rocket Man is the funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man."

Chicago Sun Times


"Rocket Man is a hilarious, well written novel about one man's search for the New American Dream." James Frey, author A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning