Photos by I.C. Rapoport Chuck Rapoport’s photojournalistic career might have begun on the crowded shuttle train that runs from Times Square to Grand Central Station in New York City. That was where, as a timid but enthusiastic Ohio University graduate in 1958, he first spotted Paris-Match photographer Paul Fusco. Rapoport didn’t talk to Fusco on the train, but the encounter (and a nudge from his mother) encouraged Rapoport to call the magazine’s New York bureau, and he began apprenticing as a photojournalist under Fusco. But Rapoport would probably tell you that his career really began about six months later, in the summer of 1959, when Paris-Match sent him to cover the U.S.-Soviet Russia track meet at Philadelphia’s Franklin Field. Rapoport, who was just 22 at the time, remembers that it was ‘hot as hell’ when he arrived in Philly, and that he had to bribe his way into the bullpen area of the stadium because he couldn’t get a press pass. But as luck would have it, he happened to be standing just a few feet away from where USC’s Bob Soth collapsed on the 19th lap of the 10,000-meter run. He snapped dozens of photos and, when he got back to New York, the film was sent immediately to Paris. ‘Those photos were perfect for Paris-Match because they were all about sensationalism,’ Rapoport says about the French picture magazine known for its widespread use of paparazzi photographs. He was in the New York office when a message came through the teletype machine from Paris: ‘Qui est Rapoport?’ (‘Who is Rapoport?’). They ran six of his photos on a three-page spread. “I didn’t know why I wanted to be a magazine photographer,’ Rapoport recently recalled. ‘But I wanted to be places where important things were happening. And this [photojournalism] would be my entr’e. My camera would get me there. I wanted to be in the center of the action.” A native of the Bronx, Rapoport worked as a freelance photographer for Paris-Match’s New York bureau from 1959 through 1961, when he was drafted into the U.S. Army during the John F. Kennedy administration. Stationed in the Pentagon and White House as a military photographer, Rapoport photographed Special Warfare Center/Special Forces (Green Berets) as they were created. After his military service, he continued to work for Paris-Match, along with other magazines such as Life, Look, Time, Newsweek, National Geographic, New York magazine and the Saturday Evening Post. Among his many photographs are portraits of John F. Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, Francois Truffaut, Charles Aznavour, Robert Penn Warren, Samuel Beckett, Roger Maris and Fidel Castro. Rapoport and his wife Mary moved to California in 1977 and settled in Pacific Palisades, where they raised their two sons, Benjamin and Caleb. Rapoport snapped this photograph of Fidel Castro during the Cuban leader’s ‘unofficial’ visit to the United States in April 1959, three and a half months after the revolution, when Castro was still considered a hero by the majority of Americans for overthrowing dictator Fulgencio Bautista. Castro attended meetings at the United Nations and spoke with Vice President Nixon, then made a grand speech in New York’s Central Park. Afterwards, he retired to his room in the New Yorker Hotel, where Rapoport, on assignment for Paris-Match, captured this image of him ‘in thought,’ using a Zippo lighter to light his Havana during a small press conference. ‘They [the reporters] asked him all these questions and he was really charming,’ says Rapoport, who was sitting right in front of Castro. ‘He spoke in English, and he answered some pretty direct questions about what it was like to live in the Sierra Maestra [Cuban mountain range] and in the jungle. He talked about getting his law degree in the United States.’ Rapoport’s photos of Castro were never published’or seen by the public’until he created a Web site to showcase his photography (www.rapo.com). ‘By then, Castro had become a despot and nobody liked him,’ Rapoport says. ‘So even though it’s a really beautiful photograph, it’s not the kind of photograph people want to hang on their wall.’ Ironically, Rapoport got into a little trouble by hanging this photograph of the cigar-smoking dictator on the wall of his office in Culver City, when he was working as a writer-producer for the 1996 TV series ‘Profiler.’ ‘I filled the bare walls of my office with about 10 of my photographs,’ Rapoport says. ‘Not too long after I started working there, the executive producer of the show came into my office and closed the door. That’s always a bad sign. He said, ‘I don’t know how to put this, but our production manager is Cuban and he comes from a Cuban refugee camp. He walked by your office today and came back to me and said, ‘Who the #*@% is this guy? He’s got a picture of Fidel Castro on his wall!’ He wants you to take it down.” [To see the complete story and Rapoport’s photos, pick up a copy of the Palisadian-Post]

As with many unexpected discoveries, bright new information is often happened upon by accident. Chinese medicine doctor Toni Balfour’s focus on treating canine ailments was no exception. Balfour, whose Pacific Palisades practice is decidedly people-oriented, was in Florida visiting her parents when the idea occurred to turn her attention to dogs. ‘My parents’ dog was walking on three legs, so I gave him some Chinese herbs and was surprised how quickly the dog responded,’ Balfour says. ‘In no time, he was walking on four legs and chasing after raccoons.’ In Balfour’s eyes, a three-legged dog may be remarkably agile, but it doesn’t have to be so hobbled. She believes that the principles of Chinese medicine apply equally to dogs. Treating a disease in Chinese medicine means strengthening and protecting normal Qi (chee), which is the life force energy necessary for health and vitality. In ancient China, a physician was only paid while his patient was healthy, not while his patient was ill. The balance of yin and yang is maintained in the whole healthy body because the sum total of the yin and yang will be in a fluctuating balance. Disease develops because normal Qi is unable to resist the onslaught of the pathogenic Qi; if pathogenic Qi overwhelms normal Qi then a functional disturbance of the body results. The similarities between the physiology of human beings and dogs are closer than we think, Balfour says. ‘My goal was interpreting the common things that go on with dogs within a Chinese medicine framework. For example, dogs suffer from joint and muscle pain and arthritis as Balfour’s parents’ dog did. They also have digestive and bladder problems, and the aches and pains associated with old age. Balfour spent a year researching what she calls wide patterns of disharmony in dogs and developed a line of herbal formulations, Qi Blends for Dogs, that address eight different conditions. She will market them through veterinarians. Although most people associate Chinese medicine with acupuncture, herb formulas are equally important. ‘I love herbs and I like to develop as precise a formula as I can,’ Balfour says. ‘The formula is based on the underlying problem. ‘For example, there are two patterns that affect skin in dogs: one is flaky, itchy, irritated skin, and the other results in red, pussy skin lesions, what we call wet hot spots. ‘We treat both internally and topically.’ Balfour has developed two different programs to address a broad range of skin conditions. The ‘Skin Repair for Hot Spots, Sores and More’ is a liquid tincture ingested, while the topical powder is applied to hot spots, open sores and moist sores. The second program– ‘Skin Soothe’Itch,’ both drops and powder–addresses itching with dry skin and flaky skin. Because animals are likely to lick their skin, Balfour’s herbal formulas are food-grade and organic. They contain no sulphur, preservatives or chemicals, and are mixed with filtered water. She purchases the herbs from a company in Northern California that has the Federal GMP certification. She makes her own tinctures and powders then seals and bottles them ready for shipping. About 300 common herbs arw used in day-to-day prescriptions, Balfour says. Some are used to clear heat, others to extinguish wind and others to nourish the blood. While the layman may not understand the vocabulary, the principle remains the same: the body is healthy when the Qi is in balance. Balfour views dogs as she would any patient, and while she says that she’s not home enough to own a dog right now, she advises families to treat their pets as part of the household. ‘Dogs suffer from anxiety, which may be caused by the stress of being left along too long or from disharmony in the home. ‘My goal is to give vets another option for treating dogs. I have a list of holistic vets, but I am thinking that mainstream vets may be equally interested, so I will approach both.’ Balfour is a California-licensed acupuncturist and herbalist who has practiced in the Palisades for the last six years. She holds a master’s degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine from Yo San University. While a confident practitioner, Balfour admits that the transition from being an herbalist to becoming a businessperson has been the most challenging aspect of the new venture. ‘Turning an idea into a reality involves taking risks financially and being more business-minded,’ she says. After working on her formulas for over a year, Balfour put out the word to friends and then friends of friends to find dogs to observe and to test her remedies. It’s great to get feedback,’ she says. ‘One man gives his dog ‘Serenity Blend,’ which, he reports, has resulted in calming his dog, but with an added dividend. He says that his dog is addicted to it, stands by the refrigerator and begs for a treat. He gets so excited, that his owner bought six more bottles to have on hand.’ In writing the Qi Blends for Dogs brochure, Balfour tried to maintain a comfort level for her customers. ‘I named the blends understandable titles, such as ‘Anti-Parasite Blend,’ or ‘Joint and Muscle Blend.’ ‘The difference between Western and Eastern medicine is similar to two different kinds of road maps,’ she says. ‘One may name the landmarks, rivers and streams and main roads, while the other concentrates on primary and secondary roads. But both are correct, both will get you where you want to go. For more information on Qi Blends, visit www.qiblends.com.

No one expects a book about paralysis to be funny. Yet author Allen Rucker injects large doses of humor in his candid, affecting new book entitled ‘The Best Seat in the House: How I Woke Up One Tuesday and was Paralyzed for Life’ (HarperCollins). Rucker will appear at Village Books, 1049 Swarthmore, at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 15. Rucker was a normal, middle-aged man with a wife and kids, trying to pay his mortgage and carve out a successful career in Hollywood writing television comedy. ”Normal’ may be stretching it, but before paralysis, my problems weren’t a lot different from yours or your brother-in-law’s,’ Rucker writes in his introduction. ‘I wasn’t raised by coyotes. I’ve never OD’d on drugs or embezzled money from WorldCom. I’m not a high-risk athlete, a daredevil, or a drunk. I didn’t have this malady coming’it just came.’ It came on December 10, 1996 when, in the span of an hour and a half, he became paralyzed from the waist down. Rucker’s paralysis was caused by a rare condition called transverse myelitis. At 50 years old, he became a permanent wheelchair user and was forced to completely re-evaluate his life. The memoir is not without its serious moments, as Rucker details the struggles of accepting his new condition with wrenching honesty and poignancy. In a chapter entitled ‘Paralyzed Like Me,’ he recounts the first months in the hospital when his grief, alternating between uncontrollable crying jags and horrific dreams, is overwhelming. ‘I was messed up, man,’ he writes. ‘I had been brought down hard and frankly didn’t know if I had the capacity to deal with it.’ Rucker says the toughest aspect about writing the book was retelling these more personal and painful parts of the story, including difficulties in his marriage. ‘I wrote the comic things first,’ he said during a recent phone interview. ‘That was the easy part.’ Among the most amusing chapters is ‘Cripple Do’s and Don’t’s,’ in which Rucker instructs the non-disabled world about proper etiquette toward the wheelchair-bound. It includes advice such as ‘Don’t shout in their ears. They’re not deaf: they just can’t walk’ and ‘If you must shout, please never shout ‘How’s the weather down there?’ It’s hard to respond with the downpour of spittle coming from your mouth.’ Also, he urges: ‘Don’t try to pass along your homily-filled philosophy about ‘living for today’ and ‘God only gives us what we can handle’ in the space of an elevator ride. ‘What floor, please?’ will suffice.’ And for those who find themselves newly paralyzed, a chapter entitled ‘The Upside of Infirmity’ lists the benefits: ‘You’ll never have to ‘stand up’ for yourself again’ and ‘You have to buy a new pair of shoes only once every five years.’ The book is getting rave reviews, including one in The New York Times. Rucker is heartened by the many appearances he’s made during the last month throughout the country. ‘People who show up at book signings, especially those with some disability, realize they can laugh at their own life,’ he says. ‘Bad things happen in this world. You can sit around and try to prepare for adversity, but it will always blindside you,’ Rucker says. ‘I think a lot of readers going through all kinds of things can relate to my story.’ Rucker is the author of seven books of nonfiction and humor, most of them written since he became paralyzed. He’s written three books on the HBO series, ‘The Sopranos,’ including the bestselling ‘The Sopranos Family Cookbook.’ His other books include ‘The History of White People in America’ with Martin Mull and ‘Redneck Woman,’ with Gretchen Wilson. For more information, go online to www.allenrucker.com.

By MELISSA BEAL Palisadian-Post Contributor Last year Jay Dockendorf, then a junior at Harvard-Westlake, had an idea to organize a jazz festival and benefit concert. Across town at Crossroads School junior Constantine Savvides had the same idea. When Savvides approached his jazz teacher about putting together the event he learned that Dockendorf was working on something similar. The two boys, both from Pacific Palisades, began working together to organize their first jazz festival. This year, as seniors, the boys have teamed up again for the second annual Harvard-Westlake Jazz Festival benefiting Inner-City Arts. The concert, which takes place on Saturday, March 17, at 8 p.m. at Harvard-Westlake in North Hollywood, will feature a performance by multiple Grammy-nominated saxophonist Kenny Garrett as well as performances by student jazz ensembles from Harvard-Westlake, Crossroads, Brentwood, Wildwood and New Roads. ‘The most fun part of last year was jamming with kids from other schools,’ said Dockendorf, who plays piano. After participating in a USC jazz competition for high school students, he decided he wanted an opportunity to play with fellow musicians from other schools in a noncompetitive setting to see what kids in other jazz programs were doing. ‘I just thought it would be a lot of fun to get high school bands together and jam.’ The festival also gives young jazz musicians the chance to play with and learn from renowned jazz musicians in the Los Angeles area. This year, students will get the opportunity to watch and learn Kenny Garrett whose album ‘Beyond the Wall’ was nominated for this year’s best jazz album Grammy. ‘I didn’t think it was going to happen with him. It’s a dream come true,’ Dockendorf said. However, the event does not just help the musicians who participate. Proceeds from concert ticket sales will benefit Inner-City Arts, a nonprofit arts education center that was founded in 1989 when funding cuts eliminated arts education in Los Angeles public schools. The center was created to give children in and around L.A.’s inner city the opportunity to explore the arts. It has been linked to improvement in academic performance and self-esteem among students who participate. Savvides, who plays bass, chose the charity because it combined two things he is passionate about: art and helping young people in the inner city. ‘I felt like I had to give something back to the community after all I had been given,’ he said. This fall Savvides and Dockendorf will be off to college. Savvides is still unsure where he will attend or what his major will be, but he plans to minor in music. Dockendorf will enter Yale, where he will continue playing jazz music ‘in as many bands as possible.’ In their absence, juniors Ian Sprague, who plays trumpet, and Ian Stanton, who plays tenor, will organize the 2008 festival. This year they learned the ropes by helping with all aspects of the festival. ‘I hope the festival can keep improving each year until it becomes a widely recognized event that keeps spreading the beauty of the music and art among the city,’ Savvides said. Ticketing information can be found at www.hw.com/boxoffice/ or by calling (818) 487-6564.