"We write what we like - we write frankly and freely, but then we 'modify' before we print" - I think I've got the quote right, from the washed-up editor aboard one of Twain's riverboats, and it came to mind with this "short" from Thursday's (May 3) International Hera ld Tribune, credited to The Associated Press (which should have some of the best editors and 'modifiers' around, one should think. Perhaps they can correct the mistakes by October). Here's the story, exactly as the IHT printed it: ---------- WHOOPI GOLDBERG WINS MARK TWAIN PRIZE WASHINGTON -- The comedian Whoopi Goldberg will be awarded the fourth annual Mark Twain Prize for Humor, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has announced. "Our dear Mr. Twain put it best," Goldberg said, "when he said, 'Humor is the good-natured side of a truth.'" Born and raised in New York City, Goldberg performed later in the San Diego area. Working with the Lake Street Hawkeyes Theater Group, she created the characters who became "The Spook Show." She has written two books: "Alice," for children, and another simply titled "Book." She has starred in many films, including "Sister Act" and "The Color Purple." In 1991, she won an Academy Award for best supporting actress for her role in the move "Ghost." The prize will be given on Oct. 15 at a gala in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall and the proceeds will be used for the education of young humorists. The prize was awarded for the first time to Richard Pryor, in 1998, and in succeeding years to Jonathan Winters and Carl Reiner. ---------- It reads well, but it's obviously written by an East Coast writer. It's nice they printed the news. However, in defense of my adult home city, San Francisco, the following corrections should be made before they print her bio in the program in Washington: While she was born in New York, she went west to Oakland, CA and performed with the Blake Street Hawkeyes, an experimenting theatrical troupe with a literary and dance bent from Iowa City (hence the name "Hawkeyes"), in a low-cost warehouse space on Blake Street, in Berkeley, where the MT Papers were and are. (She likely hung out there some). To then, she had been for a time a homeless soul on Oakland's streets, and created her later famous "Bag Lady" character, in her self-produced "big show" in nearby San Francisco, a good five hundred miles up the coast from San Diego, and a universe away in its level of tolerance and appreciation for her humor or anyone else's. It's reported that humor has been outlawed there by now, or at least not practiced - same as in Texas, though I can't verify this. I personally loaned her some spotlights, and drove them down to the Victoria Theatre in the Mission District, then climbed the ladder and hung and focused them, so I'm sure of this fact. She then got a special award from the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics' Circle for creating the character. She accepted it in costume, in the North Beach award ceremony, and got everybody howling - even those who'd been too scared to venture down to see her in the Mission District. (true!). I'd gotten some sort of an award from the critics just before hers, and was in the process of being hooted off the stage for some anti-Reagan comments -- and she rescued me, so I remember the incident well, and that place in the city's North Beach district where my life was saved that night. She should get a prize for her contribution to integrating Hollywood as well - moving it "maybe a millimeter," at least, as her fellow San Franciscan/New Yorker said later of the Beats of North Beach and their influence on American society. Maybe there isn't such an award, but she and another San Franciscan, Danny Glover, together with North California's Luis Valdez (Teatro Campesino), should all get them. She's maybe the funniest of the trio - I'm not sure, they have their moments, though not given chances on screen. That's my "modification," AP. Hope the Kennedy Center fixes the text of their press info by October. ----------- Richard Reineccius, Lodz, Poland With an afterthought, and WARNING: Should we be trying to educate young humorists? Perhaps we need to educate educators to not whip the sense of humor out of our young 'uns! (Bob Dylan, turning 60 this month, said for the BBC series on his life: 'The easiest way to do something is just don't ask anybody's opinion.... I've asked people's opinion and it's been a great mistake…')