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ANTHONY'S ARCHIVES

May 2007 - October 2007

-  October 29, 2007 - 

Breaking the Kode

Spring 1961-

I was lying on my bed listening to the original cast recording of the Sound of Music with Mary Martin (before Julie got her hands on it). It was a fold out LP and like holding white gold in my hands; I read the liner notes over and over.

 “Anthony! Come here, I need you!” my mother yelled up from the bottom of the stairs like Don Ameche yelling for Watson in the 1939 movie, The Story of Alexander Graham Bell. “You have to go to the drugstore NOW!”

My mother furtively gave me a folded note and a five-dollar bill and instructed me to give both directly into the hands of our neighbored druggist. She was in an anxious state of mind as I made a quick pit stop to our only bathroom. I noticed once again, the mysterious reappearance of a weird flesh-toned belt-like contraption hanging over the bathroom towel rack. And sensing something was odd by the way Mom instructed me to secretly pass the note to the druggist, I quickly got going on my two-mile trek.

The playing cards on my bicycle wheels never made such a clatter as I whizzed away like Miss Gulch in “The Wizard of Oz”. I was afraid the clothespins would pop off as I sped along Route 94 to the Windsor Pharmacy.

It was like “High Noon” as I entered the drugstore and peered down the long, long florescent lighted aisle to the counter. "Do not forsake me, O my darlin," I hummed to myself as I pretended to weigh myself on the pennyweight machine, 151 lbs. I carefully unfolded the note. It was in code –

                                                          1bx Kotex Super

The five-dollar bill dropped to the floor. As I bent over to pick up the money, I saw Mr. Cassetti, our druggist, behind the counter. He was wearing a white doctors silky top, the kind with three buttons up by the shoulders. The buttons were open and a shock of black hair spilled out. “Ben Casey, Ben Casey” - I whispered to myself, as I approached not a little unexcited, peering at his patch of chest.

I handed him the note as I pretended to peruse the assortment of gum on the counter, picking up a pack of Sen-sen (“Oh we got trouble”). He fondled the pens in his white shirt pocket, read the note and gave a little knowing smile and looked right into my eyes.   I imagined I heard him murmur “Man, woman, birth, death, infinity.” “Be right back,” is what he actually said.

After a few minutes, he handed me a package wrapped neatly in brown paper and tied up with string not unlike the shirts I used to pick up for my father from the Chinese laundry except harder and stiff.  “Thank you, Mr. Cassetti, can I have this gum too?” I held out my hand and it brushed against mine as I counted out the change that he returned. I ran out quickly.

My mother was waiting on the steps outside of our house, puffing a Kent Menthol. “What took you so long?” she snapped, grabbing the package out of my hand and disappearing into the bathroom. I somehow knew not to ask what was in the box.

I put my bike back in the basement, raced upstairs and flung myself on my bed. Chewing Sen-sen, I dropped the needle back down on The Sound of Music.  On the palm of my hand, I traced the symbol for man that Dr. Zorba drew on the blackboard that always opened Ben Casey. “My day in the hills has come to an end I know…but deep in the dark green shadow are voices that urge me to…” And then the urge took me over...

“Alleluia, Alleluia!”  The nuns were chanting as I woke up sweetly exhausted and flush, a short while later. It was dark now, and I thought I heard a distant thunder, as Maria sang: "Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens; Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens; Brown paper packages tied up with strings; These are a few of my favorite things."

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-  October 22, 2007 - 

Pet Peeves 2

New York City Gripes

Hello Dali!

1)    The Dalai Lama appearing at Radio City Music Hall (Is Benedict XVI going to do baptisms at  Splash?).

2)    Standing two across or on the left hand side on escalators, people movers and sidewalks.

3)    Stopping and talking at intersections.

4)    Smokers who stand outside of doorways and throw butts on the street. Isn’t that littering?

5)    Not using revolving doors but opening up the side doors letting unwanted cold or hot air into a  lobby.

6)    Waiting till you get on the bus to get out your Metro Card (after waiting for 15 minutes at the bus stop).

7)    People who keep swiping their expired Metro Card thinking it will magically re-fill.

8)    People taking forever to order when there is a long line behind them.

9)    Pressing both the up and down call buttons for the elevator.

10)  Not letting Ladies out of an elevator first.

11)  Not turning off your blaring I-Pod on an elevator.

12)  Six people can sit across on a subway car side seat. Keep your legs closed please.

13)  Waiting on line for a Broadway Show or showing up at 7pm for an 8pm curtain. Do they think their assigned    seat will be taken?

14)  Dog shit.

15)  Express trains arriving on local track or vice versa and not knowing where they'll stop next.

16)  Cross walk buttons that NEVER EVER worked in our lifetime.

17)  Throwing garbage on top of an already overflowing thrash can.

18)  Pretending to be the next number at a Deli or yelling at the counter man indignantly when you have walked off and your number has been passed by.

19)   “Feed the Homeless People” on Times Square asking for a penny

20)   Street vendors pretending they are selling art: Chinese Calligraphy of your name; velvet clown paintings, and     renderings of the World Trade Center.

Send me your pet peeve for my next round!

tony@tonynapoli.com

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-  October 15, 2007 - 

Cathode Ray Tube Baby

(My first directors chair)

I called a colleague of mine at 9:00pm on a “school night”. As we were chatting, I heard his 4-year olds playing in the background. So bluntly I blurted out: “Shouldn’t they be in bed by now?”  The reply was: “They aren’t sleepy yet!”

When I was a child of their age we were in bed at 8pm no matter what.  I had to be 10 years old to stay up till 9pm. This caused me great pain and petulance since lots of my favorite TV shows started at that time.

After being sent up be upstairs to my room, I would sneak down the staircase ever so slowly and peer over the banister to snatch glimpses of the show I so wanted to watch. I must have looked like a turtle’s head darting in and out of its shell since I had to avoid my mother’s Medusa glare. It was she who laid down the neo-Nazi martial law curfew of 9:00pm. If father looked up, he would always give me a secret, conspiratorial grin.

When I reached 12 I stayed up till 10:00pm and at high school it was extended to eleven. This was great since my patents went to bed at 10. I had a whole hour to myself to watch whatever I wanted - like the discussion on transvestites on the David Susskind Show or falling in love with Ryan O’Neal on Peyton Place or admiring how well the pants fit on Robert Conrad on Wild Wild West.

My RCA TV set was lucky to receive the local NYC station of Channel Nine, WOR even up in Newburgh, NY sixty miles away from OZ. Million Dollar Movie would show the same film twice every night at 7 & 9pm and multiple times all day Saturday and Sunday. “Tara’s Theme” from Gone with the Wind would swell up and King Kong would hold a clacker board with the title. In the 1950’s, movie studios didn’t want their films shown on TV, but the defunct catalogue of films from RKO Studio were shown on channel 9. I am not lying when I say I saw, 20 times each: King Kong, Citizen Kane, Mighty Joe Young, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Cat People and all the musicals of Fred and Ginger.

Also Million Dollar Movie showed a great many foreign films of post war Europe. I grew up on Italian neorealism and sometimes I could not tell the difference between the streets and characters of the Bronx/Brooklyn from the streets and denizens of Rome/Naples as depicted in De Sica’s The Bicycle Thieves and Shoeshine or Rossellini’s Roma, Open City or Paisano.

I was also watching badly dubbed English versions of La Strada, Nights of Cabiria, Virgin Spring and Wild Strawberries. Here was a 12-year boy grappling with the existentialism of Fellini and the nihilism of Bergman. They would later become staplesof my college day's art house viewing circuit and were a great influence as I strove to be a theatrical director.

The Technicolor psychosexual films of Michael Powell shaped my sexuality. My angst of dealing with my homosexuality was mirrored in their lurid, luscious ripe colors, Freudian subtexts and over the top melodramatic acting. I was the prim mother superior of Deborah Kerr, or the nun who had jungle red lips living in the Himalayas in his Black Narcissus. I was the tenor, Robert Roundsville, as the dashing anti-hero in the Tales of Hoffman; rowing my gondola in the canals of Venice singing the Barcarolle. And I was young Wendy Hiller, a determined girl looking for love in “I Know Where I’m Going” -  (not!)

And then there was the iconic Red Shoes  (based on the fairy tale by closeted author, Hans Christian Andersen) that inspired many a dancer and gay boy cf. A Chorus Line. The Red Shoes was the tragic story of a ballerina torn between her young lover and her career; both ruled over by a mad man who loved them both.Yes everything was not "beautiful at the ballet." I identified not with Victoria Page, the ballerina, but the Diaghilev-like manic ruthless impresario, Boris Lermontov.

After so many viewings, I could re-enact the final scenes of the Red Shoes by sweeping open the the bathroom shower curtains and stepping out with my wet hair wildly tossed back and weeping, shouting out as Boris on stage announces Victoria’s death: “I am sorry to tell you that Miss Page is unable to dance tonight nor indeed any other night!”

Gliding into the living room, I slipped off my slippers and held them in my hand, close to the floor and cried: “Never the less, we’ve decided to present The Red Shoes. It is the ballet that made her name and whose name she made. We present it because we think she would have wished it so.” Then I danced them magically around the parlor as if Victoria Page, the dead ballerina was still in those shoes and she was in me.

It would be many years later before I could finally say to my lover, “Julian, darling, take off the Red Shoes.”

To be continued…

Note:  Film director Martin Scorsese cites Million Dollar Movie as a great influence on him. By the way our families both emigrated from the same small town, Ciminna in Sicily.

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-   October 8, 2007 - 

"The Shining"

I am a stutterer. Like an alcoholic, the admission of stuttering is the definition of the condition. When I was a boy I lived in fear of speaking. I stuttered, albeit not severely. There are many theories as to why one stutters - physical, emotional, or traumatic and many treatments but none conclusive.

My first memory is in the second grade at St. Thomas Aquinas School in Brooklyn when Sister Rose called my mother in to tell her of my problem. I had no idea I had one and in a very typical way, the naming of the problem made it a big problem! Not everyone was watching and listening to everything I said, including me. No cure was offered just vague bromides like "You I should be more athletic", "think before you speak" and the big one - "slow down!”

I guess I can deduce my speech impediment was caused by family unrest and trauma. Indeed my sister does too. Or is it genetic? Or just that we were we both exposed to the environment that caused the c-c-condition?

However, stuttering or not I was the class clown, making wiseass comments all the time. I was always sitting in the front of the class or in a corner and even was made to wear a dunce cap once. I guess I was desperate for attention and it is ironic that I used language as my method. You may not know this, but usually stuttering disappears when a person sings or acts on a stage. There are many famous celebrities who share stutter: James Earl Jones, Marilyn Monroe, Mel Tillis and Carly Simon.

Also we stutterers are clever people: we develop many tricks to hide our torture. We learn synonyms (see above use of albeit) or fillers so we can substitute words can’t say sometimes to comic effect. “Judy Garland was fa fa, I mean to say, well actually fa fa fa-fa fa fa-FAT” (instead of saying fabulous). Syntax comes in handy too so we can twist the sentence around in myriad ways. My studying of Latin came in handy - “All conquers love”.

In 1958 we moved to Newburgh where I attended Sacred Heart Parochial School. Still stuttering, I decided to enter the school talent show. I chose to sing “Shine on Harvest Moon” cause I loved the song on my “Sing along with Mitch” album. I sang standing very still but with some emotion. The two people I wanted to impress were in the audience; my mom and my teacher. My mother commented on how stiff I was and why didn’t I segue to the song, “For Me and My Gal” like on the album. Sister Joseph said nothing. No one got that I did not stutter.

I so longed for praise it hurt to my feet. So thus began my journey in the arts to find a voice, to find love -not to be known as the stuttering Porky Pig but maybe the sexy actor, Sal Mineo or the dynamic and articulate director Elia Kazan.

However the next day while I was ordering a meatball hero in the little Italian deli next to Sacred Heart, Mrs. Costanza smiled at me as she passed me the oozing hot sub and said, “Baby you sang so nice yesterday, “Shine on”.

She called me “Shine On” till I graduated. I said "Oh thank you so much Mrs. Costanza" ... fluently.

Oh, Shine on, shine on, harvest moon

Up in the sky;

I ain't had no lovin'

Since January, February, June or July.

Snow time ain't no time to stay

Outdoors and spoon;

Shine on, shine on, harvest moon,

or me and my gal.

to be continued...

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-   October 1, 2007 - 

"Pet Peeves"

1)   Pennies from Hell!  Can’t Fast food shops prices tally up to a rounded figure for a cup of coffee  like $1.75  instead of $1.81 and we wind up with 4 pennies as change.

2)   Why is coffee served so hot that you need a thermal insulator to carry it and you burn your lips on it. Only hot pizza should burn your lips!

3)   Why can Starbucks call theirs sizes: small, medium and large! I never use grande latte.  I say medium regular coffee please.

4)   Clerks who don’t say thank you after a purchase. And ask paper or plastic?

5)   People who stand in front of subway doors. Where is the tazer gun when you need it?

6)   Pod People who walk around like village idiots talking on their blue tooth ear pod cell phones.

7)   Log Cabin Republicans

8)   Pet owners who don’t pick up after their dogs – shit!

9)   Entering your credit card number when you call Amex and then customer service when they pick up asking you for it again! Why? I just punched it in.

10)   Friends who say they just spent the weekend on the Island. What Island?! Coney? Staten? Rikers? Oh, of course, Fire Island, excuse me....

11)  The umpteenth version of Cirque du Soleil, which is just like the first one, only with the weird clowns in different costumes.

12)   A friend who cancels one hour before dinner (unless it’s a hateful friend that you are so glad that he did cancel!)

13)  Employees who call in sick on Mondays or Fridays (no one calls in sick on Wednesdays)

14)  Lint

15)  Lice

16)  A good looking guy who is lousy in bed. (Hmm - is this worse than a bad looking guy who is hot in bed?)

17)  Chinese food with MSG

18)  Tom Cruise in a Nazi uniform

19)  Storm alert!! Tune in at 11pm!  Tell me now already

20)  Toe tapping in the men’s room unless it is for real

21)  Waiters who ask if you want pepper? Why don't they leave a small grinder on the table?

22)  Dinner specials that cost twice the amount of regular entrees!

       (to be continued)

-   September 24, 2007 - 

"Oh What a Good Boy Am I!"

In the fall, my thoughts turn not to Sugar Plum Fairies but to Italian Plums that are now in season.  The New York Times back in the 1980’s published a recipe for a delicious Plum Torte. This recipe of Marion Burros was so popular that they reprinted it may times, year after year.

It is my favorite and it is very, very easy  to make and guests are always impressed when I  serve it.

Buon Appetito!

• 1/4 pound (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup plus 1 or 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 cup unbleached flour, sifted
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 eggs
• Pinch salt
• 24 halves pitted Italian (prune or purple) plums
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon or more, to taste

1. Arrange a rack in the lower third of the oven. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Cream the butter and the 3/4 cup of sugar. Add the flour, baking powder, eggs, and salt and beat to mix well. Spoon the batter into an ungreased 9- or 10-inch springform pan. Cover the top with the plums, skin sides down. Mix the cinnamon with the remaining 1 or 2 tablespoons of sugar and sprinkle over the top.

3. Bake for 40 to 50 minutes, until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from the oven and let cool; refrigerate or freeze if desired.

4. To serve, let the torte return to room temperature and reheat at 300 degrees until warm, if desired. Serve plain or with vanilla ice cream.

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-   September 10, 2007 - 

The Blog that launched a 1,000 quips

If you are reading this via the Briggs, Inc. newsletter link, here is a reprise of the Blog that started my decision to divorce the Blog from Briggs!

One of our clients recommended my Blog to his client who took offense at the August 13th entry. My first thought was “Get over it,Mary!” Then I realized that my Blog was misleading and he was entirely right. It was no longer about the latest and greatest in NYC but more of a narrative of myself growing up and living in this wonderful town.

So here is the shocking entry that launched tonynapoli.com

-  August 13, 2007 - 

Boys of Summer

1963

1963 was the last idyllic summer of my youth before I turned 16 and got my working papers. Do you still get working papers today? I had to go to a doctor and “cough” to get approval.

I got up at 8am after my parents left for the factory. I had my chores to do: clean the house which meant dusting the furniture, vacuuming every day and scrubbing the toilet with Tidy-Bowl. One day I combined Tidy-Bowl with bleach and was almost asphyxiated by the vapors!

At noon I made lunch for my brother and sister. I had to watch the Match Game and I Love Lucy till 1pm. If I didn't have to mow the lawn, I would get out our patio lounge chair with multi-color plastic webbing and laze in the shade of our back yard with my heavy plastic transistor radio close by (the kind that the batteries always leakded through with acrid grey yuck). As I drifted in and out of napping while reading James A. Michener’s, exotic novel Caravans, I dreamt of the two Arab boys from the novel, dressed in white briefs dancing languidly in the woods next to me

At 4pm it was time for the Broadway Hour on our local AM radio. They played an entire cast album within the hour and this is how I got to be a Show Tune queen. That summer they started a contest where they played a song and you called in if you knew which musical it came from. Well I was the big winner. I would sit by the phone have six digits dialed on our rotary phone and as soon as I heard the first note of the song I dialed that last digit and got through.

“Is it “Young and Foolish” from the 1955 musical Plain and Fancy starring Barbara Cooke?”  I won a case of Fresca, fried clam lunch at the Dairy Barn, a hot-wax car wash, and two tickets to a local summer stock production of Barefoot in the Park at the Cecilwood Theatre.  I was winning so much that the finally had to make a rule you could only win once a month. But that did not stop me. I had my brother and sister call in for me!

At 5pm the lazy hazy afternoon ended as I set the table and waited for Mom to prepare dinner. Of course I washed the dishes afterwards and brought out the garbage.

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-   September 10, 2007 - 

Song My Mother Taught Me

I was fortunate to grow up in the 1950’s, the last great flowering of the American Songbook. My musical tastes were formed by viewing the many television variety shows like Lawrence Welk and the Bell Telephone Hour as well to listening to Broadway show albums. My Uncle Joey on the Polish side of the family exposed me to the glory of Gershwin and Kern, the lush melodies of operetta and the songs of movie musicals. Curiously I discovered classical music all on my own. I have a great knowledge of classical music that I learned from reading the liner notes of records, over and over. It was my Uncle Joe who bought the first Hi-Fi that I would sit and listen in front of, transfixed like Nipper, the RCA dog.

Here are few some songs that changed my life growing up through adolescence before the Beatles and rock and roll took over the airwaves:

“Only Make Believe” (from Show Boat)  -My mother would sing this song a lot. Did she think her love was only that? Indeed Show Boat has become a great influence on me as I identified with Julie LaVerne, the tragic chanteuse. I think my Uncle Joe and my mother saw the 1949 revival on Broadway so it was played a lot. “Old Man River” too of course.

“If I Loved You” (from Carousel)  - Another favorite of my mom, always tentative love. I still sob at the ending when Billy Bigelow says, “I loved you Julie, know that I loved you.”

“Rhapsody in Blue” - One of the first LP’s I bought at Merkels, a butcher that for some reason had a weekly record promotion.

“On the Street Where You Live” (from My Fair Lady) - Another LP but a lesson learned. I bought this at Woolworths for 99 cents. It was not the original cast recording as I soon discovered when I brought it home and played it.

“The Beer Barrel Polka” and the “Too  Fat Polka” – music to eat golumpki and kielbasie by.

“Volare” – My Italian uncle taught me this song on his guitar and I would sing it at family gatherings. OH OH!

“Shine on Harvest Moon” – This is the song that I sang in the fifth grade at my parochial school talent show. From then on, I was nicknamed “Shine On” by the lady who would sell meatball heroes for 25 cents at the deli next door.

“The Merry Widow Waltz”  (from Lehar’s operetta) – I hummed this often and danced around the living room.

“The Drinking Song” and the “Serenade” (from the Student Prince) – Mario Lanza’s voice in the movie sent chills down my spine.

“Cry” sung by Johnnie Ray – “If your sweetheart sends a letter of goodbye.  It's no secret you'll feel better if you cry ...” a closeted homosexual paean sung by one to one.

“Come on-a My House” sung by Rosemary Clooney. The theme of inviting someone in with fruits and nice things to eat, but with the hidden offering of sexual favors.

“Some Enchanted Evening” (from South Pacific) – My favorite song of all. I would hum  this to myself as I stood alone in Julius’ looking for that stranger. I finally met him and his name is Gary.

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-   September 3, 2007 - 

Things my mother said on Labor Day

Christmas is right around the corner!

Wow, where did the summer go?

Mums are in and summer is out.

You better not get D’s again in conduct on your report card this year.

Don’t’ worry, Indian summer is coming and it will be hot again.

The beach is better after Labor Day.

The summer doesn’t end on Labor Day.

Boy, did she gain weight over the summer.

When are the Jewish Holidays?

I love the talent section of Miss America.

Is Bert Parks the MC again this year?

How much did Jerry Lewis raise on the telethon?

Are those his real tears?

I bought you a lunch box last year. How did u break the thermos?

I am not making a turkey for Thanksgiving.

We’re eating out this Christmas.

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-  August 27, 2007 - 

A Knight Out

John Lahr has written an insightful portrait of Sir Ian McKellen in the August 27, 2007 edition of the New Yorker magazine. One aspect of this wonderful actor that goes unnoticed is his daring coming out and his great contribution to gay rights in the UK.

However I cannot think of a single American in the entertainment industry who has been as courageous as a spokesman. We have had no one to lead or stand up for us with the authority that being a celebrity incurs.

We can only revere the dead icon of the crucified Rock Hudson who by his death made Elizabeth Taylor, the Virgin Mother of Aids. Or laugh at the closeted minstrels of Paul Lynde and Charles Nelson Reilly. If only we could have looked up to the example of the of the “marriage” between Cary Grant and Randolph Scott. Or if Garbo really would have talked, Dietrich sang and Tallulah laughed at the “love that dare not speak its name”.

Would that John Travolta and Tom Cruise would blast out of Scientology and fess up. Where is our Martin Luther King? It is time for Kevin Spacey to step from behind the Paramount bar and lead us into the Promised Land of equality. "I have a dream" girls.

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-  August 20, 2007 - 

Making Scents of the Past

My previous entry of August 6th (see below) on the memory of the smell of the Toni perms still haunts me and my thought turned to bygone scents of my youth:

Evening in Paris-

On Mother’s Day I would buy my Mom the deluxe gift package of the perfume. It came in a lovely dark blue bottle and the had a big powder puff.

Noxzema-

I remember my mother covering her face every night with it. “No more wire hangars!”

Old Spice-

My Dad’s Father's Day gift of cologne mixed with the smell of printing ink from his factory job.

Ben Gay-

Oops!  I read this advertisement wrong and I rubbed it on the wrong spot once. Boy did it burn...

Jean Nate

Another gift for Mom - she we take a bath with the Nate bath oils and rub the essence oil all over her body. She did something with white wine vinegar behind closed doors, which I could never figure out. When I asked her she said she was making a salad…

Charlie-

This was my mother’s other cologne. Remember Bobby Short singing the jingle?

Jiffy Pop-

I love the smell of burnt popcorn in the morning.

Cod Liver Oil-

Ugh!

Nine Flags-

I loved this set of men’s colognes in sexy, phalic little bottles each named after a country: England, Ireland, Germany, Sweden, France, Spain, Hong Kong, Italy & Brazil. My favorite was Italy with a Sorrento Lemon aroma.

-  August 13, 2007 - 

Boys of Summer

1963

1963 was the last idyllic summer of my youth before I turned 16 and got my working papers. Do you still get working papers today? I had to go to a doctor and “cough” to get approval.

I got up at 8am after my parents left for the factory. I had my chores to do: clean the house which meant dusting the furniture, vacuuming every day and scrubbing the toilet with Tidy-Bowl. One day I combined Tidy-Bowl with bleach and was almost asphyxiated by the vapors!

At noon I made lunch for my brother and sister. I had to watch the Match Game and I Love Lucy till 1pm. If I didn't have to mow the lawn, I would get out our patio lounge chair with multi-color plastic webbing and laze in the shade of our back yard with my heavy plastic transistor radio close by (the kind that the batteries always leakded through with acrid grey yuck). As I drifted in and out of napping while reading James A. Michener’s, exotic novel Caravans, I dreamt of the two Arab boys from the novel, dressed in white briefs dancing languidly in the woods next to me

At 4pm it was time for the Broadway Hour on our local AM radio. They played an entire cast album within the hour and this is how I got to be a Show Tune queen. That summer they started a contest where they played a song and you called in if you knew which musical it came from. Well I was the big winner. I would sit by the phone have six digits dialed on our rotary phone and as soon as I heard the first note of the song I dialed that last digit and got through.

“Is it “Young and Foolish” from the 1955 musical Plain and Fancy starring Barbara Cooke?”  I won a case of Fresca, fried clam lunch at the Dairy Barn, a hot-wax car wash, and two tickets to a local summer stock production of Barefoot in the Park at the Cecilwood Theatre.  I was winning so much that the finally had to make a rule you could only win once a month. But that did not stop me. I had my brother and sister call in for me!

At 5pm the lazy hazy afternoon ended as I set the table and waited for Mom to prepare dinner. Of course I washed the dishes afterwards and brought out the garbage.

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-  August 6, 2007 - 

Tale of Two Toni's

I was walking past a beauty parlor the other day, a wave of nostalgia overcame me like Proust’s smelling his little cookies. It was the acrid smell of someone getting their hair permed that brought me back to 1950.

There was a Saturday ritual of my mother sitting in a kitchen chair applying the contents of TONI on her hair, a home permanent wave brand concoction. That pungent vinegary smell transports me back to that afternoon with my mother, applying that horrid stuff and asking, “Am I done yet?”  Then she would don this huge plastic bonnet of her Sunbeam Hairdryer and bake!

Because of “Toni”, I always resented when someone spelled my name with an “i”. It’s TONY! Of course in Italy Toni is the way you spell Tony but I was too macho to accept it. Plus growing up I was Anthony anyway and my dad was Tony.  And the boys name Francis is spelled with an "i" so go figure...

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-  July 24, 2007 - 

The Three Faces of Edna Turnblad

Hairspray

The main conceit of both the original film and Broadway musical of Hairspray was the gender bending casting of Edna Turnblad.  Divine and Harvey Fierstein both played Edna as men obviously made up and speaking as men which made for great fun and irony.  Like the great male Kabuki players, the art was in the man playing to be woman but knowing they are still a man. Well in the film version, John Travolta is so latexed up and speaks with a female accent that the double irony is lost. If they were going to do that they just as well have had Rosie O’Donnell or Oprah  play the part.  

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-  July 16, 2007 - 

Italian Feasts in Brooklyn

Last Thursday, I took our free-lance staff of guides on the Brigg's Annual Staff Appreciation Day to  Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The occasion was the Dancing of the Giglio at the Feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel.  Before we met, over cocktails I gave the following talk on my memories of attending feasts as a child:

Welcome:

Gary, all the Briggs Team and myself, welcome you this evening to our annual appreciation outing. You are part of the face of Briggs, part of its heart and soul.  We look forward to guiding you tonight and to have you as our esteemed guests.

Growing up in Brooklyn in the 1950’s:

As a boy growing in Brooklyn in the 1950’s from June to September, there were feasts in every Italian neighborhood parish. One didn’t need to go to other feasts since these were intensely local turf events.

Sicilians - Santa Rosalia, Santa Lucia

Calabrese  - St. Rocco

Neapolitans – San Gennaro, St.Anthony, etc.

I remember at St. Johns there was the battle of the devil and St. Michael the Archangel. The Devil would be up on a rooftop, whistling and heckling, as St. Michael would wrestle him and throw him off the rooftop to the street below. One other memory is a cloth line strung across the street from fire escape to fire escape.  Two little girls dressed, as angels would be hung out and pulled to the center singing a sweet song while they dropped flowers and fireworks were lit below.

But let me go back in history a bit:

From 1890 through 1960 the feasts were held in all Italian neighborhoods in the cities in the East.

The huge wave of Southern Italian immigrants brought their gods and folkways with them. Every village in the mezzogiorno, celebrated the feast day of their patron saint.

The statue of the saint was brought out in procession to bless the town, invoke rain, save crops, stop the plague, or ward off invaders. The entire town attended, it was a great holiday. A day set apart from all the hardship and toil. The ladies prepared special foods for weeks, which was now shared. In the evening would be drinking, dancing and a chance for the young boys to see the girls. At the end fireworks of all kinds!

So this gets transmuted and translated into Italian-Americanese:

The procession turns into a parade with band and is also an act of deviance against the Irish Roman Catholic priests who run the parish and are aghast as these Latin pagan rituals. The neighborhood is not exclusively Italian so shared food turns into food stands and vendors. The show of prosperity turn into games of chance and displays of wealth by pinning money on the statue as it weaves its way through the hot streets.

The religious holiday becomes secularized  - L’America! But in the middle 1950’s the urban exodus begins to the suburbs as second and third generation Italians climb the social ladder. Old neighborhoods only house the older generations: Nona and Nono. Some neighborhoods valiantly try hold on to the tradition but the American way overwhelms.

But in some parishes, expatriates from NJ, Staten Island, and Upstate NY return like the swallows to Capistrano every year to the old nabe to celebrate the traditions. Eventually only a very few endure.

Today:

The feast today is a prime example of the very few that have survived with some religious fervor intact unlike the too well known San Gennaro. You are going to be transported to a Brigadoon village that materializes magically every year in July. This is the closest you will get to what NYC was like when I grew up. The gentrification of Williamsburg is closing in and who knows if the giglio lifted by the parishioners can withstand the onslaught of condo and coops. I hope so.

Come along with me not down memory lane but into the cauldron of the melting pot.  Please take notice who is at the feast besides the Italians enjoying the rides, food, games and expressing their faith. Notice the intense patriotic fervor and love of the new country. Watch for the respect the priest and the police still muster in this outdoor communal living room before the days of AC.

And one last ironic thought:

The giglio is a 5th century celebration of the victory over the Moors or Saracens, the Turks who were overtaking the Mediterranean.  The very Muslims who kidnapped the townspeople of Nono return the kidnapped bishop because they are impress with his unselfish love and faith. The Moors and Christians coexist for a while in peaceful harmony before the great expulsion of 1492. Perhaps there is some a lesson here for us in today’s clash of cultures. And maybe will be dancing a future celebration of love and coexistence.

-  July 9, 2007 - 

Summer Kitchen

Cooking in an open fireplace in summer can cause the kitchen to become extremely hot so in Early America it was common for people to build a separate building called a "Summer Kitchen" where much of the food would be prepared during the summer months.  

Well in Italian American neighborhoods, mothers would get up at 5am in the morning to cook the evening meal. The family would gather round when sun went down to enjoy mom’s pasta and bracciole. In the suburban Italian American home, like my house in Newburgh, we installed an oven in the basement so mom didn’t have to get up at 5am! And when it was really hot we ate at a table in the cellar too!

Then when I was a teenager, we got a barbecue and I was in charge of grilling. I used to love pouring ton of charcoal lighter fluid on the briquettes. I would light a match, stand back and wait for the great WHOOSH as the flames leaped in the air. I got the best white-hot coals that way until the wind blew them out. LOL

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-  June 25, 2007 - 

"Maria" on the IRT Train

Have you ever noticed the squeal the downtown train wheels make as the #2/3 train comes into the Times Square Station?  I also noticed this sound as the #2 train pulls out of the East Tremont Station and rounds the curve up on the elevated line by the Bronx Zoo.

The sounds made are the tri-tone notes that Leonard Bernstein uses in his song “Maria” from West Side Story. MMM  - how uncanny is that! This is not a recent discovery on my part. I am wondering if one day, Lenny was on the train and heard these notes too. It would be just like him to embed that reference and inside joke into his composing of his very New York City musical.

So listen for it next time – “Ma-ri-a"!

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-  June 18, 2007 - 

Seersucker

So can you guess I am standing on the parapet of the base of the Statue of Liberty? And did you notice there are no World Trade Towers?  So here I am in 1968. I took my 12-year-old sister on the Short Line Bus from Newburgh, NY for a day trip to NYC.

As you can see we visited the Stature of Liberty in the morning. We had lunch at Tad’s Steak House ($1.99) in Times Square on 50th Street. Or sirloins were followed by a matinee performance of the then racy production of the Broadway musical Cabaret (before the awful “revisionist” Roundabout Production in 1988 – UGH!).  Tickets were $4.95 for good orchestra seats for matinees shows.  

After the show we ran to Port Authority to catch the 5 pm bus back to Newburgh where I was in exile.

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-  June 11, 2007 - 

"What the f...?"

If you opened your window on Sunday night around 10pm eastern time you would have heard the collective cry of “What the f…k!” at the end of the finale of The Sopranos. At my house party that evening, everyone started yelling at me that the cable TV had gone out a the crucial last moments. Well the joke was on us. David Chase was having his last laugh at his devoted viewers – sort of FU to all of us for giving the series such onerous importance.

 I would not say it was a cop out ending. It was more of an arrogant send off by the writer/producer. He few off to France and refused to answer any questions.

So did the blackout mean Tony was whacked?  - or just a symbolic THE END?  - the rest is silence? - or a TO BE  CONTINUED?  Or was it poison onion rings?

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-  June 8, 2007 - 

"At the Zoo"

Tuesday afternoon I took my sister and brother in-laws up to the Bronx. We hopped on the #2 elevated train and had a great look at the building renaissance that is taking place in the South Bronx.  Remember back in the 1950’s the borough used to be called “Bronx the Beautiful” It was the place our Lower East Side immigrant forbearers aspired to move to.

It was a spectacular day at the zoo. The weather was cool so most of the animals were out sunning themselves in their natural habitats. I was born only blocks away from the zoo and would go there often as in infant in a baby carriage. My mother said she found me at the Monkey House and after visiting my gorilla relatives, I did see a certain resemblance. Remember Sicily is only a few hundred miles from Africa.

Many New Yorkers have never visited the zoo let alone the Bronx.  I don’t know why it is chic to abandon it to the tourists. Both are real treasures to be savored and explored. We finished this perfect day with a perfect Italian supper at my beloved favorite restaurant on Arthur Ave. and NYC – Roberto’s.

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-  June 1, 2007 - 

Graduation Day

When I think of June I think of graduations. I always remember a teacher telling me that graduation does not mean an “end” of learning but a process to the next level. From the Latin, gradus meaning step or walk. So it means you are onto the next step of aspiration. Every June we should celebrate how far we have “graduated” from the previous year. So what are your grades for 2006?   

When I was in grammar school the year was subdivided into A & B. If you notice on my second grade picture from St. Thomas Aquinas it says “2B”. This meant it was during the January – June part of the year. And yes, you would either graduate or be “left back” from 2A to 2B.  Can you find me in the picture? (hint: I was the class clown!)

-  May 20, 2007 - 

Fare Thee Well- Falwell

God may strike me dead (if there is a god) but I raised a celebratory margarita when I heard the news of death of Jerry Falwell. Aren’t Christians supposed to rejoice at the death of a member? He is going to a “far, far better rest." May God Speed, I say!

May 6, 2007 - 

Sunday in the Park with Anthony

1956

The grand city parks of New York City are filled with families, tourist and friends in May. Central Park sometimes has two parades around its perimeters while sunbathers bask in the sun on Sheep Meadows. This picture is of little Anthony in that other great park, Prospect Park circa 1956.

I suspect my little sister Karen is sleeping on the Long Meadow in that grand baby carriage!