Christmas in New York: Then and Now

(Originally published 12/12/15)

When I was a boy growing up in the Northwest Bronx’s neighborhood of Kingsbridge, Christmas was—from my youthfully innocent perspective—the “most wonderful time of the year.” Andy Williams really nailed it, although I don’t ever remember any “scary ghost stories” being bandied about during my family's yuletide celebrations. The weeks preceding December 25th had an anticipatory feel that, I know, can never be felt again. Decades removed from that wide-eyed kid—who loved virtually everything about the holiday season—this time of year just isn’t so wonderful anymore.

The passage of time has done a number on that special feeling—one that, in simpler times, I believed was inviolable. Really, I couldn’t conceive back in the early 1970s not being excited at the prospect of an impending Christmas. The first signs of the season—store decorations, typically—were enough to light that spark. Christmas-themed television commercials were next. Raised a Catholic, there was the first Sunday of Advent, the second, the third, and then the fourth—crunch time. Three purple candles and a pink one defined the Advent wreath, which we—and countless others—had in our homes. It wasn’t a hanging kind of wreath, by the way, but one that rested on a table, television set, or countertop. The solitary pink candle was lit on the third Sunday for a reason that now escapes me.

I don’t exactly know why, but I vividly recall an Advent wreath in the classroom of my fifth-grade teacher, Sister Lyse—a very nice woman and personal favorite of mine—having its four candles melt into an orb-like mélange of purple and pink. This candle carnage occurred because they were too close for comfort with one of St. John’s grammar school’s uber-hot radiators. The meltdown was discovered on the morning our class was preparing to venture down to Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan via the subway— the Number 1 train to be precise, which was only a block away, and whose elevated tracks we could see from our school’s east-facing windows. Watching both a movie and a Christmas show there—Rockettes and all—was a heady and lengthy experience and more of what made Christmas such an amazingly layered experience. I was of a tender age in a more tender time, and it didn’t bother me in the least that the New York City subways back then were crime-ridden and smothered in graffiti.

When my father purchased a new record player and stereo from Macy’s at Herald Square, my brothers and sisters gleefully awaited its delivery. Upon its arrival, we naturally posed for pictures around it. We piled LPs on the thing, which automatically dropped upon a record’s climax, for years and years after. We had a few “Christmas in New York” albums in the family collection, and there really wasn’t anything like—once upon a time—Christmas in New York. I’d like to think there are still kids feeling the way I felt about Christmas in an age before computers, iPhones, and cable television. But getting past all of that, I know, isn't easy.

(Photo 1 from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

The Charlie and Mama Christmas Miracle

(Originally published 12/17/16)

Nineteen years ago, a possible miracle occurred in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. To set the stage, my favorite local eatery had sadly changed hands. After refurbishing the place, its new owner—a man named Nick—reopened its doors. Many of the old customers returned for this second act, including a remarkably cranky old couple. No, not a husband and wife, but a seventy-year-old man and his ninety-nine-year-old mother. My frequent dining companions and I nicknamed the pair “Charlie and Mama.”

Witnessing a dutiful son lovingly caring for his aging and ailing mother is often uplifting, but it definitely wasn’t in this case. In fact, it was downright deflating, even a bit creepy. You see, very, very old Mama was the embodiment of mean—looked it, sounded it, and acted it. She scolded her septuagenarian son as if her were a five year old. But this was all going down in 1997—not the Roaring Twenties. Son Charlie, however, merited very little sympathy and understanding because he was an incredibly fussy, inconsiderate, and annoying man. Mother and son were frequently spotted walking the streets arm-and-arm, with antiquated Mama looking like she was a light pat away from crumbling into the dust from whence she came.

Suffice it to say, the entrepreneurial-minded Nick didn’t acclimate very well to the diner milieu and its colorful cast of characters, which included bothersome eccentrics like old Mama and her insufferable son. Charlie regularly ordered a burger for his beloved mother sans the bun. Despite it saving him a hamburger roll, this request really got under Nick’s skin. But it was the three or four French fries that Charlie wanted for his mother that irked him to no end. When Charlie informed the diner's put-upon proprietor that old Mama couldn’t possibly eat a regular order of fries, he didn’t say it nicely and, too, expected the sparrow’s portion to be on the house.

Eventually, the mere sight of the approaching Charlie and Mama sent Nick into spasms of rage. They came to embody everything he hated about diner irregulars, if you will. Nick desperately wanted his place to be a bona fide restaurant and not a neighborhood greasy spoon. And Charlie and Mama with their bunless burgers and three or four French fries just didn’t fit into his grand plan. Then one day, Nick overheard Mama’s anything but dulcet century-old tones saying aloud, “He’s not going to make it.” His body furiously shook, but the man uttered not a word to them. Instead, he beamed hate—the genuine article—their way.

Come Christmastime, I spied a row of cards taped atop the refrigerator accommodating the Jell-O, rice pudding, and apple pie—from various food suppliers and even a handful of customers, I supposed—despite the fact that Nick was the epitome of ineptness, irascibility, and miserliness all rolled into one disagreeable package. The guy had raised all the prices and reduced all of the portions in one fell swoop. The formerly considerable and otherworldly hamburgers of the previous ownership had become McDonald's-sized, flavorless, and much pricier.

While I wasn’t about to send Nick a Christmas card, I nevertheless thought it would be warm and fuzzy if he received one from his worst tormentors—Charlie and Mama. And so he did. The miracle—the Christmas miracle, actually—was that I was present when the postman delivered the card, when Nick opened it, and when he read it. I witnessed the expression on his face as he came upon the sender’s names: “Charlie and Mama.” Nick expressed uncharacteristic glee, immediately showing it to his staff. He just couldn’t believe he had received this holiday goodwill from such a sinister duo. I heard him repeat several times—to no one in particular—these two words: “Charlie and Mama.” And, I can honestly say, he had a big smile on his face the entire time.

I have long believed that my being privy to the fruits of this endeavor was divine intervention, or maybe it was because I often had breakfast there at around the time the postman knocked. Still, I’d rather believe that miracles do happen on occasion. And, as things turned out, old Mama was prescient concerning Nick’s fate. He didn’t make it.

(Photo from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

A Penny for My Thoughts

Of late, I’ve been thinking a lot about my favorite decade: the 1970s. It had so much to offer and was not only colorful but a talent-rich environment with cabinet possibilities aplenty. Consider this: Mr. Green Jeans for Secretary of Agriculture; Officer Joe Bolton for Attorney General; and Captain Jack McCarthy for Secretary of Defense. If you didn’t grow up in the New York City metro area, the latter pair, I suspect, might be unfamiliar to you. But take my word for it, these were respected men of good character and ability with gravitas to spare.

Speaking of character, the bad kind now, I’d like to Bragg here for a moment. Thank God, a jury of his peers found Daniel Penny, a good Samaritan, innocent of all charges. If you ride the subway in these parts on a regular basis, you’ve no doubt encountered mentally ill individuals panhandling and often times ranting and raving. It’s a sad situation, but it is what it is. On occasion, their outbursts assume a higher meaning—a more deadly one—with potential violence a real concern. Threatening to kill people shouldn’t be taken lightly, especially when the one doing the threatening is out of his or her head and the place is cramped quarters in an underground tunnel.

And now for something completely different: A Christmas Carol. In my YouTube recommendations this past week were two animated versions of the Charles Dickens’ classic, which I’d never seen before. While I feel Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol is timeless, it is a musical. These well-made English productions from the 1960s and 1970s were sans songs, somber throughout, and rather abbreviated retellings of the tale. One, in fact, featured the voice of Alastair Sim as Ebeneezer Scrooge. He, of course, starred in A Christmas Carol—the 1951 movie that many consider the yardstick for which all others—before and after—are measured. My yardstick is Scrooge, a musical, starring Albert Finney, which I first saw in Radio City Music Hall at Christmastime 1970. Its depictions of the Ghost of Jacob Marley, the Ghost of Christmas Present, and Bob Cratchit are—in my opinion—the best of the lot.

The Ghost of Christmas Past is the most diversely portrayed. In one of the animations that I recently watched, this particular apparition was a pulsating female figure that appeared to have multiple faces—what someone who was three sheets to the wind, plastered, crocked might see. Of course, Joel Grey’s Ghost of Christmas Past in the Patrick Stewart version—a 1999 TV movie—takes the cake for bizarreness. Before its time, I suppose.

When all is said and done, I’d just like to say to one and all of all political persuasions and fans of different best ghosts and Christmas Carols, “God bless us all, everyone.”

Unforgettable, That’s What You Were

(Originally published 9/30/15)

Following up on my previous blog, here are some materials from yet another proposal for a book that never saw the light of day. Its working title was This ‘70s Book: Remembering the People, Events, Fashions, Fads, and Mores That Defined an Unforgettable Decade.

It was the grooviest snapshot in time—the 1970s. At once colorful in fashion and remarkably colorless in politicians—from Presidents Nixon to Ford to Carter—the decade began with the nation mired in a contentious war and passed into the dustbin of history with Americans held hostage by a fanatical Ayatollah in Iran.

It was the decade that added both spice and controversy to television sitcoms, as the perfect TV family at last became dysfunctional—just like the rest of us. The 1970s also furnished us with a heaping helping of variety on the boob tube—quite literally—as a diverse cast of characters from Flip Wilson to Mac Davis to Howard Cosell hosted their very own “variety shows.”

The 1970s gave us a Secretary of Agriculture named Butz, a presidential brother named Billy, and a nightclub named Studio 54. It witnessed the rise of a thing called “free agency” in Major League Baseball, altering the face of the American pastime forever. In this inimitable decade, Volkswagen defined the “cheap car,” with the German automaker’s “bugs” crawling all over America’s highways and byways. So what if the trunks were on the wrong end of the car. And, lest we forget, 1970s automobile owners also cruised about in Dodge’s “Dart Swingers.” Meanwhile, two-legged swingers created a thing called “disco fever,” while gyrating the nights away to the latest Bee Gees blockbuster hit.

Yes, the 1970s were a decade to remember. From Richard Nixon and Watergate to John Travolta and Saturday Night Fever, the people, events, fashions, fads, and mores are lodged in the memory banks of millions of baby boomers. Their children are even caught up in the nostalgia of what came before them. For no matter what transpired three decades ago—from war abroad to scandal at home—it was unquestionably a simpler time. It was the end of the “good old days.” 

In the 1970s, only those with acrophobia gave second thoughts to ascending high-rise buildings. Al Gore had yet to “invent” the Internet. Job outsourcing was not a political issue. With most Americans driving around in the same old heaps until the wheels fell off, car leasing was unheard of. And there weren’t more than four hundred-plus TV channels with nothing on, but a mere ten to twelve with seemingly something for everyone.

This ‘70s Book will chronicle the good, the bad, and the ugly of an epoch—from the birth of the disposable razor to cigarette vending machines dispensing the poisonous pleasures in high school cafeterias. It’ll recall Jimmy Hoffa’s mysterious exit from this mortal coil, as well as baseball players Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich swapping wives, children, and dogs. 

            

This ‘70s Book will wear hot pants and attend college toga parties. It’ll get behind the wheel of a classic Plymouth “Duster” and American Motors “Gremlin.” The book will furnish readers with crash courses on the era’s economic highlights and lowlights. The Dow Jones Industrial Average reached an all-time high of 907 in 1979! Inflation topped 13% and the prime interest rate soared above 15% in the late 1970s. And the Chrysler Corporation received a highly contentious $1.5 billion worth of government largesse during this time period.

This ‘70s Book will cast its net far and wide over a unique and momentous period in American history. Readers will relish this enticing retrospective. They will learn things they never knew before about everyone from Louise Brown, the first test tube baby, to Tony Orlando, who turned yellow ribbons into gold nuggets. They’ll relive Argentine stripper Fanne Foxe doing her thing with a powerful Congressman. This ‘70s Book will recall when Superman was a guy named Christopher Reeve and when Ernest Borgnine and Gene Hackman sailed the extremely rough seas on a ship called the Poseidon. 

A short sample chapter from the book that never was but could have been…

Rolling in the Hays

Every decade makes a celebrity out of a mistress or gal-pal of somebody famous or otherwise powerful. It’s part of our cultural heritage. The 1990s gave us Monica Lewinsky; the 1980s, the dynamic duo of Donna Rice and Jessica Hahn. And the 1970s were hardly devoid of sexual hijinks and scandal. 

Famously quoted as saying, “I can’t type…I can’t file…I can’t even answer the phone,” Elizabeth Ray nevertheless found employment as a secretary on Capitol Hill. Despite her less than impressive administrative attributes, she landed a $14,000/year clerking position with influential Democratic Congressman Wayne Hays of Ohio. In our bicentennial year of 1976, the world discovered that the comely Ms. Ray’s job responsibilities had precious little to do with typing, filing, and answering the phone. 

Congressman Hays chaired the House Administration Committee, which controlled the purse strings and myriad perks on everything from custodial help to travel allowances to parking spaces. This enabled the long-time Washington insider to wield considerable power with the most modest of mallets. In other words, he could cut off colleagues’ air conditioning if he saw fit, or punish elevator operators for sitting down while he had to stand, which he in fact did by removing their jump seats.

So, when Ms. Ray went public with her story of having been hired solely as a congressman’s mistress, not too many folks in Washington felt sympathy for the beleaguered Hays. Ray said she spilled the beans because she felt snubbed at not being invited to her paramour’s nuptials. In 1976, Hays married Patricia Peak, a bona fide secretary from his Ohio office, not too long after divorcing his wife of thirty-eight years. Ray grumbled, “I was good enough to be his mistress for two years, but not good enough to be invited to his wedding.” She also wanted it on record that she did not enjoy her intimate moments with the flabby senior citizen for whom she worked. Ray said, “If I could have, I would have put on a blindfold, worn earplugs, and taken a shot of Novocain.”

When all the dirt surfaced of the two-year-old liaison between Ray and Hays, the Congressman admitted to romping in the hay with his employee, but emphasized that she was not hired to serve as his mistress. It wasn’t, after all, against the law to fool around. Hays immediately resigned from his committee chairmanship and a couple of months later from his congressional seat. He escaped any criminal charges, largely because Ray was certifiably flaky and completely unreliable. People from her past came out the woodwork and made a convincing case that she was the antithesis of a naive Girl Scout and, too, a far cry from the brightest bulb in the chandelier.

A former boyfriend—and a trial lawyer—told the media: “She wasn’t very intelligent. If I took her out somewhere, I’d tell her not to say anything. Now and then she’d forget and call me the next day to apologize.” A restaurant owner who once employed her as a waitress said that he had to let her go because “she was hustling.” 

After Wayne Hays resigned from the Congress, he disappeared from the limelight altogether into a well-earned obscurity. He succumbed to cancer in 1989 at the age of seventy-seven. His second wife, Patricia, survived him.

With more than thirty years of resume building since the scandal, Ms. Ray has posed for Playboy several times and tried her hand at acting and screenwriting. It has been reported she is a part-time stand-up comedienne.

Martha, Martha, Martha

I see where Martha Stewart is critical of the recently released Netflix documentary Martha’s final product, which chronicles her fascinating rags-to-riches entrepreneurial journey. The queen of food, flowers, and hospitality—a household name, icon, and first self-made female American billionaire—feels the program climaxes on a sour note by portraying her as a “lonely old lady walking hunched over in the garden.”  Well, she is eighty-three years old. Everyone is getting old and getting old fast.

But let’s give this woman her due! Her rise, fall, and rise again are impressive. Specifically targeted by ambitious federal prosecutors because of who she was—and who she was alone—I believe Stewart got a raw deal. Nevertheless, she wasn’t exactly clean as the driven snow vis-à-vis the charges against her. Still, they seemed like small potatoes in the securities fraud big picture to merit five months behind bars. No fibbing to the feds, I guess, is the abiding lesson here.

Martha, the two-hour documentary, is worth watching. My impression of the leading lady after viewing it: She isn’t exactly the nicest person in the world. Not even close, but then again, that’s dog bites man news. The most successful businesspeople—male and female—are often ruthless. With that understood—and the obligatory slack supplied—I nonetheless found it impossible to warm in the slightest to Stewart.

Extensively interviewed for the documentary, Stewart appears from beginning to end. Throughout the narrative, she exudes a certain Sue Ann Nivens vibe, but without any trace of humor and absent a twinkle in the eye. Working for a perfectionist isn’t easy. Working for a nasty perfectionist is even more difficult, I suspect. And while Stewart’s husband’s affairs were an evil kind of cheating, her admission of infidelity was low octane by comparison. That’s at least how she interpreted her “brief affair with a very attractive Irish man”—not break-up-marriage material.

Permit me now to climax this essay—in contrast to the Martha documentary—on an upbeat note by resurrecting the good old days of shopping in brick-and-mortar bookstores and encountering Martha Stewart magazines and hardcovers everywhere. Despite never having read a word in any of them, Stewart was once upon a time ubiquitous, her name and face inescapably part of the cultural fabric for decades. The fictional Sue Ann Nivens was the Happy Homemaker on The Mary Tyler Moore Show in the 1970s. Martha Stewart was the genuine article in the 1980s and 1990s.

Mr. Collins Mr. O'Brien, and Sacco and Vanzetti

(Originally published 3/5/14)

Recently, while poring over miscellaneous scraps of paper from my past, I came upon an eighth-grade history test consisted of both a matching column and "True or False" section. Mr. Collins handwrote the test and had it mimeographed. That was the technology of the mid-1970s. One of the True or False questions was: “In 1924 the first pizza parlor in America was opened by Sacco and Vanzetti?” I’m proud to report that I answered it correctly as well as the previous question: “The 1920’s was a time of great hardship and depression?” As for the Sacco and Vanzetti reference, Mr. Collins, I suspect, would have to think twice today about associating an Italian surname with pizza pie. Somebody might turn him in for the offense—but, maybe not, it's only the Italians after all. Then again, everything is so standardized in the here and now that a Mr. Collins-style history test—we called it "Social Studies" back then—wouldn't even reach the modern-day equivalent of the mimeograph machine.

Another snippet of paper in my archives was a handwritten summary of the "Best of Mr. O’Brien," my geometry teacher in high school. While I didn’t care much for the subject matter, Mr. O’Brien was a true original—both a good teacher and a skilled performance artist. When the school year ended, and he informed us that he wouldn’t be returning in the fall—he got a better offer—I recall being profoundly saddened to think that I would never, ever see him again. His lectures were delightfully frenetic, and he loved nothing more than having fun with people’s names—both their first and their last. He was an Irishman who, above all else, enjoyed calling on kids with multi-syllabic Italian surnames. We had a fair share of them in our high school back then. Somebody named Provenzano in his class, for instance, had his name pronounced in a melodious singsong: “Pro-ven-zan-o.” He liked one-syllable names, too. A kid named “Bell,” I remember, rang well in the classroom.

From where I—and just about everybody else—sat, Mr. O'Brien's class is where entertainment met education, and his antics didn’t offend anybody. In fact, we wanted to be included in the give-and-take. "Oh, Nick...oh, Nick," are in my notes, so I was indeed, although the context eludes me all these years later. In fact, more than three decades have passed since the Mr. O'Brien hour and—sad to report—virtually everybody is conditioned to be offended for one reason or another nowadays. Mr. O’Brien quite possibly had to clean up his act at some point in his teaching career, if that is where he pitched his tent. (He probably was in his mid-twenties when I knew him.) If this is what indeed happened, the irony is that some of his students from the 1970s—who greatly admired him—did him in as the humorless, uptight adults they became.

(Photo from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Powerless

(Originally published 5/21/12)

While enduring nine days without electricity recently, the Barkley family rattled around my brain. Via a Netflix gift subscription, I watched—before the lights went out—six episodes of the Big Valley starring Richard Long, Lee Majors, and the legendary Miss Barbara Stanwyck. This well-to-do brood did quite well sans electric lights, refrigeration, and ready-made hot water in the 1880s. Without the aid of a washing machine, the clan always appeared spiffy clean in their pristine and—in my opinion—somewhat ostentatious mansion.

A major electrical problem that would take at least three to four days to remedy took twice as long. Courtesy of a generous neighbor of mine from across the way, who provided me with an extension cord and some power, I was able to hook up my computer and modem and maintain some semblance of a normal life while otherwise in the dark. I could at least do some work, post on Facebook, and Google all sorts of unimportant things. After one evening of this borrowed power, however, the electrician—if you can call him that—cut my cable wire by mistake. In fact, he cut three cable wires by mistake. The cable company said it could not be repaired until the electricity was restored.

I know that a whole lot of people have been without power for a whole lot longer than nine days after natural disasters and such. Still, this stubborn fact of life provided me with little solace as things were being ripped off the wall just outside my door and brick residue saturated the air and tenaciously clung to everything in its path. And then came the drilling of holes through the same brick wall—more noise and more dust. The so-called electrician could be heard alternately crying and laughing while doing the job. 

I’ve noticed through the years that contractor types presume every adult male has at least a working knowledge of their trade and lingo. Other than it comes on when I plug things in, flick switches, and push certain buttons, I know next to nothing about electricity. Nevertheless, I said I understood things I really didn’t and, when asked, nobly assisted as a bona fide electrician's assistant. Trust me: This was the electrician from hell. I found empty beer cans in his wake.

Life lessons learned from being powerless: Foremost, I like electricity. Living in the Big Valley, on the Ponderosa, or in Walnut Grove really isn't all that it's cracked up to be. And when push comes to shove, I can take ice cold showers. Granted, had all of this transpired in January, it would have been more of a challenge. Most important of all—and a life lesson—don't run with the first name that comes up in a Google search of "electrician," even if it's an emergency and the company sends a body over within an hour. In this instance: a body in his own jalopy with fewer tools on him than in a kid's play set. First impressions were bad, I can tell you, and it went downhill from there.

Yada…Yada…Yada…The No Learning Curve

Sometime during my youth in the colorful 1970s, a friend and I offered a running commentary on the classic black-and-white, must-see Popeye cartoons from the 1930s. “That couldn’t happen,” we would say and say again. In real life that is: Like Popeye confronting a raging bull with a spinach-powered punch, turning the menacing animal into a fully stocked, open-for-business meat market with Depression-era price markers. Those were the days, my friend, we thought they would never end—when hamburger meat was twelve cents a pound, geometry was race-neutral, and higher education was more Horse Feathers than horse manure. With all the conspiracy theories floating around—on the right and the left—I submit that running them through the Popeye calculation would be prudent before taking them to heart.

Moving right along to the It Could Happen Because It Did file: In every presidential election from 1984 to 2020, I cast my vote for either the Democrat nominee or the Republican nominee. This year, however, I couldn’t bring myself to pick the lesser of two evils—politically, not personally, speaking—because I couldn’t quite figure out who was who. So, I cast a write-in for a former presidential candidate—a decent, intelligent man whom I passed on in 2012.

Yada, yada, yada: Democracy was on the ballot this year. I had been told that ad nauseum by countless talking heads, including historian Michael Beschloss, whom I once held in high regard. But a couple of years ago, the guy warned us that the 2022 midterms could well be the last free elections we ever had. And, just last week, Beschloss speculated on MSNBC that Trump 2.0 might spell the end of independent publishing as we know it. A prerequisite for being a contributor to that network is making ludicrous and sensational prognostications, I guess. After all, host Rachel Maddow suggested that she—very possibly—was destined for an internment camp if You Know Who beat Democracy’s Defender.

So, let me get this straight, I only had one choice vis-à-vis saving democracy and that was to vote for a woman who never competed in a primary or caucus this year, renounced most of her past positions on issues, and made Sarah Palin appear like a nimble-on-her-feet, spellbinding orator. Granted, I know she ran a “flawless campaign” and wisely spent the billion dollars raised on her behalf. But in the good old days, I faithfully watched Hardball with Chris Matthews. Chris would begin each show with the call: “Let’s play hardball!” Kamala Harris’s chief problem was she hadn’t mastered softball, let alone hardball.

Columnist Jonah Goldberg wrote this week: “Don’t outsource your intellect, your principles, or conscience to one man or party. When you do that, you are making your partisan identity your actual identity.” Truer words have never been spoken in 2024. It’s sad that there are so many people willing to jettison relationships—family, friends, et al.—based solely on politics. As a window into our collective spleens, I give you exhibit A: Facebook. The social media platform has been a veritable killing field these past few months. I’ve witnessed demagoguery, sanctimonious elitism, and outright nastiness end relationships—some flimsy Facebook friendships, yes, but other more longstanding ones, I suspect. Worth it?

That said: I can fully appreciate why someone voted for Kamala for one reason and one reason only: She wasn’t Donald Trump. I contemplated that path myself. The latter, after all, would not have conceded the election had he lost fair and square like he did in 2020. Likewise, I can understand a vote for Trump that was—foremost—a repudiation of all that Kamala stood for—or did four years ago. Defund the police and other such nonsense. She also stood by her man. And I don’t mean the slap-happy one. I’m speaking of the addled geriatric and his policy trail, which included a porous border, runaway inflation, and a help-yourself-to-whatever-you-want retail crime wave. Sorry, but I blame the blameworthy for the mess we are in.

I fear, though, that the preponderance of the Democratic ruling and pundit classes are incapable of learning—just like Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer. They have already doubled down on the reasons they believe the party suffered a shellacking at the hands of an undisciplined, aged headbanger with more baggage than a bag lady’s purloined shopping cart. Let’s blame it on racism, sexism, and the folly of the uneducated. Yawn! And let’s sit around our cable TV roundtables and yell, literally cry, and whine to one another about the stupid, bigoted, uninformed voters more concerned about the off-the charts prices of eggs, bread, and butter than respecting a person’s chosen pronouns.

An aside here that underscores the moment: Whoopi Goldberg—no relation to Jonah—makes a reported $8 million a year and has a net worth of $60 million. On her show, The View, this week, she said: “Your pocketbook is bad, not because the Bidens did anything. Not because the economy is bad. Your grocery bills are what they are because the folks that own the groceries are pigs.” Thank you, economist Whoopi! And what with the "Bidens" plural? Can we compare salaries and net worth now: Whoopi versus the grocery store owners?

What will tomorrow bring? A bull in a China shop, perhaps? God only knows. I pray, though, that the normies are rewarded in the coming years and the crazies are sidelined. I’m not holding my breath on that one, but democracy will survive, come hell or high water, because of our Constitution and checks and balances. They are stronger than any one person—or president. And Rachel Maddow won’t land in any gruel-for-supper camp; Michael Beschloss will publish his next book without any interference; and the cast of The View will continue to say ignorant and moronic things. It’s the American way. Let freedom ring!

Deathman, Do Not Follow Me

(Originally published 3/16/14)

In an eighth grade "Language Arts" course, my classmates and I were required to do a book report-oral presentation combo. We could select a book of our own choosing, but it had to be approved by our teacher, Ms. Hunt. We were permitted to pair up, too, and so my friend Manny and I opted to read a YA entitled Deathman, Do Not Follow Me by Jay Bennett. I don’t remember much about the book, except that I—as a thirteen-year-old—really liked it and a kid by the name of Danny Morgan was the main protagonist. He was daydreaming in history class at some point in the yarn and, if memory serves, Danny inadvertently got entangled with some shady sorts— art thieves, I think. 

Anyway, Manny and I made the equivalent of an abridged book-on-tape. We were trailblazers here. This would be the presentation part. Anything to avoid doing it live.  As fate would have it, we didn’t ever go public with the tape. The reason why escapes me, but it certainly redounded in our favor. For starters, nobody would have understood what was going on in the recording. And we flubbed our lines on occasion as well. In the role of narrator, Manny meant to say "art exhibition" but said "art expedition" instead.

What made me resurrect Deathman, Do Not Follow Me after all these years is a recent encounter I had with a passerby. I saw this man coming toward me who uncannily resembled someone I once knew—a fellow named Jerry, who has been dead for thirteen years. What hurtled through my mind as the distance that separated us narrowed—and he looked more and more, and not less and less, like Jerry—was: What if he said hello to me as if it was him? What if it was akin to the occasional meetings we experienced for so many years—we lived in the same neighborhood—where we would briefly chat about nothing especially important, like his desiring a move to Reno, Nevada, a "great walking town." After all, if he’s standing there as Jerry in the flesh and knows me by name, I couldn’t very well tell him that he’s deceased and that I attended both his wake and funeral mass. This potential scenario quite literally played in my brain in the several seconds leading up to us passing one another. He was a dead ringer for Jerry all right, but Jerry is still among the dead.

Had it been Jerry, what would I have done? Would I have turned around and gone home, presuming I had either lost my marbles or was still in bed dreaming? Or would have I continued running my errands, believing that maybe—just maybe—I’d entered the Twilight Zone—the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition. You know the place between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. Afterwards, yes, I kind of wished it really was old Jerry that I spied on the street. Upon further reflection, though, I'm grateful that it wasn't and that I wasn't cast in a "Nothing in the Dark" remake with yours truly in the Gladys Cooper role.  

The "Usually" Suspects

(Originally published 4/6/11)

Sometime in the early 1970s, the progressive educator arrived in St. John’s grammar school. Gone were the venerable old report cards with the familiar grades of A, B, C, D, and the big fat F. In their stead were pabulum progress reports with non-grades, if you will, ranging from the best, “Progressing very well” to the middling, “Is progressing” to the worst, “Needs to put more effort.” Of course, I’ve assigned value judgments to these three classifications, which were not intended by their creators.

These new progress reports of ours also included a mother lode of categories within such traditional courses as English (called Language Arts) and History (known as Social Studies). To this day, I am at a loss for words as to what this one Language Arts category embodied: “Uses word attack skills.” I don’t ever recall the term being explained to us, but then I suspect that my teacher, salty old Sister Camillus, hadn't a clue, either.

Evidently, this noble experiment of employing the carrot and stick, and oh-so-gently importuning us to try harder, failed miserably. The As, Bs, Cs, and Ds soon returned, but not before our report cards—or whatever the heck they became—were full of 1s, 2s, 3s, and 4s. If memory serves, 1 was the optimal grade (or non-grade) and 4 the bottom of the barrel. But once again, I’m employing value-charged adjectives here. I surmise the social experimenters reasoned we wouldn’t be as bowled over by a 4, or as boastful among our less fortunate friends with our straight 1s. We, however, took our “Needs to put more effort” check marks just as hard as Cs and Ds. And although mere children, we weren’t fooled for a second by the sleight-of-hand numbers game. Despite descriptions telling us otherwise, 1 signified an A to us; 2, a B; and so on and so forth.

I believe these social experiments absolutely jumped the shark in an area headlined Personal Development, which included "religion" and "social growth" under its umbrella. Here, even a tepid “Is progressing” was too loaded a term for the education engineers. The top mark one could achieve in this realm was “Usually”—a not only insipid grading word, in my opinion, but just plain wrong and a true injustice for an individual who always cooperated in work and play, accepted responsibility, etc. Among many lessons learned there, St. John's grammar school taught me the road to hell is paved with “Usuallys” and “Needs to put more efforts.”

(Photo from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)

Mr. McMahon and Friends

Recently, I watched the six-part Netflix documentary Mr. McMahon. It was at once compelling and something of a slog. Add to the mix a cringeworthy element, a grossness, and— undeniably —there’s a story to tell here. My recollection of Vince McMahon, the documentary’s subject, was as a wrestling announcer in the 1970s, when—as kids—my older brother and I dutifully watched the sport on local TV station WOR, Channel 9.

McMahon excelled as a put-upon presence and straight-man foil for a colorful cast of bad guys: wrestlers and, in many instances, their bombastic managers. Witnessing the man get harangued by “Classy” Fred Blassie, Captain Lou Albano, and—my personal favorite—the Grand Wizard of Wrestling was a youthful thrill. Typically, the proteges of Blassie, Albano, and the Grand Wizard were “heels,” rotten to the core, and boo-worthy. Who can forget Nikolai Volkoff, the Wild Samoans, and Sergeant Slaughter?

Indeed, 1970s wrestling was engagingly benign. The good guys included a stellar cast: champion Bruno Sammartino, Haystacks Calhoun, and Chief Jay Strongbow, who—I just discovered—was an Italian American. But then, so was Iron Eyes Cody, who canoed through polluted waters throughout the 1970s, logging many miles and shedding many tears along the way.

I recall being surprised—twenty or so years later—to learn that Vince McMahon, the geek announcer from my boyhood, initially worked for his father, purchased the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF) from him, and built—along with his wife—a mega-enterprise now known as World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). Adding his two cents throughout the documentary, McMahon absolutely established the fact that he was a business wunderkind and all-around sleaze as well. Also, the guy has had one too many face-lifts and sounds like he smokes ten packs a day—or is it a whiskey voice? In his final appearance in the mini-series, the empresario almost-seemed AI generated sporting a new Clark Gable mustache and dyed jet-black hair. The weirdness just kept on coming.

What amazed me most about the documentary, I think, was modern-day wrestling’s cult following and uber-popularity. WrestleMania has been big—really big—through the years. But it’s still scripted entertainment with a mishmash of realism thrown in, albeit of a more adult variety now than I experienced when Jerry Ford and Jimmy Carter lived in the White House. The contrived feuds—and real ones—are just not my cup of tea, but countless others can’t get enough of the brew.

Mr. McMahon, the documentary title, is derivative of Mr. McMahon, the wrestler, a creation of Vince McMahon, who entered the ring in the late 1990s. All bulked up by then, he fought, among others, Donald Trump. The stakes: Loser gets his head shaved by the winner. Guess who won the match? Upon seeing clips of this nuttiness—par for the course in this milieu—it dawned on me that contemporary politics has devolved into an offshoot of the WWE: vulgar, no holds barred, with the blurring of fact versus fiction.

In this corner: Orange Crush, managed by Lindsey “Bats**t Crazy” Graham. And in that corner: Kamala, Queen of the Ciphers, managed by Chuck “the Schmuck” Schumer. Okay, now I understand. I get it. It’s not really real.

 

Mourning and Memories

(Originally published on 10/28/11)

While still mourning the loss of the only true holy ground I’ve known in this life—a very special and unique local diner—I couldn’t help but hark back to days past and the eatery's clientele who have left the neighborhood and, in many cases, this earthly plane as well.

In this culinary cathedral, my faithful dinner companions and I had nicknames for certain regulars—men and women whom we didn’t know by name but nonetheless needed to identify on occasion—and I suppose some of them had nicknames for us. And, if they did, more power to them! There was, for instance, the “Mean Old Man,” whom I saw collapse on a sidewalk not too far from the diner during a winter snowstorm. I don’t know what happened to him after that night, but I never saw him again in the diner, or walking the local streets. And whatever happened to those two old sisters who always dined together? At least I think they were sisters. The seasons changed but the pair never did. They were perpetually glum—winter, spring, summer, and fall. Thus, their richly earned “Glower Champions” moniker. When they suddenly vanished without so much as a goodbye, I surmised they had moved to Florida and warmer climes to run out the clock of their saturnine existence. Gone, yes, but not forgotten.

And then there was this fellow named Lenny. Here was an example of actually knowing the man’s real first name but running with a nickname instead. What always struck us about Lenny was that he never—ever—paid for his lunch or dinner. A little diner detective work on our parts concluded he had, perhaps, won a bet of some sort from the owner, who was not averse to gambling. This could at least explain the free meals. Apparently, though, there was nothing in the terms of the bet that compelled the diner owner to treat him civilly while he was collecting his winnings. And so, this middle-aged, hangdog bachelor named Lenny had to endure more than a little teasing. Asked about his love life at one point, Lenny, rather pathetically, said something to the effect that he was dating “several people,” which set himself up for a major slap down from the individual indebted to him, who roared, “You jerk-off!” And from that moment forward, Lenny was no longer Lenny to us, but “Jerk-off” forevermore. Eventually, Jerk-off, too, disappeared from the diner scene—perhaps when the terms of the bet were fulfilled—and was last seen in the area looking worse for wear. Jerk-off was obviously very ill and, it seemed, not long for this earth.

I remember, too, very old and very loud Mark, who had a most interesting indentation on his skull, which I christened a “skin-dentation." He very abruptly disappeared from sight and sound. The great greasy spoon in the sky? Probably. And then, of course, there was the ubiquitous Seymour, a taxi driver. He was diagnosed with lung cancer while at the top of his game on the diner stage. Trooper that he was, he continued to appear during his chemo treatments, looking—sadly—like his days were numbered, which they were.

Call it life...as seen through the lens of a favorite diner, where not everybody knows your name.

A Very First Time

(Originally published 10/9/11)

Although I don’t have a “bucket list” per se, I accomplished one item that—had I decided to make one—would have very definitely been on it. Courtesy of an annoying twist of circumstances yesterday morning, I found myself in the long mezzanine area of the Manhattan A train’s 14th Street subway station. Were it not for the Number 1 train’s seemingly infinite weekend track work—or, in this case, station makeovers, which compelled me to walk more than a mile to access the subway, instead of the usual few blocks—I wouldn’t have been there. Yes, I could have taken a free shuttle bus, or even a local bus, but since it was such a fine October morning, I opted for the leisurely stroll and, too, the exercise.

It was about 10:30 a.m. when I landed in this subterranean “mezzanine,” a word I typically associate with sports stadiums. While I’ve walked these meandering thoroughfares before and encountered various closed doors along the way, they were invariably marked as “employee only” entrances for transit workers. But, lo and behold, this go-round I detected an apparent civilian—a fellow rider—exiting one of those doors, which prompted me to more closely examine the placard attached to it. The sign indicated he had emerged from a public bathroom—a rare find down under—that would, in all likelihood, be locked tight during the overnight hours.

While I had to go thanks to my breakfast cup of Joe, I really could have held it in for a bit. But then, I thought, where would I go when my time came—the Barnes & Noble at Union Square? No, certainly not yesterday—a Saturday on a Columbus Day weekend with Wall Street protesters in the area undoubtedly heeding nature’s call there. So, I decided to take my chances with this subway bathroom. While I don’t recall ever frequenting one—since most of them are padlocked shut, with reputations that, even when open for business, suggest looking elsewhere—I decided to live dangerously and take the plunge.

Happily, I was all by my lonesome when I entered this realm of the unknown and accomplished what I set out to do. Still, I must admit, the subway bathroom milieu didn’t disappoint. It reeked pretty badly and looked appropriately grungy—but it wasn’t completely hellish. And while the urinal readily flushed, it didn’t flush away any of the urine stench wafting in the rarefied air, which evidently was ingrained in the floor and wall tiles. But at least now I can say: Been there and done that…another New York experience for this New Yorker in the books.

No Dogma in this Fight

On more than one occasion, my elderly aunt informed me that my grandfather—from the mountain town of Castelmezzano, Italy—held the church in utter contempt. So as to maintain its absolute hegemony in village affairs big and small, he felt the clergy intentionally and aggressively kept the populace blissfully ignorant of so many things. His posture was at odds with my very pious grandmother, who recited the rosary every single day of her adult life.

I always found it interesting that my aunt—a God-fearing, faithful churchgoer until the day she died—recounted tales of her father’s independence, and penchant to tell it like it is, with genuine pride. I suspect that my grandfather was really on to something. Okay, times have changed. I don't call home an impoverished enclave in the rocky Dolomiti Lucane during a world war and in the midst of a lethal pandemic. In the present-day Information Age, it’s decidedly more difficult to choreograph and enforce such blanket ignorance, but, in practical reality, the church would obviously prefer you didn’t think for yourself in matters of faith. It's the nature of the beast.

Recently, I encountered yet another news story of the Catholic Church’s hemorrhaging flock, and its miserable track record of connecting with younger people. This is a familiar tune that I’ve been hearing since my callow youth. And, for the record, I attended Catholic institutions from grammar school through college and have no qualms about the quality of the education I received, nor did I ever feel the heavy hand of religious indoctrination. But church doctrine, standing all by its lonesome, doesn’t exactly pass the smell test.

Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx, which I attended forty-four years ago, annually held what were called "Parish Days." On these set-aside afternoons, priests from the various parishes throughout the borough would meet with their teenage parishioners at the school. They were always advertised as freewheeling give-and-takes—a chance for us to pose questions to our parish priests and, hopefully, establish a rapport with them. Let's just say they rarely lived up to their billings. My Kingsbridge parish's monsignor assumed the job as ringleader one year and a student posed this question to the young priest who had tagged along with him: “How come you always stop kids from leaving Mass right after Holy Communion, but not the adults?” Visibly rattled, he replied, “I can’t answer that.” The monsignor quickly stepped in to rescue his floundering underling. “I can,” the always stern, smug, and generally unpleasant church elder said. The monsignor explained that it was a matter of maturity. We just weren’t yet old enough to make such an important decision. Fair enough, I guess.

Herein, though, lies the enlightening case in point. If a priest can't handle a softball question, I doubt very much he could tackle a tough one. Some years later in a different setting, another priest from the parish was asked, “Why does God permit so much suffering?” His response was not far removed from this: “He allows other people to suffer so you can appreciate how good you have it.” Come on, fellas, if you want more business, you’ve got to do better than that.

Attention Surplus Disorders

(Originally published 11/19/19)

While in the environs of Madison Square Garden and Penn Station this past weekend, I took particular note of the humongous, ever-changing electronic billboards all around me. For the next mile or so north through Times Square and the theater district, such prominent advertisements were everywhere. Many of them featured larger-than-life promotions for movies, television series, and plays. Images of actors and actresses lording over streets teeming with people—from all over the world in the case of New York City—were omnipresent.

I couldn’t help but wonder how these entertainers must feel upon seeing their glittering, over-sized names and likenesses on the big, big screens above bustling Manhattan streets. How could it not go to their heads? Perhaps this explains why so many Hollywood-types think their opinions matter more than others and that their you-know-whats don’t stink. It never ceases to amaze me how men and women worth multiple millions of dollars feel they can speak for the little guys and girls. If an individual has a net worth of, say, fifty million dollars, he or she is in quite a different league—a league of their own—from the person sweating the rent, electric bill, or college tuition.

That said, celebrities have the right to speak out just as everyone else does. I have a platform—this blog. They, though, typically, have more heady ones in which to pontificate. In 1989, I attended a Harry Belafonte concert at the Cape Cod Melody Tent. Harry, as usual, put on a great show, but at some point rambled on about the recently elected president, George Herbert Walker Bush, whom the uber-leftist performer found wanting. It was an awkward moment, as I recall, since the majority of the attendees were older, conservative white folks. My parents saw a show in the same venue with singer Steve Lawrence as the headliner. From the opposite side of the political spectrum as Harry, Steve nonetheless ventured into that same dicey area, which no doubt offended a portion of the audience. My father, in fact, got up from his seat to visit the bathroom during the spiel. Lawrence joked, “He must be a Democrat.” Wrong, Steve, that lifelong Republican was just answering nature’s call, a non-partisan act, which he did countless times in countless places. 

It's not your grandfather's advertisements anymore. Not by a long shot.

Alfred Hitchcock would have relished being on one. "Do they ever stop migrating?"

I WO ND ER as I WA ND ER. How much did Macy's pay McMann & Tate to come up with this Christmas advertising slogan? AN SW ER: Too much.

Hope this includes debit cards!

Okay, I came upon this no longer functional—dead as a doornail—bicycle still tethered to a post. A life metaphor? If not, a dead one.

The catbird seat with a bird's eye view of the Flower School.

This place didn't appear all that big inside and I, for one, never heard of them.

What next? Wonder, though, if the museum has a 2016 election exhibit?

I am digging the Guardian Angels' new outfits. Certainly beats the red berets and satin jackets.

I sincerely doubt that any of those aforementioned Hollywood big shots get their haircuts here.

This place might be more in their league.

Now, what is it with barber shops branching out these days? I've seen more than a few offering watch repair as an additional service. Is that sort of thing taught in today's barber schools?

This is one of the luckier benches in Manhattan. The longer you sit there, the better the chances that Lady Luck will shine on you.

Not as lucky, but a park bench for the loners among us.

A sobering thought for sure.

No bull, the Wall Street area and Battery Park can be very, very tacky.

Colorful, however...

As 2019 nears an end, one final salute to the 1969 World Champion New York Mets. It was a real game then.

(Photos from the personal collection of Nicholas Nigro)