The Best Babysitter Ever ~ "Good Ol' Uncle Mommy"

Barbara, Joan, Rory, me in the summer of 1958

Pryor children babysitting rule #1: all assignments outside the Pryor apartment were only accepted by our grandparents and my mother's two sisters. All other houses begged off. There was one unbreakable caveat with the aunts and the grandparents ~ no one would watch the two of us together. The extended family agreed, "Tommy and Rory were not allowed in the same house without parental supervision."

Rory and I fought over any spot on the couch the other was in; the last slice of bacon and battled to the death over who licked the tuna fish bowl after Mom made our sandwiches.

When Bob and Patty Pryor went out, Rory stayed with the Ryan grandparents or Barbara and Mickey. I stayed with the Pryor-Rode grandparents or Joan and George.

Freedomland 1962

Rory and I had our needs met at all households, but Joannie had bongos, an FM radio and a bullfighter poster on her wall. She had a calypso bar with high stools and wore clam diggers as she danced and sang around the living room. I kept expecting Trini Lopez to drop in.

Uncle Mommy, me, on Hudson, 1963

Joan and George took me to the beach named after Joan. This was good since the Pryors didn't have a car.

I loved my grandparents, aunts and uncles, but my favorite babysitter was Mom. Sometimes, it was just her and me. She called me her “Cow, Cow, Boogie,” and I called her "Good Ol' Uncle Mommy," because she was the best uncle I ever had!

Mom giving Dad the business 1962

We snuggled on our tiny 83rd Street couch watching The Twilight Zone and Hitchcock on Friday nights after Rory conked out. Her smile stopped my clock.

I was a lousy artist, a stinky poet, and I had a stutter. None of this disrupted me from trying to make Uncle Mommy laugh. She loved Rory and me like a freight train. Mom died today a long time ago. I'm still working on stuff for her.

***********************************

Tonight at No Name... & A BAG O' CHIPS: SUMMER READING EDITION '15  I'm telling a hot fun in the summertime story in Mom's honor. The Free show starts at 7pm when The Summer Replacements get in tune.

**********************************

If you enjoy my stories please  check out my memoir, "I Hate the Dallas Cowboys - tales of a scrappy New York boyhood." Available at Logos Book Store or online at Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

The book has 109 Amazon five star reviews out of 109 total reviews posted. We're pitching a perfect game. My old world echoes TV's "The Wonder Years" ~ just add taverns, subways and Checker cabs.  

You can also purchase my photography portfolio, "River to River - New York Scenes From a Bicycle" on Amazon.

31 Chambers Street's Royal Throne

In the mid 1960s through the mid 1970s my grandmother was legal secretary to Judge Xavier Riccobono in Manhattan's Supreme Court in Foley Square. Nan respected and loved working for "Ricky" (never to his face).  If my grandmother called the judge at home in the morning to let him know she was ill and not coming in he stayed home, too. The judge knew who ran the office.

Being on the subway at 10 or 11 alone in 1965 was no big deal and I began visiting my grandmother downtown on school holidays if she was working. Going to the Courts, being treated swell (except by my grandmother, who told me to watch my step and keep my big mouth shut unless someone spoke to me) was a pretty good deal.  I got to know a lot of folks at 60 Centre Street and enjoyed their company but would grow itchy and go out and explore the neighborhood.

Of all the places I played in, Tweed Courthouse, City Hall, Municipal Building, Woolworth Building, my favorite downtown building was and remains 31 Chambers Street.  The Surrogate Court was built over an eight year period and opened in 1907. Made from Maine granite, it was Disneyland to me. In the 1960s security was lax or nonexistent and I wandered the top and bottom of most offices surrounding City Hall Park. But 31 Chambers was the winner, dark cavernous basement with long poles to pull voucher boxes from drawers fifteen feet in the air, secret entrances, a lobby that beat ancient Rome's Senate floor for beauty (seen in 10,000 films and TV shows), and the best part of the whole trip: I had full access to the judges bathrooms on the top floor.

These were not bathrooms. They were turn of the century male powder rooms with enough exquisite wood and polished brass you'd think you were in Delmonico's and just ran into your old pal, Diamond Jim Brady. The 1960s were a time if you were a kid and without saying a word you looked like you were going to ask a merchant, "Could I please use your the bathroom?" Out on your ass, no delay. I grew up in a noisy apartment with a closet size bathroom. I knew lavatory heaven when I saw it. I'd take two newspapers up there that I'd find on benches along the way up the long marble staircases ( I knew the judges and staff schedules and when the bathrooms were empty of traffic). I'd rest a spell on a toilet bowl so luxurious the King of France endorsed it in "Crapper Magazine."

From the Royal Throne I ruled fairly over the land.

Here are photos of 31 Chambers Street and Foley Square.

Tomorrow, Friday, December 21st @ 7pm, I'm a guest storyteller at Eric Vetter's No Name and A Bag O' Chips free variety show @ Otto's Shrunken Head @ 538 East 14th Street.  We promise a fine time, and then the world ends.

"River to River: New York Scenes from a Bicycle" available @Amazon @ $12.95.

Barbara, Pat O'Rourke & Pat Carmody on SE corner of 86th & York

Happy 75th Birthday tomorrow to my baby aunt, Barbara Ryan Fiorillo. I remember the sweet rides she'd give me in the carriage over to Kronk's Soda Fountain shop to flirt with the boys on 87th Street in the late 1950s. Free egg cream and a pretzel every time.

Yorkville Summer Scenes

1967 Chevrolet Chevelle and Malibu parked in Yorkville last night; York Avenue fruit stands from yesterday and 106 years ago, June 1906 on the southeast corner of 75th Street; twilight on 83rd and 85th Streets.

Tonight, I'm telling a story at Eric Vetter's "No Name & a Bag O'Chips show at Otto's Shrunken Head at 538 East 14th Street right off Ave A @ 7pm.

Here is a link to Otto's and the terrific line-up for the free No Name show.

No Name Winter Reading Show Tonight @ 7pm @ Otto's Shrunken Head

No Name... & a Bag O'Chips Winter Reading Show ~ Tonight 7pm Sharp!
Otto's Shrunken Head
538 E 14th St (between Ave A & Ave B)
Showtime- 7: 00 pm SHARP
Admission- FREE!!   Host: Eric Vetter, Stage Manager: Meri G. Wayne
with Michele Carlo, Kambri Crews, Thomas Pryor and more...



pictured here: Eric Vetter, me, Alex De Suze & Carlo Fortunato after our radio show together at Giovanna's in East Harlem last winter. No Name gang did two radio shows and we had a ball. Please come out to Otto's tonight for a good time.

Here are other photos that cheer me up.

84th St looking towards East Rvier

Whipping ponytail at the Reservoir

The Falconer

Eric Vetter, Marie Sicari,  Tom, Alex DeSuze

Riverside Park Frisbee

Seagulls waiting out wind on the Hudson

You know...

Belvedere Castle Love Letter ~ March Storytelling Schedule

My storytelling curiosity may have started at Belvedere Castle in Central Park in the late 1950s. First Dad and Mom took Rory & I there, and Dad told me that he found Indian arrow heads in the small caves in the rocks that were now covered up with prison type bars. He called the water Catfish Lake because that’s the fish you caught when you used Wonder Bread for bait (we did).  I had so much fun at that location when I was young, the attacks on the castle, the protection of the realm. Older, I walked up 83rd Street to 5th Avenue then over to the Central Park entrance at 79th Street. Ten minutes from my stoop I was in an Errol Flynn movie flashing and slashing my sword with any available branch or stick.

Three cheers for Olmstead & Vaux!

 In the next two weeks, I have three shows, March 9, 13 and 20.  I bring the spirit of Central Park to each of them, it never leaves me. Here’s a list of the shows and a few favorite photos of Belvedere Castle and Catfish Lake.

Please come down, or up, to the shows if you are free, I promise a good time.

Be well, Tommy

Friday March 9th @ Otto's Shrunken Head:

"No Name... & A BAG O' CHIPS"

ERIC VETTER is the MC

SUPER SHANI is the Stage Manager

OUR ANNUAL "WINTER READING" SHOW! 

Guest performers: MICHELE CARLO, KAMBRI CREWS, THOMAS PRYOR, & more

When- FRIDAY, MARCH 9^th @ 7pm & it’s FREE!

Where- OTTO'S SHRUNKEN HEAD

            538 E 14th Street (between Ave A & B)

Our next City Stories: Stoops to Nuts show on March 13th @ 6pm at Cornelia Street Café is a beaut.  Our artists are Claudia Chopek, Joe McGinty, John Newell, Rick Patrick, Thomas Pryor, Rivka Widerman & Ward White. Giving away ten drinks.  Getting my Irish up, it's my birthday week, bring your best game. $7 and saying "hoity toity," gets you in the door with a free drink.

Time Out Magazine picked "Stoops to Nuts" as a darn good thing to do this week. See link.

On Tuesday March 20th @7pm ~ I will join Michele Carlo and Eric Vetter at WordUp Community Bookstore. The theme is "New." Talented Tellers tell for 8 minutes and then we will have a "Magic Hat" where audience members can tell a 3-minute NEW story. March 20^th is my birthday and storytelling with my friends is as good as it gets. I promise you will have a great time and it’s FREE! 

WordUp Community Bookstore is at 4157 Broadway @176th Street in Washington Heights. To get there, take the A train to 175th Street (sit in the back). Exit station to your left, walk up the hill to Broadway, make a left and 4157 is near the next corner. 

"We Need A Big Inning."

I'm ten years old, playing softball down John Jay Park, and I'm coming up to the plate for the Yorkville Stars. Suddenly, Dad is leaning on the fence behind me and gets my attention before I step into the batter's box.

"Hey, Tommy, where are you?"
"Bottom of the ninth."
"How you doing?"
"We need a big inning."
"What's the score?"
"14-2."

My blue Yorkville Stars baseball shirt is under the red jacket in the picture.

Below: my grandmother, 14, selling newspapers outside the Polo Grounds in 1920. She'd sell enough papers to buy a ticket then go inside and root for the Yankees. Nan hated John McGraw and also went to the Giant games to give McGraw the business calling him "Mugsy" and "Little Napoleon." Nan was escorted out of the park a few times with a smile on her face.

Tonight, I’m reading a baseball yarn from my memoir, “Yorkville: Stoops to Nuts.”

I’m part of the “Summer Reading” group @ No Name & A Bag O' Chips!

Tonight, @ 7pm Show’s free!

Readers: MICHELE CARLO, LEIGHANN LORD, KAMBRI CREWS, ALADDIN, THOMAS PRYOR & ALEXANDRA DE SUZE

Otto's Shrunken Head @ 7pm

538 East 14th Street (between Avenue A & Avenue B)

New York, New York

You Can Please Yourself but Somebody's Gonna Get It ~ Tonight @ 7pm @ Otto's Shrunken Head

June 1972, I walked into my grandmother's apartment, heard yelling and there's Nan and four old ladies. Two I knew, two I didn't. On the kitchen table I saw signs of an abandoned pinochle game, under a swarm of green nominating petitions. Nan was an elected Democratic official and each year she faithfully navigated the party's candidates onto the primary ballot. This was a petition counting shindig. I knew this was a big argument because the contents of two Buick sized pocketbooks were emptied on top the petitions and the playing cards. Separated from the contents were two piles of wake cards. I needed no further information, this was a beef over who had some deceased person's funeral remembrance card, either a specific card or how many you had of one person. I didn't care, what I cared about was they were eating my food, drinking my Ginger Ale and ruining my amazing news.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5f-GOz1Njg

If you want to hear what happened, come to Otto's Shrunken Head tonight @ 7pm and I'll tell you. I'm performing with the terrific storytellers below. Bring rotten fruit, aim true!

No Name's "Winter Reading" Show

Featuring Authors: Jennifer Belle, Michele Carlo, Kambri Crews, Jeff Kreisler & Thomas Pryor

Friday, December 10th @ 7pm @ Otto’s Shrunken Head in Manhattan

NEW YORK, NY - DECEMBER 2010 -- “No Name... & A Bag O' Chips" comedy / variety show producer, Eric Vetter, reaches into his ever-present ‘bag o' chips’ on Friday, December 10th and pulls out current and soon-to-be published literature as part of their inaugural “Winter Reading" show - a response to the rousing success of this year's "Summer Reading" special - at Otto's in Manhattan.Authors / storytellers Jennifer Belle (“The Seven Year Bitch”) Michele Carlo, (“Fish Out Of Agua”) & Kambri Crews ("Love, Daddy,") will offer selections from their published and forthcoming works and will be joined by blogger / radio host Thomas Pryor (Yorkville: Stoops to Nuts ) and comic/author Jeff Kreisler ("Get Rich Cheating"). Now in its 11th year, the show will also feature the sounds of “The Summer Replacements” featuring Alex “The Assassin” De Suze and Carl (BabyFreak) Fortunato. No Cover, No minimum. Showtime is 7:00pm and Otto's is located at 538 E 14th St (Cross Street: Between Avenue A and Avenue B) "L" subway train to First Avenue. For more info, call (212) 228-2240 or go to www.ottosshrunkenhead.com/