Time Out Magazine Picks Bachelor # 1 ~ "Stoops to Nuts"

Thank you, Time Out Magazine, for picking "City Stories: Stoops to Nuts" as a swell thing to do this Tuesday, August 13th at Cornelia Street Cafe.

Our next "City Stories: Stoops to Nuts" storytelling show is Tues, Aug 13th @ 6pm @ the Cornelia Street Cafe. 

Our artists: Lorraine Hartin-Gelardi, Jim Hawkins and Karen Pillsworth.

 I'll host and tell an old Yorkville yarn. Admission is $8 and that includes a free drink. 

Right after Labor Day, The Yorkville Creperie will host an opening reception for their two month exhibit of my photography. I'll announce the party date in a few days. All Stoops to Nuts pals are welcome!


Yorkville Creperie
1586 York Avenue
between 83rd & 84th Street

Mom's Hard Work & Humor Made Her My Star

"Oh, my God!" I yelled in my five year brain when I came out of my room and looked through the kitchen at the living room window where I saw a pair of legs with slippers on dangling from the inside of the closed window facing me. I couldn't see the top of the body because soapy water was spread over the glass. I knew it was Mom but I had to double check. Running over and careful not to get near either leg from the side I could see Mom in her house dress balancing her upper body on the outside of the building four stories over the backyard. A clean freak, Mom made sure every spot on the window sparkled and worked without a net. While doing so she stopped my heart.

Mom, Patricia Pryor, passed away a long time ago on July 24th. Today, I'm thinking of her outside the 83rd Street window, doing kitchen work with the dish towel over her shoulder, and making pancakes and bacon for dinner.

Happy Birthday, Dad

Today would be Dad's 81st birthday. He sung Yorkville's praises. Thought the neighborhood was all you could ask for in a place to live. His stories are the source of many of mine. He drew the neighborhood, painted, sculpted, and sketched. He never bored me, tortured me, but never bored me. I have thin skin and he constantly broke it. But that's the father son relationship ~ a roller coaster ride that starts and ends with gigantic love.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCW9Hey6IVY

Sadie Hawkins Day

All you ladies out there, your prayers are answered, your wishes fulfilled.

Here are three of the men you'll be hunting tomorrow in our annual Sadie Hawkins Day here at Sanita Hills Scout camp.

These eligible bachelors bring knocks to young girls knees all over the county.

Charlie, Eddie & Artie may be the first Jug Band whose members all get married on the same Sadie Hawkins Day.

Daisy Mae and Marrying Sam

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlyOCf_SOUY

Sadie Hawkins was the daughter of one of Dogpatch's earliest settlers, Hekzebiah Hawkins. The "homeliest gal in all them hills", she grew frantic waiting for suitors to come a-courtin'. When she reached the age of 35, still a spinster, her father was even more frantic - about Sadie living at home for the rest of his life. In desperation, he called together all the unmarried men of Dogpatch and declared it "Sadie Hawkins Day". Specifically, a foot race was decreed, with Sadie in hot pursuit of the town's eligible bachelors - and matrimony as the consequence.
"When ah fires [my gun], all o' yo' kin start a-runnin! When ah fires agin - after givin' yo' a fair start - Sadie starts a runnin'. Th' one she ketches'll be her husbin."

JUBILATION T. CORNPONE

De Paul/Mercer/sung by Stubby Kaye

When we fought the Yankees and annihilation was near,

Who was there to lead the charge that took us safe to the rear?

Why it was Jubilation T. Cornpone; Old

"Toot your own horn - pone."

Jubilation T. Cornpone, a man who knew no fear!

Though he's gone to his reward, his mighty torch is still lit.

First in war. First in peace. First to holler, "I quit!"

Jubilation T. Cornpone.

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Last Night, I Dreamed I Went to Mandalay

"Last night, I dreamed I went to Mandalay again," Naaaa, that's Daphne Du Maurier.
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Last night, I watched the film, Rebecca, and ate leftover cold noodles and sauteed string beans with hot oil from Szechuan Cottage on York Avenue.
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After the Hitchcock film, I went to bed and had a strange dream.

I was in the land of my father's paintings and in front of one certain moon lit snowy scene stood

an angel with a head that looked very much like Elsa Lancaster in the Bride of Frankenstein. Her hands locked in prayer, she paid adoration to

Pee Wee Herman with Teridockle wrapped nervously around one of his legs. He wasn't there, but I could hear Charles Laughton's booming voice barking from far away, "Where the hell's my wife!"
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When I woke, it was easy to remember the dream's details, but impossible to get their meaning.

Was Dad secretly into Pee Wee and never told me?

Has someone been stealing the heads off my daughter, Alison's Barbie dolls and freaking out people by putting the heads on Christmas angels?

Should I stop eating hot oil after 11pm?
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Excuse me, I have to go back and finish a good cry, I'm watching Lassie Come Home on TV.
"I'm putting a light in the window tonight. Per chance, She's just gone for a long run."
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My Grandmothers, Dutch & Cuckoo

August 26, 1968, Narrowsburg, New York.

Dear Mom & Dad, Camp's Great! I made two friends yesterday and they only hid my eyeglasses for three hours. Tomorrow they are going to show me how to make a splint for the arm they broke for me.

Love, Sonny Boy

Scout Camp was getting to me. Heat, Mosquitos, Counselors. Every day, we were forced to sit down for a half hour and write postcards. Didn't matter whether you had anyone to write to, during that half hour, you could do nothing other than write in your tent. The first day I wrote two postcards, one to my Nan Dutch and one to my Nan Cuckoo or Kook for short. I was 14. This is embarrassing, let me explain the names.

My mother's parents name was Ryan. They lived on York Avenue between 85th and 86th Street. They had a backyard off the kitchen of their first floor railroad apartment. The Ryans next door neighbor had a German Shepherd named Dutchess. I called the dog, "Dutch."

My father's parents lived on York Avenue between 83rd and 84th Streets. Their name was Pryor Rode, you know second marriage name plus first in front. I couldn't pronounce the two names, so I called them Nan and Pop "Cuckoo" because they had a beautiful cuckoo clock in their kitchen.

The nicknames stuck. My parents got a kick out of this, so did the Ryans, not true with the Pryor Rodes. I remember a conversation between Nan Kook & me when I was around 6 yrs old.

"Tommy, you know I'm a big lady and your other nanny is not so big, so why not call me Big Nanny, and call your other nanny, Little Nanny, OK?"

"That's silly, your Nanny Cuckoo!"

My grandmother ran her hand through her hair and that was the end of that.

Here's the first postcard. They're both widowed at this point.

Dear Nan Dutch, I miss you, please send me two bundt cakes with lots of powdered sugar. Camp's great! We swim every day. love, Tommy

Here's the other one.

Dear Nan Kook, I miss you, you miss me? Camp's great! please send me a lot of cans of Bumble Bee tuna and a ballpoint pen this one's running out of ink. love, Tommy

On the Saturday after we arrived at Ten Mile River on a Sunday, I get a huge box in the mail with two bundt cakes in it. "God bless, Nan Dutch!" And a smaller box with six cans of tuna. "I Love you, Nanny Cuckoo!" Holding a can of tuna in my hand it dawned on me, we had no mayo and there was no mayonnaise at the post to be bought, these cans were useless, i forgot to ask for the Hellman's, tuna is cat food without the blue label condiment. Upset, but still happy about the bundt cakes, I put them under my bunk and covered the cakes with the box they came in.

We went for our afternoon swim in the lake. An hour later, we got back to the camp site. My tent looked like it had a stroke. I looked into the opening, and saw a humongous raccoon with half a cake in its mouth splitting out the backside of the tent. I hate camp.

photo above, compliments of Gerard, Mickey Mantle playing first base in his final summer in Yankee Stadium (1968).

Rocky Colavito at Ten Mile River

"I need a Yodel."

"I need a Yankee Doodle"

"I need a rock to throw at your head. Shut up, I'm trying to listen to the Yankee game." I said to Dennis & Artie, while holding the transistor to my ear, desperately moving the radio around to pick up Phil Rizzuto's voice on an AM station far away.

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We were in Ten Mile River Scout Camp in Narrowsburg, New York. Troop 654, from Yorkville, Manhattan. After two weeks, we were all sick of the camp's steamed food. When we cooked, we screwed it up. We craved Hostess and Drakes Cakes. One kid said, "I Want a Funny Bone!" The cake with the peanut butter vomit in it. Someone threw something at him. Good.

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I thought the guy who invented Funny Bones was the same guy who invented the soda called Wink with the grapefruit pulp in it. Yeah, he must have said, "kids love fruit pulp in their sodas, and I'm going to shove a load of pulp in there."

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Remarkably, one of my childhood heroes, Rocky Colavito, the smooth slugger who resembled my Dad was pitching for the Yankees. "The Rock," four home runs in one game, was on the mound, it was August 25, 1968. Less than three months to the Beatles While Album release. In eleven months, we'd be on the moon, Woodstock, and the first Giant & Jet exhibition game at Yale Bowl.

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With my free hand, I scratched the countless mosquito bites on my legs and butt, then I heard, "Dobson lines a one bouncer to Horace "No Double Play" Clarke, Clarke handles the ball cleanly and fires a strike to Mickey Mantle on first. Heeeee's Out!" Naaaa, the radio voice was fuzzy but I did hear Clarke throw the ball to Mantle and that Colavito was out of the inning with no runs, leaving two men on base.

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Yankees were down 5-1, going into the bottom of the sixth, Artie, Dennis and I were supposed to be policing the camp site and working on some kind of Scout merit badge. I had already achieved my badge limit, Cooking, Hiking, Whatever its called for using a map properly, and the One Mile Swim. Four were plenty. I earned a significant goof off period and planned on taking these two guys to hell with me.

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More TMR and Colavito tomorrow.

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photo courtesy of Gerard Murphy

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To Celebrate, I'm taking the #4 to old Yankee Stadium, then I'm going down Carl Schurz Park for a Catch

The New York Times added "Yorkville Stoops to Nuts," to their City Room page ~ see the article linked below.

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If they were around to see it, Dad would've had a baby, and Mom would've called her sisters and kissed me silly.

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http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/new-links-on-the-city-room-blogroll/?scp=2&sq=Yorkville%20Stoops%20to%20Nuts&st=cse--

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I'm ten years old, down John Jay Park, and I'm coming up to the plate for the Yorkville Stars. All of a sudden, Dad is behind me at the fence, and gets my attention before I step in to the batter's box.

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"Hey, Tommy, where are you?"

"Bottom of the ninth."

"How you doing?"

"We need a big inning."

"What's the score?"

"14-2."

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You can see my blue Yorkville Stars baseball shirt under the red jacket in the picture above.

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Check out the rightfield bullpen in the 1958 Yankee Stadium photo, and the Gun ad in the background on River Avenue.

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The New York Times Picked Up "Yorkville: Stoops to Nuts"

The New York Times ~ City Room section picked up "Yorkville: Stoops to Nuts" today.
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If you go the link below, the City Room page opens. On the right hand side, down a bit, is a blog roll with different categories listed alphabetically. Under "People & Neighborhoods" you'll find "Yorkville Stoops to Nuts" on the bottom.
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I'm silly happy & my stories are cooking.
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hugs, Tommy


http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/?scp=1-spot&sq=city%20room&st=cse

His Naked Nose Was Tortured by the Siren Sweetly Cooking

"Joannie, when I stayed over your house as a boy, after you made me breakfast you'd disappear from the room for a while. Where'd you go?"

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"I never left the kitchen. After I gave you the bacon, I snuck behind you, leaned over your head, and listened to you hum while you chewed."

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Joannie Baloney told me this right before she died at 56 in 1991. Joan was my Mom's middle sister, my godmother and the funniest person I've ever known. On the rare Friday night, Dad took Mom out, I'd stay over Joan's 5th floor apartment at 321 East 85th Street. Rory would stay with another relative because I had first dibs on Joan, and more importantly, there was a unilateral pact in our family ~ under no circumstance were Rory and I allowed to stay over together in any one relative's house. Everybody did it once, and once was enough to trigger this Pryor brothers babysitting boycott. If Mom tried dumping us both on one relative she'd get responses like this.

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"Can't do it, the kids got the German measles and their scratching their asses off."

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"Sorry, Patty, Eddie gashed his leg, and he's bleeding all over the place."

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"Jesus Christ, gotta go."

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Joan's husband, Georgie, worked for UPS and bowled on Friday nights downtown near his Canal Street route. So it was just Joannie & me, the couch, a cool radio and bongos that hung on the wall near the poster of the Spanish Matador, Pepsi Cola, Dipsy Doodles, Wise Potato Chips, Dip, TV with the the Avengers and Emma Peel, the Wild, Wild West, Twilight Zone, Hitchcock, then quiet, no fighting and uninterrupted sleep.

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photos above:

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Joannie and Barbara, my two Ryan aunts

me to the right, well dressed & eating a sandwich

one pound of Oscar Meyer Bacon... yummmmmmmmmm

Mom Gets Even

"OK, on a count of three, when he hits the button make a silly face," Mom said, as we stood on the Pelham El's train platform on our way to Freedomland in the Bronx.

After Dad took the picture, he gave the three of us the silent treatment for an hour, while we walked around the amusement park with Dad moping.

If Dad took an embarrassing picture of Mom, she'd bide her time, and include Rory and me on the revenge scheme, or she'd just put her finger up her nose when Dad said, "Patty, smile!"

Dad hated when Mom ruined his perfect shot.

Lost Weekend

My Lost Weekend lasted 12 days. I ordered golden cake with double chocolate icing for dinner, five times. I devoured 13 velvet cupcakes with lemon vanilla topping. I made 16 Blondie brownies disappear, the last five, hard as rocks nearly cracked my teeth. I imagined each Blondie was a small hero sandwich on extra crusty sugary bread, adding a little Hellman's mayo for realism. To balance my meals, I noshed on an assortment of nuts in a party basket the size of a catcher's mitt and three jumbo bags of lime flavored tortilla chips, my favorite.
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My descent started January 10th at Lincoln's birthday celebration at my apartment. Unknown to me, three guests were cooks. Everyone generously baked sweets or raided bakeries. At the end of the night, the last detail left my house like that part in the circus when all the clowns keep coming out of the little, bitty car. Except this time in reverse. One of Lincoln's friends was driving home to Staten Island, and word flew round the room ~ "Ride." Seven or eight Staten Islanders jumped on the ride to avoid the multi-hour subway ferry trip. Two, forgot sweaters in their haste and no one took any food home.
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This left me with my own personal bake shop, and me, the shop's only customer. I waste nothing. Finding a free newspaper triggers a parade. I was obligated to eat it all. Adding to my plight, the Giants lost to the Eagles the next day. My depression led to three straight golden cake dinners, I thought I was being good by having water instead of milk with the cake, but the way I figure, my meal was in the 2000 to 2500 calorie range.
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Last night, I ate the last brownie, it took a while, my back teeth battled to bite through it. But it's done. In the last 12 days, I've eaten the equivalent of half a dozen Entenmann's Pineapple Crunch Cakes. My belly feels funny. I'm not going through withdrawal because I don't crave sweets, but when they're there...

Sam & Me at the Inauguration

Feels terrific to be an American today.

Here I am, last Saturday, starting my trip to the
Inauguration in Washington D.C.

I began my journey on 84th Street and East End Avenue. The Italian guy who takes pictures of kids on the pony was going on vacation for two weeks and he liked the way Sam & me got along. Charlie asked me to take care of Sam while he was away in Lodi, New Jersey visiting relatives who just came over from Palermo. I said, no problem.

Our ride down Mason-Dixon way was smooth. We're staying at the Willard near the White House ~ Sam loves the oats there.

I'll Have None of Your Shenanigans!

The Nun whacked me.

A moment before this 4th grade photo was snapped (click picture, it opens up), Sister Adrianne slugged me off the top of my forehead with her open hand. See my face? It's still red (second row, last on the right). I think she was telling me, I should have had a V-8. The good news? She hit Pierre, too. That's why he has a rosy puss (top row, second from the left).

Why'd she hit us? We were fighting over who'd sit next to Barbara O'Dea, the prettiest girl in our zip code (second row, fourth from the right).

Pierre had me in a full-nelson wrestling hold and I was biting his stomach. We worked our way to the top of the bleachers where we were lining up for our class picture. We thought the bleachers kept going, but after the fourth row, we stepped into thin air. No fifth row. We hugged and fell to the wooden floor. The nun ran around the bleachers and picked us up like a hockey fight referee. After wringing us out, she gave us a look of enormous disgust and said, "I'll have none of your shenanigans," she slapped Pierre, then tried to hit me. I ducked. That's when I got the pop off the forehead.

I've always found it oddly exciting to duck and avoid that first shot. After you acquire "getting hit experience," you know the second shot's going to be a harder, more accurate blow, but you can't resist the instinct to duck the first one.

Pierre was banished to the top row, far away from Barbara. To torture me, the Nun put me in the same row as Barbara but three seats away sitting next to Olga Goulash. To move the knife around, Sister Adrianne placed the best-looking guy in the class; Jean Paul Piccolo, to Barbara's left. Look at Jean Paul, new to our country from Milan, Italy, right next to Barbara. The dummy isn't even sitting heinie to heinie ~ there's no contact ~ Jean Paul's giving her space! I'd have made sure our apples were nestled together, cheek to cheek.

He was so cute it made me sick. Even Paul McCartney would look ugly sitting next to him. The final twist of the blade, everyone called him "John Paul." Not only named after a Beatle, he was named after two Beatles!

It was April 1964. Things looked grim.

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Family Pictures Taken by the Police

Here's a picture of my grandfather, Tom Pryor, taken by those "dirty, rotten screws."

It's his NYC Police Department issued 1934-35 Hack license. Pop bore no love for authority. My grandmother told me, "he could hear somebody give him the finger from a block away. The cops were number one on his list." Nan said, "when he wasn't a bastard, he was charming, artistic and left handed."

He spent most of of his youth in an orphanage called: Father Drumgoole's Home for Homeless Newsboys - later known as Mt. Loretto. The largest orphanage in the U.S. at the turn of the century. A 500 acre working farm facing Raritan Bay at the southern tip of Staten Island. The picture to the right, is Tom in the orphanage in 1914. He's thirteen years old ~ he entered the home at eight years old and stayed till he was sixteen. I found this letter in my grandmother's strong box. It was written by Tom, the day before he died, February 20, 1941. It's addressed to his first great-grandchild, my daughter, Alison. He wrote:

Dear Alison,

My name is Thomas Edward Pryor. I am your great-grandfather. I was born on December 16, 1900 to James and Mary Pryor. Dad was a hostler, and Mom was a housekeeper. I was baptized in the new Saint Patrick’s Cathedral on December 23, 1900. My brother, Eddie was four years older than me. Everyone called him Buster.

We lived on 50th Street and our apartment over looked the Third Avenue El. The trains had steam engines until I was four years old. In 1905 they electrified the rails, the year after they opened the first New York City subway. My Mom and Dad died in 1909 from influenza. Aunt Mary put us in an orphanage in Staten Island. I got out seven years later. I met Anna Cuccia in 1921. We married in 1923. Thomas was born in 1925. Robert came along in 1929. We lived in several Yorkville apartments.

My Mom had a little Irish gypsy in her, and gave me the gift to see into the future. Here's what I see: Tom joins the Army at 18, marries Rose at 21 in Garguilo's in Coney Island, and Bobby's born in 1949. Robert joins the Navy on his 17th birthday. He tried to get in a year earlier but gets caught. Robert meets Patty Ryan at the East Side Settlement House in 1945. They win the Settlement House's 1949 Lindy Dance Contest and start keeping company. They marry in 1952. Tommy flies through the window in 1954. Rory falls from a plane in 1956. That’s all I’m telling you, right now. If we meet, I’m sure you’ll like me, because boy, do I love you.

All My Love, Great Grandpa Tom

Clothes Horse, Then and Forever

They seek him here,
They seek him there.
His clothes are loud,
But never square.

You had no clue, Ray Davies wrote those telling words about me. Ray said, "Tommy, you are a dedicated follower of fashion."

That's me at LaSalle Academy @ 44 East 2nd Street in 1969.
(Photo taken by "Cool Pat" Cullinan, my geometry teacher)

I still own the jacket, a 40 Regular. Worn on my first date with Rosemary DiNatale in 1970. We took in Monterrey Pop at the Paris movie house across from The Plaza on a rainy afternoon.

This outfit, complimented with powder blue socks and desert boots earned me jealous stares, oohs & aahs.

Put the Friggin Camera Down

Did I ever tell you, that Weegee, the crime photographer, was a friend of my grandmother?

Problem was, when he visited the family on York Avenue he couldn't sit still and kept taking flash photos without warning. It unnerved us, but Nan loved the lug.

That's Mom, me and my grandfather, John Rode, in his best "I'm not with the hooker perp walk pose."

Yorkville's Secret Old Places

In Yorkville, there are many secret places. I'll give up one, and one teaser.

Entering Carl Schurz Park on 87 Street, if you walk straight ahead on the path under the stone bridge into the round sitting area with the Pan statue in the center, you'll see a large group of rocks on the right/south side. Up on the rocks is an ancient iron hook driven into the stone. The hook probably 250 years, secured a rope line from a ship or boat. Sit there, imagine under your feet the East River running towards the Hells Gate. Ships going back and forth to the countless piers along the waterfront.

Greenwich Village isn't the only Manhattan neighborhood with secrets in their backyards. Yorkville has at least two or more 19th century clapboard houses sitting behind the 1900-1920 built tenements that line the streets and avenues. One sat behind my grandmother's house on York Avenue, and it's still there.