It's Still Raining? More Mermaid Parade!

Today's poor weather makes this week a tie for the worst weather wise vacation week I've ever taken. It previously was a three way tie between two Long Beach Island weeks with the Harveys and Hoelheins in early 90s, and a June week in 1977 in the St. John's Rugby house in East Quogue behind a big row of bushes on Montauk Highway across the street from the Citgo station with Yvette Baez, Michelle Migliori and Timmy "I'm a Computer Fixer" Crowley.
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In LBI, all nine kids were young and the rain finished a miserable second to a horrific undertow that kept everybody out of the water both weeks. The highlight of the shore trips was putting the kids to bed each night and stealing one hour of silence before we passed out. The men's offers to go the store sounded like parrots, "Need anything? Need anything? Polly want a Pamper?"
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One single afternoon in two weeks, the sun popped out from a bank of clouds for 45 minutes, we went bananas. You would of thought we were a family in church at a Baptist funeral.
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The 1977 week was a lost week of drinking and stinking and whining about the lack of sun and tan. It was cold too. But we played a lot of hide and go seek in the big creepy house, there were many secret deep closets, and we did see "Annie Hall." I couldn't have been with three funnier people so the cabin fever was tolerable.
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This week is now, so it squeaks by the other three rainy duds. But I'd be lying, if I said it's a total loss. I saw Ian Hunter rock out for free on the Hudson River the other night, I cheered the Mermaid Parade in between the rain drops last Saturday at Coney Island, I rode bikes in the rain with Alison when we visited the Little Red Lighthouse, and all importantly I'm not at work. Hip, hip.

All the Way From Memphis

Yeah its a mighty long way,
down rock and roll,
As your name gets hot,
so your heart grows cold,
and you gotta stay young man,
you can never be old,
All the way from Memphis

Ian Hunter & Jimmy Mastro rocking on the Hudson at sunset with Tom Otterness mischievous sculptures surrounding you. NYC June bliss.


Ian tore it up in Rockefeller Park last night and his new tunes are solid. My friend, Anne & I roamed the park, explored the naughty Otterness treats and planted ourselves right behind Ian and Jimmy. As close as we were to Ian at the Village Underground six years ago. We sang along on the top of our lungs. Ian played everything with heart and joy. I want to be Ian when I'm 70, doing something I love, and giving it away everyday. Jimmy's guitar playing led my spirit back to Earl Slick & Steve Hunter. Went right through me.

Ian Hunter, Eddie Skuller, Jimmy Mastro, Ed Rogers & Amanda Thorpe, five artists that keep my pilot flying right.

Washington Square Park

Washington Square is back.

Coney Island's Mermaid Parade

Went to the Mermaid Parade on Saturday. Well worth the trip to Coney Island in the rain. The parade includes everyone you look at in New York City all year long, the characters that make you smile, roll your eyes or shake your head. They come together and march down Surf Avenue in their Funky Broadway Easter best. A visual feast.

Here are photos that need no explanation.

Fresh Air Fund ~ Help A Kid Get Out of the City

There is only a week and a half left in The Fresh Air Fund's dollar-for-dollar gift matching program. The Fresh Air Fund provides free summer vacations to children whose families can not afford to get away or send their kids to camp.

Please consider a donation or becoming a host.

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You can look over the Fresh Air Fund program at the link below, and make a donation there. Thank you.

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http://freshairfund-newsrelease.com/

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Dad was not a vacation kind of guy. The only time the four of us got out of the city was a week in Putnam County. My grandparents came too. I don't know details on the location, but I remember five hundred things about the week. There were rabbits, frogs, fish, chickens, dogs, birds, raccoons, kids, dew on the grass, warm lake water in the morning, no sidewalks, crickets, stars, and there was Barbara. She's holding the dog in the picture. I couldn't wait to get up in the morning and play with her. She was a cute tomboy and had no issue with wrestling me ~ she beat me most of the time. She played catch, told jokes and stuck up for me with a couple of older bullies. I remember everything about that week, but it only happened once. Getting out of the city can do that to a kid.

Paul McCartney Turns 67

Well my heart went boom,
When I crossed that room,
And I held her hand in mine.

The 8 transistor radio pressed to my ear, I memorized every word in the song. Lying on the hill against the frozen grass at the north end of Carl Schurz Park, visions of girls, dancing and holding hands whirled through my head. Had no clue how it all worked, or what I would do, but I saw these things.

It was December 1963, I was nine years old, the Beatles had dropped a bomb in my head that never stopped going off. TV and sports formerly occupied my brain’s whole house but suddenly that year, the master bedroom room was turned over to music and my 45 singles.

“I Saw Her Standing There,” was the first time Paul McCartney’s voice trapped me. Even today, if I stood in front of a jury of my peers, charged with a capital crime, and the foreman was about to read the verdict, if I heard Paul in tune I just might miss hearing,“Guilty.”

I remember missing Pope John XXIII when he died. He seemed like a nice guy, but at least the next Pope had the good sense to take the name Paul. I figured it was only a matter of time before we had a Pope George and a Pope Richard. Even at 9, I knew the church would never allow a Pope Ringo.

Paul’s 67 years old today, the guy’s been cheering me up since 1963.

Happy Birthday, Paul!

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Graduation Day ~ June 16, 1968

Sunday, June 16, 1968, Mom and Dad played pinochle up Nan's on York Avenue, following St. Stephen of Hungary's eighth grade graduation in the church. Nan had a bandanna around her neck to catch sweat and drank chilled ginger ale.

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A miserably hot day, Rory wore my grad cap, then we ran out to put the fire hydrant on at the corner of 83rd Street and 1st Avenue.

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Mickey Mantle hit a homer against the Angels. George Chapman had sunburn on his back from Rockaway Beach. Unknowingly, I slapped George's back after Mantle's homer. Apology not accepted.
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Someone left the cake out in the rain. "MacArthur's Park," was on the radio and Rory bought a pound of Oreos with the 45 cents he clipped off Dad's dresser.

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Happy Bloom's Day.

Flag Day

Today, June 14th is Flag Day.
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A small, but always acknowledged holiday when I was a kid ~ and much bigger the generation before. To the left, Dad, 13, carries a flag with a group of children through Yorkville to 84th Street between York and East End Avenues, where my grandmother gave a patriotic speech.
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Tracking the small holidays was important to me, it gave me special connection to the past. I depended on my Farmer's Almanac calendar to tell me what to celebrate and when to celebrate.
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At the very bottom, left to right, is Leslie Henits and me, holding the flag, for the playing of the "Green Berets," in St. Stephen of Hungary's 1967 talent show. We were really stiff to back into that talent.
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Lexington Avenue Dollhouses

In the 1960s there were antique stores along Lexington Avenue that specialized in selling miniature furniture and dollhouses.

Dad sold his dollhouses and furniture out of several of these stores. Here is one of his houses.

Below are two photos of one of the stores that survive at 1080 Lexington Avenue.

The Clay Cole Show

Mom's got that crazy hair dryer going that comes out of a little hard plastic suitcase. It's larger than a portable typewriter, but smaller than a day tripper. Regardless, it looks like a heart lung machine to me.

Dad's loiters with a scotch as Mom gets ready.

I want them gone. Cindy, my babysitter, is the prettiest girl in St. Stephen's eighth grade and for a whole night she's mine and Rory's.

As Mom & Dad walk out the door the Clay Cole Show comes on Channel 11. He's cool, he's handsome as James Bond, and everybody in music comes and sings on his show. I'm 8 yrs old. I'm in heaven.

I want him,
I need him.
And someday, someway...whoooa...I'll meet him.
He'll be kind of shy.
And real good looking too.
And I'll be certain, he's my guy,
By the things he'll like to do.
Like walking in the rain,
And wishing on the stars up above,
And being so in love.
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The Holy Cart

The Holy Cart

In Catholic school, Thomas Pryor came up with a novel way of escaping his classroom: selling religious articles from a cart....(more)

Mission Impossible

It's 1943, the hallway of 1582 York Avenue is behind my grandmother. On the right of the hallway is the entrance to a candy store. On the wall is an advertisement for Mission Soda. It was good to see Mission was a favorite back then, because it was certainly a favorite for many kids in the 1960s'.

For instance.

Despite his record-breaking cheapness, Joe was no fool. If you had a candy store you must have ice cold soda. Kids boycotted candy stores that ignored this rule. The water temperature in Joe's cooler always flirted with the freezing mark. Sometimes, you needed to submarine your hand through a thin crust of ice forming on the surface. 200 bottles of soda buried deep beneath the sea, in a light so dim the eels bumped into each other. More than twenty different brands slept on the ocean's floor. With the cooler sitting on a foot tall base anyone less than four feet tall needed to lift himself to plunge into the Loch in search of Nessy. Unfortunately, I usually craved a bottle of Mission Cream. Mission soda was a local favorite with 10 different flavors. Mission's bottles had zero variation in style, texture or height. All Missions being equal led to a courage speech I'd give myself before each attempt. "You can do it. I've seen you do it. Do it." Shorter than the top of the coffin, I'd hop up, and swing my arm over its front wall. My armpit was now responsible for keeping me airborne. I'd sink my other arm into the icy water with a numbing splash. I was 100 percent dependent on my tactile skill for the bottle retrieval. My hand and forearm would tighten up before I achieved bottle depth. When I reached the wreck, my numb digits embraced the familiar Mission shape and pulled one up. Orange. "Ooooh," I moaned. Back down the bottle would go. I'd do my best to remember where I replanted it. The bottles were snug as sardines. I had limited time before my arm below the elbow lost all sensation. If my search stretched beyond a minute and my favorite soda remained unlocated, sensors went off. The front of my arm turned into a bottle-nosed dolphin. Using the pain impulses shooting through my hand, sonar signals would strike the bottles then return to my brain revealing vital bottle data. Rotating my arm in a corkscrew motion increased blood circulation allowing a brief search extension, but the water was too cold. Pride swallowed, I raised the last bottle I touched before my hand passed out. It was a Root Beer. "Grrrrr." I moved the second place soda gently from my puffy blue hand to my landlubber hand. I tucked my arm under my noncombatant armpit, rocking back and forth till warmth returned. With phony bravado, I grinned at my friends. A wicked pleasure swept through the crowd when someone chose a soda you knew wasn't their first choice. Everyone knew each other's favorite soda right behind knowing their favorite sports team or movie star. When I was in the hot seat, I sat there drinking the soda, faking enjoyment, saying, "hmmm" or "aaahhh", followed by a satisfying swipe of my mouth. I knew, they knew, I was lying. It didn't matter, I went down swinging. Addressing the mob, I'd say, "I do like it. I really do like it. I just didn't tell anybody."
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this is a section from My First Coffin, published in A Prairie Home Companion in 2007. You can read the whole story by hitting the link on the left.
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Yorkville Crossroads

Every corner is a crossroad. We all gravitate there to watch the river flow.

If it was 86th Street & York Avenue, you planted yourself in front of the Pharmacy, watching the rich girls strut down 86th Street to their fancy addresses, making sure they knew money could never make them prettier then you.

If it was 84th Street & East End Avenue, you could read the faces on the parents coming out of Carl Schurz Park...

"Thank God, it's over, those kids drove me crazy."

And examine parents faces going into the park...

" Oh, boy, I'm going to play catch."
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Brother James Gully

Pat Cullinan did an amazing thing 40 years ago. He made a huge photographic record of life at LaSalle Academy @ 44 East 2nd Street. Pat, my geometry teacher, took thousands of shots between 1968 and 1973. I will forever be grateful to Pat for this terrific opportunity to look back through the glass.

In the collection, there are so many pictures of great teachers in the school setting, that it's easy to remember my favorite.

Brother James Gully, a larger than life character, was my freshman English & home room teacher. He entertained us and slyly taught us well at the same time. We were laughing at and along with him so much, we barely noticed the knowledge he snuck inside our heads. You wanted to please him, he worked too hard, and you didn't feel good about yourself if you disappointed Gully. Unfortunately, I triggered a full year of torture and abuse from the rest of the school when I nicknamed our class, "Gully's Guppies," during LaSalle's September fund raiser. It didn't matter, we turned it inside out, we loved him, and happily took everyone's crap to earn his badge of courage. He was passionate & dramatic and made a difference.

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All Photos of Brother James Gully taken by Patrick Cullinan

Secrets

Mom ~ Destroyer of things that collected dust & naughty items. To my deep regret, toys with loose parts & Dad's magazines made frequent trips to the Bermuda triangle.

Mom died before Dad, and when he passed away, I found items that made me smile and re-evaluate Dad's sneaky talent. He saved a bunch of old girlfriends pictures. God bless him.

Here is Dad with Betty Holmes on the roof of 519 East 82nd Street. They went out for a few years and hung out together at the East Side Settlement House. Dad saved lots of pictures of Betty, ergo, Dad liked Betty a lot, kind of like Captain Carl liked Miss Yvonne on Pee Wee Herman's Playhouse. Betty married Artie Betz. She was a beautiful and charming lady, just like my Mom.

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Here's a picture of Dad with a Navy friend and a couple of German girls in 1946. When Dad spoke of Bremen and Bremerhaven, he'd break out in a shit-ass grin, recognize he was smiling too widely, and try to pull it back. After seeing this picture in 2003, I understood.

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The Snake Plant

"Good boy!" My grandmother encouraged my two year old father. It was 1931. She was leaning out their York Avenue window, Dad was in the cobblestone street with a bucket using one of his six year brother's baseball cards for a scooper.
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"That's it Bobby, pick some more up."
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Dad knelt and put horse crap into the bucket for Nan to use as fertilizer.
Nan loved her flowers and plants. When she died, I tried to save something.
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In the photo above, to the right of my Great-Aunt Mary is a snake plant with one big leaf peeking out.
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It's summer 1969, Mary, 70 years old, took the subway in from Jackson Heights to visit her baby sister, Ann, in Yorkville. It was Saturday night, they made potato pancakes and fresh apple sauce.
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The sisters talked in Italian to keep me out of their business.
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The same snake plant sits in my apartment today, forty years later.
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That's Dad's painting over the fridge
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