Up On The Roof

One way to see the rarified heights of New York City on a fixed income is to join a writing group that rotates meeting places.

As spring edges towards summer the odds are high that someone hosting a meeting will live in a nice place with roof access. Don't miss this meeting!

Rain or shine, tar beach will provide views to make your socks go up and down.

I highly recommend you join a writing group ~ and I'll meet you up on the roof.

See other roof pix here.

Del-Satins Deliver A Love Letter to Yorkville

Here are pix from last night's terrific Del-Satins show at St. Stephen's. Unfortunately, my camera does not take good inside shots when there is bright stage lighting.

Frank Florio and Marty Gillis did a great job organizing the event and ensuring everyone had a good time. The talent was amazing. The Del-Satins retain a harmonious gift and delivered a love letter to their old Yorkville neighborhood.

1963 Fire Escape Holiday in Yorkville

"Mom, I don't feel so good."

"What's a matter?"
"My belly hurts."
"How bad?
"Oh, I'm going to be sick."
OK, go back the bed."

I left the kitchen table with my lips sealed. My brother, Rory, rolled his eyes and mouthed, “Fake!” as I passed him. Mom and I had a deal. If I kept my marks up, though not thrilled with the idea, she'd let me play hooky a few times in the last quarter of school. But we couldn't tell Rory.

After Rory left for school, I'd creep into the living room and put the TV on and watch the Sandy Becker Show. When Mom got comfortable with the idea of me being home, I'd loosen up and hang out in the kitchen with her for awhile before bringing all my possessions into the living room and start placing them out the window onto the fire escape.

The fire escape was my terrace; my spauldeens, shoe boxes full of crap, magazines, transistor radio, baseball cards and plastic soldiers all came out with me. I'd stay on the fire escape till lunch then go back out for the rest of the afternoon. I'd sit on the metal stairs and dream that the backyard was a forest and I was viewing all the action from my fire watch station. Late in the day, Mom let me play music on Dad's Victrola pulled right up to the window. We'd trade songs for a few hours. She played Mario Lanza, I chose The Four Seasons. You could hear Frankie Valli’s voice bouncing all around the backyard. Dad would have killed us.

Family Picnic On The Water

Hankering a huge fruit salad, I biked to Fairway Market on 125th Street. I passed five duck couples without children playing on the shore. Then voila! Mom & Pa Goose showing off their new baby boy, Hector. A furry little guy I almost missed due to his perfect camouflage spring coat. Welcome, Hector!

The seagulls were putting on quite a show, too, and the fruit salad was excellent.

See more pix here...

The Superball Incident

I openly owned a Superball for five minutes. I bought one in Joe's Candy Store between 83rd & 84th Street on York Avenue in 1965 when the amazing nuclear ball was introduced.



I left the store cautiously bouncing the other worldly sphere off the sidewalk not wanting it to fly into the avenue. It's awesome powers unknown to me. After giving it a couple of test bounces, I whacked it off the ground as hard as I could trying to send it up to the sixty-foot high tenement roof. Instead, it went off on an angle towards Spotless Cleaners, hit the store's door at 80 miles an hour cracking the glass and bounced back to me cleanly just in time for the guy in Spotless Cleaners to come out the door and see me standing there with the ball in my hand. "Lose the ball," he told me.

I placed it in the street and walked away. Spotless was a chain dry cleaners so insurance paid for the door's glass. I snuck back later sliding behind the cars in the street and picked up my ball leaning against the curb. Going forward, the Superball stayed in my pocket when I strolled past Spotless Cleaners.











Fun Superball Fact: In the late 1960s Wham-O made a "giant" superball, roughly the size of a bowling ball, as a promotional stunt. It fell from the 23rd story window of an Australian hotel (or some reports say, from the roof) and destroyed a parked convertible car on the 2nd bounce.

Hudson River Bicycle Memories

The object of my desire in 1961: Dad's 26 inch Raleigh bike with the little tool bag behind the seat. It didn't get better than that at 7. I had a dinky 24 inch bike that was given to me on Christmas Day 1960. One year later, I plotted ways to get Dad’s bike. These plots took place in my head on our long rides up the Hudson; pass Grant’s Tomb on our way to the Little Red Lighthouse under the George Washington Bridge. We’d sit there looking across the river and I swore I could hear the kids screaming on the Palisades Amusement Park roller coaster.

Here are pictures from yesterday's trip.

Kodacrome Nightmare

"Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderley again…" Naaaah, that's Daphne Du Maurier ~ but I did watch Rebecca and snacked late on leftover cold noodles and sautéed string beans with hot oil. 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 a snowy moon lit scene stood an angel who looked like Elsa Lancaster in the Bride of Frankenstein. Her hands locked in prayer, pleading with Pee Wee Herman with Teridockle wrapped nervously around one of his legs. "Pee Wee fly away with me!" She implored.

He wasn't there, but I could hear Charles Laughton's booming voice barking from afar, "Where the hell's my wife!"

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’s Barbie dolls and putting them on Christmas angels?

Should I stop eating hot oil after 11pm?

Food for thought, but right now I have to go back and finish a good cry, I'm watching Lassie Come Home.

"I'm putting a light in the window tonight. Per chance, she’s just gone for a long run."

Yorkville Melodies Turn Into Satin

Our Town & the West Side Spirit published my story on the history of Doo-wop on the Upper East Side.

In the mid 50s' the Yorkville Melodies sung on the corner of 87th Street & York Avenue. They led to the creation of a group called The Del-Satins ~ these Yorkville men harmonized and sung on some of the greatest records of all time. The Del-Satins went on to a terrific career and are still singing together 50 years later. Their show on May 13th @ St. Stephen's of Hungary is a sellout.

"Yorkville Melodies Turn Into Satin"

“Barbara, Kronks!” I said turning to mom's youngest sister working the stroller and me down the long York Avenue stoop. It was June 1958, Barbara was 19, I was four. Barbara loved me better than a sandwich loaded with mayo, but she had a second reason for taking us gallivanting: Teen boys loved teen girls pushing carriages. I was bait. To get Barbara’s attention the guys had to go through me, and these were rough nice guys on the corner of 87th Street and York Avenue. In Kronk’s Soda Fountain shop, I’d get pretzels and egg creams on the cuff while the boys tried to impress Barbara. “Please don’t tell your mother, Tommy,” Barbara begged on the way home. Later, Mom asked, “Why aren’t you eating your hamburger? It’s your favorite!” “I don’t know,” I lied, not wanting to drop a dime on Barbara. Mom looked at my bloated belly and called her parents. “Mom, put Barbara on the phone... a moment later… What the hell did I tell you about loading him up with crap right before dinner?”

But it didn’t matter; Mom let Barbara walk me over to Kronk’s anytime she liked. Mom needed the break. My younger brother, Rory and I were unified on only one thing, torturing adults. No relative would babysit the two of us together in their own house. Anytime, Mom needed to go out and she couldn’t find a willing babysitter to come to us, she had to work the phone to get two separate relatives to take us in.

read more here ...

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Rocky Colavito Improved My Batting Practice Experience

May reminds me of going up to Yankee Stadium early for a night game to watch batting practice. I ran up to my father coming home from work as he got off the crosstown bus at 86th Street & York Avenue.

"Come on, Dad, Lets' go."

It was five forty five on May 24, 1965. Late spring, when it began being warm enough in the evening to sit in the stands wearing just a sweatshirt.

The previous Saturday night, Dad and I watched a Yankee game on our tenement roof using every extension cord in the house. "You're both nuts," Mom said to Dad's ass as he climbed out our fourth floor window onto the fire escape with the cords. Once we settled in on the roof with kitchen chairs, a card table for the TV and a spaghetti pot full of ice, beer and ice tea, Dad said to me, "We got to get up to the Stadium for a game before they go on the road." The game start was 8pm.

Dad called Mom, who was not thrilled, it was a school night, and he & I jumped into a Checker cab in front of the Mansion Diner and shot up the FDR. At the Stadium, Dad bought lower box reserved seats in section 17, half way between the Yankee dugout and the right field foul pole. I still have the stub. (See picture below)

Dad wrote in the line-ups while I bounced my eyes around the mostly empty ballpark. I smelled cigars, peanuts, and freshly cut grass. This was when I liked the old Stadium best. Just the ballplayers on the field and us, real fans, in the stands. You practically had a whole section to yourself, if you didn't count the hundred kids assembled in right or left field waiting anxiously for imminent home runs, depending on whether the batter was left handed or right handed. The gaggle of kids would travel all away around the ballpark to the other side of the field to get in position for a lefty or righty during batting practice. Watching them run was like a Peanuts cartoon soccer game. Dad wasn't nuts about me being in that group yet,"when you're a little older," he wouldn't let me go by myself, and hated flying around with me, "Let's stay here, this way, if the ball comes this way, you'll have it all to yourself."

There was no sense arguing with the man, so I focused on the good. With so few people around us, I could hear the ballplayers yell at each other as they played pepper and threw it around the outfield. I got an idea who like each other, and who tortured each other.

The Indians were finishing their batting practice. Leon Wagner, a lefty, pounded three pitches into the right field stands. My heart dropped missing the action. I knew the home run derby was going to continue in left field. Rocky Colavito was coming around the cage to take his at bat.

I mumbled, "Why'd I bring my glove," and slumped in my chair.

Dad looked over at me."Tommy, I did the Indians. Why don't you do the Yankee lineup?"

When I reached for the program, I heard solid bat contact, then Dad took my head and pulled it towards his chest hard.

"Thwack!"

I turned and saw a broken slat on the top of my chair. Colavito had sliced a foul that split my wooden seat. Dad and I stared at it forever, then I began looking for the piece of wood that broke off, a valuable souvenir, Dad grabbed me, picked up our things and we headed out to the right field box seats.

All future batting practices were viewed in the outfield or the bleachers. Colavito already a secret Non-Yankee hero of mine ~ he hit four homers in a game in 1959 and looked like my Dad ~ became my favorite all time non-Yankee player.

Yankees won 15-5, Stottlemyre pitched well and went the distance. Tom Tresh and Joe Pepitone hit homers.

The King of In Between ~ Garland Jeffreys

Saturday night in Chelsea, I saw one of my musical heroes, Garland Jeffreys perform at the Highline Ballroom. Garland opened with "Coney Island Winter," then ripped through his terrific new album "The King of In Between," interspersed with a dozen gems, including "35 Millimeter Dreams,""Spanish Town," Hail, Hail, Rock & Roll," and blew the place away with "96 Tears" as an encore. Lots of dancing in the aisles.

The new tunes have the spirit and strength of Garland's songwriting on"Ghost Writer," "Escape Artist," & "Don't Call Me Buckwheat." It was a pleasantly exhausting night.

First Of May - Holy Communion - 1962

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First of May reminds me of my 1962 First Holy Communion suit. When you’re a seven year old pig boy, Mom gets rare opportunity to dress you up and keep you dressed up in one piece.

When Mom bought me my blue outfit I didn’t know I’d have to wear it three horrifying times.

Besides the communion event, we wore our monkey suits for the Crowning of the May Queen in St. Stephen of Hungary’s Grotto on the side of the church. Since the second grade class all had new suits and pretty white dresses, the nuns drafted us into the school-wide ceremonial crowning of the Statue of Mary. Some girl was made crowner and every one else in the class were her drones. Most of the Moms showed up for this non-prime time event simply because they couldn’t believe they got their kid to dress up again.

My third appearance in the suit nearly killed me. For some reason, the nuns at St. Stephen’s school and certain mothers were compelled to put on a talent show every year, despite the fact there was no talent in the student body, if you discounted the Reinwald Brothers' dueling accordion act. In second grade, Mrs. Otis, the show's producer, took advantage of our recent clothing purchase by having the boys and girls perform a Viennese waltz in our blue suits and the girls in their white communion dresses. She insisted the boys wear white gloves. Make me vomit! I begged Mom to stay home, faked sick the morning of the show triggering a kick in the ass on my way out the door.