Time Travel
Rome: where a thousand lire
would nail down a bed for the night;
you might have been there too.
Perhaps our coins crisscrossed in the toss
at Trevi Fountain the next day.
An American in London
I knew how to snooker;
the pub blokes would bet their bitters on me.
I’d bang some balls while scoffing down bangers
then be on my way.
Ah, Amsterdam and the sweet refrain
“Hashish? Hashish? Hashish?”
No, but an aspirin would do.
Hookers like mannequins in dress shop windows
break their stillness to beckon.
Not tonight dear. I have a headache.
I never really knew when and where
the planes would touch down.
The first on Mohawk with a parish priest;
a retreat to a place where monks baked bread
and tended to their beads at vespers.
He never laid a hand on me
despite any presumptions.
The winds of the gods
in the aftermath of Catholicism
transported me to Greece—
where disappointed to have missed
the Colossus of Rhodes
by about a millennium—
I’d have told him about
Our Lady who art in Harbor.
The vertigo overcome
in the spiraling steps
up through her gown
to the 7-spiked crown.
Who won’t always have Paris?
Flâner dans les rues
as if in a dream.
But now Phoenix is rising below
in a heat up out of hell
to which I shuttle
with laptop open to business-speak.
Words scurry across the screen
like mice who forgot
where the cheese is hidden.
The Fat Cats awaiting
to make me eat them whole
as I'm achored to their conference table.
--- Ron Vazzano
Quote of the Month
On the Death of a Friend,
of Old School Days and Ways
We first met in kindergarten. From which we "graduated" in 1951. And remained lifetime friends.
Yet we differed on many things. Sometimes intensely on matters of politics and sociology. Left and right. And we might be interchangeable in our points of view depending on the issue. And ironically, at times, at odds on our religion. Given that we are both regular church-going Catholics.
And I loved him despite the fact that he was always late... for any appointment or get-together. Which for almost a half of a century in our friendship, drove me crazy. Over the last 25 years, I got over it. And now of course, he has an excuse. He’s dead.
At his funeral mass at the end of January, we were handed a program within which he had written his story. Knowing he would not likely see another year, he had been in poor health for a while, he also left a twenty-two page manual, for want of a better descriptor. Instructions as to how his passing was to be conducted. And in this program, it is noted in all "caps": THIS FUNERAL MASS AND ALL ARRANGEMENTS WERE ACCORDING TO HIS WISHES.
Twenty-two pages! (Which I'm still trying to get my hands on).Who does that? A man named Victor Joseph Papa. A feisty sort who dedicated his life to servicing, in so many ways, this fascinating neighborhood called the Lower East Side. A place so much a part of the history of New York City and the United States itself. Particularly, in its early development. Particularly as it served as a port of entry for so many immigrants. A hallmark that has defined this country, and is embodied by the Statue of Liberty within walking distance and a short ferry ride from where Victor lived.
At this point, I will let him tell his own story. (To which illustration has been added). Verbatim as taken from the aforementioned funeral program. So “old school” are his words, expressed unabashedly in the embracing of ideals and the kind of life lived, that now seem so foreign to us in these fitful times. Identifying by name, real flesh and blood people; not "friends" that exist in a virtual reality that come our way through "apps." Calling out the streets on which he lived and walked through in going about his days. And imagine this: working to create a community where differences are put aside, for the greater common good.
Victor J. Papa
1945-2024
I was raised on these notorious streets and in those tenements of the Lower East Side. It is where I learned much of life’s joys and sorrows. In my formative years I lived and played on James Street, just south of Chatham Square. I formed friendships there. Many have lasted a lifetime. There is where I went to school. There is where I received the sacraments. These streets: Catherine, Mott, Roosevelt, Market, Cherry, Monroe, Oliver, Madison. On those black-tarred streets, I learned about many creeds, other cultures and languages from all over the globe.
Under the “El” on the famous Bowery is where I encountered the “bums” on their way to Royal Wine and Liquor. On these streets I played Skelsy and Stickball, sneaked a Lucky Strike now and then; watched the exuberance of the worshippers dedicate the Torah scrolls on East Broadway, and saw victorious General MacArthur come down Broadway’s ticker tape parade, while I held my mother’s hand.
I learned When Irish Eyes Are Smiling with the Quinns, and I savored the bread from Moltisantu’s little bakery on Monroe Street. I ate Zeppoles while watching San Gennaro festooned with dollar bills walk by on Mulberry and Grand. I was “Shabbos goy” for the Yiddish speaking Weissmans on Catherine Street. I was also “El Padrino” for the baptism of the son of the Rosarios. In the big Baptist church. I delivered a eulogy for the beloved mother of the Harris Family. And, as was the custom, I bowed before the deceased Momma Chan and burned incense while visiting the grieving Chan Family at the Ng Fook funeral home, the once former Italian bank and Italian American funeral home.
It was a full lifetime that I walked along those bustling streets. That only increased my love and dedication to those that lived and toiled and called it their home; where I witnessed viscerally, the grim faces, the fearful eyes and the anxieties of the new sojourners. I wanted them, these newcomers, to have what I had; loving parents in an extended family, a neighborhood of diverse folk from foreign lands—all edifying and enriching each other through their unique cultural ways, languages and forms of worship. I worked to foster their freedom and how to be full-fledged Americans. But I also share their hopes and celebrated their stupendous accomplishments, which were the same as those of my late grandfathers. They arrived here—each alone—more than 100 years ago. Their faces I never saw but could only guess from the possible resemblances of four brothers and four sisters and members of a large extended family.
But most of all, through personal example, I shared my fervent belief in a Church that guided and taught me to value the dignity of every person as was exemplified by the likes of Pierre, Elizabeth, Felix, Frances Xavier, Dorothy and Rose. (Go ahead! Take a guess who they were).
VJP
I don't need to guess. They were saints and "near-saints" who worked tirelessly on behalf of immigrants, workers and the poor. His adopted patron being Francis Xavier Cabrini. Better known as Mother Cabrini, an Italian-American nun. And that Dorothy, is Dorothy Day. Best known for her social action efforts with the Catholic Worker Movement.
Victor's cremains now rest in the catacombs of St. Patrick's Old Cathedral on Mulberry St. Where else.
March 4, 1881
When men of mien wore muttonchops
and you were the belle of the inaugural ball
James A. Garfield flirted with you.
The twentieth President of the United States
said how lucky a young man I was as he swept you
clear across the floor. The minions parted.
Your goldenrod gown was a whirl of taffeta,
as the eyes of a nation and spouses were upon you.
Lucretia in her gown of lavender lace
that in time would fade to an oyster white—
now on display at the Smithsonian as I speak—
smiled, fulfilling, the vow of First Ladies.
And I played my good-natured card to her ace.
I remember the applause when your grand waltz was over.
And how later in the backroom over a snifter of brandy
and the good coarse smoke of fresh-cut cigars
the theme was reprised of your beauty…my lucky stars.
His assassination soon after would wound you forever.
---Ron Vazzano
As is my custom each year, I went to get ashes last month on Ash Wednesday.
Is there anything more visceral than having the sign of the cross smeared on your forehead accompanied by this admonition (as once intoned in Latin by the priest):
Memento homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris.
Or in essence…
Remember that thou art dust, and to dust you shall return.
Cute.
But, you don't have to be Christian… you don’t have to believe in an afterlife… you don't have to believe in God (or gods for that matter), to be rocked by such a stark reminder of your mortality. And the implicit questions that such a reminder evokes.
But all this is not the irony to which I refer in the above title. No, the irony that struck me on that day came from a comic (cosmic?) experience I had a little later that evening.
To set the stage, I begin with an underlying observation: we live in an era, where so many people now seem to be resorting to extreme flesh-altering measures, to make a statement and/or get attention. From tortuous tattooing to heavy metal piercing… and all the variations on a theme, somewhere in between.
And that Political Correctness dictates—especially here in "cutting edge" LA— that we not stare or pass judgment on any of the skin "art", Martian hairdos, surgically induced sexual transmutations, or whatever else we encounter on a daily basis, that might strike us as odd. To each his own. A small case in point being right here at a local coffee emporium.
The barista, a sweet young woman named Ginger, has a skin surface that is busier than a page from the Sunday comics. And at least as colorful. Everywhere, a tattoo. She in turn, takes a latte order from a steady customer who walks in with an ivory ring— the size of a toilet seat— hanging from his nose. Oh, but he is after all, barefoot and wearing tribal robes. So that must explain it.
And no one in the place seems to notice. So intense is the no one noticing, that you can actually see and hear, no one noticing. Ginger doesn't notice he has a toilet seat in his nose; he reciprocates in kind, by not noticing that Ginger looks like a newspaper.
Now with all this as background, and on the way to dinner that evening, I overhear some hip-hop macho types in the parking lot, mumbling something like: "Yeah man, those are like ashes he's got. They do that."
This is followed shortly thereafter, by allegedly sophisticated folk in an upscale restaurant, being positively transfixed by the sight of the smudge on my forehead. Dracula would have been more comfortable with this black mark of a cross, than these Mulholland Grill gapers.
I wanted to stand up and announce to the assemblage: "IT IS ASH WEDNESDAY. These are ashes. And sorry to say, yes, I happen to be Catholic. A highly unfashionable faith these days, I realize. Especially given, this wondrous New Age in which we live. But so be it. Please continue with your meal. I by no means meant to offend."
Irony Among the Ashes
In keeping with a theme that has evolved in the writing of this month’s "Muse" — in the main, a sort of time travel as personally experienced or imagined— I’m reprising a piece from March of 2007. Only 17 years ago. A hop, skip and a jump in the time continuum in which we’ve been slotted.
Not that an excuse is needed for such an exercise. I'll often go back in time as a means of offering a context, perspective or contrast, to that which characterizes the way we live in the current day. Where invariably in so doing, ironies abound. Another obsession I harvest throughout the year. Here goes.
Remembrance of a Moment
with Chita Rivera at Backstage
When I heard a couple of weeks ago, that Chita Rivera had died (Electrifying Star of Broadway and Beyond, Is Dead at 91... The New York Times), I harkened back (the only direction in which to harken, as one can never harken forward), to a time and place that seems as if from another planet. One I will call, the Planet of the Angst. A landscape through which I roamed while in the process of moving on, and into, an uncertain major life transition. Which was precipitated by a marital breakup in conjunction with a need for a career change. And in one night in 1980 that would follow, I happened upon Chita Rivera at what was then, THE restaurant/piano bar in New York—
A bit of a backstory on Backstage. It was unpredictable. You never knew what entertainment legend might walk in. To drop a few weighty names of which I've heard tell, Richard Burton, Carol Channing, Rock Hudson, Ethel Merman, Debbie Reynolds, Gloria Swanson, Elizabeth Taylor, Mel Torme, Lana Turner. None of whom I'd come across in the five or six times I'd been there. Though on one night, I did give a nod to Helen Hayes, who entered with the sort of regal bearing that you'd expect of the Grand Dame of the Theater. She was accompanied by her son James MacArthur of Hawaii Five-O fame(?). And yes, there was Chita Rivera.
And you never knew who might get up and sing, alongside that white baby grand piano, played with aplomb by Steve Ross; the ordained “crown prince of Manhattan piano.”
Liza Minelli for example. Whose impromptu “concert” I missed by a couple of nights, when she had popped in unexpectedly. And there was still a buzz about it. Ginger Rogers was another.
On this one particular night, Ms. Rivera was sitting with Backstage owner Ted Hook, when I somehow felt it was perfectly fine to approach her. Supposing, I suppose, that though a Broadway legend, she gave off such a just-folks vibe. Just a Latina from The Bronx? A real New Yorker! So, as she welcomed me, I took a seat and began to chat.
Backstage was once noted in the press as to have been “a perpetual party when New York really was the city that never sleeps. The kitchen stayed open until 3:00 AM; the popular Chita Bita, a rum cocktail named for Chita Rivera, was available at the bar until 4:00 AM."
I did not know of such a drink, nor was it anywhere near that wee hour, while I was seated with Ms. Rivera. Who was charming, gracious and totally unassuming. And who at one point, did assume the role of my therapist. Upon picking up on my angst about leaving The City... “Why do you want to leave New York? Stay in New York” she said, with much gusto. To which I replied, “If I had the talent of Chita Rivera, I would.” To which she laughed. (I had once been an aspiring Broadway stage actor.)
I guess the encounter could not have lasted more than fifteen...twenty minutes? Now, some 44 years later, I’ve been reminded of it again, upon hearing of her passing. And still have the note she wrote on a piece of paper as I was leaving that night.
Chita Rivera. Thank you for giving me the time of day. Or in that case...of night. I needed it. Rest in peace.
muse-letter \’myüz-‘le-tər noun
1: a personal message, inspired by a muse of one's own creation, in the course of which, the sender becomes absorbed in thought, especially turning something over in the mind meditatively and often inconclusively.
2: a letter from one who envisions oneself as a poet as such, "musing" on that which is perceived to be news, or newsworthy, usually in some ironic or absurd way.
Nov. 2004-2018
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