Albino Alligators?

Oswaldo “Bob” Barbosa was a Puerto Rican albino who Alma had met at the IHB. He sported a big blonde Afro, wore metal glasses like Al’s, and was an intellectual type who turned us on to his favorite pastimes: chess and drugs. Although he was sorely lacking in training on a traditional set (his mastery of the timbales finally manifested itself with the New York Pimps), he was our first drummer and drifted in and out of the lineup on a regular basis. He struck up a relationship with Sonia Martinez and they got married shortly thereafter. They remained the First Couple of the Spoiler Empire until they broke up in ’78. Bob was very congenial but was notoriously stingy and went out of circulation shortly after their sons, Jentry and Andre, were born. When I saw the price of diapers when Benny Rock’s daughter was born, it was easy to understand why. Nevertheless, Bob and I hit it off from the beginning, and I considered him a close personal friend until his untimely death on October 26, 2010 at the age of 57.

Many of our new acquaintances happened to be albinos. It’s a rare condition resulting from miscegenation. Mary Vasquez came back in and joined Alma and Sonia in our new dancing group, the Leatherettes. Bob’s sister Lily eventually came in with us much later as part of the Ducky Boys. There was also Ritchie, a strapping fellow who actually bought a car though he was disqualified from holding a license because of his visual impairment common to albinos. At any rate, our infrastructure was growing and it gave us enough confidence to continue our quest for rock stardom.

Spoiler II was more of a bonding experience than anything. Bob got an apartment in Red Hook on the block where Sonia lived, and it became a new hangout for us. Bob and Al grew very close, though Bob and Sonia recruited Alma and me as maid of honor and best man. Bob was the one who institutionalized chess with us. I had played with Israel a while back, and Al was also familiar with the game. We taught Alma to play and, as my practice dummy, she grew to be a powerful player in time that embarrassed quite a few fellows. Years later, with the Ducky Boys, it was common to come by after practice and see as many as four games in progress in a room full of beer and marijuana smoke.

Our biggest score was at Bob’s sister Lily’s birthday party. They got me off my butt and down to the Barbosas, where the entire clan was there for the occasion. The family was as astonished as those attending our first gig. I was swirling the mic at that show and popped Lily in the head. Nevertheless, they found us quite entertaining and it gave me the encouragement I needed to get back in the swing of things.

Psychologically, I was in dire straits. It took me a couple of decades to sort it all out. Here we have an ex-jock, badly out of shape with thinning hair, an untrained voice and no songwriting experience, creating a history of substance abuse. My parents were undoubtedly shocked at what was going on, and it was reflected in their own alcohol abuse. Of course, I can’t take full credit for this, but I’m sure I did have a lot to do with enabling them. I was also in desperate need of social approval though it seemed I was doing my utmost to alienate people. If Lou Reed was being chronicled as being the biggest bastard in rock, I was determined to be the underground’s top son of a bitch. This wasn’t the best way to make friends and influence people, and it would cost us dearly down the line. Fortunately the inner circle stuck with me through thick and thin, bless them all.

Louie eventually returned to the fold and we decided that we were now Spoiler III. I was hitting a personal low, most likely than not being because I was channeling a man whose own career was spiraling towards self-destruction. Lou Reed had turned into a unisexual speed freak that was becoming an underground laughing stock, as was I. The impact was never as deeply as felt as when I summoned the courage to make a play for Debbie Cantrell.

Debbie was a lovely JAP (*Jewish American Princess) who was part of Lily Snyder’s personal harem of female clerks at ISO. Lily was a bad-tempered drunk who took her husband’s death out on every male person in her environment. My opinion was that she may have well sent the poor soul to an early grave. At any rate, Debbie was well-insulated by Lily and Sharon Mauss, a hirsute Jewess who also ruled the roost among the office hens. I still didn’t have the confidence to move in and make my play, and it wasn’t until she came by and ribbed me about Judy one day that I thought I had a better chance than a snowball in hell with her.

I overheard office gossip to the extent that Debbie was dating a married man, something that I may or may not have been able to talk her out of. At any rate, when he ditched her, she had a nervous breakdown and never came back to ISO. Fortunately for me, I had her address on a Christmas card list (no such thing as privacy issues in 1975!), so I sent word that I wanted to visit. I was overjoyed when she invited me over!

Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. I brought over a bottle of Sangria, dressed in one of my Lou Reed costumes, and anyone in a solid state of mind would have realized that this was not going to get me to first base. We had a kitchen-and-garden conversation on the front porch that lasted about fifteen minutes before she said goodbye. I was deeply depressed throughout the holidays, and what I nearly got out of it a rock opera. “The Ballad of Debbie Dimples” was influenced by both Reed’s Berlin as well as a novel I wrote, “Angie and the Jets”, inspired by…yep, you guessed it. Neither were bad pieces of work, but didn’t have the kind of polish required from a psych-twisted twenty-two year old. They slipped through the cracks, but you never know what the future holds. As for Debbie, well, she’s history, and I hope she got the breaks I always thought she deserved. She was one lovely girl.

I remained at Insurance Services Office throughout this time, and the repercussions of my evolution were being felt at my workplace. A black fellow named Oscar Madden came on the scene. He was 6’4” with 18” arms, the biggest I had personally seen at the time (I’d pump mine up to 19” first in SA then again in KC). He was an ex-football player, a bully and loudmouth who lifted weights. He began hanging with Jerome and I, but eventually started getting pushy and even popped me on the arm one time. BT Superstar would have not stood for it, but Dizon slunk off as a lone wolf.

I began smoking dope regular at work and it was beginning to show, but I cared less. Eventually Oscar quit the company and Jerome and I regrouped, though things were no longer the same. Instead of going straight to lunch with him, I’d go off to smoke, then meet him later. Funny thing, Oscar and I kept in touch, and he would come by the house to lift weights once in a while. Once he came by when I was away and began flirting with Alma, who kept house when I was out so we could stay open for the band members. My Mom was in the hallway tidying and she was getting upset as the overture continued. Suddenly there was a cry and she rushed to investigate. As it turned out, both women had to haul a 225-pound barbell off Oscar’s chest as he’d gotten stuck. I never saw him again after that.

I’m not sure what the logic was, but after Louie left again we became Spoiler IV. I think it was a case of us being so irate over Lou’s disappearing acts that we decided to wipe the slate clean each time. Only there was such a discrepancy between what we sounded like with and without him, there wasn’t much of a choice but to let him back in. Especially because he had a new riff or instrumental each time he showed up. He was constantly jamming around and picked up every trick he could learn, and that kid was an extremely fast learner. Sherry Smith, one of his successors, was convinced that he slept with his guitar.

I think part of the reason why I had become such a screw-up was because of the fact that the band was going nowhere, and at that point I had put all my eggs in that one basket (where they would remain until the end of the Ducky Boys). By channeling myself into Lou Reed, maybe it was a way to keep Broadway Turk Superstar from taking the blame for failure. It would eventually take Superstar to get the ship back on course, but the Turk would have to be completely reinvented, and this poor Dizon bastard was hardly in shape to get that done at the time.

Anyway, I was still writing songs, some of which would make the lineup a couple of years later, like “Satan”, and some that would resurface decades later, like “Office Man”. Actually I was in an extremely prolific period but couldn’t get a whole lot going due to Al’s limitations. Still, we churned out almost two sets of new songs but there wasn’t enough musical proficiency to make them work. Bob’s arrhythmic drumming style wasn’t helping matters either. We needed Lou’s lead playing ability, and when he came scratching at the door again, well, it was it was a case of the breadwinner back at the widow’s house.

When Louie resurfaced, we decided to call it Spoiler V. I suppose Spoiler IV had become too much of a running joke. This was another transitional period during which Louie and Al were sharpening their claws on one another and eventually forming a good guitar team overall. They would sit in the practice room and smoke dope, then Lou would entreat Al to play some double leads with him. I told them I had written a song called “War of the Worlds” that could use a motif where the lead guitars would be like two enemy fleets meeting on outer space. They jumped all over it but, at that point in time, it was more like the Spanish Armada coming across Huckleberry Finn’s raft. To his credit, Al would have given him a far better run for his money in three years’ time.

Robert Echevarria was another visually-challenged albino kid who drifted into Alma’s IHB network. He was a real grungy fellow who would remind me a lot of a pudgy Johnny Rotten, replete with matted hair, pasty skin, worn clothing, body odor and green teeth. He showed up just in time for Louie to reappear at the Surrealistic Death, and got recruited as the new Spoiler bassist for Spoiler V. This was the first full band we had since the Verdict, and, as the Lord would have it, a gig opportunity came along at El Bolero.

(To be continued...)

Chasing The Dream?

By the end of ’73 everything suddenly began grinding to a halt. Jerome quit drinking, which somewhat curtailed our fellowship (and should’ve told us how shallow our relationship was). Since our crew had disintegrated, Alma and I remained afloat on a sea of alcohol wondering where we would drift to next. I threw in with the Jehovah’s Witnesses and they came pretty close to inculcating me, but it seems that the Holy Ghost kept me from making a full commitment. My personal appearance was beginning to reflect my inner turmoil, and I distinctly recall the poor soul who accompanied the Merceds to the home of their new friends, the Rocks, on Christmas Eve of 1973. I still had long hair and a beard, wearing one of the Jurczaks’ woolen collegiate sweater, my faded purple flowered shirt, the Merceds’ gray patterned bellbottoms, and my worn black-and-silver platform boots. What a mess.

Chico Rock was as bizarre a figure as I was at the time. I had no inkling that he would eventually become one of the most cherished friends of my lifetime. He was slightly over five feet tall and had a strong Filipino accent. As it turned out, he was a veteran of three wars (WWII, Korea and Vietnam) with the Rangers and the Green Berets, and earned three Bronze Stars and a Purple Heart cluster. He had a steel plate in his head, multiple bullet scars and a big chunk of shrapnel damage to his calf muscle. What really ruined his life, though, was a gang attack on his way home from law school. They nearly killed him, and it made him question the value of what he had risked his life for all those years. Chico was as much a rebel as I was, and in time we ignited a kindred spirit within us.  

            I was in a total state of flux in ’74. I started hanging out with Jerome again on Friday nights and getting drunk with Alma on weekends, but nothing else seemed to be happening. I quit Scorpion Karate and was teaching a class I usurped from some wannabe karate teacher at Strong Place Baptist Church. I came in drunk one night and found grown-up Hector Garcia and Pete Matos in class. We had a fine session but, unfortunately, at class end, our customary free fight turned into a brawl between me and Pete. I nearly broke his rib to get the best of him, and I still regret it to this day.

            Needless to say, I was drifting in a sea of angst with nowhere to go. The Alice Cooper Band had broken up, as had the New York Dolls, and American pop culture was in as bad a state as I was. Movies like Godfather II and Lenny were reminders of how crappy things were. I wasn’t sure of who I was or where I was headed. Yet, God was still watching, and, once again, He allowed my life to be saved by rock and roll.

Louie Cazucci was barely thirteen when Chi Chi Guzman brought him around that Fall of ‘74. He was a tall lanky kid with a pasty face and two of the biggest hands on a kid we’d ever seen (reminding me some time later of the immortal Russian composer Rachmaninoff). He was a guitarist in Bay Ridge who had put out the word that he was looking for a wild man to front his new rock band. Louie came from a dysfunctional family, his Mom a psych patient who had moved in with a hardcore NYPD self-defense instructor named Dick Freeman. Dick gave Louie a tough time and we all saw signs of mental trauma but, back then, people minded their own business in such matters. Unfortunately, Louie saw me as a father figure and I handled it very badly with my own psych problems, resulting in him lumping me in with the rest of the abusive authority figures in his life. Just as with Jeremy Lara over thirty years later, the Lord gave me a great chance to change a younger person’s life and I failed. Sorry Lord, sorry Louie, sorry Jeremy…sorry-ass Turk.

When he propositioned me to sing for him, I jumped into it like a dying man at a desert oasis. Louie brought in Stu Shapiro, a mollycoddled Jewish kid on his block who played bass. Louie had a 30-watt Ampeg and a Frankenstein guitar (made from parts of dead axes, much like our drum sets of days to come). Stu had a quality bass and amp, so it was my turn to ante. I ran out and bought a mic and a 10-watt amp at a downtown variety store, then made a call to Johnny De Losa, who in turn called his friend Al.

Al Catraz was a dorky Cuban kid who was a classmate of Johnny De Losa’s. He wore metal-framed glasses and flashed a beaver-toothed grin, his frizzy brown mane badly in need of a haircut. Like myself, he bore little resemblance to the underground punk rock star he would become five years later. His earliest guitar influences were BB King and Eric Clapton (who would be two of my own thirty years later), and his claim to fame was having played onstage at Bishop Loughlin during a student festival. Over time, there was a competition between Al and Louie that never was resolved. The Spoiler atmosphere was always a problem as well in that it was both musical and macho. One had to be both talented and tough to build status, and sometimes, as in that case of Zing, attitude could be better than aptitude. Al finally achieved his status, but it was as a Ducky Boy five years later. What he did have at the time was a 100-watt amp and a Les Paul guitar, which gave him permanent resident status as a Spoiler.

As always, my delusions of grandeur would know no limits. Dreams of stardom filled my head and I invited Baron Sanders along with my parents down for an open session, which greatly impressed them considering there was no inkling that such a thing as a band would have ever existed beforehand. I wasted no time in heading out to our old drinking spot, the Verdict, and talked the manager into letting us play at their Christmas party. That turned out to be the biggest train wreck in my life at the time.

We got there and enthusiastically set up, with all our parents (except Al’s, who didn’t drink) en route for the second set. What I failed to notice at the outset was that the place was actually a cop bar with plenty of off-duty detectives in attendance. Naturally, being the naïve oaf I was at the time, I went into my Lou Reed act straight out of Rock and Roll Animal (still my fave guitar album of all time) and, of course, “Heroin”, with the mock shoot-up and all. Only I had accumulated the actual works to make it more realistic. In this day and age, the cops would have probably taken me down for possession of drug paraphernalia, but back then, we simply had our plug pulled.

Of course, when our folks got there, Mary, the manager, had no choice but to let us resume. Yours truly, being as pigheaded as Day One, decided to start the show from scratch (which, to my credit, I would never do again). This time, it was outraged parents who yanked us off, first Stu Shapiro then Johnny De Losa. Having no bassist was a non-issue; no drummer was something neither Lou, Al or I anticipated. With Broadway Turk Superstar in hibernation, the neophyte Dizon character broke into tears, folded his tent and slunk off into the night.

Louie’s mom Ruth was there, and I recall her being quite the card at the show. As I mentioned, she had a hard life but refused to surrender, like the rest of us. She was an attractive woman and, believe it or not, we had a liking for each other. It never went anywhere since, for one, I wasn’t as confident with the ladies as I pretended to be until much later in life. Secondly, if Dick Freeman had caught on, he might’ve made life far more complicated for me than it already was. Still, we were always on great terms and we had our share of intimate conversations. I will always have a soft spot in my heart and fond memories of that lovely and lively woman.

At any rate, I fired Stu and Johnny, after which Louie went AWOL, leaving Al, Alma and I wondering what to do next. Alma stepped up to the plate, as she would so many times over the years, and brought in some connections from her school days as well as her time at the IHB (Industrial House for the Blind, which catered to the visually-impaired). All at once, we found ourselves surrounded by a cast of new and unusual recruits.

(To be continued...)

Judy In Disguise?

Brushing myself off from that skirmish, I set out on a spiritual quest for truth, comparing different doctrines and even breaking bread (or shredded coconut) with the Hare Krishnas on Kane Street to learn more about the different manifestations of God across the earth. I even listened to some post-Beatles music from its ex-members to pick up something from their own spiritual quests. All I found was the alchemy of the Devil as he creates gold from garbage, to which it soon returns. I could still not find a Church home, but knew that as long as I stayed loyal to Christ as a soldier of God, everything would work together to His glory. In time, it most certainly did.

After that unforgettable summer of ‘73, I made a commitment to Scorpion Karate which laid the foundation for future events to come. Lea was dating one of the instructors at the club, John Pineda, who invited me by to work out a few times. With the lull in the action within the clique, I decided to give it a decent go this time. I saw myself as the John Saxon character in Enter the Dragon, even though the self-styled Creator, Alfonso Rivera, nicknamed me the Wrestler. I took to wearing my judo gi from Loughlin which was far more durable than my new karate jacket and much warmer throughout the Brooklyn winter.

My previous karate experience was entirely visual, coming from the kung-fu movies that were all the rage at the time. I remember throwing a kick at Mingo one time and he dumped me right on my ass! I also had a sparring match with one of the kids at the club shortly after joining, and he pulled up short of kicking my teeth down my throat. I had a long way to go, but I was a quick learner and made up ground in a short time. It got to the point where I was roughing up everyone in the club up to brown belt level. After I got jobbed out of a first-place trophy at a local tournament, I lost interest and began running classes of my own in my backyard and up at Strong Place Church. I got a yellow belt out of it, but would not progress until earning two brown belts over three decades later.

The clique was still styling and profiling in the ‘hood, and I was drifting away from my athletic pursuits once again until I found a good reason to keep myself in good shape. It came in the form of a beautiful blonde who would keep my rep as a ladies’ man (in the footsteps of my dad and Granddad before me) alive and well for time to come.

Judy Emmick was a lovely blonde from Connecticut whose ideal romance with the high-school soccer star was wrecked along with his car in a driving accident. Our chit-chat during business calls from ISO to Hartford Insurance led to personal mail that resulted in a couple of weekend trysts between us. People were astonished that I had been able to set up such a deal over the phone with such a beautiful woman, and, sadly enough, so was I. It was another sad example of me not believing in myself; elsewise, there would have been plenty more where she came from. I seemed to have been so afraid of failing in the forest that I did not focus on the individual trees. At any rate, Judy and I had a memorable time together before I bitterly realized that our ships would never continue in the same direction. She came from a different world, and her family and friends in Hartford would never accept a karate-fighting wiseguy wannabe, which is where I was at that point of time.

Unfortunately I was still caught between a rock and a hard place trying to reinvent myself. I continued to draw inspiration from the underworld bullies that captured my imagination (along with that of dozens of other would-be tough guys in the ‘hood), as well as the movie board-breakers who were all the rage in that day. Since I wasn’t about to risk my future carrying a gun around in NYC, I relied on a big 007 blade along with my martial arts tactics. Of course, none of this would help me realize any of my life ambitions, but I clung to what I had nonetheless.

Around this time I was studying my reflection in a subway train window and I was shocked to see signs of male pattern baldness. For someone with my fragile ego and sense of esthetics, it was a tragic situation, but suicide was not an option. It took Neysa Flores to help me deal with it thirty years later, but until then I spent my entire adult life violently protecting and defending my ‘condition’. In turn, it was all about Vitalis hair spray in public, BT’s Spitfire cap and Superstar’s black mask under the spotlight. If only a Neysa had come along and got me to shave it all off. Well, pride goeth before a fall, and only the Lord knows how many times I’ve fallen on bad hair days.

Looking back, it seems as if cutting my ties to Judy and coming to grips with my receding hairline brought me to a low point in time. Mind you, I had no serious plans for Judy, but having her out of the picture brought my romantic prospects back to ground zero. I was also faced with the possibility that I might not be as attractive or able to seek out partners as lovely as her (or better) in future. My hair did quite a bit to enhance my looks, and even in my forties I was still what the women considered ruggedly handsome. You could not have sold that notion to a kid in his early twenties, however, and I did not see my situation getting better any time soon.

With nothing but ISO and a martial arts degree in my immediate future, there was no doubt that I had to make something happen. Nonetheless, it seemed as if prospects were vanishing faster than looming on the horizon, and I knew I would have to make something happened soon if I were to amount to anything more than a senior rate clerk in the Special Rating Unit. 1973 was flashing before my eyes, and it looked like things were going to hell in a handbasket.

Little did I know that my hopes would soon be on the Rocks, as you shall see.

(To be continued...)

The Truth Shall Set You Free?

Going back to the Summer of ’72, it was an idyllic time with the Cat Pack, which was Georgie, Alma, Mingo and Jerome Browne, along with assorted guest stars which included future Leatherettes Sonia Martinez and Mary Vasquez, as well as Ramon Merced and Marvin “Mad Dog” Brown. The reason I call it the Cat Pack is because we spent most of our time lazing about bars and lounges, spending lots of money to be pampered by bartenders and barflies. We had lots of good times, but there was one more member that truly made it a summer to  remember.

Around that time, Alma’s aunt came up from Puerto Rico, and for a time she was my main squeeze. Carmen was a widow who happened to be the youngest sister of Nery, Mingo and the rest of the Alindato clan. She must’ve been in her late thirties when she came to visit the Merceds, and it was a summer I would never forget. She was another woman with the lovely face and hourglass figure I kept coming across, but she was reluctant to get involved with such a younger guy (they would’ve called her a cougar by today’s standards). She made my blood race but, as a young dumbass, I didn’t know how to handle the situation. We messed around with one another but I blew every opportunity until she returned to PR, never to return. Over a decade later she was bitten by a poisonous insect and had her arm amputated, after which she died of a broken heart. It was a terrible tragedy and I only hope she was right with the Lord when she left us.                    

We caroused everywhere, from Flatbush Avenue (Jerome’s turf) to Hobnails in Bay Ridge (where Sue Swingle from ISO hung out), Brooklyn Heights to Red Hook, and Wall Street to Greenwich Village. We spent money like no tomorrow and closed countless bars after 4 AM. We still had Mary Vasquez, a cute albino girl who would later (along with Alma and Sonia) become one of the original Leatherettes, and Marvin “Mad Dog” Brown, a lowbrow Jewish fellow who was one of the supervisors at ISO. He had an exaggerated duckfooted walk, perpetually toked his cherry pipe, and had a knack for tossing off outrageous one-line insults and remarks as quick as I did. All in all, we were quite the motley crew, and sadly enough, it was all too good to last.

After Carmen left for Puerto Rico, Georgie discovered marijuana and slowly began drifting towards that kind of crowd. He started missing work and quit helping with the bills, and after one hiatus he returned days later to find his bags neatly packed for him. We remained friends but eventually he went back to PR and was never seen again. The rest of us remained weekend warriors but we weren’t as far and widespread as we had been with Georgie and his jalopy.

Unfortunately I would see the same psychological scarring that Kenny displayed a couple of years later when we crossed paths. Georgie was remote and had little allegiance to anyone or anything. He probably was as close to me as anyone else he knew, and I think that said a lot. I did everything I could to help him fit in, but sometimes those neuroses are so ingrained over time that nothing makes a dent. He put up a wall and would let no one in, plain and simple.

He left on a real sour note when I found that he and the boyfriend of the previous occupant of my apartment broke into the top floor apartment rented by Carlos and Tita Franchesci. They were an attractive couple who I really liked, though Carlos had a rep for running around on Tita. She was a sexy redhead built like a brick outhouse. He had made a few remarks about her putting on too much weight, but for the life of me I never saw a problem. I fantasized about her for years but never did more than interrupt her pre-shower time by bringing up her mail when she came home from work. Plus, I liked Carlos a lot, and it really pissed me off when I found out what Georgie did. Still, I always thought of Georgie as a brother and forever will.

It was around that time that I came to a major religious crossroads in my life that would leave its scars but eventually lead to one of the most profound spiritual epiphanies of my life. I began studying with a Jehovah’s Witness named Carlos (yep, another one), and he was one of the meekest men I’ve ever met though ablaze with fervor for the sect. Alma began studying with us and he brought us in about as deep as one can go without making a commitment. He was painstaking in his research, as was the entire Watchtower organization, whose world headquarters is in Brooklyn Heights alongside Suicide Hill. That was our name for a very steep downhill block along Hicks Street leading to a highway underpass, which the only most reckless cyclists would dare to attempt. At any rate, we were deep in Witness territory and barely managed to escape.

They were the ones who first exposed the Roman Church to me as the prophetic Babylon of the Apocalypse. They saw themselves as the One True Church, and even considered all Protestant religions as Christendom. They explained how all the Christian holidays had pagan connections as designed by the Vatican, and painstakingly proved it so that Alma and I stopped celebrating them entirely. It wasn’t until my first marriage, over twenty years later, before I celebrated another Christmas. We were sinking in as if in quicksand, and the only thing that kept us from being submerged was my absolute faith in Jesus Christ as Lord.

You see, the Witnesses believe in Jesus as ‘a’ son of God as opposed to THE Son of God. They are strict monotheists who recognize no doctrine proving a Blessed Trinity. Their Douay-like Bible spells the Holy Ghost in small letters, denying there is such a Person, seeing Him only as God’s ‘active force’. This was causing major discord in my soul, and Carlos decided to write out a ten-page discourse showing how, chapter and verse, Jesus was not God and there was no Holy Ghost person.

It was the Holy Ghost Himself who refused to let that happen. He yanked my heart strings so violently that I felt as if I was denying God Almighty, which, in fact, I would have been. Try as he might, Carlos could not dissuade me from believing in the Deity of Christ, and I told him so before we finally parted ways. When I made my declaration, I was overcome by a wave of Holy Ghost power that fully assured me I had made the right choice.

It was no coincidence that the Witnesses were at the pinnacle of their influence around the world. They had some hardcore ministers who were at the top of their game, taking the planet by storm, and their sect was growing by leaps and bounds. My suspicion was that many more Christians besides myself were being taken to the arena worldwide, and the Holy Ghost acted mightily to cut through the darkness with the Sword of Truth, which is the Word of God. They began peaking by the end of the decade, and by the time I rededicated myself to the ministry in the 90’s, they were just another sect of eccentrics.

One thing I can pass on to Christians struggling with their faith: the Truth will always prevail in making itself known. Believers should never avoid debate, discourse or false doctrine in asserting the veracity of the Word of God. Regardless of how impeachable evidence appears to the contrary, the Truth will always win out. The fact of the matter is that the Bible (in its most authentic King James version) is absolute Truth, and if one part of it is false, then the entire document collapses. This is why so many books were edited out of the Scripture when the Holy Ghost directed the compilation under King James. Scholars from around the world were brought together to research and compare every Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek document known to man in order to piece together the unbroken and perfect Word of God. It is the complete Old Testament of the Hebrews, preserved over six thousand years, together with the New Testament of the Gospels, the Epistles of Paul and the writings of the Apostles. It is a perfect Book with no inconsistencies, and any and all that contradict it have been long since discarded. With such a weapon in one’s arsenal, how can one ever fail in battle against the dark side?

(To be continued...)

The Better Half?

I took a couple of plane trips around this time, the first to visit my Grandpa in 1972 and then to visit my Aunt Marge in 1973. Visiting Teodulfo Dizon was quite an experience. He was still a strict, disciplined man though the years had mellowed him quite a bit. Matter of fact, I found him to resemble the Koreans I would meet three decades later in their characteristic inscrutability. Though he had left the Orient over sixty years ago, he still maintained its ways and style, as if clinging to the environment in which he was born and raised. It was also due to the military tradition in which he was steeped, from his childhood as a military brat to his time in American bases from San Pedro to Fort Sam Houston. Though he was a slender man weighing about 135, he was hard as a rock and had never missed a day of work in over fifty years.                          

It was a whirlwind week for me and I wish I had the maturity to have savored more time with him. I went out a few times with my cousin Linda, who had played roller derby in a local team before retiring due to a knee injury. She took me to a downtown gay bar (which were the height of fashion in the glitter rock era) and we drank it up with some of the best-known drag queens in town. I met my cousin Johnny, who Grandpa warned me about, but we hit it off and went out for an evening of pool and had a great time. I also went carousing with my cousin Lupe, who invited me to an after-work party that Friday and then to some local downtown spots. I would have never dreamed that I would relocate to San Antonio a decade later, and that Johnny, Lupe and I would become as the Three Musketeers as I built my new infrastructure.

Grandpa would eventually write down his memoirs in a short essay, which would become the foundation for my semi-biographical novel, Generations (as yet unpublished). He told me quite a bit about his life in San Pedro and confided in me in a manner that would have made the Four Brothers jealous. I wish I would have realized at the time that he was pouring his heart out to me in hoping I would be the keeper of his memory, which I certainly hope I am. I remember him cooking a delightful shrimp and rice entrée for dinner one evening, and can’t remember him serving up anything I didn’t like. That was a big difference from my first visit to SA as a weeun, as he and Mom got into a row over him trying to make me eat my first bowl of oatmeal!

I also found out he was a big wrestling fan. Unfortunately, he naturally cheered for the babyfaces, while I was overjoyed to see the Golden Greek, John Tolos on the tube as he tore up some jobber in short order. I imagine what he would have thought in watching his grandson as Broadway Turk Superstar using everything from chairs to ashtrays on opponents in the Texas Wrestling Association almost two decades later. Actually, he never saw one of Manny’s fights, most likely because he wouldn’t have been able to bear it. Grandma Stella, on the other hand, went to most of them.

His big thing was still poker, and on my last night he brought me to his friend’s home for their big weekly game. Linda and her friends had planned a big sendoff for me but there was no way I could refuse Grandpa. It was a penny-ante game and I got thoroughly shellacked. I’m a pretty good poker player, but in those games, they were calling almost a dozen wild cards per hand which reduced it to a game of chance rather than skill. This took away my bluffing game, which both Grandpa and our revered family friend Baron Sanders disdained. Grandpa never bluffed; Manny called Baron on a bluff one time and Baron’s face grew beet-red with embarrassment! At any rate, Broadway Turk wouldn’t make much of an impact as a poker player on that particular sojourn.

I found out just how ornery he was on the ride to the airport. We stopped off at a department store and I saw a hat similar to his fedora and wanted to buy it for him. He declined, but I insisted, and I was going to pick it out when he caught my wrist in his version of the Iron Claw. It was either twist free or relinquish, and my Grandpa won out. I should have mailed him one afterward, but, that’s a stupid kid for you. At any rate, it was one of the most cherished visits of my life. I wish the one a couple of years later with Manny had been more pleasant, but that was when worlds collided and the generation gap appeared as an earthquake in our relationship.

That next year I visited my Aunt Marge, and my relationship with the Sanders clan was on the decline soon afterwards though I wouldn’t realize it until years later. She considered herself the leader of the clan though my cousin Brooks’ wife Gloria confided in me that she feared her older sister Brooks (no misprint, quite a popular family name). She was initially pleased as punch to meet me again after over a decade, and I hit it off famously with her husband Vernon. I also got on well with Brooks and his family, and we were scheduled for a family get-together at his property on Lake Dallas. He had made his fortune in the construction business and was the clan’s only legitimate millionaire before going bankrupt in the 90’s.

Manny nearly gagged when I turned down a proposal from Brooks to join his firm as a representative with his South American field office during a visit with us at the Waldorf-Astoria a couple of years earlier. Of course, my head was full of fantasies of NHL or wrestling stardom, and I thought the world was an oyster before me. What I never understood was why Manny didn’t jump in as quickly as he did with the writing school rep a couple of years before that. He could have told Brooks that we needed time to reconsider, and even shipped my ass out with parental authority. Well, that was Manny for you. Brooks never reached out again, even when I was desperate for help with Mom at my side and my Year Zero EP in hand during our reunion visit in 1979.  

My fatal error came one afternoon after a long talk the previous evening in which I told her of recent family hassles due to my mother’s drinking problem. We planned lunch at a nearby Italian restaurant, leaving me to my lonesome as she went to have her hair done. I sucked up a half-case while listening to the Velvet Underground on her room-to-room stereo, writing a ballad called “Patti” about kidnapped newspaper heiress Patti Hearst (which had long since been misplaced and forgotten). When she finally got back I could barely read it back to her. She probably thought me quite the hypocrite, but should have seen the underlying problems. Yet I think it was more of a question of trying to stuff the skeletons back into the family closet.

The problem with the nouveau riche is that they think their crap don’t stink when, actually, what they fear and despise most about others is what they see deep inside themselves. That holds true for most people as I found through my psychiatric studies. This is why they marginalized my Uncle Vernon, a fine man who overcame his drinking problem. They kept him forever in the background at our reunions, and I spent most of my time there with him. Not the best way to score brownies with the Sanders clan.

Payback time came in 1985 at the Hyatts’ wedding which was hosted at the Abbotts’ home in Fort Worth. I drove up with Debbie Von and we saw my parents emerging from a vehicle in front of the house just as they arrived from the airport. As it turned out, Mom was three sheets to the wind, Manny chalking it up to her fear of flying. This, of course, I discredited as a crock of shit as Mom had been an amateur pilot who had earned her wings in flight school back in the 40’s. She ranted and raved throughout the short evening as I did my best to refrain from laughing my ass off as Aunt Marge somehow maintained her composure.

There were a couple more reunions after that, a last hurrah at Lake Dallas in 1979 and a mini-reunion at the Hyatts in Cloudcroft in 1992. I was definitely the black sheep at Lake Dallas though they seemed more comfortable with the stylish wiseguy in the business suit in Cloudcroft. I drove up to Fort Worth with Bobby Bulldozer for Uncle Vernon’s funeral in 1992 a couple of months before the Hyatt reunion, and would have shown for Aunt Marge’s funeral a few years later if Lea Shithead had taken the time to notify me. We were on the outs by then after a spat between Duane and me at my first wedding in 1995, but I think it was more of a case of her wanting to sabotage my connection with the Sanders clan worse than it already was.

Money was always a case of sour grapes with her. She was never a hoarder or a tightwad, but she always loved being around those who had money, and wasn’t overly happy when her peers had more than she did. That was the main reason she stayed close to Brooks Abbott. His wife Gloria was a lovely woman and a great person but was highly suspicious of males in the clan, some of whom had come on to her more than a couple of times. Their son Clay was a great little kid but I suspect he went the way of Thumper Hyatt as he matured. I know that Brooks worshipped the kid and most likely brought him into the business, which bankrupted a few years later. Geez, I wonder why. At any rate, Brooks even had the Shitheads out to his resort home in Lake Tahoe a few times before he went under. I’ll bet they didn’t do much visiting after he lost everything.

(To be continued...)

The Surrealistic Death?

There was quite a cast of characters during my time at ISO. The Special Rating Unit was run by George Burkitt, a widower who had a rep for total distraction around the holidays (which was when he lost his wife). Ironically, he was a part-time hockey coach and tried to bring his rah-rah philosophy to work, which failed miserably among the motley crew that staffed his office. Fred Federer was his blue-collar supervisor who was also driven to distraction by Jerome and I, his juvenile delinquents. Most of the problem came after noon, when we returned from our liquid lunches. Lily Snyder was another widower and alcoholic who ran the Special Multi-Peril unit as her personal fiefdom. Her assistant, Sue Swingle, was a cute girl with a killer body whose boyfriend, John Ventrell, was a bigger asshole than Jerome and I. When he finally quit, everybody hoped to hook up with Sue but she aspired to do better after Ventrell, with Lily as Cerberus guarding her gates.

I could not mention this interlude in my life without giving due thanks to Captain Crunch, Lorrie Macoline. She thought of herself as a surrogate mother to me and Jerome, though more often than not she played the flunky. She came out drinking with us more than a few times, and sometimes we would bring along her would-be suitor, Phil Hellgott. Phil was an unkempt Jewish guy who had a terrible body odor that he claimed was caused by a skin disorder. We thought hygiene had a lot to do with it and teased him unmercifully for it, though he was a pretty good ribber himself. Another guy who hung with us at coffee break but never made the rounds was Nick Piccininni. He had a lot of charisma and had two particularly lovely Italian sisters coming by his desk on a regular basis though he was just recently married. Nick, Jerome and I would exchange vicious race-oriented ribs on a daily basis which were absolutely hilarious back then, but would have got us fired in this politically correct day and age.

One of those aforementioned sisters, Lillian, was a lovely girl with an incredible figure. She had long black hair and pale skin that made her look like a beautiful vampire. One of our pals, Florence Erdman, said she had Mick Jagger lips that made her look like a fish, though I disagreed. Florence was a widow who I think had an eye for me. She had great legs along with the face of a bulldog. Nevertheless, she decided to set me up with Lillian at the office Christmas party after a few drinks. I found myself riveted in my seat as she walked over without even looking back, and introduced Lillian to…the Invisible Man! Florence ribbed me soundly after that one, and I kicked myself over and over for that monumental screw-up. Chalk up another one to my insecurity and mortal terror of rejection, something that would follow me all the way until I reached Missouri at the end of my game of life.

Lorrie, as it turned out, was a spinster living with her parents who actually tossed almost every one of her paychecks directly into her savings account. She brown-bagged her lunch and dressed off the rack, and we could see her talking to herself when something pissed her off. She was quite a character, but she changed our lives considerably when she started giving us small loans which we never had to pay back. She took us out to some of the best restaurants for lunch now and again. Though it cost a pretty penny, I know she was in her glory going to places she would have never set foot in, with a couple of wiseguys who ensured the most obsequious service. Eventually she cut Jerome out of the deal but continued helping me out, which improved my quality of life immensely. I never really got to thank her for all the handouts, but I know that the Lord must have blessed her life tremendously for her selfless giving to His blissfully naive soldier.

I was extremely fortunate in having been able to exert my genius to the betterment of the department, which is why they kept me around for four years. I used my speed-reading ability to pore through insurance policies with ease (this was two decades before PC’s became everyday office items…microfiche, anyone?), plowed through basic math premium adjustments at light speed, and wrote detailed analyses of entanglements between brokers and rating bureaus across the country that we were empowered to resolve. It was all child’s play for one of my genius, but again I found in the world of business, where it’s not what you know but who you know. Nevertheless, I fought my way up the corporate ladder, making it to the level of Commercial Property/Casualty Underwriter before getting the ax in a power struggle at an insurance wasteland a decade later.

Another mainstay in my post-Jets/pre-Spoiler timeframe was Alma’s uncle. Mingo Alindato was Nery’s brother who had recently gone on hiatus from the Merchant Marines. His chronic alcoholism caused him to plummet from a respectable seaman to a useless drunk, and eventually sent him over the brink into premature senility. When he first came to Brooklyn, we hit it off immediately and became close drinking buddies. Unfortunately, I was too naïve to realize that such friendships are built on such flimsy foundations as to eventually prove insubstantial. He was an ex-boxer, which greatly enhanced his status in my eyes, and was a helluva pool player who got better the more he drank. Our friendship didn’t go sideways until sometime later when he drank the money he had said he would use to take our long-planned trip to Puerto Rico. We remained friends until he left NYC for Puerto Rico in the early 70’s, never having seen or heard me with the Spoiler. He passed away in the Spring of 2011 and he is fondly remembered by all who knew him.

About this time, our downstairs tenants decided to pull up stakes, and I asked Mom to rent the apartment to me. Manny was against it, figuring that he would lose money by losing my income as a household member even though he was going to be collecting rent off me from then on. I insisted, however, and eventually I became his downstairs tenant. Had he known what ungodly noise he would be enduring from that apartment for the next decade thereafter, I think he just might have second-guessed himself. Yet, when I asked Mom about it many years later, she said it brought her peace because she always knew exactly where we were.

Shortly after I moved downstairs, Lea showed up at the door one afternoon, and who was she with but George Reyes. George had changed so much since I last saw him I barely recognized him. He had matured into a tall, dark, handsome fellow replete with Christ-like hair, beard and mustache. We sat down over a case of beer, reminisced about the old days, speculated on the new, and before you knew it I had a new roommate.

One of the first things I did was paint the tiny living room black and decorated it with drawings and graffiti in Day-Glo. When I hooked up my black light, it was a prototypical hippie-like head room. I christened it the Surrealistic Death, and it became not only a favorite neighborhood hangout spot but eventually the Spoiler’s war room. Of course, that was two years ahead, and my father must have wondered what would become of his only son and his downstairs apartment in the meantime.

Along with Mingo and Alma, the four of us spent most of our time raising hell and having great times barhopping around the neighborhood. We rode with Alma’s dad Ramon for a time as we had over the past year (I’d pay for the beer and gas), but he and Georgie did not get along well. Georgie eventually bought a used car and we had a set of wheels with which to raise hell throughout the summer, so Ramon faded from the picture.

Not that I didn’t remain close to the Merceds, who became like a second family. Alma’s mom Nery was like a big sister to me. When I began visiting NYC after my move to TX, after I arrived at my parents’ home the first stop I made was Nery’s apartment. I always brought a bottle of wine, and those were the only times she ever indulged. She was an expert seamstress and made the wrestling cape I wore to the ring in Columbia Street I and II. She also made a fantastic pair of midnight blue leatherette jeans that I treasured for years though I had long since outgrown the size 30 waistline. She was always one of my biggest supporters up until she died of cancer in 1999. I have no doubt that she will be among those awaiting my arrival at the Pearly Gates when the Lord Jesus calls me home.

Ramon was always quite a character, and seeing him again when I visit NYC is like I’d left him just yesterday. He has a fantastic sense of humor and spends his time telling anecdotes about people in his life. Though he can be quite an earful to some, I find him hilarious and can listen to him all day. Back in the day, everyone in the Merced-Alindato clan eagerly looked forward to holidays as Nery and Ramon were the best cooks in the neighborhood bar none. Ramon also kept a large supply of alcohol on hand, and one attended a feast when visiting the Merceds on holiday.

Ray (who we called Junior for most of his life until he became a Dad with grownup kids) was a 98-pound weakling as a kid, resembling yours truly at the same stage of development. He grew up to be a ladies’ man with a great personality who acted as our head roadie for years until his personal life led him to turn the spot over to Richie Morales with the Ducky Boys in 1981. He was one of those people whose social network was all over the place, and he was always quick to help others and everyone liked him. He was a spunky kid who could handle himself and enjoyed exchanging ribs with me and Zing during the Spoiler-Ducky Boy era. Our relationship matured into brotherly love over the years and I’d give my life for him anyplace, anytime.

 Hector was a spoiled brat who the Jets nicknamed Naked Nick over his penchant for tearing off his clothes and running around the apartment buck naked during his Terrible Twos. As Nery’s child of her maturity, she let him get away with blue murder, unlike the stringent rules Alma and Ray were under. He grew up to become the neighborhood tough guy, building his rep over the years until he finally made his bones by beating BT Superstar in a hardcore match on Butler Street on November 19, 2004.  He got into a brawl on a Miami street in 2009 which he was nearly killed, and his injuries have left him as a BSWC paper champion. Ironically, he remains one of the last of the old crowd in Brooklyn along with Alma, Suli Rock and Richie Morales. Terri Thunders got to meet them at our 2010 reunion and it was truly a memorable event.

(To be continued...)

Off To Work?

Graduation Day in June 1972 was one of many special occasions for the family as my parents began realizing that our days as a happy unit were growing numbered. Lea and our parents came out for the ceremony at Loughlin before Manny took us to the Greek Village near Madison Square Garden to celebrate. Harry Naegele, one of the older guys in my classes, crossed our paths on the way to the ceremony. Inexplicably, he began goofing on Manny’s white suit, calling him the Good Humor man. Why Manny or I didn’t call him out is still a mystery; I think we were caught way off-guard. In this day and age I would’ve cold-cocked him and let Manny bail me out. In retrospect, I’d wager that Harry’s Dad no-showed and left him mad at the world. It was just another example of how blessed I was by my Heavenly Father to have given me an earthly one as great as Manny. Anyway, we had a great time at a Greek nightclub afterwards, and it came as a portent of a great episode in my life to follow.

One of my Mom’s drinking buddies got me a job at a bank on Wall Street shortly thereafter, and I was in heaven with my $110 weekly salary. I got along great with my co-workers, and we began meeting after hours on Friday at the local saloon. It was during this time that I met a beautiful Greek girl I would never forget.

Pam Kagabines was, after Judy Emmick, definitely one that got away. She was one of the new trainees at the bank where one of Mom’s drinking buddies got me my first job. She was a beautiful Greek girl with an hourglass figure, thick black hair and emerald eyes. I thought she had eyes on Ray, a handsome Sicilian fellow who I made friends with. Our clique went drinking one Friday night and we got separated from the pack, going off on our own. We kissed and petted by the end of the night, and I escorted her all the way back to her home in Queens. I got double-crossed at the bank shortly afterward and was fired, but Pam and I saw each other once more before she went off to college. We exchanged letters but it didn’t seem that she was interested in keeping things rolling between us. Looking back, I think a little bit more persuasion on my part wouldn’t have hurt matters any. Chalk another one up to my chronic lack of self-confidence back in the day.

My Mom was seriously up my ass for the rest of the summer, not having the sense to realize that job markets dry up during the summertime. I finally got a job at Insurance Services Office after Labor Day, after which I let Mom know in no uncertain terms how I resented being hounded by her and Manny for not having found one sooner. She realized she had hit a raw nerve and never got on me for going jobless again, though Manny more than made up for it when I hit a couple of rough spots over the next couple of years.

Depression is one of the most common ailments among society that is finally being addressed here in the 21^st century. Back in the day, one was simply seen as a lazy bastard feeling sorry for themselves when they got caught in a rut. What people back then failed to realize was the trauma people go through when they lose a job, or a loved one, or whatever other blessing they might have. I’m a firm believer in pulling oneself up by the bootstraps, but I’m also a seasoned fighter who knows how hard it is to get up when slammed full-force to the ground.

Anyway, ISO was safe haven for four years, and if it wasn’t for the path the Lord had set for me, I would have thought I should have stayed there over different points in time. I met some good people there and had plenty of great times, but the best of these were with Jerome Browne. He was a veteran who had been drafted off the streets of Brooklyn and tossed onto the front lines in Vietnam. He wasn’t the brightest bulb on the tree but had grown up quickly enough to find his way around most situations. He liked my attitude and I loved having him at my side, and he went along with just about anything I had in mind.

(To be continued...)