The Musician... see you among the stars

Mikie's father knew some people who owned a resort upstate New York. He asked me if I wanted to work with Mikie at the resort for the summer. I wanted to get out of New York so I gladly accepted. Mikie and I arrived at this beautiful resort only to find out that we were going to work as dishwashers. We were introduced to a guy who hardly spoke any English. I don't know what country he was from, but we had great difficulty communicating with this guy. He is the man in charge of the dishwashing section who will be directing us in the kitchen. Then we learned that they didn't have an automatic dishwasher so we had to wash all the dishes by hand. Mikie and I freaked and we were wondering how we were going to wash hundreds of dishes by hand. However, this guy showed us the trick in washing the dishes at a fast pace. We quickly caught on, but there were lots of dishes. In fact, there were thousands of them to wash everyday. This guy had a lot of trouble describing things to us, because of his foreign language and very little broken English. He would say to us, "Do Dish," but what he really meant is, "Do this!" This led us into great confusion for a while until we realized what he had really meant. He would want us to wash a coffee pot and he would point to it briefly and say, "Do dish!" So, Mikie and I would do the dishes. The guy would see us doing the dishes and not cleaning the coffee pot and he would yell at us, "Don't do dish, do dish." Meaning do not do the dishes…do the coffee pot? That is all the English that this guy knew. It is very difficult working and understanding him.

After the first week, Mikie and I became very tired of doing the dishes. Actually, after the first few days of working we were exhausted. The kitchen also did not feed us very well. They gave us only the inexpensive leftover kitchen food to eat. After a few days of eating the measly meals they gave us, Mikie and I began to take remains from a dinner's plate, usually Filet Mignon and other steaks, and we would store them in a private hidden bag in the kitchen for later consumption. We quickly became good friends with the waiters who also weren't being fed properly and they were taking remains from plates also. The waiters had a scam going. When a customer orders steak or Filet Mignon they would continuously fill their table with lots of fresh bread and butter and serve them many other appetizers not normally served and postpone their main course for as long as possible. By the time the vacationer were served their steaks, the costumers could only eat half of it and thus the waiters, Mikie and I would confiscate the leftovers. This led to many remains on their plate for us to all take and later consume.

During our second weekend, The Ink spots were performing at the resort, and I introduced my self to them while they were rehearsing. I already knew and loved their songs and we quickly became good friends. In fact, they took a great liking to me. Their guitarist showed me how to play the lead intro line from one of their famous songs called, If I Didn't Care. I would hang out with the Ink spots as much as I could each day, especially when they rehearsed. They liked me so much that they let me sing the lead vocal part during their rehearsals and they would back me up with vocals. It was amazing and I loved the song, If I Didn't Care. They are such a great bunch of guys.

During one of their rehearsals that I was watching, and I always watched them, a man appeared who was to perform a juggling act for the show. He also liked me a lot and I watched him practice and he was excellent at Juggling. He decided to teach me how to do a little juggling. He asked me to stand on the stage and hold my hand up and as he juggled three bowling pins, he would tumble a pin right at my hand and I caught it. My catching the pin stunned him and he showed me how to tumble it back to him. I was so good that he asked me to perform in his show. We practiced a lot and he taught me how to catch many things and throw them back. He used pins, hoops, and of course, tennis balls. During the Saturday night show, he invited me up to the stage in front of a large audience. We would do the skit that we had learned together. I was excellent as a receiver in whatever he threw me, and the audience gave me a yelling standing ovation. It is my first experience of being on stage with a live audience and I remained very Kool. I knew then, that the stage is where I eventually want to be. I felt very comfortable with The Ink spots and the juggler. The Ink Spots were my turn-on into the music life. They were, and the experiences with them, were the height of this terrible job that we had washing dishes.

Meanwhile, the dishes were getting out of hand. The resort had hundreds of people having breakfast, lunch and dinner. The dishes seemed endless. In the morning, by the time we finished cleaning the breakfast dishes it was about 11:00 - 11:30AM. Then we had a couple of hours off and then we had to clean the lunch dishes which lasted to 4:00 - 4:30PM. Again we had a couple of hours off and began cleaning the dinner dishes which lasted to about 10:00PM. Everyday was like that. Not only that, but lunch is a buffet. There are no waiters. They wanted Mikie and me to bus the tables after lunch in addition to us washing the hundreds of dishes. Mikie and I decided to hide and disappear after breakfast to avoid the lunch clean up. As soon as we finished washing the breakfast dishes, Mikie and I would disappear up until 3:00pm. Way after lunch had been finished. This way we would sly away from busing the tables and the washing. They would constantly page us over their mike system, "Chuck and Mike to the office! Chuck and Mike to the office!" They paged us so much that many people eventually wanted to meet us, because we sort of became famous. When they paged us the speakers were everywhere on the grounds of the resort. Eventually, everyone wanted to know who Chuck and Mike were. I can over hear customers saying, and no one knew us, "I wonder who Chuck and Mike are?"

During our third week, Mikie and I could no longer take it. We freaked out, and we lost our minds! The dishes, schedule, and the robbing and eating leftovers completely overwhelmed us. The resort eventually had to stop paging us and instead sent spies out to locate us and our hiding spots. They would send people out to search for us, because they didn't want our names on the paging system any more. It was funny, because we were becoming very famous, but they would find us, and we were forced to return to work. Then one day shortly thereafter, we had to bus and clean all the dishes after this special gathering lunch buffet, and there were 800 people in this special group who had just finished eating the afternoon brunch. When Mikie and I walked into the big room and looked at all the tables, we asked each other, "Where are we going to start?" I room was tremendous. We began by stacking all the dishes on top of one another after dusting the remains off in a pale on two very large tables. When we made a tremendous high pile, and they were very high stacks of dirty dishes, we stood back to take a look at the piles of dishes and said to each other that we must now clean all those dishes. Mikie and I lost our minds. We thought about Coney Island and how we would throw the balls to break the dish for a prize. Then Mikie and I both said that we were not going to wash those dishes. We grabbed beer bottles and began throwing them at the dishes to knock them off the table. We destroyed a thousand dishes. When everyone outside the room heard the dishes crashing, we quickly ran to the table and kicked the legs of the table and we told them that the weight of the dishes collapsed the table and it gave way. They of course didn't believe us and quickly called Mikie's father in Brooklyn to take us back home. It would take a few days for Mikie's father to arrive. In the meantime, Mikie and I lived like kings. We had our room and didn't have to work or look at dishes ever again. No one bothered us anymore, because they thought we were crazy. We are!

Mikie and I returned to Brooklyn gladly. The job upstate was a work person's nightmare. We had no idea whatsoever that we would be working continuously almost the entire day, everyday. I never have seen so many dishes in my life. When we returned home to Brooklyn, it was a welcome relief. What we had thought would be a wonderful working vacation in a quiet resort in the New York Catskills Mountains, surrounded by available teenage daughters of vacationers, turned out to be just the opposite. Yes, there were young girls floating around away from their parents looking for something to get into, but we were continuously working so much we had no time at all to mingle with anyone.

Now back in Brooklyn, Mikie began hanging out with a good musician guitarist named Jackie Dina. He seemed very nice when I met him and developed a casual friendship with him, but it turned out that Jackie was not such a nice person after all. I learned quickly that he had a bully attitude. Jackie lived on the same block of 7th Street, only a few avenues away between Avenue T and Avenue S. After a while, he stopped coming to Joey's garage to jam with us, but now that I know him, and he knew me, our friendship would slowly turn into a nightmare. I used to run into him sometimes after school during my walk home, and he used to say some arrogant and threatening gestures toward me for no apparent reason. I couldn't figure-out why he would suddenly do this without any reason. I guess he wanted to show the other kids that he was tough and I was an easy target. He would call out to me and when I answered him back nicely, he would run up to me, grab me, throw me up against the wall or a parked car and slap me softly in the face. Then he would laugh and walk away. He enjoyed acting like a big shot. Therefore, every time I walked home from school, I had to look ahead to try to avoid him. This problem led me to also avoid Mikie, because they became friends with each other.

I also had eventually learned that my Cousin Joey is also a bully. This I did not realize for many, many, years. Joey pretended to protect me, but as I got older, I had learned that he was the instigator responsible for getting many kids in the neighborhood to pick fights with me. He was Mr. nice guy in appearance, but caused all the trouble without me ever thinking he was the cause of it all. The biggest bully on my block is Rudy. Rudy lived at the end of my block and he would try to pick on me all the time. It got even worse when my Cousin Joey moved onto my block. I wondered why? I managed to keep Rudy under control for many years, because I was a good friend with Brother Bill. Rudy, as well as everyone was afraid of Brother Bill. But now that Brother Bill had moved away, I had to deal with a whole new crew of bullies. They are the only friends and so I had no choice, but try to deal with it. I always hoped that my Cousin Joey would be my next Brother Bill, and protect me from Rudy and Jackie. It appeared that he did protect me, but I could not understand why I got picked on more often now that my Cousin Joey has moved on the block. I didn't know it at the time, but I would eventually learn about it and put the pieces of the puzzle of these happening together, that my Cousin Joey used to tell Rudy and Jackie to pick on me in his presence so Joey could step in and protect me to win my confidence. He would tell people to pick on me, watch for a few moments, and then Joey would step in and say, "Leave him alone." I fell for it line and sinker, but eventually I realized it all, but I needed to find a way out of this mess to find someone new to hangout with. I needed to be away from all these bullies if I am going to gain some peace and tranquility in my life. These guys all live on my block. How am I supposed to avoid them?

The middle of the summer is approaching, and my Cousin Joey wanted me to go half with him on a purchase of a locker at Steeplechase Park Pool in Coney Island. My Cousin still had my some of my confidence so I talked to my parents and my father thought it was a good idea. I didn't know it at the time, my Cousin didn't tell me, but Rudy would also obtain a locker at Steeplechase pool. I would eventually learn that my Cousin wanted to be with Rudy and couldn't afford a locker by himself. Thus, my Cousin Joey asked me to go half with him on the locker. Steeplechase Pool is a wonderful place to be in the summer. It is a lot of fun swimming, diving, girls and just being in Coney Island. It was the best pool in all New York. You could walk out on the Coney Island beach and return back to the pool at anytime, and the girls were plentiful. The first few weeks at Steeplechase Park were great. Cousin Joey and I walked along the beach with our guitars, and when we saw some nice girls we would sit on their blankets and begin jamming. The girls were very impressed and often treated us to some good food. After a couple of weeks, Rudy unexpectedly appeared into the picture. We ran into him on the beach. That was the time I learned that Rudy had also obtained a locker at Steeplechase pool. From then on, my Cousin Joey began hanging out with Rudy all day long at the beach both disappearing away from me. I am now all by myself and alone. Everyday I would go there on the train with my Cousin and he would meet up with Rudy and they both would disappear away from me quickly. After that, they were nowhere to be found for the entire day. They never hung out at the pool. I would also learn that Rudy and Joey needed to find a way to get rid of me completely. Shortly thereafter, I returned from the pool to my locker to obtain my lunch which my mother prepared for me in a paper bag only to find that the bag my lunch was in had been burned to a crisp, and the sandwiches were ruined. Someone apparently had set it on fire and placed it back into the locker. Since my Cousin Joey was the only one who had a key, I confronted him. He blamed it all on Rudy. Our parents gave us limited money so I had to go without eating all day. he next day, the same thing happened again, and again Joey blamed Rudy. Crying in frustration and hunger, I asked my Cousin why he let Rudy into our locker. He replied that he was with Rudy, and when he opened the locker, Rudy would set fire to your lunch. I told my Cousin not to let Rudy near the locker. Again, I had to go without eating for the entire day. The next day it happened again. This time I got pissed and confronted Rudy directly. Rudy denied it all and told me my Cousin was doing it. Then I confronted my Cousin and he said Rudy was lying. This wonderful locker at Steeplechase Park pool has turned into a nightmare.

During the first few weeks at Steeplechase pool, my Cousin and I would bump into Savario and his mother who were soaking the sun on a blanket at Bay 14 next to Steeplechase Park. Savario's family you may recall had the first house located on my block (street). They were the family I described that had this crazy servant/slave Mary. I never really knew Savario very well. He never hung out with us on the block or ever participated with anybody. I remembered saying hello to his mother every morning when I walked to school. Savario also had an interest in guitars and music. When we had bumped into him on the beach, he saw me carrying my guitar and would say to me, "That's a nice Stella guitar you have." We started to talk guitars and music briefly, and then my Cousin Joey and I continued on our way. Savario's mother was warm and welcoming and Savario seem to be a very nice guy.

Being disgusted now with Joey, Rudy, and the entire situation, I strolled alone along the beach to where Savario and his mother were parked. I told them what was happening with Rudy and Joey and I asked them if they would mind if I went with them and stayed with them at the beach everyday. I told them that I had no one to be with at the beach. Savario and his mother welcomed me dearly. Savario's mother told me that the come everyday to the beach rain or shine and they take their car. She said you are most welcome with us and we will take care of you. From now on, I'm going to kiss those idiots goodbye. Savario and his mother each had a locker at Schrott's Baths, which was located at the end of Stillwell Avenue where it meets with the boardwalk. Savario took me into Schrott's Baths and showed me around the place. Schrott's doesn't have a pool. It's just a place to have a locker and clean up and they had great steam rooms. Nice and Hot! Savario shared his locker to me and everything was set anew. I withdrew my belongings from Steeplechase and put it all into Savario's locker. I will now go to the beach everyday with Savario's family in peace. After that, Savario and I quickly became good friends, and I was beginning to be a regular on the beach and boardwalk. Savario's family knew everyone at Coney Island. They were regulars.

One night hanging out at Savario's house, Savario took me into his bedroom and showed me his beautiful electric guitar. We played around on it for a bit. The entire family was so wonderful. Again, the next day, I went with them to Bay 14 at Coney Island. It appears that he and his mother were Bay 14 bums. That is, they attended Bay 14 every day rain or shine, and knew everybody on the beach and the boardwalk. This turned out to be one of the happiest times of my life. I felt so relieved from Rudy and Joey, and best of all I could hang out with Savario all the time at his big house after the beach day ended and continuing in the winter. I would not have to deal with Rudy and Joey ever again. I met many wonderful people through Savario's family hanging out at Bay 14. My summer turned out to be the best summer I had ever had, thanks to them. I also felt like one of the family, and this continued for many years. Savario and his family became a very important step to my future in my life.

My Cousin Joey was still was not completely out of the picture, because he lived across the street from my house and he was a part of my family. My family hung out with his family all the time. My father participated in Pinnacle games with Joey's father, my Uncle Joe, so it was unavoidable, but at least I could walk away any time to go hang out with Savario and his family.

In the fall months as school began, my Cousin Joey's father had just bought his son a new Gibson Stereo electric guitar and a Fender amp. When Joey first opened the case to show me the guitar, my eyes stared and gleaned. It was an expensive beautiful guitar. The guitar itself was about $400.00, but he also got a Fender amp. The amp was maybe, $250.00? All I know was that I wanted one too. My birthday was coming near so I pressured my family into buying me an electric guitar too. I talked about it over and over to them as I did the birthday last year to get the Stella guitar. I had heard from Savario that there was a great store to buy guitars, Sam Ash on Utica Avenue in downtown Brooklyn. So the next day, Savario took me to see Sam Ash. When we entered the store, I could not believe my eyes. I had never seen so many beautiful guitars in all of my life. Every company, every color, and best of all, they had a private room where they would be happy to plug in any guitar you wanted to try-out. Savario then pointed to a Fender Stratocaster that was sitting in the top showcase located about 15 feet off the ground. I did not notice it when we walked in until he pointed at it. As soon as my eyes connected with it, I fell in love, as though it was the sexiest and most beautiful woman I have ever seen. I asked the sales clerk if I could try that Fender Strat out, and the sales clerk immediately said, "Why sure!" Savario and I went into this little room and the sales clerk brought in the Strat and set it up to the amp. The sound was ready and he handed the guitar to me. I started playing and Savario had a big grin on his face. Then Savario said to me that if I put the three-way switch in between the notches of the point connections that I could get the sound that the Strat was famous for. I did not know what he was talking about so Savario positioned the switch in between the normal connections, and wow. The sound was incredible. We played the Strat for about an hour, and the sales clerk finally told us that we were taking up too much time. Savario and I were convinced that this was the guitar to buy. It was very expensive, $225.00 without the case or the amp.

The next day, I began talking to my mother about the guitar at Sam Ash. My mother did not want to hear it. She told me that I should finish school and apply for a job in a bank. She told me that this guitar stuff was getting too much out of hand. I had no other choice, but to go plead with my father. My father is easier to talk with, and is very giving most the time. He never avoided a conversation, and if you ever felt like doing something, he was always encouraging. I talked with him about it and he said that he would eventually speak with my mother who was the boss. My birthday had arrived and with the help of my father, my mother took me to Sam Ash to only to look. We arrived and went through the whole process of plugging the guitar in and playing it in the little room. My mother asked the sales clerk how much it would cost with the little Fender amp. The sales clerk came back with the figures and said, "With the case and amp it would come to $365.00, complete." I looked at my mother and my mother looked at me in disgust and said, "OK, I hope you're happy?" My dream had just come true.

That evening, I went to Savario's house to show him the Strat. Savario took out his camera and he took pictures of me with the guitar. Savario and I spent the rest of the evening jamming and taking photos. I plugged his guitar into my amp that had two input jacks, and we strummed together all night long in his bedroom.

Now my Cousin Joey and I both had a guitar and amp. Meanwhile, Mikie had seen all this and he proceeded to buy a set of Gretsch drums. Now everyone had an instrument except Rudy who began to slowly shy away. Mikie began setting up jam sessions in his basement, because that was where he kept the drums, but Mikie was not very good. He had a big timing problem and Joey and I purposely ignored it, but as Mikie struggled to play on time, he knew something was wrong when we all look at him every time he went off beat and it was many times that he went off beat. In any case, it was nice to play with drums. I still did not like being with Cousin Joey too much although even though we both now had instruments. I was still mostly hanging out with Savario. Joey eventually met some other musician friends and they formed a band. Mikie still was hanging out with the bully Jackie. Jackie was a great funky guitarist and also played the drums. Jackie's father was a former great drummer. Even though we all had musical instruments now, I continued to stay away from Mikie and Joey and continued to remain with Savario.

A year had past and after another summer of hanging out on Bay 14 with Savario and his family, I finally entered Lafayette High School. I was a sophomore. Cousin Joey was a junior and Rudy was a senior. I did not know it, but my Cousin Joey was singing A Cappella with a couple of schoolmates. Joey, knowing I was about to enter Lafayette told me about the singing group and asked me to meet him during the forth period. When I received my school schedule, my forth period was occupied with an English class. I told my Cousin Joey, who's forth period was lunch that I had a class at this time period and he suggested that I cut it. I was very curious about this singing group; I did not even attend the English class on the first day. I needed to check this group out. I met my Cousin at the hot dog cart outside the school and he introduced me to these two guys, Ritchie and Anthony. Ritchie was a trumpet player in school and Anthony just liked to sing. After exchanging greetings, we all went to the third floor hallway in the rear of the school by the gymnasium. Joey, Ritchie, and Anthony began singing and they sounded good. They had been working on their three-part harmonies for about a year. What they needed was a lead singer. I did not have a good lead singing voice, but I could sing with a great deal of soul and enthusiasm. I told the guys to sing something easy like, "In the Still of the Night." They began singing the three-part harmony, and when my lead vocal entered the arrangement, it sounded fantastic. I was singing very seriously, and Joey, Ritchie, and Anthony were all smiles while singing. I sang a mean lead. It was hard for them to keep a straight face, because it sounded so good with a lead singer. We all sang together for the entire one-hour period. I was very happy and honored to sing the lead part, and with the acoustics of the hallway, it sounded very big.

The next day, we did it again. The following day, we changed locations and moved to the front hallway of the school. A crowd started gathering and even the teachers were amazed to watch us. The Dean came by and asked us reluctantly to move somewhere else, because we were keeping postponing the students from attending their class on time. No matter where in school we sang, there was always one guy who hung out with us constantly, and his name is John Dean.

John Dean was a Lafayette drop out. He was 19 years old and did not want to leave the school. He would purposely fail his subjects so he would not graduate. As long as he was in school, he was happy. John Dean also was a school clown. He was always fooling around. Everybody knew of him and he was famous in Lafayette. He had a similar resemblance to the actor James Dean, but this John Dean was famous for his fake epileptic fit. I encountered John Dean before I actually met him on my first day at school. After I had sung with the guys, and they returned to class, I had a lunch period and thus went to the hot dog cart across the road to have a dog. John Dean was behind me and he asked for one with mustard and onions. The man gave it to him, he paid the man, and all of a sudden after his first bite, the hot dog went shooting straight up in the air. The hot-dog vender freaked. John Dean went falling to the floor and started kicking and jerking. He was making a short squealing sound like one I had never heard before.... Weeeek.... Weeeek...Weeeek! I became so frighten, I did not know what to do? This person came running over and yelled, "Leave him alone.... Do not touch him ...he is having an epileptic fit. The fit lasted for about five minutes and then this person helped him stand up and he acted as normal. He picked up his hot dog of the floor and he and this other guy who helped him just walked away as if nothing had ever happened. After school, I told the story to my Cousin and he started laughing saying, "That's John Dean. The fit is not real. He just does it as a goof." He continues to say that the guy who ran over when John Dean had the fit is his partner Ritchie. "Wow!" I told my Cousin, "I thought it was real." My Cousin just laughed and said that I would be seeing a lot of John Dean. Sure enough, I had John Dean in my wood-shop class on Tuesday and Thursday.

My wood-shop class was very interesting. For one, my teacher had this beautiful sexy female student as a so-called secretary of some sort and she was stunning and sat at his desk quietly all day. I do not know what the girl did, but in a class of all males, she stood out strongly. All she did was sit next to the teacher. The teacher did absolutely no teaching in the class. All he did was talk to the sexy female student. We had two one-hour periods of wood-shop. After the first hour we would take a fifteen minute break. The teacher made everyone leave the class, locked the room, leave somewhere with the female student, and returned in fifteen minutes to re-open the class. A few days later, I saw John Dean with this one-foot long 4X4 block of wood attached to his assigned lathe. Curious, I went over to John and asked him what he was working on. John replied, "Just wait you'll see." I was working on building my project, but I was still curious what John was working on. After about 50 minutes, John had this one-foot long 4X4 block of wood to the size of a fat toothpick. I said, "John, what are you doing?" John replied, "Just watch." The bell rang for the end of the first period and we went through the usual process I described above. We all exited the classroom; the teacher locked the door, and left with his secretary. John Dean took the fat toothpick he was working on and shoved it into the door keyhole. Fifteen minutes later the teacher returned with his secretary and tried to put the key into the lock, but it wouldn't work. The teacher tried repeatedly while John Dean was smirking in the corner. I was trying desperately to hold a straight face. The teacher turned to all of us and said, "I can't open the door so you kids should go out to the school yard and play for the remainder of the second period". All the students of the class were joyous for John Dean who had already borrowed a bat and ball from the Gym to play softball in the schoolyard. Apparently, John knew what the next move was going to be just like a great chess player. John Dean. What a trip!

A few weeks later, I was in my Science class and we all were having a test. It was about 10:30am, and all was peaceful and quiet. Everyone was concentrating on his or her test papers. All of a sudden, we all heard this big scream coming from the schoolyard. Then I heard that familiar sound, Weeeek.... Weeeek.... Weeeek! I knew it. We all jumped up, including the teacher and we all looked out the window, and there was John Dean lying on the concrete in the middle of the baron schoolyard, performing a faked epileptic fit. He disrupted the entire school for about ten minutes and everyone was laughing as they watched him.

A few weeks after that, I was heading to my next class one afternoon after returning from lunch, when I saw all this commotion in the hallway. From what I could tell, it looked like a brawl. I heard voices yelling and screaming at one another calling each other names. Whom ever was fighting there was a big crowd that gathered around it. Then I saw the school Deans fearlessly running down the hall to break up the fight. I also ran behind the Dean to observe what was happening. The Dean broke through the crowd, and there was John Dean and his partner Ritchie playing patty cake. I busted out laughing. The Deans were totally pissed and shocked.

It was now the end of the school year, and again John Dean purposely was short credits for graduating. The Dean had called his parents to school and advised his parents that if John does not graduate next semester they had no other choice, but to expel him completely. His parents assured the Dean that John would graduate Lafayette by the following January. We will wait and see.

My Cousin Joey was promoted to a senior and quickly joined a band that I had heard was very good, and that they were about to make a record. Rudy graduated and immediately got involved with his older brother in a jewelry repair business, and that was great for me, because I would now almost never see this bully again. Our school singing group had dissipated for the summer. Anthony had graduated, but Ritchie was interested in forming a group with me during the summer months. He knew of another guitar player and drummer who would be interested in forming a new group and I told him that I would be in contact with him, but I was looking forward to having another great summer at the Bay 14 beach with Savario and his family again.