Category Archives: Mele’s Musings

Mele's Musings

Peter Potamus Had Nothing On Us

Some guys show off their prowess through feats of athleticism (how fast they can run or drive a baseball).

Some guys parade their prowess by what car they drive (muscle or luxury sports cars).

And some guys measure their value by the quantity and type of women they’ve dated (platinum blondes or twins).

Here at About Men Radio, we quantify our worth by how long and loud we can burp.

This proud tradition has long roots that trace their way back to our days as kids in the Bronx playing softball at a rutted dust bowl of a baseball field at St. Raymond’s Boys High School (the alma mater for most of us).

Many a blistering hot summer day was whiled away with Pedro hitting fly balls, Rich and John playing infield and me playing outfield.

The entire outfield.

With my long legs and nervous energy, I could cover a fair piece of territory. Except when I couldn’t.

I’d be out there – my arms moving sideways like I was swimming to ward everyone off – staring up into the sun and calling out: “I got it! I GOT it! I GOT IT!”

And then the ball would pathetically land at my feet and I would call out: “I DON’T got it!”

Anyway, playing softball those hot summer afternoons meant building up a serious thirst. So usually around 2 or 3 p.m., we’d pool our money together and two of us would be delegated to go to Jarob’s, a bodega about a 20-minute walk away, to buy soda and juice.

What would follow upon the return of the errand boys would be a chugfest of epic proportions. Incredibly, I’d swig some 32- or 64-ounce bottle of soda and the judging would commence.

Belches were measured on volume, duration, frequency and creativity (could you recite the alphabet or speak out a sentence?)

Points were deducted if you strained or if it sounded like you were bringing up bile.

For a long while, I was pretty comfortably a champ or at least a serious contender. That is, until Gary joined our merry band.

To look at him, you would never think that Gary was a powerhouse competitor.

Smaller in stature than Pedro and I and with a disarmingly quiet demeanor, Gary can launch burps that are reminiscent of the Hippo Hurricane Holler of our childhood cartoons.

Poker-faced and unflinching, Gary would turn his head to you. Then, like a ventriloquist’s doll, his jaw would drop open as if on hinges, and let loose with such a gut-rumbler that your hair would be tousled from the blowback.

On every score – volume, sustainability, depth – Gary has proven an enduring champ and impossible to dethrone. I’ve pulled muscles trying to compete with him.

While I’ve still got game, I bow to talent greater than mine.

And if this has you going: “Yeeeeeew! This is disgusting!”

Let me remind you: Better this is all coming from the attic than the basement.

Mele's Musings

Weaving a Tapestry of Obscenity

If cursing were an Olympic sport, my dad would be a gold medalist.

As my buddy Pedro has observed about “Mr. M” (as my friends call my dad): “He’s a first-class sweargarian.”

I attribute some of dad’s expansive profanity to having grown up in an ethnically mixed neighborhood and to having spent time in the Navy, where sailors cursed like, well, sailors.

Dad had slang expressions bordering on the profane that he would use as terms of affection toward me.

My favorites?

“Yo-yo nuts.”
“Putzula nuts.”
“Shmuckula nuts.”

Do you see a pattern emerging here?

Of course, there are other time-honored expressions like “No shit, Dick Tracy” (a cultural reference that would be lost on some generations) and its cousin, “No shit, Sherlock.”

Nowhere, though, was my dad’s vulgarity vocabulary on more display than when it came to so-called “home projects.” And it was during these episodes that his short fuse would be lit, much to my fright.

My parents were DIY types long before Home Depot made do-it-yourself a trend. Painting. Wallpapering. Carpeting. Paneling. Spackling. You name it, they did it.

When things would go awry is when my dad’s swearing would begin in earnest. (Think of the scene from “A Christmas Story” where the dad is dealing with the malfunctioning furnace.)

A moment seared in my memory was when dad was on a ladder painting the living room ceiling. Things were fine until suddenly the old paint inexplicably began coming off in flakes.

As a kid, it was a moment that teetered on the comical. I wisely suppressed any laughter, though, knowing that at any second, his volcanic temper could erupt as it often did when things went sideways.

It started out with a mildly profane, “A-ba-fungu!” and a thrown paint brush.  But then there came a purple streak of swearing that to this day echoes in my ears.

The cursing betrayed a white-hot anger that verged on out of control.
He was not mad with me, per se, but I was the sorcerer’s apprentice and the sorcerer was wielding a mighty damn angry wand at that moment.

Emotionally, I would be collateral damage as he lashed out in frustration.

Dad would eventually cool down, apologize for losing his temper and we’d get back to work.

The long-term effects of these episodes have been twofold:

One, at a young age, I vowed to keep my temper in check and not to lash out irrationally like that.

And two, those episodes made me severely allergic to home repairs.

So now when something needs fixing in the house, my response is not to lose my cool and to instead call a professional.

Because, when it comes to home projects, I don’t know whether to shit or wind my watch.

Mele's Musings

Instigator-In-Chief: The PG-13 Version

The stories you are about to read are true. No names have been changed because there’s no one innocent here.

My childhood friend Pedro has been a lifetime instigator-in-chief.

From the time I met him nearly 40 years ago, Pedro has been blessed with a cherub’s face that projects such a guilt-less “Who me?” vibe that he could be armed to the teeth like Rambo and the TSA would wave him through airport security in a nanosecond.

Hence the shit he’s been able to pull off over the years, with me often as his foil.

We went to a Catholic all-boys high school run by the Christian Brothers. It was customary at the start of each class to seek the blessing of our patron saint.

So the teacher would say: “St. John Baptist de La Salle …”
And the refrain from the class would be: “…pray for us.”

In our senior AP English class, Pedro recruited a handful of classmates, and the refrain became: “…pray for Chris.”

In a roomful of 20 baritone voices, it was hard to precisely pick up that something was amiss, but Mr. Larkin would pause and raise one eyebrow before moving on.

College was no better.

We shared a class with what we came to dub “Professor Boredom,” a hawk-nosed windbag of a lit professor. During one excruciatingly tedious lecture, Pedro wrote in the margins of my notebook “OK, who farted?”

What ensued was a heaving of my shoulders and a convulsion as I tried to contain explosive laughter at his inappropriate but well-timed comment.

Subway rides were also an adventure, though I was an active accomplice in these improvised scenes.

Pedro would be at the Astor Place station waiting for the train, and I’d come up, loudly confronting him:

“Yo! You’re the dude who took my wallet!” He’d loudly deny it.

I’d put down my bag preparing for a faux fight as wary passengers, New York-like, just watched.

Then we’d pretend that we suddenly recognized each other, hug and engage in happy buddy banter.

The other scenario had me bumping into him in a crowded subway car, pretending we hadn’t seen each other in ages and carrying on a loud conversation as we got caught up about our wives, kids and careers.

That one dissolved, though, when I inquired of Pedro about the dark glasses he was wearing. His two-word straight-faced reply caused me to shatter our charade: “Hunting accident.”

Yes, more heaving, more convulsing.

He’s still at it, you know.

A few years ago, we’re at a gala fundraiser for our high school.

The speaker is extolling our late, much-respected principal, Brother Andrew. It was a solemn moment, reverence heavy in the air.

Cue Pedro.

The speaker: “Brother Andrew touched many of our lives.”

Pedro (sitting next to me with our wives and a table-full of guests, leans into me and whispers): “Brother Andrew touched me. (Pause) And I liked it.”

What future trouble will Pedro get me into?

There’s no telling, so I ask this of you:

Pray for Chris.

Mele's Musings

Hush Puppies Are Up!

I remember when my cousin worked at Kentucky Fried Chicken to earn money while in college.

His mom would make him come through a different entrance to the house because he reeked so badly.

I remember thinking: “Ewwwwww! Gross!”

Yeah, well thou without stench, cast the first chicken thigh into the fryer.

Fast-forward and it’s my senior year in high school and I’m desperately looking for a job. A classmate was working at Arthur Treacher’s Fish & Chips.

Through him, I got a job working as a fry cook and a bus boy.

Neither job was especially attractive. But since misery loves company, I got my buddy Pedro a job there.

Pairing us up to work was maybe not the smartest thing the managers ever did.

One night I was showing Pedro how to “recycle” the oil.  At closing, we would trot out this rectangular metal gadget. We would open up a spigot, the oil would pour into the machine’s reservoir, and then it would filter the grit and we would direct the recycled oil back into the fryer.

I had Pedro laughing so hard about some tomfoolery during this operation that, when the oil splashed, it landed on his tongue because his mouth was wide open while laughing.

Did I mention the oil was still hot?

Being fry cook was bad (your hair was matted with oil, your pores filled with batter and you stank) but being clean-up person was worse.

Mopping and cleaning tables was not so bad. But woe unto you if you worked a Sunday night and had to bring garbage to the curb for pick-up the next day.

There was a room – yes, literally a room – filled floor to ceiling with a week’s worth of rotting restaurant garbage. The farther you had to reach into the room to retrieve the garbage, the worse it got. There were roaches in there the size of pigeons and they were just as obnoxious.

Somehow I got promoted to manager of the restaurant on Bartow Avenue in the Bronx, a not-particularly great neighborhood.

How not particularly great was it?

The first night I showed up for work, my assistant manager, Javier (a short, funny Puerto Rican dude with a fro, dead-caterpillar mustache and a fuzzy goatee) pointed to pockmarks in the large steel-door freezers.

“You see these?” he asked. “These are from bullets.”

I lasted maybe nine months. All in all, I look back on my time there as a worthwhile growth experience that helped prepare me for work challenges later in life.

By the way, do you want chips with that?

Photo courtesy of http://kathythompson.wordpress.com

Mele's Musings

Friendship Forged With Ketchup and Cameras

Some friendships are forged in pick-up games of basketball, neighborhood games of stickball or friendly games of tag.

Mine were cemented in crime scene photos.

I was about 13 and active in Boy Scouts. I was a mere Webelo at the time and we had to do some kind of photo essay for a photography skill award.

Or maybe I’m ascribing all of what I’m about to describe to the Scouts and I was just a goofy, demented kid with too much time on his hands.

Anyway, the idea was that each photo would depict some scene and all the frames in sequence would collectively tell a story.

So, naturally, I chose something that would involve guns, drugs and suicide. See previous comment about being a demented kid.

At the time, I was fascinated by all things cops on TV (“Adam-12”, “The Rookies”, “S.W.A.T.”), so I thought it would be cool to re-enact some kind of crime scene and photograph it.

Over time, my friends and I ended up doing three different kinds of photo essays (one of which involved ketchup for blood after the perp gets “shot”).

Another called for my friend John and I to portray drug dealers who flee the cops and then get arrested as they draw down on us.

In these dramatic photos, (see attached) John and I (in the black jacket) complete a drug exchange (note the paper bag) while Pedro and Jimmy keep us under surveillance and then bravely rid the streets of filth like us.

Cue dramatic music. Roll credits.

But my true Cecil B. DeMille moment came weeks later when I decided we would stage a drug-addled, suicidal John standing just inside a bedroom window of my family’s third-floor apartment.

We took the window screen off for dramatic effect. And, oh yeah, the window was open. Wide open.

But we needed a cop. Someone who projected authority and sympathy and who could be seen as realistically trying to talk John out of jumping.

So we befriended the new guy at school.

Enter Pedro.

I don’t think he could have been there more than a week when we broached him with this half-baked idea.

And, in a display of the kind of white-hot intellect that only 13-year-old boys are capable of, Pedro said: Sure!

Somewhere I have photos of Pedro wearing a cop-like windbreaker, hands outstretched, pleading with John to come back from the ledge.

And there’s John, looking back – eyes glassy and his hair disheveled, looking strung out from drugs. (We used my acne medication as a prop in one of the photos.)

Sadly, Detective Pedro fails and John “jumps” from the third-story window. I shot a photo from out the window of John sprawled on the sidewalk below – SPLAT! – with a squirt of ketchup near his head.
Translated from Spanish, Pedro would later tell his mom that day: “I guess that’s just how white kids play, mom.”

Fast-forward nearly 40 years.

The photos have faded but the bonds of friendship – and the over-the-top sense of adventure – have endured and remain as bright as ever.

P.S.: Did I mention that Pedro and I recently went on an Olympic bobsled ride at speeds of up to 60 mph?

Mele's Musings

Breaking the Man Speak Code

A brilliantly written scene in an episode of the TV drama “Rescue Me” made me laugh and marvel at the insight of the writers.

The firefighter character played by Denis Leary has this awkward, round-about conversation with his old man, played by the late Charles Durning.

On the surface, they are talking banalities but subtitles appear on screen to translate what they are truly talking about.

It was a scene that could be inspired by any day-to-day conversation between men or with a man: There is what is being said on the surface and then there is the subterranean meaning that you have to drill for to find out what’s really going on.

How many conversations have I had with my friends where the sentence will trail off and end with: “You know what I’m sayin’?” or “Know what I mean?” (And not the meaning of “Know what I mean?” as implied in the classic Monty Python sketch.)

No, in this case, the trailing off of “Know what I mean…” is signal talk.

You can practically hear the guy-to-guy Morse Code: Look, this is uncomfortable to talk about (dash-dash) or it’s awkward (dot) or I’m scared that you will judge me if I spell this all out, (dash-dot) but I’m trusting you to fill in the gaps as a fellow guy and that you’ll understand.

And the weird thing is that when we speak in this shorthand we do actually understand. Maybe not the very substance of what is being transmitted but we understand that there is an unspoken message being telegraphed.

So what happens is that you are sensitive to nuances in conversations and in Facebook postings. Does he sound like he is merely thinking out loud or is there some problem? Did that Facebook posting say more than it usual does? Is there a call for help in there somewhere?

My friends and I get together maybe four times a year. Half a dozen at the very most. So the vast majority of the time we spend is focused on merciless ball-breaking, belching and bad wisecracks that should get our Three Stooges membership cards awarded gold stars.

We are so busy letting our hair down in the compacted time we have together, there is an infinitesimal period of time spent discussing serious topics, like our health, family matters, jobs, etc.

Such topics are relegated to code speak.

A break in this pattern came recently when I had the rare privilege of spending a week’s vacation with my wife and my childhood buddy and his wife on a remote Caribbean island. Pedro and I had several intimate conversations because of the extended period we shared (and because we walked a mile-plus into town each day to stock up on essentials, like milk and booze).

But those interactions were the exceptions to the rule.

I don’t know that most men have daily close interactions with their buds that can lead to serious conversations. Instead, I think many men are separated by time and/or distance, so that when they do get together, it’s all about the pent-up relief at being able to spend time with a male buddy. That leaves the conversations fun and loose but maybe a little superficial.

I believe the pattern of things being left unsaid spans generations and is likely rooted in our upbringings.

Case in point: A typical phone call to my parents (who live three hours away and who I see maybe five or six times a year) will consist of my father answering the phone and the conversation going like this:

Dad: Hiya doin’ sport?
Me: Things are OK.
Dad: They treating you OK on the job?
Me: Yeah, things are OK. How about you? How are you feeling?
Dad: Good.
Me: That’s good.
Dad: OK. You want to talk to your mother?

See what I mean?

Know what I mean?

Mele's Musings

Will You Still Need Me? Will You Still Feed me?!?!

Two of the world’s great philosophers have weighed in about getting old.

“Aging is for people who don’t know any better.” — Exercise guru Tony Horton, creator of the P90X workouts

“Getting old sucks. I don’t recommend it.” — My old man

I am rapidly moving toward being a man of a certain age *cough cough* (or should that be *wheeze wheeze*?). That is to say, I am turning 50 in a few months.

Certainly millions of other men have crossed this threshold before me and millions more will after. But there’s something mystical and captivating about 50.

For one thing, at this stage of half a century, you are forced to slow down.

The conversation I sometimes have with my body goes like this: “What do you mean my knee is giving me trouble?” “What the hell? My bedtime is now 10 p.m.?” And, standing in the bathroom at 2 a.m.: “Why is it taking me so damn long to start peeing?”

And with slowing down, comes reflection. I look back at my mistakes (mostly) and then I look forward and start saying: Gee, what DO I want to be when (if) I grow up?

That’s the thing: There is your biological/chronological age and then there’s your emotional age. And in the case of the latter, I’m 17.

I’m 17 and in the hallway at my friend Silvio’s house, celebrating his birthday with my chums, raising glasses of Tom Collins (long before I embraced the virtues of vodka-and-tonics) and pledging to each other that, like Peter Pan, we would never grow up. We promised to never, ever abandon the essence of our 17-year-old selves.

Mission accomplished.

I still celebrate burping with the gusto of a teen, guffaw at stupid jokes and recite random pieces of dialogue from “Airplane!” as if it was from a Shakespearean play.

Still, it’s hard to keep up that kind of frozen-in-Neverland fantasy when you face an uncertain economic future because of the challenges of your career, the certainty that your kids will soon be leaving your daily protective care and the crapshoot of what your health will be like in your even-more advanced years.

And if that dose of reality were not enough, there are these recurring questions: What is my next act? Have I peaked? Is there anything left for me to wring from my professional career or is it all one slow slide from here?

I was recently looking at a CNN.com slide show of celebrities who this year are turning 50. Among them, Russell Crowe. I’m not sure how I feel about that. Does that put me in good company? Do I look younger than Russell Crowe? Does he look older than 50?

True story: I recently visited my old high school for a Career Day presentation. I ran into a classmate who I had not seen since we graduated in 1982. As I looked into his face, I was like: Holy smokes! His hair is white and he’s got these creases in his face. Boy HAS he aged! I suddenly started to feel very smug and better about myself. Until….Wait just a minute here! He’s MY age!

This is the kind of crap that goes through your mind as a man. How do I stack up compared to my peers? How do I stack up against my own benchmarks of success?

Comics have an expression that speaks to the challenge of slaying an audience with your performance vs. bombing on stage: Dying is easy, killing is harder.

In a similar way, I don’t fear my mortality. Dying is easy.

It’s the living between now and my mortality that, dear 50, is a lot harder.

Mele's Musings

Where’s the Kaboom?

In an earlier blog post I referenced an incident of some hilarity that took place when my buddy Pedro and I were emptying my then-girlfriend’s apartment on Staten Island about 30 years ago.

We were working long into the night/early into the morning to get the task done so by the next day, I think it’s safe to say were both a little punchy and perhaps not each thinking very clearly.

I was busy sorting through books and other possessions, when Pedro came into the living room with an armload of spray and aerosol cans.

Him: “What should I do with these?”

Me: (Distracted and not paying enough attention, with a dismissive wave of my hand): “Oh, just throw them away.”

So he did.

I should pause to mention here that this was 30 years ago and that the apartment building at the time still burned its trash using an incinerator. Burning garbage was a common practice back in the day before concerns about the ash and pollution caused buildings to convert to trash compactors.

Within a few minutes, Pedro returned, as a white as the Easter Bunny.

“Dude!” (I’m not sure if we called each other “dude” back then but literary license allows me here…) “I threw that shit down the shaft and there was like this fireball! The force of the fire caused the garbage door to blow back open!”

This was really a rather remarkable feat considering that the blowback rose all the way up to the SIXTH FREAKIN’ FLOOR where we were.

Ever seen the “Wheep Wow” baking scene from the “Little Rascals”? Yeah it was a bit like that.

I went out to the hallway, and sure enough, there was soot all around the incinerator door. I assured him that yes, holy Christ!, there did appear to be an explosion of some kind, but that the worst was behind us and not to worry.

And then we heard the sirens. The unmistakable sound of FDNY fire truck sirens. Getting very, very close.

Since we were up on the top floor of the building, immediately over our heads was the roof. In short order, we could hear the crunching of footsteps on the roof’s gravel and the crackle of the firefighters’ two-way radios.

You know how when you are drunk, you react in ways that make no sense? Well, in our state of panic and punchiness, we decided we needed to be very quiet and not call attention to our presence in the apartment, lest we get in trouble. Not that that made any sense since it’s unlikely they would have heard us but that was our remedy at the moment.

The firefighters eventually left and we returned to our work.

As for the remaining cleansers and aerosol cans, I cannot say for certain what we did with them, but after nearly getting his eyebrows singed, I’m pretty sure Pedro didn’t chuck anymore down the incinerator.

Mele's Musings

Friendships and Brotherhood

So this is what happened:

It is nearly 30 years ago. The mother of my then-girlfriend died. Her mom was buried on my girlfriend’s 18th birthday.

Understandably she was devastated. My GF, who was living away at college at the time, faced the daunting challenge of emptying her mom’s apartment. (Her parents had divorced so it was just my GF and her mom in this apartment in Staten Island.)

The lease was coming due and she was not emotionally up to the challenge of clearing out — in a hurry — remnants of her family’s life. So I volunteered to do it.

Did I mention that this was a column about friends? About true friends? About friends who come to you in times of need that you didn’t even realize you were in?

It’s a Friday night, Pedro and I are at McDonald’s after working together as bank tellers in the Bronx, and I’m preparing to head out to Staten Island to single-handedly empty out this apartment. Upon hearing my story, and without a moment’s hesitation, Pedro says: “I’ll help you.”

Three words.

Three words that translated into a long weekend of sweaty hard work and a hilarious escapade that will be the subject of a future blog entry.

Three words that I vividly recall to this day and for which I remain grateful.

Three words that when I retell this story even today, give me a catch in my throat because of what they meant to me.

Male friends are a rare breed. We hide our emotions in jokes, we don’t talk openly about our feelings and we razz each other mercilessly. And yet somehow the closest of male friends can have an undeniable bond that requires few words.

There was a span of time that distance and life put me out of touch with my closest friends for like, oh, 10 years or so. And when we reunited it was like time stood still. No awkwardness. Picked up right where we left off.

And it was not long after my friends and I reunited that my fiancee died. And much like Pedro’s three words — “I’ll help you” — I can remember in instant replay my childhood chums walking (late, naturally!) into the funeral home for my fiancee’s wake.

I swear to God, it was like the slow motion scene from “Armageddon” when the hero astronauts are walking to the spacecraft.

The scene — both in the movie and in the funeral home — was uplifting and reassuring.

So in an effort to lift the shroud of stoicism that so often colors our male friendships and to encourage other men to do the same, let me offer three other words for my friends:

I love you.