The Rush! Turmoil. Chaos. The Rush!

Hey Ya'll - check out the synopsis for my new memoir, Lovely Chaos, the sequel to my first one, The Edge of Whiteness.

The Rush! Turmoil. Chaos.  The Rush!

When young Joe Montaperto, desperately seeking to rise above the dreary negativity of his downtrodden New Jersey town, journeys to the gritty, but vibrant New York City of the early 1980’s – the chaos - and opportunity begin. Enrolling in a prestigious Russian drama school, he is determined to become the next great Stanislavski-trained stage actor – but when it doesn’t pan out, he is crushed.

Hitting the streets dazed and groping for answers, he scores a gig as a nut vendor at a grimy Hell’s Kitchen location. He strikes up a friendship with Vassant, an elderly, brilliant, but drunken Indian scholar, who introduces him to The Upanishads, the ancient texts of Eastern spirituality. Joe soon becomes completely obsessed. When Vassant dies unexpectedly, Joe vows to continue his search for a ‘Master’, finding work at a city ashram, where he commits himself to rigorous spiritual practices. While deep in meditation one day, he is rocked by an epiphany – he may never attain enlightenment in this lifetime – no matter what he does! Shaken by this realization, he dives headlong into what he considers his true calling – stand-up comedy.

Rising up the comedy ranks, he parties and performs with the likes of Jon Stewart, Dave Attell, and John Leguizammo, quickly embracing the debaucherous nightlife scene. A regular at Rudy’s, a seedy Hell’s Kitchen bar, he gets caught up in the rush that ensues, needing evermore to maintain it. He begins reveling in the violent confrontations of the late night crack-infested streets. Still not enough. Hooking up with the sultry Vanessa, a Puerto Rican transgender ex-streetwalker, Joe’s life is thrown into turmoil and conflict, until a chance viewing of the movie, My Dinner With Andre, blows him away. Fascinated by the philosophy and ideas, he decides he must flee the city, abandon everything he knows, and pursue a life of travel and spiritual adventure.

Counting My Blessings

I'm just counting my blessings from 2014 and realize they were plenty! There are several people I especially want to thank for their support and hard work and just being good people! First, Fran Matos and Robert Grasmere for never giving up on "The Edge of Whiteness" and persevering through years of false promises! Thank you so much for your support! To Michele Dupey for believing in me enough to properly format my second book - "Lovely Chaos" - and making several excellent suggestions! And last but not least, Steven Williams for helping me out with advice, and putting up a great website selflessly, as well as being a great friend!! Thank you all so much!

Christmas, 1975

To continue on our theme of Christmas spirit and cheer - here  is yet another delightful story culled from around that time I write of in  my memoir - "The Edge of Whiteness".
A late Saturday afternoon in the middle of December, 1976 in the cheery, yet insidiously dysfunctional  town of Roselle, New Jersey. Dusk falls suddenly, or at least it seems that way, you know? It always does around this time of the year - one minute it's still bright out, even if it is a grey December day - the next minute it's like, '"hey, who turned out the fuckin' lights?!"
 Jeez. That's why I HATE Daylight Savings time... worst invention EVER. Yeah, let's make it even more depressing than it already is - let's have it get dark around 4 o'clock. Yeah, that's cheery. The only saving grace to this whole thing is that we are right in the middle of the Christmas season - so there is a certain amount of cheer. Definitely. I mean, it's omnipresent. As darkness blankets the wintry sky, thousands of Christmas lights flash brilliantly, a hundred different patterns adorning the front windows of the houses lining the streets of West Third Avenue. Vibrant wreaths hang on the front doors, pine cones and enchanting red ribbons adding to the holiday atmosphere.
The more ambitious among us have spent  their entire vacations toiling away to hammer into their frozen front lawns those wooden cut outs of Santa and his sled being pulled into the air by the eight reindeer -  and on top of that have draped wires and cords of  Christmas bulbs around the structure. After that they probably suffered heart attacks - I mean Jeez, all that work for like two weeks? That's insane. Finally, the more religious among us have erected the "Nativity Scene", ya know, the one where the 3 Wise Men are bringing  gifts of Frankincense, gold and muir (what he hell is muir anyway?) to the stable, waiting for the baby Jesus to be born. I make a mental note to myself to tell Skinny that we shouldn't steal the Baby Jesus this year when they lay him in the bed of hay on Christmas. I mean it's kind of holy, y'know?
Anyway, I'm not so much into all this stuff, but even I am  feeling it now.
In our annual tradition, my mother trudges off to  Rekemeir's Flowers alone (well, my sisters trail after her complaining about the wind and their mittens) because my father refuses to help buy the tree. So she has to do it. And the thing is, the tree is bigger than her and she's dragging it down the street, block after block, against the fierce and bitter wind, till she gets it to our house. There, a festive atmosphere reigns - Andy Williams and Perry Como crooning Christmas carols over the stereo. My mother has baked Scotcharoos, which is kind of this peanut butter,Rice Krispies and chocolate  concoction, that we really all love and bloody each other up over just to get a piece of. She has even made eggnog - or  maybe my father made it, I don't know. So, there's genuine Christmas good will and peace in the house... until the decorating starts. That's when the real trouble begins.
"Ewwwww - that's ugly!!"
"Why did you put that Christmas bulb there?! it looks retarded!"
"You're retarded!"
My sisters take turns sniping back and forth at each other and my mother alternatively.
My father just sits there on the couch drinking Ballantine Ale and eggnog, while my mother implores him to get involved - to no avail, of course.
CRASH! BANG! CRASH!
There go the Christmas bulbs
My mother starts cursing. My sisters fight among themselves,The inevitable whining and then crying follows. Somehow, through all this, my mother manages to finish the decorating job, hangs the tinsel and the lights and plugs it in - THERE!
Everybody  beams, proud of "their " work.
"Joe - what do you think?" My mother asks my father, who so far has paid little attention to the whole process.
"It's crooked..."
"What?"
"The tree is crooked." he replies.
My mother, now in a rage, picks up the Christmas tree from the water base it' resides in  - and THROWS it at him.
Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, Everyone

So, like most kids (even perpetually sulking teenagers) Christmas was always our favorite time of the year. I mean, who doesn't love to get gift? You have time off from school, there's that whole feeling of holiday cheer - and you don't even mind seeing all your relatives trudging in to Roselle (NJ) from Brooklyn. At least you get to see some cousins you haven't seen in awhile, or you can make fun of them behind their backs, anyway. Come to think of it, that's what we mostly did. At least me and my cousin Skinny, anyway.
But really, Christmas was only a couple of days, and you didn't have to go back to school till like January 7th, or something. So you basically had all this time to do nothing - or get revenge.
After Christmas, people would throw away their dead Christmas trees by putting them out in front of the house and waiting till the DPW picked them up. There was this one guy on the corner of Gordon Street that me and Skinny didn't particularly like - I don't remember exactly why we didn't like him, but, I mean, he must have done something to us to us.
So, one frigid January night, we see his dead tree lying in the little grass part in front of his house - and  we get this simultaneous idea. We pick up the tree, wedging it between his wooden front door and the screen door in front of it... then ring the doorbell, run like hell and hide in the bushes across the street. Of course when the guy opens his front door - the Christmas tree falls right into his face, and it's so big it fills the whole doorway, So the guy literally can't move or escape - he's cursing and yelling cuz he can't move and he's got all these dry pine needles in his face.
Meanwhile, we're across the street- and we are dying, man! Skinny's laughing like a crow (like he usually does) and I'm cackling so fuckin' hard, I'm on the frozen ground and can't even get up - that's how hard I'm laughing at this guy. Somehow, the guy extricates himself from the Christmas tree and he is fuckin' furious! He come's running across the street after us like a raging bull, threatening to kill us and everything. Skinny sees this and jumps over a nearby fence, he's imploring me to hurry up and get over the fence before this guy kills me. I get up the fence but I'm still laughing so hard,  I can't get over it... the guy is just about to grab me, when in a last ditch effort, my cousin pulls me over the fence, ripping my coat sleeve, and smashing down on the cement hard winter ground. Right on my arm. Blood is oozing out of my jacket sleeve. I go from laughing to crying in a second. The guy is cursing and threatening he'll kill us if he ever sees us again, but we keep running. Hey, at least we escaped! Happy Holidays everyone!