The kids in the 4th and 5th grade were excited, as they filed out of their humdrum classrooms. They were all heading toward the big auditorium for some kind of special event. Perhaps a nice movie? A play ? Maybe some seminar. It almost didn’t matter -- it was just great to get out of those classrooms.
By one o’clock all 300 students -- 6 classrooms-worth -- were settled in the fold-up chairs in the old auditorium, barely able to contain their excitement for whatever was about to happen. The principal of the school, Sister Charlotte, dressed in the old black and white habit of the Sisters of Mercy circa 1962, made a brief announcement of the “educational” nature of the show, making it clear that any talking in the audience was strictly forbidden.
The curtain went up, and a “big kid” named Jim -- from the 6th grade -- was pacing back and forth on the stage. Jim was a little taller than most sixth-graders, and had a booming voice, which made him perfect for the role he was playing. From his neck hung a large white sign, with the word “VERB” written in big block letters.
“Go!”
“Stay!”
“Run!”
“Kick!”
“Decorate!”
“Drink!”
“Study!”
Out came the verbs -- slowly, ponderously, loudly, and monotonously. Some of the kids in the audience already knew what the point was, and already sensed that other actors would soon be appearing.
Sure enough, another 6th-grade boy appeared, few inches shorter than “VERB”, and this new character’s sign identified him as “ADVERB”. He started adding words to those spoken by “VERB”, for a dialogue that sounded like a call-and-response.
“Go!”
“Away”
“Read!”
“Carefully”
“Eat”
“Slowly”
“Come!”
“Here”
Verb and Adverb seemed pretty happy with their little routine, their little simple sentences. But clearly something was incomplete here, and Verb and Adverb were too full of themselves to notice.
Slowly advancing toward them, with their arms folded in contempt, were a pair of 6th-grade girls. The casting director of this play was seemingly using sexual tension (such as it was in 6th grade) to help set up the sides in the upcoming argument.
One girl -- “NOUN” -- was clearly taller than the other, whose sign said “ADJECTIVE”, and this pair was every bit as confidant as Verb and Adverb.
The taller girl, who would be active in politics later on in life and give many a speech, was on the stage to let Verb know the World Did Not Revolve Around Him. How silly -- short sentences like “Eat slowly” and “Push Hard”…..
….as if nothing else was needed !!
What about “Eat YOUR SANDWICH slowly” or “Push THE WAGON hard” ??
“Where would we be without nouns and adjectives?” Noun scoffed. She pointed her finger at Verb and suggested that he get off his high horse.
Verb gave some begrudging recognition to Noun, admitting that words like “Church” and “pencil” and “dog” and “baseball” were useful. At Noun’s insistence, he even gave Adjective a pat on the back, admitting that words like “red” and “green” and tall” and “beautiful” and “smooth” were also useful.
He then crossed his arms and said that he -- “VERB” -- was, nonetheless -- the most important of the eight parts of speech, on the grounds that -- technically -- no sentence is considered “complete” without a verb. As he had demonstrated before, “Go!” was a sentence all by itself.
“Hurrah” shouted Adverb, seemingly sucking up to Verb. He then gave a boisterous description of his importance -- the Where, the How, and the “When” of his Adverbial universe.
“How Uncouth of You, Adverb,” said Adjective. She said something sarcastic about “quickly” coming from “quick”, “nicely” coming from “nice”, “carefully” coming from “careful”, etc, and made it seem that most of Adverb’s domain would not exist if not for Adjective.
The four young thespians battled away for a few more minutes. Somewhere along the way “Pronoun” was introduced, along with the subtleties of “I” and “my” and “him” and “his” and “them” and “their”. Verb and Adverb sat this one out.
Next came "Preposition". Shorter words -- “to” - “on” - “at” - “in” requiring a shorter character. In another brilliant casting move, the part was played by a very short boy -- he seemed to be shorter than his own long “PREPOSITION” sign, which hung from his neck in an unruly way, flapping around clumsily, and interfering with his arm movement.
He seemed to be currying favor from both sides, in fact he seemed to be a mediator. He had allegiance with the Noun-Pronoun-Adjective faction, but stated -- very diplomatically -- that the phrase “go to the store” was Adverbial in character because it answered the question “go where?”.
Little "CONJUNCTION" appeared next, a very short girl representing “and” - “or” etc --another comical mismatch of a short person and a long sign. She was treated with sympathy, since her existence -- like the word “or” -- completely depended on two other words in need of a simple "link" word. At one point she stood there meekly holding hands with Noun and Pronoun on either side, as if she was about to fall on her face.
The best part of the show was when the eighth part of speech --”INTERJECTION” rushed out onto the stage in a frenzy. As it happened, the girl playing the part was very excitable in real life, and would prove to be downright loony and argumentative in a few years, a poster child for Ritalin.
But in this production she was perfect -- wide-eyed and animated, shouting out “OH!” and “WOW!“ and “WHEEE” and other such choice interjections. In real life, she would soon learn some nastier interjections which would get her in hot water with these nuns.
The show ended with the eight parts of speech friendly, in harmony, as they actually are in this remarkable English language. Each young actor and actress took a bow, with Noun and Verb getting the final and most important applause.
Jim eventually went to a high school called Cathedral, known at the time as a prep school for the priesthood. I don’t know if he actually became a priest, but one might think his self-righteous performance as Verb seemed to be good preparation. Virginia, the girl who played Noun, got highly involved in the Liberal Democratic Party in the 60s and 70s and her shrill voice was heard at many a political gathering.
Donna, who played Adjective, blossomed into an awfully pretty and shapely girl by the time eighth grade came around. She was a little taller than me at that point, and reportedly already had a boyfriend in 11th grade. I tried to get on her good side, with little success. I was a bit a of class clown, which turned her off. As she told me onstage two years before, I was a little too Uncouth.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Piano Bar with Steve Lynch
It was a ship called the Maasdam -- of the Holland America Line, doing cruises from Montreal to Boston via the St. Lawrence River, and back. It was a modest piano bar -- 15 years old, which is very old for a cruise ship. The Yamaha piano was a weird Raspberry color, which I could never picture in anybody's living room.
I brought along my Canon camcorder, hopefully to get good promotional footage, and I handed it one night to a competent-looking fellow, instructing him to get a balance of audience footage and pianoman footage.
He did me one better -- he got extensive footage of Filipino bartender Ray -- who was quite the flamboyant sort (note that the word "flaming" comes from the word "flamboyant") and his performance during "YMCA" was classic.
An hour of footage was done on this night, and I edited it down to this ten-minute montage, for Youtube and for promo.
Friday, February 25, 2011
The Hercules
One of the venues I frequently found myself at was the Queen Mary. This venerable old cruise ship, having been retired from service in 1967, had made its last voyage to the Long Beach Harbor, on the south side of the L. A. area. It was permanently docked and converted to a hotel and special event center, with many rooms for parties.
On one particular night in late 1983 I was playing with a little trio at a Christmas party somewhere on the Queen Mary, for a bunch of bigwigs of some corporation. At one point a rather important-looking fellow came up and asked to use the microphone.
His announcement was to this effect -- “Ladies and gentlemen - as you may or may not know, the Queen Mary will soon have a companion here in Long Beach Harbor. Just off this ship and a few hundred yards down the wharf, Howard Hughes’ legendary Spruce Goose airplane has been re-assembled inside a huge geodesic dome. The exhibit officially opens next week, but our group has been specially invited to take a walk - right now - off this ship and over to the Spruce Goose for a sneak preview.”
Was there anybody in that room more excited than me ? The Spruce Goose had not been seen in public since 1947. I was well aware of it, but hadn’t heard about this new exhibit.
I’d been a Hughes-aphile of sorts for many years. When I was a kid he was famous for a) being the richest man in the world and b) being utterly reclusive. Nobody understood why he was avoiding the public eye, but he had become a punchline on the Johnny Carson Show.
In 1972 an author took a chance and wrote a phony “autobiography” of “the reclusive billionaire”, assuming that Hughes was actually dead and wouldn’t step out to refute anything.
But just before the book hit the stores, Hughes DID emerge, on the phone at least, with scientific instruments confirming that it was Hughes’ voice. And he sounded sane. He denied any connection with the con artist author. It was a headline story, with the author facing a jail term, and the publisher highly embarrassed. Hughes disappeared again after this incident, in fact became more reclusive than ever.
In 1974-75-76 I was living in Las Vegas, working at the Frontier and Desert Inn hotel-casinos, which made me, technically, an employee of Howard Hughes. However, while I was in Vegas, he passed away, in March 1976, on a plane en route to the USA from Acapulco. This was a big news story everywhere, but especially in Vegas, where he had huge holdings.
And it seemed appropriate that he pass away on a plane, since aviation had been the greatest passion of his life, as a record-breaking pilot, as a designer of airplanes, and as the owner of TWA, one of the giants of the airline industry in his day.
The gigantic Flying Boat nicknamed the “Spruce Goose” was commissioned during World War II, when America’s troop transport ships were getting a lot of trouble from German subs.
Hughes took a large chunk of government money to develop a Flying Boat that would help win the war. But by 1945 America had won the war, and Hughes still had not completed the Flying Boat, which he called the “Hercules”.
Somehow it was necessary for the Big Plane to be made of WOOD on the outside, rather than aluminum. The media -- always trying to be clever -- came up with the “Spruce Goose” nickname, which Hughes hated.
A Congressional Committee accused him of taking government money to build a big useless plane that couldn’t fly. To which Hughes said --
"The Hercules was a monumental undertaking. It is the largest aircraft ever built. It is over five stories tall with a wingspan longer than a football field. That's more than a city block. Now, I put the sweat of my life into this thing. I have my reputation all rolled up in it and I have stated several times that if it's a failure I'll probably leave this country and never come back. And I mean it"
Hughes never had to leave the country. A few weeks later, on November 2, 1947, he made good on his claim that The Hercules would fly.
Sitting at the controls himself, he did some taxiing in Long Beach Harbor, the Hercules churning through the water at over 100 mph. Finally, he went full throttle, and the Great Flying Boat, with its wingspan of over 300 feet, lifted 70 feet above the water, for a brief 30-second flight, covering about a mile.
There were skeptics that said the plane was shaky and unwieldy, and never could have transported 750 troops across the Atlantic, this being the entire goal of the Flying Boat Project. And in fact, the Hercules never flew again, for reasons known only to Hughes. He was a mysterious, brilliant, quirky man, not given to explaining himself to people, especially as he got older.
And in his last years, he was eccentric to the point of madness, with other people running his enterprises, and a handful of personal aides attending to his irrational quirks and demands. This last part of his life was well-documented in a tell-all book written by those personal aides. I read the book a few years after I left Vegas, and it left me all the more curious about him.
As a young man he’d made up his mind to be a) the world’s richest man b) the world’s greatest aviator c) the world’s greatest filmmaker and d) the world’s greatest golfer. Well he certainly did not achieve the last two, but he certainly DID achieve the first two.
I stepped away from my keyboards, the drummer and guitarist stepped away from their instruments, and we walked behind this group of suited businessmen who had cleared the party room. Down the ramp, off the Queen Mary we all strolled until we found ourselves ushered into the big domed building. The building had been empty, and we conducted ourselves in the echo-ey ambiance as we would in a shrine, never speaking above a whisper.
The lights were a little dim, as if to add to the spooky feeling. There it was -- the Flying Boat I’d heard about all my life, with that incredible wingspan, and the tail higher than a five-story building.
It was awesome, it was surreal, the immensity of the plane, the immensity of daring to make it fly.
The exhibit, despite its appropriate location in Long Beach Harbor, was not a big moneymaker, and after a ten year run the exhibit closed. The powers-that-be disassembled the Flying Boat and shipped it 1000 miles up the Pacific coast, to a place called the Evergreen Aviation Museum, in a town called McMinnville, just 40 miles out of Portland, Oregon.
I trust that the Evergreen Aviation Museum is not depending on a financial return on the Hercules. As a unique piece of aviation history, it deserves better.
Unfortunately, Long Beach really was the more appropriate home for it -- but the marriage to the Queen Mary now seems ill-considered, a mundane marketing ploy which insulted the old ship as well as the old plane.
On two later occasions I visited the Hercules exhibit, towing along people who might share my awe. And even without the preface, without the whole history lesson about Howard Hughes, an uninitiated person will look in amazement. But of course I’ll go ahead and give the history lesson anyway, to anyone who’ll listen, not ashamed to be one of those whose imagination got captured by this way-larger-than-life plane and the way-larger-than-life man who built it.
The Hurcules at the Evergreen Aviation Museum
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Galileo Galileo
A good amount of advance publicity was given to the lunar eclipse that occurred last night in the wee hours of the morning. I stayed up for it, watching the curved shadow of the earth take a “bite” out of the moon a little after 1:30AM. The bite got bigger and bigger, until “totality” about an hour later. Instead of completely disappearing in the shadow, the moon was somewhat visible, displaying a weird coppery color.
It was a crisp and cold night here in the Poconos, no humidity or city glare to dim the view. It was the early morning of December 21, the winter solstice, the official beginning of winter.
News programs announced it was the first combination of a lunar eclipse and winter solstice since 1638, at which time “Galileo was under house arrest for suggesting that the earth moved around the sun.”
OK it was a radical-sounding idea at the time. We see the sun “rise in the East and set in the West” all the time…sure looks like the sun is doing all the moving, and I certainly wouldn't have thought otherwise back in 1638.
More importantly, the Catholic Church firmly believed that the Earth was Stationary -- that it was -- that it HAD to be -- the Center of the Universe. It said so in the Bible -- (Psalms 93 and 96) “The World is Firmly Established. It Can’t Be Moved.”
So one could run afoul of both his fellow man AND God by embracing this newfangled Heliocentric (“sun-centered”) Theory.
In the middle of a full career teaching mathematics at universities, Galileo, in his mid-forties, shook the world in 1609 by inventing a telescope that could magnify by a factor of 30x. Prior to that the best available was only 3x. Not only had he created a new source of income, selling the telescope to mariners and sky gazers, perhaps a few Peeping Toms…
.
….but now he could explore the heavens so much more, and perhaps find something that would help prove that the Earth was not the Center of the Universe. The Heliocentric - Geocentric debate had been simmering for almost 70 years, courtesy of a man named Copernicus, who first proposed Heliocentrism. But Copernicus was aware that the world - particularly the Religious world - was not ready for his radical ideas, and he waited until the last year of his life (1543) to publicize his theories. The resulting controversy was somewhat reserved, with no strong champion for "Copernicanism".
Until Galileo, that is. With his new and vastly improved telescope, Galileo found four small celestial bodies orbiting the planet Jupiter. He plotted their movements, predicted their future movements, and destroyed the idea that ONLY the earth could have anything orbiting it.
With this and other discoveries, the Heliocentric - Geocentric debate heated up and became more public. The Church, still confident that its less-than-scientific viewpoint could be verified, didn’t flinch with the upcoming publication of Galileo’s “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems”.
But Galileo’s masterwork was devastating and well-written, completely debunking the Geocentric theory and putting the Church in an uncomfortable position.
Galileo was ordered to stand trial for Suspicion of Heresy in 1633. With the threat of torture and death hanging over him, he officially recanted Heliocentrism. His books on the subject, as well as all of his other scientific publications, were banned.
At first he was sentenced to life imprisonment, but then the sentence was reduced to “house arrest”. He was guarded and monitored for the rest of his life, which was another ten years.
Copernicus had waited until the very end of his life to start ruffling the Church’s feathers. Galileo did almost the same thing, and didn’t stand trial until he was 68, having been free to do great things for most of his life.
He probably knew he would eventually be vindicated, maybe posthumously, that superstition and fanciful doctrines would eventually fall in the face of hard scientific evidence. Secretly the scientific community was embracing his ideas more and more, and it was reasonable to assume that better telescopes would eventually come along, for ever-improving views of a vast and complex cosmos.
Today the Hubble Telescope orbits the earth, taking photos of things so distant that Galileo would have been flabbergasted. Those four moons orbiting Jupiter are merely the four largest, out of a total of 23, and their surfaces have been photographed extensively. They are Callisto, Ganymede, Io, and Europa, known collectively as the Galilean moons of Jupiter.
It took some 350 years, but in the early 1990s the Church vindicated Galileo, apologizing for his heresy trial and the subsequent mistreatment. His legacy lives on, one of the greatest minds of human history, who absolutely loved lunar eclipses.
It was a crisp and cold night here in the Poconos, no humidity or city glare to dim the view. It was the early morning of December 21, the winter solstice, the official beginning of winter.
News programs announced it was the first combination of a lunar eclipse and winter solstice since 1638, at which time “Galileo was under house arrest for suggesting that the earth moved around the sun.”
OK it was a radical-sounding idea at the time. We see the sun “rise in the East and set in the West” all the time…sure looks like the sun is doing all the moving, and I certainly wouldn't have thought otherwise back in 1638.
More importantly, the Catholic Church firmly believed that the Earth was Stationary -- that it was -- that it HAD to be -- the Center of the Universe. It said so in the Bible -- (Psalms 93 and 96) “The World is Firmly Established. It Can’t Be Moved.”
So one could run afoul of both his fellow man AND God by embracing this newfangled Heliocentric (“sun-centered”) Theory.
In the middle of a full career teaching mathematics at universities, Galileo, in his mid-forties, shook the world in 1609 by inventing a telescope that could magnify by a factor of 30x. Prior to that the best available was only 3x. Not only had he created a new source of income, selling the telescope to mariners and sky gazers, perhaps a few Peeping Toms…
.
….but now he could explore the heavens so much more, and perhaps find something that would help prove that the Earth was not the Center of the Universe. The Heliocentric - Geocentric debate had been simmering for almost 70 years, courtesy of a man named Copernicus, who first proposed Heliocentrism. But Copernicus was aware that the world - particularly the Religious world - was not ready for his radical ideas, and he waited until the last year of his life (1543) to publicize his theories. The resulting controversy was somewhat reserved, with no strong champion for "Copernicanism".
Until Galileo, that is. With his new and vastly improved telescope, Galileo found four small celestial bodies orbiting the planet Jupiter. He plotted their movements, predicted their future movements, and destroyed the idea that ONLY the earth could have anything orbiting it.
With this and other discoveries, the Heliocentric - Geocentric debate heated up and became more public. The Church, still confident that its less-than-scientific viewpoint could be verified, didn’t flinch with the upcoming publication of Galileo’s “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems”.
But Galileo’s masterwork was devastating and well-written, completely debunking the Geocentric theory and putting the Church in an uncomfortable position.
Galileo was ordered to stand trial for Suspicion of Heresy in 1633. With the threat of torture and death hanging over him, he officially recanted Heliocentrism. His books on the subject, as well as all of his other scientific publications, were banned.
At first he was sentenced to life imprisonment, but then the sentence was reduced to “house arrest”. He was guarded and monitored for the rest of his life, which was another ten years.
Copernicus had waited until the very end of his life to start ruffling the Church’s feathers. Galileo did almost the same thing, and didn’t stand trial until he was 68, having been free to do great things for most of his life.
He probably knew he would eventually be vindicated, maybe posthumously, that superstition and fanciful doctrines would eventually fall in the face of hard scientific evidence. Secretly the scientific community was embracing his ideas more and more, and it was reasonable to assume that better telescopes would eventually come along, for ever-improving views of a vast and complex cosmos.
Today the Hubble Telescope orbits the earth, taking photos of things so distant that Galileo would have been flabbergasted. Those four moons orbiting Jupiter are merely the four largest, out of a total of 23, and their surfaces have been photographed extensively. They are Callisto, Ganymede, Io, and Europa, known collectively as the Galilean moons of Jupiter.
It took some 350 years, but in the early 1990s the Church vindicated Galileo, apologizing for his heresy trial and the subsequent mistreatment. His legacy lives on, one of the greatest minds of human history, who absolutely loved lunar eclipses.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Throwing the Triple
well we
FLOAT thru the air, wit the
GREATEST of ease, we’re the
FLYING PAGES, we
ALWAYS please…..
HIGH in the sky, up a-
BOVE the ground, we’re
HOTTEST -- FLYIN’ --
ACT a - ROUND
The above lyrics are all I can remember from my first and only attempt at writing a Rap Song, and a goofy reminder of the nine months I spent with the Gatti Circus in 1988.
It was a medium-sized circus, certainly no Ringling Brothers. But it provided solid, predictable employment as a keyboardist at a time when I really needed it. It also provided a ton of interesting travel and interesting people, for instance the Flying Pages -- the sons of poor Cuban circus performers who immigrated here in the 50s.
Jorge Pages (“Pages” apparently both a singular and plural word) was the oldest of three brothers comprising this trapeze act. He was the “catcher” -- it seems that baseball and trapeze acts are the only institutions in which someone has the title of “catcher”. Jorge, thickly built, with large arms, hung from one trapeze and caught whatever human being was flying toward him, and then tossed the person back to the trapeze on the other side.
Felix was the middle brother, a bit of a renegade with a "street tough" image, and clearly the most athletic. In order to sell itself to a circus, a trapeze act had to have a least one person who could perform the triple somersault. Felix was able to do this about 95% of the time, plus quite a few other marvelous trapeze tricks.
Youngest brother Willy, only 18 years old, was thicker in build and less wiry and agile than Felix. “Throwing the Triple” did not come so easy to him, yet he spent much of the 1988 circus season trying to do it, often in front of thousands of people.
I remember it well. The ringmaster would announce “William will now attempt the famous Triple Somersault.” Then the drum roll, and the hushed crowd. Then up goes Willy, then down goes Willy into the net.
In 30 or so attempts, Willy managed the Triple Somersault just once, with a heroic assist from catcher Jorge, who seemed to be holding Willy by his fingernails. There was much congratulations and brotherly hugging all around, but over time it became clear that Willy would never be able to throw the triple with any consistency. By contrast, brother Felix would soon be working on “throwing quad“, the latest new achievement in trapeze, something once thought of as impossible.
As the season progressed and people got to know each other, I had the audacity to try and write the “Flying Pages Rap”. The Pages traveled with cousins and in-laws who eked out a living selling cotton candy and circus souvenirs, and the circus “neighborhood” always had a Pages group of mobile homes and trailers, from which emanated all manner of rap music any time of day.
I knew little about rap in general, and even less about Cuban culture, but I went right ahead putting words in the mouths of these 3 brothers, with a little 4-track recorder that I was carrying during the entire 9-month contract.
One day in Oregon, as I sat in my pop-up tent-trailer with a rough draft of the rap on tape, I noticed Willy nearby and called him in to check it out. He smiled as he stood there with the headphones on, and it appeared that I had hit a home run.
A little later Jorge appeared, at Willy’s recommendation. Quite a different reaction. A small frown appeared on his face after a brief listen. In addition to the general “chorus” rap mentioned above, I’d written 3 individual solo raps, one for each brother. Jorge didn’t seem to appreciate the “Jorge” rap.
He said “you’re spreading it on really thick, Steve” and that’s about all he said. I didn’t offer to play it for Felix, and he never asked to hear it. I suspected that he’d heard an unfavorable review from Jorge.
The rap was forgotten, and the circus season ended, as did my career as a circus keyboardist. One year of circus was plenty for this lifetime.
The Pages went back to Sarasota, Florida for their 3-month off-season. I heard they did at least one more season for Gatti, during which Willy met a lovely young aerial athlete and quickly married her.
Only recently, spacing out as I so frequently do during my rides to Long Island and back, did the historical curiosity called the “Flying Pages Rap” pop back into my head. Maybe the individual solo raps left something to be desired, but that chorus still seemed catchy to me.
So I hit the Internet to find out what became of the Flying Pages. I found an extensive article on the subject, written in 2007, 19 years after I worked with them.
Jorge, the older brother who failed to recognize my genius as a rap writer, had retired from trapeze performance in 1992. By then he’d learned enough about the Big Top to run his own little indoor circus, called Circus Pages.
The article does not say what became of Felix Pages, the brash and highly talented middle brother. Considering his marvelous abilities, it seemed odd that the article had nothing to say about him, except that he also retired in 1992.
Willy re-invented himself as a catcher, with older brother Jorge as the perfect tutor. Instead of retiring in 1992, he had many years to go as the leader and mentor of…..
…..The Flying Pages. His son Anthony, with the perfect pedigree, was part of the act by the time he was 6 years old. At the age of 13 he threw his first Triple, and has been doing it with “the greatest of ease” ever since. He is clearly the centerpiece of the Pages present-day lineup.
Over the years, Willy and his wife have seen to it that the name Flying Pages is synonymous with quality trapeze artistry. Now both around 40 years old, they’ll now phase themselves out of the actual flying, as they recruit younger talent to support a “name” that is gathering increasing fame and industry respect with each generation.
Truly a family success story, truly a circus success story, and of course truly an American success story. A story of hard work and strong family ties. I’m glad to have met them at that particular juncture of their lives. Perhaps now I’ll re-record the rap, tweak it here and there, write a new verse for Anthony, and….nah, just kidding.
FLOAT thru the air, wit the
GREATEST of ease, we’re the
FLYING PAGES, we
ALWAYS please…..
HIGH in the sky, up a-
BOVE the ground, we’re
HOTTEST -- FLYIN’ --
ACT a - ROUND
The above lyrics are all I can remember from my first and only attempt at writing a Rap Song, and a goofy reminder of the nine months I spent with the Gatti Circus in 1988.
It was a medium-sized circus, certainly no Ringling Brothers. But it provided solid, predictable employment as a keyboardist at a time when I really needed it. It also provided a ton of interesting travel and interesting people, for instance the Flying Pages -- the sons of poor Cuban circus performers who immigrated here in the 50s.
Jorge Pages (“Pages” apparently both a singular and plural word) was the oldest of three brothers comprising this trapeze act. He was the “catcher” -- it seems that baseball and trapeze acts are the only institutions in which someone has the title of “catcher”. Jorge, thickly built, with large arms, hung from one trapeze and caught whatever human being was flying toward him, and then tossed the person back to the trapeze on the other side.
Felix was the middle brother, a bit of a renegade with a "street tough" image, and clearly the most athletic. In order to sell itself to a circus, a trapeze act had to have a least one person who could perform the triple somersault. Felix was able to do this about 95% of the time, plus quite a few other marvelous trapeze tricks.
Youngest brother Willy, only 18 years old, was thicker in build and less wiry and agile than Felix. “Throwing the Triple” did not come so easy to him, yet he spent much of the 1988 circus season trying to do it, often in front of thousands of people.
I remember it well. The ringmaster would announce “William will now attempt the famous Triple Somersault.” Then the drum roll, and the hushed crowd. Then up goes Willy, then down goes Willy into the net.
In 30 or so attempts, Willy managed the Triple Somersault just once, with a heroic assist from catcher Jorge, who seemed to be holding Willy by his fingernails. There was much congratulations and brotherly hugging all around, but over time it became clear that Willy would never be able to throw the triple with any consistency. By contrast, brother Felix would soon be working on “throwing quad“, the latest new achievement in trapeze, something once thought of as impossible.
As the season progressed and people got to know each other, I had the audacity to try and write the “Flying Pages Rap”. The Pages traveled with cousins and in-laws who eked out a living selling cotton candy and circus souvenirs, and the circus “neighborhood” always had a Pages group of mobile homes and trailers, from which emanated all manner of rap music any time of day.
I knew little about rap in general, and even less about Cuban culture, but I went right ahead putting words in the mouths of these 3 brothers, with a little 4-track recorder that I was carrying during the entire 9-month contract.
One day in Oregon, as I sat in my pop-up tent-trailer with a rough draft of the rap on tape, I noticed Willy nearby and called him in to check it out. He smiled as he stood there with the headphones on, and it appeared that I had hit a home run.
A little later Jorge appeared, at Willy’s recommendation. Quite a different reaction. A small frown appeared on his face after a brief listen. In addition to the general “chorus” rap mentioned above, I’d written 3 individual solo raps, one for each brother. Jorge didn’t seem to appreciate the “Jorge” rap.
He said “you’re spreading it on really thick, Steve” and that’s about all he said. I didn’t offer to play it for Felix, and he never asked to hear it. I suspected that he’d heard an unfavorable review from Jorge.
The rap was forgotten, and the circus season ended, as did my career as a circus keyboardist. One year of circus was plenty for this lifetime.
The Pages went back to Sarasota, Florida for their 3-month off-season. I heard they did at least one more season for Gatti, during which Willy met a lovely young aerial athlete and quickly married her.
Only recently, spacing out as I so frequently do during my rides to Long Island and back, did the historical curiosity called the “Flying Pages Rap” pop back into my head. Maybe the individual solo raps left something to be desired, but that chorus still seemed catchy to me.
So I hit the Internet to find out what became of the Flying Pages. I found an extensive article on the subject, written in 2007, 19 years after I worked with them.
Jorge, the older brother who failed to recognize my genius as a rap writer, had retired from trapeze performance in 1992. By then he’d learned enough about the Big Top to run his own little indoor circus, called Circus Pages.
The article does not say what became of Felix Pages, the brash and highly talented middle brother. Considering his marvelous abilities, it seemed odd that the article had nothing to say about him, except that he also retired in 1992.
Willy re-invented himself as a catcher, with older brother Jorge as the perfect tutor. Instead of retiring in 1992, he had many years to go as the leader and mentor of…..
…..The Flying Pages. His son Anthony, with the perfect pedigree, was part of the act by the time he was 6 years old. At the age of 13 he threw his first Triple, and has been doing it with “the greatest of ease” ever since. He is clearly the centerpiece of the Pages present-day lineup.
Over the years, Willy and his wife have seen to it that the name Flying Pages is synonymous with quality trapeze artistry. Now both around 40 years old, they’ll now phase themselves out of the actual flying, as they recruit younger talent to support a “name” that is gathering increasing fame and industry respect with each generation.
Truly a family success story, truly a circus success story, and of course truly an American success story. A story of hard work and strong family ties. I’m glad to have met them at that particular juncture of their lives. Perhaps now I’ll re-record the rap, tweak it here and there, write a new verse for Anthony, and….nah, just kidding.
Friday, December 10, 2010
The Golden Spike Disco
"Been there, done that, got the T-shirt." I've been a typical tourist over the years, buying T-shirts at so-called famous places. But they quickly become plain old T-shirts, and one winds up throwing on a shirt without noting what's written on it.
So I sat down at the breakfast table this morning wearing a T-shirt that said "Golden Spike" in large block letters. Under that was the image of two locomotives facing each other. Also an image of a railroad spike, used to hold the steel rails to the wooden cross-ties. The shirt attracted some curiosity, and I thought back to the weird place where I got the shirt.
The locomotives on the shirt represent the historic meeting of two track-laying companies back in 1869. In an ambitious project to connect the USA by rail from coast to coast, one company worked its way westward from St. Louis, and the other worked its way through the immense Sierra Nevada mountain chain starting from California. According to my 6th grade history book, the two tracks met at what is now Ogden, Utah.
When the very last connecting tie was nailed in, a Golden Spike was used, with much ceremony. There is a famous old photo of the occasion, in typical Civil-War era black-and-white, of workers grouped around the two locomotives, and some official-looking folks posing with The Spike in the Center.
The story was told very colorfully in that history book, and quite a few others, and gave me a hankering to see the historic spot. Well I guess it was only a small hankering, because I waited 45 years to go there, and only then because something else was going on.
It was summertime 2005, and the International Barbershop Harmony Association was having their annual worldwide competition in Salt Lake City. They leased out the Conference Center for the occasion. This huge 21,000-seat auditorium was the home base for the legendary Mormon Tabernacle Choir, so it was an inspiring setting for the best barbershop choruses in the world.
I got on a plane with an equally-interested friend, and we stayed for 4 days in a downtown motel, enjoyed the utter cleanliness and order of Salt Lake City, and the utter beauty of the musical performances at the Conference Center.
But somewhere, approximately 50 miles north of Salt Lake City was a place called Ogden, Utah -- which, according to my 6th grade history book was where I would find the old railroad track, the Golden Spike, and whatever tourist-y things might accompany it. I envisioned round-the-clock security guards at the location of the Golden Spike. I envisioned a Golden Spike Hotel, a Golden Spike Park, a Golden Spike Pancake House, a Golden Spike Disco.....
Heading north one afternoon in our rent-a-car, a local Utah road map gave me my first hint that there might not be a Golden Spike Disco. The closer details revealed that Ogden, Utah was a good ten miles to the EAST of the famous meeting spot. After making the appropriate left turn off the main highway, we found ourselves heading west on a much smaller road In the Middle of Nowhere as they say, with Ogden Utah getting further and further behind us.
I thought to myself, Surely we would reach the crest of some high hill, and suddenly GoldenSpikeLand would open up before us. It was around 4:30 in the afternoon, and surely the summertime dinner crowd was loading up all those restaurants.
At 4:45 we descended through a scorched-brown vista, miles and miles of sagebrush and weeds, and saw a solitary small building down in the distant desert valley. According to a dusty little road sign, we had reached our destination.
This little hut was the entirety of the Golden Spike Tourist Trap. It had one employee, selling T-shirts and books, and she was preparing to close the shop at 5:00. We were her last sales of the day, and we asked, with bated breath,
"Where's the Golden Spike?"
I almost asked where were the Security Guards for the Golden Spike, but by now I sensed something amiss, as if the Security Guard question would sound ridiculous.
She said that the famous railroad meeting point was "right out there", and she point toward a hardly-visible railroad track about 100 feet past the back door. And she went on to say that this stretch of track had been unused for over 70 years. When first built, it taken a roundabout route, circumventing a large body of water somewhere in Utah. Eventually the technology improved, and they built a bridge and track over the lake, a more direct route.
"But what about the Golden Spike?"
"Aw, they removed that spike a few days after they nailed it in. It's in some museum someplace", been there for 130 years now." She answered the question sympathetically, and I felt that she'd given this disappointing news to others before me.
We chatted a little more with the shop lady, watched her close up for the day, and were free to go back and check out the railroad track for as long as we wanted. Which was about ten minutes. I pictured the two locomotives, all those people in the photogragh long gone, looked around at the exact same desert hills that they looked on back in 1869...
...and that was it. The Golden Spike is actually located in the Stamford Museum in California, and I'll surely never go there. It turned out that the site itself was the most important thing, and in hindsight I am quite glad to have gone there. The Spike would have been a nice touch, but obviously I misunderstood the whole situation.
My T-shirt, which I'm wearing right now as I type this, has an actual image of the Golden Spike, to remind me of what I didn't see. So the shirt is a bit misleading -- perhaps I'm doing a service here, providing a word of warning, for those millions of history buffs considering a visit to "Ogden, Utah", that they'd better plan a few extra things to do.
So I sat down at the breakfast table this morning wearing a T-shirt that said "Golden Spike" in large block letters. Under that was the image of two locomotives facing each other. Also an image of a railroad spike, used to hold the steel rails to the wooden cross-ties. The shirt attracted some curiosity, and I thought back to the weird place where I got the shirt.
The locomotives on the shirt represent the historic meeting of two track-laying companies back in 1869. In an ambitious project to connect the USA by rail from coast to coast, one company worked its way westward from St. Louis, and the other worked its way through the immense Sierra Nevada mountain chain starting from California. According to my 6th grade history book, the two tracks met at what is now Ogden, Utah.
When the very last connecting tie was nailed in, a Golden Spike was used, with much ceremony. There is a famous old photo of the occasion, in typical Civil-War era black-and-white, of workers grouped around the two locomotives, and some official-looking folks posing with The Spike in the Center.
The story was told very colorfully in that history book, and quite a few others, and gave me a hankering to see the historic spot. Well I guess it was only a small hankering, because I waited 45 years to go there, and only then because something else was going on.
It was summertime 2005, and the International Barbershop Harmony Association was having their annual worldwide competition in Salt Lake City. They leased out the Conference Center for the occasion. This huge 21,000-seat auditorium was the home base for the legendary Mormon Tabernacle Choir, so it was an inspiring setting for the best barbershop choruses in the world.
I got on a plane with an equally-interested friend, and we stayed for 4 days in a downtown motel, enjoyed the utter cleanliness and order of Salt Lake City, and the utter beauty of the musical performances at the Conference Center.
But somewhere, approximately 50 miles north of Salt Lake City was a place called Ogden, Utah -- which, according to my 6th grade history book was where I would find the old railroad track, the Golden Spike, and whatever tourist-y things might accompany it. I envisioned round-the-clock security guards at the location of the Golden Spike. I envisioned a Golden Spike Hotel, a Golden Spike Park, a Golden Spike Pancake House, a Golden Spike Disco.....
Heading north one afternoon in our rent-a-car, a local Utah road map gave me my first hint that there might not be a Golden Spike Disco. The closer details revealed that Ogden, Utah was a good ten miles to the EAST of the famous meeting spot. After making the appropriate left turn off the main highway, we found ourselves heading west on a much smaller road In the Middle of Nowhere as they say, with Ogden Utah getting further and further behind us.
I thought to myself, Surely we would reach the crest of some high hill, and suddenly GoldenSpikeLand would open up before us. It was around 4:30 in the afternoon, and surely the summertime dinner crowd was loading up all those restaurants.
At 4:45 we descended through a scorched-brown vista, miles and miles of sagebrush and weeds, and saw a solitary small building down in the distant desert valley. According to a dusty little road sign, we had reached our destination.
This little hut was the entirety of the Golden Spike Tourist Trap. It had one employee, selling T-shirts and books, and she was preparing to close the shop at 5:00. We were her last sales of the day, and we asked, with bated breath,
"Where's the Golden Spike?"
I almost asked where were the Security Guards for the Golden Spike, but by now I sensed something amiss, as if the Security Guard question would sound ridiculous.
She said that the famous railroad meeting point was "right out there", and she point toward a hardly-visible railroad track about 100 feet past the back door. And she went on to say that this stretch of track had been unused for over 70 years. When first built, it taken a roundabout route, circumventing a large body of water somewhere in Utah. Eventually the technology improved, and they built a bridge and track over the lake, a more direct route.
"But what about the Golden Spike?"
"Aw, they removed that spike a few days after they nailed it in. It's in some museum someplace", been there for 130 years now." She answered the question sympathetically, and I felt that she'd given this disappointing news to others before me.
We chatted a little more with the shop lady, watched her close up for the day, and were free to go back and check out the railroad track for as long as we wanted. Which was about ten minutes. I pictured the two locomotives, all those people in the photogragh long gone, looked around at the exact same desert hills that they looked on back in 1869...
...and that was it. The Golden Spike is actually located in the Stamford Museum in California, and I'll surely never go there. It turned out that the site itself was the most important thing, and in hindsight I am quite glad to have gone there. The Spike would have been a nice touch, but obviously I misunderstood the whole situation.
My T-shirt, which I'm wearing right now as I type this, has an actual image of the Golden Spike, to remind me of what I didn't see. So the shirt is a bit misleading -- perhaps I'm doing a service here, providing a word of warning, for those millions of history buffs considering a visit to "Ogden, Utah", that they'd better plan a few extra things to do.
Monday, December 6, 2010
Family
Thanksgiving can happen anywhere between November 22 and 28, so all my life I’ve had a birthday pretty close to Turkey Day, if not right on it. This was great because I was always guaranteed a birthday cake and song in the middle of a larger-than-normal family gathering.
Out came mom & dad’s Good Silverware reserved for special occasions, and out came the Special China, and a lot of extra food - much more than for a normal night in the kitchen. This was a Dining Room Occasion, with special guests, which only happened a handful of times a year.
This pleasant memory from my childhood was re-enacted in most spectacular fashion last weekend, as my entire family got together for two days here in the Poconos. They traveled from New Mexico, Vermont, Connecticut and Long Island, which in addition to Pennsylvania have become the new family centers.
My 60th birthday provided some impetus for this huge undertaking. More importantly, it tied in to Thanksgiving, and the fact that all of us had not been in the same place since January 2004.
As delighted as I was to see all these people, it was clear that they were delighted to see each other. Some of the youngest were meeting family members for the very first time. Old ties were re-established, with stories and laughs galore. It was a unique and wonderful time for all.
In the words of my big sis Jackie --
“What can we say? It was wonderful. Magical actually. When everyone was gone, I must say I was down. Maybe that's what it feels like preparing for a wedding, the big feast, and then poof. it's over. But because you all came, you made memories we will never forget. Seeing all the kids together for the first time, wow.....Just being in the same room together, a lot of love is what I'll remember, thank you so much, and thank you Lord for the gift of family“.
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