Nuyorican Memories,,..,A Work in Progress
Yambú
Yahoo latinjazz list. "Decimists" please take note of at least part of
it. (about midway down). Eddie, I hope you're reading:
-----------------------------------
Anybody from NYC remember Florsheim Shoes on E. 149th
St. and 3rd Ave. in SoBro (da' South Bronx)? They had
the latest Playboys. These shoes were the rage in NYC
but only made it to Philly with transplanted NY'ers.
Those were the days. Playboys had this crepe sole that
was thick. The perfect shoe to withstand NYC pavement
and still look righteous.
They were expensive for the day. Usually starting at
around $14.95, when they first came out, all the way
up to $65 by the time they went out of style).
They were worn by pimps, pushers, hustlers, and
youngbloods who wanted to style to the max. That meant
Boricuas and Brothers.
Ah yes, and the ever present mock turtleneck with an
alpaca sweater and color co-ordinated sharkskin pants
that made the young player of the day look like a hip
ghetto version of Andy Williams, Perry Como or Patato.
If you didn't dig your hair, you usually wore a Beaver
lid.
Standard attire for the Joe Battaan crowd at Taft High
School, Evander Childs, Samuel Gompers, De Witt
Clinton and Cardinal Hayes when you left the school.
Afros so big that you could hide your homework, pens,
pencils, and of course other things, in them.
And then there were the last remnants of the Italian
Street Festival on Morris Ave. in the South Bronx,
which used to be all Italian, near the Melrose PJ's.
Then came "platforms" and then "marshmellows". If you
ran track in high school, like I did, we started using
Adidas and/or Nike cross country track shoes instead
of "Cons", "Pro-Keds", or cheapie "Bata Bullets" with
our jeans which we would modify like a Califa modifies
a car to make it into a lo-rider.
Then "Clydes" by Puma. Walah!!! The birth of the
designer sneaker, straight from da' ghetto.
The Ghetto Brothers, The 7 Immortals, The Black
Spades, The Golden Guineas, among others, were the
last remnants of the street gang culture of the 50's.
The 7 Immortals were seven guys who were all less than
5 foot 4 inches tall. Locos de madre or CMF's!!!
The language of the day...
"I'm bookin'". "Gotta tip". "Tipulate". "Tipulating".
"Smell ya later". "He's breakin' wild"!!! "Ofi"
(Official). "Nice kicks", "Solid", "Te veo en la one
ten". "Righteous". "Weeeeeeeo"!!! (This was an ad
campaign that A&P supermarkets did on TV, everyone
used it on the basketball court when they shamed you
by sinking a long shot). "Fuck you, Magoo". "Hey Mo'".
"This is my associate". "The horizontal mambo (sex)".
"High Water Huey" (a put down if you had pants that
didn't touch your ankles and showed them). "Next"!!!
(The short version of, "I got next" if you played
basketball!!!). "Quien se tiro el maco?!!!". "Rompe
culos" (very small plantains). "He's a JAMF" (Jive Ass
Mother Fucker). "I dig". "I don't dig". "Crazy". "You
dig"? "Dig you now, bury you later". "She's a freak".
"Shakin' hands with shorty" (takin' a piss)". "My man
is a slushpumper" (trombonist). "Slow drag" (slow
dancing really close). "Brooklyn slow drag" (slow
dancing with the girl against the wall). "The 500"
(slow draggin' while you have your knees bent). "The
1000" (slow draggin' while you have your knees bent so
you're almost touching the floor). "Cunga" (how our
African American brothers pronounce conga). "Pana".
"Loisaida" (Lower East Side). "Brosky". "Rightsky".
"Leftkowitz". "Myfunzalo" (broke, cheap). "No doubt,
he's out". "It's easier to talk shit than to do shit".
The sound of two Chinese Cubans in a restaurant
cursing each other out in Spanish, English and
Cantonese. Multi-culturalism at its best.
The above ground portable swimming pools that the city
built in the basketball courts of the projects in
order to calm the natives who were getting restless in
the summer. The only problem was that they became huge
sanitation repositories at night, fueled by the anger
of brothers who had lost their beloved b-ball courts.
City planning? No, stupidity at it's best. The "Johnny
Pump" was the real deal.
Making out on the roof of the projects. Making love
anywhere, at any cost, when no one was looking.
Black light posters and Lava lamps. If you didn't have
that you brought a red light bulb at the hardware
store.
Stepping over "nodding off" junkies in the morning
when you ran down the stairs of the projects to get to
school on time. The aroma of ghetto chic, urine in the
halls. The "old skool" players best grooming friend,
Clubman. Wearing a woman's stocking as a skull cap on
your head at night when you went to bed if you had
"pelo malo". The sound of footsteps and your heartbeat
racing because you wound up in somebody else's
neighborhood and you had to haul ass because you were
being chased.
Stickball, boxball (Chinese box ball to some), off the
point (stoop ball to others), skelsies, double dutch,
wist, cagao, one on one, johnny on the pony, suicide,
punchball, softball, touch football, war, etc. Street
games that are vivid memories and developed hand and
eye coordination, imagination and comraderie (and in
some cases, when there was a dispute, diplomacy and/or
fighting skills) to the max.
And then there was the game that was a test of
creativity, imagination, humor and cojones. The
pre-cursor to "Rockin' da' Mic". It was called "Oh
Yeah".
Two people facing each other head on. A crowd chanting
"Oh Yeah" four times in a melodic cadence while they
clapped on beats 2 and 4& (simulating a basic conga
tumbao). Then the first battler (the chanter and/or
challenger) would exclame a name, thing, place, or
object. For example "It's Julius Caesar"!!! The crowd
would chant "Oh Yeah" once. The other battler would
then have to instantaneously respond with something
that rhymed. "The titi squeezer"!!! The crowd would
respond with "Oh Yeah" and the chanter would say maybe
"It's Bob Hope"!!! "Oh Yeah"!!! The battler would
respond with "He's takin' dope"!!! "Oh Yeah"!!! "It's
Lois Lane"!!! "Oh Yeah"!!! "She is a pain"!!! "Oh
Yeah"!!! 'She's gotta' plan"!!! "Oh Yeah"!!! "With
Superman"!!! "Oh Yeah"!!!
If the battler could not respond, the original chant
of "Oh Yeah"!!! would be repeated four times and a new
battler would step up until someone could come up with
a rhyme. Or until the story in question came to a
logical conclusion. Spontaneous creativity? Hell
yeah!!! You could also play the game solo with chorus
and just tell the story yourself which is what most of
us did. Call it what you will, it was the jazz of the
streets. It was our form of urban decima.
Fights were less common. You had to be really pissed
off to get to that point. The intellectual art of the
put down was raised to levels never before attained
because everybody in the neighborhood knew each others
mom. And they all talked. You didn't want to fight a
friend or aquaintance because then the parents would
get involved.
The worst thing would be if a cop brought you to your
mom because they caught you doing whatever. You'd beg
"Please officer, no". You see, it was embarassing
because everyone in the neighborhood would see you
walking with him. And so "Da' Dozens", the ancient art
form that was born during the Slave period in the U.S.
from African American culture that combines prose,
poetry, spontinaity, wit, humor and pathos, was in
full effect if you had a dispute with someone.
A typical exchange:
"I went to your house, I opened the refrigirator and
saw a dead roach. Your mutha' yelled, 'Save me the
white meat'"!!!
"Oh yeah, well your mutha''s like a bowling ball.
'Always getting fingered, always in the gutter and
always coming back for mo'"!!!
It became a Roman spectacle with crowds chanting each
combatant on. Two gladiator's male or female facing
each other in the best sense of the word. Using the
word to engage hate, anger, jeolously, respect,
disrespect, in a human drama to gain respect from each
other, their peers, their community in a life and
death struggle that would leave the winner a champion
and the loser humiliated. Shakespeare was always
always in da' house because his art form was alive in
this battle of wits that could be as dramatic as
Hamlet, funny as Two Gentleman of Verona or as tragic
as Romeo and Juliet.
"Tecatos" (junkies) air tromboning Willie Colon or
Barry Rogers solos on a street corner were a common
sight. They also would hold the door open for your mom
or anyone else's mom. Chivalry hadn't died yet.
The great posters done by Dizzy Izzy Sanabria (no
relation) right in the neighborhood promoting the next
dance like it was announcing a great battle at the
Coloseum in ancient Rome.
The Irish guys with red curly hair going to an
African-American barber to get their hair conked.
The brothers begging you to show them how to dance
mambo so they could rap to a Latina. They were always
listening to Cal Tjader. Tjader, the epitomy of cool.
The Italian barber my father took me too when I was
very little with the one guy dressed in black always
sitting there reading the horse race results. The
sound of them speaking in Italian while my father
communicated with them in Spanish and them calling him
Don José.
Dreamed of a better life? "La bolita".
The candy store. Where you always went to buy a
Spalding or Pennsylvania Pinkie for 25 cents and had
to pay 2 cents for a cup of water in the summer.
The boogaloo. The dance/style that brought everyone in
the projects that was young, Latino or African
American together and told the old mamboniks, "We got
our own shit". No one knew it was Cuban son montuno
with R&B combined, and no one cared.
Saying, "Hello, how are you"? took to much time. Yo,
was enough. If you were in a good mood you followed
with the person's first name. If you were in a really
bad mood, you just nodded. That was common. Why?
Because everyone had some shit they were dealing with.
The two blackouts. Serpico. The Knapp Comission.
Rockefeller, Lindsay, Beame, Badillo. The Wedtech
Scandal with Mario Biaggi and Stanley Simon, who raped
the South Bronx and were part of the reason it became
the symbol of urban decay.
Kako (who lived in my neighborhood) walking around
with rollers in his hair. Candido Rodriguez's two
little twin boys who were into marketing at a very
young age. While walking home from school, if they saw
some young rumberos, they would yell at them, "My
father can kick your ass on congas, bongo and
timbales"!!!
Rumbas in the park till past midnight in the canyons
of da' projects in the summer. Couldn't sleep? Who
cares, you didn't want to.
Don't have any drums? No problem. "El buson" (the
mailbox) would do fine. And of course cars were made
of real metal in those days. Imagine five guys playing
guaguanco on fenders of cars. Forget about that STOMP
show on Off Broadway. It was invented in the South
Bronx and El Barrio in Manhattan and Red Hook and "Los
Sures" in Brooklyn by a people desperate to keep their
traditions and family units alive while a madness
called "Tecata" tried to destroy it and them.
El Club Cubano on Prospect Ave.
My first pair of imo (fake) Playboys when I was 12
brought from Thom Mcann. My first leather jacket.
Light years ahead of Run DMC. The first set of timbale
sticks that I cut. My mother and father stuggling to
buy me a drum set and me winding up with only half of
one.
The ecstasy of the Fania All Stars at Yankee Stadium.
The real Latino explosion. Except nobody noticed. The
cops were shocked. They didn't know that that many
Boricuas lived in da' Bronx.
And then DJ Kool Herc hooking up to a lampost and the
beginning of Hip Hop, and the art of tagging on the
subways. How could anyone bomb (spray paint) an entire
train and tell a whole cartoon story on an entire
elevated subway? Easy, imagination and cojones.
Se fueron Los Judios, Italianos, y Alemanos, y Erin Go
Bragh.
Marielitos, Vietnamese, Koreanos, Chicanos,
Ecuatorianos, Colombianos, Dominicanos coming to NYC.
Que cosa!!! Cumbia and Merengue in da' hood? Cool. But
Tavito Vazquez and Joseito Mateo are still the men.
The desparate strains of a junkie softly begging a
pusher like a homeless, hungry man/child in a Charles
Dickens novel, "Dame algo".
The bravura of someone coming up to a rumbero playing
quinto in the park while he's cooking with gas and
asking them, "Dame un poquito".
The sound of "Cocinando" or "Que Viva La Música" by
Ray Barretto exploding from everyones boom boxes
(which they stole or brought on the cheap while the
blackout in '77 happened) at Orchard Beach. The extra
kick that dancers from Brooklyn would do when they
danced mambo.
Our sacred temples. The Bronx Casino, The Hunts Point
Palace, The Colgate Gardens, The Savoy Manor, Luigi's,
Marina Del Rey...
La Playa De Los Mojones, Orchard beach.
Charlie Palmieri playing solo organ at a small bar on
Westchester Ave.
Andy Gonzalez reading Mao's "Little Red Book" on the
number 6 train.
Ismaelo strung out, dealing with his demons.
My father with his eyes closed sitting in a rocking
chair smoking a cigar and listening to Sergio Mendes.
My mother calling me "mi negro".
Tito Puente finally making ocha.
NYC, just like I pictured it. It was the best of
times, it was the worst of times... Oh, but what a
time and what memories... :)
Aché,
Bobby Sanabria
copyright 6:05am Novemer 2, 2002 Little Cho'Music
Yambú
<luc...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>>Here is the entirety of a Bobby Sanabria post that just went up on the
>>Yahoo latinjazz list.....
>>
>Great stuff, Mike...... Bobby is a cool
>guy.......
>
The coolest. It's always worth repeating that his video instruction
tapes for congas are the best there are. And not just for musicians,
but for fans who want a close look at the innards of this music.
Bobby's posts are the only reason anyone here needs, to check out
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/latinjazz/.
- Mike Doran
César N. Díaz
"Yambú" <yam...@attbi.com> wrote in message
news:3dc3be2f...@netnews.attbi.com...
> Here is the entirety of a Bobby Sanabria post that just went up on the
> Yahoo latinjazz list. "Decimists" please take note of at least part of
> it. (about midway down). Eddie, I hope you're reading:
>
> -----------------------------------
Coño Mike,
I'm sitting here in Spain on a sunny Saturday afternoon listening to Richie
Ray, Brooklyn's Ricardo Ray and his band, with Chivirico Davila and Bobby
Cruz doing the vocals, and you drop this gem on me. Priceless.
Thanks to Bobby Sanabria for it. Bobby is one of the coolest, friendliest
persons I have ever met, not to mention, a historian, un cronista and
extremely talented performer.
Thanks Mike, I think Eddie's gonna love this,
César.
César N. Díaz
"Edward-Yemil Rosario" <luc...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:c4k7su0vnb20ici6e...@4ax.com...
1> On Sat, 02 Nov 2002 2:02:08 GMT, yam...@attbi.com (Yambú) Eloquently
Wrote:
>sharkskins, the Blais and red light housing project parties, the St. george
> hotel, the Marion Manor, el bochinche -- all that stuff was part of the
> phenomenon we call salsa.. All the people who lived and, yes, died, with
this
> music. That day Bobby made a fan of me for life.
>
Sharkskin? Did you say sharkskin? That reminds me the time I went into a
Delancey Street clothing store.. When the shop attendant, a Jewish fellow
with a heavy accented English asked me if I needed help, I told him that I
was "just looking". The man then showed me a gorgeous looking, doubled -
breasted, suit. "It's sharkskin" he said. As I started to walk away, the
thing looked mighty expensive to me, I told him that I didn't have any
money. "How much money do you have?" The attendant said. I told him, "Only
25 dollars". "Adios, amigo", the guy said in perfect unnacented Spanish as
he pointed me out the door.
I bought a sharkskin suit later for $125, I'd love to say that I got at the
same store, but, I don't think so. I remember wearing it for the first time
at a dance in Brooklyn's Saint George Hotel. I had also bought a pair of
shoes from Tom McAnn, they where black slip-ons, the ones with a big buckle.
My friends made fun of me for buying them, but, I've seen a record jacket
photo of Richie Ray wearing shoes likte that, so I bought a pair myself.
Went to the dance with my Panamanian friends, they were riding during the
subway trip because of the shoes and the ill-fitting sharkskin threads.
Luckily, it was a short trip, about six stops. From Franklin Avenue to Henry
Street, with the advantage that you didn't have to come out to the street,
there was an elevator that took you from the subway station to the Saint
George Hotel lobby. Dick "Ricardo'Sugar or "Symphony Sid" would be
broadcasting live from the lobby, they weren't broadcasting the music being
played on the bandstand, but regular recorded latin music. That's something
I always considered silly. Why go to the trouble of setting up a remote if
all you were going to do is spin records? The only difference was the
background noise and the over all quality of the sound. No interviews, no
nothing. Love those dances though, the girls brought the food, guys brought
the booze.
Those were the days.
César.