Have a great New Year!

As promised on this morning's radio show, here are my 2011 obituaries:




Swami Bhaktipada

Kate Schulte

Betty Ford

Joe Bageant

Ben Masel

Jessica Nathanson (Plains Feminist)

Elizabeth Taylor

Owsley Stanley (Bear)

Anne Francis

Anthony Dellaventura (from 2010)

Requiescat in pace.

~*~


Blogging notice for the New Year:

Apparently, there is some sort of weird software that pops up on my comment page, but it doesn't manifest on all computers and phones. I am trying to figure this out, and sincerely hope to have it properly taken care of soon. (Blogger Help Forum is famously slack; the expression "you get what you pay for" comes to mind.) If you have any clue as to what this is and how I might get rid of the damnable thing (the pesky 'download manager' that pops up is called Ilivid, and yes, it certainly does make I livid), please help! I have already executed the recommended steps to uninstall on MY end, but here's the confusing thing: It isn't on MY computer. (?) I keep thinking it must be embedded in the Blogger html code itself, but I have no idea how it got there. And I can't figure out why this pop-up doesn't show up for me too?

(sobs)

I have been fiddling and futzing with this crap for hours now, whilst keeping one eye on my LAW AND ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT New Year's Eve marathon. Otherwise, the whole afternoon would have been an entire waste.

~*~

I now present DEAD AIR'S OFFICIAL VIDEO OF THE YEAR! (appropriate hoots and hollers)

As always, my criteria is: which video did I listen to the most, after I initially posted it?

No contest.

Southern Culture on the Skids - White Trash/Greenback Fly



Have a Happy New Year, everybody!

Anthony Dellaventura 1948-2010

I don't remember our first conversation, but it was probably about Catholicism. Later, we moved on to every other subject in the universe. But in the beginning, I can remember that we were discussing health supplements and alternative medicine (he was an almost-daily customer in the store where I work), when the rather intimidating ex-NYPD cop suddenly reached out and touched the St Jude medal I was wearing.

"Patron saint of lost causes," he mused, in his heavy New York accent. Luhwust Cuhwuzzes, is how it sounded to me.

"Yeah," I agreed.

"Are you a lost cause?" his voice turned suddenly gentle, and I was caught off guard.

"Probably," I admitted.

He narrowed his eyes. "You are not. You are a very intelligent and beautiful person." He seemed to be speaking very honestly, and I was struck silent, which never happens. I was embarrassed to be complimented.

"You don't believe me," he was inspecting my face. All at once, I was aware that he had been a professional interrogator. "You believe what all these assholes say," he waved his hand around, as if to encompass the whole world (and particularly the Catholic Church) in "all these assholes" and I laughed.

He narrowed his eyes again, "Really. It isn't funny. You do. Well, don't. They dunno shit." And then he smiled. An amazing, award-winning smile.

And for a few years, Tony Dellaventura brightened my life. I saw him nearly every day. He drove an enormous custom Harley-Davidson and dressed in leather; tattooed from head to toe, able to bench-press 200 lbs at age 60, he was a striking figure. His name was Snake; the name tattooed on his throat, right above a snake. It was a long time before I knew his real name.

"Are you tattooed everywhere?" I once asked, curious.

"Every inch," he assured me. And he said he had a dragon down below, the dragon's tail becoming, well, you know.

I'm sure my eyes popped, "Didn't that hurt?!?"

"Oh hell yes," he said, matter-of-factly.

We argued about politics mostly, after it was discovered that we were in near-total opposition, yet agreed on certain libertarian basics: Let people have their guns, their dirty movies, their weed. (The mention of weed being illegal made him roll his eyes.) He particularly liked Ron Paul (as I wrote here once before), and was suitably impressed that I had gone to the Peace Center Amphitheater to hear Congressman Paul speak, even as a lefty. We would argue until we were interrupted, or until he would get thoroughly pissed off and walk away from me. But he was never rude.

Sometimes he would return later in the day, "And another thing..." and reply to what I had said earlier. He always heard me out and let me make my point, sometimes granting that I was right. It was during these conversations that I would hear references to his experiences as a cop; things he had seen that influenced his views in often surprising ways. Even as a fairly right-wing guy, he would freely admit (for instance), that gay people were unfairly targeted, since he had seen it himself so many times. And his New Yorker-honesty and bluntness always impressed me a great deal, since it was steeped in the harsh reality of what he had actually witnessed.

He ate a very healthy diet, almost fanatically so. When he told me he had pancreatic cancer, I was shocked; he seemed like Iron Man. (I knew the odds and I was upset.) And after that, Tony lost weight rapidly. He went back to New York City for treatment, then returned to South Carolina. I wanted to take his photo at one point, but he wouldn't let me, "I don't look so good right now, wait until I look a little better."

I didn't see him after that.

From Tony's obituary in the Staten Island Advance:

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Anthony (The Snake) Dellaventura, 62, of Huguenot, a lifelong Staten Islander and a retired NYPD detective and private investigator whose rough-and-tumble workdays were dramatized in the television show “Dellaventura,” died Thursday in Calvary Hospital’s hospice in Brooklyn, after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.

I have never seen the TV show named after him, but I loved knowing someone who was the subject of a TV series.

He was exactly the sort of larger-than-life personality that great TV-characters are made of.

Mr. Dellaventura joined the NYPD in 1969. After two years in uniform, he spent five and a half years as a plainclothes anti-crime officer, charged with posing as a drug dealer. Described as a “cop’s cop,” he later was assigned to the Organized Crime Control Bureau, and was promoted to detective in 1981.

A fourth-degree black belt in martial arts and a weapons expert, he had been in a shootout with a robber in the parking lot of the Staten Island Mall.

Upon his retirement in 1984, he opened his own private investigation company and was hired by attorneys trying to uncover hidden funds during divorce cases, property owners looking to rout crack-dealing squatters, and film studios who wanted to destroy bootleg copies of new releases being sold by vendors on city streets.

The secret to his success in business, he once told the Advance, is being both a good sleuth and establishing confidence and good faith with clients.

Known as “The Snake,” he told New York Magazine in a 1992 profile that his friends gave him the nickname “because of the way I strike, like a cobra. But you couldn’t pay me a million dollars to beat someone up or kill somebody.”

He also said he was willing to do anything necessary for a case, as long as it didn’t include breaking any laws. Instead, Mr. Dellaventura’s hulking physical presence and intense face — he rarely cracked a smile — were often enough to intimidate even the most hardened criminal.

Actor Danny Aiello portrayed him in the drama “Dellaventura,” which recreated some of Mr. Dellaventura’s real-life cases during its run on CBS from late 1997 until early 1998. The episodes were based on events straight out of the detective’s caselog, with details changed for confidentiality.

Mr. Dellaventura told the Advance in an interview when the show debuted that he was pleased with Mr. Aiello’s performance, noting the actor resembled him physically — minus Mr. Dellaventura’s collection of more than 240 tattoos, which would have taken a makeup artist hours to recreate.

Mr. Dellaventura also served as a bodyguard for notables including Jack Dempsey, Sid Caesar and Harry Connick, Jr.

A deeply committed, born-again Christian, he was an active member of Faith Fellowship Ministries in Sayreville N.J., and Grace Fellowship Ministries in Greer, S.C., where he had a second home.

“He was just a tremendous friend to people,” said his wife, Susan. “You could call him at 3 in the morning and he would get up and drive to California to come to your aid.”

Mr. Dellaventura’s passions were rooting for the New York Yankees, riding his Harley-Davidson through the mountains of South Carolina, boxing, and watching old movies.

Most of all, he loved spending time with his family.

Surviving, along with his wife of 20 years, the former Susan Villani, are his sons, Anthony, Philip, Nicholas and Salvatore, and his daughter, Lucianne Dellaventura.

I met Susan and Salvatore, but not the rest of his family. My thoughts and prayers are with them.

I will miss you, my friend, as well as our spirited arguments and your solemn promise that you would settle the hash of anyone who messed with me. Your wild tattoos and multicolored, humongous Harley, making all kinds of rumbly noises in the parking lot. Must be Snake, I would think.

Reflexively, I sometimes still think it's you.

There are only a few in the world like you. So few. If you have indeed found that Afterlife we so often argued about, put in a good word for your favorite Lost Cause. I love you, and we sure do miss our favorite ex-NYPD cop here in Carolina.

Rest in peace.

RUNOFF ELECTION FOR TED!

Left: Ted Christian watches election returns at the Liberty Tap Room last night.

~*~

It was a long day yesterday. We busted major ass.

First, I go to work, and encounter my favorite customer who had a TV show made about him, Tony Della Ventura. I asked him if he voted in the primary and ohhhhhhh, I forgot. (I asked him that before, didn't I?) I was treated to a mini-diatribe about how politicians are all whores, which you should pronounce the way Tony Montana did, whilst sitting in the bathtub: these horsssssss. Della Ventura is the only ex-New York cop I know with a confederate flag tattooed on his leg. He was played by Danny Aiello, which is utterly perfect casting, except that Danny isn't tattooed over every square inch of his body, riding a Harley. (Well, in fairness, this is after retirement and moving south.)

And so, Tony tells me: don't vote for these horssssss.

I take his point, but I tell him how I try to work within the system, yada yada, and with that, we are off on one of our epic conversations. I re-stock the Greens Plus and talk about Ron Paul, who he likes.

~*~

Went to vote in the Thornblade precinct, where they had (this is no exaggeration) only 17 Democrats all day, and 324 Republicans. (This totally explains the golf course in my face, now doesn't it?)

My spies say they saw Jim Burns shaking hands with people, shilling for votes, right on the polling place property, supposedly as he stopped in to vote for himself. Isn't that against the rules? Who's in charge here?

Off to do some quick windshield-leafletting, wash dishes, grab kombucha on the way over to the West End.

~*~

And speaking of the West End--damn, what happened to this place? You ain't in Kansas anymore, Dorothy. I arrive at the aptly named Liberty Tap Room, which didn't even exist a couple of years ago. I'm still quite amazed by the whole capitalist enterprise; the pseudo-artsy West End (once the low-class textile mill area of town), the new ball park, the condos atop the ballfield, etc... all the latte-town dreams of the Greenville Chamber of Commerce. I look at the ballfield and wonder how many old millhouses and ancient storefronts died for it's sins. I've still never been to a Greenville Drive game, although I did go to Greenville Braves games in the old suburban stadium, back when we had the Atlanta Braves farm team. I think DRIVE is a DUMB name for a team and I say so at every available opportunity (like right now). The Braves were sold to Mississippi and are now the Mississippi Braves. Damn, I hate that.

~*~

Ted was watching the returns when I arrived after the polls closed at 7pm. The whole crew was there (see photo below) and we settled in to watch the returns on one of those giant restaurant TVs out on the terrace. He joked that at least he had eleven votes!

When approximately 44% of the precincts were in, Ted looked at the TV-screen, somewhat startled, and did Rocket Scientist magic right in front of us. He squinted in deep thought, like Mr Spock, and announced that if Bryan McCanless had X% of the vote and Paul Corden had Y%, with 44% of the precincts? Closes eyes, put hands to eyes momentarily--then he says: Runoff.

"No single candidate could possibly have 50% of the vote," he said, somewhat surprised at what he was saying. "Runoff election between me and Corden!"

What? How did you DO that, man? NO WONDER HE CAN LIVE OFF THE FREAKING STOCK MARKET, with talents like those. I wish I could do algebra right in my head. (Just like they told you in school, word-problems can actually help you in real life.)

Ted looked exultant, well, as exultant as rocket scientists ever get, anyway.

At this point, cell-phones start ringing, and people start handing them to Ted. HE DOESN'T HAVE A CELL-PHONE, PEOPLE. HE IS RUNNING FOR CONGRESS AND DOESN'T HAVE A CELL-PHONE!!! Newspapers and Channel 4 wanna interview him--Ted sprints off to Channel 4, which is, luckily, right down the street. (Sometimes, living in a smallish town has its perks.)

The phones continue going off with various ring-tones, and one campaign-worker says, HEY, TED TOOK MY PHONE!

~*~

And so, it's a Runoff election in two weeks, between Paul Corden and Ted Christian. Ted landed 33%. I attribute not a small amount to those Walmart windshields I littered up!

Ted, on his website:

We're inside the gates, boys and girls.

Here's the deal. Anybody who didn't vote Republican in the primary can vote in the runoff. Corden got the party hard core yesterday, and that's about all he's going to get. We on the other hand have an entire universe of fed up people to tap into. Do the math.

Ted's all about math.

More work, more windshields, I can't pretend this isn't exhausting to think about. But Ted actually in the race against entrenched Republican incumbent Bob Inglis, where he CAN'T BE IGNORED? It's a dizzying prospect. And it could happen! We were all flush with success, woo-hooing our way out of the Liberty Tap Room.

More to come, of course. I will keep you all posted.

Edit, by popular demand: here is your humble narrator doing her Brunhilde impersonation last evening, particularly necessary in heat like this, where my hair threatens to smother me. Photo by Serena.

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Listening to: Grateful Dead - The Race Is On
via FoxyTunes