City Voices

LANDGREN ANOTHER UNFORESEEN CONSEQUENCE OF GLOBAL WARMING

FIRST PERSON

Thoughts from a curmudgeon on trip to Lost Wages, Nevada

Joe Fusco Jr.

Special to Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK

I noticed age spots on my neck and left forearm the night before our departure. Never a good omen.

We hadn’t been on a plane in three years. I disliked flying before Covid-19. Now, I loathe it!

The Southwest flight-attendant was very stern. “No mask, no flight,” she warned us. “Only remove your mask to eat your snack and drink your beverage then re-mask,” she warned us. “Don’t try to pee standing up,” she should have warned me.

Speaking of bathrooms, a lot of my musings seem to center around them. Maybe, it’s because my urologist said my prostate is the size of a small cantaloupe. Maybe, it’s because when I’m not peeing, I’m thinking about peeing.

On the shuttle from the airport to our hotel, there was group in the back eating fried chicken and singing “Mandy” by Barry Manilow, my favorite performer. I joined them on the chorus.

We stayed seven days and six knights at the Excalibur Hotel. The room’s hair dryer had been removed from the bathroom wall and was MIA. My wife alerted housekeeping and also mentioned our desk was minus a chair, a situation I

WORCESTERIA

Fernando Perez. PHOTO COURTESY ED ANTONELLI

Saying goodbye to fixtures from Worcester’s arts scene

Victor D. Infante

Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK

As 2021 fades into 2022, it’s natural to take a moment of the winter stillness to contemplate the people who’ve left us in the preceding year, and in an arts community – both here in Worcester and really anywhere – there’s no such thing as an insignificant loss. Even a figure who may have been more behind the scenes or just an ardent supporter can leave a hole in the community’s fabric.

Perhaps it’s because what each person brings to that community is both intensely personal and totally unique, their absence is almost always palpable. This is certainly the case with longtime Worcester arts advocate Kelly Momberger, who died in October from a cardiac arrest.

“Kelly was very important to me and the city arts scene,” says stART on the Street cofounder Tina Zlody. “My first real introduction to Kelly was at a Dr. Gonzo cookout, she was so enthusiastic about these fun, informal gatherings. Then she joined the Worcester Arts Council when I was chair. Kelly jumped in with both feet and helped us look at equity and inclusion in our guidelines, making sure we were reaching the people and organizations that really needed funding.”

Shortly thereafter, Momberger was appointed vice chair, becoming chair four years later, when Zlody reached the end of her tenure. “She was a great leader in every position she held on council,” says Zlody. “Kelly was instrumental in bringing and managing Make Music Day to the city … Kelly flew under the radar, she was quiet and stayed out of the spotlight but was one of the most effective,

HARVEY

No one seems enthusiastic for 2022

Janice Harvey

Special to Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK

“I don’t want to live in a world without Betty White.”

I didn’t say it; it was said to me half-jokingly, by a friend on New Year’s Eve, when news broke that the beloved star had passed away 17 days shy of her 100th birthday. My immediate thought was that People Magazine has egg on its face for its premature “Betty White Turns 100!” cover, but then I thought about just what it means to lose Betty White. This isn’t about the passing of a television icon. It’s about losing optimism — a little something which we seem to be fresh out of these days.

I haven’t spoken to a single person who has high hopes for the new year. We fell into that trap a year ago, when vaccines to fight COVID-19 were ready for distribution, and a new administration was settling into Washington. Along came January 6th, and the fairy dust we were sprinkling was blown back into our eyes by a cult hellbent on insurrection. The euphoria many experienced over Trump’s defeat dissipated faster than tear gas on a windy day when we realized that the expresident and his followers were not only unwilling to accept the outcome of the 2020 election, but were quite willing to toss democracy into the dumpster to prevent certification of the election results. Scratch “Peaceful Transition of Power” from 2021’s New Years Resolution List.

The vaccine we hoped and prayed for was initially difficult to procure, but before summer poked its head through the clouds, adults were able to feel a shred of optimism. Surely all Americans would want to be inoculated against a deadly virus that by January of 2021 had claimed the lives of 385,000 Americans. Fat chance! Thanks to a blitzkrieg of disinformation and flat-out lies spread through the Internet, and right-wing media megaphones like Fox News, 2021 surpassed 2020 with the dubious distinction of logging 386,000 COVID-related deaths by year’s end. Among the unvaccinated, variants Delta and Omicron flew as freely as mosquitoes at a nudist camp. Up the spout went what was left of our sunny outlook.

From the “Scales of Justice” Department: We collectively held our breath as jurors decided the fates of the three racists charged in the death of Ahmaud Arbery, and the smug murderer of George Floyd. We were certain that the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, the babyfaced murderer of Black Lives Matter protesters, would offer us another dollop of justice served. Wrong! Instead, we were sickened further by photos of the freed and arrogant teen posing with Donald Trump during a visit to Mar-aLago. The guilty verdict in the Ghislaine Maxwell sex trafficking trial was good news, though the arrest and conviction of the men she kept happy with fresh victims would make a more welcomed headline.

Looking ahead with one eye closed, a sliver of sanity appeared on 2022’s horizon when Twitter finally suspended for eternity Georgia’s biggest embarrassment, Republican U.S. Representative and QAnon supporter Marjorie Taylor Greene. Twitter has slapped her in the past, but her repeated violation of the site’s policies concerning misleading (aka lies) information about COVID-19 finally bagged her for good. The damage done by her deliberate dissemination of falsehoods is likely incalculable. MAGA supporters who rejected science to prove their loyalty are finding out the hard way that Greene and her traveling band of sketchy grifters won’t be standing by their deathbeds, wringing their hands in sorrow.

And so we move ahead with caution, trying our best to scrub the past year from memory. We rip the calendar from the wall, toss it with relief into the trash and hang a fresh one. We hope to find hope. Betty White’s death on New Year’s Eve was just another reason to kick 2021 to the curb. This was a year so filled with hateful action, dishonesty and loss that it even stole someone as lovely as Betty from us. On its way out, 2021 should be frisked for the good silverware. If hope, so famously penned by the poet Emily Dickinson, is truly a thing with feathers, then we’ve been plucked.

A memorial to Betty White at her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame following news of her death at age 99.

JOSHUA A. BICKEL/COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Fusco

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finally remedied by borrowing one from the hallway. The drawers in the bureau for our clothes would open and close mysteriously at night but our stay was comped so what’s a few ghosts!

There was also a mirror on our bathroom door so you could stare at yourself on the toilet. The bathroom had awesome acoustics as our neighbors apparently discovered when I crooned “Unforgettable” at 2 a.m. after a few complimentary mimosas.

The hotel reeked of weed. In fact, most of Vegas reeked of weed. Keep your mask on all day, it’s a Rocky Mountain high!

Speaking of masks, you needed to wear one indoors unless you ate, drank, or smoked. So, I bought a pack of Camels, a six-pack of Bud Light, and a super-size can of Pringles as we toured the casinos.

The back of my ears became very sore from being masked all the time so I rubbed Vaseline on them. For some reason, it reminded me of my Mom telling me her step-mother made her ingest Vick’s VapoRub when she had a cold as a child.

I miss my Mom. She loved to gamble and lived a very healthy life until she was almost ninety. My wife, Cyndi, okayed this paragraph so I can mention that there were numerous young women on the Strip just bursting out of their tops, taking selfies of each other. There was also a street-performer in Old Vegas just wearing a loincloth and a derby hat. He was singing “Mandy.” I tipped him a dollar.

My wife could small talk with Charlie Manson if he happened to sit next to her. I find engaging with strangers exhausting but I gave it the old community-college try in the men’s room by the buffet.

“Are they making us do that now,” I asked the young man who had a mask on his tallboy beer.

“Good one, brother,” he slurred.

Why is it that people don’t respect lines anymore? Two women in Madeira Beach Tshirts cut in front of me while I waited for an omelet at the breakfast buffet. An older gentleman wheeled right past me at the handicap entrance of Dick’s Last Resort.

Both times, security was nowhere to be found!

We paid to see shows that starred a fake Freddy Mercury, George Michael, Elton John, Joan Rivers, and the Bee Gees. I have a tough time dealing with my own behavior, never mind copying somebody else’s.

Cyndi really enjoyed David Copperfield’s magic act but I just thought he made BIG things suddenly disappear or appear … like small businesses and Super-Walmarts.

On our return flight, the very small man in front of me pushed his seat back into my lap. When I came back from standing in the restroom, I whacked his seat back to its original position as I walked by.

“You were in my space, brother,” I scolded him.

Finally, when we landed back at TF Green Airport, there was a pubic hair on the top of my urinal.

“That must have been a real tall dude,” I thought to myself then hummed “Unforgettable” all the way to Garage B.

Our 2007 Entourage started right up and it only took thirty minutes for me to figure out the computerized parking ticket so the g-damn gate would open and we could drive back to Worcester.

There’s no place like home!

The hotel reeked of weed. In fact, most of Vegas reeked of weed. Keep your mask on all day, it’s a Rocky Mountain high! GETTY IMAGES

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lovely, crafty, funny people I’ve ever known. The world is a better place because of her and losing her at such a young age makes the world a sadder place.”

Another loss that rocked the Worcester music scene in October was the passing of drummer Fernando Perez, after a battle with lung cancer. Perez was a fixture of a number of bands, including the acclaimed Santana cover band Abraxas, and the roots ensemble Boogie Chillin’.

“He put so much light, love and effort into everything he did,” says Electric Haze talent buyer George Adler. “From his amazing drumming, to his random breaking out into opera, to his incredible cooking, rhythmic and heart warming dance moves and hugs, his infectious smile, his huge heart. If I felt like I couldn’t ask for help with something from anyone else I felt I could always ask him. He made all the out-of-town musicians with no audiences feel so much love and appreciation.”

Perez’s bandmate in Abraxas, Ed Antonelli, said that Perez, as a bandmate and a musician, said he was always striving to be his best. “He patted you on the back, yet pushed you forward,” says Antonelli, who also noted that, although Perez kept his illness hidden from audiences, was met with chants of “Fernando! Fernando! Fernando!” at his last show.

Mark Martin, of the band Marko and the Bruisers, reported the death of drummer Nick Latou on the band’s Facebook page, saying, “New England punk rock lost an amazing drummer, brother, father, and smart-ass extraordinaire. We rocked so many stages and this man always put 110% when the music started. He wasn’t originally a punk drummer, but you would never know by listening to him play. Both Nick and Paul were the pieces I was missing to make my cheesy punk songs into something much more special. Thank you Nick for the time, effort, and love you put into our band and I’ll always love you like a brother.”

In an online poetry forum, Paul Szlosek just posted that poet Joan Erickson, “a longtime fixture in the Worcester County poetry community, and a wonderful friend to the Poetorium (reading series), passed away on May 20th.”

This is merely scratching the surface. It’s certain that there were other local artists who passed in the past year, and whose absence is a keenly felt silence that each one of them once filled with art.