Charles Bukowski
said, “Beware the average man, the average woman, beware their love, their love
is average, seeks average… Not being able to create art they will not
understand art…” No truer words could have ever been spoken. I’ve seen this in
the art/skateboarding world time and time again, or I should say, the rest of
the world’s involvement with us.
Something I’ve
noticed about skateboarding, it seems to draw in many creative types. It’s a
subculture artist can move about freely in without being judged. I’m a strong
believer that creative people will find each other in our world. Like magnets
we are drawn to one another. Whether you’re a writer, painter, musician,
photographer, sculptor, skateboarder, or surfer, to me it’s all under the
umbrella of art.
Skating also
draws in others trying to find their niche in the world, but they usually leave
after the first few falls or when the scene no longer fulfills their needs of
popularity. In other words, they don’t speak the language for very long.
The strangest encounter
I had was at my dentist’s office. I was lying there waiting for the dentist to begin
drilling my tooth and his assistant asked me, “Are you a skater?” Her brow
lifted upwards. I had noticed her looking at the years of scars on my lower
legs. She had also been looking at my shirt which had some sort of skate logo
on its front. I answered, “Yeah I skate.” Then she said, “I’m a skate groupie.”
“Ummmmmm, cool,” I said because all words had escaped me. Her boss, the dentist,
looked like he was going to fall over. Needless to say, it was an awkward
visit. Picture, the two of them only a foot away from my face sticking sharp
objects and drills in my mouth; him embarrassed; her wide-eyed and all smiles;
me, um, yeah…
When my friends
and I skate the topics of conversation naturally revolve around art and music.
One such day my friend Sean Garrity, who played with the punk band, Billy Reese Peters, started talking to
another friend, Mario about a Charles Mingus documentary he’d watched. Mingus
had calmly fired a shotgun into the ceiling of his home while being
interviewed. Mario laughed and said, his dad knew a lot of those guys like,
Charles Mingus, Dizzy Gillespie, and Thelonious Monk, from the Jazz scene back
then.
The first thought
that ran through my mind was a Henry Rollins interview I had seen years earlier
on the Dennis Miller Show. Rollins who once fronted the now legendry punk band,
Black Flag told Miller about the musicians
he listened to growing up, Sonny Rollins, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, John
Coltrane, and Thelonious Monk. When I watched this interview in 1992 I was
impressed. I knew the association the Beat writers had with Jazz but now for me
they were connected with someone like Rollins.
As time went by I
talked to Mario about his father’s musical career. The more I learned the more
intrigued I became. Yeah, the Internet is filled with his father’s achievements
as a musician but it didn’t have the insight someone like his eldest child,
Mario would have.
Mario’s father,
also named, Mario Rivera, was born July 22, 1939 in Santo Domingo, Dominican
Republic. He passed away August 10, 2007 in New York City after a long battle
with cancer. He was a world renowned Jazz musician. Starting off as a
saxophonist, eventually he would master playing 27 different instruments. He
played with Tito Puente for many years. Their song, Oye Como Va would eventually be covered and recorded by, Carlos
Santana. Rivera recorded an album with Stanley Turrentine, The New Shuffle in 1967 and one with Dizzy Gillespie, Afro Cuban Jazz Moods in 1975. He
appeared in two films, The Mambo Kings
and Calle 54. In 1988 Rivera would
play with Dizzy Gillespie in the United
Nations Orchestra. He also perform with his own bands, The Mario Rivera Saxtet and The
Salsa Refugees. In March of 1996 Rivera put out an album called El Commandante.
The info in the
previous paragraph is the common info I ran across doing research on the web.
But the more human side came from sitting down with my friend Mario after a
long session of skating. His eyes grew wide as he talked about his father being
a father.
He said his
father was a firefighter back in Dominican Republic. That he had put together a
band and his first gigs were covering Buddy Holly songs. We talked about photos
that came to his mind of his father playing with Chubby Checker. “I saw the
pics when I was about ten to twelve.” With a slight grin he remembered his
father teasing him as a kid about missing Aretha Franklin stopping by their
home. Mario reflected that it was a common thing for folks like her
to pop in. But the best for me as we talked was seeing the kid-like glee line
Mario’s eyes as he told me how impressed he was that his father knew how to
play games like Tops and Marbles. That his father spending time with him not
only playing the games but knowing how they were played meant the world to
Mario at that time. “Man, I thought that was cool,” Mario said followed by a
wide smile.
By the end of the
interview I decided it shouldn’t be an interview at all. It should be a blog
about one friend telling another friend about the memories of his father. All
while hanging out in our subculture of skating…
