Frankie Renzulli on Marty Pino
"’And Plus He Had A Great Big Heart…" As some of you know I’ve been fairly successful as a Television Writer and have had my share of small acting roles. I mention this not as brag but as a way to explain a little bit about how I succeeded in a business that was as foreign to me as any I could have imagined. To this day, whenever someone who is familiar with East Boston finds out that I didn’t leave East Boston until the age of twenty-three I am invariably asked, "How did you get out?" as if I had been held against my will. As if I had to mastermind a complicated blueprint of escape. As if I plotted and planned my break one night when no one was watching Sumner Street? They could imagine that maybe one night under the cover of darkness I popped in and out of doorways and alleys till I found myself sitting at the Emmy Awards dinner with my beautiful wife Jackie (another escapee). Well, it didn’t happen quite that way. Besides, everyone knows Sumner Street is very well lit. Seriously, and for the record, I never thought of East Boston as a place one needed to "get out" of. I know some did and still do and each case is different some should leave and others shouldn’t. The majority of East Bostonians are still good people and worthwhile neighbors to be had. The languages spoken on a Sunday morning may change from generation to generation but East Boston is after all an American neighborhood. What bounds it together isn’t a common language or culture but a desire to see our children take the American dream to its next step and that step is can be different with each individual. Some see East Boston as a place to live for many generations, for others, it doesn’t offer the chance to grow nor the opportunity to pursue a particular interest. Me, I can assure you I never wanted to leave. Further, there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t miss my hometown. Admittedly, living in California has its upside. You can’t beat the weather for one and if there’s nothing to watch on television you can always depend on a car chase covered from start to finish on the local news. But there is also a downside to being an ex-East Bostonian as I’m sure is true being an ex-nameyourplace. When someone you knew and or cared about passes you feel a certain regret at not being able to show your respect. Respect the East Boston way. By being one of the many that goes to the wake or stops by the family’s home to recall the milestone moments that we shared together. Of course there is the option to send flowers and it is a respectable gesture but a hug or a warm handshake is much more therapeutic for both sides of the equation. With each year that passes inevitably there is a name in the obituaries that makes me reflect on my years in East Boston. Sometimes when I’m told of a particular person’s passing I think, "That guy?" "I thought he died years ago." Other times it is a person that I just assumed would live forever. Someone who embodied a great chunk of my memories, someone whose name brings me back to a time in my life when I was just a directionless soul. Someone who’s passing makes me sad for selfish reasons because a little bit more of the East Boston I grew up in is gone forever. Just hearing that they are gone can bring out pangs of nostalgia and frustration. The frustration comes from the fact that I can’t be there to give a proper testimonial, or to simply show up for the service. I felt that frustration in a big way recently with the passing of Marty Pino. I felt bad that I couldn’t be there in person to tell his wife Colleen how highly I thought of her husband and how I remember the two of them working at the Social Center those many years ago and hearing others speculate "What’s up with those two?" " Are they an item or what?" I don’t recall if I ever met his two sons or his mother and sister. It would have been an opportunity to tell his boys that their father was a rarity in the world we grew up in, a man to be respected not because of his knock out punch, notches on his gun belt, or his ability to make a buck in the street but rather because he not only didn’t do those things but instead spent his life encouraging others not to as well. That he was a man’s man. To tell his sister that the interest and collection of material that I have about the infamous Sacco and Vanzetti case was born out of a conversation with her brother when I couldn’t have been more than a young teen. I would have liked to tell his mother that I only wish that someday people felt about my children as I felt about her son. These things seem to mean so much more when done in person. This desire led me to write what distance prevents me from demonstrating. I wanted to say a few words about a true East Boston man. Martin "Marty" Pino was a positive force for the whole community and as such the result of his loss may never be known or calculable. How many people has Marty touched in his short life? The turnout for his wake/funeral I am told was one of the largest if not the largest many can remember. That should give one an idea of just how many people had respect, admiration, and or gratitude for this man. How many more lives would he have had a positive impact on? That is why Marty’s passing is not only a loss to those who knew him, but also a loss to those who will never have the chance to do so. I for one feel lucky to have known him. He was an undeniable positive force in my life. I want to state emphatically that the help I got after I left East Boston wasn’t nearly as important as the help I got before I left. The encouragement that I got to follow my dreams of show business from the right people at a time in my life where the flame of a dream like that could easily be doused out with a simple mock or a wave of the hand. The people that looked at me not like I was a whackadoo doomed to an outpatient’s life at the Lindeman Center but rather as a kid with aspirations worth pursuing. These are the few whom I credit for much of my success. But they weren’t words of encouragement from just anybody. They came from a very special few. These few were male role models worth aspiring to. Men like John White of the East Boston APAC. A man that to this day I will turn to if I find myself in need of guidance. Another of those very special people that I credit for my success was Marty Pino. From my earliest memories of Camp Nashoba and the East Boston Social Center Marty Pino was there. Marty, was one of the few people I cannot picture in my mind without a smile on his face. I always said that Marty would have made a great peace negotiator or wartime consigliere. Marty could talk to the most educated of social workers with the same ease that he had when talking with the least educated in the area. That’s because each side could sense that he had no hidden agenda. Nor did he imagine himself doing missionary work for a church or ideology. He didn’t talk down to people though he was, in my opinion, better than most one talks to in the course of a day. He didn’t talk over your head though he certainly had the vocabulary to do so. Marty just communicated honestly and without attitude or airs. I would like to share with you a fond and important memory I have of Marty. I have to take you back to a time in my life when I was still living in Maverick Project. I, not unlike many of my friends who grew up in the projects, lived in a constant state of low self-esteem. I didn’t believe there was anything I could or would be good at. Most of my early life I didn’t have the basic confidence to fill out a job application for fear a question I didn’t understand would be asked. I’d be out of there in a flash before I was found out to be the project rat that even my teachers (some) told me I was. A guy like Marty helped make all that self-doubt disappear…at least for the time you were with him. In my case he would encourage me to sing. I liked to sing but never had the guts to pursue it professionally. Marty would tell me to harness my need to perform. If ever I retold an event that happened or broke into a song he’d say laughingly, "You’re good, you should go to Hollywood". I would feel complimented but never for a second did I think I was good. Marty would say that I needed to build my confidence. Trust and really believe in my self. Yeah, right, me, Frankie Renzulli belongs in Hollywood. Hollywood Park. But, Marty knew the difference between an exhibitionist and a person with a need for a creative outlet. When he said that I belonged in Hollywood, he didn’t mean that I was guaranteed to be successful or that I was special in any way. He simply recognized my desire to perform and encouraged me to do so. Every once in a while he’d round up a few of the guys from the Projects to sing in a hastily patched together doo-wop group he dubbed "Nashoba Na Na". A send-up of a send-up that he, along with Marty Powers (another early supporter), John Forbes, and an array of counselors and campers put together one day at Camp Nashoba. I wasn’t in the original incarnation of this ragtag group but one day I was asked by Marty to join them for a charity type Christmas performance that they were going to do at a rehabilitation hospital. Although I loved to sing I couldn’t imagine myself doing such a bold thing in front of strangers, people who might actually boo me. In front of people who are not going to cut me some slack with, "Hey, he’s not bad for a guy who’s not a pro, etc.…" I mean, what would I do if I actually got booed? Man that would be embarrassing. I might get so insulted that I’d roll one of those wheelchairs down a stairwell. Or, maybe I’d pinch off a patient’s I.V line. That would get someone to stop booing in a hurry. Marty said it was a show for the less fortunate but I was living in the projects. How much less are we talking about here? Maybe they should be singing for us. The simple truth was I was scared to death. I didn’t have the moxie. This whole thing is just a goof for these other guys but my thinking was, ‘If I fail here, if I can’t perform in front of a captive audience, a room full of wheelchair bound hospital patients, then I was fooling myself with all these dreams of show business.’ I wanted to keep the fantasy alive for a little while longer so I declined. Keep in mind; it wasn’t like I was some low rent headliner that Marty needed to go on with the show. Marty was simply trying to round up a bunch of guys to get them out of the Project for a few hours. It was as much for us as it was for the patients. Anytime you could get away from the Project for a few hours was a good thing. Living around Maverick you were always one bad choice away from screwing up your entire life. Marty explained that I wouldn’t be the focus. I’d only be doing background vocals along with a gang of other guys, "A couple of ‘ooh-wah-oohs’ and maybe a ‘shooby-doo-wah’ here and there", as he said. A few months earlier I had watched my friend Errol Fagone singing background in another grouping of these guys and I wished I were up on the stage beside him dressed all 1950’s with my hair slicked back. I remember thinking that I couldn’t even hear Errol’s voice. I suspected that he was just mouthing the words. I asked him, he denied it. Anyway, Errol told me he was going to dust off his background vocals and sing again with Marty at this Christmas show. I told him if he would then I’d do it too. Hey, I figured Errol’s a big guy, if we stink, I’ll just hide behind him. What’s to be afraid of? I have no memory of how we got there. Did we go in a van? Cars? Did we actually take public transportation? I swear I have no memory of how but get there we did. I don’t think I ever knew the name of the facility. But I do remember entering the building and let me tell you Marty wasn’t lying. Most of the people were in wheelchairs others were in hospital beds wheeled out just for our show. I remember a hospital worker gazing at us as if we were the Beatles or some other famous group, only not as white. That’s when the realizations that these people are actually expecting a professional type show, to actually be entertained, sunk in. Put it this way, free would be too steep a cover charge to see us. I’m thinking isn’t it bad enough that half of these people can’t walk? Now we are going to ruin their hearing as well? Marty was careful not to give us more than we could handle. Simple melodies only. Harmonizing was outlawed and for a good reason there were at least twelve of us and only two that I know could harmonize. There were of course some solid lead voices in the ranks. If my memory serves me right, Marty Powers did his rendition of "Under The Boardwalk". To this day whenever I hear it on the radio I think of Marty Powers. Marty Pino did a great presentation of "Rhythm Of The Rain" a song he once told me was his favorite all time oldie. That song takes me right back to that winter night. As for Errol, the others, and me we did our best "Shoo-Doops" and "Ooh-wah-ooh’s". Except for the occasional changing of a bedpan, the show was going smoothly. That was until Marty turned to the other Nashoba-Na-Na vets and announces over the microphone, "Okay, Frankie Renzulli is gonna sing the song ‘Personality’." My knees buckled. Marty Pino was bound and determined to see me take center stage in hopes that it would do good things for my confidence as well as keep me away from the thermometers I had been pocketing all night. For whatever reason, Marty Pino trusted something that I didn’t trust myself. He trusted that I was a good performer. He knew that a good performer always finds a way to make it happen. He knew I loved to get the laugh. I loved to have an audience. He knew once I was out there I’d come up with something, a funny line or a goofy look, anything to please the audience. He knew I wasn’t going to embarrass myself. It was a win-win situation. If I did embarrass myself everyone would have something to laugh about on the way home. But Marty knew I wouldn’t let that happen. He counted on my instincts as a performer to kick in. He was right. What he didn’t count on was that after the microphone was in my hand he’d need the Navy Special Forces to get it back. I wanted that spot on me all night. I sang the longest version of "Personality" ever sung. When I’d get to the end of the song a voice would cry out "One more time!" And I’d go back to the top of the song. I loved it. They loved it. What a night. What a memory. After a while my throat started to hurt so I stopped yelling "One more time!" That was the first time I truly performed in front of people I didn’t know. As they would say in the circus it was the first time I did the high wire without a net. I don’t think I’ve put down the mike since. Only now the microphone I use is a computer keyboard writing scripts for television shows. But I could not be sitting here in Hollywood without those early but oh so important words of encouragement from the right people at the right time. People like Marty Pino. A man’s man if ever there was. I must be honest, to this very moment I couldn’t say for sure if my performance of the song "Personality" was good or bad, on key or off. But there are two things I do know for sure; Errol Fagone lip synchs and Marty Pino once again said I was good, very good. I know he believed it but more importantly for the first time in my life I believed it…and then he smiled. Frankie Renzulli.
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