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BROOKLYN

I came out of the womb loving music. There was never a day that music didn’t encompass my every waking moment. In 1966, I started listening to 77 WABC on my portable transistor radio—The Beatles, Steppenwolf, Aretha Franklin, Martha and the Vandellas, Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, The Beach Boys, and Dusty Springfield. A few years later, I watched Creedence Clearwater Revival, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Grand Funk Railroad, and Todd Rundgren on American Bandstand, Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert, and Soul Train. That music was my lifeline, it was my nourishment—that was how I grew up, it was the beginning of my journey.

I was raised in Brooklyn, New York. My mom, Blanche, a small-framed, petite beauty with dark, shining hair, worked as a Spanish-English interpreter. My dad, Anthony, who was in the Air Force and named “Airman of the Month” in 1955, ended up working for IBM. At the time my parents met, they were both working for District 65 on Astor Place in the East Village of Manhattan. District 65 was a labor union and catered to its members offering household goods for sale, eye glasses and a pharmacy—and happened to be where I ended up working years later.

My parents married in 1958. My mom was thirty-six years old, and my dad was twenty-five. They had me in October 1959, at Beth Israel Hospital in Manhattan and identified themselves as “white” on my birth certificate. Because the U.S. government didn’t recognize Hispanics as a valid ethnic group until 1970, my parents had no place on the official hospital form to indicate they were Puerto Rican, so they just labeled themselves as “white.”

From the moment I was born, my mom dressed me in three-piece suits and made sure I looked like a proper young man. It didn’t matter where I went or what I did, I was always suited up.

Four years after I was born, my sister Cheryl arrived. It made my parents really happy, and I thought she was super cute. I remember holding her a lot, and even at that early age, we were inseparable. Every Christmas we always got tons of toys and stuffed animals. My favorites were Cecil and Beany, a plush green dinosaur and a little boy from the famous Beany and Cecil TV show. I also got G. I. Joes, Hasbro’s Sno Cone Machine and Rock ’em Sock ’em Robots, while Cheryl got the doll Chatty Cathy and an Easy Bake Oven. We constantly played the games Operation and Candy Land on our gray, paisley couch, which was always covered in plastic by my mother because she kept an immaculate home. “My house is so clean, you could eat off the floor,” she always said.

We first lived in a small second floor apartment in a brownstone on Chauncey street in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. Chauncey was famed for being the street where Lena Horne grew up as well as Jackie Gleason. In fact, Chauncey was the setting for The Honeymooners TV show in the fifties. That always made me chuckle because it kind of foretold my future of unexplained ties with celebrities, out of nowhere, like it was somehow meant to be.

When I was six years old, we moved to De Sales Place in East New York. The street was a cultural mix of Latino, Irish, Black, and Italian families. Because De Sales was a dead-end street and we were always out on the stoops talking, playing and hanging around—it often felt like one big family.

Whenever there was a huge snowstorm, everyone would get together and build a big hill of snow at the end of the street and we’d all go sledding down the makeshift white mountain. It was a unique and loving time for me, enhanced by all of the different ethnic groups and traditions living there.

I think the first tragedy I ever heard or knew of in my life was when little Albert Robinson, one of the kids in the black family, was hit by a car and dragged for blocks and blocks and died. It was the first time I ever saw anything so disturbing. It shook the entire neighborhood.

I didn’t come from a musical family and I didn’t come from a small family. I came from a big, busy Latino family that had roots in Puerto Rico and Cuba, and the most important rule drummed into us from day one was: “You don’t ask people for help, you don’t tell people your business, you do for yourself and never, ever talk about anything that happened in the family. Period.”

Whatever occurred—as far as my mother was concerned—you did not discuss. Silence wasn’t just the golden rule, it was law. That, as you will see, became a very tricky problem for me.

My mom had three sisters and one brother—Ursula, Barbara, Aida, and Mike. Aida was my Mom’s identical twin sister and she adored me. She always insisted I was “her Michael.” She lived on West 76th Street in Manhattan, and although Titi Aida had two children—Connie and Joseph—they weren’t raised by her. In fact, we were told Joseph died at birth, and we only learned much later that he was alive and had been given up for adoption.

It was like that with the rest of my mom’s family, as well—she and my aunts and uncles weren’t raised by their parents, but their grandparents.

However, there was a great deal of loyalty, and that devotion spread to all of us. At the same time, the world inside the family was very controlled. It wasn’t ever discussed that Titi Aida’s son was alive and living somewhere else, and it was never brought up that—she may have been gay.

One day after a visit with Titi Aida uptown, as were walking to the IRT train to go home, I asked Mom where Titi Aida’s friend, Mary, slept. Mary was there every time we visited. It seemed to me she was obviously living with her, plus there was only one bedroom. The moment I asked, my mom promptly slapped me across the head, and we continued walking home in silence. There was to be no talking about that situation, or any situation—ever.

Titi Aida wasn’t just my Titi, she was also a practitioner of “Santeria.” Santeria is an Afro-American religion from the Caribbean which is influenced by the Roman Catholic Church. Titi Aida believed she was an “Oricha,” which is similar to a priestess or a guide—within the spiritual world of Santeria.

When I was very young, maybe a preteen, and there was a big family get-together, everyone usually congregated at my great Titi Mary’s house in Borough Park. We all sat around her huge oak wood dining room table and there were always loud conversations going on as we ate yellow rice, red beans, and platanos.

Titi Mary lived in a railroad apartment and, often at some point in the evening, Titi Aida would disappear into the living room. At first, I wasn’t sure what was happening, but I soon learned she was going to pray and it usually ended up with her going into a trance—almost like a convulsion. It always scared me, but my mom would guide me into the room and say, “Go on, she’s here to bless you.”

Titi Aida usually sat in a big chair and smoked a cigar while she was in the trance. She rocked back and forth and took my hands, putting them on top of each other, then tapping them together. She would then start wiping me down—cleansing me, in a very spiritual way. It was like a renewal. She did all this while blowing cigar smoke everywhere and saying her blessings in both Spanish and English. She seemed very, very far away—except she was right there in front of us.

I think mom was right, because last year when I was in Cuba with my friend Lionel, we took a motorboat to an island off the port of Havana called Regla, where we met a Santeria priestess. She asked me if I would like a blessing. I nodded.

“Oh, there’s somebody here with us,” the priestess said to me. “I can’t tell if they’ve passed or if they’re still here on earth—but they practice Santeria.”

“Oh, that’s my Titi Aida!”

She laughed. “Ah, yes!” she exclaimed. “She’s here! Recognize that she’s here.” Then she raised her arms into the air and shouted:

“Your Titi Aida says to tell you she loves you so VERY much!”

The strange thing is, that was the exact same way my Titi Aida ended every conversation with me, raising her voice into the phone in that exaggerated manner, declaring she loved me. I was sure she was there in Cuba with me.

My Dad had two sisters, Jennie and Irma. They all lived together in a brownstone in East New York, with his parents and grandmother. Everybody had their own unique personalities. Titi Irma was really strict and kept her door closed all the time, so I didn’t see much of my cousins, Lisa and Kim.

My Titi Jennie, whose children, Johnny and Julie, lived there as well—was very cool, and I spent a lot of time with her. She listened to the music of artists like Isaac Hayes, Nancy Wilson, Johnny Mathis, and Nina Simone. She also was gorgeous. There was a vibe about her that I connected to from a very early age. My dad’s family was very close, but the dynamic was strange.

When we moved to De Sales Place, I started first grade at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic School. It was only one and a half blocks from our house, so I was allowed to walk there by myself. It was a co-ed school, but the boys and girls were kept separate all the time. I had two best friends—Stanley Curry and Jimmy Lovett. Stanley always came home with me after school to have cream cheese and jelly sandwiches on white bread, which my mom made for us. Jimmy lived just a few doors down from my house. He came from a big Irish family—maybe eight or nine kids.

Sometimes, after school, we played Skully on the street with a bunch of the other neighborhood kids. We took some chalk and drew specially numbered boxes in a square board on the street. There were twelve boxes along the edge and in the middle was the thirteenth box—the “Skully” box. We flicked bottle caps across the board on the pavement, trying to get them into each of the boxes but not in the Skully box or we’d lose. The one whose cap was the last survivor on the board, won. To help us win, we often melted wax and plopped it into one of the bottle caps to give it weight for easier gliding across the cement. If one of us was really slick—we took the cap off the soda bottle, rubbed the glass top against the concrete until it came off, and smoothed it out into a beautiful glass ring.

When I was twelve years old my parents separated, and, a year later, they divorced. I’m not entirely sure what happened, but I know my mother threw my dad out when she caught him cheating on her.

Although only four feet ten inches tall, my mother towered over all of us. She was a very determined lady and had a strong spirit, which came from her deep and devoted commitment to religion. It may have been that devotion that contributed to my parents’ problems. I do know my dad was nowhere near as religious as Mom, and he rarely went to church with us.

If you ask me, I think my mom only had sex twice in her life—to conceive my sister and me. I also think as a result of that, my dad became a bit of a womanizer. I’m sure that created tension. I remember my mother crying a lot after the separation and talking on the phone to her best girlfriend, Ada, who lived in the Bronx. I’m not sure how my dad felt, though he visited us a lot—a couple times a week in the beginning. Later, we only saw him on Saturdays.

My mother took us to church every Sunday. I was captivated by the service and the rituals—I loved the incense smells and the communion ceremony. I loved the formality and the idea of prayer. It was the mid-sixties, and we still prayed and said the Pledge of Allegiance in school and it gave me a great sense of safety.

Every single day of my mom’s life, she lit a candle to St. Jude to protect and guide Cheryl and me. St. Jude was one of the twelve apostles, and he was known for his compassion for the sick and dying, his ability to work wonders, to cure the incurable, and make people whole again. Mom was entirely dedicated to him and, without fail, she regularly lit a candle to him until the day she died. I am convinced that this devotion protected and saved me through the unimaginable risks I took during my adult life—and still does.

After the divorce was final, we moved to New Utrecht Avenue and I enrolled in St. Frances de Chantal for sixth grade. It was closer to my Titi Mary’s home, because my mom wanted us to be near her.

During this time, Mom was still working as an English-Spanish Interpreter, so every day after school Cheryl and I went to Titi Mary’s house until Mom got home from work. She lived near us on 54th Street in Borough Park, where she took care of her mother, my great Abuela Ursula.

Titi Mary was a saint. She had gone through a divorce some years previously and taken in Abuela Ursula, watching over her until her dying day.

Titi Mary was also very posh. She had fancy furniture made by Haywood-Wakefield around the house and made sure all of us lounged in the lap of luxury when we visited. She also kept her look impeccable for her entire life—even her gray hair was pristine. She used Alberto VO5 hair conditioner, and it shined with more brilliance than the mirrors in her hallway. I can still smell the VO5 she had on every day.

Abuela Ursula was quite a character, and I adored her. When I went over to Titi Mary’s after school, Abuela would be working on her thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle at the end of the dining room table. She didn’t speak any English and I spoke only a little Spanish—essentially, Spanglish—but I understood her, she made perfect sense to me.

She had trouble with her legs, so she usually sat at the table or in her rocking chair, and I would tease her to climb onto her lap. I nudged her and nudged her. Then she would let out a big sigh and scream in Spanish:

“¡Deja de ser un chico malo!” while banging her cane on the floor. I laughed so loud at her, then I would give her a big kiss.

She had this little blue-starred handkerchief with which she tied up her money and kept in her pocket. Very often she would show it to me.

“¡Tu madre y tu hermana me roban!” she said, winking, as she gestured with her hand, signaling her handkerchief being taken from her. I just shook my head and said:

“Abuela! Mommy and Cheryl didn’t rob you!”

But she would lift her head, arch her nose into the air, and say, with absolute certainty: “Hm!”

She knew I was right, but she wouldn’t give in. When I was there, I also watched afternoon TV with her and Titi Mary. Whenever they turned it to Channel 7 to watch One Life to Live, Cheryl and I crawled under the dining room table and laid there with our chins on our fists. It was so much fun, particularly when we watched Dark Shadows, which we adored. We got really excited when we saw the characters Barnabas and Quentin Collins. I was so crazy for Quentin that I took the first name of the actor, David Selby, who played him, as my confirmation name.

We also lived in a large Hasidic neighborhood. We were the only Puerto Rican family in the building, so on Saturdays, during the Sabbath, the Hasidim would open their door slightly and ask me to come into their apartment and turn off their lights because it was prohibited by Torah law for them to touch the switches. I carefully went in and turned off each light, and every time I did, they paid me a quarter or fifty cents.

Our home was a railroad apartment right in front of the elevated B subway train. My dad went back to live with his family, and we continued to see him on Saturdays. I just loved those visits with him. We would watch women’s roller derby and play the “License Plate” game in the car. Cheryl usually sat in the front and I sat in the back with my head hung between the two front seats, so I wouldn’t miss anything. We would look furiously around the streets while my dad drove, trying to be the first to shout when we saw an out-of-state license plate. At some point, we drove back to De Sales place where he was living and spent the rest of the day going through everybody’s apartment—my grandparents, my Titi Jennie, sometimes my Titi Irma—and my great grandmother Abuela Carmen, who was very old and also never learned English. She was always making stuff. She carried a hammer and nails in the pocket of her housecoat and had tons of images of saints in her apartment.

My dad eventually had a few girlfriends, which made me very unhappy. One of his girlfriends had a son, whom she brought to the house one day. The kid sat on the sofa next to Cheryl and me. I promptly pushed him off. He didn’t belong there, and I made sure he knew it.

In October 1978, my dad got remarried. Her name was Gloria and they had a son named, Matthew—my brother. Gloria turned out to be a wonderful woman for my dad and us. I’m very proud of Matt, who went to work for CBS Sports and ended up winning an Emmy in 2011, for Outstanding New Approaches in Sports Programming for the web series A Game of Honor. I’m so grateful for the love and warmth that Gloria and Matthew have brought into my life.