pt at large

World's Apart? Not So Fast...

4 and 1/2 minutes just changed my mind about whether commercial advertising could actually send a message to an audience. It's a beer commercial, no less.

We've all seen the usual beer-makes-the-world-go-round commercials, upbeat music, quick takes as upbeat images of winsome looking twenty-somethings laughing, partying in sand and surf, not a care in the world, and the beer of choice making life appear to be just grand.

This one? I 'm not sure whether I watched a stealth beer commercial or a most definitely un-saccharine  "We Are The World" moment.

Ok, there’s beer and Heineken is still trying to sell it but the starkly composed "World's Apart" ad, with no music, no fake joie-de-vivre, got my attention from the get-go. The three pairs of people involved looked like regular blokes, different ages and races, whose differing opinions about the state of the world are posited (and not known to the others) in the first one minute of the video. 

The three pairs, filmed separately, are given a task to work together on. I never saw the beer ad, and the message, coming until the last ninety seconds, which I'm not going to spoil for you, when whole thing is turned on its foamy head.

I know damn well that beverage commercials are supposed to make me feel like I’m a member of the ‘in crowd’ when I hoist one. Heineken just re-identified the crowd and the message and slyly demonstrated the possibility of dialogue between vastly differing points of view once a bridge of commonality is forged. And if that bridge comes in a familiar green bottle, so be it.

 It was a pause that refreshed.

 Cheers...

https://www.good.is/articles/heineken-ad-worlds-apart

https://www.fastcompany.com/40412848/heineken-just-put-out-the-antidote-to-that-pepsi-kendall-jenner-ad

New Delhi Wedding Diary: Clothes Shopping For A Wedding

February 27, 2017

India is a confounding country. Everywhere you look there are disparities in every aspect of the human condition...wealth distribution, class, economics, living conditions, transportation, education. These may be head turners to visitors from abroad.

For Indians, they're the way things are, now, in the past, and for the foreseeable future. pt at large was lucky enough to be invited to the New Delhi wedding of a good friend's daughter, was part of the wedding party that geared up with four days of pre-wedding festivities and planning. The two-day wedding  began with a traditional "Henna Ceremony" for the bridal party at 10:30 Friday morning March 3 (post to follow) and finished Saturday afternoon March 4...with 500 (not a typo) invited guests!

Young woman working in Atlanta meets graduate of Georgia Tech... journalist meets engineer, Connecticut meets New Delhi, proposals are accepted, a wedding is planned, New Delhi is ground zero for the wedding.

2 AM Monday: the East coast contingent lands in New Delhi, is greeted by the groom's father in as lively a greeting as you can have when the visitors deplane after nearly 24 hours at 32,000 feet. Vans drive us to our hotel.The heck with jet lag. There's clothes shopping to do.

East coasters leave their suits and black dresses and heels home. Time for saris, bangles and shoes for the women, kurtas, churidars and shoes for the men. We're all into merging cultures, a microcosm of what's happening between the groom and his bride.

When we're not shopping, we're being treated to lunches, dinners and tea. The only touring we do is what we see from the vans as we careen through the New Delhi traffic - which is another story all together.

New Delhi is building a Metro right through the bustling Lajpat Nagar Central Market, where the groom's wedding suit is being made by a store owned by a friend of his mother who runs the business. The dust and crazy parking don't seem to bother anyone.

  

Strolling to the store, entering Parampara Clothing store.

 
The groom's mother and her sister relax with the owner while the groom tries on his wedding suit. This is a small family owned business in an area jammed with brick and mortar stores and vendors peddling their wares in the street. The groom checks his outfit. Soon we'll be shopping for our own.

While waiting, I venture out the back door. The alleys are alive with the rhythmic chants of street vendors hawking their wares  as they carry them around by hand or stand behind makeshift tables.

The alleys are jammed with street vendors plying their wares. Streams of shoppers bargain for goods, vendors bark out sales pitches for  their products, the place is alive with commerce.

Incongruous mix of brick/mortar stores, street vendors, some legal, some not. Huge age range of shoppers, families, singles, couples, groups of young men and women, all looking for a good deal. The chanting of vendors hawking their wares is glorious nod to the practice carried on in open air markets of the world over and certainly in markets in the middle and far east.

 Shoppers appear friendly as this camera toting westerner with the big smile wanders about.

 

All of a sudden, some street side vendors appear to be in a panic. Later I hear that the police are on the way. Vendors with no permits hustle to hide their merchandise and disappear. I'll bet they'll be back in a few hours.

 

The groom's father tells me the back story of the Lajpat Central Market and, in perfect script, writes this into my notebook.

"Lala Lajpat Rai was a freedom fighter of India, was later charged during freedom movement by Britishers he bled to death.”

He says that after the freedom movement, the original Indian National Army members were given shops when they retired so could make a living selling merchandise.

The groom and two other men in the wedding party couldn't find shoes that fit in the big time stores. And  hit paydirt when they returned to Lajpat Nagar and found a shoe store the size of a school bus that was packed floor to ceiling with an astonishing array of shoes for the occasion.

My jaw dropped when I caught a glimpse of the next stop.

 

The DLF Promenade is one of the most slick, granite, marble shopping malls you'll find anywhere in the world.

 

If it weren't for the predominance of saris, I'd swear this mall was in suburban California.

 

The comparison between the two places where we shopped is jaw-dropping. I suppose there are such disparities all over the world. In India, they're over the top.

 

Photos and videos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

 

 

 

Dispatches from Chile: A Sweet Encounter with Blackberry Pickers

February 2, 2017...first pics posted in February, story finished in April!

One of the most unexpected and surprising moments of my stay at Chilefarms in Nogales, Chile.

February 2, 2017  The Berry Pickers

Churning away on my afternoon spin, I brake to watch two women, a mother and a daughter as it turns out, picking berries from the bushes on the roadside.

There are miles of blackberry bushes along this country road. Tall, thick, and thorny, they act as a fence.  Since the outer portions are on public land, citizens are free to help themselves when the bushes bear fruit. Which is what is going on here. For the next couple of weeks, families from nearby towns will come to the roadside to harvest them. There's enough for everyone.

"Photo?" I ask, mimicking clicking the shutter on my camera.

The older woman seems embarrassed, puts her hands to her hair, points to her clothes to say that she is not dressed properly. Her daughter, unsure of what to make of this gringo, shyly turns away. I put my camera down.

"Where are you from?" they ask.

"Boston, Massachusetts, USA." Which steers us into talking about the weather, a universal starting point for conversations all over the world.

"Mucho calor," the mother says.

I mimic shivering. " Mi casa es frio!" They get the idea.

"Invierno," they say...winter.

Before long they're comfortable that I'm not a crackpot and am genuinely interested in what they're doing. The mother says the daughter has learned some English in school. Of course she's too embarrassed to try it out but a few minutes later, she can't resist giving it a whirl.

By the time we're done using a combination of my fractured Spanish, the daughter's fractured English, and a good helping of sign language, we know each other's names. The daughter, Lesley, points to my eyes, "Same as my father's,"  (and the same blue as her own). Her mother, Layla, smiles when i tell her that was the name of my grandmother (Leela).

Layla reaches into the clear plastic bucket she's tied around her neck to give me a handful of the small dark sweet berries. "Mermelada!"she says. Now I know what will become of this fruit.

A few more Q and As and I learn that Layla's husband is a construction man, "Numero uno," she says with pride. And they live in the Artificio, a neighborhood just outside La Calera, about a half hour away.

"Do you like music?" Lesley asks haltingly. I nod. "Do you know the music of Justin Bieber?" I nod.  "He is the love of my life," she says in a teenage swoon, her eyes rolling toward heaven, her hands tenderly covering her heart. We're  on a roll.

"Do you like Beyoncé?" I ask.

"Yes...and Katy Perry ... Ariana Grande, too!"

By now we are having as grand an old time as you can have when none of you speak the other's language very well.

I get ready to hit the road and raise my camera just in case. They smile beautifully. A lovely moment, a sweet "one world" story, and a testament to the small bridges that connect us.

I hop on my bike.

"Be careful of the cars!" she says with a big wave.

Just like a mother.

Photos by Paul A.Tamburello, Jr.

Judge Paul A. Tamburello, aka "Dad"

4 PM, Tuesday, April 4, 2017

The tale begins when my dear friends Mark and Shelley unsuccessfully attempted to find the portrait of my dad in the Berkshire Superior Court at 76 East Street as they passed through Pittsfield en route to visit with son Ross at Williams College recently.

The entry to the courthouse is now on the side of the building that faces Wendell Avenue and a chip shot from my dad’s former law office at 29 Wendell Avenue, Pittsfield, MA. And a few doors down from the office of my long time accountant to whom I deliver my tax documents at the beginning of April every year. After meeting with my accountant, I headed up the street to check out the portrait myself.

A sign of the times: upon entering a small foyer, I was asked by a court officer my reason for entering and to put everything made of metal in a box that passed through a scanner, then had to pass through an airport style metal detector, and then explain my knee replacement when it bleeped. Not unlike airport security but way faster.

When I find my way up to the second floor courtroom it is locked. As I walk back to the first floor to exit, I pass an office with a glass paneled door that reads Deborah Capeless, Clerk of Courts. Capeless, that name rings a bell.

Robert T. Capeless was an attorney who at age 29 became mayor of Pittsfield in 1947 and was re-elected four times. He and his wife Anita were friends with my parents and lived on Broad Street, less than a mile from our house at 15 Coltland Drive. I recall visiting them when they lived in Newton after Bob had been named State Tax Commissioner by two governors then joined a law practice there until he returned to the Berkshires to be near his children, most of whom lived in and around Pittsfield. Bob died in 2003 at age 91.

I enter the Clerk’s office.

Three secretaries working at large desks inside a spacious office look up from their computer screens.
“May we help you?”
“I’d like to speak with Deborah if she’s available.”
“Who shall we say is inquiring?”
“Paul Tamburello Jr.”

"You look so much like your father!” Ms. Capeless exclaims with a bright smile as she walks out of her office at the end of the room. For a moment, it feels like I never left Pittsfield years ago.

During the next twenty minutes, we have a chance to connect as she walks me back up to the Superior Court room, unlocks the door and turns on the lights.

"From around 1976 to 1978 your father would come to court on Saturdays after he had been hearing cases in Suffolk County Superior Court in Boston during the week and hear cases that were back logged here. He was generous with his time and taught me so much about the foundations of the law."

The portrait of my father in his judge's robe still hangs with those of other judicial luminaries on the wall of the Berkshire Superior Court. Deborah names them all. She also has memories of my mother’s sister, Claire Rocca, who was a fixture and somewhat of a character for decades in the County Commissioner’s office on first floor.

Deborah married the son of former Mayor Bob Capeless. She's been the clerk of courts since 1981.

36 years. That’s quite a run. From her energy level, vivacious manner, and physical presence, she appears to be just as engaged in her work today as she was in 1981.
“How does it feel to have such history here?” says I.
“I love my job!” she replies.

My dad would have loved hearing that.



Superior Court Judge Paul A. Tamburello (1908-1992), aka, “Dad"


The portrait behind the judge’s bench is of Francis J. Quirico (1911-1999), late member of the Massachusetts Supreme Court and friend of my fathers.

Back in the late 1970s, when my dad was hearing cases in Suffolk Superior Court, he and Judge Quirico often walked to Hanover Street in the North End for dinner. When I accompanied them one night, I was astonished when many men greeted them on the street, "Buona Serra, Giudici.” ("Good evening, Judges"). The North End was still largely an Italian enclave. They welcomed a chance to greet two of their own and show respect, both of them sons of parents who immigrated from Italy.

"I felt like I was walking with royalty," I say to Deborah.

"You were," she replies.

My dad’s portrait just left of the doorway.


Clerk of Courts Deborah Capeless comments about the portraits surrounding the courtroom. She knew the names of every judge.


The Silvio O. Conte Berkshire County Courthouse, 76 East Street, Pittsfield, MA

PARTIAL TIME LINE

1908 - Paul Antonio Tamburello born to parents Salvatore and Sara (Sottile) Tamburello who had immigrated to Pittsfield from Sicily.

circa 1926 - graduates from Pittsfield High School.

circa 1926-1930 - hired as personal secretary to Giuseppe Faccioli, inventor and Chief Electrical Engineer of the General Electric Company at Pittsfield, because he is fluent in Italian. It doesn’t hurt that he had learned how to take shorthand in high school.

1931 - enters Brown University as a pre-law student (I have no idea how he afforded the tuition).

1933 - transfers to Boston University Law School, named Editor-in-Chief of the Boston University Law Review.

1935 - awarded LL.B. with honors (cum laude) from Boston University Law School, elected president of his class. Begins practicing law in Pittsfield, MA.

1940 - marries Elena Rocca of Pittsfield, MA.

1947 - 1951 - named President of The Pittsfield Professional Baseball Corporation, affiliated with the Pittsfield Electrics, a Cleveland Indians minor league baseball team and later the Philadelphia Phillies. I remember one night being star-struck as future Indians third baseman Al Rosen is a dinner guest. I also remember where Dad kept a box of major league baseballs used in the games and liberating  one to use for the whole summer. To a kid who loved to play baseball, the smooth white leather, red stitching, official lettering on the baseballs, and powerful smell of leather were like finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Late 1940s, mid 1950s -  Often asked to MC stag parties for young Italian men ( I can hardly imagine what he said). Frequently invited to Sunday dinner to the homes of clients like the Blefari family in the Italian section of Pittsfield, now demolished, just above where the old train depot (also demolished) at the bottom of West Street was located. My sister Judi and I were captivated by the ‘pet’ rabbits the Blefari’s kept in their back yard. It never occurred to us that one of them might have added to the flavor of the pasta sauce we ate at lunch!

1952 - named City Solicitor of Pittsfield.

1956 - resigns as City Solicitor.

Berkshire Eagle story: "Mr. Tamburello was appointed city solicitor April 2, 1952 by then Mayor Capeless. He succeeded Francis J. Quirico who was recently named to the state Superior Court.

Tamburello has practiced law in Pittsfield since 1934, when he was president of the graduating class of Boston University Law School. He has been active in numerous civic and charitable organizations and has served on the Airport Commission and Board of Zoning Appeals. In 1947 he headed the unsuccessful drive for a Plan E city charter in Pittsfield."

1966 - elected president of the Massachusetts Bar Association.

1967 -  From Massachusetts Bar Association publication: "Tamburello leads a delegation of doctors and dignitaries on a tour of Bridgewater State Hospital, the state's only institution for the criminally insane. The deplorable conditions witnessed by journalists and a {Fredrick Wiseman} documentary crew receive national attention. Tamburello pledges the assistance of the 6,000 members of the bar association to those confined because they lacked legal aid. He personally took on the case of the first inmate represented by the bar, who had been unlawfully detained for 53 years."

1970 - From Massachusetts Bar Association publication: "After Tamburello's discovery at Bridgewater and the subsequent work by Massachusetts Bar Association members and the attorney general's office, a complete revision and reform of the state's laws regarding mental illness is completed. The new code is heralded as one of the most comprehensive statutory overhauls in modern history and as a national model of how to humanely protect the interests of the mentally ill."

Dad must have identified Bridgewater as the opportunity to make his mark on the Mass Bar Association. It’s one of many things I’d  love to talk to him about but in those days, he was one dimensional to me, just “Dad”, someone I knew loved me unconditionally.

1974 - appointed at age 66 to the Superior Court by Republican Gov. Francis Sargent.

1978 – subject to mandatory retirement from the Massachusetts Superior Court but is "recalled" immediately because of the backlog of cases needed to be heard.

1981 - officially retires as Superior Court judge.

1992 - dies at a nursing home with me by his side.

I never realized the depth of my father’s ambition and how hard he worked to make it happen. I remember having dinner - mom, dad, sister Judi and me -  dad taking a brief nap on the living room floor and returning to his office to work a few more hours. I am amazed at his capacity for being involved in so many civic and professional organizations, don’t think he said “no” to many invitations, and do think he took his reputation in the community, Italian and beyond, seriously.

It never occurred to me how much drive he had to succeed, to be one of the best at what he did, the time and effort he invested in it, and the odds he overcame - son of an immigrant father who worked as a custodian at General Electric - with no leverage until around  age 26, when he was hired as a personal secretary for a chief inventor of electric transformers, Giuseppi Faccioli, to become a lawyer let alone a judge in the Superior Court of Massachusetts. I still have no idea how he was accepted at Brown as a pre-law student, what gave him the idea to enroll, how he afforded tuition, what it was like to be away from home for first time in an environment that must have been so different from what he was accustomed to, and how he adapted. How does a guy with limited social status aspire to reach for the stars?

He certainly was not the only Pittsfield resident to realize his dream but certainly the most special to me... Judge Paul A. Tamburello, aka "Dad".