Alberto Prospero - Other Tributes
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Tony Rush letter - May 28, 2003
Gus Rosenfeld speech - Memorial Service June 1, 2003
Andrea Michaels speech - Memorial Service June 1, 2003
Lynette Prucha Chavez speech - Memorial Service June 1, 2003
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Tony Rush letter - May 28, 2003
IN MEMORY OF ALBERTO PROSPERO
I wish you could have only seen what I saw…
The tall lean statuesque man with warm eyes and kind smile. With the swagger in your step and that cool cat smirk you turned all the girls’ heads. Your wit was brilliant and your cynicism biting. You were bright and bold and funny and dark and clever and magnetic and you were my friend!
Your passion for art, all art, in any medium was infectious. Whether it was in classical or abstract paintings, classic or B-cult movies, classic literature or pulp fiction, you sucked it up, you fed on it, that need to fill your soul defined you. I always marveled at your knowledge of film trivia, was astounded by how literate you were, and humbled by your perception and insight into fine art. I loved that you had an equal appreciation for both; beauty and the hideously grotesque. Which brings us to the dark side of your nature.
Our friendship was born and forged while fighting that very dark side of our natures. And like Brothers In Arms, we stood back-to-back swords drawn, in mortal combat with our inner demons. But, ultimately, it is a very personal war, one you wage alone, regardless of whatever support one may have. I know you tried! It was always very painful for me, to watch helplessly as you struggled. And despite your most sincere efforts you never were able to prevail against those demons which you fought against so hard.
In the last couple of years we have not had much opportunity to spend time together. Please know that you were never far from my mind. My fervent and dearest wish for you, my friend, is that you have finally found peace. For I know that is what you have been searching for all these many years. And I pray that at least in death, that your long and painful search may now be over. I celebrate your life, your heart, your mind and your friendship!
…For that is what I saw, and what I shall remember.
“Do not go gentle into that good night, old age should burn and rage at close of day; rage, rage, against the dying of the light.”
- Dylan Thomas
Your Friend,
Tony Rush
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Gus Rosenfeld speech - Memorial Service June 1, 2003
Good afternoon, I’m Gus and a friend of
Alberto’s. I met Alberto, I guess, around six or seven years ago now and, life
exercising its own momentum upon us, it becomes hard to believe that much time
has past. Before I go any farther, I want to thank Elyse and express my
condolences and acknowledge the kindred spirit of grief with those who love
Alberto as well, both family and friend.
For the most part, Alberto was a tall,
reticent, charming and good looking Italian man with a more than an occasional
"cat that swallowed the canary" grin. Most of these
"problems" I’ll never have to worry about. However, the grin we could
share with good synchronicity and the only time that Alberto wasn’t reticent
was when he was competing in conversation with my own verbosity. At times, I
swear, I could catalyze an avalanche of run on sentences between bites of Koo
Koo Roo chicken after a meeting. I took great joy in becoming any part of an
enthusiastic filibuster of sharing on his behalf. Allowing our child-like and
less defended sides to come forward is one of the truest forms of intimacy, in
my opinion. The exaggerated close calls on the motorcycle, the exaggerated tales
of debauch and the one ups-man-ship of who saw who play where and was it the
best performance of that tune are the simple pleasures of friendship that I will
miss dearly. Yes, there were some real close calls with recovery in those
moments and the sweet intoxication of hope would soar within me. And, when I
speak of recovery, please know that I am truly humbled by my lack of any
formulaic inside track on the subject. I feel quite lucky in regard to my own
sobriety and quite unlucky in witnessing the loss of life and the friendship
that goes with it of many whom I hold in high regard for their own ability to
draw me out and raise the bar of my own capacity for intimacy.
Because of Francesca’s location on another
continent, I never got to observe first hand the interaction of father and
daughter. I just knew that there was lots of love and a race that
came to a draw for the two women that "hung the moon" in Alberto’s
life; Elyse and Francesca. One, both or the other was always present if Alberto
was “in the house”. I was always fascinated at the intersection of Ward
Cleaver and Alberto Prospero when it came to a fathers love; some attributes are
constant at all locations.
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Andrea Michaels speech - Memorial Service June 1, 2003
Elyse
has asked me to say a few words about my beloved Italian brother-in-law, mio
cognato italiano, Alberto. I’m not
going to be able to do this without crying, but please bear with me because I
want to share a little about the Alberto I knew.
I
really loved him.
I
loved him as much as one is allowed to love one’s sister’s husband!
And not just because he was so handsome and funny and Italian…although
that didn’t hurt.
I
was so happy when I met him. The
great part about getting to be a sister-in-law
is that you can instantly fall in love
with a man without the complications of having to date him…or live with him or
work with him.
We
just fell into a friendship…the easy kind of friendship that has no tension,
no strings attached…
It
was my dream come true, I could finally
have Italian relatives without having to get married myself.
We
spent all our time discussing music and movies and books.
And as much as Alberto loved music, he was also one of the most literate
people I’ve ever met…He would give me John Fante books, I would bring him
John Lennon tapes...We would dissect everyone from Joan Didion to Bob Dylan.
Since
I wasn’t his wife, he even put up with my nagging him about his smoking (while
I would go on and on about how terrible
smoking is and how it was the absolutely the worst thing he could do, he would
fix me with those eyes and those dimples of his and would smile (as he took a
drag) and say,
“The worst thing I could do? Oh baby, if you only knew!”
That was the point, there
was a lot I didn’t know about him… about his inner demons and some of the
things you may have heard about him, but I didn’t care.
That’s not the Alberto I knew and loved…
So
when Elyse asked me to maybe say something today, I thought about quoting from
books he had given me or music that we shared, but I think his cynical, pithy
e-mails he wrote himself would perhaps capture him even better.
(Although
let that be a caution when you send emails that they may be used to indict
you on insider trading! or worse, be read one day at your memorial service…)
This
first one is from when I got all these emails from him about petitioning people
on the plight of Afghani women. This
was years ago, I must have received 4 in a row so I thought it was some sort of
mistake/spam using his name, but he wrote back,
“I
know that it seems strange.... like you say it's not my kind of thing but in
reality I do pay attention to these
kinds of things and if I can help somehow to change the horror going on even in
a remote part of the world I'm glad to do so.
Maybe
you don't know me that well after all.....
I
hope everything is fine with you and life is treating you well.
Big
kiss Andrea and lots of love. Ciao.
Alpo,
the Headhunter”
He
was the big brother I never had, giving me endless shit while at the same time
complimenting me wildly.
He
always made me feel so loved, so alive. He
was actually very supportive, of all my ill-fated attempts to win a million
dollars, because the two of us agreed money was a bit silly, so you might as
well earn it the old-fashioned way…to win it on a game show!
This
email is from the time I was going to dress up as Ann Robinson and come down and
be on the dreadful Weakest Link:
“Good
to hear from ya... Lookin' forward to seein' the most
Win
lots of money baby and retire to the
Love,
Alpo,
the Headhunter
P.S.
With red hair and black clothes you'll be a knock out babe.”
And
when I had written that I had seen an Italian prince on “Who Wants to Marry a
Millionaire” one of my many late-night guilty pleasures that I watch, (I think
to feel better about my own life). I
must have written something to Alberto joking about it because he was suitably
horrified and wrote,
“Take
it easy, Tony.... not every italian is short with a bad haircut, and not all of
them are princes either... in fact some are tall, with fairly long hair - and a
decent haircut - and very poor. Would you like a date with such a guy? If you
are interested let me know, I may just have the right man for you.
Love,
Alpo,
the Headhunter
P.S.
Why do you want to punish yourself by watching such awful shows late at night?
How about a good movie? Or a date? Or a book?
And
he did practice what he preached. This
is a response from birthday greetings I had sent.
Alberto and I were both Libras, born the same week, one year apart.
This is from October 2001.
“I
won't be celebrating my dear, nor watching you being voted off the air because
being the good boy that I am I will be at the LACC attending my english class
until
I
also have to present a three page essay by Monday, my first one this semester,
and I am a little nervous... I would rather write it in italian but
then
I would be missing the point of having enrolled in such a class, giusto?
Don't
you worry though: Elyse will tape your latest disaster and I will definitely
enjoy watching it later on that night.
Love,
Alpo,
il tuo cognato cacciatore di teste
And a few days later: in one of our last exchanges, he wrote:
“Forty-three!!!
I find hard to believe that I am such an old man, it isn't fair, I don't want to
be old and I refuse to grow up.
And
this is final,
But
the next week, on my birthday, he wrote to me, in Italian, (which was ironic
because although I pride myself on my ability with languages, Alberto is the
only Italian I have ever MET who refused to speak with me in Italian, saying my italian was just too
horrible. SO I won’t subject you
to it), but essentially it said,
“tanti
auguri a teeeeeeeee!!!!
WOW!
Benvenuta nel club dei vecchi!!! Evviva!!!
Anche
te sei una matusalemme decrepita e questo mi fa
Sherzo,
ti volevo fare gli auguri per un bellissimo compleanno
Love,
Alberto,
the Headhunter”
Although
we might take some consolation in that he got his rock
and roll wish of living fast and dying young and beautiful,
I
wanted to share some of the Alberto I knew and loved; because even if in his own
words of “not wanting to grow up or
grow old…period” it was not the
same as not wanting to live… which
he clearly did…just by his own rules, which I understand only too well.
And I will miss him every day. Ciao Bello.
Ciao.
to
my glorious brother-in-law, mio cognato, Alberto.
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Lynette Prucha Chavez speech - Memorial Service June 1, 2003
For me, during the 10 years of our
friendship, Alberto was my Italian homeboy who didn’t have the New York
Mafioso sensibility to go with it; but he had his own irreverent, tough guy
personality. Bold, brash, stubborn,
cynical, mad, bad, but gentle and sweet.
He was
sensitive and empathetic: he gave me unconditional acceptance as if it were a
premium that he had earned over years of struggling with his creative and not so
creative demons. A gifted
artist and visionary, he encouraged creativity in others.
At
times, he was my Muse, coaxing me to reach the outer limits of my imagination.
He was an existential medium who cultivated the best and the worst of the
dark side of life, and at the same time, he was capable of realizing the
glimmering possibility of life’s mysteries, those taunting challenges which
hover over our heads, seducing us, just beyond reach, but hauntingly visible.
A few years ago, when Alberto was away a beachside facility, I wrote him a short letter and sent him a picture I had recently taken of him with that cocky grin of his which captured him at his brightest moments.
“Alberto, I send you a few waves to pacify the savage beast that rests in us all; some days I’m tempted to hang a shingle next to yours, this way we can both howl at the moon at night, and no one would care.
I love you, stay well my
friend."
You will be missed.
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