1972-1973 Winter in the Ironbound

Myself on South Ferry Street where I lived in early 1973.

in the PATH train going to Manhattan... look at the Pulaski Skyway in the background...

Billboard's Top 5 on 25 November 1972.

1. I can see clearly now - Johnny Nash

2. I'd love you to want me - Lobo

3. I'll be around - Spinners

4. I am woman - Helen Reddy

5. Papa was a rolling stone - The Temptations

Billboard's Top 5 on 30 December 1972.

1. Me and Mrs Jones - Billy Paul (Philadelphia International)

2. Clair - Gilbert O'Sullivan (MAM)

3. You ought to be with me - Al Green (Hi)

4. You're so vain - Carly Simon (Elektra)

5. It never rains in Southern California - Albert Hammond (Mums)

The winter of 1972-1973 crept in without my realizing it. It would be the second winter I'd spend in the USA.

I moved in with Nagib, his cousin and her husband, and Guto at the Prudential Apartments as we hailed the new year of 1973. 

Billboard's Top Five on 13 January 1973

1. You're so vain - Carly Simon

2. Superstition - Stevie Wonder

3. Me and Mrs. Jones - Billy Paul

4. Clair - Gilbert O'Sullivan

5. Your mama don't dance - Loggins & Messina

A bad LSD trip at Newark's 'Sing Sing' in early January 1973

When I went back to working at the record factory in July 1972, I got acquainted with a whole new batch of co-workers that would eventually shape my living arrangements in the next few months. It's funny how I ended up mixing up with two different Brazilian fellows - both of them delivered hot vinyl paste which would be turned into 45 rpm-discs by our decades-old machines. Divino was a big balding man from Minas Gerais who would become my room-mate at a house rented by his brother Cuíca and sister-in-law Antonieta on South Ferry Street circa February 1973. Nagib Luiz was a younger fellow - a year yuonger than I - who also handed out hot vinyl paste to the various record-making machine operators.

Nagib was a happy-go-lucky type of lad. He had been living in the US for some time but could not speak any English at all. I thought him a good bloke and after a while we developed a sort of camaraderie. He had been raised in a small city in the state of Sao Paulo where he had the chance to live comfortably within an Arab household. He had had a few young ladies in his time but now in the US he was 'living in the desert', that is, he could not get into a relationship with any girls due to his lack of English. That was a common condition among young Brazilian migrants. Poor Nagib bragged about being a 'lady's man' but that was in the past. Now he was only a frustrated migrant having no gift of the gab. 

Nagib was mostly goodhearted but he had an aggressive streak too. We had a lot of fun changing the words of Steam's 'Na na hey hey kiss him goodbye' (#1 for 2 weeks at Billboard on 6 December 1969) which became 'Araruta, Araruta hey hey, filha-da-puta...' I noticed Nagib entered into an almost frenzy-like status when he repeatedly shouted those threatening words but nobody paid much attention due to the ever-present noise natural in a factory.

Nagib also bragged about his use of drugs in his hometown. Apparently he had been a burden to his family due to his use of marijana and other drugs while living with his family. He told me he had once brandished his hard-cock to his grandmother in front of his family to assert a point of view in an altercation with her. I wondered what a strange sort of behaviour that was. He must have been a trouble maker in his native town but now he was much more low-key.

As of 12 November 1972, as soon as Nino flew back to Brazil I moved in with Nagib and Guto at the Prudential Apartments aka Sing Sing or Ballentine. I have alredy mentioned it elsewhere so let's go straight to the first weekend  in January 1973.

Guto made fun of Nagib's cluelessness in the use of the English language and taught him the meaning of the word 'chick' when referring to a desireable young lady. 

After having seen the rock-band Grand Funk Railroad at the Madison Square Garden arena, gone to the midnight Mass at Christmas' Eve and seen the dawn of 1973 at Times Square, we didn't have much planned for the next weekend. As Nagib told me he wanted to experiment LSD badly I told him we could have it together one day. I had told him my bad experience with acid when I had taken 'orange sunshine acid' on 17 March 1972, Saint Patrick's day. 

Nagib and me decided we would drop acid on the weekend. After working the whole week at the factory, Í went out on Saturday night and bought an acid 'drop' from a Puertorican fellow on the corner of Fleming Ave. and Oxford Street right down from our apartment. The 'stuff' was a big blue drop on a piece of white blotting paper. I went up the various flights of stairs to our flat and cut the paper strip in two: I swallowed half of it and gave the other half to Nagib. Soon Nagib started having visions of animals and monsters crawling up the refrigerator.

Nagib was actually a weak person and I only realized that when he started screaming his lungs out! He would not stop shrieking that monsters were coming after him. I myself was not feeling good either. For a moment I thought my stomach was 'eating itself out' and I was about to die. I realized we were into what it's usually called a 'bad trip'! The acid must have been trash (of poor quality). 

Guto, Leila and her husband didn't know what to do about Nagib's situation. I realized I had to do something quick before things got out of control. Suddenly I up and grabbed Nagib's hands, yanked him out of the apartment, went down the stairs, out of the court into Oxford Street which was covered with dirty snow and ice. I knew instinctively we had to walk in the freezing cold wind in order not to succumb to some vegetative status. We walked towards the Passaic River promenade and walked back and forth 

The whole thing seemed like that Three Dog Night song 'Mama told me not to come': Open up the window, let some air into this room / I think I'm almost chokin' from the smell of stale perfume / and that cigarette you're smokin' 'bout scare me half to death / open up the window, sucker, let me catch my breath. 

The howling wind would tear us to bits but I kept on walking and told Nagib to keep breathing deep to try and escape from our drug-induced hell. The cold would keep us alive or else.  right.  

We walked for hours or so it seemed to me. We probably must have walked about an hour. When I could not stand the cold any longer we went inside the flat again. Nagib was still blabbering and moaning but he had calmed down considerably. 

Next morning, while we were still in bed in the lounge, Nagib's aunt stormed into the apartment shouting loud and clear she was going to the Immigration Department to 'tell the whole truth'; that I was a 'drug dealer' turning her sweet nephew into a drug fiend. I kept quiet in bed as if I were sleeping but I knew deep inside I had better leave that apartment as soon as I could and by Monday I was living somewhere else.

Damazio had introduced me to Cuica (Celso was his real name), a Mineiro youth who was married to Antonieta, a Brazilian young lady from Manaus-AM who had migrated to the USA with her family while she was still a teenager. Toni, as she was known, was a nice person and Cuica was even better. They also lived in a flat at Sing Sing aka Ballantine but intended to rent a house, for Toni was expecting a baby and would need a bigger place. They invited me to share this new house and that's how I ended up living on South Ferry Street where I shared a room with Divino, Cuica's older brother who worked at the record factory with us. This was my last abode in Newark before I quit and came back to Sao Paulo.

When I moved into Cuica & Toni's house on South Ferry Street in mid-January 1973, I knew that would be my last abode in the United States before I quit and went back to Brazil. Looking back now I know that was not the most sensible thing to do. I should have first tried to formalize my immigrant status in the US so that I could visit Brazil and then be able to enter the US again. That was what a 'regular' person would do. But I didn't think on those lines. I just wanted to take a plane and get off in São Paulo and see my family again.

February and March 1973 was the most peaceful period I lived in Newark. I followed Nino's advice and tried to avoid mixing myself up with other people's problems. Even so I got involved with Mike's younger brother, who had murdered someone back in Puerto Rico and had been sent by his family to hide from the law in New York. Mike was a fun-loving foreman at the record factory who had always a smile on his face and a dirty thought in his head. His brother was really young, 18 or 19 but had a gloomy counteance although he had a youthful face and sported a pompadour hair style when that was utterly out of fashion.  

Antonieta's family were Jeovah's Witness believers but Toni was not a proselytizer. Her mother sometimes showed up at the house but she also kept a low profile. Her mother had a couple of twins, a boy and a girl (Sonia) who were 10 years old then. They were bright kids and spoke only English.

Toni was pregnant but was still working. Sometimes she gave me a lift in her big car. She always had the car radio on WABC and knew the lyrics to most songs in the hit parade. She sang along with Edward Bear's 'Last song' and Lobo's 'Don't expect me to be your friend' that were Top-10 hits at WABC. 

Living with a 'formal' family now was actually much better than living alone in a room in a stranger's house. Besides, Cuica, his brother Divino and Antonieta were lovely people. I was actually lucky to have found such nice people.

I kept a low profile during these weeks going to work, coming straight back home around mid-night. As Divino worked in the same place as myself, we usually came back together. The factory was not far from home. Nothing much happened then.

One morning while I was taping songs from the radio in my Panasonic cassette stereo I heard the sound of Scottish pipes coming from the street. It must have been late March for it was still really cold. I checked out and saw there was a marching pipe band passing just in front of our house. I put on winter clothes and boots, went out and followed the band for a block. They were going south towards the entrance to the New Jersey Turnpike. This is probably the last occurrance I keep in my memory concerning my first stay in the USA.

I don't remember saying goodbye to anyone. Nobody went accompanied to the airport. I don't remember the actual day I went to JFK to board the plane to South America. I must have been really set on my ways. Actually it was a decision I had taken in November 1972, when I saw Nino boarding that plane to Brazil. Five months to the day I did the same thing. 

Billboard's top 10 on 17 February 1973

1. Crocodile rock - Elton John (MCA)

2. You're so vain - Carly Simon (Elektra)

3. Oh, babe, what would you say? - Hurricane Smith (Capitol)

4. Dueling banjos - Eric Weissberg & Steve Mandell (Warner)

5. Killing me softly with his song - Roberta Flack (Atlantic)

6. Do it again - Steely Dan (ABC)

7. Could it be I'm falling in love - Spinners (Atlantic) 

8. Last song - Edward Bear (Capitol)

9. Don't expect me to be your friend - Lobo (Big Tree)

10. Rocky Mountain high - John Denver (RCA) 

Me and the Passaic River with the Newark skyline at the back - March 1973.

I left JFK on a Thursday, 29 March 1973 - this was Billboard's Top 5 on 24 March 1973:

1. Love train - O'Jays

2. Killing me softly with his song - Roberta Flack

3. Also sprach Zarathustra - Eumir Deodato

4. Neither one of us - Gladys Knight & the Pips

5. Last song - Edward Bear

Lori Lieberman recorded 'Killing me softly with his song' originally... actually the song was written specially at her request. She went to see a Don McLean concert and was overwhelmed by McLean's poetry and song playing... she felt he'd found all her letters and read each one out loud... that's the way the story goes...

Goodbye, NAGIB LUIZ (*16 October 1950 +21st October 2021) 

This is a most extraordinary occurrence. Last time I saw Nagib was in late March 1973. My last work day at the record factory was on Friday, 30 March 1973. To tell you the truth I don't remember the actual day. But I must have said goodbye to Nagib and the other fellows, went home to the South Ferry Street house with Divino and prepared myself to fly to Brazil on the first days of April. That was the last time I saw Nagib. I went back to the USA 2 years later in July 1975, but I didn't get a chance to meet with him or Leila or anyone from Sing Sing, except Cuíca and Antonieta, who were about to visit their brother in Monticello, NY and took me along with them. 

Now, 48 years later, I was contacted by Leila Salomão through Facebook out of nowhere telling me she was heartbroken for Nagib was really sick. She didn't tell me much for she was visibly distraught. On 21st October 2021, she wrote me her dear cousin Nagib had passed away. He had been living in Brazil for some time after having retired. Leila said she had been tipped by Melissa Luiz, Nagib's daughter about this very blog of mine and was glad to have found me after all these years. 

I was so flabbergasted I didn't know what to do. I wish Leila would have told me what city Nagib's funeral would take place but even if I knew it I wouldn't be able to attend it for I had been given a Covid-19 Pfizer vaccine booster (3rd time) and I was helpless in bed. What a situation. I don't even know what was the cause of death. I suppose it must have been the dreadful Covid-19.