"Big Island Beef" 12"x16" oil painting by Steve Alpert
My father was many things, a roaring success, charming and funny on the outside yet deeply unhappy inside his suit. His suit was a big one; he weighed in at 300lbs plus for much of his adult life. Not sure what that is for people who choose to carry all that weight around for all those years, but I’ve come to think it is an armor, to keep people from getting too close, something like that.
In the world my father was erratic, supremely talented in business, photography, music. He read history and was interested in politics. Totally absorbed in his various appetites, he was young at heart and had a wild sense of humor to match all the other excesses in his life.
First generation Jew from parent who came to Russia in their youth, George grew up in Brooklyn, played sandlot football and ducked out of school to go hear Benny Goodman at the Paramount. Uncle Sam sent my dad to man a WWII anti-aircraft gun in San Francisco for the duration where Pvt. First Class Alpert was assigned easy service and a Good Conduct Medal. After the war, young George went to a number of colleges, but he never finished a degree and instead went out to seek his own American Dream working as a salesman and then became the entrepreneur he would become for the rest of his life, selling refrigerators, furniture touch-up applicators, a line of cosmetic and beauty products, a record company, and ultimately bartering hard goods for media. His business acumen was sharp and he made himself and many others lots of money. Only one of them was there at the memorial service eleven years ago.
There was something that forever eluded him all his life. Don’t know what it was. As I sat next to his longtime buddy Herb Gluck, author of popular biography of Mickey Mantle, “The Mick.” Herb studied lives of others and knew my Dad for sixty years.
“What was it, Herb, what was it that made him so miserable, what was he trying to do that he was not able to, what was this madness about, why was he so angry at everybody?”
Herb looked at me with a blank face, a man of words suddenly with none. After a long pause, “Stevie, I don’t know.” My father was an utter mystery to all of us around him. Sadly enough. I think he was a mystery to himself. A man capable of so much, yet not knowing himself. Tragic, no?
My father’s only serenity came from his photography, music and dogs. I think what would have made him completely happy would have been to be the piano player in a nice hotel lounge. He would steal moments at a piano wherever he could. He knew lots of tunes but his ear was not really developed and those of us who knew him eventually felt like everything he played sounded the same. It was his relaxation, he alone enjoyed it and he couldn’t give a crap what anyone else thought. Ha!
He was a charmer for sure and a great story teller and jokester. His office phone number at one point was one digit different from the main number of the St. Regis Hotel, a block or so away in midtown Manhattan. At the end of a long day, his office staff long gone home, he retrieved a call and answered in a little voiced with a British accent, “St. Regis Hotel, how many I be of service?”
“I’d like to speak to Mr. Collins in room 612,” said a man. My father had a live one.
“He’s not here, Sir.”
“Well, I just spoke with him two minutes ago.”
“I’m sorry, Sir, he’s gone away.”
“What do you mean he’s gone away?”
“Yes, they’ve all gone away, Sir. Health Department’s just been here, Sir. Roaches and rats, Sir, they’ve closed us down. Your man has gone away…”
And on and on as long as the caller was willing to put up with the nonsense. My father considered anyone who called at the office or a wrong number at home fair game for his own personal entertainment.
His appetite for fun was matched by his appetite for food. His fridge contained everything imaginable. Cheeses of every kind, smoked salmon filets from Scotland, sleeves of sliced deli meats wrapped and stacked in a drawer, olives, and on and on. When you had dinner with my father, he ate normal portions. The real fun for him was the 3am foray to the fridge. I can imagine his bath robed hulk silhouetted against the bright interior refrigerator light inspecting this item and that, pulling out a mittful of sliced cheese and cold cuts. Oh well, I guess we all have our guilty pleasures. His killed him eventually. God forbid you ever mentioned his weight and how he was killing himself. When anyone crossed that line a price was paid in receiving s healthy serving of invective.
Watching my father take a huge mouthful of ham and cheese and swish it all around with a sip of orangeade, you watched a man close his eyes in joy and heaven. Funny how my father never cooked any of his own food, no interest in that. He was not interested in cooking for himself or for others. A man of great success and excess.
I wrestled with having this man for a father. There were many wonderful highs and terrible lows. I am only now reconciling all of it for myself. For his many gifts have been most wonderful for me. Lucky for me I was not in his close orbit enough to be crippled, but we had our moments. Very good and then not so much.
A deeply complex man, an enigma to himself and everyone around him, I ask he rest in peace.
Part two next week…
