November 12 2023

Frank DePasquale, a spiritual man of business

November 12, 2023
# 1630 

On Sundays, Mr. DePasquale has his Sunday dinner and then plays cards with his friends. 0n this day, his wife and daughter are away visiting, his son Frank is with a friend at a football game. and his friends have not come over.

At the football game, the score is 7-6, Frank’s team, St. Mary’s, is losing and the game clock is running out. But St. Mary’s drives the ball to the three-yard line and they are about to go in for the score and victory. Every sportsman’s dream moment. But a strange feeling comes over Frank. Something is very wrong. He tells his friend, “I must go.” How can you go when your team is about to score, comes the reaction. “Something is wrong,: Frank says.

Frank bolts from the stands and heads home at full speed. He runs up to the third floor and enters his father’s apartment. He turns the television on to its highest volume. He walks over to the large radio on the refrigerator and does the same thing. Something is wrong and the noise will give him courage.

He the bedroom and sees his father’s hand hanging listlessly over the edge of the bed, It’s cold. He puts his hand on his father’s forehead. It’s cold. He keeps his hand on his father’s cold head for what seems like an hour. The reality is that it is only five minutes.

He’s too late to hear any words his father may have spoken to him. But he’s not too late to know of his father’s dream of business success in America. He promises out loud, “I will make your dream come true.” and for Frank, that promise was a pledge.

And he fulfilled that pledge, in spades.

Il Panino, the first restaurant he opened in 1987, may have seemed like an overnight success. But Frank was preparing for it from childhood.
A lifetime of experience and education honed a sophisticated and discerning palate that appreciates the nuances of herbs and spices, textures, smells, and tastes. His experience includes extensive traveling, seeking out kitchens and chefs who were interested in sharing their knowledge with him. It’s not surprising that he defines menu-readiness as a recipe and style that suits him.

He taught himself about wines by reading, listening to wine salespeople, and indulging in tastings, soaking up information like a sponge. When he opened, he only seated twenty people but he offered a wine list commensurate with a restaurant that seated 100.

His experience was well-rounded, including a stint as Northeast Marketing Director for Steve Winn, a connection that helped in his quest to open a restaurant in the Encore casino.

It's not a surprise that Il Panino had a waiting line from the start.
So why expand?
Remember that pledge he made to his father on his father’s deathbed?

Business According to Frank
Use the best food. Wild-caught salmon, Prime beef aged in-house for thirty-five days, whole fish as well as fish fillets, vegetables from his own garden, or from visiting local farms to develop the best sources. 

Offer customers variety. Frank’s restaurants offer different menu items, all reflecting the tastes and styles of different regions or cities or neighborhoods.

Treat customers with respect and courtesy. Every customer is a celebrity and each visit must be a special occasion.

Treat staff with respect and understanding. Frank prides himself that he has worked at every station in the restaurant, front and back. So he has first-hand experience of what issues the staff is faced with, which helps hi understanding of them. He talks issues with everyone, working through problems rather than meting out punishment.

Keep control. Although he loves people and although he has teamed up with a best friend to open two operations in the Encore casino, his North End restaurants form his own empire of restaurants.

Most importantly, be guided by spiritual and religious principles. For Frank, daily Mass helps keep him centered.

One of Frank’s favorite lines, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.", from the Sermon on the Mount, a collection of Jesus' teachings found in Matthew 5:9. This verse is one of the Beatitudes, which are a series of statements by Jesus about the characteristics and qualities that are considered blessed or fortunate in the eyes of God.
Recently, some of Frank’s associates were violently angry with one another, poised to hire lawyers and take their differences to court. Frank was asked to step in. By the time his role as mediator of the dispute was ended, he received emails from both parties, praising and thanking him for smoothing their relationship.
On another occasion, a grateful friend posted a sign outside Frank’s cafe, Dolce. The sign read: Ask Dr. Phil or Ask Frank.
On the day I interviewed him for this article, two friends were waiting to see him about personal problems.

His spirituality shows in the way he handles staff. He attracts quality people and spends the time and money it takes to train them thoroughly before they take a specific position in one of his restaurants. Once employed, he encourages freedom. He doesn’t want employment to smack of being a jail sentence. If someone needs an extended period away from work, he makes it happen, keeping the same slot open for them whenever they are ready to return to work. He helps his Italian-born cooks with immigration issues, from lawyers to spouses. He meets with his managers individually every day, and he has an ‘all manager meeting’ weekly.

We asked Frank, what advice would you give to someone who’s starting out?
Be prepared, he said: to give the restaurant everything: miss all the holidays. Be prepared, to deal with disgruntled customers and lawyers, city hall, leases, accountants, fees and taxes, and getting smacked on social media.

Then we asked Frank, what makes the North End such a great neighborhood to visit and to do business in?
His response was instant: “People,” he said.
There are many, many restaurants in the North End, yet every one of them has a family member on site, to make patrons feel welcomed and loved. Restaurants in other areas of the city are run fully by professional managers, with no personal connection to the operation. People.

What else? I asked and he replied.
The North End has a plethora of draws:
The Freedom Trail features guided tours by the dozen, de rigueur for history buffs and tourists.
The North End features cafes with events that draw, like the World Cup, the enthusiasm complete with the visitors in their cars sporting flags of their teams riding through the streets honking.
And the North End street festivals, held every weekend in August, bring thousands of people to enjoy the neighborhood.
Students by the hundreds live here; students by the thousands, visit regularly.
The neighborhood feeds off the TD Garden, a multi-purpose arena with huge music concerts, packed Celtics and Bruins games, family shows, wrestling, ice shows, and many events attended by tens of thousands, which provide the North End with a steady and huge customer base.
Not least, are the three Catholic Churches, the foundation of the community. The Churches draw parishioners who have moved out, offering their rites of Baptism, marriage, death, funerals, and memorial, Italian, and Sunday Masses.

Frank says, “In my estimation, there will never be an Italian American neighborhood like the North End. And out of respect for the foundation they have laid, I promise to add to this legacy.”

And in our conversation with Frank, we gleaned these aphorisms:

Frank’s Aphorisms.
‘Specials’ for Frank are simply ‘additions to the menu’. ‘Specials’ make the dishes sound like they are better than the regular menu.
I asked Frank if he sought out guidebooks. His genius response, “I prefer smiles on peoples’ faces to stars in a food guidebook.”
Frank’s response to partners in his restaurants: “Partners are good for dancing.”
Frank’s attitude towards his employees, “Work should be edifying, not incarcerating.”
And his competition: “Second best is a loser.”

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Commentary
This is a sad moment for me. It’s cold out [relatively], and cloudy. May rain.
The Celtics lost last night. They had been 5-0 for the season. Minnesota outplayed them in the last three minutes of the overtime.
So much death being meted out.
For 250 years America has been torn by factions swearing death to the others. And we are continuing that very unhealthy tradition.
My cousin just left for work and I am alone to make progress on my four ventures.
I still edit the e-zine.
Am just beginning to market “Do You Believe in Magic?”
I am finishing my horror novel, “Conflicted.”
And, with a small group of fellows, am investigating the launch of a website, to be revealed soon.

My work should give me pleasure.
And it does for the most part.
But at this moment, I’m sad.

Turning 25

I turned 25 on Monday. I am so grateful for my life. 

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Tucker’s Corner

My best friend in the whole world moved away a few weeks ago. When he lived in Cambridge we’d see each other weekly and talk just about every day. Now that he’s moved we still talk but there’s a big hole in my week that I’m trying to figure out how to fill. BUT we had one more Boston event on the calendar that required him to come back up for a visit over last weekend. While we waited to attend that event (a midnight screening of Alien 3) we found ourselves in a screening for the film below. As someone who spends a lot of time dissecting films for what works and what may not I was reminded this week that a huge part of the reason why I love watching movies is the opportunity to experience them with others. Most of the time it adds a warmth to the whole thing that stays with you every time you talk about or rewatch that film. This is The Holdovers.

The Holders - Directed by Alexander Payne

Alexander Payne’s newest film, The Holdovers, is firmly planted in the past. There’s the 1970’s aesthetic, evident from the first minute with the cars, clothes, hairstyles, and even the grainy film stock used to shoot the film on full display. There’s the film’s main location Barton Academy, the fictional Massachusetts boarding school where beautifully aging interiors take us back to a time long before the decade of the film’s story. There’s the film’s soundtrack, a healthy blend of acoustic instruments and period appropriate Christmas carols. Lastly there’s Paul Hunham the film’s protagonist played by Paul Giamatti, a man who, to a fault, revels in living in the past.

At the film’s outset, Paul might appear to be the story’s villain. He’s a curmudgeon of the highest order whose expectations of his students are well meant but unrealistic to the point of cruelty. We’re in Payne country. Alexander Payne loves this kind of character and has featured them in many of his other works. Jack Nicholson in About Schmidt and Bruce Dern in Nebraska spring to mind but so too does his other film with Paul Giamatti, Sideways where by the end he has his audience rooting for a moody snob. The Holdovers fits this same middle aged male mold quite well and does a wonderful job of showing how men like Paul Hunham have the capacity for change.

The Holdovers’ inciting incident occurs when Paul fails the son of one of the school’s chief donors. As punishment, he’s given the assignment of chaperoning the handful of students who are forced to remain at school during Christmas break. A parent of one of the other students offers to take all the kids on the ski trip save for Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa in a breakout role) whose recently remarried mother cannot be reached on her honeymoon. This motley pair are joined by the school’s cook, Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), who is freshly mourning the loss of her son in the Vietnam War.

These three wounded spirits, all eager to retreat from reality for different reasons, are catnip to Payne and screenwriter David Hemingson, who delight in nudging them together and seeing the ways they can irritate and eventually support one another. Each character starts the film hidden behind a wall of their own feelings: Paul resents his diminished stature at the school, Angus lashes out about his teenage abandonment, and Mary struggles to take any steps that might make it look like she’s moving past her loss. The snowy fields and forests surrounding the Massachusetts school help set the perfect mood for Payne’s particular brand of despondence. He also manages to weaponize the Christmas season, my favorite time of year, but for many one of the saddest and loneliest days on the calendar.

The film’s 133-minute running time is roomy, allowing these three to mope around an empty boarding school. Payne uses that time to fill every narrative nook and cranny with careful detail, seeking to understand the academic journey that led Paul to his dusty corner of books, and the dark family factors motivating Angus’s rebellious loneliness. Giamatti can do this kind of role in his sleep, but this is one of his best performances, with an array of socially inept mannerisms (he can’t stop calling students “philistines” and “Visigoths”) covering up a wounded sense of pride. Sessa, giving his first-ever screen performance, is all raw nerviness, but Randolph might be the film’s most triumphant performance. She lets Mary’s biting wit peek out at the perfect moments without sacrificing a well-earned sense of ocean-deep sadness.

Each character’s sorrow does eventually begin to thaw, and surprising bonds start to form—this is a movie, after all. Just as in Payne’s other best films, the big changes creep up beautifully. In Election, he depicted Matthew Broderick’s descent into jealous madness, and in Sideways, he showed Giamatti’s character emerge from a deep depressive funk—but in both films, the transformation felt gradual and well-earned. The Holdovers accomplishes something similar with deft and surprising grace, turning from a sad comedy about classic American schooling into a heartwarming family tale. The film is hysterically funny, but it’s the deep care for its characters that makes The Holdovers really sing.

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Do You Believe in Magic? Anthology of Stories from the North End
Edited by Dom Capossela

“Do You Believe in Magic" is a recall of growing up Italian in the Italian North End of the 1950s to 1970s.
Order book: Amazon.com: Do You Believe In Magic?: A North End Anthology: 9798861138666: Capossela, Dom: Books

While the book has dozens of photographs,
what makes it unique in the genre of North End Italian literature
are the thirty authors who collaborated to make the book happen.

A prologue provides the setting.
In the 1950s-70s, we discovered the telephone, television, the transistor radio.
We adopted rock and roll music, and performers as varied as Jumping Joe Turner and the suave Bobby Darin.
Our tastes in movies changed from the heroic John Wayne to the rebellious Marlon Brando.
On television, we loved the Fonz, Laverne and Shirley, and the heroic Captain Furillo of Hill St. Blues.
We adapted to school integration, feminism, the Pill, and Playboy magazine.

Despite these global changes, quotidian life in the North End remained untouched.
"Do You Believe in Magic" presents dozens of pictures and fifty-eight anecdotes
that, together, paint a vivid picture of a lively Italian community
filled with characters and events from a time past
when the streets and sidewalks were crammed with
baby strollers, twenty-five hundred schoolchildren, the ice man,
the oil man, the rag man, and the milk man,
streets to play stick ball, card games, kick the can, and relievio,
corner gangs of forty or more, and
four grammar schools, a high school, a library, four churches, grocers, butchers, tailors, pastry shops, shoemakers, religious, and 142 bookies.
The North End teemed with the lives of 40,000 vibrant people creating a magical, isolated, homogeneous, small city.

Do you remember when the aromas of Italian cooking filled the streets?
I’m talking mouthwatering aromas from home kitchens,
from restaurants, coffee shops, luncheonettes, and
from stores using the sidewalks to display barrels of olives or dill pickles, 
meat carcasses, bags of coffee beans, fresh fruit and vegetables.
Aromas from a multitude of street food vendors,
like the man with a cart laden with fresh boiled crabs for a nickel each, or
pop-up pushcarts laden with wild, foraged mushrooms,
or nuts, all kinds of nuts,
or Coogie quahog with his pushcart of clams, as my friend Sammy would say,
“Ten cents each, three for a dollar.”
I won’t forget the man pushing his extra-large stockpot on wheels filled with hot pizzas, and
calling out “Cowada, cowada,” “Hot, Hot.”
his cries competing with the loud voices of mothers hanging from their windows and
singing out, “Anthony.”

It was a time. A magical time. Do you believe in magic?

By the Way: All the profits from the sale of the books go to North End charities.

Installing a mural in Dom’s Restaurant in 1970.

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Dom’s Restaurant Mural

 Recently found photo of Dom's mural by  Robert V Guarente

​DOM,

I trust all is fine and dandy with you and that you're having a good time in your creative endeavors.

I know I sent you a photo of this 30' x 9'mural before but I don't think it was this one. I just discovered this today. I think I sent you a black-and/white image.

At the moment the only computer I have access to is my iPhone. So I'm unable to color-correct this image yet, but when I do I'll send you a beautiful copy.

Meanwhile, thanks for believing in me and letting me do it. This was done at a time when we didn't have computers at home, but because the panels could be rotated in 4 directions and repositioned in 90 addresses there were virtually endless display possibilities. I had Velcro triangular corners on each Masonite panel for that purpose. I used hues so light that you could barely distinguish one color from another. they were mostly white with a hint of the colors: pink, light blue, light green, and light gray. Looking at them from a distance, the eye wanted the blend the borders and cause them to fall apart, but the geometry of the triangles locked them in place for the eye. As a result it created optical illusions as sections of the mural jumped about. I saw this immediately and perhaps you remember as well. Another illusion is that it appeared that the whole mural was back-lit, even though it was paint on masonite.

My good friend, Alejandro Sina, a fellow at the MIT center for advanced visual studies for many years is a famous neon light sculpture. he hired me to assemble some of the tubes he needed to manufacture for his project at the brand new coat Cambridgeside Galleria. When the project is complete there was a big party at his studio, and there I met the architect and developers of that project. In the course of conversation, when they found out that I had done the mural at Dom's Il Leopardo, they told me they used to go there all the time, particularly to look at the mural, and mentioned the optical illusion.

One final note that doesn't show up in the painting. I asked for $1800 to do it. You paid me $450 and anything on the menu as long as it wasn't meat. That was fine with me. The pasta at Il Leopardo was better than anywhere else in the city. it was well worth its high price and your dining rooms were always packed. I still remember that meat caveat. I still remember your aunts and cousins downstairs in the kitchen putting out that excellence. And they saw me doing mine. At first all they saw was a stack of brown masonite panels (18" x 18") and me masking them with tape and putting on one color at a time. it's a slow and tedious process. Next thing they saw was that phase was completed. They would bring me my lunch or dinner and I ate it where I worked. I loved that. It made me feel like da Vinci.  Finally, after attaching Velcro to the panels I began assembling the mural, and your relatives saw for the first time my vision. But I didn't put them up all at once, so until I did things, changed! Yes, I would get a bowl of pasta but no, it wasn't all-pasta. Buried under it were meatballs or other gravy meat. Assolutamente deliziosi, ancor di più perché erano di contrabbando.That's a detail I'm sure you appreciate 45 years later.

Sauti!

rvg

Ralph

The Sentence - By Ralph Indrisano

 Did you know that the term Gubbinal may derive from Gubbin slang for a dullard referring here to someone who takes the world to be ugly and the people sad.

Gubbinal

That strange flower the sun is just what you say Have it your way The world is ugly and people are sad

That tuft of jungle feathers That animal eye Is just what you say That savage of fire That seed Have it your way

The world is ugly and people sad.

Wallace Stevens

I remember working at the Mass General Hospital as a dispatcher part time at night in high school in 1965. Even then the MGH was a sprawling mass of buildings encompassing in what does not exist anymore The West End of Boston which was exited from Boston neighborhoods. I was fifteen and a half years old the youngest a human being can work in the state of Massachusetts and still be a legal worker.In other states I would be illegal or legal depending on the state. As well as going to High School, I worked their part time for three years. I worked three nights a week sixteen hours a week for 52 weeks that is 156 nights.

Sometimes, us dispatchers would work up to midnight.

One night working the midnight shift, I remember something so vivid in my mind after decades of overuse. It was my last dispatch of the night around eleven thirsty. I was in the Baker building none of the buildings in the MGH was named after Italians. It was okay for me I was sure that there was no building in Rome named MGH. On my last dispatch, I made a stupid mistake. The nurses were so kind. They said it was just a matter of no consequence and it was a human mistake. However, I was enraged and hated myself for doing something even of no consequence. I left the floor being dejected.

How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable Seem to me all the uses of the world,

Fie on’t ha fie tis an unweeded garden,

that grows to seed Things rank gross in nature Possess it merely

Hamlet

I was going down the elevator of the Baker Building. In those days people had to run the elevator. There was no buttons to push. You asked the elevator operator to take you to a floor and he did. Here was a kind African American man who ran the elevator almost every day. I was amazed by his adroitness and endurance. He had a lever and had to release the lever at just the right time so as to have the elevator and the floor even so that no one would trip.  I was amazed that he knew exactly when to let go of the lever. Sometimes, he was off half an inch off. I thought no one can fall from a half an inch. But he nevertheless left nothing to chance and with magic managed to have the elevator and the floor even all the time. We always greeted one another. And he greeted me today. It was just a few words, but those words gave me a respite from the pain in the day.

As I began to walk out of the elevator. He asked: “You okay?”

I could not look him in the eye so instead, looking at my feet I replied: “Yes, thanks you.”

I lied of course. I was not alright. I was all wrong.

When far away an interrupted cry Came overs houses from another street

But not to call me back or say goodbye.

I have been one acquainted with the nigh

Robert Frost

At this time in my life, it did not take too much time for me to hate myself. I was really good at hating myself.

The conclusion of Ralph’s story can be found here

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Chuckles and Thoughts
"Why is it called 'after dark' when it really is 'after light'?"
George Carlin

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Six Word Novels
"Wandering soul, found home, heart settled.

___________________
Last Thought

Hello Dom,

I hope you're enjoying a warm bowl of cacio e pepe this morning! 

The pathology results from your recent excision shows clear margins meaning we got everything out and there's no remaining skin cancer. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns I can assist you with. 

Vanessa Hegazy
Medical Assistant
Skin Center Boston

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!