Jason Rodriguez - The Moose in the Closet: DCC Jam and La Familia

We had a DCC jam yesterday and a pretty good turnout. I got to pimp Elk’s Run, taking advantage of a gathering of drunken people. We showed off some work, I got to see the first 8 pages of our jam book, the first four done by Matt Dembicki and the last four done by Deb Orgel. All in all, a good time (you can see pictures here). Our next official get together is May 1st but we may do something beforehand as well.

I'm going to dedicate this week to my dad's side of the family, the Rodriguez family. I figured I'd start by introducing them.

I’m pretty sure my great-grandmother was the first of us to come from America, we called her Granny. She died when I was 17 year old after spending years in a wheel chair as a result of falling down a flight of stairs a long time ago. I only knew her as a cripple. She hardly spoke English, called me “Jesse” and would chant “I’m dying, Jesse” every time I went to visit her. She lived on the third floor of my Grandma’s house, and we’d visit my Grandma every Friday. My cousins and I would always try to avoid the Granny visit because it was easily the most boring and depressing half-hour a kid could possibly spend. We all loved Granny, but when I look back for the “good memories”, they’re few and far between. They’re not bad or good, just memories, I never knew what she was saying.

That was my Grandma’s mother, my father’s mother. The story here is, again, sketchy. I believe my Grandfather and Grandmother were living in a home when they met. They got married and somewhere in there my Grandfather went to fight in the Korean War. They did the family thing, rented a house in Red Hook for what had to be peanuts and started producing children.

My father is the oldest, born in 1954 but if you see him you’d think he’s in his late-30s. He entered the Navy after going to a trade high school for printers. He was a printer in the Navy, came back and got a job as a printer, married my mom and had me, eventually. They bought a house on Woodhull in a three way partnership with my mother’s brother-in-laws’ parents and this guy Jumbi from the neighborhood. They’re still in that house today, each family taking an apartment. The upstairs neighbors died (my adopted Grandparents, as I call them, another story for another day) recently, my Grandpa John dying about 8 years ago and my Grandma Fran dying last year. The partners are now trying to sell the house. Also in my family is my sister, now 16 years old, and one of those multi-talented kids that plays the viola, piano and four sports. She’s also starting to show a good grasp on perspective and I’m hoping she turns into a decent little artist so I can put her ass to work.

My Titi Anita is next, one of those tough yet beautiful women that could most likely kick your ass with little effort. She had my cousin Luis with her first husband. Luis used to be afraid of everything as a kid, used to fall down for no reason and had the greatest catch phrase to ever come out of a four year olds’ mouth: “When I was a woman, I used to smooookkkeeee.” Luis and I were basically inseparable throughout our childhood. She’s now married to my uncle Mario and that brought Little Mario into the family as well, a wired and weird kid that tells people that they smell like corn chips.

My Uncle Alex is next, my godfather. He had a tough time when he was younger, got into bad stuff. Heroin, mainly. But he always had this heart of gold, and he one decided to straighten up. He moved out to Arizona, started a family with my Aunt Theresa, had a child, Mickey, and got a good job. He was always funny, always laughing and smiling and inviting. Everybody loved him. He died of AIDS in 1998, his past caught up with him proving how absolutely unfair life really is sometimes. He died during the summer of 423, just one of the many things to happen over that summer. There will be more about him in the coming months.

Here’s where I get a little confused over who’s oldest. I believe my Uncle Chris is next. Uncle Chris drifted in and out of our family for a variety of reasons, most of them not worth occasionally losing a family member over. But every family has its speed bumps and now we’re close again. He married a couple of years back, during one of those bad times, we weren’t at the wedding. He now has a son, Jack, one of the cutest and brightest kids I’ve seen in all my years. They have a big house that’s accessible to most of my family so that’s pretty much the spot for the big Rodriguez get-togethers, something I promise to never host because they never go to sleep and drink a lot. I once jokingly told my family that I already have a house; I just didn’t want them to known about it.

I believe my Aunt Sophie comes next. She married my Uncle Mike and had three kids: Samantha, Christina and Mickey. The Rodriguez family had two big fights in my days and one of them was centered on a letter I wrote to my grandparents after they moved down to Virginia where my Aunt Sophie lived. I’ll be talking about that this week.

Titi Denise is next. The first Rodriguez family blow-out came when I was a kid. One of my earliest memories is my Titi Denise coming out to my father’s car during Christmas time, as we parked in front of my Grandma’s house, to give me Christmas presents. No-one else came out. She was crying the whole time (she always cries). When people ask me why my Titi Denise is my favorite aunt, I tell them that story. That’s love, right there. She married my Tio Andy, a great guy that’s more like me in the sense that you can tell the big family get-togethers get to him. They have a huge house in Buffalo and a huge pool so the family tends to propagate there quite often. They have three kids: Andy, who just started college this year, Amanda, who is to my sister what Luis is to me, and Taylor, an ultra sweet kid that’s practically a clone of my Titi Denise in terms of mannerisms. They also raised two kids from my Tio Andy’s first marriage, Tatum and Kiesha. Kiesha still lives at their house, now with a kid of her own, Jayden (could be spelled wrong), a little premature miracle baby that dances around like a maniac.

And finally is Titi Lisa, the youngest in the family and only 11 years older than me. She recently married her long time boyfriend Hervin, the comic relief of our family and the constant spewer of what we call “Hervinisms”. One of my favorites came when he was reading a Trivial Pursuit card and said, “What does James I mean when he says…” except instead of saying “James the First” he said “James eye”. We asked him to repeat the question several times, he never saw anything wrong with what he was saying. Titi Lisa’s wedding this past January was huge, the whole family showing up and all of the cousins being together for the first time in years. We had a blast, I was giving alcohol to all the little kids, getting my sister buzzed off of apple martinis and giving the older boy cousins Jack and Coke. It’s a wedding; we’re family; what’s a little drinking amongst family?

And that’s the family. We’ve fought, we’ve loved. There were events that have torn us apart and events that brought us together. Occasionally I feel a little weird, a little out of place; I know I said my share of things. But it’s dumb to feel that way; once we’re back together it’s as if everything that has happened before is inconsequential, like it never happened. I think mainly because twice we were brought back together by deaths, and death makes you realize that whatever it is you’re fighting over is insignificant.

read a book, fanboy: You Can't Take it With You

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DCC Jam and La Familia

Sunday, April 03, 2005

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