Running for mayor of Melting Pot City: a Greek, Asian, Czechoslovakian, Jew, Puerto Rican, African-American, two Italians, two Irish.
Says Adolfo Carrión: “I’m born in Williamsburg. In ’62, we moved to the Lower East Side, Avenue C and 12th Street, the heart of Stuyvesant Town. I hated algebra but was P.S. 34’s spelling bee champion back when penmanship and language were celebrated.
“At 13, I jumped a turnstile on the No. 6. Police caught me and sent a summons. I hid from my parents. With the whole family together my father said, ‘It’s the last time you shame the Carrion family.’ It was scary.
“In home ec, I sewed a nice cowboy shirt. And wore it. Also, I did wood carving. In John Philip Sousa Junior High, I became a musician. Played trombone, flugelhorn, nearly was in a band and sang at weddings and bar mitzvahs in every catering hall.”
After singing some Nat King Cole for me: “My dad was a minister. It sounds cheesy, but we grew up helping people. It’s in my DNA. I was a youth pastor with kids in The Bronx.”
Fast-forward to 2013.
“Up 5:30 every morning. My wife works part-time in DC for the Justice Department. I make strong espresso, fire up breakfast, get my kids out the door 7:15. Monday and Friday I drive them. Other days neighbors do. I check homework at night. Bedtime’s midnight. I don’t need much sleep.
“And I cook. I’ve been a busboy, waiter, had a catering business. My mind blocks out bad food. I make everything. Pork shoulder, salmon with broccoli rabe, scallop potatoes. I’m big with Asian, Italian and Puerto Rican. And each morning it’s an hour aerobics, weight training, yoga, calisthenics. I exercise just to eat. You don’t walk or run, you can’t have wine.”
How’s it feel when the press attacks you?
“Angry folks with an agenda want to notch you down. I understand it’s fair, impartial, but it’s lousy stuff. Hurts. Sometimes I want to knock somebody’s block off.”
WEST 53rd’s future Baccarat Hotel and Residence’s billion-buck, 50-story tower rising across from Museum of Modern Art? Designers Tony Ingrao and Randy Kemper doing the model interiors . . . Cuba Gooding Jr. lunching solo at the Ainsworth. Bar bites washed with a gulp of sauvignon blanc . . . Wall Street Rocks gave $100K to vet charities at the Sanctuary Hotel.
LIZA appears on “Smash” in April . . . Beatrice, daughter of Britain’s other un-pregnant duchess, asked mum Sarah Ferguson on TV: “You dye your hair?”. . . Sean Lennon: “Often I’ve walked into a store and heard my dad singing. It’s nice. Like he’s saying, ‘I’m still around.’ ”. . . Halle Berry, who studied journalism two years in college, says should her career go poop she’d “like to be a writer.”
DONATELLA Versace: “Blond hair’s a state of mind. We are only misunderstood by brunettes. My mother preferred me more conservative, but my tough blond side won out. Being blond, I use simple makeup. (Whaaaa???) and wear black clothes (Oy!) and never extra decoration.” (Ohhhh, please!!!!!)
DIOR’s anti-Semitic ranting ex-designer John Galliano now hems for Oscar de la Renta. If no change of heart, at least a change of income. To whomever’s sending me “anonymous” hisses about his May spread in Vogue — stop! I do not accept “anonymous” information. Not!!
IN the book “Decisive: How To Make Better Choices in Life and Work,” brothers Chip and Dan Heath report: In 2009, 61,535 tattoos were reversed . . . Quaker lost $1.5 billion acquiring Snapple . . . Ex-Green Bay Packer Brett Favre retired, unretired, then reretired . . . “American Idol’s” unworthy contestants competed due to biased family and friends.
‘AMAR’E Stoudemire: In the Moment,” his career doc for EPIX about “What it takes to remain one of the world’s most dominant basketball players,” being sent out. So qué pasa now that the Knicks power forward got temporarily set backward? . . . John Lloyd Young, Tony winner for playing Frankie Valli in “Jersey Boys”: “What I waste most time doing is background checks on my enemies.”
AND how’s young Gillian Jacobs of TV’s “Community” spend time? “Reading Ramachandran’s book ‘The Tell-Tale Brain,’ which reports advances in neurology.”. . . Adweek reports another young star, Carrie Brownstein of “Portlandia,” her bedtime reading is Dave Eggers’ “A Hologram for the King.” So much for Star and the Enquirer.
UPTOWN No. 5 bus. Two middle-aged yentas: “Daniel Stevens in ‘The Heiress’ on Broadway looked heavier than in ‘Downton Abbey.’ Also, remember in London in some earlier thing, doesn’t it seem now he then had an old nose?”
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.