nm2K200l? ü i ism f i n ITI U I w i U i l DVD • Videos • Arcade • Private Preview Rooms • Adult Toys & Gifts • Magazines I'm with the band » ifu lf S u p e rs to re s Life w ith F ath er here’s a saying in my family: The minute an Acito opens the door of the fridge and the light goes on, we don’t eat— we do three minutes of audition material. My dad has been performing in front of fridges and audiences for nearly 50 years. A Dixieland trombonist, he got his start in the 1950s playing in a five-piece hand. (There were actually just three guys in the group, but they only knew five pieces.) These guys would do anything to get work, including playing under assumed names for nonunion wages, which is how Rocky Farino became “Reginald Farrell,” Morty Feldstein became “Montgomery Fielding” and Charlie Acito became “Chase Carlyle.” I don’t know about Rocky and Morty, hut the name “Chase” stuck. It suits him; my father is hard to keep up with. Years hack while vacationing in Den­ mark, he suggested we take the boat to Sweden just to go to dinner. We use the experience as shorthand whenever we go out together: “OK, the movie gets out at 10:30; ya think there’s time to get to Sweden?” The man is simply incapable of not having fun. Once when he came to pick me up at the park after school, he drove his car up onto the playground, rolled down the window and yelled: “Hey you kids! Get outta the road!” Some fathers took their kids to the zoo to see the ani­ mals. Mine ttxik us to the movies to see the Marx Brothers. And to this day, Chase can’t walk into a fast fcxxJ restaurant without asking the teen-ager behind the counter for a table near the hand. hase lives across the street from my brother Neal in New Jersey. The neighbors call 1, im "The Gnxwy Grandpa" because he drives a convertible and favors women horn after Neil Armstrong walked on the mixin. “I feel like a 20-year-old,” he says, “hut, y’know, there’s never one around.” When Neal told me that my nephew’s girl­ friend just moved across the street, my first thought was: “Oh, no. She’s not dating Dad, is she.7" Chase doesn’t discriminate against older women, though. His only criterion for a com­ panion is that she must he completely and utterly wrong for him. My family has stopped THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARC by M arc Acito writing the year on the hack of our holiday pic­ tures; we can figure it out just by looking at the woman on Chase’s arm. Lately my father has widened the playing field by working as a dance host, which means he’s paid to dance with unattached elderly ladies at senior socials. This essentially makes him a gigolo, except he’s vertical instead of horizontal. He loves the attention and enjoys the challenges— like how to mamho with a woman dragging an oxygen tank behind her. What keeps my father so vital is his willing­ ness to try absolutely anything. A walking tour of New York’s Radical Communist sites? Let’s go! The Warhol Diaries: An Opera (sung in Czech)! Hurry, we’ll he late! The Portland Gay Pride Parade? Where do we line up? I’ve got to admit I was a little nervous about that last one. Chase might have hung out with Allen Ginsberg in Paris, hut was he prepared for men on leashes? The moment he saw the baton-twirling guys leading the marching hand, he started to frown. “Damn it!" he said. “I shoulda brought my horn!” Never mind that they had uniforms and choreography. As far as Chase is concerned, he’s with the hand. Now and forever. Like 709 SE 122nd Avenue Portland, OR 503-257.8617 rpeaps. mtgadvocates.com www.mtgadvocates.com I'm available when you are ! " " Prudential Northwest P ro p o rti« Colleen Weed A/A MORTGAGE A d v o c a te s 9900 S.W . Wilshire Street • Portland, Oregon 97225