Hudson River Radio dot com dot com makes it cool, my godness, being
Frank. The only way to be is Frank. Hello everyone, and welcome
to being Frank. We're the only way to be is Frank. I'm your
host, Frank Lebuono, and i'd like to thank you for joining us on
what we like to call the Intelligent Conversation podcast, where no conversation is out
of bounds and all points of view are welcome. We're going live to tape
as we normally do the week after Thanksgiving. It's the last day of November
the thirtieth, and I certainly hope that everyone had something to be thankful during
this past Thanksgiving. Some, if not most, celebrated the holiday with a
lavish feast, dining on massive turkeys with all the trimmings. It is as
much a part of the day's tradition as the actual giving of thanks But these
are tough times in so many ways, both on a global scale as well
as a local one. War rages in Ukraine and Gaza, where thousands of
innocent lives have already been lost, and many of our neighbors still struggle to
put enough food on the table to feed their families. What we need are
dedicated people to offer simple prayers for challenging times and offer their considerable talents to
make the world a better place for all of us. And in just a
minute, we'll meet two of them on this edition of Being Frank. First,
Rita Harvey, the Star, Phantom of the Opera, Fiddler on the
Roof, next to Normal, and many other Broadway productions and folks that don't
remind you, these are very truncated biographies. If I were to read both
of our guests biographies in their entirety, we wouldn't have time for the program.
They're that accomplished, So hopefully they'll forgive me as I said, these
are very well abbreviated, but I will continue, okay. She has teamed
up this holiday season with New York Times bestselling author, composer, and classic
music critic Peter Danish for an incredibly special new CD named, appropriately enough,
Simple Prayers for Challenging Times. It's a collection of short prayers from numerous faiths
set to original music by Danish and performed by Harvey. The CD contains original
compositions and a few traditionals in fresh arrangements. Arrangements. Excuse me, including
Sacred Catholic, Jewish, Baptist, Arabic, Orthodox Christian texts, and others.
They are also performing the CD live as a fundraiser for People to Eat,
People to People, the largest food bank in Rockland County, New York.
We'll have more on that specifically with dates and tickets, etc. A
little bit later on, but now let's meet Rita Harvey and Peter Danish.
Thanks guys for joining us here on being Frank really appreciated your busy people.
Thanks for let's talk about the original germination, if you will, the germ
of the project, simple prayers for challenging times and even though as I said,
it's certainly very appropriate for now with everything going on in the world,
but this was really kind of hatch during another challenging time in our lives COVID,
which it's not hyperbole to say change the world for all of us.
Both of you either take How did that germ come about as it related to
the to the pandemic? Who wants to take it? I'll take it?
Okay. Hi, great to be here. Yes, this was kind of
our COVID project. We were talking quite a bit during COVID about how artists,
you know, especially performing artists. You know, we were not able
to do what we love to do. We were just kind of left marooned,
especially singers. I mean, it was said and Covid that was the
worst thing you could do was be in a room with a live singer and
actually sing in a room with people. So it was rough for a while.
A lot of my singer friends and myself included, you know, didn't
sing at all. We just sort of would cry if we did, you
know. But during one conversation with Peter, we were talking about that,
and he has lots of brother singer and musician friends. He said, listen,
I have some prayers and songs that I've written. Do you want to
just record them? Do a little demo, you know, in a safe
environment. We went into a studio with masks on and it's basically just he
and I and I quick take a mask off, singing from and put it
back on. And but it, you know, it turned into something fun.
We started to kind of experiment with different tracks and he brought in different
tracks of different instrumentals, and you know, it turns out, well,
I knew this about Peter. He's brilliant and everything, but he's you know
was great at arranging these songs and coming up with neat you know, things
to do with the tracks, and and we said, you know, let's
let's make a CD out of this. This is working. And uh started
out with he brought me some mass parts. I believe we're both Catholic.
And then we said, you know, let's expand it out to other religions.
We don't want this to be just a Christian thing. We wanted to
be all people and it, you know, it became something something we wanted
to people to be able to meditate to, something continue please please, just
something that that would calm people. You know, the times were rough,
and you know, we worked hard at finding a vocal quality and a and
a kind of a signature sound that's very calm and meditative. And there are
a few uptempo things. But and also that meant looking for texts that were
very meditative, but to universal crowd, not just Catholic or Christian, but
to everyone. Per perfect segue for my question for Peter. It had to
be somewhat of a of a daunting task to take on all of those religions.
I mean, it's tough enough. You know, I'm a Catholic boy
here certainly was anyway, I'm sure, I'm sure I'm long excommunicated. But
that's a that's a podcast for another day. You recover Catholic, like,
that's a recovering Catholic. So uh, you know, certainly, having gone
to a parochial grammar school, I'm somewhat versed and somewhat so in in some
of the other religions, certainly not enough to be able to pull it together
to create songs, et cetera. How did you do that, Peter?
What was your what was your method for doing that? Well, Rita hit
the nail on the head. We were talking quite a bit about how our
artist friends were feeling, feeling the downtime during COVID a lot deeper than a
lot of other folks were, because they just weren't able to ply their trades.
And in the case of singers especially, your trade is more than just
a trade. Your trade is who you are. And if a singer is
not singing, they're only half of who they really are, you know.
And I saw Rida. I saw Rita in a lot of pain, basically
because she was just dying. She said, Danish, I have to sing
something. What do you got And I said, I was working on something
for another singer, a metropolitan opera singer, a Prele Milo. I worked
on a song with her about five six years ago. It was an Avi
Maria for the children of Haiti. It was a relief single for the Hurricane
Matthew recovery and it did very nicely. I still hear it in the mall
on the holidays when I'm walking around. But it was a duet, and
I said to Rita, do you want to give it a shot? Do
you want to try singing both parts? And She's like, oh yeah.
And because something that a lot of folks may not realize is that Rita is
a trained opera singer and that's what she went to school for. Initially,
that was her you know, her stock in trade was legit opera singing.
So this gave her a chance to dive back into classical waters again. Because
I've known Rita, you know, twenty five years now, twenty five years.
Yeah, and generally speaking, I had only heard her in the beginning
for years doing Broadway stuff, and then little by little as we got to
know each other, she played me recordings of stuff she had done. We
did the Hudson Valley Opera Fest together a couple times where she got a chance
to really show her you know, to strut her stuff in that world,
and to my mind, that was where her voice really shined. So it
just seemed like a logical kind of destination to make it a bit more on
the classical side. And it also brought out a lot of the sounds from
her voice that I really loved when I heard her singing the Broadway stuff,
and I really, I really leaned towards the more lyrical Broadway stuff that I
heard her do rather than the more modern stuff and the more the patter stuff,
which is all fine, but I think you hear the beauty of the
voice more in the long legato phrasing and stuff, the belconto stuff, which
lends itself to the opera tradition. So I had started a couple of songs
for a prelay. At the time it was all going to be Christian.
But when we sat down, Rita said, wouldn't it be nice if we
could make this kind of non denominational for everybody? And her kind of admonition
to me was she uses the word meditative. I thought of contemplative, was
kind of the word more or less the same idea, But the bottom line
was it was music for people who were hurting. Hence the title Simple Prayers
for Challenging Times. We were hoping folks could sit back, have a glass
of wine, listen, and just get some solace as everybody was just so
incredibly tense and so stressed and so frustrated during COVID. So we had a
couple of upbeat tunes, but generally speaking, we tried to keep it more
on an even keel, music that people could sit back and not listen to
one track but listen to the entire CD from start to finish. And No,
what I was going to say was that Rita was up to the challenge.
She's whatever I threw at her. She said, let's give it a
shot. And we wound up. She wound up. I didn't have to
sing, she wounds up. She wound up singing in six different languages on
the first CD, in myriad styles. Uh. And when you speak of
the challenges, the challenges for me were, you know, there were?
It was It was fun. I got to be honest with the musicology is
fun. Doing the research is fun. I learned more preparing for this CD
about the history of music, probably because it's so steeped in religion. There's
no getting away from it. That that was music was paid for for centuries
by first by the church, then by the rich, and then you know,
by the companies, and now by other companies again. So it was
we were able to because we produced it ourselves, to get away from all
that and really do exactly what we wanted. And she didn't say, she
didn't say no to anything basically that that we discussed, you could say,
she could say yes and six different languages. I want to I want to
ask you a little bit about that. Reader, Are you fluent at six?
Did you or did you have to really truly learn the songs in the
native languages? Tell us about that. No, I am not fluent.
Peter's wife is right, she's a yes. No. When you study opera,
you do have to be familiar with the three big languages, which are
Italian, French, and German. So I'm quite familiar with I'm not fluent,
but I'm familiar with Italian, French and German. But then you know,
we kept finding prayers and chants and you know, songs from all kinds
of other languages, and at that point what I would do is finds.
Happened to be that I found people that were native speakers, such as Peter's
wife. We worked on the slavitegos put out, which is Slavic chant.
She helped me out with that. I happened to have one of my dearest
friends is Ukrainian. She talked me through the Ukrainian prayer. As far as
the Welsh, you know, I just did a lot of research. Listen
to Brin Turfel, listen to you know a lot of famous Welsh singers,
and of course you do the research as to what these songs, what these
words mean. You know. Of course I don't know every single word right
now. They sort of feel like syllables to me. But I you know,
it did go through and translate, so at least I have a very
good idea of what these words mean. So it just takes a little bit
more research. And you know, very lucky to have Sanella and my friend
to talk me through the Ukrainian and Slavic because that's and Randy Schwitz for that
with the Hebrew, right, let's talk about that. It was a collaborative
effort. You had people Obviously you guys spearheaded the effort, but there were
collaborative efforts from other musicians, linguists, lyricists, et cetera. About some
of the people who were involved with the CD. We always with any project,
you end up going to experts for various things and just gathering knowledge from
every place you can. I know Peter did go ahead. Peter has all
kinds of people he talked to. Well, that's that was kind of the
fun of it. I'll tell you going back a little bit, when I
mentioned that the Ave Maria that we did a couple of years ago, when
a prelay said to me, oh, find us for an orchestra. I
don't have an orchestra. Do you have an orchestra? But I am the
classical critic for Broadway World, So I kind of put out an APB on
Broadway World and said, if anyone is a musician who would like to be
part of a charitable single with the world famous opera singer, I will send
you the part with a click track and you can be a part of this
charity effort. Well it was. It was successful way beyond my imagination and
became a nightmare when I got like a hundred tracks, and of course nobody
listened to what I told him to do. Nobody played to the click.
I said, don't put any reverb, don't put any Everybody put junk on
it. It was such a mess trying to trying to mix and master it.
And then we reached reached out to our mutual friend, Frank Fagnano,
producer extraordinaire, who's going to be playing the drums with us on January the
thirteenth. Frank worked at the Hit Factory for many years, and he worked
at Tony Bennett's studio down in Englewood for many many years, and I gave
him all the tracks and said, make something out of this, and he
did. But he also working with him helped me fear the production process a
lot less. So when Rita and I started down this road, I was
not as afraid of playing all the tracks myself, because in the studio,
you make a mistake, you throw it out, you do it again.
That's good and it's bad. Tell you why. Now, as we set
out to play the thing live for the first time, you start to realize
you need a heck of a lot of musicians to try and reproduce this stuff.
In the studio, you could throw down thirty tracks, but live you
can't have thirty players laying around unless you've got an awful lot of money.
But what I was getting at was I started to think a little bit more
broadstroke, and I wasn't afraid to reach out to a couple of friends.
I said, if I can't make this sound good, I reached out to
a friend who's the conductor of the Athens Philharmonic in Greece, my friend Yanis
Haaji Laizu, because I was having a heck of a time with the song
Mother Teresa, which I had written kind of as an oompapah type of beer
drinking a song you know you know d D And I played it for him
and I said, the the music doesn't match the message very well. I
had a tremendous amount of difficulty because one of the things Read and I talked
about was we couldn't believe no one had ever put Mother Teresa's prayer to music.
We couldn't find it anywhere, and it's like the most beautiful prayer of
the twentieth century. And then when I sat down to try, I realized
why, Because every line is a different length. Nothing rhymes. The meter
is different. It was a nightmare trying to make it work, but it
worked kind of in this waltz feeling. I sent it to my buddy,
he said, at the piano, and came out with this beautiful piano arrangement
for it, absolutely gorgeous piano arrangement that I hadn't even conceived of, And
then suddenly the whole thing fell into place. It took on a totally different
energy, and it's one of the one of the prettiest things on the record,
and everybody loves it because everybody knows the prayer, and we'll be doing
that one obviously, and Rita is going to dedicate it to her mom,
who's named Teresa. You see, my grandmother's my grandmother's name, so I
relate. Well, you know what, let's listen to a cut. We
have this little light of mine. Tell us about that. What can we
expect to hear? Okay, this little light of mine, obviously is a
couple of hundred year old spiritual from the South, and I think most folks
know it, but not this type of arrangement. I rearranged the melody so
it's not quite as jaunty as the one that you're used to hearing. It's
much more of a prayer. And the idea came to me last but two
years ago. Now when did when did this record? Command? Yeah?
Two years ago, and one of I was I was watching CNN and they
said, stay tuned. We have the first ever audio recordings of the Sun.
And the NASA had made audio recordings of the sound of the Sun vibrating
in the universe. And it was amazing. Here. Now, mind you,
it's about five octaves lower than what you hear because it's it's so darn
low. But yet they had to bring it up into the audible spectrum for
us to hear. But I heard it and thought it had such a cool
energy to it, and suddenly I said to myself, I'm gonna try something
here. I took the recording of the Sun, I sampled it, and
I put it onto the keyboard and the sound you hear on the recording,
the music in the background is actually the sun. And riata very cool.
So she did a duet with the Sun. Yes, let's listen to this
duet with the Sun. From simple Prayers for Challenging Times. When I readA
Harvey and Peter Danish, this is this little light of mine, this little
light of lone. I'm gonna lead it, show this little light on the
line all I'm gonna lead shore, this little light of lone. I'm gonna
lead it. Shine headed shine, lady shine leader, shop. Oh three,
the I'm gonna leading it chop all three. Then look through the leading
chap leady shop lead chop leader chop three. We I'm gonna learned shop made
it shock shock. That was this little light of mine. From Simple Prayers
for Challenging Time, Rita Harvey and Peter Danish with a special cameo duet by
the Sun itself a great, really interesting story. We'll try to get in
a few more songs off the disc. We've got to go for a break
in a little while. I'm going to bring in the executive director of People
to People, the Food Bank of which will be the beneficiary of your immense
talents in a concert coming up. Well, I must we'll plug it now.
We'll plug it a couple of times. People can come and hear the
entire CD. You'll be performing it live right where and when? Guys,
why don't we start plugging it now? And then go back into our discussion
it'll be at the Living Christ Church one fifty one South Broadway in Nayak,
and that's going to be at seven pm on Saturday, January the thirteenth.
How can people get tickets? And again we'll remind them again before the end
of the program, but let's get it in a few times. How can
people get They get it at the people to people dot org website. Terrific
guys so far and as you mentioned, the the disc has been out for
a while at this point. Overall, how how's the response? Well,
well, let me let me read I'd like to read one one review from
Elliott Farrest, who is as a friend, who is a host at w
q x R and very involved here in Nayak with the art community and arts
rocks, And he said, Simple Prayers is a lush mix of new and
familiar melodies and texts for many of the world's faiths. Read a Harvey's voice
as clear as a bell, whether a person of faith or not. The
songs are a soothing respite for our times. That's pretty pretty nice praise there
that's been That's got to feel pretty good. So overall, how how has
it been received? What has the response been like? It's been quite wonderful.
Actually, I what is it that the prayer we mentioned before, Slavi
te Ghos, but a huge hid in Europe. Apparently it's there's been how
like thousands and thousands of downloads apparently, Yeah, we're getting it's kind of
it's kind of interesting because of all the tunes on these On the first cd
uh, Slavi Teo is an Orthodox Christian Yugoslavian song that I knew from my
childhood. But when you when you hear Orthodox chant, typically you hear it
done by old men in long black robes, with long black beards and tall
black hats. So when I think you know old men with long black beards,
I think Rita Harvey. So so I brought it to the Fortunately,
no visuals, I can assure everybody read A Harvey is far. I'm a
man with a long dark beard and long dark hair, and I just want
to get that straight in case they generated any kind of confusion. Basically what
we did was and that's another that's another track where there's virtually no instruments.
There's a sleigh bell and that's about it, and all of the music you
hear is Rita. She sings all the parts like deep, different tracks from
the very very low to the very very high, and we sampled her and
put her all across the thing. And it sounds at times like an orchestra,
at times like it sounds at times like a choir, and it's all
her. And ironically, I got an email from Spotify saying, you are
you are trending in in Estonia, followed by I would Estonia, that would
be okay, followed by you are trending in Lithuania, followed by your trending
in Latvia. You're trending in Bulgaria. You're trending, And I like,
wow, that's pretty cool. So I went to the website of our you
know, the CD at the publisher, and I saw that it was getting,
you know, like it had tens of thousands of listens uh and and
was getting thousands of listens a day in Central Europe. And the funny thing
was, when you look at this, the preponderance of evidences, they like
to say, you see, all the tunes are doing okay, ten listens
a day, twenty listens day, six thousand listens a day, ten listens
a day, twelve listens. It was so ridiculously disproportionate to all the rest
combined that and that led us to a year ago when when Russia invaded the
Ukraine. I knew a beautiful old Russian folksong, Ukrainian folk song, and
I brought it to Rita and she loved it, and she said, I
have a friend who can help me with this, and that's the prayer for
Ukraine. And we're going to end the program this evening with with hearing that
that song as well too. I'm really wonderful, I really, I'm looking
so proud of how that turned out. It just I think it sounds so
beautiful. I'm so proud of it, and I love Peter. Tell them
the story about the string quartet that is actually accompanying this. Yeah, I
have I have a couple of friends in Kiev who are a string quartet,
the Infinito string quartet, and they've worked with me on some other stuff on
a contract basis. And I shot them a note saying, how are you
guys doing? Are you okay during all of this? And they said,
we're hanging in there. You know, bombs are going off at night.
During the day, it's pretty quiet, but it's very scary. And I
said, boy, I'd love to give you guys some work, but I
know you're too And they said, oh no, please give us work.
Give us as much work as you could possibly give us. We are dying
to work. It keeps our mind off of the madness. It brings some
sense of normalcy. And they did all the strings on the prayer for Ukraine
drink. We'll be hearing that. But it's again, I keep using the
same Hackney phrases, but it's another perfect segue. You do music with a
social conscience. It's obvious the whole cv is is a whole CD excuse me,
is socially aware. The fact that you're going to do a live performance
to raise money for food bank, obviously as a testament to your commitment to
social justice et cetera. How important, And I'd like both of you to
answer, is it to for you to incorporate that that sense of a social
methods of social justice in your music and what you do? That's extremely important?
I mean, especially in times like we're in right now, challenging times.
It was I guess, kind of cathartic for me to be able to
sing about these things, but also to not just put out a CD just
because you know, it was I think it was important to both of us
to put one out that actually hopefully helped people that actually, you know,
like we said, we wanted it to be something people could that would bring
them solace, that would bring them, you know, something they could meditate
to. And you know, the one for the Ukraine, I mean that
was for our dear friends and for the country of Ukraine. And yeah,
it's more of a let's put this out there to help the world more than
just a fun project for ourselves, which it absolutely was, but you know,
let's have this actually make a difference in some circles. So that was
our goal. Peter, your thoughts. Well, when I first met Rita,
as we said, twenty thousand years ago, one of the things I
was struck by was that she and her husband did a tremendous amount of benefit
work. It seemed like every month they were performing for some other charity.
And Arita is on the board of directors of Covenant House House, yes New
York. And when I wrote a book a few years ago, a speech
coaching book, and I decided to give the proceeds to a couple of charities.
One of them was Covenant House. One was Homes for Heroes in Rockland
County, which is homes for homeless veterans. And the third was People to
People because I knew Diane Saati, the executive director, and she's just,
you know, she's a wonder woman the amount of work that she does,
and she's literally doing God's work. And when she came to me and said,
hey, would you do a benefit for us this holiday season? We
would? She says, I just think your your stuff on simple prayers is
just so perfect for our message. Would you consider that? And I rang
up Rita, and of course I knew she'd say yes, and two seconds
yeah, And we do anything for Diane and the cause, you know,
couldn't be better. Not to get on a political soapbox, but the fact
that we have starving families in Rockland County is just a disgrace. It's shameful
in this day and age we have we have. As the line goes,
there's more, There's more than enough for everybody. There's no reason for anyone
to go hungry, especially in a county as wealthy as Rockland County is going
to be joining us after the break. I'd like to get one more song
in Before we take that break and bring Diane Saratorius, as an executive director
of People of People, talk a little bit about your event coming up in
January, and she has another one getting Saucy, that she would love to
talk about, which I'm involved in. We'll plug a little bit more of
that later, but before we go, another one of your songs I think
very appropriate considering what's going on a in the world in general, in Gaza
in particular, Sholomkam, which is a traditional greeting piece being loosely translated.
Tell us a little bit about that song and why it's important. Now did
you know that figive me for interrupting Rita the In doing the homework for the
second CD, I looked into I looked into it at least a dozen different
faiths, and I found something really telling. Virtually every major faith in the
world has this one phrase in common, and that phrase is peace be with
you. Virtually every faith has peace be with you as one of its one
of its, uh you know, cardinal dogma. And I found that especially
especially ironic in these times when uh, far too frequently we're seeing we're singing
so much violence and horror that's related to religious extremism, and I thought it
was one of those things that the juxtaposition of peace be with you against what's
going on was really something and this one. I brought it to reader.
She she loved it immediately, and she went to our dear friend Randy Schebitz
to help her make certain that we weren't being that we weren't being culturally inappropriate.
We got that, we got announcing puny pronunciation correct. Yeah. I
think it's one of the most beautiful melodies. So much of the Jewish High
Holidays music, all the service music is so beautiful, it's haunting, and
this is I think one of the most beautiful melodies soever. So I was
thrilled to be able to do it justice. I just love how this turned
out. Let's have it take us into a commercial break. When we come
back, we'll continue our discussion. Bring Diane's sarritory of people to people to
join with us and talk a little bit about the events and how people can
help their neighbors here in Rockland County. I'm your host, Frank Lebono.
This is being Frank, and we're listening to some music simple prayers for challenging
Times by Rita Harvey and Peter Danish. My very special guest tonight and this
is Shalom Alekam Shupham Maloka Shot Maloka, Malaca, ny Ma god Fo sh
sh shocky a car go strong, he spa parant ministering a Jews and Jews
by Rains of the Rocks, noting the one less said his Lessbi josup Casengs
from the lock to the Cocky's no all they want lessons shopman on a fat
shot, a sh shirt, my car. Hudson River Radio dot com,
Hudson Riverradio dot com, Hudson River Radio dot com. Welcome back to Being
Frank, the Intelligent Conversation podcast. Thanks for sticking with us. I'm your
host, Frank Lebono. You know we bring our audience a fresh topic every
week, premiering on Thursday nights, and we stream from Hudson River Radio,
located a beautiful and historic Stony Point, New York. And remember our engineer,
Neil Richter, I call him the Mailman because he always delivers. He's
there. But you can catch Being Frank anywhere you get your favorite podcasts like
Apple, Spotify, iHeartRadio and all the others. And because every Being Frank
is archived. You can listen to any of our programs anytime you like.
You can find a link to Being Frank on the Hudson River Radio Facebook page
or our website Hudsonriverradio dot com. Just click and you're there. Leave us
a comment and please consider subscribing to the podcast, and if you really like
us, share Being Frank with your family and friends. My very special guests
so far, I've been Rita Harvey and Peter Danish as they discuss their CD
Simple Prayers for Challenging Times and a special performance live performance coming up in January
for the benefit of people to people and without further ado speaking of people to
people is my good friend, our good friend, I should say, he
just working woman, not only in show business but in nonprofit Diane Sarah Torre,
Dianne, thank you once again for joining us here on Big Frank,
Thank you for having me, and thank you all for so much. So
well again, let's we just came through Thanksgiving and you're tired, gal.
I'm sure because it's got to be one of your busiest times. How many
meals did you manage to serve to hungry people this year? Well? So
far, this year, People People's Food Pantry has provided about one point five
million meals. We have at least ninety to one hundred households coming to us
every single day. Just to put this in some kind of context. When
I started decades and a lifetime ago in two thousand and eight, Delores Traeger,
who was the head of the organization at the time, said, never
schedule more than twenty appointments a day. And now we have eighty ninety one
hundred and on Thursdays when we're open until seven, we have like one hundred
and forty two appointments a day. Yeah, and I have spoken to all
of you about this. Read has been very involved in good Stock and we
talk about this a lot. There's an awful lot of people in need in
Rockland County, and at some point the county is going to have to address
the bigger issues around that. Because I can keep giving people food. Actually,
I don't know how much longer, you know, how much when do
we hit capacity? You know? But there are bigger issues out there,
and I try to convey them. But if we don't do something about housing,
something about childcare, something about language skills, and something about you know,
some vilifying the poor, that we are going to continue to have this
issue, so it's way bigger issues. That good news is Folks like all
of you have done so much to help us do what we need to do,
but it isn't getting easier, and it has to get done because there
are people hungry in this county and that's just not okay. What's especially tragic
to me is I've been living in Rockland now thirty going on thirty three years.
It's incomprehensible that the problem is worse than ever. It's just INCOMPREHENSI there's
a lot of reasons for that. When they cut federal safety net programs like
Snap and Universal Breakfast and lunch, people that were doing their very best to
get by suddenly, you know, when you take forty percent of their assistance
away, what are they going to do? They don't have any other choice.
It's getting increasingly expensive to live in Rocklin County. You know, I
hate to use that guy that ran for president. The rents are too damn
high. But you know, he had a point then. I think he
might have been crazy on the other aspects. But that is an issue,
you know, nobody wants to talk about. Affordable housing. That word has
like you know, it gets people all nervous. But yeah, we've got
to do something about making sure that the people who live here and work in
the jobs that nobody else wants to do have some place to live here.
Yes, live here and seniors. You know, we've seen a gigantic increase
in seniors. And technically I am one, but these folks own their homes,
but taxes go up and utilities go up, and their medical expenses go
up, and so what are they supposed to do? They don't want to
move. This is where their family is, this is where they built,
help build the community. So you know, there are way bigger issues here
at some point, and every time I talk to the electeds, and you
all know I get to talk to them a lot, we have to start
to think about the bigger picture. I don't know if that's ever going to
happen. I started talking about affordable housing when I was in leadership Brooklyn in
two thousand and one, and as you can see, great strides have been
made not since then. Well, you know, Diane, you're always working
to try to You mentioned good Stock with Rita's husband Neil Burgh. Rita Rita
herself, is a myriad of other artists, very talented people throughout the Rockland
and North Bergen area. As good as it gets. It's again, it's
a classic fun event that helps to raise money. And you're always trying to
do something that that's appropriate, suitable and enjoyable. And you've got a couple
coming up. This is plug time, so let's let's start with the plug.
Next one coming up in December. What's what's the day? December?
December eleventh, eleventh eleven says what the hell girls are you doing on a
Monday? Get getting saucy? Yes, this started several years ago. I
can't really remember when. It was started by Jen White who was the then
mayor of Nayak and lou Falco. Jen used to have this Halloween thing and
she'd served sauce and everybody you know would go there, a lot of elected
officials and lou Falco, the sheriff, went and was tasting the sauce and
Jen said, so what do you think and he went, mine's better,
which you know, frankly, how to how to make yourself feel good to
the hostess, welcome, come on back. So when they told me this
story, we're like this could be a great thing. We'll make a sauce
competition. Paul Pipperato, who is no longer with us but is still greatly
she loved he was part of it. Tom brasilar from Owen, r Dorothy
Philoramo. You know, they all have names that except for Jen and they
were the original get saucy gang. And we have continued and you know every
year we try to bring in some other folks to compete against it. Lou
Falco is the winningest judge's choice with the sheriff you know have lost. He
lost last year for the first time to his nemesis, Tom Brasila of O
and R. The two of them beat each other up. I mean Tom
Brazilara actually took pictures of lou Falco in a supermarket getting taking RAGU off the
shelf and put it on Facebook. I'm not kidding. This very serious.
So lou is going to defend because Tom won last year. And I have
to tell you, I don't know, like they bring their sauces in.
Then Angelo at the Naya Seaport and his matred d They give each one a
number. I don't know which number goes with which chef, and then the
judges taste it, and then they come to me and tell me the number,
the one, and then I go to Angela and say, okay,
who was number blah blah. And last year they gave me the number.
It was two relatively new judges, and he gave me the number, and
the mader d came over and she looked at me and I went, oh
my god, this is not gonna be I said. Tom Brasilara won and
he's going to be thrilled. But I said to the judges, you probably
want to leave now, because you know, after you. So he did
take it well, the sheriff, you know, kind of and so now
they're back and I kind of pitched it as the go Lou calls it gravy
because he puts me in it a lot of it apparently, so he's the
guru of gravy versus Tom, who is the Prince of produce. When I
was talking to Tom, he sent me a text he goes, wait a
minute, he's not the guru. You're making it sound like he knows what
he's doing. He's like the goombah of sauce. And I'm like, yeah,
I can't put that on the people that people fly. You know,
I can't do that, but you can. And they are already getting already.
We have got some great new folks other competitors that are going up against
the two of them. One is Frank Lebono, who is Sicilian cheap you
know one week camp Morales from social media. Yes he is. And Tiffany
who is on our board. She's a new board member, very excited.
And Lisa Seratory Castelnova, Yes she is my cousin. But I am not
a judge. The other thing Tom said, he goes, wait a minute,
Lisa saratoris you have a sister who glows her own tomatoes, makes your
own sauce. She's got a ringer here. And I said, well,
she's not my sister, because well there's a family resemblance. And I just
said, but I'm not a judge. What's very exciting, I think is
that Jeanie from the food writer for the Journal News is going to be one
of the judges. And she doesn't ordinarily do this, I've been told,
but she's very much looking forward to doing this. So it's either going to
be very exciting very distressing for lou Edward time. How do people come and
become involved and and and things. Give us, give us this the facts,
man give us. They can do is go to our website, people
to people ink dot org and buy tickets. We've got sponsors O and rs.
The sponsor Howard Hannah ran Realty is a sponsor and of course Deputy mayor
mayor soon to become NYA mayor. Joe Rand is the MC. He he
really does. Peter, You and and Frank were at down the shore and
Peter he was terrific. So really job. He's very committed to this organization.
And I'm very grateful. And you get to eat great pasta too,
Yes, great spa. So go onto the website or you can look on
our Facebook page. You can just click on the butt but and get tickets.
You mean, don't you. I mean, well, I'm going to
make the sauce. I mean my Italian grandmother Irish, but she made a
great sauce. My nanny made a great sauce. It was never called gravy.
Gravy is brown, Okay, eternal to be. Let's let's talk a
little bit about also the Rita and Peter's events. Simple prayers for challenging times
coming up in January, tell us a little bit more about that. It's
an incredible event that the music is so moving. You know, just because
COVID is over doesn't mean we have put all those issues behind us. We
are still living in incredibly challenging times and you know, we all get so
polarized, you know, and this is an opportunity really for the community to
come together in a very positive way to say that simple prayers. There are
simple ways to make things better, and that's to listen to each other and
hear what others are saying, be it in song or in word. But
we are all in this together. This is our community, and we have
to find a way for us all to be in the same room to make
make our community better for everyone. You know, we can't be it's either
this side or that side. We have to find a way. And music
really is the great motivator united. It does. It unites people. And
I really can't tell you how much I thank Rita and Peter. I know
you put so much work into this. I'm and part used to do it
on Martin Luther King weekend, which is very appropriate. You know, we
all want to see our community better place. I say this often I say
it, Jess, but I would say I may not get there with you
like Martin, but I believe that we can't and we have to. We
have to try, We have to try. If we all do a little
bit, we can make a big difference for our neighbors in need. And
this is a big bit, but it really is a way to get people
into the same place and have their hearts healed and move forward. Is a
tree coming out of retirement and singing with us. I am actually yes,
I want to practice fantastic. That was hard to convince her. We're just
about out of time. Read. I want you to introduce our final song
to Prayer for uk Ukraine. Tell us a little bit more about that,
But Peter, I want to have you take a few moments to to share
your final thoughts on why people should come and see this concert. On Martin
Luther King Weekend, Diane put it very very you know, very nicely there
that essentially, music's a great uniter. It's something that speaks to us on
a level beyond language. There's something abstract and universal about it and it hits
you in a soft spot and that's sort of what we're trying to do.
With this, we're trying to get people from multiple faiths, kind of like
the interfaith celebration that they have at Grace every year. That's one of the
most beautiful nights of the year. I don't know if our audience has ever
attended it, but Grace Church does beautiful interfaith service every year and something like
that. And by recognizing and seeing and hearing and listening to the multiple faiths
and to basically share the beauty of what what there, there's a cultural beauty
to what these faiths bring as well. And part of it is the music.
And I think that the music is something that's probably the easiest way to
get to know the basic tenets of the faith. Listen to the words,
listen to the music, take it into your heart. And you know,
I was joking. I said, we'd like everybody to sing along, provided
they sing the same song we're singing. Let's now go ahead. I was
going to say, but you know, if you've got to read a Harvey
singing, sometimes it's best to just sit back and listen. Well, let's
sit back and listen to a prayer. A prayer in a song by Rita
and it's a prayer for Ukraine. I think it's very appropriate that we end
with a prayer, and with everything going on in the world, particularly in
the Middle East, not lose focus on the people in Ukraine also who are
writing for freedom. Tell us a little bit about this song and what it
means to you read it. Oh, it means so much. You know.
Peter brought it to me literally right after the war started, and it
was also I think it was also the song that was performed on Saturday Night
Live that night Ukrainian choir and yeah, Peter instantly texted me this is a
song, this is a song, and yeah, I like he mentioned he
has friends there. I have dear friends in the Ukrainian of my closest friends
is Ukrainian and she's from ker Song and you know, her hometown is basically
destroyed. And we just want to send this out as a love letter to
our brothers and sisters everywhere, but especially Ukraine. This song is very it's
almost kind of like their country my country to his. It's very much about
how much they love their country and how beautiful it is. And also knowing
that Peter's friends, the string quartet that played underneath it is heartbreaking to me
they were hiding in abasement, playing these playing this for this recording. So
this goes out to all our brothers and sisters in Ukraine, just knowing that
we have not forgotten you. I would like to thank our guests, me
to Harvey, Peter Danish and Diane SARATORI thank you so much for being Frank
and of course for your intelligent conversation. I'll be seeing you for getting saucy
and for the simple prayers for challenging times. And of course we offer special
thanks to our listeners who take the time to give us a voice in their
lives. Remember we offer a fresh topic every week. You can catch us
wherever and whenever you get your favorite podcasts. Can also check us out on
the Hudson River Radio Facebook page. Like us, leave us a comment too,
and we ask you that you consider sharing Being Frank with others. For
our engineer Neil Richter, I'm your host, Frank Lebono, and we hope
to have you join us on the next Being Frank. We're the only way
to be is Frank. From simple prayers for challenging times. This is Rita
Harvey and Peter Danish with a prayer for Ukraine. Thanks everybody, We'll see
you again next time. Oh y re not O s the gron Cot See
long series, The Lobos Moschool says shaps take the nos s shake. This
is Hudson River Radio dot com.