Plays Nutley Pool Club
in February
Uncle Floyd and the Martini Party
After four decades in show business, you know you've
reached your peak when you get a show at a pool club in February in Nutley,
New Jersey.
Don't kill the messenger, that's what our old friend
Uncle Floyd Vivino said Friday night at the pool club in
Nutley.
Billed as Ed Zazzali's Martini Party - Dinner and the Comedic Talent of
Uncle Floyd,
well, how could it miss? You got a menu of 20 martinis. You were fine if you
didn't order the ever popular Pomegranate Martini. After 10 minutes the
bartender finally gave up looking for the pomegranate juice.
We had a terrific table for two right near the bar. Floyd's stage was at
the other end of the floor. For the lines that didn't come through the
distant speakers, several helpful guys at the bar offered their own punch
lines and interpretations of the material. This was a lot of fun during the
sing-along of the Robert Hall commercials.
For dinner, you could have the chicken, the steak or the fish. One of us had
the chicken, which wasn't so bad. Another of us had the steak, not an
especially appetizing reason to come back to the
Diamond Spring
Italian Restaurant & Bar.
For the guys at the bar, in case Floyd got boring, the two bartenders
(neither of which, it seemed, ever located the Pomegranate juice) left the
four TV sets tuned into ESPN. As for the regular fans, there was the flat
screen TV midway in the hall which showed what looked like the PBS fly-over
of Italy.
Nearly 30 years ago (Feb.10, 1977) I wrote my
first
article about Uncle Floyd. Since then, we've seen him at his Channel 68
TV studio (and later the NJN studio). Had lunch with the
mayor of Bloomfield, been to the Hi-Ho Club, the county theatre in
Union, the stereo store in Bloomfield and the William Carlos Williams Center
(three or four times!) where we saw him alone and with John Dull and
friends, and, of course when he opened his nightclub at the Holiday Inn in
Wayne amidst the never-ending construction on Route 46.
There was a time when I saw him come into his TV studio on Wednesdays
when they filmed the show in the OBC studio in Nutley. I was working at the
newspaper and he always said, "Hello, Anthony," when he saw me. (That was my
name... He said he introduced Uncle Tonoose to Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec:
"Tonoose-Toulouse, Toulouse-Tonoose!")
On Friday, Floyd walked in a few minutes after 8 and didn't stop singing,
playing the piano or making us laugh for two hours.
Except for the dialectic Italian worked into his act, (which only his
closest paisans from Paterson understand) Floyd almost never resorts to the
gutter language so often used by younger comics. It's a nice clean show full
of fun and laughter.
For that, you excuse the tables and the folding chairs and the loud guys at
the bar, and the food being what it was - heck it was always hot even though
they had to carry it across the walk in the rain on a cold night.
Floyd said the articles I wrote a long time ago meant a lot back then. He
said he still has them. But, Floyd didn't seem to believe in the Internet,
or blogging. How could he, he's always on the road at the next show, in New
York, western Pennsylvania and Ohio, where his favorite audiences are.
(Almost makes you wonder how he had six kids. Ha-ha. He's not ALWAYS on the
road, now, is he?)
He says he rarely appears in-state. That, of course, is New Jersey's
loss. At least Floyd is in the NJ Monthly Hall of Fame. And all the grown
ups who watched his TV shows through the years, well, they would love to
spend an evening with Floyd. Even if you have to travel to a pool club in
Nutley in February. It's worth the trip.
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