In Sight

SEEN: A 55 Merc coupe. Dropped and chopped.

5/31/2009

Nice.

–CP

READ: Devon Lash’s story on the Wright Tech car show, and local reaction to Gov. Rell’s proposal to close the school.

Chris Preovolos/Stamford Advocate

ABOVE: The Board Lords at Meera in Stamford.

MEERA: TASTE OF INDIA, 227 SUMMER ST., STAMFORD

The warm air of late spring, thick with cigarette smoke, wafted in and mingled with the residual aroma of curry at the Indian restaurant, Meera Friday night. But the heavy guitar riffs of the skate rock band, the Board Lords, could be heard from across the street. And down the block.

As we – a trio of Advocate staffers – exited the freshly-minted Barcelona Wine and Tapas Bar looking for a quick nightcap, it became readily apparent that we needed to figure out what, exactly, was going on inside the small Indian restaurant.

At the makeshift bar, owner Bharat Patel was serving up $5 bottles of Corona, Heineken and Kingfisher, an Indian lager beer, while the Port Chester-based band cranked out one original song after another, punctuated with the occasional Clash, Specials or Dead Kennedys classic.

“It’s really loud, isn’t it?” said Patel, shortly after a brief conference with a couple city fire marshals, “I like them, but it’s really loud.” Patel then proceeded to tell me that his favorite band is Deep Purple, pioneers of heavy metal.

But the show continued and between songs, lead singer Steve “MC-Rice” Moy told the crowd that two fire marshals “just came in and said you guys are all right. Compared to Hula Hanks, you are all right.”

Around one o’clock the crowd began to thin out and with the band’s set over, only the sound of a piped-in Bollywood soundtrack remained.

–CP

ABOVE: Patsy Fabricatore, 85, looks at family photos on the refrigerator in the home that he and his sweetheart,  Rose Arena, 74, share.  The two met late in life after both being widowed and have been together for 14 years.

5/28/2009

On Tuesday, staff reporter Devon Lash and I ventured out to Virgil Street on the west side of Stamford, for the Advocate feature “The Dart”.  We knocked on doors, peeked in the window of a church and checked out the bocce courts at a little Italian social club.  All the time not knowing that our story was right inside the kitchen door of 46 Virgil St.  There we met Patsy and Rose, two people who have been lucky enough to get a second chance at love.  Look for their story on Monday.

Kathleen O’Rourke/The Advocate

ABOVE: Fairfield Ludlowe’s Jonathan Servilla watches Westhill’s Stanley Paul’s home run sail over the right field fence at Westhill Tuesday.

5/26/2009

FCIAC tourney action. Yep, it’s that time of year already.

Ludelowe’s Servilla made a decent attempt at scaling the right field fence, but it was a fruitless effort as Paul’s towering home run ended up in the center field…the softball field’s center field.

–CP

ABOVE: Senior Nicole Memale, hugs a teammate after scoring following her triple in the fifth against Wilton.

5/21/2009

Not once in the five years, eleven months and seventeen days of my employment at the Advocate have I covered a softball game at Westhill High School. Until today.

Sure, I’ve shot the team countless times, but never a home game.

Photographer Kathleen O’Rourke assured me the field was great for photography because of decent sight-lines but I found myself sitting in the dirt atop a couple of boxes of game balls and way too close to the on deck ‘circle’ for comfort. The last thing I need right now is to be nursing a fractured skull.

But this did provide for an up close experience of the game. Not only was I getting inside info from the shortstop – who at one point was reading signs for me – but I also could overhear the coaches and players.

When Nicole Memale was on deck in the fifth, coach Tom Pia stepped over and said “you are gonna put this in the outfield. Just wait for a pitch that’s a little outside and swing through.”

And she did.

Memale stroked an RBI triple into deep center and scored on the next at bat. She was elated. After the obligatory home plate congratulations, she settled into the dugout and said to nobody in particular, “that was exhilarating.”

As former Giants manager Roger Craig would say, “Humm baby!”

–CP

ABOVE: Waiters from the Capital Grille take a break to watch the start of the Annual RFR Realty 5K Corporate Run/Walk in Stamford.

5/21/2009

This year I had a pretty good vantage point from the top of a Bartlett Tree Experts truck to shoot the start of this annual 5K race. From the roof of the truck,I saw a couple of waiters from the Capital Grille excited about the start of the race.

Later, I did try to track them down to get IDs but a manager-type assured me, there was no possible way that any waiter could possibly have been out there to watch the race because, you know, the are working.

Maybe I look like I just fell off a turnip truck.

–CP

BELOW: The start of the race.

Kathleen O’Rourke/The Advocate

Members of the Italian Center team share a bag of sunflower seeds during a game in the North Stamford Little League.

5/05/09

The Advocate has introduced a new Monday featured called The Dart.  A staff member throws a dart at a map of Stamford and a reporter and photographer seek out a story near where it lands.  Reporter Wynne Parry and I followed the dart to Chestnut Hill Park on a rainy Tuesday afternoon and found ourselves in the middle of a heated game of little league baseball.  Check it out every Monday.

ABOVE: Ashley Wilson, 21, an NCC student, responds to a text message during a photo shoot with the Advocate Monday.

5/4/2009

My neighbor is going to be on MTV.

Today, I was handed an assignment bearing the familiar address of my own building. Apparently we – or the GT, anyway – are doing a story on her.

I knew she was going to be on an upcoming episode of Room Raiders because a few weeks ago, a mess of hipster tv people were here and she popped out of an SUV jammed with equipment and more production people and said to me “Steve, I’m going to be on TV!”

Apparently, I’m Steve. But anyway.

–CP