24/01/2021
Dads update
I called my friend, the great jazz and rock saxophonist Pat Rizzo, last night and he answered by proclaiming, "I made it through!" He had just had brain surgery at Desert Regional Medical Center and had been transferred to a rehab center in Rancho Mirage.
It ain't the Betty Ford Center. But, next to missing the touch of his smart, beautiful attorney girlfriend, who can only talk to him from behind a glass wall because of the pandemic, he said, "I'd kill for a hit of pot!"
The cell phone reception was terrible, so he called back this morning to say I could pass along the news that his doctors got all but one lesion of his brain cancer. So next he'll begin radiation. The prognosis for his recovery is good, but he said he has had to endure a lot of pain. The only thing that's gotten him through it, he said, is his sense of humor. Then he told me a hospital joke:
Editing it slightly for brevity, he said, "A patient tells his nurse, 'Every time I touch my knee, it hurts. Every time I touch my elbow, it hurts. And every time I touch my hand, it hurts!' The nurse replies, 'Hey stupid: You have a broken finger!'"
We had a nice talk about all the jazz greats that have passed through our lives. I told him I just discovered a thank-you note I received from Ella Fitzgerald. Pat topped that by recalling how he introduced Sarah Vaughan to Frank Sinatra while they both were dining at the posh Pal Joey's in Palm Springs, which Pat co-owned in the 1970s. They were such mutual admirers, Vaughan wound up getting some jobs with Sinatra. Not introduced that night, but also dining at Pal Joey's, was Liberace!
This photo of Pat and Sinatra at a private party is from the era of the long-gone but not forgotten Pal Joey's, which I also recall for the hospitality of the late great co-owner, Joe Hanna.
Here's hoping we can have a big birthday party for Pat when he turns 80 this November.
