BY PLANET VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, MONDAY JULY 6, 2020) — The Boring Broadsheet‘s washy editorial on the demise of Carmen “Butch” Massimiano called his legacy “complicated.” The truth about this despicable public figure? His “legacy” was simple.

THE PLANET broke news of Massimiano’s death eight days after he died. Certain public officials knew the day it happened, but the family hid the news. Not one word. Extremely odd, wouldn’t you say, for a blowhard who idolized public idolatry.

Some have called his death “the end of an era.” THE PLANET calls it “the end of an error” — a grave error that, perhaps more than any single instance, help send the once-great city of Pittsfield into the slime, with a reputation for child rape. The bubble burst for the Catholic Church. The bubble burst for Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Will a bubble meet a pin-prick here?

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We won’t get into Butch’s Boy’s Club phase: the naked swimming,” Camp Russell, what took place in the Club’s lockers and rest rooms. Thankfully, we had no direct experience with Massimiano at the Club.  It’s like saying you’ve had no personal experience with a Komodo dragon.

Today we confine ourselves to some of our personals dealings with this man who, in honest cities, would stand as much chance at prominence as crab grass on a green at Augusta.

That said, a word about the “free swim,” brought up in The Weekend Edition by one of our commentators, who mentioned the Club’s “weird vibe.”  We swam there during the winter, along with brothers, cousins, and friends, but we never showered at the Club, especially after the new addition in 1962. Puzzling if you think about it, because we often worked out there — dodge ball, basketball, boxing, the gym. True sweat equity.

Once after a game of tag ball, we went to the lockers to dress, drenched in sweat. Red Plough, Jim Mooney’s assistant, tried to force a shower. we refused. Meanwhile, our dad showed up on Melville Street to pick me up on that cold, drizzly night. When I didn’t appear on time, my father went into the club, down the locker room, and saw Plough confronting me.  My father lit into him like a hot coil, saying if Red or anyone else ever tried to do that again, there would be brimstone poured into an open wound. After that, no one gave us a hard time. We were golden.

The incident reveals the zeitgeist of the Club, that “weird vibe.”

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THE PLANET will now share three personal encounters with Massimiano, representative ones.

The Fight.

Late 1950s, Mt. Carmel School, south yard. We are there with friends. Butch and other kids also there. Butch is seven years older than your correspondent, who is 7 at the time, and a year older than Pete. Butch starts picking on a kid with a braced leg and shoves him to the ground down. Pete goes over, pushes Massimiano out of the way, helps the boy up. Pete then challenges Massimiano to a fight. Butch turns tale, losing face.

As Wordsworth said, “The child is father to the man.”

The Altar Servers.

early-60s. Several friends were altar boys at Mt. Carmel. Massimiano, one of the older altar boys, sucked up to the priests, earning the “gold cape” — chief altar boy. Stories abounded through the grapevine of Butch using his status to bully, steal, and even fiddle some of the boys. The ones who would have cracked his skull open, he doesn’t touch. He only goes for those he can intimidate and silence. It establishes a pattern.

The Call-in.

2003. THE PLANET doing his morning talk show on WBRK. Topic: the State Legislature’s move to legalize gay marriage. A former former city councilor calls to expresses support for the measure. This caller says they have known many gays and lesbians and, as in all groups, there are mostly good with some bad. She gives examples mentioning “our county sheriff.” Show ends. Within a minute of getting off the air, the phone rings. It’s Massimiano, ranting: “What’s this I hear about calling me gay?” He then bursts a vein protesting too strenuously that he’s not gay, he despises gays, he’s a married man blah blah blah. In between the lines of this protest, we hear “I’m flaming pink.” Click.

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Carmen Massimiano leaves no “complicated” legacy. It’s a simple one.

Sic transit gloria.

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“Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive” — Old saying.

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

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