CHAPTER FIVE

            John Petrocelli as an adult, has often looked back with compassion and empathy for the boy he was, and knew the people who make a difference in the world weren’t born with a silver spoon in their mouths.  He likens many successful persons’ beginnings as similar to the tempering of steel, the more strenuous the tempering the stronger the steel becomes.  He has learned those who have made a difference in the world and fought for the freedom we all desire have not one among them had it “easy.”  Many challenged the system, stood up to the parts of it they felt unethical or unfair, took their lumps and many died for it, receiving their recognition of greatness posthumously.  All too often, the greatest contributors to our social development die before they are acknowledged as such.
Many times, these individuals on the edge, the visionaries and the innovative thinkers, took chances and died for their insights, for their willingness to make a difference, even though they might have been condemned for their beliefs.  This is a vicious society, slow to change and evolve.  We are quick to condemn that which we do not understand or that which is too new for our way of thinking.  Often we condemn those who emulate our own behavior because we see traits of ourselves in their personalities, things we prefer to keep hidden, even from ourselves.  These are the types of things that shape a man’s life, color his background, lead to his experiences, faults, frailties, his cultural responses and the coincidences that proceed and evolve, destined or accidental.  These combine to form the learning experiences that occur in a person’s life.

This book is the story of one man’s life.  It may become insignificant with the passage of time but it is a study of the factors surrounding one person’s upbringing, the influences of the familial personalities that shaped his own and in knowing this biographical account, we can all resonate because one man’s life is an integral part of every other man’s life.  We have only to look and the personal connection can be made, even during the low points, the problems, the challenges and the disappointments and the conquests.  All these events make us stronger, make us who we are.  As people read of this one life, perhaps they, too, will begin to realize everything they go through in their own life makes them who they are, powerful and unique, even if they are still learning. 

John Petrocelli has been at the forefront of change for years, yet remains invisible, under the radar, on purpose.  He has the background, the history and charisma, the ingredients legends are made of.  He will undoubtedly be remembered years from now as someone who consistently made every effort to make society aware of all those walking in the midst of his time.  Mr. Petrocelli surely deserves a place in history as an unobtrusive, unsung character who goes forward, every day of his life, quietly, remaining in the background, hidden in the fabric of everyday comings and goings, influencing people of our society, “one person at a time.” And in his words, “anyone can change the world, one person at a time. Like a virus, the influence becomes contagious, infectious, and goes farther than anyone could ever imagine.”  This is the story of John Petrocelli who grew up the hard way on the streets of New York City and was told he would never succeed, then became a life coach to many extraordinary men, corporate CEOs, Hollywood celebrities, high officials in the federal government and the list goes on.  One person at a time, he is leaving his mark on many hearts and minds who have found contented purpose with his gentle and sagacious guidance.
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After his adventurous exploration into falsifying exciting fishing stories for sports’ magazines, John Petrocelli never had the inclination to write for those magazines again.  Once the ruse was exposed, he lost all interest in continuing the effort to fool the publishers.  Many years later, he wrote more fishing articles for new publications but those were accounts of fishing adventures he actually experienced.
In his late teens using a female name as a pseudonym, he wrote a few articles about “creating and healing relationships” which were published in a major woman’s publication.  John had a private laugh over this development because, in reality, he was not at all experienced with relationship behavior or solutions to problems and had simply relied on previous articles from other publications for ideas.  Checks were mailed to him for the articles, but he never cashed any and couldn’t since they were made out to a woman’s name.  He never got over being amazed anyone would take seriously anything he wrote or said about any topic.

He never told anyone in his family about the articles and later he regretted not doing so.  He continued to function as a loner and got enough appreciation from his own feelings of accomplishment, just knowing the articles sold. 
*  *  *

Washington Square Park in the 60s was an electric, alive place where people of all ages were drawn together.  They seemed to know change was imminent, as ideologies and the collective consciousness were brinking on radical change.  The very air was full of the suspenseful expectation.  Cult phenomena cropped up overnight.  The Beatles with the incredible mass hysteria and adulation, the hippie movement and long hair, tie-dye shirts, the Vietnam war, the anti-war movement, the demonstrators full of outrage, race riots, et al.  The world seemed to be in full change mode. 

Like many young men, John wondered if the Vietnam war would last long enough for his draft card to become due and he’d have to serve.  There was a chasm between two avenues of thought in those days, with Houston Street a perfect metaphor for the differences of opinion.  Houston Street was a simple six-lane east-to-west street, running straight across the widest part of Manhattan.  On one side was the South Village, which was an Italian enclave, still locked in old world customs, traditions and mores.  On the other side and one block north on Bleeker Street was the nucleus of change on the east coast, with hippies, bikers, Hell’s Angels, cafés, artists, radicals, the folk scene, a short four-block stretch that became the center of new thought.  John came to life in this scene and was drawn to the activity, even though he was forever the outsider in both neighborhoods, not actually belonging to either one.  He observed from his vantage point all sides of an ongoing argument, or a thought, or a belief.  These few blocks divided the same neighborhood geographically but tore it a world and centuries apart in thought.  This dichotomy also had a profound effect on John, because it divided his soul, his thought patterns and his belief system, right down the middle.  This ambivalence was a strong influence on John’s developing non-judgmental appraisals of others’ behavior and belief systems, which has been one of the main reasons his counsel is sought by so many from different camps and why he is such an esteemed success. 
*  *  *

The fountain in Washington Square Park is a valuable link to history and a magnetic meeting place where people from all over the world congregate.  Children danced and splashed in its bubbling waters as solemnly as though it were the Holy River Jordan.  Pigeons flocked to the fountain as if it were an oasis in the middle of the concrete jungle of skyscrapers and throngs of people moving in every direction on the hard sidewalks.  Long-haired bearded musicians perched on the curving balustrade of its perimeter.   Women by the hundreds drifted near, wearing their flowered, voluminous, muu-muu-like dresses, their handmade beaded jewelry tinkling and clanking as they walked in their Mother Earth sandals, puffing on joints and turning their blissful expressions upward, toward the warmth of the sun.  These were the days before the dominant takeover by the real estate giant known as New York University, whose representatives tried their best to negotiate the purchase of the city park, just as they had gobbled up every other available piece of property in the city.  Those who knew and loved the park and the lovely fountain also knew the kinetic energy and the magnetism of exciting change would never leave, no matter who owned it.   The present-day condition of the same park is nothing like the people who loved it thought it would be, however.  It is almost as if New York City is a maximum security prison.  On the stroke of midnight, the government closes the park down to pedestrians and sightseers, as if fearful someone might steal a park bench or a few plugs of grass.  Policemen sit in their cruisers near the entrance of the park, waiting to arrest the trespassers that dare to cross the clearly-marked barriers after midnight.  Incongruously, known dope dealers stand in plain view on street corners nearby, hawking their madness and are never bothered.  New York City and our government exist in a land of contradictions.  Here you can get locked up for following the law and where you are innocent unless you cannot afford to prove your innocence.
*  *  *
John grew up literally seeming to float out of many different worlds in his creative imagination.  He was a loner, sticking to himself both out of choice and for self-protection, but often forced himself out of his comfort zone.  He put himself in the midst of things as often as he could, whether it was in groups or with individuals, particularly places where he knew he did not belong.  He was captivated by the Hollywood spin on “secret agents”, especially the James Bond character as played by Sean Connery, whose Bond was an icon of cool.  His idea of the perfect 007 was loaded with electronic gadgets, such as writing pens that could turn into homing devices with a flip of the cap, or could fire a lethal gun cartridge into an assailant’s body or could emit a knockout gas for protection and a fast escape.  The escape was more often than not with the assistance of the fabulous Aston-Martin coupe which could transform itself into the ultimate highway weapon in a split second, protected by bulletproof glass.  The hubcaps of this marvelously creative machine became tire shredders if needed and the engine could emit a thick layer of greasy oil or a smoke screen to deter pursuing thugs.  John longed for a car as dramatic and versatile as 007’s, just like many other young men of the times.

In the James Bond imaginary world, even innocent cigarette cases had a hidden partition, with sometimes enough plastic explosive inside to blow up a steel-walled vault. Bond always came through the bedlam with never a hair out of place, elegantly dressed in a tailored-to-fit tuxedo, despite a recent roll in the hay with a more-than-willing ingenue of luscious proportions.  Other spy/agent actors made their own individual impressions such as Patrick McGoohan, the ineffectual English spy, and Robert Vaughn, who portrayed Napoleon Solo, the cold, calculating crime solver, who along with David McCallum, who played Ilya Kuriyachin, comprising the Men from U.N.C.L.E. 
James Coburn arrived on the scene later, and was another bed-hopping, cold-hearted agent in the genre whose only warmth was revealed in the rare moments of tweaked libido.  None were as cool as the portrayal of Matt Helm by Dean Martin, the king of cool, in The Silencers.  Martin played the role tongue in cheek but it was a smooth performance and interpretation regardless. 

John Petrocelli longed to be one of these special agent/detectives, respected, exquisitely dressed, handsome rakes, lovely Playmate-candidates swooning in their wakes, with righteous indignation as their banner and nothing to stop them from conquering the bad guys, and managing to save the world every week.  Yet, there was another part of John’s psyche that secretly admired the underworld thugs such as the Hell’s Angels that hung out every night at Figaro’s Café on Bleecker and MacDougal during their peak of popularity and myth.  He made it a practice to wait patiently on the corner and watch the windows and sure enough, at least once a week, someone would be tossed through the plate glass window out into the street.  This never failed to cause a surge in John’s adrenaline and an increase in his heartbeat and triggered more longing to be a part of that risky scene. 

There was a potpourri of personalities in the spotlight at this time in John’s life, such as Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman, David Peel, folk artists, rock musicians, comedians, avante garde writers, et al, and he lived in the world of the mind.  He felt himself occupying many spaces at once and deliberately placed himself in the center of it all, becoming the hanger-on, the excitement junkie.  His analytical mind could look at both sides of any controversy without taking a stand and let the details fill him up, like a slow-acting, euphoric drug.  Most of all, he became a student of influence as it affects group consciousness.  He was fascinated trying to understand how a single thought or feeling could invade an entire groups’consciousness and sway its belief system. 
*  *  *

John was never discouraged about not having pocket change or money for essentials.  He was always working at something and loved trying new jobs, developing new skills, and the jobs were mostly legitimate but there were always a few shady bucks to be picked up, if one could avoid getting caught.

Every kid growing up in Little Italy at one time or another sold cartons of cigarettes or fireworks at a discount, picking them up “for a relative” and keeping a few bucks for himself.  There was nothing wrong with that, except the cartons were about one-fourth the cost of cartons sold legitimately.  The contraband smokes were hauled over Interstate 95 in the backs of the big rigs by the container-full, breezing by the Feds and the taxing authorities’ highway patrols.  This enigma always puzzled John, who realized the government said they wanted everyone to stop smoking for health reasons, yet when politicians were asked how they were going to replace the billions of tax dollars they received from cigarette tax revenue, they fell silent and looked away without answering.  Another contradiction in our society.
John didn’t have working papers until he was fourteen, but he started working much younger than the laws supposedly allowed.  He was fascinated by the way business worked and more or less stuck his nose where it didn’t belong every chance he got, hoping to learn how all New York City’s back end operations worked.  Thanks to his grandmother, who had contacts in many upper echelons in city government, John met all the top politicos of the day and learned they came in two distinct flavors:  the corrupt and the soon-to-be-corrupt.

Many of the local political candidates had started up the political ladder working at “the Board” with a “cushy” titled job, with their own office, a fully paid city car, and a fat check, depending upon which party was in power.  Some passed through The Board’s offices, submitting their petitions to be able to run for office. 

New York City has everything a great metropolis can offer.  It is a simmering pot of millions of different cultures, tossed together like a gigantic over-ripe green salad of humanity.  And just as oil and vinegar do not mix together easily, all these ethnic groups got along in the same pot, with occasional altercations but these people were New Yorkers, after all. 

New York City is an old city, no matter how many “new” ideas are thrown around.  It is run by Old Rules and archaic government policies. It can be likened to a piece of sturdy antique furniture, built by seasoned craftsmen of a bygone era.  It is amazingly strong, but in today’s world, the craftsmen are gone.  The valuable antique that is New York City is held together by a thin fabric of “gum and duct tape”, sustained and barely functioning by workers whose lack of pride in their craft was drained from them the minute they joined the labor unions.

NYC has the oldest telephone system in the country.  The city also has the oldest and most duplicated gravity water system and the oldest health care program, which, compared to those developed in the private sector, do not progress or have access to innovative methods like the ones in the private business world.  Competition and technological advances keep those companies on their toes and at the forefront of new ideas.  Manhattan does move ahead but like a hundred-year-old tortoise, it progresses lazily, knocking over and trampling anything in its path, oblivious to the changing world. 

Everything is business as usual in this huge city and only a small handful of people are the ones who usually get everything done in this vast and barren plain of waste, greed, and contradiction.  The majority of city workers just drift along, complaining every chance they get about how hard they are working, while they hang on to the taxpayers’ almighty dollar for their base pay.
During this era when John was enjoying life as a pre-teen and a teenager, cops were considered the bad guys then and they operated with full immunity.  They periodically “shook down” the local candy stores and the late night gambling dens.  Nobody dared object or try to prosecute a cop, not then.  That could get you killed in a heartbeat.  These were ‘pre-Serpico’ days, the movie about the young cop portrayed by Al Pacino, in the pre-Knap Commission trial days that blew the doors off the hidden world of corruption that existed just below the surface.

Mob guys were the good guys in a neighborhood.  It was a case of role reversal.  They were the ones that managed to “help” and get your family members jobs when they were needed, such as working in the local fish market or in sanitation or on the docks.  They were the surrogate ‘uncles’ who settled all disputes amicably and kept the neighborhoods “safe,” which meant under their control.  People even sought the counsel of The Boys of the mob in the pre-Godfather era, regardless of the shady reputation everyone knew about but didn’t discuss. 

Americans have a short memory.  They seem to have forgotten the Catholic Church went through a period when the Pope put more people to death than any Mafia gang did at one time. 

It was during this part of his growing that John Petrocelli came to believe there are no coincidences in life.  Everything happens for a reason and his life had become a series of amazing coincidences.  He decided the Big Man Upstairs toyed with him on a daily basis and concluded the work he does today is all His doing, as the God above pulls the strings controlling John’s life, where he’s been led, the opportunities that have opened up, and all events, whether good or bad have served as powerful lessons.  One has to learn how to listen or observe these lessons and try to hear their teachings clearly.

Foreward | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3| Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6| Chapter 7