Blog Dis
Lamenting the departure of Tinny Peete
2024-01-11
My X-friends, it is with a sad and weary heart that I say goodbye and good luck to my comrade, Tinny Peete, who very unceremoniously this past weekend had pulled up his tent pegs and left scribbled on a single piece of torn paper a poignant note with one solitary word, "Later." For those of you who knew the man Tinny that I knew; auteur, photographer, accomplished organist and purveyor of fine spirits, his presence shall be sorely missed, though not soon forgotten.
I remember the first time I met Tinny. It was an historic day, sitting on the Trans Mongolian railway, waiting for the conductor to wake up. I looked out the dust and dirt encrusted window and I spotted Tinny hoofing it over a hill with cat-like speed on a very tiny horse as a marauding tribe of Mongolian mad men were fast on his heels. He had barely made the train's departure in time, smiling like a crazed victor, laughing about having narrowly escaped a lynching. For you see, Tinny is a man of immense heart and love and he had struck up an innocent affair in the village with the local botanist, because, in his very own words, "Love cannot be selfish. Love must be shared to be real." However, the villagers didn't take too kindly to Tinny's notions of free love. I was just happy to have a companion for the three week jaunt over the bumpy plains of northern China, then through Kazakhstan. I had inquired as to Tinny's final destination and he said with a wink, "St. Petersburg, Russia of course... silly girl. There's a bowl of fine leek soup that awaits me." I had no doubt he would make it too, after I had witnessed how he expertly handled the rampaging Mongolians.
The train was unbearably hot and cramped with peasants and chickens and smelly goats. "Don't fondle the horns," Tinny would say to me, as he fed me raw potato peels and soft Arrowroot biscuits. And I listened to his sage advice. When I complained to him about my amoebic dysentery and the hassle of having to wash out the same pair of underwear for the fourth time in one day, Tinny smiled his boyish smile and whipped out an elixir to flush the parasites out of my intestines — a perfectly chilled 40 oz. bottle of Russian vodka. "How did you manage to conceal this puppy in your tote bag?" I asked Tinny, who replied, "Any civilized man traveling without vodka should be ashamed." He reached farther into his back pocket and brought out two blackberry gum drops, plucking one each into our metal cups, giving the vodka a decidedly exotic taste. Happiness doesn't adequately describe my joy. My stomach rumbled non-stop and I was forced to cross my legs for fear of soiling my drawers. But I was deliriously content to be in Tinny's company, listening to him speak to me about his days as a roving young boy and his rotund Aunt Bessie, who had taught him how to play the organ despite being totally blind.
We arrived in St. Petersburg and I knew Tinny and I would part ways. I was set to begin a job as a museum curator and Tinny was on another adventure, that he confidently pointed out would become the beginnings of an epic poem. As we stood on the station platform saying our goodbyes in the early hours of the morning, a mob of Russian thugs attacked Tinny demanding he hand over his clothes and passport. I was horrified; my heart palpitating in my palms. Surely, Tinny couldn't talk his way out of this dire predicament. Could I've been more wrong? Tinny undressed while the cold, Russian winds nipped at his heels. He was left practically naked, wearing only a pair of black, tight cotton jockeys and wool socks that reached up to this calves. I was terrified. Tinny waved my fear away with the nonchalant gesture of a young prince, to declare, "The only tools a man needs to survive are his dexterous fingers, a 48 mega-pixel camera, strong cigarettes and vodka." I felt relieved. I threw my coat over Tinny's shivering frame and we went in search of the nearest Russian Orthodox Church. There, Tinny would play the organ for clothes and food, he assured me, something he had done all throughout his travels, thereby ensuring he would never starve or go naked into the night.
And play he did, with an ever-present cigarette dangling from his mouth. Tinny played music of such melodious wonder that the titles of each song have been seared onto my memory: Mongolian Mad Men and the Answers to Our Prayers, A Basketful of Raw Fish and a Loaf of Bread, David Slays Goliath, Russian Leek Soup and a Bent Spoon and other timeless gems, all written for the organ. I sat in the church pew and listened with the priest as tears streamed down our cheeks. We cried all night as we watched Tinny play with steely eyes and deep passion. I snapped only one picture of him, which sadly I'm not at liberty to share, having sworn an oath of anonymity. However, I am able to share with you, my gentle readers, the image of his dear, long-deceased rat, given that these wee creatures don't live very long. Later that same night, as Tinny and I had wandered the barren streets of St. Petersburg, we came upon a kindly blonde woman named Svetlana and she took great interest in Tinny's tale of hardship. She invited us into her apartment and offered a barrel of vodka to drown our worries. Three hours later, I was as drunk as a racoon with numb fingers, and barely able to remember where or who I was. But not Tinny. He appeared stone-cold sober. Svetlana had promised Tinny that his clothes and passport would be returned by morning because her father had been a senior official in the KGB, in its heyday, and how her father only needed to make one phone call and all his possessions would be dropped off with her.
Svetlana was a woman of her word. That next morning, Tinny's passport was left at the doorstep of Svetlana's apartment. His clothes had been washed and pressed, and the Russian thugs left a note written in chicken scratch that said, "Most humble apologies. Come to the Ritz and we'll pay for your food bill for the entire week." I thought it curious that the Russians were able to pen a note in perfect English but Tinny was quick to remind me that this barren kleptocracy called Russia was also the same country that had produced the profound writer Fyodor Dostoevsky, he who penned Crime and Punishment, and that if only, as per Tinny's wise assessment, Fyodor had had the temerity to cultivate a shred of self-control, and was able to overcome his gambling addiction, that his most revered novel might have instead, and more appropriately, been called Crime and Pleasure.
In the restaurant, where mobsters and working young girls and boys alike were congregating, I ate leek soup with Tinny. And, afterward, I bid him a sorrowful goodbye. My curatorship was set to begin in the city of Volgograd and, as much as I was sad to depart my new found friend, we each had our own path to follow. Life is impermanent but vivid memories are the act of attaching feeling to a particular event, person or circumstance. I felt honoured to have been able to spend time in Tinny's presence.
Now, when the snow flies and I tilt my head up to the sky and stick out my tongue, I let the newly formed flakes melt on my warm appendage and I often fondly recall the organ playing of Tinny, with his cigarettes and his vodka and his boyish warm smiles. It doesn't get any better than this!
I remember the first time I met Tinny. It was an historic day, sitting on the Trans Mongolian railway, waiting for the conductor to wake up. I looked out the dust and dirt encrusted window and I spotted Tinny hoofing it over a hill with cat-like speed on a very tiny horse as a marauding tribe of Mongolian mad men were fast on his heels. He had barely made the train's departure in time, smiling like a crazed victor, laughing about having narrowly escaped a lynching. For you see, Tinny is a man of immense heart and love and he had struck up an innocent affair in the village with the local botanist, because, in his very own words, "Love cannot be selfish. Love must be shared to be real." However, the villagers didn't take too kindly to Tinny's notions of free love. I was just happy to have a companion for the three week jaunt over the bumpy plains of northern China, then through Kazakhstan. I had inquired as to Tinny's final destination and he said with a wink, "St. Petersburg, Russia of course... silly girl. There's a bowl of fine leek soup that awaits me." I had no doubt he would make it too, after I had witnessed how he expertly handled the rampaging Mongolians.
The train was unbearably hot and cramped with peasants and chickens and smelly goats. "Don't fondle the horns," Tinny would say to me, as he fed me raw potato peels and soft Arrowroot biscuits. And I listened to his sage advice. When I complained to him about my amoebic dysentery and the hassle of having to wash out the same pair of underwear for the fourth time in one day, Tinny smiled his boyish smile and whipped out an elixir to flush the parasites out of my intestines — a perfectly chilled 40 oz. bottle of Russian vodka. "How did you manage to conceal this puppy in your tote bag?" I asked Tinny, who replied, "Any civilized man traveling without vodka should be ashamed." He reached farther into his back pocket and brought out two blackberry gum drops, plucking one each into our metal cups, giving the vodka a decidedly exotic taste. Happiness doesn't adequately describe my joy. My stomach rumbled non-stop and I was forced to cross my legs for fear of soiling my drawers. But I was deliriously content to be in Tinny's company, listening to him speak to me about his days as a roving young boy and his rotund Aunt Bessie, who had taught him how to play the organ despite being totally blind.
We arrived in St. Petersburg and I knew Tinny and I would part ways. I was set to begin a job as a museum curator and Tinny was on another adventure, that he confidently pointed out would become the beginnings of an epic poem. As we stood on the station platform saying our goodbyes in the early hours of the morning, a mob of Russian thugs attacked Tinny demanding he hand over his clothes and passport. I was horrified; my heart palpitating in my palms. Surely, Tinny couldn't talk his way out of this dire predicament. Could I've been more wrong? Tinny undressed while the cold, Russian winds nipped at his heels. He was left practically naked, wearing only a pair of black, tight cotton jockeys and wool socks that reached up to this calves. I was terrified. Tinny waved my fear away with the nonchalant gesture of a young prince, to declare, "The only tools a man needs to survive are his dexterous fingers, a 48 mega-pixel camera, strong cigarettes and vodka." I felt relieved. I threw my coat over Tinny's shivering frame and we went in search of the nearest Russian Orthodox Church. There, Tinny would play the organ for clothes and food, he assured me, something he had done all throughout his travels, thereby ensuring he would never starve or go naked into the night.
And play he did, with an ever-present cigarette dangling from his mouth. Tinny played music of such melodious wonder that the titles of each song have been seared onto my memory: Mongolian Mad Men and the Answers to Our Prayers, A Basketful of Raw Fish and a Loaf of Bread, David Slays Goliath, Russian Leek Soup and a Bent Spoon and other timeless gems, all written for the organ. I sat in the church pew and listened with the priest as tears streamed down our cheeks. We cried all night as we watched Tinny play with steely eyes and deep passion. I snapped only one picture of him, which sadly I'm not at liberty to share, having sworn an oath of anonymity. However, I am able to share with you, my gentle readers, the image of his dear, long-deceased rat, given that these wee creatures don't live very long. Later that same night, as Tinny and I had wandered the barren streets of St. Petersburg, we came upon a kindly blonde woman named Svetlana and she took great interest in Tinny's tale of hardship. She invited us into her apartment and offered a barrel of vodka to drown our worries. Three hours later, I was as drunk as a racoon with numb fingers, and barely able to remember where or who I was. But not Tinny. He appeared stone-cold sober. Svetlana had promised Tinny that his clothes and passport would be returned by morning because her father had been a senior official in the KGB, in its heyday, and how her father only needed to make one phone call and all his possessions would be dropped off with her.
Svetlana was a woman of her word. That next morning, Tinny's passport was left at the doorstep of Svetlana's apartment. His clothes had been washed and pressed, and the Russian thugs left a note written in chicken scratch that said, "Most humble apologies. Come to the Ritz and we'll pay for your food bill for the entire week." I thought it curious that the Russians were able to pen a note in perfect English but Tinny was quick to remind me that this barren kleptocracy called Russia was also the same country that had produced the profound writer Fyodor Dostoevsky, he who penned Crime and Punishment, and that if only, as per Tinny's wise assessment, Fyodor had had the temerity to cultivate a shred of self-control, and was able to overcome his gambling addiction, that his most revered novel might have instead, and more appropriately, been called Crime and Pleasure.
In the restaurant, where mobsters and working young girls and boys alike were congregating, I ate leek soup with Tinny. And, afterward, I bid him a sorrowful goodbye. My curatorship was set to begin in the city of Volgograd and, as much as I was sad to depart my new found friend, we each had our own path to follow. Life is impermanent but vivid memories are the act of attaching feeling to a particular event, person or circumstance. I felt honoured to have been able to spend time in Tinny's presence.
Now, when the snow flies and I tilt my head up to the sky and stick out my tongue, I let the newly formed flakes melt on my warm appendage and I often fondly recall the organ playing of Tinny, with his cigarettes and his vodka and his boyish warm smiles. It doesn't get any better than this!
