Well,
That Could Be a Problem
By David
Gonzalez Feb. 1, 2013
One of my first assignments at
The Times was covering Antonio Aguilar’s Rodeo Show at the Kingsbridge Armory
in the Bronx. Aguilar was a singing Mexican cowboy — the Mexican Roy Rogers —
and someone whose movies I saw as a child at the old Freeman Theater on
Southern Boulevard. When I met up with the photographer for the article, I
don’t know what impressed me more: that he actually knew who Aguilar was or
that he lived in the Bronx.
The photographer? Lee Romero. You
know him as Librado, but more about that shortly.
Lee — a Californian by birth and
a New Yorker by love — struck me, a nervous Newsweek refugee, as very
un-Timesean. Needless to say, we hit it off.
Thursday was the staff photographer
Librado Romero’s last day at The Times. His photography (and paintings), some
of which have appeared on Lens, represent just a sliver of his wide-ranging
abilities.
He, too, grew up with the old
Aguilar movies, in Calexico, Calif., where his father, a railroad worker, had
moved the family from Los Angeles. We were both excited to meet the great
Mexican charro, who ushered us into a trailer on the edge of the cavernous
armory. Inside, he regaled us with stories — as he prepared several humongous
syringes he would use on his horses.
I was dumbstruck. Lee did not
take that picture. Our discretion notwithstanding, we got a nice story out of
it, and thus a friendship began.
He had first joined the Times
staff in the late 1960s, teaming with Mike Kaufman to explore corners of the
city in very un-Timesean manners. Once, they rafted down the Bronx River.
Another time they chronicled the carefree life of a 10-year-old in the city.
They turned it into a book.
Kaufman remained a close friend
to his dying day. In a 2009 video in which Lee talked about his photography and
painting, Kaufman lauded Lee, saying, “of all the people I met in the world,
Lee Romero is clearly the most creative.” Trust me, Kaufman met a lot of
people.
Eager to work on bigger things —
and not content to have his farthest travel limited to Staten Island — Lee left
the paper. It is rumored that bosses told him they were grooming him for photo
editor. His reply: “Who cares?”
He had some adventures working for
news magazines. He opened a gallery. He closed a gallery. He worked on a couple
of daily papers in California. He returned to New York, fell in love with Mary
Hardiman and eventually worked his way back to The Times.
I met him around then, when he
was freelancing on the weekends. I liked that he loved music and that his real
passion was painting. In time, I spent hours in his Yonkers studio, where
guitars lay against the assorted artist’s jumble of canvases, crushed paint
tubes and who-knows-what. He became chief photographer at the paper — a title
he declined to use. He spent a lot of time writing a biographical song about
Calexico. Once he asked me to edit it, but I demurred — at 82-odd verses, I
felt overwhelmed. I do remember that he used to eat two-cent tacos as a child.
Sometime in the early years of
our friendship, he changed his byline back to Librado, in honor of his father
and his heritage. So, the artist formerly known as Lee went back to being
Librado Petronilo Romero III.
To spend any time with Lee was to
hear a lot of jokes. Some good. Some bad. Some unprintable. He was relentless,
often suckering you in with a deadpan stare. One of those jokes became a
running punchline.
Years ago he met the Mambo King
himself, Tito Puente. He told the famed percussionist that he, too, played the
drums. That’s interesting, said the maestro.
“But I don’t have any rhythm,”
Lee said.
“Well,” Puente replied. “That
could be a problem.”
Ever since that day, I have
tossed out that line as Tito’s all-purpose wisdom for the ages.
Thursday was Lee’s last day at
the paper. He has taken a buyout. He will paint, play music, drive a fast car
and tell bad jokes. He will enjoy his son Conor’s new role playing Michael J.
Fox’s son in an NBC sitcom. He will travel with Mary, a picture editor at the
Times who took a buyout in 2011. He will still live in the Bronx, and he will
still be my friend.
But a New York Times without
Librado Petronilo Romero III? Well, that
could be a problem.