GERALDO RIVERA AND CHUCK
My old friend Chuck we met in the seventies
when he was an actor he’s a therapist now
we still meet for coffee sometimes Chuck
used to have a barcalounger and make pineapple chicken
neither of those are true today my old friend Chuck
told me on Saturday that Geraldo Rivera used to be
Gerry Rivieria he grew up on Long Island and his Jewish
mother named him Gerry Rivera was his Puerto Rican father’s name
she didn’t want him to be discriminated against she thought
Gerry Rivieria innocuous enough but when he
moved to the networks and wanted to be Latino
he did a reverse name change forgot the Gerry
forgot the Riviera just like Chuck and his barcalounger
and pineapple chicken.
interesting. back in the age of dinosaurs (mid-1970s) i worked at an afterschool program on the lower east side, the Children's Aid Society, mostly Puerto Rican kids and some of the older folks, also Puerto Rican, hung out and gossiped with me. they told me that Geraldo went by the name Jerry Rivers growing up on Long Island to blend in, and that it was only when he became a newsperson that he took back the convenient & more politically correct name of Geraldo Rivera. the women i gossiped with despised him for that.