Big Shot, Part 3: Big Shot

By Simeon Den

Simeon’s father, Deogracio Secretario

“Daddy been around.”  Rather nonchalantly she added,  “He wasn’t one dishwasher all his life, you know.”

I was floored!  My mother rarely talked about my dad. After they were divorced my mother moved on to become a savvy business woman in her own right, living her own version of the American Dream and throughout the years, their personal encounters in my presence were always civil but a bit cool usually speaking over me in Ilocano. 

“Before you were born, Daddy used to be one Big Shot.”

“What do you mean, Big Shot?” I asked.

“Well, remember how I used to get so mad at him when Uncle Denong used to teach you kids how to play cards and dice?” I did recall my Uncle teaching my cousins and I how to play betting games that we gleefully and innocently played and my father would end up chastising my Uncle after my mother caught us...  “Well, your Dad, believe it or not, was the second in command of the Filipino Mafia before the War.”  She said it almost matter-of-factly, as though I needn’t make a big deal of it but if I was floored before, I was now quite literally  “subterranean-ed.”   “The what?  The Filipino Mafia?”

“Uh, huh.  Daddy used to come home with rolls and rolls of cash every night.  I dunno.  I don’t think he ever went kill anybody but I know he came home every night with ROLLS of cash in his pocket!  Stupid Big Shot!  Nice clothes, nice car, plenty money all the time.”

I immediately remembered that in the locked mahogany box where my father kept his personals, I had seen several photos of him posing in front deluxe automobiles with hair slicked back, shiny with pomade and dressed in exquisitely tailored suits. “Yeah,” my mother continued, “Daddy had plenty nice clothes and bought me new expensive stuff all the time. You saw our wedding picture?  Almost 500 people came, you know. Was one big, big wedding! Yeah, your daddy was Big Shot in those days!”

“So what happened, Mom?”

“What happened?  I told your Daddy, ’How can you keep your head up high?  You get three sons for carry your name and that’s all blood money you coming home with! If you no quit I going leave you!’ and he never quit so that’s what I eventually went do.  I left your father but I think that sometime soon after that the police went catch all the mafia guys but I think mostly because the side business that was going on during the War was all pau (finished) so mostly just went fade away.”

I was speechless.

“PLUS,” she continued,” I bet you never know your grandfather in the Philippines was a shaman… you know, one kahuna, one witch doctor! You come from generations of witch doctors!  Faith healers!!!”  My mother was so enjoying telling me all of this!  “So yeah, go tell you daddy anything.  He only care that you happy, son. Maybe he going try heal you!” she jokingly added.

To be continued.

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Listen to “Big Shot” on Simeon Den’s Podcast here.

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Simeon Den (born Deogracio Dingo Secretario) is a 2nd generation-Filipino, born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii;  Los Angeles-based dancer/choreographer, author, director, photographer, Arts educator, and Performance Art practitioner with a 50-year professional performance career in concert dance, theater works on Broadway, National tours, and  television. His current art practice is fine art photography and Butoh Dance, the avant garde Japanese Performance Art discipline. He has worked with luminaries including Jerome Robbins, Hal Prince, Shirley MacLaine, Stephen Sondheim, Lena Horne, and Yul Brynner and affiliations with the Alvin Ailey and Martha Graham dance companies,

Den attended the School of Visual Arts (NYC/Photography), University of Hawaii (Asian Art History), University of Massachusetts, and is a magna cum laude graduate of UCLA School of World Arts & Cultures (Dance & Performance Studies).  He has taught internationally including CalArts, American Musical & Dramatics Academy, and the London School of Contemporary Dance.

Den is the Managing Director of the Agnes Pelton Society, a 501c3 non-profit arts and Arts education advocacy and the co-owner of the historic Agnes Pelton House in Cathedral City, California, whose mission is to support the legacy of the posthumously celebrated historic painter,  Agnes Lawrence Pelton. His creative team is developing “The Agnes Pelton Song Cycle,” an evening-length, contemporary classical music, concert piece of original vocal music, dance, and Spoken-Word inspired by the “Agnes Pelton, Desert Transcendentalist” retrospective of Pelton’s abstract paintings; currently on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art and culminates at the Palm Springs Museum in Summer/2020.

Most recently, having never done drag performance before, Den entered the Cathedral City Drag Race pageant as "Sue Madre.”  Although Sue competed the requisite drag queen lip-sync for talent, her secret weapon was to sing live and Sue Madre finished in Third Place.  As his drag persona, Sue Madre, he moderates the podcast, "Old Gay/New Gay," archived on KGay Radio in Palm Springs.