Daily News from New York, New York • 22

DAILY NEWS Sunday, December 2, 1990 (gDDBD TIID(S TCI LfU 22 By SUSAN KARUN Special to The News Men with names like Macaroni and The Reverend slowly fill the cavernous main room at the Fort Washington Shelter, a converted armory on 168th St. and Broadway. They eye the group of eight volunteer performers getting ready to entertain an insatiable need to please others and an inability to stop working. In one year he did 380 comedy performances. He would return home from his shows and gorge, then counter the binge by starving himself and exercising furiously.

"My only thoughts were about my next meal," he says. "I'd eat till I was bloated. When I had to perform, I'd have such a heavy dinner, I'd black out and sleep through my show." It was then that Gerardi began nine years of self-help programs that set a course for recovery and gave a new purpose for his comedy. Performing last year at the Caron Foundation, a treatment center in Wernersville, where he had been a patient, Gerardi struck such a connection with his audience that he began taking his act to audiences made up of the recovering and the destitute. "What Vince does is talk about being a human being with all the flaws," says Ann Smith, Caron's director of family services.

"He takes the struggle of.a typical recovering person and makes them laugh at themselves." formance to encourage others to continue their recovery. At the same time "these outings serve as a catharsis. Having performed at homeless shelters, hospitals, rehabilitation centers and recovery meetings, Gerardi will present shows at the Improvisation on Wednesday, 6:30 to 8 p.m., and at Stand Up New York Dec. 10 from 3 to 5 p.m., featuring comics in recovery. "I'm using humor to help heal other people and myself," he says.

"It enables them to feel like they're not alone. When you're in the throes of your disease, you feel like there's no light at the end of the tunnel. And if there is, sometimes it's an oncoming train." Childhood woes Gerardi, 44, has been dodging emotional trains for most of his life. The youngest of six children, Gerardi says he wasn't acknowledged in his family. "After feeling lost as a child," he says, "I went to another family and told jokes, and they loved me." But when Gerardi went public, the bubble burst Vying for the attention of comedy club owners too closely paralleled his experience with his own family.

He sank into compulsive overeating, them. Vince Gerardi, a 14-year veteran of comedy clubs and the organizer of the show, leans into the mike. "We have any recovering alcoholics?" A dozen hands dart up. "Well, I'm a jokeaholic," Gerardi says. "That's right, I can't stop joking.

I've tried everything. Comediatricians. Joke Enders. Nothing worked till I found JA. Jokea-holics Anonymous.

Drunks try to get sober; addicts try to get straight; I'm just trying to get serious." Take my life, please The men start to smile. "I used to be paranoid and suicidal," Gerardi says. "I tried to kill myself in self-defense. Now I'm just homicidal. I think it's progress.

At least it involves other people." Taking his audience on a comic journey through his real-life battle with addiction and obsessive-compulsive behavior, Gerardi uses his per 41 dSC Bridge I A A "VS Beloved mourned By LUIS PEREZ Daily News Staff Writer A food service supervi sor at a city shelter in Brooklyn died Friday after being shot in a botched attack on a suspected drug dealer, au thorities said yesterday. Walter Taylor, who worked for the city Hu man Resources Administration for 18 years, was shot in the head as he walked to his car after leaving the Bedford Ave. Men's Shelter about 3:30 p.m. Thursday. He died at Kings County Hospital.

Taylor's slaying stunned workers and residents of the shelter. Police said he was an innocent victim. Taylor, 48, was a decorated Vietnam War veteran. His military reserve unit had been alerted for possible service in the Persian Gulf. The real target He was struck by shots fired at Jose Santo, 18, described by local resi dents as a street corner drug dealer who owed money to other dealers, said Angelo Castillo, an assistant deputy HRA commissioner.

Santo was shot in the back as a gunman chased him along Bergen St. in Bedford-Stuyvesant, po lice said. He was listed in stable condition yester day at Kings County Hospital. The gunman fled. Many people, including local police omcers, had rushed to the hospital to donate blood for Taylor a man they knew to be dedicated to helping the homeless.

"He was loved by the clients he served, Cas tillo said. "I knew him personally. He was the kind of person who didn't need to be told what to do. He had an instinct about what needed to be done and did it" Mayor Dinkins was among those who comforted Taylor's wife, Chanley, and their two children. A mayoral spokesman called--the death I'tragiQ, and senses less.

y.f N-7l Queens Plaza 1113 F-Ffi-H -m JH MANHATTAN If 56 Street grvg 4-6-N-R f' OQ g' Jl Court House Hunterspoint Grand Central 11 0 LIRR Hunterspoint A-C-E Times Sq. B-D-F-Q N-R-S 1-2-34 ViNCE GERARDI relating some real-life struggles. CARMINE OONOFRIO DAILY NEWS Main St (Rushing) Willets Pt (Shea Stadium) LIRR (Flushing) 1l. 7 Line open section 7 Line closed section Other Subway tines Shuttle bus stop Long Island RR Shuttle OFree subway transfer GREG MARINELU DAILY NEWS the 65th St. -Queens Blvd.

IND station, where and trains will stop during the weekends. The bus, stopping at stations en route, will provide connections to the LIRR at Shea and serve passengers who normally would change to the No. 7 at 74th Ave. Garden suggested that riders coming from eastern Queens who normally transfer to the No. 7 train at 74th continue on the or trains, which will make stops between Rcroseve.lt-Ave.

and Queens 0 0 V- "Sfe Or, ft Sq. Av. i. Av. tute service: The No.

7 will operate normally between Times Square and Hunters Point where passengers can switch, at nd added charge, to the Long Island Rail. Road, making stops at 61st Willets Point-Shea Stadium and Main St raw ateflsxys siEoeaiaD CB Dddii Vemon-Jackson Avs. route. The work caused a suspension of all express service and major service disruptions. Garden said switch reconstruction was not scheduled during track rebuilding because the 23-year-old switches were not due for retirement.

"Now," he said, "it needs to be done." Work on the $5 million project, known as the Fisk Interlocking Service Plan, will take place between 3 a.m. Saturday and 3 a.m. Monday on consecutive weekends be fiuonn Ton tf i ll wli 11 TAl has prepared ant By ALTON SIAGLE Daily News Staff Writer Subway service on the IRT No. 7 Flushing line, curtailed for four years during a $70 million track-rebuilding program, faces eight weekends of added disruption while the Transit Authority replaces worn-out switches. TA spokesman Termaine Garden called the switch replacement "the last leg" of the reconstruction project.

Plans for upgrading the No. were begunjnjthe early 1980s.BetweeQ Mava985nd -August; J989i- newv track was. Shuttle trains will stop at all No. 7 line stations between 61st St-Woodside, connecting to the LIRR, and Queensboro Plaza, connecting to the train. A5ai5hlittle along RQpSettakveF between Wil-, J- Stadium Plaza artd then continue their nornial runs into Manhattan.

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