Cancer Charity Event

Michele was the featured performer at the Red, White & Blue Gala Masquerade at the 500 Club — Daytona 500 Infield on October 27. She performed her Tribute to Patsy Cline at the fund-raiser for the Children’s Cancer Foundation.

Michele Performs at SafeSpace Benefit

Michele performed at the Fourth Annual Love In to benefit SafeSpace at Tradition Town Hall in Port St. Lucie on November 29. She will perform edher Tribute to Patsy Cline, with Herb Oscar Anderson, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame DJ as guest MC.

SafeSpace is a private non-profit organization that provides shelter for abused victims of all ages as well as counseling, educational, and outreach programs for both the abuser and abused. Since its inception in 1979, SafeSpace has provided services to thousands of women, men, and children through its diverse programs. Its goal is to stop the cycle of violence in our society.

SafeSpace provides a haven for abused victims and their children, from Indian River, Martin, and St. Lucie Counties who have suffered physical assault from their partners and need to leave to ensure their personal safety. SafeSpace provides a refuge where they can heal their wounds, build self esteem, and develop alternatives to living in violent circumstances.

Michael Goforth: Confronting domestic violence

By Michael Goforth

October 7, 2007

His drinking was a ritual which started by 10 each morning and continued throughout the day, all day. He said it was “part of his culture.” His daily rages, always the same and so exhausting for both of us, would include judgments on my character and how I was unacceptable and that he wanted me gone. Hoping to calm him, I agreed to leave, but he told me that if I tried to leave, he would kill me. That’s when the beatings began.

It deeply angers me to think anyone would abuse my friend Michele Anastasio of Port St. Lucie. But, someone did, as her words describe. I didn’t know that part of her history when I met her eight years ago singing during a jazz jam put on by the Fort Pierce Jazz Society at the Fort Pierce Community Center.

Later I would write: “With a voice as clear as Baccarat crystal, as strong as a sudden summer storm, as rich and smooth as a single-malt scotch, she sang beyond her heart and deep into her soul. It was mesmerizing. Listening later to the CD she recorded in London, I got goose bumps.”

What I saw that evening was a beautiful, talented, strong and confident woman. That was her new self, molded into a work of art from fragments of clay.

Time after time I would try to leave, but he would lock me in the bathroom for hours, beating me and regaling me with wild accusations of infidelity and threats of death, always ending in apologies and tears. His two young sons from a previous marriage who would come to visit would watch in silence while I pleaded and screamed for my life. They must have seen it all before. I will never forget the day I escaped from the bathroom, dripping in sweat and looking at them and saying, “This is not normal!”

Michele left her partner in France and moved to Port St. Lucie to live with her mother and stepfather. Her ordeal should shatter any illusions that domestic violence occurs only in low-class trailer parks with neighbors who believe that what happens between a man and a woman is nobody’s business but their own. Michele and the man she had loved had been living the life of the very rich in Europe. But, domestic violence takes its toll across races, across incomes and across regions. She had left him once, only to return. Then she left for good.

I remember the loneliness I felt in that cab and how I couldn’t even tell the driver what had happened because I couldn’t speak his language. There, in silence, I sat for the long drive to the railway station. It was like a dream with the fog and rain and the horrible emptiness I felt. I made it home with only the clothes on my back and an overwhelming feeling of sadness and despair. It was like death.

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, a time to recognize the awful pain suffered by victims of verbal and physical abuse and to reinvigorate efforts to fight domestic violence and to help victims escape and to build new lives.

Last year, there were 2,371 reported incidents of domestic violence in Indian River, Martin and St. Lucie counties, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Three of those incidents were homicides.

Fortunately, there is SafeSpace, a private nonprofit agency founded in 1979 to assist women and their children who have left abusive relationships in the three-county area. SafeSpace provides a confidential hotline, emergency shelter, education, training, safety planning and advocacy.

In 2006, SafeSpace provided shelter for 327 victims of domestic violence and developed more than 2,000 “safe plans” for victims and potential victims.

I was alone in a foreign country with no one to help me, but it is just as hard to be in your own land and your own home feeling all alone, scared, helpless and trapped. ... You are not alone. I didn’t have a place like SafeSpace to escape to. Now as I spend my time with these wonderful people, they are helping me and they don’t even know it. Now, I just don’t survive, I thrive. Thank God for SafeSpace.

In liner notes to her CD, “Covergirl,” I wrote: “Michele caresses each word, each perfectly nuanced phrase, like a tender lover. An unquestionable romantic, she sings with style, grace and a huge dose of intimate emotion. Her vocal range seems limited only by the listener’s ears. She is one very gifted performer. The world is a better place when Michele Anastasio is singing.”

I am proud of Michele for telling her story with the hope that it will give courage to others to become survivors and thrivers. I’m proud to call her friend.

Michele performed at the Dean Martin Festival in Steubenville, Ohio, from June 14–17.

Dean Martin was born on June 7, 1917 in Steubenville, the son of Italian immigrants. He dropped out of high school in the tenth grade and began working in one of the local steel mills. He fought as a boxer under the name Kid Crochet and worked a variety of jobs in local clubs. At age 17 he began singing in Ohio nightclubs outside of his hometown and eventually met success singing in the clubs in New York City. In 1940, he changed his name to Dean Martin.

In 1944, Dean Martin secured a regular 15-minute radio program in New York. Two years later his single Which Way Did My Heart Go? was a hit. The same year, Martin met comedy partner Jerry Lewis while performing in Atlantic City. The duo became popular, with Martin playing the straight man and Lewis playing the fool. Their partnership lasted for a decade, during which they made 16 movies.

Martin then resumed his singing career. That’s Amore was hugely successful in 1953. The year 1958 was extremely productive, as he acted in his first drama The Young Lions, began hosting specials for NBC, was a popular entertainer at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, and released his song Volare. The following year saw the founding of the Rat Pack with their movie Some Came Running. Rat Pack hit Ocean’s Eleven premiered in 1960.

In 1964 Martin’s Everybody Loves Somebody topped the charts. The following year The Dean Martin Show began as a weekly variety show that ran for eight years. made his 55th film, Cannonball Run Part II, in 1984.

Dean Martin died on Christmas Day in 1995.

Blue Grass From left: Jana Evans, Deana Martin, Rose Angelica, Michele, John Griffith pose after a blue grass performance during the Dean Martin Festival at Fort Steuben.

More information on the festival may be found at:

www.deanmartinsteubenville.com