As I walk down the mall passing an eclectic mix of stores, from tattoo parlours to French literature I see a man in his 70s smoking a cigarette by himself. I enter Gerry’s and in the reflection in the mirrow I see the smoking man flick away his half finished cigarette. Rather than start with the cheery “How can I help you?” that I usually get at the speed-orientated hairdressers, he walks right past me with no acknowledgment and removes the towel from the nearest seats. “Have a seat”. Straight down to business. It’s a barbershop – we both know what we are there for.

When I’m not getting my hair cut I work in a photolab. A few days earlier I had printed a roll of film handed in by a group of people notorious for causing disturbances in the mall that barber is located in. I asked the barber about them and we agreed that there wasn’t anything that he, I nor the police could do. Unless of course the three of us try to make the area even more unaffordable by adding some more coffeeshops until the vagrants get pushed further and further away from things.

I look up for a moment and see a through a strategically placed set of mirrors… the bald spot forming on my head. I imagine any modern hairdressers would have these removed to appease the vanity of modern men such as myself.

For the rest of our ‘one on one’ session I treat my baldspot like an eclipse and I stare straight ahead like Im on a Bryll cream rollercoaster. On stage right the barber kept his products. They each were in their own compact little containers,  a lot different to the supersized products we are all used to now where they somehow manage to squeeze an extra 25% into them. Times were good before we had to jumbosize everything.

Gerry started rubbing something on my neck. I thought it was a traditional way of finishing up a haircut. This is where I get uneasy. Im going to let you on in a little secret. I have a little bit of hair on the top of my neck/back. A little bit of scruff, and when I go to the conveyor belt hairdressers they only clip what they cab see without moving any textile. They do a little look of contemplation, then a “meh” kind of look and move on. Gerry on the other hand assessed the situation like Michelangelo standing before the Sistine Chapel licking his finger and measuring the wind in the room. He leans past me and opens up a cylinder, in it was a straight edged blade. It sounded like a sword being drawn from its scabbard, I see my reflection in it as it passes my face. Gerry takes one more step back to compose himself.

When I was 16 I told my father I would marry into the mafia, but right not I have an old italian man with a blade to my throat and I am literally terrified. I started looking back at my ties with the italian community over the years. Ciao Italia in South Perth, photographing the Italian Club dances, dating and breaking up with my old boss’s daughter… hang on.. what if Domenic has put a hit out on me! What better opportunity to “make me disappear” than at the barber where its perfectly acceptable to hold a blade to someones throat! All italian guys catch up and talk over espresso, Domenic could have asked a special favour of Gerry in his nice quiet barbershop! I bet if I go behind the counter there will be a photo of me there, no wonder Gerry was so quick to get rid his cigarette earlier,  payday had just walked in the door! I was just about to blurt “IT WAS 4 YEARS AGO!” when Gerry cut me off. Not with the blade but with his gruff two word sentences that are a product of 50 years of customer service. “All done” he says.

I slide my sweaty behind off that leather seat squeaking like a couch in summer. I pay for my haircut and while he sweeps up I take a few photos. “Its been a long time since someone has taken photos of the chairs” he says. He then says he needs to hurry to catch the bus. I imagine him sitting there at the bus stop surrounded by teenagers with his blade in the pocket ready to deal italian justice… or maybe just proper grooming.

Jokes aside Gerry gives good haircuts. Check it out in the Westgate Mall in Fremantle. It beats sitting there listening to squawky hairdressers talk about how messy their partners are.

Gerrys Barbershop

I saw this article about Italy proposing a ban on lunch breaks and couldn’t help but be saddened at the prospect for a multitude of reasons.

One of the things I love most about the European outlook on life is just how relaxed it is compared to the rat-race in which we live here in the States.

I love how meals in so many European countries are such a momentous occasion; pleasure is derived from food and the overall dining experience is to be treasured, something lost on our “grab and go” culture here.

Across the pond, a meal is meant to be savored; not rushed. (And let me tell you, I’ve savored some mighty delish meals in Greece, Spain and Italy in particular)!

Personally, I know lunches I eat at my desk while plowing through work are barely registered in my brain  … whereas if I am dining out (or am anywhere but at my desk) I enjoy it much more and find myself with less an urge to snack later on.

A change of scenery–even for just a few minutes — can be a real life-saver. If we banned lunch breaks here, I think I’d croak — no joke.

While I can see the value in maybe not indulging in a three or four course meal every day, I’m with the nutritionist in the article — I think advocating skipping lunch is equally harmful. Without adequate nourishment, employees with suffer a lack of energy, lose focus, and perform worse than if they’d been given a little time to eat.

And if productivity and your company’s bottom line are two key indicators of success, well, the Italians won’t be too happy with the results. I say, let them eat!

Did anyone else see this article? What do you think about it?

Okay….listen up here, my lovely fellow Beings. There’s some stuff that needs to be shouted from the rooftops, and I’m just the gal to do it. (Oh. Big surprise there, huh?) It’s gotta be said…for the sake of your own enJOYment. So here ya go:

For the past week I’ve been hearing this all over the place and it’s drivin’ me nuts. Happens every year about this time, and every time it does I want to call up every DJ on every radio station and read ‘em their rights. I dunno. Maybe they’re just too immersed in the fear-driven bullshit to see what they’re doing. Or else, they’ve just got some issues about their own guilt-ridden habits. Whatever the case, I think it’s high time to speak out….

Everywhere you turn you’re likely to hear someone going on about all the calories ‘we’ will consume on Thanksgiving day. Stuff about us consuming more calories on that one day that we would ‘normally’ consume in 3 or 4. Then they go on about how you’re supposed to push yourself away from the table before you’re full, or wear clothes that are a bit snug so you can’t over-eat, or maybe forgo the pie. They use words like ‘moderation’ and ’self-control’ and ‘gluttony’. They fill your head with nasty images of clogged arteries and a laboring heart.

PUHHH-LEEEEZ!

Here’s the deal: Between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, most of us are going to attend gatherings, eat stuff we usually don’t eat, drink more alcohol, indulge in sweets, etc., etc., etc. The fact that these indulgences occur over a relatively short period of time (weeks, as opposed to months and months), leads most folks to believe that it’s a BAD thing to give in to said indulgences. But you know what? It’s really a bunch of baloney.

If you’re carrying a few extra pounds before the holidays, you’re certainly not going to lose them during the holidays. And even if you are one of those who consumes the ’standard’ 6000 calories on Thanksgiving day, those 6000 calories are NOT going to gain you 10 lbs. I don’t care what the ‘experts’ say. It’s bullshit. Not to mention the fact that just thinking about all that will give you heartburn, an upset stomach, a headache, and serious ‘oggeda’ (it’s an Italian word, which I’ve probably spelled incorrectly…that is a combination of all of the above).

The bottom line is this: ENJOY YOURSELF. If you think what you’re eating is ‘bad’ for you, it IS. If you think it’s a celebration (as in ‘good’ for you), it IS. Carrying fear and guilt and dread while you eat is NOT good for you. It keeps your body from digesting properly, adds to your overall stress, and basically puts your body in ‘alert mode’. And when that happens, all manner of stuff changes (physiologically speaking), none of which is good for you. So, here’s my little ’snack’ for the season:

DON’T FREAKIN’ WORRY ABOUT IT! Enjoy yourself. Take a few extra walks around the block. Be grateful for all your blessings. Dance. Laugh. Hug. Love. All those things burn calories too! Most of all, just remember to HONOR YOURSELF and the food you’re consuming. When the holidays are over, you’ll have enjoyed them AND probably not gained more than a couple of pounds (if any at all). Should that happen, give a big, loud thanks for that too. And then…get off the couch and MOVE.

A very happy, delicious, joy-filled Thanksgiving to YOU.

United States has Rock’n’Roll, jazz and Blues as traditional music. Spain has the Flamenco, Argentina has the tango and Brazil has the Bossa Nova. Unfortunately Italian popular music is the LISCIO.
In every single bar or dance hall of my country, you can easily hear this kind of music. No matter if you are in the South, in the center or in the west of the Italian peninsula, LISCIO persecutes you in any corner of the country.
The most sad aspect of this situation is that if you are an Italian musician, the only thing you can do to earn some money is to play this music.
And I’m one of those musicians who played Liscio.

“Rimini, Rimini, Rimini: The soundtrack of this post”.

It happened during my last year at “La Sapienza” University in Rome.
I needed money for my studies, and at that time the only thing that I was able to do very well was play the guitar.
A friend of mine gave me the opportunity to meet Marco Napoli, the leader of a little Liscio ensemble that was pretty popular in my county.
The name of this orchestra was one of the worst names you can give to a dance-band: “The Cocktail”.
When I met Marco, the first thing that I asked him was: “Why have you chosen this name for your orchestra?”
“You know” he answered me, “when you play Liscio you have to communicate to the audience a feeling of happiness, and a name like The Cocktail suggests to the people something full of colour, of vitality and joy….in other words it suggests Happiness”.
“Does it?” I asked doubtfully.
“Yes…Hey wait a moment” he said, “have you got any problem with the name of my band?”
“No, no. I love it, I was just curious about it. That’s all”.
I WAS recruited.

I was the guitarist on the right.

We played for a whole year in a Balera (it is the Italian word to indicate a Liscio Dance Hall) called “Pierrot”.
We used to arrive at the club around nine p.m. and after the sound check, we opened the show with a classic Raul Casadei’s song: “Rimini, Rimini” (Raul Casadei is one of the most important authors in the Liscio tradition).
The crowd started to dance from the first note of that song.
People who love to spend the night in a balera, basically do two kinds of things above all: dance AND drink wine.
This is the reason why often some of them would fall down to the ground completely DRUNK.

A couple of old, drunken customers. They were tireless...

The floor of a balera is literary a pool of sweat, and the owners usually strew it with talcum powder to create a grip for the dancer’s feet; but if you are drunk nothing can save you from falling, even a good “grip”.
I hated the balera’s patrons.
They didn’t show the musicians any kind of respect, and every night someone would join us on the stage (while we were still playing), and say something like: “Have you got Romantica Parigi?” or “Have you got Mutandine di Seta Nera?”; they didn’t ask for a song, they ordered a song, they treated us as if we were waiters instead musicians.
Generally at midnight we stopped playing and the crowd stopped dancing: that was the moment for the Pasta (the balera’s owners used to offer to the customers and the musicians some horrible pasta cooked by their resident chef).
While the customers ate, Marco remained on the stage to announce the winning numbers extracted for the balera’s lottery (each number was followed by a drum roll loop); it was the main event of the night and those who attended it could win: a Prosciutto di Parma as first prize, a shape of Parmigiano Reggiano as second prize and a bottle of wine as third prize.

The main event of the night: The Lottery. Pictures of Italian Culture

After the Lottery the show started again and we kept playing until one o’clock (more or less).
At that hour most of the dancers began to go back home, except the ones that we called: “Tiratardi”; these were the kind of tireless people who could dance from dust till dawn.
We invented a stratagem to set us free from them: we accelerated the bpm of the songs; in doing so they were forced to dance very, very fast.
Generally they collapsed to the floor completely strengthless after two or three minutes.
When all of them went away we descended from the stage.
I used to massage my back and smoke a cigarette while Marco and the other guys, compiled the bourderaux writing down the songs that we had played.
The most exciting moment of the night was certainly when the owner paid the orchestra: one hundred euro for each of us, not a bad wage!
Yes, despite everything, it was pretty cool to play LISCIO.

After a string of tragic deaths occurred in my family everyone in the clan simultaneously decided that we should start hanging out more before someone else died. For two years in a row my uncles planned family reunions. They would not be outdone by reunions of the past…this would be a vacation reunion experience. So, for two years in a row 85 loud, abrasive Italian-Americas boarded a cruise ship and sailed to port cities around the Caribbean. They settled on the cruise option because it would ensure that we couldn’t help but run into each other every day. I survived by getting wasted at the late-night piano bar and throwing on a few Queens Marie outfits during karaoke night to shock-and-awe fellow passengers.

I say “survived” not because I was hanging out with my family. I like my family. They actually encourage my antics and hilarity and usually outdo me in causing trouble. For example, at the end of the second cruise (which was why there was not a third cruise) when Carnival made the grievous mistake of running out of coffee in the free dining area and charging $3.50 a pop at the specialty cafe my cousins and I banded together in a mutinous action, marching through the halls screaming “Carnival Sucks”. That night ended with a near fist-fight between my cousin and an overwhelmed security guard and a meeting between my uncle and the head of security who kindly implied that we never sail with them again.

Clearly, my family was not the cause of my suffering on the cruise — everyone ELSE was. To sum up the population that surrounded me here is a quote from a conversation that I overheard: “At least he did something, people can say what they want, but I admire him [George Bush] for doing something [Iraq, Afghanistan, ushering the US into economic collapse].” Um, yeah.

After two tours around the Caribbean on an over-sized boat/water-bound-Hilton-with-adjoining-mini-mall I said: “You couldn’t pay me to get back on a Cruise Ship.”

Two years later I was cast a lead on a pilot.
Yes! Amazing! Woohoo!

Pack your bags, we are filming it on a cruise ship.
What?!

And not just any cruise, but a Sweet Cruise and not just any pilot but one called “The Lez Boat”.

Check back tomorrow and I’ll let you know how it went.

I absolutely CAN NOT STAND the lack of understanding when it comes to personal space when traveling in other countries. Countless times, I have been standing in a line, perhaps waiting to buy a bus ticket or make a food order, and the Jabroni  standing behind me is so close that I can feel his disgusting salami breath on the back of my neck. It’s as if he is trying to discover my true hair color or something. “Ok, I’m busted!” Most of the time, there is nobody even behind him. Just fifty feet of unoccupied space. Sometimes I try to do a nonchalant stretch or sudden weight change so he will get the point. It never works. Maybe I should tell his mother.

One of the upsides of working from home is that you don’t have to do that whole ritual thing. You know the one….get showered, dry and style hair, put on makeup, dress and get your ass out the door in a timely manner. Back when I had to do all that, I’d get up 2 hours ahead of time, just so I wouldn’t have to rush. I loathe rushing around…almost as much as I loathe being ‘late’. Just one of those things.

Anyway, now that I don’t have to do that anymore, I sometimes don’t shower til hours after I’ve gotten out of bed. And, more often than not, once showered I’ll put on sweats or jeans and a tee-shirt (weather depending), put a clip in my hair and get on with my day. I rarely take the time to ‘doll up’, simply because it’s unlikely that I’m going to see or be seen by anyone on any given day. Mine is a reclusive life.

Well, as I was saying, this can be seen as the ‘upside’ of working from home. BUT (ain’t there always a ‘but’?) it can also be a nasty little weed that can uglify (I get to make up my own words, thankyouverymuch) the most beautiful garden. Here’s why:

Beauty is most certainly subjective. What may be a gorgeous painting to me might be unsightly to you. What I see as attractive may be repulsive to you. The same goes for that face staring back at you in the mirror. I’m not talking Hollywood Perfect here. I’m talking pleasant, natural, from-the-inside-out beauty. And part of that beauty is about how we care for ourselves. If we don’t take the time to bathe, and ‘pamper’ our magnificent bodies, are we not being negligent? Are we not saying, in some way, “Well, who cares? Nobody is going to see me anyway. What difference does it make?”

While this may be ‘true’, it is also an implication that the only reason one might primp is for others. What about ME? What about how I feel when I see that image in the mirror? If I walk into the bathroom and catch that image looking back at me …. with nary a hint of sparkle…is this not going to affect how I feel? Who the hell is that woman staring back at me? And how come she looks like she’s 400 years old? What the hell is goin’ on here?

All this occurred to me the other day as I was toweling off. I looked in the mirror and was shocked by the face staring back. So shocked it took my breath away. No kiddin’. I thought, “HOLYSHIT! How did I get here???” I rushed into my office and grabbed my fave picture (of me) off the wall. I stared at her face and saw the sparkle in her eyes, the impish grin on her face, the glow from her Being. It was so obvious to me…this beautiful, joy-filled woman in this picture. And, for what it’s worth, the picture is only a few years old. It’s not like I was looking at the ‘teenaged’ girl. Oh no…I’m talking a mere 5 years ago. But the ‘difference’ in that face was night and day. It scared the hell outta me.

I put the picture back on the wall and headed back to the bathroom. I then had a little chat with the face in the mirror. And then…I styled my hair, put on a dab of eyeliner and some lip goo, and proceeded to the closet where I carefully chose my garb for the day. Complete with accessories and matching underwear. Yea. I went all out.

A little while later, my roommate, upon seeing me ‘dressed up’ (mind you, I had on jeans and a sweater…not some cocktail dress and heels), said, “Why are you all dressed up? Got a date?”

This in itself was a very strong indication of just how long it’d been since I’d taken care with my Self. It actually made me giggle when he asked, because I knew it was his ‘way’ of complimenting me (he’s kind of a Neanderthal, so he doesn’t know how to use his words too well. Poor guy.) I also knew that my own negligence had slowly eroded my sense of confidence…that I am a beautiful Being of Light and it’s my job to share that with the world. When I hold myself in love, I am also sending that love OUT. It’s a round-trip kinda thing. Out and back. Out and back. But if I don’t pay it any mind…am I not also ignoring the rest of the world? If we’re all connected (as I believe we are) then my own attention to Self (or negligence, respectively) has a direct impact on everyone and everything around me, yes?

I realize this is a bit…’deep’ for a blog such as this. Not funny or even mildly amusing. Which was, at onset, my intention for this blog. However, I shan’t apologize for it. I’m feelin’ the pull of something here and it just has to be said.

I’m thinking that the mirror is  as honest as our human eyes can ’see’. And beauty, real beauty, is a gift. It is the gift of aesthetic pleasure…and appreciation for All That Is. We’re part of that. Each and every one of us. If we don’t care enough about our Selves to take time to pamper and dote, how then are we treating the rest of the world?

Are they not one in the same?

My recent post about Ralph Nader prompted a short debate with a stranger on a friend’s Faecbook page. No fan of Nader, my opponent didn’t buy my definition of the American Dream, as personified by Nader: Immigrants come to America, start a small business, raise a family, instill in their kids a sense of civic duty and responsibility. One of the kids – our boy Ralph – goes on to a great academic career and become the leader of the consumer-rights movement. Sure, he alienates some people along the way (especially in 2000…), but he rises from humble roots to make a difference. The American Dream – or at least a version I can relate to, despite my own modest accomplishments.

Hogwash, the unknown debater said. The American Dream is about getting wealthy. End of story.

OK.

I thought again about all this after reading an article in my hometown paper, the Citizen. A local historian looked at the Italians of Matson Hill, a region in South Glastonbury, Connecticut. The Italians, from several northern provinces, turned a hilly, rocky, mostly ignored part of town into a productive region of orchards. And my grandparents were part of the immigrant wave that helped make the apples and peaches and berries grow.

Part of my grandparents' farm, years after they sold it.

Their American Dream was: Leave the village of Fubine, Piedmont, Italy, for the States when they were teens, work different jobs, save enough to buy an orchard among the Italian pioneers who had come to Matson Hill a few years before them. Over the years, my grandparents’  children did well enough in school; one went into business for herself, another worked in a legal office. The third child – my mother – stayed on Matson Hill and raised a family, eventually sending her kids off to college. None of us achieved Nader-like stature or the wealth my opponent covets for his Dream. But to come from a tiny Italian village with little money or schooling and set in motion what they did – my grandparents did all right.

I want to go beyond the personal, though, and say a little more about the Italians of Matson Hill. Their achievements caught the eye of the U.S. Immigration Commission and were featured in the commission’s 1911 report. Before telling their story, a little background on the commission.

Those scary Italians at Ellis Island

Launched in 1907, the U.S. Immigration Commission included members from both houses of Congress. It was led by Senator William Dillingham of Vermont and included Henry Cabot Lodge, two members of the old-time WASP elite increasingly fearful of the “new” immigrants inundating America during the early 1900s. Who were the new immigrants? Slavs, Greeks, Jews, and Italians, non-Protestants, mostly poor and uneducated, sometimes swarthy. You know, not like the good “old” immigrants from the British Isles, Scandinavia, and Germany (Catholics excepted, of course).

Dillingham, among others, wanted to restrict immigration, especially from Southern and Eastern Europe. His commission members spent four years studying the homelands of the immigrants and their lifestyles here. (And stirred up some snarls from their Congressional cohorts. A 1910 NYT article reported that some lawmakers accused the commission members of taking wasteful junkets. “We have spent more than half a million dollars,” one rep said, “and all we have got is a ten-page report.” Dillingham and company showed him: their final report filled 41 volumes.)

And what of the Matson Hill Italians? The report noted how “the Italians have taken the rough uncultivated land abandoned by the Americans, made it productive, and established a community that is well known throughout Connecticut. “ These Italians were part of a ‘”good type of foreign colony” as opposed to the bad kind created by the Southern Italians, often stereotyped as shiftless, shifty, and prone to crime. No, Americans would approve of the Matson Hill settlers, who “are spoken of as being honest, hard working, and industrious. One merchant remarked that they were the best people to deal with. They pay their taxes before they are due and often meet the bank’s demands with the same promptness.”

But the report notes that even the “good” Italians faced a hard time at first, as they had “to make their way through a thick wall of prejudice. Every year they tried to have the district vote enough money to buy land and erect a new [school] building, but the Americans controlled a majority of the votes and each time voted down this proposition. Finally one of the Italians donated the land on Matson Hill, where the present schoolhouse now stands, others contributed money to buy the necessary lumber, a few contributed their labor, and in this way a new schoolhouse was obtained.”

Even as the Commission praised the immigrants, a little bit of condescension crept it. I love this observation about the good women of the “colony”: “[ They] know very little about housework, and seem to think that the house can care for itself. Cooking, washing, and giving a little care to their children include the total of their household responsibilities.”

Members of the Matson Hill Community Club (still standing) in 1935.

My grandparents had not reached Matson Hill in 1911, but I think they embodied the values the commission extolled (and my grandmother certainly did know something about household responsibilities as well as how to pick fruit right along side the men). But they did arrive before Dillingham finally got what he wanted – the first large-scale limits on immigration, which led to a quota system that favored the good immigrants, reduced the “new” Europeans, and almost totally shut down immigration from Japan (the Chinese already faced tough restrictions that dated back to 1882).

What does all this mean about immigration today and the American Dream? I’m not sure. I know that today’s immigrants still face prejudice and efforts to keep them out. Those who do make it overcome a lot to start businesses, send their kids to school, maybe even produce the next consumer crusader. Or history blogger. And while money’s nice, I think most are ok with just knowing they have the chance to better their lives, and their children’s. Just like the Italians of Matson Hill.

This is just too brilliant to keep to myself. I need to first tell you I didn’t write it; I found it. But when I did, I just thought to myself, “Self (that’s what I call me), this is BRILLIANT! Absolutely, positively brilliant!” So…I want to share it with you, so you can decide for yourself if you’d like to make such arrangements. Also, if you’ve got children who think they’re going to make these decisions for you, you may want to inform them that you’ve already figured it out. Besides, if you do choose this option, they won’t have to come visit you!

There will be no nursing home in my future………
When I get old and feeble, I am going to get on a Princess Cruise Ship. The average cost for a nursing home is $200 per day. I have checked on reservations at Princess and I can get a long term discount and senior discount price of $135 per day. That leaves $65 a day for:

1. Gratuities which will only be $15 per day.
2. I will have as many as 10 meals a day if I can waddle to the restaurant, or I can have room service ( which means I can have breakfast in bed every day of the week).
3. Princess has as many as three swimming pools, a workout room, free washers and dryers, and shows every night.
4. They have free toothpaste and razors, and free soap and shampoo.
5. They will even treat you like a customer, not a patient. An extra $5 worth of tips will have the entire staff scrambling to help you.
6. I will get to meet new people every 7 or 14 days.
7. T.V. broken? Light bulb need changing? Need to have the mattress replaced? No Problem! They will fix everything and apologize for your inconvenience.
8. Clean sheets and towels every day, and you don’t even have to ask for them.
9. If you fall in the nursing home and break a hip you are on Medicare. If you fall and break a hip on the Princess ship they will upgrade you to a suite for the rest of your life.

Now hold on for the best! Do you want to see South America, the Panama Canal, Tahiti, Australia, New Zealand, Asia, or name where you want to go? Princess will have a ship ready to go. So don’t look for me in a nursing home, just call shore to ship.
P.S. And don’t forget, when you die, they just dump you over the side at no charge.

I cannot repeat enough times that I did not want a traditional wedding… neither traditional Italian nor American. However,  Francy pointed out that not having a wedding/reception wasn’t an option.  If you think the response to our announcement went over well, I’m sure you can imagine that the rest of the planning went equally well.

What you need to understand is that traditionally a southern Italian family offers to pay for everything.  In exchange for this your mother will decide everything and I do mean everything.  Now, you’re thinking, “Wow, that’s awesome.  The parents pay for everything and plan a wedding designed to make it the happiest day of the couple’s life”.

INSERT SOUND OF SIRENS AND IMAGINE FLASHING OF WARNING LIGHTS

The controlling and planning of a wedding by a mother is based entirely on the fact that southern Italians live for the chance to outdo and top the wedding of their relatives.  A lifelong pissing contest as my dad used to call it.  The joy of seeing people have fun is nothing compared to the joy of grandstanding that YOU spent 150 euro a plate for the wedding reception while your sister only spent 85 euro on her daughter’s wedding and Ugh! wasn’t that disgusting and OH! aren’t you just the talk of the town.

Knowing this well in advance, Francy and I were in almost total agreement about planning the wedding.  Every so often he’d call for mommy’s opinion so she could feel useful.  Oh who am I kidding, I got sucked into that at first too.  So let’s talk wedding planning….

THE RESTAURANT:

Francy took me on our first date at a Chinese restaurant close to our apartment.  From that point on it had become our destination for all our special occasions.  So why not have the reception there?  As my friend Daniel can confirm, Italians are for the most part very narrow-minded as far as food goes.  That is to say, as far as your average Italian is concerned, their food is the best in the world and every other population on the planet envies their vastly superior gastronomic culture.   Therefore, when mamma and her family heard where the reception would be held it was as if we’d said “After the wedding we’ll all be gathering around the nearest dumpster to eat.”  I’m quite certain she gave Francy an earful on the telephone, but he’s always had the good sense to censure what she says.

Another thing to mention is that oddly enough (someone let me know if this is how it usually works) everyone on his mother’s side of the family felt we were obligated to divulge every detail of the wedding to them before the event.  And if we had a nickel for every “E perché ____________?” (And why that/this__________?), we’d be filthy rich.

One of the things they all insisted upon knowing was what would be on the menu.  I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware that it was a family decision.  We did however, decide to offer people a choice of meat or fish.  And what happened? From the day the invitations starting arriving, the questions and “concerns” started.

“Boy, I hope the restaurant serves fresh fish” (Yes, because everyone in his family is an expert on fish.  I suppose that’s why I saw mamma boil shrimp for 35 minutes!!!!)

“Why did you choose salmon and not swordfish?”

“What kind of meat?  I hope they don’t serve cat.”

and my personal favorite…Zio Sergio.

“But I want fish AND meat, why can’t I have both?”

THE INVITATIONS, THE DRESS, FLOWERS,  AND THE BOMBONIERE:

What we need to keep in mind is the fact that our intention was to pay for our own wedding and therefore keep it simple.  Simplicity was always the recurring theme in all of this.  Because of this, we decided to make our own invitations to avoid paying a ton of money for something only 2 people would keep for sentimental value.  When mamma came to visit in March she brought an example of what she felt would be an excellent choice. The front of the invitation featured a NY Times worthy wedding shot and on the inside was the all the gory details.

UGH!!!!!!!!

I just kind of passed over the suggestion with several “uh-huhs” and “Oh, what a lovely looking couple.  Francy and I went ahead and just made a somewhat plain yet perfectly lovely invitation thanks to Microsoft Publisher.  So perhaps you’re wondering what the problem was.  We oh-so-selfishly made one small request of the guests (and, we also specified casual attire to make it as comfortable as possible for people in the middle of July) that they didn’t throw rice.  Since Francy and I have both been shit on by pigeons and, with the amount of starvation in the world today, we saw no reason to pelt us with rice.  Confetti was more than acceptable.  At least to us.  Most people reacted well to the request.  And when I say most people I mean everyone except his mother’s family.  My favorite comment?

“Why can’t we toss rice? It’s tradition.”

“Because people are starving, because I don’t want pigeon shit on my dress.”

“Well, we’ll go down to the beach and get some small stones to toss, would that be better?”

THE DRESS:

I chose the loveliest J. Crew dress.  I did not want a wedding dress per se for a variety of reasons, but I don’t want to bore you.  I foolishly thought I’d make mamma feel important by asking her what she thought of my dress.  As I proudly pulled the dress out of its packaging and held it up her lemon-sucking face seemed to react as if I’d held up a g-string and a set of pasties.

“If you’d had more time when we were at Gianna’s you could have tried on her dress.”

Gianna is my sister-in-law.  My sister-in-law who’d already branded me a whore since I was living with Francy out-of-wedlock.  The dress was a full-on lace nightmare.

“Um, no, this is my dress.”

This turned into an hour long debate of my wearing a little jacket over the dress.  I needed to cover myself up when I get married.  The fact that it was going to be July 12th and most likely hot as hell was not part of the equation.  When mamma finally let go of the jacket idea I got this,

“Ok, I won’t make you cover yourself, but the dress is so plain.  Can I sew some sparkly beads on it?”

HUH?  WHAT? Sparkly beads?  Was I getting married at the town hall or Las Vegas?

It goes without saying that I got married in a plain, unbedazzled  and unjacketed ivory dress.  I would later find out that it was embarrassing to see a bride in such a get-up.

THE FLOWERS:

Actually it’s not the flowers, but the lack thereof.  I refused to carry a bouquet.  I don’t like being the center of attention and holding an object in my hand was not an option.  Again, this was a huge scandal.  Was it a wedding or a funeral?  Why didn’t I want flowers?  If the display of  flowers had genuinely had anything to do with me, I’d have caved.  If having an ostentatious flower arrangement means that mamma can gloat in front of her sisters-hell no.  No flowers.

THE BOMBONIERE:

For those of you unfamiliar with Italian celebrations let me explain the bomboniere to you.  As I’ve come to learn from my wedding and two others, weddings are not fun.  They are excruciating and to be avoided at all costs.  However, one of the prerequisites for any wedding is that you give all the guests some hideous little knick-knack to, in theory, put on a shelf and remember the day forever.  Most honest Italians will tell you that the bomboniere is taken, laughed at or criticized and thrown away withing 2-6 weeks.  Because in order to be a good bomboniere it must be as gaudy and useless as possible.  Let me show you an example:

Keep in mind that this is going to set most folks back between 5-10 euro each, multiplied by 40-50 pieces.  You get my drift.  So instead we decided to give everyone something useful.  A set of liqueur glasses.  Ok, maybe it wasn’t the best consolation prize ever and I’m sure many a relative scoffed at it, but you tell me which you’d prefer.  The difficulty was in finding enough of the same set of glasses.  You all do realize of course that someone could have been highly offended if their set of glasses were different.

At this point you’re all wondering about the wedding.  That’s next time.  Partially because reliving it all is both liberating and painful at the same time.  To help you imagine the big day, just think of 2 fighting families, moving ti a new house the week you get married, and a big bag of snails…

For two years after I returned to New York I lived in the neighborhood that I grew up in: Howard Beach. When I left I had sworn that I would never go back to the place that I spent my late teens running from, but rents were astronomical and with the realization that I wanted to be an artist came the tricky task of providing for myself. I knew that it would take me awhile to find an art/money balance and in the meantime I had no interest in living like a starving artist — I would take screaming Italians over Ramen noodles any day.

Everyday I ran like a banshee to catch the Q41, which only came twice an hour, to connect to the A train at the JFK stop. My backpack was more like a mini-mobile home because when you live farfar away there is no hope of going back home to grab that sequin blouse which you didn’t think you would need but turns out you do. So, I had to bring everything that I needed and everything that I might need. On a typical day I would have: dance clothes, tap shoes, book, almost-finished newspaper, planner, camera, comb, make-up bag, costume for the night’s show, towel and soap for a post-class shower, lunch, snack and sometimes even dinner (I never let good meatballs go to waste). It was like I was a backpacker, except without the exotic location and vacation time.

My angst grew. I went through the stages of grief over my situation. :
Denial: “No, I ‘m not really living here, I am just staying here.” and “It’s not big deal, jut a few things to carry around.”
Anger: “Why was I born into a family who lives so far away from civilization?”
Bargaining: “OK, if I live here for a few years, divine retribution guarantees that I’ll find an amazing apartment when I move.”
Depression: “I should quite everything and get a civil servant job like my mother keeps telling me to do.”
Acceptance: “OK, I live here and now is the time how to figure out how to get the hell out. “

Because I was still working out my art/money balance getting out meant that I started being the cat-sit, dog-sit, house-sit, plant-sit, turtle-sit whore for homes from Harlem to Greenpoint. I got to explore NY, learn a lot about what its like to live in lots of different neighborhoods and the habits of spoiled pets, some of whom ate better than me. After all that moving I officially moved out of Howard Beach to Brooklyn, two blocks from where my mother grew up (how is that for irony?)

I looked at my backpack this morning and thought back to the Howard Beach lugging days. And laughed, because my backpack is not so much smaller. Why? Because this is NY and unless your life revolves around a five block radius do you ever get the chance to run home? I still have my workout clothes, a lunch, a book, a planner, a camera…On the train today I noticed that about half the people on it had similar bags. We are all backpackers, the urban kind.

My questions is: What was the strangest thing in your backpack today?
I’ll go first: attachable “6-month pregnant” belly to practice for an upcoming character/film. What about you?