You're Wearing a Cynthia Mask

I went to see Robyn Hitchcock on Saturday. He is probably my favorite songwriter. I didn't realize you could take a camera inside, so these pictures are from my mobile.





Grant Lee Phillips made a special guest appearance, playing with Robyn acoustic and later with the full band. When he came out I yelled for the song "I Feel Beautiful," and they played it. It was kind of amazing.




Robyn's backing band was some of the guys from The Minus 5, who opened the night. I had never listened to them before, they were really great. Kind of like really early Wilco.






Everyone was on stage for the closing song, "I Wanna Destroy You," a tune from Robyn's old band Soft Boys. He dedicated it to President George W. Bush.

"It's Our Day"

I'm going to try to keep whining to a minimum in this blog overall, but I'll warn you this post has some.

Lots of folks asked how my Valentine's Day was. To be honest, it was kind of shitty. I worked from 4pm until 7:30am the following morning outputting a cut of a show that probably our executive in development will never actually watch. However, I escaped briefly to enjoy a delicious dinner Morgann made, as well as some Diddy Riese cookies Carly came through with. Lauren and Carrie provided additional humor and hospitality. Oh, and I baked cupcake-style brownies with chocolate chips, a hint of almond, and Reese's peanut butter cups in the center. So if you look at it that way, I spent Valentine's Day eating, drinking, and enjoying the company of four of the hottest girls I know. So what am I complaining about?

It's not commercialism or having no actual Valentine's date or even working obscene hours that I wanted to write about. It's my heritage. Allow me to explain:

I went to the gym that morning. My gym recently changed ownership and is now called SoCal Sports Club, but it's still run by the same type of guys. Italians. Why is it that Italian guys always run gyms? And they all look like they could be related to Lou Ferigno. I mean, I'm sure in southern California running a gym is extremely lucrative. And I'm pretty sure Italians love money, though I don't want to generalize. I certainly like it.

So the new owner, Jimmy, who answers "Fuggidaboudit" to most questions, is having a conversation with a large guy standing near me, and he finishes the chat with, "Hey, Al from Chicago wanted me to tell you Happy Valentine's Day. This is Our Day, pal."

For those that don't immediately pick up on the reference, the Al from Chicago is Al Capone, and he's talking about the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, initiated by Capone's mafia against competing bootlegger "Bugs" Moran. It was probably the bloodiest unsolved mob killing of its time. Now, was Jimmy being sarcastic? I'm not sure. While Italians often claim to want to break free of that gangster stereotype, most of us glorify it, even envy it. Italians like to be bad ass.

And by Italians, I mean third or fourth generation Italians living in the States. I've been to Italy a couple times. Real Italians are not tough. They're actually kind of sissy. They dress in super-tight jeans, wear sunglasses that are more like face shields, ride Vespas, and live with their parents until they're nearly 30. I've seen grown men get slapped in the head by their grandmothers over there.

But Italians in the States ooze machismo. And they talk to each other in these tough guy accents. You're not from the Bronx, ok gym guy? You've probably never even been to New York. Oh, and you guys from Boston, stop talking like that also. Using language from "The Sopranos" or calling pasta sauce "gravy" doesn't make you Italian.

Everyone stop trying to out-Italian the other guy, you all sound like morons. These guys will tell competing stories like, "Oh man, my grandmudda would spend 10 hours a day cookin' for us guys, wit da pasta and the capicola and the brooshetta." It's pronounced "brooSKettah." Learn some basic phonetics if you're going to try to impress me with your ethnicity. These guys never talk about Italian stuff they themselves did either, just stuff their justifiably more Italian ancestors did.

Given, being Italian is about pride. It's about family, history, quality of life. It's in the food, the music, the scenery. It's not in the killing. Or in the accent. Or in the tough guy posturing. So check your tired routine at the door, you're ruining my workout.