There may be some serious downsides to the internet but in general for most of us the internet is a fantastic device to experience a vast amount of exposure to a world of music.

I can go to youtube and listen to just about anything that has ever been recorded. That is pretty amazing!

For some unknown reason I did some research into the history of Doo [*****]. Think Little Anthony and the Imperials, Tears On My Pillow. If you are under fifty it is entirely possible you have never listen to that song.

Pretty deep university level explanations of music theory are available and are generally accurate and free.

Obviously, this post is a function of an internet forum which a bunch of us really like. Sometimes we act like children and get angry with one other, which is pretty normal I guess. We should all try to be kinder to each other.

The issues that we have all had to deal with in 2020 would have been more difficult to to get through without the internet.

I am glad to be here and thanks for putting up with me!!

Cheers,

Billy

EDIT: I had to laugh an the software not letting me write Doowop....lol Doo-[*****] (also spelled doowop and doo [*****]) is a genre of rhythm and blues music....lol

I'm 100% Italian-American and Doo-W0P doesn't bother me.

In the very late 1970s I was in the house band at a big hotel show-bar on Miami Beach.

On the weekend "past their prime" but still big stars came in and did two sets, we played before between and after. The Shirelles, The Blue Notes, many others and Little Anthony.

Little Anthony was a great singer, a great showman, had a small but well rehearsed touring band, and he was a heck of a nice guy.

Just wanted to share that.

Insights and incites by Notes

I'm 50% Italian American and Doo-W o p doesn't bother me either. It is the name of a music genre and not a slander against Italians. However I don't know if people in Italy take the term offensively.

Didn't that word originate from immigrants coming over without documentation? Meaning With Out Papers?

I remember an Italian guy I knew when I was young being called the name that sounds like "day go" and we thought it was a bad thing. We found out later in life that it literally just means "James". A slang pronunciation of "Diego".

Welcome to the wonderful world of political correctness. Which appears to apply to everything but that angry, sexist, racist rap music that use the dreaded "N work" in every line.

But let ME say it even once....

I understood why the software flagged the word. I also understand that the algorithm used to flag words is not designed well enough to distinguish when something is in another context.

A certain subset of people have become so sensitive to language that they are actually incorrectly interpreting the meaning in context for words. They sometimes become so involved in looking for words to construe as denigrating that they take on the stereotypical image's of the "homeowners association police". These people wrongly assume that we all react the same way to the words in question. This is simply not true as you can tell from the comments of Mario and Notes who are both intelligent enough to understand that the word that was flagged were not used to denigrate Italians.

The end results of all this is that it's become a real distraction and cause unnecessary polarization and anger and separation between people. We would all probably be better off if we "lighten up" a bit.

I think it is fabulous that Notes Norton was able to meet and experience live, people like Little Anthony. As wonderful as the internet is, it simply can not produce the same experience as having been there.

I have lived during a time that I got to see in person many iconic musical acts. Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Doors, just to name a few.

The internet does provide a way to remind me what it was like. Cool stuff!

Billy

That old saw has been in circulation for years but if you spend just a minute thinking about it, then everyone who arrived without papers or without a passport would be a have that term hung on them, not just the Italians. And an additional minute or two of thought should convince you that the majority of Italians would have arrived with proper papers, so why call all of them that?

The actual source of the term is from the Sicilian word guappo which meant a stud or a dandy but eventually came to mean a swaggering thug on this side of the pond.



Well, I know that like myself you are of Slovenian extraction (my mother was an Ulle). I grew up listening to my family and the folks around the SNPJ lodge refer to each other as Hunkies and Bohunks but let someone outside of the Slovenian community call them that and that person better have good dental insurance. Don't act like its any different.

When I was a kid, some of the others called Italian-American kids w0p or 'day-go' and it never bothered me. I took it as a badge of honor, as I was proud of my Italian heritage.

BTW, my last name of Norton was an effort to sound "American" when an uncle ran for Mayor in a town where anyone with a vowel at the end of their name couldn't even be elected to dog-catcher.

It seems to me in this day and age of people eager to take offense at a term, turning it around and being proud of that name defuses any stressful feelings. It's all about choice in your own mind.

On the other hand, if you know someone is sensitive to a term, be kind and just don't use it.

Insights and incites by Notes

My youth was in a neighborhood comprised of every kind of Slavic ethnicity, so we heard them all. Slovenians, Croats, Serbs, Czechs, Hungarians, Romanians, Polacks, Austrians... that whole area was represented. And the term others called all of those ethnicities was "DPs", for "displaced persons". One of my old Italian pals had a father named Tony, and he told us, with his perfect Bob Newhart deadpan face, that Italians were all named Tony because when they were herded onto ships to come over they had a piece of tape stuck on their shirt that said ToNY, meaning "To New York". And we bought that! I mean we were little kids. In our hood all the Italians that had "2 part" names, like LoPresti, LaRocco, DiBello, DiLisi, DeGeronimo.... we just called them all "Deuce" because they had 2 names. I later learned that Slovenians were called "Grinders" and there was much folklore about that, ranging from the love of polka music, which led to accordion players being called organ grinders, to the prevalence of Slovenian immigrants taking jobs in machine shops that did a lot of industrial milling and such, which was called grinding. The Wiki version is that grinder is a derivative of a German word "Krainer", meaning someone from the German area of Krain, near the Hungarian border.

Most of my education about ethnicity came when I joined the Army and met people from all over the country. On those late nights late in the month when nobody had money we would buy cheap beer and sit around the barracks drinking and talking about such things. I remember Mike Gilhooley, who we all though was Irish, telling us that his family roots were in England. And a guy named Wright, with flaming orange hair, was a Native American. He used to laugh saying "Apparently mama got around." Those conversations were really interesting. Etymology of any kind is fascinating stuff. Words, people, sports, music....

Keith, did you not tell me once that you are from PA originally? SNPJ is HUGE up around the Great Lakes. We got that SNPJ newspaper at our house every month, and a quick search shows it is still being published. Man, THAT is a flashback right there!

My ancestry is from Ljubljana. My sibling and I were not permitted to speak Slovenian, or attempt to. We were told that we were born in Ohio and we were AMERICANS, and Americans spoke English, not Slovenian. My parents spoke fluent Slovenian and every time they did we knew it was about us. LOL! Cut my drinking teeth on Rolling Rock, and my music life started with polka and waltz because that's what little Slovenian boys did, play the accordion. That only lasted until the Beatles came around, but it was a good foundation to learn about rhythm and harmony. My first teacher was an old school German man who was strict in his musical discipline, and later in life I was grateful for everything I hated him for then!!

Yes, before I went off to college, I lived in the Johnstown area of PA which is a big time Slovenian stronghold, especially the East Conemaugh section. I'm still a member of SNPJ and got my 50 year membership pin in the mail on my 68th birthday. There is absolutely no SNPJ presence in the South but I've maintained my membership because my Grandmother took out a life insurance policy with them for me when I was a kid and she would roll over in her grave if I let it lapse.

Small world. That is where my Great Grandfather, Joseph Ulle lived before he moved to Pennsylvania. I only learned a few words of Slovenian from my Grandparents because they were reluctant to teach me and my great grand parents could only swear in English.

That right there is the answer. Just be kind to everyone.

Everyone would benefit from "Just be kind to everyone"

In terms of language that means I should try not to use words that would offend anyone. It also means that others should assume I don't know everything and kindly inform me when I inadvertently use some offencive word.

Kindness works best when it is a two way street. There needs to be some ballance.

I don't have the experience of having grandparents or great grandparents or even great great grandparents who were born in some other country. I have been told that family before that came from Scotland. It certainly never occurred to me to identify as Scottish American.

I speak several languages and have lived in a couple of other countries. This has probably caused me to be less nationalistic. I have driven my car around in Rome enough that I know the city better than Miami. I love that country and the people there. I would be very happy to be Italian. The same goes for France and driving in Paris.

I live in Miami now so I speak the language of the people here, Spanish. I have even developed a Cuban accent...lol

Billy

I have always taken offense to people born in the USA putting their ancestral ethnicity in front of American. If your people from 250 years ago came from, let's just use Italy, you are not an Italian American. You are an American Italian. Born in America makes you American. If that person goes into the military it's to defend America, not Italy.

But also know that I think "proud" is a stupid word. When people say "I'm proud of my Mexican roots." I ask "Why?" You are proud to come from one of the dirtiest, nastiest places on the planet that is so corrupt and disgusting that Mexicans are willing to risk death and imprisonment to escape from there at any cost? What is there to be proud of? And what does proud even mean?

When I was young, I was a really good baseball player. Colleges were recruiting me (until they saw my grades) so pro teams came to visit me. The whole time my father wanted to be overly involved because he was "proud" of his little boy. And one day in front of a recruiter it came to a head when I told him "Why don't you leave the room? This doesn't involve you. What is it the YOU are proud of? Because I worked so hard to get to this place? This is my life and my decision. Take your proud talk somewhere else." He didn't run all those miles. He didn't lift those weights. He didn't take all that extra batting practice. I worked one summer on a garbage truck for $2.20 an hour because that was 5 hours every day lifting full trash cans and dumping them onto the truck. My chest and shoulders were never stronger. I did all of that. "Proud" is just a stupid concept. In any context. Be happy for someone else's success. And yes, you could say "proud" is exactly that, but it goes deeper. So to be "proud" of heritage.... Are Germans proud of a heritage that includes Adolph Hitler? If you are American, be American. Just American. I am interested in my heritage, but proud? Why? What did Yugoslavia do that evokes any sense of pride? Send us a really bad car in the early 80s? I want to go see the country, yes. It's a beautiful place. Ljubljana Castle in particular. But proud to be descended from Slovenian grandparents, 3 of whom I didn't know? Why?

Wow was THAT a tangent!

I am not an Italian American. I also am not an American Italian. I am an American, period!

My ancestry includes Italian, my father's side, and German, Irish, Scottish, English,and native American from my mother's side. Thus I am a typical American.

I find all the labels of ethnicity don't really convey much information . A lady I know on the next block is from Italy. We talk to each other, sometimes in English, sometimes in Spanish, sometimes in French, sometimes in Italian to the extent we both know those four languages.

She is more or less only identifiable as Italian because she was born there, a few typical Italian cultural characteristics and I guess because she can speak the Italian language.

She lives in an American house, drives a Japanese car, buys food at the same store I do and is married to a cuban man. Ninety nine percent of her life has nothing to do with Italy.

We both enjoy speaking to each other about things we remember from past experiences in Italy. It is pleasant to reminisce. This type of conversation only represents a small fraction of our communications with each other. The other things we talk about are in the here and now having nothing to do with where she is from.

If you are happy to be from a certain place, then fantastic. If you are identifying as a certain ethnicity to exclude others that has a very negative effect on the community you live in.

My USA passport says I was born in the USA so I assume that means I am American no matter if I like that or not. My French passport also says I was born in the USA, so I can't claim to be French...lol I can say when I live in France people who know me well consider me to be more French than American, mainly because I speak the most widely excepted dialect of French I think. I am no different when I am there than the Italian lady is here. When I am there Ninety nine percent of what I do relates to France and not the USA. So why would I try to identify as an American first?

The truth is we are all just people, hugely more alike than different.

Billy

We weren't taught the Italian language. My parents used it as a 'secret code' so they could talk without us knowing what they were saying.

They told us we were "American" and have no need for the language of the old country.

That's a shame because as an adult I struggle with Spanish. I can get by with 'baby talk' Spanish, and translator on my phone.

Eddie, I respectfully disagree with your concept of Mexico. There are indeed dirty, impoverished sections and cities, but we have a few of those ourselves. IMO the border towns are not the best Mexico has to offer.

I spent some time in Merida, Oaxaca, Guadalajara, Mexico City, and Cozumel. I found these cities to be as clean as ours, the people friendly and civilized, the food good, and they were as safe or safer than any US city of comparable size.

My grandparents came to the USA for a better life, so I can't fault others for doing the same. I think if we put the penalty on businesses that hire illegals, instead of the illegals themselves, the problem would be solved. If you hire an illegal you get a warning. Second time you lose your business license.

If the low wage jobs weren't here, they wouldn't come. The poor and destitute will come to where there is an opportunity, and brave dangers to do so.

I worked on cruise ships for 3 years, with people from over 30 countries in the crew. Many of them are making money and sending it home to feed a family in a place where there is less opportunity.

They slept 4 to a tiny cabin, shared bathroom down the hall, worked long hours, sent all their money home, and kept their dignity. That is quite a sacrifice to feed their families.

We are lucky to be born in the USA, others are lucky to be born in other countries with opportunities, and some are not.

IMO we have to quit thinking about anyone who isn't like us as 'the others'. I've been to over 40 countries on every continent but Antarctica and I find that at least 90% of the people just want to raise a family and make the world a little better for their children than it was for them.

After all, we Europeans in the Americas are 'the others' to the people who were here before us.

I also find the music from all these different countries and the immigrants that came here have shaped our American music in the most delightful way. I hear elements of many other countries integrated into rock, pop and our jazz music.

When asked what my heritage is, I call myself an Italian-American because I have no better way to describe it succinctly. But I consider myself American because I was born here. I've been to Italy, loved it, met my cousins, loved them, but I'm glad I was born here.

Insights and incites by Notes

The idea that people are Japanese-American, Italian-American or German-American instead of just American is what led to American citizens of Japanese heritage being removed from their homes, losing their livelihood and being forced to live in interment camps during World War II.

Just another shameful piece of America's past. The USA has a lot of good in it and a lot to be proud of but the way we sometimes treat our own citizens does not always accurately reflect our core beliefs. Inclusive in principal versus inclusive in practice turns out to be much more difficult than it should be.

Like almost every country, we have our good and bad points. In spite of the things we have gotten wrong, I still feel lucky to have been born here.

Amen brother, Amen.

Having access to the United States by whatever means is a real advantage, if you were born here or got here by some other means. There are some things that are just less difficult to do here. I find this one of the top two or three countries in the world to easily make money.

What I find less appealing about the United States is the attitude of "living to work" instead of "working to live".

I like working here best but I like living in Europe best. Playing live music in Europe is much more fun than here in the smaller venues. Playing in huge venues to me is more or less the same everywhere.

There are other great places in the world. Melbourne Australia comes to mind. Melbourne always ranks in the top ten best places to live in the world.

Every country has its own set of issues. No place is perfect. The United States has plenty of opportunity for a very wide variety of people.

Billy

And I am honored to have had the opportunity to defend it. Thought hey still have not given me a proper explanation of what I was defending halfway around the world. But that's okay. Much of what I became in every sense of the word directly relates to that 3 years of military service.

I tried to join when I was 18 but was 4F rejected.

My thanks to all who did what my country asked of them, even when I disagreed with what my country asked.

Same here in the early 80s. They didn't like my slightly crooked spine even though it's never been a health issue for me.

Yet they took me with my slightly crooked character....

When I went for my physical, which had been scheduled months in advance I hadn't quite gotten over a bronchitis episode and the doc didn't like the sound of my lungs.

Playing the saxophone for a living seems to have cured me of that.

I wanted to join the Air Force Band. Since in school I was first tenor in the all-state band every year I was eligible, and since I also got section leader, which goes to the first alto by default, I was sure I could pass the audition. But i never got that chance.

So I went on the road with a rock band instead. Not too bad of a trade

Insights and incites by Notes

David Sanborn overcame childhood polio by playing the sax.

I didn't know that.

I do know deep breathing is good for people with bronchitis. They cure people by swimming where they have to take deep breaths.

Too bad it doesn't cure male pattern baldness

That you blame on your genetics. Unless there's a "bald virus" I don't know about.