Gli istinti primordiali dell'America di Trump

La pancia degli Usa stanotte ha di nuovo premiato The Donald, che vinca o perda per un pelo. New York e la California sono ancora un altro mondo

di Mauro Suttora

Huffington Post, 4 novembre 2020


La moglie del miliardario di Manhattan, per dimostrare che anche lei è alla mano, per una volta lascia tranquillo lo chauffeur della sua limousine personale e sale su un ‘crosstown’ bus, quelli che che attraverso Central Park collegano l’Upper East all’Upper West Side. Entra dalla porta anteriore, versa le monetine del biglietto sotto gli occhi dell’autista sudamericano e gli cinguetta democratica: “How are you today?”. Non paga, all’uscita gli sorride di nuovo augurandogli “Have a nice day”.

Ho assistito a questa scena agghiacciante nel 2002, all’inizio dei miei quattro anni di lavoro a New York, e ho capito due cose: l’ipocrisia del politicamente corretto, e la presidenza Trump. Allora c’era Bush junior, ma è lo stesso: la riccona aveva votato a sinistra, e l’autista del bus per il fascistone.

Può darsi che l’azienda di trasporti newyorkese paghi un’indennità ai conducenti per le molestie verbali finto-cordiali che subiscono, però poi quelli si vendicano nel segreto dell’urna. E lo hanno fatto anche ieri premiando di nuovo Trump, che o vince o perde per un pelo.

Ormai lo abbiamo stracapito. Esiste un confine invalicabile fra gli Stati Uniti dei soldi e dei cervelli, della California e di New York, di Silicon Valley, Hollywood e Wall Street, e tutto il resto: contadini dell’Iowa, simpatici burini texani, anticastristi in Florida, operai licenziati a Detroit, patrioti del New Jersey che esibiscono la bandiera a stelle e strisce sulla porta di casa.

Ma non solo. Ho conosciuto bene una trumpiana: la mia ex fidanzata americana. Colta (laurea su Derrida all’università Vanderbilt), cosmopolita (vacanze fra lago di Como e campi di golf inglesi), elegante (villa accanto a quella della famiglia di Grace Kelly, nei quartieri residenziali di Filadelfia).

Se Trump si è impossessato di nuovo della progredita Pennsylvania, deve ringraziare anche lei.

Nonostante il fisico etereo e l’aspetto angelico, era favorevole alla pena di morte: “You get what you give, ricevi quel che dai”, sentenziava biblica. Contraria alla sanità gratis: “Lavori e ti paghi l’assicurazione”. Pro guerra in Iraq: “Vendichiamo le torri gemelle”. Sussidi di disoccupazione? “Solo per qualche mese, poi muovi il culo”. Reddito di cittadinanza: “Are you kidding me, stai scherzando?”. I cinesi? “Bastardi, ci rubano il lavoro”.

L’amore rende ciechi, ma confesso che in fondo ero un po’ affascinato da questi sentimenti primordiali. Gli stessi che hanno conquistato di nuovo metà America stanotte.

Mauro Suttora

Kate Moss, la più bella del mondo

LA SUPERMODELLA CELEBRATA CON UN LIBRO FOTOGRAFICO RIZZOLI. MA SECONDO SGARBI E MUGHINI...

di Mauro Suttora

Oggi, 5 dicembre 2012

«Certo che Kate Moss è la più bella del mondo. Ma lo è perché possiede il fascino perverso delle bad girls, le cattive ragazze. Se una donna non ha rovinato la vita a qualcuno, io non la considero neanche».

Originale come sempre, Giampiero Mughini vota Kate anche perché ha appena scritto un libro sull’argomento: Addio gran secolo dei nostri vent’anni: città, eroi e bad girls del Novecento (Bompiani). In cui racconta i sogni provocati da donne inarrivabili come Marilyn Monroe, Brigitte Bardot, Sophia Loren.

E oggi, chi ha preso il posto di quelle dee? C’è una bellezza che passerà alla storia come la più bella del primo decennio del terzo millennio? Quello degli “anni Zero”, come sono stati definiti spregiativamente da chi ne denuncia il vuoto, come Mughini. Ora che siamo ben inoltrati negli “anni Dieci”, riusciamo a non avere nostalgia per le icone del recente passato?

«A ben pensarci anche Kate Moss è figlia del ’900», dice Mughini, «perché era già lei a 16 anni. Quindi è una creatura degli anni ’90».

Ma proprio ora che di anni ne ha quasi 39, Kate celebra il proprio trionfo planetario. Perché nel 2012 è stata scelta come testimonial da ben tre marchi (Mango, Supreme e Liu-Jo) che si rivolgono alle giovanissime. Perché è appena uscito un libro che raccoglie tutte le foto che le hanno scattato in un quarto di secolo i migliori fotografi del mondo. Perché continua a collezionare copertine su copertine (Vanity Fair Usa di dicembre). E perché qualunque cosa faccia e dica (anzi: non dica, perchè parla pochissimo, e le poche cose che sussurra non vanno oltre qualche banalità dispensata a giornalisti adoranti), il suo status di icona globale ne esce rafforzato.

Ristorante nell’Upper East Side

Conferma Romolo Algeni, che spesso la ospita nel suo ristorante Paola’s dell’Upper East Side a Manhattan: «Ha un fascino incredibile anche di persona, l’ultima volta è venuta a cena a settembre con un’amica che vive qua dietro, su Park Avenue. Era a New York per gli U.S. Open di tennis. È bassina, ma ha un viso molto dolce».

«È più difficile oggi, rispetto a 50 anni fa, individuare un modello unico di bellezza femminile», ci dice Vittorio Sgarbi, «perché in tutti i campi c’è una moltiplicazione di promotori. Anche nell’arte: ora perfino per Picasso sarebbe più complicato emergere. Quindi sì, certo, Kate Moss. Ma allora anche Angelina Jolie, o Monica Bellucci... Secondo me, per esempio, oggi la più bella del mondo è la rumena Madalina Ghenea, che ho ammirato a Ballando sotto le stelle».

«Come scelta personale allora io dico Léa Seydoux», vota Mughini, «una francese splendida nel film Midnight in Paris di Woody Allen e nell’ultimo Mission impossible con Tom Cruise».

La parola a un altro critico d’arte, Luca Beatrice: «Distinguiamo: una cosa è un’icona, un’altra una ficona. Kate Moss appartiene alla prima categoria: immagine potentissima, ma non fa sognare. Io preferisco donne morbide, curve e sesso vero: Laetitia Casta, Belen Rodriguez, la Bellucci».

«La bellezza non è mai un valore assoluto», ragiona il fotografo di moda Settimio Benedusi, «e Kate Moss come modella ha tanti limiti: è piccolina, seno minuscolo,  troppo anglosassone. Insomma, non si può dire che sia di una bellezza incredibile. Però emerse grazie al fidanzato-fotografo Mario Sorrenti perché era diretta e naturale. Poi, quando raggiungi lo status di icona, puoi permetterti tutto. Oggi ci sono decine di modelle più belle di lei, l’italiana Bianca Balti per prima. Ma, così come Madonna è un’icona della musica anche se non sa cantare, Kate Moss va al di là della bellezza».

E infatti: «Preferisco Scarlett Johansson, burrosetta e proporzionata, anche se ha troppi tatuaggi», ci dice Beppe Severgnini.

«Kate Moss è sempre una divina», obietta Gianemilio Mazzoleni, vicedirettore di Style, mensile del Corriere della Sera, «anche se è così sovraesposta che ti pare un po’ di conoscerla, come tua moglie. Io sono un grande fan di Eva Green. Ma tra le donne “patinate” poche hanno il fascino di Rachel Weisz, anche se è ormai sulla quarantina».

Insomma, sì a Kate Moss ma con riserva. E le riserve si moltiplicano se si esamina la biografia della nostra “divina”. La quale, contrariamente a un’altra ex modella diventata attrice da Oscar, Charlize Theron, non vanta alcuna altra dote tranne il proprio viso e magnetismo: non sa cantare, non sa recitare.

«Non lamentarti e non spiegare mai»

«Never explain, never complain»: non spiegare mai, non lamentarti mai, le aveva insegnato l’ex fidanzato Johnny Depp, prima di mollarla spezzandole il cuore. Cioè: mantieni un profilo basso, non dire gli affari tuoi ai giornalisti, fai la misteriosa come Greta Garbo.

Obiettivo raggiunto: grazie alle rarissime interviste, concesse solo per obblighi contrattuali quando fa la testimonial superpagata per qualche marchio, Kate Moss non ha dovuto spiegare nulla sulle sue avventure con cocaina, anoressia e mariti vari di scarsa qualità (altro che i partner fiammeggianti di una Liz Taylor o di BB).

Così i giornali tabloid possono sfogarsi solo mostrandone le bucce d’arancia sulle gambette stortignaccole, e lei può continuare a folleggiare nei party privati della sua Londra. Tanto, è un’icona.

Mauro Suttora   

   

"Obama? Carino"

L'America che non vota

"Il nuovo presidente? E' un mulatto carino"

Libero, venerdì 7 novembre 2008

di Mauro Suttora

«He looks kinda nice, though…»: con l’indifferenza di chi viene solo annoiata dalla politica, la mia ex fidanzata americana Marsha commenta l’elezione di Obama. «Però è carino»: è questo il giudizio più profondo che riesco a strapparle sul suo nuovo presidente.

Marsha, 34 anni, ex modella, stilista in erba, vive a Manhattan e in questi giorni ha ben altro a cui pensare: sta organizzando la sua prima sfilata d’autunno nel Connecticut. Sono passato a salutarla per Halloween, e lei mi ha portato nelle tre feste cui era invitata quella sera. Ora sta con uno del cinema («Un cameraman: sei come Julia Roberts», la prendo in giro), ma lui è a Los Angeles e lei continua a vivere sola nel monolocale «alcova» di un grattacielo dell’Upper East Side.
«Alcova» non ha niente di lussurioso: semplicemente, a New York chiamano così i monolocali con la pianta a elle, che permettono il «lusso» di non vedere subito il letto dalla porta d’entrata.

Marsha non ha mai votato in vita sua. Come quattro statunitensi adulti su dieci se ne frega allegramente della politica.
«Ma questo è un voto storico, no?», obietto.
«E perché?»
«Un nero, per la prima volta…»
«Veramente non è un nero vero, sua madre era bianca, no?»
«Vabbè, un mulatto, ma è proprio questa la grandezza dell’America».
«Grandezza, grandezza… Sei sempre innamorato dell’America, eh, Mauro?» Marsha mi ha sempre accusato di essermi messo con lei per questo, e non perché fossi innamorato di lei.
«Beh, non capita tutti i giorni che il figlio di un pastore di capre del Kenya e di una signorina del Kansas incontrata per caso a Honolulu diventi l’uomo più potente del mondo».
«Anch’io sono un miscuglio pazzesco, Mauro: un quarto irlandese, un quarto tedesca, un quarto italiana, solo un quarto americana di due generazioni».
«Obama è cresciuto in Indonesia, poi alle Hawaii, poi università a Los Angeles, New York, Boston… Sta a Chicago ma ha una nonnastra a Nairobi e una sorellastra a Giakarta. Non eri tu che lamenti sempre quanto siano provinciali i tuoi compatrioti, che otto su dieci non sono mai stati all’estero. Ecco Obama, un cittadino del mondo!»
«Come on, io sono nata a Filadelfia, università a Nashville e Firenze, abito a New York, ho lavorato a Roma, mio padre sta in Florida, mia mamma in New Jersey e le mie sorelle dall’altra parte del continente, in California e a Seattle. Tutti gli americani sono dei “bastardi” vagabondi».
«Quindi non voti neppure questa volta?»
«Troppa fatica. Non sono neanche registrata. Non saprei da dove cominciare. E poi troppe code, io ho da fare».
«Però eri bushiana».
«Ha fatto bene a combattere quei maledetti terroristi».
«Saddam non era di Al Qaeda».
«Che noia, Mauro. Ricominciamo?»
«Ammetti almeno che la guerra in Iraq è stata un errore».
«Boh. Tu, piuttosto, vai sempre a quelle cose contro la pena di morte? Ti ricordi?» (Incontrai Marsha cinque anni fa a un concerto all’Onu contro le esecuzioni capitali).
«Certo, e mi ricordo anche la tua opinione al riguardo: “Chi la fa l’aspetti, se uccidi è giusto che ti uccidano”…»
«Lo penso sempre, my dear».
«Incredibile che una donna fine e coltivata come te, laureata con tesi su Derrida, sia rimasta alla legge del taglione».
«Mauro, è Halloween, non litighiamo: let’s have fun, divertiamoci».

In realtà Marsha di questi tempi non si diverte molto: mi ha confessato di essere in rosso di 15 mila dollari con la sua carta di credito: «Passo il tempo a ristrutturare, rifinanziare e rinegoziare il mio debito. Se al mio prossimo trunk show [vendita privata di vestiti, ndr] non vendo abbastanza, non so neppure se mi conviene continuare a pagare duemila dollari al mese d’affitto qui a Manhattan. Dovrò trasferirmi a Brooklyn, o condividere un appartamento».

Facciamo il giro delle sue tre feste di Halloween. All’ultima, in una discoteca sulla Quinta Avenue, appena entrato corro nei bagni per la pipì. Mi ritrovo in una calca enorme, circondato da ragazze alte e bellissime. Penso di essermi sbagliato, forse ho bevuto troppo. «Ma è il bagno delle donne?», domando alla mia bionda vicina. «No, but we share», mi sorride lei, alitandomi alcol sul viso da cinque centimetri. No, ma condividiamo. L’era Obama è iniziata, ci sarà anche la crisi. Ma New York è sempre New York.

Mauro Suttora

Mauro of Manhattan

New York Observer

April 29, 2008

by Mauro Suttora

“Why do you keep replying, ‘Thank you, but we already have plans for that evening,’ Marsha, when you know we’re free?”
“It’s just an excuse, Mauro. I just want to avoid an invitation by boring people.”
“Yes, but it sounds too … How can I say? Grandiose to me. In Italy we don’t make plans. I mean, not normal people. The government, maybe, sometimes. At least they boast it, to impress voters and pretend they are in charge. But ordinary people …”
“We are not ordinary. We’re supposed to have plans in our life. They can’t invite us like that, on the snatch, impromptu, with only a few days’ notice.”
Marsha, my Upper East Side girlfriend, can’t understand how Italians can survive always improvising—without inviting, nor making theater reservations or booking restaurants one month in advance.
“Come on, Marsha, don’t play it big. Don’t act precious. If one of my Italian friends calls us to go out on that same evening, we don’t have to invent ‘plans’ for fear of showing that our life is empty. You know we love to spend most of our evenings here, sitting in front of the TV. Actually, upgrading our cable TV menu has flooded us with wonderful movies, and improved my English, although it has almost killed our social life…”
“That was your idea.”
“No, no, no, darling, my idea was just to replace a crummy old little TV set with something civilized.”
“Yes, but then you invaded our sitting room with a monster, this humongous 42 inches plasma. Where the hell am I supposed to place food and beverage for our next parties?”
“Actually, I haven’t finished yet.”
“I know. Don’t come up with that again. No way. Don’t get me started on your freaking sound system with wires all over the place. Don’t even raise the subject.”
“But Marsha, that’s the normal consequence of buying a large-screen TV. What do we make of it, if the sound is not comparable to the vision, at the same excellence level?”
“It’s already stereo.”
“We’re talking ‘home cinema’ here, milady. … ‘Dolby Surround system.’ Remember the private screening we were invited to by the Italian distributor of Woody Allen’s Scoop in his luxurious Palazzo Borghese apartment in Rome?”
“Gee, but that was another planet. They are professionals, that’s their field. We are not movie geeks. Come on.”
“I just saw a five channels 400 dollars sound system in the store near my Rizzoli Bookstore office, on 57th Street.”
“I told you: I don’t want any of your ‘surround’ sound around here. Not that I don’t appreciate your will for improvement, but the only thing I’ll be surrounded by will be wires. See this? They’re already mushrooming all over: the TV cable, the connection to the DVD, the wire for the pay-TV box, the high-speed Internet, the telephone ... There’s such an intricated bush under the plasma screen. It was supposed to save room, but now it’s invading us.”
“It’s wireless.”
“What?”
“Yes, wireless.”
“You mean the five speakers come without wires?”
“Yeah … kind of.”
“Kind of what? The last time we had something wireless around, it was that pirate neighbor of us who stole from our wi-max, getting connected for free and making us pay for his all-night porno browsing and wanderings around the Net.”
“We discovered that almost immediately.”
“Yes, after some wonderful astronomical bills … You don’t like flat rates, do you?”
“The sound system is almost totally wireless, Marsha, I swear.”
“What do you mean ‘almost’? ‘Almost totally’ sounds sooo Italian. Like ‘Almost pregnant’.”
“The rear speakers are wireless.”
“You mean two out of five.”
“Yes ... But that’s the crucial problem we have overcome here, Marsha. Three speakers stay on the wall in front, connected by small threads we can easily disguise along the baseboard. And on this side of the room, behind the sofa, we place the other three pieces.”
“Three? Why one more? For a total of six speakers?”
“One is just a little box getting the radio signal from the other side, and distributing it to the rear speakers.”
“And that horrible big thing you showed me, what’s its name?”
“The bass subwoofer?”
“It’s too big. Where are we going to place it?”
“Did you prefer the old way, when all the speakers where huge?”
“At least they were only two, not six.”
“I love you, Marsha.”
“You stress me, Mauro. Do we have plans for tonight?”
“…”
“Don’t …”
“…”
“Come on, don’t start and touch me, I have to shower, been working all day.”
“I llloove your sexy smell.”
“I know what your plans are, regarding me. They are always the same, when we sit alone on the sofa. You only have sex in your mind.”
“I do have plans for you. I always have plans. I am a natural-born planner, my love. I wouldn’t have ventured in Iraq without a plan, like your president did, my sweet bushie …”

Mauro Suttora

wiki

Mauro of Manhattan

New York Observer column, January 7, 2007

I meet Marsha’s mother two weeks after at Bloomingdales. I was lured there after work for a cocktail presentation of I don’t remember which new product. Marsha had given me an appointment at 6 p.m., and here she comes with her mummy: “We just met by chance at the first floor, she was Christmas shopping”, she tells me, false as Judas. I take it as a real ambush.

The lady looks the same as in the pictures, a nice bottle-blonde plastic-enhanced 60-year-old like 100,000 others in the Upper East Side. Fake nose, uplifted eyes, lackadaisical smile, incredibly elegant, foulard around her neck, haughty gait. Her only physical qualities, to my eyes: slim, perfect figure, beautiful legs and wonderful ankles. Like her daughter. So, Marsha too looks promising for the next thirty years. I have to confess I also took a glance at the senior’s pelvis: Marsha’s one worries me, because it’s too thin for her to become a good breeder. I know it’s shameful to admit it, I might be a maniac, but a peaceful pregnancy is an important feature of our future marriage.

Conversation with mother unwinds trivial as the phone calls between her and Marsha that I know so well: “Traffic is so horrible these days my dear, it’s impossible to go around before Christmas and it’s getting worse year after year...”
“Yes madam what a headache to find taxis and they’re useless anyway as they get trapped in the jams like any other car, the same goes with buses...”
“And let’s not talk about the subway it’s sooo overcrowded”.
Commonplace but surreal remarks, Bloomingdales being three blocks away from her penthouse. But the lady prefers to torture her chauffeur by taking the limousine, instead than walking three minutes.

“Be our guest before Christmas,” she invites-orders imperiously towards the end of our chat. I’m trapped. I can’t escape.
During the next few days I deftly negotiate the whereabouts of the gloomy family event. My last redoubt is not meeting the parents at their place, which would be tantamount to an official engagement with Marsha.
“Let’k keep it casual, what about a nice pizza at La Houppa?” I suggest with nonchalance.
La Houppa, a jewelry store on East 64th Street where they sell pizzas instead than (but at the price of) diamonds.

Arrives the lethal dinner. Marsha’s sister and her boyfriend are joining us. Will they lighten the atmosphere or make the evening more formal (the ‘whole’ family)? But, surprise: between my future father-in-law and me it’s love at first sight. We both order a capricciosa, and this similarity of taste seems to immediately raise his enthusiasm. Of course we start talking about Italy, and he goes on and on reminiscing about all of his Italian journeys.
I look at him: it’s a wonder such an angel-shaped Marsha came out of this chubby man with a red face. Softened by nostalgia and pinot bianco, he goes into raptures when I answer his question: “How do you like America?”
“I love it,” I reply, and it’s true. I omit to specify that I prefer Bob Dylan’s America to George Bush bigots: he is satisfied realizing that there is at least one European who doesn’t hate the States.
“Why do they all hate us?” he asks kind of worried.
“Well, the war in Iraq...” I begin to try and answer.
He stops me right away: “But that son of a bitch Saddam, didn’t he deserve a good blow?”
“Of course yes,” I say sincerely. And this is enough for him.
He then gets carried away by a stupid pun of mine: “We’re stuck in Iraq.”
“I love the rhyme, but in particular the fact you said ‘We’ and not ‘You’. Means that you feel like one of us. There are Italian soldiers in Iraq too, aren’t there?”
I would have never thought that one day I’d be thankful to premier Silvio Berlusconi for making me conquer my girlfriend’s father by sending troops to Baghdad. But this is exactly what happened one December night in 2006...

By now Marsha’s sturdy dad considers me one of the family, he begins to call me “son”. He forgets I’m only 15 years his junior, maybe he mistakes me for the male offspring he never had. Our idyll climaxes when we discover we both share a humiliating predilection for an obscure Sixties band called The Moody Blues.
“... ‘Nights in White Satin?” he asks me, embarrassed.
“Well, yes.”
“But it’s impossible for you to know them, son.”
“Why?”
“Because I used to dance to that song in the summer of ’67. I remember exactly the year because that’s when I met my wife. Do you remember, Jane?”
“Of course,” she says.
“Well, I remember too,” I throw myself in, “I was seven years old and they always played it in the jukebox at the Termoli beach, Molise region.”
This accuracy of mine makes him adore me: “I love precise people.”
Now that I understand he’s stuck like me at the anal stage, I turn pitiless: “In Italy that song was mostly successful in a cover version, translated by the band Dik Dik.”

The typical Virgo orgasm I know he’s reaching at this very moment makes him forget to calculate my real age: knowing I was seven 39 years ago, it wouldn’t be difficult (“Mauro is fortyish,” Marsha had lied to him). On the contrary, he states ecstatic: “‘Nights in White Satin’ is the best slow song ever. We used to dance to it in Washington, do you remember dear?”
“Sir, allow me to place it at the same level of ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ by Procol Harum, from that same summer.”
He turns slowly his head from his wife to me. He’s overwhelmed. He looks at me wet-eyed: “Son, you are the Bible, you are a living encyclopedia, you, you are... fantastic! You are so right, oh, the Procol Harum! How could I forget them?”

Marsha hates these retro musical predilections of mine. Our conversation is boring her. She discovered the Moody Blues and Procol Harum only because we had a small fight when I dared to invite her to one of their concerts: “Listen Mauro”, she had replied, “to be honest with you I really can’t stand that kind of music. A few days after we met you dragged me to a Jorma Kaukonen or whatever-was-is-name concert, and I accepted only because I was thrilled by all of your invitations, and because I thought it would be a palatable thing anyway. But let me tell you, that was a real drag. Now, if you want to make up for all of your lost time go ahead and do it, but please don’t you ever try and involve me again in one of these so very sad revivals of yours... No wonder they take place in places named with sad names such as The Bottom Line or The Bitter End, which sooner or later have to close down like the Cbgb due to the death of all of their customers, not to talk about the Beacon Theatre where you took me to watch the Allman Brothers, surrounded by drunk beer-smelling and pot-smoking 60-year-old New Jersey truckers...”

So, I have to go by myself to the concerts of all of my idols from the Sixties, some of whom never ventured in concert in Italy in the past 30 years, such as Crosby Stills and Nash, Jefferson Airplane, Steve Winwood, James Brown, Arlo Guthrie or the Eagles. In the famed Town Hall theatre, where Charlie Parker invented bebop jazz in ’45, I saw Art Garfunkel coming out of the formalin with exactly the same hair from decades ago. But this didn’t stop me from renting a car to go to as far as Albany in order to admire him again, this time coupled with Paul Simon.
Sometimes I even venture into fan club meetings, such as the yearly world reunion of Leonard Cohen at Columbia university in 2004, only to discover I have nothing in common with that bunch of alienated nerds. I reached the top in Alexandria, Louisiana, during a Mardi Gras with Chubby Checker, the inventor of twist, which was the first music I danced to in 1963 at the Lignano beach (my father shot a super8 home movie to document the event). I have no friends in New York City to share this nostalgia perversion with, except for my Italian journalist colleague Christian Rocca with whom I went to see Neil Young at Radio City Music Hall just before (or was it after?) the stroke that he brilliantly survived.
But now, here is my prospective father-in-law as companion of future raids into catheterock. Those type of concerts are challenging and never-ending, because at half-time the musicians always promise: “We’ll be back in a moment”. That is never true: intermissions last at least three quarters of an hour, as the public of former hippies has weak prostates, everybody needs to take a pee, so endless queues form in front of the toilets.

After the musical acme, we reach for the desserts. If he could, now Marsha’s father would marry me directly, instead than giving me his daughter. Or he would immediately appoint me director of his company, which produces bottle caps. I already see myself swimming in a sea of caps, like Scrooge swimming in his golden money. He inquires absentmindedly about my job, and delivers his presumptuous advise: “Son, the future of journalism is in the web”.

I feel like Dustin Hoffman in ‘The Graduate’: “Thank you very much, I had never thought about it”, I almost reply, but I don’t want to ruin the superfriendly atmosphere. He seems impressed by the fact that I have been writing for ‘Newsweek’ and ‘The New York Observer’: “They’re way too liberal for my taste, but I love the real estate column of the Observer”.
Dinner ends talking real estate: Marsha’s parents are about to buy something for her sister: “Maybe a little condo in Trump’s Park Avenue”, drops mother Jane. “I heard the same apartment costs one million more if you go up just one store: ten millions on the twentieth, eleven on the twenty-first, and so on...”, she adds, faking ignorance (her only read besides women’s mags is real estate, as well).

Now, this is an incredible oblique way to tell me: “Son, be good, kneel down in front of Marsha, give her the ring, become her puppy-dog, and you’ll be rewarded with the same godsend which is about to come down on that schmuck future brother-in-law of yours...” Such a cheap shot, very cheap, let me tell you madam. You were able to ruin with only a few word the magic atmosphere your husband had built between me and the Family. Because you surely know, your beloved daughter must have told you, that the building at the corner of Park and 59 bought and renovated by Donald Trump in 2004 is the former Delmonico Hotel, famous for hosting the Beatles during the summer of ’64, the second time they came to New York (the first time they stayed at the Plaza). It was there they met Bob Dylan, who offered them their first joint. That’s why it looks so irresistible to me, although I must be the only one - among the foreign billionaires buying there thanks to the weak dollar - to know about this.

We get out of La Houppa, exchange our greetings, and I take a taxi with Marsha. She is radiant with happiness: “Mauro, this was such a success! They love you.” I feel like I am about to dive into a fast, asphyxiating engagement, as light as quick setting concrete. If not in the Delmonico, I’ll end up in one of those terrorizing penthouses reachable by pressing PH in the elevator, but only if you have the key to insert on the side. And once you are up, you find yourself directly in the house, there is no landing. When I’ll have parties I’ll be obliged to spend thousands for catering at Fauchon, and waiters in uniform will wander around my place.
Most of all: we’ll not even be able to reach the Hamptons by helicopter, because Marsha, like her mother, is going to object: “What if someone we know spots us at the heliport, finding out we can’t afford to buy one, and that we are reduced to rent?”

Mauro Suttora

Mauro of Manhattan

NO SEX IN THE CITY

New York Observer, April 12, 2004

by Mauro Suttora

http://observer.com/2004/04/mauro-of-manhattan/

We are done with Sex and the City here in Manhattan, but in Italy they’re still airing last year’s episodes and dubbing the final series. Many Italians are crazy about it, and ask me how the real thing is in New York. 

After one year of living in the city (and witnessing one episode being shot right where I work, at the Rizzoli bookstore on 57th Street), I can reply: Liza, Manhattan, in her mid-30′s. Tall, beautiful, sexy: an irresistible smash. Let’s be scientific: My friend Andrea Califano, professor of genomics at Columbia University, explains that Liza is the perfect phenotype, meaning a genotype (the universal “fashion victim”) who can be detected only in a specific environment (Upper East Side).

The night we met, I walked her home. She was heavily drunk, but found the lucidity to enter a deli and buy Altoids (giant American mints for your breath). In the phenotype language, that means “Kiss me.” Downstairs from her apartment, she muttered something about Eros Ramazzotti and Laura Pausini. I jumped right in: “Let me translate them for you.”

“You come and you go”, she ordered imperiously, pretending to get back in control. I was soon to learn that “pretending” and “control” are two main features of the Upper East Sider. Other key words are “stress” and “relax.”

“Let’s put on some relaxation music …. ” She stopped me when our lips touched. She kissed like a princess. She wore luscious leopard pants. But in bed, she turned out as warm as a Mont Blanc glacier. Nevertheless, I fell for her.

Frigidity is considered a minor problem by New Yorkers: They rely on 12-steps programs or yoga to overcome it. Once I went to bed with an exquisite divorcée. I tried hard to please her. “Don’t worry, I never come the first time,” she finally told me.

I couldn’t wait for the second time. Same scene, until she smiled: “I seldom come.”

This phenotype utilizes her vagina mainly to have monologues with. The 10021 zip code (richest on earth) is the empire of finger and clitoris: “The quickest way to a woman’s heart is through her clit,” wrote comedian Wanda Sykes on Esquire a few months ago. “When we say ‘Harder! Harder!’ that means ‘Take it out and touch my clit.’”

No wonder “vibrant” has become the most used positive adjective here.

Liza and me have been together for a few weeks. She was very affectionate: Every two to three hours, she called me or sent me e-mails and cell messages. She showered me with attentions and gifts: heart-shaped chocolates, little funny letters, candies against cough. We shared lunch breaks, she would come to pick me up at work, we slept together. She drank a lot. “I’ll dry you up,” I joked her. She didn’t appreciate. And I didn’t enjoy paying the fantastic wine bills in restaurants.

She wore Prada shoes, Bulgari watches, Helen Yarmak furs. She used to carry her $2,000 Dolce and Gabbana bag hanging on her arm protruded in front of her, strutting majestically as if she held some imaginary cup in her hand. 

She would rarely venture west of Sixth Avenue and south of 50th Street: “I don’t like downtown; it’s dirty.” She couldn’t walk with her impressive high heels on, so plenty of taxis were essential. She was constantly in debt: rescheduling, consolidating, refinancing it.

She didn’t mention children, although her child-bearing time was running out. It’s incredible how New York women believe they can easily be mothers at 40. Little by little, she took more time for herself: girlies’ nights, gym, jogging, shopping, hairdresser, errands, bikini wax, facials, sunbathing on the rooftop …. Nails, most of all.

“I am stressed, I have to relax, I need my space,” she would tell me while canceling dates.

“Have you ever thought of incorporating me in your relaxation time, or making love is just one more tiresome activity for you?” I mildly protested.

She dumped me by e-mail. Suddenly, she didn’t want to see me nor even say a word on the phone. The day before, she was talking about us meeting her parents and making plans for a trip to Italy: schedules, planes to book, places to visit. The day after, she couldn’t stand me. 

“It is best to go our separate ways,” she wrote, “I feel suffocated. I tried to make things work but it was not there for me, I got caught up in the moment …. Who would not want to go to Italy? You are too much, I am overwhelmed.”

The cheapest Italian beach playboy would flush his used women down the toilet with more grace. Or perhaps we Eurotrash are too sentimental. I don’t mind being ditched, it was just the speed from sweet to sour which surprised me. I blamed this oligophrenia on the booze. I asked her the real reason for the turnaround.

“To be quite honest with you, I am in love with another man,” she replied. Ah, the usual Upper East Side sport: double dating, overbooking …. Poor him:Where was he during that month? There are many Lizas on those blocks. Not all necessarily gold diggers, nor man-eaters. Just “fear of commitment,” I am told. Or “decline of desire.” No sex in the city.

-Mauro Suttora