An update, more informants

Over this past week, my two underage informants totally balked when I mentioned getting their parents to sign a consent form, and that I didn't feel that I should or could talk to them further without a signed release. I am still going to pursue this, but I am going to operate under the assumption that those informants are lost. I don't want to get in trouble OR waste what little time I have talking to informants whose words or likenesses I cannot legally use.

Jesse GaGaa The Original Guido informed me on Wednesday that he won't be able to meet with me until the end of April because he is in Nashville until April 23 holding meetings about developing his Internet series.

I finally secured a car to use on the weekends, so now I don't feel as nervous about going to Bay Ridge alone. The neighborhood is not conducive to pedestrian visitors - it's a place where you have to drive, or you walk more than 20 long blocks from the subway to the main drag area (3rd Avenue, around 76th to 88th Streets) or you have to be willing to walk from place to place alone in the dark, where pedestrian traffic is scant, to bounce from one guido nightclub to the next, which I am simply not willing to do, and with good reason.

A few hours after getting the car, I drove into Bay Ridge, the Brooklyn neighborhood perhaps best known as guido central (Bensonhurst and Dyker Heights also fit into this category, but Bay Ridge is famed for it). I knew from reading people's complaints on Yelp.com that a bar called the Salty Dog was a place to find guidos. The Salty Dog is a restaurant and sports bar, but Yelp tipsters advised that after 10 p.m. and later, the clientele shifts to young guidos.

It looks like the bar's target demographic is the local firemen - there is a classic-car era shiny, red fire engine inside the bar, whose headlights and grill greet you like the mug of a friendly, overeager car from Toon Town. The bartender, Mike, wears a navy blue, short-sleeved polo shirt which I first mistake to be FDNY gear and later realize is embroidered with the Salty Dog logo, crafted to look just like a FDNY shield. But no one here looks like a firefighter. The bar, which has a maximum capacity of 200, is approximately half full, and about ninety percent of the patrons are young, white males and females under 25. I quickly spot four girls with poofs - bangs turned up and clipped into position, a good three inches high. Two of the four are even rocking the white clip, authentic Snooki guidette style.



For me this begs the question: Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Are these girls emulating Snooki with the poof & the clip, or is this a long-standing guidette look that Snooki also partakes in? My 15-year-old informant Nicole says that she rocked the poof before Snooki, but I still have to get her parents' permission.

The music inside the Salty Dog is Beyonce, KeSha, M.I.A, Jamie Foxx, lots of "featuring Lil John"s, and generally a Hot '97 circa 2005 playlist. Sean Paul comes on and I watch a group of guidettes react, smiling and "WOO"ing then dancing with their feet firmly in place, bouncing at the knees and looking up at nothing in particular (but don't their eyes look so doe-like and precious when they catch the light just so), red fruity cocktails in one hand, the other absent lingering about the shoulder and collarbone. In the time that it takes me to note these observations, two drinks have been spilled dangerously close to my pages, but the girls are apologetic and nice - either down-to-earth or scared shitless about a fight. Multiple Yelp users included in their reviews of the Salty Dog that fights break out in this bar with great frequency.

The females at the Salty Dog tonight are not model-thin: curvy is the mode. Also, it seems, are gold accessories and dark, straight hair. I spot three salon-blondes, but curly hair seems to be off limits.

I'm surveying the scene, my eyes on a petite, barely-21 looking girl with a poof and a long-sleeve, off-the-shoulder blue top, when the bartender, Mike, leans toward me and says, "You're out of luck tonight. Usually there are a lot of Ed Hardy wearing people in here - that's a telltale sign."

Knowing what I do about this place - that the twilight crowd has a propensity for fistfights - I'm feeling very nervous, shy, scared, intimidated about interrupting a group of friends and saying, "Hey do you call yourself a guido?" Plus, there aren't any outright obvious guidos here, and a lot of the girls have put their Bitch Faces on when our eyes have met, so I'm ready to move on to another location.

I decide to make a pit stop before I go, and I encounter blue-shirt-and-poof girl in the ladies room. I figure I can find out if she considers herself a guidette or not by asking her if she knows where I can find guidos. She gives me the names of two bars in the neighborhood, and warns me to be careful because there have been a lot of fights recently. I can tell from her tone, facial expression, and phrasing that she does not consider herself part of that group. I ask her if I am going to get punched in the face if I ask people if they are guidos. She smiles a soft, friendly smile and assures me I will not. "They're proud of that here," she says. "Why, you shy?" I thank her and she squeaks, "YeAAyah, it's no problem!" as she tosses and flops a wrist toward me.

I drive 11 blocks to Kettle Black, the closer of the two places she mentioned. [small, crowded space] Looking around, there are a lot of 20somethings here - in fact it looks like there are *only* 20somethings here - so many that I can't even see the bar or the bartender, and trying to walk into and through the place is difficult. Disappointingly, I don't see anyone who looks like a loud-and-proud guido. On my second lap through the place, I spot a guy with spiky, gelled hair, a Chanel logo earring in his left ear, and an Affliction t-shirt. Because, at this point, it is late and I am tired, I look him in the eyes for that one second too long that always makes a guy think you're interested, and his face changes. He opens his mouth to speak but before this process is complete I jump in: "Hey, can I ask you a question? I noticed your look and I was wondering if you call yourself a guido." He lets out a short laugh and says, "I mean I guess I am a guido, yeah." I explain to him my endeavor and he agrees to talk. "Yeah I'll help you out. Why don't we go over here, so we can talk, come on." He grabs my hand and leads me out of and away from the mess of people crowded by the bar, five heads deep. He holds my hand not low and comfortably, but about five feet high: I feel like our hand-holding is very conspicuously on display. Where we are standing now, it's no less quiet but there is a little breathing room. And we are away from the blond girl whose "I'll straight up murder your ass" stare of death had been burning a hole in the back of my head.
[blah blah more stuff]
Later we find a table to sit and continue talking. As he, Tom Mancusi, from the neighborhood by way of Staten Island, is telling me a bit of his personal history, he notices that my eyes have momentarily settled on his chain: a bulky, silver necklace with a wavy horn pendant. "It's called an Italian horn," he says. "It's a superstitious thing, I dunno. It's supposed to keep the Devil or all evil away." But what fascinates me more is how quickly Tom offers up the specs on his jewelry. "And this is a diamond cut silver chain, 24 inches. This is silver but I have the exact same thing in white gold. See I got this one for going out, this is my going out necklace, because I don't want to lose the white gold one, but if I lost this one ::shrugs:: it ain't such a thing. But you could say [for your article] it's white gold."

Almost serendipitously, Tom starts making distinctions about guidos, which is just the material I'm trying to get this evening. He tells me that he's got on Diesel jeans, but Armani jeans are the best for guidos. I ask him what kind of jacket he's got - he avoids answering me (for shame?) but tells me that "all guidos gotta have Northfaces." I ask what car he drives: "A white Cadillac Escalade. 2005. Ha, that's real guido. My old car that I sold had the navigation, DVD, subwoofers, all that, but you could say I got that in this car."

Tom tells me he has a membership to a tanning salon, but he can't even remember the name of the place because he doesn't go. Tom's skin is naturally olive and slightly dark - he looks like he can do without it and still "pass," to borrow a term from my transgender studies classes. Tom, however, is a smaller man than the stereotypical guido. He looks about 5'9", and is of lean-average build - not a bulky "juicehead" guido. I ask him about going to the gym. "Nah, I don't go to the gym a lot, because I'm naturally thin. But summer's comin' up so I go to the gym more. Gotta get that six pack, the abs goin'. You know that - it's not easy."

We talk a bit more about his usual summer plans. "Gotta go to Seaside, Point Pleasant every year, rent a house with my boys. We try to get like a four-bedroom house, but then there's always like 15 people there the whole time. Best time to go is that first week a August ta da end of of July...." he pauses to relish in this thought, and he brings his hand up as if to conduct the symphony of his memory, his thumb and forefinger gently touching creating the gesture for "OK." I ask him what he does there, if he goes surfing or swimming. He brushes off those ideas with a dismissive laugh and quick shake of the head and "Nah." "You just lay out, drink beer. Number One is look for girls. Nah I don't swim. I definitely don't surf."


Tom has agreed to spend some more time with me, introduce me to his friends, and take me out around to the "more guido" clubs. On Monday afternoon I also secured the creators of the Guidolicious clothing line, two self-identifying guido brothers from Little Falls, NJ, to participate in my ethnography.