Without a Woman (cue the synthesizers . . .)

Working at Rizzoli I became very familiar with Italian pop music of that time. Rizzoli was one of the few places one could get international pop music and we would play a lot of Italian and French pop day in and day out. I grew to like a lot of it — Lucio Dalla and Eros Ramazzotti were two of my favorites, as was Zucchero. One of my favorite Zucchero albums was Zucchero Blues. He had a huge hit with the song, "Senza una donna." We played that album constantly but I enjoyed it. Anyway, Zucchero came out with an English-language album and he had quite a crossover hit with "Senza una donna," which he sang with British pop star Paul Young. Well, one day I was standing at the front register with Flor, one of the cashiers, and the song was playing in the store. I was humming and singing along then turned to Flor and said, "I've heard this song so many times, I understand all the words now." Flor looks at me and says, "He's singing in English."

Flor was a huge Eros fan and we went to see him together with another co-worker, Porfirio, at Radio City Music Hall. Flor screamed, fainted, danced, and hit Porfirio over and over again on the arm in her excitement and ecstasy throughout the entire concert. Poor Porf! His arm was entirely black and blue. I was glad that I was sitting on Porf's other side and not next to Flor. It was fun.