Len Guardino's Theory of Man
WE HAVE AN early winner in the competition for Douchebag of the Year. Michael Gregory was apprehended in Long Island last week after a dopey prank where he and some teen friends faked a kidnapping. Having alarmed the community and wasted the valuable time of local cops, Gregory explained himself to the New York Post: "Look, I did a stupid fucking thing with my friends. I'm 21 years old."
"That's a perfect example of a lack of testosterone," Guardino declares. "I once went to see my daughter at her school, and there was a kid I knew sitting outside the nurse's office. I said, 'What are you doing here?' He showed me this little scratch on his knee. I said, 'What the hell are you doing?' He lived alone with his mother, who was an attorney. She had feminized this kid. When I was a kid, the nurse would smack me in the face if I went to her with a little scratch on my knee."
Thus speaks the greatest lounge singer in Manhattan.
Don't expect to be seeing Guardino in any lounges, though. He isn't joining me for lunch to promote any local appearances. He's got nothing on the national horizon, either. Guardino simply has a self-released, self-titled four-track EP that's like nothing you've heard before. Well, the actual cocktail jazz is catchy and familiar enough to make for fine library music. The accompanying philosophy is something new.
Consider the album's opening manifest of "Be the Man I Was Really Meant to Be." It's a striking response to the irritating "It's My Turn" feminist mentality once captured by Diana Ross, and still perpetuated by sappy indie gals such as Aimee Mann. Here's what liberated ladies can look forward to now that it's Len's turn:
You pushed me around/I never made a sound/Knocked myself out to make you what you are today/Treated you just like a movie star/But that's all over now/You'll see what it's like to be on your own/Pay for the house, the car, the phone/Work yourself like I did down to the bone?
Take that, spoiled single mothers! Guardino's apparently the kind of guy who'll get cabaret critics swooning in all the wrong ways. Len doesn't make any more friends as he instructs the ladies in "I'm a Man, Yes I Am." "All you have to do is walk behind me," he explains. "Stop wasting your time/On that women's lib line/You want to be happy/Make your life part of mine."
"They Call Me a City Slicker" is slightly more arrogant. Then the CD closes with the instrumental "They Tell Me I'm a Man," which wisely leaves the fainthearts a chance to catch their breath. Not even the most flapping wrists of an East Village jazz critic would applaud Len's liberated libido. Female critics will assuredly be a lot less friendly than Len's femme focus groups.
"I'm not stupid," Len says. "I played the songs for a lot of females, and I told them I wanted an honest reaction. I was willing to sing that the woman could walk beside me. But to a person, they loved the lyrics. They can see I'm not anti-female. Women are my favorite companions. If they're intelligent, they can understand my point of view."
Too bad that more of Len's lady friends aren't in the position to promote his work. The few music writers who listen to Len will decide to ignore him and watch him go away. Most won't get past the press kit, which includes the following warning: "Keep Len Guardino CD away from Females-They may find it EASIER to break through the 'Glass Ceiling' if they listen to Len's CD.'"
"That's just another warning about all the testosterone," laughs Len. "It's my little tongue-in-cheek thing for the ladies. This male chauvinist thing is really needed. I get angry at what I see with these young guys. I went recently to all those anti-Bush marches. I went down to Union Square, confronting all those kids who were comparing Bush to Adolf Hitler. All the females there were much more aggressive. The younger guys were cowering, with their earrings and their long hair."
Which brings us back to what's wrong with kids today: "What happens is the lack of testosterone. In your pre-teens, the testosterone can go in either direction. These young guys are raised by women, and they take on feminine qualities. They lose muscle tone and physical strength. Their libidos diminish significantly. So that's my thrust. I'm gonna be the guy who brings back testosterone."
Len means this literally, as he explains while discussing the subtler points of his album's opening track: "Every male would love to live that song. When I say I'm going to 'knock everything down,' what I really mean is knock everyone up. And 'spread myself all around'-that's saying that my sperm's going to be all over town! Most men, if they had any guts, would know there's a time to say that enough is enough. They have kids, they have responsibilities, they love their wife, but let's have equal footing here. Let the woman try going to the office every day with some lousy job."
Now take your existing low opinion of Guardino, and prepare to be disarmed. There's more than the man and his music. The bigger story is a veteran New Yorker who's spent his life in the artistic underground. He's no performance artist or posed persona, but Len's spent plenty of time in intellectual pursuits.
I'm certainly not surprised to find that he's related to legendary actor Harry Guardino, who was simply one of the best 70s cops of the big and small screen. I'm kind of surprised to hear Len discussing the importance of charity work, and alternating long Shakespearean quotations with some obscure theatrical references. "I'm presenting a hard line," Len concedes, "but I'm emphatic and sensitive to everyone. Especially anyone coming from a difficult home environment."
Len's certainly worked hard himself, only now-at the age he refers to as "being 40-plus"-stepping out to record his own compositions. It's been several decades since he last saw a modest recording contract. Fortunately, Guardino has one strong potential audience. He shows me a sheet of obscure radio stations that have broadcast his work. Most have Len listed alongside acts such as Courtney Pine and Bebel Gilberto. But then there's KGFN in El Cajon, CA. Len's in the Top Ten there, along with Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, Elvis Costello, Cake and Colonel Claypool's Bucket of Bernie Brains.
This puts me in the position of explaining to Guardino that he's being played on KGFN as a novelty act. "Well," he replies. "I'm willing to be a novelty. You want to pay your admission to see a freak? If that's how you perceive me, then that's it. I'll take phone calls from listeners, anyone with an opposing point of view. But you better know that I'm willing to stand up and physically defend what I'm doing. And I really mean physically. Physical strength comes from testosterone."
Testosterone must be catching. Within an hour of talking with Guardino, I'm getting a haircut and helping a poor female who lacks the upper body strength to open a bottle of orange juice. I'm polite about it, too, in the spirit of Len's own sense of chivalry.
After all, we're talking about a self-proclaimed chauvinist pig who's been cursed with a striking daughter. "My daughter's physically and mentally strong," boasts Len. "She's really a delight, but she can also be a hard rock. I've got no qualms about her being on her own. I'm proud of that. Let me tell you, I pity the guy who's going to be devoting his life to her."