Being raised in Southern California by New Yorkers used to make me feel like a bit of an immigrant at times. While both my parents had been third-generation Americans themselves, there was still a lingering feeling of Old World from their Italian & Croatian roots for sure, but what seemed to make our family feel like “the other” had more to do with their East Coastness. The accents, the food, the urban neurosis, the constant bi-polar alternating of hyperbolic praise and grumbling pessimism, and the way they were just loud — OMG, at a time in life where you just want to blend in and disappear it was embarrassing. I cringe to admit it now, but I was jealous of all the vanilla families that looked like the ones on TV.   Continue reading “Beat JENeration #006: Neil Simon” →