The most pertinent question in the world, the one in the title, was asked by
Roberto Pettinato.
Gustavo Palmer, the inventor of the Pinamar night, says that the "men fitted into Fiorucci", a verse from
The Dumb Blonde
, is because of him.
This story mixes the invention of a Creole jean, the alleged disorientation of a rocker lost in the fashionable club and
the truth of why you peeled yourself
.
In addition, Sumo's most famous song - a song full of legal controversies - would be turning 40 years old.
"It had nothing to do with the disgust that our society gave him. But, what the hell was Luca doing in New York City? I asked him once and he answered that the lyrics were just like that, that it was part of the conversation with the mine. She approached him and asked him why you broke out. I don't think Luca even told her: 'because of how disgusting your society is'. He didn't tell her that...".
Word from Pettinato, Sumo saxophonist.
According to the author of the book
Luca es mine
, the leader of the legendary band "did not have two faces."
For him, Luca was like Tanguito, like Miguel Abuelo.
Guys who knew only one avenue and pressed the accelerator
.
"They weren't the kind that you say... 'ah, but in the end he bought an apartment in Recoleta.'"
However, for some unidentified reason, Luca went - or went - to New York City at the time when this nightclub was the fashionable haven par excellence.
The City, still in force, opened in December 1980 with a recital by The Police
.
We have been "special envoys" of this newspaper when it turned 40 years old.
The first thing we did was try to find out where Luca had gone when he wrote about “the blonde, stupid, tanned, boring…”.
The "dumb" or curious blonde who had asked her about his baldness, the first famous bald girl in national rock.
In other words, Sumo's famous song took place in a nightclub.
That is to say, Luca was as bohemian and different as you want, but he was going to dance
Last Train to London
, by Electric Light Orchestra, and I
Was Made For Lovin' You
, by Kiss, at the same place as Susana Giménez and the galancitos of that time. , Ricardo Darín and Carlín Calvo.
Everything is very strange.
An unfathomable mystery.
What was the guy from
Mañana en el Abasto
doing there, in the City, the enclave where they say the word "concheto" was invented?
Luca Prodan.
According to Pettinato, he decided to shave his head because he was losing his hair.
The eyes of a chronicler
If you pay attention to the lyrics, Luca acts as a trained and exquisite chronicler.
A certain distance appears between his presence and what is happening around him.
Was it here?
No, beyond.
The bar is as long as Route 2. Here?
No, no, a little further.
The idea of the "special envoy to New York City" was to know exactly where Luca had leaned.
Where he had the conversation with the blonde, in his opinion, "a moron."
Enough! I'm leaving, heading for the door/And then to the bowling alley on the corner/to have a gin with awake people/This really is Argentina!
The seedy bar that Luca describes was the same one where the owner of La City took Sting, singer of The Police, to eat a ham and cheese treat on the day of the establishment's opening.
Is this how they treated celebrities?
With Fiorucci jeans,
fashion achieved what communism could not: we were all equal in the most romantic period of our lives
.
Fiorucci with sailor belt and mustard All Star.
Obvious.
Philosophical Jean who appeared at a time of incipient antagonistic urban tribes: chetos versus pardos.
“More than a brand, we were a movement.
Wearing a Fiorucci Basic was not just wearing a pair of jeans: it was showing an identity,” illustrates Carlos Wolodarsky, who was the owner of the brand in our country.
Luca Prodan with Geniol, who came up to sing "La blonde tarada" in the Sumo shows.
Why did you peel?
But why did he peel?
The blonde moron asked him with genuine interest because, of course, at that time everyone wore the same haircut that Rubén Insúa, coach of San Lorenzo, still has today.
Luca responded: “Because of the disgust that your society gives.”
Is "disgust" a matter of principle?
No no and no.
Pettinato slips that, in truth, the lyrics found Luca in a moment of stylistic break with respect to his look.
If we put a magnifying glass on it, it is easy to understand that, in the hit, the singer is obsessed with what is happening in the heads of the people who are at the club.
He talks about blondes and asks himself indignantly: “How much did you spend for your hair today?” Then he continues paying attention to hair with the “pseudo punk” who twists his mouth and “fixes his hair.”
Roberto Pettinato, Sumo saxophonist, next to a wig-wearing Luca Prodan.
Pettinato will say that he had nothing to do with the lyrics.
And much less with a social criticism.
"Once, as if it were a confession,
he told me that he was going bald and decided to beat baldness
. He shaved himself with a razor."
Coquetry?
"Something like that. He told me that he was going to break his hair because his hair was falling out... Luca had already died recently, I passed by a kiosk and I was shocked to see the photo on the cover of a magazine: there was the Indio Solari turned into Luca! The black glasses didn't fit him like Luca did, and the fact that he fell out, and that we were confused about the character,
undoubtedly spoke to us of something deliberate
."
A character named Geniol
Geniol is the guy who in The Dumb Blonde wrote the part that says:
A pseudo punk, with a finite accent, wants to play the bad boy.
He twists his mouth, fixes his hair, takes a drink and returns to Belgrano.
He was the ignored author of Sumo's best-known theme until recently.
After years and legal presentations,
La blonde tarada
added a new name to the authorship that appeared, since its recording in 1985, composed by Luca Prodan, Germán Daffunchio and Diego Arnedo.
Geniol: singer, clown, composer, former circus owner, crazy, cute.
Formally, Héctor Rosa.
Héctor Rosa, better known as Geniol, Luca's sidekick and co-author of "La blonde tarada".
Photo: Juano Tesone
Luca and Geniol lived together in Alsina 451, the Buenos Aires neighborhood of San Telmo, the mansion where Luca ended up leaving us forever.
In reality it was not a club "on the corner", as the first famous rock star sang, "but a bar across the street", Geniol alerts us.
In front of the famous nightclub.
“It will have taken us less than half an hour.
We made it on paper.”
And he said more: "Luca was very critical. He had an idea about everyone. I couldn't even see Charly García. Less so about those from Soda Stereo. But the favorite victim was someone called Hari B, who was the creator of Los Violadores. Luca was angry with him. He bullied him every time he could and that night, when we left New York City, he asked me to write against him. That's when that part of the pseudopunkito was born, with the finite accent..."