Chapter 1 - How this all got started in my early years.

When I was a kid, I had a horrible habit of people watching. Like not the kind that was endearing or quizzical, as much as it was a cold detached sort of observational stare.

You see, I always loved doing voices, over the years mimicking the great ones like Bugs Bunny, Pepe le Pew, Foghorn Leghorn and so many others (at a young age, I did not know who Mel Blanc was, and only after a while did I start to realize his name was practically on every Warner's cartoon I would see).

I don't think there's a voice over actor today that doesn't owe a bit of inspiration to Mel.

The first cartoons though I had experienced came in the form of early anime like Lupin III and Forza Sugar that were Japanese created animation series broadcast with Italian dubbing. My father was in the Air Force, so at a very young age, my formative years from before first grade till almost fourth grade were spent overseas living near Aviano AFB where he was stationed.

(Left) Lupin III characters Goemon Ishikawa XIII, Arsène Lupin III, Daisuke Jigen, and Fujiko Mine. (Right) Hideki "Shark" Horiguchi and his son Genki Horiguchi of Forza Sugar.

I want to say that living over there probably ignited my widespread inability to focus on one thing for very long without intense frustration setting in. I say that because, at a young age, my parents spoke a half and half stance of Spanish and English, but my neighbors and the culture I had now moved into, was all about the Italian language.

It was also the first time I started hearing other accents and dialects. Field trips were often, to Venice, Rome, various areas around Italy, and it seemed like there were always tourists or transplants that were English, Irish, Middle Eastern, Slavic, French, or German. Many of the kids as well in my class had an astounding array of accents, some having been born overseas in other countries and then having moved to Aviano.

Recently, I found out that my old elementary school no longer stands.

Fascination set in on that level, and at the same time, I was wielding a growing love of art after I witnessed an artist plein air painting the canals of Venice. So, many times I would (as I mentioned at the beginning) stare at people. Observe how they spoke, moved, gestured... and often when I would draw them later at home, I would mimic words, the sounds uttered as they spoke. The human body had a rhythm that was interconnected in my mind, that told me the voice and the physicality of the person that had it could not be separated, if anything they were reliant upon each other, and the beauty of it was most of the time you could almost know what one would look like without the other. Deep stuff for a second grader to think about, but I wasn't interested in much else aside from organizing my toys daily into groups and places. Hello OCD my old friend,...

Fitting in was not the easiest thing for me. Ever. I've been told that if you march to the beat of your own drum, it may be lonely. Well loneliness can suck, but more so the feeling of ridicule or others not understanding my admittedly awkward ways, those were the real burns as a kid. I was sickly, I had odd hobbies, I stared too long, and didn't like to go outside very much (my mother actually witnessed what she swore were two well dressed men in suits, roughing up a guy that they'd pulled from a car trunk, in the farm pasture behind our house one day, and after that, neither I nor my sister were allowed to play in our own yard). But I did have a penchant for humor and often trying to relate to others because I wanted so very much to be liked for who I was.

I do have to thank my insanely talented mother for creating very cool costumes for me that at least got me a bit of social acceptance. The one really good friend I had at the time, Helena is in the devil costume. The other person crouching next to me was my nemesis Marcia... who always picked on me, and who came as Batman. I still remember hating that she dressed up as Batman, it was "traumatic" like a bad Wonder Years episode scene. Ah good times... good times.

It was a pretty even toss up. If I wasn't showing off my ability to draw, then I was attempting to ham it up with crazy voices and really off key impersonations. After a while, both became second nature to me, but one became a source of annoyance for many people. The voices and always cutting up, understandably could become tiresome and repetitive. No one likes a chatter. And I was in the running for king of the chat. No lie, my mom and dad somewhere have a 90 minute Memorex tape that I recorded and never sent to my dad (it was meant to have been mailed to him when he was stationed in Korea and the rest of us were living in Texas). Years later my dad found that tape and he and my mom listened to both sides and I. Talked. The. Whole. Time.

Dad joked that I never took a breath once during that recording.

Thanks for reading! - Mario

Next up, humiliation kills ego.