This article, written by Dom Nero, first appeared in Esquire.

I Am Dominick The Donkey. Just Like the Song.

I share a name with the most famous Italian-American Christmas jackass. It is my blessing. It is my curse.

“Chingedy ching. Hee haw, hee haw!” Some years it starts as early as November. Right when the temperature drops below 40 degrees, when the leaves die, when the grass gets cold and hard, people begin to ask me, “Dominick? Like ‘Dominick the Donkey’? Have you ever heard the song?”

My name is Dominick, so of course I’ve heard the song. Whether I like it or not, the famous Italian-American Christmas carol has been my personal anthem my entire life. It seems satisfying especially for people who are relatively new in my life. Perhaps we’ve met a few months prior at an office event. By the time the holiday party comes around, and the tune has been playing on the radio for weeks on end, people have connected the dots that I, in fact, have the same name as the titular jackass. And they’re dying to tell me about it!

Dominick will catch me off guard–I’ll be meeting some second cousins for the first time, little kids who will never in their life hear the name “Lou Monte”–and they’ll jump at the chance to invoke His name. “Dominick” seems to transcend generations. Cultures, too! More often than not, it’s non-Italians who I’ll hear from the side of the bar, hovering toward me, going “La, la, la, la, la, ladioda…”

 

Read the full article here.