17 songs - My autobiography (5)

2005

On 30th December 2004 I asked Marco if he felt like taking a trip to Beaulard for the twentieth anniversary, but, you know... people always think evil and then wishing that friends understand you or at least be close to you is... quite too much, and so he told me he had prepared a night out with his acquaintances (little entrepreneurs/enriched by mistake ). He invited me to go with him and so that night I joined them in a pub on the banks of the river Po. Later I wrote a post (on the still fairly virgin blog) dedicated to 20 and 10 years before, curiously two very important dates for me...

New Year's Eve was spent at home of those friends in Canavese and... well, everything normal. That is, nothing apart from the good wishes, good food, fuchsia-lined stockings which I envied to a couple of girls...
The mad one kept on stalking me, although she had let down my invitation for New Year’s that I had sent her (I still wonder why...)
Thus, in mid-month, she dusted off an old idea we had had long before... and convinced me to go to Bologna and Ferrara. Obviously not without her continuous sclera (including forcing me to go to a complete-useless fashion Outlet – in Serravalle): but it was fun, both for the catastrophic cold that came out in Padana valley that winter, and also for the curious coincidence that a customer had contacted me by fax just a few months before... and then he phoned to me exactly while I was in Ferrara! So I visited him and we concluded our deal.
But there was not only that: thing I didn’t know was that the carnival was strongly felt, there... and so, in Bologna, I found a whole market full of cocktail dresses Hollywood-style and... buying them while I was there along with my chick looked like a bad idea. So the next weekend I left and went to do some shopping and... they were beautiful! Even after small needed adjustments (by then I was pretty good with the sewing machine).
And so, during Carnival, the usual party at Fabrizio’s... I was able, after four years, to flaunt again the sweetest part of me - in a long pink dress Snow-White style, or Cinderella or alike (!) and a pair of shoes with some kind of heels, and white stockings (which obviously people wouldn’t understand, but... for me they were always so important). And avoiding the pathetic jokes from various characters - no matter... well, yes, they were hurting me a little but... in the end, I was able to give a damn even back then.
Within a month or so, then, I celebrated my birthday in a special way... announcing that it was the twentieth anniversary of my eighteen years: and I remember friends’ faces, who didn’t understand the sense of the thing...
Oh well, you have to have a little math-mind, to understand (!)
It was a nice party, I think the last big party with fifty friends drawn from different groups. Some guys or some gals didn’t come along (...) but a good portion did and... it was good: the more pleasant sentence was likely that "the number 38 on the cake... it's a joke, right?" (!!)
And not just my archive still languishes this year too... but also the compilation of three or four CDs that I thought I was to draw up for the party... it just stopped on the first! So much that, only to finish mixing the first one, I was getting late for the evening...
But I liked the idea of inserting a lot of those songs from twenty years and maybe a few comments in between. In the end, this book will probably make up for the lack.
Mocking up Gasolina from that big Daddy Yankee with Fabrizio, as it was identical to Papi Chulo from three years before. Other things a little random, like Anastacia’s Everything burns or Everyday from Planet Funk (to which it would later follow Stop me in the summer).

That spring I decided to give a pass of... colors to my apartment rooms: so I tried to get a sponged/spatula effect... and the result wasn’t bad! With all due respect to the usual set of good words from Roberta, who continued to come around me: soon after I devoted her Cattiva by Samuele Bersani... finding it perfect (!!)

In April, Pope Wojtyła died, yep. The times when I had overestimated him for his contribution to the fall of the Wall and bad communism were somewhat gone and so... and also my sympathy for the Poles had waned: so sincerely that day I had something else to do, like going to Beaulard to visit another friend who had just had a child and instead we found ourselves over our heads... the leaden of the pope's death. What heaviness! Wherever you turned on a radio or a television they were all crying and we screamed... who cares (!!!)
Also because, you know, don’t ever think that things could improve: in fact, after him would come the German Shepherd (cit.)

Oh, I forgot: in February... Irene too gave birth! It was an ordinary day and I was working in the hospital as usual and sometimes I used the acquaintances’ last names to rehearse on the database and... that day I found her among the hospitalized... and she wasn’t a namesake: she was exactly her!
So, without thinking too much and with a little heart pounding, I went looking for her in her room... and it was nice: a bit of useless words (such as you going out with someone? See, everything falls into place) but also her voice. The baby, with her pathetically fateful (!!) name, was at her side in bed, but I just caught a glimpse. A couple of days later I considered bringing her a copy of Promesse and another thing I had written... but when I saw a bunch of people around her room, I decided it wasn’t the case.
That one has been the last time I saw her.

Songs a bit all the same by Tiromancino, though still beautiful, filled that spring: including the cover of Un tempo piccolo which, as I had always hated Califano, took me to admire him because of its… outspoken but deep sadness. And, by the way, also from groups such as the Otto ohm I only remember various tips, including Semplicemente.

Then came the summer. And L’estate from Negramaro surprised me and the chick from Bryan Adams’s concert one year before at the Heineken Jammin' Festival in Imola! A nice experience, I had dreamed of for years: we had organized it a few weeks before and it was... cute: three-days immersion in a nice atmosphere - apart from the vasco’s people that is that horrid audience full of pseudo toxic scum and similar...
But I had decided to bear Vasco in exchange of the other names that would be performing... and it was worth it. The chick then acted as a bit like all humans... that is retracting back promises and going out of her mind several times but, you know, it wasn’t important.
Billy Idol screaming from a giant screen and it looks like his eyes are getting out of their sockets a bit like in Total Recall (!); Oasis arguing and not wanting to finish the concert, yet talented; REM, fantastic.

I had decided to change my car - this time after only seven years! And my Pluriel, the faggot car as Nicola would then define it in a burst of foresight (!) arrived on time, and so I took a trip toward Monginevro mountain, looking for two friends from Federica - the cute little girl and apparently smart met in December, during a weekend in Cervinia together with Beppe’s old friends and others.
And in the car I had a collection from Billy Idol and then Twenty years - Once more with feeling by Placebo, another wonderful collection which made me finally appreciate them in their entirety: and Twenty years, which had already been on the radio for a few months, I found it sublime... with lyrics that I easily applied to my life... but also to human condition in general.

Then few trips, to the beach or to mountains, even with the mad one: she's reading The Alchemist (in order to enhance her own image, I guess) and I ask her to lend it to me and... I find that all the things the Wise teaches, I already know, since ever...
Tanto by Jovanotti, which I dedicated to some nice work situations (!) and then also Voglio cantare come biagio - the very nice song from newcomer Cristicchi... and one of those return trips through the countryside in Cuneo; and then also Studentessa universitaria. The aforementioned Estate but also Mentre tutto scorre by Negramaro, considerable in those months. Sale, from Biagio Antonacci who (as I may have mentioned) I have always considered kinda good but... able to feed you up with his melodies after a very short time: in particular, this song reminds me of Roberta and a friend of hers.
And then Jamiroquay’s Seven days in sunny june and Speed of sound by Coldplay, heard during that famous trip to the border to France, with my new car and the roof completely uncovered under the summer sun. And Why do you love me by Garbage, full of energy and highly successful at the Heineken! And Feel good inc. by Gorillaz, the increasingly great Damon Albarn. And the unique Only this moment by Royksopp, which to me represented somewhat their consecration - including that fantastic videoclip and especially: those repeated okay, and stay or forever go, play, or you'll never know, you can't deny it's all you've been waiting for and finally only this moment holds us together.
And Wonders never cease, Morcheeba, which reminds me of a restaurant downtown, warm, summer... and the curious One word from Kelly Osbourne, who winked in some way to an old-Soviet style  in her videoclip and in another took me back to the sounds from Visage’s Fade to gray (Stop! Dimentica by Tiziano Ferro, one year later, would in turn be inspired by this song).

Little political news or else, in this year: yes, economy was going great and it would last a few years more... Berlusconi ruled and on the other sides they just tried to imitate him - see the various banks shares scaling etc. (!)
Then some bombing around Europe, the usual stuff - although sorry for London.
The 105 Zoo was now a fixed daily appointment, and the joy and the beauty and perfection of that program... (including Leone di Lernia, whom I loved more and more) made afternoons much more beautiful!

In no particular order, from those months that led us to autumn I remember Just feel better from Santana ("I'm gonna try anything that just feels better / Tell me what to do") and 50 cent with Candy shop, and then We be burning from Sean Paul (to get back to to our hip-hop talks!)
Shiver by Natalie Imbruglia, good as always. And then a certain Natasha Bedingfield with These words (and a nice dress), and even Usher in My Boo with Alicja Keys. And Green Day consolidating their fame with Holiday, the heavier Wake me up when september ends and others. We find also Mockingbird by Eminem, sweet and sad, which reminds me more of winter 2004-2005. And Nobody's home by Avril Lavigne... the most beautiful and saddest, out at this time but which would accompany me in the following months and year.
I went to Normandy in a camper with a couple of friends that summer; and then to Tenerife with another... stunned guy, in October: and on Laura name-day we listened to Laura no estas from our car radio in the car we had rented...
Oh, and I had bought my first MP3 player shortly before! And it was a good thing, having all those songs in your pocket! By the way, that summer the Europe held a concert in Bardonecchia singing those songs which were coming straight from nineteen years before!

And my fantasies, now described in written text, were still great. In the sense that I enjoyed experiencing them and describing them, I found it very exciting and... I was ashamed, and I felt guilty, and then sometimes bad things were happening (!) Reasons for this, as we know, I would have later accounted for: and, above all, later I would learn to accept them just like any human being accept theirs... being they standard or not standard...
And Obsession from Aventura and Push the button from Sugababe stimulated me... a number of ideas in that direction. Like that thing I did around Christmas, with electrician ties to block my wrists...

Oh well. But in the meantime, a little earlier, we were back in Deux Alpes! Me and Beppe, for a change, along with some scrap like the accountant guy bowed over his phone and his imbecile woman (!) and... it was nice, because I was fine. It had been a year full of experiences and travels, music and... the Roberta experience had made me realize that I could conquer a beautiful girl: I just had to try and... maybe I would find even a less mentally ill one. Even when I thought back at the Easter holiday in Tuscany in a camper, a remake of that one roughly three years ago, I felt much better because I didn’t suffer anymore my problem with nightgowns (you get my point!)
So I wandered a couple of times around the pleasant mountain town and its atmosphere... took me inevitably back to eleven years earlier. And as I was talking to Beppe, he showed himself surprised at me quoting again Irene: but I was fine, and I tried to explain (again) how 1994 had been a special thing. And as I heard My immortal by Evanescence in a square in the small village... I was convinced that, yes, she would always be my Immortal! Whether she wanted it or not, whether she liked it or not.
It was me, it was my life, and at that time I was more than proud! They began to be clear so many things... although I used to write them on my diary more tactfully (!)

Anthouse by Tommy Vee echoed from my notebook in the room - beautiful, full of energy! But they were no longer times for dancing, for my holiday fellow mate poorly-aged (!!)
And Precious by Depeche Mode, so beautiful and profound "things get damaged, things get broken" - one would wonder how it was possible, after so many years, to still write melodies and lyrics so fantastic. It reminds me of a little party in a sort of disco-pub in Collegno, during which I gathered some ideas for a chapter of Mele a metà, that one about the disco party. And the courage to narrate it...

So we came to New Year’s Eve and... like it was to be expected, in the end, many of my certainties were soon tearing apart.

Logical, once again. Got none, like Robert Post was singing – whatever I had tried…


Munich by Editors is from 2005, but I would discover it years later.

Twenty years, Placebo

Only this moment, Royksopp

Mentre tutto scorre, Negramaro

 2006

There were too many boobs, at that New Year's Eve dinner at some friends’ place in San Mauro. For years I was ashamed of admitting it but... it was all there.
The usual envy, and therefore that feeling of inadequacy. I kept hearing and sometimes meeting Federica and... she was always nice and even devoted to her work (although a bad sector, that is lawyer!) and she often seeked for me: she also introduced me to her neighbors who wanted a computer and... coincidentally, among other things, they all lived in the northern outskirts of the city, that is where the dinner was held.
But Federica was elsewhere, in fact. And at the party there was also the bad bitch (!!) from low piedmont who just few months before some other friends had tried to foist me... the ones from "if you buy a Volkswagen Golf then she will come to bed with you": I assure you, heterosexual or homosexual or what I was, it was better if she kept her groin for herself!

In short, they came the Winter Olympics. If anything wasn’t clear yet, I couldn’t bear that city for several years then and... this show of... all (quite fake and false), left me rather puzzled: but naturally I let me being carried to do a few laps downtown or to the (most known for me) mountain resorts which had brushed themselves up for the occasion. Brush up that didn’t last long, due also to the forthcoming crisis and climate change... but that's another story, you know!
Starting using my bike for work too, given the continuous traffic stops. A stroll downtown with Alberto, confusion below the arcades, small events in the streets, the little women of easy virtue from that nation with the jacket in white and red (!!), evening concerts including Duran Duran (with the sympathetic What happens tomorrow, which marked a decent return after all) and even Nek (of which Fabrizio sang along Lascia che io siaaaa!), and the cute Kelly Clarkson whose tickets the mussel friend of a friend of Federica brought us: Since you've been gone, and Because of you weren’t bad, and generally a bit all of her rock.
I also discovered Frederick, from Patty Smith’s concert: better late than never, yep, you might comment (!) but let’s say it was the right time, as they were the months of Federica. Oh, of course the mad girl continued to call me from time to time, and it remained in my mind that one morning she checks at home, convinces me to go out for a ride, and when the phone rings she beckons me to shut up...

A pizza party for my birthday along with about twenty people and then it goes on... work as usual... we had gone to Paris recently, at a trade show, with Paolo and family (!!) and at another big public customers’ I found on a computer several CDs in MP3 format, and one of these was the live Bullet in a bible of Green day: I copied it and shortly after I bought the original, and found that Good riddance was from nine years before! Fantastic, sad... remarkable.
Often we went out dancing in another alleged nightclub, the Supermarket, with the friend from Tenerife and some more: sometimes music was beautiful, at times it was horrible (i.e. restored from the most horrible past)...

Costruire by Niccolò Fabi had opened that year, almost unable to replicate the glories from E’ non è: that is to say, it was perfect again but had a hint of sadness that didn’t fit me. And most importantly, I didn’t agree with costruire è saper rinunciare alla perfezione. It wasn’t true, it isn’t! Of course some compromise is needed, and certainly no one is perfect: but, as I have often repeated, and I then went on to repeat (!) one thing is pointing to the maximum and then smooth out some peak to be able to grow together, and another one is pointing to suck in order not to be alone.
We often discussed Niccolò with another doctor from the hospital, a girl who had also given me some of her poems for reading. I liked her, but she was taller than me and not by little!

And then, with another perfect coincidence, on the day of the twentieth anniversary of Chernobyl I hurt myself while playing basketball: we had been going on to play for years, with Fabrizio and some other friends and... well, it wasn’t bad (including the scent from that girl who played with us, envied as always). But that evening I did a running shot and fell to the ground: I got up and my knee, although it didn’t hurt, could not stand... so I sat down. When the evening was over, they asked me if I was able to drive and I replied yes... and in fact I got home, got dinner and went to bed, only to scream in pain during the night!
And so I had the pleasure of going to an emergency room, make some x-ray and/or MNR... which had never happened to me. A bit of fear, some chat with Marco who had hurt himself at least a couple of times while skiing and, in short, everything slowly returned to normal: so much that I remember one long walk in Ceresole (as I usually did) with Massimo from Tenerife and... even though he was younger than me and was playing soccer regularly, I was much less tired than him (!)

One of those Sundays as I was standing on crutches, some friends picked me up and then we went to the cinema, and one of them had received as a gift the DVD of Depeche Mode’s tour in Paris last year: so I asked him to lend it to me and I extracted its audio track on a CD, and there were some new versions of historical songs which were not bad at all.
Trippin by Robbie Williams is out in late 2005 but I struggle to place it between 2005 and 2007: beautiful, in all cases! A nice idea, lyrics (famous) and rhythm. And then there was Break the night with color, another masterpiece by Richard Ashcroft, and even Nuvole e lenzuola by Negramaro. And La mia parte intollerante by Caparezza, whom I always admired but never got crazy at him, especially about his super-hit of a few years before Fuori dal tunnel.
And then Un romantico a Milano, curious song from Baustelle. And Lo scrutatore non votante, the always good Bersani, with another glance at politics.

And, as we move towards the summer of the World Cup... here it happens the miracle: Juventus goes into B series!! As assumed by many, that mafia heap comes to light and... something is compensated, even if too little. But those months were fun, at least a little (!) the faces from Moggi, the ridiculous songs by Zalone, that one single honest Juventus player who jumps from a balcony... (!!!)
Then they elected Napolitano, well…: what can you say to Italians... in hindsight? What else, I mean. If anything Prodi won by a whisker of the famous twenty-four thousand votes (and not kisses, as in Celentano’s old song), but even he wouldn’t last, because there is no room for honest people over there.

But let's move on.
I had decided to go and live out of town, even though I was alone (well, I was like that even ten years before with my small apartment) and my mother didn’t want to come with me (...)
So I seriously started looking around for various real estate agents, in search of something which inspired me... in the two areas that I preferred, i.e. Cuorgnè (the valley of Ceresole!) and Susa and Sangone. I remember that Marco sometimes suggested to me something in his area but... the dirty Padania I could not stand it! And, in short, in September I signed a contract and gave this man a down payment for a portion of the house under construction.

That summer, Chariots from Gavin DeGraw was nice, and so Cash machine from Hard-Fi that I always associated to the former. And then the sweet Love show from Skye (of Morcheeba) and Three wise men by James Blunt. And Dani California by Red Hot Chili Peppers, always good. Or the curious Mondo Marcio’s Dentro una scatola, which for some time represented a small case. Ah, we can also mention the cover of U2's One sung by Mary J. Blige along with Bono, which over time has become as popular as the original.
The sweet escape from Gwen Stefani as a solo artist. Sorry by Madonna, vaguely original but again pretty useless as all her productions from those years. Crazy by Gnarls Barkley. The nice Malo from Bebe and then the obvious Seven nation army by The White Stripes, who rose to success thanks precisely to the World Cup and its pounding bass line.

And, when it began to get really hot, I realized I was sick again. Just enough time to go back to the Heineken in Imola but only for a day trip, to watch Depeche Mode along with two other enthusiasts, and to return to Menorca after exactly ten years by the same guy... shouting to the wind and to my diary that I was fine, that ten years before everything was all blue because I wanted Irene and George Michael told me that we were getting older, but now I was calm and...
...then everything started crumbling. Those long dresses that I don’t know how to describe in technical terms - in some way something like this was also seen in the late 80s, even though I cared less - and now they were in all the islet stalls... and I could not buy them. Go around still alone, shy, in the discos. Have a great desire for a little sweetness, a hug... to feel loved – as a man or a woman, yep.

World hold on from Bob Sinclar was nice but that child in the video unleashed me, for some reason, the desire to have a child. And then Depeche Mode’s Martyr. But most of all Hips don’t Lie by Shakira and I who imagined myself in her place... with that skirt, in that role.
So, in September I began again to think I was going to change sex. Or that I would have committed suicide, interchangeably...
I made my ears pierced, just by myself, and it made me feel, say, strong – besides satisfied, because finally I could buy beautiful earrings. And timidly, even a little makeup or some other garment... and, as always, my guilt would then materialize in a mess with business or people.
But oh well.

I also went to the sea to visit Marco, that summer, and I remember it because I met again his famous granddaughter... and it was then, thinking back to those meetings so rarefied, that I had the idea for a story covering The time traveler's wife. Which I will soon finish  and it will be nice.

I went to work in Liguria (bringing my nightgown to sleep... as well as once at Beppe’s) and the radio... in my car almost cabrio so beautiful and so little used... played Happy hour by Ligabue, full of energy. But I was sad, as always when I tried to convince myself that I would finally become a woman and then, automatically, I would have been out of touch.
However, then, on that song by Ligabue I remember feeling very strong that feeling of advertising that leads to nausea a good track.
And in my car I was also listening to Ballata per la mia piccola from Afterhours which didn’t make me mad in general, but this one is wonderful! And the aforementioned Stop! Dimentica by Tiziano Ferro, but above all Ero contentissimo at whose words I melted away "ed ero contentissimo in ritardo sotto casa ed io che ti aspettavo / stringimi la mano e poi partiamo...” and “comunque tardi o prima ti dirò che ero contentissimo ma non te l'ho mai detto che chiedevo Dio ancora, ancora"
What a genius, really! I had always liked him a lot and I liked it even after (and after the outing!) but that one stays as his peak. And speaking of genes, in that autumn came to success Fabri Fibra: we knew at once, from Applausi per Fibra (and his t-shirt in the videoclip, with the words I hate Fabri Fibra) that he was a special person... and the years to follow would have confirmed everything!

Is it any wonder, Keane, whose initial attack reminded me of Happy hour, and then How to destroy a relationship by Servant. And Mi fido di te by Jovanotti, great music, and words. And Down on my knees from Ayo... sad, like me who was always on my knee facing life. Or at least a part of it. And Crystal ball, again from Keane. And of course What else is there from Royksopp.

Months went by, darker and darker. Jigsaw falling into place by Radiohead and It's your time by Planet funk (I have always associated them). Was it my time? Who knows. What else is there?
Meeting again even those from the group around the Gran Madre, almost all happily married and finding myself amongst the famous 3-4 scrap. And without being able to talk about my problem. I began to think of the Cliffs of Moher, where I had been thirteen years before, and even then I had had a thought related at throwing myself below: I decided that for New Year's Eve I was going to Dublin and then from there I would’ve sailed onto my fate.
I thought back again to what I had done wrong, at why I wasn’t able to be at least a little happy, at least for another time. Cosa vuoi che sia, Ligabue sang. Yep. I found myself cursing women, but it lasted just a few hours or days; then I would start to curse the damn wrong chromosome.
Federica stopped replying to me and so I never had a chance to get her a cute little note that I had prepared. Among other things, on her birthday in that summer I had enrolled in Second Life just to... take a look, and for a while I liked trying to dress and present myself as a girl, at least in that virtual world.
Then, actually, when I dressed (for those months, almost always - of course, alone in my house) came songs like Sexyback by Justin Timberlake or Promiscuous by Nelly Furtado to make me feel (further) out of place: what did I know, what could I ever know about female sexuality? I missed... all that part which of course I had never lived except in my fantasies.
I tried not to think about it. I felt like imitating the girls in The weekend by Michael Gray but in the end I was very Borderline.

They killed Anna Politkovskaya, in that autumn. There are no comments to be done…

In the end, I left right after Christmas, accompanied at Caselle airport by Paolo (who, in hindsight, I wonder what he thought). Patience by Take That (without Robbie) was telling me to be patient, precisely... and in Dublin, in some way, I tried to cheer myself on. Ireland beautiful as always, moreover: and I didn’t get to the cliffs, limiting myself to Cork and then a quick tour on the way back to London. And those green fairies with small antennas over their head repeated to me, again, that I should’ve been born like them...
So while I'm still healing, just try and have a little patience
And Elisa sang Una poesia anche per te, sweet as ever.

Meanwhile Niccolò Fabi had published his double collection and of course I immediately purchased it: Milioni di giorni was another great pearl, joyful, happy but not trivial. Dedicated to a son - and, in hindsight, so painful... thanks again to that one of Blasphemous rumours...


I see Supermassive Black Hole by Muse in this year, although I would discover it only later - as I did for Time is running out. And so Incubus with Love hurts...

Ed ero contentissimo, Tiziano Ferro

What else is there, Royksopp

Mi fido di te, Jovanotti

 2007

What a year it was 2007! Again, as it was quite logical, no?
The idea that I was going to reach the fortys, so feared by more or less everybody, worried me but just a little. I had returned from London losing several eons of civilization again, in the sense that comparison between Stansted Airport and Caselle was... a no-challenge. Especially as for the level of services as soon as you exit the room...
And I felt good, because again I had done something I liked in places that I loved - London (as I said) for so many instinctive reasons and Ireland, because it's got a special charm. It didn’t matter if I had spent New Year’s Eve alone in a couple of pubs and had only talked to a few people here and there: at the end of it all, I had had a chance to listen to New Year's day from U2 precisely in their own hometown, and I had given them the honour it deserved at last, just 23 years late!

As for the work and dishonest customers (!) and/or pseudo friends or pseudo lovers from the past year, I had sublimated it all in a beautiful photomontage based upon the poster of the movie A good year (cute) and... a number of tombstones (!!)
And this made me feel much better, and even better made me feel looking at some people who had resented, for example the famous Roberta...

We went to watch the first 007 film starring Daniel Craig, Casino Royale (with its recycled title: I wondered why) and it wasn’t bad: and I liked a lot You know my name by Chris Cornell, and slowly I began to rediscover the whole Grunge phenomenon. We also went to the sea, one day in January, with the famous Luca from Mediaworld and the Depeche Mode’s DVD because they had to do some therapy for his legs - he was a fairly good runner, and so...

And then came the Paralympics, an undertoned replica of the stuff from the year before: some more concerts, among which I recall Gotan Project with their famous version of Grace Jones’s (or Astor Piazzolla’s if you prefer  ) Libertango.

Meanwhile we went skiing and I found that skiing with music in your ears was simply superb! In particular, besides all the good songs of that time or the previous years, I found back Venture in my heart from Marco Martina in 1986 and it had such an amazing strength...! Imagine all around, horizons... I jumped down the slopes with the MP3 player headphones in my ears and I was flying... And I would have gone on for years.

If only a few days before, that is in January, I gave shows of my femininity... or rather my sweet shyness, bringing a postcard depicting a flower to a girl I had met last year at a classmates meeting... with my shaky hand (!)... Now I was meeting quite often the barottina (girl from inner piedmont, ndt), in the usual hospital. Nice, precious, good-girl and not filthy careerist ways like many others (!!) and, interestingly, with her origins in the same place in Cuneo where she had a house the famous Cristina from the old group.
We used to meet often, with Enrica: she had asked me to add some extensions to our software and... and working with her was nice. Yes, she had just had a baby and was dating some sort of lumberjack flowers-son (!) whose pictures I had seen once as she had left me their computer to be restored. But, behold, it was a good time and they were beautiful days with her, including one time when she paid me a visit at my home.

Starz in their eyes from Just Jack echoed in radio, pretty but then also boring. And then I find the precious Elisir from Avion Travel, and also La prova by La Cruz, and It's been a while from Staind, which (as I said) had been out for years (1996) but only now I was to appreciate. And then other nice songs like Living Darfur by Mattafix (besides Big city life), serious lyrics; and The salmon dance by Chemical Brothers, so curious and which of course my friends didn’t understand (!) And then Cupid's chokehold by Gym class heroes with the sample from Supertramp and even the horrible Paranza by Daniele Silvestri, which I hated almost as much as I had hated Salirò...

It was a beautiful Carnival, that one in 2007: first a party organized by the usual hospital, where... I took the courage and, proud of my foundation and makeup courses on Youtube, I showed up dressed in one of those evening dresses purchased in Bologna two years earlier! And the shiny shoe with a little heel and… it was beautiful, yes. The wig now halfway decent (although a bit too blonde) and silver thread earrings... the women's restroom... a little girl who asks her mom why there are so many princesses, pointing at me...!
And then the party at Fabrizio’s, an almost permanent meeting, to which I showed up as the Pope! In particular, Ratzinger, in fact: with a picture of a German Shepherd (!!) always on hand and a beautiful split completely made by me (now I was really good with the sewing machine) and also white talcum powder in my hair. I remember fondly (so to speak) the usual envious friends of Fabrizio’s teased me asking is your hair really white?
I wonder why I was even spending time talking to them. Oh well…
And add to this as well, that at some summer concert, a friend of Fabrizio greeted me saying "you were the one wearing the princess dress, I recognize your eyes" and it was fun (!)
At that party I met Manuelina... a very pretty girl who was in his circle (or better was a clerk at his company). I tried to chase her a bit but she lived far away, and then my so-called friend told me to stay away because she was engaged.
Friends are just a strange thing... (!) I guess he wanted to try his chance before me. Oops, what am I saying, this thought would be effective only after 2011 and his sentences even more sympathetic...

My blog started to take off, with associated hassles by touchy subhumans or assholes. That is, instead of going in the direction of a healthy exchange of sensible ideas, it was usually hunted by people looking for something prurient or a way to let steam off or pick a fight. What in practice would then be happening daily in the following years, with the social networks phenomenon.
So, as a brother or what he was from the good old Enza died young and I pointed out that she had hurt me and so she should’ve suffered a bit... one guy come to accuse me of free cynicism and nastiness. Strange, I told him, in the days when the chick was mocking me in front of my love... no one complained, uh?
Then there were the utterances of Beatrice, the famous former bank colleague with which I found myself out, after more than fifteen years, because another old friend had an absolute need for vagina (!!!)
And so the above, along with her friend - the sister of the famous nymphomaniac from the bank time (as well as elementary school, if you remember) - she began to be part of a group that, really...
Hearing her talk would make your skin crawl: watching her accuse the waitress who was angry after she had broken a glass... it was just the top of her forty-years-old-ugly ways. In return, her friend looked a bit better (aesthetically) and so, in short, the small group went on for several months. I remember that Nicola later asked me what was the meaning that we were meeting again, and I remember how he didn’t understand the sense of I'm a good person with ideals, while she’s a rather badly aged crap who raves.
But, of course, this is another story...
But it should as well be noted that even my famous former consultant Cristina hadn’t shared my sense of justice, which demanded punishment for anyone who hurt me. And, on reflection, even no one else in the years to follow.
Not a big problem, we could say, right? (!)
Especially if certain judgments or certain criticism were coming from people who spent 600 Euros for the ticket for Closing ceremony of Winter Olympics... describing it as it only happens once in a lifetime. Be proud of it, indeed.
Even the construction of my house was proceeding slowly - or rather, was quite steady despite agreements and contracts - and in this regard I was leaving written tracks (!) which then, in retrospect (in fact)...

For my birthday I just turned off the phone and went visit Fabrizio and the aforementioned Manuela; then I did a quick trip around the valley and went back home, answered to one of the few customers that, even if insane and incompetent (and let’s skip over his origins, of course!!), had always paid all the bills to me.
Oh, and there was also a party/dinner, not much important to me, along with another couple of people who were turning 40 in late February. From the famous group, I mean, now being phased out - at least for me.

And then, slowly, we got to the warm months...
Short trips, like the Fort of Exilles or the tulip fair: we were always us four or sometimes he would join us another evil aged monster, a friend of my friend (!)
Various events, including for example the improbable theater shows in which he took part another monster, from another group that dated back to 1992 and who, of course, wasn’t married - in contrast to his brother, obese but at least normal. And... here it happened one of those remarkable coincidences! That day, in fact, I met (after more than ten years), this famous guy, Enzo, who was then married to that girl which at the time was little more than a teenager (!) that is the other Cinzia, nice too although maybe unfeminine, tall and friend of "my" Laura. As you may recall (!!) I had met Laura on the day of St. Stephen in 1991... or the day when Yeltsin humiliated Gorbachev in worldwide broadcast: well... the alcoholic Yeltsin died less than ten days after this meeting!!
I adored this event and the intersection of people and dates, as always. And I thought that the world was now a bit better place...

At the Sanremo Festival we had listened to Pensa from Fabrizio Moro, and even that song was sounding as a good omen for a better world: beautiful words, beautiful melody. Maybe there was hope, I was still under the illusion - with a thought to southern Italy. For me it was all so obvious: “ci sono stati uomini che hanno scritto pagine / appunti di una vita dal valore inestimabile” (!) and then “insostituibili perché hanno denunciato il più corrotto dei sistemi troppo spesso ignorato / uomini o angeli mandati sulla terra per combattere una guerra” “perché in fondo questa vita non ha significato se hai paura di una bomba o di un fucile puntato” and in the end “nessuno potrà fermare mai la convinzione che la giustizia no... non è solo un'illusione”
Exactly.

More trips, and in our car we listened possibly to What I've done from Linkin Park or Makes me wonder from Maroon 5, growing up and up! Or the curious 555 by Charlotte Gainsbourg which I still wonder how it ended up in the radio programming and as a result into my CDs. Or Relax (take it easy) by Mika, who winked again to Spacer by Sheila: Mika... at first he seemed to me the usual useless product by reality shows and the like, with that tip of faggot good for pathetic audience of such great television (!) but then, over the years, he proved to be a little better than that mess, and on the honor!
Talking about faggots, how much I dreamed the trench from the singer of Feist in My moon my man videoclip! And of course, I found it difficult to invoke my man... but with my moon instead I was all right. And the song was and is remarkable.
And then there was Ordinary day by Dolores O'Riordan from Cranberries, always in great form, and the just as beautiful When we were young which would eventually be released in autumn... with the perfect dedication funny, how things just tasted better when we were young? that from there on I bestowed on more or less all of my peers...

And La soluzione, another fantastic song by Fabri Fibra! Those lyrics, and the rhythm... And Hey there Delilah from Plain White T's, curious and sweet (too much, in fact). And then things like Rudebox by Robbie Williams, always in the mood to experiment or Reach out and Shine from his former comrades Take that, pretty either.
Meanwhile, Radio DJ set off another case, that is the song La discoteca: only today I discover the group name, namely Exch Pop True and... no, it was no big deal. Just a little idea pounding and unpretentious, who became famous just for the media launch and countless cover which soon were born (and, fortunately, died!)
A little as it would have happened a few years later with Pop-porno.

Meanwhile, it seemed to me that between Beatrice’s little blond friend and me it was rising some nice relation: in hindsight, it would rather be an obvious case of hypocrisy or multi-face, in the sense that she obviously shared her friend’s ideas and way of life, though she still liked reasoning with me and being open to other theories, politics or dealings. Later, she said she had been dating for years a married man with children and... it would have been quite obvious.
But, in that month of May, I went back to Greece and it was again nice, indeed even more than eight years before! Kos and then the small island of Nisyros, from which I made a phone call to Nicola that has remained curiously printed in my mind with no special reasons. And the football game that was played in those days, Milan-Liverpool and I who the next day was in Rhodes, in an English pub and begged for pardon by saying that of course I would have preferred the legendary "you'll never walk alone" great English team would win! And, in any case, I then bought the towel on that team.
Simona was writing to me and I would answer... she even lent me a book (The kite runner, deep stuff ) and, well, for when I returned to Torino it seemed to me that something could be born. For a change I brought her a flower in the office, I recorded her face a bit so, I continued to ride my bike for a few hours with the voice of Fabrizio Moro’s Fammi sentire la voce... only to hear her say quickly that there had been a misunderstanding.
Toh, but really?!
Of course, it was better that way. Also because, when I used to look at her wearing her bikini in the pool, I was dreaming and screaming inside that I wanted to be allowed to wear it myself, that red costume. But I had a lot of hair on my arms, as the photo made on 7/7/2007 at 19:07 reminds...

And so I found myself crying again, and curse, and thinking about what to do during the holidays. Which I spent then in Tuscany - only one week - and buying me a nightgown that I had seen over a chick in the usual hospital shortly before...
I would have tried to dress as I wanted, yes. Again and again... but this time even outdoors with earrings and the aforementioned nightgown. However, I finally bought a pair of beautiful dresses (especially a light blue one, hazy) and a pair of sandals... and I began to see me pretty, seriously! that picture in a white bra with and that smile so... special... And my fantasies continued, pleasant as always.
In Tuscany, actually I also went there because I had bought tickets of George Michael’s concert in Lucca. I remember that I thought I couldn’t skip watching him live before he died, and... well, I wasn’t much wrong: the holiday was pretty, Lucca was always pretty as years earlier with the mad one or the other Tuscan friends and the concert was very nice... people, atmosphere, songs... he shaking his ass a little too much but, in short, it wasn’t serious (!) Amazing, Careless Whisper...
Then I moved to the usual camp and I rested for a few days, observing how the structures were changed in the last five years. It happens, yeah.

Banks merging, people shot because of a football game... in short, everything normal from the news point of view. Even Veltroni as he picked up the Italian left party - to take it to lose - and Berlusconi giving yet another clean-up to his clique of gangsters (!)
They would have later arrested the good (so to speak) Corona... and it would be the beginning of another series, and of told you so.

I went back to the pool belonging to the famous bank where I had worked and where I used to go twenty years before - thanks of course to my banker friend. And I remember with a smile how everything seemed near shambles, that is old and not renovated: from the showers to the edges of the basins. Luckily it was before the crisis... I dare not think about how it went on! And if I think back at the obscenities that she herself uttered, like there is no place more beautiful than this to spend my time... I mean, really...
It was a bit on a par with her other friend who said laughter is nice, but then it brings wrinkles: so you have to choose whether to laugh or to have beautiful skin...
!!!
Dear Chiara, as you can see I'm here to prove the opposite: you know, to us good people it doesn’t happen... (!!!!)

In August I went and visit my old gay friend in Lucerne: he had decided to take back his steps and get back with his Swiss-German boyfriend... and then and there I hadn’t considered that this could be the usual human behavior, that is, rather than being alone... I had great respect for him and only many years later - coincidentally, and amazingly, when I told him about me - this estimate would go fading.
And, alone again on the train, I saw myself again in the E’ non è videoclip.

Oh, I forgot: in those months she had also been looking for me (yet) the mad one, that is, Roberta, and I find a description of that completely useless phone call, with her usual unwarranted jumps to throat and other amenities that I had likened to an old Gramellini’s sentence, like "I'm alone but I'm full of myself so I'm calling to let you know that I think about you because I want to be sure that you think about me and I also need confirmation of my charm". In early August she did it again and, as it happened on a bad day (thanks to the usual lurid customers) she received a series of insults on my infamous blog... and it was so perfect! Also because she had already been there once before and she had made me smile with her complaints about my photomontage from A good year... (!)
Lucerne wasn’t bad, apart from the weather. In fact I had purchased an inter-rail ticket for the old people  and so I also went to Cologne, Amsterdam and Brussels, and they were all beautiful places - I love old Europe, you know!
The famous flood of January 22, 1995 commemorated in Cologne... the Cathedral... always pretty and curious Amsterdam, Brussels perfect in its... convenience, the Atomium and then Brugges the Little Venice.
Rihanna's Umbrella reminds me of Lucerne because my gay friend had lent me a beautiful rainbow umbrella and I have a couple of pictures with that rain cover over my head! But of course, they were the words to be so deep, "took an oath I'm a stick it out till the end”...
Promises, in another sense. Funny, moreover, the cover by Vanilla Sky.
Then that summer there were Snow (hey oh) and Desecration smile from Red hot chili peppers, both from the Stadium Arcadium CD came out one year before, but on the radio during those months. And No matter by Fargetta with Mario Biondi’s voice, fantastic (and optimistic! with that life has never been better). Stop me by Mark Ronson and the fantastic Rise up by Yves La Roche, which brings me back to that evening at the disco at the Rotonda, bad unspeakable place in Valentino in Torino... full of bad people and impractical music - except for just rare cases.
Rise up also reminds me of the last times I saw Beppe... he liked to tease that refrain that I had always with me in my car. Yeah, we went to the seaside in his famous home in Pietra Ligure with my car and he, as a good aged badly, couldn’t stand the convertible mode of my Pluriel; just like, a few months before, the other two poorly aged Beatrice and Simona had not borne the return trip from the mountain... overcovered as if it were January.
It’s a pity, being different from others people. Or maybe not (!)

Monsoon by Tokio Hotel I liked it from the start: not a precise reference... but it was soft rock and as I found out that the group was German they rose up in my estimation (!) Then, one day in July, after that there had been some other lousy customer trying to harm us... Paolo and I went to get us a dinner out of town and... I remember that running through the monsoon, just me and you, to the end of time with which, smiling and heartened, I went home that evening.
It wouldn’t last long, indeed: and not only because little time before there had been the episode of the garbage disposal (search for it on the internet  tritarifiuti) And not even because in early August, while I was in Lucerne, the world stock markets began to show signs of slowing: I didn’t grasp much of it, watching the computer screen at my friend’s place, and then I didn’t have a lot of money invested, at the times. I would have understood and realized it all only later.

In May there had been the now customary asparagus dinner along with friends from Canavese and I kept in my memory both Bruci la città from Irene Grandi and Un kilo by Zucchero: we were talking about work and friends and... they both fit perfectly to a bit all the situations I was telling, from muoia sotto un tram più o meno tutto il mondo to il tuo cervello non pesa un chilo to (obviously) bruci la città - dedicated to Torino and its wonderful inhabitants. And, of course, the small Sardinian girl with a small brain, which a few years earlier had sported her famous fuchsia striped stockings and a few years later would bounce happily my protests against a not working cable or DSL... she called me a madman and laughed giving herself the elbow with her friends.
Nice people, you know. The Sardinians, and not just them (!)
By the way, Domo mea by Tazenda with Eros Ramazzotti I have to say I loved it, probably precisely because of the presence of Ramazzotti, or at least thanks to its original atmosphere.
And then there were Stay and Eppure sentire by Elisa, very good as always and whom I had seen in concert in the spring – an immersion in sweetness. And Stay (again!) by Simply Red, which is also significant - as well as the little-known Good times (have done me wrong). It was a great summer for Leone di Lernia, since few years triggered along with the 105 Zoo: let’s recall Pedofilo dedicated to Marco Mazzoli and then Tutti al mare con le figh (cover of To the beat from DJ Ross)... just pure art!
When, in late August, they threatened the closure of the most beautiful Italian radio program... I was one among those who couldn’t accept it was happening for real! I still have posters of the times and I remember the messages we were sending...

A mention also for Laid Back’s return, after twenty-four years: Beautiful day was pleasant. And original and full of energy it was also What am I fighting for by Unklejam... what am I fighting for - sometimes I caught myself wondering about it, yep.
Let’s report Back to black from Amy Winehouse, I think her only song I really appreciate. And Autumnsong by Manic Street Preachers: "baby what you've done to your hair" (!)

And she should be remembered also another Simona, known via my famous horny friend (!) a few days after the umpteen lost flower: this is a story that will be told in the chapter "2008"... and that, simply, proves once more that having dreamed of wearing a white dress and a red sweater like the one she had on the day she walked through the door of that pizzeria in Pinerolo... did influence future events.
And of course it was no coincidence that 1973 by James Blunt ("s'monaaa") peeped in those months...!

More important, though at the time it seemed to me just another case of growing old badly, was Marco’s departure.
He searched for me on the phone a whole day, in May, while I was in Greece. Late at night, I decided to answer him, a bit annoyed by this way of doing not unusual for him: and he accused me of having lost one password of his...
I fell from the clouds, but I tried to turn a blind eye. A few weeks later he called me and told me he had found another computer vendor, to which I felt vaguely mocked around and so I sent him to hell. Not as we had always done, that is as a joke: no, this time he had exaggerated! And let’s accept the crook from 1991, and accept his hypocrisy with women, and accept his friends enriched by mistake, hypocrites and billionaires, and accept putting always Paolo in front of me when it was time to be invited to some event, and accept he not even remembering appointments taken with friends... No, actually I had already been fed up for a while: since he had not wanted to meet me alone on that famous night when I was desperate, in 1999. And also because imagining him driven by that horrible thing (inside) namely his wife... bothered me more and more. And, last but not least, accusing me of selling malfunctioning computers when they had been at least twenty years that his company’s electrical systems were crumbling... it was quite insulting.

He then tried again to call me several times, I think at the end of August, but I decided not to answer, because this had been his Latest Trick, to quote Dire Straits' song from those happy days back in 1985. Then, one day in September, Paolo and I went to him to recover some of my old furniture that I had parked temporarily by him in view of my new house. We barely said hello... he was all proud to have opened another (yet another!) warehouse... I looked at him and pretended nothing.
People help people from Cherry Ghost was playing in my mind, and this is the last memory I have of him. Of my closest friend or my missed love or my Irene in pants, as I then wrote a few years later, thinking back to the many moments spent together...

E fuori è buio, Tiziano Ferro sang in that autumn.
But there was also Ruby by Kaiser chiefs, the song that could have been devoted to the italian Socialists a few years before (!!) (rubi=steal, ndt), and that in any case fit perfectly to Forza Italia...

But it didn’t end with Marco and his password/computer delirium, the cleanup that took place in 2007: in fact, and we must say thanks to blogs, in October the famous Beatrice read some of the comments I expressed about her modus vivendi and... she started sending mail to the entire group of very old friends, saying she was disappointed because of me.
What a courage! Oh well, we know that...
I was a little sorry, in this case too, but it was pretty clear (euphemism) that I was right. And that the concept of being right wasn’t relative, at least not in this case.
So I said goodbye to the banker too, after even having publicly apologized (remaining faithful to the concepts), which earned me only other insults (of course): what gave me the most trouble was seeing that all the others rallied by her side. Years later I would find an explanation for this behavior thinking back to a very old question that I, Nicola and others there were asking ourselves when we were twenty, namely: how is it possible that, if many people want to improve the world and clean up its distortions, it does never improve?
Answer: because, aging or simply for personal gain, everyone tend to become evil.
I, personally, believe to be different (!)

And, thanks to a shift as it is right to call and how I defined it at the time, that is a hardly noticeable passage from one group to another, I found myself quickly into another circle of friends. It was the group of an old neighbor of Nicola’s, whom I had met about seven years earlier for computer issues: in that spring he had contacted me and I had met someone of his group... I knew he had been living with a girl who had then started a company with him and then had taken away all the money from him (!)
Now he was with another chick, kinda normal, a bit minger but good, older than him, and then he knew a lot of people - a bit like me (!) - and then he had frequently invitations for dinners, opening of cafè or pubs, small parties... where almost always food was free (!!) and he started to often extend invitations to me. And I joined, and it was enjoyable and there were some pretty girl, like that friend of Riccardo’s girlfriend (oh my God, how much this name impacts on me, after writing Mele a metà! Sorry... ) and then the Calabrian little cheese (mozzarellina, ndt) I met one day in Alba where she was alone i.e. without her Apulian thing...
Excuse me, again (!!)
I said, this one was really cute and sweet (so it seemed) with a body perfectly corresponding to my dreams... and, I believe from the beginning, I was torn between the idea to go out with her or have a body and a face like hers. But oh well...
Then another, with that name rather inflated, pretty and educated and with a bald boyfriend. And then more... all nice: all but one, the annoying Alberto Sordi’s clone! I spotted him on the very first evening... his way of acting, that mix of fake and full of himself with which he tried to impress - usually on the others’ girlfriends.
In particular, for reasons difficult to understand (!) he focused on Antonella, the young friend from Beatrice to whom we had been introduced a few months before – as usual at the request of the horny guy (!) - and some evenings at the restaurant remained memorable... the cheap places we often went to in order to favor savings (or possibly those free openings) and some quiet chatting and then the idiot lawyer who threw on the table a few polished words and liked to show off his pathetic subculture making fun of others. Moreover, he dared to mock the sweater Daniela had knitted me for New Year’s in 1990 and which I was still wearing from time to time, and this I could never forgive to him (!!!)
Antonella liked to dance and so I recorded her a collection of dance songs of that year which, as we have seen, had lived another great time - and this would continue in the following year. In particular, in those months, there was Destination Calabria by Alex Gaudino and Girls say by Groove Armada, and even Hard to love by Atrax; and the fantastic Contact from Glenn Morrison.

And then we went to a Halloween party with two other female friends (alleged lesbians, they narrated) and there was a chick that I had met previous summer in the pool at one of the many openings (!) and as usual I had dreamed I were the one with the bikini and breasts... then I had spent most of the evening talking to this gal, but when I asked her to dance with me Shadow of the day by Linkin Park at this latest little party, she refused. And Riccardo’s girlfriend came to me asking "I don’t understand why she hasn’t accepted, it was such a tender situation..."
Yeah. The answer was so clear but you couldn’t say it... nor comprehend.
Beautiful song, Shadow of the day, yes: a bit like U2’s With or without you, as someone said on the radio... but remarkable. And, with a tinge of sadness, it reminds me that autumn when my mom was doing a series of tests for a disease that had peeped that spring and that would get worsened...

That summer I also began to spend time on facebook, as a pioneer - as I have often said - and basically you clicked on the photos of other contacts (girls) and then exchanged a few words. No big deal: the big (and worst) of the social network would come years later, like for example the repatriated with old school friends that no one really wanted to see (!)
I remember a Norwegian girl, two English sisters and a Turkish one. Oh, of course in addition to Hale - another Turkish girl who contacted me on Skype a few days after my return from Greece, so much so that I joked saying did you see me from the opposite bank in Kos?
And she was pretty, and of course I thought it was a joke or some attempt to scam: and yet she was real... we phoned each other several times, she taught me a few words in turkish, sent me some pictures.
I should have gone and meet her, perhaps: but I had so many things going on that... I didn’t. We’ve gone on writing ourselves for a while, here and there.
Speaking of the Internet, I had opened a completely private Myspace channel on which I used to put some thought or some of my photos. Nothing special. Second Life was a little gone (and rightly so), and on the other hand, still through my blog I met a Roman guy with whom we happened to share many ideas. At least that, to say (!)

Yes, 2007 was really a full year!
We still remember some songs like No one by Alicja Keys, and Pictures of you by The Last Goodnight, and even Apologize by Timbaland and Si tu no vuelves from Miguel Bosé with Shakira (remake of Se tu non torni in 1994). And the remarkable Suburban knights by Hard-Fi.
And the cover of Mina’s Come tu mi vuoi by Irene Grandi, of whom I found myself watching (again) a concert, this time after winning a free ticket offered by a newspaper!
And maybe even Ready! Set! Go! by Tokio Hotel and Do it by Nelly Furtado.

In December, it happened then the fire at Thyssen in Torino. Meanwhile we were deciding what to do on New Year’s Eve and, in the usual indecision that is quite normal in large groups, she stood out a chick with a behaviour somewhat strong (or even masculine!) who proposed a dinner in a mountain hut. I liked the idea... others more or less yes, but then they couldn’t tell... and short in the end we went up more than twenty, and we stopped to sleep in just seven or eight. It wasn’t bad, however.

They all seemed to be good people, and they probably were. But when it would come to talk about ethics, ideals, behaviors and human relationships... it would end badly. And, as I wrote less than a year later, they were no longer the Mai dire 2 Alpes times when you could smile about an ignorant playboy or a Democrat voter who was looking for a party to vote in exchange for a job...

As I mentioned, we would never return To France with these friends: that is, the taste of those months and a day trip to (for a change) Ceresole... would never be repeated.

Shadow of the day, Linkin Park

Monsoon, Tokyo Hotel

Pensa, Fabrizio Moro

 2008

We didn’t go skiing much in that winter - basically I was so completely taken by the new house that, more or less, in a few months was to be completed. So, apart from some downhill toboggan on January the 1st and then just a couple of times with Riccardo (an expert skier) and some of his friends - where alcohol was flowing like rivers (!) - I concentrated on the future.
I remained curiously imprinted by Sensual seduction from Snoop Dogg: one of those Saturdays in the snow in Cervinia, they played it on the slopes... and I spent several hours teaching (at least a little) skiing to Denise, a friend from the group.
We would then meet again on Valentine's Day - one of the few times I ever invited someone to come for a drink and she accepted (!!) - but... without much conviction. On both sides, I would say. Even if I don’t I start talking on the phone while sitting to dinner with another person... (!)

In mid-January she died Franco’s mother, my very old Hooverphonic friend: it was a sudden thing, I think on Tuesday after a Sunday when we met her by chance and unexpectedly in Torino (she had been living in Canavese for years) and... I remember that phone call from his girlfriend. The funeral a few days later... she was young, sixty-four years old... of course, when we were young children I hadn’t realized she was so much younger than my mother (perhaps because she had always looked much younger  )

There were no carnival celebrations, at that time, but I only had a chance to see the floats parades, either at the Pellerina park or in Moncalieri... and me wishing to be in one of those Brazilian dancers’ place or just Katia’s (!) and Bleeding love by Leona Lewis (but also Kate Nash’s Pumpkin soup) served as soundtrack of my fantasies in the evenings, sometimes.
Katia who, in late January, celebrated her birthday at a restaurant and it was a nice evening with the usual friends: and I remember fondly her sweet shyness while opening the packet gift... I made a video to be posted on my new-started Youtube channel using Pictures of you from the Cure as background, because I had found out that a friend of theirs was playing covers of the above. In fact I believe this was a hoax, because shortly after the guy, fairly old and not very smart, would be the protagonist of The big fat wedding...

In those months... Oh well, it's better to say in those years, I happened to go and see evening meetings of journalists like Travaglio or Santoro, or events such as the V-Day: it was still in the hope of improving a little bit the bad place – which instead would soon be worsened a lot: consider that in spring Prodi fell because Mastella had resented that they had arrested his wife...
And goodnight. But let’s fly over it... like I then repeated several times, in those months it was clear that you had to leave immediately from that country.

For my birthday they gave me a copy of Mani sporche, in fact! And I was very proud to put it on display in my new library, a few months later. The gift had come from the famous young girl and dancer - the lametina as Alberto Sordi’s surrogate (!) called her, trying to look sympathetic and cultured - and her current boyfriend: a handsome guy, though a banker clerk and a little unfit to her (!!)
We went on a farm in Novalesa, where we had already been a few weeks before with the famous masculine chick organizing New Year's Eve: we were good at talk... I remember our long nights in the car and... it seems impossible how people talk one way and then act all the opposite, really. Or maybe it all happened because, unlike my horny friend who used to look at her camel-toe (I learned only later that terminology...) through her jeans... I used to find her ideals interesting.
Oh well. Moreover, Franco had a very bad cold at that birthday of mine and I found it commendable that he came anyway.
The way I are from Timbaland and the beautiful Chasing pavements from Adele who began her brilliant career, and also I'll be waiting by Lenny Kravitz and Tear down these houses by Skin, and then also Work from Kelly Rowland provided the soundtrack in those months. Ah, in addition to several pearls provided by the legendary 105 Zoo for its Festival of St. Jimmy! That year they were really in a state of grace, including Carta vetro, Bravo Vincenzo and Impiccati.

Incidentally, thanks to the blonde from year before I happened to meet again a very old friend from elementary school, with whom she had remained in contact: and at least that was one good thing though... imagining them both linked from the times of the oratory at which I quickly took a look in 1983... made me nausea. Just hypocrisy pearls!
There was also the first of a series of reunions, the one with fellow schoolmates from secondary school: very little to save and, indeed, some smile at the thought that many were gone between drugs and aids... (!!!)

And so we spent Easter Monday, again with the usual new friends - at least some of them. Erika, the masculine, had invited me to be part of that sub-group, and also Katia and her thing were with us: a little drive in the country, a kind of barbecue not so great but acceptable. And… the night before, my horny friend inviting me to go to the pub with him, because there were his friends from Pinerolo…
I've always liked pubs out of town. So I agreed and we set off to reach Perosa Argentina: some boys, Simona from the white/red sweater dress a few months before, one friend of hers (as it turned out, cousin)...
Simona was very pretty: and there were chances for me as I like to repeat using a still acceptable terminology (!) another dinner, exchanging SMS messages, think about Stratorino coming soon (she was quite athletic) and...
One day in late March Erika asks me if I can help her buy an MP3 player: I accept, we take a ride in a shopping center, then she asks me what I arranged for the evening, I tell her that I’ll go to a pizzeria with Massimiliano and his friends... she looks at me and in a soft voice (as it might allow her lack of estrogen  ) tells me so you’ll leave me alone...
I take, and kiss her. Idiot.
Sorry, I meant to say ridiculous, right? When it is time you don’t, and when it wouldn’t be...

We start dating. For some day I dream of Vita tranquilla, like Tricarico’s singing (come to his senses after la maestra puttana!) ... but of course I made a big mistake: I don’t like her, at all, physically. And what little good had been created in the long conversations of the previous months, it vanishes soon - perhaps because I just can’t be near her in that way. I remember the only time I stopped at her house and... I couldn’t sleep, and I quickly realized why.
So, within a month and a half, I tried to let her down as soon as possible. Of course Simona was gone, with that last text that I had written and at which she had responded incredulously - that one for the above mentioned Stratorino: I guess she called me crazy and... well, I don’t know if it depended on the fact of that dress, but probably yes. What a mess would I have done, if after a while I was to tell her about the real me?
But I remember that evening at a pizzeria, just the week before I committed that mistake, how I lived the perfect moment between Simona who laughed at my jokes and Erika looking at me. Every so often, at least!

So while Katia invited us to one of her belly dance performance and I was thinking about how to get hold of a costume like hers (a fantasy living in my head for at least three years) and Erika tried to make sure that we remain friends... I was aiming to avoid her and I was now ready to move. In fact, I was already late (not my fault) against the lady who would buy my apartment... but then everything would be fine.

And the famous Big-fat wedding in Tuscany, between the self-defined coverer of Cure and that fat thing (the only single unpleasant Tuscan, as I would later call her), was useful to get me away from a bit of those people there. The things she did my ex (even if it makes me shudder to remember it) that weekend were obscene, almost worse than the banker (!), and... it started to just be clear that to the average person it doesn’t matter if one from their group was cheating or he/she had a double or triple face or was simply unable of organizing a simple trip - and blamed the others with arrogance. Well, for details... go buy my Anthology/2 

A trip to the beach in mid-June, with the usual Franco and his girlfriend, reminds me of Gabriella Cilmi with Sweet about me, nice little song: I had bought a new mobile phone... weather wasn’t great, but we had a good lunch in Laigueglia. Among the songs of that period I also find L’ultima risposta by Subsonica, of which I had seen another free concert in Cuneo few months before, and Worried about Ray by the Hoosiers, that reminds me of a joke from my partner from maybe a couple of years before: "Marco is worried about you"...
You need courage, we know (!)
And also Happy ending by Mika, good song, too bad not having been able to devote it to... nothing. But it doesn’t matter.

And so it arrived July 1st, and finally I slept in my new home! With a lot less scary than a decade earlier, although the doors were barely mounted... And maybe even no water and the electrical system was still provisional, but it was nice, and even nicer it was receiving that text by Cristina, Simona’s cousin...
If you think that I have often been somewhat unlucky and a little idiot, brace yourselves: I am going to tell you that I was MUCH more unfortunate and stupid! Or, perhaps, simply in the wrong place in the wrong body... as we know.

It had all began a few weeks after Easter, when my friend had inserted me in a list of emails between him, another old friend of his, then Simona and her cousin... and at one point it had come out that she knew the Alan Parsons Project! Hence she had derived her nickname and email...
We had started to write long emails, and it was nice: again, ideals and more but with a tinge of psychological, of higher… in some ways. I knew that my horny friend had taken chances with her, as earlier even with her cousin Simona: it’s not that I had liked her particularly at first sight... but our chats became interesting. Of course we had also talked about that (call it so) misunderstanding with her cousin... and past stories of male completely caught with sex, and dreams...

And, in short, that sweet but not stupid little message on that night was a nice gesture. While in radio they played We cry from The Scripts, on which we often found ourselves commenting our ups and downs... or In Italia by Fabri Fibra in duet with Gianna Nannini - another fantastic gem and perfectly fitting for those first few months when I was fighting with banks, water suppliers or telephone or electricity... (!!!) (and in any case sei nato e morto qua like hell!!!!)
And then Violet hill by Coldplay, as well as Viva la vida. Via le mani dagli occhi from Negramaro and Eroe by Caparezza, or the sympathetic Superstar from Lupe Fiasco (self-dedicated: "if you are what you say you are, a superstar, then have no fear!") and the special Black and gold from Sam Sparro and then Let me in from Ben's Brothers; and Stop and stare by One Republic and The shock of the lightning by Oasis.

We went dancing at the Rotonda with Cristina, and besides Mika (!) now they also played Toca's Miracle, remixed from a few years before. And again, in those days, that girl did something very rare: that is, she took me aside... we were me her a friend of hers and then Simona with her new boyfriend and she came to apologize to me fearing that... seeing Simona with a new boyfriend could’ve hurt me.
I watched her, amazed, and commented that, frankly, it wasn’t a problem! And it was true, with all the things I had on my mind at that time.
But it was so incredible that anyone apologize. At work, in love... it looked like a miracle.
How sad. I mean, for you humans (!!)

We continued to meet each other, though not very frequently: some dinner or beer in Pinerolo, in her zone, and then the Spa in Pre S. Didier along with two other friends. And... all of us falling asleep on those kind of hanging chairs (like cocoons), and... she's sitting in the one next to me, one meter away... and when I open my eyes is gone! Suddenly, you wake up, and you're alone... I thought, and of course I remember that feeling like it were yesterday... and the (wrong) quotation from the ancient Billy Ocean’s song.

Then the marriage of a not too mussel friend of a hospital mussel (!), which officially became the first woman to sleep in my new house. Another unwatchable that was behind me, to confirm the theory. But the ceremony and lunch weren’t bad, including convertible car! (and unfortunately also a jacket and tie...)

All summer long, he sang Kid Rock. And then there were Mercy and Rain on your parade by Duffy. John Legend’s Green light and Beggin' from Madcon, very beautiful. Sometimes from Hooverphonic, with a new singer. And of course, the superlative Love is noise from the reunited Verve, which I adored from the very first moment - and still love, although it remained Cristina’s song, as I will say later.
I love to move in here by Moby, suitable for moving house  and Hercules & love affair with Blind, cute as well. And John Wayne from Billy Idol, back with a song that I liked a lot.
At that time I wrote a little note about Madonna... I don’t know why, but many ideas that had been on my mind since becoming unbearable (i.e. at least fifteen years) found their way to a small pamphlet, which you can find on the internet (!)
My blogger friend appreciated everything and also weighed in by adding that he had never liked her (even before)... but over time I realized that he too was aging badly (!!)
But, behold, Miles away was acceptable.


The Olympics in China celebrated number 8 and… August pased slowly. September would arrive with the world economy panic but... no one could imagine, unless perhaps generically.
So, no Boa sorte as predicted by Vanessa de Mata and Ben Harper; on the other hand I kissed a girl from newcomer Katy Perry was... so logical: the lesbian kiss... was it me, or not, or...
Us girls we are so magical / Soft skin, red lips, so kissable / hard to resist so touchable
Why hadn’t I been born this way? I tried to make the best of a bad game... when I moved on Arabian sounds and improvised my belly dance, among the veils that I had bought at the market. And so I inaugurated my new house, where I had more room to move and I could climb the stairs in heels, as I told cheering to my Polish friend.

Riccardo and some of his friends came to help me clean or fix or even try to arrange my garden, at that time: then we went to eat a pizza in that area I had known for over twenty years and I felt good! The house was beautiful… surroundings maybe not perfect, but the idea of the country was for me, definitely, and I was more than happy with that decision.... My mom would’ve had time to see it just once: because, in fact, she didn’t care... and that I never understood.

So they pass C-lebrity from Queen with Paul Rodgers, In love with a girl by Gavin DeGraw and Magic by Robin Thicke. And The man who can’t be moved from The scripts and Dicono di me from Cesare Cremonini, which I more or less appreciated - now more than a few years earlier. And Girls in their Summer clothes (about... envy and with a thought to all the clothes I had seen over Katia, but not only, in that summer) and Vieni a ballare in Puglia by Caparezza, fun. And then, while thick clouds of the crisis accumulated on our heads, Giusi Ferreri sings Novembre (about which we remember the wonderful joke by the Zoo a novembre tornerò a lavorare come cassiera...) and Negrita’s Che rumore fa la felicità - so sweetly sad and always well written, as in their style... mentre i sogni si dissolvono e gli inverni si accavallano / mentre il senso delle cose muta ed ogni sicurezza è ormai scaduta / appassisce lentamente la coscienza della gente…
And, somewhat similar, I also remember Tu sei parte di me from Pacifico. And of course, I'm outta time by Oasis... I used it as the soundtrack for a short photo slideshow of Katia, a small gift...

We didn’t go to dance, neither with Cristina nor with others. But I remember many great songs, like of course Lady gaga with Just dance and then Poker face, and then Rihanna's Disturbia and the remake of Infinity by Guru Josh Project. And in particular Laurent Wolf’s Wash my world, which I was listening at full volume with Paolo in our car and... those vibrations were fantastic: and, as it often happened now, I was sorry that he didn’t share my appreciation for contemporary music.
In fact, I had decided to close the company with him after his further behaviors... dunno, how to define them? questionable, to customers, and even me... I had decided that it was better to call it quit a day before something serious happened. And, for a change, I was not at all wrong: we parted on good terms... I gave him my used notebook because thieves had just entered his house and had stolen his... but a few months later he pulled me back in the middle of his delusional collaborators...

Obama wins the election, at least! And religious Alberto asks me if I am happy, and I reply that, well... considering that stock markets are sinking and Berlusconi is once again leading government... there's not much to be happy...

But we were talking about Cristina. The entire month of October passes without us writing ourselves - for no particular reason. Moreover, throughout the month of October, the dirty rain doesn’t stop one single day and, as I think with a bitter smile, it is God who punishes people for their garbage.
Then she writes me these two tender lines "was it something I did or said?"
And... again: the sweetness but without stupidity or molasses. Like Nek, like Niccolò Fabi, in fact: indeed I realize now more than nine years ago... this parallel. Beyond the writer’s sex, I say (!)
So I reply, and tell her that there was no reason and I was simply very busy... and so I apologize or rather we apologize at each other and we start writing again. She has stopped meeting this guy (a pathetic boor from gym or diving courses, I think) and... we chat together. In particular, I hit (!) her with that wonderful thought that I write one evening, on the way back from Stupinigi while listening to Depeche Mode in my car: that one dedicated to Stripped, live version: it’s worth a lifetime but you can’t grab it...

And in late November it comes something to be told, exactly.
One day, I receive a message on facebook... in the chat that I had basically never used (!), from a girl I had met in 1996 in the midst of those from the Star Trek club. One of the few nice, so to speak.
We had met twice, in May and September... and perhaps, in September, I had missed an opportunity (for a change) because I had other fish to fry. Then we had kept in touch for a few years... we had also arranged to meet again, but it hadn’t happened. And so, now...
Without me saying anything in particular, just telling how I remember perfectly every minute we spent together twelve years before (!!) and... she falls at my feet! Or, in short, she begins telling me a lot of sweet things... and I dedicate her La cura from Battiato - which was out precisely in 1996. We decide to meet as soon as possible: she, from Rome, will go on holiday in Spain with a friend of hers in mid-December and will return landing in Pisa, so we arrange to see us there and later come to Torino.
And so it happens... and everything is nice, yep. Her voice, her sweetness, her hands... the warmth of my car, the amazement of the people from Rome to December fog (which I had already noticed some other time) ... take her to the glorious old pub in Moncalieri and then sleep on the mattress on the floor (there was still a bit of work to do in my house). A few photos, a few trips. A little sex (!) and (my) immediate dreams of love who ask loudly, "would you want to move here?" and the like...
This is the life, Amy MacDonald and Broken Strings by James Morrison were the soundtrack of all those kilometers. Meanwhile, there was also Cry from the Novecento (back again), and Il Genio with Pop Porno - another launch from Radio DJ.

It was a rather sweet December, yes. Cristina used to ask me how it was going on, I answered... I was happy and feeling well! And also meeting one of the Tuscan friends from Tunisia (with whom I kept in touch) in Torino had been pleasant: she would get married the following year and had already invited me to the wedding.

A little undecided, we continued to talk about what to do on New Year’s Eve and, finally, Simona invited me to go to her place in Rome – she was still living with her parents but they would go away in those days.

Oh, still in those days there was that school collapsing in Rivoli (!) where a boy remained under the rubble. Signs from the future... (!!!!)

Love is noise, Verve

Wash my world, Laurent Wolf

In Italia, Fabri Fibra & Gianna Nannini