A bogus world folded in on itself, made up of people of poor cultural level ready to give up a band when someone offered him a few hundred more lire a day.
A fake world made up of serious professional whores who tried to build a real love by giving money to the ruffian on duty who then filled them with dicks, a fake world made of wild women looking for who knows that always ready to throw themselves away, a fake world where customers forced you to play him what he liked and the most humiliating thing was when they forced you to go to the tables with the guitar.
A bogus world in which it was possible, though extremely rare, to find someone to trust. For example, a Neapolitan bassist, a big boy who left me a great memory when compared to the myriad of other former collaborators who did everything but help you.
You have already understood that leaving that bogus world, even though my band was now qualified for the most important clubs and nightclubs on the Peninsula, had been a very tough decision especially because it was made at the age of 27 and with a rag of law degree won it is said after years out of course.
I had been lucky enough to be hired as head of press office at the Societa' Metallurgica Italiana, leader in the heavy non-ferrous metals sector at European level.
Head of press office: I didn't know anything about it but I had jumped on books and manuals to get a little culture.
Then, thank God, I was able to understand how the machine worked and also to be successful. At least that's what the others said.
And now New York, Washington, Detroit with a visit to Ford, of course Niagara Falls.
Going to America, that America dreamed of in the first films that had arrived right after Liberation.
The America of stereotypes, the cowboys, the gangsters, the charming actresses with those super-feathered hairs, but also and above all the America of those GI who had entered hungry Florence, annihilated by artillery duels between one side of the Arno River, who had immediately refueled us with that incredibly white bread and the pyramid cans with that excellent meat, corned beef.
I was immediately rescued by the Maitre who took me under my arm, took me out of the large hall and slipped me into a room begging me to get rid of the dress that would be returned to me within an hour.
I was there as head of media relations at the Institute for Industrial Reconstruction, a position if you want of high prestige that counted for absolutely nothing because, in the tradition of this huge para-public galaxy, every big company belonging to IRI did not inform the top management of Institute.
I made an appointment with my wife and son Max at the end of the morning's work.
In New York with other Rotary clubs convivial meeting at the Waldorf Astoria.
That hotel was the actual simulacrum of the extraordinary power of that state, America. That he had saved us from Mussolini's now exhausted dictatorship and from the Nazism that was trying to reborn from his ashes.
"But look who you see!"
The tall young man in summer blue double-breasted looked at me smiling and handed me a flute of champagne that he had taken from a service table nearby.
I was desperately trying to make use of memory and I had to acknowledge that the young Rotarian's features were remotely familiar to me. But who the hell was that?
"I see you're drowning to try to focus my face. I understand it's not easy because I have a beard and a mustache. Anyway, I'm Mario Bianchi and we were together in fifth grade from the Dominican nuns... Can you frame me? You have that usual expression with that Pinocchio nose (if you will allow me) and then just to tell you that I am not a magician I read before coming on the invitation the composition of the Italian delegation and your name popped to my eye."
It is difficult to recognize Mario Bianchi after twenty years and behind a sturdy beard with a mustache.
My old classmate had a medical degree and was specializing in cardio surgery in New York.
We sit nearby taking our seat at a very long table around which at least fifty twenty people were gathered, of whom were the Florentine group of visiting Rotarians.
Mario Bianchi tells me about his academic successes and the fact that America has opened the doors for a specialization that in Italy would have been extremely difficult in the short space of a few years because of the 'barons' who block access to the profession of those who manifest too many talents.
As he speaks one of the many waiters serving around the long table approaches with a wide metal tray that I see dangerously tilting towards me.
A kilo of roasted meat with various contours is transferred from the metal tray to the undersigned who wears for the occasion a precious cream linen dress.
And in fact after 60 minutes the Maitre knocked on the door giving me back the washed and ironed dress and, this did that raised my morale, without any damage despite it being a very delicate fabric.
I asked the Maitre why such a famous hotel used professionally inadequate staff.
"Dear sir, unfortunately the staff is defended by a powerful union. We are forced to hire people who are not professional and who we cannot fire... We're sorry for what happened to her."
It was May 1964.
________________________________________________________
In New York 15 years later for a meeting at Finmeccanica headquarters.
The fact that Finmeccanica in New York had invited me to follow a meeting with some of the most important American companies in the corporate communication sector depended exclusively on the good relationship of closeness and almost friendship that I had been able to create with the manager of that New York office.
We stroll down Fifth Avenue looking for a good restaurant. But above all doing what every tourist in love with this megacity does when he decides to vacation in New York without having a precise commitment.
Walking, watching, absorbing the vibrations of a crowd passing and sometimes bumping into you maybe without a sorry.
All the opposite of when you find yourself walking in Shanghai, immersed in the human mass that slips on you without touching you.
We pass a couple in front of the entrance of a hotel, he in there with the years, dressed in black leather, she senses that she is a great beautiful woman even if covered by a long overcoat.
"Oscar Bartoli...!"
My name is pronounced in a stamped voice. This one then.. but did someone really say my name?
I stop, puzzle my wife and son, then turn around and back in my footsteps approaching that black-skinned gentleman dressed.
I smile at him obviously showing surprise and sympathy.
"You do not recognize me?" says the tale in Florentine 'vernacolo', adding: "I am Roberto Cavalli, the fashion designer.."
A tragic moment for your editor, because in the confusion of New York traffic I had not been able to identify the famous Florentine fashion creator who, think you, I had known many years before when with one of my bands I played in a dancing hall of Empoli village frequented by waitresses, hairdressers and sex professionals.
At that time Roberto Cavalli asked me to play Gino Paoli's 'la Gatta'. But it was a time-discolored episode that I watched well from reviving in those few minutes of New York encounter.
Then in the following years in Florence my name had circulated many times during the administrative and political election campaigns in which I was a candidate for the Italian Liberal Party and later elected municipal member at Palazzo Vecchio.
Needless to say, when I later tried to make contact with Cavalli, citing the cute encounter in New York, the whole thing fell into nothingness.
The beautiful smiling lady who attended the scene was the wife of the famous designer.
Oscar
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