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La Europa Senestra
Entry 3 of 20 | show all | print this entry |
(Rock-It Coffeeshop, Amsterdam, September 28, 2006)-It was with sad hearts to be leaving this lovely patch of Tuscany that Mark and Giorno and I climbed into Monica's little SUV and headed south to Roma to spend the next two days. Giorno's reading was Monday night at a chain bookstore, very well attended, very long introduction (but when I laughed about the length of the intro, Ritsema said "It just shows you how seriously they take this stuff").
The big kick was that our mutual friend Penny Arcade and her husband Chris were in the house for Giorno, along with the legendary John Vaccarro. Penny just got her Italian citizenship and they're contemplating a move from New York City. After the show we walked all the way across town to have dinner together at the ristorante on the first floor of Monica's building in the center of town, where Mark & Giorno and I are being put up. What a beautiful thing, to see Penny & Chris right in the middle of Rome on a Monday night!
They're leaving for other parts of Italia the next day, and Giorno has to move on to Spain in the morning, but I get another treat when I'm sitting at the sidewalk café on the Guiseppe Bruno plaza where Mark & Monica & I are lunching and up walks Tom Speed and his wife to take the table next to us. Tom is the editor and publisher of Honest Tune magazine in Oxford MS, whom I serve as a feature writer, blues columnist and reviewer. We were trying to specify by e-mail a time and place to meet up when communications broke down and I gave up. Then they turned up in the very plaza we were inhabiting! Good work, Tom, and thanks for coming out for our performance that evening.
From lunch we stagger over to the headquarters of the university television system to record a full-scale 40-minute duet performance that will be shown to University TV students who subscribe to the televised classes in lieu of physically attending the class sessions at the U. This goes very smoothly, "live" from beginning to end, and although there is no stipend Mark & I will soon have a professionally shot DVD of our show tro use for our own purposes.
The brilliant, selfless and virtually indefatigable Monica performed her penultimate duty that evening when she drive us to the Parca de Resistenzo where the local Communist Party was holding its fall festival calling for a Left-Wing Europe-La Europa Senestra! They had taken over the park much in the manner of the people at ComFest in Columbus OH and installed sort of a little Red village with booths, stages, a vast feeding area and all the accoutrements of a country carnoical without the midway or the rides. Mark and I were ushered to a nice little stage under a small tent, given a splendiud sound system and a long introduction, and left to our own devices for about an hour.
We had been in the bosom of the left wing, anarchist stylee, when we were in Rome in April, performing and staying at the C.S.O.A. Forte Prenestino and doing a Joint Production with Giovanna Anna on her "Punta G" (G Spot) program on the unlicensed radio station known as Onda Rossa (Red Wave). I had hoped to catch up with Giovanna, our pal Antonio and other characters from the Forte Prenestino in our short two-day stay in Rome, but couldn't reach them on the phone. Then my two radio translators, Ele and Emilia, showed up at the tent to catch our show, and with the Speeds also in the house everything was all reet.
Here's the Joint Production I made with Giovanna at Radio Onda Rossa in Roma back in April:
John Sinclair Show #84
We had dinner after the show with Monica and Leo and his wife, all Stampa Alternativa staffers backing up my appearance and selling copies of the new book, which will not be officially released until Friday, September 15th. Leo arranges with me to ship my 100 copies (happily accepted in lieu of cash advance) to Adam Brook in Detroit and gives me a package of 20 artist's and promo copies to carry with me back to Amsterdam.
Va Tutto Bene / It's All Good is published in Italy in an edition of 1200 copies. A limited number are available in the USA from Big Chief Products in Detroit. Contact Adam Brook at adamlbrook@hotmail.com if you want to secure a copy and I'll sign it when I see you next.
On Wednesday morning Mark and I have our last two delicious 80-cent espressos in the city center, pack our stuff and Monica drives us back to the airport to catch our SwissAir flight to Schipol Airport in Amsterdam. I catch the train into town to stash my stuff at the 420 Café and then duck back to the station and catch the train for Rotterdam to catch up with Mark and spend the next couple of days at his place until I can secure lodgings in Amsterdam for the Fall.
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| 3. | La Europa Senestra - Roma, Italy Sep 11, 2006 |
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