Don't you touch my culo

Here's an old blog entry that somehow didn't get posted. Enjoy.

Wednesday Aug 6, 2014

We had a rare treat today walking through the streets of Naples. We were strolling down Spaccanapole, which is the long, narrow street that cuts like an arrow through ancient Naples, appearing to divide the city in two. We were heading to where musical instruments like mandolins are made and sold. A young woman came walking down the street playing a tambourine and singing what sounded to me like a Hari Krishna chant. I figured she was either selling tambourines or she had gotten separated from the other Krishnas in the back streets of Naples. I couldn’t have been more wrong. 

Her singing and percussion resonated through the small alleys lined with stone buildings and was so compelling that I had to turn around and follow her to the piazza. There in front of a great cathedral she sang and played for a long time after. Sure enough Pasquale was already there, as if he had heard a call to prayer. 

Before I tell you more, listen to and watch the attached clip.

Here’s the real story. Her name is Valentina.

She doesn’t perform professionally. She does it because it’s traditional Neapolitan music called Tammurriata, and she sings it while playing the instrument which is called a Tammorra. It’s just what she does. People do throw money her way, but she does it not for the money. IT IS JUST WHAT SHE DOES.

If you want to see the whole clip, go to my Facebook page or Pasquale’s  Tammurriata di Valentina 

What is she saying? Much of the Tammurriata has double meaning and it was the way the common people talked about love and life. An almost literal translation is as follows:

Don’t you touch my foot, don’t you touch my foot.

If I gave you my foot, you would want to have something else.

Don’t you touch my leg, don’t you touch my leg.

If I gave you my foot and my leg, you would want something else.

…

Well she keeps adding body parts in the tradition of the Twelve Days of Christmas, working her way up past her culo (you know, the thing you sit on?) and then to various parts of the body for which the slang describes their essential characteristics. Such is her characterization of the Neapolitan man. 

She adds a question and observation regarding Neapolitan women, 

How good is a women, how good is a women?

She steals the heart of a man and plays with it.

That’s love and life Napolitana style. No moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie. 

Of course that pizza is tasty. Almost as tasty as … never mind. If I told you that, you’d want me to tell you something else.

One Other Face of Naples

There's one more face of Naples I want to talk about. A face that embodies the goodness, kindness and love in the people of Naples.
     My friend Pasquale grew up in Naples. When he was a boy, he lived next door to his aunt Maria (Zia Maria in Italian) and his uncle Zio Celestino within a gated community. We went there because he wanted to visit his aunt and uncle and because he was obligated to visit them. In Italy, it's the same thing. It shows respect and it nurtures the bond of family. Love and respect go together like mozzarella and tomato.
     I saw it a few years back, when Pasquale went to Rome on business and I bunked in with him in an IBM-paid suite. We had met some of his musician friends in a park where they played Neapolitan folk music late into the night. On the way back to the hotel at about 2:00 AM, Pasquale said, "Let's go through Piazza Navona. I want to see if Salvatore is there."

     I asked him who Salvatore was and he told me they used to play music together in Piazza Navona. Since that was twenty years before, I assured Pasquale that Salvatore would no longer be there.
     I was wrong. He was. In Italy, street singing is a career. We stayed until sunrise singing more street songs. (Well, I just listened and tapped my fingers on the table.) Around 6:00 AM, a young boy on a motor scooter brought hot croissants. We later went to a cafe for breakfast, sat in the sun for a while, and Salvatore left to go home and sleep. He needed to rest so that twenty years hence he could still be performing in Piazza Navona.
      Since it was the first all-nighter I had pulled without having a college exam in the morning, I was happy to follow his example.  Just as we dozed off in the hotel room, Pasquale got a phone call. Thinking it was his wife, he answered it right away.
      It was Zia Philomena. Since Pasquale had not yet contacted her, she had tracked him down and was in the lobby. Pasquale thought quickly and told her he would visit her tomorrow, because right now he was not alone. Her silence made him realize she thought he had woman up in the room, so he quickly told her it was another guy. She hung up without waiting for more of an explanation. He visited her the next day, and she never mentioned it. Respect.
     Anyway, back in Naples, when we arrived at Zia and Zio's apartment, we met an old woman unlocking the iron gate. Looking through the fog of decades, she recognized Pasquale. They exchanged a thousand words in a 100 seconds, kissed each other on both cheeks, and she let us in. Zia Maria was already peeking out from her balcony anticipating our arrival.
     It was a modest apartment with marble floors and carved wood. It carried a hint of the art and architecture I had seen throughout Italy—a copy of the Roman which was a copy of the Greek, over many generations. Everything was just right, as if important company was coming.

     They greeted their nephew with lots of hugs and me with lots of smiles. The three of them talked and talked while I took it all in and snapped a picture or two. When finally I said in my broken Italian how beautiful was Zia Maria and how much I would like to take her picture, she just smiled. I snapped the picture. She abruptly got up and left the room. 

     I waited for a pause in the conversation between Pasquale and Zio Celestino.  I waited a long time.  They don't pause when they talk. 

     Maybe instead of "beautiful" and "take your picture" I had said "in need of a beauty treatment" and "take your silverware." I was relieved to find out I was witnessing a ritual. The fine china and silver had already been brought out and cleaned, the coffee brewed, and she was off to the kitchen to get it. She brought everything in on an elegant tray. I declined a coffee and could tell from Pasquale's reaction I was breaking protocol. I asked instead for a cold drink and she graciously accommodated me. If I had offended her, I redeemed myself when Pasquale was helping his uncle log into Facebook and I carried the tray back to the kitchen. Her smile told me, coffee drinker or not, I was a good boy in her book. 

     There's nothing you can do with this story and these words that will match the photo to follow. I saw in her the epitome of goodness, of kindness, of love. I saw in her the look my mother used to give me, the look my Neapolitan grandmother had, and if my memory serves me right, it was the look my great-grandmother carried. It is one face of Naples. The face of a Napolitana woman's love for family. 

Zia Maria.

Now, maybe now you've seen Naples.

The Many Faces of Naples

It's difficult to characterize Naples. It is the epitome of simultaneous realities. And since the subject of simultaneous realities is what my novel-in-progress, "Six Minutes to Midnight," (I wonder if I will keep that title), is all about, I can claim visiting Naples as research for the book.  It was my friend and travel guide, Pasquale, who suggested the trip after reading my first chapter. You see, a man from Naples named Massimo travels to California and falls in love with “a woman who could not become my wife, but did.” Enough about that. This is about Naples.

It's a short and smooth train ride from Rome. It's as if you slide south on ice-rails landing in a station that looks like the one you left behind in Rome. But that's where the similarity ends. 

You go to National Car Rental to get a car. They don't have any. Well, not true. They have big cars. But big cars get stolen. So you have to pay about $800 to rent one for a few days, leaving a $600-cash deposit for when it's stolen. If it's ruined, (presumably because it was unable to be stolen), they keep only $500.

We took a cab to the hotel.

The first thing you notice about Naples is the architecture. It's the same as Rome's, only in Technicolor. 

Blues, reds, and pinks have replaced the white marble and gray stone in the massive buildings, churches, and statues. Maybe it's the Spanish/French/German veneer of occupation painted on the Italian foundation of resistance.

The next thing you notice is the sea. It is surrounds Naples.

Or more appropriately, Naples surrounds it—blue water, sun glittering on the ripples, and the hills of Naples framing the scene with its ever-present population. And that's the next thing you notice. The population is like a finely assembled mosaic of poor and wealthy,

 

artistic and corrupt, 

 

hopeful and fearful. There are signs everywhere: gorgeous beaches, industry, fishing, art, palaces, slums. 

Pasquale recounted his experience. When he was a kid, there were places in Naples that were dangerous because you could get robbed. As he grew older, the risk was you could get killed. He took me to seedy neighborhoods because “if you want the best coffee, this is where you have to go.” No thank you. I don’t want the best coffee. “One decaf with cream and sugar to go, hurry.”

I wandered into a photo museum/book store run by a man named Giovanni Durante. He had thousands of pictures of Naples from the early 1900's to recent times. 

He runs an organization called "Culture Saves Souls." He dedicated his life to using culture to fight the corruption that had ruined his city.  I bought the CDs with all the pictures he displayed. They are a real treasure. But more than that. He welcomed me using his-and-my broken-English-Italian. He gave me books I didn't buy. This is Giovanni and his fourteen-year-old daughter Annalisa. 

                  

On 27 March 2004, Annalisa was killed by a stray bullet intended for a crime boss in Naples. 

The reality of Naples is it is, or has been, many things: ruled by the Spanish, French, and Germans when together with Sicily it was it's own kingdom. As part of Mussolini's Italy, it was one of the most bombed cities in Europe. It is home to unparalleled beauty, great art and entrenched corruption. But the story of Naples is the story of the people. People who make music, who sing, who survive in a place they love.

I'm told my Neapolitan grandmother was always singing. The family story is she was a cousin to Enrico Caruso. My mother was always singing. So it fits. If you've heard me sing, you would think otherwise. If you read my previous blog about Valentina the street singer and listened to her performance, you get a taste of the music of Naples. And there is more to come further south in Positano. I will write about that later.

As I read over this blog, I realize it is not funny, as I had imagined it would be. Naples is not funny. It's like a church. Sacred. You should whisper. There are forces of evil as well. And it's bad luck to talk of evil. Another whisper. But then the church bells ring. It's time to sing. And the sounds resonate up and down the narrow streets and across the wide piazzas. Good. Evil. Whispers. Song. Yes, that's Naples. Now you've seen Naples.

Oh ya, I forgot to say. If you want to go to the Amalfi coast from Naples, you need a car. But you don't have to rent one or steal one. Did you read my last blog about Pasquale's friend Gianni? He said, "Take my car." "No Gianni, we couldn't." "Take it. I have a scooter. First I have to pick up my daughter. Meet me here in 15 minutes." "Gianni, what a beautiful daughter you have." "Here, take my keys. You know how to drive a stick shift? Call me when you get back." 

Maybe in the end, Naples doesn't have many faces. It is all good, and the rest doesn't matter.

This is Naples

You think you've seen Naples? You haven't, not until Gianni

 (This is Gianni)

pulls a u-turn in heavy traffic when he spots his old school chum Pasquale (with some Americana) at the train station, jumps the sidewalk, stuffs you into the back of his little car

and whisks you off to the San Giorgio suburb, which is at the foot of Mt Vesuvius,


Where the guys like to play a little pool at his place

until it’s time for Mario (he works in “security”) to take you for a long walk soaking up the local color

To get to the place where Gianni won’t let you order for yourself  because you’re going to drink Vesuvius beer (eruption noted), eat fried fitters with cheese and macaroni inside, followed by the first pizza with baccalà (salted cod) and chicory followed by the second pizza with Prosciuto ham and Zuccini blossoms, but forget about coffee, because he will drive you to the other side of San Giorgio fast enough so you won’t notice the break in lunch where the coffee is better.

Now you have seen Naples.

History Day is Cancelled

Today’s blog was supposed to be about history. You can’t walk through the streets of ancient Rome without thinking about history. But like most things in Italy, the schedule changed and yesterday became "Art Day". So sorry folks. No “History Day” today. Here’s what happened to change the schedule.

My friend Pasquale’s sister Antonietta in Torino (Turin) had a friend Loredana in Prato (near the other ancient city of Florence which the natives call Firenze) who was coming to Rome with her friend Stella (finally a name I can spell) to see the Frida Kahlo exhibit at Scuderie del Quirinale. (Quirinale as you might remember from your Latin is one of the seven hills of Rome. Of course you don’t really get a feel for the hill until you walk from the MAXII Gallery on the other side of Rome in 90 degree heat, on crooked black cobblestones that look and feel like shiny charcoal rocks,

up the Quirinale Hill, until you finally reach the 100 stairs that lead you to the top of the Piazza Quirinale—where there were more people waiting in line for the Kahlo exhibit than there were living on the Island of Tiberina in the Tiber River where Rome got started around 500 years before Christ.) Whew! 

It’s easy to see how someone could hallucinate in such heat. Legend has it that Romulus and Remus were two lost children who were cared for by a she-wolf and a woodpecker before founding Rome. They must have been two tough kids. But alas, that’s just so much coffee Gelata plopped on the cobblestones. Turns out some Greek people emigrated to Tiberina after they got away from all the fighting between Troy and Sparta.  It was the usual squabbles: The Trojans and Spartans were trying to steal each other's stuff and women and enslave the other guys. So a Trojan guy named Aeneas (ya I thought so too) went to the Island (Isola) of Tiberina in Italy. Living on an island was a good idea in those days. It provided water, transportation for trade and protection from attacking barbarians. There were nasty Etruscan to the north of Tiberina who kept trying to steal the Roman's stuff and their women and make the men slaves. Come to think of it, if you read my Paris blog last year, that's exactly what the Romans did to the Parisi’s living on the Île de la Cité in the Seine River in France hundreds of years later. Border fences work only so long, and if you develop culture, you tend to institute spear control legislation, relax the alcohol laws, and become sitting ducks for takeover. But enough of that. This is no longer History Day. So don’t even ask what the Romans did to their kin in Florence, what the kin did to each other and why we were bombing the Germans there in 1943. The big mafia bombing in Florence in 1993? Don’t ask I said. I told you. History day has been cancelled. A "Power to the People’s Day Blog" is scheduled for Wednesday, if there is no strike. 

Back to Art Day. What’s the MAXXI Gallery you ask? It’s a play on words. It’s a modern art museum. (21st century, you know, the Roman Numerals XXI? Never mind.) How did we get there? I’m not sure. It was lost in the translation. Turns out a modern architect named Gaetano Pesce had an exhibit there
and that’s where Pasquale was to meet his sisters’  friends Loredana and Stella. It was Ilaria & Tullio we were supposed to meet at the Kahlo exhibit. Kahlo was a pre-feminist feminist painter, hopelessly in love with her painter husband Diego Rivera. Her stuff was just sad. Of course she spent a long time in a body cast and lived in Philadelphia. That would depress anyone.

I missed that schedule change. Thus the long walk to Quirinelle and the huge crowds. Miraculously, Ilario and Tullio were in line already and we snuck in with them.  It all felt like a divine plan. One of those Renaissance paintings where the saints save you, rather than one of those post-modern novels where everything is confused in the end. Speaking of confusion, they say "All roads lead to Rome," but when you’re in Rome, they either go up and down or around in circles. On my first day in Rome, I visited Piazza Navonna three time on my way to the Pantheon.

Turns out Pesce is a cool guy. As soon as you enter MAXII, you see a big stuffed couch with fluffy tentacles instead of cushions, so when you sit, you get engulfed by soft, warm hugs. It’s easy falling asleep on a regular couch while watching baseball. If you are watching soccer, you need more of a caccoon to induce sleep.

That’s pasquale in the Soccer configuration and me in the Baseball one. 

That wasn’t the only cool chair there:

There were a bunch go other nice exhibits too. 

A mobile to die for:

Some weird looking guys.


Some playing with heights:

All in all it was a busy Art Day. Here’s Pasquale’s gang of friends after the exhibits, Boy-Gargoyle-Girl-Boy-Girl-Girl-Boy at Piazza La Rotunda (The Pantheon), before they all jumped on trains home (except of course the gargoyle and two of the boys).

Still to come in future Blogs: What amazing thing happened on the streets the last night we were in Rome that involved a German-Italian, a Neopolitan-Italian, a Roman-Italian, an Italian-American, a Guatemalan femme, a waiter, a restaurant owner, a guitar, singers, spaghetti Pomodora and free Lemonciello drinks all around until the streets closed up outside Piazza Navona. 

Not to mention "Arriving in Naples." (Mentioning something after you profess not to mention is is little like punching someone in the nose and saying "Would you like me to not give you one of these?" But only a little. because you could duck the punch. What are you going to do now, forget i said it? Fugghettaboutit. It's out there in the either. Put something cold on it and maybe it won't sell in your mind.

The worst part (If anything can be worse than being accosted by a not-to-mention) is that I arrived in Naples, stayed a while and departed, but i haven't written the blog yet. I may never do it. And now your stuck with the info you didn't get. Your life will never be the same. it's as if Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon, fell off his horse and drowned. No more Caesar. No brutus to spit on (You know et tu Brutus, sorry for that) and no more Marc Antony. You buy a free Blog, you takes your chances.

Scooting Along

The other night I dreamt that a motorcycle revved its engine … 

no it was last night, I dreamt that a motorcycle revved its engine and when I awoke I was in Rome … 

no it was during siesta today in Rome… 

I dreamt that it was a motor scooter revving its engine; yes that’s it. 

I dreamt I was in Rome on a motor scooter revving the engine. 

I woke up in a sweat thinking I was late for work. Weird. 

I know it was a dream because they really don’t have the little motor scooters I’m used to any more.

You remember. The Vespa’s were all the craze in the old days. 

That’s me several years ago hitching a ride on one. (I had more hair then.)

But today they’re bigger. They can carry stuff.

… And they’re everywhere. You can’t throw a spear without hitting one. 

Well, they’re not for me. I like the older, smaller models. Less lethal.

Of course you could get carried away.

I saw a guy pull over in a panic and jump out of one of these things.

What the heck is that? There was a poor woman trapped in the back. I assume, the guy went for help.

I think I will stick to the simple life

What d’ya think? Good idea? 

The Pope's Hat

Got acquainted with a nice old guy in Rome today.

He seems like a good chap.

His name is George, but he goes by Francis. His friends call him Frank. These Italians. Everyone has a nickname. My aunt Margarite was called Nac-a-nac, my aunt Stella, Mitzie, my Uncle (I don’t even know his real name), they called him Scunitsa. Had something to do with his being sneaky. My uncle Sammy was called Kelly. Kelly’s wife was Irish. I won’t tell you what they called her, but Uncle Kelly didn’t care. She looked like Marilyn Monroe. They even lived near Hollywood in California. She ran off with the guy next door. Too bad. After that, no one else dared marry Irish. 

Anyway, back to Frank. I figured he was a grandfather. Everyone called him Papa. I went to his house on the other side of the river. Big place. Old, but kept up nicely. Marble façade. Nice grounds. 

He’s Italian, but his folks immigrated from Piedmont to Argentina to escape Mussolini. My grandparents were in the US then. I heard they had to send the gold jewelry they smuggled out of Naples back to Italy to support Mussolini’s war. Not sure if it’s true. Maybe it was another one of Scunitsa’s schemes to extort money from the family. Turns out Frank was not totally on the up and up himself. I later saw his picture pasted on wanted posters all over Rome.

 

I should have know something was up when I saw the cops outside his house.

But the day was not a total loss. On the way home to the hotel, I was wandering through the side streets when I came across a little bakery/sandwich shop. I stopped in and used my best French to ask for un Jambone e frommage en baguette. They gave me the stink eye. I learned the French are regarded below the Irish, who, as it turns out are preferred to Sicilians.

So I switched to my dumb American act and asked for a ham sandwich with cheese on a roll. Well, the girl took out a prosciutto the size of the Pope’s hat (Now do you see where the title of this story came from?) and sliced off a half dozen pieces. She loaded up the freshest roll I ever had with the ham and some cheese, wrapped it in butcher paper and asked for something like "quarto ba chin doo te.”  I grabbed a cold coke, gave her a ten and hoped for change. I found a shaded spot next to an old castle

 

and had the best lunch I could imagine. 

I consider myself lucky. Certainly luckier than the poor beggar who had waisted away to nothing waiting for money.

 

Too bad he hadn’t met some nice old guy like Frank who would have taken him in. Speaking of nice old guys, as I was walking home after my sandwich, I saw a young boy with big brown eyes sitting on the curb crying. A nice old guy stopped and asked him why he was crying. The boy said in broken English, “I wanna do-a what-a the big-a boys do.” The old man sat down and cried with him.