London for ever - 34

 I try to totally concentrate on the discussion.

I say that I no longer I’m expecting  anything good from Italian politicians, after just over a century of mismanagement, since  political unity, which has not followed any social unity. Touching obviously dear themes to Giampiero.

“Italy is a bad mosaic of peoples with too many problems to be treated with the same medicine” – he replies to me – “ Only  the worker’s movement can succeed uniting  these different people, giving them a strong  identity to  join together like the fingers of a hand!! "- he concludes closing his right hand in a tight fist.

I tell him that I do not  longer believe in the workers' movement;  neither I  longer believe in the model of state organization inherited by the French Revolution, with tired rites of indirect representative democracy ...

- "You're wrong to take the French Revolution as a point of reference. The real, unique revolution from which the talk is, is the revolution ......... "

-" Revolution? On Saturday night all the serious speeches are banned, "- Michelle says cheerfully -" “Look at what Marcus gave me! "- she says  showing  us a black ball she holds between her  index and the thumb. "" Do you want to roll it? "She turns to me.

- "No, I think I’ll do it" - offers Giampiero promptly. - By the way, who was that guy? "He continues with indifferent air, while already manages  with some cigarette’s  papers  beneath the table in order to arm a joint for the Michelle’s smoke.

- "He's a good customer of mines," replies Michelle, with a strange  air. "He comes from Rotterdam, but he is living from  many years here in London. I met him at Camden Lock where he handles an "stall" of second hand clothing with some of his English members. He’s a bit crazy or at least an original one: he's always stoned as hell, morning to night, because, he says, he believes in smoking, as a flag of peace and brotherhood among young people! "

- "Bullshit," said Giampiero in a caustic tone, "I've met smokers who were total assholes, and I'm not even okay with all the big business that's made of smoke ..."

- "Well, as long as it remains illegal, trade is lucrative; Especially for big dealers who do not even pay taxes on it; It would be enough to legalize it. It almost seems that politicians are afraid of the spread of smoke ...... "- I say to dampen the tone of the discussion between the two.

- "But they do not seem to have the same approach to heroine," Giampiero says, remembering perhaps the lost friends on that street. - " Do you know Michelle what Pino writes from Italy? When the social tension grows, in Italy smoke disappears from the streets and only heroin is found, do you know? But nobody seems to get  to point out that with the heroine they just want to destroy us? Do you light it up? "He asks me in a more relaxed tone, asking me to light the  joint up.

- "It's up to Michelle, really," I say, passing by, after burning its  tip with the lighter.

Martine in the meantime asks Michelle if she understands the topic of the discussion and, after explaining it, says that many rock motion representatives have been mysteriously torn from heroin and thrown down the names of Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison.

she also adds that she is concerned about the apparently very close relationship between rock movement, music, artists, fans and drugs, all the drugs, from the lightest to the heaviest and most dangerous ones.

Meanwhile the "joint" goes turning around. The dense buzz in the room is interrupted by laughs and laughter, while a thick smoke hood comes from the floor below to the ceiling, becoming more and more condensed.

While the concert had resumed its rhythm, with some skillful voice variation of the solo voice, I  suddenly realized that my throat is dry and my mouth mingled to the point that almost I cannot speak, while at the same time I notice that our beers were still intact on the table in front of us.

I drink directly from the bottle a long haul of Carlsberg Special Brew. I feel that cool liquid in my mouth, coming down my throat, I mentally follow its way  to the stomach and from there spreading with heat; I think of small rivers when they enter the streams and lakes; from  the great rivers that are slow but inesorable in the seas and seas all connected to the oceans, as a single large stream of energy, wrapped in impenetrable cosmic synergies;  even the conductors of our blood, from the smallest vessels to the largest arteries, converge into a single center; and if our bodies have been pulsating in the air for millennia, interacting through immaterial life-force contacts, sometimes conflicting and opposed but always guided in one direction; if our brain contains our present together with the past, and who knows, perhaps even in the future, then where is the center of the universe? The pulsating heart of humanity? The center of Everything Buddha was looking for in the tortuous paths of the mind?

Was this what my brothers were looking for, fleeing the materialties of the West, on the uncertain paths of the East? But why look for it with the deception of acids, with the illusion of opium? Why with the heroine? And if the East, for millennia has absorbed the devastating blow of opium, the most inexperienced and weak civilization of the West, will survive the shots of its most hallucinating and deadly essences?

Take me away, friends, but guide me, do not miss me, love me, as a father loves his prodding son, because I want a dream of sweet awakening, a hope that leads to truth, a journey that has its return to the origin of life .

34...to be continued...

London for ever - 32

- "This is really hell! But where have  you brought us? "Jokes Giampiero, trying to slip the crowd.

- "You're an arthropod elephant!" I cut him in the same joking tone.

Michelle nods provocatively, ironizing, as she has done for some time, on his ever massive mole. It's a bit of time I know these arrows between the two, so much that I seemed to be the symptom of an embryo crisis. But that must not be so. You do not schedule a return together if the couple  does not work anymore. Or maybe you do it? As a matter of fact it could be  just an "escamotage" to overcome the problems, to postpone them, not to see them, trying to solve them by the passage of time; a psychological alibi like to blame the environmental problems in London, the lack of children, the precariousness of work, or who knows what else.

- "Did you succeeded on let her talking  to her for a bit?" - Michelle asks me looking at Martine and settling on the wide-lined sofa.

- "She has not been silent for a moment since you left us alone!"

We sneeze for a long time. Adding our laughter to the innumerable and indistinct of the various rooms in the room. Suddenly, like magically, the auditory circuits detach themselves and suddenly silence is gone. There are only a few guitar chords, and without any notice, everyone is silent. The "clou" of the evening begins. The audience keeps a religious, collected, mystical silence. Everyone follows the concert in his own way. Who dreams, who beats the rhythm with one foot in an improvised and unlikely solfeggio; Who tapping his fingers somewhere and who shaking his head; But everyone is lost in music and in total recollection. The concert begins  with a solo music track: the rhythmic base of bass and drums blends with the "riffs" of the solo guitar, while the accompaniment blends everything up. Then the singer enters with his loud, humorous voice telling the classic blues themes, but in the form of rock, creating a good mix of music.

The singer now alternates singing with the accordion, while the other musicians show that they can also play the saxophone and the violin: I travel with the mind along endless freeways, from one side to the other of the American coast; I see the sun rise and I see it setting down; I cry for time, women and friends who will never return. Sax, violin and solo guitar speak with charm; the harmonica, laughing, daring and sublime, touches the most striking strings of the soul.

32. to be continued...

London for ever - 30

And he really came right away; The time to browse distractedly some magazines under the reddened and careful eyes of the owner of the shop, a middle-aged Pakistani, with big, fleshy cheeks.

- "Hello!" Giampiero motioned to me as he came in sight, just  outside  the underground exit barrier. Even Michelle, who I already knew, greeted me with her hand in the air. They then presented me to Martine, a not very tall but nice girl who was wearing jeans on an embroidered white blouse, white-green "Adidas" shoes, and a blue ribbon at the front that caught her short-cut brown hair. She made a smile on his teeth a little irregularly, just pronouncing  "hello!" ,  with a hand holding his coat on his shoulders and the fingers of the other hand slipped into the pocket of his jeans with the only thumb outside. Soon after I asked Giampiero for news of Tommy that I had not seen for a while.

- "No, it's a long time  I do not see Tommaso; The last time he came to see us with his  girlfriend, but he was really down! "

-" Oh yeah! Major decisions are being made; Maybe he goes down to Italy, "I said in a lazy, humorous tone.

- "It’s no such a great a decision!  I've already made the same  decision!" – he said in a great tone of self importance. - "Didn’t you know the news?" He continued, stopping the march, astonished by my own surprise. - "I have recently contacted Italian executives of our firm; They seem to be looking to open a representative office right in Genoa, in my city, and they are looking for people who are expert and trustworthy to speak English well to widen the network of contacts and then .......... "

- "Hey! Really high points, then. You may also become a 'Big Boss'! - I told him, knocking his shoulders.

- "But, I do not even know if I may  like it. I need to change air, this is it! It's a life I'm here in London and I think my trip is over. And did not you ever have the idea of ​​having a son? "

"What has  to do a son with your moving from London?" I interjected, resuming the path she had interrupted another time. - "You can also do the baby here if you want."

- "No! It would not be the same. In this city there is too much chaos. It is not the ideal environment: with all this racism that there is still, violence, smog, do you understand? And I need another situation; Even Michelle would enjoy  changing  to Italy....... "

He turned instinctively backwards and saw Michelle and Martine talking, very close, arm in arm.

- "What are these secrets?" Giampiero asked.

"Nothing that matters to you," Michelle said with her air, at the same time naughty and naive.

Meanwhile, we had come near the pub that stood on the corner of two streets; In front of the right side, the extreme border of a small square delimited a large parking lot for motorcycles where there were now a large number of parked vehicles; Motorcycles of all cylinders, brands and colors, with a prevalence of midrange Triumph and Honda red and blue.

30. to be continued...

London for ever - 8

I've read a lot about the terrorist attack, last wednesday, on Westminsterbridge.

When I was in  London, a few decades ago, I felt like living a city full of humanity, full of respect.

Since then, London is still in my heart. A wound made to London it's therefore an offence to my heart.

London has been mother and father at the same time, and all the londoners (I mean all the people who live in London) are my friends.

I used to work and study in London. 

Like anywherealso in the world there are good people and peolple living over there.

I mostly met good people: mannered persons, gentle women, nice friends.

And soon after, every place has got its own genius loci.

The geniuses living in London are all good ones.

As far as London keeps on welcomeing all the good people searching a better life, granting them a new chance of life, those geniuses won't go away from its streets, from its banks, from his parks, from its public houses.

The Evil may be will try again to drive them away, but it won't succeed.

You are a pride for the world my London.

And please,  be what you are for ever.