Bartleboom

As for the music: I arrived just in time to catch Epica, and I kind of regret not having found a line at the toll booth. All things considered, I would have listened to Stratovarius with a benevolent smile, remembering the good old days. Too bad they played only one song and a half. Regarding Iron: reason says that when they zoom in on them up close, they’re so decomposed that you can hardly tell them apart from Eddy (damn, it hurt a bit to see Dickinson so static, but holy crap, he’s almost my mother's age!!), but the feeling is that they still kick ass and that at the end of the day they’ve written some stadium anthems that, all things considered, are just fine. It’s really a shame about the objectively terrible setlist: I would’ve slapped those who cheered when Alexander The Great was announced, one by one. Dear God, you have Hallowed be thy name in your repertoire and you play Alexander The Great and that other crap from the new album... What a shame. It’s likely to be their last tour and they wasted it playing Stranger in a strange land.

I was there too! It seems to me a very faithful review of reality. A few scattered thoughts: it had been a while since I attended a "big" concert, and it was quite incredible to notice that fundamentally nothing has changed: the usual disruptions, the usual lines, the same (dis)organization contrary to every principle of logic inside and outside the venue... but prices have reached ridiculous levels. 106 for the ticket (not in the pit - which is gigantic and not at all "exclusive" -, but among the rubbish), 15 for parking, 40 for beers, 12 for a sandwich, plus travel expenses. For heaven's sake, at my age it becomes the classic "nonsense" that one indulges in since death is near, but for a young person wanting to warm up to the sacred fire of the medal, it ends up being a bit of a problem... Anyway, I’m told there were 35,000 people, so evidently it's more me who is making a fuss than anything else.

The review is written very well. They have never been listened to, despite being constantly and heavily pushed by both the national press of the genre and beyond. I believe I even saw them live a couple of times: at a Gods of Metal and at a Sentenced concert where people were really pissed off because they were put on as headliners. My problem with this type of band is also very much linked to their image: always too much concept, always too little spontaneity... but then the male singer is really too ugly. I've been an aesthetician for many years, I know certain things. If they had worn the masks of the figli di Berlusconi, in an ideal mix between Slipknot and Aldo Giovanni e Giacomo, they would have hit it big.

What a bone-breaking page.

I never understood if it was something everyone knew or a little secret kept by me and a few other adepts. So I’m writing it down and you can tell me if I’m discovering something obvious: the simplest way to finish it was to pick Chun Li, pull up the lever to make her jump continuously, and whenever the opponent approached from below or jumped, use the powerful kick (the one, to be clear, where she positions her leg at a right angle and performs a backflip). In the later versions (especially those ultra-crazy with Marvel characters, Padre Pio, and the Teletubbies), it obviously didn’t work, but in the original version and I believe even in the Champions edition, it was almost always a guarantee of perfect.

I bought it about a couple of years back at the time of the first Star Comics publication (or I’d say around '95 or so...). It was an objectively cool time for us nerds trying to impress. You could choose between this, Guyver, Video Girl AI, Rough, and a mountain of other stuff that I have a famously good memory of. I really enjoyed the first few issues (I still remember with horror the fate of the protagonist's poor dog...), but then a bit of boredom set in and, above all, I discovered more interesting comics, some of which weren’t even pornographic. But for as long as it lasted, it was a blast, and Araki is definitely a decent guy who cares about his work; he’s got a fixation on fashion, design, and a thousand other things...

Great review. You've really intrigued me. I'm looking for it on YouTube too!

Very beautiful review, with some truly evocative metaphors and imagery. Well done!

To me, these streaming platform documentaries seem like excellent entertainment products, while they leave much to be desired in terms of real investigation and historical reconstruction. This one is no exception: it has a nice pace and a good build-up of narrative tension (and indeed I binged it in one evening). However, the substance seems much inferior to the form.
Aside from the passage "in the late '90s we were all very excited thanks to American Pie and all very aggressive because of Fight Club," which is something you can say only to my mother without the certainty of being told to fuck off, the film talks throughout about capitalism, unscrupulous entrepreneurs only interested in profit, budget cuts, etc., etc. And the numbers, the documents, the minutes of the operational meetings, the correspondence? As mentioned in the review: so did they really not hire anyone for the garbage removal?
Okay, things didn't work out. But why? Because there were budget cuts. Fine, show me those. Show me the contracts for the port-a-potties and the royalties the vendors had to pay to the organization.
Another thing is the interviewed characters. Randomly, I remember:
- John Scher: who clearly doesn’t take much to paint as the villain solely interested in profit, willing to deny the obvious, especially because he looks awful and grimy, and if he ever had sex in his life, he probably asked for his change back with cashback.
- Michael Lang: who, inseparable from embarrassingly short shorts, seems to be the most blatant case of undiagnosed Asperger’s in human history.
- An MTV veejay who, by her own admission, hosted terrible shows when MTV had already given up on any decency, who seems much more interested in always reminding everyone that "it was really awful and I was there."
- A freelance journalist, who probably found himself for the first and perhaps only time in the right place at the right moment and who likely bought a house thanks to the footage from those three days and still gets an erection at the thought.
- Someone who, while Sodom is on fire, is dealing out garbage bags to Gomorrah. Enough said.
- A small crowd of assistants, collaborators, third and fourth line operational/organizational types who were 20 at the time and, would you look at that, were not remotely involved in any decisions (but I acknowledge they found themselves in the middle of the mess).
- A guy who was evidently chosen only because he looks like Beavis, and a girl who was 14 at the time of the concert, both of whom say that if they did another edition tomorrow morning, they’d rush to be there.
At times, they barely ask the Mayor of Rome what his name is and little more. Fred Durst (who has had several opportunities over the years to revisit the topic) or Anthony Kiedis (why do Fire as an encore?) aren't interviewed.
Lastly: the consequences? Are there civil or criminal proceedings against the organizers and/or the hooligans who devastated a former military base? Who cleaned the area? What happened to Scher's company and the rest of the crew? Did they make a ton of money or did they go into the red?
Honestly: I "enjoyed" watching it, but it's mainly because it’s effective in sparking and fueling a sort of "apocalyptic prurience," where you know that Carthage will inevitably be destroyed and you don’t want to miss the moment when the walls begin to fall. However, it's not a documentary as I understand it. It’s an Amarcord, a collage of perspectives and personal experiences that don’t help to understand the historical truth and don’t even make much of an effort to provide points for reflection.

I was reading, reading, reading... and in the meantime I was thinking "Now he’ll say it!", "Now he’ll say it!!!". And instead, damn Anubis - apart from the aside - no pun with the name of the city! I feel like when I used to go to school and my mother would tell me she’d make meatballs for lunch, then I’d come home and there would be pasta with zucchini, which is just great. Anyway, it’s so nice to read your pages. If I remember correctly, this drove Festwca crazy. Bye Florenza... I hug you tightly.