Ligabue
Nome e Cognome

Ah, summer is such a wonderful time! And how can one remember a fantastic summer without a great soundtrack? This year I have no doubts, the King of Summer is Big Luciano! Pavarotti? No, what are you saying? It must be him, the Great Talent, the Pride of Padania, the Rocker, the legendary Licabue, with the album Nome e Cognome providing me with magnificent moments between beach, umbrellas, beautiful women, and happy hours. What I want to tell you about is a splendid day at the beach with Lica's music playing in the background!

When a Neapolitan decides to go to the sea, setting aside chic places like Ischia and Capri, there are these options: Mondragone in the northern part of Caserta or Gaeta and Formia in the southern Lazio. Those with a strong stomach go all the way to Calabria, but a sort of constitutional referendum has banned Neapolitans from entering because they'd rent a house for 3 people and show up in 33! Anyway, my friends and I, partly because it's closer, partly not to give satisfaction to those from the Calabrian League, decide to go to Mondragone.
It's me, my cousin Ciccillo, and his brother-in-law Vicienzo, nicknamed Panz e Fierro for his appetite (translated: Iron Belly), the one who got his sister, Preziosina, pregnant; let's say they're not married yet but he's taken his responsibilities. So we set off with Ciccillo's 127 Sport, which smelled of Gragnano's white wine after celebrating the national team, with my CD made in Morocco by Licabue keeping us company during the journey. Volume at maximum and Il giorno dei giorni explodes from the stereo: ah, what a song that talks about all the women in this world or at least that's what Lica always repeats, and me shouting along, dizzy from the smell of world cup memory wine. The road leading to Mondragone, the Domiziana, is excellent for what Ciccillo calls the puttan tour: basically, there are a lot of ladies on the sides of the road, under an umbrella, but without the sea and without swimsuits, Ciccillo pulls over to tease them a bit, and when the pimp shows up, he speeds away at full throttle! Oh, here it comes, it's happy hour, what a song! It talks about those parties where singers go after concerts with 1000 women and drugs, and whoever wants to participate gets a 50% discount, such a fabulous life!

Once we arrive at our destination, I don't give up on Lica, but I bring along a huge radio to delight myself and the crowd with Lica's music. We plant the umbrella, and a lady immediately approaches, asking if she can tie a rope between our umbrella and hers. Basically, it works like this: all umbrellas are connected by these ropes where people hang their swimsuits to dry, making the beach look like a narrow alley in Naples with many clotheslines and everyone walking around with a towel around their waist, like Flavio Briatore, waiting for the swimsuit to dry. Too bad there are no rocks; otherwise, we would have put the ropes there, like we do when we go to the sea in Vico Equense. Ciccillo’s attire: Maradona's jersey from when he was little, in a strange color between blue and moldy green; shorts adapted as a swimsuit barely reaching his feet; beach clogs, without rubber insoles to make more noise.
Vicienzo’s attire: a tank top from when he works as a mechanic, full of black grease like a civil valor medal; adamitic white swimsuit that, I'm sure, his seamstress mother turned from grandma's big underpants into a swimsuit; flip-flops from which uncut black toenails peek out, as Vicienzo, a bit of a philosopher, says you shouldn't prevent something that wants to grow from growing…

My attire: I left without a shirt; swimsuit with a conspicuous stain of eggplant oil my mom never washed because she says swimsuits are washed directly at sea. I hope the corrosive water of Mondragone can remove it. Anyway, we immediately rush to the water, and I leave the big radio on with Lica shouting that l’amore conta, love matters, but now a great dive is more important. We make Ciccillo dive first, then wait a couple of minutes for his pee to disperse, oh, what can you do, it's stronger than him, then we also dive into the brown poopy-colored water with many seaweeds wrapping around us. Vicienzo, such a lout, does a cufaniello dive! (WARNING: a cufaniello dive is a clumsy dive aimed solely at causing distress to those present with annoying water splashes. For success, the impact with the water via the butt is crucial).
Then we swim, I try to act silly with some girls, but they treat me like a fool, and then I play ball in the water with Vicienzo, who has injured a lady, with Lica shouting from the shore that women know everything, every little thing, but unfortunately, they don't want to get to know me better. Then comes the moment every Neapolitan awaits when they go to the beach, the eating!

I turn off the radio because a Neapolitan wants to listen only to his hunger when he eats, and we immediately dig into our provisions: Ciccillo: meatballs with ragù inside the cozzitiello of bread (cozzitiello means the end or beginning piece of a loaf of bread); another sandwich with sausages and friarielli (translated: broccoli); a big macaroni frittata drowning in oil Vicienzo: thermos containing macaroni with ragù and braciola; an entire "cocchia" of bread with eggplant parmesan, button mushrooms, and cold veal roast beef, which Lini Banfi would envy upon seeing! And indeed, proving why they call him Panz e Fierro, for breakfast, he already ate reheated gnocchi from the day before; Me: I keep it light, with a ham sandwich with pickled eggplants; another with the big spaghetti frittata with vongole, and for dessert, a slice of pastiera that my mom had frozen at Easter and now I've put it inside a sandwich. Oh, mocking? They make ice cream with sandwiches, and I make pastiera with sandwiches…

But others on the beach aren't far behind: chubby people next to our umbrella start with lasagna, continue with freshly cooked fish fry, and finish with a maxi red watermelon. Indeed, a Neapolitan when going to the sea, before thinking of the swimsuit, must prepare the large red melon, kept cool under the wet sand, and then, when finished, naturally bury the rinds because, you see, for this, we get humiliated and insulted, but no one understands we do good for the subsoil. Especially in Mondragone, which is crumbly, with melon peels, we compact it so that later, you can build houses, whether illegal or regular. We create a true melon subsoil so that future archaeologists when digging, will understand what exceptional engineers we were.
Anyway, once finished, no digestif is better than Lica, so we turn the radio back on, and at full volume, true rock engulfs us, with Big Luciano screaming we should live by ear, which I don't really understand, but if he says it, it's believable. Ciccillo, feeling light, decides to dive into the water while Vicienzo and I stay under the umbrella blasting Lica's radio, with people giving us dirty looks because they want something more neomelodic or, at most, Neapolitan sentiment. Meanwhile, we are entertained by classic beach scenes, like shampooing directly in the sea.

Suddenly, we see Ciccillo coming out of the water holding his side and saying he was bitten by a "merdusa"! Oh, I'm not ignorant, I know it's called a jellyfish, but in the brown water of Mondragone, where strange shapes occasionally float, the jellyfish undergoes genetic mutation and becomes the Merdusa! Anyway, his side is all red, and we need to act fast otherwise it might need to be amputated, and I can't envision Ciccillo without a side. Plus, I saw in a movie that some people die from a silly condition and wouldn't want Ciccillo also to be allergic to Merdusas. Ammonia is needed to disinfect, but few know each of us is a healthy carrier of ammonia contained in the pee, and that philosopher Vicienzo, from the height of his knowledge, doesn't hesitate to take it out and pee on Ciccillo's side. But is it blessed?
My goodness, the redness disappears immediately, and even a mole Ciccillo had vanishes along with the redness! Never seen anything like it: Vicienzo from Lourdes! But suddenly a guy approaches and tells Vicienzo to be careful because he might get arrested for foolish acts in a public place… Wow, calling Vicienzo a fool? Immediately a headbutt in the sternum that the guy collapses to the ground to join the melon rinds. A headbutt that Zidane later asked Vicienzo for permission to patent.

But it's not over, from under the sand the guy's friends appear, or at least it seems like that because they weren't there before, like in that movie with the worms underground. There are about ten of them, and they say they'll beat us up so bad that even dogs would shy away from sniffing us (translated: we’d get beaten up so severely)! We run away, and in the escape, I forget the radio…

When I return, I find this note: The CD is awful, but the radio is really nice!!!!