Mina
Fa Qualcosa

Being with Sabrina involved a whole series of unrequested options, the most important of which was that, after taking you wild, she would spit you out shrouded in almost unreal perfection. The thing is, without realizing it and without even knowing how, suddenly you found yourself in a black sweater, white shirt, and the latest trendy haircut. Basically, like going from the most absolute scruffiness to the cover of Uomo Vogue in ten moves or even less. However, the transformation didn't just stop at the massive cleaning of mama cat making her kitten look good, oh no, she also acted on your thoughts and behaviors. There was re-education, like reading the Manifesto every morning with constant supervision of your ideas based on hers. There were the terrifying healthy dinners, a state affair organized scientifically with guests carefully selected and brought together according to presumed elective affinities known only to her. And finally, there were, besides the various members of an insanely large adoring claque, all the damned right connections: councilor y, social worker x, with the random addition of artists of sorts, bartenders, gynecologists, and more. And you, as if you had clocked in, you like a Melandri or any Hofstadter, you were always (always!!!) at her side. "I couldn't wait for her to leave the house so I could jerk off," said Antonello once, one of our most remarkable local beauties, somehow ending up in her clutches. And, as an alpha male now reduced to mere existence, he had every reason.

Fortunately, there was Patrizia, and Patrizia was the nemesis. A former friend turned enemy, she was the magical tempter of every Sabrina's boyfriend, especially if spit out after the cure. The funny thing is that the two were very much alike, except Patrizia had sparkling eyes, the mischievous giggle of a mischievous child, and a shrill and parodic voice, equipped with a hoarse/funereal counterpoint that boiled the blood. Not only that, she was also crazy and talked to you with the rambling and sweet speech of a feminine instinct added by pills of happiness and a sort of perpetual anger. In short, one tidied things up, and the other destroyed them. Thus, what always happened was that every boyfriend from perfect turned wild again: hair got tousled again, shirts wrinkled, and a cigarette burn proudly adorned the sweater. With the porcelain doll falling into the breeze of a hoarse and sweet feminine laughter, rightly breaking into a thousand pieces.

Then, of course, we're on Debaser, sweetheart. And so we need a song, it doesn't matter if it's small... or yes, it does matter, and so, I will tell you, small is indeed better. After all, Patrizia wasn't a wave princess like the sharp and pretentious rival. The Cure, which were then liked by young and old alike, and even the girls, meant nothing to her. At most, she could handle Bowie, After the Gold Rush, Police, and oh baby baby it's a wild world, though always in tiny doses. Would you compare the winter sea, Lugano goodbye, and Gianna Gianna Gianna upheld theses and illusions? And so, yes, we need a song, maybe pretending to hear it for the first time. A small change in dynamic quality, the philosopher would say. A glass of fresh water, I say more simply. In other words, exactly what she was. Because Patrizia, Patrizia was a song. And Sabrina, Sabrina was a film. And in that matter, I have a little story to tell...

Late seventies. Imagine poor souls stranded, against their will, in a dark re-education camp. Some of them, even today, recall with shudder the sad evening when they, play by force, gave up a super inviting beach party to sink sadly into the folds of having to be. What happened was that, under an inflexible kapo's orders, they set off (on foot!!!) in search of a lost film club in the mountains. They traversed paths, crossed passes, circumvented the thousand pitfalls of unsaid frustration and indeed more evident for this reason, but eventually arrived in time for the only screening of a terrifying Soviet film. But if it had ended there!!! On the way back, backpack on and soul who knows where, they had to endure the overwhelming cinephile analyses of the horrid virago who had compelled them to that absurd endeavor. Well, the horrid virago, a decade later, was an alderwoman of culture and ally of Sabrina in a thing called a youth plan. And was, above all, one of those always present at the infamous dinners. So, you understand how Patrizia was not only a song but also a glass of fresh water?

And anyway, Patrizia liked Mina. And Mina is beautiful black and white memories, duets with Battisti and Gaber, Saturday night theme songs.... words words words.. candies I don't want anymore. Not only that, there was also my parents' newsstand where she always featured on magazines each time with a different husband. The queens were her and Carolina of Monaco, whom I would've wanted to marry back then, but, don't know how, she refused. Then there was "Del mio meglio numero 3", the first cassette purchased, and that song "Do Something": "when every day smelled of adventure and I drank pure joy, because you guy even if you were totally crazy, you were real, you were alive and even then I was dying, but dying of joy of poetry next to you", damn, I still know it by heart. Yes, Uncle Frank, I know you think people are so dumbed down because of lyrics like these. You're probably right too. But, what can you do, no one is perfect. And those lines are worth (please don't kill me!!!) as much as those by Sandro Penna. Anyway, "Do Something" was one of those that Patrizia and I sang at the top of our lungs in her yellow Deux Chevaux.

I haven't seen Patrizia in twenty years and I don't know where she ended up. As for Sabrina, I can tell you what Antonello, our striking local beauty, told me. "She's ended up in the clutches of some guru and claims to have understood the meaning of life. But if that's understanding, it might as well be not understanding a damn thing." Trallallà...