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I have here in my hands a tiny little book, just 150 pages, that makes you laugh out loud. I read it all in one go, and I rolled over with laughter. It's just that the author didn't think of it as a comic book, but as something serious, only that it's so unintentionally funny that (almost) you can't believe it. Already the title, "Vasco as a Teacher" (yes, and Peppino Di Capri as janitor, but please). It's from 2011, it's still on sale. Incredible. Let's go in order.
The author is a certain Moreno Pisto (being from Milan, I'll avoid jokes about the last name), he was born in 1980 (almost my peer, four years older than me), he lives in Pescia, Tuscany, has two children and it seems that in addition to a site, he is the owner of a creative agency (solomasagio), as well as writer for a monthly, "Riders". Come on, let's say he's someone who gets things done (I don't have children, I don't have an agency of any kind or even a website, I feel like a failure...). He's a Vasco enthusiast, but really sick. I've already said my piece on Vasco, great in the decade 1979-1989, then enough, already "Gli spari sopra" seemed like a weak album to me. Pisto, on the other hand, loves all of Vasco, even the burps, that is, he has really marked his life with the music of the Bard of Zocca, he's not the only one, but he is really the over-the-top of Vasco fans. He says it himself in the preface:
"A boy grows up listening to Vasco [...] The first kiss, the first shag, the first joint. And when he becomes a father, he decides to tell his son the emotions that Vasco conveyed to him."
Think of the son.
Our guy also boasts of having had a preface from Vasco himself. Now, in my house, a preface is 1-2 pages, but here it is 13 lines, 13 counted. Vasco was sparing, but read here:
"Teacher... me? but how, I thought when I saw the title, they must have forgotten the adjective bad or maybe... they'll add it later. Regardless of the fact that I don't do the job of a teacher and that I am a dangerous experiment not to be repeated at home, I find that the title is a nice provocation these days (in what sense?, note of the editor). But what is written then in this book? The truth, like art, is in the eyes of the beholder. My songs talk about something that's already inside those who listen to them" (Vasco Rossi)
This is the preface. Just a trifle and the absolute certainty that Vasco hasn't even read the book. Well, we started well.
Pisto (oh dear, it's hard to contain myself) divides the book into 11 chapters, or rather 11 Tracks. Each talks about something that could be summarized in the word "life" (I quote carelessly, emotions; women; diversity; sex; excesses; voids to fill), all themes that are marked by Vasco's songs.
The list would be long, but some things need to be mentioned.
Oh yes, because our guy has an almost maniacal passion for sex and women, here forget Vasco, you'd need a psychiatrist. Like, the chapter on women begins like this:
"Women. Incredibly romantic. Nervous. Hysterical. To fall in love with. To do it with. Free. Whores. False. Those who are liked because they are sl*tty. And bastards." And then, as if that weren't enough, he says that in life he didn't just listen to Vasco, on the subject of women he discovered that "Bob Marley, Radiohead, Rino Gaetano, Francesco De Gregori, Fabrizio De André, U2, Pink Floyd, Afterhours" talked about it too, and he continues, "And often Vasco was forgotten. But in the end, he always returned [...]. That is, you've presumedly listened to Marinella by De André and Alice by De Gregori, who knows what by Pink Floyd and "No woman no cry" and then you return to Vasco. But my dear, it's as if one had watched Pelé and Maradona play and then said, "well, you know, after all Calloni isn't so bad". But please.
The chapter on sex is phenomenal. Pisto makes a point to let us know that he's had a lot of sex and everywhere (and it's not like he's Brad Pitt at twenty, but you know, the gates of heaven open with mysterious outcomes): "[..] I've made love more or less everywhere, under the rain in the hallway of a building, in church, on the mixer of the radio where I worked, on the stairs, in the car, in an empty apartment that I went to see to rent, in the sea while holidaymakers were bathing, on a balcony [..]". Listen, we agree that this guy has serious problems because we've all done it in strange places, but boasting about it in a book, and then in church, come on... And here we are at the peak, because without anyone asking him, he tells us about his first time, Pisto's first time: "[...] I was at my girlfriend's house. While we kissed in her single bed she whispered in my ear, Moreno I want to make love with you". Well, hold tight, you know how our guy relieves the embarrassment we’ve all had, more or less, the first time? By making his own Vasco's song words, "I don't know what to do anymore".
"Maybe I should jump on her like an animal, and I should be very virile and maybe continue for more than two hours".
That is, if for me, the first time, but also the second, the third, and the hundredth time, Vasco had come to mind, goodbye sex and let's go for a walk outside. Moreover, he associates sex with Vasco's song "E" because according to our guy, verses like: "And... when I feel your pleasure moving slowly, I shiver" would be aphrodisiacs, let's say. The song sucks, the album from which it is taken is crap, and Vasco, damn it, now I'm getting angry, is not Leopardi.
The excesses. Pisto is also one who has indulged, but one passage is revealing.
"[...] There were nights when I took so many drugs that I wasn't able to hold an empty Coca-Cola bottle".
Ah, that's why he believes that all of Vasco's songs are masterpieces. Of course, if you're high as a kite, even Pioltello seems like Los Angeles, but it's Pioltello. But no, he won't have it, "[...] The cunning, the skilled ones always keeping a foot here and there, those who always stick with the strongest. [...] It's a long and hard and winding road, that of life. Astonishing and fascinating [...]" and off he goes dribbling with the usual script of someone who was once a rebel, now he's settled down and plays the guru on human existence. Like Vasco, indeed. Like all the smart alecks.
Dear Pisto, I don't know if Vasco ever said this, but I tell you, ma và a ciapà i ratt.
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