Todd Rundgren
Arena

Although my age isn't all that advanced yet, in certain aspects, I'm still quite stone-age: the internet has overturned the rules of social living, especially for young people, communication being the first, and I'm pretty much left behind.

People make music and upload it to their own spaces, and me? I leave it to the youngsters. People write books online, twenty-somethings with their debut works are winning awards instead of the octogenarians, and I can't even pen a line. In general, I lack the discipline to follow the logical thread necessary for a novel.

Some time ago, I was stuck on the highway due to an accident between two cars, one of which was on fire with three charred bodies inside: everyone filming with their cell phones, everyone saying "I'll sell it to the TV," "I'll put it on the blog," and me, with a 569 euro phone in hand, a 1000-something euro video camera at home gathering dust, standing there to deeply inhale the smell of melted metal, searching for the first waft of roasted flesh.

My stories published on the web? A solitude I can't even begin to describe: few reads, few comments, little exposure. You put them there, and if no one touches them, no one touches them. Period.

The important thing in life is to unleash your creativity, whatever happens, and up to here we all agree. If we then consider that the vast majority of the bands I love don't boast commercial success, if we consider that great writers and painters starved, then what's my problem, where is all this fuss about "unrecognized talent"? And what talent? Yet this internet, which should make things easier for me, is even complicating things with me, machete in hand.

I am a homunculus who still believes that the internet is that two-dimensional and one-way thing from the early years, a place where I get music and information and where I upload my little stories as if I were tossing them into a trash can, not caring about their fate. I take what I want and unload what I have (and don't need). At the end of the transaction, a handshake and goodbye suckers. That's not how you use the internet. Nor even DeBaser, almost the last outlet for creative expression online.

I haven't given a cent yet to the commendable Editors, I'm not a cool user, I don't use the editorial because I can't become an Editor, and because I have an idiosyncrasy for pulpits that I can't describe, and sometimes that one seems like a pulpit to me: I love the Site but don't recognize a DeBaser-thought, a DeBaser way of life, a DeBaser doctrine, a DeBaser church, not even a DeBaser people, if we just want to subtract a few sparse (at least currently) meetings or concerts in Brunner, Brixen, and Bozen. I'll say that I have no desire for controversy, indeed I no longer go mad if for the one hundred and seventy-second time my little page doesn't make the recommended list; imagine that I don't care even if it's read and/or commented on: for what it's worth...

I don't care to know if it fits in with the album, nor do I impose upon myself to decide in advance if it should be technical or emotional. A few brave men congratulate me and someone tries to make me freak out like Richard Benson, thankfully failing. Is that all? That's all, just music, zero films, and no TV broadcasts or literary work, even though my nickname stems straight from a Kerouac novel. But I'm not doing it to seem cool, to be snobbish, to become a cult, to appear strong, to be seen yeah, nor to oppose the noble and evergreen mementomorea-monumental reviewing. It's just that I use a hoe instead of a stylus.

In short, I don't interact for shit, and if I intervene to defend or counterattack, I'm really just revealing even weaker points. I simply listen to music and take stock. Often I need to see everything from a more panoramic perspective, and then I become a bloody and one-track nuisance. I'm sorry, but I have to take stock.

.

Then, suddenly, a miracle in Milan. Einstürzende Neubauten concert at the Alcatraz (reviewed here by Uno bravo). Boy in a DeBaseriota T-shirt. Phone to the ear. "See that the new piece by Maien_Mo_Man is on the home page." Brief conversation between us: who you like and who you don't. It more or less follows my arc on the site, he's been around for years even though he doesn't seem to be over eighteen. I've just passed thirty and have been on DeBaser for less than two years, which says a lot. "Yeah but what the hell does Maien_Mo_Man mean?"

I admit I explained it to him with such precision that no doubts could arise. It was my first autograph. Rosapurpureadelcairomente I crossed the monitor's threshold, I passed through the stargate, and my head is no longer two-dimensional and alternating sense. The right and left hemispheres are no longer the debit and credit of double-entry bookkeeping. And you know what I tell you? I liked it a whole lot. I don't know if I'll have the courage or the luck to experience something similar again, but I liked it a whole lot.

Soon Todd Rundgren will arrive in concert. What do I do? Do I go with a hoodie with my name-nickname screen-printed on it? Will they introduce me to the wizard? And what could I ever say to him? That arena rock has always pleased me but not like his soul, his blues rock played with surf guitars, prog, and old powerpop? That this "Arena" has some nice moments and is produced to the maximum human capabilities but I'd prefer any Utopia work? Or should I tell him a lie?

What I really would like to ask him is "how many autographs have you signed in your career? Even an approximate number, if that's okay with you."

Swami Yogananda was right: you only catch the good wind if you try to fly high. If you fly low, you soon realize that the gusts of wind smell like shit...

Fly higher, at least eight miles. That's what's needed.