Bailey Alexander: The Europhile

Rome; as good as it gets...

All roads lead to Rome, if only for a day, as do we, via Termini late Saturday morn.

As taxi takes us to the top of the Gianicolo my body temperature slowly goes down.

Though not one of Rome's seven hills, this proves a favorite, with Garibaldi overlooking all he united, way beyond the vista, from North to South.

It's low season, everyone's broke, so for 90 euro we get a room with a view and the largest terrace I've ever seen.

From Paris, our view, night prior to depart, dramatic orange sunset w/Pantheon at background

...to all things orange and ocher that is Rome below...

 The front of the hotel had it's charm of a garden.

Jesus was there to bless Colette and Godot.

 

The rain stayed in Spain for the rest of the day, leaving us to wander our itinerary umbrella free.

We unpack, then taxi it outside Trastevere, for luncheon con Signora Cavannarro, a literary editor/doyenne originally from the Connecticut/NY region, prior to marrying her Italian and moving to Italy several decades ago.

C n G stay quiet in the corner while we talk books, politics, books, Italy, books, Pasolini, then books some more...then it's over, just like that....here she is, a one off, knows everything there is to know about the important writers, I get a pic of Pat w/her De Chirico...I love to sit and listen, yet again, as she explains it away...

 

...after 4 hours we three taxi it back into Trastevere to hang out at the heart of Rome, our old hood.

We walk down the gianicolo, viewing some of the grandest views of Rome along the way, hit the bottom of the stairs, walk down the block towards our street 'via Angelo Tittoni', I look up for Sig Romitti, an old Italian journalist, she's not at home, I step across the street and say ciao to Alexandra, one of the most industrious and prosperous restaurateurs in Rome....she laughs as I ask for a pic, blowing me a big kiss from her door, too bad pic doesn't turn out....'L'Archetto'...people come from LA to enjoy this northern Italian fare...

I then veer left and hit Enzo's joint just prior to Piazza San Cosimato; twice a week I'd stop by his truck for vegetables, then dip inside to buy a bottle of frascati or dolcetto, one of many bottles lined precariously along the walls of this deliciously decadent hole in the wall.

By the time I arrive Enzo has already cracked open a bottle of red, he sees me, gives me kisses, too many, invites me in, calling me principessa, imagine!...I sit on the ladder and begin to inbibe, digesting the old cronies as they come in, as they always do and always will, talking smack, nothing worth repeating, these guys, hanging out, happy.

I capture Enzo in different poses, stepping out of his lair...I can see he's lost one of his teeth...he's so happy to see us, we him.....

someone comes in to buy the last of the punterelli, one divine lettuce only found in Roma....I made this all the time in winter con anchovy/olive oil/pepper sauce....deeeevine.

I ask Enzo to ham it up, he does.

On the ancient telephone, located in front of the old radio that's playing news/music from any of the cities listed on the dials; Salzburg, Istanbul, etc..

  ...we hang out, then make our way across the piazza, winding round towards Santa Doratea, so I have to have a glass at the wine bar in Piazza Trillusa where we would spend far too much time. 

I find the Thanksgiving party, a lovely combo of very crazy Italians and Americans...one young American informs me my motorcycle, my Honda rebel I left behind, not knowing whether Malta or Paris would most conveniently welcome without a proper new permit short term, the very same bike I thought was safely locked up, instead, invece, was being enjoyed by several ex pats in the eternal city.

I found this funny, as one should, after all, ne abbiamo visto di cotte e di crude, translation, 'who cares'...

Voila Jody, exhausted, spilling to the floor next to a well exercised oven, hugging little Godot, eventually we both end up on the floor of the kitchen, drinking, laughing, enjoying every last minute prior to flying out to Malta next day....Enfin.

Languid women from Monte Carlo selling electric cars and other such stuff...

Generally, the flight from Malta to Rome avec petite chiens is facile, a drama free zone.  That was before the divorce.  Between Alitalia and Air France.

Alitalia is one of my faves for they allows dogs.  But the day I flew Alitalia, they were feeling unrequited love, which isn't pretty, and I could feel the betrayal.  We could all feel it for the staff made us wait for over an hour to line up for the one hour flight.

Air France did wish to rescue this damsel in distress, but the lover had baggage, Unions to be exact, Italian style.  This gave license to feigned commitment, the romance waned, hence AirFrance pledged eternal love, but annulled the union because of the Unions, leaving Alitalia without a prenup. 

Of course, that's what the government is for, n'est pas?

Alitalia was pissed and passed their anger onto noi, their most devoted clients. The knock on effect, the dreaded ramifications, deemed it impossible to arrive in time for an overnite train from Rome to Paris.

So we three, Me, C n G, had two days to kill in the eternal city.  Again, it's great to be me, it's been awhile.

Rome was trayfab.  Hotel Mediterraneo is now a hotel I recommend...not only because they allow dogs and boast Rome's most cynical staff but because they also have a 10th floor restaurant that allows for breathtaking views.

I finally managed to book an 'alternative' overnight train; Rome Termini to Nice, then long day's journey back to Gare de Lyon.

I hadn't planned to rendezvous with old friends, intent on getting home as business and tedious particulars loomed large, so I tried to phone home, fast.

Purtroppo, fate whispered in my ear a most emphatic NO!  SO, I chose to hang out with my bohemian galpal Jody, which means hanging out at Campo di Fiori, which means just about everyone is going to sit down and have a chat...Lebanese guys, English chicks, American chicks, Italian guys, including one Italian who happened to be an Alitalia pilot and imparted tales I didn't wish to hear as flying is not my most favored mode of transportation.  He liked the fact I liked Alitalia as much as I do, as no one else does, 'specially the French.

But the gorgeous pilot did like my 'joke' about the Germans and the Italians.  He was a charming guy named Sergio.  He'd recently hired Jody to allow people/renters into his flat while he traveled...not much of a job you may say, but well, we all have sympathy for Jody.  Jody was my friend and masseuse while living in Rome. Jody's a piece of work.  Knows 'everyone', lives randomly, laughs a lot, smokes even more, and, as Muv observed after meeting Jody in Rome "She's so natural, such a love..."  Authentic, insane, whatever.  Everyone loves Jody.

I blogged about her before.  She was the one that fell outta her loft like bed hanging 8 ft from the ground and broke her wrist in 5 different places and her leg as well....Jody needs help but doesn't ask so we try.  I do my bit by buying her drinks and dinner, delivering non judgmental analysis of whatever current crazy scenario Jody has set in motion...unrest assured, it's almost always crazy.

Sergio and Jody smoke while I graduate from cafe latte to smoothie to white wine, all in the course of several hours as this is what one does while wasting away the day before one boards the night train....one hangs out in Rome, and quite frankly, there's no better place on the planet to hang out but in Rome.  Jody follows suit but Sergio stays sober as one does when one is Italian but we are not, so we imbibe.

We are sitting outside and Godot barks at just about every dog that passes until I figure out a plan, quite ingenious, actually, no idea why it's taken so much time to figure out...I'd bought another pair of Issey Miyake pants cuz that's all I buy when I feel the desire to acquire, which is rare, but when I do, I buy a piece of Issey Miyake.  Eventually I will no longer need closets and hangers but simply a space on which I might toss another pleated piece of avante guarde japanese inspired fabric.

I place Godot in the shopping bag, atop the black fabric that won't wrinkle and rejects dog hair.  Within two minutes I might as well have given my boy a Quaalude, not that I would know, as I've never, but that's exactly what he looked like, nose pointed up, nestled against the narrow end, eyes hooded and glassy, as if in a trance, blissfully ensconced in that shopping bag....oblivious of everyone who came by to coo and take a picture.

My joke you ask, well, it's not a joke but rather a fact.

Me and the pilot were exchanging attitudes about Silvio Berlusconi.  Mio marito loves him, however, the pilot, like mio marito's Piedmontese cousins up north, do not.  Mio marito had recently rec'd a personal letter, he and about 3 billion other Italians, asking they re elect Silvio.  Mio marito will vote for Silvio, or rather, vote for enough senate seats to allow the fabulous hambag to grab pack political power, the self made hambag oh so comfortable in his corrupt sensibility in a land amongst so many self made cynical Italians oh so comfortable in their soft style corrupt like behavior.

Mortgage lenders, insurance salesmen, hedge fund managers, Tony Blair, Sarko and just about everyone else is corrupt, but the Italians are, only softly so, but al least, HONEST, about said fact. 

I am not corrupt, by the way.

My joke, my very own joke, mine... probably won't read well as you need me, sitting across from vous, gesturing, a coupla shoulder shrugs, etc, to assist the delivery, but hey, I'll humour you. 

You go into a tabacci in berlin and ask for a pack of cigarettes....you give the guy 10 quid and he short changes you so you respond and say, you know, i think you gave me the wrong change......well, the german is appalled, offended! and challenges said accusation...of course, this is exactly what got them into trouble during the war, being honest, anal and taking orders, yeah?.. (italian gets it and laughs out loud,)

I digress....con't of Bay's joke.

You then go into a tabacci in Rome and give him 10 quid for the pack of fags and he gives you less than you think you deserve and you challenge him, and the Romano di Roma? what does he say, what does he mutter while waving his hand in front of his face, "listen, we're all doing the best we can, certo?

Sergio laughs out loud, again. 

Well, if you're not laughing it's either because you haven't had the pleasure of being with me, or maybe you're just American.  Or maybe you're an American that is too trivial as Glenn Greenwald states on http://www.salon.com or far too immature as James Wolcott waxes wickedly on http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/blogs/wolcott/.

Or maybe, you live in North America and simply lack perspective.  That's what I think, at least.

But that's alright, because N. Americans will always have one another, not to mention James Kunstler to scare the helloutta them by giving their gaze a mirror for close perusal. http://www.jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com

Hey, what say.  What about the chick from Monte Carlo.  Well, let me tell you, she was peach.  When you look up Ripe n Ready n Round in websters, you see her, the chick from Monte Carlo that sells electric cars.  She's traveling to Paris, Porte de Versaille to be exact, to see the car show.

But before I can see the peach I hear the Italian steward knocking on my cabin door.  He wakes me up con due cappuccini and one croissant.  How civilized.  He raised an eyebrow when I requested 2 cappuccini the night before but delivered because an Italian likes nothing more than to make an issue out of nothing and then turn on a dime to make sure you feel like it's a favor, at his expense, for you, in the end.  And I do love this man and give him the warmest smile I can muster, which isn't much, for the only sleep I ever have on a night train occurs in the final two hours, just before the Italian steward knocks on your door.

I gulp down the two coffee milkshakes, while Colette and Godot hang out on the little bed, then pack and find my way to the next train.  I get on and find the wrong seat but the right setting. 

I get settled.  Across the aisle I find a very bored, antsy, petite woman from Monte Carlo.  She is 5 ft, very, very curvy, compact and round in all the right places.  She has on the tightest of jeans and the clingiest of sweaters, off the shoulder, of course, to reveal several straps and several are needed to keep 'those' in place.  Here is a woman terrifically comfortable in her well preserved skin, dyed blonde hair, wavy, short, frisky and flirtatious with eyes so large and round like everything else, lips colored and puckered and ready to chat, with me.  Imagine.  But I am so tired.  But I will engage with this character because she is just so round and fabulous and french.  And she is earthy.  Fabulously, gorgeously earthy.

She has a mink on one seat, for it's winter by her standards, in Paris.  Her large bags scattered on the two seats facing and the one next to her, but she throws the mink to the window seat to sit closer to me as she sees I have little C n G in their little sack, that little bag that has taken them to 22 countries.  (and yes, they get the joke).  A Parisian would carefully place her mink, a non Parisian will cast it aside and use it as a pillow as she did.

As we converse, she spreads her legs, putting one hand on her round tummy, the other to play with her locks.....she starts speaking in Italian and then hears my accent and we settle in english with french phrases.  Some of those french phrases i cannot even repeat, especially in french as they basically mean, Sarko likes to have sex every two hours.  And you get the gist with the word. 

This woman, about 50ish, such a sexy, little vixen, so robust, so relaxed, selling electric cars, has a sister who works in the ministry and her sister says that Sarko needs it every two hours.  Not an image I even want nor need, but this woman is funny and engaging and chatty...eventually i give her little Colette and she becomes quiet because she misses her little 'spitz'...and then she gives me catalogs of cars and I realize nothing is really serious but sex and selling electric cars.

It's so often about the distraction, l'affaire, the rendezvous, just look at anyone driving in Paris, in France...they are the most distracted people on earth, cell phones, in such a hurry to get no where fast....Sarko..he may be getting lucky every two hours...but whatever they thought he was about....he's not. 

Talk about going no where fast, that is Sarko, in a phrase, one that I can repeat at least...

Everything and everyone is fast, but the train, it's slow....6+ hours......another couple boards, sit across from me, a tedious middle class couple, boring, bitchy, looking through magazines, flipping pages, conversing animatedly about couches and refrigerators, only those two could find their dismal lives interesting, the wife looks at me, lunges at the husband, lover, whatever, I could care less, they should just get a room...another woman sits across from the funny frenchie, she writes music and has to go to the bathroom all the time....the funny french woman from Monte Carlo keeps asking me questions like 'how can you live in paris with such weather, how awful'....is that a new computer? as I pull out my MacAir to play with my new toy and says funny things....what a peach...

Roma...

Sometimes I feel such an ingrate, how dare I fail to fully appreciate the gorgeous, if not stagnate glory that is Rome. Paris is pretty, but what's wrong with the eternal city?  Well...

Per sempio.

Roberto Purvis showed up for luncheon at Chez Bay, it lasted 4 hrs. Snap. Before Muv and post Muv. I still got it.

(Maybe within each blessay I'll reference Muv, in homage to Hitchcock's devotion towards camp continuity)

Roberto's a mixed breed, mostly NY'er but sorta Italian and speaks about 7 languages beautifully, fluently. 

He was my neighbor in Trastevere, Rome.  He'll be on Law and Order again, watch out for him, he's fabulous and oh so gorgeous, but his true love and forum is political film/documentary.

But he told me how 'over' Rome he is, finally.  He'd worked on Italian film, but Fellini and his esprit is long gone, purtroppo. 

Met with my galpals at Campo di Fiori, one was American/Thai-Italian/etc and they all concurred.  "We're cooked, bored, burned out."  One is a bohemian friend, a precious soul who reminds me just why I outta stop searching for my Bohemian soul.  That kinda life is too chaotic and random for this bourgeoisie gal, in fact, so random she fell outta her loft like bed, 8 ft from above, and now has a plate in her arm the size of Colette, whom she held, btw, as she always does whenever my road leads to Rome. 

Rome is perfect if you've nothing left to do, or if you can afford to nothing.  It's too perfectly beautiful.

Rome plays home to very few non Romans.  There's the UN/FAO folk, but who wants to hang out with them?

Some succeed, like Matthew Kneale who writes Whitbread winning novels like "The English Passengers" , or like Gaby Ford, who came here in the 70's and produced English theatre here for decades. I was happy to hang out with them, but they are rare.

When I arrived, like I did last nite, after a 15 hr train ride, I just feel the blood pressure go down.  I prepare early, collect my things and thuh muffins, exit the voiture and stand outside the exit door, pressing my forehead and my hands against the window and the night because I love arriving at this graffiti ridden site, waiting to see the bold ROME TERMINI sign, this place I called home for several years. 

And what is it with the Italian countryside....is it because the Italians, for the most part live on top of one another in the little cities and villages and leave the country to live and breathe and be at peace?

Walked all over Rome, from the hotel near Termini to Campo di Fiori, to the Vatican, to Piazza Navona, to the Pantheon, arriving at, Tazzo d'Oro, the world's finest coffee, reminding one just why Starbucks sucks so much.

Then to Piazza del Poppolo, if only to call mio marito, as this is mio marito's favorite place on the planet.

Rome.  Ne abbiamo viste di cotte e di crude.  No one gives a shit.  No one should. 

Turned on CNN and laughed.  Apparently, many Americans are deeply mad...so mad, they refused to talk to their friends cuz people are gunna get even more polarized than before, (is that possible?)....this time it's not btwn the repubs and dems, but btwn the dems.....so mad are they.

Why not be like the Italians, they have 28 political parties.  The only ones getting mad are the politicians in parliament, and they let off their steam by banging their cell phones over one another's heads....of course, doesn't matter much as no one owns more cell phones than the Italians, no one, even the babies own them, they may be fake, but there's two to a crib, dangling, waiting, I kid you not.   

For heaven's sake, America, get over yourself.  And for all those English friends of mine that find Silvio too too corrupt to talk about.  Note Bene, Silvio's coming back to share his self-made soft corrupt style with a country that understands soft corrupt style better than anyone. Maybe that explains just why they're having such a fine time.  No emotional investment in gov't. 

Tony Blair, no reason to talk about him anymore, but I'll make up a reason anyway, if only for sentimental sake. He will go down as one of the most sanctimonious, self righteous, corrupt, oily political hustlers we've had the misfortune to witness for a long while.

Second only to Sarko, who's tried to take a page out of almost every chapter of his play book, and that is exactly why his poll numbers resemble Bushies....

Merkel, you ask, why, still as magnificent as ever, dankashane.  However, with Germany footing the bill for both the EU and East Germany, life will begin to take its toll.  But she's rather divine, even the Israeli's are pleased, and we know how impossible that task is, she even spoke in German to the Knesset.

And Malta.  Well, letters shall flow forth soon enough...Me, C n G shall be there by noon tomorrow.