4.7.02
Ok, i'm finally updating this thing. Is this text visible over this background? hope so. I would put the text in bold to make it easier to read, but this is a low-budget website.
What's new? Well, i went to the sunsplash over the weekend, it was really, really, really great. The place was beautiful as always, the organization well above perfection, the weather just right, warm enough to go around without a shirt despite the previous three days of rain.And of course the music was top-notch!

The trip to the festival(bus to udine, other bus to gemona, car to osoppo) gave no problems, nor did the tent...it was in perfect condition, and surprisingly easy to set up.
Cut. I can't see what i'm writing. Text is now bold. Thank me, humans.
Anyway, the festival area was gigantic and full of things to do, eat, drink, dance to, buy, etc. etc.
I had usefully brought my own drinks, carefully contocted the previous night. I hardly bought anything, besides dinner(had lunch in udine:falafel at the new arabic place-not bad at all), which leaves my area of action basically to the dancing:-)

Anyway, in the afternoon i found some old friends, met some new ones, walked around...in the early evening the first soundsystems and concerts started, and of course i was there! Gilberto Gil's soundcheck was very good, he did a couple of bob marley songs, both electric and acoustic. The band was his usual core band(bass, drums, keyboards, wind instruments, guitar) plus three ladies on backing vocals and an accordionist, who gave strong forrò influences to the reggae pieces, especially the acoustic ones. He also did a couple of his own songs, none that i knew, however...

The late shows were quite good, the first band. Suoni Mudù, came from southern italy, and had an interesting set featuring dancers and actors. Oh, behind me in the public there was Luca o'Zulu from 99posse, who went to say hello to them after the show... Then came Mika, a belgian band fronted by two sisters, very nice roots reggae.
After these two short sets, things went brasilian. There were some 20-25 minutes of a great bloco-de-samba from trieste(no, really), called Unidos do Berimbau some 30 or 40 percussionists, playing with excellent coordination, singing and even with dancers!

And finally, it was time for The Master: Gilberto Gil!
As i said before, his set was made of bob marley songs, plus a few of his own, not too many though...:-(
He started out with an acoustic version of Three Little Birds, and among other things he also played positive vibration, lively up yourself(in a very nice brasilian version), turn your lights down low, stir it up, No woman no cry(first in brazilian, then in english) could you be loved and, finally, Buffalo Soldier. In between these songs, some brazilian stuff showed up...Above all, a very nice reggae version of Garota de Ipanema, which sounded just right. Then a couple of his own songs, like Vamos Fugir, which fitted in just right in the bob marley repertoire. The reggae crowd loved the show, before it started many people were wondering what a brazilian had to do with reggae, mumbling about their dissent...they were soon to be contradicted!
The encore started with Sitio do Pica-pau amarelo, and ended with Giberto's very own version of Bob Marley's Kaya, retitled Kaya n'gandaya, which is also the title of his new album, of all things a bob marley tribute...actually the concert was so good, i've even felt tempted to buy it! Of course, it would've been better if he'd included more of his own shows in the set, but he probably had the tough reggae crowd(yeah, right) to please.

After the show i had time for a very hurried encounter with Mr. Gil himself, just the time to ask him whether it was true that Os Doces Barbaros are reforming(it is) and, if so, if there will be an european tour(there won't). More worthwile was the chat i had with some members of unidos do Berimbau, who were all extremely friendly...The brazilians among them were strangely pessimistic about the world cup finals the following day...they expected a measly 3-0 for brazil...strange... Anyway, i approached the leader of the group, presenting myself as percussionist...he told me to show up at their rehearsals so they could try me out! sounds cool! Pity i'll be busy until september...let's see if something can be done about it in the autumn...

The rest of the night went regularly, of course my recollections are hazy...if any of you heard from me that night, i apologize:-)

I went to bed relatively early, between 3 and 4 o'clock in the morning, completely conkered...

The following morning was traumatic...i started the morning strolling around the site, taking pictures(which i'd also done the previous night, but i don't expect any of them to actually develop, considering the -ahem- enhanced state i was in). Then around 10 in the morning i pulled the tent down, picked my things up and left the festival. When i got to Osoppo, th nearby town, i discovered that:
a-the 11 o'clock bus to udine didn't really exist
b-no other buses would leave from osoppo that day
c-no trains would leave from Gemona train station 3 km away, either.

What to do? well, Emanuele lives 5km away from osoppo...
Around 12 he came to pick me up, with a dastardly plan in mind: to eat something together.
Of course you understand, any idea to involve the two of us doing anything together usually ends in total disaster...
So, instead of going back to udine so i could bus my way back home, off we went to a small restaurant even further north, almost at the border with austria, where we had the most INCREDIBLE roast chicken with chips, an excellent home-brewed beer, and a delicately refreshing sorbetto to close the ceremonies. As i said, disaster.

I eventually made it back to the bus around four or five o'clock in the afternoon, and got home later in the evening, where i collapsed on the sofa for some 20 hours.

this is a website.
(Well, not yet)

It's more like:when you start moving into a house, and you've brought the first boxes of your stuff in, but you haven't decided where to put it yet. Or what to do with it.

Anyway, this site will have two uses, and that's already two more than lots of sites i've seen. Both uses apply mainly to when i'm not at home.

One is so i can keep friends up to date with my travels. I get around once in a while, and when i do, it's usually to wierd places like iran or chile or even sicily. I used to write an email and forward it to most people i know, but have come to consider this kind of rude. Don't get me wrong, i love getting email. I usually don't like recieving collective emails, but i love it when people tell me about their travels, and the fact that i've been included in the "cc" space of an email by somebody who's in india or morocco is actually a pleasant one!
But still, i'm a modest little individual, and tend not to believe that too many people will care about where i've been or what i'm doing. So it all goes on this site, and if anyone is actually interested he or she (the latter even more improbable) can come here. God, i sound like a total loser.

The second good reason for this site to be is that when i'm not at home i can never find my links. Ergo, the links page. Original little thing to put on a website if you're asking me.

And another thing. This site will be bilingual. Sorry about that. it comes from my using 50% english and 50% italian both on the net and in real life. Hey, why is it that tangible mail is called snail mail, as opposed to e-mail, but tangible life isn't called "snail life"? There must be a very profound, psychological, but at the same time extremely nerdy reason for that. Not that i really care, of course. Anyway, some things that'll be in italian won't also be in english, and vice versa. Translations will be present anywhere i will have felt like translating. Apologies to anyone who doesn't speak one(or more) of these languages, especially to al my spanish speaking friends, who all speak english anyway, so it doesn't matter.

Bother, now i'll have to translate all this.

RLF 28.6.02
Ten past midnight.

Uninteresting reflection/quote of the day(28.6.02)

I was lying on my bed tonight when i noticed a mosquito on the cieling. To escape from my murderous intentions, it fluttered straight into a spider's web. While it was being devoured by the spider, i realized that if the mosquito feeds on my blood, and the spider feeds on the mosquito, then i'm two spaces under spiders in the biological chain. Needless to say, that spider shan't sleep in the same room as i, tonight. Wouldn't like it to reach the same conclusion and go for the big one.

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