Definitely not a geek

Music hasn’t been in my days for a few months now and neither has harmony. My computer inexorably crashed and so did my inner peace: in the past 6 months I quit my job, I ran the NY marathon, finding along the way an even longer journey to complete, the love of my life who, evenutally, I ended up following  to Seattle-yeah, very Forest Gump- walked into a sex shop with a gay friend of mine in Los Angeles who made a complete ass of my straight orientation and currently, I’m planning my next assault to New York, while assisting impotently at my girlfriend’s divorce. 

Does anybody know how to reinstall a better software after pushing the reset button?

 

 

 

The NYC marathon in 13 hours

And here we go. About 13 hours to go for the new york city marathon. Now, it’s 8 40 pm and just had lots of pasta. And I mean a lot. a pack only for me. ..One of the main reasons why I’m doing all this!

I’m going to bed in about 2 hours. Wake up call at 4:15 am. I gotta catch the marathon bus to Staten Island at 5:45, one hour earlier, because of the construction works on the Verazzano bridge.

Then, wait for a few hours amidst concerts and tons of people and at 10:10am we finally start. Well, it takes about 10/15 minutes to actually start from the real start that activates the chip I will be wearing on my shoes. It takes some human traffic to have 38,000 runners to start their dreams becoming true. So at approximately 10:30 I’ll be really hitting the road: Staten Island, Brooklin, Queens, Manahttan and Harlem, Bronx and back to Manhattan, Central Park and the arrival at the “Tavern on the Green”.

I can’t wait. http://www.nycmarathon.org/home/index.php

Modern Love on Sunday morning

Finally, after a long period of forced fasting abroad, today I got to enjoy the Sunday New York Times edition at Starbucks, coming with a Grande hot chai tea latte with skim milk, a slice of bluberry cake, or espresso chocolate brownie and a good dose of intriguing curiosity to watch people hanging out in New York on Sunday morning.

After assaulting the thick paper sandwich from the book review, the Week review and Thomas Friedman’s editorial, I get to the only Style Section’s column worth reading and that’s where my masochistic instinct to somehow enjoy my melancholy kicks in: through the words of the “Modern Love” Column.

How come that according to this weekly column, written by different people telling about past, defining love experiences, the concept of modern love mostly hinges upon lack of communication, incomprehension, loneliness and unmet expectations?

Why does ” Modern Love” solely comprehend a lonely and consuming experience according to the NY times?

Following, one of my favorite “Modern Love” columns for writing and content on the Sunday Ny times:

“When the Thunder Rolls in, My Lie Rolls Out”
By AMY O’LEARY
Published: September 10, 2006

The first time I said it, I thought it was the best kind of lie: tender and considerate.
My boyfriend and I were lounging in bed as a gust of wind from one of those sweeping Midwestern thunderstorms crashed against the flimsy picture window of our rural Minnesota apartment. Our relationship was in trouble, and that’s when the lie came to me.

Day 1

Al buio, sdraiato sul air matress sistemato in salotto, al di la della finestra c’e’ il Chrysler building illuminato di bianco.Luna artificiale che si riflette sulla tastiera del computer. Sembra di stare in un romanzo di Scott Fitzgerald. Non c’ero piu’ abituato. New York e’ bella, ma anche per uno come me all’inizio e’ come una valanga in faccia. overwhelming. Mi ci vogliono sempre un po’ di giorni per riabituarmi. qui e’ come se tutto andasse piu’ veloce e nessuno avesse tempo. Sono praticamente 24 ore che non dormo e per il fuso gia’ so che domani alle sette saro in piedi. Poi? Beh, cominciamo a farci due conti.Partiamo dalla spesa. Vado da Trader Joe’s, discount pazzesco a Union Square e poi un salto da Paragon a comprare le scarpe per la maratona. E’ il caso poi che inizi a telefonare a un po’ di gente, amici, ex colleghi.Insomma tutto quello che puo’ rendere un lavoro piu’ vicino. Nel frattempo pero’ sento le ambulanze in lontananza. benvenuto a new york…I hope to make it.

Half of a drink with an old friend and one gelato with a maestro

Strange night. Unexpected encounters.

 I saw a friend of mine, once one of my most precious. We used to be in high school together. At that time, I was dating one of her classmates and she was dating one of my friends. We used to hang out all the time. Even until a few years after graduation..Even until senior year in college. Well, at least for me. She dropped it. After her dad died, I guess she had to figure out herself in life, find a direction, after he lost her main guide. After a few jobs, she became a flight attendant and years later, after I had started working already, she decided to also go back to college. I guess, she found herself again.

Today, after almost three years, I met her for a drink. She’s still a flight attendant, but only 3 classes away from her bachelor degree. Her major? I would say “life”. She was able to find a direction, give herself a sense of stability after struggling with herself, with her family, her mom. I still cannot imagine how it is to lose a father. I guess one day I will inevitably will. She found out. And with that also how to get out of it. Political science is going to be her major. Lots of credits for that, definitely more than the ones she needs for that piece of paper. 

We had a drink. Half of that, she had to rush back home for a family dinner. That’s not true. She wanted to, because somehow she’s been taking care of her mom. As a daughter, or as a  son, how do you deal with your insecuritites, fears and maybe sometimes desperation if and when you can’t even show all of them, otherwise your family would fall apart?

She learned that. Over time, by herself, guiding herself through life. That’s why I didn’t get mad. “You call me out of the blue on my cell after three years and when we finally meet, you tell me that you can only stay half an hour?-Are you out of your mind?” It’s what my instinct was about to tell her, but then, my historical memory kicked in and in like a three seconds flash back I saw all these years passing by in my mind since at her home she was sitting on the little wall by the bush, hoping that all that crowd would just disappear. Funerals are not only sad, but stressful and disorienting. She did a lot of road from that wall at her home’s front yard, up to today, to tonight when she apologized for not being able to stay longer:” I’m really sorry about that, but we’ll definitely hang out again in the next days” . I honestly don’t know what it mmust be for a 16 years old girl to grow up wihtout her dad. My dad is fundamental in my life, but for a girl must be even more so. And beside, I can’t feel like carrying her load as well, on top of my current emotional load. That would be too much. “Don’t worry, give me a call when you have time”.

I guess she is one of those friends disappearing every now and then, but somehow always appearing back at the horizon. She will always be a true friend of mine, or should I say, she can always consider me a true and genuine friend of hers? There is a difference.

I guess I will always be the doctor to my friends. Always the one fixing problems, the one everybody can always rely one. This summer a friend of mine kept calling me “Daniele, human being’s best friend” Do you guys have this saying for dogs? That’s the joke. Always someone to trust and rely on. Sure, I’m glad to help, but I’m still waiting for that one to fix me. I’m still waiting for that one to save me. Oh, poor boy. I guess no victimism. We choose who want to be and afte a certain age none and I mean none of our previous history can justify who we are and why we act in a certain way. We don’t like ourselves? Fine, let’s try to make some adjustment within a reasomning degree of self acceptance. Oh, simply reminding at loud this to myself. Only addressed to me!

So, at some point I guess I will meet Gessica again. I’m proud of the woman she has been able to become. She went really far.She deserves it. Until next time, good luck on your road. Take care of yourself..Still don’t know why she called me after so long.

So, I hug her and I drive back home. At least I thought so.

One of my best friends, Ettore invites me to some art gallery exhibit. It’s him, Luana, his wife, Nando and his wife Marta.Oh and the maestro, the painter. Man, he’s good.  the exhbit was in a small boutique. It reminded of those small art galleryies in Soho, NY (of course).

My friend Luana reminds me about Saturday night. A famous Italian TV network came to her store and on Saturday they’re gonna broadcast the segment. Dinner at Nando’s house with friends. Lots of wine, laughs and thank god harmony.Those people are amazing, their stories, their individualities. They could write a movie about them.

Luana has a store selling used clothes of great brands like Dolce and Gabbana, Valentino and brands like that. She has two of them. How do you advertise all this?

Well, here comes my job. How do you manage the communication of a company? the Pr, marketing, advertising, press office? How do you plan a media campaign? Well,  I’ ve done a little bit of this in the field:)

We spent all night talking about the right communication and media strategy to adopt, in order to exploit the wave  that this TV segment will create from Saturday on. I must say I came up with a good plan and she told me that instead of paying me I can go there and shopping for free. Would I do it for money? No, no with two dear friends. How can you take money out of a friend? I do it for friendship, but also for myself, to convince myself that I’m good at it.

I know how to build the structure of a project, of a communication plan, a marketing plan, even a film festival. Someone in Long Beach asked me to secure them some film for an upcoming inaugural film festival. I’m not sure I can do that with a 2 weeks deadline and almost no budget, but I’ll definitely know how to structure a film festival next year. When I’ll be in LA in November, I will talk to them and perhaps, they will hire me as consultant. Who knows? World, give me the chance and I know I can do this.

So, bottom line is first part of the night I guess I was a great friend in the past years. Can I still be a great friend? Where is the thin red line between unconditional frienship and exploited friendship? Altruism, or being exploited?

Second part of the night: can I pull off a career as a professional? Will I be able to communicate my skills to the world? To know something doesn’t mean that you can communicate it. Then, it would be like not knowing that at all.

 As we said goodbye the Maestro told me ” I face life with optimism. Do you wanna do something? do it. Only once inside the process you worry about how to solve upcoming obstacles”. It makes sense. He told me that after I told him that I have a disease called optimism. “Good luck in the States Daniele” he yelled at me from the other side of the street.” Thanks Maestro. I need it”. I’m leaving for New York on October 24th.

Strange night.

And voila, hey Houston can you hear me? I’m landing

And voila, the curtain opens. The crowd is ready and the show begins: I quit my job and now I’m looking for another one. A better one. In the States;New York, L.A. it doesn’t matter.I’m damn ready to rock and roll anywhere I’ll have the chance to within the US.

The ironic part? I’m excited.I’m serene and I feel free,like I’ve never felt for so long. Perhaps, last time it was right after I graduated, but I couldn’t really grasp the individuality of that, since at that time I was with someone in Boston-Nicole for those of you who followed my adventures- Not that it last for that long since I had graduated inMay and she dumped in November-22ndthe same day I took my driving license years before, weird right? At that time, I felt free, but still didn’t exactly know what to do with that freedom. I felt like everything I was doing or try to do wasn’t exactly because of my strenght. Iwas with her, in Boston and didn’t whether I would have been able to do the same withou her.Bymyself.

Now, I know:)

Years later, five years later, I’m definitely bymyself and bymyself I decided to  finally unchain myself from “Bob”’s slavery (and let’s stop here, those people are pretty weird.wouldn’t really like to be suited for whatever reason.paranoid? with pride! ), free from my own ambition. I don’t want to be at their mercy. I’m thankful I have them. I am, but don’t to be at their mercy. It’s dangerous.

 I’ll try LA, I’ve got one person to talk to already. I’m planning to come around october/november. If anything goes according to plan, in November I’ll run the NY marathon. Today, I started my training and tomorrow I’ll get my number and registration or whatever is called in English! Perhaps, this year, after 3 years of trying, I’ll be really able to go and do it.

Meantime, I’m updating my resume. Some of you might get it. I need suggestions and advices, like the “Education part” goes before or after the professional experience? I’m hearing both theories:) I’ve been researching and as my email will be ready I will start throwing it outhere like there’s no tomorrow while contacting and emailing people.

I guess I should be scared. I quit my job before having another one.Not exactly the smartes move on earth, but given the situation I was in (short short version!) I’m actually really glad, happy. What the hell, I’m 31. If I don’t do crazy thigns now, I’ll never do it again. This is why in my search, hoping NOT  to wait for Godot, I’ve been considering also different fields than production, cinema and TV. Like Humanitarian foundation. Why not? Why not going back home at the end of the day with the illusion to have brought a small contribution to planet earth. A little naive maybe, but inspiring.

 I’m not writing my usual consideration over life,but at least I’m writing. I stopped for a couple of months. It took me awhile to take this decision about my life. It’s been a quite pensive period and it took me a lot to write it out I guess. IT was like a block. In the past month I told a freind of mine who asked me why I wasn’t writing on my blog that I first needed to land before having the chance to tell the story of my recent journey. I guess I just landed on a new place:)

My journey, my decison was a defining one, the one that will definitely influence my life, because I do know that I drastically changed my path, or perhaps continued (maybe it was destiny?). Every day we take decisions that can change, despite slowly the course of our existence. Holywood made oalso a movie out of it. Sliding doors happen all the time, but sometimes a couple of doors may let you enter or exit strategic doors. I think I just steeped out of a very important door, hopefully, right into the right world, the right path. It’s my sense of serenity and freedom to confirm me that. I hope it’s my sixth sense and notsimply my naive hope:)

But as always I have hopeless optimism. I’ll put that as well in the magic box.

Gaining MOmentum in Italy and in the U.S.: the pursuit of happiness or mystification of reality?

As the game of my dream raises the stakes and my sacrfices show the others a mountain apparently too high to climb, people can’t hear me anymore in this country. They just don’t. I feel like a complete stranger in the middle of the night knocking on someone’s door struggling to convince him to open it, because my intentions are good and he can trust me: Hello is there anybody here? I’m speaking Italian, your same language-At least I thought, I hoped. I knock , I talk, I yell, I scream, but nothing. Apparently, they just don’t understand my words anymore.  I know I can achieve my dream. Just trust me, open the door and I will show you. Yeah right. I’d better move on, or out here I risk to really get sick!

I always do what my heart and guts tells me to. Practically, I never listen to people. Stubborn? I prefer to say detemined. Straight like a train. I wouldn’t have made it this far otherwise. Yet, sometimes, it would be nice to go back to planet earth and live like a simple human being that would like to talk and act amidst the silence of agreement and support, rather than amidst the noise of a high and non-conscious barrier impeding all my closest affections to really hear me.                                                                                                                                                                                                                I must say that  my parents are very opened minded and supportive. They adore me and so my close friends. I’m lucky. Nevertheless, there’s something in them that at some point stops them from understanding my intentions until the very last word. It’s like if they had all the genes, like me, except for one, that one that makes them a different species from me and too far to listen to me anyway, despite my efforts.  It’s like a Chinese making a declaration of love to someone from Island. The intentions are ideal, but the language definitely not.

The more time I spend in Italy and the more I feel I’m in a constant battle against everybody,  against the country’s uncouscious mystification of reality.

Our main problem? 

It’s not the economy, the bureaucracy, the tax system, the infrastructure, the mafia, the lack of real investments and R&D in every key field.  No, they all don’t work. We know that already. It’s a fact that every international institution and agency would tell you with pages and pages of studies. You name it. OSCE, IMF, UN, World Bank, WTO, European Bank, EU. Even our politicians admit it in their usual “1 minute” TV segment of daily populism and qualunquism, great to gain a bunch of  further protest votes against whatever government is in power. No that’s not it. These are all the effects  we unconsciously adopt to mistyify reality. Because there’s no  job and no real possibility of true success, as we reach a certain level, position and status, we acquire a mystified version of reality, a distorted “forma mentis”,  a twisted mind set about our life: we stop dreaming, we stop aspiring, because it’s implicit and commonly accepted that you cannot possibly gain more than that. The average “lucky success” in Italy is to have a permanent job, or as we call it a “fixed place” (as legacy from the 50’s, from our grandparents’ fear to guarantee their son some security after WWII )  that can provide about 1800 euros per month,  30 paid days of vacation per year, about the same days of further “sick days” and a costant idea of how to get a new plasma TV set (with rates payment of course) and where to go on your next 15 days vacation in August. If you only dare to dream more than that, to aspire to something bigger, you’re not grounded, you’re a dreamer. In case you get excited, gaining momentum, well, get a grip, and slow down because as Jack Nicholson says “what if that’s as good as it gets”.  We are satisfied with that little garden that we can afford to cultivate, so to maintain intact our acquired privileges, without having the guts to develop a real vision, a dream.

The Colosseum is our problem. The primary cause for us to mistify and mortify reality.

The Big Apple Grand Ball Finale…only for this time of course

Back to Rome. Here I am again.  Different time, different language, different lifestyle for Cinderella man (without too much victimism, proudly ME, not Crowe) at the end of the grand ball: the skyscrapers shrink into regular 4, 5 story buildings, more or less ancient, roads shrink, time shrinks, toward the future, 6 hours ahead and so do options and mentality, down to the very minimum requested, so to live a relative and tranquil life, without too many hassles, nor ambitions. But that’s  another episode of the story:)                                                                                                                                                                                                             There is actually one thing that I do acquire at the  end of the Big Apple Grand Ball: a car, my small car that through the impossible traffic and roads of Rome turns into my favorite catalyst  for my laziness, out of the long and metallic subway pumpkin in New York. Nevertheless, my metrocard is still proudly in my wallet. Oh yeah, and on the way out,  in the gift bag I get another perk,  a lovely jet leg. After more than 10 years doing back and forth from the States, I still can’t figure out a way to rapidly adjust: I don’t know whether I’m hungry, tired, sleepy, or all of these things above, combined in a very twisted way for my emotions.  Partial solution?  Running in the park. What a long day I had today.

After a red eye flight, I get to Rome at 8am, strangely on time for Alitalia, whose acronym for those of you who still don’t know is ”Always Late In Taking-off, Always Late In Arriving”. Just the time to wait about 35 minutes for the luggage (there you go, now I finally recognize the good old Italian style!), hit a little bit of traffic on raccordo anulare, the highway ring around Rome and 45 minutes later, I’m home. Hold on, not for long. A quick shower, a few minutes to hateandlove my new old home for the weeks ahead and I’m back in my little car on the way to work: ” Ciao Daniele, here’s the American, finally  back among us. When you’re there you just forget about us, eh?!”-I can’t really say it’s not true! - That’s the usual welcome from some of my colleagues, that I actually love. They’re all great.                                                                                                                                                                                                            I am again in my office, by the Colosseum (yeah, maybe I have to recognize that’s another perk I get), in my room, looking at the picture of Manhattan, on the right side of my desk, taken at the end of August 2001, yes, just a few weeks before. ( pictures from the place you want to go to should be located on the right, as the fen shui says, according to one of my best friends. why not, let’s give it a shot, right?!).                                                                                                                                                                                                    Before starting again with  the Tribeca Film Festival (www.tribecafilmfestival.org) and the Rome Film Fest account (stay tuned for more,  coming soon a great festival in October,18-27: www.romefilmfest.org), I work a little on my other account, biotechnology. More precisely, the development of an implantable biosensor chip capable to monitor, detect and transmit wireless to a computer, the human being physiological functions, such as blood pressure, ecg and the level of glucose, i.e., very important for diabetic patients. Did I ever mention you that my job is like three in one with two different lives in 2 continents? Again, as above, that’s another episode:)                                                                                  

Finally, at last, but definitely not least, I gather all my good willing and very last few drops of energy and go running to Villa Ada, the park close to my house. I change clothes in my car, as all we runners do around here after work, and here we go: a spectacular hill to conquer through narrow paths covered by gigantic trees, starting from a  pond with a little stripe of green land in the middle, where in a few weeks they will hold outside concerts for all summer. It’s nice to run with live music on. It reminds me of Central Park in the summer, running on Sundays with the Jazz Festival on. I saw India Airie two years ago. She was great. She brought her mom on stage singing with her.                                                                                                                                                                                                           The entire loop of “Villa Ada” is about one hour and that was mine today. Here the parks are called “villas” since they used to be private villas of noble families and this one used to belong to one of the members of the former royal Italian family from Piedmont, Ada Savoia.

I stopped by Marcello’s house tonight, my buddy, my best friend, practically my brother. We’ve known each other since we were 6 years old, we went to the same school and we played basketball together in the school team until high school. Then,  we stopped growing and therefore we stopped playing. It was really fun to play with the schools in Rome though. We weren’t a really good team, but we most certainly had a lot of fun. Now, I try to make it in the big apple and he’s trying to make it with his bar, working on opening maybe another one. Hold on, not an american. the italian one when you go for a coffee and a cornetto. It’s always comforting to go back to Rome and go to his bar, or at his house for my ”New York report”. Different lives, in different cities that come together in one night with a brother. I know, it sounds cliche, but you all know out there that is nice to have someone you can always rely on, regardless how long you haven’t seen him for, or spoken to. 

 It’s 8pm in New York. Here, on the other side of the ocean, about 6000 miles after,  is 2 am. I can’t sleep. I’m jet legged and on top of this, I have a lot of things on my mind, old and brand new and some of these are really good, don’t get me wrong, but still… I’m an hopeless optimistic and I always think that things will work out the way I want to. After all, have you ever seen a pessimmistic accomplish anything in life? My goal is to achieve  a dream, and at the moment, there are 2  on my mind. The hard part? Blend them together. In time, I don’t rush. I like to consider myself as realistically optimistic, achieving a dream through realistic instruments, although  for most of the journey it gets hard. Especially on my first night back to Rome, where I would love to be completely  somewhere else. In Columbus Circle, maybe at the Starbucks on the corner of Broadway…Around here, instead, everything is more silent, all I’m hearing is my thoughts shaped with the sound of the keyboards typing; no fire fighters, no sirens. It takes me awhile to readjust to this silence. Not to the blinders though. Why is it that in the United States people don’t usually sleep with the blinders on their windows? Wouldn’t it be so much darker and resting for you? If anybody has an answer please…make my sleep and perhaps yours as well, better:)

Golden dreams…

Scusi vuol ballare con me? Grazie, preferisco di no

Passeggiando verso mezzanotte,  sotto ai portici di piazza Augusto imperatore, in una serata fiacca, con il silenzio delle strade vuote della città già semivuota, tipico preludio del ponte del primo maggio, appaiono decine di coppie, ragazzi e ragazze, donne e uomini che vestiti eleganti, ballano sotto la luce gialla dei lampioni, ma ballano davvero. Danzano guardandosi fissi negli occhi, seri,  al suono di un tango argentino proveniente da casse nere improvvisate, appoggiate sulle loro stesse custodie da cantastrade che sembrano usciti da un film di Fellini. Un amarcord del circo al ballo del Gattopardo. La Strada? No, piazza Augusto imperatore. A Roma, di fronte al mausoleo, accanto a Gusto, in una qualunque sera di mezzanotte. La luce era onirica, ma non era un sogno. Mai visti prima. Ce li hanno buttati dal cielo e anche alla svelta…una delle sorprese più bizzarre e belle che mi siano capitate. Era un pò che non mi stupivo per una cosa tanto bizzarra eppure tanto semplice come ballare nel mezzo di un strada sotto ad un portico.

Se siete amanti del tango, piazza Augusto imperatore è la vostra balera.

1,2,3… 

my last August night on a weekend of April

Last time we were lying naked in bed, with no sheets on us, nor with any further hope,  we had just finished crying and throwing at each other’s too far away world by then, every single damn accusation of resentment, neglect and incomprehension that in a few hours would have yielded to a one way bus ticket back to New York, separating us ever since. Within that one long, last hug of tacit armistice of emotional exhaustion and aware surrendering, we poured our few remaining tears on each other’s skin, as to share, in silence, at least one last thing at the end of that unbearable humid August night in Washington D.C., in her sublet apartment on the 2nd  floor of a luxury apt building on Mass Avenue.

Months later, several dates later,  sometimes I feel, not in love, but objectively sorry for a story that could have worked out with enthusiasm and fun. Perhaps, I still have to realize that sometimes I simply can’t control all the variables. 

Her pillow was stained with mascara.