The Body Wash
I killed my parents because of the absurd body wash they were using—Pure & Vegetal.
My mother said it moisturizes the skin but I use Vidal and want everybody in the house to use Vidal.
Because ever since I was a child I’ve loved the commercial for Vidal body wash.
I’d lie in bed and watch that horse run.
That horse was Freedom.
I wanted everyone to be free.
I wanted everyone to buy Vidal.
*
Then one day my father said there were three-for-two sales at Esselunga and that we had to take advantage of them. I didn’t think the sale would also include body wash.
My family never understood me.
*
Since then I’ve always bought Vidal body wash for myself, and never cared at all that there were three containers of marigold Pure & Vegetal to do away with.
But when I went into the bathroom and saw one of those sordid plastic bottles on the bidet I couldn’t help but express all my rage—I refused to eat dinner with them.
*
Not everything can be communicated.
Try having your ideals betrayed. And for the difference of only a few cents, besides. I kept my mouth shut.
I ate in my room, potato chips and Mulino tegolino snacks, I didn’t even want to see my friends ever again—when they called I pretended I wasn’t home.
*
As the days passed I realized how ugly my mother was.
I had a mother who could never run for office, with her varicose veins and fingers yellowed by cigarettes.
My mother disgusted me and I wondered how it was possible that as a boy I’d loved her.
My father kept getting older, too.
It was really about time for me to kill them.
*
One evening I came out of my room and told them I’d decided to eliminate them.
They looked at me with their old people eyes and, maybe surprised by the fact that I was talking to them, asked why.
I said they had to use a different body wash, at least.
They started laughing.
*
At that point I went up to my room and grabbed the empty can of peeled tomatoes I’d hidden under my bed to eat at night.
I went back to the kitchen and locked the door.
*
I shouted at my mother that she was a despicable human being and that she should’ve had her uterus cut out before conceiving me.
My father jumped up and took a swing at me but I kicked him so hard in the testicles that he fell down, the breath knocked out of him.
*
My mother threw herself over him, sobbing and yelling incoherently, making her seem even older and more ridiculous. I sunk the sharp can lid into her neck and liters of blood poured out while she screamed like a pig.
Then I killed my father with the frozen food knife.
It really made me sick how they died vomiting blood.
*
There was blood all over the tiles and more more by the minute as their bodies slowly turned a different color.
*
I went back upstairs and grabbed the two bottles (they’d finished one) of their fucking body wash.
I brought them downstairs to the kitchen and set them on the table, then smashed my mother’s skull with the cast-iron meat press.
The brain spilled out, all slimy, and there were little pieces of skin with hair that peeled off like tape.
*
My father’s head seemed softer to me, or maybe I just gave it more of a direct hit.
I put the brains in the sink and cleaned out the insides of their heads with paper towels.
I poured Pure & Vegetal into their skulls, they had to understand that t
Complotto di famiglia
My wife Vincenza 32 years Pisces said to me come on let’s do something with another couple let’s try a new sexual experience with these two she was saying we don’t always need to eat the same old soup because I’m not good enough for you I said. She said come on Eugenio 50 years Sagittarius what’s that have to do with anything let’s try it to experience something different you with another woman me with another man let’s do a couple swap she said.
*
Okay let’s try it let’s do it let’s first see what they’re like I was stunned how do you know them I said I met her she suggested the swap they’re a very attractive couple let’s try it let’s go she said.
*
Okay let’s go I said. She brought me to their house Francesca a young piece of ass 20-22 years her husband a handsome guy 26-27 years Marco she my wife went into the bedroom with the guy Marco she was laughing I was stunned it all seemed like a dream my wife had always been faithful or so I thought she’d gone in there with that guy Marco I was left there with that piece of ass I thought.
*
Have you ever done a couple swap she said no I’ve never done one I said. I looked at her thighs I looked at her mouth chest I looked at the miniskirt on this piece of ass she said come on don’t be shy no I’m not shy it’s that it all seems like a dream I said.
*
But my wife that whore with that guy Marco was in there I in here with that girl with my dick hard she lying on the couch with the thighs the miniskirt and everything for sexual arousal come closer she said I like you she said I like you too I said sweating.
*
But my wife that whore with that guy Marco was in there I looked at the girl getting closer and closer imagine how much fun your wife is having with my husband now we’ll have fun too she said yes let’s have fun now my whore of a wife I said.
*
My wife came into the room then with that guy she came in laughing what did you do in there I yelled she said don’t yell she said.
*
For fuck’s sake what did you do in there with that dickhead what did you do in there tell me what did you do in there with this asshole here in there.
*
Calm down said the piece of ass the wife of the guy no I’m not calm I want to know godammit I’m going to set the house on fire I threw a punch at the whore who was there calm down no godammit we’re on Complotto di famiglia said the slut what the fuck do I care you’re on Complotto di famiglia calm yourself Eugenio that program with Alberto Castagna with Raffaella Trotta the one who says we’ll be right back just a moment after a short break back in a bit Bellissima if you are at least 170 cm tall size 42 you can participate in Bellissima in the Gabicci Bay Cotonella underwear Ronco wine every time you push it rips like this the snack with cheese and fruit Plasmon milk no artificial coloring with cheese and fruit Pronto clean wood with soap and detergent really cleans wood surfaces without rinsing buckle up boy look where we are it feels like Egypt you’re at Gardaland my shoes che bello are Sanagens they have arch supports at the pharmacy from Vichy to fight cellulite don’t delay dial 144-11-429 that girl from Sanremo not Koll the other one the blonde running through the streets in her push-up bra and underwear volume d’effetto senza ferretto TV premiere for Filmissimi Harrison Ford next on Canale Cinque.
*
Welcome back to Canale 5 welcome back to Complotto di famiglia on Canale 5 that show do you get it my wife said we tricked you to be on Castagna for laughs no come on don’t be like that but I didn’t understand Castagna Canale 5 my wife was a whore what do I care about Canale 5 the television what the fuck do I care I fucked up that whore who was sitting nearby what do I care about Canale 5 this story I yelled some men came they came out of the wall what are you doing are you crazy what are you doing they said.
Woobinda
Ever since Berlusconi got control of the TV channels they no longer air Woobinda, Animal Doctor, with the pale Swiss boy who runs through the savanna. This is one of the consequences of the Right.
*
My name is Giuseppe, I’m thirty-one years old. Aries. I’m on the Left like Woobinda. Woobinda was in solidarity with us. The recording shouted: “Woobinda help me, Woobinda help me.” It was a recording of the same people who sang the Furia song. They no longer air Furia either.
*
At one point they remade Furia. It wasn’t the same as when I was young. It had a horrible theme song. It didn’t make you dream. My generation really needs to dream.
*
My generation believes in something else. Today’s kids don’t know Woobinda. They don’t know Phantomas, either.
*
In the evenings, I go back home through the window. I always have them replace the glass after I break it on entering.
If there had been windows in the savanna Woobinda would’ve entered through them, shattering the glass. One day the forests will be gone and that’s when Woobinda will end, like on television, where he simply no longer exists.
*
But he exists inside me, as though no time has passed.
Inside everyone who still has something to say. It’s the power of being thirty in the Nineties.
It’s knowing where you’re headed.
*
My sister barely remembers Woobinda because she wasn’t even ten when they aired it. She says that for her Woobinda is just someone who used to yell before dinnertime. She can’t recall the plot of the stories and she no longer remembers his face.
*
She remembers Barbapapà really well.
Barbapapà was with his family of Barbe. Barbabeau was the nicest one.
But it was just a cartoon, it didn’t represent anything. It was a cartoon from the Right, a cartoon of the Lega Lombarda, because it didn’t have any fundamental message like Woobinda did, which made us feel united. When we went out door knocking at night in 1979 that’s what we had in mind, it made us all feel united, now the strength is m
Vermicino
It’s important. It might be the most important thing, having something like Vermicino to remember.
*
Something that happened to you, and if you go looking for it you find it intact, stored deep inside yourself. If you try to remember you stop yourself, there’s something solid that remains. To tell your grandchildren about. History.
*
This Vermicino, I remember it.
It might have been the greatest moment of my life so I’ll tell you about it just as it happened, with the lights off, everyone staying up to watch it together. It was silent. It was night. It got later and later as we watched Vermicino on the TV. There were millions of us and he was down there all alone.
*
He was trying not to die, with a microphone the little boy told all the viewers that Alfredino Rampi didn’t want to die. And us there, like fans of life, waiting to see him rescued from that hole.
*
My mother said quiet down, quiet down everyone he’s saying something on the microphone, they were silently interviewing him about what it was like to die down there, without anyone able to see you, but with everyone listening. If he cried if he screamed.
*
I remember Alfredino’s expression, in the newspapers, always the same, squinting his eyes because of the sun and wearing a striped tank top. Before he fell into the well of the television. So back when he was a normal boy, even before the overnight live broadcast, he was already very cute.
I think if Alfredino were dying today commercials would be a problem, more for the viewers than for him, as he was just busy trying to survive a little bit longer. They would’ve tried to find a neutral moment to air the dog food commercial, like in matches when the ball gets kicked off the field, a player goes to retrieve it, and they air a commercial for something.
But he kept dying in the same way, there were no breaks, that little boy was dying all night long.
*
To be interviewed you had to be his relative, or a teacher who’d had him in class. You’d get two words on the news and that’s it, you were back to being nobody.
*
Some people tried to climb down into the hole. A one meter-tall Sardinian man, who weighed only fifteen kilos, went down there. At five in the morning he came back up without Alfredino, who was most likely sliding deeper into the chasm of the earth.
*
I seem to remember that even the President of the Republic was there, who at that time might’ve been Pertini, and he stood near the well with the mayor of Vermicino.
*
To be close to the well you had to be important, everyone else was watching it on the TV—like at the Scala opera house, if you’re nobody you go up into the gallery.
*
Vermicino was a truly spontaneous program. Not like some programs these days, for instance Mengacci’s Perdonami, in which some people have already actually killed someone, that’s not how V
Thoughts
When Non è la Rai comes on I lower all the blinds.
I lock the door and open a package of dixi corn puffs, or sometimes fonzies, it depends on what my mother has bought, and I watch those teenyboppers shaking their little tits.
I like to imagine them all in my room, and that every object is saturated with the perfume of their clean pussies.
*
I’ve never seen a pussy in real life.
Besides, despite thinking about them all the time, I don’t think I could actually do anything with one, seeing as blood, piss, and babies covered in wet gunk come out of them.
In the medical encyclopedia I saw some pussies with tumors.
One looked like it had a rotten eggplant on it, from the colors blending into an almost electric blue, surrounded by ugly purple veins.
Another pussy was split in two by an orange growth. It was horrifying to look at.
*
But none of this is of interest to me.
Love is something serious.
At two-thirty I tune into Italia Uno.
*
When my father died I thought that one day one of those girls would love me.
That way I didn’t have to think about death, which I know absolutely nothing about and I don’t want to happen, at least not to me.
If I start thinking about death I eat a lot, I empty the fridge of everything, then I get into bed and sleep until Fiorello’s on.
*
Fiorello is the best of them all.
He knows how to joke around and can sing anything.
*
I have notebooks with all of the girls from Non è la Rai.
The one with Mary on the cover is irresistible.
She’s got these eyes, Mary…
I’ve dreamed of bending her over so many times.
Then I’d pull down her panties and rip into her.
I’d go to the movies and see anything with a girl like her.
*
Mary’s not bitchy like Ambra.
Mary is much sweeter.
Mary studies philosophy.
Mary has blond hair.
Mary doesn’t shout.
Mary’s legs are longer than Pamela’s.
Mary doesn’t try to compete with the other girls.
Mary gives me hope for a better world.
Mary makes my heart beat so fast.
Mary is prettier than Miriana.
Mary is very reserved.
Mary has the most beautiful smile in the world.
Mary’s sign is Pisces.
Mary speaks three languages.
Mary will defeat this boredom that never ends.
Mary looks to the side with her big lips and I go crazy.
Mary dances so gracefully.
Mary has fragrant skin.
Mary is all I have.
*
Sometimes during the commercials I change channels even though there are some that I really love, like the one for Neocibalgina, especially because of the song, and also the Saratoga one, with the model that dives into the water.
*
If I happen to jerk off I’m careful to come when Mary’s on screen or at least Roberta, but if, like that one time, I come when they show one of those fake police officers on the program, it sucks.
*
When I die I want them to bury me with Mary, or at least with one of her photographs.
The Via Palestro Massacre
When I went to the site of the Via Palestro massacre with my girlfriend, a Capricorn, she was dressed like a slut.
It might’ve looked disrespectful, especially since she was wearing black, skintight pants, but no one seemed to notice, because when you’re faced with a massacre not even a pussy would get your attention.
*
In the evening they’re the same as always—could be your husband, or your wife—but then they go to Via Palestro and end up in chunks in the trees and on the ground and on the hoods of the cars parked two hundred meters away, and a piece of a back, for example, can’t be found anywhere and that’s your husband inside the body bag.
*
Everyone thinks about the dead.
I do too. I’m twenty. Moving through the crowd, I saw the debris and was sad, but less so than when I saw it on television, because on television everything seems more real, and the connections are immediate, the massacre comes into your home without warning, there’s no reckoning, no one says “let’s go to the massacre scene,” it’s just there.
*
In real life, a few days later, the site of the massacre is full of people looking at the debris or looking at other people gazing off into space.
Many were shaking their heads, speaking in low voices.
*
There were lots of pictures of the Madonna taped onto the trees, along with some poems.
Also some really long messages—hard to follow—were taped up, and children’s thoughts.
If I had a child, I’d have him write poems for the dead too and I’d bring him to massacre sites.
*
The night the bomb exploded on Via Palestro other bombs had gone off elsewhere in Italy.
I flipped through the channels to find out where.
*
I thought that maybe this was the end of Italy. That everything would explode.
*
In bed that night I kept thinking of that Moroccan man blown up on the bench. When you let people sleep wherever they want no one can guarantee they’ll wake up the next day.
The next day I even went to the rally. Everyone was angry but couldn’t find anyone in particular to be angry with.
We were angry in general.
*
I would’ve liked to say something to the Rai Uno interviewers who were there but if they’d interviewed me I wouldn’t have known what to say. I would’ve said that things like this, massacres, just shouldn’t happen.
*
Then we went to Burghy and I got a king-bacon and regular fries and a cheeseburger and orange juice and an apple-bag, while my girlfriend got a king-cheese and the fish fillet and a small fries and coca max
Infrared Headphones
Ilaria had come over to watch The Exorcist. I’m her friend Stefania and I’m sixteen.
In my opinion, watching the movie was not her intent. I think she wanted to fuck me. And, in fact, she did.
*
During the commercials she kissed me, and after ten minutes she’d already stuck her hand between my thighs, pulling aside my panties and touching my pussy.
As soon as the movie was about to come back on I’d grab her hand and put it back where it belonged.
*
At about halfway through the first half Ilaria began touching herself.
I really didn’t care because I just wanted to watch The Exorcist.
I heard her breath become more and more heavy, then she started moaning like a bitch in heat.
I got up from the couch to turn up the volume.
*
Ilaria told me to put on a porno with Ron Jeremy, and that we could watch The Exorcist some other time.
I was getting annoyed.
I asked her why she’d come, if she didn’t want to watch the movie, since I was actually interested in it.
She said she loved me and I went to my room to get my IR headphones.
I plugged the cable into the TV so I wouldn’t have to listen to her anymore.
*
But that pig wouldn’t stop bugging me.
Thrashing around, she made the whole couch shake.
The remote control, resting nearby, fell to the ground.
I wouldn’t have noticed if the channel hadn’t suddenly changed.
*
I found myself watching Wheel of Fortune.
I groaned and switched it back to Rete Quattro.
*
Just so I could watch the movie in peace I took off my underwear and told Ilaria she could lick my pussy, as long as she didn’t get too excited, and above all that she didn’t block the screen.
*
She got down on the floor and stuck her head under my skirt.
At some point the audio shut off.
Most likely the headphone batteries had died.
Four AAAs, I’d changed them less than two weeks ago.
“Ilaria,” I said, “quit it, the batteries are dead.”
*
She emerged from between my legs, and looked up at me, dazed.
“What?” she said, all out of breath.
“The headphone batteries died, I can’t
*
She emerged from between my legs, and looked up at me, dazed.
“What?” she said, all out of breath.
“The headphone batteries died, I can’t
*
She emerged from between my legs, and looked up at me, dazed.
“What?” she said, all out of breath.
“The headphone batteries died, I can’t
*
She emerged from between my legs, and looked up at me, dazed.
“What?” she said, all out of breath.
“The headphone batteries died, I can’t
*
She emerged from between my legs, and looked up at me, dazed.
“What?” she said, all out of breath.
“The headphone batteries died, I can’t
*
She emerged from between my legs, and looked up at me, dazed.
“What?” she said, all out of breath.
“The headphone batteries died, I can’t
Business Letter
Dear Distributor,
The sensible person you are, you’ve surely taken part in the mourning that has moved us all these last few days.
The passing of Federico Fellini has really touched our hearts.
All of us, throughout the years, have been captivated by his charm and his poetry.
The work of Fellini, I’m sure you would agree, has reached with simplicity and efficacy the highest peaks of that Italian genius to which many artists have already made such fruitful contribution (e.g. Leopardi).
And the star of Federico Fellini shines in a very special way on our Parnassus.
The exceptional participation of the people at his exequies as well as the continual news releases during his last days of suffering were an effective display of how widespread the esteem for Fellini is here in Italy.
*
And it is precisely in regard to this particular matter that we bring the enclosed leaflet to your attention.
The line of commemorative memorabilia we are launching nationwide is aimed at an extremely vast range of customers.
You will be able to choose, according to the specific needs of your business, that which would best suit your particular clientele.
In any case, we recommend you take specific note of the line of globes of the dying Fellini, with snow.
*
The unfortunate demise of the Maestro is the motive we chose for pumping new life into the snow globe market, which has recently been in crisis.
*
The traditional subjects (churches, landscapes, Disney figurines) are no longer in step with the needs of today’s audience which is very exacting and attentive to the world around them.
A modern audience therefore deserves more nuanced snow globes, articulate in their message, filled with symbolic value, and culturally gratifying.
*
Please take a moment to personally evaluate the enclosed model. Consider the perfect features of the details. The care with which the oxygen cannula was reproduced, how realistically it is introduced into the plastic nostrils of the small but shockproof Fellini figurine (fig. 3, p. 6).
The snow in the hospital room gives it a subtly festive feel, thus saving the event from its otherwise unmarketable sadness.
*
You will also find enclosed three “magical” cards (another commemorative subject).
This kind of item, on the market since the Seventies, owes its effect to the specific composition of cardstock that, when tilted in different ways, exhibits now one image, now another.
The traditional subjects (models, scenes for children) have been substituted with friendly illustrations of the director of Amarcord, portrayed in affectionate poses with his wife Giuletta Masina, a similarly unforgettable protagonist of our time.
Tilting the card, a sad image of the director of La strada in a coma will appear to the user, thus calling to mind the dramatic opposition of life and death that concerns us all.
We hope you’ll agree that our catalogue is serious and full of highly marketable items.
*
Long live the late Federico Fellini and best of luck with your work.