Silvester Rai is the circus for an Italy of sheep.webp

Silvester Rai is the circus for an Italy of sheep Nicola Porro

You see Amadeus still there, always there, sometimes with his incorporated wife, as the civitillos called her, you see him on New Year’s Eve after having just seen him at the lottery, waiting for Sanremo, but how does he do it? But where does he get his strength from? And he asks himself with his head in his hands: but how can I think of a new year, a new life? One hears, dear friend, I am writing to you that again, always that, they have managed to make us hate, and are thinking of writing a threatening letter.

One sees the evening of San Silvestro Rai and he would have liked to superimpose it on one of the last thirty, forty, so much so that he doesn’t notice the difference. Leaving aside the Lochescion, long Matera, for corridor reasons now Perugia, “the heart of Italy”, medieval Italy can still be artfully confused. You always see them, always them, and think I don’t know about that elsewhere, but this is precisely the country of climatologists, who are like virologists. You then scroll through the agencies with the disturbing, penetrating statements of “Ama” and hate it, and after the Ansa it gets scary: “Sparkling evening”, “Reconciliation evening for Italians to a hopefully cheerful 2023”. Oh yeah? Aside from the fact that the little Mattarella speech seems screwed up at the end of the year (or vice versa, who knows), do the Italians really need to make peace? For what? And why do you expect a quieter year? Because of who, who, who, who?

But Zucchero isn’t here tonight. There are: Iva Zanicchi, 82 years old and not hearing her, lucky guy, Donatella Rettore, from Castelfranco Veneto with anger, the Ricchi & Poveri “duo format” (Holy Madonna of course), a whole recap of warhorses, the most fresh 55 years old. So we don’t miss anything, they called Sandy Marton, with the same hairdo as in 1984, but Orwell pushes him home, unfortunately he has his face doubled, a mix of Mickey Rourke and a ricotta bought in London. People from Ibiza becomes a kind of grotesque march. As for Tracy Spencer, who the under-40s can’t remember, the older ones would rather forget. The upcoming year? No, the year that came last year, and those before, and those before, and back, and back, there’s also the modàs that nobody ever understood what they really were, there’s a cryptic LDA that would stand for Luca D’Alessio and indeed it is a son of that one there, the neomelodic. Because everything is a family here, but I won’t say it, not because he’s a son, nurse, but ‘o guaglione, he’s really good. The songs sucked though, like the beans on Trinity. New Year’s Eve prepares Sanremo and the Nasone is the common thread, omnipresent, a continuous presence.

In short, the future has a withered heart. How does Rai feel so bad for those who keep it? Why does she give him this eternal recurrence of shameless embarrassment every year and every year more? There’s a frightening number of two that mimic those who won in Sanremo last year, Blanko and Mahmood, as if the originals weren’t enough, just that they’re more reminiscent of the exploded Righeira just to stay in the era ( back then you think irony, but Righeira, the only one, really comes out in the end, with skirt and combat boots, and it’s even more disturbing, not 4 decades but 4 centuries have passed on him). With the parody of Elton John and Ru Paul, things will get worse: the abysmal point of an unreal evening. Why, Lord, why? Because in Sanremo you have to be a hustler who will come and also his friend Carlo Conti for the usual copycat program. And also to the Rai talent show, jurors for the two Ricchi & Poveri, “and Antonella is fantastic”, Clerici, all a circling self-celebration, I’m talking about you talking about, that she’s talking about, that he’s talking about that you talk about me : we are all phenomena, cheers.

In fact, Ama’s appendix, Fiore, cannot be missing, who, in a registered union, makes the Fiore, that is, the feast of clichés, but it must be said that it is very good, a monster, between Chaplin, Noschese and Walter Chiari . Fiorello is a dogma, like the non-binary, Greta, and the electric car. And there’s a certain Dargen d’Amico, who, by the way, will dominate the festival because he’s the director of songs like “Ama”, in short, he’s right in the middle of everything he makes pieces, produces them, enforces them – ugh ! – Artist, they say he’s a pop genius but he mumbles shit all the time. Then comes Raf, what else is left of those 80s, he’s left with that accountant air of old Milan. And then you notice two things: Firstly, that Raf sings like a pizza maker, secondly, that the words flow in superimposition, Rai mercilessly reminds that his average audience is deaf due to the age limit.

They even make fun of Anna Oxa, but it’s these narrow-minded imitations that scare you. But everyone jumps and cheers and pretends to be amused, devoted to this liturgy of obligatory happiness that kills like a stab in the soul. At this point, given the standard event, the standard article should mention the standard character, Fantozzi’s Maestro Canello, but I won’t. I swear. May my hands fall if I do. Other welcome guests drop by: Nek, Raf, Ric and Gian were fine too, instead Noemi, all Sanremo stuff, let’s see. Compare the principal to the cobra that isn’t a snake, yes, but shit, he has the same hairdresser as Sandy Marton, Tozzi and Tiamoti, Francesco Renga, who looks like a fat Maradona. Just! As Bud Spencer said “child”. But here is Pelù, the masked rocker, pluritamponato and overserato, things that must have hurt him since yesterday he tweeted delirious about Pelù being like Pelé, or maybe it was the other way around. From stone him to balls. Actually, he shouldn’t be so on the ball, he’s waving the peace flag, maybe he thinks he’s with the Concertone union. Sing things that were on sale three or four years ago, always with these bizarre lyrics. This stuff, apart from the more or less joking reviews, has a rabbric error, it is affected by the age of the conductor, it is presented as one of the classic programs of the sixties Amadeus, Conti, Panariello, etc. that the disco of the 50s 80-90s in mind and play with a nostalgic effect that no longer has a right to exist, which is more of a pathos effect.

Minutes pass like thorns in an ordeal and Amadeus, rolling his eyes and grimacing, transforms into Jack la Cayenne, the one who swallowed the cups. Instead, viewers swallow the pans, some from the last millennium, others fresh from Ama, this is the one who sends them to Sanremo for New Year’s Eve. Everyone here is recommended, what do you think, everyone, without escaping, you knew the maneuvers, the Macumbe, the envy of those who do not make it onto the catwalk tonight because the impresario did not count on the benevolence of the nasal Moloc .
Dear friend, I’m writing to you, I’m a little sad, and since it’s “Fly, fly with me”, I might hang myself. Since you left there’s big news, the old year is over now, but this other one will be the same. It will be Sanremo three times, same as New Year’s Eve, this year Madame is back, but the Jalisse are not going. But television, he said, will change the new year, and we’ll all touch each other: if those damn vaccines ever really have graphene, graphite, and the concoctions of Baroness Ursula in them that seem straight out of some ’70s porn.

But without laughing or joking a bit, we got there: the Ama-Deus reminds us to “start preparing yourselves”, ahò but nothing, Minister Schillaci thought. Three, two, one, out of the cork, another crack on the calendar, another non-refundable toast and those cursed villainsinside the screen, does that when when when and the cocoa is amazing and then you tell him you want to force maestro canello out of me and they make the animal hit and raf commanding “hands up!”, and the big nose doesn’t even seem real as he howls “Auuguuri” and already seems to be at the Ariston, and that VAT Zanicchi out of control, more gassed than Pelù, he also tells trivial Berlusconi-style jokes and you, with your eyes full of tears that end up in the glass, feel that your whore life is over, shitty, over forever. Pretend to be a whore. And nothing seems to make more sense to you, not the year ahead, not the ones that have already passed like bastard trains, full of illusions, not even one that has come true, and you hate all your loved ones and you hate yourself but it is you get used to it, it’s just that you creak a little more on New Year’s Eve, but only after a certain age.

But of course they can all make their damn moves, but if they’re just trying to put Greenpass, lockdown and the whole thing back in the middle, except for reconciliation, this time I’ll grab my gun: Raise your hand, who didn’t think of it. At one o’clock Marzullo shows up and does a self-parody, complete with silly questions, one more find and here your reporter gives up. Look, dear friend, what I am writing and telling you and how lucky I am to be here at this moment, making up more and more ridiculous crap to cushion this more and more tragic life. Mine, yours, that of all who feel one boulder more as they watch all those Nosferatu go by and they’re horrified at the thought of finding themselves like them, and life has passed before them, and they haven’t understood, and they don’t understand, they really don’t understand the point of this broken and cruel time machine, pretend to be to hope, to believe that from tomorrow it will be different, but you will see that they will lock us up anyway, no this time, no, they can’t, you say they can’t, if they want, they can , the Italians are sheep, they never rebel, no, this time the revolution will break out, I tell you, and meanwhile something’s going down your throat, you can’t drink any more, you feel like crying, you need air, you can’t be seen, you walk smoke on the balcony, even if it’s freezing cold.

Max Del Papa, January 1, 2023