Gino Paolian excerpt from his autobiography “What I will do when I grow up”, written with Daniele Bresciani and published on November 2nd.
At that moment I had everything. Success. Money. The most beautiful house in Genoa, the two most beautiful women in Italy were in love with me. The recently released album “Flavour of Salt” was in all the charts. Come to think of it, maybe that’s too much for a boy who isn’t even thirty years old. I had everything, yes. But I didn’t feel anything anymore. They said all sorts of things to try to explain it. A question from women was the most common hypothesis. I was married to Anna, my first wife, with whom I had a passionate affair Ornella Vanoni and I witnessed an even more overwhelming experience Stefania Sandrelli. But my long-time friend Arnaldo Bagnasco, journalist and brilliant television writer, claims that I shot myself because I had not forgiven myself for what happened on September 20th the previous year. We were together, Arnaldo and I, that evening. There were three other friends with us: Giulio Frezza, Giovanni Battista delle Piane, known as Ruccoli, and Victor Van der Faber, whom we all called Pitt and who was a musician himself. We were brotherly friends. I’m at the wheel, Arnaldo next to me, the other three behind me. Someone falls asleep, Arnaldo and I continue to talk. Driving doesn’t bother me; given my life, I’m used to spending nights in the car. We are standing in front of a truck that is driving slowly like a snail and blocking our view. I decide to overtake him. But as soon as I leave the other lane, I see two headlights coming towards me. An Alfa Romeo, a Giulietta. I brake, I steer to reverse and the last thing I hear is Pitt’s voice: “Watch out, Gino!” and then time speeds up, turns on itself. The wheels no longer grip and I completely lose control . The oncoming Alfa also skids, but it is too late, the impact is inevitable.
THE SCRAP
What happens then is a flight that I see again in slow motion and without sound, the road disappears, no one says a word, the dull thud of the fall and the end of the race against a billboard. Arnaldo and I are still in the cockpit, the other three have been thrown out. It’s Arnaldo who looks first My face was bleeding from the splinters of the windshield and to understand that I will be fine. He is the first to emerge from the rubble and finds Giulio, screaming about his broken collarbone, Ruccoli, who escapes with some bruises, and finally Pitt, further away, on the edge of the sidewalk. He appears to be unconscious. Meanwhile, the police and ambulance arrive and take us to Fatebenefratelli, including the man from the Alfa, who is unhurt. And as they load Pitt into the ambulance, Arnaldo gets in with him without stopping talking to him. A nurse sits with them in the back of the vehicle. She is the one who brings him back to reality: “This boy is dead.” Arnaldo describes my desperation in the hospital, He says they’re holding me up while I throw myself at the window and that I need a sedative to regain some sense of calm.
Gino Paoli in Sanremo and this sentence about the betrayal suffered by Little Tony, the singer’s daughter: “Now he has to apologize”
And he says he immediately thought back to that night ten months later, when he was in Amsterdam for work, He read in the newspaper that I had shot myself in the heart. In part, I think he’s right. Alone in the house in Genoa, I try to think of the reasons that led me to do such a thing. I just think I said to myself: “You have everything, much more than what you need. You have.” Once you’ve seen everything, there’s nothing left to look at. Why don’t you go and see what’s on the other side? What are you interested in?” That evening my wife Anna went out. First I’m thinking about using barbiturates. I’ll take one pill. Nothing. Two. Nothing. Three, four, five, ten. I also water them with alcohol and a few glasses of Calvados. Nothing. I think I’ll throw myself out the window. But I can’t bear the image of my mother lying shattered on the concrete of the street. I don’t want to add pain to pain.
So I say to myself: I have two weapons. Now I’m shooting myself. I’ll upload them both and try them out in a big book, a big dictionary, to see which one goes deeper. The Derringer caliber 5. It has a long, more stable barrel. To be on the safe side, I first fire a shot at the mattress. It’s the right thing to do. I lie down and stick it to my heart. I take a breath. I pull the trigger. I feel an insane amount of pain, like a mountain has fallen on my chest, and then nothing. Others have once again told me what happens next. John the Baptist found me on the bed covered in blood, my black glasses broken, the rush to the San Martino hospital, the doctors who couldn’t wake me up couldn’t know about all the sleeping pills I had taken, my father and I Mother who desperately wants a child, such an asshole, Anna and my brother are shocked and the friends who come running as soon as the news gets around. Umberto Bindi, Teddy Reno and Rita Pavone walk through the hospital. Ornella comes over at night so as not to arouse too much curiosity. Once again the magazines are making a big effort. Luigi Tenco also arrives, desperate and unable to rest. He scolds me and repeats over and over again as if obsessed: “It’s not done, Gino, it’s not done. You don’t do these things.” A few years later I would remember this.
THE BALL
One of the cardiology luminaries of the time explains to me that the small ball got stuck in a notorious spot and that surgery was too dangerous. It’s better to leave it where it is. There is no point in teasing her, it is better to avoid excessive efforts: a regular, healthy life, no excesses, do not get excited and do not devote yourself too much to sex. I nodded. I learned the lesson so well that I certainly didn’t shy away from women, whiskey and cigarettes in the years to come. In addition to a sporting passion that is not exactly suitable for those who had a problem like me: freediving. For the rest of my life I went there every year to shake hands with the Christ of the Abyss of San Fruttuoso. And despite all this, she and I, the ball I mean, are still here.
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED