BORN IN SAN VITTORE
I was born in Milan, back here in Via San Vittore but not where the prison is, at the clinic San Giuseppe. Therefore I saw Milan growing, changing, evolving over time… Unfortunately I’m old enough to have witnessed entire eras arriving and changing!
AFTER THE EXPO?
This is a transition era, the main objective was the Expo, with all the buildings, all the works, even all the corruption that was felt in the air and now we have to see if all this work, this investment will come to fruition.
‘DA BERE E DA MANGIARE’
It became the city where too much was possible, the Milano da bere (‘Milan to drink’) has become the Milano da mangiare (‘Milan to eat’)…
LOSSES
It lost many theaters, gained many fashion shops, perhaps too many… it lost its working class features… in this sense it is also a very modern city.
FOR WEALTHY PEOPLE ONLY
It is becoming a city for the rich, where the middle class worker must leave because the city is too expensive, the center has become purely financial, industrial and commercial… you have to be a billionaire to live within the ring of the Navigli.
A SUPPORTIVE CITY
Thank God It’s a city where public service works. Hospitals function…even the air has improved because of the climate changes. For the first time in the Po valley there is some wind… back to the subject of solidarity, which is a world that concerns me and I feel very close to, despite the apparent harshness, Milan is a city that, if you have problems, it supports you even more.
A MOSQUE? EVEN MORE THAN ONE
I find it quite normal to have a mosque, there should definitely be one or even more than one, where people can get together… Milan has always been a cosmopolitan city where everyone is welcomed…
HALF IMMIGRANT
… and don’t forget that I’m a half immigrant, my mother is American so I have this legacy… I know what it means to feel different in Milan… My mother was an albino, she looked like a German… Her hair was white-blond…
EMBARASSED ON THE TRAM
I remember travelling by tram with her. My mom used to complain… she had a strong accent. She complained because people wouldn’t give up their seat, or because they were rude, some used to say “go back home you German!”. I felt incredibly ashamed…
POLITICS AND FINANCE
Politics is made by the major financial powers. A large part of Lombardy’s right wing fights the construction of the mosque but then sold the Porta Nuova neighborhood to the Emirs and nobody complains… I’m more outraged because of that. I think there should be two or three scattered mosques where people can meet… Maybe one near Via Padova, one in the North side of Milan, one in South side, where they wouldn’t be an annoyance for anyone…
NO TO EMIRATES BUSINESS
… I would be a lot less annoyed by them than the idea that all the skyscrapers of that part of Milan have been bought by foreigners, especially by the Emirs who don’t give a damn about us… They aren’t democratic buyers, they are monarchs. They can do whatever they want.
CIVIL SOCIETY WANTED
I believe that what is lacking in Milan nowadays, but in general all over Italy, apart from a few pockets, is the civil society’s responsibility… what should be the civil society, the ‘enlightened bourgeoisie’, is irresponsible, to say the least…
IRRESPONSIBLE BOURGOISE
.. Not to say, perversely corrupt …
AGAINST EVERY FORM OF POWER
I think I developed a healthy and strong distrust for any form of authoritarian power… I was born as a firefighter, I’ll die as an arsonist … in the 70s, the years of utopia and hope, I was labeled as a moderate revisionist because I adhered to the PC (Communist party), I joined the PC…
ANTAGONISTIC ANARCHIST
Now I am an anarchist … I would say quite an antagonistic one… I’m fully against this financial system, this economic system, liberalism, in my opinion all the economic logic is perniciously guilty of environmental decay, corruption and this current sort of life we have… the number of people who struggle to live is unbelievable, as well as the problems that generate the arrival of so many desperate people on our coasts… I think we should go upstream …
FRIGHTENING INEQUALITY
… because there are immigrants, because the world’s inequality and injustice are frightening… because the Arab world is not industrialized, it isn’t made of realistic economies that can feed people, whereas Saudi Arabia, which in the Arab world is somehow like the Vatican… the economic center, the Gulf states are dreadfully wealthy, holding one-third of the world’s wealth…
ARAB STERILE WEALTH
… And not even a penny was invested to industrialize the countries, and behind that is also America… I’m sorry to say it, but America is no longer a true democracy…
HOLDING MY NOSE
I vote holding my nose to avoid the worst one to come to power
YOUTH ILLUSIONS
We really believed that we could change the world, that the future would have been an ongoing progress, that everyone would have lived better…
THE GREAT CLEARENCE SALE
Our generational mistake was to sell out… because we had dreamed so much…many told themselves “ok, I’m grown up now… I’ll sell my ass to the first one who comes by”, and they did… I haven’t got enough money for that…
SADNESS AND CREDIBILITY
It makes me a bit sad that many radio stations that I call “national-popular” don’t play my pieces… It’s sad to listen to a lot of Italian music on the radio and they cut out forty years of music… On the other hand I’ve reached a quite enviable niche of credibility as well as artistic freedom.