Altrettanto

I was on the bus the other day to go grab the microphone for the concert when i saw a transit police/immigrant interaction. I got on a bus and the doors closed, like normal. I moved to the middle of the bus where the exit doors are located so that I could get out easily at my bus stop, and there were 2 mid 20's african immigrants standing with stone faces staring at the door. The bus didn't move and a transit authority and an older italian man took to forcefully asking documents from these 2 guys. At first I thought maybe they'd done something like tried to rob someone, only because of the anger the italians were demonstrating. As the tension grew between the two of them, the 2 immigrants didn't respond. I'm not sure whether they genuinely didn't speak italian or were pretending not to understand, but either way it was aggravating the shit out of these 2 italian men. I realized that they probably didn't have bus tickets, and so when the controller came by to ask them for tickets, if they didn't respond and didn't have tickets, they were probably asked for documents, which either they don't have, genuinely didn't understand or knew they'd be in deep shit if they showed what they had.

So after 5 minutes of standing right next to this incredible tense cultural clash (it seemed like it wasn't even about whether or not they had tickets, but more about the fact that they are stranieri (foreigners)) the driver asked everyone to get off the bus except these 2 men and wait for the next bus.

I don't even know how i felt, not that its important how I felt anyway, but something in my chest burned. I hate seeing humiliation like that. It was pretty unsettling. I guess its something i've come into contact with a lot in the states. Working in a restaurant on the east coast I saw the same treatment of the Brazilian dish washer that worked at Cafè Mangal. No specific events but just the passing names and phrases they used to refer to him aggravated the fuck out of me. When i worked at McKesson in San Francisco the executives said some pretty horrendously hateful things in passing too. I guess the entire state and concept of immigration sparks something really real in me. Its so fucked up how people react to it-i understand there are a lot of economic issues and repercussions from having unregistered people in any country, but I think these people have paid their part in sheer humiliation and exploitation.

It's the things like that about being in Italy that make my reality feel so weird. At night I'll calmly cook dinner for myself, chat with my lovely roommates, go to a bar or a club for a little bit, go to class....my reality is running alongside that of these 2 guys in the bus. We're in the same place for hardly a minute, and I only see a fraction, a sliver of what its like to be them. rant....

I bought two cds the other day-one used that I'm really excited about. Both I've heard either from friends or have read about on the internet, but its the RH factor "Distractions" and Robert Glasper "double booked". 25€ well spent. there's a d'angelo track on the RH factor cd that i dig pretty intensely. I know music can be had so easily on the internet, but on a moral level, I'm really afraid of what will happen to music if we don't keep purchasing it and supporting it. I was talking to a musician here in italy, a historian, who was saying that in old Italy, since it used to be broken up into a bunch of city states, the different courts and patrons would vie for the best composers and musicians by paying them incredibly high wages. The highest wages were given to the best musicians, and so musicians were also highly motivated to excel, write good music, and even if you were mediocre, you would still probably be able to find work in some court, even if it wasn't in one of the bigger, richer city states/kingdoms. Oh how the times have changed. I was born in the wrong time, wrong place.

I've learned something about my italian. I've gotten a LOT of the speaking nailed these days, as in i respond rather quickly, when I fumble, whoever I'm talking to generally knows exactly what I'm trying to say, and I'm starting to be able to crack jokes and get laughs (important for me!) However, one thing i still SUCK at is hellos and goodbyes. My roommate, yesterday, told me that everytime she says buona serata to me, which means like 'have a good night!' i either dont say anything, awkwardly say ciao or just mumble. She thought it was so funny and strange considering i'm rather natural in a lot of other italian cultural respects, but this salutations linguistic skill i don't really have. When i think about that, it's pretty funny, cuz i'm not really sure i have it in english either. When im on the phone, i alywas feel like i'm like, eh uh ok bye? when i try to get off the phone. It's hard to be sincere in another language saying hello and goodbye when you don't really know what the normal customs are. So i've found I opt for not saying anything often because i don't want people to think I'm faking knowing what I'm doing, and hellos and goodbyes just stump me the most. Anyway she taught me that I should say 'thanks you too!' whenever i'm leaving the house and she says 'hey have a good night!' I can also say 'altrettanto' which means 'to you too' but i think i just fuck up the pacing and flow of it all. Thats a really culturally subtle thing if u think about it. I mean i say hello and goodbye differently to different groups of friends I have in the states depending on what part of the country im in. If im in california it's most likely a 'yo' or something equally casual. Maybe it has to do with comfort level?

I'm going to Sicilia (sicily) for a week in march. Just bought plane tickets and hostels today. I'm psyched because i've wanted to go since before I got here, but i didn't think I'd ever get a big enough chunk of time to see quite a bit of the island. Since we'll be there for a week we'll probably girare un bel po (go around quite a bit) and we will have been in napoli for 3 days before with our study abroad program. I'm ready for another trip! I've got travel fever real bad. The other places I REALLY want to go while I'm here this term are budapest, vienna, barcelona, sardegna, portugal, switzerland and croatia. Not all of its gonna happen, but I REALLY WANT TO GO. votes on which of those places i should go?