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REVENGE OF THE SUPERMODELS FROM THE BLACK LAGOON

(Italy)

Our first day in Italy, land of love and pasta, is a day off, in Milan no less. We arrive at yet another Ibis at about 4:00 p.m. following an extraordinarily beautiful and rather relaxing drive over the Alps. This Ibis differs from the other ones we’ve stayed. It’s nowhere near either a graveyard or a hospital. The sky is blue, with a slight breeze, the sun is shining down and it’s comfortably warm. The Smell of Death is nowhere to be sniffed.

Following some well-needed showers, Tim, Z, Simon, and myself take off on foot to explore one of Europe’s most fabulous cities. Rat, complaining of low funds, stays behind, and of course Dahl doesn’t hit the town with us. A block away from the hotel, we hop on a streetcar, and just start ridin’. Once aboard, we try to figure out how to pay. It seems everybody else has some kind of token, which we neither possess nor have any idea how to obtain. We just play it cool and ride along, going as far as we can until an attendant, conductor, or whatever might come and check in on us freeloaders. We have no map, no idea which way to go, or where we are going, or what we want to do, but I suppose the reality of it is, the farther we can get from the hotel without laying down any cash, the better. Some guy in a black coat who might be an official of some sort, or perhaps just a thug, starts closing in on us, walking down the aisle of the car, so we bail off at the next convenient stop.

We spot a tall cathedral, and figure that’s probably the middle of town, although it’s still twenty long blocks away. We pass on hailing a cab and decide to just hoof it, enjoying the mild weather and taking in the wondrous sights of old castles and fortresses mingling with turn of the century architecture and somewhat modern buildings. We take our time—after all, we don’t have to be anywhere—and drink in the spender of this magnificent city.

By the time we get to the Cathedral, it’s almost dark. Next to the monumental building, one of the largest cathedrals in Europe, is a modern shopping mall that spreads out in four directions from a huge, marble-floored center topped with a glass ceiling. Once there, we begin to window shop and see what kind of food is available. We notice Tim has, as usual, disappeared.

“Goddammit, I’m so sick of that guy,” grumbles Z. “Fuck it. I’m not waiting for him.” Z storms off.

“Well, that leaves you and me, Simon.”

“I’m not looking for him. Let’s walk over to the cathedral and see if we can pop off some flash pictures.”

Sure, we may be badass rockers eleven outta twelve days, but on that twelfth day, we’re lame tourists. After taking in the sights—fountain, cathedral, the marble steps, the local girls—we walk back into the mall and see Z walking up, hands in pocket (with who knows what in there), a vision straight off of one of those old Sinatra cover paintings, not a care in the world.

“You see Tim?”

“No, can’t you see that I look happy? The guy’s a drag. I say we leave him here. I’m not a babysitter.”

“Who would sell your Ultras CDs, then, Z?” asked Simon, forever the voice of reason.

Z just grumbles. I deduce from Simon’s comeback that he intends on finding the little lost elf before moving on, which is exactly what we do. It takes about an hour, but we finally locate Tim huddled in a corner working on a slice of pizza.

“Well, nice of you to invite us to dinner,” says Simon with maximum sarcasm. “We were getting a little bit hungry, we like the way you always think of us.”

“Hey, man. I was hungry. I knew you guys would be geeking off, looking at churches or whatever. I’m bored with churches.”

Z walks away pissed off again, but I grab him. I don’t want to spend the whole night tracking mofos down. I try to get everyone back on the same page by suggesting dinner.

“Let’s go eat at that place,” I say, pointing to a classy joint in the mall from which rich culinary aromas are emanating.

“McGruff, how much money do you have?” asks tour boss Simon.

“Hell, I don’t know. Must be fifty or sixty million lira.

“And how much, would you say roughly, is that in American dollars when you exchange it?”

“About fifteen bucks.”

“Right. That place’ll cost you at least sixty dollars, probably as much money as all of us have together.”

“So you’re saying a meal there is what, two, three million lira?”

They bodily drag me off to a brightly lit, walk-up cafeteria, which is nothing to look at but has great food nonetheless. We all order a smallish entree, salad, and some bread, except Tim, who orders a full half chicken. Where the hell does he put it all?

Following dinner, we strike out blind again and just start walking. I’m having fun, but our random approach to Milan will not work all night.

“In a city like this,” I explain, “you gotta know what’s up. You just can’t stumble into some place and expect it to be the place. You know, Milan must have some rockin’ hot spots, the places where the wild locals hang and kick out the good times in a major hedonistic way. That’s what we gotta find out, and that’s where we gotta go.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” says doubting Simon. “I think we can just go about anywhere and have fun. I’m sure we’ll find something good.”

“What are you so sure about? This is a huge city, with little hideaways all over it. We don’t know anything. We gotta track down some locals and get the inside dirt!”

“I like the idea of just exploring. It makes me feel like I’m learning the city on my own. It’s good that way. The locals and what they might tell us—I can’t be bothered.”

“Simon, trust me on this, we gotta get information—information!”

“Well, you can do what you want. I’m just going to walk along ‘til I find a place I fancy and go inside.”

“No! We need a plan, damn it! We need the inside track. I’m telling you.”

“Yeah, Bruce is right, Simon,” chimes in Tim.

“You guys are a bunch of grandmothers. I’ve had it!” Simon shouts, and storms off up the street.

“What’s with him?” asks Z.

“Simon, what’s up!?” I shout after him.

“Fuck you!” he hollers back.

“I think we may be witnessing a Factsheet overdose, gentlemen,” I warn Z and Tim.

“Hey, do you know where the hotel is from here?” asks the ever-pragmatic Z.

“Not really. I just know it’s yet another Ibis. It could be anywhere, you know?”

“We’d better stop Simon, then,” says Tim.

“Right!”

We all go running down the street, this being our second Monkees/Beatles scene to be re-enacted, and Simon takes off running too, trying desperately to escape the band he’s supposed to road manage. We run for a solid ten minutes, until finally Simon, the youngest and by far the one in the best shape, collapses in a heap of exhaustion. “You bleeding fuckers, I hate you!” he pants.

I hug him and pull him to his feet, slobbering the saliva that swells in your jowls after a sweaty run. “I’m sorry,” I gasped. “Look, let’s go get a beer. This evening will turn out great. I know it will. I’m sorry I was whining. Now stop being a fucking cry baby yourself and come on.”

What men we were, swearing at each other like truck drivers, running through the streets like cat burglars, hugging each other in the way only real men, secure in their overt hetero-ness, can. How do we solve a disagreement: like real men, we sweep it under the carpet and go and get liquored up!

It’s about 9:00 p.m. now, and we sequester ourselves at a round table in a roomy, pleasant local bar, somewhere in Milan. Beers are a handy 6,000 lira, chump change. A few locals come up and chat, recognizing the fact that we’re not from ‘round these parts. The people are all extremely cordial, and we ask one guy where we should go. He gets out a street map, and totally confuses us. We order a few more beers.

At 10:00, beers escalate in price to 7,000 lira. Inflation is really catching up with us. A girl walks by and sits down.

“You guys gotta be from the States, right?”

“Well, they are. I’m from England originally, but live in Holland now,” says Simon, punctuating his facts with that sickening little boy smile he saves for charming the girls. This girl isn’t even attractive. We all know Simon isn’t the least bit interested in her. It’s almost as if he just likes to stay in practice.

“We’re on tour, with a rock ‘n’ roll band, one that you’ve never heard of,” I inform.

“It’s nice to meet some fellow Americans that aren’t tourists. My name’s Marcy. I’m from Cleveland.”

“Cleveland rocks,” says Tim.

“Say, Marcy. We’re looking for a really great place to go and drink and hang out, someplace with some local color. What do you recommend?”

“Well, there’s the Diva, that’s gotten pretty popular. Drinks are pretty cheap there, for Milan. Wait a minute, I know, what am I talking about? You want to meet some girls?”

We look at each other and shrug, playing it cool.

“What kind of girls?” asks Z, giggling at the silliness of his question.

“Let me tell you, you want to go to Hollywood.”

“You can say that again,” I said, feeling instantly, suddenly homesick.

“No, Club Hollywood. It’s the spot. Every model in Italy goes there, all the girls that do the French Vogue and Cosmopolitan, Gaultier runway girls, swimsuit models, you name it. Supermodels.”

“Really? That’s cool and all, but I can’t imagine those kind of girls being even slightly interested in the likes of us,” I say, ever the voice of reason.

“Are you kidding!? A bunch of longhaired rock ‘n’ roll guys—from AMERICA. They’ll be all over you! A lot of the girls are from the States. They get fed up with the Italian guys. Those girls get so bored, sick and tired of the same old male models, who are all just a bunch of swishy homos anyway. I can see it now, when you guys walk in, it’ll be all over!”

“You’re serious? You’re not putting us on?” queried Simon, thinking, as we all were, that it was too good to be true.

“Yes. Club Hollywood. Check it out. I tell ya, you won’t regret it. Well, I gotta run, you guys have fun here in Milan.”

“Yeah, hey thanks,” we all yell after her.

“Great, now, what do we have that we didn’t have a minute ago?” I ask the knights of the round table, who stare back at me blankly. “A PLAN. We now have a plan, a place to go where the locals go, the hip locals, the people in the know. We’ll be in with the in-crowd, homeboys.”

“Problem is,” reasons Simon, “we may be a few billion lira shy of a minimum down payment on any serious partying or reasonable facsimile thereof.”

Tim, who was constantly getting wired money from Mom and Dad back home, perks up. He just might be horny enough, and supermodel enticed enough, to bankroll this little safari into the inner-sanctum of the ultra-leggy, supermodel jungle.

“I only have francs left,” he sadly informs. “I’m going to go exchange them. If I can find a post office, a tobacco shop, a drug dealer, anything, a twenty-four hour bank, there’s got to be a place where I can get some money.”

He darts out the door as if he had found the pizza and fritter mother lode. “Good luck!” Simon yells after him. “Well, that’s quite likely the last we’ll see of Tim. Here, McGruff, here’s 22,000 lira, get us another round of draft.”

We sit and chat about nothing much, more time passes, it’s after 11:00 p.m. now, and we’ve finished off another round waiting for Tim. We’re giving the eye to some local girls when their boyfriends aren’t looking. All of a sudden, we hear a fracas of some sort going on right outside the bar’s front door. Moments later, Tim storms in, returns to his chair at the table, sits down, swearing all the time under his breath, and slams a pack of cigarettes down on the table.

“Let me guess, you’ve just decided to take up smoking and you’re mad as hell about it,” I joked.

“These guys at the front door, they said they could get me the liras, I gave them forty francs, was it fifty francs, oh, I don’t even know!”

“What guys at the door?” asks Simon.

“The Pakistani towelheads from hell, those damn...merchants.”

Marcy, whom we’d thought had left ages ago, suddenly reappeared, and began filling in the holes in Tim’s story like an off-camera narrator, like Rod Serling at the beginning of The Twilight Zone. “They’re Moroccan, actually.”

“What?” we ask in unison.

“Moroccan. They’re Moroccan.”

“More rockin’ than what? They ripped me off!” exclaims Tim.

“Moroccan, from Morocco. Idiot!” Even Simon was losing his patience with Tim.

Marcy explains, “These guys are street hustlers. They set up here every night around this time, selling cigarettes, gum, candy, and if you know the right signals and code words, cheap street heroin, switchblades, and handguns. They saw your friend coming. He tried to get them to exchange money. They said yes, and then, instead of the liras, they handed him a pack of Marlboros. When he complained, they simply said that’s the deal they mutually agreed upon, and when the management came out to see what the fuss was about, they stuck to their story. They’ve moved on by now, that was their big score this hour.”

That having been cleared up, Marcy again disappears into the woodwork, almost as if she is some sort of information fairy that just pops up when we have an unanswerable question.

“Well, Tim. Give me a cigarette!” demands Z.

“Yeah, I fancy one of those, too,” says Simon. “Let’s see, I’m just trying to work out the exchange rate in me head, well, then, this is about one of your American dollars for every cigarette. That’s some pretty mean bargaining, I’d have to say!”

“Fuckin’ Pakistani jackass!” swears Tim.

“No, he was more rockin’,” chides Z.

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Following Tim’s cigarette fiasco, we’re now strapped for cash more than ever, so we make the brisk evening walk across increasingly chilly Milanese streets to save on cab fare to Club Hollywood. We show up right around midnight, and we’re buzzed with anticipation and more than a little tap beer. Simon and I walk up to the doorman, bypassing the queue, showing off business cards, and spewing several lines of bullshit. “Ah, yes, rock ‘n’ roll band on tour from America, looking for a place to blow off steam, Nikki Sixx recommended we come here, said ask for Mumble Harumph...”

It actually worked, and we’re soon down four endless flights of stairs into the dank underworld of Club Hollywood. It’s a dimly lit, lengthy, thin room stretching out from the entrance at the bottom of the stairs. A fat, Italian rapper is working through some shout-outs while his wiry sidekick spins the wheels of steel. We try to look nonchalant—not at all an easy feat as we are by-and-away the most shabbily dressed people we can immediately see—and we casually walk to the bar and order a round of beer.

Four cans—not bottles, for God’s sake—of Heineken wholly deplete our supply of cash. We acknowledge this fact and walk toward the dance floor. We all stop, and silently share the same thought, no question about it.

My God! This is beyond the realm of comprehension. This is a veritable garden of earthly delights, a swarming beehive of Cosmopolitan magazine covers, all dressed in the wildest, très chic styles from Milan and Gay Paree. Surely we’d been run over by a bus outside, and we’re now being deposited in Heaven.

There’s a roped-off section for VIPs. We were let in for free. Therefore, we’re VIPs. We assemble at a table behind the rope. No one talks for a few minutes. We just look into the sea of dancers, who are about eighty percent women, ninety-nine percent of whom are postcard magazine-cover beautiful.

Z leans over like he’s gonna bum a smoke. “Can you believe this?!” he asks. “You’d never see this in L.A. Not anywhere.”

“Nope. Not Beverly Hills, not Hollywood...” We look at each other.

“Not even the Rainbow!” we say to each other, chuckling. Another few minutes pass, and we just sit quietly, almost reverently, just watchin’ the girls dance. The ladies all dance in this sort of detached manner, just kinda wafting about as if they’re unaware of anyone else on the dance floor, even though they’re packed in like sardines.

“We’re about out of beer,” says Tim. “Are we just going to sit here?” It’s obvious we’re all feeling too shy to dive into the sea.

“I have Traveler’s Cheques,” Z announces severely. “Maybe I could cash them in here, somehow.”

“Go to that bloke at the front door that let us in. See if he can help you,” offers Simon. “You’re Sicilian, let him have it with some Italian bullshit.”

About fifteen minutes pass and Z returns. “Wow, that was weird. The guy at the door says to me, ‘Sure, we can probably cash those in for you. But you gotta see Guido, only he can do it.’ So I wait around a few minutes, wonderin’ what’s goin’ on. I go back up to the guy, and he tells me to just wait. Waiting, waiting. Then some other guy comes up and taps me on the shoulder and says, ‘Come see Guido now.’ So I followed him into this little office, and there’s Guido, with the spats, the expensive overcoat with the white scarf tucked under the lapels, the slicked-back wavy white hair. It was wild. Guido just grumbles, mutters something, and sticks out his hand. I give him the checks and he goes over to the desk, then I notice these two thug-looking guys sitting over on a couch against the wall, just sittin’ there watching me. So Guido opens the desk and pulls out the loot. I’m not sure, but I think I saw a Magnum in the drawer when he got out the money. Anyway, he gave me the money. Want a beer? Only the best for Guido’s friends!”

“Yeah. Get me a beer, Z,” responds Simon. “Just set it on the table. I’ve got the urge to go dancing.”

Donna Summer couldn’t have declared a more definitive rallying call. Tim stays behind while the remaining trio assaults the dance floor with a series of poorly executed hip-thrusts and bad-mannered pouts, occasionally tossing our hair. Strike the pose! Do Ya Wanna Funk with Me? We slither through the tangled web of Milan’s petite and elite, splitting off solo here, only to regroup and catwalk side-by-side a few bars later. No one is really dancing with anyone else, it’s all mixed groups of threes and fours, with other people dancing solo, hoping to assimilate into a group. None of us seem to be assimilating. After twenty minutes of this frivolity we tire and head back to the beers.

Nestled in the bosom of the VIP area, we drink expensive canned beer. “They don’t seem to care about us,” observes Z. “I thought that dame said we were going to be attacked.”

“You’re right,” I say. “I’ve never felt so invisible. Do I look like Claude Rains?”

Back into the fray go the three, ready for more hijinks on the high seas of hip-hop. Simon has made contact with a pair of girls, perhaps sisters, thus forming a group, a trio in this case. A few minutes later someone touches my shoulder gently. I look back and see a mountain of teased black hair and a crooked smile. I smile back, it’s the polite thing to do, and the next thing I know this creature of the night is grinding its pelvis into my leg. Freak out, Le Freak! Didn’t they do that in Saturday Night Fever? I look directly at my newfound playmate and almost pop out of my shoes. Good lord, my mom’s bridge partners are more fine! This woman is scary. I just start dancing in the other direction but she follows, grinning, a few steps behind. She still has a nice figure (given her incalculable descent into antiquity), and there’s something oddly appealing about that John Waters wet dream hairdo, but that face, it’s strictly B-movie ocean monster, Black Lagoon a-Go-Go. I turn again but somehow she’s in front of me, dancing. I fake to the right but she blocks, grabbing my arm. She says something in Italian, so I just reply, “I don’t know.”

“Oh, English. Buy me a drink, coke and whiskey. Okay, English?”

“No way. I’m down to my last four thousand lira. That’s only enough for a cigarette or two.”

She departs as quickly as she arrived. Back at the table Z is talking to a guy with tight jeans, perfect underwear ad hair, and no shirt, holding an acoustic guitar. He gets up and walks to the bar as I approach the table.

“That guy’s a model,” Z announces.

“You’re kidding.”

“Yeah. He plays guitar at this restaurant, too. He just came from there, wherever it is. He said last week Poison came in here. He said they walked in, grabbed two or three girls each, and split, like they were getting snacks at a drive-thru. Can you believe that?”

“Maybe we just ain’t wearin’ the right cologne. You dig me, Abraham?”

“Huh?”

DREAM SEQUENCE

The strobe light flickers in a steady stream of black and white film noir contrast. A photo studio slowly comes into focus. Wearing trashed Levi’s and a $200 Pierre Cardin white cotton shirt open to the waist, I stumble to the storage shelf and grab my favorite Nikon. My assistant, Gil, who looks remarkably like Ratboy, comes into the spacious loft area carrying lighting umbrellas and electric cable. Everything is still stark and black and white.

“Claudette is here. Shall I show her in?”

“Yeah, yes, of course.”

Claudette. I’m scheduled to do a fashion layout with Claudette, the hottest model in all Milan. Cosmo, Vogue, Glamour…been on the cover of all of them dozens of times. The public wants more and more shots of Claudette.

“I’m going to be happy for the rest of my life. When my brand new baby is my brand new wife, Claudette...”

Roy Orbison had written that for the Everlys. He in fact did make Claudette his wife. They rode their Harleys together into oblivion, only Claudette never came back. She rode hers into full-on Leader of the Pack destruction and doom. They say Roy was never the same again, and I don’t doubt it, being the veteran of a few reasonably severe broken hearts myself, you never come back quite the same. But then again, they say a lot of things. Who knows?

Claudette—the one on hand at the moment—enters the room. She’s all blue-steel cold and Nico icy, an Edie Sedgwick cream dream updated to the last decade of the present/final century. I know her eyes are brown, but they glare at me black, like a vampire. Her skin is like that too, almost translucent. Her hair, dark brown, one length, and parted in the middle, is surprisingly simple and unfashionable. In fact, nothing about her seems that amazing, but when you put the whole thing together and assess the big picture, she is an undeniable goddess of sensual beauty, a creature to be worshipped and desired. She does not extend her hand to greet me. She does not smile or blink.

“Shall we?” she intones in a voice so low and monotone it causes me to reassess my black and white world.

“Sure.”

I flick on the lights and grab the Nikon.

“Over here, against the scrim.”

She walks over in front of the white backdrop, stands, and looks at me. “What do you want me to do?”

“Just be you, that’s all. Let the film capture it.” I start clicking away. Gil comes into the scene and begins double-checking some cable, bringing out two glasses and a bottle of champagne in the meantime. He has his gig down, my main man.

“Thanks, Gil. Uh, you can go for the night. I’m all set. Lock up on your way out.”

“You got it, McGruff.”

Why did he call me McGruff? What does that mean?

“Alright, sell it to me. Sell those clothes to me. You to me!” I encourage, as my shutter keeps click-click-clicking away on Claudette’s five-foot-eleven frame. Hands on hips with maximum pout, she is working it, and begins to come alive.

“That’s good, real good, yeah, yeah, yeah, give me more baby, more. Attitude! Yeah, that’s it, go all the way with it!”

It isn’t long before she’s on the floor, writhing like a snake in the midday sun, alternately smiling and pouting. She expounds unbridled raw sensuality. I straddle her, camera still snapping like an Uzi. I look down and purr encouragement. She seems to get increasingly hot and bothered by my encouragement, squirming and now working orgasmic moaning into her repertoire. She’s extrapolating beyond the realms of fashion photography into a world where she and I exist purely and simply to be beautiful and, it follows, to make passionate love.

I set the camera down and lay my full weight on top of her, as her arms and legs ensnare me. There’s no use for words as clothes begins to fly from our bodies, to be strewn about as casualties of love. I kiss her, a long, endless kiss, it seems to go on for hours, but it couldn’t have, could it? When I once again open my eyes, the world is in color, a brash, harsh, videocam six o’clock news color. I look down and Claudette had transmogrified into something otherworldly.

The dream snaps, as my dreams have a tendency to do, and I realize it is a dream. Unfortunately, I am incapable of waking up. She turns into the girl that called me “English” at the club, an old withered bag with teased hair and evil eyes looking to separate me from my lira. Her eyes begin bulging out, and her whole head begins pulsating and growing in size. Her skin begins to crack and separate, blood spurts from the cracks, followed by a greenish-white puss-like ooze which seems to emanate from every pore on her face. The human skin dissolves, and a scaly, blue-green monster head with sharp teeth and bloody, slathering mouth makes itself known. The amphibian sea monster rises from the floor—teased black hair intact, and begins stalking me, fin-hands outstretched, as if trying to strangle me. Shit, why can’t I wake up?! Damn, if I die in my dream, then I’ll die for real. Bummer! Then I’ll never know about the real girls of Italy, the ones that are supposed to drag us around by the hair in full cave woman conquest. I’ll simply be a footnote in some Italian coroner’s report. “Died in his sleep, not sure why. Had a hard-on the size of a Venice canal boat.” Real great. What a way to go.

Music comes up around me—in mono—a Hans J. Salter monster movie tirade of screeching horns and thundering tympani. The chase is on as I hurl cameras, umbrellas, light rigs, anything to slow the beast down. I quickly turn to run out the door, but the door just leads to a hall that is endless. I run and run. I can move quickly and the monster moves at a Frankensteinian crawl, but every time I turn to check the progress of my escape, the creature is a few yards behind me. I turn again to look ahead and run smack dab dead into a wall.

I wake up with a start, all sweaty with morning wood.

END DREAM SEQUENCE

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Following our severe ego bashing at the hands of Milan’s beautiful, we land in Florence the next day to set up in a huge venue, Auditorium Flog. We had met up with Giovanni earlier in the day at our hotel. He is to be our guide through our first day or two in Italy, much like Kike was in Spain and Geordie was in France. The first thing Giovanni does is hop in the van and direct us to another hotel, a small, family run operation with—get this—electric toilets.

European toilets had been a point of fascination for all concerned, especially Jeff. He was particularly fond of the Dutch toilets, which had a raised section in the porcelain to catch shit before it drops into the water. This way, you could get a good look and an equally good whiff of your stool before you disposed of it. Dahl loved this for some reason, and promised more pronounced “shit shelves” in Germany. But here, in this little hotel, was a technological variation on the world-class commode that hadn’t caught on. Your waste went from the top of the bowl into a lower, small, square holding tank. An electric motor would then shred it. Maybe with all the pasta and whatnot, they figured their shit was just a little tougher and could use a good grinding before being pumped into some of Italy’s finer sewers.

At any rate, the lady concierge at this delightful hotel gives me a rundown in very rough English, “Don’t put anything in there besides what’s supposed to go in there—no paper, tampons, rubbers, financial documents, M-80s, nothin’.” Okay, Okay, it’s cool.

My room is super small, but it’s all mine, and the television works. They have a channel with nothing but models on it twenty-four hours a day. Outside my door is a magazine rack with some interesting Italian mags. I steal one that’s the Italian version of Cosmopolitan; I know that since Gina’s Italian she’ll probably get a kick out of it. There are a few other fashion mags, most with a liberal sprinkling of female nudity, more so than in their American counterparts. I take advantage of the visual stimulation and my momentary privacy and have a quick jack—ah, tension relieved.

Arriving at the Flog, we notice the Ramones headlined here a week ago, the Violent Femmes were coming up. It seemed like a cool place. They have a great spread for us, and Tim literally dives in as if it were a pool. We eat like animals for a solid twenty minutes. Then, we pull in our amps and drums. Two guys are setting up a massive P.A., and it is obvious it’s going to take a while. The three Factsheeters depart for a walk in the oncoming drizzle.

As we walk, Rat complains about the tour—the conditions, the funding, the crowds, the music, the bossman, the usual. Z agrees, but is more easygoing; I don’t think he cares that much, he’s glad to be in Europe more than anything. I try to point out the good side of things—the travel, the sights, the occasionally great audience, the eh, eh...oh well, let’s just try to enjoy Florence.

This city is, in fact, one of the few important European cities that missed out on the big World War II party. Most everything stands as it has for six or seven hundred years. A beautiful monastery is right behind the Flog, and we walk around it, checking out the amazing woodcarvings on the doors, the fantastic tile walkways, the stained glass. The light drizzle refuses to turn into rain. Ahead in the distance, I hear a sound, like gentle guitar chords. “Do you hear that?”

“Yeah, let’s check it out,” answers Rat.

We walk across a courtyard, through a playground, to what seems to be some sort of youth center. As we approach, we discover it’s a band practicing. The music becomes more familiar, and we all laugh as we recognize it.

“It’s fucking ‘Hotel California.’”

“That’s hysterical, too much!”

Back at the hall, soundcheck is about to commence. Dahl is strapping on his Les Paul Junior as he steps on to the stage. He plays a monstrous E chord as he hollers into the mic. “Shiiiittt!” he screams, and it booms through the P.A. along with the sound of static. “Man, I just got shocked bad!”

I take my bass, and being careful to hold on only to the wood, touch the metal tuning machine heads to my microphone. ZZIIIITT! You can see a small arc of electricity arc between the tuning heads and the mic, right where my face will be in a few hours. “It’s not grounded. You have to ground the P.A.,” I address the two PA guys.

They look at each other, then at the gear, then at the incomprehensibly confusing tangled web of wires and cables they have plugged together to make this thing, eh, work. They talk in Italian, and then, in rough English, confess they don’t know what they’re doing.

“You guys didn’t electrocute the Ramones, did you?”

No answer. They flick a few switches, but no luck.

“What if we can’t fix it?” they ask us.

“Then we can’t play!” responds the ever-surprising Dahl, who usually takes every hardship with a smile. My boy don’t like gettin’ shocked, though.

Simon comes in with an elaborate power strip junction box, equipped to deal with a variety of plug and grounding variations. Finally, the English wizard sorts it out, and we can now check without fear of musician meltdown.

Following the check, Giovanni takes us to a simple little Italian café. There, we order genuine Italian pizza, tortellini, spaghetti—“the works, babe.” Every bite is an orgasm, an explosion of taste bud ecstasy that’s totally new, even to a second-generation Italian like Z. Though we try to resist, gorging like pigs seems imperative, even though it will make our performance sluggish at best.

Giovanni, a good natured, dark, and naturally attractive young guy, has repeatedly said that tonight’s show is going to be packed. We go back to club with a fair bit of anticipation. So far Italy had been pretty cool, and tonight might just be a blowout.

We still are way early. There are mats all over the floor, laid out for people to come and sit and watch old movies that are shown before the band plays. There’s a fortune teller setting up by two marvelously sexy coat check girls, word comes down the pike that the fortune teller doesn’t like us and that we should avoid her. I pay no heed, and instead concern myself with assembling a few of these mats into a makeshift mattress for a quick nap. Z and Rat follow suit while Dahl goes to the dressing room. Simon and Tim take the stage and perform their version of Elvis: The Tone Deaf Years. Factsheet applauds and eggs them on as Simon delivers a suitably snarling vocal à la The King.

“Treat mah lock a foooooo, threat mah mean ‘n’ crooooo, bu-u-u-t LOVE ME!”

They play a movie of an Italian silent movie comedian. His name was Fernando or something, and a few people wander in and appreciatively giggle. They stare at the geeks on the floor, but all and all don’t pay too much attention to us. Eventually, we’re told by someone of dubious authority that we have to get up off the floor, so we head into the dressing room, where a weirdo is bugging Dahl with a million irrelevant questions. The Master is polite, but visibly uncomfortable.

This was unusual for Jeff, as he seemed most at home—lately anyways—in the social climate consisting of himself and his fans, but not with this guy. For some reason, this gentleman’s overbearing manner, wild hand gestures, fantastically far-fetched stories concerning his success as a musician in his own right, and the certain indefinable something in his manner that suggested he could fly off the handle into a violent rage without any warning, seemed to make Dahl uneasy. Yet, there Jeff sat, arms folded, politely listening to the guy. Meanwhile, tuning was checked, beers were gulped, blank stares were exchanged. Pre-show boredoms.

Finally, an hour and a half later, we begin. I have one of those nights musicians dread. The mind is with it but the fingers just don’t care. Maybe all that tortellini is clogging up my transmitters. We’re playing to about 700 youthful Italians, an unusually even mix of boys and girls and our largest crowd so far. Come to find out, they don’t know or much care who the hell we are. We are the “rock band” for the evening—they are not familiar with our name or our music. There was no preview of tonight’s show in the local paper. We are merely what happens after the films and before the all-night disco. We could be anybody.

About a third of them are starting to get into us a bit, but a third are patiently waiting for us to finish, and the other third are visibly annoyed. Over to my right, in front of Ratboy, some guy is laying on stage, sandwiched in between two floor monitors, completely asleep. We are blaring at over one hundred decibels, but he sleeps through it just fine.

The second we finish playing, the club staff immediately begins transforming the venue. While we move amps, they set up a serving table on stage with a huge, festive cake and countless bottles of champagne. The audience crowds grabs small plates of cake and plastic champagne glasses filled with bubbly. A feisty, energetic red head appears seemingly out of nowhere, grabs me by the arm, and pulls me to the cake table. A few people recognize me as the guy in the band they never heard of that just played and hand me cake and champagne. I notice Ratboy getting the same treatment. He looks over at me from across the table and flashes his little Rat smile.

“Just like Dahl said. They grabbed me and said ‘c’mere.’” We both laughed, spitting out small crumbs of cake.

Soon, the floor erupts with dancing, and the mix pits Creedence Clearwater against Donna Summer against Moby against sweet Gene Vincent. Factsheet hit the floor, where, instead of having to dance together like losers, we are surrounded by friendly, young, pretty girls, all smiles and gently waving arms. I do the hustle up next to m’man, Z.

“This is more like it. Champagne, cake, babes, dancing, anonymity, this is great.”

“I know. I can’t believe it. It’s too good to be true.”

Sure enough, no sooner had he said this that Simon burst the bubble of momentary enjoyment. “C’mon. We’re goin’.”

He turned and walked away.

“Fuck him,” I yelled at Z. “We don’t have to go. We’ve played our show. We did our job. It’s Miller time.” We dance on to three more songs before the Grim Reaper of Fun returns with his cloak and sickle. “I said, ‘C’mon. We’re going.” Again, he turns and walks away.

“What’s up with him? We don’t have to go just because he said so,” Rat insists.

We go off to the dressing room to cut the other three loose. Simon looks at us as we walk in. “Ok, great. You’re ready. Let’s go.”

“We want to stay,” states Rat, flatly. “We’ll help you load the van, and then meet you back at the hotel later.”

“You can’t do that,” barks Dahl in a voice so gruff and hoarse it was astonishing he finished the set. He punctuated his sentence with a frightening, heavy cough, the kind that reverberates deep down by the diaphragm with an almost echo-like effect. As if it were too difficult to continue speaking, he merely gives the cue, “Simon...”

“Right. The hotel locks up at night, and we only have one key between the six of us. We all have to return together.”

“Well, we’ll just come later and knock to get in,” I offer.

“No, there’s no night watchman. Our rooms are upstairs, so you’ll wake the whole bottom floor.”

“We’ll take the van back to the hotel and drop you off and come back,” smiles Rat, who probably remembered as he said it that this tact had failed before.

“You’re not taking the van,” says Simon.

“Period,” hacked Jeff.

“Look,” I say, “let us go back with you guys, lock you up tight, and come back here in a cab, is that alright?”

“No, we’re all going together, ALRIGHT?” Simon said, at the end of his rope.

“This is bullshit, Jeff,” said Ratboy, quietly but firmly. “You tell us over and over what fun it’s going to be in Italy. We finally get here, and you want to lock us up like Cinderellas.”

“Yeah, we play the show, we play your music and make you sound great, then we can’t even party a bit,” says Z, who shakes his head, picks up his stick bag, and heads outside, presumably toward the van.

“I’m sick of you guys and your stupid rock star attitudes. This isn’t about that. It’s about music. It happens to be about my music. This is my tour. You’re here because of me. And I’m about to completely lose my voice...”

Indeed, he sounded like a radio being tuned out.

“...I can’t argue about this anymore. If I lose my voice, we’re all fucked.”

“I can sing,” I interject, not sure if I was trying to lighten things up or agitate them even further. “Tim can sing, for that matter.”

At that, Simon just starts loading the van. We all silently pitched in, not even looking at Simon or Jeff. Simon is in the van, arranging drums toward the back. I hand him a tom case. When it’s just the two of us, I say, “Dude, are you doing this just to get on Jeff’s good side? This line of attack isn’t like you. You of all sex starved people.”

“That’s not even funny, McGruff. Fuck you! I’m fucking knackered. I’m beat. You try driving all day, and dealing with the money, and hurrying you lot along. It gets to you. Jeff’s the boss. I’m exhausted, and that’s the way it is.”

“But you overslept an hour today, we got you up, and we only had a three hour drive. The most difficult thing you’ve done all day was that Elvis impersonation.”

“Damn you, I’m beat, and I’m sick to death of YOU. Get the fuck out of my face, get your gear packed, and let’s fucking go!”

As I walk back to grab my bass, Z catches my arm.

“We have an auxiliary plan,” he informs. “We’re gonna go back to the hotel, go up to our rooms—me and Rat are together and you’re solo—and come back down after they’ve gone in. Giovanni has a key and he’s going to get us back here and make sure we don’t get lost. It’s all about Giovanni.”

The ride back to the hotel is another silent one, accented with the basso profundo coughing of our leader. We park across the street from the hotel, grab our guitars, and go inside. It is exactly 2:00 a.m. as we reconvene in the street.

“How much is a cab?”

“It’s two o’clock. Is it worth going?”

“Are you sure it’s still going on?”

Giovanni assures us it doesn’t end until 4:00 a.m., or later, and suggests we should just walk and save the money. We could do it in twenty minutes.

“It took us fifteen to drive it!” I point out.

“Yes, true, but I know a shortcut,” Giovanni assures.

We walk quickly, which also helps keep us warm, laughing and running now and again. We cross a bigger intersection and notice we’re being tailed by some cops. Within a block, they pull up alongside and shine a flashlight at us. Giovanni runs up to the small, battered, laughable police car. He says something in Italian and they split.

“They don’t like long hair, or people that look like they might be American, or people under fifty, pretty much,” he said, in the giggling fashion that was his happy-go-lucky nature.

Forty-five minutes later, we’re huffing and puffing up the long driveway to the club. People are passing us by in groups. Giovanni inquires where everyone is going and is informed that the club is closing down.

“What happened to four o’clock?” The answer came in shrugs. Everything just seemed to burn out—no more champagne, no more Gene Vincent, no zing for living.

We go back on in, and some kids that liked the band see how disappointed we are and buy us a round of beers. We strike up conversation, and when we get asked to leave so the club can lock up some twenty minutes later, they give us a ride home. One of them knows Giovanni, I guess, and when they drop us back, they shout out plans to meet after work tomorrow. Rat points out how friendly, boisterous, and ultimately loud they are. We like them a lot, and bid our friends goodbye. I curl up in my room with some television, all the while keeping a watchful eye on that psychedelic toilet.

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Our second and last Italian date is a rescheduled, last minute engagement, where we’re to play at a water park of all things, right on the Adriatic Sea. Keep in mind, this is the third week in February, not exactly prime beach weather. The resort is officially closed, but they do have regular Saturday Night dances there, and we’re opening.

After we check-in, and the usual panic ensues about us getting to soundcheck hours before it’s truly necessary, Rat and I decide to see the ocean. We walk through the nearly abandoned, Saturday afternoon streets of this old-fashioned resort toward the gentle rolling waves of the sea. A few scattered locals play and run along the beach, a big black dog swims out after a stick. It’s a scene reminiscent of our childhoods. We collect seashells, and find some pretty cool ones. It is very relaxing, a whole hour off, and we drink in this quiet ocean’s beauty and savor the moment—okay, off to soundcheck.

Walking back to our hotel, a group of elementary school kids circle us on their bikes, giggling and pointing.

“God,” says Rat, “think about it. Even little kids think we are losers. They just laugh at us. They know.”

Perhaps longhaired guys with velveteen caps, black leather jackets, and tight jeans didn’t walk by everyday. Or maybe it was just obvious we were losers, even to eight-year-olds.

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The club, called the Rock Planet, is right on the grounds of the water park. The room itself is situated between a huge, three-dimensional planet that serves as a marquee. A giant concrete whale stands guard over the algae-infested, temporarily abandoned water rides.

The club was nice, but it was colder than the tomb at Montargis. It had plush, half-moon booths for the patrons. I find a suitable one and curl up and crash out for an hour or so. The booth was made from purple velvet, the same color as my cap. So much that when I got up from my nap, the hat camouflaged with the cloth and I ended up leaving it behind. At a major loss, I mean, no one likes losing their favorite hat. At the time, I remained unaware of my carelessness.

Giovanni stayed in Florence. Aldo was sent in his place, a man who looks like GG Allin. Is it omen or coincidence, I silently ponder, as he rides in the van with us, escorting us to a restaurant where our feast will even out-do the previous evening. In fact, everything about tonight is an exaggeration of last night. The club is colder, the soundmen are more incompetent, the audience is younger, drunker, and more unconcerned about anything having to do with the band, and we spend even more time waiting around doing absolutely nothing.

Even though we’d mingled with the audience the previous evening, it was clearly not the beginning of a trend. We were back to the scenario so familiar in France and Holland. Now, we are perceived as so old by the crowd of fifteen-year-olds that we’re not even within their social sphere. Following the show, Simon notices us quickly trying to get the gear in the van. The tables have effectively turned.

“Now, I like this, all these young flowers, waiting to be plucked,” said the English one.

“I don’t feel well. I’ve had a sore throat all day,” Rat said, and it was true enough. “I just want to get back to the hotel.”

“How ‘bout you, McGruff. Bet you fancy a nibble.”

“Simon, I could have fathered these children. Besides, they’re not interested in us. We’d have better luck back in Milan, where the girls are at least old enough to drive.”

“Oh, it’s different when the shoe’s on the other foot, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it is,” Z counters, jumpin’ right on in. “We won’t make a stink if you wanna come back after we go home, or if you just want to stay here and let us go home. Do What Thou Wilt!”

As we load up the van, the Factsheet Three grumble about this and that, but mostly just marvel at how fucked up these kids are, tripping over each other, puking on each other, fondling each other in random bisexual combinations. A tall, skinny kid walks by. Z points him out to me.

“Hey, that punk’s got yer hat!”

“That’s impossible! How could he have my hat?”

“Sure looked like it. Where would a kid like that get a hat like that in a place like this?”

We look at each other, and I realize he’s right. I’d blown it. I’d lost my favorite hat, and now some drunken, wet-nosed Italian scum was wearing it, free of charge. He didn’t even have to go shopping for it. He probably just sat on it and discovered it. It made me seethe, but I could not see him anymore. The idea of running blindly into this veritable ticking time bomb of intoxicated youthful energy made me queasy.

I bitch about my hat all the way back to our seaside rendezvous, where Rat and I share a room. It’s the first night I’ve seen him really sick, and if I’m not mistaken, the first night in ages I’ve been pegged to share with him. Is it an omen or a coincidence?

We settle in and—great luck—The Rocky Horror Picture Show is on, in English and uncut.

“Don’t dream it, be it,” Tim Curry gasps. It’s like a postcard from home.

Italy had seemed like the place to go really wild and have the time of our lives, a time that either kills you or becomes family legend. But it didn’t happen. Maybe another time, maybe under different circumstances. For now…

Ciao, Bella!