Babsi today wrote about a typical milanese episode (I've lived similar episodes also in Rome, but to me this sort will always be associated with Milan, like a certain damp cold weather and the smell of monoxide).

It's the one where the ticket controllers get on a bus in a small commando team and start checking on the tickets of the passengers, behaving like bullies and blatantly treating certain categories of passengers differently from the others.
They yell, they drag around, they use the force and a whole range of intimidations, or they limit themselves to sermons about the importance of always carrying a "good ticket". When they cannot bully you and yell at you (because you're a citizen) they can always make you fell ashamed of yourself in front of everyone.
The trick always worked and will always work, because many middle-class citizens mistake their own radical fear of being put to shame in front of the others for instinctive respect of the law, although the truth probably is that they would sooner break the law if only they could resist or be indifferent to shame (cf. Kafka's Process). Or, as it is with tax cheating in this country (and a lot of other stuff), if only the crime itself wasn't considered a shame.

Pathetically incapable of professionally doing their job by politely asking for documents and writing down the tickets and normally fine the passenger, using a normal tone of voice and human decency, the milanese controllers are very often ego maniacs who just adore the tough part of their job more than anything else, and have orgasms listening to the barking sound of their voices in the silent bus.
When I was a teenager those in my category where the favorite victims of ticket controllers. Youngsters by the shabby appearance where easily the ones to be mistreated if found without a ticket. Now, only a handful of years later, it is all different. Shabby youngsters carry iPods and cell phones, and the most undesirable of all passengers, the most vulnerable is obviously the immigrant, or B-citizen, whatever you want to call it.

Babsi tells her story with her usual efficiency, and I felt I had to tell about my own by commenting to her post. I am translating here excerpts from both the sources.

Babsi:

At the bottom of the trolleybus, a boy. The boy who's turning a blind eye to them and who has a wool jacket with patches on the elbows. Ticket, they say to him. Without the "please" that was reserved to me. The boy acts dumb. Hey, the ticket, kids one. Where are you from? Egypt? And where do you get the tickets? In Egypt? The boy utters a long guttural sentence: I am sure that he is understanding and he is insulting them. Or that he is cursing. Always the same one, almost pensionable; He is looming up in front of him, standing astride at this point, and insisting: or you just thought to come to Italy to fool the Italians, eh, dark boy? "Morocco", says the boy. "Morocco, not Egypt". Resurgence of national pride. Oh, Morocco. It's the same. Here it's paying for the ticket. The second interferes: so, do you or do you not have it? He doesn't have it. I don't know why he doesn't. Because he doesn't have a buck, probably, but I lived in London washing dishes and I asked for money at the Earl's Court subway station to pay for my tickets (...)
They're back to grill the boy with the patches on the elbows. I.D., says the old one. E-D? tries to parrot the boy. Oh, when there was Mussolini the things went all right, snaps the man in uniform... I clear my throat. Excuse me? When there was - who? I surprised him. He's looking at me resentfully. Don't you get in the way, miss. I don't get in the way. I'm interested in civility and good sense. I breath in despite the fever. "Apology of fascism, you know."
Now everyone is looking at me: the moroccan boy, the woman in pink, the six controllers, the one who's yelling in the cell phone no se puede. "When there was Mussolini, gentlemen, should be taught at school - I swallow - how much this country was violent and illiberal". Silence. "Not - I swallow - on the buses." My man in uniform is outraged: on the buses, miss, one should pay the ticket! That's all! (...)
Three controllers out of six make the boy get off the bus: the rough way.

Me:

(...) I was fined plenty of times during my junior and high school years. Once I was chased down half Viale Padova by a controller, up to the inside premises of school, many times I was grabbed by the jacket, yelled on my face, carried down the 56 or the 92 or the 33, underwent the sermons I hate, I lied and gave false identities and shrugged and laughed in the face and trembled of fear and shame.
Still today that I always pay the ticket in every city of the world, when I see uniforms instinctively I shiver and look for escape routes.
Always hated controllers because of their intimidating air. Never solved the ambiguity, whether the State was always right, even when it came with the shitty face and the bullying policeman-like behavior and all the rest, or whether it was never right, because of the great lie that was held together all around.
Finally, I don't care for the apology... I find the law-enforced anti-fascism very cretin (it certainly doesn't keep people from being or becoming fascist in new and old ways), but the way I see it bullying and barking voices are more than sufficient reasons to put oneself in the way, since they represent all the possible worse, all the possible fascism to expose and impede. If only to get in the way was anything useful-- or even if it wasn't useful at all. Provided to have clear in an instant which side one is on... and instead one loses precious seconds to understand it.

Right after the elections, in the spring of 2006, italyisfalling.com stated clearly that the supposed defeat of Berlusconi (who was losing with an incredibly slight minority at the senate and in fact coming out very powerful when everyone thought he was done for) could in fact be considered a positive outcome for him, in a very difficult moment for the country.

During the astonishing night and day after the vote, with Berlusconi calling for a recount and even for the invalidation of the elections before the results were out, we, with many others hinted at possible electoral frauds, although not in the sense Berlusconi was tactically and hypocritically suggesting.
The results were not coming out, with unexplainable delay: and when they did come out, they had numbers completely different from the exit polls, which is always a sign of rigged elections (Cf. Diebold/Sequoia U.S. elections 2000-2006).
That night Berlusconi was still nominally Prime Minister, and his faithful minister for Home affairs, Pisanu, was in complete control of the vote count. Twice he left the control room during the night to go to report to Mr. Berlusconi at his mansion, with a highly irregular if not illegal procedure. Nobody ever explained why he did that, or what the long delay was for.

But, do you know what happens, right? If you cheat not to win when everyone is expecting you to loose, but you cheat to loose the less possible, you make it very hard for your opponents, the winners, to call you on your responsibilities. Just like for the 2006 midterm elections in the U.S.: The winners cannot be too harsh on the losers, something the citizens wouldn't understand. And also, calling for a fraud with the risk of not being able to prove it, could actually turn out to be the worst possible way to win, and, in the Italian case, to start a new government with a hard way to go.
This is probably why, during the night of the elections, the Italian winning leaders declared their victory with the most harried, stiffen expression on their faces, apparently with the intention to never publicly discuss again what really happened during that night.

But why am I going over this today, months and months after the vote?
As it happens, far from home this Sunday afternoon I was watching for the n^th time in my life a rerun of Stagecoach (with its beautifully translated Italian title Ombre rosse, "Red shadows") on channel 7. During the commercial break I switched on the third channel were a journalist, Enrico Deaglio, was telling about his new documentary, Uccidete la Democrazia!, "Kill Democracy!" about the supposed electoral fraud of the 2006 Italian elections.
Wow. For a while I forgot about the Ringo Kid and Dallas and the rest of the bunch, doctor included, and listened to him, amazed.

This journalist was explaining how, for the first time in our history, the 2006 political vote counted one million and a half "white" vote less than the projections. The "white" vote are all the voting papers where the voter didn't mark anything, no name or symbol. Those votes don't count and no one can claim them for its party or coalition.
The journalist argued that, because the drop in the number of white votes was considerable and homogeneous all over the country, no matter if coming from a "red" or "blue" region, this could play as fair evidence that something strange happened at a superior level, in Rome, at the ministry of Home Affairs where all the local results converged to be counted.
Small cities have been counted where, said the journalists, the Home Affairs reported an absurd, unsound zero "white" papers. This in a disillusioned country were the "white" vote is always on a rise.

So, while Berlusconi was calling for a fraud perpetrated by "communists" on a local level, supposedly it was him, in Rome, perpetrating a fraud using the "white" papers for his own party and this way reducing his loss considerably, later finding himself in the perfect position to undermine the new weak government.

All yet to be proved, of course. But asking questions seeming the only logical way to approach the truth.

I switched back to "Red Shadows": The doctor was smiling: He had just managed to assist the successful birth of Mrs. Mallory's newborn baby girl, and in silence was getting back to his bottle. Around him admiration and gratitude were expressed with the same silence. He was obviously in need to get back to his usual condition of dealing with the world: getting stoned. Nobody could patronize him about that anymore, because he had done dutifully right.

I always sympathized with the doctor, like I think every decent person who ever watched this legendary film did. I wished my country was a little like him: always stoned (as it is), but capable of getting out of it when necessary.

Yes, struggling for once to make right what is wrong before getting back to the usual lovely state of drunken stupor: That would be a chance for the falling country.

We're in bed together, under the azure sheets in the dark room. Sex hasn't gone very well until now. First my erection vanished, then it came back, then she started to ache and we had to stop again. Of course it's seems a little disappointing because we haven't been together for a lot, and it's rare we have a whole afternoon for us. But obviously things aren't smooth. There's nothing to be disappointed for, I tell her. It doesn't feel hypocritical, although it should.

We're in bed and we just go on talking for a while. I tell my story. She tells her story.
"It's not your fault. I have someone else in mind" she says.
"You told me something about someone else. Wasn't he your boss or something? I thought it was over."
"Of course it is over. Did I mentioned he has a wife and a baby? But I still have him in mind."
Then she adds, "probably I care for him less now, but illogically he's still there."
"Oh. That's too bad," I moan, rolling back to the pillow. "But what, do you see his face while we're doing it? Do you make comparisons?"
"Yeah... no! I mean, sex wasn't perfect at all with him. It's just that I am this very monogamous person."
"Is there any way you two can meet again? See how it feels? I guess it's been a while you two haven't been together. You should be with him again and see how..."
"I don't believe so. I scared him away."
"You scared him? This doesn't sound like you. What did you...?"
"I did a stupid thing. One year ago, exactly. I... took some pills, I staged this thing. I don't think I really wanted to, you know."

I am looking at her from my elbow now. I watch her as she rubs her eyes with her thumbs and looks away. This is something I wasn't expecting. I know she should not notice how this scares me. I stroke her forehead and say "Wow. That's something I didn't imagine."
"Yeah, didn't you?" She says. We laugh for a second.
"I didn't wanted to die, really. I took the pills but then I called my father. I also texted him at a certain point"
"You mean the guy?"
"Yeah, I said 'goodbye' or something like that. Very dramatic. My memories aren't very clear." We laugh again.
"But, what had happened?"
"Just a typical wishy washy situation. We split up, I moved to another workplace, trying to forget him and to catch up with exams, then he came back, then one day he said he had changed his mind again, and was going back to her. At that point the pain was so big I just wanted to sleep forever."
"But you called your father."
"And my father had to call the firemen because my keys were into the lock and I was very passed out. Then he arrived too, just about when all the disaster was going on, and the police asked him who he was. They had my cellphone, they read the messages, so they knew he was the repository of all the craziness. My mother handbagged him, I think, poor guy. Later she said it was all my fault, that I obsessed him."

There's a pause. Our bodies are still entangled under the sheets and the house is quiet. From behind the shades Ornella Vanoni's voice oozes in. It's a song I don't know.
"Yeah, I guess you scared him away," I say then.
Somehow, I feel we are both sorry for it, in a quiet way.

It is raining steady outside. The pouring water makes a faint noise against the bricks of the terrace, the plastics vases and the rigid jasmine leaves. Light is strangely dimmer all around, also because of the wet surfaces of the buildings and the roofs darken everything, and the grayish yellow walls of the condos drawn upon by the rain with wide wet brush-like stains, dragon-shaped, or shaped like clouds piled up to the horizon.
My thoughts do not enthuse me, miserable plans of cheating, hypocrite worries for relatives I never call, absurd fears of precocious illnesses, strategies to work even less or caring less, the doubtful meaning of this blogging, like a 'I put myself at the window here and report back' kind of thing, only because I can do it, just like cheating.
They don't enthuse me, but these are my thoughts, and I cannot find a way to pilot them to a better destination, so I just look out of the window, sunday raining, let them roll. I am lucky enough, I think, I have this window to look out from, this good things, like a yogurt or a computer or the music or such, and a person I can have sex with right now, sunday morning, just if I feel like having it, high-handed. And as I start wondering why is that, that I need to brutalize the women I love, or they wish to be brutalized by me, a whole chain of images, fantasies and scenes come to me. Finally are the thoughts that don't need to be hijacked or pushed forward.

Outside the light's changing again, someone down in the road is bitterly impelling her old dog to move faster, the lid of clouds seems more thick and consistent and the dark crows and pigeons stand out against it as they fly from one roof to the other.

For one thing, I have a problem with this exhibition of athletic knacks, with this show of pointless power and nowhere-bound energy. I can get excited on the moment, because someone gets first when it was supposed to get last, because of the revenge-of-the-loser that for a second it represents to my eyes.
But the whole point of these competitions, the battling and defeating, the fighting and crying and exulting it's not in my chords. Prolly, because I find it an even too accurate picture of what life really is: a whole crazy nonsensical thing of fighting and defeating each other callously and without remorse. Well, without the sex, the pleasures of the mind, and the contemplation: the three things that help me to carry on.

So if I see them athletes competing, I just think: "where are you running, fella? What's that for? Life is going to get you anyway, you know. Which means Death is going to get you, too. Don't take it too seriously. We all know life is about crushing the weaker, but let's not make a celebration of it, OK?"

Well, that's just a problem I have I guess. I can find heroic who struggles against the disaster of an earthquake for example, or people accomplishing difficult things that can change people's lives, creatives, nonconformists, or just simple honest fellas who, under certain situations, act heroically. But I will never find heroic an athlete. Again, that's I problem I have I guess.

On the other hand, there are more poignant and general reasons to dislike Olympics. One for all? they cheat. They are drugged so much they all risk to die young. It's a competition among the best chemical balances, not among who has the best working muscles and nerves. It's not like only Austrian athletes cheated.
EVERYBODY does. Not only with Olympics, but with sports in general.

Now they say this guy coach wants to commit suicide and is guarded in the mental ward. Poor fella. But it's no news. Italian cyclist champion Pantani, who is even getting a statue somewhere, ended up drugged and suicidal too, and a bunch of other stories are similar to his, only you don't easily hear a lot about them. After all, the drugged are celebrated even more than the cleaned ones, because they're there to justify our right to cheat.

I think everybody cheats in sports. Everybody take drugs. They just want to win. Morality in sports has been wiped out by money and television a long ago and everybody knows that. Olympics games suck, they are the biggest lie, forget about it.

If you really want to see something heroic going on, why not point our morbid cameras to the folks in Afghanistan coming out of the hardest winter ever, after an earthquake, and under military occupation? They held it out, you know. Just to make an example.

Although, I think we should just forget about television & its twisted quest for heroisms and struggles: even if life is all about that (if we include sex in the same picture) that's barely a way to remind us of it, not to get out of it, at least in our imagination.

We were the lovers laying in bed in the room enlightened by the late Milano February dawn light, with the dog at the foot of the bed snoring and Sunday in the outside unfolding after the streetwashing small vehicles had droned with their orange flashing lights, us listening to blackbirds from the private garden on the other side of Via Savona alerting each others with short melodies, pigeons cooing somewhere from the roof right over the window door and almost no car chugging, leaving only distant vibrations in the phony promise of the dawn moments.

Along with the sighs of the dog by the throaty voice she rolled over and briefly puffed, moving her naked body against mine. I looked outside, where the sky was turning blue against the dirty dark and the silence of the greyish surfaces in the room in the house which was not ours, same silence which flooded the streets, disappeared before cars that ran madly again, because some stop light gave approval.
Silence came also back, identical (is that possible?), announced four floors underneath by the squeaking and banging of the exitway metal gates produced by someone stepping out in the city. It is a small step for a man, but.

In the faint bang she opened her eyes a sec, glancing at me and smiling and opening her mouth, I opened mine a little but no sound came out. I raised my eyebrows, so as to say, what, it feels like we are fishes, but she closed her eyes again. It was the dog to open hers then, and to look at us expectantly, but our bodies remained still under the red quilt in the sloughing shade of the room.

Even later there was silence, as we sat at the red table in the kitchen waiting for the coffee to come out. Could be we had no things to say, or too much heavy things to say, so I just sat there toying with her naked legs under my fingertips. Her skin darker than mine, her smiling sighs at my large weak pinches.

I think she talked then, said, how do you feel, but who knows what the hell I answered. Cell phone messages were already storming in by the returned on devices. We sat there more minutes sweetly smiling trying to reassure each other without words and mostly looking down, impelled forward by the invisible of our lives.
Her look said how in a different way it had happened before to us, so it might happen again. Me and my friend's girlfriend.