Beware: Italy

I'm Devin the Duke, a.k.a Capitol Hill 80's Dance Club Leader and co-singer of the now defunct indie pop group El Ron Beyond. This is me and my guys summer of '98 in L.A. Let me tell you one thing, Cocaine is one hell of a drug on the road. I've been clean for 4 years now and my body has regressed back into its normal pigmentation. The great guys at the lodge have allowed me to post and give insight onto great hobbies like disco dancing, kill the dog, and prostitution. Since we're reminiscing about great italians this week I figure this is a good start and good introduction. I first encountered a brothel on accident in the wonderful quarters of Rome, Italy. I was just winding down on whats called the Curling Circuit (Quebec, Nova Scotia, Greenland, The Netherlands) and said to myself, "Hey lets go get Godfather on some sh*t." So I went to Italy for a while on my own. Of course the fun loving innocence and ignorance of our Canadian brothers had rubbed off on me too much, and there's nothing hypnotic demon possessed Gypsies love more than to distort reality with their eye, especially on me.

Getting there was the worst thing ever. A thunderstorm delayed the flight, then the fuel pump wouldn't pump, then they couldn't find a union employee who was authorized to fix it, finally about to fly out and the flight crew can no longer fly due to time regulations. After talking to some woman claiming to be the conductor of the New York Philharmonic en route to Sardinia we got back on with a new crew. Some old guy has to decide its a good time to have a heart attack, he's lucky i didn't chop him with a filipino jungle machete. Well, after that flight delay in the 4th circle of hell (New York City) I finally landed at Leonardo Da Vinci airport 32hrs+ my original time. Union power is sometimes useless power.

So I get there in the middle of the night and its all romantical n' sh*t just like the pictures. Thankfully my hotel staff is european rude, which means inconsiderate but not enthused about it. I was extra happy to have been booked with a room view that shows the interior brick wall of the building, luckily echoes from drunk cooks on the ground floor kept me sane. I pop on the t.v., in order to turn on a tv you have to hold down the power button the remote, press the t.v. power button, and put a rosary string into the headphone plug. I called the front desk and they sent some gypsy boy to stare at it for a minute and it quit being so difficult for about another day. On day 3 i decide to just join the dark side for entertainment purposes. Thank God we have ipods now, the gypsies can be marginalized again.

The flight earlier that evening still had me rattled. Roman television late night can only go so far with prostitution infommercials. Channel one is Lesbian clips, channel two is for queer boys, channel three is a little unspeakable, and channel four is "The Pope - Late Night", each one with their own 267-888-000000 #. (euro phone #'s incorporate the power of pi) This bores me... i thought. So I wandered out onto the street in need of some extreme cigarette chain smoking. I get out onto the street tottally strung out and anxious. I tone it down and try to imagine these cobblestone streets and narrow old buildings are like the Italian version of Belltown back home, people lounging on cafe patios and meandering to their next destination.

People are wearing suits, and i'm wearing a track jacket and knit beanie from Urban Outfitters. Take that Dolce & Gabbana. I walk up to the first approachable person I see that won't sneer at my brown skin and broadway hipster gear: Italian Policeman - Carabinieri. He looked more like a waiter on his way home, but this cop was just chilling on a sidewalk. I wish they'd write about this in tour books but Italian police are the laziest and most ignorant people in the world. In the U.S. when you're lazy you can either live at home with your parents, or work at the mall. In Rome you join either the city police or federal police. Why do they have two types? I assume just to fill the ranks of an overly inflated government workforce. I'm standing there making hand signals and saying "Tobacco? Cigarillo? Tobacciano? ... Bong?" Of course he just kind of stood there pointing his hands in some other direction telling me to go to some square that was going to for sure be closed at this hour. After 5 minutes trying to determine how much english he could never understand I just nod my head and say, "Si, totte grazie, you're useless." Thank God as I walk a block further down and I see this guy in a suit smoking a cigarette. I don't know if bumming smokes is cool here but I'm frustrated enough to nearly steal the one he's smoking from his mouth.

Let's call him Luco. Luco was standing on the next corner down from the cop in the pale moonlight. I don't know why, maybe just to be romantic and consider paintings of Caravaggio and Donatello in his mind. I stroll up to him and like, "Scusi, tobacco por favore." He just rolls his sight to me every so slowly, takes another drag and says liltingly, "Oh, Americano?" "Si! Si! Si!" My exuberance did not falter him. "So you ah, want ah cigaretto?" "You speak english?" He puts up his thumb and finger animating the universal symbol of 'just a little'. For all I care now this guy is a genius. An Italian who's not rude yet knows rudimentary communication skills, its simply awesome. Luco continues on, "I own a bar down the street. We have a cigaretto there." In my heart of hearts I am relieved to finally come across the only easy providence I've experience in probably 2 days. Luco leads me left around the corner and down the otherside a couple of blocks.

My internal Devin-sense starts kicking a little bit. We're getting farther and farther from the public street and the lighting is becoming sparse. I start remembering I'm all by myself with Luco who could be prince of thieves in Ravioli District. He just keeps on smoking, taking a slow pace. Every few feet I start feeling like the Spidey-sense symbols are radiating and the corona of them around my stomach are starting to exponentially spiral out of control. Luco, just asks me simple questions in Italian/English, I just say "Si/No." Suffice to say I am now officially wired. It wasn't enough to get punked in New York by puerto ricans, not enough to sit next to some annoying jersey girl for 10hrs, not enough to be stuck on board a stuck plane forever, this finally gets to the pinnacle.

We cross the dry gray cobblestone lane to a blank storefront. Theres a generic neon sign and nothing else except a glass door and windows. Luco puts out his cigarette on the sidewalk with a quick stomp and then opens the door for me. And then we're standing there in this nightlit white walled linoleum floored box. Right now I am just absent of anything reasonable in my mind. Luco goes to the nearest wall and pushes on it. PUSHES THE WALL OPEN, revealing a stairwell leading downstairs. He looks at me like there's nothing weird going on and motion his arm invitingly. Thats when I find out there's a little girl inside of me and I hear screaming from the essence of my being, "DON'T GO DOWN THERE!" I have a man moment. I clearly remember this, I had to tell the little girl inside, "I can't pussy out now." I went down the stairs and my Grandmother started rolling in her grave.

Now what I saw downstairs I'm really not sure about. Mainly because it was so stereotypically out of some B movie. A fully red light lit lounge. Red drapes, a bar, maroon vinyl bench seats, cocktail tables, and a piano at the far end of the place. I couldn't believe that somethings this cheesy was real. The Coup de gras was this: a dozen girls all sitting in a row smoking cigarettes. I wish I could see how big my eyes were and the blank expression of my mouth. The sheer realization and unbelieving moment and all the cosmos is agreeing with you, I am in a brothel. No more, no less. It was real. I was so screwed and out of it that I just became a head nodder. Luco was just like, "Come on sit at the bar, have a drink too." I just nodded and walked towards this grinning blonde 40yr old vulture of a bartender. More polite broken English started flopping out of her mouth, "Whut drinc ... yuu wanta... ?" Finally out of Luco's smooth cadence I realize whats going on. "No, no no no. I just wanted cigarettes. I don't want a drink." I start cracking, "I don't wanna drink, I really only wanted cigarettes, really. Thats all I wanted. No drink. NO drink. NO DRINK." Luco seeing me finally cornered lifted up his golden arm and waved at the girls. Suddenly, I felt hands rubbing my shoulder and arm.

Let me clarify something additional. All of these girls were skank ugly. I would go so far as to say FUGLY. Because really most girls in Europe are very pretty and I just guess this is what happens to the ones who just don't cut it. This curly brown haired 35yr old "girl" was sitting next to me now in the opposite bar stool. She had thick eyebrows, a crooked nose, and distorted big lips. But her voice was a lot more refined than the others, she brought out the stereotypical italian seductress, a wannabe Pussy Galore with a confident tone that ended in giggles. Really though, Lets reference her as Veracosa. Vercosa chipperly asked, "Hi, whats your name." "Devin..." and I just stared off blankly into the bar bottle shelf. Noticing my unease she touched my head and said, "I like your cap." I nodded, looked at her, she giggled, I smiled bashfully. I liked it too ho, I got it at the bargain bin on Broadway. She knew I was now in the den, but not yet her in claws, "You want a drink?" At those words I went back into frantic mode. "No no no drink. Just cigarettes." I ranted for a bit. And then it had to go into tag team mode at the red light bar. Luco came over, the bartender sprang to service, and Veracosa wrapped both her arms around mine. I was in priority alert: level one. The useless bravado in me just gasped out Don't Pussy OUUUUT!!!!. I hate that voice now.

I ended up buying her a drink at her constant wishes. I bought myself a drink at their pushing. I got my damn marlboro light box. I avoided her requests to "See the backroom." I left weary up the stairs. I saw Luco in his suit with another suit bastard smoking in front. He just waved at me, smiling. $120.00 less in my pocket I walked back to the dumb hotel room. In my dumb 'cap'. I had breakfast the following morning and met some American Marines who laughingly said to me, "Oh you got grabbed by a Piano Bar guy huh...." I am awesome.