Falloon
pigeon shit parade
Date: 27 Apr 2001
he started with a nervous gesture and ended with crying. he spoke quickly and i couldn't understand most of what he said. his wife was gone, he had no money. he fed the pigeons out of his bag and offered me music, grabbed a small radio out of tissue wrapping and thrust it into my hand. i misunderstood and said no but he flicked the dial and spanish music began. he sighed and began on spain. it was at this point that he realised i was not italian. he said that this town was bella and i was bella. i misunderstood and edged away. then he started to cry about his situation so i stood up and left him to be stared at by the priests. he could have been mad, could have been genius but the underlying factor of my desertion was that i didn't give a fuck either way. i was glad that my reaction to him had been indifferent that i was not afraid or amused just blank. i wish i'd spoken italian or whatever it was he spoke. we didn't speak a common language. he was begging or he was plain fucked. i'd told him to speak to the rubieri not to me. i'd laughed when he laughed and looked on when he'd tried to cry. it was the wailing of a false prophet however i was convinced he was lying. he did not ask me for money. perhaps he just wanted an ear. i've been in that situation myself. but could i talk to a foreign tongue for so long about things i knew he would not understand? i doubt it. i watched the clock that kept disappearing and wondered when would be best to catch the train, when would be best to wait for it and what i should do in the meantime.

i find myself back in brighton with Chip. far cry from bologna where the life is a film in itself. they are the stars of the show the italians, we just flaunt in the shadows of the screen. they are the screen. they don't move, they eat, sleep and life is like that, they say. i was staying in a small town just north of the old bologna... in that place they don't move but they are sufficient. perhaps its a golden image... they have their problems and their faults, no doubt. they have skin on their bone. so do we. Chip and me sit in the bar and rail against the state of things as they are for us. and i ask him whether its film that has made us so. this is of course alien to those who lived before film. but we are borne of it. it seeps into us. tears us apart. watching mission impossible 2 seems like more of a kick than writing a song. that's not true and i'm glad we ditched the cinema that day. we watched stevie wonder rip it up on video. we talked about hopes and dreams. like everyone does. we want more than we have but we are not full of greed. ethiopia to cairns they are all dreaming for more than they have. the young and the old. or perhaps they sit silently and watch. i suddenly remember watching chicken run with little denton when Chip talks about soul. soul versus cinema. make believe versus make believe? not a clue, son, not a clue.

Matt Falloon
Where next?
Falloon | 30 Mar 2001
jims big day out