NAVY #12 Bari Italy

Originally written in 1999


Howdy friends,

If you're getting this e-mail, it means that you are a friend of mine, or at least I thought you were a friend of mine, or you're a friend of one of my friends and they forwarded to you.

Those assholes.

If you got it and didn't want it, or you just want to say hi, or remind me that I suck, you have several options; The easiest would be to just delete it. Another option would be to send me a nasty, hateful scathing letter. The final option would be to beat the hell out of your computer with a hammer, preferably a nine-pound hammer (obligatory musical reference). Your choice.

This is my report on Italy, specifically Bari, Italy and my recent visit.

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(5/27/99)

Bari, Italy is a very old city. That shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, since Italy is pretty old as well. Italy is located in Europe, which has been there for quite a long time too they tell me. The cool thing about old cities is that, by law, they have to have castles, cathedrals, and lots of statues of famous dead guys. Europe has the monopoly on famous old dead guys because it's been there for so long. Europeans take a lot of pride in their history and the quality of their dead folks.

Back in the early 1000's sometime, the citizens of Bari were getting picked on a lot because most of their famous dead guys were losers as far as dead guys go, and they had nothing cool to brag about. Rome had a bunch of dead Christians, Pisa had a tower that was about to fall down, Florence had a bunch of longhair hippie artist types, and Venice had a backed up sewer. All Bari had was some solid upright Catholics who also happened to be pirates when they weren't out fishing or visiting all the cool places in Italy. In order to grow into a for-real city, that sucks mucho dinero out of tourists' pockets, they needed an attraction to draw the rubes in. Being Catholics, they knew that people are more willing to spend money on religious attractions than secular. So they formed a committee to promote tourism. That committee decided they needed a new dead guy. Someone they could plan a celebration around. Someone who could also help raise some capital. They also decided that if you are going to do something, you might as well go all out.



First thing they did was to draw up a list of dead guys that were candidates, then keep weeding them out until they found the perfect guy. Jesus was the first choice, but seeing as how he refused to stay dead he was ruled out. Leonardo Da Vinci was pretty cool and a front runner, but he was a long hair and he wasn't really religious enough. Joan of Arc was considered because she was a virgin chick who heard voices and would draw in the women, the perverted men, and the crazies who also heard voices. But it was discovered that she was French and no one really likes the French, so she was rejected. That left the last candidate, Santa Claus. That's right, Santa Claus. When Santa Clause finally made the cut, A bunch of sailors loaded up their ship, went off to the Jersey shore and dug up Santa's bones, brought him back to Bari and built a big Cathedral around him. Back then he wasn't known as Santa, he was still going by his secret identity of Saint Nicoli. We non-Italians bastardized it to St Nicholas, then St Nick, then Santa Claus. So Bari is the place where they buried Santa Claus. Each year, they have a celebration for St Nicoli. More about that later.

Even though the early folks of Bari were kind of morbid, sailing around the Mediterranean digging up the bones of famous dead guys, it's a really nice city with lots of Italians. The first thing I noticed when I stepped off the ship was the traffic. Driving a motor vehicle in Italy is a serious event and they put everything they have into it. It's not any coincidence that Mario Andretti won all of those races, It's because he learned to drive in Italy.




One of the laws in Italy is that you must drive as fast as humanly possible at all times. Horns are connected to the clutch and turn signal indicators. If a motor vehicle's horn is not sounded every 5 seconds the vehicle will automatically shut down. Traffic markings, lights, and signs are just there as a suggestion for tourists and to get the pedestrians bunched up and make them easier to hit. Crossing the street is a lot like the running of the bulls. DO NOT LOOK BOTH WAYS. DO NOT MAKE EYE CONTACT. If you do either of these things, Italian drivers see it as a challenge and will do their best to clip you with a fender. To cross the street, you must blindly step off the curb and go, heedless of honking horns, screeching rubber, and curses in Italian. It's no wonder that Catholicism started in Italy. There's nothing like crossing a busy Italian street to get you right with Mr. Jesus and all the Saint's.



Parking here is nearly as amusing as the driving. If you can get your front bumper in, It's a parking space. The streets are narrow. There are no parking lots for each store. If you need something in the store, you just park in the street. Or double park in the street. Or triple park. Gas stations are just three pumps on the curb and an attendants' shack the size of a phone booth. I have a bigger garage at my house that most of the body shops and garages in Bari do. All the work is done at the curb. That's not really a problem as most Italian cars are about the same size as a shopping cart. A car is not a necessity here. The public transportation system is a good one and besides, God gave you two feet so get your ass out there and use them.

I noticed that Italian teenagers don't make out in cars, they make out in parks. Italians like parks. They also like fountains and statues of famous dead guys. Any chance they get, they combine the three. Space is at a premium in the towns and cities. The streets are narrow and the buildings tall, but you can't go more than a couple of blocks without coming to a park in Bari. The parks here are the community gathering places of the city. Most of the stores close in the afternoon to reopen in the early evening, a much more civilized way of doing business I believe. In the parks you find the older people, and when school lets out, a soccer game is guaranteed to break out between all of the 7-12 year olds. The teenagers are sitting on remote park benches doing whatever it is teenagers do. The little kids are on the playground equipment, and the adults are visiting and socializing. This is what life must have been like before cable television and Nintendo. These poor people, actually having to get out and interact with each other in the flesh.




Italy must be the world's number one consumer of Ice Cream. I swear, there are at least six ice cream stores on every block. Of course, the ice cream stores also sell beer and expresso. I wonder if Baskin Robbins has ever considered this marketing strategy? For all the ice cream that consumed here, there is a remarkable shortage of fat people. All the women look like Sophia Loren and all the men look like Fabio (with a haircut)(before he kissed the duck at 110 mph). It's probably due to the fact that Italians aren't as obsessed with being slugs like we Americans are. There is only one McDonalds in Bari and it doesn't even have a drive through window.




The restaurants here are wonderful. Sure, some of their food sucks. They serve soda without ice in it. Their idea of a steak looks and tastes like filet of roadkill. But if you want Italian food, the place to go is Italy. I'll never eat at Olive Garden again. The other night I had the best plate of spaghetti that I've ever eaten in my life. It was so good, I had a gastronomic orgasm. It was just a plate of noodles and tomato sauce, but the noodles were perfectly cooked and it was obvious that the sauce wasn't Ragu.

Processed foods don't seem to be that common here. I didn't see a single Krogers, Walmart, Food Lion, or Farm Fresh. The grocery stores I did visit seemed to specialize in wine, vegetables, and dry goods. No premixed dinners, no Spagettio's, no Mac and Cheese in a box. Lots of dry Pasta, cereals, and each had a butcher shop with fresh meats and sausages.



If you like pizza, wait until you have a real Italian pizza. Thin crust, thick crust, New York Style, St. Louis style, Chicago style, Dominos, Pizza Hut, Tombstone, its all crap when compared to Italian Pizza. Actually, St. Louis style pizza is crap when compared to just about anything. Italian Pizza is made with a hand tossed crust. Then it's covered with handmade sauce and covered with sliced cheese. Real cheese, not some fake pasteurized cheese flavored byproduct that comes pre-shredded in a bag. The secret lies in the baking of the pie. Good pizza is baked in a brick oven fired by wood, not on a conveyer. A brick oven is the only way to go. That cheese pizza will be the best thing you've had in your mouth since your mama's teat.

The shopping in Bari is good. It seems to me that most of the stores specialized in handbags and ugly shoes. I saw a Gucci, a Yves St Laurent, a United Colors of Bennigton and a Levi's store. The coolest shopping was the street vendors. You could buy Nike ballcaps, pottery, watches, pictures of Jesus, hamsters, and just about everything else from these people.

Sexuality in Italy is something that's neither flaunted nor repressed. It just is. Newsstands are everywhere. The nudie magazines are in plain view next to the glamour mags and newspapers of the world. Nudity, or various stages of nudity that are normally censored in the US are everywhere. On the topless beaches, (too cold right now), the billboards, magazine covers, to the product labels. The women here recognize and embrace their sexuality without using it as a weapon. Skintight pants are in (thank you Mr. Jesus) as is the color black. When I say skintight, I'm talking spraypaint tight. Sunglasses are also a necessity. I saw no baggy pants except on the American tourists. I also didn't see any bare navels, and only saw one body-piercing place.

The music scene here in Bari didn't seem to exist. I was unable to find a single live performance venue. I didn't see a single discotheque or honkytonk. If a fellow was to open himself up a genuine Texas style honky-tonk with live music, a jukebox, and sell 1" thick ribeye steaks, and baby back ribs, I think he could make more money than Garth. (obligatory Garth bashing). I was told that country music is getting very popular in Italy as well as the rest of Europe, but I didn't see it.




I took my guitar and mandolin with me and sat out in one of the parks and played for awhile and gave my buddy a guitar lesson. As I was playing Nine-Pound Hammer, an older gentleman who was walking by stopped and asked me if I was playing country music. I told him I was and we got into a conversation. He told me he was a jazz guitar player. It just so happened that I had just bought a Django Reinhardt disc earlier that afternoon and when I showed it to him his face lit up. I could see the thoughts going through his head: "maybe this goofy-ass American bastard isn't as stupid as he looks". We got into a discussion about Gypsy Music, Stephan Grapelli, and Django. I let him borrow my guitar and I played my mandolin as he jumped into a swinging version of Route 66. It was really, really cool. This guy was about 70. We jammed for about an hour. He didn't tell me I sucked even once. At least not in English. It was so cool to go to another country and be able to connect with someone on that level.

As I was limping back to the ship on our last night in port,(I tore my PCL, ACL, or AFL-CIO. One of those knee ligaments anyway) We stumbled upon a parade. I was raised Southern Baptist and Church of Christ. Not too far away from where they handle snakes to show their faith in Mr. Jesus. All of those people who talk in tongues and handle snakes are just amateurs when it comes to religious faith, celebration, and devotion when you start comparing them to the Italian Catholics. When a bunch of sailors will hop in a boat in the middle of the night and go steal the bones of a dead Saint, then build a cathedral and celebration around it, letting everyone know that they have the bones and you don't, that there is devotion.



What I stumbled upon was a parade celebrating St Nicola, the Patron Saint of the Sea. The same guy that the Santa Claus legend is based upon. It was the night before the traditional boat procession that takes the statue of St Nicoli out through the harbor. It was a parade complete with priests on stilts beating drums, A ship of some type on wheels that symbolizes a ship of some type without wheels. Renaissance Street dancers, fifer's, children dressed up in medieval costumes chasing grownups also dressed up, penitent's pulling a huge wagon of yellow roses that were being passed out to the crowd. There were Nun's, Priests, families, and everything else. This was a big deal.

Venders lined both sides of the parade route. The city and parade routes were packed. I wish I spoke Italian so I could have learned what the hell was going on. I bought something that looked like a goat testicle sandwich from one of the vendors. I don't know if there was some kind of special significance between goat testicle sandwiches and St Nicoli, I hope not. I noticed that there were a lot of vendors selling a large variety of nuts, which I believe, does have some type of historical significance.

If I get to come back to Bari, I plan on visiting all the monuments, cathedrals, and other memorials and learning more about the history of the place and all the famous dead guys. I spent most of my visit here trying not to get run over, eating, and just walking around looking at stuff. The architecture here is amazing. If you ever get the chance to go to Italy, do it. You'll love it. The people are friendly, the country is beautiful, and the food is good. Just be very careful crossing the street or driving. I love this place and I love these Italian-Italians. They aren't nearly as annoying as the Italian-Americans that we have back home. :)

Keep in touch, just don't touch me there.
Jeff Wall