Saturday, July 28, 2012

Mime Story

While my girlfriend and I were traveling through Italy last month, we spent some time in Bologna.  We were in Bologna, in fact, during the European football championship match.  (I don't keep up with football, so I don't know what this championship is actually called.)  The game was about to start, and the streets were full of shitheads waving the Italian flag and yelling assorted nonsense.  Later that evening, some of these shitheads would assault a mime, an act that would directly lead to the downfall of their nation in the championship game.

Bologna was nice.  Before we arrived, we had read that one of the oldest universities in the world was located there.  We looked for it.  When we found it, we saw that it was covered in graffiti.  Too bad I left my camera at the hotel room that day.

Anyhoo, during the evenings, the city was showing films in the evening in the biggest palazzo in town.  Hundreds of people showed up to drink wine and watch until midnight or so.  The first film we watched was "Lawrence of Arabia."  It was really fucking long though, and we didn't see it from the beginning, so we made sure to return the next night to check out some short films by Charlie Chaplin.

The Chaplin night was fantastic.  The town had assembled an *orchestra* to play their *own original music* while we all watched some Chaplin shorts.  Just amazing.  It was easily one of the highlights of our trip through Italy.

In any case, in the same palazzo where the Chaplin film aired, we saw a mime on one of the afternoons there.  The mime was standing on top of a box.  Next to him, he had another smaller box that was full of thin strips of paper that were rolled up and affixed with little bows.  Apparently, the people who tipped the mime would get some wise saying or something like that.  Seemed like a cool idea.  Doubtless, this mime had a better strategy than those fuckers who hang out in hallways begging their asses off.

If you're going to beg, put on a show.  At least, give the people the feeling that you're willing to do something for the cash you're asking for.  This mime understood this basic concept.

Needless to say, I like mimes.  I shouldn't, but I do.  So when I saw this mime from a distance, I instantly started heading in his direction.

But something was wrong.  He wasn't doing normal mime shit.  He actually seemed to be fighting with some passersby.  As I approached, I confirmed that he was.  Actually, confirmation came with the mime punching a passerby--likely one of the fucktard youths who had assembled in the palazzo to cheer on asshole Italy against Spain--in the face.

I thought, That mime is punching that dude in the face.  I had to get closer.

Turned out that the mime had been fucked with by the fucktard and a couple of his friends.  Their average age was probably 19; their mental age was probably 7.  The mime looked to be 60.  In a nutshell: kids mess with mime; kids rip mime's outfit; mime goes gangster on their asses by repeatedly nailing one of the kids in the fucking face.

In the end, the oldster mime grabbed one of the kids by his collar and started yanking him toward a cop car, repeatedly shouting, "Polizia!  Polizia!"

It was at that moment that my girlfriend and I decided that Italy had to lose the championship match.  Not only that, they had to get fucking destroyed.  So we headed back to the hotel room to watch Italy's complete annihilation.  Nothing creates fans of Any Country Except Italy more than a visit to Italy.

5-0.

That's what you get for fucking with a mime, bitches.  You're lucky I'm not pissed about it anymore, or I would've shut your asses out of the Olympics too.

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