Cap’n's Cabaret #33: Blue Notes and Black Shirts
Dieselpunks.org | July 8, 2012
Benvenuti al cabaret, my friends, and welcome to the new Old Italy! And seriously, folks, we are not in Kansas anymore! We’ve gone back over the rainbow and into a land of black and white where the Great and Powerful Oz seems to have swapped places with the Wicked Witch of the West.
“Orders are nobody can see the Great Duce! Not nobody, not nohow!”
Needless to say this new Italian order is more than a little bizarre ever since a group of black shirted hooligans rallied around a balding ex-Marxist school teacher. This “Fascism” seems rather full of itself with the pomp and ceremony, but to be blunt it all comes across as a new coat of paint on the same old crumbling building. Sure, Italian aviators may be stealing the spotlight, but from ground level I can tell you that the trains are still late and the bribes need to be paid to the same thugs, only this time in fancier uniforms. It seems to me to need a Brain, a Heart, and maybe a little less Courage.
But politics aside, we’re here today in the name of International Relations as cultural ambassadors for America (that’s all, really. No, seriously, this is totally not in any way a front for anything clandestine, honest! The tiny little camera’s just a toy for my nephew!). My agent, Mr. Siegel, refused to come citing prior difficulties between this regime and his business partner Mr. Luciano, so I’m here with a nice if hard-drinking English fellow named Ian Flemming. Ian has introduced us to one of the Duce’s own sons, a nice handsome fellow named Romano Mussolini, who is quite the afficionado of American music and quite a talented pianist himself. He, in turn, has introduced us to the local talent and tonight’s main performer, the incomparable Gorni Kramer, who has managed against all reason or expectation to make an accordion swing!
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