Franchi infatti e’ nel giusto quando dice che nell’attuale schieramento politico la Destra e’ rappresentata dal trinomio Fini-Bossi-Berlusconi. Ha solo dimenticato un “abusivamente” che ora mi permetto di aggiungere io. Credo di poterlo fare perché uomo di destra mi sono sempre professato, anche nei momenti in cui l’etichetta – confusa più o meno in malafede con quella di fascista – era piuttosto scomoda da portare. Ma proprio perché veterano della Destra con tanto di nastrini sul petto, mi arrogo il diritto di denunziare la contraffazione del marchio.

Nulla e’ più incompatibile con l’Italia di Destra – tutta cifre, fatti, sobrietà e rigore – di quella fasullamente apollinea, supervitaminizzata, candeggiata, cotonata e tutta “en rose” che il cavalier Berlusconi ci ammannisce, in vista dei soliti “immancabili destini”, nelle sue flautate omelie in technicolor. E nulla e’ più’ lontano dal linguaggio e dallo stile della Destra di quelli da taverna e da bordello di Bossi coi suoi “celodurismi” e le altre delikatessen graffite sulle mutande in vendita – come abbiamo letto – al congresso della Lega di Bologna.

Anche a costo di essere frainteso, debbo dire che, dei tre, il meno incompatibile col galateo di Destra – che poi e’ il galateo tout court – e’, nonostante le sue ascendenze, Fini, nel cui retaggio ci sono molte cose per noi inaccettabili, ma non la sguaiatezza e la volgarità. Qualcuno mi accuserà di dare troppa importanza alle forme. Ma qui sta l’eterno equivoco della Destra italiana e l’origine dei suoi storici errori.

Quando, alla vigilia della marcia su Roma, Mussolini ne diede annuncio a Napoli, ad ascoltare benevolmente il suo linguaggio intimidatorio (che tuttavia rispettava la sintassi meglio di quello di Bossi e non concedeva nulla al flauto di Berlusconi) c’era, in un palco del San Carlo, Benedetto Croce. De Ruggiero (o forse Omodeo), che gli sedeva accanto, gli chiese: “Ma non vi sembra un forsennato ciarlatano?”. “I politici debbono fare i forsennati e i ciarlatani” rispose filosoficamente il filosofo battendo le mani. Non fu il solo a cadere nell’inganno della finta finzione. Vi cedettero molti altri uomini della Destra più ortodossa, fra cui anche il “nostro” (parlo da vecchio corrierista) Luigi Albertini. Perché come certe dame raffinate e austere sono attratte dal bruto, così’ la Destra spesso lo e’ dal demagogo piazzaiolo e stivalato; e, credendo di assumerlo al proprio servizio, se lo ritrova padrone.

La Storia dovrebbe averci vaccinato contro questo errore, in cui non sarebbe mai caduto un Cavour, ne’ mai cadde Giolitti. Ed invece sembra ripetersi con sconsolante monotonia. Franchi ha ragione: i quattro quinti degli italiani che non vogliono – come non voglio io – la Sinistra, correranno ad arruolarsi sotto le bandiere di Fini, Bossi e Berlusconi, convinti che siano la Destra, e senza troppo badare a ciò che dicono, purché lo dicano urlando e condito con la solita salsa di retorica mammista (Berlusconi) e di turpiloquio da taverna (Bossi).

Io credo di poter parlare, nel mio piccolo, a nome dell’altro quinto, quello di coloro che Prezzolini buonanima chiamava gli “a poti”, che in greco vuol dire “quelli che non bevono”. Non e’ una scelta ideologica: anche perché, a dire il vero, cosa voglia questa Destra apocrifa e chiacchierona non l’ho capito. I suoi corifei parlano di Lavoro, Famiglia, Risparmio, Giustizia, Efficienza: tutto in maiuscolo, e come se qualcuno potesse volere il contrario.

So, to help us to accelerate the process of learning how to handle bad times, we decide to invent a new game. We call it: Bad Times. The purpose of Bad Times is to cause bad times for everyone. The more the better, and the worse the better.

We’d want our game to unleash waves of agony and anger, again and again, on every player. We would call our game a success if it caused depression, oppression, beguilement, defilement. Bad Times would follow us around and cause us grief, by souring our relationships, our disposition, and our grapes. We would design and refine our game to be seductive, and addictive, in multiple ways, so that it snares snag many, many times.

Our game would not be like chess. At chess, whoever plays the best wins. Where’s the agony in that? Our game must be viciously unjust: the better you play, the more exquisite will be your torture. To that end, we will employ a significant randomising agent. Something like randomly selected pieces of paper with markings on them would work. We would attenuate the luck factor so that it causes the maximum amount of confusion, and delusion, and bad times, and very bad times.

Our game must not be like football or any other game that has teams. A team forms a supportive network that makes losing easier. We’ll have none of that in our game. Not only will nobody and I mean nobody share your pain, they will probably enjoy it.

Mountain climbing is painful, but Bad Times would not be anything like mountain climbing. A mountain climber is so busy at not freezing to death and not falling to death that his pain doesn’t really get a chance to cook properly. Our game would have gaps in the action, plenty of time for steaming, and simmering, and stewing, and boiling, plenty of time to allow the thinking mind to wander off and injure itself, so that we can practice healing it.

Let’s see. What else. Oh, I know. Proximity. We’ll sit in a circle, as close as we can get without touching. That way the bad vibes of Bad Times can spread easily and quickly, spraying fertile spores of conflict. And let’s have comfortable chairs that stick to people who are stuck. And we’ll have dealers, ghastly beasts possessing wizardly powers, able to raise the frequency and pungency of the bad times.

What would be at stake? What could we put on the line that would pour on the pain? What could we lose that would amplify the anguish? Pride? Of course there would be that, but loss of pride is not nearly severe enough to do the damage we’re after here. Plus, everyone doesn’t have it, so everyone can’t lose it. We need something that is universally valuable. Something everyone has, and wants more of.

We decide that in our new game, the loser will pay, not only in pride, but also in cash. Money buys time, and food, and choices. Money is time, and food, and choices. Money equals food. Food equals life. Broke equals death. In our society, wagering money is as close as we can get to betting our lives. With so much at stake, our game is sure to cause desperation, and treachery, and man, this is truly a nasty game we are inventing here. Do you think we’ll be able to get anybody to play it?

E’ verosimile una tale ricostruzione? C’e’ stata davvero una trattativa Stato-mafia mediata da Ciancimino senior? Siamo, senza alcuna ombra di dubbio, di fronte all’ennesimo mistero italiano?

It served quite well as a monitor riser for my LCD screen.

My friend and I needed a book to add weight for a tofu press.

Pages 200 to 225 made wonderful firestarters when covered in paraffin wax.

One night, we took the cover and walked around the downtown Seattle area hiding our faces behind it and saying “Wooo, wolf eyes, scawwy wolf eyes”, while three people behind us kept asking people “Have you seen the walruses?” in Scooby-Doo voices.

One night we drank too much and began reading the worst prose we could find in voices like Darth Vader and Mickey Mouse over a microphone to loud techno music. People apparently loved this prose more than Lynne Cheney’s book on lesbian sexual relationships.

The cat ate pages 123 to 127 when we ran out of catgrass for him to chew.

The door below sometimes slams shut when coming in and out of the apartment, so rather than going out to buy a doorstop, we use the book!

Every so often you can pick a random phrase out of it that makes you howl with laughter.

Handing it to someone who’s taken more than six hits of acid in their lifetime and asking them whether it’s accurate in the description is highly amusing – especially when you get their faces to screw up like you’ve just asked them to kill the baby Jesus with a rusty spork.

It is an excellent candidate for book frisbee on a sunny afternoon in the park.

I take it with me when camping in the case that I run out of toilet paper.

Gosh, I’m sure I could find more excellent uses for this most entertaining book. If paper cuts were something desired, I’m sure you could add that as a bonus, since the cheap paper on the books provides HUNDREDS of those to the reader.

However, you might not want to expose your cortex to the language. It puts me in mind of the Douglas Adams characters, the Vogons, whose poetry is only the third worst in the galaxy. That, in of itself, is a distinction.

Like the movie Showgirls, this book is so jaw-droppingly bad that it’s an entertaining read just to see how badly a book COULD be written. It’s not just a gigantic cliche, it’s a cliched parody of every 1960s novel or poem written by every poet or writer seeking truth within the American experience.