From comedians to bums: the great purge of the Zelig

At the beginning, at the end of the eighties, the Zelig was crap, I speak as a stage and venue in itself. As soon as you entered there was a scary smell of wine. I think it was partly due to both Giancarlo Bozzo and his cronies Gino Vignali, Michele Mozzati and Nico Colonna. They drank everything from Fernet to blueberry schnapps distilled in the courtyard in front of the club. A shame. Who could have imagined that that pigsty (respectfully speaking) would become a show business holding company. Needless to list the artists who from Zelig have become movie stars. A name: Silvio Orlando. I think many don’t know it, but he started out as a stand-up comedian in Viale Monza. I even snatched his wallet in the dressing room. Not happy, I put the blame on a young Nigerian waiter who unfortunately, even though he was a communist, was unjustly fired. At that point I was sorry and I said to the owners of the booth: “Friends! He’s innocent! It was I who snatched Silvio Orlando’s wallet!”. Owners of the shack: “That’s not true! Do this to save him, but even if he’s signed up for Lotta Continua, we have to leave him at home.” Me: “At this point you are not doing well, very well!”.

In those years I would have bet (the house) on the success of some artists. That’s better. I remember the Trio Reno of Bologna, they were too good. Instead… Pongo (Massimo Pongolini), great, former actor in Celentano’s films in the 1980s. I, seemed who knows what, instead… reduced to the lay state by the public (which is right). Let’s not do other names out of politeness. But yes, instead: Giorgio Melazzi, really good; Giorgio Ganzerli, very good; who, envy aside, you ask yourself, how do colleagues succeed (and here I won’t mention names) who you can now find thousands of on TikTok, and Melazzi and Ganzerli or Carlo and Simone, rather than Papù or Rhinoceros? mysteries! Like in football and everything else.

These days we learn that Zelig and its holding companies are going bankrupt, like 36 million in debt. Here too one wonders: how do you do it? Not even on purpose! Or did you do it on purpose? If so, you did right! As the brigand Gasparone said at the end of each evening: friends, I greet you, load up the copper (synonymous with loot in the mid-1800s) and whoever sees it, sees it. I go to Lake Como at Villa Carlotta to prune the birches, without permission from the Superintendency of Fine Arts. Which didn’t exist then. But there was another body that broke the same bales. A myth to dispel: while at the Zelig all those who mattered were communists, at the Derby they weren’t! Let alone the brigand Gasparone, for him Marx was an idiot.

As for the history of African cabaret, it has not yet been written. Also because yesterday they started making jerks in the clubs on the banks of the Zambezi. More modestly, we played morons on the banks of the Martesana, the most romantic and complete ship in Milan. La Martesana, kindly called the sewer of Milan. When they empty it, they also find the unsold jars of honey inside. The Zelig cabaret artists in the 1990s kept bee houses in the courtyard of the venue. The honey, called BELGIAN CONGO, was sold locally. But even at 1,500 km… In private, if one wanted it in Ankara, there was no problem sending it. Gino and Michele (the bosses) used to say: “We need to diversify our investments, so that if one sector fails, we can stand up to the other”.

The business of selling honey and pollen quickly went bankrupt. With seals of the health authority. There were no permits to sell food. It goes without saying that an entire warehouse of honey pots (Millefiori) was thrown into the ship. Both Martesana and the Darsena. This is for one simple reason. If they pulled the 150 pallets of jars of honey all into the Martesana, a lock would form. The canal water no longer flowed and the entire Gorla-Turro district was flooded. Something that never happened even in Leonardo’s time, who made more plumbing messes in Milan than Bertoldo. So, one night, Gianni Fantoni and I loaded two thirds of the unsold honey stocks into a van (with an Arab license plate). We are talking about tens of quintals. The spill took place without problems in viale Gorizia. Precisely in the Darsena, the port of Milan. Many who saw it applauded us. Fantoni as a gentleman: “It is not the case! We are not in the theatre”. But people went on to clap and ask us for an encore. At that point, in order not to offend, a fair number of chairs and tables from the Municipality were thrown into the Darsena. (I still don’t understand today what they were doing there; I think for a conference the next day).

But we were talking about the African cabaret that never took off. Zelig, in its golden years, had opened several branches throughout Italy. With workshops to learn how to be an idiot. Through Third Worldist Gabriele Salvatores, a cabaret branch was opened in Rabat. However, both the difficulties faced by aspiring comedians in crossing Chad, the hippos charging across the road, and other problems connected with the African SIAE, cabaret never really took off. Indeed, it has regressed. He had a tradition. These left-wing pundits arrived, with the presumption of having read Pennac… They ruined what little good there was in African humour. It goes without saying that Daniel Pennac is not funny.

In 1999 that half-imbecile Woody Allen came to Milan to play his clarinet. Informed that here in Italy they were making a lot of billions with the name of one of his works he asked: “Not to disrespect communism, but isn’t there a slice of cake for me? Also because if half the cake doesn’t arrive, I’ll sue you “. I don’t know if the threats brought about the result. I think there was a secret agreement. I remember the 2000-2001 season very well. On the bulletin board, where there was the monthly schedule, there was an “edict”. All the comedians not openly belonging to proletarian democracy were purged from the club. Indeed, vendors. Niki Vendola began to charm the communist billionaires with his speech (for its own sake). “Unwelcome in this place”, the names followed:
– The Papu (very good duo)
– Gianni Fantoni
– Rino-Ceronte (bravo from Parma)
– Charles and Simon
– Carlo Barcellesi (I)
– Marco del Conte (Novara)
– Diego Parassole (Alexandria of Egypt, at least that’s what he said, to me he was from Carpi)
Gabriele Cirilli.

The list is long and we publish it complete, there are 130 names, on the Il Foglio website. In practice, only artists who then gave half their compensation to the party were to go on the stage of the Zelig. (Clean hands was from years before, but rightly went on). Which, I speak for myself, but if Gino and Michele had told us: “Dude! It’s not so much what you earn here; but what (the Zelig) will take you to the level of cinema, television, publishing, theatre, etc. So if you give half of the wages to the party you work… Otherwise you go make bread. Here in viale Monza there is a baker who is looking for a boy…”. Here, if they had talked like this, I would have replied: “But friends, let’s not joke, I’ll give you 75 percent of the money you make me earn to the party”. Dear readers, who wouldn’t be willing to pay back 1.3 out of the 2 million euros they earn you? Then in black, which I mean it’s always nice to get them. You also find it easier to find a partner to share your life with. Unfortunately she didn’t go that way. Now I speak for myself and Gianni Fantoni: we are two tramps. No use hiding the truth. Gianni’s interview with Maestro Paolo Villaggio was prophetic. At one point, it is Villaggio who asks Fantoni: “Have you ever asked for charity?”.
Fanton: “No!”
Paolo Villaggio: “You will ask for it”.

As a great tragedian he had been right, currently Fantoni and I are begging at the station in Ferrara (in the morning). In the afternoon we move to Milano Rogoredo without buying the train ticket to go to Milan. That goes without saying. Indeed it is the inspector himself who, when we want to show the travel document, tells us: “It is not necessary! I know you have been discriminated against by the communist billionaires, I have permission from the FS management to let you travel for free on all RFI routes”.

Speaking of the great Fantozzi, in 1991 he had to conduct a comedy program on the 3 network. It was the era of Angelo Guglielmi… of Bruno Voglino, of Romano Frassa, of Chiambretti, of “Telefono giallo” and various lies. I remember it very well at the edge of the box in viale Monza. He auditioned young comedians. I was amazed that he didn’t watch the exhibition, having the artist one meter away. He watched the monitors filming him. At the foot of the stage. Maybe to see if it was good on TV… which then almost everyone was bad, having the face of an idiot (one, sorry to say, was me). The plan didn’t go through, also because Villaggio didn’t trust Gino and Michele and above all the then president of the province, who didn’t even know what we were doing. So there was no reason to be wary… The following year the project was resumed with Paolo Rossi as head comedian with the shameful program “Su la testa”. An insane project, bringing cabaret to the suburbs. That if the authors hadn’t been communists it was closed after an episode, for me, rightly so.

Proof? Dario Vergassola, one of the pillars of the historic Zelig, withdrew from the project. I also remember his beautiful words: “Paolo Rossi’s Rai 3 program is bad. Rather than participate, I stay at the arsenal of La Spezia to clean inside the submarines when they are stationary”.

Which meant; do not do nothing. Since Italy has no submarines, it had one: the Toti, but it’s in the museum of science and technology and my aunt from the porterage cooperative cleans it. Yesterday fired for stealing a Greek statuette, she went to complain to the CGIL today. They should agree with her, the Greek statues in Milan, the cleaning ladies inside the museum of technology have always stolen them. Why interrupt a healthy tradition?

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• Maurice Milani

• Born in Milan on May 20, 1961. Real name: Carlo Barcellesi. Graduated from eighth grade at Camera del Lavoro of Milan in 1985, evening course with limited number. After the military he works as a kitchen boy in a hotel. In 1987 he finished last in “Riso in Italy”, an important competition in Rome for young people. He appeals and wins. He has an eviction but does not recognize the sentence. He has been collaborating with Il Foglio since 1986 thanks to the director Giuliano Ferrara. He is engaged to Monica.