No Voglio

There is a kiddie-ride here in Sestri that I think is the bane of most parents’ existence; it is called il Bruco Gnam.  If that means something, I don’t know the translation, but the ride is familiar to anyone who has been to carnivals – it’s a child version of a roller coaster, with only three little hills and usually the cars are decorated to be some kind of animal; I’ve seen dragons most of the time, but here it’s a caterpillar.   Very route, but the kids here go crazy for the ride because of an addition I’d never seen before – there is a small lion with a detachable tail hanging above them that this guy who runs the ride pulls up and down while the kids try and get it.  It’s rigged—he tries to be very democratic about which child wins—but if the children know it, they don’t care because their main goal in life at that point is to catch the coda and win a free ride. 

It’s not the ride that interests me so much, but the guy who runs it.  This isn’t like a carnival where employees hired by the bigger company run the ride – no, I’m almost positive this guy, who my employers lovingly call Signor Bruco, owns the ride and this is his living.

Signor Bruco looks to be in his mid-fifties and he sits in the small controller box all day long chain-smoking, with sunglasses on no matter what time of day it is.  He is the man who controls the fate of the children and whether or not they will be able to win this time around.  As I stated above, Signor Bruco is very fair so no complaints there, but while he’s pulling the rope that controls the lion, he always adds comments.  The comments themselves are relatively harmless, “occhio” (look), “prendilo” (grab it), “sedute” (sit down, for all those children about to kill themselves trying to get the coda), are his favorites.  It’s just the way Signor Bruco says these things that weirds me out a bit.  You’d think the delivery would be along the same lines of carnival workers—like the really annoying moms at U8 soccer games—but no, Signor Bruco’s diction is like that of Barry White.  I doubt he has much control over his deep voice, but “occhio” doesn’t have to be pronounced as if he’s about to sex up his girlfriend.  Prendilo is the worst of the bunch, not only because he draws it out the longest (PRENdiiiilooooooo), but because I know what he’s saying.

Perhaps I am just over-sensitive, or my American prudishness is coming out.  That may be, but I have more reasons to be strangely fascinated by Signor Bruco, and that is the music that is playing at his ride.  Rather, the diversity of music.  One of the first times I noticed the music at the ride, the album Slow Train Coming by Bob Dylan was blazing out of the speakers.  Delighted as I was, I couldn’t help thinking huh, strange choice for a kiddie ride.  Still, I shrugged it off and figured that if I was stuck doing this all day every day, I would play whatever I wanted too.

And play whatever he wants he does.  I now wish I had been keeping a more thorough list along the way, but the strangest ones have stuck with me.  I have heard techno, Snoop D-O-double G, Maroon 5, some jazz that I’m pretty sure was Miles Davis, and, I shit you not, KC and the Sunshine Band’s Greatest Hits. 

I can only formulate questions.  What?  How does one person like all of these genres enough to listen to them for entire days?  And how does a middle-aged Italian man even know of Snoop Dogg, let alone play the music at a kiddie-ride?

 

I’m afraid my question will go unanswered.  I’m too nervous to strike up a conversation, for fear of him saying to me, “PRENdiloooooo”.