the (dark) era of Miele in via Roma

There are two things! Either the world is very rude towards me or, even though I still feel like a little boy, time passes inexorably.

Apart from the “sir” that is addressed to me in the shops and which hurts like a heartbeat, I find myself inflicting emotional wounds on myself with my mental ruminations.

I happen to make certain considerations, only thought of or referred to friends or relatives, about today’s youth and immediately afterwards I imagine myself with the flannel jacket, the cane and the cap in front of a construction site giving explanations to the workers on what they must or they don’t have to do.

In any case, I find myself saying things like, “but who hates music and listens to it?” or, observing a group of kids, “but who’s going to pick you up?”, but the worst is “but whatever the fuck you saw it?”.

This last phrase, in particular, I often heard repeated to me by parents and relatives and once I expressed it to my better half, she herself reminded me of the past, “why, were you better at their age?”.

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These are the sentences that hit you in the chest, passing you from side to side, leaving you in a state of stupidity and realization of the reality of the facts, especially considering the fact that, being a teacher, she sees a lot of this stuff. I have to admit I wasn’t any better.

I too had an earring and an eyebrow piercing, once I even colored my hair blue and listened to strong music, that of dead people (quoting a famous film) which was simply considered instrumental vucciria by those who were older.

On this last point I must give the honor of arms to my uncle Robertowho gave me free access to his large vinyl library and his HI-FI system with “I’m silent with a turbo at 3 am that makes the windows shake” level speakers.

Ultimately so yes, I wasn’t much different at their age. And then the “usual things”, we went to worry the “fimminiedde” and bully the masculiddi in the high schools, we sang irreverent songs to the police who came to clear out the school during the occupation, those mean people were just doing their work, and yes he added for different ideologies of thought with other schools.

In short, to all intents and purposes times of youthful stupidity, orminal storms and adolescent turmoil in which bullshit – thought, said and done – a funnacu was enough for us to contain them.

They believed they had the world in their hands and could smash it like the horns of the Babbaluci that split the Balatewithout understanding that the world didn’t want to be completely broken and that in the end it would be the one to break us.

Aside from nostalgia, from those times I also remember the fashions that came from the continent, which roughly divided us into two categories, the tisckitoski and the scafazzati, which in the Milan to drink they were identified as sandwich makers and metalheads.

In between was a varied undergrowth of in-betweens. While the former had a sort of uniform made of Timberland or Alpinestars on their feet, Levi’s jeans, Moncler down jacket, Barbour or Slam jacket, the latter, to which I belonged, seemed like runaways who dressed mostly in things that found at the Lattarini.

In my memory I still have a film from those years, “Italian fast food”, in which the actor Enzo Braschi, leader of the “paninari”, organized a sort of incursion that ended in timpulate for him, in a place frequented only by metalheads .

The good thing is that I never made my parents spend too much money on clothing, I repudiated signatures and the only significant expenses were those made for some music-themed t-shirts or sweatshirts or themed patches and accessories.

Back when Amazon was still an embryonic spark in Bezos’ head, the store of choice, for us have fun (or “alternative” if you prefer) in Palermo it was “Miele”, whose real name was actually Black Honeyin via Roma.

It was easy to distinguish it from other shops, in fact its windows showed accessories and clothes with particularly refined tastes. I still remember well the managers, Mr. Enzo who seemed to be u patruni and then Katia and Provvy (I hope I remember correctly), who welcomed you inside with Metallica, Led Zeppellin or Sepoltura playing in the background, while “those” outside played Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet.

At Miele I bought my first biker wallet with chain, used until my university days, when it turned to dust in my hands due to wear, and then t-shirts and patches to put on the backpack I used for school.

Miele was also “responsible” for my first one “fake” piercing. From them I bought a hoop earring that could be put on the ear with a slight pressure, even if the slightest sudden movement was enough for it to fly off, which convinced me to make a real hole, with the help of a friend of mine who used highly professional tools such as ice and a sewing needle, making me bleed in the true sense of the word and causing a hematoma that looked like Dumbo.

Mindful of this, I got the eyebrow piercing done at a tattoo studio and everything went well.

The atmosphere definitely Dark-gothic it made Miele more than just a shop, it was a point of reference, a meeting place where you could hang out with people who dressed and thought like you, to talk about alternative musical genres, like the equally famous “Ellepi” shop.

It was at Miele that I met those who were my comrades in arms from “Gastric Lavanda”, a small musical group of which I was the guitar, set up in cumegghiè.

Even if we weren’t really there new rising star of the Italian musical panorama, Miele allowed us to display the poster, made at the time with markers on a sheet of paper and then photocopied.

In that period, Via Roma was full of shops and in great excitement, and like the families who came by bus from the villages to redo their wardrobe or buy their trousseau, at Miele you could find other “alternatives” from out of town who went there specifically for their purchases.

The last time I set foot in “Miele” was in 2019, when signs were already hanging in the window announcing its imminent closure. Another piece of the historical memory of Palermo and of my adolescence that was going away.