Simone K

“On a picnic with my new friend”

Eresia

Have you ever wondered when and how Sanremo become synonymous with chaos, gayness and scandalous behaviour? Trick question it's always been this way, italians invented being unhinged and unbearable 24/7, so it's only natural that italian artists would live up to this reputation.

So enjoy my top 10 favorite sanremo moments, listed in chronological order and not in order of chaoticness, cause chaos is unrankable:

1. 1961 - Adriano Celentano was criticized not because of his sexy moves, but because he turned his back to the audience for like one second while singing 24.000 baci, ugh the disrespect (also look at that stage, peak Sanremo).

2. 1978 - Just Anna Oxa debuting on the Sanremo stage at 16 years old. Iconic look. Iconic song. Talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, showstopping, spectacular, etc. etc. If you get it you get, if you don't you don't.

3. 1983 - Vasco Rossi leaves the stage before finishing his song Vita Spericolata, revealing to everyone that the singers weren't singing live, but just lipsyncing. Because of this, he arrived second-to-last in the competition but this song later became one of the most popular of his whole career.

4. 1986 - Loredana Bertè sings Re and dances on the stage while wearing a leather Versace minidress and being fake pregnant. Absolutely iconic behavior which was criticized cause as we all know pregnant women are not allowed to dance and be themselves.

5. 1999 - Queer legend Anna Oxa came back and won Sanremo with Senza Pietà AND with her whole pussy out.

6. 2009 - Known homophobe and antivaxxer Povia goes on the Sanremo stage singing Luca era gay, an homophobic song about a man who used to be gay, but now he's with her. I had to include this one for the quota democristiana, I will, however, spare you the trauma of having to look at his face, so enjoy this screenshot which I obviously choose for completely unrelated reasons.

7. 2010 - Heir apparent of the Italian monarchy Emanuele Filiberto di Savoia shows up at Sanremo with Italia amore mio, a song about his love for Italy, the country his family was exiled from after they abandoned it in the hands of fascism. Honestly, we should have borrowed that guillotine from the French cause this is what you get when you leave your former royal family alive. If I hadn't personally witnessed this, I wouldn't have believed it. He was such a shitty singer that he had to get two actual singers to sing for with him.

8. 2010 - The Sanremo orchestra (which votes on who they think had the best musical arrangement) openly and loudly protested against the public vote by throwing their music sheets in the air and ripping them. And honestly they were doing god's work, cause the public vote overturned theirs, which led to the exclusion of singer Malika Ayane from the podium, and allowed the disgreced prince and his two subjects to place second, yes second (2nd) in the competition.

9. 2019 - Singer Ultimo places second and promptly launches into a tirade against the jury and the journalists whose votes eventually led to Mahmood's victory. He claims that he should have won cause the public vote was heavily skewed in his favor (true) and that it's not fair that a handful of people (industry experts, mind you) have the power to overturn the situation like this. Anyone who watches eurovison should be intimately familiar with this type of drama, but what makes this funny for me personally is the irony of his name literally meaning "Last". Here you can see him in his light blue suit graciously accepting defeat.

10. 2020 - Bugogate.

Spider-Man 3 (2007) dir. Sam Raimi

I did a drawing for a Danish edition of Dune published by A Mock Book

https://bctgm.org/2021/10/08/5-ways-to-support-the-kelloggstrike/

Kellogg’s is so big that “don’t buy their products” is virtually impossible, not to mention not possible for many individuals and families who can’t afford anything else. Not to mention that it is not a strategy the union is asking you to use.

That’s right- the union and the strikers are NOT asking for a boycott.

(If demand for products keeps going at its usual rate, but there is no one creating a supply, that creates building pressure on the Company to actually be forced to listen to the union in order to be able to meet the demand.)

According to the link above, here are the union’s ACTUAL requests:

Sign their petition.

Join a picket line or drop off food/supplies at one.

Send a solidarity letter.

Donate to a Strike Fund.

Help spread the word on social media.

Notice how “don’t buy Kellogg’s products” is NOWHERE on this list.

The link above does include things like a link to the petition, lists of picket lines in need of support, address lists to send support letters, and links to Strike Funds that need help.

The boilerplate “don’t buy their stuff” doesn’t help anyone, and doesn’t help the union or the strikers. In fact, it’s sometimes the opposite- if enough people go around claiming that the strikers want a boycott, the company can use that at the negotiating table to say that the strikers are in “bad faith”, and refuse to talk, or worse, try to use it to fire them.

Whenever there is a strike, find out what that PARTICULAR union wants as help. Now, it might actually be a boycott. But the union & the strikers will tell you that. I know this goes against popular preconceived notions about “what a strike is” and “how a strike works”, but in most cases, it will NOT be a boycott.

And in this case of the Kellogg’s strike, it is definitely not.

Keep buying the products. It’s putting pressure on Kellogg’s that a solution needs to be found.

Donate to Strike Funds, write letters of support, drop off food at picket lines. Make posts on social media about how reprehensible you think it is that the company would rather hire scabs than listen to their employees and treat them with dignity.

The best way to support any strike is to listen to what the strikers want you to do, and then do that.

Obligatory plug for the IWW union, “Industrial Workers of the World”, iww.org

You do not have to be an industrial worker to join it, or even employed at all. If you have a union to join, go for it! Or check out this one too. Unions are a great power- if they weren’t, companies and corporations wouldn’t be fighting against them tooth and nail.

DO NOT BUY KELLOGGS CEREAL.

In Brazil, they own the Parati group-- apparently a food conglomerate.

They're also half stake holders in a Singaporean company('s food subsidiary) Multipro, and has stake in Tolaram Africa.