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So, yes, Tito was a little absolute monarch. A little king. And then one day he checked out. I will remember the moment when I saw his funeral on TV by a complete state of shock I was in. I was five. I remember watching the endless procession and the people in that same procession crying inconsolably. I don't remember if our EI-Niš TV was a color TV set. There is a great possibility that my parents had not yet purchased a color TV.
In any case, the little king lay in his grave in the so-called House of Flowers, and people, not only from SFRY but also from other parts of the world, such as Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India, came to the funeral.
To return to the state of shock. It shocked me that adults could cry like little children. Keyword, little children. It was my first encounter with the fact that it didn`t mean if you are a grown-up that you are protected from the sorrows and evils of the world. At the time I thought only children cry.
I asked my mother, "Mom, why are all these people crying, what happened," but all she would say was, "Shut up." It was the end of the world if you happened to utter a logical question regarding Tito.
This "shut up" meant that if she allowed me to ask a question such as whose funeral it was or who that man was in the first place, such a question would be the reason for our immediate imprisonment. This reminds me. My father`s mother used to say " walls have ears". By the way, that was the first time I ever heard of Tito, and later learned about him at school, when he had been pushing the daisies for at least three years.
What an irrational fear my mother had, and not only my mother. It was a fear shared by everyone. In any case, I do not condemn that fear, because sometimes a person cannot distinguish whether his fear is real or irrational when he lives in a paranoid but not so paranoid regime after all. Now it seems to me that these "pseudo-communists" went more for self-censorship and behavioural self-regulation. That`s at least how it seems to me now.
So, at the time when I was over 5 years old, for example in 1983, they were still showing jazz concerts on TV. That's how I remember one of the Miles Davis` concerts and don't know why but was frightened by the way he looked when he played. I think I know the answer now. Probably his playing, with his cheeks puffed with air, seemed bizarre and frightening to me. I have no other explanation.
Many people today think that Tito`s regime had much influence on the pop culture of that time.
I think that opinion is wrong. Obviously, there were particular regime people whose job was to stir the ship in the right direction, so to speak, regarding the pop culture, what was to be listened to, read, watched on TV, at the cinema. There were regime musicians, that`s for sure. But my overall impression is that the general music scene was richer than today. Only the truly talented people had their place under the sun, with a small number of wannabes but people generally recognized them as impostors.
I am not sure to what extent Tito was a fan of jazz, and to be honest, he didn't really look or sound like a highly educated person. That is why I think it is wrong to link the cultural milieu of that time to such a man, regardless of the fact that there were rumours he played the piano. I doubt very much that he could play by the notes. But let’s assume he was educated enough and played the piano, and maybe he also played jazz (but beats me how because he wasn`t doing great at school and was a locksmith by profession).
FADE IN
We see Tito sitting at the piano in a bar, in 1920-ish,with a cigar between his teeth, nonchalantly going over the keyboard with his chubby fingers, without any sheet music, while in the background, among the tobacco smoke, a black man is playing a solo section on a saxophone. Tito wakes up the next day and realizes that his playing jazz was just a nightmare.
Unfortunately, the dream repeats itself the following night, and the night after that.
In any case, the little king lay in his grave in the so-called House of Flowers, and people, not only from SFRY but also from other parts of the world, such as Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India, came to the funeral.
To return to the state of shock. It shocked me that adults could cry like little children. Keyword, little children. It was my first encounter with the fact that it didn`t mean if you are a grown-up that you are protected from the sorrows and evils of the world. At the time I thought only children cry.
I asked my mother, "Mom, why are all these people crying, what happened," but all she would say was, "Shut up." It was the end of the world if you happened to utter a logical question regarding Tito.
This "shut up" meant that if she allowed me to ask a question such as whose funeral it was or who that man was in the first place, such a question would be the reason for our immediate imprisonment. This reminds me. My father`s mother used to say " walls have ears". By the way, that was the first time I ever heard of Tito, and later learned about him at school, when he had been pushing the daisies for at least three years.
What an irrational fear my mother had, and not only my mother. It was a fear shared by everyone. In any case, I do not condemn that fear, because sometimes a person cannot distinguish whether his fear is real or irrational when he lives in a paranoid but not so paranoid regime after all. Now it seems to me that these "pseudo-communists" went more for self-censorship and behavioural self-regulation. That`s at least how it seems to me now.
So, at the time when I was over 5 years old, for example in 1983, they were still showing jazz concerts on TV. That's how I remember one of the Miles Davis` concerts and don't know why but was frightened by the way he looked when he played. I think I know the answer now. Probably his playing, with his cheeks puffed with air, seemed bizarre and frightening to me. I have no other explanation.
Many people today think that Tito`s regime had much influence on the pop culture of that time.
I think that opinion is wrong. Obviously, there were particular regime people whose job was to stir the ship in the right direction, so to speak, regarding the pop culture, what was to be listened to, read, watched on TV, at the cinema. There were regime musicians, that`s for sure. But my overall impression is that the general music scene was richer than today. Only the truly talented people had their place under the sun, with a small number of wannabes but people generally recognized them as impostors.
I am not sure to what extent Tito was a fan of jazz, and to be honest, he didn't really look or sound like a highly educated person. That is why I think it is wrong to link the cultural milieu of that time to such a man, regardless of the fact that there were rumours he played the piano. I doubt very much that he could play by the notes. But let’s assume he was educated enough and played the piano, and maybe he also played jazz (but beats me how because he wasn`t doing great at school and was a locksmith by profession).
Now we are entering a retro-type science fiction zone like the Stories from the Loop, by Simon Stolenberg. We are going back to the seventies. Tito and his wife are getting ready for sleep. Lights are turned off.
FADE OUT
......................FADE IN
We see Tito sitting at the piano in a bar, in 1920-ish,with a cigar between his teeth, nonchalantly going over the keyboard with his chubby fingers, without any sheet music, while in the background, among the tobacco smoke, a black man is playing a solo section on a saxophone. Tito wakes up the next day and realizes that his playing jazz was just a nightmare.
Unfortunately, the dream repeats itself the following night, and the night after that.
THE END
Comments
I enjoyed this one--how you expand on the memory and bring in Tito, whom Americans tended to call "Marshal Tito." Incidentally, there is a new documentary on Miles Davis. It's pretty good.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment. We also called him Marshall. No clue why. I was a kid back then. Born 1975. Still don't know why he was called that way.
DeleteI didn't know about the documentary. I will have to check it out soon. Can you please share the link?