Boatworld, Venetian Events

Enough craziness to give everybody a second helping

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There’s a saying here — perhaps in all of Italy, perhaps in the whole world — that the mother of the ignorant is always pregnant. I’d expand that to include the mentally infirm, the ethically deficient, and a smattering of Venetian rowing racers, the race judges, the spectators, and anybody else who is evidently suffering from hormone overload in any situation more emotional than drinking coffee.

I pause to note that, once again, this post has no photographs due to multiple crises inside my computer, which is being taken to the hospital today for a major operation.  So there will be a lapse in communication while it — and I — recuperate.

Back to racers and judges and spectators.

The Regata Storica of a week ago (September 2, 2012) will be remembered more for the catastrophe which I am about to describe than for the fact that the Vignottini won and their lifelong rivals (D’Este and Tezzat) finished — not second — but THIRD.  You hear the sound of a page being turned in the annals of Venetian rowing, because even if D’Este and company were to win the next five races in a row, the chink in the armor is now too obvious to ignore.  He also looked extremely and uncharacteristically blown apart by the race.

But as I say, that isn’t what everybody is babbling about.  They’re babbling about the way the judge’s motorboat ran into the yellow gondolino, which was third, thereby knocking it out of the race.  Because Fate sometimes shows a dangerously unruly sense of humor, it couldn’t have happened somewhere up in the distant reaches of the Grand Canal where only three cats are around to notice the race, if they’re awake.  Of course not.  This hideous, and, I think, unprecedented, little crash occurred right in front of the reviewing stand at the finish line, where assorted race officials and scores of invited guests and lots of the salt of the earth in their own boats could see it PERFECTLY. Also the national television station whose cameras were broadcasting the event live.

Like most systems, the way the judges’ boats are choreographed is perfect, but only if the plan is executed.  In this case, one judge’s boat follows the peloton up to a certain point in the Grand Canal (the “volta de canal,” at the curve of Ca’ Foscari where the bleachers and judges and finish line are all together). At that point, in order that the judge’s motorboat doesn’t have to cross the canal and thereby potentially get in the way of the boats as they are racing upstream, the first judge’s motorboat stops, and a second one, waiting on the other side of the canal out of harm’s way, picks up the task of following the herd.

But this time the first boat didn’t pull over to the side and stop, to hand off the race to the next boat. It paused, and then, without looking (or thinking, or something), the judge aboard told the driver to do something which clearly involved gunning the motor.  I was in a boat right where this happened, so I am a certified eyewitness.

Whether the judge wanted to follow the race, or reposition the boat in some way, isn’t clear.  But doing anything at that moment, in that location, was not only wrong, it was crazy.  Because the yellow (“canarin”) gondolino, steaming ahead at full speed in an excellent third position, was right behind the propellers when they spun. In two nano-seconds, the left hind hip of the motorboat swerved left, hit the ferro of the prow of the gondolino, threw the very narrow and moving-very-fast boat off balance, and sent it hurtling off-course into the scrum of boats tied up to the pilings.

You might think that the only crazy person in this scenario would be the judge on the boat who told the driver to move instead of standing perfectly still.  And you’d be right.

Except that almost immediately, other crazy people began to wail and vociferate.  Wild ideas began to be thrown around in bars and in the newspaper (and even, I think, among the judges), almost all of which came down to suggesting that the crew on canarin be awarded the third-place pennant in a tie with the pair that actually did finish third.

The Vignottini even offered to pay the prize money to the unfortunate ex-third-place boat.

The issue still doesn’t seem to be settled, but here is how I see it:

First, I don’t understand why anyone thinks it makes sense to give a prize to someone who didn’t win it.  A consolation prize would be nice, of course (a house in the mountains, maybe, or a six-month cruise to Polynesia), but a prize for racing pretty much requires that you race.  If the crash had occurred three yards before the finish line, you might be able to make a case for their deserving some sort of pennant and/or money.  But there was still plenty of race ahead.  Who’s to say that they would have finished third? They might have come in first. Or even last.

Second, a racer with any degree of self-respect (possibly a very small category, true) wouldn’t want either a pennant or money that he hadn’t won himself. Why degrade them with stupid offers that are only moderately able to make the onlookers feel slightly better?  Not to mention make the guilty judge feel slightly less bad.

Third, I’m glad I mentioned the judge.  Because while the rowing world is in the throes of what seems to be a hormonal solar flare, no one so far has turned from the victims to the perpetrator.

Why, I ask myself, and am now asking the world at large, is everyone so fixated on making the victims feel better without pausing to suggest, much less demand, that the judge deserves a serious punishment?  Can you think of a sport in which a referee or a judge who directly and visibly damages an athlete in the midst of the game doesn’t receive even the tiniest murmured reproof?

It gets crazier.  Because last year, at the race at Burano, there was a crash between the first two boats at the buoy where the racecourse turns back, knocking both of them out of commission.  The judge overseeing that crucial part of the race was so rattled that he stopped the race right there.  The prizes were awarded according to the positions of the boats at the buoy, even though there was at least half again as much race still to go.

Yes: That was the same judge.

I began this post with a saying, so in closing I invoke a special Venetian aphorism: “Un’ xe bon, ma do xe coglion.”  (OON zeh bone, ma doh zeh cole-YONE.) The literal translation makes no sense, but here’s what it means: Screw up once, you can be excused; screw up twice, and you’re an asshole.

If anyone but me manages to reach this conclusion, I’ll let you know. But it’s not looking very likely.

 

 

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Boatworld, Venetian Events

Papal visit finale: The Gondoliers

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The results of the two elections held among the gondoliers have come in and now the pope can sleep easier knowing who exactly is going to be rowing him from one shore to the other next Sunday. (One of them won’t be Charon.  I presume.)

One can hope that the pope's voyage across the Grand Canal won't bear any resemblance to this little jaunt. ("Charon Carries Souls Across the River Styx," by Alexander Litovchenko.)

And the winners are: Franco and Bruno Dei Rossi, nicknamed “Strigheta” (not much of a surprise there, they were at the head of the pack several days ago), and one each of the two famous battling pairs of racers: From the “Vignottini,” Igor Vignotto; from the other, Giampaolo D’Este.

Comments in the Gazzettino on this outcome were as sardonic as they were swift:

“This is splendid news.  In the end, love always triumphs.”

“Since when have gondoliers all become basibanchi (these are those obsessively pious people who are always in church)?  Is this the miracle we’ve been waiting for from Giovanni Paolo II?” (who was beatified yesterday, first step on the road to official sainthood).

“Given the well-known diplomatic refinement among these four, it makes one wonder …  if they can manage not to swear at each other for ten minutes.  It wouldn’t be so bad even if it were to happen. Venice couldn’t present itself worse than what it is, even if it wanted to.”

So everyone has finally calmed down?  I know one person who hasn’t: Lino. He is all of the following: Astonished, infuriated, and offended, genuine, incandescent emotions far removed from the Lilliputian self-serving quibbling that has distinguished this whole affair.

Why is Lino so angry?  Because of all the people mooted for the Papal Row, he regards Igor Vignotto as the last — actually, far behind the last — gondolier who deserves this honor.

Yes, we remember in the end that rowing the pope is, in fact, an honor, and not just another gig.  I realize that “honor” is a word that rarely — well, never — seems to find a seat on the bus of normal conversation regarding gondoliers, but a papal visit is a noteworthy exception and the men who row him ought to have consciences which have been washed at least on the “delicate” cycle.

Igor and Giampaolo have two things in common.  One is that they  both row in the bow of the gondolino, which means that they, at least technically, can’t be considered guilty of all the skulduggery which has led to the current bitterness because they aren’t the ones responsible for steering the boat.  All they’re doing up there in the front is rowing their brains out.

Their other link, unfortunately, is that they both were banished from racing for the entire 2008 season because of their respective crimes in 2007.

In the case of Giampaolo, he was found guilty of having threatened a race judge with serious bodily harm, his way of asserting his innocence regarding an infraction during a race for which the judge had punished him.  The infraction is one thing, but stating in the hearing of many people that he would be prepared to settle the score by attacking the judge physically is, as they say here, “another pair of sleeves.” Also, there’s a rule against it.

Giampaolo D'Este.

I note that he only said he wanted to do it, he didn’t actually hurt anybody. This is a good thing, because while privacy laws make it difficult to discover his exact height and weight (I could probably do it eventually, but time is short), I can say that he appears to correspond to the stature of a two-year-old grizzly.  One of his nicknames is “The Giant.”  But rules are rules, even for midgets, and we can’t have racers going around volunteering to bash the judges.

But Igor’s case was worse, because what he did not only offended the rules and the judges, but all the other racers — those present as well as the hundreds stretching back into history — and the entire world of racing and, in a sense, the city of Venice itself.

It happened at the end of the culminating race of the Regata Storica three years ago (September 2007), in what then was a notorious altercation but which now seems to have been totally forgotten (which also adds to Lino’s indignation),

It’s true that the race had been unusually fierce, even by the standards of the searing rivalry pitting him and his cousin against the D’Este-Tezzat pair, and it’s true that the finish was so close that the judges had to check the video to determine the winner. But when Igor heard that they had given him second place, he kind of lost his mind.

Igor Vignotto exultant after passing D'Este to win the race at Murano in 2009, the year they both returned from exile.

Not only did he engage in a volcanic exchange with the mayor, Igor grabbed the prize pennants and threw them  into the Grand Canal.

Not just the two pennants destined for him and his cousin, but all eight pennants waiting to be awarded to the rowers of the first four boats to finish.

Of the many things which, in the view of various people, would have been much better thrown into the water (the “Boy with the Frog” being one of them), pennants have never, and should never, be treated in this manner. Set aside the fact that not all of them got fished out in time; or the fact that those that were fished out were essentially D.O.A., thanks to the salt water. It’s not even a question of whether the city made replacements.  It’s not even a question.  He shouldn’t have done it, and however good it may have made him feel at the moment, that’s how bad it made everybody else feel.

Not much is sacred to your average Venetian racer, but the prize pennant comes pretty close. Red for first place, white for second, green for third, blue for fourth. The remaining five teams just have to smile and look ahead to next time.

So when Lino heard that Igor was one of the Papal Rowers, it was Too Much, even in a city where things that are Too Much happen every day.

Bruno Dei Rossi "Strigheta," the only man ever to have won all the official races, rowing in the bow or the stern.

First a rower allows himself to essentially spit in the collective eye of the city, the race, the other racers, and history, and now he gets a reward?  Of all the people who could have been chosen, they chose a person who had committed an outrage that had never been committed by anyone, not even “Mad Dog” Sullivan.  And, strange to say, so far Lino is the only person who has expressed any opinion on this.

There’s a sprightly ditty in  the second act of “The Gondoliers,” by Gilbert and Sullivan.  It’s called “Here we are at the risk of our lives.”

Franco Dei Rossi "Strigheta." Oddly, for two such great racers, his seasons rowing with his brother were not their best.

 

I think it should be played in the background all day next Sunday.

 

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Boatworld, Venetian Events, Venetian History, Venetian-ness

Papal visit leads to gondolier smackdown

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Perhaps your local gazette hasn’t mentioned it yet, but Pope Benedict XVI is planning a big trip soon. He’ll be touring Northeast Italy, and will be in or around Venice on May 7 and 8.

"King Henri III of France visiting Venice in 1574, escorted by Doge Alvise Mocenigo and met by the Patriarch Giovanni Trevisan," by Andrea Micheli "Vicentino." This is the kind of welcome everyone had come to expect.

Venice has a long and prodigious history of state visits — King Henry III of France and Poland, in 1574, was one of the more famous guests, just one of a seemingly infinite procession of princes, ambassadors, potentates, emperors and, of course, popes coming to see the sights, visit the doge, and usually ask for some favor, like money or soldiers. Reading the list of deluxe visitors over the centuries gives the impression that the main business of Venice was hosting foreign notables, while other activities such as running an empire filled the random empty moments, kind of like a hobby.

Yet His Imminence has aroused not only joy and excitement among the faithful, but tension and recrimination and a series of increasingly regrettable remarks among the city’s gondoliers concerning who is going to get to row him the approximately five minutes it takes to row from San Marco to the church of the Salute, and in what boat. By a mystic coincidence, gondoliers are also known as pope (POH-peh), because they row on the stern (poppa) of the gondola. I have no idea what this might portend.

"The reception of Cardinal Cesar d'Estrees 1726," by Luca Carlevaris. Just all part of a normal day.

Don’t suppose that the battle to transport the pontiff is any particular evidence that gondoliers are so pious. A pious gondolier would be a distant cousin to a pious illegal-clam fisherman, or a pious doctor of a cycling champion.  I’m not saying it’s impossible, just kind of unusual. But they do like to be the center of attention and, in fact, they’re used to being regarded as some sort of star.  At least to the damsels they may be so fortunate as to row around the canals.

Popes aren’t supposed to cause dissension, they’re supposed to resolve it. But Benedict has unwittingly set off a sort of collective seizure.

Pope John Paul II being rowed in the city's balotina by four "re del remo" in 1985; high astern is the legendary Gigio "Strigheta."

First: Luciano Pelliccioli, vice-president of the gondola station heads (and a gondolier) offered to join Aldo Reato, president of the gondola station heads (and a gondolier) to row His Sanctity in Luciano’s extremely elaborate and glamorous gondola.

No!! The cry went up.  Why should those two men profit by their position and crowd out equally (I mean, more) deserving gondoliers?  Why, indeed?

Furthermore!! Champion racer Roberto Busetto, never at a loss for an opinion (he isn’t a gondolier, but that’s a detail), objected on the grounds that if Luciano should ever think of selling his gondola, he could easily make a huge profit by marketing it as the gondola that had carried the pope.  Busetto gets five bonus points for crassness, though that doesn’t mean he’s wrong.

Anyway, Luciano withdrew his offer of his gondola and himself.  Reato also withdrew, but the incessant calls have continued. There are 425 gondoliers and by now probably each of the remaining 423 has called him at least once.  Some of them have fantastic reasons to be chosen: “Padre Pio came to me in a dream and said you should pick me,” said one.  Another person suggested Giorgia Boscolo, the first woman gondolier.  That idea burnt up on reentry into reality.

Then somebody suggested the “Strigheta” brothers, Franco and Bruno, sons and heirs (and gondoliers) of one of the greatest racers/gondoliers of all time, Albino “Gigio” Dei Rossi, known as “Strigheta.” (He rowed not only one, but four popes in his day.) They’re loaded with credentials and nobody hates them, which helps.

Then somebody suggested a four-rower gondola, rowed by the current racing champions, the Vignottini and D’Este and Tezzat. I think the idea was that rowing the pope could somehow magically bring peace to these two savagely feuding pairs, though somebody else opined that it wasn’t appropriate to expect the Holy Father to resolve every little neighborhood squabble. In any case, the four men have declared their willingness to row the Pontifex Maximus together, which is already a big step forward.

Then somebody asked: Why should it be a gondola?  Excellent question, considering that the city of Venice owns a more capacious gondola-type boat called a balotina, on which Pope John Paul II was borne along the Grand Canal in 1985.

Then some daring person suggested using the “disdotona,” or 18-oar gondola, which belongs to the Querini rowing club, and which in my opinion is not only the most spectacular boat in the city, by far, but would provide 18 men the chance to Row for Holiness.

Naturally, this idea got nowhere, because nobody thought one club should be given preference over another.  We’ve all got great boats, the thinking goes — why them and not us?

Even when it's not doing anything, the "disdotona" is impressive. I think the pope would look splendid seated in the bow, what with the velvet drapery trailing in the water and all.

I’m surprised nobody has yet suggested using the “Serenissima,” the huge decorated bissona with a raised stern, making the pope easy to see plus providing space for his entourage and some trumpeters, if that seemed appropriate.  But so far no mention of this little coracle.

Which brought up the next question: Why should the rowers be gondoliers? Another useful point.  In the olden days, a visiting potentate — such as John Paul II — would be rowed by the necessary number of “re del remo,” men who had won the Regata Storica five years in succession.  There aren’t many of them, because it’s fiendishly hard to do.  That would instantly reduce the number of candidates to something manageable.

And by now there has been at least one practical joke.  Someone purporting to be Aldo Reato (president of the gondola station heads) called the Gazzettino and said the matter had been settled: Luciano’s fancy gondola was going to be used after all, rowed by Franco Girardello, a retired gondolier who goes by the nickname “Magna e dormi” (eat and sleep). This fantasy was quickly dispelled by all concerned except the anonymous prankster.

The "Serenissima" was born for this kind of event. Odd that so far nobody has suggested it.

The most recent bulletin is that the matter will be put to a secret vote among the gondoliers.  The mind rather reels.  Busetto thinks the papal gondola is going to cost the moon at resale?  How much is a gondolier’s vote going to be worth, at this point?  No checks, no credit cards.

Comments from bemused readers of the Gazzettino run from “The pope doesn’t care who rows him” to “What a farce” to”Actually, Padre Pio came to ME in a dream and said I should do it.”

A certain Riccardo made the following suggestion:

“Requirements for candidacy:

Never to have blasphemed; Never to have used foul language; Never to have spoken in a coarse tone of voice.  In the case of more than one valid candidate (doubtful), preference will be given to the one who has a good knowledge of the principles of Catholicism, and/or who has read at least one of the 16 chapters of the Gospel of St. Mark, patron saint of our city.”

This pastoral visit has been in the planning stages for at least three months — probably more — and yet here we are, at the last minute, dealing with the frenzied bleating of the flock.

Meaning no disrespect, I think it would have been better for everybody if they had given a crash course in rowing to a Rastafarian and a dervish. I can’t think of a gondolier who could possibly be cooler than that.

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Boatworld, Events, Venetian-ness, Water

Regata Storica, update du jour

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When last seen, Venetian rowing champions Giampaolo D’Este and his partner, Ivo Redolfi Tezzat, had delivered a document, at the start of the Regata di Burano on September 19, to the mayor and other appropriate officials.

The document protested their having been disqualified halfway through the Regata Storica for infractions of the regulations — including the ephemeral rules of “sportsmanship” — and called for the immediate removal of all the judges and the various committees who administer the realm of racing here.

Goodbye, cruel world. D'Este and Tezzat at Burano prepare to deliver their lightning bolt.
Goodbye, cruel world. D'Este and Tezzat at Burano prepare to deliver their lightning bolt.

According to the offended parties, and their frenzied fans, something has clearly become so rotten in the entire organization of the races that the only solution is to tear out all the weeds, along with whatever healthy plants (they see none)  may also happen to be in the garden, and start over. Presumably replanting  the entire garden (to continue the metaphor)  with people who are entirely, consistently, unassailably objective.  The theory seems to be that anyone answering to this description will be sure to uphold justice, fair play, honesty, rectitude, and to act in their favor.  If you know any such people, send their names along.

Their fans have also helped to keep the fire stoked under this cauldron of rage, and the latest contribution, by a so-far anonymous partisan, is the publication on YouTube of parts of some 11 minutes from the first half of the race on the  official video of the race, complete with the sound track of the judges’ voices and caustic play-by-play comments printed (in Italian) by someone who makes it clear he is part of the D’Este-Tezzat column.

This video is made from the first judges’ boat during the race, and considering that it’s the property of the city, those who made it are more than a little irritated that it is now out on the web even if technically city property is also public property.  In any case, things like this don’t help the general situation.

I do not contribute any comments on anything that was done or not done in the race.  I may already have written that I am not taking sides; I don’t care who won.  And yes, I am certainly on the side of  justice and fair play. I am merely trying to give as complete a picture of the situation as I can.

The latest developments from the turmoil following the aforementioned dramatic denunciation have been two-fold.

First: Not only have D’Este and Tezzat not received any redress for past judicial misdeeds, they now have been formally disqualified from the next two races (the Regata di Mestre and the Regata de la Sensa), which obviously are in next year’s season. Of the seven races open to men of their caliber, this leaves them only five.  This is a heavy sentence indeed; usually the Commission has to forbid only one race  to make its point.

Naturally this decision has only shown, yet again, the treachery and incompetence of the entire system in the eyes of the plaintiffs.  No more documents have been issued so far from the samizdat of the affronted duo.

The Commission has also disallowed the payment to them of the usual “indemnity for training”; in the Burano race it was 198.50 euros ($276.84). Admittedly it is a token sort of payment, a small addition to the equally modest purse allotted to each racer according to his order of finish.  But this payment is contingent on the rowers participating in the race, so giving them the indemnity would make no sense at all.

Second: Two of the six men comprising the Technical Commission have resigned.  For the record, they are Umberto Sichero and Osvaldo Zucchetta. If a third member, most likely a former champion named Bepi Fongher, follows suit (it is always unclear how his statements and actions are going to match up, though they often don’t come close to each other), the committee will terminate and the Comune will be able to start over (the Comune appoints four members, and the Racers’ Association chooses the other two). So losing half the committee would provide enough of an opening in what appears to be a severely bombarded and weakened wall of credibility and competence to allow some heretofore unfeasible innovations to enter the system.

What next? D’Este-Tezzat have announced that they are giving up racing. Only time will show whether they’re serious, or whether this is just another of those fervent vows racers tend to make under stress, like seamen in a typhoon.

One of many ex-votos promised by sailors in danger. Being saved is nice – fulfilling your vow to publicly thank the Virgin Mary for intervening for you is even nicer. (Museo Storico Navale)
One of many ex-votos promised by sailors in danger. Being saved is nice – fulfilling your vow to publicly thank the Virgin Mary for intervening for you is even nicer. (Museo Storico Navale)


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