GASPERINI’S FAKE TEARS

We agreed to meet at Zazà Ramen around 8 pm.

Mateo said to me: Julija, I like your face.

I asked: Why?

Because I see flowers and clouds in your face and mountain rivers. That is what he said. For me that sounded so poetic.

Then he asked me: Do you have a husband?

I said: I did, until recently.

Mateo asked: What happened?

I said: I kicked him out of my heart.

Mateo asked: Why?

Because he wasn’t regularly paying his rent in my heart. There is plenty of space in my heart, just to be clear. But if you don’t pay your rent for more than three months, I evict you. That is what I said.

then Mateo asked: And what is the price of the rent to stay in your heart?

I said: It’s the most expensive thing in the world.

Then someone at the table mentioned football.

I said that I love football because it is simultaneously the stupidest game in the world and the most meditative one.

Because football allows everyone to be completely present in the moment.

There is only one thing that exists: the ball.

There is no woman, no job, no children, no house, no problems.

There is only the ball.

That, to me, is the ultimate meditation – the purest state of the Power of Now.

Everyone is completely present, completely absorbed in the present moment.

That is why I think football is important.

I said that I love Gasperini.

Jean Luca asked me why.

I said: Because when he loses, he genuinely cries in front of the cameras.

Jean Luca said: No. Those are fake tears. Gasperini’s fake tears.

And then we started arguing about whether Gasperini’s tears are real or fake.

At some point, I decided to turn the argument into a conceptual artwork and leave it to Brendan Becht, the owner of Zaza, as a legacy in his restaurant, since Brendan is an art collector anyway.

I asked the waiter for two Coca-Colas.

They didn’t normally serve Coca-Cola at Zaza Ramen, but somehow the waiter managed to find two for me.

I took two napkins.

On one Coca-Cola bottle, I wrote:

GASPERINI’S FAKE TEARS (ZERO ZUCCHERO TEARS)

On the other:

GASPERINI’S REAL TEARS (ORICINAL TEARS)

And on the napkins I wrote:

I LOVE GASPERINI

and

I HATE GASPERINI

Let the audience decide:

What is fake?
 What is real? What is original? What is zero zucchero tears?

One thing is certain: for me, Gasperini’s tears are real, original.