Born December 17th, 1960 in Camogli, Genova, Liguria, a small town with a remarkable seafaring tradition, but living in the nearby Recco, renowned for some excellent gastronomic specialities and for an outstanding waterpolo team with an impressive palmarès (Pro Recco won 4 European Champions' Cups/Leagues, 3 Italian Cups and 21 Italian Championships vs the 6 won by RN Camogli in the 50s).
Two kilometres and a fierce rivalry (of course extended to the patronal feasts and related festivals ...) divide these little towns in Golfo Paradiso, the western gulf adjacent to the wonderful Portofino promontory.
Already interested in maths, science, geography and astronomy since the Primary School, in 1979 I reached the Maritime Captain degree at the "Cristoforo Colombo" in Camogli, the oldest Italian Nautical Institute, established in 1874.
Worked on ocean-going tankers for 7 years, then found a job opportunity ashore. Still dealing with tankers, but it's a quite different perspective (and a better living), from shore-side.
Apart from astronomy, reading and some sports (football and rugby, played once upon a time, now watched on TV ...), music is my passion: ever since I was a child, I started asking mom to buy me the "strange" records heard at the radio; then, grown enough, I stopped asking and I did it myself, exploring from the accessible to the excessively complicated or conceptual. As a consequence, my collection increased exponentially, ranging from The Beatles to La Monte Young.
As every music fan, I still love going to live gigs whenever possible, making friends among fans and musicians sharing common ground; as every music fan, I tried to start a group when I was 16, but the notorious "Rifiuti Solidi Urbani" (Solid Urban Rubbish, for non-Italian readers ...) were unable to play the same track twice (no "radical improvisation approach", I'm afraid: technical incapacity), and soon disbanded ...
Just nearby my workplace in Genova, there's an independent record shop named "Disco Club" ( www.discoclub65.it ), proudly fighting the majors' megastores: a lighthouse for demanding customers looking for their Holy Grails. Often, you can find me there, giving some helping hand to Giancarlo the Landlord, acting as Foreign Minister and debating with clients about what's better and what's best avoided, with erudite controversies and caustic reviews that became the trademark of the shop ...
