Nine Inch Nails, Korn, the peeps from Roadrunner Italy and the "Unfuckables"...

I feel I suffer from that "same shit, different continent" syndrome. After leaving New York on Wednesday and landing in Milan on Thursday, there was no escaping the jet-lag shit. I didnt sleep for 34 hours and by the time I hit the pillow on Thursday night, I was wasted. On Friday eve, I got ready to make my way to the venue - Idroscalo - to see bands like Mars Volta, Korn and Nine Inch Nails, amongst others. They graced the stage on a day that was, at best, wet and humid. One of my favourite American bands of the last ten years, Killswitch Engage were also supposed to be performing but cancelled at the last minute for personal reasons. Shame. I was looking forward to drooling over Howard Jones' vocal performance once again. "Vocal performance".

Earlier in the day, I bumped into the mum of an old school friend of mine. I was on my way to this shopping centre in my home town with my own mother (and her favourite past time is "hanging out in this conglomeration of shops" - who would have thought I'd have turned out the offspring of a mall rat?). So, my mate's mum stopped us for a chat and after enduring the latest on Laura's very mundane life, I asked how her son was doing. I used to have a massive crush on Laura's brother when I was 12. He was 15 at the time and he must have looked at me like I were one of his younger sister's useless friends. He was so damn witty and full of life and made me giggle hard (a combination that would prove to be the key to get me into bed in my adult years). "He is still single," Laura's mum began. "He is very active and boisterous and I think he just needs to find the right girl...one that could keep up with his high level of energy and can take the fact that he is out every night doing something..." Good god, I think I know someone that might just keep up with him. "For your reference, m'am," I offered, "I'll be in Milan for one month..."

Back at the gig at Idroscalo, I met up with Barbara Francone, the lovely lady in charge of the smooth running of the Italian office of the most influential metal label out there - Roadrunner Records. Her henchmen, Elena and Michele were also present and they were all having a ton of fun. Barbara informed me that KSE had cancelled at the last minute and though I got taken over by the urge of throwing a tree at the stage as Korn performed, I settled to watch the show. They sounded tight as fuck and for the first time in years, I noticed that the main guys all looked trim. So much for the music, eh. As Korn terminated their set, Barbara and I caught up on the goss (the last time we saw each other was at the last Gods of Metal...Bologna, 2008). Tales of retarded men were ripe during the 30min changeover and the word "inchiavabile" surfaced more than once. Inchiavabile means "unfuckable" and it comes down to one thing: fucking loser. We were surrounded. This guy walked past me and whispered "Hey big tits..." That's a fucking loser right there. Mainly cos there is no charm in being literal. It's as if when a train arrives at a station, everybody screams "Train!" and points at it. We can see what it is, you wankers. Thing about being an "inchiavabile" is that nobody is exempt. When I went five months without sex in 2008, Barbara, quite rightly, labelled me an "inchiavabile". She then had some tshirts printed and a new army was born. You can join the "Inchiavabili" on both Myspace and Facebook. And for a nominal fee, you can order one of their tshirts. I got one myself that I do wear with pride from time to time.

In the meantime, I got to meet some other cool peeps, including a guy from Rock Hard mag (forgot his name but remember the chat about what kind of women men really want to marry *coughs*) and Braz, the geezer from the booking agency that is in charge of the marketing for the company's metal gigs. He also works on the Gods of Metal festival and we'd been communicating through Facebook for a whole year. So, about time we met in person for longer than one minute...cool guy. Made things go smooth both days for me, blesssssssssssss...

The guy who writes for Rock Hard in Italy is a friend of Barbara and he'd recently got married. He, Barbara and I chatted about the wonders of getting hitched though it was more of a monologue from his part. He seemed to believe that guys would fuck whoever but would only marry someone old-fashioned who would look after them and their children. Ahem. I am pretty sure I have been avoiding such men. With good reason. Though ultimately, it's horses for courses, surely.

Back to the show. It started to drizzle as we were out there waiting for Nine Inch Nails to come on. Lights out. The 5000 strong crowd screamed and action man Trent Reznor appeared. Wriggling around the stage like a man half his age, Reznor reminded us all that this would be his band's last tour for a while. The set was heavily electronic and not until the encore that he made one of my dreams come true. He performed "The Hand That Feeds". I finally got to shake my booty and imagined all sorts of bad things I'd do to Chewbacca next time I got my hands on him. Right after that, Trent got our juices going with an old classic - "Head Like A Hole". Shocking. It was 11:30pm by the time I left the venue and I knew I'd missed the bus back to Milan but seeing such an intense performance by one of my favourite artists of the last 20 years made the €45 ride back to my mum's place worth every cent.

The day after, it was family time which involved scaring the shit out of my grandma. Only cos nobody had told her I was in town and I laughed so loud when she opened the door that she nearly did a Michael Jackson. She made an amazing meal but since I dont eat meat (prepared quail), cheese, eggs or ham, I settled on lettuce and tomatoes. I thanked her for the food and company before I left but she thought I was being sarcastic.

I was supposed to go out on Saturday with the old Star Wars gang but as it suddenly started to rain, all my Jedi mates took a rain cheque. They might have trained to serve The Force for years but faced with thunder and lightning, they're a bunch of pussies. I'm an obvious hardass Jedi, however. What's the last time I had to use The Force? Everytime I resist the advances of the (still married) man of my dreams, for example. That's when you realise that "Jedi" actually translates to "goody-two-shoes". Yawn. I wish I were a badass bitch that didnt give a shit about his marital status, would just fuck him and leave him for dead but no...

Anyway, went to bed early to get ready for Gods of Metal the day after...

Miss Peeeeeeeeeeee