Groups
The Tom Constanten Chronicles, Part 6: “Don’t You Have Anything to Say for Yourself?”
Step back in time as Tom Constanten narrates a series of personal chronicles. Listen to firsthand accounts of life with Pigpen, musical breakthroughs, and unforgettable moments from the heart of the 60s music scene.
It was 1962. I’d just arrived in Milano, just starting to know my way around. I was 18 years old, and I was craving a cheeseburger.
Happily, I found one! But, like the pizza I experienced years later in Osaka, it wasn’t quite the same.
It was at a place called “Biffi.” Cute name, and somehow appropriate. It was located at the Galleria del Corso, or Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele, near the end of the side towards Piazza Duomo. It was tiny, although bigger than what we now call a “slider.” The elegant presentation suggested that they’d never seen one in its natural habitat. Good, though.
Still, my faves in the neighborhood were a pizza place which had a gold-standard pizza, and the Motta across the street from Teatro alla Scala. Motta was a chain… if you could imagine a cross between Starbucks and Baskin-Robbins, with a lot of quality (and a wonderful bakery) added to make up the difference.
At the other end of the Galleria from Piazza Duomo was Piazza Scala, home of the famous opera house. Near the entrance to Piazza Scala was a bookstand where I found Olympia Press books: Henry Miller, William Seward Burroughs, and the like. Henry Miller’s Tropics showed a Paris that resonated with “my” Milano. I found so many pithy quotes there that they found their way into letters I wrote to Bill Walker and Phil Lesh—so many that Phil once wrote back asking, “Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?”
The Galleria was in the shape of a cross, like a cathedral (perhaps a nod to the imposing structure next door), and off to the side, just past the “transept” entrance, was the G. Ricordi store. Another reason I was there often. I still have some of the sheet music I bought there. They sold LPs too, but alas, all the ones I got there are long since gone from my possession.
There was more shopping in the Galleria itself. Mondadori had a bookstore, and there were all those high-fashion boutiques that were so far over my head as to be invisible to me.
My other go-to pizza place was closer to where I lived, near Via Buonarotti. They served slices, and one slice was as big as a whole pizza at the place downtown. A whole pizza would’ve been the size of a wagon wheel. I learned to watch out for the anchovies.
