These days Lucio Nisi, an entrepreneur who arrived in Milan as a young man from italian region Puglia, has passed away at the age of 71. He had opened a fruit and vegetable shop but then started running PLASTIC-O, a place that became a cult in the 1980s.
In those years Milano was “DA BERE” (Milan to drink!) and was the center of the World. And re-invented fashion, music, advertising and artistic trends. In 1985, Milanese advertisers created the Claim and the TV Spot which in that time became the symbol of the city and its energy. << … Milano, the city of the liquor Amaro Ramazzotti. Milano that is reborn every morning, pulsating like a heart, positive, optimistic, efficient. The city of the Amaro Ramazzotti that was born here 170 years ago and that still today brings everywhere this Milan to live, to dream, to enjoy: this Milano to drink! >>
PLASTIC O was the center of Milano’s Movida, the place where to be there meant to exist and to be part of that artistic elite that drove the city, who for real and who with his personal dreams or nightmares dreamed of becoming part of the famous ones. The resourcefulness and intuition of a brilliant entrepreneur who was not born in the city but who had become its child, like so many others, in a city that has always welcomed all those who wanted to invent a different life for themselves and for people , which had made their own the verses of the song “Heroes” by David Bowie that he had composed in front of the Berlin Wall and that resonated for many years until his fall on November 9, 1989 and beyond.
“We can be Heroes, just for one day” said the song and represented the desire for redemption and change of a generation symbolically all in front of a wall that divided in two the city of Berlin, considered the concrete symbol of the so-called “Iron Curtain” , the imaginary border line between western European zones, militarily controlled by NATO and by the Soviet forces of the Warsaw Pact during the four decades of the so-called “Cold War“. A wall symbol of the division of the world and consciences.
“We can be Heroes” also resonated on the nights of PLASTIC O, and was part of the soundtrack of Milanese nights with their beauty, their temptations, their contradictions. From PLASTIC-O have passed Madonna, Andy Warhol one of the most famous pop artists in the world and Queen Band’s Freddie Mercury, Sting, Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, Grace Jones, Boy George, Keith Haring, stylists, guys looking for luck and success, the first drag queens: and Lucio Nisi always there, to welcome everyone.
Years have passed since then and things have passed too.
‘All things must pass’ told the english band’s Beatles song. Nothing lasts forever. Its Lyrics was taken from the Bible, Matthew 24:6-8 (King James Version): And ye shall hear of rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.
And no one can never write the end and stop the immortal spirit of humanity, music and art itself.
We have been heroes once, but we can be it again, and again, and again …
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