“To imagine is to remember,” Pablo Picasso once said, more or less, …
And Patrick Bosso has a good memory, he loves to remember, remembers well and most importantly, tells stories well, in his way, full of warmth, humor, and emotion.
1960s and 14: he is little Patrick from the thirteenth floor, … Billy Preston gives him energy (Nothing for nothing means no thing…!), the elevator is always broken, “I’ve known lazy people but never like this elevator!” complains his mother, his father who works hard at the Port is “the true hero of his childhood” (And in truth, I only had one dream, it was to be his…), and then there’s his majorette sister, the neighbors (Boulouboulou, Bellaoui, Fondeleau, Belkacem, Malikian, Philipou, Fong, Shang, Ping, Lecat, Fernandez, Cutolo,…), school (… we had school bags that each weighed eight tons!), Mr. De Rosario the teacher, “elite chalk thrower,” recitations (Captain Jonathan and his pelican…), his room shared with his sister (“… the nerves!”) where his nasty stereo blasted its “two by two watts,” his grandmother’s grenadine tear Virgin Mary, the little circus and its Chihuahua-lion, his Zorro outfit and his mother’s vacuum cleaner (which was called Tornado like Zorro’s horse…), his Bruce Lee/Nunchaku phase, the Velodrome Stadium,…
2000 and 7: He is at the Casino Barrière in Menton on July 20 for the greatest pleasure of the locals who have long adopted this Marseillais.
Excerpt from the show “Du bonheur”: The Grenadine Tears
Grenadine Tears
“….In my grandmother’s room, there were Jesus figures and Virgins everywhere, from floor to ceiling. When I lay on her bed, I felt like I was in the nativity scene. She even had a plaster Virgin that tall (he shows), with a button behind it, when you pressed it, the Virgin cried tears of blood… of course, it wasn’t real blood, there were these cartridge-like things you put inside… I wonder where she bought that?…”.
Patrick (pressing the button):
– Grandma, do you still have a lot of refills?
Grandmother:
– Refills?!! I haven’t had any for ages… go ahead, press the button and taste the tears, go ahead, taste, don’t be afraid… so?
Patrick (astonished):
– It’s grenadine!!…
Grandmother:
– Yes, it’s grenadine…when I don’t have cartridges, it replaces them… you know, if we could also cry grenadine tears, it would soften our sorrows a little…
Patrick (playing interesting):
– What would be good is if one eye cried grenadine and the other water…
Grandmother:
– In any case, don’t tell your sister about the grenadine, otherwise, she’ll drink all my tears….. So? Do you know your recitation now?….”
Patrick Bosso at the Casino Barrière in Menton
2 Avenue Felix Faure – 06500 Menton
Tel: 06 63 81 36 66
