One talks about music, politics, social sciences, philosophy: Vinny. Rarely have I had the chance to interact with such a vivacious mind, such sharp analysis, a generous intelligence. Hours fly by under the icy sun of this South Shore of the Lake Michigan. At 3:00 pm, I did not know him, at 5:00 I know we have been friends for a long time.

He has the face that I like, the only one that really counts in my eyes: that of the rebel. Everything he says, the thoughts he formulates, to his breath, is inhabited, is formed in this zone of revolt. This is also the zone in which he grew up: those South districts of Chicago where construction and steel workers were violently hit by more than a hundred thousand job losses. He saw a world collapse, a social tissue rotten, entrance in the post-industrial era in this world economic heart of the Midwest. For him like for many of his buddies, the future will be linked with the military, and the war. And the Great Wake that war is going to operate in him. I have known the Vinny of this Wake. But to live, he had to go through an intimate encounter with death, like his beautiful "Deadly Days" depicts it.