10-VI-1962.
I remembered this when I heard Safet Isović's rendition of "Kafu mi, draga, ispeci", and how that song was popular at the time. Even Rocco Granata sang it. He learned enough Serbian to sing it, although it was "da zednem" instead of "da sednem", but that was actually cute.
And then, well, I better write about it. What's amazing is the location - it was the movie hall of kombinat's culture center and whatnot (which includes the Kantina - left side exit from the theatre leads through the yard where the tables were in the summer). This was probably the first time that I saw a foreigner and knew it. And learned the concept of a foreign language, live, by observation.
It was a full concert. I remember the audience reacted very well to "Marina", but "Kafu mi, draga, ispeci" was the real hit of the evening.
(Date is unknown, not even the month is certain. The Gugao doesn't know when Rocco Granata was doing a Yugoslav tour. I know the weather was fair and it was green outside - could have been june as well. I asked on burundi and someone's dad, from Šabac, puts this in 1960-61)
(nope, it's june 1962, googled it better with mandatory terms and found... a picture from Ilustrovana, as an attachment to a historical article of some Italian girl, with a date of 23-6-1962 on it, which means the event was several days before)
My folks often spent evenings in the Kantina, and in summer they'd take me too. It was interesting, and I wasn't the only kid there. We'd usually gather around the fountain in the middle, and stop with our fingers as many nozzles as we could, so the remaining nozzles would gain pressure and reach further. Sometimes one would overshoot to the other side.
The band was called jazz but didn't play jazz, they went for the popular music of the time - cha-cha-cha, tango, waltz, probably some mexicanian too, and the dance floor was full. The above photo I found in december of 2025 in a newspaper, and it was shot at one of the belgrade dance parties of then. It fits exactly with my memory of this - exactly those chairs (the only successful model then), those lights (which look rounded but actually were upended cones), the same concrete pavement below, those women's hairs, and the kid in the middle is actually me. As if. Except my cowlick was on the right side, contrary to the custom or fashion, which is why it was noticed. Or maybe it wasn't so much of a feature, it's just that I couldn't keep my hair straight if combed left to right, the right side would jut up. May be genetics, from what I heard dad, granddad, granddad's brother and čiča Rada all had it... while they had enough hair.
The fashion item which made many manage any way they can were the šimi shoes. Pointy. Even the cobblers managed somehow to find shorter blokejs, because the normal ones would have to be either ground off or nailed at an angle, not to protrude around the tip. A blokej was a thin steel plate, crescent shaped, which would be nailed into the sole at the front and rear tips, to make the sole last longer. The trouble was that the steel was also wearing off, so it would eventually hold on a single tack (šunigla, from Schuhenagel), hinge around it, and then the shoe tip effectively had a sharp blade attached. Some guys would get cut on that, it happened.
The šimi was quite uncomfortable, but for fashion one has to suffer some discomfort. The origin of the name is unclear, a shimmy is some ragtime dance and the excess wobbling of front wheels on a car. No connection there. I was lucky, at the time when it was my turn to need fancy footwear, these were already out of fashion.
Mentions: 24-XI-1996., burundi, Gugao, Kantina, kombinat, Radomir Sredljević (čiča Rada), in serbian
4-III-2020 - 5-VII-2026