Just Say No to Family Values (S) (2006)

Beat poet John Giorno is passionately reciting his poem 'Just Say NO To Family Values'. With great determination he is trying to persuade the listener to enjoy life to the full of its potential, and not to be satisfied with anything less. However, his words are wasted on the frail little woman who is absent-mindedly watching this gesticulating poet, this stranger. She is sitting in front of her shabby dwelling, with the fly curtain sometimes flying up in the wind. In his fashionable clothe, Giorno sticks out like a sore thumb against this decor of simplicity. The woman and the small rural hamlet of Tursi precisely represent all those standards and values which, according to Giorno, we should throw out with the garbage. The region of Basilicata, where Tursi lies, is where his roots are: the origins of this Italian-American poet who, in the 1960s, was part of the New York underground scene and played the lead in Andy Warhol's 'Sleep' (1963), rubbing shoulders with the likes of William S. Burroughs. John Giorno made it his mission to bring poetry among the people in the spirit of mass production.