No, folks, I am not disgruntled about being here. Sorry if I was misleading. I love being here. By wondering what the fuck I'm doing here, I don't mean that in a desperate way, I mean it in a, "Why did I come to Italy? Why did I want so bad to leave the United States?" sorta way. You know? I meant it in more of a "What is the meaning of life?" sorta way, to be cliche about it. Though I really don't think my intentions or reasons for being here are even that dramatic.
In conclusion, I think I needed the culture shock. It reawakens one's senses. One experiences the world more vividly when poor and in a foreign country that makes no sense. There is a lot of frustration that necessarily comes with this, but it is well worth it. Routines are hypnotic. If you listen to the same song every day, you no longer hear the words or the hooks or the melodies. It ceases to have any effect. And that's how I felt about the United States. Needed a break. Sorry to have to post to clarify this. The blog was written late at night, when I was feeling cynical and sarcastic. Actually I thought it was funny. Not whiny. Not because I was feeling dejected and depressed. But because I wanted to share thoughts. Next time I'll try to be more chipper.
martedì 6 novembre 2007
lunedì 5 novembre 2007
Come si dice, "You smell like putrid death"?
Jim and Jordan-- the two Americans I waste most of my time with-- both work for the same tour company, which is having an exclusive dinner tonight only for people who work with them. That combined with my excessive drinking last night and resulting hangover today, has put me at home alone, with nothing to do but sit in my room and smell the toxic filth of two grown men who don't know how to take care of themselves. This sparked an idea for a blog. Read on.
My first roommate in college was a 6 foot 8 inch, 420 pound behemoth Floridian named Wookie. Before I moved in, I called his house in Florida to see what he was bringing, so that we didn't have two TV's, etc. His mom answered and told me he wasn't in, but that he would be bringing his own bed, since he was 6'8". The next time I called I talked to him on the phone. His voice was deep and he spoke slowly, with a slight drawl. For some reason I envisioned a tall, thin basketball player; I could almost see a 6'8" black haired, blue eyed kid wearing his jersey, casually cupping a basketball in his massive hand while he talked to me with the phone in his other hand. When I first arrived at Alumni Hall of Troy State University in South Alabama on an early August morning, I knocked on the door. I was never very good at meeting people. I think too much and have problems with small talk and generally don't want to have anything to do with most human beings, and so I was a little nervous at the prospect of having to share a room with a stranger. The door swung open and he ducked down under the door frame to step out in the hall. I was momentarily stunned. He filled the entire frame; the slivers of light spilling out from the room, around his massive frame, and into the dark hallway made him look even more frightening. He stuck out his hand and smiled. "I'm Wookie," he said in a slow, deep voice, like that of a retarded ogre.
We sat down in the room and made awkward conversation for a few minutes before he said, "Fuck this, do you smoke? Wanna go outside for a cigarette?" We were instant friends.
The semester passed relatively smoothly. My girlfriend at the time, Darbi (like Darby Crash, from The Germs) was about five feet tall in heels, and was maybe 95 pounds after a good meal. Wookie looked as though he could have devoured her in a few chumps. It would have taken her no less than 14 years to eat him. Wookie wore a shirt sometimes that stated the obvious, "I'm bigger than you," which I found particularly funny.
One thing about living with a beast of a man of his size was the smell. I don't believe Wookie could reach all of his body, and so bathing for him was something impossible. Scrunch an elephant into a dorm room shower stall and turn the water on, and you get an idea of the impossibility of hygiene maintenance. I'm pretty sure there were parts of his body that hadn't been washed since elementary school. There were folds and folds of skin, layers of fat, beneath which dead skin and filth had begun to cake onto his body (Wookie would crush my skull in a single blow if he knew I was writing this). The resulting smell at night, once all his cotton armor had been removed, was horrendous; something akin to the smell of the vagina of a crackhead's corpse after a few days of festering in a sewer. Slowly people stopped coming by our room, my girlfriend dumped me, my grades gradually plummeted (my final GPA for that semester was an impressive 0.38). I sorta blame Wookie's stench for all of this.
Let's jump from 2001 to 2007 (six years!). Jim hasn't done his laundry since he arrived here over 6 weeks ago, his toothbrush was dropped onto the filthy bathroom floor at our old place and he has been refusing to use that one anymore, or any toothbrush that the Italians sell (they only sell medium and hard bristle brushes), and he hasn't had a towel and hasn't bathed for 3 or 4 days. Our landlady (Jordan's girlfriend) came into our apartment to paint the walls or some shit while we were away earlier and, as Jordan recounted to us earlier, couldn't stay in the room. The smell of Jim could give the smell of a man appropriately named "Wookie" a run for it's money. That's frightening. Jim must have some amazing death odor powers. Maybe he's part sasquatch.
I'm seriously not one to judge another human being based off of their smell; anyone who's ever lived with me or spent a prolonged period of time in a vehicle with me understands that I too, believe it or not, can emit odors capable of choking an adult sloth. But this was getting unbearable. Fearing for our well being, the two of us took our laundry to the lavaggio. I only had a pair of jeans and t-shirt that needed to be washed, since I wear the same shit everyday and most of my other laundry I did at my old house, drying it outside (something else Jim refuses to do). After dropping off our clothes we went in search of a store where he could buy a towel or a toothbrush, preferably both. We walked down Tor Pignattara looking for a store. Both of us were exceptionally exhausted from moving and drinking, moving and drinking, so we must have looked like two lobotomized chimpanzees as we grunted directions at each other.
I'm realizing that this story isn't going anywhere. Sorry, folks. The end.
My first roommate in college was a 6 foot 8 inch, 420 pound behemoth Floridian named Wookie. Before I moved in, I called his house in Florida to see what he was bringing, so that we didn't have two TV's, etc. His mom answered and told me he wasn't in, but that he would be bringing his own bed, since he was 6'8". The next time I called I talked to him on the phone. His voice was deep and he spoke slowly, with a slight drawl. For some reason I envisioned a tall, thin basketball player; I could almost see a 6'8" black haired, blue eyed kid wearing his jersey, casually cupping a basketball in his massive hand while he talked to me with the phone in his other hand. When I first arrived at Alumni Hall of Troy State University in South Alabama on an early August morning, I knocked on the door. I was never very good at meeting people. I think too much and have problems with small talk and generally don't want to have anything to do with most human beings, and so I was a little nervous at the prospect of having to share a room with a stranger. The door swung open and he ducked down under the door frame to step out in the hall. I was momentarily stunned. He filled the entire frame; the slivers of light spilling out from the room, around his massive frame, and into the dark hallway made him look even more frightening. He stuck out his hand and smiled. "I'm Wookie," he said in a slow, deep voice, like that of a retarded ogre.
We sat down in the room and made awkward conversation for a few minutes before he said, "Fuck this, do you smoke? Wanna go outside for a cigarette?" We were instant friends.
The semester passed relatively smoothly. My girlfriend at the time, Darbi (like Darby Crash, from The Germs) was about five feet tall in heels, and was maybe 95 pounds after a good meal. Wookie looked as though he could have devoured her in a few chumps. It would have taken her no less than 14 years to eat him. Wookie wore a shirt sometimes that stated the obvious, "I'm bigger than you," which I found particularly funny.
One thing about living with a beast of a man of his size was the smell. I don't believe Wookie could reach all of his body, and so bathing for him was something impossible. Scrunch an elephant into a dorm room shower stall and turn the water on, and you get an idea of the impossibility of hygiene maintenance. I'm pretty sure there were parts of his body that hadn't been washed since elementary school. There were folds and folds of skin, layers of fat, beneath which dead skin and filth had begun to cake onto his body (Wookie would crush my skull in a single blow if he knew I was writing this). The resulting smell at night, once all his cotton armor had been removed, was horrendous; something akin to the smell of the vagina of a crackhead's corpse after a few days of festering in a sewer. Slowly people stopped coming by our room, my girlfriend dumped me, my grades gradually plummeted (my final GPA for that semester was an impressive 0.38). I sorta blame Wookie's stench for all of this.
Let's jump from 2001 to 2007 (six years!). Jim hasn't done his laundry since he arrived here over 6 weeks ago, his toothbrush was dropped onto the filthy bathroom floor at our old place and he has been refusing to use that one anymore, or any toothbrush that the Italians sell (they only sell medium and hard bristle brushes), and he hasn't had a towel and hasn't bathed for 3 or 4 days. Our landlady (Jordan's girlfriend) came into our apartment to paint the walls or some shit while we were away earlier and, as Jordan recounted to us earlier, couldn't stay in the room. The smell of Jim could give the smell of a man appropriately named "Wookie" a run for it's money. That's frightening. Jim must have some amazing death odor powers. Maybe he's part sasquatch.
I'm seriously not one to judge another human being based off of their smell; anyone who's ever lived with me or spent a prolonged period of time in a vehicle with me understands that I too, believe it or not, can emit odors capable of choking an adult sloth. But this was getting unbearable. Fearing for our well being, the two of us took our laundry to the lavaggio. I only had a pair of jeans and t-shirt that needed to be washed, since I wear the same shit everyday and most of my other laundry I did at my old house, drying it outside (something else Jim refuses to do). After dropping off our clothes we went in search of a store where he could buy a towel or a toothbrush, preferably both. We walked down Tor Pignattara looking for a store. Both of us were exceptionally exhausted from moving and drinking, moving and drinking, so we must have looked like two lobotomized chimpanzees as we grunted directions at each other.
I'm realizing that this story isn't going anywhere. Sorry, folks. The end.
Silly Catholics... Metal Mayhem
I gave a group tour today. This is a normal occurrence. I wake up, go to work get my list of tourists, meet them, ask where they are from and then tell them where they can get a cheap bottle of water. I encounter about 20 of these people a day. Single serving clients, they enter into and out of my brain as they tell me their names. Sometimes I can remember where they are from, when they have an affiliation with either Atlantic City or Philadelphia, or in rare instances when they are friends with Minor Threat members, or when the man on my tour is the author of a historical text called India after Gandhi, published by an imprint of Harper Collins, but these people are rare. Today I had two people on my tour that seemed just a little left of center. They both were wearing metal band t-shirts. Akin to the kind you would see for Napalm Death or Cannibal Corpse. Letters all hard to read, and scratchy. They were also wearing pentagram necklaces.
We get all the way to the Sistine Chapel without incident. Mind that I am not allowed to speak inside the chapel because it is considered a holy place. So my group goes in, and I tell them that I will meet them at the guided tour exit on the right hand side. Five people on my tour don't show up. I start freaking out inside. I never lost the headsets before, and five is a lot to lose. I really need to keep everyone on my tour, because I am being paid shit and lately the tourists have been stingy fucks when it comes to tipping. I don't want to be responsible for the headsets.
I search the Sistine Chapel frantically while the rest on my tour wait for me in front of the pope's private quarters. I am running around the chapel with a huge bottle of water over my head, repeating "We are meeting by the far right door." By speaking in the chapel I am risking my job, but I keep repeating myself. After fifteen minutes, I give up all hope on making enough money that going to work was even worth it. I continue on down an ugly hallway designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who no matter how good he was at sculpting definitely lacked in the architectural department. The steps are extra large, for transporting newly selected popes by donkey to great the people. How fucking elegant can these decrepit old men be. Today, the normal route is blocked by a rope, and we are escorted down the steps that are only supposed to be used by the pope and the Swiss guards. I try to emphasise how cool this is to my tourists, what a once in a lifetime experience this is, but I don't think they were listening to me after I lost five paying customers. We end up outside in Saint Peter's square, where I wait with eight people from England for the straggler in their group. He shows up after about a half an hour, making my pay per hour go down down down. Miraculously he arrives with the rest of the lost tourists. Two of the women on my tour from Canada, nothing too interesting about them except that the daughter is really attractive, and my heavy metal couple.
They inform me that upon entering the Sistine chapel they were approached by security and asked to remove their pentagram necklaces. They comply but then the man asks what he should do with his pentagram tattoo on his arm. He flashes it with pride to the guard, and they are subsequently escorted out of the museum complex. We get into a conversation about how silly the Catholic Church is because fill their churches with pagan art, but a pagan symbol on others is unheard of.
Needless to say I make minimal tips even though I worked an hour more than I was supposed to and all because St. Peter's was closed.
We get all the way to the Sistine Chapel without incident. Mind that I am not allowed to speak inside the chapel because it is considered a holy place. So my group goes in, and I tell them that I will meet them at the guided tour exit on the right hand side. Five people on my tour don't show up. I start freaking out inside. I never lost the headsets before, and five is a lot to lose. I really need to keep everyone on my tour, because I am being paid shit and lately the tourists have been stingy fucks when it comes to tipping. I don't want to be responsible for the headsets.
I search the Sistine Chapel frantically while the rest on my tour wait for me in front of the pope's private quarters. I am running around the chapel with a huge bottle of water over my head, repeating "We are meeting by the far right door." By speaking in the chapel I am risking my job, but I keep repeating myself. After fifteen minutes, I give up all hope on making enough money that going to work was even worth it. I continue on down an ugly hallway designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who no matter how good he was at sculpting definitely lacked in the architectural department. The steps are extra large, for transporting newly selected popes by donkey to great the people. How fucking elegant can these decrepit old men be. Today, the normal route is blocked by a rope, and we are escorted down the steps that are only supposed to be used by the pope and the Swiss guards. I try to emphasise how cool this is to my tourists, what a once in a lifetime experience this is, but I don't think they were listening to me after I lost five paying customers. We end up outside in Saint Peter's square, where I wait with eight people from England for the straggler in their group. He shows up after about a half an hour, making my pay per hour go down down down. Miraculously he arrives with the rest of the lost tourists. Two of the women on my tour from Canada, nothing too interesting about them except that the daughter is really attractive, and my heavy metal couple.
They inform me that upon entering the Sistine chapel they were approached by security and asked to remove their pentagram necklaces. They comply but then the man asks what he should do with his pentagram tattoo on his arm. He flashes it with pride to the guard, and they are subsequently escorted out of the museum complex. We get into a conversation about how silly the Catholic Church is because fill their churches with pagan art, but a pagan symbol on others is unheard of.
Needless to say I make minimal tips even though I worked an hour more than I was supposed to and all because St. Peter's was closed.
domenica 4 novembre 2007
ZINGARI or WOP either or I am
The last 10 months of my life I have spent in transit. In Philadelphia, I moved from my mold infested apartment into my silica filled studio, where I squatted illegally in my own university for three months until graduation. I was in ill health and immediately after graduating was without health insurance to fix my upper respiratory problems, so I did what all other poor Philadelphian students do after graduation. Moved to North Philly, but not the hip up and coming locale that is Fishtown. No, I get myself a job in Kensington at a bronze foundry, and move into Port Richmond. The walk down Tioga St. from work to home was only six blocks, but it felt like forever in a nightmare. Children barefoot, and shirtless, running with plastic guns and broken bottles, the kind found littering the ground ever inch or so. The parents of these children were barely my age, could most likely be found on the front porch of their multi colored asphalt sided broken windowed homes, smoking crack in the open air. Every other house doubled as a water ice stand, or pretzel shop, Chinese and Ebonics were the two tongues spoken.
This in combination with my job, which consisted of welding wax tiles to other sticks of wax for Michelle Oka-Doner, to be placed in Miami International Airport, is what prompted me to get the hell out of Philadelphia as fast as I could. The city had been telling me to leave since January, but school held me prisoner. In mid July, I walked out on my job, still not sure if they paid me my last paycheck or not, and moved back in with my mom. I bailed on my apartment in Port Richmond, leaving my mattress and some speakers an no word whatsoever to my landlord.
I was home less than a week, when I left on tour with my band the New Romantics for an 11 day tour through the North East of the United States. We lived in any house that would house us, one night ending up at Jake Sullivan's house in Vermont. Jake is a punk first and foremost, but he is a pro snowboarder as well, and we got to spend the night at his very crust punky apartment. There were some other pro skaters at the house and some cokehead from a New York metal band. These guys, not Jake. Were locked in a bedroom hiding to the best of their ability the huge mound of cocaine they had been consuming throughout the night. Another metal head, dressed in black and white striped tights cowboy boots and hair that puts Jon Bon Jovi's mullet in it's glory days to shame, happens to go into the attic and falls through the ceiling directly on top of the pile of coke. These guys try desperately to sort the fiberglass insulation from their eight ball, and the Beetlejuice panted guy was stuck in the ceiling. How fucking punk? The fiberglass getting into people's brains reminded me about being back at work on sculpture either at the foundry or at school. It was time to go.
I played out the rest of the summer on the beach living up the Atlantic City summer, for what may be the last time, with all my best friends from childhood, and then September 10th came along and on a plane I went.
I landed in Rome after a paranoid flight, ready to settle down. It has been seven weeks and I am further away from having an apartment than when I started. Justin put me up in a town called Marino, where he had been living in a similar condition to my own for some months. We shared a bedroom that became unbearably stinky over the six weeks I spent there. Two vagabonds, living in Rome on tourists visas not knowing how long the money or work will hold out, living on a diet of Porchetta and Vino interspersed with gelato.
I didn't do my laundry for the six weeks until yesterday, and this past week I was really developing a ripe odor. Justin told me that I smelled like rotting flesh. I hadn't taken a shower for four days, because of moving and not having a towel to dry myself. This life of constantly being on the move, bouncing from place to place has really taken a toll on my personal self worth. I feel like I am losing my identity, and at the same time I am enjoying every second of this life. I feel a growing affinity with the African and Southeast Asian merchants that sell fake handbags and sunglasses. I sell a fake story about the men that designed Italy. They sell fake versions of Italian designers.
This should in theory be my last month of this gypsy lifestyle, I just hope what I have learned from it might stay ingrained in my being.
This in combination with my job, which consisted of welding wax tiles to other sticks of wax for Michelle Oka-Doner, to be placed in Miami International Airport, is what prompted me to get the hell out of Philadelphia as fast as I could. The city had been telling me to leave since January, but school held me prisoner. In mid July, I walked out on my job, still not sure if they paid me my last paycheck or not, and moved back in with my mom. I bailed on my apartment in Port Richmond, leaving my mattress and some speakers an no word whatsoever to my landlord.
I was home less than a week, when I left on tour with my band the New Romantics for an 11 day tour through the North East of the United States. We lived in any house that would house us, one night ending up at Jake Sullivan's house in Vermont. Jake is a punk first and foremost, but he is a pro snowboarder as well, and we got to spend the night at his very crust punky apartment. There were some other pro skaters at the house and some cokehead from a New York metal band. These guys, not Jake. Were locked in a bedroom hiding to the best of their ability the huge mound of cocaine they had been consuming throughout the night. Another metal head, dressed in black and white striped tights cowboy boots and hair that puts Jon Bon Jovi's mullet in it's glory days to shame, happens to go into the attic and falls through the ceiling directly on top of the pile of coke. These guys try desperately to sort the fiberglass insulation from their eight ball, and the Beetlejuice panted guy was stuck in the ceiling. How fucking punk? The fiberglass getting into people's brains reminded me about being back at work on sculpture either at the foundry or at school. It was time to go.
I played out the rest of the summer on the beach living up the Atlantic City summer, for what may be the last time, with all my best friends from childhood, and then September 10th came along and on a plane I went.
I landed in Rome after a paranoid flight, ready to settle down. It has been seven weeks and I am further away from having an apartment than when I started. Justin put me up in a town called Marino, where he had been living in a similar condition to my own for some months. We shared a bedroom that became unbearably stinky over the six weeks I spent there. Two vagabonds, living in Rome on tourists visas not knowing how long the money or work will hold out, living on a diet of Porchetta and Vino interspersed with gelato.
I didn't do my laundry for the six weeks until yesterday, and this past week I was really developing a ripe odor. Justin told me that I smelled like rotting flesh. I hadn't taken a shower for four days, because of moving and not having a towel to dry myself. This life of constantly being on the move, bouncing from place to place has really taken a toll on my personal self worth. I feel like I am losing my identity, and at the same time I am enjoying every second of this life. I feel a growing affinity with the African and Southeast Asian merchants that sell fake handbags and sunglasses. I sell a fake story about the men that designed Italy. They sell fake versions of Italian designers.
This should in theory be my last month of this gypsy lifestyle, I just hope what I have learned from it might stay ingrained in my being.
sabato 3 novembre 2007
A Sad, Lonely Rant Which Utilizes Every Form of the Word "Fuck", by Justin Southern
I honestly don't know what the fuck I'm doing here right now. Here in Italy, here in Rome, here in my house alone on a Saturday night, drinking a beer. It's my absurd, existential crisis that I go through every night. Every day. Every time I wake up I wonder where the fuck I am, and what the fuck I'm doing here. But the longer I stay here, the more I feel that I don't have anywhere else to go. When I consider the options (back to Alabama, back to Philadelphia, somewhere new where I have friends, like Austin or Portland), I find that I have less and less reasons to leave here. What work am I qualified for but to sit around on my lazy ass, reading books about Merovingian siege tactics or Rennaisance paper making techniques and then, once in a while, venture out into the world to repeat all the useless knowledge I have stored in my brain? I doubt many people in Austin, Texas are interested in the Great Jewish Revolt of 66-73CE. The only person I ever get emails from is Jim, who is usually sitting across the room from me when he sends them. He knows that I check it four hundred times a day, and does it to fuck with me. He knows that when I get an email I yelp in excitement like a puppy having its first orgasm. Then, upon realizing it is him, I fall back to earth and realize that leaving my homeland, abandoning everyone I know to come to a country where I know no one and speak only the basics, has left me in an awkward position: that of an expatriate. Not an "ex-pat"; not someone doing it because it's fashionable or because they have the money and, hey, why not? But because I am someone who realized one day that, if I didn't get the fuck out of the insanity of America for a little while, I would be consumed by it. Nope, didn't want that to happen. At least here, when the world doesn't make sense, there is a very obvious reason: I'm not from here.
My Italian is pitiable for someone who has lived here for 5 months. My boss' dog understands more than me. A fucking German Shepherd! German! And it understands everything. Fucking bastard. Last night I went out with my friend Claudio and some of his friends, two of whom were "idraulici." Plumbers? I forgot their names instantly, but came up with two very obvious nicknames for the two of them: Mario and Luigi. All of those fucking bastards spoke to me at a million miles an hour and in Romanesco, the Roman dialect of Italian, a type of Italian so fucked up many Italians don't understand it. How the fuck was I supposed to understand that? I spent most of the night feeling like Claudio's American pet. At one point, while we all hung out in a piazza in San Lorenzo, they were all so crowded around in an impenetrable circle that I got fed up with trying to meet people and left to find a quiet alleyway to take a piss in. When I came back they were all like, "Where the fuck did you go?" or, "Dove cazzo sei andato?" Or some shit along those lines. I don't think any of them have faith in my ability to navigate this city, even though I know my way around it better than they do. Proven by the fact that I had to give Mario and Luigi directions last night as we were driving around. I like Claudio, but he isn't very helpful in my Learn Italian Endeavor. The way they only spoke to me if I did something wrong made me feel like I should have been sticking my nose in their asses or humping their legs.
Tonight I left my house to fucking comprare some sigaretti, which I thought would be a pointless task, since it was midnight and Italians close everything every time they so much as get a cramp in their asshole, which, believe me, happens all the time. But I managed to find something. I sewed my way through the ancient acqueducts that run through my neighborhood, Tor Pignattara, off of the Via Casilina, thinking about what the cazzo I'm doing here. Can't say I came up with much of a conclusion. But I believe that, hell, if I'm going to have an existential crisis anywhere, why not do it here? It was a miracle that I found a machinetta that was operational. I bought my sigaretti and walked back the way I came, stopping only once to buy another beer. Fucking assholes! I ranted in my head. Not about anyone or anything in particular, just the general mechanism at work in the world that makes people and places and ideas suck such terrible ass. My brain was going all over the place, as it often does at the late hour. I had been trying to write this very selfsame blog that I'm writing now when I left, but it was a miserable failure, much like every other thing I ever touch. As soon as I left, though, all the shit I wanted to say on here just came pouring out. 800,000 square meters of water pour through the Trevi Fountain every day (at least that's what I tell my tourists), and it had nothing on the floodgate of words and thoughts I had running through my head. Nouns, adjectives, adverbs, metaphors... Fucking bastards! Why did they organize my head that way? That as soon as I stepped away from my computer it all comes out. Bastards...
I tried to remember some of it, but the only thing I remembered was the line about a puppy's first orgasm. That and all the "Fucking Bastards" I used. I use that one a lot. That and, "Fucking Philistines!" That one is for my tourists. Fucking Philistines can't appreciate a damn thing they're looking at. Put the fucking Laocoon and the Apollo Belvedere in their face, perhaps next to Michelangelo's pisspot, and what are they going to snap a thousand photos of? This is my life. Alternating between being the happiest fucking guy in the world and adorably disgruntled. And then a little drinking in between.
At least the guy at San Crispino, one of the world's most famous gelatterias, gives me free gelatto. Can't touch this!
This is mr. southern, signing off (or sigh-ing off! har-har)
My Italian is pitiable for someone who has lived here for 5 months. My boss' dog understands more than me. A fucking German Shepherd! German! And it understands everything. Fucking bastard. Last night I went out with my friend Claudio and some of his friends, two of whom were "idraulici." Plumbers? I forgot their names instantly, but came up with two very obvious nicknames for the two of them: Mario and Luigi. All of those fucking bastards spoke to me at a million miles an hour and in Romanesco, the Roman dialect of Italian, a type of Italian so fucked up many Italians don't understand it. How the fuck was I supposed to understand that? I spent most of the night feeling like Claudio's American pet. At one point, while we all hung out in a piazza in San Lorenzo, they were all so crowded around in an impenetrable circle that I got fed up with trying to meet people and left to find a quiet alleyway to take a piss in. When I came back they were all like, "Where the fuck did you go?" or, "Dove cazzo sei andato?" Or some shit along those lines. I don't think any of them have faith in my ability to navigate this city, even though I know my way around it better than they do. Proven by the fact that I had to give Mario and Luigi directions last night as we were driving around. I like Claudio, but he isn't very helpful in my Learn Italian Endeavor. The way they only spoke to me if I did something wrong made me feel like I should have been sticking my nose in their asses or humping their legs.
Tonight I left my house to fucking comprare some sigaretti, which I thought would be a pointless task, since it was midnight and Italians close everything every time they so much as get a cramp in their asshole, which, believe me, happens all the time. But I managed to find something. I sewed my way through the ancient acqueducts that run through my neighborhood, Tor Pignattara, off of the Via Casilina, thinking about what the cazzo I'm doing here. Can't say I came up with much of a conclusion. But I believe that, hell, if I'm going to have an existential crisis anywhere, why not do it here? It was a miracle that I found a machinetta that was operational. I bought my sigaretti and walked back the way I came, stopping only once to buy another beer. Fucking assholes! I ranted in my head. Not about anyone or anything in particular, just the general mechanism at work in the world that makes people and places and ideas suck such terrible ass. My brain was going all over the place, as it often does at the late hour. I had been trying to write this very selfsame blog that I'm writing now when I left, but it was a miserable failure, much like every other thing I ever touch. As soon as I left, though, all the shit I wanted to say on here just came pouring out. 800,000 square meters of water pour through the Trevi Fountain every day (at least that's what I tell my tourists), and it had nothing on the floodgate of words and thoughts I had running through my head. Nouns, adjectives, adverbs, metaphors... Fucking bastards! Why did they organize my head that way? That as soon as I stepped away from my computer it all comes out. Bastards...
I tried to remember some of it, but the only thing I remembered was the line about a puppy's first orgasm. That and all the "Fucking Bastards" I used. I use that one a lot. That and, "Fucking Philistines!" That one is for my tourists. Fucking Philistines can't appreciate a damn thing they're looking at. Put the fucking Laocoon and the Apollo Belvedere in their face, perhaps next to Michelangelo's pisspot, and what are they going to snap a thousand photos of? This is my life. Alternating between being the happiest fucking guy in the world and adorably disgruntled. And then a little drinking in between.
At least the guy at San Crispino, one of the world's most famous gelatterias, gives me free gelatto. Can't touch this!
This is mr. southern, signing off (or sigh-ing off! har-har)
Squeezin' the Juice
One nice thing about Italian breakfast, or the lack thereof is Spremuta. It is fresh squeezed orange juice available at a very not gourmet price. The rest of Italian breakfast is lacking to say the least. I've been losing weight consistently even though I eat gelato, pizza and drink beer practically everyday. I would chalk it up to the fact that I haven't been eating breakfast, but I have been. I'll let you in on a secret. The McDonald's at Termini is your friend. Yes hungry traveler, you with almost no money and a hankering for an egg sandwich. Buy one at the Mickey D's at Termini train station. The wrapper even says that they use free range eggs. I don't know if I believe this or not, but when I was commuting every morning into Rome, I found this little sentence to be vindicating. (Justin just reached into his dirty pant pocket and asked me if I wanted a peanut. ) I must really be losing weight. I hope it's not AIDS.
I could however chalk the weight loss up to the the fact that I had been climbing up a mountain every night to get home, a journey that roughly averaged twenty minutes up hill or 10 minutes down. Most nights the journey could stretch to an hour or more if Justin would meet me at the Porchetta stand. This place was my oasis in Marino, a dead roasted pig with herb sandwich and a glass of some of the shittiest red wine around, refrigerated to such a degree that one didn't notice the flavor, all for three euros. One glass of wine easily turned to two, and eventually it led Justin and I to Finnegan's Pub. Marino's most intimate watering hole, where we would eventually become local celebrities. But that is another story...
I could however chalk the weight loss up to the the fact that I had been climbing up a mountain every night to get home, a journey that roughly averaged twenty minutes up hill or 10 minutes down. Most nights the journey could stretch to an hour or more if Justin would meet me at the Porchetta stand. This place was my oasis in Marino, a dead roasted pig with herb sandwich and a glass of some of the shittiest red wine around, refrigerated to such a degree that one didn't notice the flavor, all for three euros. One glass of wine easily turned to two, and eventually it led Justin and I to Finnegan's Pub. Marino's most intimate watering hole, where we would eventually become local celebrities. But that is another story...
giovedì 1 novembre 2007
Changing house
Welcome everyone. Benvenuti, cappuccino, capito, allora, va bene to an experiment in writing and living in the same space. Justin and I (Jim) have just moved into a house in Rome, Italy. We are so new to this house that we still don't know where the light switches are. Justin is searching frantically for one now, as I write. What are are trying to accomplish with what seems like just another expat blog, will hopefully give you insight into an alternative view of Rome. I should mention that we live in a makeshift studio apartment inside an artist colony, that was occupied by prostitutes and pimps until a few years ago.
We both work as tour guides in Rome, and maybe you have either taken a tour with us or will in the future. If you haven't yet, get on it! We need the money.
Here you will be able to read stories about some of the more exciting clients we've had, art we see, booze we've consumed and pretty much anything else that comes with the territory of being two young broke Americans in Rome. So sit back and enjoy...
We both work as tour guides in Rome, and maybe you have either taken a tour with us or will in the future. If you haven't yet, get on it! We need the money.
Here you will be able to read stories about some of the more exciting clients we've had, art we see, booze we've consumed and pretty much anything else that comes with the territory of being two young broke Americans in Rome. So sit back and enjoy...
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