A Philadelphia Story

I can never get the smell of clay out of my clothes. (this was originally posted on Artjaw.com)

It was late on a Saturday night in mid-February and my cousin, a car freak and anything- stripper-related enthusiast, raced up to Philly. He dragged me to a local strip club to make sure that I didn't spend all my time in the studio.

The Saturday night crowd is a rowdy one, full of sports fans, guys from over the bridge, and no one I am overly inclined to chat with. So when my cousin left to go get a lap dance, I became totally introverted. I'd been drinking water all night, and being sober and alone in a place filled with half -naked girls made me totally self-conscious.

One by one, a parade of strippers came up to me to ask if I wanted a dance. They tried to say things to make me think they were interested. I got shyer with each passing dance proposal. After a while, the eyes of one girl caught me. She approached me nicely enough, wearing the most conservative outfit of all the girls, a long black dress that went down to the floor. She seemed different than the rest. She told me her name was Amber.

She brought me over to the side the club and gave me what started out to be the best lap dance of my life. She began with her head in my crotch and ran her face up my hoodie until we were face to face. Then, looking directly at me, she said I smelled like photo chemicals and asked if I was an artist. I let her know it was actually oil-based clay
she smelled. At that point the lap dance changed from being really fun into being an informative lecture with the occasional arousal.

Turned out I got a dance from a stripper who came to Philadelphia to work at an area museum, but as sometimes happens, the job fell through. While at a prestigious university in New York, she studied metalsmithing and photography, hence the reason she could smell that I was an artist. She talked enthusiastically about arc welding as she jammed her knee ever so slightly into my crotch.

She made fun of me for being at the strip club. When I told her about my cousin trying to loosen me up, she didn't buy it and asked me to justify it art-historically. I told her Toulouse-Lautrec had a fascination with Burlesque dancers; he drew a lot of inspiration from them, and if she needed proof, she could go to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. She laughed and told me it was very different back then. Strip clubs as we know them today didn't exist during his time. Apparently, those women had a tad more class.

While she was still on my lap, I told her about my upcoming senior show. She whipped out her cell phone and typed in the information. We exchanged some more artistic ideas, and then she told me her name, -- the real one.

Disappearing Acts, Escape Artists Part III

So we all shat, and then refreshed reconvened. Our plan was this. We had about a little over a half-month to find an apartment. We being three American guys that didn't speak Italian or know anything about the Italian culture didn't think it could be so hard. After all, we had the money and were ready to spend it. That is, if anyone was actually in Rome during August.

We started our search by asking the people that worked at the hostels where to go and look for flyers. They recommended a few places. The first was a newspaper called Porta Portese. This is a classifieds ad heaven, if you can read Italian, if not, you are 100% fucked. That's what we were. We were also told to check out a pizzeria called Forno La Renella in a part of town called Trastevere. This place allowed people to post bulletins. It also has the best pizza in Rome. I could write a book about the variety of flavors this place offers, but lets narrow it down to this little anecdote. When Brandon went to school in Rome, he attended John Cabot University. He had classes five days a week, and ate at La Renella everyday. When he didn't have class he would call me and ask me to meet him in Trastevere. We would drink some beer or wine, and then go to La Renella. The boy made a habit of eating there at minimum of six days a week. He went so far as moving out of our apartment and into Trastevere. This is the effect La Renella's pizza can have on people.

So we go to La Renella, start grabbing flyers and begin our apartment search. No one answers. We don't know what to do. We are only booking our hostel stays two nights in a row, in the hope that we will end up in an apartment before the end of the week. By week three, we have stayed in over ten different rooms in seven different hostels all within three city blocks of each other. We are not in a good position. Garrett and Brandon are inseparable, but this is because Garrett likes talking to Brandon. The feeling is not mutual. Brandon comes up to me and lets me know that Garrett bothers him, I really didn't see why. I was too busy reading, "For Whom the Bell Tolls" by Ernest Hemingway to care about anything else. All my thoughts were focused on controlling my destiny through suicide. I at this time didn't trust Brandon or Garrett, barely knew them, yet was forced to spend almost twenty four hours a day with them. I just wanted to find an apartment.

The search led us all over the city to parts of town like, Testaccio, Ponte Lungo, Monte Verde and San Lorenzo. All areas that we would later learn would have been ideal for us, but we all decided them to be too far away. How foolish we were, because we ended up picking an apartment right next to Termini, because it was easily connected to everything. It is also the unofficial Chinatown, drug and prostitution capital of Rome. We moved into a brothel, not just a brothel, but one filled with Transvestite hookers. These "women" had large fake breasts, and make up that would make Mimi on The Drew Carey show look classy. They would try and solicit sex from us every night when we came home. This was done with a series of grunts and tongue movements outside of the mouth. They would pull out their fake breasts and try grabbing us. One night a particularly aggressive one got a hold of Garrett and tried to force him to go home with "her." He struggled to break free and ran home to the safety of our apartment. We decided then that the apartment search was still in full swing, we would stay two months, the amount we had already paid, and no matter if we had to split up or not after we would get the fuck out of that part of town.

School had started and we were all in get a girlfriend mode, even Garrett who had a girlfriend in the States was feeling the pressure, but he would see her soon enough as she would move to France over the winter. Brandon on the other hand, spoke only of Giovanna, his Neapolitan princess. She would arrive on La Notta Bianca (the white night, the one night a year turns into a 24 hour party) from Napoli. I had set my sights on a girl in Trastevere, because I was determined to learn Italian. She was a one of those girls that hung out every night of the summer in Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere, which basically means a degenerate hash smoking highschooler with a body to die for and a brain that functioned on the level of a worker bee. We got into a conversation that was beyond my minimal control of Italian to handle, and beyond her mental capacity. I tried to tell her that my family was from Sicily, but I used "La" instead of "La mia" this omission of three letters led her to believe that I was marginalizing Italian culture. She thought I was talking about the Mafia. She came back with a quick rebuttal, made of a fist and this phrase. "Pizza! Pasta! Mandolino! Mafia! Is that all you think of Italy?!" All I could say was "BASTA! FERMA! STOP!" as she struck me in the chest. She got all fired up and then left. I never saw her again. This has basically been my luck with Italian girls ever since, if you replace punching with kissing, always one little encounter, very heated and then I never see them again.

We continued to go to Trastevere to eat pizza, pasta and hear the mandolino. In our spare time we attended classes and waited patiently for the arrival of the now mythical Giovanna, and Brandon's other friend Jamie Brown, who would turn out to be the real legend. Oh, La Notta Bianca how we awaited thee.

Dove the fuck sono?

I am back in the United States of America. More specifically, Philadelphia.

There are many things I could say right now, but I'll limit myself to a few.

I spent the week searching for jobs and laying low, trying to save money. Tuesday I went into the city to say hey to a few people, but the rest of the week I stayed at home, doing nothing. Watching movies on my grandmother's On Demand, drinking whatever booze I stumbled across in my grandmother's house, returning emails, feeling helpless. I read a bit. I started three different books, and put all of them down after 50 pages. I downloaded music, most of which got one listen before being allocated to the trash bin of shit that will never inspire me. I drove around the suburbs in my grandmother's Altima, looking to see if there was a single decent place within a 20 mile radius to meet people. I spent a lot of time online, looking for jobs or cruising the various social networking cites I waste more of my time on than I'd care to admit.

The night I left Jim rode with me to Termini Station to see me off. I had all of my possessions either on my back or in my hands. We sat at a table in the McDonald's downstairs at Termini and tried not to fall asleep. I had no money, neither did Jim. I was grateful that he came with me, but at the same time felt like a burden. Though the last train left late, and Jim told me he'd stay with me until I left, I took an early one, at around 9pm. There was no tear-jerking goodbye or anything, just a "See ya later," and then off we were--me to my Grandmother's frigid basement, department stores, expensive gas and no public trans, and the cold Philadelphia winter. Jim to our tiny flat, no work, a language he didn't speak, and a rapidly diminishing income. We'd spent the past 8 weeks almost exclusively in each other's company, without one argument. An impressive feat for someone who can barely spend 5 minutes in some people's presence without losing his fucking mind. For some reason Jim and I never really hung out in Philly. Every now and then we'd see each other, but mostly we stuck to our own circles. After settling into the train (without a ticket, since I'm a maniac), I wondered why.

I had a bottle of wine and a pocket full of chocolates with me for my long night at the airport alone. I thought about asking two American girls I saw if they wanted to share them with me, but after listening to their conversation for 10 minutes decided I'd rather fly solo (no pun intended). I drank a little wine and tried to write in my journal before grabbing all of my luggage and going outside to smoke. If it weren't for all the stuff I was carrying, perhaps it would have been cold outside, but with all the exertion I was forced into, the cold air was comforting. Across the street was a giant neon screen showing commercials. I looked up at it for a moment. The commercial was for Philadelphia. How appropriate. That was the moment I started to look forward to coming home.

I didn't sleep on either of my flights, though I did drink another bottle of wine, a Bloody Mary, and a beer. Carolyn managed to make it out of her house to come and pick me up with her friend Linda driving. Being back in Philly felt like being back in my childhood home would have felt if visiting it after other people had been living in it for a while. Something was off. The furniture was rearranged, the wallpaper was different, the carpet new. But mostly it was the smell. The smell of foreignness in a place so familiar. I'm sure the origin of that untraceable scent hasn't changed since I first arrived in Philadelphia in August of 2003, but I had grown accustomed to it while living there. Returning was like learning to walk again, except not as dramatic (I have a tendency to go for the melodramatic after a few glasses of vino, which I have, so please excuse me).

I'm currently listening to "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" by Hank Williams. How appropriate.

As I said earlier, I spent most of my week hunkered down in my grandmother's basement, in the suburbs. The weekend came around though and I went into the city, damn your eyes. I saw my friends and had a good time, but 7 months separation has created a strange gap. I've grown too much in the past 7 months, and falling back into my old role felt artificial, but expected from many people. Most of my friends have moved on in life as well. Many of my friends have just gotten into long term relationships, or just come out of them. People have jobs now. Real ones. Either that or they're still in the same job they've been in for years. Either people seem to have moved on much farther than I have, or I've moved on much further than they have. It's a strange sensation, being in the middle of transition.

In my monastic solitude, in my comfortable little bungalow in Carolyn's basement, I'm led back towards the inevitable self-reflections which led to me fleeing this country in the first place. I haven't put any serious thought into what I want to be doing in five years from now since I left Philadelphia. Now that I'm back, I want that fleece pulled back over my eyes. Life in Italy is simpler because it's more complicated. I need to procure food, learn how to communicate, not get lost. Make money. Here I am taken care of to a certain extent by my Grandmother, or I have the option of going home to Alabama to live with my parents for a bit if shit gets too fucked up. But in Italy, those options are taken away. I'm more focused on survival. Therefore the world has a new dimension. In short, I want to go back.

I really shouldn't be writing all of this, because it would appear, strange as this may sound, that people actually read this thing occasionally. Even more strangely, they misinterpret it. Perhaps this is because the two incidents where either our sarcasm, dry wit, or general sardonic utterances have been misunderstood, have been because the readers did not speak English as a native language. But what about those who do?

I guess it is something that people should look at and see as nothing more than the disgruntled writing of two sexually frustrated, post college twenty-somethings with too much time on their hands, and then they should move on. My opinions change with every bowel movement-- something I see as a strength, where others see a lack of backbone. Fuck em either way. I'm happy deep down. Just anxious. About my life, the world, my friends and family. Shit. You know?

This blog isn't making any damn sense. It's time for another good idea/bad idea. Good idea: writing a blog for all of your friends. Bad idea: writing a blog for all of your friends after raiding your grandmother's liquor cabinet.

I have watched "The Departed" twice in two days. That was my joke for the blog.

A thought that I have been having lately is that one day America will collapse. This isn't a new thought or idea. But what I find interesting about dwelling on what will happen, is the art that will come out of it. Sounds strange, I know, but if we think about the available materials, diets, ideas-- all that shit that makes a civilization-- after trade routes are dismantled, after millionaires are forced to beg on the streets, then we will be forced to live off of America alone yet again. Give it a thousand years and perhaps this Dark Age will settle and leave a new, distinctly American form of art, music, architecture, food, etc. A simple example: the Romans have always relied upon Travertine as a building material, and it has shaped what they're capable of (it's durability, color, abundance, etc.), and how their civilization looks. What equivalent does America have? Will America become like Europe? Europe was all once the Roman Empire. Will America be divided up into smaller countries, each with their own derivative English language? Will the Midwest have a language that is to English what French is to Latin? How will their civilization be structured?

These questions are conundrums that keep me occupied through the droll hours in the basement.

Disappearing Acts, Escape Artists Part II

"Brandon is real!" I screamed out loud in the hostel lounge. This was a complete relief, because I was now only 50% schizophrenic. I still had heard no word from Garrett, but assumed he had met up with Brandon the day before. How wrong I was. Brandon's email informed me that he had been working on a farm in Tuscany for some weeks with a girl from Napoli named Giovanna. Now, Giovanna was the only person on the farm that had a calendar, and she seemed to have taken to Brandon, because she didn't want him to leave, so much so that she gave him the wrong date thus delaying his departure a day. Brandon is a good-looking guy, but this Giovanna girl had taken it one step too far. She was planning to come to Rome to see him two weeks later. You would think that she could wait a measly two weeks.

Brandon ended up staying at a hostel down the road. His email told me to stay put and wait for him, but I couldn't. I ran out the door without even logging out of my email account, and ran the 100 m. to Montestella hostel, where I found Brandon, bandanna wrapped around his head, blue sleeveless t-shirt on, smoking a cigarette. I don't smoke, but when I found him I grabbed that cigarette from him and puffed on it to make sure I wasn't dreaming. I recounted my tale of adventure to him, and then he looked at me a bit perplexed and asked, "Where the fuck is Garrett?" I said, "I thought he was with you!" "Shit!" we both exclaimed. This was Garrett's first time out of the USA, and he had flown in on a German airline. He could be anywhere. We decided to do what we thought was most important in starting our search. Taking shits. We started to walk back to my hostel, which had decently clean toilets, when I heard a voice cry out "Jim, Brandon!?" It was Garrett, rattled beyond belief and ready to rattle off a tale filled with misfortune, and spit, an added interactive experience that hit both of our faces with a regular consistency.

Garrett arrived on time, with enough luggage for a group of girl scouts on a trek to Mt. Everest. After searching for Brandon and I for five hours, the boy decided it best to take post in front of Termini station. Here he was approached by a man from Napoli who apparently thought Garrett was an expert on the intricacies of the Roman streets, and the Italian language, because he started asking Garrett for directions in Italian and broken English. The man also speaks with his hands putting on a hell of a display for an hour, all the time trying to hold Garrett gaze straight ahead. Garrett was sitting on one suitcase, the other was on his left side, his book bag was in his lap and brand new computer on his right. When the timing was opportune, the Napolitano opportunist and friend snatched Garrett's computer and made off. Garrett couldn't do anything about it for fear of losing the rest of his luggage, so he just got up and restarted his search for two American guys he didn't know.

He ran into an old man, decrepit and white haired that offered him a room in a hotel for only 45 Euro a night. The man talked Garrett into staying three nights at this fantastically astronomical price. Brandon and I by comparison were paying 18 a night. This fabulous trickster was named Luciano. He even had an apartment to offer to us, Garrett later informed us. Garrett went to the hotel and was just happy to put what was left of his luggage in a safe spot. He tried to massage his hands, because they were swollen to twice their normal size from lugging his bags that were filled with stone carving chisels and mallets. Garrett never ended up carving anything during his stay in Rome, but he did read every Harry Potter book out at the time in less than one month, and also read three other fantasy novels, two by George R.R. Martin and the other by Robert Jordan. He ended up making a permanent dent in the shape of his ass, and a sweat stain from his back on our chair.

On his first night in Rome he went and drank outside of the hostel that Brandon ended up staying in, but didn't run into him. He found us by accident that morning, and like us was headed back to his hotel to take a shit.

To be continued again...

Disappearing Acts, Escape Artists

It has been four days since my last post, sorry to keep you waiting, or this is me apologizing to myself because I haven't written anything. Either way, I will welcome myself back after the longest week in recent memory. It started with beers and goodbyes, as I sent Justin off to the United States for his seasonal retreat to make money in a country with money worth less than the Euro, or the Canadian dollar for that matter. Anyway, when the tourist season starts anew Justin will be back, hopefully pockets full and fingers ready for typing out fresh stories about adventures as immigrants.

I thought I was going to be by myself on a long haul trek through the Roman winter, one known more for its lack of tourists, in my case tourist revenue than its harsh weather. I was just about to miss Justin when, two things happened. Thing number one: Sabrina, Isabella, and Giorgia called, pissed as all hell at the blog Justin wrote about them, making me think that if girls who can't read English can understand our blog enough to be mad at us than the rest of our readership must think we are ridiculous assholes without a good thought in our collective heads. Thing number two: Brandon, my former roommate, and WWOOFer (willing worker of organic farms) would be arriving in Italy the day after Justin left. This left me no time to prepare for him, write a blog, think about Italian ragazzas hating me, or pretty much anything else.

Brandon arrived a little after noon on Thursday morning in typical Brandon fashion, meaning without letting me know when he would be arriving until the moment he arrives. I got a phone call from Brandon directly after making pancakes upstairs in Jordan's apartment. Brandon called asking me if I wanted to get lunch, because he was at Termini, and wouldn't be able to leave for at least an hour because he was washing his clothes at a laundromat we used to frequent when we lived in the area together two years ago. I let him know that I had already eaten, and that he would have been more than welcome to join us if he had sent word about his arrival. I decided to meet him over at the laundromat, because Via Tor Pignatara isn't the easiest place to get to in Rome, and Brandon spent his tenure in Rome either in Trastevere or Termini, and not much more. The boy never made it to Saint Peter's or the Vatican, and he was here for more than five months. I work at the Vatican, and he still missed it this time around.

When I arrived, Brandon and I gave each other enthusiastic hellos, even though I had seen him three weeks prior, when Justin and I lived in Marino, that's just how we are, overly enthusiastic about seeing each other for no reason at all. Not for seeing Basilica's, but for seeing my smiling face Brandon seems to travel half way across the world. We bought two of the worst espressos we've ever had, just because the barista was cute, and caught up on what is most important, stories about girls, traveling, punk rock, and past adventures.

As I mentioned before, Brandon has a typical fashion associated with his arrivals into Rome. His failure to communicate with me when we first encountered in Rome two years ago had me on the brink of thinking I was a paranoid schizophrenic. This requires reintroducing Brandon, and as with the majority of my stories begins in Philadelphia.

I was taking Italian 101 at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, in preparation for my semester in Rome. The class room was packed with students, about ten over capacity, and the only things I learned that semester were that fat girls with Musical Theater and Fibers majors wanted to learn Italian, and that Carla Weinberg our professor hated the Euro because she can "no longer afford to buy leather shoes in Italy." No alphabet, no numbers, no ciao even though our book went by that title. Nothing. I scanned the room, looking for some sign of intelligence and found Brandon. He sat in the back of the class, and just drew little doodles and made snide remarks from time to time, the kind I wished I could get away with, but he was an actor, and I was at the time an illustrator or sculptor, I wasn't quite sure.

One day Brandon and I each stayed after class to tell Carla that we would be studying abroad in Rome. This is where we formally met, totally by chance, because we both asked the less than helpful professor for help. We each learned that the other would be in Rome and decided instantly that we should search for an apartment together. We exchanged phone numbers and that was pretty much it.

I spent the rest of the semester skipping that class, because it was pointless and I had already learned who I was going to live with. Brandon and I had coffee one time after that and discussed logistics. He would be leaving for Italy in June, arriving in Rome, scope out a place for us to meet at the train station and then WWOOF his way around Italy until I arrived in August. Perfect, everything was settled.

The rest of the semester played out, and on the last day of school I meet another guy going to school in Italy the following semester. His name is Garrett. Garrett, is two years older than me, but he is in my major, and he will be studying at the same university as me. How a department of less than twenty people can neglect to tell us that there will be someone else studying in the same foreign country as the other is totally beyond me. I meet Garrett playing kickball on his last day of school in America ever. I immediately tell him about Brandon, and then call Brandon to schedule a meeting about the three of us getting a place together.

We meet at Garrett's house, on a really shitty block in South Philly, exchange flight information and prepare to see each other the next time on August 11th 2005 in Rome.

I arrive in Rome a little bit late, I am supposed to be the last of the three arriving, I figure that they will be patiently or maybe impatiently awaiting my arrival. I arrive at Termini Station, and realize something Brandon neglected to mention. Termini is FUCKING HUGE! There are over twenty front doors, and thirty tracks for train arrivals. The visual clutter of advertisements and the sea of different nationalities give Times Square a run for its money.
I search for two hours, book bag on my back and rolling suitcase in my hand. I took a break to find something edible and decided right away that I wanted to go home. The food by Termini is terrible, and there are pickpockets lurking everywhere. I signed into my email account see if either Brandon or Garrett had emailed me. Neither had. I decided to take one more swing through and if that didn't work I would find a hostel with internet access, so I could make contact with them eventually.

I didn't find them. I did find a hostel, and it was filled with ugly girls, so I decided I would sit by the computer and wait for two guys. Guys I didn't really know, and wasn't sure if I even liked, but they were my only link to home, and I wasn't going to let them go for anything in the world.

After another six hours, six emails, and six people behind me waiting to use the computer. I decided that my connection to home. Brandon and Garrett, the two guys I had met a few times. The guys no one knew about, never met my friends, never hung out with and never responded to my emails, were never going to be real. I decided that they never existed, considered myself crazy and decided to go drink my brain away in the Eternal City. I found a pub crawl and signed up, I really found two hot, really hot German girls and followed them to the pub crawl.

I got drunk on the Tiber River at some shitty bar for tourists, and my drunk mouth rambled off my new story about how I was a schizo to these girls, and that I invented my two potential roommates. I asked them if they wanted to live with me, as I could no longer be able to afford the rent of for a three bedroom apartment as I was in actuality only one person, with two imaginary friends, that didn't even like me enough to make the trip over the ocean with me.

I think I thoroughly freaked those girls out, because I took the bus home alone that night, stumbled into my hostel bed and slept in my clothes on top of my bags. I woke up in the morning to find my guide book had disappeared, maybe I had imagined that too. My last ditch effort to restore my sanity was to check the internet again. Nothing. That was it, I was truly crazy. I went to stand up, when I got a feeling I should hit the refresh button on my browser.
There was a new email in my inbox. It was from Brandon, the subject was "OH FUCK I SUCK!"

To be continued...

It's the reaction that counts.

Writing thoughts, in English, thinking in a completely sarcastic and American view point, and then commenting on another's culture in what may seem to be an impolite and one sided manner seemed just natural, but then I realized that people are actually reading what I am writing, and maybe a little more time and thought should go into what I publish on a whim. That's why the literary world has editors. This is in response to my last blog, about the superficiality of Italian culture. It was titled What's in a Name? It appears to be more about what's in the brains of people than in the names associated with locations and styles.

My friend Ilaria, an Italian girl, read my blog and it upset her. She went on to make valid points that I am usually surrounded by Italian youth, who have yet to form their identities, and that I see them primarily on Friday and Saturday after the work week.

The major thing here is that I felt wrong in upsetting people I cared about. I wouldn't be here in Italy if not for them. Shit, they're the reason I came back to this country anyway, so if I have complaints to make I should have thought about that decision before coming here.

What's in a name?

When I walk down the streets of Rome, there are few things that actually remind me of reality. Reality as I know it at least. I call home from the Piazza Navona, staring at Bernini's magnificent fountain. My workplace is the Sistine Chapel, and Saint Peter's. My friends speak a language I am barely grasping, and all the bands sing in English that is worse than my Italian.

It seems to all be a farce. A never ending dream that I don't want to wake up from. I just finished watching Eyes Wide Shut, the last film directed by Stanley Kubrick, who by sheer coincidence has a show here in Rome right now, and I feel almost like Tom Cruise in the film, searching for a darker more sinister meaning behind the unbelievable fantasy before my eyes, that I happened to stumble into by chance. I feel like the deeper I embed myself into this world the more they see I don't belong, but it doesn't stop me from trying to figure it out.

Italy seems to be a fashion show. The hardcore music scene looks the part, but doesn't act it. No one dances, everyone watches and claps and thats all. The audience rushes then to the merch booth to purchase the look of the band. The fashion that is independent music. Not to say that America isn't guilty of consuming by any means, but there seems to be a passion attached to it there that I just don't find here.

I see people dressed on the streets in skateboarding clothes. From time to time in parks, I encounter boys with skateboards, but no one is ever riding them.

There is scaffolding on the aformentioned Bernini fountain, but never anyone working on it. The same goes for the metro lines. It is 2007, almost 2008, there are only two metro lines in Rome, and the worst traffic I have ever seen. Why is nothing being down.

This was all actually supposed to be about the difference between Pabst Blue Ribbon and Peroni Nastro Azzuro (or Blue Ribbon) which while it may have won a blue ribbon some time ago does not even compare to sub premium Pabst. Nastro Azzuro is a neon green color, and doesn't go down smooth. Try it for yourself because this beer is billed as Peroni in the States, the real Peroni here is not actually bad, and it can be purchased astronomically cheap.

Back to the show, the words for establishments in which alcohol can be consumed in Italy are as follows. Bar, Pub, Disco, Club... you get the idea. What is the Bartender called? Barman. What perplexes me, is where did these people consume alcohol before the 20th century. The Italians are famous for producing wine, yet I rarely ever see them consume it. During our "date" Isabella called Justin a sponge, because he drank more than one glass of wine.

What is this culture that produces such superficial people?