Intensely studying Italian and Italy now to prepare for this trip. Listening to it 24/7, studying the grammar, pronunciation and rules. Studying the maps and the history and the politics. I've been through this drill before. With Portuguese and then with Spanish. So I have a system that works well I think. You attack the language and the culture and the country and the music and literature voraciously all at the same time. You immerse yourself in it for a year or so, go to school here; take eighty or so hours in the language in your home country first. Buy all the famous albums from the last fifty years or so.  And then you go there and live and go to school and just soak it in. 

O.k. great. So then I'm doing this. I'm standing on this log out in the middle of Biscayne Bay with this Italian book in my hand screaming Italian out into the deep blue sea trying to memorize all the different words and then I had this thought/realization. As morbid as it seems, I just kind of looked at myself from a far, like at the big picture of it, at how much time I spend and have spent learning and soaking all this stuff in and then you think….. For what? 

[Benjamin Franklin learned to speak four foreign languages—I think he was my archetype when I was really little I had had heard about him and just really related to him in that way. If you're going to be a brainiac or a renaissance man, and by all means there is certainly no rule that says that you should be, you need to learn at least five languages, be good in music, invent a few things, be an accomplished writer, or man of letters at the least—these days one can assume just a decent man of emails would suffice, be a successful entrepreneur, and of course be quite the ladies man as long as you can before you settle down. Of course Da Vinci  and Michelangelo and Plato and Socrates were homosexual, so perhaps you don't necessarily have to be a ladies man... I think old Ben had one up on the other fellows in this department.] 

But I mean in the bigger picture what is it all for? I mean once we’re dead we’re dead. Why go through all this trouble? To always be learning all this stuff? It feels so productive. But then I started thinking about it and it's not like I'm building anything or creating anything really. I'm just shoving stuff into my own head. I think it would be different if I was building homes for the homeless like Jimmy Carter or trying to stop rainforest destruction like sting or something. But really I'm just trying to get more knowledge… man what a twisted sick realization.

Even if we travel all over the world like some people make it their goal in life to do, what the fuck is that going to accomplish? I have seen enough of my family die now in the last ten years and how we just are stuck with all their stuff they have collected over their life and we don't know what to do with it. I mean half of it just gets left behind or sold and then the family takes some of it and it gets passed down but for the most part we are just collecting this stuff for no real reason. We are traveling for no real reason, and learning stuff for no real reason. Once you start throwing away your grandparents or your aunts or your parent’s clothes or giving them away to goodwill or whatever you really gain a new perspective on life. You see all this useless stuff sitting in an empty house. And that person, the person who collected it all, the person who protected it all, who purchased it, and insured it, and moved it from house to house, well they’re dead, and it doesn’t really matter what you do to it. When my grandmother died a few years ago I sat in her house alone for about a month. Just hung out there. Played the piano, made myself breakfast everyday using their dishes and kitchen slept in various beds around the house. It was so weird. Even though they were gone, all the same house rules seemed to apply. Take your shoes off when you enter the house. Don't put the ac too low. Never smoke in the house. (You could get killed for an offense that heinous) only eat at the dining room table. No sex or violence on the TV. All these rules.

But then I started staring at stuff and realizing that it didn't matter anymore. I would look at a vase which was so precious to them or a table and realize that I could smash it if I wanted to and what was really going to happen? nothing. They were dead. I was there alone with all this stuff of theirs and there was no one who was going to tell me not to. What if I turned the stereo up really loud, put on a Pavarotti record of theirs and then went into their closet, put on one of my grandfathers big old fancy suits and one of my grandmothers scarves and then ran around the house smashing stuff?  Jumped up on the dining room table and hurled objects de art into the china cabinet. What if I ran around the house naked in nothing but a silk scarf and tried to act so crazy that I scared myself while puffing on fat smelly cigars?. Opened all the windows so the neighbors could see. (my grandparents were absolutely terrified of not being seeing as dignified, polite, and proper, I mean, brutally magnanimously, vehemently, strict about being quiet, discreet, proper, elegant, “high class” (just to get the right picture try to understand that “high class” meant you were rich and educated and Italian, and nothing else. (And not from Sicily). You get the picture.) We were not allowed out of the house without a shower and a shave and being fully dressed and all, something like leave it to Beaver, but worse---you know they were born in 1908 and 9 so that was their trip—I would drive them crazy because I spent the majority of my childhood looking like a freak.

There were many many occasions when I would show up and not be allowed in their house unless I made all these changes to my appearance immediately---tie my hair up, wash off the makeup (boys don't wear makeup Fishy, they would say, are you a girl or a boy?) take off all the jewelry, take out the earrings, put on pants without holes in them, etc etc…. so some times I would do it and other times I would just leave and not see them for a while. Whatever. So I'm thinking now that they are dead I mean what if I just get naked right now and run out into the front yard of their house and run around the house a few times maybe stand there and water the lawn and smoke a cigar naked? My God can you imagine if they saw that? Well something like that could kill them. They would have to move.  But now that they were dead, what would it really matter? They were dead. They were gone. Their stuff meant nothing. Their rules meant nothing. It was just me the freak sitting around their house, smoking and writing and playing the piano. But none of that happened. I still took my shoes off when I entered the house. I still made my bed everyday. And I still threw the garbage everyday and didn't let it pile up like I would at my own house. So there I was keeping to their ‘rules of engagement’ so to speak. Not putting my feet on the furniture, not making loud noises, not burping, not cursing, not putting a hat on the bed, or not opening an umbrella in the house, because it was bad luck, not whistling in the house because it was uncouth, etc.

What I noticed is that they stayed with me. And now I have a lot of their stuff in my own home. And I take good care of it. I didn't lose who I was. But I kind of took on some of who they were. The parts that I liked. The parts that I thought were alright had some value to me and to my future family. I went through their house and I collected a lot of stuff for future use. I got all my grandmas candles she had collected and now on Christmas we set one up on the table and we light it and watch the flame burn, but only for a short time so we never run out of them in our own lifetime. Some of these candles are probably thirty forty years old maybe more. So that way they are with us on Christmas. But that's not really the point. So what is the point? I mean what is the point to being who we are, to learning or growing or collecting stuff. What is the point to learning Italian? I'm such a dick to all my friends who watch TV, and really I only have a few of them, but I'm pretty hard on them, always telling them how they have more important things to be doing, and now I realize that really that's just my grandparents talking. They grew up with out TV didn't even see it till they were in their forties, so to them it was just this new thing, not something to live through but maybe just something to marvel at once in a while, for the news or something.. But now I look at my friends who want to sit and watch TV every night and I think well maybe that's o.k.. I mean in the big picture, what if that's good enough for them. Shit. What if there really isn't such a thing as good enough. I mean in the big picture they are going to die and that's it so who cares what they do.

Pause

But wait. This isn't right. In my gut I can feel it. This isn't right. In fact it's bullshit. Because the fact is that as a people, and as a species, we have a lot of work to do. Yes they can sit around and watch TV every night, but then nothing improves in the world. Nothing gets better. No changes are made. These are the same people you see sitting around their house at holiday dinners talking about what they think the president should do about this or that, like they even have a clue what's really going on, like any of us do, and then they go sit in front of the TV and watch it. But they don't actually do anything to help. So yea maybe learning all these languages is not really doing anything, at this point I don't know what to think, I mean unless it really does something. Helps out in some way. I mean maybe I am slowly cocooning into a communist, but the fact is that who we are and what we do can really make a big difference long after were gone, especially if we really do stuff. Colonel sanders comes to mind. Just kidding. But really in every moment we have a choice of what were doing, and how were feeling and what we are actually accomplishing. And here's the wrap up right here. In the last six months I went to two different funerals for friend’s relatives who had passed on. One was an aunt. And one was two months ago when I went to the tree’s dad’s funeral. Man to lose a dad at such a young age was fucking tragic.

And we’re there and there must have been a hundred people there from all over the country for him. At least. And they were all getting up and sharing about him. And you would not believe the things we were hearing. People coming from the hospital talking about how he made the rounds at the hospital everyday to visit and pray with the sick. People from children's homes talking about how he would dress like Santa every year to raise money for the kids. Officers from the marines talking about his duties in world war two and what a hero and friend he was. People from his church talking about all of his charity work and how he helped out the church and all these families. It was really really inspiring. And then at this other lady’s funeral, for the aunt of another friend. People just talked about how she was a nice person and that was about it. I mean no one really had much to say about her. But for the tree’s dad, it was like out of a movie. You had to keep asking yourself where did he get all time to run around and do all this stuff all the time for people? I mean he was like this secret agent man fighting the good fight for all of us. One of the good guys.

So I think that's where it's at. I mean I have struggled with trying to find meaning all my life. I spent most of my teens and twenties so depressed because I just didn't see any meaning to life because so much of what we take for granted is made up and pretend, and in the end we don't even know who we are or why we’re here or where we’re going, and man that just sucks. That can really sting if you let it get to you, but as I get older I just start to accept it more and realize that yea it may be some sick and cruel joke or accident that we have found ourselves in, but in the end we really can make a difference to the world, depending on what we do while we’re alive. I'm going to keep learning Italian. And I'm going to stick to my commitment to learn French and Hebrew too. And if for no other reason that it makes me happy. I mean it juices me. It keeps me psyched and juiced and when I'm psyched and juiced and happy then I feel energized and I feel like helping more. I feel like doing more to reach out and help people out and try to make changes for the better in the world. But when I'm feeling down and lethargic and just kind of normal like I'm just living day to day, then I don't really feel like doing anything. 

Current Spin: Live36.com. Internet radio. What a fucking revolution this thing is.

Current Spin: Live365.com. Internet radio.