Studying the life and art of Leonardo and Michelangelo now. Bought tons of books. So now we are knee deep in the renaissance. Today I went to the church and museum of Santa Croche. This place is beyond famous. Just in complete shock the whole time. it is so big and so beautiful. I found myself walking around with my mouth hanging open the whole time. I had to keep remembering to close it. today in this magnificent church I saw the actual tombs of Michelangelo, Rossini, Machiavelli, and Galileo, Dante, Bruneleschi, and Gibertti who is known as the person who started the renaissance with his famous doors of Il Duomo. It is unbelievable. Like in these tombs are the bones of these guys you grow up hearing about all your life. these men were like gods to me when I was growing up. and then you're like o.k. there is his body, and there is this painting he painted. And there is the house he grew up in. It really helps bring it all down to earth a bit.

I hooked up with some tourist group from Seattle Washington in the good old us of a and I learned so much from the lady who was leading it. she is an art historian there at their college. And they told me I could follow along and listen so I did. I think that the Americans are such nice kind but kick ass people. yes they are the absolute loudest here in Europe. And yes you can hear them coming from a mile away. it is true. I will not take that away from all the Europeans who loath us for how obnoxious we are. If I hear really loud obnoxious voices from behind me or whatever it always turns out to be some Americans rather than the French or Germans or English or Japanese—who actually do not speak. I am told they go their whole lives without speaking. They just take pictures. But all that aside, every time I run into Americans I am so enthused by how nice and happy and kick butt they are. Every time I help someone cross the street or carry something in a store or at a station they get all red and say oh thank you, thank you, you guys are so nice, so polite. And I'm thinking man this is easy. “lady I don't think you understand. All the guys are like this in America. Its no big deal. Seriously.” When I get back to the states I have got to move out of Miami and move back to America. I miss it. 

So this church is just out of hand. Huge temples and alters and crucifixes everywhere. And huge frescoes painted by Gioti. Part of it makes you believe more in the whole religion thing, and then part of it makes you believe less in it. honestly a lot of time I am looking at the art and thinking, you know this is nice and yea its great that its old, but it is very tiresome that it is all about the Christian religion. Museum after museum its all the same thing. Crosses and Virgin Marys. You know. its like if you went to some museum and all they had was paintings of trucks or something. I sat in a pew for a while and talked to God staring up at this huge crucifix. This is like ‘renaissance huge’ this thing. Like a castle I'm in. And there are all these tourists walking by and there I'm sitting having this conversation with this giant crucifix. “honey don't stare at that crazy man... just keep walking....” 

So I'm just sitting there trying to quietly have this conversation. I asked him, “well it certainly appears by all this stuff going on that people believe in you. A lot of people have spent a lot of time and money making all these sculptures and paintings and churches for you. But I wonder if you are real, why don't you say anything? Why not come out and set everyone straight a bit. Rather than keep it a mystery. I mean, if you are real... Why the hush hush? Especially now. shit like now is any different than any other time in history. Seriously. What's up with you? where are you? who are you? and were you Jesus connected in any way to a God? Or were you just some guy like anyone? That's the question. Isn't it? because I'll tell you, you have caused a lot of trouble here on the earth. A lot more trouble than perhaps you intended. For someone who supposedly came to save people, my question is who is going to save people from you after you save them? I mean seriously, what is up if you are real? Are you just totally fucking with all of us? is this a joke to you? all the pain and suffering and constant unanswered prayers here. the injustice? The unfairness? the great mystery and all the lies and deceit that go on in your name and God’s name? that's cool to you? that's alright?” I stared right at this crucifix and wondered, man I hope this thing doesn’t come crashing down or something... 

“all this is alright with you? no problem? And with God too? you guys figure what? That we can manage on our own? that you don't care if people lie about you, kill each other and enslave each other in your name? you’re just going to lay low on that cross up there. Kick back and take a break for a few thousand years? the fact is,” I pointed at it, “that you know that I know and that a lot of people know now that its mostly bullshit. Right? I mean seriously... you know it.” No answer. “o.k. lets get this straight, as far as just you go, forget about God and all that, but just you, hanging up there on the cross now all innocent cause yes now there is a story and hundreds and thousands of years of man made that's been written about you and all these paintings and I know all that's very nice, but seriously. When you were around. People weren't asking you to die on a cross. They were asking you to help them get free from the roman empire, right? your people were enslaved by the Romans and you were supposed to save them. that was the prophecy. Right? I mean lets not bullshit just for a second. Just between you and me. I went to twelve years of fucking bible school. I remember. The old testament spends four hundred pages talking about how you the messiah would supposedly save the Jews from Rome and give them back their home. But you didn't do that. what you did do instead is get them in even more trouble than they were already in, so much so that you scared the shit out of them and they wanted you dead because they were scared you were going to make things even worse. There it is in a nutshell. Right?” no answer. 

“o.k. so then you realize you’re going to be killed by your own people and then you die and you turn it into this whole ‘I'm doing this for you’ type of a scheme, which I have to admit is clever as all hell. Who would dare think it? ‘I know your killing me because you don’t like me and I've gotten everyone in a lot of trouble but you know what? I'm really killing myself---you're not really doing it---and I'm doing it all for you.’ brilliant. Who in the hell would believe a story like that? if someone said that today can you imagine? One of our criminals? O.k. whatever. so then you have all these people asking you for stuff all the time for thousands of years. and what is your answer? No answer. That's your answer. No answer. What we do get is that you died for our sins. Whatever the hell that means. No offense but I never fell for that original sin crap, tried as they might to beat it into me... Life here is hard enough. I mean essentially it is pure fucking hell for a lot of people. and your answer is to remind everyone, even the really good people, that they have sins but its o.k. because you died for them? No seriously. Was this a joke? Did we miss the punch line? We wait for thousands of years for this messiah to come that all these prophets talk about in all these old religious texts. And when he supposedly comes, he dies for our sins. That's the big fireworks display? He doesn’t save anyone. He doesn’t help with anything. He doesn’t offer any clues to the mystery of life or any contact with God or anything like that. he just gets killed and says its for us. and now for thousands of years all these people pray to you. My mother is dying of cancer, please take her pain away. do you help? No. but you died for our sins. My kids all died in the fucking war or from starvation or from the plague. Will you help? No. but you died for our sins. My father is sick and will die and our whole family will starve. Can you help us? no. but I can die for your sins. Seriously. What the fuck is that? And who are you trying to kid? This is my question to you. Any answer?” I sat and stared at him for a while. No answer. 

As I walked back to the exit I looked back at the big crucifix and thought about how sad and tragic the whole Jesus thing is. And I felt very sad for all these people throughout all these thousands of years. building their giant crucifixes and making their big frescoes. And then in other parts of the world other people are doing the same thing with other so called gods. They're doing it with Allah. they're doing it with Krishna. They're doing it with Buddha. And for thousands of years people all over the world will keep doing this in the name of one so called God or another. and the gods never actually show up and they never do anything. But the people keep doing it anyway. Just this uncontrollable unquenchable thirst and desire that we have for something more powerful than ourselves. But then my eyes fell upon the tomb, the actual tomb, of Michelangelo and then Galileo and then I thought, wow. Now here is someone greater than ourselves. These are men who really did come to earth and do great things. There was something behind the promise. The works have lasted hundreds of years and really are amazing. we are so lucky to have made their acquaintance to have been touched by their presence here on earth. So for me I walked away feeling very humble but very proud to be human. Because I believe in us. I believe in humans. I wish humanity as a whole had the guts to do this. just let all the God stuff go and start believing in us instead...  

But always in my heart I feel this presence. You know that soft smiling its alright all in time voice you hear? I call that God. Who knows what it is. I don't know anything about God. I just know that I feel this presence. Another aspect of self/higher self separated from current identity occupying consciousness by a non-specific amount of unknown anti-matter... this in turn creates a feeling of separation between two parts of ourselves that are really part of the same whole? Perhaps. Who knows. I call it God anyway. even when I am doubting it. 

And then I went and talked to the virgin Mary for a while. She looked very beautiful. I don't know what it is about her. Virgin birth? Who knows. study your history. Seems highly unlikely. In fact they didn't come up with that for hundreds of years after the original story. But oh well. now everyone believes in it. That's the catholic church for you. when Sinead O’Conner ripped up the picture on Saturday night live and said ‘fight the real enemy,’ she wasn’t being some crazy radical. She was telling the truth. Its just that not many people know it yet, and the ones that do are too scared to say anything. 

Anyway, so I looked to her for a while. And lit a candle. I asked her for the health and happiness of my mom, who really loves her, and the same for my uncle, who just really needs this now. And then I told her to send me a beautiful wife and a bunch of beautiful kids one day. Because I figured she could relate to this request. No seriously. This is what these churches do to you. you become kind of mystified. Kind of hypnotized. You lose your mind, and this huge feeling takes over inside of you as you are looking at these MAMMOTH statues and frescoes everywhere. It’s a nice feeling actually. I asked her to show me my path now that I have picked up and left a whole world behind. Kind of nudge me in the right direction a little. I don't want to wander around forever. I have built a few empires and walked away when it was my time to walk away. I have always been very fortunate in this in my life. Building little empires. Now I am ready to build another one. but this time I want it to be huge. Gigantic. Monstrous. God-like. And I want it centered around my music and my writing and whatever else I do. I love the whole Renaissance man thing. And I know I am fortunate to be able to do a lot of different things and to prosper from that. But now I just want to do this for a while and not struggle with it or any of that but just totally prosper with it. Just music and art and writing and creating stuff. Really explore it for a while to the outermost limits and just make gobs of money from it. Rather than from anything else that I happen to do.

How do you spend an hour cursing and complaining to one man, and then another hour praying to his mother? This is the ironic and tragic fate of being human. Gods, can’t live with them, can’t live without them. 

So how does this manifest? Where do I begin? What is my next action step. Usually I am so filled with action items I drive myself and a whole staff crazy. now I do not know really what the next action steps should be. its just me and an old bicycle in a strange town. What? Just put the next album out? Just keep doing what we've been doing? Year after year? I don't think there is a better place in the world to begin than Florence. So this is a good thing that I ended up here. I will say this. Maybe I will never make a profit from music. Maybe I will always spend more on it than I make and forever live the life of a pauper... But the new new new album that we  will start very soon---freedom beauty truth love---will be the best album I have ever done. I am on fire with passion and inspiration everyday. And I think the last three have also been very good as well. And the one me and the boys are working on now is very good too. One thing this trip has done is really helped me to understand myself as an artist, by studying all the other artists throughout history. You hear about how when ghiberti beat bruneleschi in the competition for the doors of the baptistery, he ran off in a puff to Rome very upset. But it was this studying in Rome that cause him to study classic roman architecture and then come back and build Il Duomo, one of the most impressive domes in the world. Or how Galileo was exiled and imprisoned for saying the earth was round. Or how Dante was exiled for writing the divine comedy in the natural Toscana Italian language. It actually really helps you stay true to your heart’s divine intentions as an artist.  

Last Movie:  Orlando. This is a great story. Beautiful, poetic, and romantic. I think its Virginia Wolfe.