Eating this amazing breakfast with a view of the ocean. Hey its not Miami, but its pretty nice. seeing that the “lindenberger” cheese that is supposedly German we are eating has a little Kraft label on it makes me feel very good. everytime I see an Italian smoking Marlboros or some other American brand it makes me feel good. you don't think about that until you leave America and head abroad and then all you think about is how many of our products are other countries purchasing, how we can increase this, and how we can develop more products in our own country for our own country to purchase. It becomes a little obsession. Thinking about our economy in comparison to other countries. Seeing on TV how Libya now is trying to kiss our ass and finally stand up of that bombing they did. and now we are supposed to authorize the lifting of the sanctions. You don't realize what power it is to be an American till you start traveling. Then you know. we are immune to it back home. Take it for granted. Libya can fuck off. They killed over two hundred of our people for what? Sorry. Yes we will take your 217 million dollars and no we will not lift the sanctions. 

The longer I stay away the more proud I am to be an American. the more I talk to people here and hear what they go through. The red tape and the beaurocracy. Lack of this or that. “how do so many of you have your own companies over there” Stephano from Germany asks me. “shit dude. At one time I had five going. now I only have three.” “This is amazing,” he says. “is it true that anyone can just start a business of their own?” “yes. We can get the idea today and start it tomorrow if we want to. we’re used to this.” “this is why America has such a great economy. You are all so free. Everyone wants money. Everyone wants to consume. So you all work hard to consume more and this keeps your economy growing. In Germany it is not this way. people want security first. They don't think about consuming like you do. if you make a certain amount of money you find a way to live according to that. in America you just look for another job or work two jobs or start your own company. This is amazing.” I looked at him talking about this so passionately while I ate my breakfast. I explained to him how I had been in business since I was nine years old, on and off of course. Starting with my shoe shine business, then my own car wash business, then my own lawn mowing business. then my own term paper writing business in college. Then I started taking the SATs and other tests for people at 2 to 3 hundred dollars a pop. (I know I shouldn’t admit to this) and then my own recording studio, then of course my band was a business, record label, health food store, juice bars, vitamin companies, real estate investment company, on and on. He couldn’t believe it. he has always studied about American entrepreneurs and the free enterprise system in university but now he was sharing a weekend with a very typically passionate American entrepreneur. And I was as much surprised and inspired by his awe and enthusiasm. And I'm not even a very successful entrepreneur at that. I go in and out of being rich. I've made millions and still don't have millions. The good ones, they get rich and they stay rich. That's my goal I tell him. I recount to him how Tony Robbins went from one hundred thousand a year to one million a year in a few years and then from one to six million a year a year or two later. This is what I'm working at. He looks at me with wide eyes. “six million dollars a year?” he exclaims. “sure, that's nothing. A lot of CEOs make forty million a year, easy.” It is very easy to do this in America. It is inbred in us. we grow up seeing and hearing about it everyday.” 

I tell him how I am in the streets of Rome and other cities walking with an Italian girl and I see one of the many merchants on the streets selling purses or sunglasses or tourist souvenirs and I comment how exciting it is to see the free enterprise system in action at such an elementary level. She says “I just find it sad and annoying all these guys selling stuff.” I say, “wow, I find it exhilarating. They are making a life for themselves. Their income in their own hands totally up to them. That’s America.” He asks, but aren't you afraid of failing? In Germany if we fail it is so bad. A man wouldn’t know what to do if he failed. He would feel so bad. e He wouldHh  “Fuck man,” I tell him, “we fail all the time in business in America. Who cares? You just start over. That's part of the risk of being in business.” “But aren't you concerned with security?” “Sure we are but that's half the fun. A lot of the great people in our history failed before they succeeded. A few times even. We are raised hearing about these failures and then the successes. Its part of the risk of it. I guess we don't care as much.” I tell him how I emptied my retirement account to pay for our new CD when we went over budget and so now I don't hav a penny saved.... He looks at me like I am crazy. “you spent all of your retirement savings????!!!!” he exclaims.... “my brother I promise you we read about these stories everyday in America. It is no big deal. Its all part of it.” he shakes his head and lights a cigarette. I tell him to please smoke outside. “we don't smoke indoors in the states anymore man. “ yes but you are in Europe now. we always do.” “whatever. You're in my hotel room. And I'm still an American.”   

laughing about the difference between our football and their football. Why we stole their name for a sport that doesn’t even remotely resemble real football is beyond the Europeans. Couldn’t think of our own name I guess. I am trying to explain how thoroughly boring their football is and of course he was trying to do the same about our football. But of course neither come close to the complete lack of excitement of a fourteen hour cricket game. I think I've done an excellent job at explaining to him why American football is the greatest sport, no, the greatest thing, in the entire free world. American football is a metaphor for life itself. It is two teams, no, two armies, battling for honor and glory, and often times for their very lives. It is the American dream. Whereas their football, soccer, is like a bunch of skinny guys kicking a little ball around for two hours. Not much beauty in that little white ball often times accidentally bouncing off of someone into the net. Even when they show it in slomo its amusement at best. whereas when you see a fifty yard reception in the last ten seconds of a game followed by another forty yard run to score a td, well you’re seeing humanity at its absolute best. you are witnessing genius. And strategy? Get the ball into the little net. Kind of pitiful really, compared to American football, where you could spend four years at college just studying the strategy of the game. The three inch thick playbooks. You could spend an entire lifetime studying the strategy of football. I explain to him the passion and the preparation that goes into playing football. The hours and hours a day they must spend in the gym, pumping up. the slightest mistake or wrong move on the field could mean a broken leg, or a broken back, or a destroyed knee. Or even worse. How the offensive line is literally working to not just defend the QB but perhaps even save his life. their job is to injure him so bad he must be taken out of the game. How they endure surgery after surgery throughout their lives to just stay playing the game. Days and days of pain so bad that they cannot get out of bed for days. This is not a bunch of skinny little guys bouncing a ball off their heads. This is life or death. This is the real deal. I am sorry we stole the name. I'll put it that way. But please, don't talk to me about real football.

We have found an amazing place here in this little unknown hideaway called Pescara. Spent all night at all these bars and clubs they have up and down the beach here. the most amazingly

The Europeans think that all of our girls in high school and college are lesbians now. they have heard about this strange thing transpiring as of late in the states. I told them it is true that some kind of weird phenomenon is happening there like that. why, we don't know. the last gasp in the women’s movement before they truly become equals. Or maybe they’ve just gotten tired of putting up with our shit. I know so many gay people, both girls and guys