What a glorious day. Woke up on time for class for once. A little hung over. Listening to that song Veronica from the new album. what a great album we made. I can’t wait for it to come out! Thinking a lot about Infinito while I am here. What a cultured and educated guy he is. I really like that kid. G2 also. I am lucky to know them. 

What a day! The reality has set in. The novelty of being someplace new is wearing off. Just trying to get used to the basic things. For one thing I haven't ridden a bicycle in ten or more years so just doing that and trying to lock it and unlock it all the time is a pain the ass, learning curve. And trying to steer your way through the constant traffic of pedestrians, cars, scooters, and other bicycles is pure insanity. Though I am getting used to it now. It reminds of when we were kids and we would ride around the neighborhood a little each day until we got to know it completely, each day a new adventure as we went a little further outside our box of what we know. that is what it is like. I will just keep riding till I hit something like a huge highway and then stop to look around and think, where the fuck am I now? 

My brain hurts so much from trying to speak and think in Italian. I just want to stop studying. It feels like my brain is swimming. And I still totally suck at speaking. I got very frustrated today over it. agitated that it is not coming faster. So I did what any sane person would do. I signed up to take another hour per day. After lunch. Cause I'm getting to the point of being pissed off at myself for not getting it fast enough. 

The constant tourists here make it a rather undesirable place to live. This has never been my thing no matter where I am and now that I have been some time I am sick of them even though I am one of them myself. Especially now that I have a bike and a schedule and places to go. and they are just kind of you know. doing the tourist thing, hanging around with their mouths open catching flies or eating ice cream and pointing to stuff. its crazy because there are more tourists here than I have ever seen anywhere. More than Orlando Florida even. It really is maddening. And now I know why people say don't come to Europe in the summer. Just like Orlando. 

Just trying to fit in and master the Basics. Where do I get my clothes washed. Where do I eat tonight. I found a great restaurant tonight though but it took me over an hour of riding around to find anything open. I just started refusing to stop at the touristy places for dinner anymore and that's all there is unless you start riding real far into the outer areas of the city. So I did that and it wasn't easy trying to find a place open and affordable. I can’t believe I'm talking about affordable. No but seriously I'm thinking about that now. cause its like I'm back in student mode now just going to school and hanging around learning stuff, not working, so now I'm thinking of ways to conserve money which I haven't done in years. this is really a horrible thing and completely over rated as a past time. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. I have been rich and I have been poor and I have been in between. And I would say that to be rich is the only way to be.  

Writing two songs now. slightly new tuning, open D9. I will get someone to start helping me write songs in Italian starting next week. And let us see what comes out. Also I signed up for more opera lessons. To not just study the music but also the lyrics which should help pound it into my brain in a different way. thinking a lot about the freedom beauty truth love album which we were going to make after rise and shine but sleep with you came out instead and now this other one. so maybe this will be the next one we do. I can feel it now. 

Climbing the stairs of the apartment sucks. I try to tell myself that it is more enjoyable because they are renaissance stairs from the medieval times, but even if they were prehistoric fucking stairs, four flights of them still suck. 

Also I am so completely alone which I am not used to because I have so many friends where I live but here I know no one. so I go to school and then I am just on my own which I was really liking but still it is kind of lonely. And I get kind of shy not speaking the language. Just making a sentence is like this huge task. So conversation is at a minimum. I think this is why I come home and write so much. It makes me think of myself like some old man roaming through the streets by himself in some beat up suit riding his rickety old bicycle. Hahaha. What a thought. 

But I did have this great lunch with a bunch of Israeli guys today at their apartment. all these students think I am famous in the states because we have this website. And we have albums out. I have seriously tried to explain to them that we are anything but famous. But o.k. so they invite me to their apartment to eat lunch with them. and they are all asking me all these questions and taking my picture and making me all this food. But I was so taken with the way these guys were with each other. It was so beautiful. They are so nice and without pretense and kind to one another. One guy cooks and the other guy cleans and they serve each other food. Can you imagine that in the states? American guys serving each other food in their apartment? they’d be like, “I'm not cooking dude. You fucking cook. Get your girlfriend to cook dickhead.” Anyway, It was so beautiful. they were just so good and hospitable to one another. Very moving. 

Last night over much red wine I had the opportunity to talk with some people visiting here from Kansas city and Chicago and everyone was agreeing, saying the same thing, that it is just an awful time to be American. it is just an uncomfortable moment in our history. Not just one thing but lots of little things. The music, the movies, the president and the government, the media, the pomposity and the bullshit and pretense, the flash and circus of everything even the littlest things like commercials are all so flashy and without substance. We all just got very drunk and kind of sad talking about it, because we are Americans and we love America but we just hate what it has turned into. I seriously hope I never have to watch American television again. for anything. Just thinking about it makes me feel nauseas. [but Italian TV is muc much worse—revolting..] It is such a “look who we think we are mentality. flash with no elegance or style. O.k. whatever. Now I am depressed thinking about it. enough. I just keep telling myself that really I can just stay here as long as I want to. or if I want I have one suitcase and a guitar, I can go anywhere around here. any other city in Europe. I don't have to go back. that's the thing. It is such a weird concept. You hear about John Malkovich living in France etc. and so many people do. and you can easily see why. I think yes you would easily reach a place on your assent to becoming cultured, educated, and refined where you would not be able to bear living in too many places in the United States at all. Maybe new York or in the mountains somewhere like Robert Redford. But hopefully no where near a strip mall. I think that is a beautiful and simple dream. That my children never grow up seeing a strip mall, except maybe in the movies. But that they grow up that way. in that kind of environment. And they don't grow up watching American TV. So that way they are more free to be themselves and not have that American pressure to have and to buy everything and to look all hot and flashy and all that shit. It would be nice to raise them in a way where .... well you know.  

LA Princesa emailed me today. so happy that I was here. telling me all the places to go. she gets married in Sweden in like a week or two. And as always hers was one of the smartest wittiest and artistic emails I have received in weeks. She is very special.