Two men at a restaurant start talking to me. Are you famous? No. c'mon man, we recognize you from somewhere. who are you? tell us. I am a singer in a rock band. I told him you were a singer. My friend says you might be a gigolo. Laughs. and he knows a lot of famous gigolos? More laughs. no but you know maybe you are an actor. No sorry. More of a gigolo actually. Your friend was right. not much a difference there. How's that? Between a singer and a gigolo. Laughs.
 
And then we start talking more about real estate, an extreme sport I am very passionate about. As soon as someone at the table mentioned rich dad poor dad we were all high fiving and introducing ourselves. Talked for a good hour or so. They live in Tucson. Confirmed what my research had already shown that Tucson is a sure-fire hot spot for quick appreciation and easy buys. The stock market sucks now. everyone is scratching their heads over the impossibility of trying to make money there right now. even the underground analysts, whose newsletters I subscribe to more than one or two. Even they, usually very confident and always bragging about the double digit profits they can make you, are sending emails now saying, “we give up, don't know what to tell you, don't know what to recommend. Get out now take your cash and sit on it.” Which is fine if you're rich. But if you're trying to make money, that advice doesn’t help too much. But there's still money to made in this over-inflated credit hungry over extended market. But you have to know where to put your money. New York is out. Miami is out. all the big cities are out. to over valued. Ready for a correction. I spent about six months researching and came up with about six regions that still had the potential for enormous growth potential. Tucson was number one on my list. These guys tell me they are buying in Tucson at pre-con for a thousand dollars down and flipping for twenty percent profit six months later. Good to know. next stop, Tucson.

Just saw the FMQB charts this week. Sleep with you made the top 25. In 23^rd place this week. That's awesome. DJs are spinning the album and the peeps are digging it. 

Processing a lot. Had almost over an hour CHP today with one creation. A wild ride. 

Current Spin: Justin Clayton, Limb. This is a great guitar pop record by a master songwriter and producer. Really good. Listening to this on the way over the causeway from the beach to the mainland extremely loud. Makes you wonder what more is left to create with music. that's how good it is. makes you not able to think of anything better to do on your own. so you just don't want to make music for a while. 

I wonder, do you ever wonder, how would we ever make something really grand and wonderful? With any lasting value. Think of Rome for God sakes; it is filled with giant memorials to many men's quest for the same ambition. Or Egypt. [one has to wonder underneath this if the reason why we feel this way is just because we long to make something real and valuable and meaningful for ourselves. I mean this can’t just be for other people, for the fans, or whoever. In the long run who really cares about that? It has to be about what is of lasting value to us. I think that secretly that is who we are trying to please.] Listening to Justin’s CD here, thinking about how it went so un-noticed around the world. What is the difference between the famous and the not famous? How does p diddy get to be a millionaire but Justin is still just one of the many songwriters who put out an album? I wonder what else is at play there besides music? Underneath the surface of it? things cosmic or karmic? Or just the luck of the draw? Right place at the right time? I don't know. but listening more you can just hear it. you put on p diddy, and as base and shallow and inane as it is, it is really creative; it really gets you moving. It just has this “thing” about it. sounds and feels upbeat and contemporary. And you can tell that it is going to appeal to a broader demographic. You put on Justin's album or any number of other singer songwriters out there and its just guitar bass and drum pop rock music. a lot of times really smart and catchy and intelligent and sometimes even moving (like Justin's song Drag—download this track for sure). And sometimes, rarely, it can really be sublime like Robbie William’s Escapology, or Aimee Mann magnolia, or Jeff Buckley’s Grace. But that's it. its still guitar bass and drum music. Frankly I'm sick of music sounding like that. I hate it. Which is funny cause that's what we do stll. I always tried to avoid it. Until sleep with you, where we really tried to embrace the idea of sounding like a band of five guys. There were a lot of moments where I reached out and tried to do stuff that was out there but the producer didn't let me, he would scream and say I was crazy and remind me that I was broke and that we were trying to make an album where we all could make some money. so I held back on being experimental and just tried to sing and play really well. But before that I was always into trying to rise above that. on rise and shine we really tried. People thought we were all over the place. Which we were. But totally on purpose. There is no mold to making albums. Like all art. and every time you discover a mold, you should immediately break it. our new album is more of the same. Five guys making music on their instruments. Very natural and organic. You can hear the voices and the instruments. Whereas say on a p diddy or the new Justin Timberlake album, you can’t hear any instruments. Its all just music, because so much of it is made in a computer or on keyboards. So its just this combination of sounds---rhythm and melody and harmonies—that come together to create this sound. And I like that. and man I could go on and on, because my favorite stuff the last few years has been like that. ginger baby by father Bloopy is very raw at first listen but it is very experimental; the two Radiohead albums kid a and amnesiac are more mainstream examples of that. They almost got there. but cats like takemura Nabukazu or the silver mount Zion memorial orchestra or stars of the lid really go all the way out there, where there isn't even a song structure anymore. And I think that's the future. Been so busy trying to make it mainstream I haven't had time to create more music like this, but I would like to focus more on it. I think then I would feel as if I was contributing more value to myself as an artist. Because at this point I think that as an artist I have kind of superceded where I am in my music career. Still putting out three and four minute pop/rock songs with a five piece band, but my heart is longing for twenty minute one note drone music that goes somewhere else entirely. 

Studied articles and prepositions today. Forget about it. I will speak like Tarzan forever. They have over fifty different articles and prepositions, depending on the word it comes before. In English we have maybe ten; a, the, by, of, with, to, for, in. And seriously they have at least fifty or sixty. Six different words for the word ‘the’ alone.

So tired today. Walking and riding every where in the hot sun is very different than driving around in an air conditioned car everywhere.

The girls are so beautiful here. how do you choose just one. but more importantly how do you talk to them when you cant even talk? Pardon me, where I can buy a CD please. this is what I sound like I think. maybe I can start dating young girls like in elementary school or kindergarten, because this is what I speak like. All the girls stare at me, peer out of the corner of their eye. Which is very nice. normally I'm the one doing the peering out of the eye, but I'm too focused here on learning right now. but sometimes I think it makes things harder. Harder to meet them. Everyone thinks I'm famous here. even people who have never heard of me. why, I don't know. but it makes things harder. People get shy. I think I'm going through one of those ‘looking famous phases.’ Maybe I am famous and I just don't know of me yet. I am always the last to get into stuff my friends always say. I must look myself up. See who I am now. Maybe I am huge and don't know it. that would be good because I could use the money that I am sure comes with this fame.

Went to the piazza Michelangelo tonight with some friends from Costa Rica. Sits high on a mountain. Saw the sun setting over the whole city with all the towers and churches. Very beautiful. we ate dinner and admired my old beat up bicycle. Roxanne commented I bet you would never have that bicycle in Miami, it would be garbage; but here it is precious to you. We all laughed and agreed. My precious beat up bicycle with no brakes. Things are relative.

Everywhere and anywhere you go there is a little café or bar or restaurant on the corner. Just like new York. Very much like New York except that there are no chain stores of any kind anywhere. Only little mom and pop places. All the doors of everything are always open and there are no goofy corporate uniforms. Everyone just wears what they want. Maybe an apron. You can go into any café or bar and order food, pizza, salad, soda, coffee, or alcohol or beer or wine or pastries. Sit down and eat it or stand there at the bar. Any shop. They all have the same stuff. although they might specialize in one thing or another. its amazing. I keep forgetting to talk about food although I am taking notes in my palm. For lunch I always go to this same place. And I can just sit there if I want to and have a big dish of tomatoes and olive oil and onions and mozzarella. And then maybe a plate of rice, and vegetables, like a cold salad. Every bite takes me back to my childhood growing up with my grandma making us our meals everyday. It is very nice. the other night for dinner I had a huge plate of arucala, avocado, cheese and pine nuts in a pesto sauce. It was out of this world. Tonight I had thinly sliced steak and arugala in olive oil for dinner. Red wine and a chocolate Tartuffe. When la Princesa or Cleopatra would tell me you belong living in Italy, I didn't know this is what they meant. I thought they were just saying it. I didn't realize...

Current read: studying the history of Italy, from the very beginning to modern times. Fascinating.

Current Spin: fabrizio de andre, anime salve. 

Slept in. Went to Pisa to see this leaning tower. Thought perhaps I could offer some assistance with my extensive engineering skills. Took a train. It is true. You can just go to a station and take a train anywhere here. it is incredible. In less than an hour we were there. But we walked a lot. On the train we met a lady and her 4 girls. I told her in a very broken Italian: “do you go to tower? O.k. good. we follow you.” and so me and my friend just followed this family around all day. She showed us everything and taught us a lot of Italian. It was fun. When you first see the tower, it is kind of a freak out, growing up seeing it in books all your life and then there it is in front of you. it looks a lot smaller at first and then you get close to it and wham. It was breathtaking. And the cathedral is amazing inside. 

Not much darkness here. sun rises by 6 and is still up at 10 at night. so the days seem very looooong. People smoke everywhere. in America you just aren't used to it. someone lights up and it is a worse crime than murder. In fact isn't murder legal now in the states? We can do that now, right? But here people just smoke everywhere. They light up and I find myself looking at them with this scowl like how dare you. and then you realized that you aren't in the states. They're just used to it.   

Yes the Italians are the coolest people on earth. Seriously. I read it recently in a medical journal. I think they took blood samples. That's what it was. I used to always think the English were the coolest. You know the Beatles and The Stones, Oasis, Zeppelin, The Young Ones, and Eddie Izzard, o.k. well maybe the English are the coolest after all. of course the French think they are the coolest, which is why they aren't. and I think a lot of other countries think that the Americans are the coolest, the whole John Wayne, sly Stallone, Clint Eastwood, Cary grant, James bond, (yes I know what you're thinking—those guys are English, yes, but they are American now---we bought the rights...) Lenny Kravitz, Tom Cruise, o.k. so maybe the Americans are the coolest after all. I guess if you want someone to come crashing into a building on a motorcycle and save the day yea you're going to want it to be an American. with a slight British accent of course. 

But there is still something unspeakably cool about the Italians. Maybe it is just that they are so skinny and handsome and pretty. But what is wonderful is that they are cool but still very shy and nice and without pretense. You know how the Latinos (o.k. fine, some of them, lets not stereotype God forbid) are very what they call machismo? It is this kind of I don't know what you call it, like peacocks with testosterone shots, always strutting their stuff. (Think of the movie Scarface—this isn't an exaggeration, I live in Miami, you see this every day all day long) It is just part of their character though. The men act all like I'm so tough I'm so cool. And the women act all like I'm so hot and you can’t touch me. It takes some time for you to get through it so you can meet the real people underneath. I asked la Princesa a few times about it and we talked about it. can’t we drop all the bravado and pretense now that we've slept together? She says it is just the way it is. Love it or leave it baby was her attitude. So I left it. This is why the Brasilians stand out so much in South America because they are not this way. They are just the sweetest humblest people. Blessed by God in some secret way that only they know about. Everyday is a joy to be alive. Unless of course you want to actually get something done. Forget about it.