O.k. what an adventure. I had to call a cab from the apartment and have him take all my luggage to the new hotel. And then I had to follow him. We’re talking like ten or more miles, maybe more. about a half hour drive right through the center of Rome from the bottom all the way to the top of it. I was following him on my scooter. He was driving very fast. through all these little streets, huge squares, and mammoth highways. Traffic everywhere. it was right out of a movie. Me following as close behind him as possible, sometimes driving up to 80 kms. If all that wasn't enough he takes me right into piazza di spagna (what we call the very famous “Spanish Steps”) which is where my new abode is, and this is a pedestrian only area and I'm whizzing through it on their motorcycle trying to follow him and these cops are chasing me. but I'm thinking ‘I'll just keep going and act like I don't see them, how much farther can this hotel be?’ they finally catch up to me blowing their whistles and everything and by now all the tourists are watching this. because of all the ruckus in this huge square. This lady cop starts shouting at me and pointing for me to pull over, thinking I'm Italian. and I'm like, (in Italian of course) I'm sorry I don't speak Italian. What are you saying?” and she's screaming back, “you don't speak Italian?! you speak Italian just fine! What the hell is wrong with you?! why didn't you stop?! Blah blah blah.” Finally the taxi cab driver comes running back to us shouting “he's an American. he's trying to follow me. i have all his luggage in my cab.” And she's like, “I don't give a shit. He's in a pedestrian only area and you know it. why did you let him come whizzing through here on that scooter like that?! you know better.” It went on and on. I continued to plead that I knew nothing about this and was simply following a cab. She was getting very angry at me and told me I had to walk this scooter like a mile in the opposite direction. At which I said very politely, ‘no way. I'm too tired. My hotel is that way. please let me walk it to my hotel.’ and miraculously she said yes. What a mess. It was one of those comedies from the seventies. Me and the lady cop, who was very hot and sexy by the way, and the cabby all arguing in front of thousands of tourists. And her waving this ticket book like it was life or death if she gave us a ticket. And I'm thinking I hope she does give me a ticket. I will fucking rip it up right in her face, hop on my scooter and take off down some alley. Then it will turn into a woody Allen movie. Classic. 

So. I woke up this morning and I just knew I needed to move. You live in one of these tenement buildings like this old one and you share a common courtyard with maybe fifty other apartments. Which is fin except in Italy where there is no AC. So everyone leaves all their windows open. All day and all night. so by 6 am you are wide awake to every conceivable sound from everyone else who is waking up. its really gross but you hear every person burp, use the bathroom, cough sneeze, talk to their spouses or kids, walking their dogs, making their breakfast, etc, etc. so by 6 am I was laying awake in their sweaty old disgusting bed listening to all these strange people do their thing. And I didn't get to sleep until maybe 2 or 3 because I was so hot. And I was just like o.k. now I  know what the lesson is. get the fuck out of situations that don't serve you. and next time don't take so long. I made it school. Groggy as hell and late as always because I got way lost and drove miles out of the city of Rome cause I got caught on some stupid expressway driving way faster than I had any right to be, but just to keep up with traffic so I didn’t get run over. By the time I got to class I was angry and grumpy and stressed.

After a while I cooled into what is turning into a very good class. Better than the one in Florence. This class is all adults rather than teenagers. We have a Ukrainian, two Slovakians, two Germans, a French man, me from the States, a Brasilian, a lady from Congo in Africa, a lady from Chile, and an Argentina. So lots of different languages floating around the room. Very little English, which sucks for me. But maybe that is a good thing in the long run. I am forced to speak italian or Spanish or Portuguese. or mumble in English while everyone laughs at me for trying to speak English to a teacher who doesn’t speak it.  

Rome. What is it like? Not as a tourist. If you’ve been here or you do come here someday as a tourist, stay three or four days to see the sites, casually walking the streets while you eat your gelato, shut up because you have no idea what its like. I'm talking what is it like if you are living here and driving around all over the place on a scooter or in a car, trying to find your way around and find a grocery store and drycleaners etc. totally different thing. For one thing, yes it is very hot, as one recent Navy guy from the states I met said, ‘you spend a lot of the day just thinking about how hot you are and trying to find places with ac.’ For another thing. The city is every bit as big as New York. Rome is huge. Its like Sao Paulo or Tokyo. But there is no grid system here like in New York. After all the city is twenty-five hundred years old. So its just a big jumble of streets and highways and plazas and squares and alleys and whatever else you can imagine. They go straight, crooked, diagonal. They cut off after only a block sometimes. And of course they are all one way. so you may be driving one way and then the street just cuts off and you can’t go anymore. You have to turn or turn around. Its just crazy. And there a very few traffic lights. So everyone just drives however they want to. the fastest and the bravest one wins. This is the only rule of the roads here from what I can tell. There are even fewer street signs. A lot of times you have to drive really far looking everywhere just to see what street you are driving on. This is all stuff that is hard to get used to if you live in the United States of perfection. Where everything is in its right place. 

Woke up this morning very early due to cowling cats and dogs, crying babies, machinery, and people talking, and screaming outside. Just one of the many luxuries that await you when you have to leave your windows open all night in a big city for fear of dying from heat prostration. Is this a word? I wonder. But I still fear that I may die from it here. there is no end to the sheer horror that is sleeping in a house with no central air flow of any kind. It is hot and stuffy. You lay there all night staring at the ceiling in a pool of muggy sweat, your only hope is that you pass out from sheer exhaustion. Can you imagine that we lived for thousands of years without air conditioning? I cannot and refuse to think about it. at the new school I am at they are offended by my demands to have ac. They say they don't need it here in Italy. I remind them that it is 40 degrees Celsius inside and outside. They say they are used to it. she tells me that it is too expensive. Never heard of a wall unit? Home depot? Things like that do not exist in Italy. Seriously. I went to a hardware store once here to buy some spray paint to paint my new bike which had just been stolen from me the day before and then painted and resold to me the following day—another story---and this store was about the size of your average McDonalds. And of course they didn't accept credit cards. Seriously. An entire hardware store. You could buy a thousand dollars worth of stuff and they only took cash. And none of the houses or apartments have electric outlets. Maybe they have two. Or three at the most in the whole place. so say you want to plug in your cell phone, laptop, and Palm to charge for the night. You’re fucked. And don't forget your batteries for your camcorder or digital camera. You will have to unplug your clock, your regular phone, your TV, your hot water heater.... Little things like this that we take for granted in the states, and really a lot of other places too. just here I don't know man. I don't get them. 

Italy is very funny in this dichotomy they have set up. on the one hand they are really advanced in style and fashion and just the way things look and taste. Things like their food which is so delicious. Or the glass from murano or the leather from Florence or anything from Milan. But in other ways they are like a hundred years behind America. In so many ways just totally behind. It is not a want it now get it now society. Cell phones here don't even have voicemail. Just on and on. Pay phones that don't accept change. I know that may seem advanced to have a phone that only accepts a card but it is just plain stupid. What if you don't have a card? You’re fucked. You do nothing. There is no way for you to make a call. Things like this are just common place here. at a restaurant tonight the waiter just came to the table and said 39. he didn't even bother to give us a check.  

[The Italians don't form lines. I seriously read this in my travel book. And thought it was a generalization. But no matter what city you are in, they will not form a line anywhere. As in the states for the movies or for the train or for the restaurant. It is just a very egotistical type of a thing where everyone just kind of huddles and pushes each other and hopes to get to the front first. I have never seen anything like this before from grown adults. No freaking lines. They just all stand there huddled together pushing each other. Now if you aren't used to it and you are used to letting people go and being polite and all of that, you will be the last person to get served even if you are in the front. They have this way of kind of pushing their way past each other but pretending they are not doing it. it is uncannily rude. I have to say that the longer I stay here the more I long for English or American manners and etiquette.] 

O.k. so this morning I wake up perspiring something disgusting in this strange lady’s bed. I get up to take a shower and the bathroom is so dirty that I swear to fucking God I almost threw up. I had to stop myself from just yakking right there in the bathroom. The carpets are so gross and the bathtub so disgusting that I just felt like screaming. I go to turn on the shower and only cold water. So I do one of these cold showers briefly. Why I am staying here I don't know. it is beneath me. but it is a great price. I will move after the weekend. 

I could not understand a fucking thing my teacher said today. the other students as well. I don't know what accent she has. And she speaks no English so I'm fucked in this class. I took the entrance test though and did tremendously I was told by the administrator there. So that was cool. I am actually learning to speak the language. More people on the street now ask me if I am here to teach English rather than as a student of Italian which means I am sounding pretty good out there.  

Have I mentioned that I found hell? I seriously never really believed it existed. I know, maybe you knew it all along, but secretly I just thought it was a legend. Well little did I know that it disguises itself by the name of Rome. Right here in Italy. Hot, loud, dirty, noisy, traffic, just a big mess of a city with none of the charm of new York or Paris but all the big buildings and traffic and graffiti walls and crippled people on every corner begging for change. I received several emails today from friends who said they thought the same thing about Rome but thought it was just them so they kept quiet about it. well not me. this place is just really lacking in beauty. I saw the coliseum today. just really bumped right into it. 

I woke up this morning, checked out of my hotel and went to American express and booked a ticket for Rome. Last night I was feeling like o.k. I've seen enough, I need to go to Rome and start school again. after all what am I doing here? seeing sights, writing songs, reading, whatever. so that is what I decided, get back to school. After I had everything set, I headed for the academia, which is their version of the Louvre etc. a very large art gallery and museum, a must see. On the way there I saw this amazing looking girl with these glasses that were so beautiful. I second looked because she was so beautiful and then I realized that she was the same girl I had seen yesterday at the beach on that little island. I actually chased her yesterday but lost her. So today I started following her. I'm not joking even though I am laughing while I type this. I was so overtaken by her I didn't want her to get away again. I had spent over a month in Florence and didn't find one woman who captivated me enough to even warrant a second look. But here there have been many. An elegance unmatched. So I followed her from a distance. Talking to her like I was in some movie. Watching how beautifully she carried herself. So pretty and carefree. And then I stopped and looked in a window at some amazing glasswork and when I turned around she was gone. Just like that. I walked up and down the alleys looking for her. How could it be that I could see her again like this—surely it must be fate---and then lose her again? What a cruel joke indeed. 

Eventually I found my way to the Academia and of course it was closed. After all it was 2 and on Mondays the academia closes at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. Why? No reason. Except that we’re in Italy. So I rushed off to the Guggenheim museum, because tomorrow the Guggenheim will be closed. Why? Because it is Tuesday of course. You see? There is no logic here.

Well I have to say the Guggenheim really besides the statue of David has been the thing that has impressed me the most in Italy. I know. this is crazy. but whatever. I just found that I could relate to the 20^th century art much more than all the renaissance stuff. how many paintings of Jesus and the virgin Mary can you see? Well I didn't count but I have reached my limit. This museum is the actual palace where New York heiress and art collector Peggy Guggenheim lived and died from 1949 till 1979. She had an amazing modern art collection in her home. And now they have turned it into a museum. 

Today I saw some real Italian. the only drag about starting to speak Italian all the time is that you stop becoming a tourist to the people and you start becoming a regular person. so I'm in this restaurant where I always go for breakfast because they will actually make me breakfast which is a miracle here—they don't actually like doing it and look at me like I am crazy for wanting anything but espresso and bread. And I go in and grab this sugar thing off the counter and this young guy working there gives me this sopranos like ‘eeehhh what the fuck?!’ but in Italian, and I'm like taken aback. And then he throws a couple of sugar packs to me. I'm like fuck I'm getting too comfortable here. They think I'm one of them. and then the father sees this and starts screaming at the guy and hitting him up side his  head. And they are in this big shouting match over how he acted. ‘o.k. enough!!!’ “no its not enough. Stop treating the customers like that!!!! what's wrong with you. you're stupid. Why are you so rude?!!!’ ‘o.k. enough!’ I swear to God it was just like being back at home when I was a little kid with my whole family screaming at each other. I was like o.k. now I'm seeing some real Italian shit. Cause they are doing this right in the middle of their restaurant in front of all the customers. Classic.

I will say this. The books I have been reading spend a lot of time talking about how split up Italy is and has always been. That is why it has never achieved the kind of unity and power that other countries have. the regions are so different and are happy to stay that way. they have been fighting over this for fifteen hundred years. seriously. There are two different factions in the country. One set says that they should all unite and be one country and be governed by one government so to speak, and the other set says that they should be separate and not even be a country but a bunch of little city-states. Much blood has shed over this debate. They have over 1500 different dialects still being spoken, each of them almost entirely different from the other. Italian as it is now spoken, which is Toscana Italian, has only been the official language for 100 years. and still when you leave Tuscany, you find a lot of towns don't speak it. They say that Florentines are stuck up and aloof. I would agree. You do not feel the heart of the Florentine. It is hard. It is nothing like Latin America say where they open the door to their own house and say come on in, eat our food, watch our TV, lets hang out and dance. Here it is more like o.k. fine you're here, what do you want? 

I think that because they are so bombarded by tourists all the time that they have this big block up to their persons. You do see the way they are treated themselves as Florentines by all the tourists. It really is like living in Disney world. People just walk into a store or restaurant and start talking in English as if it is Disney world, can we get some water please. very rude and the waiter or whoever doesn’t even know what they are talking about. And you see all these people with these maps everywhere just walking around as if this whole town is not really a place where people live but more of just a stop on someone's vacation. so I can certainly understand the feeling they have. after all people really do live here. 350,000 of them. 

Ps--there are no blacks here. Maybe in other cities but not in Florence. Very few. And the only time you see them is when they are on the street peddling some merchandise. It is not like the states at all where they have achieved like super-human status. In America the black people define our pop culture at this point. And the rest of us go along. I am curious to see other parts of other Italy and Europe to see what the brother scene is like there.

By the way, this bastard at the restaurant this morning way over charges me for my breakfast just because his father yelled at him. I just went to pick up my dry cleaning. And they are closed. It is fucking Saturday for God sakes! I leave tomorrow for a week and I will have no shirts to take with me. I hate this fucking place. There is no order here. our teacher constantly complains that Italy is portrayed as disorganized, happy go lucky clowns in the press and the TV and cinema, and he hates it. well, then get some order or some rules people and stick to them. it is very strange, on the one hand they are the epitome of modernity. World leaders in style and design, and on the other hand it is like we are still living in the fifteen hundreds here. it just befuddles the mind.  

Went up into the hills tonight to go out to dinner with the landlord lady and her husband. I'm on a bus. I'm going up and down these mountains and all these curves. I'm up maybe an hour out of Florence. Up in these hills. Past the poor tenement buildings with all these poor children playing the streets and these toothless mothers sitting in rocking chairs. Past fields of sunflowers and vineyards. And more poor families in the streets. and we are winding around yet another curve. And it is hot. More than hot. It is scalding. And the whole bus is perspiring. The driver, the passengers. I got out at my destination. It was night time now. it was dark. I was up in the hills, only God knows where. I ran to the cliff with the bright lights of Florence shining down below and I just hurled. I'm talking yards out in front of me. it was like a horror movie. Throwing up like crazy... More than sick. Exhausted. Combination of the heat and the stress from the pressure of the music business. This is most up in the air I have ever felt, I thought, and I hurled again. The most lonely, and I hurled again. I was standing over this cliff just yards from a bus stop crowded with people. But this was way beyond me worrying about who was there or who was watching. I was in my own little private Idaho. Maybe this is the most without a home I have ever felt I thought, and I hurled again. Without a purpose, without the surety that comes from knowing where you're going tomorrow or why. And I hurled again. I could not stop throwing up. There was nothing left. I was just standing there yakking. Like a monster from a movie or something. It was brilliant and pathetic. 

I fell to my knees on the rocks below. I held my stomach. I said a few Hail Mary’s. I always like to say some Hail Mary’s when I'm throwing up. “Hail Mary full of grace, the lord is with thee, please help me stop throwing up, blessed art thou among women....” I prayed, ‘Virgin Mary, where am I? I wander. I wonder. I stroll. I take notes. I make plans. I work on my songs. Why? What am I doing up on this mountain meeting these people I do not know for dinner?’ and why am I throwing up? I hurled again. How am I expected to carry on this mission all my life making these songs and these albums and never getting paid for it? what is the purpose of this? what is the plan for me? am I just supposed to starve all my life and live in squalor just so I can carry out this mission? What kind of cruel joke is this life I have been given? I threw up again. Is this purgatory? Am I supposed to suffer all of my life? Where is my wife? I want to have children. I want to meet my wife Mary. Why has God forsaken me?’ who am I and why am I alive? I could not throw up anymore. I passed out on the rocks on this cliff thousands of feet above the sparkling city of Florence from sheer exhaustion. I did not wake up till the next morning. The sun was rising over me. I was alone and lying on the ground. 

“are you going to leave really?”

yes, I told you I was leaving. I am.”

“when?”
” this weekend?”
” this weekend, maybe Monday.”

“did you buy your ticket yet?”

“no. we have been working on it all week. Its expensive.”

“it doesn’t matter. Just buy it. well maker it happen. How much is it?”

“maybe two thousand, maybe fifteen hundred.”

“just do it. what are you waiting for?”

“I don't know. where am I going? part of me doesn’t want to go? once I leave, I know I'm really leaving.”

“yes I know. I feel it. in my stomach. You have to go. it is for the best. don't come back for a really long time.”

“why am I going exactly?”

“to see your homeland. To explore Europe. To get away from all of this.”

“and then what? There is feeling I have inside of me that is very ominous. Like me leaving is like a symbol of me leaving all of this behind forever. Once I sign these papers, then its really over. I mean, then I'm really gone. I don't even have a reason to come back.”
” you have your band.”

“yea. I know. I love my boys. But in Miami. This place isn't for me. its not like with you. I don't have a family here now. I don't have this huge fan base anymore here. we sell ten times as many records in the Midwest or the northeast than we do here. Miami isn't like that anymore. The last American left years ago. this isn't the place for what I do. I stick around cause I have friends. I have you and Bas here. and the Ferret. But I have to get to a place that is more my scene.”

“then just go to New York. You’ve been talking about for years. just leave.”

“I have to leave don't I?”

“yes. I can feel it already. It is what we need to do. just go. Remember Tristan in that movie a walk in the clouds? That's where you are now. You can’t hang onto this anymore. You need to leave. Start fresh. You are an artist. You are some kind of a genius.”

“thanks.”

“you know I am a big fan. If we never would have been lovers and then broken and up and everything, I would be your biggest fan in the world..... do you know that? I love what you do. don't think because I get so hostile and insane that I don't love your music. I love it more than anything. And I want your success more than anything. That is just my way of coping with this. This situation sucks right now. You just come here everyday to this office because it makes you feel good. me too. but its not right. You’re wasting your life. and I cant begin mine completely while you are still around. I need you to get away from me now.”

“Well I won't see you then after today. I will leave tomorrow or Sunday then.”

Our last day of school for this class. Everyone was really sad. We took a lot of pictures. Funny how you spend time with strangers and then you get to know them and get to be friends and then you don't know them anymore. We have spent 4 weeks together all day sitting in class making jokes and making fun of each other as we struggled, each of us with our own special reason, to learn the INSANE language of Italian. Most of us will never see each other again. some of us will. I will stay on for a while maybe in a week or so I will go back to the school. Although I think the school is lame. And the city of Florence is hot and it is like living in Disney world. but I think it is nice place to start off because it is so modern and European compared to other places. Although I assume Rome will be all that and more. This week though I am going to the South to visit Rome with some friends I have met and then on to Napoli, and then to see the ancient city of Pompeii and then off to see the little towns where my family came from. 

For the last two days one of my teachers has been helping me call to the different communities and speak with people to look up the archived records of my family. There was a little bit more info we needed. Now I have enough. My grandmother’s family came from Itri, not atri, in the region of Lazio, just South of Rome. My grandfather’s came from Eboli in the Campania region just South of Naples. Both on the coast. So after Rome I will head to these towns on my own. Stay a few days on the Mediterranean and try to get the feel of these towns and the people. then and only then can I actually speak with the main person who is in charge of archival records of these towns and then if they like me I can search their records to trace the families back even further. They will not let you do this over the phone or via letter. Only in person. and only if they believe you, that you really are related to the people you are looking up. so the adventure will begin. 

Woke up from a few bad dreams about Cleo. Still many things in my life that have to do with her, little things that she gave me or that were once hers. Just laying around, considering that I packed pretty light for this trip. It is amazing how even the smallest simplest items like face cream or something can remind you of a person. Or a pen they gave you. I understand why she went through this phase where she took everything out of her house that had anything to do with us. I think you have to. 

Today was the first day of my history of renaissance art class. 

Our art history professor Donatello, a cool mofo...

Besides being truly badass because I am in Florence the home of the fucking renaissance, it is also cool because it is entirely in Italian. So I pretty much sit there and look at the pictures and don't understand anything being said. Which is nice. Cause I can’t take notes cause I don't know what s going on. But the pictures are nice. and I find it actually to be a good way to learn the language cause you have to. what a pleasure it is to be learning this here rather than in some other school somewhere. When he talks about the major figures and the works, he is talking about our own neighborhood that we are living in. Right here where the school is. So he shows us the birth of Venus by Bottecelli and then asks me, “did you see it the other day at the Uffizi gallery when you were there?” or “yes I think he painted this right over there and points to some piazza somewhere. He used to sit and paint there everyday at lunch, referring to di fillipo or some other artist. Its hard to believe actually. And we are sitting in a room in some building next door to Michelangelo’s house. The school is called the institute of Michelangelo and has been around since God was a little boy. It would be like studying opera in Vienna I guess, or fashion in Paris or Milan. In our class we are still working from the very beginning of when it all began, the search for proper perspective and depth in painting and sculpture. It is fascinating.     

And if that weren't enough, I just recently learned that ice cream (gelato) was invented here in Florence also during the renaissance. This is amazing, no? Seriously. In the summer of 1565 this cat named Buontalenti who is actually a famous architect responsible for a few of the cities most famous buildings was so hot that he invented ice cream because he discovered how to freeze fat working on his chemistry experiments in the nights. A renaissance man of course. These people are amazing. And yes there is a gelato place on every single corner. I told my teacher that this was more impressive than all this art lying all over the place in this city. He looked at me like I said something sacrilegious. 

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. 

Studying the renaissance. Fits right in the middle of the whole Italian history lesson. So that's where we are now. and the center of it was Florence. What an amazing city. This is no accident. I am in the right place to fully realize the freedom beauty truth love album. Tomorrow I start bel canto opera lessons. In Italy. This is fucking amazing. this teacher doesn’t even speak English. So we will sing Italian and learn Italian opera songs. I will be inside of it, as deep as you can get, mastering the techniques and the meaning of the lyrics. I rode around all night tonight drinking a bottle of wine. Going from one large open square [piazza] to another. thousands of people in the streets, drumming, singing, drinking, talking, hanging out. Tons of musicians in the streets. bagpipes, violins, guitars, singers. People dancing. And performing. Tomorrow I will take pictures and record whatever I hear that is cool for the album. the fucking Sony clie promises a voice recorder and then builds it so you cannot actually transfer your voice recordings to your PC. So it is worthless, that aspect of it. 

the electricity is out in our entire building, maybe the whole block. I am drunk and hot as hell. It is like a furnace in here. I am on the fourth floor. My laptop my only source of light. The windows are open and I can hear all the noises from all the other peoples little apartments all around me on both sides and up and down because everyone has their windows open. There is this woman making the most passionate sex sounds right now across the little alley, making love with her husband I assume. In other apartments I hear the dishes rattling and the people talking and laughing. My entire body is perspiring now, all over. and I have to lie down on my sheets and try to sleep. This heat wave sucks. 

But the city is so alive. I feel exhilarated being here.   

Today I got a haircut. I was so worried being in a strange place and not speaking Italian. But this guy was amazing. he spent hours with my hair. He was so passionate. Reminded me of Federico in New York who was also Italian and very passionate about hair. He told me how awful whoever has been cutting my hair is in Miami. I told him I just haven't been able to find anyone in Miami. Very nice to connect with someone again so passionate about hair and style. The salon was very styled out. Not pretentious. Again, it is a cool without pretension. Something Miami has not learned yet. You can be cool and nice and open and real. They are not opposite qualities. People smile here. men play with children in the street even though they look like they just walked out of a photo shoot for GQ magazine. it is very nice. it is an innocence that is very refreshing and heart warming. Very different than the New York, LA, Miami vibe of ‘if you’re cool/good/successful, then you’re kind of a snob or a tough guy or a jerk. [this is really funny but one time when I was getting my haircut from Federico I asked him where he was going for the weekend and he didn't want to tell me, I pressured him and he said he was supposed to keep it a secret that he was going to Disney world with his wife and kids, because his boss would get mad at him cause it did not seem cool—it could hurt the salon’s image. Can you imagine? Well that's New York. Not here in Italy. Guys are more than happy to show off their families.]

Riding through the narrow cobblestoned streets amongst the very tall old old old brick buildings and churches and squares and palaces, I was thinking tonight that I could see how this could get old if you grew up here. especially if you see America on TV with all its new stuff and shiny happy people. this could definitely get old. Everything is old here. climbing the stairs tonight looking at the old stairs and the old walls, it made me long for something new and clean and pristine looking. 

Received an email from Cleopatra tonight. It was so thoroughly depressing. It was so simple but it just brought it all rushing onto me. Just this agonizing feeling of loss. She tells me that she knows by the pain in her stomach that we are doing the right thing. I emailed back I will stay away for as long as it takes. I hope one day after we are all dead we will be able to sit down and chat and laugh and say wow, I tell her.

I don't know what it is, just this pain inside like I have no one, no family. If I really just let go of Cleo and Bas and her whole family and the different companies we have built over the years I just don't know who I am right now. who is my family. Realizing that I have been living through them and with them for so long I don't know how to feel safety or comfort right now on my own. we have all been living together for eight years. o.k. so now I leave it all, and start a new life. what? Where? With who? Thank God I still have my mom and my real family and all that but I have just felt so close to Cleo and her whole family for so long its crazy. I feel like an orphan. This awful feeling. Like I am studying over here for 6 hours a day. Why? For who? Can I live for just myself? Do stuff for just myself? I think I am having an identity crisis. It is truly fucked up. So there we are. That's how I feel. thank God for Little Tree. She is like a surrogate mother/wife for me. takes good care of me. Madelynne too. The Artisan does too. Send me things in the mail. Emails all the time. It is very nice. to have these women in your life who take care of you and you aren't going out or anything. what I don't like is when chicks are just being nice to you and taking care of you because they want you to be their boyfriend.   

Anna Lisa spent one night.

When you don't know anything about a country or speak its language, some of the simplest things are difficult. Yesterday just trying to find this store to buy tickets for a show was so hard. They don't really have addresses here. The direction was go to where this street meets this other street and its in there somewhere. When I finally found it two hours later it was closed. In the music store later to buy some CDs I realized I had no idea what Cds to buy. I asked the lady behind the counter and she was like I don't speak English and you can fuck off if you think I am going to try. So I went up to these two guys and we all tried in English and Italian to make it happen. I told them I was looking for the best of Italian pop and rock. Like the top ten albums of all time. And they were so psyched. I told them to choose any range of styles and just go for it. And they had a ball. Showing me all the best albums from the last thirty years. it was so cool. I have been listening and so far they did great. I walked away thinking that you can make it happen. No matter what it is. You just have to keep trying and if one thing doesn’t work you have to try something else and just be persistent. I cannot tell you how frustrated I was feeling yesterday. Several times I was just like fuck it I am going home to study. I'll try this shit tomorrow. but I ended up walking away with a handful of great music. This Gregori CD is awesome. And thank God cause I wasn't really digging their stuff too much. And if I don't get that passion about a culture’s music I just lose interest in them. Visual arts aren't enough to keep me interested I think. I like them but they don't grab and yank me down to the floor you know, like music. 

The last few days I noticed I have started to feel the same way I felt when I first met Cleo eight years ago. This feeling I cannot describe. It was the feeling I had when I wrote songs like Paris or the Greatest Gift. Just this really soft happy inspired and romantic feeling. I feel in love. 

O.k. this is really fucked up. I just found out my school is three doors down from the house Michelangelo grew up in. Seriously. I couldn’t believe it. I went there but of course it is closed on Tuesdays. This is something you get used to here. Some things are closed on Tuesdays. Why? no ones knows. Some things are closed on Mondays or Wednesdays or some things like the movies here are closed for the whole month of July. You just have to get used to it. There is no logic in it. o.k. so tomorrow we get to go into the house of Michelangelo. Can you imagine? 

Current Spin: Luiz battista, emozione. Not my thing. But very popular here. but I don't like it so far. 

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. 

Today slept late. went to a café and had two cappuccinos and an omelet. I found eggs. I was so happy. And on a Sunday so it couldn’t have been better. The radio here in Italy is awesome!!!!! They play everything—it is “full spectrum radio” this never took off in the states, but it is great. You hear rock, pop, R&B, rap, and dance, all on one station. In one hour, you will hear songs from America, France, England, Australia, Brasil, Spain, and Italy. It's just great. Very different than the “one format” style we have in America.

Had an intense conversation with a couple of summer travelers, one from new York, and one from Mexico. We all sat around all afternoon at the café and drank beer and talked. She was explaining to him how much she and her friends all hated Bush and the American government. And how frustrating it was cause it seemed like even though no one liked him that he may be re-elected anyway just because everyone feels like there is nothing they can do. I was just listening at this point. Happy to hear some English being spoken and interested in the college generation’s views. I finally chimed in and told her that there really was stuff that she could do, and that a lot more people agreed with her and her friends than maybe she realized. That she needed to get out and pass out pamphlets and get her friends to vote and voice her opinion on the Internet and really take action all the time. It was cool as the three of us strangers sat together from different places and we had all been to different peace marches for Iraq this year---her in new York, me in DC, and he in Mexico. We lamented the fact that our peace marches did nothing. We lamented that bush stole the presidency when Gore won the popular vote, and all the tom foolery that went on in Florida with Jeb and that Harris lady. We lamented that it seemed like no matter what the people think or do now in America that it seems like we are hostages in a very secret and sinister takeover of our great country. The Mexican, named Paco, who was very beautiful and slammed four beers and didn't even seem to catch a buzz, attested that they were all very scared now because their whole economy is based on our economy and if we go down they go down. He said he hates how Mexico is starting to get slowly taken over by the US. He thinks he may stay in Europe for a few years, back packing and learning other languages. We talked for hours about many things. It did not end well. We all just kind of looked at each other like “wow, what can we really do....?” the girl, Eve, with a full bush under each arm and no bra—God bless her—said that maybe she would live in Europe until Bush and all of them leave the white house and the country turns more liberal. I reminded her that the Clinton years were just as sinister, maybe just not so obvious. We worried that even though bush may only last another 5 years, if he has a chance to select any supreme court justices that his legacy could have very bad long lasting implications to millions of us for generations to come. We expressed our horror that three of the current Supreme Court justices, all 3 conservatives, voted to keep that anti-sodomy law in Texas. We didn't know whether to laugh or cry over it. And I think that is a natural place to be as an American right now. Our country is very torn between the old guard and the new intelligencia so to speak. 

There is a large group in America that really do see the light. The new intelligencia. They are there. I mean the light of all humanity of what is right and just and true and moral is right front of all of us. it is blinding. So really just people that you  talk to on the street or whatever understand and know the basics. But then there is this other group, the majority I think still, maybe they are the older people that you don't really see on the street, or maybe they are the people that live in the middle of the country, that again you wouldn’t really see on the street or anywhere in the big cities, and these people seem like they are still ruled by fear rather than by what is right or justice or freedom or truth. [ps—the Sprite here in Italy is awesome.] You don't know whether to laugh or cry at how ignorant some of these people are. I mean really, lets put all the BS aside for the moment. These are the same people who in twenty or thirty years when future generations look back in their history books and read about things like equal rights, these are the ignorant people we will be reading about. These are the “back of the bus” people who once tried to stop the black people from entering our schools. Now they are trying to keep laws in place that ban how you can have sex or who you can have sex with. That is some scary thinking there. It is fascist really. And worse than that it tries to use the concept of God or religion to help build its argument. So that just further confuses everything for the younger kids who are being raised by these people. Well we laughed and cried into our beers and then we said good bye. America is a scary place to be right now. every single thinking person needs to stand up and battle these ignorant old dogs.

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. 

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 Importance of Being Fishy.

Tonight I rode my bike all over the city. From one end to the other. From piazza to palazzo. It is not huge, but it is big enough. Plenty to see. Every time you turn around you glance up and you are gazing at some huge palace or church with your mouth hanging wide open. Amazing. had a great dinner of grilled lamb and too much red wine. Riding my bicycle so drunk through the streets of the city. Up the cobblestones and down through very narrow little streets and passage ways, Cars and scooters almost hitting me every second. So much fun. I believe I actually survived. Because I am sitting here attempting to type.  

Earlier tonight I met a guy from china named Qi who is studying film in college in London. We met on the street taking pictures of each other. We laughed about it—being here in Florence really is like a dream or an acid trip or something. You meet people from all over the world. You just kind of bump into them. Invited him to go to Pisa with us tomorrow. He asks who are you going with? I answer: oh just some guy I know who is here from Israel studying medicine. Crazy. Just visiting Florence for the weekend. We hung out. Talked all about film and music. Rock music especially because I was so interested in the music scene of china which he says is still very underground because rock music is still banned by the government. I asked him how do the people express themselves then without rock music? He just stared at me for a minute like I had said something so profound. It was eerie. He almost cried. Very moving for him. Perhaps it was the fact that we were standing in front of the mammoth Il Duomo cathedral made of all green red and white marble. He says, "you are not like most rock singers in America. You don't have tattoos. You are studying Italian in Italy. They don't do that. you are intellectual rock singer." He mentioned Kurt Cobain just being on drugs and being a bad influence. I didn't even know people thought about stuff like that??? I reminded him of guys like Bob Dylan or John Lennon. That once upon a time we had intellectuals in rock music. But our current system of commercialism over career artists discourages this now, but it still does happen—think Chris Martin or Thom Yorke. but maybe he just doesn’t hear about it in china. All people hear about in the world is our real commercial stuff and artists only get like one or two albums and then they are thrown away for the next big fad. 

I told him how envious I was of china’s rock music scene just getting started now. how exciting. “I will make you guys a great video for your new album. It is important for people to experience different things like you and your band. We make you very different and unique Chinese video for American singer of band who studies other cultures just because he wants to. I take your picture now. Very important for people to see you,” he says. We talked for a long time. I call this chapter ‘the importance of being Fishy.’ I never thought about me that way. I always just kind of took me for granted. As obsessed as I am with myself I don't give myself much credit most of the time. But the way he looked at me, the way he paused before he said anything, it was very special. I felt proud. I felt honored to be doing my own thing. To be doing it my way and not the way of the rest of the rock music culture in America like he was saying. all the typical rock singer guys are so the same. I realized that it is true I relate more to Caetano or Sting than anyone else now as kind of my archetype of what a great singer songwriter is. more of a traveling troubadour, who just happens to write and sing songs. Rather than anyone else. so maybe I don't have to cut my hair and wear a goatee and a crew cut like all the other guy singers on MTV. I suppose that could be why I have always been so fringe and not hugely successful because I am so not what is in the mainstream. But I don't care now. I'm just so happy to be doing it my way. I think now it is a very limiting box to try to fit yourself into just to try to make fame or money by fitting into that box for MTV. Next week I will see Caetano here in Florence. And francco batiato also. Very exciting. 

The picture he took is below. it was sunset on Ponte Vechio where my new apartment is. he's an artst. I cannot wait to see the video he makes.

Today I went to the house where Dante Alighieri was born. Right around the corner from the school. Just standing there innocently enough. Today I got a bicycle. The owner of the school gave it to me to use. I figure I will use it for a while and then get a scooter. This one has no brakes so it is kind of scary. And the bumpy cobblestone streets make it almost worse than walking everywhere. but I am getting around a lot faster. 

(Today I saw democracy in action. When our teacher informed us that starting next week we would start having classes at 1 in the afternoon instead of at 9 in the morning when we normally do, the whole class erupted and grew into this giant mob of unified opinion saying absolutely not. No we will come at 9am as we signed up for. What was so fascinating is that this is a class of ten students who do not know each other at all from all over the world: 2 Americans, a Serbian, a Mexican, a Scott, 2 Costa Ricans, a Guatemalan, a Swiss German, and an Israeli, all different ages, but it was cool to watch everyone agree that we refused to allow this to happen to us. all these different people saying, o.k. listen if they force us to do this after we have flown all this way and paid all this money then we will strike in front of the school. It was a classic democratic moment.)   

Watching the godfather III on my freshly made bed on my laptop (you gotta love the laptop—did we ever live without the laptop???---one device on a trip and have it do everything for you--- your whole office and entertainment center in one little package—looking for the smallest one you can get) the third godfather is the not so good, I don't know what he was thinking making Al Pacino seem like such a wimp and a joker---he isn't even the same character, foolish stuff this movie. bad writing. But Sophia Coppolla is hot. The movie makes me think of my own father. I wonder what goes through his mind sometimes. Rumor was that they were going to make a godfather 4 and Garcia as the new godfather. I hope so. That would be cool. Number one and two are awesome. But this one is just a pretentious piece of you know what. 

Italian getting easier. It is fun like a game. Always guessing, throwing things together to see if a sentence comes out or if the person you are speaking with just looks at you like you are crazy. then you know a sentence did not come out. Today I visited the Loggia again and the Palazzo Vecchio and the Gallery di Uffizi. I saw the all the paintings and frescoes and statues of the renaissance from Bottecelli to Michelangelo to Raphael, even some Rembrandt. You are looking at this huge painting and you casually glance at the name and you see ‘Rembrandt’ and then you look at the painting again and you are like ‘the Rembrandt?’ holy shit. At this point I had to find food. I was in overwhelm. 

I haven't gotten out of this overwhelmed feeling. Completely surrounded by all this incredible larger than life art. things that I have been staring at in books since I was a little child and now you're just seeing it everywhere. and you realize, you know, o.k., I'm actually here. like, this is it. it doesn’t get more real than this or more authentic I guess. Depending on what angle you are looking at authentic from.

O.k. so all day I am just I don't know really trying to learn or, master say,  this ability to feel into stuff and feel through , in the moment feel into the resistance and into the lesson of it in the moment and then let go of it rather than think there is something there that needs attention. Or worse yet, try to not think it which is the worst thing you can do or try to suppress it or forget about it. It is an allowing process that says, “I am here. I am me. I am experiencing this. this is funny. This is not me. this is a thought/feeling. Interesting.” And then you just kind of get from it what you want and then you move on. You move through it. 

A lot of working on mastering that now. getting to that point where it is all the way deep inside you that you know without a shadow of a doubt that it is up to you and God and no one and nothing else. And that no matter what other people say or even you think sometimes that you really can have or do whatever you want. That it is truly our game. I know what you're thinking. but if I wasn't being whispered this in my

I have to find food. Stand by. More in a few minutes.

O.k. I finally found a real restaurant. Florence is really a tourist town. It is like living in Disney world. So maybe it is not a place to live but a good place to come and study for some time. But even the restaurants are known all over the world for what they are really, touristy fast food joints that don't care about the food they are serving. But I bet if you ask around you can find some really cool little secret places hidden away. After all real people do really live here. 

Was told today that they found me a better apartment. I almost didn't bother to go look. I was so tired. I have not been sleeping at all yet. Just so psyched from being here and it is so effing hot. I took a nap in the shitty little hot apartment I was staying in and then I forced myself up and walked maybe twenty minutes to this other neighborhood and when I get there I look down and there is this beautiful feather in front of the doorstep. All of a sudden the last few weeks I have been finding feathers again. it is the way that God or the spirit guides or angels or whatever communicate with me. it is just amazing. wonderful. I have felt so happy lately the last few months finding feathers again after so long. It is like they are saying ‘hey we are here, hanging out with you again. guiding you for this period. all is well. check out this apartment. you will like it.” 

Romance Languages

Last night a kind of shock. Severe jet lag. It is so hot and there is no air conditioning. Finally got to sleep at about 6:03 in the morning. And then had to wake up at 8 for class. This sucked. Watched my mind race. So I am exhausted. Too tired to eat. Or think. Today class was easier. I am thinking and dreaming in Italian already. o.k. more like, I am translating in Italian in my thoughts and in my dreams. which is a good sign. The take off for Italian has been very fast because of knowing the basic forms of the other romance languages. Today was the take off so to speak. It all just kind of poured out. I sound like Tarzan but I am forming sentences and find myself translating more from Spanish than from English because they are so close. 

Without Spanish and Portuguese this would be much more challenging time—as it is for the other students who do not know those languages but say only German or Swiss German or even the English or Scottish. Because I just really don't know Italian at all. It is actually very funny at this point how little Italian I know. I am like an idiot walking around who cannot communicate. But if someone doesn’t speak English I ask them if they speak Spanish and a lot of times they do, and when I hear Portuguese of course it is a welcome sound, so then I can ask them directions or other things like “where the fuck am I right now? And how can I get back to the school before I go crazy?”

I am taking four hours per day plus another hour of one on one in the afternoon. And then after dinner I am studying another hour or so. I just need to get to that point where I feel like I can communicate clearly. There is that first one thousand words thing. I don't know maybe that's me but I do notice that generally there is that first one thousand or so words you need to learn in any language to feel comfortable. Your Basic verbs like “to know, can, see, come, go, I am, etc..” and then a bunch of connecting words like “but, until, maybe, we’ll see, how, when, also, help, etc etc...” once you get these, you're in. Then you just learn to conjugate the verbs etc. easy breezy.

So today in my afternoon class my professor was going crazy, because he wanted to teach me in this structured way but I was just all over the place asking him all these words and phrases that are part of “the one thousand” because in the morning classes I already have four miserable hours of structured classes, so he is like “you are all over the place, you can’t learn Italian in one day!” and I said, “I know, but I can learn in two days.” And he did not laugh. Like I said, it is a lot easier once you know one of the other ones. Its more like you guess and you get damn close if not dead on. Compared to if you're just learning one for the first time.

So today was the first day that I felt like actually sight-seeing rather than just trying to find the basic needs like grocery store and restaurant etc. because after all this is the best site seeing in the world. So I just start walking. Holy fuck. You know you just turn around and your standing in front of the Statue of David (the copy in the place where it used to stand for the last five hundred years—they moved the original a few blocks away indoors because of the weather and vandals) And you look at whoever is standing next to you and you are like is that what I fucking think it is? And of course they are standing there with their mouths hanging open too staring straight up at it and you just kind of stand there for some time the bunch of you staring straight up at it like holy shit. ‘Can you take a picture?’ And everyone tries to stand there looking cool in front of this incredible statue. And they’re just everywhere. All these famous statues from the 13 and 14 and 15 hundreds and even earlier some of them. or you are walking around and thinking about  what am I going to eat later and then you look up and you see this mammoth church that is like something out of star wars or something and then you turn around and you realize you are in this ancient plaza from the 1030’s surrounded by all these famous statues. It just freaks you out. We just don't have anything like that in America. We have “look kids, it’s the very first McDonalds, built in 1944.... c'mon lets take a picture.” It just really gives you perspective.

I was so moved; I just walked around with my mouth open. Like holy shit, this is why all these people are here. This is why I am here. And that is the first time that it struck me consciously the idea of living here.

I knew there was something very vulgar and distasteful about malls and stripmalls. I just didn't realize that there were already such brilliant and beautiful alternatives in existence (except new York of course.) Florence is brilliant and beautiful.

I have to find a way to make a living. For real. That is the only glitch. I still don't make enough money from my music. the bitter fucking irony. I dreamed of this struggle. But I never knew it would be such a struggle—When I was young and reading about all the great artists. I romanticized about the struggle of course but I secretly told myself that it would never happen to me, but at the same time, it hasn’t been that bad. Time has passed quickly and the reward of making great music that makes me feel good has always outweighed the struggle. But I need to make money, so I can continue to live, so I can make music. What a funny circle it is. Whatever. It’s true.

You walk everywhere. My feet hurt. I have blisters on my feet from sandals. After a while I will get a bike, and then maybe a scooter for going farther away or faster.