Blondes

I went out with some friends last night. They saw somebody they recognized, and immediately started walking away from her. They call this girl "Monodread." I didn't see her, but apparently, she has one dreadlock. Some of the girls insisted that she had hit on them and stared at them before and was very creepy about it. One girl complained, "She's never hit on me. It's probably because I'm not blonde. Blondes get so much more attention in this country." I was somewhat baffled by this sentiment. Perhaps I just don't understand girls, but it amazes me that they complain about creepy guys or lesbians hitting on them, and then go on to complain about creepy people not paying enough attention to them.

I told them about a similar conversation I had with Long Island. She has naturally brown hair, but had had highlights in it for about a year when we arrived in Italy. She told her hairdresser she was going to be spending the end of the summer hanging out on beaches in Italy, so her hairdresser gave her some toner to use in case her hair got too light. When autumn started and we stopped going to the beach, she put the toner in her hair. Much to her dismay, her hair turned darker than she had planned, and in fact is now her natural color. She cried about this for a while, but we explained that she looked much better with darker hair. She has somewhat gotten over it, but a few weeks later, we went to a club together, and as we were leaving she started to complain about how much more attention the blonde girls in the club were getting. I seemed to recall that when she was blonde, she complained about strange men groping her. I asked her if that still happened, and she informed me that it did not. I rarely get credit for how good a friend I am; as soon as she informed me of this, I grabbed her ass. It's nice to know that there are little things we can all do to make other people happy. How they express their gratitude is their problem.

Kazoo lessons

I was at a friend's birthday party last night, and I saw that she had a kazoo she had just bought in England. I started talking about how I took kazoo lessons for four years when I was younger. Suddenly, everybody wanted to hear me play the kazoo. I told them I don't like to play it anymore. I explained that I hadn't really played one since 8th grade, and was going to be very rusty. They started trying to get me drunk in an effort to get me to play. Finally, the birthday girl told me that it would mean a lot to her if I would play the kazoo for her on her birthday. I gave in, and played The Boxer by Simon and Garfunkel. Everyone was very impressed with my ability. One of them said that she could hear the difference in quality when I played. A few more times during the evening, they managed to convince me to play songs. They asked me all sorts of questions about what my lessons were like. As I was explaining, the girl next to me whispered to me, "You're lying, right?" I replied "of course," and went on telling them that I was in a group class with many instruments, and only a few of us played kazoo. The birthday girl asked me to teach her how to play it. I told her that it would be impossible to condense four years of lessons into five minutes, but I would do my best. I taught her how to separate notes with the tongue by saying "ta ta ta" instead of "ah ah ah" or "ma ma ma" (a technique I learned in trumpet and flute). I also told her that one must sit up straight and kazoo from the diaphragm instead of the chest or throat. She was a theater major, and had evidently taken singing lessons and heard this before, so she assumed I must know what I was talking about.

There were about fifteen people at that party, and by the end, only two of them had any idea that I was bullshitting. Fortunately, they were able to keep quiet about it. This morning, I saw that the birthday girl's facebook status was "learned how to play kazoo. For real this time."

I'm usually very bad at lying, but every so often, I make up ridiculous stories, not expecting anyone to believe them, and somehow, everyone does.

I’d like to thank the docent

For looking around the room and then pushing aside the plastic curtain to hand me the statue.

I'd like to thank the girl in my film class who told me that the Fellini museum would be worth the 90-minute train ride to Rimini.

I'd like to thank everyone who supported me when I said I was going to Rimini (a beach town) despite the fact that it was pouring rain and 5 degrees Celsius.

I'd like to thank my brother for suggesting that I see if I could hold the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar for Otto e Mezzo.

I'd like to thank the founders of the Federico Fellini museum for making it consist of a single room with a single exhibit of little interest to most people, thus making my brother and me the only guests on the day we visited.

I'd like to thank the late Federico Fellini for making some incredible films. I've seen six and a half of them so far, and I plan to see many more.

It was the help of these and many other people that made this possible.

Mystery Film

Back when "Dirty Ears Gae" was my only flat mate, I had some friends over, and we were talking with him. He told us he had to leave to see a movie. I asked him which one. He said it was the one with Brad Pitt. I didn't know what movie Brad Pitt was in at the time. Gaetano was shocked that I had not heard of this famous film. He repeated several times "il film con Brad Pitt," as if this would help.
The next day, I asked him what the film was called. He informed me that it was Burn After Reading. I said "oh." He repeated "Oooooh!" in a mocking tone and laughed at me. I wanted to say "You condescending pezzo di merda, you're the one who was going to the movie without knowing the title. Where do you get off making fun of me?" but my Italian wasn't very good, so I decided to let it go.

The Downside of that Job

I was walking with Long Island, and we passed two women of the night. Long Island looked at them and said to me "I could never do that." I understood. It's sad that some people can only make money by selling their bodies on the street, and I'm sure it's very difficult for them. She continued, "It can't be more than 60 degrees out, and look at how short their skirts are." I was about to explain that they probably had other things on their minds, but I decided that it wasn't worth the trouble. Instead, I told her about the inhumane treatment of prisoners in Indonesia.

My Living Situation

I have four Italian flat mates. Three of them are awesome. I really enjoy living with them. When I arrived here, two of them were on vacation, and my roommate had yet to move in, so I only had one flat mate. I tried so hard to be friends with him that I didn't pay any attention to his flaws. It took me two weeks to realize how obnoxious he is. When I say something wrong in Italian, he repeats it for several days in an American accent, and asks me to repeat it to other people. He speaks fast to me in dialects I don't understand. He gives me shit for not getting enough action with Italian girls, and talks about it as if I have personally wronged him. I think this is some form of nationalism in which he always feels the need to prove that Italians are better than Americans. His name is Gaetano, but my American friends and I refer to him as "Dirty Ears Gae," which is a loose translation of his last name, Capobianco.

It was hard to get used to living with other people, because they insisted on conversing with me. I wanted to tell them "My Italian isn't that good. Perhaps it would be easier if you just gave me the death-stare for hours at a time, like Gaetano."

My roommate and I are both new here, but Gaetano has made absolutely no effort whatsoever to make us feel welcome. When I first met him, I told him I would be willing to introduce him to American girls if he would introduce me to Italian girls. He explained that he didn't need my help, and I wasn't going to get any help from him, and proceeded to never invite me out anywhere. Instead of trying to make us feel welcome, it seems like he has been doing everything in his power, short of showing us, to demonstrate that he is better endowed than the rest of us. I feel that that is the best definition I can come up with for a slew of words I don't feel like writing here.

I try to ignore him, and I'm usually fairly successful. The way I see it, he is a child, and I don't give any weight to what children say to me. This isn't arbitrary; he really acts like a baby. I was making matzo balls a few weeks ago, and he looked at them and said "Ma che schiffo!" (These are gross!). I learned when I was about four years old not to yuck somebody else's yum. Evidently, he has not learned that. Moreover, when he enters a room and sees me doing anything he'll yell "NO!" in an effort to make me flinch. He is literally the first person to try to make me flinch since I was in elementary school. I find it hard to care what he thinks about me.

It’s not my fault that you care what happens in my country or that you speak my language.

I recently noticed an interesting facebook status.

"Mi chiedo: ma quando hanno votato gli italiani, quanti americani se ne sono fottuti se avesse vinto Berlusconi o Veltroni?"

"I wonder: when the Italians voted, how many Americans [cared] whether Berlusconi or Veltroni won?"

Presumably an American reading this was meant to feel guilty or something like that. When I read it, I thought about the day I met this person. The first thing he asked me was which candidate I preferred in the election. As I recall, he had a very strong opinion in the matter.

I generally don't follow the elections of other countries, and if somebody chooses not to follow the elections in my country, that's fine. The fact is, though, that they do choose to follow our elections, and somebody who told me to get out of his (my) house for not voting for McCain has no right to complain that people in his country care about the elections in mine.

I feel the same way about English. If you don't want to learn our language, don't. Just don't ask my why everyone else wants to learn it. Somebody asked me why the whole world "has to" speak English, and not Italian. I told him it wasn't my decision. Evidently, my decision was to learn Italian, so I'm not the person to whom he should be complaining.

I should have told him that if the Italians expect the whole world to speak their language, it would be helpful if, as a sign of good faith, the whole country learned it first. The nice thing about English is that somebody from any part of the United States can have a conversation with anybody from England, Australia, Jamaica, etc. This country has so many dialects that the Italians have trouble conversing with people from 10 miles away.

Note: The picture with this post is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a complete list of Italian dialects. These are just the more commonly spoken ones.

Politics

I try not to write about politics on this blog. I have several reasons for this. If I had any readers, I have a hard time believing that they would have taken my opinions into account at all while voting. Also, I think that there is already more than enough political commentary on the blogosphere. Most importantly, Randall Munroe does not write about politics, and he is one of my heroes. That being said, I've decided that I can let politics slip into my posts when it involves my personal life, which is one of my main focuses (foci?) on this blog.

I am very bad at lying. I'm pretty good at keeping secrets, but when somebody asks me a question, the first thing that comes to mind is always the true answer, and I begin to fear that if I hesitate to think of a lie, it will be very obvious.

Thus, as much as I would like to tell people that I voted for Obama, I find myself unable to do so. My state was won by a margin of 2,431,940 votes. Knowing that something like this would happen, I decided that to vote for Obama or McCain would be throwing away my vote, and the most effective use of my vote would be for a third party candidate. Thus, as I predicted, my vote (or lack thereof, as you naysayers may call it) had absolutely no effect on the Electoral College but did have an effect on the number of votes my candidate received. If I lived in a swing state, I would have voted for Obama, but until we abolish the Electoral College, I want to take as much advantage of it as I can.

I feel confident explaining this thought process to Americans who are familiar with the Electoral College, but it becomes difficult with Europeans. People keep asking me if I voted for Obama, and I really do want to say yes, but most of the time, I can't.

A TV news crew came into one of my classes yesterday to ask the Americans about our views on the election. They asked if anybody in the class voted for McCain, and when nobody raised their hand, they assumed that we all voted for Obama. They then asked me why I voted for Obama, and I froze for a second before giving them an answer. Perhaps this would have been a good opportunity to explain the concept of third parties. I don't know if my Italian is good enough yet, but it could have made for good TV.

An hour later, some Dutch girls asked me if I watched the election, and asked me for whom I voted "let's hope you voted for Obama," They said. That would have been a very good cue for me to give the easy answer, but instead I found myself jumping into a boring conversation about why I voted for somebody they've never heard of despite the fact that my candidate had no chance of winning the election.

Maybe I should start telling people that I voted for Obama. It would save a lot of time. My fear is that when I hesitate, they'll assume I'm lying, and that I voted for McCain, and then they won't want to keep talking to me. Also, I don't want to have that conversation with my roommates who support Forza Italia and the Republican Party. More importantly, experience tells me that somebody who knows that I'm lying is going to be there and call me on it. In this case, is honesty the best policy?

Election

I went to the public library last night to watch the election coverage on CNN. It was filled with Americans, Italians, and many people from all over the world, most of whom were drunk. The local media was there interviewing Americans about our views on the election. The volume was very low on the TVs, and people were talking, so it was impossible to tell whether we were watching the coverage in English or Italian. The library stayed open all night, but I left at around 1:00 am (7:00 pm EST). I'm sure some people stayed until 5:00 am (9:00 PST), but I was tired and content to read the results when I woke up 3 hours after the polls closed. When I left the library, it looked a lot like Thomas E. Dewey would be our next president, but apparently Barack Obama won. I'm looking forward to four or eight years with him as our president.

It's a Small World

There is a political science professor at my school who banned a certain word in his classroom that starts with “g” and ends with “obalization.” I won’t hint as to what letters might be in the middle. His view is that too many people use the word without actually knowing what it means. Not knowing what it means, myself, I won’t use it.

Yesterday, I had a phone call with friends of mine in the United States, Argentina and Scotland. Meanwhile, I received an email from my advisor in the United States, regarding the classes I will take when I return there next semester. He also told me to send his regards to my professor in Italy.

Do we still have oceans?

P.S. If you’re a U.S. citizen of at least 18 years, who hasn’t been convicted of any felonies, I have an idea for a fun activity you can do today: vote.

Drinking Problem

While we were walking around the city last night, a man asked my friends and me for money. I was about to give him some change, when I noticed that he was carrying a bottle of limoncello. For those of you who don’t know, limoncello is liquor made from lemon peel, and is probably the sweetest type of alcohol I have ever tasted. On this basis, I refused to give the man any money. A real alcoholic at least drinks whiskey. In Italy, every supermarket sells 95% grain alcohol, which is cheaper than limoncello and probably tastes better. What kind of pathetic excuse for an alcoholic drinks limoncello? I tried to imagine what was going on in this man’s head: “I can’t remember the last time I went whole day without a Smirnoff Ice.” “Some days, I can’t get up in the morning without my Bacardi Breezer.” “I’m starting to think my only friend is Mike. I need some more hard lemonade.”

Halloween

I went to Torino, with my group of Americans, for Halloween. In regards to my earlier post, my friend did not end up rooming with the kid who hates him, and everything worked out fine.

I was the only person in my group who dressed up. I was Borat. I decided to wear comfortable sneakers instead of leather shoes, because I knew I would be walking around a strange city for many hours. One person complained that my shoes did not work with the costume. Another person complained that I was too tall to be Borat. They were already the only two people in the group whom I don't like, so I didn't care what they said. We went to a club that night, and I thought I heard some people saying "Borat". It was the first time anyone has ever gotten one of my Halloween costumes, (my past costumes include Alec from A Clockwork Orange, Crazy 88 from Kill Bill, Eurtrash, and Mark Whalberg from the end of The Departed) so I was very excited. I turned in their direction, but nobody was looking at me. I gave them a double thumbs-up anyway, and went back to dancing with my friends. Suddenly, I heard people cheering "Borat!" over and over again. I didn't know what they wanted from me. Somebody told me they wanted me to go dance with them, so I did. They formed a circle around me (all guys), and I danced for a minute, having no idea what was going on, and then went back to my group. Apparently, a minute was not enough for these people. They could not get enough of Borat, and continued cheering that name for most of the night. I still don't know what those people wanted. I would have been bummed out by the whole experience, but I just kept thinking about how awesome my mustache is, and that kept me happy.

Strong Island

One of my good American friends in Italy is from Long Island. She's very sweet, and I enjoy hanging out with her, and I don't like to be called culturally insensitive, but sometimes it's hard to withhold judgment. A few of us went to meet a cousin of mine who lives in Milan. I had never met him before, so I was very excited. He turned out to be very cool and a great host. At dinner, he pulled out his phone/PDA/camera/dealy and showed us a picture of himself from when he was in the military. Long Island looked at it and said "Ooh! Ray Bans!" We all stared at her, and I said "actually that's an M16." She insisted "No, he's wearing Ray Bans." I thought about explaining that she was missing the point, but eventually gave up. We come from two very different cultures, and I don't know if I'll ever understand hers.

I am a horrible friend

I am spending a semester in Italy with a group of 30 Americans. I really like 28 of them. (Perhaps I should say 27, so as not to include myself). The guy and girl who I don't like, nobody else likes either. That isn't a cue to feel sorry for them. They aren't the nerds we've all decided to pick on. We all tried to be friends with them, and each individually decided that they are obnoxious, and not worth our time. Most of the group is going on an overnight trip to Turin this weekend. We have to decide with whom we want to share a room for a night. I haven't asked the powers that be, but I think they expect us to share rooms with people of the same gender. Of the seven guys in the group, one is going to Amsterdam. Three of us had class together on the day that the rooming signup sheet appeared. One of them asked me if I wanted to room with him, and I said "yes." The other one, a few minutes later, told me I was rooming with him. I wasn't sure if this was a question or not, so I apologized, and told him I already had a roommate. He explained that we were living in a triple. That leaves three guys unaccounted for. After a minute, I realized the implication of this: A good friend of ours was going to be left in a room with the obnoxious one. Moreover, the jerk hates this friend of ours a lot, complained about him ceaselessly in the beginning of the semester, and has talked about how much he would like to beat him up (he is physically capable, but as far as we know, he probably would not.) I couldn't help but laugh. I told everyone why I was laughing, and they started also. One of them said "You know what this means? Cage match!" Then, I remembered that there would be a sixth guy on the trip, and maybe they would also end up in a triple. He is pretty neutral regarding any conflicts within our group. He doesn't seem to hate anybody, and certainly nobody hates him. I'm not sure if he even knows about the animosity between his roommates (he joined the group somewhat late, and they've been able to avoid each other pretty well for a while). He speaks very loudly, very colorfully, and with a Brazilian accent. The story just became funnier when we realized that whatever does happen in that room will be recounted to us by him. In conclusion, I was going to phrase the title of this entry as a question, but upon reflection, there is very little doubt.

I am a stupid American

When I was about 14, I saw a Paul Frank T shirt that said in Japanese "I am a stupid American." I laughed out loud, and wanted to buy it, but alas, it only came in small. I told my Japanese teacher about it, and she also loved the idea. She offered to pay me back if I bought it for her, but I couldn't find it anywhere anymore. (Side note: I found a different shirt that says the same thing.)

Fortunately, I recently found such a shirt in Italian. Even better, I've been wearing it in Italy for 2 months. Little did I know that by advertising my love of Hunter S. Thompson and Flying Dog Beer, I was wearing a shirt that said "IDIOT" and nothing else, in large capital letters on the front. Nobody ever bothered to tell me that "gonzo" is also an Italian word. I'd like to give a friendly warning to any of you who are planning trips to Italy, Monaco or southern Switzerland (Have I left anything out?) in the near future: leave the Gonzo shirt at home.

World's Worst Intersection

This is the height of Italian engineering, from those wonderful folks who brought you the FIAT. If you can find a worse intersection, I'd like to see it.

While it may not be immediately obvious what is going on in this picture, there is an intersection that leads people into the middle of the street. In my town we call that rude, and it's a good way to get kicked out of the Boy Scouts.

Perhaps this is an elaborate prank, and I'm on a hidden camera show in Italy

Scotsman

I’m in Italy with a bunch of American college students. One day, eight of us made plans to go to the beach together. Due to a communication breakdown, three of us got on one bus, while the rest got on another. We agreed that going to some strange beach by ourselves would be an adventure. I went so far as to make a joke about the movie Hostel. We laughed because we didn’t know. Within five minutes, a man walked onto the bus and sat behind us. He weighed in at about 250 pounds, was wearing about 50 cents worth of clothing, and had a few tattoos, some of which had been blacked out. He heard us speaking English and asked us “are you yanks?” We said yes. He then sat down across the aisle from us, next to a somewhat miffed Italian girl who got off at the next stop. As it turns out, this was a Scotsman. He was so happy to hear English, because he does not speak Italian. We heard the better part of this man’s life story. He has been in Italy since 1999. As far as we could tell, he had not shaved, showered, gotten a haircut, or brushed his teeth since he got here. In fact, it seemed as if it had been that long since he had found another English speaker. He talked for a while about film. One of my friends later said that he thought I was going to “film buff it up with him.” I explained to him that despite being a bit nuts myself, I have enough discretion to know when not to get too involved in a conversation with someone who is clearly out of his mind. The closest I got to actually conversing with him was to say that I too liked Se7en. Our tastes in movies did not overlap very much. By chance, there were a few good movies that he liked, but his preferences seemed to have less to do with quality than genre. He loves movies about serial killers and movies about jail. His favorite movie is Saw 3. I spent a while wondering if there were any chance he was not homeless. Eventually, he explained that he was a homeless hippy who sells watches. It was around then when I noticed that he was wearing two of them, one on each wrist, and would periodically look at both of them to check the time, but I don’t know where he was in such a hurry to be. In addition to movies, he talked about politics. He asked why so many people hate George W. Bush, and when we offered a reason, told us he had not heard of any war in Iraq. He said that he prefers McCain, another Scotsman, to Obama, a “half caste”. He also told us his views on Italians. He complained that the Italians don’t understand English well enough for him. He told us that a guy would have a better chance of having sex with Winona Horowitz (Ryder) (the hottest girl after Sandra Bullock and Halle Berry, another half caste) than with an Italian girl. He also used the word “wop” (not actually accurate in Italy) a lot more than one probably should when in Italy. Then, he told us about his views on blowjobs. Apparently, black and Jewish girls give the best ones, and could teach classes on the subject. Eventually, as all good things must, the bus ride came to an end. We said goodbye to him, were careful not to shake hands with him, and went on our way to the part of the beach that he told us he didn’t like.
We talked for a few minutes about how ridiculous that was, and then we saw him, walking along the beach in our general direction, trying to bum a cigarette. Like ostriches hiding from a predator, we all instantly lay face down, in hopes that he wouldn’t recognize us. Naturally, he did. He sat down in the sand near us, and started talking some more. We noticed that one of his watches was gone (probably sold), but he still looked at both wrists to check the time. He warned us about the gypsy sitting 100 meters away, and told us she would try to rob us like she had tried to rob him. He didn’t want something like that to happen to three good looking boys like ourselves. The time frame of this alleged attempted robbery was unclear, considering that he had certainly not walked past her since we got off the bus. He talked some more about politics, telling us that when Obama wins the election, (a certainty), the Jews will assassinate him because he is Muslim, just like the Jews assassinated Kennedy. We were quiet, and tried to let the conversation die, but this man hadn’t talked since 1999, and had quite a lot to say. He had a lot of stories about getting in arguments with Italian police and yelling at them in English. Apparently, the police were naïve enough to believe 20 witnesses over a creepy Scotsman when he was accused of starting fights. He believes Italy is too lenient on murderers because they only get ten years in jail, and Italian jails are like hotels with TVs. He thinks that the death penalty in the US is too harsh, but 30 years would be just right. We decided not to ask how he knows what happens to murderers in Italy and what Italian jails are like. Eventually, he put his bag down and asked us to watch his stuff while he went to ask for a fag. We told him that we were leaving soon, and would not be there to watch his stuff. He said that was okay, and he just wanted to be sure that nobody stole his stuff. We spent about ten minutes explaining to him that we would not be there to make sure of anything, and the gypsy would probably steal his stuff while we were gone. Finally, he took a hint, and took his stuff with him. We quickly got up and power walked to another part of the beach to wait for the bus. We agreed that we would use the safe word “cosa facciamo” (what are we doing) if one of us saw him coming our direction, and the contingency plan would be to stick together. Eventually, we saw a bus come to the stop 20 minutes earlier than we had expected. I went to ask the driver if he was going to our stop and when. He said “si” (yes) and “adesso” (now). I asked him if I had two minutes, and he told me to hurry. I ran back as fast as my sandals would carry me, apologized to some Italians for accidentally kicking sand in their faces, yelled “COSA FACCIAMO,” and told the guys we had to haul ass to get on the bus. If we missed it, we would have had to wait an hour for the next one, during which time our friend would probably have returned.
The whole time we’ve been in Italy, we (and, to a much greater extent, the girls) had been watching out for creepy Italian guys wearing banana hammocks. We never expected to have a run-in like this with a Scotsman. For me, one of the most intriguing things he said was that he has a sister who goes to UCLA. I tried to imagine any of the girls I know at UCLA having a brother who travels around Italy, not speaking the language, selling watches on the street and hitting on young boys. I tried to think of a way I could get his sister’s name without giving him mine, but eventually decided to give up on that.
Once we got on the bus and had time to calm down, we did the math and realized that he had been in Italy for ten years. That’s a long time to live in a country he doesn’t like with a language he doesn’t speak. Thus, there must have been something very important detaining him in Italy. If only we could think of something that would keep a man in one place for ten years against his will. I suppose we’ll never know. I don’t think anybody knows.

The following evening, two of us, still shocked, were walking to dinner with a couple girls we know. We were passing a food cart when my friend whispered to me “Look at the cart! Cosa Facciamo!” I turned and saw that the Scotsman was standing less than ten meters away from us. Without talking anymore, the two of us bolted. We hid behind the next building and waited for the girls to catch up with us. They were baffled by what we did, but we explained whom we saw. Having already heard the story, they didn’t need much explanation. Having my camera with me, I decided that we needed a picture of this man. Neither of us who had met the Scotsman were willing to encounter him again and risk him recognizing us. I asked the girls if they were willing to go back and take a picture. I explained that they were under no obligation and it might not be a good idea. They, however, were more than willing to do this. It was dark, and without my glasses I couldn’t see very far. My friend looked at the girls periodically and told me what was happening. They got the picture, then made friends with the guys working at the cart, and hung out with them behind the counter. After a while they came back with some great pictures.
See if you can guess which one of these men nearly gave me a heart attack.