Egyptians on Egyptian politics (and hope in America)

My taxi driver from the Cairo Airport to my hotel in Giza (a $25 ride), told me that before The Revolution (the Egyptian part of the Arab Spring in 2011), tourism was very good. There was a constant flow of visitors, they all thought he did a good job and they would return to him for more than one day, he said.

So i asked him if things are better for the country now, after the Revolution, which chased former president/dictator Hosni Mubarak from power. He quickly and emphatically answered yes. "But now are just waiting for a good President," he said. "If the Brotherhood gets it, forget about it. Forget about Egypt as a country.
   

Election ads (for Mohamed Morsi on lower
right) covered over by gym fitness ads
in Giza, Egypt. Photo by author.

At the moment i am here in Egypt, (early June, 2012), Egypt has held a first round of elections to choose the first President after Mubarak. They have narrowed it down to two front runners: Ahmed Shafik, the final Prime Minister under Mubarak, he is seen as the Old Guard's choice; and Mohamed Morsi, backed by the Muslim Brotherhood, he was their 2nd choice candidate after their first choice broke off and ran on his own. (Good background on the politics of this election can be found in this article from The Economist and in this one from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.)


George, my taxi driver, was very upset about Morsi and the Brotherhood because they were bad for his business. Morsi went on TV before the first set of elections a couple of weeks ago, George said, and announced that if he wins, there will be no more tourists in Egypt.

"Why would he do that?" i asked. "They bring revenue and money is money, right?"

"Yes," George said, "but the extremists among the Brotherhood see tourists at Sharm Al Sheikh in shorts and bikinis and think it is inappropriate in their country." (Morsi may well have said that, i'm taking it just from George. But Morsi also came out right after the first round of elections had narrowed the field down to just two and said that he would work together with the Revolutionary <ie, anti-Mubarak, pro-democracy, relatively liberal> parties, as quoted in the Carnegie article here above.)

In fact, every single Egyptian i spoke to about politics said they were hoping against the Muslim Brotherhood candidate. i realized however that, not speaking Arabic, i was able to communicate with only a small portion of the people in Egypt, and those that would support the Brotherhood are specifically less likely to be learning a foreign language to talk to visitors in.

George was very glad to be working with an American visitor. It was his dream to move to the United States, he told me. i ask him why and said that he had a University degree but could not find a job, so he is just a driver. In America, he said, he'd be able to get any job he wanted.

This photo from The Vulgar Eye shows an Occupy Wall Street Movement
protester expressing the same sentiment expressed throughout
the Arab Spring. 

i told him that there is a lot of unemployment in the States and that many people with degrees there can get either no job, or nothing in their degree field, just like him. i told him that it was such a big problem that massive protests were being held in New York City, the Occupy Wall Street movement. He said he had never heard of this (and i thought of the Districts in the Hunger Games not being allowed contact with each other. i wish i would have found out what George would have said if i told him that the Revolutionary protests in Egypt and around Arabia had inspired similarly themed protests in the United States, Israel, and other parts of the world!)

But, in the States, he said, "if I am poor and cannot work, the government will take care of me."

At the time i just told him that it certainly isn't that simple, that the American government can sure not be depended on by everyone who needs it. By wonderful coincidence, the hotel TV that night ran a CNN story about many people who have been on unemployment and still not finding jobs getting their benefits cut soon.

Then, checking in at the hotel, i asked the receptionist (an Egyptian woman about my age wearing no headdress) how she was doing. She seemed surprised by the question but just said, "Good thanks." Then, tapping away at her console she said, "Not so good actually." i asked her why and she said, "The political situation in Egypt is not good.

i asked her if there was new news today, causing her eyes to jump to the TV behind her showing solid throngs of protesters filling Tahir Square. i had already the headlines in English newspapers: "Hosni Mubarak sentenced to life in prison." But i was not expecting her reaction:

"Only 25years prison for Mubarak. And only 25years for his assistant. His two sons and other staff, all free. It is the corruption in Egypt, it continues." Turns out, the said, that most of the protesters that night were out because what they saw as the light handling of the official aggressiveness against protesters during the Revolution the year before.

She looked genuinely sad and dejected as she wished me a good stay and goodnight.

Italian politics by a Roman taxi driver

Roman street art.

A few days ago i did a Rome-in-a-Day tour for a nice couple from northern Florida. Colosseum, Vatican, downtown highlights: bam bam bam. While in a cab between sites, the man of the couple asked me about the situation in Italian politics. i could certainly tell him what i thought, if he'd like, but instead i suggested we ask the cab driver what he thought and the client agreed.

So, acting as a translator i asked the driver what he thought of the current situation in Italian politics. And he showed his middle finger.

After asking him if he minded if i translate the conversation, i did so and they cracked up when i said he had shown his middle finger (they were in the back of the cab and couldn't see.) The driver got a kick out of that and offered to explain.

He said the current Prime Minister, Mario Monti, was putting Italy deeper into the European situation, and he didn't like that. He is too involved with Merkel, the driver said, referring to the Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany.

Plus, he said, Monti was not democratically elected. He made it clear he did not want to be misunderstood - he was glad Berlusconi gone. He said he had overheard me mentioning already in English that Berlusconi was famous for scandals and gaffs and was glad i knew to say that, because everyone was glad he is gone, he said

But it should have been done by the people of Italy, he said. He then expressed a view i've heard widely expressed here, though usually without so much rancor: the Italian parliament had been pressured by the international banks to put Monti in power to sure up the Italian economy, so it would not end up with the potentially divisive problems coming out of Greece.

But you know what the problem is with Monti?, the driver asked me. Goldman Sachs, he said.

i asked him what he meant and he said that it was clear the banks had created the global economic crises we are all going through, and now Italy has put the banks at the head of the government.

"That's a good point," said the American guy, when i'd translated all this.

"But, what about Greece?" he asked. "Will there by the violence and revolts in Italy like there was there?"

No, the driver said. Italy is not such a poor country as Greece is. They feel real poverty. In Italy, some people are annoyed, some are even fed up he said, but the people are still eating. Nobody makes rebellion while they are eating well, he said.

7months after ayahuasca, my me is better and stronger

i went into my experience with ayahuasca with big expectations. Many of my friends raved about how positively it effected their lives. So i went for it just about 7months ago. It was very expensive, required 12hours of travel each way, intense preparation...and it was still SO WORTH IT.

i prepared, as recommended, for 10 days during which i ate no red meat, no spices, very little oil, no refined sugar, very little salt, had no alcohol, caffeine or any other medicines or drugs of any kind (giving up my allergy medicine was rough. Giving up caffeine sucked bad, but i later found the shamans actually don't think this is necessary, i had misinterpreted the directions) and refrained from sex of any kind.


There were three Peruvian shamans of the Shipibo tribe that had been brought to Europe by an Austrian/American woman. i wrote extensively about the experience here in this blog.

i had three stated reasons (given in more detail here) for going through all this and partaking in the ceremonies:

1. To increase my understanding and connection with the divine.

2. To develop a healthier, more balanced view towards recreational drugs.

3. To understand my place and purpose in the world.

Now, more than a half a year later, i am willing to say that i feel successful improvement in all three areas. Some of the improvement was immediate and obvious, especially about the divine.

i came away from the ceremonies so happy! i had learned things that took away my worries and fears. It's difficult to explain how i learned them. i am willing to chalk them up to intuition - but what i learned certainly feels like knowledge to me: There is a God. We do have souls. Our souls live longer than our bodies. We are all, very literally, connected. We humans have greater powers than we generally grasp. Every one of us is the same, and every one of us is going through exactly what we should be going through, in each moment. Etc. These lessons really changed my outlook on life.

And it helped me understand my place and purpose as well, partially by increasing my motivation continue studying my favorite spiritual teachers (among them, the Dalai Lama, Mike Dooley, Neale Donald Walsch, SN Goenka, Thich Nhat Hanh). With their help, i am coming to understand that i fulfill my purpose on the planet with every beat of my heart.

Do you know how liberating and relieving that is?? Even i can't fahk that up! So here i sit, in this moment typing, in another walking, in another working, but always fulfilling my purpose, just by living my life.

What this means to me is that everything else i do is icing on the cake!! Then in my good moments i start getting excited about the possibility of making really good icing, and frosting to add over it, or candles to light, to stick with the metaphor. Basically, the relaxed spiritual outlook that i developed partially as a result of my work with ayahuasca has given me more ambition to live well.

And i mean well in every sense - to maintain the health and strength and attractiveness of my body, to keep my mind clear, strong, and full, to open my heart a) to increase my own happiness and b) to benefit others.

And this ambition is heavily influential on goal #2. In the past i was the guy that, after having a great time partying or drinking socially with friends, would not only suggest but also drive the campaign to have one last shot before going home. Such a bad idea, i realize now. i would have an alcoholic drink during the day because everyone else was, or because i thought i was supposed to. i know now those things never matter. i would also use mood alterers to drive away stress, or difficulty of any kind. But with this other improvements of goals #1 and #3, i feel less stressed and know that even if i did feel it, the solution is in me, not in a bottle or a spliff. i no longer feel the need to drink too much to know i had fun. Granted, sometimes i still do. But less often, and it feels different when i do. It feels like reckless fun instead of lame distraction or desperation.

i am very thankful for the weird bunch of coincidences that lead me to finding the help of these wonderful South American Shipibo shamans and their wise plant.

These lessons and improvements have stuck with me this half year, and i have every reason to believe that they will in the future as well.

i am aware that some of the shamans i worked with on tour here in Europe again now through Traditional Plant Medicine, and if i have the money and ability to travel away from work, i'd love to go again - because it is fun. And because the preparation period is so healthy, as is the cleansing that you experience during the ceremony. So yea, if i get the opportunity to take ayahuasca with trusted shamans again, i'd be all over it. But i don't feel the need for it.

Come to think of it, i don't feel the need for any sort of substance anymore, or for anything or anyone else for that matter. And it feels really good:-)

This video is of Maestra Celestina, singing the icaro she used when i was working with her. i love it, it brings back the memories and even some of the feelings of the ceremony. i don't expect you'll understand the power of it without having been through the ceremonies, but i think it's a pretty damn cool song worth hearing anyway:-)

Photos by the author.

My international Hunger Games experience: disturbed but very impressed

The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins

My experience of The Hunger Games begins in Waterbury, Connecticut, USA, the town where i grew up. My best friend there told me he had recently read and very much liked The Hunger Games. i was impressed because this friend had, in the past year, acquired a wife, a daughter, and bought his first home, a house that he was remodelling. With all that on his plate he had still found time to enjoy this book! He told me that it was a very quick read and that he thought i'd like it.

In the Tampa International Airport, on my way back from 3months in the States here to Rome, i saw The Hunger Games in the airport bookstore. i didn't know anything about it except my friend's recommendation, but i went for it.

Reading it on the plane, i was enthralled. The pacing, and the author's ability to convey amazing amounts of informational about complex situations and relationships in a small number of pages was dazzling.

i was confused for the first couple of chapters as it is written in the first person point of view, and there is a male character of some unclear status of romantic interest or buddy that is the one significant friend of the main character. It wasn't until the 3rd chapter i realized (humblingly) that i was confused because the main character, whose point of view we get, is female, and i hadn't been able to imagine that. That character, Katniss Everdeen, is definitely among the most powerful and well developed female characters i can think of.

Here's the basic premise:

In post-United States North America, there is a country called Panem. The capital is in or near the Rocky Mountains. 74years before the beginning of the story, the 13 districts that, with the capital, make up Panem, had all revolted against the capital but were defeated. The capital destroyed district 13 completely and exercised tight control over each of the other remaining 12 remaining districts. They were fenced in, the citizens not allowed to leave the perimeter of their own district, and had no contact with the other districts, were pushed to work and be productive to the needs of the capital while themselves being kept in a state of constant near-crushing poverty for the majority of the citizens. Most of the story takes place in District 12, which is where Appalachia is now.

In order to remind the districts of their defeat in the revolt, the capital holds an annual event called The Hunger Games, for which one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18 are chosen from each of the districts to go to the capital and be put in an enormous faux-wilderness arena in a highly televised competition of mortal combat, from which only 1 person is allowed to emerge alive. This victor then will be showered with wealth for themselves and their district as well.

During that flight from Tampa to Rome, i read about 2/3 of the 374page first book of the trilogy. The next morning in Rome i popped up ridiculously early at like 7am and couldn't sleep anymore. So i decided to go out to the grocery store. But it wouldn't be open yet, so i went to a little cafe across the street from the grocery store and figured i would read for the 45minutes or so until the grocery store opened. 3hours later, still there in that cafe, i finished the book.

i have never read a non fiction work so quickly. Just two sittings!!

i was amazed (if repulsed) by the action of the story, and entirely gripped by the romantic, emotional, and political relationships that developed among the characters! The effect of the setting and plot was deliciously subversive.

Catching Fire, 2nd book of The Hunger Games Trilogy,
by Suzanne Collins

A few weeks later i had a gig as a traveling tour guide around Italy with a group of high school kids from Texas, so i bought the 2nd book, Catching Fire, here in Rome to bring along and read in the evenings before bed. i did this for a couple of nights, but found that the story was giving me very uncomfortable nightmares of the personal insecurity, political intrigue, and physical hunter/prey feelings of the story in this second book. i found this to be the most interesting book in many ways (being careful not to give any real spoilers here..)

 In gigs like this, there are sometimes long, multi-hour bus rides. Wanting to get more of the story, but not wanting to ruin my sleep, i decided to try to read a little during one of these long bus transfers. This is the first time i have ever read like that while working, instead always finding some way to be productive, either by interacting with the clients, taking care of chores that needed to be done, or even simply planning or thinking about upcoming events and activities. That's how remarkably hooked i was to the storyline! But the experiment went badly - i read just one chapter and was so psychologically disturbed by it that it ruined my mood and made me feel uncomfortable. i was really feeling the events of the book along with the characters! So, i ended up stopping to read for the entire rest of the 10day tour.


i told the teacher of this group about my difficulty reading the book, though i really liked it. i was surprised to find that not only had she already read the whole trilogy, but that she had done so because all of her kids had done so and were talking about it. i find it a bit horrifying to learn that this book had been marketed to teenagers! The level of violence, of the first book especially, is beyond anything i'd ever seen. It really set a new standard for how violent we allow our pop culture to be - and it had all been aimed at still-developing minds. i think the violence works in the books because nearly all of the main characters basically hate the violence, and partake in it only grudgingly, as the lesser of 2 awfuls. But because it is easy to miss that subtle point, i found the amount and nature of the violence significantly disturbing.

After that tour, back home in Rome again, i read the rest of the book and was again impressed. The ending was unbelievable, really pretty well shocking and crazy, i sure never saw it coming!

Mockingjay, 3rd book of the The Hunger Games Trilogy,
by Suzanne Collins

The third book, Mockingjay, i bought in Milan for a train ride from there to Rome. It is really fascinating in its themes of right and wrong in rebellion, and how these shift with time. i read maybe the first third of this book pretty quickly, but then found myself putting the book down for days at a time. i realized i didn't want to finish it, i didn't want it to be over! In the end, the day before the movie was to be released here in Italy (3months or so after it had been running in the States), i finished it in hopes of immediately going to see the film.

i can't say too much here without giving things away, but what i can tell you is that the story turned out basically as i'd have hoped - which might tip off some of you that know me well, but maybe not too.

So i loved the whole story and was looking forward to seeing the movie. But then the opening day in Italy arrived and it turned out that no theater here was running the original English version of it! They were all playing the dubbed version. Italy has the (quite provincial) habit of watching mostly non-Italian films with an Italian-language voice over. i find this amazingly irritating - it is simply not the same work of art. And the voice actors are terrible. Italians often say the opposite - but really they just have three voices: silly, melodramatic, and very melodramatic.

There are occasionally original language version of foreigner films shown here, usually the big hits, but for reasons i have not figured out, The Hunger Games is not being shown here in English. It is all over the city in Italian, as American films here are usually a vast majority of the top selling films, but nobody here is hearing it in its original language.

Italian advertisement for Hunger Games, the movie.

But i really wanted to see what the film adaptation of this great trilogy. So i broke down and went to go see it dubbed into Italian.

i guess it's a bit trite to mention that the book was better, but i actually thought the movie was crap. It looked like Fellini had read the cliff notes of the book and then, while working through a mute translator and rolling on acid and speed, made a movie that was then repackaged, adjusted and Hollywoodized by a studio. The incredible density of story that Suzanne Collins managed to put into the books just does not come through well in Hollywood format. The devents follow the book pretty closely, with some exception, but character development, social commentary and even story development all fell victim to the director's editing.

Overall i found the story (speaking of the book now, as it remains to be seen if the film trilogy will develop into much), to be powerful, fascinating and even beautiful. Katniss Everdeen will go down as a classic character, but also Peeta, Dale, Haymitch, President Snow and other characters went through real, genuine development and/or transformation.

i completely do not think that The Hunger Games is appropriate reading pre-high school, and it even seems to me a difficult fit for high school students, as it would be easy to lose all of the powerful and beautiful aspects and simply relish the disturbing violence.

Perhaps most pungent reaction, is a fascination with the fact that it takes place post-United States and deals so intimately with rebellion of the people against the capital., especially because i saw the same themes (post-United States, problems of social inequality, etc.) in Justin Timberlake's recent movie In The Nick of Time. These portrayals of the post shit-hits-the-fan-scenarios that i found being discussed so widely in America this winter are intriguing even just in their existence, but also then in their pro-people bent and, more importantly, in their subversive, relativistic and love-of-life themes.

Great book on village life in Italy: Tim Parks' Italian Neighbors

Tim Parks' Italian Neighbors: An Englishman in Verona

i just spent the 2nd half of an unusually rainy May Sunday in Rome reading a fantastic book about village life in Italy. It was written by my 2nd favorite writer-about-Italy-with-the-last-name Parks, Tim Parks, an Englishman who has expatriated to Italy. (2nd, of course, to Tiffany Parks of The Pines of Rome and Where Magazine.)

Tim Parks tells the story of his and his wife's integration into the community of Montecchio, a village near Verona, in the Veneto region of Italy, over the course of just more than a year. The book is pretty fantastic. It takes us right into the lives of people (and types of people) that i would otherwise surely never come to know.

i was a little struck at first to think that. i mean, i also am an English-speaking foreigner living in Italy. But, i am in Rome, the capital. i am surrounded mostly by non-Italians most of the time. Parks instead gets right down into it, living in a small, apparently not-quite-remarkable village, surrounded entirely by not just Italians, but small town Italians - quite a different animal than the ones i encounter in the capital. These people in the book will also not resemble any Italian you have ever met anywhere else in the world - these are the Italians that don't emigrate and that mostly don't travel (as described in the book.)

In fact, after a couple early chapters made it seem almost, though not quite, as if he was really hating on the whole region and community, Parks sums up the love-hate relationship a foreigner is likely to have with Italy while living here like this:

"Am I giving the impression that I don't like the Veneto? It's not true. I love it. I'm going to tell you some wonderful things about it. When I've finished, I hope you'll be wishing you'd been here too, at least for a little while. But like any place that's become home, I hate it too. And, of course, you can't separate the things you love and hate: you can't say, let's move to so and so where they have the cappuccini, the wines, the lasagna, the marvellous peaches, the handsome people in handsome clothes, the fine buildings, the close-knit, friendly secretiveness of village life, but not, please, the howling maltreated hunting dogs, the spoilt adolescents on their motorini, the hopeless postal service, the afa. You can't do it. It's a package deal."       (p. 18)

i relate to this very much living in Rome, even if the objectss of the love and hate are very different.

Parks is showing us here the real Italia that exists, physically on the planet, instead of the Italy that exists only in our foreigners' minds (to borrow a delineation from Beppe Sevegnerini), and it is fascinating and entertaining. Specifically, Parks does the best job of any writer i've read at describing two very Italian phenomenon:

1. The incredible, glaring "profound schizophrenia, which is also the charm, of all matters Italian: the Pope adored and ignored, the law admired and flouted, politicians despised and reelected." (p. 310) He indicates that Italians are culturally Catholic, no matter what their actual religion or spiritual beliefs are:

"There is a magical duplicity about Italians. I'll never get used to it. You think they're superstitious bigots, but then they're more open-minded than you are. None of them would ever have criticized Christ for plucking his ears of corn on the Sabbath. It's as if they're a nation of Protestants, or even free-thinkers, who just happen to be deeply attached, for reasons of style and aesthetics, to the Catholic way of worship. Because they appreciate its richness. It fills their lives." (p. 237)

(Though i disagree with him a bit here - many Italians would have criticized Christ for working necessarily on the Sabbath, BUT the vast majority of them would have done so themselves. That's key - just because something is criticized in others does not at all mean the critics won't do it!)

This is a country that typically has both Fascists and Socialists (and Communists) represented in their Parliament! Etc. There really is a constant self-contradiction here and Parks did a great job describing it throughout the book.

2. Our foreign inability to understand whether what we observe here is pathetic and backwards or actually wise and reasoned. One amusing example is when he describes a tv news broadcast of Italian sailors being sent to a UN mission in Beirut. The camera zooms on one adult sailors face and we see him cry and yell for his mother. "In a way it's wonderful, this lack of shame." (p. 293) Also, at the beginning of the book he describes the ridiculous fuss and importance surrounding bottling one's own prosecco, but by the end of the book he's learned more about it, is doing it himself, and suddenly appreciates what he'd ridiculed in the past..

The writing throughout is strong and lucid. In fact today as i read i paused a moment to try to remember which movie a scene i had in my mind had come from. Then i realized it was actually a mental image i had created about a week earlier, conjured from Parks' writing - quite impressive from any writer, but especially one working in on fiction.

His description of his neighbors and their customs was fascinating and gripping, his understanding of Italian bureaucracy and laws is, i am very confident, unparalleled among non-Italian,s and he gives it all to us in a tone that is absolutely pleasant and engaging.

Also, the book is certainly not at all bilingual, but there is more than a small smattering of Italian words and phrases throughout it, only some of which is translated, which makes it especially pleasing for those of us that are bilingual:-)

In Italy, never ask permission: a roof party

About a month ago i moved into a great new apartment with an entrance near Piazza Risorgimento, in Rome, and a view into Vatican City from my room, the bathroom, and our roof terrace. That roof terrace is pretty fantastic, except for the weird culture and rules around it. No Italians ever use it. Except for the purpose of hanging laundry out. But i thought this would be a great place for a party.

My view at night. That's the wall of Vaticany City and the dome of Saint Peter's Basillica.

So me and my buddy Mike threw together a little party, me for my Inaugurazione or House Warming and him for his final birthday before his 40!

Fifty or sixty people showed up. We had about 10 chairs clustered together around the roof, a 60foot extension chord running electricity from our kitchen on the 4th floor to the roof about the 5th floor, to a CD player that, with my limited number of commercially bought CDs (this was an ooold CD player), had us playing Led Zepplin, Janis Joplin, and Santana till after 1am! We had two twin mattress laid down with sheets and sleeping bags over them, a bar area where we drank many gallons of yummy red win sfuso, which means never been bottled. And there was another area where Kristen The Shit had made a massive and delicious bowl of pasta and veggies, there was a huge salad, and we bought an entire pizza al taglio from the excellent pizza by the slice place on Risorgimento. Plus there were olives and cherries and chips and peanuts and cookies, etc.

The bathroom was on the 4th floor, so all those people were clopping down the stairs to the bathroom, probably slamming the door shut again. In order for anyone to get in that had to hit a buzzer which has to be opened from a telephone-looking aparatus in the entryway, which meant after about 10:30 or so when everybody went up stairs, somebody had to come down to buzz them in, and back up the stairs again. At 4am 5 of us were hanging out in the stairwell, talking and laughing. i tried to limit the noise, thought for sure we'd get a noise complaint. But it never happened.

Many people, mostly Italians, asked as they arrived if i had asked permission to have the party. "Of course not," i told them. That would be the stupidest possible move - it would have given them the opportunity to say no. Never ask a question you don't want to know the answer to;-) We just waited for the last people to get their clothes for the day, set up after that, had the party, went to bed, no problem.

At at about 11:15am i hear the door bell ring. And then a 2nd time. i get up, still dressed in my party clothes, bed head hair, belt unbuckled, and open the door to a Signore and a Signora of two different families in their mid 60s, well dressed up for Sunday morning, and a third Signora maybe in her forties, dressed in gray sweats with her died blond hair up on an electrified palm tree impression on her head. The man asks me, "Siete voi che avete fatto un festa sulla terraza," Was it you who had the party on the roof? Si, i told him. And then he launches into this diatribe about, Non si puo.. "You can't do that." or something like that. It's like the French "ce n'être pas possible." He goes about how it's a question of if you can or if you can't, and in his opinion, Non si puo.

i was intensely curious what their motivation was, why did the blond lady look angry, arms tightly folded over he chest, biting her nails.

"We've been living here for more than 30years," the older lady told me. Then they told me which apartments they were from and exactly how many years and we all smiled, except for the blond, who bit her nails.

Oh, and they mention that it's a mess.

Now imagine how much stuff there is from 5dozen people partying for 2-5hours! But we (and by we i mean the several super hero souls that helped out with the clean up, thank you very much everybody!:-) But we got everything off the roof...except, i found out in the morning, maybe 6yellow (NOT red solo!) plastic cups, 1 orange plate, and a bunch of cigarette buts and corks. We had gotten ALL of the furniture, big garbage, and any other trace we'd been there except for this small stuff.

i was very curious what their motivation was to be so upset. The guy was saying that it's "un spazio commune per un uso specifico." "a common space for a specific use." Hanging your clothes, barked the blond.

Some old ladies' clothes on the terrace that held a 60person party the night before.
You  can see just about all of your mess there in the background.

Then we got to the nut of the problem: "Also we have tried to put some furniture up there," the old man told me, "in the summer when it was very hot. This was not for a party like yours, for heaven's sake. This was just to take some air in the summer. And even that the apartment council said we couldn't."

This is why they were upset. None of them indicated that they were from this apartment council, but they had been told they couldn't use that space for anything other than hanging their clothes, so we couldn't either.

Now what happens next shows the sort of psyche we have to deal with living here. i tell them that i didn't mean to cause any problems and will get it all cleaned up and i begged their pardon. Immediately they all let up, the guy said, "Ok allora, ci siamo tesi," "Ok then, we've understood each other." They asked me how long i'd been there and where i was from, and responded by telling me how beautiful America is and we parted wishing each other, "buone cose" "good things" and things like that.

Then, being a little bit hung over, i went down to the bar and had an espresso and a danish, and then went up to the roof to survey they situation. While looking around i picked up the yellow cups and went back downstairs to take a shower, but really just buying myself some time for my hangover to relax. As i'm just getting in the shower, so maybe just 20minutes after the guy has talked to me amicably, he rings the door again. My roomate answers and he yells at her! Exclaims that that i've only just picked the cups, there's still al the cigarette butts etc. When i get out of the shower, my roomate is (understandably) annoyed that she's been yelled at by this manic old man who has always been so nice the past. So go up there and it takes me maybe 20minutes to have the whole place cleaner than it had been before the party!

So, what's the moral, what's the point? Two of them:

1. Thank you to everyone who made it a great party! i had a really great time, got to meet up with a lot of people i don't get to see very often and chat with some new friends as well. i was actually really surprised by how many (awesome and wonderful people, especially cool, hot women - i appreciate my friends!;-) people showed up, and how thin i ended up spreading myself because of it.

2. In Italy especially, but in life in general:

Never ask a question you don't want to know the answer to.

So, will there be future parties on the roof? Not any time soon. And probably not anymore big ones like that. But if the whim should ever arrive to do anything of any form that is completely removeable and damageless on the roof, i'm sure not going to ask permission if i want to do it!;-) :-)

New crazy/dancing puppy music video!

Max the Circles Dog

So i spent the May 1st holiday weekend with at a friend's awesome country house in Umbria. It was good times, good company, fantastic food and a bit of city-free peace and quiet.

My friend Lauren brought her dog, Max. 

Little did i know, Max is the star of his own viral youtube video! 

It's pretty cool and funny, check it out now and see it before all your friends already have: 

'Max, Squared ("I am not an ambiturner" - Derek Zoolander)'

Enjoy it, pass it on to your friends - remember, spam is NOT made of puppies!;-)

Vatican Museums crowd on free Sundays: Avoid it.

i've recently moved into an awesome new apartment (more pics and stories to come). The entrance is on Piazza Risorgimento, here in Rome, but my bedroom window looks down on the walls of Vatican City and via Leone IV. This is the view from my window at 9am this morning:

Last Sunday crowd for the Vatican Museums on via Leone IV.

Those are people waiting in line to get into the Vatican Museums. On the last Sunday of every month, the museums are free. The museums are around the corner there on the right, uphill about 100yards ahead. i had forgotten how crowded it could be on these Sundays as i've been avoiding them for years.

Lineup for Vatican Museums, on Piazza Risorgimento.

When i first moved here, before i became a tour guide, i went to a free Sunday at the Vatican with my friend Simona. i love Simona for taking the time and effort to bring me there, but i also learned free Sundays are the wrong time to visit the Vatican - it's like being a cross between sheep and shivering penguins huddled together for the entire visit!

The line to enter the Vatican Museums stretching all the way to Saint Peter's Square, April 29, 2012. These people will be waiting about 3hours before they get to the Museums' entrance.

When i went outside to get my morning espresso i found that the crowds had only just begun as the museums had only just opened, and that they were getting much worse quickly.

View from the roof of my building at about 10am, you can see the crowd has gotten much thicker.

And remember, the entrance to the Vatican Museums is still at least 100meters further after that corner!

That yellow sign the people are looking at is the calendar and hours of the Vatican Museums. The entrance closed at 12.30, this photo was taken at 12.36pm.

All of these people are still waiting in line. If they were going to be able to enter the Vatican Museums (and it seems they are not), there is still about 45minutes worth of line ahead of them, and this is 5minutes after the entrance was scheduled to close.

 Moral of the story? In my opinion, pay the 14euros to enter the Vatican Museums, or 18euros if you pay for an appointment so you don't have to wait in line. If you value your time even almost as much as you value your money, you will this is a much better value for you:-)

New favorite song: Mason Jennings' I Love You and Buddha Too

Mason Jennings photo from mtv.com

Almost two years ago i first found Ziggy Marley's song Love Is My Religion. Immediately i loved the song and thought it was the best expression of my own spirituality and religious beliefs. That inspired me to share that song, and also to share such a spiritually wise or personally relevant song every Sunday. This collection of Sunday Songs are meant to be open reminders to myself to develop my own health and spirituality.

Now i've found a new favorite: Mason Jennings' song, I Love You and Buddha Too.

It is performed here together with Jack Johnson and Matt Costa. Check it out, give it a listen, enjoy it. Then find the lyrics and my commentary here below.

* * *

"I Love You and Buddha Too"

Oh Jesus, I love You
And I love Buddha too
Ramakrishna, Guru Dev
Tao Te Ching and Mohammed

Why do some people say
That there is just one way
To love You, God, and come to You?
We are all a part of You

You are un-nameable
You are unknowable
All we have is metaphor
That's what time and space are for

Is the universe Your thought?
You are and You are not
You are many, You are one
Ever ending, just begun

Alright, alright, alright
I love You and Buddha too

Oh Jesus, I love You
And I love Buddha too
Ramakrishna, Guru Dev
Tao Te Ching and Mohammed

Why do some people say
That there is just one way
To love You, God and come to You?
We are all a part of You

Alright, alright, alright
I love You and Buddha too

Oh Jesus, I love You
(I love You, Jesus)
And I love Buddha too
Ramakrishna, Guru Dev
Tao Te Ching and Mohammed

Why do some people say
(I love You, Jesus)
That there is just one way
To love You God and come to You?
We are all a part of You

You are un-nameable
(I love You, Jesus)
You are unknowable
All we have is metaphor
That's what time and space are for

Is the universe Your thought?
(I love You, Jesus)
You are and You are not
You are many, You are one
Ever ending, just begun

Alright, alright, alright
(I love You, Jesus)
I love You and Buddha too
Alright, alright, alright
(I love You, Jesus)
I love You and Buddha too

Alright
* * *

(Thank you to AZLyrics.com for publishing the lyrics online:-)

i love the wisdom and openness of the lyrics. i don't know anything at all about Mason Jennings' background or life. But he respects everyone here. Instead of going with the New Athiest style of slamming Christians, this songs makes it clear: "I love You, Jesus." 

The next word here is important to me: "And." Not "But." "But," would almost negate or excuse the previous statement, the love of Jesus. But here, wisely, Jennings sings that he loves Jesus AND Buddha. (In fact, there is not a single negative word in the whole song, which i also really like.) 

And there are other important characters given homage as well: Ramakrishna refers to an influential Hindu teacher of the 19th Century, Gurudev is a polite way to address any Hindu teacher but may also refer specifically to Gurudev Singh, an important healer among the Western Sikh movements, Tao Te Ching (variously also referred to Lao tse, Lao tzu, etc., due to the difficulty of translating Chinese characters into Latin letters) is the founder of Taoism, Mohammed (also various spellings) of course is the prophet of Islam and the idea of calling God unknowable and unnameable reminds me of (correct me if i'm wrong..) Jewish tradition.

i haven't seen such an inclusive spiritual pantheon since South Park Episode 201!!

Image of Shiva, Tao Te Ching, Jospeh Smith, Stan, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha and  Sea Man from  "Super Best Friends," the 201st episode of South Park :-) (Since there is no Jewish character in this image, i list the characters from right to left to represent Hebrew language:-)

My personal beliefs suggest that the various religions of the world are simply translations of themselves, cultural adaptations each to help the various peoples of the world all understand the universal truths about God and the universe. i happen to love the sound and feeling of this song, but the message is really of the greatest value to me. Thank you Mason Jennings!:-)

Photos: "i love the shit in Rome" A collection.

i was walking through Trastevere, in Rome, with a friend. We decided to sit down on some church steps and enjoy our beers. It was my first night back in Rome after going on a traveling tour.When i looked up i saw this plaque here above, saying that the church had been built in 1501. And i thought to myself, "That's some crazy shit!"

Then i looked down and found what you see below.

Human shit!! Right there on the cobblestones!

Tempted to be disgusted and annoyed at the city, knowing the inevitability of it constantly being shitty, i instead decided, "i love this shit." And i looked up again at the church and thought, "i love all of this shit."

 THAT is when i realized i was going to make a photo collection blog post titled, "i love the shit in Rome."

The following is the result of my walk home that night. 

(No more disgusting ones to come, i promise;-) 

i hope you enjoy it:-)

Invisible cars.

That was some delicions shit:-)

This is beautiful shit!

Please, Gov, stop subsidizing obesity and disease

It is not just by chance, or i would even say by choice, that Americans are getting fatter and more diseased (referring especially to diabetes and cancer). The United States government is subsidizing it. This was reconfirmed for me by Michael Pollan's book, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto:

"Since 1980, the price of sweeteners and added fat, most of them derived respectively from subsidized corn and subsidized soy beans, dropped 20%, while the price of fresh fruits and vegetables increased 40%."

Now, i know that there is a (mostly Republican) school of thought in America that the government should not be responsible for people's health. But i also do not think the government should be responsible for the profit margins of the corn and soy bean lobby (read: Monsanto, et. al.)!

No Monsanto image from www.OrganicMomandDad.com

Even if one was to believe that the government were not responsible for the health of the people (because in my mind, this is one of their primary responsibilities), shouldn't they at least be interested in not wasting money? Because the side effects of financing junk "food" are costing us all:

"In 1960, Americans spent 17.5% of their income on food and 5.2% of national income on health care. Since then those numbers have flipped. Spending on food has fallen to 9.9% while spending on health care has climbed to 16% of national income." (In Defense of Food) 

The problem with making the least healthy food the cheapest is that then poor people will eat it, and they will get sick and need medical care, which will not come cheap, quickly causing them to end up broke. Once broke they will keep eating the cheap junk "food," stay sick, and end up calling for your ambulances, my dear non-poor blog readers, and filling up your emergency rooms, spending up your tax money as they go.

(Quotation marks on food because this book makes it very clear how high-fructose, synthesized foods are not actually food - you could eat a piece of paper, that doesn't make it food - and how since the 1980s, it no longer has to be labeled as imitation food, as was required in the past.)


So what i request in this blog post is very simple, nothing radical:

Let's simply subsidize fresh fruits and vegetables, not corn and soy. If artificial sweeteners were prohibitively expensive, as they ought to be, being luxuries and all, maybe people might start considering the fresh fruits and vegetables that are so expensive now. Will this cure every unhealthy person from their junk food habits? Probably not. But it will make those of us that are interested in our health (poor or not), economically able to feed ourselves the fresh produce that our bodies and immune system needs.

Come on Congress, come on Obama, and you can even get in on the act, state and local officials!! Let's vote for health! Throw your influence behind foods that won't breed disease - maybe you'll eventually even find a way to turn a profit on that just like you do on the junk food! However you've got to do it, let's please:

Cut subsidies for corn and soy! Then, let's even subsidize fresh fruits and vegetables instead!:-)

Fruits and veggies image from blog.foodfacts.com :-)

Got flu? Be grateful it's not worse, and get better:-)

i've got a cold right now. Maybe the flu. Super stuffy nose, sore throat, sluggish, a little headachy, maybe a little feverish. It sucks.

And i am so tempted to be annoyed and mad at the situation.

But then i remember - i am so glad i'm not injured, broken from an accident or a freak fall. i'm so glad that i'm going to be perfectly well again soon. i don't have a long-term or deadly sickness, just a little flu.

It makes the symptoms seem so much less bad.

i've been trying to train myself to be thankful for my health and wellness when i'm not sick. And i am remembering more and more often, to be thankful that things are A) pretty good and B) no matter what, not worse than they are. Because they can always be worse than they are.

Unless of course you are an armless, legless, toothless, blind leper that lives in New Delhi, has no food, no shelter, no friends and is tortured every night. But in that case, you obviously couldn't read this blog. So, since you are reading this blog please join me in knowing that things can always be worse, and in being thankful that they aren't:-)

Taking things as they are, i know that i am still perfectly capable of having a happy, and even productive, day. And i am doing the things that i can to become even more well than i am - the things that i think will help most: using a neti pot, eating lots whole fruit with vitamin C (thanks for the fruit salad, Mom!:-) and drinking shloads of water. Also i have been reciting a prayer that i have adapted from one in Josephy Murphy's book The Power of Your Subconscious Mind. i have found it to be powerful, feel free to adapt or adopt it too:

The universal intelligence that is inside of me created my very body.
It made my blood and my bones,
it made by organs and tissues.
It knows how to make me perfect and whole again,
and it is healing me right now.
i am grateful.

My symptoms are already subsiding and i am confident these practices made them much more short lived than they otherwise would have been. And i am grateful.

A baseball music video, friendly competition

Growing up i ate, drank, and breathed baseball. Sadly, i was a Mets fan. Since then i have left my home town, then left my home country, and lost track of all the sports i grew up with.

Instead i've moved to a place where soccer reigns supreme and fans express themselves by fist fighting, knifing each other at rivalry games and getting maced by police. Check out this article from Business Insider about some of the worst of soccer hooliganism.

Roma soccer hooligans

In America, with baseball, as far as i know, the fans have not yet taken to brutally beating each other up physically due to rooting for the wrong team. But i have found that Major League Baseball has learned to engage with their fans pretty seriously and interactively. i just found this site where they are taking video submissions from fans in a competition to be in the MLB Fan Cave.

Fans make their own video and submit it in competition to host the Fan Cave in Manhattan, NYC. At this point that i found it, they have narrowed 10,000 videos down to just 50. Having just found at least part of all the videos i found i was most impressed by one, for a fan of the Saint Louis Cardinals - he actually made a baseball music video! Check out this video by Kyle Thompson, a name you will want to remember if you are in America, because it looks like he is going to be the next host of the MLB Fan Cave! Check out his video here - and you can vote for it as well!:-)

Nice to see fans compete with videos rather than weapons:-)

Photo credits: 1 Kyle Thompson, 2 Business Insider

Dear FB, don't be a whore.

Newspaper pic of an actual whore, from the NY Daily News.

Dear Facebook,

Don't be a whore.

Ok, you need to sell ads to make money, i get that. But, this Timeline idea??

You claimed it was to "help us tell our story better." But then you added middle-of-the-page advertising that pushes our content down off the first screen!

Right now on the first screen of my Timeline there is one post that i made and one ad and one post by me. If i scroll down one full page i can see the bottom of my post...and another ad from you!

The old ads on the side were fine. this Timeline assault is obnoxious.

And all the more so because you're obviously just selling your space out to anyone, scams included!

"Congratulations! Your IP has been selected in (city here)! Claim prize!"  ??

"Banks Forced to Write Off Billions in Debt! See if you Qualify for this Program" ???


"You have a pending message ::imitation Facebook message box showing 1 message::" ???? 
You're even letting them imitate YOU!?!? And you know what that ad was for? ilivid.com, a site whose banner read "Download and Watch Instantly"

i used to sell advertising for a newspaper. My job was to make the bottom line higher than it was at that time the year before - money talked. But i still worked to never allow scams (or even misleading ads) from reaching my readers!!!


Plus i've been getting ads on my Timeline for things that are both controversial and diametrically opposed to my own social and political beliefs, which means that your inventory of data's crystal ball is broken too!

Don't get me wrong, Facebook, i actually think you're fantastically cool. But my belief in that is not necessarily unwavering. So, please, shape up! Quit selling ads to scams! Quit making the placing of ad content so obnoxious! And please, remember to stay cool - that's why we like you!:-)

Love,

PaxRyan