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Jake

Livin' the Dream!

Today, I find myself in Jenner, California, a very small town on the coast, just north of San Francisco, where the Russian River flows into the Pacific ocean.  We're staying with friends and their house sits atop a hill above the estuary.  The view from the front window is of a pewter blue river, bounded by steep, brilliant green hills, that force it left and right until it finally disappears a couple miles off in the distance.  Small bits of ancient and abandoned farm houses are visible here and there through the trees.  Large birds float past the window, riding the strong winds that seem a constant.  The picture from the side of the house is of a green-framed, though otherwise unobstructed, view of the never calm, white-capped Pacific Ocean, fading off into a bright grey fog somewhere, way the fuck out there.  The sky above is blue, cloudless.  And I am able to be here due, clearly, to the generosity of wonderful friends and as a result of the only thing good about getting old -- the freedom of  retirement.  I say to all of you who are not yet retired  -- and I invite all my retired comrades to sing along:

"NA-na-NA-na-NA-na!"

Sometimes I miss some of the work, but I never miss working:  the getting up at some specified, but always inconvenient hour, showering and shaving (I have nothing against showering actually, but I really prefer to shave only when I'm ready to change my fashion statement), rushing out into the light and the noise, stressed out by the clock and expectations, chugging along rat-in-maze style for eight hours or more at the direction of an incompetent and in concert with a legion of the equally discontented.

Certainly, there are people who enjoy their work.  It is not a universal truth that EVERYONE hates working.  But it is also not a universal truth that seeing a guy take a softball to the cajones is always  funny (for example, seeing it while you are looking in the mirror), but it is true often enough to make America's Funniest Videos possible. 

Most people will tell you that they don't really hate work, they just hate the work they're doing.  I've worked with waiters, limo drivers, and bartenders who wanted to be actors, writers, and musicians.  I worked with guys who wanted to be professional athletes and women who dreamed of being models.  I worked with a tubby, red-haired, little guy who aspired to be a chipmunk at Disney World and spoke frequently about how close he had come at the audition.  There are CEO's of multi-national corporations who lament their failure to pursue a career in carpentry -- except, of course,when they are lighting their cigars with hundred dollar bills -- neurosurgeons who wish they were forest rangers, farmers who wanted to star in porno films and housewives who wanted to be magicians.

We're all convinced that work would be easy and rewarding if we were only working in pursuit of our dream.  Things would be great, if you could just be the Blues guitarist you’ve always dreamed of being, if you were the Country Western singer that lives in your heart, if you could just open that pizzeria.

I was lucky enough to have spent a large portion of my life living my supposed dream, acting in film and television.  But even that job had its horrible moments.

On one gig, I worked as a pitchman on an interactive CD for an insurance company.  For two days, I sat stock still in front of a green chroma key screen, repeating each of twenty-five paragraphs, one hundred twenty five times each, changing only two items indicated in the script.

“And after twenty-five years, assuming you have not taken advantage of your cash withdrawal option, your policy will have grown to nearly X times your initial investment or $X.”)

Sadly, that was not the worst of it.  Not close!  The money was good.  During the hard times, I took jobs where I could get them.  For six months, I worked as a character at children’s parties:  I played a Ninja Turtle, Captain Hook, or Batman.  It had its pleasant moments: 

There was the joy on the little boy’s face when he realized a REAL Ninja Turtle had arrived at his 7th birthday party.  I can still see the gleam in his eye when he ran toward me and the way his little nose crinkled up as he karate kicked me square in the nuts.

There was that time when I was getting ready to perform the centerpiece of the party agenda, the twenty-minute, sit on the grass Indian-style, child astounding, company standard set of five ridiculously simple magic tricks, and suddenly realized that I, as Captain Hook, had only one hand and could not do any of the tricks with a single hand and a hook.

And then there was that day in Carson, a low income suburb on the south side of Los Angeles.    

I was booked to play Batman at a birthday party in a local park.  The normal routine was that I would arrive about half an hour before the scheduled time and, still wearing my street clothes, bring a tape recorder to the scene of the party.  I would collect the fee, then instruct one of the adults to watch for me to arrive at a particular location and, when I waved, press the 'play' button on the recorder.  The music would mark my entrance and the beginning of the Batman Funstravaganza.  After clarifying all this, I would retreat to my car and change into my Batman outfit.  On that particular day, I did everything according to the plan.  I walked down a long slope to a gazebo full of children and their parents, delivered the tape recorder and the instructions.  The mother of the birthday boy nodded understanding and I retreated to the parking lot to change into my costume.

The humiliation actually began with the costume.  It was godawful!  The muscles weren’t very muscular, the ears on the headgear flopped over like a dachshund’s and the black tights were very, very tight.  There I was, a little flabby and out of shape, dressed in tight black pantyhose, wearing a dachshund head and a cape, walking across a parking lot at a park full of people on a bright, warm Sunday afternoon.  I looked straight ahead, concentrating only on the fifty big ones, hiding behind my Barman persona.  I reached a little knoll overlooking the gazebo, stood arms akimbo for a moment, then waved boldly at the woman who would start the music.  Nothing happened,  I waved again.  Still nothing.  Suddenly, I heard a voice from somewhere outside my peripheral vision. 

“Hey, Batman!”   

It was the voice of an adult, obviously several quarts of beer into his afternoon.  I waved in his direction, barely looking, noticing there were actually four men, brown-bagged bottles in hand, getting up to move toward me.  I waved again in the direction of the mother with the tape recorder.  The voice bored through my panic and humiliation. 

“Hey, Batman!  What the hell is it with you, man!?” 

The voice was getting closer.  I smiled, barely turned, and said softly, "it's cool."  One of the other men chimed in.

“Yeah.  What’s with you man?” 

I smiled again, tried to wave them off, felt them approaching.  I signaled wildly to the mother down the hill.  The questioning continued. 

“How come you don’t fly, man?  Superman flies.  You don’t do SQUAT!”

“Bat powers," I mumbled, " I have bat powers,” hoping that would satisfy.  I waved once more frantically to signal the mother to start the music.  She continued to ignore me.  I could smell the breath of one of the men.

"And what's goin' on with you and that Robin, man?!”

I finally lost it.  Music or no music, I, a fully grown adult, standing at the top of a knoll, hands on hips, cape flapping, perspiring through my black, too tight tights, fearing I might cry from the humiliation, lost it.  To hell with mom!  To hell with the music!  It was time to use my bat powers.  I screamed, “Here comes Batman!” grabbed the edges of my cape and took off down the hill, leaving the four drunks behind, questions unanswered.

Living the dream!

She's Got a Ticket to Ride . . . But She Don't Care.

We left Sorrento on a Sunday morning and headed to Rome to spend two days before catching a flight from Rome to Frankfurt to Athens.  The Circumvesuviana -- the train that runs from Sorrento to Naples -- was more crowded than we expected -- breathe in your face, 'howdy neighbor,' is that a pepperoni in your pocket or are you just glad to see me? -- crowded.  We thought we were leaving so early on Sunday morning that there would be no one on the train.  But we had failed to recognize the change to Daylight Savings Time and so, it was an hour later than we had supposed -- an hour closer to the Napoli vs. Whoever football match time -- an hour closer to Miller time -- an hour closer to 'let's start a brawl' time. So our casual Sunday morning train ride up the coast got hot and very hairy when the fists started to fly in the next car. I immediately made the decision that, if the fight made it into our car, I would just start chanting, "Napoli! Napoli!" playing the odds that there would be more people defending my old ass.

On the morning of our scheduled departure form Rome, we made it to the airport in plenty of time and got to the Lufhanza check-in long before necessary only to find there was a strike in Frankfort -- our destination city -- and we would not be flying to Athens via Frankfort, at least not with Lufthanza.

So we got in line to get re-booked. We were third in line. Just ahead of us was a young lady, whose husband was a small forward for some minor league Italian basketball team with a baby, and ahead of her, was a Chinese tour group re-ticketing twenty people. It took almost two hours for the tour group to get re-ticketed.

In the meantime, there were a lot of angry people milling about, harassing the very German Lufthanza employees for not having more than two people to help with the process and for taking so goddamn long to complete each transaction. I have to admit I was among them. At one point, I actually told a Lufthanza employee . . .

Am I ashamed?  Perhaps.  I  do have days when I find my own behavior troubling.

I am not fond of religionists.  I find religion and religionists to be the greatest impediment to problem solving that exists in the world.  Religionists are trouble-makers.   And I despise religionists who insist on proselytizing.  As a staunch supporter of their right to believe whatever they will, I tolerate their existence; but when they encroach upon my space I get downright cranky.  I think of the several times I spotted Jehovah's Witnesses heading toward the house.  As I opened the door, I smiled broadly and greeted them warmly, stark naked, then invited them in for a little Bible study.  (They never would.)  It seemed appropriate at the time, but in retrospect . . .

*   *   * 

When I was living in Hollywood, I got on the freeway at the same spot every morning.  The on-ramp had an HOV lane -- a lane reserved for people with passengers in their cars -- which allowed said cars to zip on through to the freeway without stopping, while single occupant cars stood in line and waited for a green light that would allow one car at a time to enter.  The line to get through the light was always very long and, every morning, I watched single driver after single driver enter the freeway by the HOV lane.

  (There were, I might add, a disproportionate number of Mercedes and BMW's who committed this sin/crime.)  

And each morning, I would sit alone in my car, patiently trying to zen my way to a calm and forgiving place as I watched them go by.  But there came a day, probably the result of circumstances -- heat, perhaps, money issues, a nose hair that wouldn't stop annoying me -- and pent up rage related to the HOV cheating issue itself, when I just had to vent.  I decided no one was getting through without knowing exactly how I felt.  So, I stared into my rear view mirror, counting heads in each car. waiting for a car with only a single occupant to head down the HOV lane to my left. 

Spotting the first offender, I spun, thrust my arm and head out the driver's window and threw my middle finger at him like an emotional spear.  He passed, but never looked my way. 

The occupant of the second car, flipped ME off as he went by. 

The third driver was a dark-haired and very beautiful woman in her mid-twenties, dressed to kill, driving a black Mercedes 450 SL with gold trim.  I flipped that one off with both hands.  She winked and waved as she passed. 

A violent storm was brewing in my gut.  There were still two cars waiting at the light in front of me when the fourth, clearly single-occupant vehicle entered the HOV lane.  Things went into slow motion.  I unsnapped my seat belt and lunged, waist-high out the window, both fingers thrust high and hard, my face contorted in disproportionate rage.  The target car, stopped next to me in the HOV lane and, there in the passenger seat, sat a very mean looking, older, little person, smoking a cigar and silently sneering at me.  I panicked, slammed my foot on the accelerator, and ran directly into the rear of the car parked in front of me.  Shame doesn't begin to describe what I felt.

. . . anyway, I told an employee that I doubted these problems would have happened if the fuhrer were still alive.  In very German fashion, he completely ignored me; but, judging from the way he looked down his nose at me and sucked in his normally flaccid Arian cheeks, I think he might have agreed. 

As a result of another person's rant(One must assume that other person was a Business Class customer who felt that his premium price should have its rewards.  And who can disagree?), they opened a third window to accommodate people who had Business Class tickets and the line was immediately populated with some people who had Business Class tickets and a bunch who did not, but wished they had Business Class tickets.

Patti took note and, when the first of the counterfeits arrived at the window, she threw herself physically in front of the woman and told her that, unless she could show a Business Class ticket, she wasn't getting anywhere near the open ticket window. The woman said she was re-ticketing for a group of twenty people, some of whom had Business Class tickets. Patti told her that it would be best for everyone if they got into the line with their Business Class tickets and got re-ticketed on their own. Nobody showed up and Patti -- demure little kitten that she is -- threw her back against the counter and spread her arms across its full width, making it physically clear that this woman was not going to get a ticket for herself or anyone else.

There was such a threat of physical violence in Patti's voice that the ticket agent offered to re-ticket us, just to get rid of Patti.  But Patti is a true hero of the people.  She refused the offer, pointing to the basketball wife and announcing loudly to everyone, that the woman with the baby -- not she nor anyone else, was going to get re-ticketed next.  I stood in the background with my hand over my heart, proudly humming "La Marseillaise."

I Want You . . . Show Me the Way.

While we were in Sorrento, we went to see both Pompeii and her ugly, unkempt sister, Herculeneum.  They are some of the largest and most complete ancient ruins in Italy.  Pompeii is much larger than I had expected.  It really is quite a vast city and to see it all would take you weeks.  I'd like to have had a guided tour, but there were only two options: recorded tours, which always require that you go at things in a certain order (That's too German, even for me.), and live, bilingual, state-certified, site guides, all of whom know way too much about way too many things and cost a lot of money. 

Also, they chatter.  They have a tour all made up in their heads and think they know exactly what you need to know because it's important and fascinating to them.

"The building on your right, which is estimated to have been built in 326BC . . .

(Wow, I would've thought more like 318 - 320.)

. . . was, and I suppose continues to be, in the sense of all objects continuing to be what they have been . . .

(An intellectual whoopee cushion, if you will.  This guy's killin' me.)

. . .  a cistern, which held 1.2 metric tons of water, enough to serve a family of four, average-sized Romans, with middle class wardrobe, moderately good hygiene, and a high fiber diet, for 2.15 months during the summer."

(Could we just move along here?)

If I hire a tour guide, I want him or her to walk around with me, having pleasant conversation, and responding to things that I  say, perhaps confirming some of my simplistic observations,

"This, I'm guessing, is the amphitheatre."  

"Yes, in fact when . . . " 

"A simple nod will do."

responding to all my questions,

"Hey, what's this goofy-looking thing here?" or

"Tell me what it would be like if all three holes in the vomitorium were 'occupado' and a fourth guy came in, really needing to unload?"

 "Did the citizens of Popeii have formal dances?"

and joyfully and quickly acting on all my suggestions like:

"Speed it up,"

"Let's get out of here," and

"Show me where the erotic murals are."

***There is a sad side-note here:  90% of the erotic frescoes which once adorned the walls of the City of Pompeii have been moved to the Archaeological Museum in Naples, which we were unable to visit.  We'll have to see them on another trip, when we'll be much older and they will seem even less erotic. Ah, the cruelty of nature!

We hired only one guide during the whole trip.  His name was Giovane.  He spoke English with an accent that was almost too Italian.  He was thin, dark, good-looking, with a sleazy kind of Fabio smile. While he responded politely to all my questions, he spoke only to Patti.

"What woulda Signora likea to see nexta?"

"Woulda Signora likea to get a view froma the highesta point ina the city?

"Woulda Signora likea to makea the beasta witha two backs . . . I mean, have a picturea takena in thisa place?

Giovane couldn't take a picture worth crap.  Patti says he was perfect.

Torna a Sorriento (NOW, DAMN IT!)

Sorrento is a great place to be.  From Sorrento, you can easily access the Amalfi Coast, one of the most beautiful and terrifying bus rides in Europe.  We sat in the front seat of the tour bus as we made our way along the winding, narrow road that lies, in my opinion, much too close to the edge of cliffs that drop almost straight down a thousand or more feet into the Gulf of Salerno. (I'm not sure about the exact height of the cliffs; but, let's face it, five hundred, a thousand, two thousand . . .Who gives a crap?  As far as I'm concerned, if the question, "If I fell off of here, would I die in a bone splintering, terminal splat?" can be answered in the affirmative, I am officially terrified.)  Compound the height with the fact that buses -- big 'ol regular tour buses -- are passing one another going in opposite directions along a narrow two-lane road, filled with pedestrians, motorcycles and parked cars, and I begin to feel the heat in my feet.

Since I was a child, hot feet has been my response to any perceived potential falling threat.  I grew up in Buffalo, New York.

 ( Yes, Buffalo, friends. The city is not without its merits. It is the place where one of our least affective, shortest tenured presidents died as a the result of a gunshot wound. It is the place, obviously, where Buffalo Wings were born. It is the only place where you can eat "beef on 'weck," and it is known everywhere for its winter precipitation. 

When I was living in Sweden, about four hundred miles below the article circle, my friends would ask me, "Does the snow in Sweden bother you?" I would just say, "I grew up in Buffalo." and all of them would begin nodding in unison.

My favorite line ever about Buffalo was in "A Chorus Line." One of the dancers says something like, "There was a time when I became suicidal, but I couldn't go through with it because I was living in Buffalo and it seemed redundant." While I am a huge Ani DiFranco fan and I loves me some Polish sausage, I have never regretted my departure.)

Whenever anybody came to visit, they had to be taken to Niagara Falls, of course.  It's one of the seven wonders of the world and it is very close to Buffalo.  As I would approach the edge of the escarpment to look over the fence and into the water below, my feet would begin to burn, as though I were standing on hot asphalt, and it wouldn't stop till I backed far enough away from the railing to block my view.  My sister has the same bizarre reaction.

In addition, if I lived on the Amalfi Coast -- and there is literally NO chance of that -- and I had a car, I would have all the side panels removed from it and stored until I  was ready to sell it. 

The sole purpose this little Amalfi jaunt was to go to a town called, Positano.  It is supposedly one of the European haunts of the incredibly wealthy.  People with money "LOVE"  (exhale the word and throw your head back) the place.  People who carry their dogs in their purses go there to "get some rest" from the hideous torments of Beverly Hills, and the Upper East Side.

I just cannot bear the thought of one more, minute-long elevator ride to the penthouse, listening to that annoying, electronic buzz.  I've got to get out of here.  Fly me to Positano immediately!  Call Hollis, I'm sure she'll go with me.

So, we middle-class schmoes, the vast majority of whom will never experience that lifestyle . . .

 (. . . a lottery winning not withstanding . . . and, by god, I will not give up my right to dream of boundless wealth being bestowed upon me, not because I did anything, but just by sheer unadulterated chance.   It is my religion, my drug of choice.  Nothing gets me more buzzed or harder than contemplating the vaguest possibility that, through some quirk of fate, against all prevailing odds, I will turn so fucking rich over night that I will be able to start thinking about going to Paris for a weekend;  and I will consider becoming a Republican just for a moment because I really finally think I have enough to protect;  but then of course, I will opt instead to divvy the astounding fortune with all my closest friends, leaving me just enough to keep me in sex slaves and pharmaceutical grade marijuana for the balance of my life, as I wander from town to town, giving $10,000 gifts to  people who are nice and well-intentioned and need a hand.) 

. . . we envious middle-class decide instead to pay for trans-oceanic airplane flights, innumerable train rides, and tour bus fare to see what all the fuss is about. 

When the bus pulled into Positano, Patti and I looked to our left at the houses and other buildings above us, stuck to near vertical cliffs; then we looked to our right at the houses and other buildings below us, stuck to near vertical cliffs; then we looked at one another. 

I said to Patti,"This is where we're supposed to get off?"

"This is Positano," she told me.

"Yeah, but what are we going to do?  If you decide you want to go to a restaurant up there, we gotta hire a freakin' Sherpa to get there and if you want to see something on the right, down there, we're going to have to rappel down."

"We could just look around at this level."

"Walk along this narrow road with cars and buses and freakin' motorcycles passing and a vertical drop of who knows how many feet?  I don't think so."

"I guess we could just stay on the bus and keeping going."

I raised up my hand.  "I vote for that.  Worst case, you vote to get off here and we've got a tie, in which case, I promise you I will invoke the Klutchman Rule, a little known element of parliamentary procedure that states that:.

'. . .when a stalemate/tie occurs during discussion and it has been determined that either or all members of the discussion is/are neurotic, the deciding vote will be cast by the person with the largest penis.'

We're not getting off the bus."  

And so, we rode to the end of the line to the town for which the Coast is named -- Amalfi -- which is on reasonably flat land.  We had a glass of very nice wine and a lunch of Frutta de Mare Risotto; then we got back on the bus and, seated on the uphill side and at the rear, returned to Sorrento.

Katie? Have you been chewing on the rug again?

I have to take a moment out of this little travelogue to share some personal pain with you -- the beloved deranged -- who are following this blog.

We have had a family crisis.

Our darling daughter, a three-year-old boxer, Katie Rose, the light of our life, a not-very-pretty girl, perhaps, but a kind and loving soul, one for whose future we had great plans, announced recently that:

a) She is going into the Air Force (Thank god it wasn't the Marines.) and

b) That she is . . . (Lord help us.) . . . a lesbian.  

Editor's Note:  There was a time when a military career and an "alternative" sexuality were mutually exclusive; but as a result of recent changes in attitude, (and the gutsy work of our, until yesterday, not-quite-as-ballsy-as-we had-wished, but now ballsy-as-an-Angus-bull president.)military service is no longer the exclusive domain of heterosexuals. 

Frankly, we've suspected for some time.  All of her playmates are girls.  She's extremely athletic.  She loves to play with all kinds of balls, but frankly has no use for them when they are attached to another dog.  She's kind of tough-looking, although we think she's beautiful.  She has whiskers on her chin.  She kicks ass.

The news was hard for us at first.  I found Patti sitting in the dark, sobbing into a wedding dress she was keeping in Katie's hope chest.  We argued for hours over whether or not the early hysterectomy that I had insisted upon and Patti had resisted (She said she wanted Katie to have the opportunity to be a mother, but I suspect it was really more about the grandpups.) might have played a role in this distorted development.  We reviewed every aspect of our personal relationship, looking for reasons.  We spoke with our pastor, who wasn't entirely helpful, but assured us he would do everything he could to calm the congregation and prevent anyone from firebombing our house.

Then, finally, we came to terms with it.  After all, she is our only daughter.  We joined PFLAGD (Parents and Friends of Lesbian and Gay Dogs).  We began recording every episode of The Ellen Show, ordered Logo on the cable, and went to two Kathy Griffin concerts.  Patti bought a second wedding dress and stored it in the hope chest right alongside Katie's own.  We have decorated our house in rainbow flags. 

She's here.  She's queer.  We're used to it!

And just when we had formed a whole new vision of ours and Katie's future, just when we had gotten used to the idea of having adopted, special needs, mongrel grandpups, Katie tells us she's going to be permanently stationed in North Carolina -- an eastern state which, aside from Asheville, is populated largely be knuckle-dragging morons and hillbillies, overrun with Baptist churches, and whose major contribution to the American economy is the production, processing, and distribution of a poisonous plant that kills or maims more people every year than all the wars in the world.  It is a place where love is apparently reserved for -- purebred, heterosexual, Baptist canines.

There will be no wedding.  There will be no grandpups.  It just ain't fair, y'all.

Serving proudly, but unmarried!

photo ©Bill Resto

http://www.pixelelegance.com/

I Don't Care What You Say, I'm going to Sorrento!!

Our toughest travel day in Italy was the day we took the train from Sienna to Sorrento.   Up to this point, in the eyes of management,  my language skills had gotten us where we needed to go and what we wanted to eat, drink or do with only a few minor hiccups along the way.   I had, in fact, been hailed as the hero of the Italian crusades.  And then we left Sienna for Sorrento. 

The night before we traveled, I had gone on-line and plotted out our trip from Sienna to Naples, where we would catch the local train -- the Circumvesuviana  -- to Sorrento. We were to take a regional train from Sienna to Chiusi at 10:05, wait in Chiusi for twenty minutes and catch another regional train to Napoli at a cost of about €40/person.  I had checked the schedule innumerable times, making sure that I had properly interpreted the tiny little symbols on the schedule indicating that a particular train:

ran daily

ran only on workdays (which includes Saturday)

ran only on school days (The Feast of St. Barbara? Your guess is as good as mine.)

did not run on Saturday

did not run on Sunday

did not run on either Saturday or Sunday.

I did dry runs on the wording of my request for tickets.  I had it cold.  Dead fucking cold.  I was focused like Kobe in the last two minutes of the fourth.

We were up and showered and packed and dressed early.  I got a cab to get us to the train station by 8:20 -- enough time to have a snack before the train ride. Perfetto!!!!  I went into the ticket office and said, in what I'm sure was perfect Italian -- though I will not swear that the balance of the conversation was either perfect or entirely Italian:

"I want two tickets, one-way, second class, to Napoli on the train that leaves for Chiusi at 10:05 AM, please." 

The ticket seller did not appear to have the slightest interest in what I was saying.  About halfway through my little Italian aria, he swung his computer screen around toward me and, pointing at the screen, said, in Italian, "No. You go now or you go at 1PM."

I had heard that ticket sellers will attempt to sell you up to the more expensive express trains and, because I had studied the schedules extensively the night before, I knew that they were both express trains, so I started to interject, "I looked this up on the Internet and there is a train that . . . "

"No. You go now or you go at 1PM." He was absolutely insistent. He pointed out the window at the train sitting on the track. He held up two fingers. "Due minuti."

He was pretty insistent, as were the fifteen people behind me in line who became very vocal about their personal interest in getting on that train.  But I knew the schedule, dammit!  I wanted tickets for the 10:05 to Chiusi.  I wanted to take the thieving bastard down. 

People were grumbling.  I'm sure someone said, "Americani stupidi!"

The pressure was more than I could stand. Un-Kobe-like, I folded like a startled souffle and bought the tickets at a cost of €75/person, then ran like hell to get Patti out of the cafeteria, grab our bags, run downstairs through the underpass and then upstairs to the track, and then get on the train to . . . wherever.  We made it, but barely.  We stood in the vestibule of the train, sweating, panting, drained like hot sex with an entire car full of passengers staring at us unmoved, unconcerned, impatient and bored, as all commuters are. 

I was no longer Italio-heroic.  I was bathed in abject failure -- failure of language? failure of wills? failure of schedule interpretation skills?  The train ride from Sienna to, as it turned out, Florence, was pleasant enough. It should have been for the money. There were very few stops and we arrived in plenty of time to make our connection.  I grumbled anyway.

And, just when I started to feel better . . . well . . .  You may have heard of the infamous and beloved Italian work stoppage.  When we entered the train station in Florence, there was a notice posted on a flashing sign in the middle of the station that warned that, for a twenty-four hour period, there would be a significant number of delays and cancellations due to a shortage of people who felt like working at the train station that day.

So, we and hundreds of other people stood looking at the departure board like it was a huge crap game.   The words 'in retardo' (delayed) and 'Cancellato' rolled up randomly next to time and city combinations.  Every time another train was cancelled and it wasn't #4517 to Napoli, we'd pump our fists in the air and call for another roll of the dice. We were lucky as hell. As we boarded one of the few trains to roll out of the train station in Florence that morning, I had begun to conclude that the ornery ticket seller knew something we did not. Grazie, signore.  We were both heroes.

So, we rolled happily, gratefully, though somewhat expensively, to Napoli -- one of the ugliest, dirtiest, most graffiti-encrusted crapholes I have ever seen --  the Compton of Italy.  It is the only place in Italy during two long trips and one short one that I have ever felt in danger.  Turns out the rest of southern Italy is much more beautiful and pleasant than Naples.  But some things became immediately clear about the south. It is noisier, dryer, dirtier, LOUDER and less well organized than the north.

Now, as a German boy . . .

I am so German, sometimes it almost hurts.  When I was a cigarette smoker, which I gratefully am no longer ( Hey, can I bum a smoke?), I used to occasionally find myself in a half-lit room, sitting in a position where I could catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and I would raise one eyebrow, turn my head to a more profile position, then flip the cigarette over so that I was holding it palm-up, between my thumb and forefinger, take a hit on the cigarette, blow the smoke out through my nose and ask myself, out loud:
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

"You still have a family in Germany, nicht var?"

It always startled me.  Sometimes so much that I would have little flashbacks over the course of the next couple days that would send a ripple of real fear up my back.

 
 . . . I know that, while Germans might have some less than pleasant qualities as a people (I'm not going to list them here.  We all know them.  Hmmm.  Then again, I wonder if I'm backing off of this  too soon because what I say about Germans as a "people," must in fact apply to me.  That is the nature of a generalization and I cannot therefore find true objectivity until I embrace them, verbalize them, test them, and come to terms with them.

1.  Germans . . . we . . . are more egocentric than many other ethnicities.

2.  We Germans believe we are better than anyone else, even our fellow Germans.

( I believe that I am better than most other people, but not because I'm German, because they're assholes.  Most people are just mean.)

3.  Germans are mean.  Deep in our bellies, we Germans love confrontation.

4.  We have a propensity for anal retentiveness, OCD, and over-grooming.

5. Altruism is not a recognized philosophy among Germans.  They are an utterly selfish folk.  At least that's what they're saying in Greece.

6.  We have a low tolerance for many things, but for ignorance, in particular.

While part of this little exercise is to cop to everything, I must insist, not that I am free of those horrid qualities, but that I have done everything in my power as a man to repress that part of my nature and re-train -- to the extent that humans can re-train their nature -- my responses through constant practice, biofeedback (That's what I call it when, during a discussion, my wife stands up, raises her arm over her head, and screams, "Zig Heil!"), and years of cognitive therapy.

On the other hand, the inherent qualities that mutate into the the aforesaid problematic behaviors, can be harnessed for the benefit of mankind:

1.  Germans can organize anything from a sock drawer to an awesome army.  We appreciate order.

2.  If you need rules, rules for anything, we got you covered.

3.  Quality craftsmanship (as defined by measurable qualities, such as precision, symmetry, and a tight fit) is paramount to us (and here I must include the Swiss, who are, as you might know, our more serious  tick-tock-tick,  obsessive, older brothers).  Nothing gives us a warmer flush of comfort than having stayed within the lines.

4.  We're very clean. 

The Germans have clearly exerted their influence on their neighbors in Europe over the years -- sometimes without their consent, and I think that there may be reason to believe that German influence might just have rendered the people of northern Italy cleaner, more prosperous, and better organized, if somewhat more reserved, than the people of the south.  Just sayin'.

When we got to the Garibaldi Station in Naples, we made our way to the area from which departs the small train that goes along the coast to Sorrento and inland to other places. It is called the Circumvesuviano, because it goes around Mt. Vesuvius. The next train to Sorrento was leaving within minutes, so I bought our tickets; we dragged our luggage through the too narrow little gates, and headed down to the designated track. The graffiti-covered  drek-wagon was just arriving.  Patti wanted me to ask someone something.  She always wanted me to ask someone something.  But I felt sure.  So, again, we dragged our luggage and our obviously foreign butts into the middle of the train, where we found ourselves surrounded by almost entirely Arabic-speaking people.  While there are a lot of North Africans in southern Italy, the concentration of them on that train seemed odd, but not a cause for panic.  I think Patti had doubts about my leadership skills on this mission, but kept them to herself from that point on.


On the big map over the door, I counted the number of stops to Sorrento and we sat our tired selves down for the ride. When we got to a place where we had determined there were five stations remaining, the train stopped at a place called Poggio-blah- blah-blah. The group of Arabic-speaking men sitting across from us stood up, approached us, and the apparent leader asked, "Where are you going?"

I answered, "Sorrento." In unison, they shook their heads. "No."

I said, stupidly, "Yes, we are."

They said, insistently, "No, you are not."

I was worried for a moment what they might be implying.  And then, the train engine turned off. 

We were at the end of the line in a North African ghetto.  The train was not going anywhere soon and Sorrento was the other way.  It was like a scene from the "Out of Towners."   We sat  quietly in the train station for one hour, legs crossed, arms folded, heads down, then re-boarded the train and headed for Sorrento.  Patti said nothing.  She didn't need to.

How about a Bowl of hearty-har-har Soup?

It began early in the morning, as we were leaving Orvieto and heading for Sienna (actually Siena.  Why we added an extra 'n' in English is beyond me.  Then again, look at how many ways we can spell Kadafy -- or is it Quadhafi?)  I woke up with a sincere and powerful desire for a bowl of soup -- a bowl of thick, dense, chunky, stew-like soup. I thought about it all through our train trip. I became obsessed with the idea (Go figure!) and had gotten beyond wanting and well into the craving zone, which lies at the doorstep of jonesing, not far from desert thirst.

You know that place.  Your whole body seems to be screaming for something.  I get it most often with very rare meat.  I feel like if I don't get a barely singed steak soon, I might just walk up to a cow and take a bite out of its ass. I apologize to all the vegetarians.  I feel horrible about the animal on animal violence of it; but it is a fact of my nature, like:

The way I can't wait till I can scratch my balls, 

The absolute rush of itching the inside of my ear with a Q-tip till my eyes close and I start to drool uncontrollably.

How I can't think of anything else until I get the fucking splinter out of my finger.

I became a man in NEED of soup.  I formulated how I would ask for the soup of my dreams. I knew I wanted a hearty ( I suspected hearty . . . body part . . . syntactical trap. . . might not translate well.)   I wanted a . . . robust . . . soup.  I grant you there is a bit of poetry here, but . . .


I composed the sentence, checked the grammar, repeated it over and over to myself

"Volgio prendere una ciotola di zuppa robusta,"

 -- which is a technique I found myself using often . . . (could be the OCD and the caffeine) . . .  but I think when you're studying another language, there's a tendency to reduce the potential for public embarrassment by rehearsing phrases you know you're going to use so that, when confronted with the anticipated situation, you don't stumble around looking for words, suddenly trying to remember the appropriate grammar, etc. 

Good morning, we would like two glasses of orange juice, some cheese, and some bread.

"Buongiorno, vorremmo due bicchieri di spermuta d'arancia, del formaggio e del pane".

Check, please!

"Il conto, per favore!"

Throw in a couple of "Grazie" and you've got breakfast covered.

Of course it doesn't always work. You go into the store, anticipating that someone will tell you how much your grocery purchase costs and, while you're formulating your reaction (one last review of the numbers and how they work), they ask you if you want a bag because, if you do, they're going to charge you more.  In the span of a single second, you transform from comprehensible, possibly-intelligent, albeit foreign, person, to a cretinous, glassy-eyed mute.

INT. THEATRE - EVENING

It's a packed house.  A young actor (dressed as a medieval knight) stands at attention center stage, awaiting the cue for his premiere Broadway line.  He's breathing heavily in anticipation, repeating the same expression over and over under his breath.

ACTOR

(soto voce)

Hark, are those the guns I hear? Hark are those the guns I hear? Hark are those the guns I hear?

He inhales deeply, holds, anticipates.   There's an HUGE EXPLOSION off stage.

ACTOR

WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT!!!???

Despite several such incidents, I had, by that point in the trip, gotten a little comfortable inititing conversations.  Imbued with need, lubricated with over-confidence, I had practiced the line all day.  When we got into the taxi cab, settled in a little, exchanged pleasantries with the driver, made some distance from the railway station and started to see restaurants along the road, I decided to broach the subject with the driver.  I said, 

"Volgio prendere una ciotola di zuppa robusta."

I want to get a bowl of robust soup.

It is an understatement to say that the man laughed. He was laughing so hard I thought he was going to crash the car. He slapped the steering wheel; he giggled; he snorted; tears ran down his cheeks. He was gasping for air. It was as though I had told him I wanted to eat a bowl of camel scrotums. There was no explanation. Not a word. I asked him what was so funny. He just repeated the sentence word for word and resumed his uproarious laughter.  So I stopped asking and he finally stopped laughing and, after he had gathered himself, told me that the local specialty soup was called ribollito and he thought I should try that.

For days, I was haunted by visions of him sitting at dinner with his family, repeating the sentence over and over, and his little kid blowing milk out his nose, and his wife laughing so hard that she farts and gets them all laughing again.

But . . . it turned out that:

The bowl of ribollito was thick, dense, chunky and robust.

"La ciotola di ribollito era spessa, densa, grosso e robusto."

I'll bet that cabbie would have had a hemorrhage about that one!

I think Mick Jagger said it best: 

You can't always get what you want, but if you try some time, you just might find you get what you need.

Non si può sempre ottenere quello che vuoi, ma se si prova un certo tempo, si potrebbe trovare che si ottiene quello che ti serve.

Take the train. But witch?

In Italy, Patti and I traveled a lot by train and bus.  We only rented one car -- a Fiat 500, the first car to which I have felt any kind of emotional attachment since the '59 Ford Galaxy in which I first got laid --to tool around the countryside of Tuscany for a day.  It could have been spectacular fun, but we were lost most of the time, Patti refused to call me Marcello, and she complained constantly  because I was whistling the theme from La Dolce Vita ( I switched to a Bobby Darrenesque rendition of Volare.)


Our first major train trip was from Rome to Orvieto.  Upon entering the station, I assessed the situation for purchasing tickets. I looked to my left at the lines leading to the biglietterie – the ticket booths –and noticed there were only two. They snaked back and forth across the front of the area, Disneyland-style, in that way that makes you feel, despite all evidence to the contrary, that you are very close to ‘there’ from the moment you enter; but which, in reality end at a place where you discover that even though you are ‘there,’ you are not REALLY‘THERE’ and ‘THERE’ is still a long way off. There were two such lines and both looked equally unappealing.

To my right, there was a set of self-service ticket machines with virtually no lines, which for some might have been a sign of foreboding.  But I’m pretty tech savvy, the signs purported to offer language options, the trip was pretty straightforward, they accepted credit cards and, I would reiterate, there were no lines. And, acting against orders from the board of directors who stood behind me guarding the luggage from invisible pickpockets and shaking her head in apparent frustration, I opted to play with the machines.

I inserted my credit card and pushed the button with the little British flag and a very Italian sounding lady spoke to me in casual English.

“Whereyouwannago?”

Easy. O … R … V…

“Orvieto”

Si.  Fa bene! So far so good. Encouraged, I turned and sneered at the boss. (I relish these moments.)  She continued to shake her head in a kind of all-knowing, lip-licking, narrow-eyed way.

“Whatimeyouwannago?

I checked my watch. We had plenty of time. We could take the Regionale, save a few bucks. I pushed the button.

Whataclasseyouwan?

A paused slightly. I was beginning to listen a little in Italian and got confused. But that straightened out and I chose second class. More money saved.

“Howmanypeopleatraveling?”

"Due," I thought in Italian, cocky, feeling like I was nearing the finish line. I pushed the button for “2.” There was a long pause. It seemed longer than necessary. But finally:

“Takeoutayoucarde.”

I did it. I did it. I turned and looked at Patti. "I did it." Then I heard:

“Putinayoucard.”

I was filled with dread. But I put in my card.

“Takeoutayoucarde.”

Fuck! This is turning south. I smiled weakly back at the CEO, mia moglie. I took out my card.

“Entayoucoda.”

What? I didn’t understand the words. Am I supposed to do something? The words flipped round and round in my head.  Entayoucoda? And just as it occurred to me that I was being asked for a code, I heard:

“Takeoutayoucarde.”

The machine returned to the intro screen.  I turned to see Patti lift an eyebrow, chuckle, lick her lips once again, then turn to look out the front doors of the station in a way that suggests wordlessly, “I told you so, you dumb . . .”

Defiantly, I started the process again. This time, I knew to use my debit card, which in fact HAS a code. But there was suddenly a new addition. An old woman, dressed in black, hook-nosed, bruja style, apple-less escapee from “Snow White,” the sort of old crone that appeared in 1960’s Greek cinema -- bitter, negative, vulture like -- who sits in the corner of the room waiting for someone to die.

She sidled up next to me and began “helping” me. It appeared to be a common ruse used by the lowest working class that lurked around the machines. It's clearly designed to either put you in their debt for the assistance they offer or, more likely, to annoy annoy the shit out of you until you give them money so they’ll go away and leave you alone.

I did what one does in these situations: I refused to look at her. I just said in my most familiar Italian, as coldly and rudely as possible, “No. Va via!” But as I inserted my debit card into the machine, the old crone reached her bony little hand in and pointed at the screen, saying only one English word, “Here.”

“Whereyouwannago?” “Here…here.”

That arthritic hand intruded. I ignored her. O … R … V…

“Orvieto”

We’re back on track.

“Whatimeyouwannago?“  "Here…here.”

The hand persisted. I had backed her out of the space, but she had actually dug through under my arm. I wanted to grab her hand and crush it, but I pushed her away gently and warned her again. “No. Va via.” I made my selection.

"Whataclasseyouwan?"  “Here…here.”

The bitch was relentless. The pressure was getting to me.  I was steaming. I turned toward her and snarled. I had little bits of foam in the corner of my mouth. My teeth were clenched; my nostrils were flared. Little bits of spittle flew as I spoke. 

"Listen up, you ugly little wretch!   If you don’t get the fuck away from me, I will rip your ugly-ass bruja head from your fat little dwarf body and shove it up your . . . “

No need to finish. It was all very rude and, moreover, had no effect. She just stared at me, blankly.  I spent the balance of my time at the machine with my shoulder shoved into her upper body, pressing her against the next machine as she persisted, pointing, mumbling,

"Here. Here. Here."

I pushed button after button until, finally, the machine spit out a ticket. One ticket.. ONE!

One? I needed two. What had I done?

I was close to a breakdown. Clearly I needed to go through the whole process again. I stood there waving the ticket in front of my face, as though I were some sort of magician who could transform it into two. The old woman looked at me, shook her head, smiled broad and toothless with some sort of 'Mission Accomplished' subtext, then spit and walked away.

I had to go through the whole process again. I couldn’t even look at Patti. I reinserted my card and began, moving quickly and surely – crone-free – through every step. A second ticket popped out. I turned proudly toward my wife and handed her the tickets. She examined them carefully and, just when I was ready to receive my pat on the back, she announced, coolly,

“You bought three tickets. This ticket has two adults on it and this one has one adult.” She asked coolly,“Is someone else going with us?” She couldn't resist smiling.

I grabbed the tickets and examined them, knowing she had to be wrong, then knowing she was right, then knowing there was only one option:

I had to get in line.

Coffee-Time

It takes Americans a little time to adapt to the Italian way of life.  There are issues of custom and issues of attitude.  For example, the idea of getting a cup of coffee is more complicated. 

Every travel guide written suggests that, in Italy, you can save money by drinking your coffee standing at the bar, rather than seated at a table.  FAHGETABOUTIT!  It may be the case that you could save money, but it can't be done.  I don't know whether we look different or smell somehow alien, but Italians  know Americans on sight. It makes no difference what you say.  They know you're American even before you speak.  When you approach the bar, the regular patrons clear out like death itself had entered; and once you place your order, you're escorted to a more expensive table. You are not going to stand at the freakin' bar for cheap.  Period.

And then there's the coffee itself:  Coffee is to Italian coffee as silly putty is to C-4 explosive.  When I returned from the Italian trip, I went to see my doctor and noted that my OCD symptoms had been really strong and particularly annoying while I was traveling in Italy. 

"Did you drink the coffee?" he asked.  When I nodded, he just smirked and shook his head.

Unless you're accustomed to downing triple shots at Starbucks, four times a day, seven days a week, you are not prepared to drink much coffee in Italy.  One shot of espresso in the morning will take you to sunset and beyond.

I made dinner one night in our apartment.  It was a particularly pleasant meal, one I thought really needed to be capped off with a nice, warm cup of cappuccino.  Patti wisely declined.  As a result, she slept through the night while I wrote the libretto for an opera, scored it, and choreographed it, without ever blinking once.  It was as though I had done two lines of coke with a meth chaser.  Then, fool that I am, a few nights later, after an outstanding meal at a local restaurant, I asked the waiter if I could get a decaf cappuccino -- very careful to be sure that he understood exactly what I meant -- and he assured me over and over again that they had decaf and would make my cappuccino with decaf.  That night, I slept for one hour, then designed all the costumes and make-up for the aforesaid ballet/opera and outlined the screenplay, the novel and the themed Disneyland ride.  Apparently trying to decaffeinate Italian coffee is like trying to neuter a six-balled alligator with a nail clipper. 


Then there's the issue of time.  We Americans are obsessed with time.  In our home we have at least twelve clocks.  There's a clock in the microwave, a clock in the stove, a clock in each computer, television, cell phone and car, and an alarm clock near each bed.  It's difficult to buy anything that doesn't have a clock in it. 

When we travel, Patti insists that,  I wear a wrist watch.  I hate it.  I don't wear jewelery, except an earring occasionally and a fish hook necklace I got in Hawaii.  I never wear anything on my hands and hate the feeling of something around my wrist.  But apparently, there was some trip where she was driven "nearly to madness" by my "constant" requests for a time check.  While I have no doubt that I can be annoying in a whole variety of ways, I'm sure it was not so annoying that I had to be shackled into a mini time machine for the entirety of every succeeding trip.  Besides, watches stop functioning within days after I put them on my arm.  (Which I regard as another one of those little miracles of Jesus.)

Speaking of time, did you ever notice that, when people reach a certain age, they seem to need to know the time every second of the day?  And old people don't just have a lot of clocks, they have thermometers, and barometers as well and they actually look at them.  My ninety-five-year-old father-in-law could tell you the time, interior and exterior temperature, and relative humidity any time you wanted to know, although I never actually wanted to know.  I have fourteen clocks if I need to know the time; the temperature and humidity have no influence on any activity I do and I don't care about either of them.  I know when it's hot and damp.  I can sense when it's cold or dry.  The number is irrelevant.

Time and its relationship to aging is interesting.  Time really does seem to pass more quickly with each year.  I suspect that it has to do with the concept of a day relative to your entire existence.  For a one-year-old, a day is just 1/365th of its life.  For a ninety-year-old, it is just 1/32,872nd ( I actually calculated this.) of an entire life.  Maybe old people can really feel the time slipping away and try to slow it down by always knowing where the clock is at.   I still don't understand the temperature thing.

Italians feel differently about time.  No one in Italy seems to hurry to get anywhere or to do anything.  The trains seem to run on time -- when they run -- though work slow-downs and general strikes can prevent them from running at all.  But other things operate a little loosey-goosey.

One morning, I headed for the Internet cafè I had been frequenting in Rome.  I got there at 9:05, only to find that the posted 9:00 opening time was just some kind of estimate. So, I decided to walk around until the Internet cafè actually opened.  It's difficult to get exercise on vacation and it seemed like a good and simple way to get a little minor aerobic workout.  Long story short, by the time the Internet cafè opened -- almost two hours later -- I had had a more serious work-out than I ever intended and had worked myself up into a real German lather over their failure to open on time.  When I finally got inside, I was fuming.  I strode up to  the counter, intending to abuse someone over their failure of punctuality;  but somehow between the door and the desk, Rome worked its magic on me, I became Italian and, by the time I opened my mouth, I just didn't give a shit.

How Aria Enjoying Rome?

Sorry about the interruption.  We had company for a couple of days.

So, my wife and I visited Italy for a month and it was the best trip we ever had, anywhere.  We only moved five times -- Rome to Orvieto, to Sienna, to Sorrento to Rome to Athens -- and stayed in each location for about a week.  Keep in mind that, for me, a real vacation is spending the WHOLE time on ONE beach and all other kinds of travel -- particularly the kinds that take you out of the country -- are like going to the

 "Interesting Periods of Freedom from the Drone of Regular Existence Work Camp."  

I mean, really.  Sometimes you spend time driving, hauling luggage, negotiating your exit and entrance to each country with the appropriate authorities, and translating; and then there's the "interesting" part.  That's all about learning.  Now, I don't have a problem doing any of those things.  I actually enjoy most of them; but when you put them all on a schedule, it becomes a form, albeit a somewhat gentler form, of "work."  And I think of work and vacation as two very different things.

Here's a simple quiz: 

Would you rather walk off a warm, sandy beach full of barely dressed people and into the ocean, body surf for an hour, then go back to your umbrella, drink a cool drink and stare out at the ocean or get up to the screaming alarm at 5:00 AM, quickly pack everything you own like a convict on the run, drag a large bag and two small bags from the second floor apartment, which in Italy and all of Europe for that matter, is actually on the third floor, to the street below, which is strangely at street level, where you have to help the taxi driver cram that luggage into a trunk the size of your navel and then pry it free at the train station (or stazione ferroviaria – a phrase that I have found particularly annoying during midnight fits of OCD that I have too frequently and which cause me to repeat names, foreign phrases and bits of song lyrics over and over and over and over until I think my head will pop), drag them onto and off of the train, into the trunk of another roller skate-sized vehicle, and then up to the second floor -- no, actually third, remember -- without the aid of an elevator?

Well, that's just another day of traveling, unless you’re on a cruise. And who wants to cruise around Italy these days?

And then there's the flying.   It's almost not worth commenting about because everyone knows how horrible it is.  I once saw a short, barrel-shaped woman -- not grossly obese, but thick in the middle like a lot of old women get where their belly is just a little bit bigger than their tits.  She was seated on the aisle and the person in front of her had leaned his seat back the full four centimeters of its range, which put it on an incline that ran parallel to her nose, her chest, her belly and her knees.  Once during the flight, she appeared to want to rise to go to the restroom.  She kept trying to stand up, but each time she found herself losing the battle with gravity, the seat in front of her, and the arm rest.  She bounced against the reclined seat back about five times, then just gave up.  She never moved from her seat during the twelve-hour flight.  How's that for bladder control?


We were anxious to be in Rome, but apparently our luggage was not. I ended up wearing the same clothes, including socks and underwear, for three days before the checked baggage arrived. I would have bought some underwear and socks, at least, but the luggage Nazis kept promising us that the baggage would be delivered to our apartment "soon."  We came to believe that the English word, "soon," translates into Italian as "whenever."


Despite that little initial hiccup, our time in Rome was generally peasant, give or take a cinematic presentation called the "Time Elevator," which purported to answer all your questions about the history of the city of Rome, but was actually some kind of cheap, half-assed amusement ride that bounced up and down on bad hydraulics and sprayed water in your face at each mention of a fountain, and an evening of opera to which I was dragged kicking and screaming.

A note: 

Imagine you are a boy of ten, the only remaining male child of your family -- the older, more belligerent male juvenile of your little tribe, already deemed mediocre and a great disappointment, having made his escape from the firm Teutonic grasp of a manic-depressive, multiple personality mother and a German immigrant father with obsessions for perfection, obedience, his personal appearance, and opera. 

 (You can almost hear Mahler playing in the background, can't you?) 

It's Saturday morning and the sun is shining outside the little suburban ranch house in which you're imprisoned.  Beyond the walls, there are  open flat streets and bicycles, swimming pools, fields, creeks, and other ten-year-olds.

(Cue the sounds of children romping, birds chirping and let's make that a slow-motion montage.) 

You're struggling to formulate the question, but want to get the phrasing just right:

Would it be possible for me . . .?    (No.  Anything is possible.  Took much focus on self.)

Don't you think it would be a good idea if I took the day and . . .?  (I can't take a whole day. Who do I think I am?)

. . . if I got some exercise?   (Yeah, exercise is good.  But he'll just have me doing calisthenics in the house.)

Your brain is a pinball machine.  Confusion reigns.  Suddenly, you hear the call.

Bobby, it's time for the "Texaco International Metropolitan Opera Radio Show."

You go immediately mute.  All you can think about is sitting cross-legged on the floor for two hours while women shriek and men yodel through their noses lyrics you can't understand.

Your head falls forward onto your chest in defeat.  You slump off, like my boxer when I order her into the shower, toward the family room, from which a thick British Radio voice announces that "today, we will see this season's premiere presentation of Der Fliegende Holländer -- the legend of the Flying Dutchman."

Noooooooo!  Not GERMAN opera!  God, why are you doing this to me?

Today, I don't go to the opera without a fight.

Free at Last, Free at Last!

My wife, Patti, and I traveled around Italy for a month recently.  A freakin' month, dude!  I just love that.  I remember when a vacation lasted two weeks, if you were lucky.  You'd just get to the point where you stopped giving a shit about how things were going back in the real world, and you'd be on the phone confirming your return flight.  

When you first start working, you can't even get four weeks vacation; but you're getting laid enough and it doesn't really matter.  Then you get to a job where you get enough vacation time, but through the year, your kid gets a cold and you stay home for two days; or you wake up to find you left the door ajar on the car and the interior light has been on all night long and the battery is drained and you have to call AAA and, by the time they get there, the idea of going to work has lost its charm; or you have to add a day to a long weekend so you can take something that feels like a vacation, but isn't really because you spent half the days driving wherever and back. So you never really have a whole month available. Then, maybe you get lucky and you land one of those jobs where you get six or eight weeks, but you never want to take more than a couple weeks at a time because, if you're absent longer, you might come back and find someone else sitting in your office and yourself assigned to a "special project." 

Even when I was an actor with far too much time available for vacations, I never took four weeks off to go anywhere because, I knew, as all actors do, that unless you're on a series, or making a LOT of money when you DO work, you live every day waiting for the phone to ring  -- for the audition, and if you're lucky, the call-back, the second call-back, the confirmation, the call from wardrobe, etc -- with the deluded expectation and dread that, if you were on vacation, Spielberg would call your agent because he was up till all hours of the morning -- so late that it clearly impaired his judgment -- and when he saw your stunning performance in that infomercial for the all-herbal hot flashes cure, he knew you would be perfect for the lead in his next epic effort, but he'd have to see you within eight hours or it'd be a no-go.  Besides, very few actors can afford a vacation that takes them further than Anaheim.

Retirement is great.  I can't identify in any way with those people, and there are more than a few of them, who say that they can't imagine what they would do if they were retired.  My wife tells me that, when she was a teenager, there was a man who lived in her neighborhood who retired and the following morning, got up, dressed in a suit and tie and sat down in the living room and waited for . . . whatever.  Two days before I retired from my job at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in Los Angeles, I ran into a guy in the elevator -- white-haired, certainly older than me.  I didn't know him, but I was so overjoyed at the idea of never again working for "DA MAN," that I wore the idea, all day long, like a gigantic boner, strutting around the building, starting conversations about retirement with anyone who would pay any attention, just so I could tell them I was retiring, often starting the conversation myself by asking them about their retirement plans, pretending to listen, but not really giving a shit except to the extent that, if they told me they had a lot of years to work, I felt better.  (Sorry.  That's who I was.)  And everyone of them was envious -- from the guy who had six months, to the woman who had twenty years to go.   

So, I said to this guy, "You got a lot of time left?  When do you plan to retire?"

He said, "I don't plan to retire.  If you're gonna retire, you gotta have interests?  I don't have any interests."

Normally, by this point in the conversation, I would have heard plenty and I would swing the discussion back to MY plans, but I was so stunned by the response, I actually got interested in him.  He hadn't used the word, "hobby."  He hadn't said, you gotta have hobbies."  Here was a guy devoid, not only of hobbies, but interests.  Working at that company -- his life experience -- had actually sucked the life force completely out of him.

All I could think was, "You're not interested in reading a book?  Having a lazy cup of coffee in the morning?  Talking to your wife, a friend? Taking a walk? Going to the beach? Playing with the dog?  Having a glass of wine at lunch? Cruising the internet for porn?" 

I mean, really!

I may have been witnessing a pre-suicidal last cry for help from a desperate soul and perhaps I should have called Suicide Prevention or offered a hand of hope; but frankly, I was really more interested in getting back to talking about MY retirement.

It was a great vacation.