What is this a photo of? Who cares? It is the funnest!…But how does anyone make a living doing this?

Five weeks ago I wrote about a twice a month dinner I host – whereby we  ‘ex-pats’ speak about what is on our minds.  It is sort of an updated, but toned down Gertrude Stein Parisian Salon styled affair in a quiet Tuscan village. The Weather was the big topic. It was record breaking hot at the time. It is still hot; but we don’t talk much about it anymore. We just slog thru. I wonder if that is how many of us behave with most of our problems. Anyway…There is a wine festival being set up in our piazza,  I don’t drink wine. There was a big meat dinner (Local sausages and beefs) in the  piazza the other night. I don’t eat meat. People ask me, if I understand their language correctly, why I live here in the first place; not participating in the good wines, and good meats.  Well: It is beautiful and the people here are very friendly and happy…and all that grows on one. At 7:00 in the morning – out my bedroom window, I hear men laughing as they have their morning off-to-work coffee. I mean laughing loudly. At 10:00 at night I hear children playing loudly in the piazza,,,loudly laughing. I have to step over pet dogs – large and small – to get to my morning coffee (62 steps from my door), where the Barristas make friendly jokes about my appearance and lousy Italian… The place is truly an adult Italian version of Sesame Street without Snuffleopolus – and I want to keep on being part of the show.

FYI: Many of the ‘Locals’ have been here for several generations…but there are also Romanians, Albanians, Croatians, Africans, European and other ex-pats (this part of Tuscany used to be called ‘Chianti-shire” by the Brits)…all sorts of people living here: men, women young, old…most speaking who knows what languages, probably most of the world’s major religions represented…but we more than get along. I mean; how hard can this be to accomplish?

Maybe I should not reveal the exact location for too many people might come here, and ruin things like they are doing in Venice and Miami…or worse, somebody with a strong personality and rigid ideas on who should enjoy what might want to shut it down.

Be careful out there.

If you opened this up because of the title above…you are in big trouble, and likely prone to fraudsters and are in need of professional help. If you opened this up because you want a smile and a short read – not written in anyway by AI (Because AI can’t write stuff like this) and just want a moment where you can get away from it all…you have come to the right place. …Where were we? Oh, yes…

As you may know, I am living in a small Tuscan town. The other night there was a piano concert way up in the hills. A couple hundred people brought blankets, sat in a field surrounded by hills and trees. How they got a grand piano up there, I’ll never know.  It was all very nice. And here is a catch: It was FREE!

Then a night or so later, in our town’s Piazza, someone put up eight kiosk-type things with musical instruments in them…the purpose of which was to attract young people to fool with instruments and learn a little about music making. I think that was what it was. Anyway,  hundreds of people, young and old, came and had a good time of it. There were no hats on the ground looking for money…there were no items for sale. It was all FREE. I’m an American and therefor I do not know how any of this works. But it is nice.

Tonight, it looks like someone is setting up a stage in the piazza to show off a few magic tricks and then play some jazz. Who pays for all this? Are tax Euros being spent on Entertainment rather than on Defense? What is going on? If less were spent on entertainment then maybe the Italians could take over some of the Greek Islands which are closer to Italy than Greece is.

(Photo above titled:”Just Another Free Concert In Our Town”)

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Photo: “Under The Tuscan Sundown”

I am living in a small Tuscan town. The other night we were going to attend an opera – outside – under the evening sky. Me? I prefer American Country – but still, I thought it was a nice idea…Then came the rains and the whole thing was cancelled. So my wife and I stayed home and searched for something to watch on TV. For several years now, I have found it difficult to find anything new which seems to have been written  with a good script and or a few good lines. I thought I would give you a short list of good lines from the time when movies were movies:

1. “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” GWTW, 1939
2. “If you want me, just whistle.You know how to whistle don’t you? You just put your lips together and blow.” Lauren Bacall, “To Have And Have Not”, 1944
3. Dave Bowman: “Open the pod bay doors, HAL”:  (in response; “I’m afraid I can’t do that. This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.”)  2001, “A Space Odyssey”, 1968
4. “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.” (…and “I don’t tell the truth, I tell what ought to be the truth.”) Blanche Dubois in “Streetcar Named Desire” – Tennessee Williams, 1947
5. “Everything is going to be alright in the end and if everything is not alright – then it is not the end.” -“The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” , 2001
6. Butch: “Kid, there’s something I ought to tell you. I never shot anybody before.”…Response from Sundance: “One hell of a time to tell me!” -Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid, 1969
7. “God changes his appearance every second. Blessed is the man who can recognize him in all his disguises.”
   ― Nikos Kazantzakis, “Zorba the Greek”, 1964
8. “She needs watching, that one. We can’t trust anybody, especially a female.) -Fagin, “Oliver Twist”,  (movie), 1922

You don’t find lines like these in a show about coaches coaching soccer teams…but maybe that’s just me…until next time…

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Sometimes you find it is simply too hot out there…and the wrong people are in charge of the world, and the corruption is just too much to be believed…and there is nothing you can do about any of it, anyway…and…and why should you follow the news because it is just so terrible and what good does knowing about any of it do you? …and then you look out the window and you see people dining under the starlit sky…and soon they will dance for no good reason and you have a sudden thought that things can be alright.

• “Storms Never Last do they baby? Bad times all pass with the wind.” -Waylon Jennings, song
• “Next time you’re found
  With your chin on the ground
  There a lot to be learned
  So look around.”  -First verse from “High Hopes” – Sinatra, song
• “Everything’s going to be alright, Rock-A-Bye. -Mullins, song
• “So warm, Odysseus’ joy when he saw that shore, those trees”. -Homer (The Odyssey, Book 5, lines 436-441. After his boat is wrecked and he is adrift on a heavy sea for two nights and days, Odysseus is overjoyed to see the shores of Phaeacia.)

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The photo tells you how hot it is here in the Piazza. Usually there would be thirty kids kicking a soccer ball…a few skateboarders……some dogs…and the blue seats would be filling up to get ready for the jazz…not today…

• “Some Like It Hot” – The Name of a movie. A comedy. Today’s Generations would not understand the title.
• “Here comes the sun, and I say, it’s all right.” -The Beatles…more 60’s stuff
• “When you can’t make them see the light, make them feel the heat.” ― Ronald Reagan…You know that’s right.
• “It ain’t the heat, it’s the humility.” — Yogi Berra“
• “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” — Harry S Truman… But, Harry, it’s hotter outside of the kitchen than it is in the kitchen.
• “It was a sure sign of summer if the chair gets up when you do.” -Walter Winchell
• “Heat cannot be separated from fire.” -Dante Alighieri
• “Climate Change is a Hoax!” -Attributed to #47…and if you say otherwise you are a Communist.
• “Weather forecast for tonight: Dark with a chance of tomorrow.” -George Carlin