Days away

Now, Rome has three-wheeled cars and that, in my mind, puts it a rung above many others on the ladder of originality. Couple that with the fact that the city is bursting with puffy mounds of ice cream and you've got a winner.



The reason we went to Rome was to see the sights; to look at with our own eyes some of the most famous structures ever built. We didn't have any hipster galleries or clubs to visit, nor were we looking for any. Our plan was to step out of the hostel each day and let the city take us where it may. The problem, if you can call it that, was there were so many old and important-looking buildings at every turn that sometimes we'd find ourselves unsure as to what we were actually looking at.



One place you're sure of when you arrive is the Vatican City. Although you're not pulling out your passport you are still in fact crossing into another country. At 0.2 square miles it's the world's smallest independent nation state. It's enclosed by a high wall, separating it from the rest of Rome. You can freely walk in and out, but if that big gate swung shut and closed me in I'd seriously rethink every sin I've ever committed. Now I wasn't raised with the Bible in my hands and I've never been involved with Catholicism, but here I was in the center of their world. While the architecture was beautiful in a grandiose way I also found it a slight bit scary and unsettling. The fact that they've built themselves up inside those daunting walls spooked me just enough to give me the chills a few times.

There's some more pics from the trip on my Flickr page

Now, onto the food...and the conclusion.

I've wondered how Italians eat their pasta. Do they use a fork and roll the noodles up with the use of a spoon as a stabilizer? Someone once told me that's how they ate. And do they eat their pizza with their hands or opt for the safer and less messy fork and knife combo? Last week I found this out, and more! First, there are no spoons on the dinner table in Rome. You get two forks and a knife. Second, they use their hands to eat the pizza even though the pizza is quite thin and at times juicy (so tasty!). Here in Sweden you use a knife and fork to eat your pizza; that's what I've been doing for the past 3 months. I ate my pizza in Rome with a knife and fork without the slightest care that someone would accuse me of being a tourist. Based on appearance, daypack and unfolded map or camera obscuring my vision I was a tourist in the truest sense of the word from the first second I stepped off of the plane. Obnoxious? No, not in the least. Eased back and taking in a beautiful city at a steady pace? Natch.

Oh, at a restaurant a group of Italian women sat down at the table next to us. We wondered what they'd order. Couldn't be something so common like spaghetti or pizza; it was probably going to be a dish not even on the menu that only the locals knew about. We waited patiently for the waiter to return with the appetizer. The first item to come to their table: a basket of French fries.

However, I did taste the best pasta I've ever had and realized how a thin little pizza can and should taste. Anyone can throw some sauce onto dough and hope for the best but I had a feeling some of these recipes actually were passed down from many generations ago. I'm so hungry right now after typing this.

Finally, an admittance: in Italian a piazza means a square within a town or city. There are signs that read "Piazza this" and "Piazza that" all over. I swear that 90% of the time I saw these signs I thought they read "Pizza". I'm sorry but I admit it. Is it dinner yet?

Ciao, chow

Go wrong before you go right

A nice little gem appeared in my email this morning compliments of Brad: an mp3 of an old Pond song only available on 7". I remember listening to this song in Joe's bedroom somewhere around 1994/1995 and thinking, "did Chris Brady just say 'do drugs'?" Beyond that, I remember thinking how this song was so cool and exactly what I wanted to write at that time. Heck, I'd still like to write a song like this. I think I'll cover this one next if I can figure out the lyrics. Check out the mp3.

Pond - Moth - mp3

Wait, Joe, didn't you record a version of this song back in the day? Or we played it live?

Nilla and I leave for Rome tomorrow night. I'm pretty excited; I'll be seeing Southern Europe for the first time. I promise to report back early next week with pics and a travel (b)log. If anyone has been to Rome before and has any suggestions please let me know!

COMMENTS?!

UPDATE
Hey gang, sorry that none of your comments showed up until just now...Blogger snuck in this tricky "moderate comments" page that I somehow didn't know about. I was starting to think everyone gave up on me. You've proved you haven't and that I was silly to think that way for even one second. We're back in business...

Answer in the form of a question

First question: what happens when Rich Salamander makes a film? The Chronicles of Teddy, of course. Next question: where can you see other funny, interesting and/or pretty video pieces made by or starring people you might just know (if you live in Chicago)? I'd suggest a visit to Brian Hank Henry's Electric Age Media.

Third question: what happens when you put me in a Swedish for Immigrants language class? Well, I learn a whole lot and sometimes I pronounce a thing or four correctly. It's beyond interesting because it's the first language class I've taken where the teacher actually sticks to their guns on not speaking anything except the language being taught. From my experiences this usually doesn't work; barriers break down and English is used as a crutch to get a complex or important points across. Not in this class. I'd venture to say there's extremely little to no chance that the nice girl teaching us isn't going to utter anything else in English. She has these crafty ways of using simple Swedish to explain new words and phrases. Drawing on the whiteboard and pointing mixed with grunting noises has proved to work as well.

Fourth question: where do all of these people come from? Well, I'm the minority of the minorities in coming from North America. There's one other American out of my 23ish classmates. Here's where I remember others coming from....grab a map: China, Japan, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Lebanon, England, Iran, Iraq, India, Algeria, Sierra Leone, Brazil, Spain, France, Thailand and Sri Lanka.

Fifth question: what happens when I put off recording my own songs and cover 'Teenage Caveman' by Beat Happening? This is what happens when I cover 'Teenage Caveman' by Beat Happening.

Foundation. Floors. Residents

At this point of the game something happened that I'd never experienced before: the six people playing all agreed that the game should end prior to the blocks falling based on the fact that it would really be shitty for the person that knocked it down and therefore lost the game. So, the tower remained standing in a busy section of the bar on a table next to the entrance to the bathroom. You've gotta love the camaraderie a game of Jenga, excuse me, Tumbling Towers II brings out in people.


Now the blocks did eventually fall, hard. A certain someone, who shall remain nameless, somehow concluded to herself that an empty beer bottle would in fact have the physical traits necessary to stabilize itself on a stack of haphazardly placed blocks.

After the mess was cleaned up and all of the blocks were found the group again came together and worked towards a greater good. Why build a monument designed and destined to fall? Look towards the future; create and maintain. And so we did.

If I don't go outside today, I never will

It was autumn of 1995, a Saturday the 14th; I'm guessing October. Myself and a minivan full of comrades bounced down I-94 on our way to the Metro to see Jawbreaker. At that point 'Dear You' was out and we'd had a few chances in the past couple of years to see the band live in Chicago (and the burbs!) So the expectations we were all feeling weren't the "Oh my God, I can't wait to see them in person" sort, it was more of "what's Blake going to say, what song will they open with" etc... But it wasn't here when I fully realized my semi obsession with Blake and the band. The day before, while working as a librarian's assistant in the Joliet Junior College library, I sang '24 Hour Revenge Therapy' in its entirety, in order, to myself as I reshelved books. The only words I didn't really know where the distorted sing-back bits in 'Ache'.

"These days the people I love are spread so far apart (All out of reach)"
We threw out guesses as to what would be played first. "Shield Your Eyes" I probably said. A guy named Paul (not Pawl) said they'd play something off the new album first because that's the album they were touring in support of. We'd have none of that, at least not first. The conversation continued until we were on the Metro's floor with a thousand others awaiting the band to take the stage.

In a smart tone, Blake explained how he'd be helping us recover from another Friday the 13th. We'd made it through, obviously, because we were there but still required some personal attention, perhaps a lyric to realign us all. And with that, the show began.

Jawbreaker - Jinx Removing - mp3

Tags

Grafitti? Christmas day. Motala, Sweden.

Can you feel it all come down?

I stepped outside to begin my walk to work and immediately paused to listen. One month's worth of snow was creaking, randomly shifting, not unlike a house ten years after construction still settling into its foundation. The rise of about five degrees Celsius pushed the thermometer over the freezing point and is slowly turning this Nordic winter wonderland into a sloppy, slippery mess.

Swedes love to talk about the weather; that's what I've been told. I find this to be a universal Truth. What the sky does can make or break a day regardless of where you live. And I'll be the first one to break the ice (sorry) with some general chitchat about how it snowed so much that the angels floated down from heaven and fell asleep on our lawn. It's just that the words, på Svenska, aren't quite coming to me yet. Weather words have proven to be some of the hardest for me to pronounce or get a grasp on. Here, you have a try:

Regnig means rainy but I can't roll an "r" and that means I'm fucked for a ton of "r" words.

Snöig means snowy. When I hear others say it it sounds so easy like a lot of other words I have no trouble with. But then I open my mouth and, like the floor upon which gray slush melts off of my boots, it's a mess.

Not weather related, but this was just brought to my attention: jordgubbe means strawberry, which I knew. But, if you translate jord and gubbe separately jord means earth and gubbe means old man. Earthman. Are you hungry? I have a lot to learn or a lot of questions I should just keep to myself.

Eventually my mouth will form around these certain difficult sounds and more and more pieces of this puzzle with fall into place, at least that's what everyone keeps telling me. Wednesday I begin my Swedish for Immigrants class which stands as one of the biggest, most sided and oddly shaped puzzle pieces: people from around the globe with staggeringly different educational backgrounds and obviously any number of mother tongues all working towards a singular goal...to talk about the weather.

Please freeze me

Put a map of the world on the wall. It makes any room look like some sort of official Headquarters where only important business is tended to and decided upon. It also makes you want to get up and go.


So we've decided to go to Rome in a couple weeks. Never been to Italy before, never been south of Prague actually. Seems like a fine time to check up on the Pope and the sort of folks that understand how to build a quality racing bicycle.

Lately it seems I've been sidestepping details and getting by with blah blah about the holiday festivities, which was important, for a minute. But it's 2006 and we're digging into January. I wore two layers of socks today, my legs covered in a sort of spandex under my "biology pants". Too much information perhaps. What I'm getting at is that it's cold, and it's a new year; this is that hibernation time where creative types who reside in a climate which keeps one indoors start to plan and work and create. We do this now because the rest of the year sort of depends on it. In the spring we can crawl out with big huge grins, ready for it.

Making websites is a pretty rad winter activity, so I did. mike-downey.com has been completely overhauled, so go check it. There's a previously unreleased remix available for download thanks to Mr. Matt Malloy. Speaking of, I'm going to go ahead and recommend their new EP. 'Send Help' makes me move/groove/prance.

There's plenty more winter creativity to be had, that's for sure. Expect it. I'm planning on getting to work on my next batch of recordings soon and hopefully share some of the demos and/or finished versions with you around these internet places. I've been blessed with another shot of inspiration. I hope it never stops, ever ever.

Listen, the snow is falling