Mario the Magician

Today I stopped at Finesterrae for coffee and then walked along the Arno to the Ponte Vecchio, crossed the bridge and angled towards the Boboli Gardens. The Ponte Vecchio is one of the concentrated focal points of worldwide tourism in Italy. It’s picturesque and crowded and it is where all of the jewelry stores are located.

This is a tourist town and there are specific things for sale. Florence is famous for its leather goods, antiques and jewelry. The shops are jammed and the salespersons are polyglot and do not miss a chance. I rarely shop and don’t like to buy stuff when I’m traveling. I don’t want to take up too much space in my limited luggage and, of course, I’m sure I’m going to get ripped off. I’m suspicious, untrusting and hyper vigilant; the perfect customer.

For instance, I do not understand jewelry, why it is worn, what it’s worth, and why it is such emotionally and psychologically weighted merchandise. Show your love, memorialize your class, commemorate a sports championship with a ring or necklace, bracelet, brooch, pin, tiara or some other overpriced bauble of doubtful authenticity. I just cannot figure it out and I don’t want to. I’ve had personal experiences with the marketing of valuables and I cannot bring myself to trust those in the trade.

I used to work with a guy who bought and sold gems, rings, and silverware. Clyde had a rare coin store in El Sobrante, California, but the business was only a semi-legal way of suckering in rubes that had recently stolen their grandmother’s antique spoons and wanted to turn them over for quick bucks that could be converted into quick drugs. Clyde was friendly, smiled a lot and happily welcomed his customers into his store. My job was to sit at a desk in the back of the store with a forty-five caliber automatic in my lap, ready to start blasting away, just in case one of the jittery patrons decided that he wasn’t getting a fair price for his neighbor’s silver bracelet. No one got a fair price. Ever. I saw Clyde buy a ring from a Hells Angel one afternoon. Clyde looked at the diamond through a jeweler’s loupe, muttered, nodded and said, “Big flaw in there. Might be cracked, too. I can give you $200 dollars for it.”

The dude wanted more, but since he’d probably robbed someone and had no idea what he was doing, he eventually settled. As soon as the idiot left the store Cliff was on the phone to his brother.

“Stan, do you still have that woman who’s looking for a good diamond?”

“Yeah, she was in today.”

“I’ve got one here. $2,000 and she’ll be very happy. It’s nice. A beauty.”

I watched the transaction, picked up a piece of the profits and we all went out for drinks. Lots of drinks. The drinks were what eventually led me away from that line of work. I was happy not to have to be in a position where I might have to blow some poor biker to hell and ruin my life because he didn’t think he was getting proper value for his mom’s wedding ring.

That’s how I learned about sales, merchandising and trade. I avoid it. I’m not at all interested in buying, selling or even browsing at jewelry or antiques or leather goods in Florence. It bores me and I am convinced that I will be fleeced buy a couple of guys like Clyde and me.

From the Ponte Vecchio Sally and I climbed up into the Boboli Gardens and sat on a shady bench overlooking Firenze on a beautiful calm day. After an hour we meandered through the back streets on the south side of the Arno and worked our way towards our apartment.

On the way we passed by the leather shops. There is leather everywhere in Florence. Way too much leather. Leather coats, shoes, pants, shirts, sox, scarves, zipper masks, vests, hats, wallets, umbrellas, hoodies, bracelets, brooches, trinkets, dolls, garter-belts, bras and panties. For entire blocks you can breathe in the pungent smell of leather. I’m OK with decent leather goods, but I am wary of the guys who stand in front of the shops and say, “American. American. Half-off.”

I’m fairly certain I’ll be cheated and it sounds shady. I’ve done shady.

In one window, however, was a beautiful seafoam green woman’s coat. We were looking at it, admiring it. Sally was taken by the color and we were move along when the salesman, a nice looking Florentine gentleman in a white shirt said, “Come in, come in, I have just what you want. Where are you from? America? I have many American customers.”

Before we knew it, we were standing in the store surrounded by all colors and styles of leather jackets for men and women.

I have an old, cheap leather coat at home. It’s got a hole in the back, caught on the sharp edge of a table in Paris several years ago. I still wear it but I’ve been looking for a replacement. I’m somewhat obsessive when it comes to clothing, books, fountain pens, music, shoes, and most everything else I have to spend money on. I’ve paged through hundreds of Internet sites looking for leather coats. Hundreds. I’ve tried on everything at Dillard’s, Target, Macys, Penney’s, Sears, Corsini and ten or fifteen other stores, and nothing works to my satisfaction. Too tight, too loose, crappy material, cheap lining, wrong pockets, badly made, loose buttons. I have a thousand reasons for not spending money on a new leather coat when I have one at home that looks OK from the front.

This guy in Firenze took one look at me, pulled a garment off the rack and draped it on me. Like it was made for me; it fit perfectly. Like magic. Like prayer. I could not believe it.

“How the hell did you do that? You know my size?”

“I’ve been doing this for 27 years. I know a lot about you.”

I was fucking nonplussed. Dumbstruck.

I mumbled, “It fits well.”

I shrugged my shoulders, waved my arms, craned my neck, turned, twisted and the goddamn coat looked fabulous.

Then the guy said, “You are Italian? Italian-American?”

“Yeah. I am.”

“Yes, you are Calabrese.” He pointed to my face. “You have a Calabrese face, square, hard.” He smiled. “Are you Mafioso?”

Swear to god.

My grandfather emigrated from Scalea in Reggio Calabria in the far south of Italy at the turn of the twentieth century. I have a square face. I laughed and said, “No, no, not Mafioso. Ha, ha. Nope. But you’re absolutely correct on all the other.”

“I told you I know a lot about you. Nice coat.”

As I was admiring myself, wondering how I was being suckered, when the hammer was going to drop, when it would all go haywire, the salesman slipped another jacket off of a hanger and told Sally to try it on.

Perfect. No kidding, absolutely perfect. The man was a magician.

He said, “When Bill Clinton is at the Uffizi, his security guys come here, to me, for all their leather coats. They have to fit perfectly because they carry guns.”

He made a few nice little jokes about love and marriage and how the coats made us look ten years younger.

Right. A born salesman, but a salesman with panache and long experience.

He asked me to send him a postcard to him when we get back to New Mexico. I am to tell him that the card is from Joe, the mustache Mafioso from New Mexico. A Joke. Funny guy, Mario.

Mario looked at me, squinted and said that if I were willing to pay cash he’d give me a very good discount. I love those guys. The moment of truth and a 20 percent savings. I stripped 500 Euros from an ATM at the nearby Piazza della Signoria and when I got back to Mario, Sally was admiring her new leather coat and it was stunning. Mario smiled at her, delighted, patriarchal, confident; the Magus of Leather.

The whole time I was enacting this transaction I was waiting to be robbed. These jackets have to be constructed of plastic and fishing line, they are probably crap and will fall apart by the time I get back to the apartment.

Mario kept pointing to the label, assuring us that the garments were made in Italy, not in China or Pakistan. I looked at the stitching, the lining, how well the buttons were sewn on. Impeccable. Mario was genuinely proud of his product and I realized that, here in Italy, he was a member of an age-old profession. Mario wasn’t some out-of-work mortgage broker or a kid on a summer job. His life, his career was making sure that people were happy with their purchases and that they happily purchased from him. He had trained himself in all the jargon, the bullshit and sales pitches, but he was a pro, knowledgeable and accommodating. He had a reputation and he liked selling great clothing to appreciative clients.

I bought both jackets. I can’t wait for the weather to become colder next fall so that I can wear mine. Sally looks cute and sexy and hip in her coat, like Chrissy Hynde from The Pretenders. The store is named Estro, and it is on Via Dei Neri, 61, a block or so west of Piazza Santa Croce.

Ask for Mario the Magician. Tell him Joe, the mustache Mafioso from New Mexico sent you.

And I did not believe the part about Bill Clinton. That couldn’t be true.

The Trouble With The Annunciation

Our culture promotes the veneration of children and tells us that everyone deserves babies, as many as they want, it’s each person’s right to be a parent. The lovers of infants and toddlers and offspring treat us, who don’t want kids, with suspicion.

I’m probably able to spend a few weeks in Italy because I have no children or anyone who “needs” me. I’m glad about that. I’m not “good” with kids any more than I’m a “good” gardener or keeper of dogs and other pets. I don’t default to compassion and kindness. The chromosome of caretaking or parenting has been either left out or corrupted somewhere along my lifeline. I don’t know anything about children; how to raise them, teach them, encourage them. Those are skills that are beyond me and are best left to others.

I have never bailed a kid out of jail, put him in re-hab, or taken care of grandchildren while a daughter “gets herself together”.

I admit that I’ve often counseled my young friends, “If you have children, your only job is to make them feel great about themselves. If you don’t have children then don’t have children. You’ll thank me.” How do I know this? Instinct? Selfishness?

When I was in Florence 15 years ago the population of the world was 6 billion people and it was busy. Now, the earth is creaking under the burden of 7.1 billion and climbing and all the newcomers are trying to get into the Uffizi gallery this year. As a student of population and its irritants, I suspected that this increase in the multitudes would affect me, so I bought memberships to the Amici Degli Uffizi (Friends of the Uffizi), which, for 100 Euros, offers a way for us to avoid the long lines and hours making small talk with strangers from all over the world.

We tried out our Uffizi cards yesterday, Saturday, and they worked seamlessly. We were inside within 10 minutes. We still had to climb all those stairs in the stuffy old office building, trekking up narrow steep stairways. Being jostled by the crowds was a drag but I didn’t have to wait in line for three hours and it was worth the euros to join the Amici Degli Uffizi and know that we can return to the museum whenever we want.

The Uffizi has recognized the risks associated with old buildings and mobs of people who are easily confused and mostly lost, so only 900 people at a time are allowed into the museum. Our destination was the Botticelli room and there were 200 fans inside. I counted. Most visitors are milling around as fast as they can, stopping only when something familiar or colorful catches their eye. They quickly have to get through this collection and on to something else because they only have two weeks in this complicated and rich and difficult ancient European city.

Botticelli’s “Annunciazione”, The Annunciation, was the painting that seized my attention on our first visit to the Uffizi Gallery. It is an amazing, beautiful work and has all of the trademarks of the artist; sophisticated color, thoughtful arrangement, impeccable execution, clean lines and of course, fabulously attractive faces.

I looked over the heads of 200 people, stood my ground until they passed by and drifted towards something more popular, The Birth of Venus or St. Sebastian’s execution. I found a bench, sat for a while and looked at the painting. The angel Gabriel is crouched very low to the ground in front of Mary, almost groveling, and it makes him subservient to the shocked but still dignified Madonna. He isn’t dominating and demanding and browbeating the young “virgin”. He looks a bit embarrassed, reticent, and she appears dismissive and annoyed. She is turning from her studies to learn the alarming message.

“Mi scusi, Miss?”

“Si? What do you want?”

“Well, I have some big news for you. Good news.”

“How did you get in here? News? What do you mean? Are you pazzo? Crazy?”

“No, I’m not crazy. But you, young lady, are pregnant.”

“What? Get the hell outta here.”

“No really, you are going to have the best baby ever. Jesus Christ.”

“Jesus Christ. Holy crap!”

And so on. Big shock and disbelief. It is one of the most important moments in Christianity: virgin birth, sacrifice, purity, celebration of the Messiah, crucifixion, turn the other cheek, the Holy Family, lamb of God and the flock of sheep and most of the other rudiments of Christianity started at this moment of confusion and surprise.

I’m curious if this is this where all the babble about children and the sacred embryo, lovely childbirth and the beauty of pregnancy got started? Don’t get me wrong, I truly love my nieces and nephews and their kids. They are already here. I’ll probably love their children’s children. What can I do but enjoy them?

But I wonder if this is where the overzealous celebration of young motherhood began which has carried into current times? Is this the beginning of the concept that every young woman who gets with child is a saint, a Madonna and every wise assed, randy, loose limbed fertilizing dropout she sleeps with gets to be a proud pop for a few months before he hooks up with a new Madonna, disappears, gets arrested or has second thoughts and stops sending the check? Is this the origin of the myth of the sacred fetus? Could this be the event in Christian mythology that is responsible for all the fucking tourists and visitors who are impeding my observation of that incredible, beautiful, important, dangerous nightmare that is the seminal image of the misguided principles that support the billions of people who are ruining the environment, taking up all the parking places, who are in my way, crowding me, a sweating babbling claustrophobia-inducing iPhone, iPad, map and audio guide-clutching mob who are collapsing under their own weight?

Goddamn Botticelli. Goddamn him to hell.

So?

 

I’m taking a writing class at the local university and someone let a poet in. I can never tell if student poetry is any good or not. This particular poet started her poem with the first line:

“So, I was standing next to my ex-boyfriend’s coffin.”

Who the goddamn hell came up with the idea of beginning a statement, story or poem with the word “So”? All day I hear this crap. Is some celebrity weasel or sportstard doing this? Is it now acceptable and will it become a colloquial expectation? It’s an indication of an uncoordinated mind or a confused and insincere speaker. Basic poetry is supposed to be the judicious use of language and it shouldn’t be totally stupid and confusing.

I hear “so” misused a lot lately; in movies, coffee shops. Even at the grocery store. “So, did you find everything you need?”

Well, fuck no. How could that be? All you have is meat and vegetables and shit. You don’t have peace of mind and worldwide literacy. And why did you start that sentence with “So”? Are you trying to convince me that we have an ongoing relationship? Because that will never happen.

“So” is a connection between ideas, right? A linking of chronologically related events or a presentation of evidence culminating, we hope, in an answer. B follows A so (then) C. It often serves as a helpful organizer of thoughts.

Unless some dimwit begins a sentence with it. Then it sounds like a bullshit trick to get attention or to bamboozle me into thinking I missed something important.

There is a way to tell a story without trying to fool an audience into thinking we know more and are more interesting than we really are.

Sad news, I guess, but very few of us are fascinating or significant and the use of dumb-assed incoherent terminology to persuade others to pay attention doesn’t make the narrator smart or exciting. Just the opposite.

If the first word in your lead sentence is “so” it means that I get to stop listening because there is nothing important to follow. A chimpanzee has learned to talk and I am the fuck out of here. If you are needy and inarticulate you have lots of company, but you’re saving me precious time.

So, thanks.

Let's Do Daylight Savings Time. Again.

                                  

I know it’s a cliché, I know it comes up twice a year. National Jet Lag, messing with the sun, playing God, imposing chronological control, keeping the farmers happy, eliminates Seasonally Affected Disorder and winter depression. Still.

Daylight Savings Time.  A little earlier every year. Pretty soon it will be light all the time. I miss those days when the sun started diminishing around 4 p.m. and didn’t appear again until eight the next morning. Easier times in a better world, saner, more natural, darker. So, it’s really supposed to be 6:33 but I know it’s 5:33 and my body is a little pissed off. I feel robbed, hijacked and unstable. Wow; daylight, more of it, more glare and dazzle. Much overrated, the long days.

In parts of Europe, in the deep canyons of Paris for instance, the dusk begins in the late afternoon; it is full dark by 5 p.m. and people do not begin going out to dinner until 8. The mark of civilization is when one can postpone dinner until nighttime, walk to a restaurant, linger over a meal for 2 or 3 hours and get home near midnight without complaining about fatigue, sleep, getting up for work, or how tired we have become.

My local conspiracy theorists tell me that this is another goddamn government plot to manipulate us, to control when and how we wake up and go to sleep and it is related to chem-trails and the fascist demand that we remove our shoes in airports. We are cattle and they, who every “they” are, Hillary, Cheney, are poisoning us, controlling the way we dress and the air we breath and even the length of our days.

Too much crime happening at night? Fuck it, lets eliminate nighttime and then we’ll be able to identify and run down and kill the perpetrators in broad daylight. We can see what we’re shooting at. Much easier. Safer for all.

Daylight allows me to focus too far into the distance for too long. Crowds of people and traffic and roadside trash are all quietly thinned out, sometimes obliterated as the day declines and the night dims the harshness of reality. I don’t mind the daytime, it’s OK with its brightness and bustle, but night is quieter and I have to concentrate a bit more and am more aware of my environment; mystery lives in the middle of the night.

But Daylight Savings Time has arrived and I’ll awake, groggy and disoriented for a week or so.

I once worked for a large institution and I used to wonder why people used DST as an excuse to be late twice a year. Twice a year these idiots trotted out the stupid excuse that they didn’t set their clocks, didn’t know about DST, they were late, we had to understand that it wasn’t their fault, we had to let them slide. Didn’t they think, before formulating their clever ruse, that one day each year, if indeed the clock and the time change were responsible for their moronic display of arrogance, once a year they should be early? Spring forward, idiot, but Fall behind? No? And truly, it was the same pinheads year after year.

I was born at 2:46 a.m. In November. I’ve often wondered if that’s the reason I’m so drawn to the nocturnal. I left the hospital on what was most likely a winter day; it may have been nighttime or cloudy and overcast. Was my earliest memory of the outside world, one of cool shadows and a lowering sky? I know several people whose birthdays are in the summer, dazzling July or sweltering August and they look forward to DST because of the light. I dismiss them as needy, insecure neurotics who have to see everything, who cannot stand to be alone in a dark room.

You like light? Turn one on. Brighten up your home with candles and light fixtures; replace all your 60-watt bulbs with 100 or 150 watts. Hang warehouse-grade fluorescent tubes, spotlights. Control your environment and leave me alone in the natural world of solar rhythms and regularities.

Last night, around ten p.m., I stepped outside to look at the moon. A starry cloudless sky with a three-quarter moon benignly illuminating the mountains in the distance. I stared at the moon for five straight minutes, peaceful and serene.

Try that with the sun.

The Stupidity Test

Nooses? Nooses? Really?

What the fuck is wrong with you kids?

The latest episodes:

At Ole Miss in Oxford, Mississippi a few pumped up, over privileged freshmen at the honored Southern university draped a noose around the neck of the statue of James Meredith. He’s an American hero for Christ’s sake. And up in New Jersey, rapidly becoming the stupidest of the Northeastern states, a bunch of wannabe wise asses on the wrestling team at Phillipsburg High School thought it would be funny to post a picture of themselves posing with a black practice dummy that they had lynched to show their school spirit. No thought process whatsoever.

There are no words.

Wait. Yes there are.

Immoral, narcissistic, dickless, redneck, racist, ignorant inbred shitbags.

I get that the families are totally screwed up and there must be plenty of bad behavior and drinking and incest and enabling and indulgence at home to create these dogbrains, but how can these fools get through 8, 12, 14 years of school and not have learned that this kind of bigoted dumbass behavior is really, really fucking stupid and wrong? Not a great advertisement for education in the USA. Plus, my god, these punks have been using the Internet their entire lives and still haven’t figured out that it’s public and is going to catch them some major shit?

I hope these birdbrains aren’t Christians and go to church with the family and pray before the big game and big tests and big events. I’ll bet they’re praying their asses off now that they’ve been busted.

Such assholes. If you are over the age of 10 and think for an instant that hanging a noose around a tree limb or a statue for giggles and attention is funny or if that this is a freedom of expression issue, then bite me; you need to be hit in the face twice, with a hammer, and sterilized. Fuck you. There are an infinite number of ways to express backwoods thinking and hatred and an undeveloped, infantile sense of humor. The noose is a dead giveaway to your true feelings and apologies, and regret and remorse when you get caught will not cut it, ever.

The good news is that these senseless failures will never be competitive for a decent job. Thanks, losers.

I always look for the silver lining.

Happy Sex Day

Valentine’s day.

It’s full of drama and demand, disappointment, discrimination and guilt. All this coy bullshit with flowers and chocolates and cards.

Can’t we just call it “Sex Day”?

Love was restrictively formalized in medieval times, exalted in purple prose by the Romantic Poets, and completely misunderstood, capitalized and denatured by the ‘60s. Love is an abstract feeling and it’s hard to define. It should probably include respect and excitement and adrenalin and kindness, but on Valentines Day it seems to come down to:

We got married.

We’re committed.

You give me stuff so I love you.

He looks like a movie star.

She’s hot.

He’s thoughtful.

She’s funny.

You can say you love your wife, husband, kids, grandparents, car, dog, music, fountain pen, underwear, implants, orthotics and pudding.

Let’s simplify it all and eliminate the abstraction of  “Love” and call it Sex Day.

“Happy Sex Day! Are you getting any?”

“Hey, have a great Sex Day. Hope you get laid.”

“Are you doing anything for Sex Day (nudge, nudge)?”

No flowers, unless it will help you to have sex. Flowers look nice next to the bed. Colorful. Nice smell. Candy’s OK, too. Small amounts of chocolate before and after a sexual interlude may enhance the experience and get the dopamine flowing.

Hell, you can even send a card:

“Thank you for the wonderful sex. Let’s do it again soon. I love your (body part).” Nothing wrong with that.

But on Sex Day the focus should be on sex; intercourse, congress, play, orgasm, enjoyment and expression. If you don’t want to have sex or can’t, that’s cool; just don’t wreck it for other people and take some time to recognize the beauty of physical fun that doesn’t require a subscription or membership card, uniforms or gear. Unless you like uniforms and gear, then feel free to choose your own wardrobe and equipment. Dress up, saddle up, wind up and plug in. It’s a personal, international, eternal and, if you’re discreet, unregulated experience.

Your parents had it and I hope they still do. Your kids are having it, or will, and you’d probably be surprised at how much they already know. Grandparents, strangers, best friends, famous people, fat, thin, old, young, short and tall may all be carnally engaged at this moment. Rejoice.

You don’t need a partner, either. If you’re alone, separated, divorced, solitary, unaccompanied, isolated, you can still take a few minutes and celebrate. Buy yourself something nice and take a half hour out of the day with a warm bath, a memory, a moist towelette.

Enjoy or abstain, but it’s a pretty terrific reality and we should celebrate it, formally and publicly, one day a year. Of course it will piss off religious fruitcakes who are terrified of their bodies, and men who fear women, and Pat Robertson and Kirk Cameron and Orson Scott Card. So what? Fuck those losers. They get Christmas, Easter, President’s Day, Super Bowl and Halloween to be drunk and angry.

Dress up or strip down; today is Sex Day.

Hope you get some.

Our Friend Satan

Listening in on another conversation at the coffee shop. It’s what I do. Fuzzy new age seekers happy that there is an all-loving entity watching over everyone and our only job as his spoiled children is to pray and seek and trust and have faith and know that there is great abundance awaiting when we arrive in the moist, oozing, spiritual hereafter.

Sounds too easy. Trivial.

Can you have a reward without the option of punishment?

If you believe in God, how can you not believe in the Devil? Satan. Moloch. Mammon. Lucifer. Beelzebub. There are more names for the Devil than for God, which indicates that we’ve been thinking about this for a long time.

If you are certain that there is a benign heavenly entity looking down on you with love, forgiveness, guidance, if He (cause it’s always a fucking “He”) listens to your prayers and grants wishes and cures disease and performs miracles and has a giant open door policy for people and dogs that die and get to ascend to rewards unimagined, all Love, all caring, all easy well-fed calm reunification with every family member and friend who has gone before, there has to be a contrasting phenomenon.

Otherwise everything would be terrific; low cholesterol, cancer free, high self esteem. If He’s in charge and is all good where the hell does all the shitty stuff come from? Bad hair and infections?

Is your deity a total dick, offering great sex and good vibes and cool movies and at the same time overdosing actors, blowing up restaurants, sexually abusing children, causing car accidents and tooth decay and AIDS?

He is one screwy bastard and avoiding Him would be in all our best interests. Right? I mean, Jesus, a schizoid, nasty, disrespectful, vindictive, punishing, whimsically cruel divinity? Nope, no thank you very much.

Satan on the other hand, makes a lot of sense. Read the news. Add up the happy stories, and then add up the horrors and stupidity and terror. Subtract the small number from the big number. It comes out to about 6 to 1 in favor of Evil.

The evidence indicates that the world is a complicated, dysfunctional place; overpopulated, dirty and terribly dangerous in many places. The randomness of birth drops some people in lethal situations permanently and forever. Lucky you if your god didn’t force you to be born in fucking North Korea.

We should be grateful for the supposed existence of Satan. The Father of Lies. Old Scratch. As long as he’s looking up at us, ready to catch us when we fall, we don’t have to question why things happen; we don’t have to debate the nature of evil and afterlife and where uncle Billy is living since he died. If the ongoing battle between decency and wickedness is tipping a little towards the Pit it just means that the other guys are winning for the present.

If Uncle Billy was an abusive asshole, he’s in hell. Unless you don’t believe in the hell, and the Devil and evil and everyone is beautiful and gets forgiven.

Then uncle Billy, the old prick, is kicked back in heaven.

Drunk.

Naked.

And waiting for you.