Picking on Fantastic Four 2

You are the latest contender
You are the one to remember
You are the villain who sends her
Light or dark, fantastic passion
I know that you will surrender
I know that you will surrender
I want this fantastic passion
We'll have fantastic passion

You can feel my lips undress your eyes
Undress your eyes, undress your eyes
Words of love and words so leisured
Words of poisoned darts of pleasure
Died... and so you died

Franz Ferdinand - Darts of Pleasure

So the first Fantastic Four movie was horrendous. I'd say the plot was terrible, but it was more non-existent than anything. So why, you may ask, would I pay to see Fantastic Four 2 after the piece of crap that was the first one? Well, it's a superhero movie, and if that's not reason enough for you, then you really don't know me.
I can't say I was all that excited for the movie. After the first one, I had very low expectations. If anything, I was looking forward to seeing the film's depiction of Silver Surfer. Entertainment-wise, I was not disappointed. The movie moved at a fast pace (thankfully) and barely bothered with such trivial matters as character development or a smart script. There were some glaring issues, though, that I had with the movie:

Warning: SPOILER ALERT!

1) Okay, why the hell is Dr. Doom dormant inside a wooden box in Latveria? This doesn't make a lick of sense. Hey, we caught that super-villain. Let's put him in a box and send him to a castle in Latveria. And then why does the surfer suddenly wake him out of this dormant stage? This makes no sense.

2) Once Doom's awake, how does he manage to acquire cutting-edge technology that allows him to track the surfer that even the government doesn't possess?

3) Exactly what night club do the guys go to? I'm fairly positive no club in the world has that high of a female-to-male ratio.

4) So you need the Fantastic Four's help... so you send in the general that has issues with Reed? How is that smart? And why didn't they send some scientists to help him out? That whole part was stupid.

5) And then the US government decides to collaborate with Dr. Doom? Huh??

6) So when they're in Germany, why isn't the German army there?

7) Then why do they take the captured Surfer to Siberia? There's a secret government facility in, of all places, Siberia? And rather than question the alien, we're gonna inject him with shit? Alrighty then.

8) Evidently Reed Richards also found out how to break the speed of light. His hovercraft thing flies from New York to Siberia in a matter of minutes.

9) When Silver Surfer takes the Human Torch up into space, shouldn't Johnny have suffocated? And if not that, wouldn't his skull have been crushed by the pressure? And how exactly does he survive a fall from the atmosphere into the desert?? Wouldn't he have burned-up before he got anywhere near the surface??? And say he somehow survived that, the impact would have splattered him like a pancake. Preposterous.

10) The surfer takes out Galactus. So Galactus, who can eat entire fucking planets, is beaten by his own creation? BULLSHIT!

11) I love Jessca Alba. She is one of, if not the, hottest girls on the planet. But she is an awful Sue Storm. You couldn't find a blonde girl in Hollywood willing to take a part in the Fantastic Four franchise? Really??

Okay, aside from those "problems" I enjoyed the movie. I mean, it could of used more
Silver Surfer. And though the depiction of Galactus was pretty cool, it would've been better if they, you know, actually showed Galactus. Plus I've never liked Julian McMahon as Dr. Doom. I wold've preferred someone like Kevin Spacey or Kevin Bacon. But the movie had some good qualities. The Surfer was bad-ass and the initial chase between him and the Human Torch was vivid and exceedingly well-done. The cinematography was sweet and the scene of the emptied Thames was pretty dark. Compared to the first movie, this was one was oscar worthy. The thing is, I think they're almost trying too hard with these super hero movies Comic book fans are easily appeased. Give us the expected. Shit, you have scripts already printed out for you! But you know, a little logic would be nice. I'd like to see movie makers treat their audience like they have a brain. That would be awesome. We'll just call this movie the 'average four,' as opposed to the first one which should've been titled the 'completely shitty and useless four.'

Some post draft day thoughts

Billy King sucks. He is NOT a competent GM. So basically we traded AI (a future hall of famer) for Andre Miller, Joe Smith, Jason Smith, and Derrick Byars. Now I like Miller. He's one of the top point guards in the game and an excellent leader, but he's aging and doesn't give much in the way of scoring. Smith was basically thrown in for salary cap reason (even though he only gives us like 5 million more in space, which may be enough to get us Smush Parker). Jason Smith is a long-term project (and can't say I have high hopes for him). Byars, though he may have been a steal in the second round and can shoot, will most likely not be a big-time scorer in the NBA. So that's it. Only the Sixers can enter a draft with three first rounders and leave with only two first round picks. And picking Thaddeus Young over Al Thornton (when what we desperately need is some sort of inside scoring presence)? And a small forward is nice.... except that we already have Iguodala (who I predict will make the all-star team next year) and Rodney Carney (our first round draft pick last year). Bravo Billy King. You suck.

- What's the big fucking deal with the iPhone? It's just a damn phone with an ipod built-in. Cause ipod's are clearly too heavy and cumbersome to carry by themselves. And why would you wait in line for days to get a damn phone? Is it gonna let you talk to people differently? Do you read their fucking minds? This shit's beyond me.

- So why do they put the weather channel on in bars in the South? Can someone explain this to me. Weather does NOT become more interesting as you get drunker.

- So has anyone actually listened to "sexyback" sober? After hearing "get your sexy on, go ahead, be gone with it" for the tenth time, you kinda wanna shoot yourself in the head.

- They just used fish-monger on CNN. Priceless

- So that one company who's slogan is "people are smart." No. They're not. Get a new slogan cause that's wrong.

- Christian radio sucks. Who would want to hear about why you're a sinner while you're driving? And on a related note, I went to a Mexican restaurant and they didn't serve margaritas. Bible-belt Texas blows.

How to save the NBA

It's another lonely evening
And another lonely town
But I ain't too young to worry
And I ain't too old to cry
When a woman gets me down
Got another empty bottle
And another empty bed
Ain't too young to admit it
And I'm not too old to lie
I'm just another empty head
That's why I'm lonely
I'm so lonely
But I know what I'm gonna do -
I'm gonna ride on

AC/DC - Ride On

If you're a sports fan and watch ESPN or read ESPN.com regularly, you know that the NBA draft is tomorrow night. And you also know all the talk and skepticism regarding the NBA that has preceded the weeks leading to the draft. There was the dismal ratings and competitiveness of the finals, the alleged "tanking" of teams as the season ended in order to get a better draft pick (and the Sixers, for the record, played their hearts out.... and they ended up with the twelfth pick, the lesson being, as always, cheaters always prosper), and the overall lack of quality play in the NBA. Now, it seems, every sportswriter has come out with their own way to "save" the NBA and up-hold the integrity of the game. From simply taking the top 16 teams into the playoffs, to changing the whole draft lottery process, to contracting a few teams, everyone has their own theory. Well, I felt left out. So here's my method to "save the NBA."
Now in my estimation, what hurts the NBA is 1) the diluted talent pool created by an influx of young players (American youngsters simply don't have the fundamentals down, while Europeans tend not to be physically or mentally tough enough), 2) the fact that there are just too many teams resulting in a large talent gap between teams, and 3) the players are so damned overpaid and pampered, many of them don't give a flying fuck anymore. So what do we do? The answer has been staring us in the face: Adopt the model used by European soccer leagues.
At the end of every season, the bottom three teams in the league are demoted to a second division, such as the NBDL, while the top three teams of the NBDL are sent into the NBA. You wan players playing hard till the end? Being demoted will fucking do it. You could even keep the draft process the same, creating a high probability that a blue-chip prospect will be playing in the second division, ensuring that viewers will still be watching the lower league. To start out with, send a few of the worse teams in the league immediately to the second division (maybe the Hawks and Grizzlies? Would their cities even notice if they left?). This will create a higher degree of competitiveness in the NBA as there will be better teams, and it will create excitement for the relegated teams as they strive to reach the highest level of play. Also, as in soccer, younger players could be loaned out to second division teams so that they could gain valuable experience and improve their skills. Sure beats them sitting on a bench and being useless an entire season. The only problem I foresee is reluctance on the part of the owners as the discrepancy in profits between the good and bad teams will become even greater. But I believe installing a system like this would be good for the overall quality and intensity of the game. And maybe we should put in a clause that says that the Sixers can't be relegated. Yeah, I like that idea too.

On the Benoit situation

I'm distraught by this whole mess, I can't lie about that. This is tragic beyond means I can truly express. I grew up a wrestling fanatic. My dad loved it, my friends loved, it was an integral part of my childhood. And while Benoit was never one of my favorites, he was an ever-present constant. Though I may not have been the biggest fan, you had to respect the man. He was truly a diplomat for the sport/entertainment (whatever you want to call it, many of them truly are amazing athletes) both in and out of the ring. Now I really stopped watching professional wrestling sometime in high school. I just outgrew it. But my interest was peaked a week ago when they discussed Vince McMahon's "death" on PTI. So as I was flipping through channels last night I ended up on USA. Rather than finding RAW, though, I found their three-hour tribute to Chris Benoit. I was shocked. I was fucking teary-eyed. A part of my childhood died with the man. If you're not a wrestling fan it's hard to explain (Bill Simmons, though, did a good job on his ESPN chat today). Then came the news this morning, and it was really just unfathomable. How could something like this happen? What could have snapped in this man's head? Just a fucked-up situation. And just tragic, not just for pro wrestling in general, but for the families for those involved.
As far as pro wrestling goes, this hurts the industry tremendously. Though dozens of wrestlers have died prematurely, none have been as prominent as Benoit and none have still been fighting at such a high level on such a grand stage. The physical and mental toll on wrestlers has got to be ridiculous. That's all I have to say about that. What a sad, sad day.

A farewell to Deadwood

Its all the same, only the names will change
Everyday it seems were wasting away
Another place where the faces are so cold
Id drive all night just to get back home


Im a cowboy, on a steel horse I ride
Im wanted dead or alive
Wanted dead or alive

Sometimes I sleep, sometimes its not for days
And the people I meet always go their separate ways
Sometimes you tell the day
By the bottle that you drink
And times when you're all alone all you do is think

Bon Jovi - Dead or Alive

Deadwood is the best show that nobody ever saw. Airing on HBO (which is the only channel it really could've been on), the show was largely overshadowed by its more famous brethren in Entourage and The Sopranos. Nevertheless, Deadwood gained a small but hardcore following in its three season run. And with damn good reason.
Following the town of Deadwood, South Dakota and its inhabitants as they are transformed from a rough-and-tumble town built upon gold into a civilized part of the United States, the show managed to make even the dullest moments of everyday life compelling. Blessed with fantastic period costumes and with some of the best (if not filthiest) writing around, the show never bored me. Though the high points of Deadwood may have not reached the highs of The Sopranos, neither did the lows ever reach that of The Sopranos (I mean honestly, did anyone actually enjoy watching those damned Tony dream episodes?). And while The Sopranos was forced to rely on the acting of the main stars of the show (Gandolfini, Falco, Imperioli, and their guest stars like Pantoliano and Buscemi [who, it should be noted, stole every scene he was in]) due to the average acting ability of the rest of the cast, Deadwood benefited from having an overall all-star cast. Much like The Sopranos and Entourage though (with Tony and Ari respectively), the star of the show was undoubtedly the show's anti-hero, tavern owner Al Swearengen.
Swearengen, played by the awesome Ian McShane, is what Tony Soprano wished he could've been. Smart, tactile, ruthless, ruling by fear... but also compassionate, just, and managing to also rule through respect. Now Al's ruthlessness cannot be understated. He cut a myriad number of throats, berated his whores regularly, and even ordered a hit on a little girl. But for all that, it's his moments of compassion that stand out most resoundingly (his keeping the cripple around even though she was useless to him, putting the priest out of his misery, and, most strikingly, jumping off a balcony to help a woman being shot at). He could be amusing, thoughtful, vengeful, terrifying, and amusing. In my estimation, he's one of the best television characters ever created. It was hard for me to ever empathize with Tony or to ever truly root for him (granted, he did also shoot and kill my favorite actor ever, not that I hold grudges or anything). He was a greedy, cheating fuck that would shoot one of his friends in the back if it made him a couple bucks (but then again, it can be argued he never truly had any friends, but that's something different altogether). And though the character of Al Swearengen was a ruthless thug, and for all intensive purposes the 'boss' of Deadwood, he had that unspeakable quality that made him imminently likable.
Tony never had that likability. He was a Caesar-like figure, which is what made his story so fascinating to the viewer. Who would he kill next? How would they die? Would Tony die? Ultimately, the appeal of The Sopranos was not knowing the imminent futures of anyone on the show. Deadwood took this concept and propelled it a step further. Though the show was violent as all holy balls, Deadwood was more story and character driven than The Sopranos ever could be. While the biggest shortcoming of The Sopranos may have been its inability to juggle all its characters and their personal lives, Deadwood was able to do so with ease. Every character had his or her place, unlike, say, Tony's mom or Dr. Melfi who were just unspeakably annoying and intolerable.
It's a shame that Deadwood never gained the fame of so many other HBO shows. It seems that its brilliance was perhaps lost in the shuffle. I mean, who would have thought to watch a western drama in this decade? But with the rumors of an upcoming Deadwood movie, perhaps the show isn't quite dead yet. It will never be more popular than The Sopranos, nor really should it be, but it should undoubtedly be placed on the same high pedestal in television history. When it comes right down to it, Tony Soprano will never win a fight against Al Swearengen. Maybe if Tony just hadn't gone and shot Tony B....

Advice to anyone renting an apartment

So if you care about the environment and plan on recycling, find out where the recycling bins are. Otherwise you end up with lots of beer bottles and plastic containers lying around your home. And honestly, it makes it quite difficult to get from one room to another. Maybe I should just embrace Texas and throw all my trash directly into a coral reef....

On Avril Lavigne and other musical thoughts

'Cause I've gotta be more punk, and forget about writing love songs

And even though I'm a middle class white Canadian

God knows I've been done wrong

'Cause I'm a fake punk! I'm a fake punk!

I'll even use a dirty word, I'll even write a mean song,

I'll even take a mean picture

'Cause I've got the hair for it!

Devin Townsend - Fake Punk

Avril Lavigne sucks. She is highly un-talented and I refuse to debate this point. She tries to use an extremely fake punk persona to distinguish herself from all the other pop songstresses out there. Hey Avril, you're about as punk as Starbucks. Cut the shit out! You are NOT a punk rocker. Nothing about you is anti-mainstream. You're not some sort of bad ass girl. Patti Smith or Janis Joplin would beat you down, tie you up, and run you over with their motorcycles as they smoke a joint and sip on some Southern Comfort. You're a fraud. Trying to pass yourself off as a punk persona is an insult to every true punk artist that has ever dared to pick up an instrument and actually say something political. The only thing separates you from all the pop whores out there is that they're not afraid to be what they are. Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson, Aguilera, they're corporate bubble gum creations and not afraid to admit it. And you know why they don't have to wear baggy clothes so stupid teeny boppers think they're actually anti-establishment? Cause they're actually hot! You don't even have that going for you. And sad as it is, they probably have more talent than you. Though their voices are sub-par, at least they're out there singing while you just hide behind the un-imaginative guitar playing of your backing band. And how exactly Avril Lavigne became popular when her song-writing is comparble to that of an eight-year-old is beyond my comprehension. "Sk8er Boi"? What the fuck? And "Girlfriend" may have the worst lyrics of any popular song since Limp Bizkit subjected us to "Rollin", which was basically a hokey-pokey for metal heads with bad taste. Just look at start to the song

Hey! Hey! You! You!
I don’t like your girlfriend!
No way! No way!
I think you need a new one
Hey! Hey! You! You!
I could be your girlfriend

It's like a 21st century retarded version of "Mickey." You are a disgrace to the music industry Avril Lavigne. You can't play the guitar, you can't sing, and you can't write lyrics worth a shit. You're no better than any of those other hacks out there, except I'd pay to see them in a porn. Take your crappy music and go back into your make believe hole where you're a real artist rather than the useless lump of crap you currently are. Now if you need me I'll be in my car listening to "Girlfriend," cause that damn thing won't get out of my head!


As to driving songs, here are some of my favorites:

Akon's Smack That - a song about smacking asses. It's about time

Radar Love by Golden Earring - still the ultimate driving song

Anything by Bon Jovi or Queen - you need something you can sing along to

That whooohoo song by Gwen Stefani - the whole song should just be the whoohoo part

Roadhouse Blues by The Doors - just a great driving rhythm to it

Achilles Last Stand - the most underrated Zeppelin song of all time

The Bosstones or Reel Big Fish - always fun, always enjoyable, will get you through those long ass traffic jams

Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple - one of the best guitar riffs of all time

Friends in Low Places by Garth Brooks - who doesn't like singing along to that?

Separate Ways by Journey - Journey's best song and most ridiculous music video

Folsom Prison Blues by Johnny Cash - the quintessential Cash song with a great rhythmic bass sound

Beautiful Liar - the song's just fucking catchy. Plus Beyonce and Shakira together is enough to make my third testicle drop

Plus other dance songs that I would otherwise criticize. For some reason they're good for driving. I don't know why.



So my goal's to listen to some newer bands. I shall work on this.

My irrational love of churches

you took a baboon
and made him perfect
you took a lion
and stripped him of his pride
then you took a million more varieties
a scalpel and a sartory
and you stitched up a horrible surprise
you have created an unsocial monster
and you're searched for all over the globe
and most belive that things would sure be better
if you'd come down here and tell us what you know
who is to blame for this?
someone tell me please

Bad Religion - Chimera

So I love going to old churches and basilicas. Seeing as Europe is chock-full of these (much to the chagrin of everyone I was traveling with as I attempted to drag them to church after church), I was able to bask in the exquisiteness that is Gothic architecture. I'm sure to lots of people one old church is the same as any other and they've got to be wondering what the hell my fascination is with them. Well, I guess it's hard to explain.... but that's never stopped me before.
I'm a history buff. I love the shit. For me, I need to know the history of something before I can understand ts present, and this goes for pretty much all aspects of my life. To really get a movie I feel you need to see, or at least have some background knowledge, of the director's previous films. Same thing with an author and his books or a band and their albums. And seeing these centuries old religious institutions helps me to at least try and understand the history and culture of whatever city I might be in. An elaborately decorated church compared to a more homely one can tell you a lot about a society and its values and its wealth, and ultimately I find this fascinating. And as far as consturction of these behemoth structures goes, it boggles my mind. To think that people would put so much time, energy and love into creating something for an intangible being whose existence they cannot even be sure of, it just amazes me. These buildings would be exceedingly difficult to build today, a time when technology seemingly knows no bounds. How in the name of fuck were they built three, four, five-hundred years ago??
The Sistine Chapel just absolutely blew me away. The paintings and carvings are so damned intricate, AND they're on the ceiling. Absolute ridiculousness. Just trying to picture Michaelangelo and his peers painting an entire fucking ceiling several centuries ago: 1) it tells me that they possibly had waaay to much free time and 2) there's no way this could've possibly been a fun or easy task and to say that these artists suffered for their work is likely an understatement. Being absolutely useless at drawing anything remotely artistic, the frescoes and ceiling paintings that lie within many European churches are unfathomable for me.
And I guess it's just the grandeur and beauty of these places that gets to me. I guess I'm still amazed by big things, but seeing something like Barcelona's Segreda Familia just lying in the heart of a metropolitan city is something I'll never get used too. I can only imagine what Notre Dame or St. Peter's Basilica used to be like when they were more than just tourist sites. And it's really not just these Christian places of worship that astound me. Seeing Islamic minarets, like the jaw-dropping Qutub Minar, or the gigantic lotus shaped Bahai temples that stand across the globe, it's just too much for me, especially when I stop to consider that all these engineering marvels are made in the name of God. The power religion and belief has over us is just insane, and actually kinda scary if you think about it. If people are willing to spend years and lose lives in creating these shrines for their various gods and deities, is it really any surprise that people will fight wars and sacrifice their lives in the name of religion?
Sooo maybe I haven't explained anything. Orrrr maybe I have and you think I'm nuts for paying so much regard to a bunch of carved rock from a long by-gone era. But to me, these buildings and structures are much more than that. They are the relics of civilizations that came before us. They were the religious centers of once thriving societies. That they are not only still standing but still retain all of their original glory when the original towns that surrounded them are all but gone is a testament to the love and care showed for these creations. Perhaps they are just giant eye-sores in a modern landscape, but for me, if I look past the cement and the flashes of tourists' cameras, they are much more than that.

Thoughts on Picasso

well,
some people try to pick up girls
and get called an asshole
this never happened to pablo picasso
he could walk down your street
and girls could not resist to stare
and so pablo picasso was never called an asshole

well, the girls would turn the colour of avocado
when he would drive down thier street
in his el dorado
he could walk down your street
and girls could not resist to stare
pablo picasso never got called an asshole
not like you

The Modern Lovers - Pablo Picasso

So while I was in Barcelona I had a chance to visit the Picasso museum, and it got me thinking that, for me, Picasso is a very polarizing figure (as I'm sure he also is for many other people). Is he a genius because he brings out beauty in even the ugliest of images? Or were his paintings just random pieces of crap? Or was he in fact a genius for making us believe he was a genius even though his works were pieces of crap?
The thing with Picasso is, looking as his earlier paintings, the dude can definitely paint. His earlier stuff looked like the normal drawings that we are used to seeing (they looked like recognizable shapes and figures from everyday life). But then he entered his cubist stage.... and shit got weird. I can't even pretend to get a lot of Picasso's cubist stuff, and honestly, I don't think most art critics do either. They're just afraid to say "I don't get it" as they'd then be considered too juvenile and un-cultured to continue in their profession. To me, it just seems like either Picasso slowly went nuts and/or started to use a bunch of acid, and these were the images he saw. But does that necessarily make them great? You could give a kid a bunch of markers and they could draw something comparable. And the thing is, Picasso was a perverted fuck. If i turned in anything remotely like some of his sketches into my high school art class I would've been sent to a psychologist before I could count to three. Yet, because Picasso drew it, we consider it a work of genius.
On the other side, maybe his works are truly special. Maybe he woke up one day and said 'fuck it' to artistic convention. Fuck the idealized, Renaissance view that is still our litmus test for art today. Picasso was going to change everyone's perception of what art is. And, if this was indeed his intention, it seems that he truly accomplished it. But his shit was still out there, and for the life of me I can't understand why Picasso's work was so universally accepted when if any other artist had crated such images they would be criticized as being nothing more than trash.
Maybe he was a visionary. Maybe he just happened to go crazy at the right place at the right time. Or maybe I just don't fucking get art. Whatever the case may be, the popularity of Picasso and his works still boggles my mind and makes me wonder, do I only like his work cause other's like it? And for that matter, do I like his work? All I know for a fact is that Picasso does have some paintings that I find amazing, and some other pieces that I find absolutely horrendous, but in the end, if I wanted a self-portrait, I'd probably go get Michaelangelo to draw it. I guess I just like pictures of myself where my eyes and lips are easily distinguishable.

Sopranos Finale

So the Sopranos may be my favorite show of all time. So I guess I should write something on the finale. Oh wait.... I don't have HBO. So I haven't seen it yet. Well, at least I don't know what happens. Oh wait.. I do. Thanks American media. You fuckers. Good thing I don't like my shows surprising. Oh wait.... I do.

On Europe and Travel

she doesn't care
whether or not he's an island.
she doesn't care,
just as long as his ship's coming in.
she doesn't care
whether or not he's an island.
they laugh, they make money.
he's got a gold watch.
she's got a silk dress
and healthy breasts that bounce
on his italian leather sofa.

Cake - Italian Leather Sofa

So after spending the last two weeks in Italy and Spain, I feel compelled to write a little bit about Europe. Now first off, I LOVE traveling. I love visiting new places and absorbing new cultures. My goals for Italy and Spain were to see lots of shit, eat lots of food, and drink lots of wine. And I think I succeeded.
Going to a foreign country makes you realize just how different a place the rest of the world is compared to America. Well maybe not Rome, which is a giant cosmopolitan city and can't really be all that different from a place like New York or DC. Tons of tourists and the majority of people spoke English (in addition to Italian). But going to a smaller town like Naples really makes the cultural divide quite evident. One of the most noticeable differences in Italy comapred to America is the amount of people that smoke cigarettes. The shit is fucking EVERYWHERE. I may now have lung cancer just from the second hand smoke I inhaled in Europe. Funny that what has become almost taboo here is an accepted part of life there.
Eating in Italy is completely different from America. First of all, most places charge you a euro or two just to sit down at the restaurant (compelte bullshit! especially as the Euro is kicking the US dollar's ass). Plus, they make you pay for bread. They make you pay for bread in Italy! A country where the average citien eats like half a pound of the shit every day!! Money-grabbing bastards. Italian food is also completely different than what we have here. It's more tomato-based and a lot lighter than the heavy, cream-infused Italian we eat in the states. And the food in Italy was just a lot simpler. They didn't try and do anything crazy with the pasta or over-spice the sauce. And what was really amusing was that certain items that we consider staples of Italian food, such as garlic bread, don't even exist in Italy. Needless to say, between the copious amounts of pasta, the wine, and the desserts, I had a good time.
The real beauty of Italy though, at least for me, lies in the art of the country. And I don't just mean the paintings and the sculptures (thought the amount of extraordinary painters that came from the country is mind boggling; Raphael, Donatello, Da Vinci, Titian, Tintoretto, Michaelangelo, Bernini, and I can't draw a fucking stick figure!) but also all the fountains, arches, columns and basilicas that lie within every Italian city. I'm a sucker for medieval depictions, Gothic architecture and random pretty shit lying around, so I loved everything. And seeing the Coliseum and the Sistine Chapel and all the other great churches they have there, you jsut have to wonder how they built these marvels several hundred years ago. Could I live in Italy though? Hmm... probably not. As much as I loved Rome and Florence (an amazing ass city by-the-way, I think I could spend a week there), Italy's just not a place I could see myself living in. Eventually even I get tired of pasta. And for a so-called civilized nation, a trip to an Italian post office proved otherwise (when a city resident is telling you to 'hope' for delivery of your packages, it's not exactly a reassuring sign). I'd definitely visit the country again. There's just too much there to see. I'd love to go to a soccer game, maybe visit the coast, go scuba diving. But I definitely couldn't live there. (Side note: Venice is highly overrated. The canals are cool and all, but really, how did building a city with canals as roads EVER seem like a good idea? To be fair, it did rain the whole time we were there, which maybe skewed my view of the city. I mean, the palace they had there was uber-cool, but the whole beauty of Venice, umm guess I didn't really see that).
Onto Barcelona. This was my second time in the city (the last time I went I must've been like 15, so I remembered very little). I loved the city the first time I went, and I loved it even more this time. The whole Spanish culture is just fucking sweet. Lots of beer and sangria. A set aside time in the afternoon for napping. Go out to dinner at like 9, then head to a bar or club just to chill. Do it all again the next day. That's my type of culture. And as a city, Barcelona kicks ass. Beautiful weather and tons of things to see (A cool basilica, museums and tons of Gaudi's mind-bending architectural creations). A Metropolitan city like Rome, except with a beach and a hell of a lot prettier (it's hard to explain, I mean Rome ahd fountains and piazzas, but Barcelona was jsut a less gloomy, more open). A lot of real good food (paella, gazpacho, tapas) and amazing desserts and pastries (interestingly enough the city seemed to have a high number of Italian immigrants). The locals are all really nice. And Barcelona has both excellent soccer and basketball teams. I think I could actually live in this city. At very least, it beats the shit out of Houston.
People in America need to go Europe, just to feel the history and to embrace a culture different than the States. A problem that plagues this country is that a majority of the population has never even left the country, as opposed to Europe and Australia where travel is highly encouraged (in both England and Australia one is expected to travel for a while before continuing to college). We need something like that in America. Our culture is so money oriented and too sheltered that we never seem to have the time to travel. Well, it's time we made the fucking time. Taking a few weeks off to go and see the world would benefit anyone. I feel strongly about this. Yeah, it's expensive. But it's totally worth it.
I guess I could make up some lie and say it's good to be back home... but fuck it. Home = work. Work sucks. I'd much rather be sipping a glass of sangria and listening to some horrible techno in Spain, or sipping on some red wine and listening to an accordion player in Italy. There's just a charm and quaintness in Europe that America doesn't have. And while it's sweet to be able to watch TV again, it really doesn't make up for being across the globe and seeing the world with your own two eyes. There's no way to understand another culture without actually visiting there. As much as will be lost in translation, certain thing unite us as humans (music, food, alcohol, sports, music, sex, drugs, art). Working hard and making money is good, but what's the point if you can't take some time off to actually see the world? Once we break the narrow box around us we can see the paradise that lies beyond it.