Diana and Pierre, the French couple, invited us all for a drink at sunset.
I knew this man, Federico, from somewhere, and after a couple of drinks and watching his movements it suddenly came to me! He looks exactly like the character from a movie I worked on with Mike Meyers, The Love Guru. A real life version of a character from a movie. I suggested to Federico he should see the movie, and to his lady Bruna.
We all had a good time together, and every one of these kind people invited me to their respective homes in Italy, Spain and France; ‘No but really, we insist’.
The next morning we said our good-bye’s, and rode off the ferry. At customs while sitting on my bike, I showed my European passport, and with a look at the picture, and then a look at me, I was waved through just like that. After saying good-bye to Raul, we rode our separate ways, he to Spain and me to the camping place I booked on-line back in Egypt, Plus Camping Alba D’oro. While riding around knowing it was somewhere along the water, I stopped to ask a gas attendant and he confirmed that I just needed to stay on the road for another four kilometers. Gratzi.
By 9am I was checked in, unpacked and rolling back into Venezia to see about getting the ‘Green Card’, European bike insurance. I was nicely told by the ACI, that it was not possible for me to get insurance at their office without an Italian address. So I went back to the camping place to do some research online. I found this site,
Eligio Arturi, the owner of Mototouring, kindly and efficiently had my bike insured in just one day, after a couple of emails and a phone call. He was so nice, and even offered to drop the Green Card off here at the campsite from Milano, as he was going to be near here with his family going on a weekend getaway. In the end he could not for it was a little too far out of his way, but regardless, my bike is insured and I have a copy if I don’t want to wait around for the package to arrive on Monday. I cannot tell you how nice it is to be back in this kind of world for a change again, but please don’t call me a hypocrite if I should later say the opposite.
In the evening I met two dudettes from Portugal, staying in the room next to me, Maria and Ines. We talked, shared some wine, ate and listened to music. What a relief to hang out with some women who are both interesting and beautiful. Oh, Italy is treating me so very well already.
The next day, after receiving an email from my father, informing me that the 67th Venice Film Festival was happening, I did some research into the films that were showing. I found out that Casey Affleck, an actor I worked with on “The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford” a few years ago, had directed his own movie called, “I’m Still Here”. Anyway, I’m going to go and see his movie, and maybe Casey if he is around and not too busy, we shall see. He’s a very fine actor, and has a gifted mind so I’m looking forward to his work.
Excerpt from journal …. Day 440 More of the same as before, worked on ‘———-’, dreaming of old and new possibilities like before, staring out at Adriatic’s Sea listening to a song ‘We Never Change’, music making sounds of monotonous waves, old smokes drifting ship’s decks looking for some place to be, floating round in circles are shadows chasing tails, humming from a distance comes Adur’s naked sights, a shimmering blue’s kinda stray cat sitting on the fence, like an island or an ocean somewhat free, neither one wanting what the other one sees.
Today I was going to do an oil change, but the petrol stations were closed, except for credit card purchases of fuel. So I took the bus into Venice to have a look around, and see if I could find a map of Europe, and maybe run into the ladies Maria and Ines who had invited me along earlier.
Not a chance of running into someone you know here, for I was lost for most of the day and probably wouldn’t find a planned meeting place to begin with. I did find a European map though. Later the ladies returned for one last night of dinner and wine. They had checked out of their room in the morning, storing their backpacks in my room, and were planning to sleep outside for they were running out of cash. I offered them my room for I had an extra bed and my camping mat and sleeping bag. But when they returned I told them that the staff hadn’t cleaned their vacated room, and the door was still unlocked. So at the end of the night they snuck inside, getting a free nights accommodation, which couldn’t have been given to a more deserved two. I gave them two of Stephen’s Golden Eggs, wished them luck, kissed them good-bye, and in the morning they were already gone when I had awoken.
I rode to Venice to catch the ferry to Lido, which is another island off the islands, and where the Venice Film Festival is located.
Once in Lido, I asked a couple of times where the Sala Grande Theatre was located, and when really close the guy said in Italian, ‘Go around’a that barrier, turn’a lefta, and you will see it on your lefta’. I asked, ‘Around the barrier con moto?’ ‘Si’, he answered with a shrug of his shoulders. So I did what he said, and pulled right outside the Theatre, surrounded by Policzia. No one came up to me so I just put some things away and locked my panniers and when I started to move to the front gates the police surrounded me quickly, asking if I was a journalist I said no, and then they said you cannot park here, and suggested I go back 20 metres so I did. Upon returning by foot, they again surrounded me and escorted me back to my bike and suggested I go another 20 metres away, so I did. I think I looked a little suspicious, with the bike and me dressed the way we are. I still had twenty minutes until curtain call so there was no need to panic, however when I got to the main security, I hung my arms out to the sides but they didn’t want to frisk me, they just wanted me to go around about 100 metres away to deposit my helmet and courier bag in some storage area, so I did. After that I proceeded into the theatre, looking at all the police, thinking why am I so surprised, it’s like the Oscars in Venice, so they’re going to have a good police presence. Anyway I found my way inside and took a seat that was empty to the front and off to the side. A lot of people were standing backward, looking away from the empty screen and to the vacant ‘Reserved Seats’. Ahh, where the Posse will sit. So I just listened to my Ipod, with a slight undertone of the buzz of Italian voices in the crowd.
There were many more big Italian men with shaved heads, dark suits and ear pieces talking to themselves, looking up at sniper positions and making eye contact with every one including me. Hmm I was thinking, what’s it going to be like if I just calmly call out Casey’s name, ‘Remember me, the boom man from Jesse James?!’ A few minutes later the people started clapping so I turned to see the Posse arrive. Hey look there’s Casey, a guy I worked with for so many months, a guy I sat in a small enclosure with sharing smokes, a guy I saw spit lung butter out all day, a guy I introduced to my mother, brother and daughter one day when they came to set, a guy who’s wife and daughter were around for me to be introduced to them. Well, so anyway the film started …..
The film was very good … uncomfortably funny and poignant to a tee if you’re at all involved in the business. But the real genius is the idea, the execution, the truth and the denial, even the Egyptians would applaud this work of art/real life /art … absolutely cunningly true/not real /real. And Joaquin is brilliant as himself, and many other people in this world we like to watch on screen, in magazines and on TV.
At the end, everyone applauded Casey and the Posse, standing to a man who deserves such recognition, which is always a delight for me, like watching hockey players shake hands on the ice after an intense game. And then at that moment exactly I thought, this is the time to say ‘Hey Casey!’. But I didn’t, for all I could imagine is all the big suits jumping on me from behind, women screaming and someone yelling he has a gun! Actually what I really wanted to say was the only lines in a movie I’ve worked on that I’ve ever remembered; Brad Pitt’s scene with Casey and Sam Rockwell …. ‘…. I’ll say how does an off scouring of creation like you still live while so many of mine are in coffins, I’ll say how’d you reach your twentieth birthday without leaking out all over your clothes, and if I don’t like his attitude, I’ll slit that filldoodle so deep he’ll flop on the floor like a fish’. What a crazy intense movie this was to make, during the whole Brangelina outbreak with the media. I recall one scene we did in the kitchen of the Hite family, when Brad and Casey were searching more from themselves, after having shot this 7 page scene for days and nights, they began ad-libbing off camera, which they often did anyway, the guy off camera saying stuff not in the script to get the guy on camera going …. truly interesting and brilliantly maniacal …. Brad, ‘…. so you’re the tiny, little brother of the famous older brother Ben Affleck ….’, Casey, ‘…. so you’re the pock-marked faced blonde boy getting old, going out with Angelina and her kids …. ‘, and so on …. . They really do know how to make things work on screen these two; and I liked them both, but I wouldn’t want to get into a verbal match with Casey.
I love it, and miss it, this crazy film business. It’s kinda like being on the road, but different. Ciao.
In the morning I went about again trying to find some natural oil, and a place to change. However the stations were mostly closed, cause it wasn’t the morning but rather the mid-afternoon, and much like in South America, all things are closed during this time, except for credit card purchases for fuel. I also tried to find a pan to drop my old oil into at a few shops, but could find no water container or anything, not even in the garbage which is where I first looked. So instead I went for a delicious plate of pasta, for I’ve been frequenting a local Chinese/Italian restaurant for espresso, pasta and good wine by the glass sin the heavy prices. And yes Christophe my friend, they make an even better Spaghetti Carbonara than you, which is bewildering to tell you the truth, for you are such a great master of food, and also we spent so many nights perfecting this dish in my home before you became a husband, father and again a new born child (for this is what happens to an adult me thinks). So after a filled stomach, I stopped in at another petrol station just opening, and even though the guy didn’t speak any English, he was receptive to my idea. You see the problem for me was at this point, buying non-synthetic oil, having a pan to drop the old oil, a place to give the old oil (which in Africa is the garbage, also Central America and South depending on the size of the city), but everyone I stopped and asked said no, go to a mechanic. But I am the mechanico I would answer, I just need a pan, and the word for pan in Italiano, and a place to leave the old oil. Anyway, the cool guy talked with the other guys, and they found a container that I was able to cut a hole into just like every where else I’ve been, and then they showed me a place to park the bike out of the way of their other customers. I was in business …. and then, because the dudes were receptive, I was able to borrow some paper towel, to wash my hands in their sink, use the compressor to spray out the gunk from the filter, dump the old oil in their container for such a thing, buy a coke, and after everything was said and done, I asked if it would be possible to clean my bike, and they said of course no problem. So I stripped her of the things she holds onto, and gave my bike to the guys to embrace and they did. At this point, realizing that finally I had found people that were on the same page, I started telling stories in broken English, Spanish and a little Italiano with a blend of pantomime. ‘This came from a moto-police dude in Ecuador, the horns I found in South Africa, this’a a’nail’a in Nairobi that didn’t puncture, a rock from Machu Picchu, from Mexico, from Canada, this is from a woman I slept with in Argentina, here a wooden knife given from a guy at a petrol station, the Spring Bok skin from my German friends at Amber Lagoon, the bullets given from Columbia military that were left behind in Mozambique, after the bribes to keep them leaving Zimbabwe, here from Austin, Texas the key to my room, and this shirt here from a dude called Ben, and this one from a guy named I can’t remember, but I love him anyway, et’cetera, et’cetera….
It was then I went into the main shop to pay for the cleaning of the bike, when they said please go away, we are looking for something to give you; they, desperately looking at the shelves filled with automotive accessories, ‘There must be something here’, I could hear them think. So I left and fiddled with the bike, until they arrived carrying the Naked Italian Calendar Girl in their arms, the one hanging in their shop just before, huge smiles among their faces … ‘This is for you …. ‘, and then one of the guys, (I didn’t get any of their names, nor they mine, except for my travel card for later), offered me his pocket knife. I refused twice, and was three times told to never mind, so I accepted.
They were so so kind I can’t tell you how this feels when one is a traveller. Please, please, please, take notice of the one’s on the road in your home towns, for it makes all the difference in life, love and understanding. I will be, as I’ve said before somewhere within this site, a damn good host too; refusing no one, and helping everyone I meet; even though I must say has always existed before now, but just not like before if you know what I mean; it’s a no brainer; for the puzzle is solved from the truths of human nature; big sigh here, as I watch the ants look round and round my empty table; must get something to eat to share, just like in Africa.
Excerpt from journal …. Day (I don’t know) …. Venice …. Waiting for the insurance paper, the green card, have loads of plans but no time to go, women appear in the night, taking my clothes off but I’m still dressed when I awake, sleeping with a fork in my hand, looking out at the one in number twenty three, she who smiles but is afraid, like me caught in a dream she hasn’t yet had; clowns dancing with penguins, elephants laughing out-loud acting like monkeys with big brains coughing up ideas unrelated to a kind of revelation that finds itself under a rock by the sea smelling like a perfume thrown up from yesterday’s dessert; some putrid kind of plenty that doesn’t really exist, and yet always does; churning and stirring from a part that’s always empty, a kind of beauty that deserves some kind of best at least.
Finally it has arrived, but too late in the day to leave, and it’s pissing with rain so here again I find myself waiting for something that has yet to arrive, like the sun, the more I sit still, the more neurotic I become. Note to self; must not write all of your thoughts in here. Shit, I did it again …
Here is an excerpt from an email with my brother, after talking about the regular stuff ….
(Me) Oh, well that makes sense …. Adam, I am lost yet again, waiting for something that hasn’t come, searching for something that isn’t here, both figuratively and metaphorically, I stand waiting to ride again …. it’s interesting to be in such a place but damn tormenting.
(Bro)I was just going to ask you if you found what you were looking for on your journey yet? You must be getting close to it.
(Me)HAHHAHHAAAAAAAA! There is no such thing, listening now to Piaff, one who also never found anything but broken dreams, and her beautiful voice ….
(Bro)Sure there is, but if you were close, you’d be open to the idea of it. If you’re not, then you’re not even close to finding it.
(Me)Yes it is true what you say, but also false in the sense of nothingness, a place one cannot imagine unless in …. I am not looking, but always I am … this is not the question, it is merely an understanding of oneself, not a journey for others to grasp if you know what I say, I am not searching for something in the mist, I am merely on a journey for my own self, something that cannot be compared. ….. this thing is not a reality, nor a place to call home … it is what it is only, a serendipitous calling as it were, make sense? I am finding what comes…. that is all.
(Bro)This is something that can only make sense for you. When you get philosophical, I find that logic goes out the window, and whatever you say in response to anything I say, is purely for your own self interest and is not really applicable to anything tangible to the conversation or anything relatable in my world. I could say anything, including something that is both philosophical but still holds some logic and reason, but the response from you would be completely the same as any of your other responses when we get into philosophy, full of mumbo jumbo and nonsensical ways of saying things that just can’t be applied to any conceivable subject topic…like a riddle without a solution.
(Me)Yes exactly, and so you do understand!
It’s what the poet Gregory Corso said, ‘Standing on the street corner waiting for no one is Power’.After ten days of not riding, three on the boat from Alexandria and seven nights in Venice, (apart from zipping around town with my jeans and t-shirt), I turned onto the Autostrada toward Lucca and found something I wasn’t looking for, something I wasn’t expecting, an immaculate road …
…. painted lines, petrol stations, signs for everything even signs to warn you about signs, barriers, dividers, speed minimums, speed maximums, a slow lane, a fast one and a really fast one, merging to the left, to the right, around in circles, this way and that, vehicles driving in their own lanes, no black smoke, no blue, no white, no animals, no people, no road kill like that donkey with the eyes bulging out, maybe seven days dead was my guess from the stench, no one taking a piss, no garbage, no nails, no broken down wrecks stripped of their valuable pieces, no dirt, no dust, no pot holes, no begging, no people selling stuff offering you pineapples slow close to you they might knock you off the bike, no machetes, no wanderers, no nothing but speed, so much speed I thought I was standing still, and there were gangs of bikers, some riding in packs of 50, European designer riding gear, goggles, half helmets, full ones, every colour you can imagine with stripes, no stripes, neon vests, big touring bikes with stereos, speed machines with tyres so big you could use half for the front, choppers, Harley’s, pillions, side cars, classics, and trucks, oh the rigs were so clean, so safe, so big and so many, autogrilles, sandwiches of every kind, probiotics, cappuccinos, juice from all over the world, hi octane fuels, tunnels, SOS phones, emergency vehicles with flashing lights that worked, toll booths, credit cards, bank machines, wifi, and rest stops that still made your head buzz from the sound of speed, and I had to get off ….
….. finding myself on a quiet Italian country road to smell the trees, to let the bugs hit me in the face, to hear the birds and to take a piss and eat an apple. Wow, this is so different than where I have been for the last year I was thinking while dragging from a smoke.
Well, back on the Autostrada I went, for the one thing that is now for sure, I can travel much greater distances in a day …
… and in know time I arrived in Lucca, punched in the numbers for Federica and Bruna’s address, and I arrived at their quaint apartment in this beautiful, quiet little city.
Since being here, they won’t let me pay for anything. So I bought Bruna some flowers, and later I have a few gifts I’m going to buy for them now that I’ve been staying here for three nights, and have an idea of what to get for them. They are so kind, and there is a strange connection that I have with Federico I am not able to explain just yet, but our discussions are too similar, and even our history of dreams is the same; ie. flying in the Universe and such.
During the day while they are at work, I walk around the old walled Lucca centro, dating back to the 15th century. to find a book, to write, listen and watch the people.
Later we get together with Federico’s colleague and friend Luca, both of them psychologists. We had a great evening talking about everything it seems.
Excerpt from journal …. DAY ? (I’ve given up keeping track so I just type DAY__ LUCCA) …. many dreams last night, but one in particular was quite vivid. Federico handed me a wooden emblem to take in my hands, and I said, but the image of this face looks just like you. And he said yes, but now you hold it, so I did while closing my eyes, and when I opened them, the wooden carving was now a lion’s head, this is you he said. I also had a dream of my daughter Sadie, and in the dream she was older, but younger too, and she was sad and upset about something, so I hugged her and said everything will be okay, and she put on a face of courage, like when she was two years old, climbing up frozen metal climbing bars in Toronto during the winter, before slipping and whacking her chin on the way down, crying with blood coming out of her mouth, I would hold her and say everything is going to be okay, and then she would say, ‘Down’, so I put her down and she climbed up the bars again, finished what she desired and then said, ‘Papa, home’. This was the look I she had in my dream, but I could feel that she was still upset. Then she said in the dream, ‘I want to re-arrange some things in the room. And I smiled and answered please do, for I too used to this when I wanted change’. Dolce Sogno Sadie lady. XO
My camera, which has experienced this trip with me including the crash in Bolivia, has been laid to rest here in Lucca, Italy. The last few photo’s I took on the road to here, were dead black. I tried and tried to make the camera work without taking it apart, but it would not take a picture, I suppose the electronics have self destructed, or just the abuse it had taken over all those roads were too much. As it was, since Buenos Aries I used this camera only for taking photos while riding, as I couldn’t do much else with it like change the settings or even view the photos until zapped into my computer. Anyway, this is an acknowledgment for the camera, for it took some very good shots along the way. And now I have bought the cheapest one I could find to replace the old one, for the thought of not taking pictures while riding seems horrible to me.
On a Sunday in Lucca, I traded in my two wheels for Bruna’s two wheeler….
ClickHereToListenToTheSoundsOfLucca,ItalyOnASundayAfternoon
Excerpt from journal … Watching tourists is an interesting pleasure for me, but I don’t know why. I suppose it’s the emphatic way in which they see the sites, taking the pictures, crossing them from a list, no but I do this too, well I take photos, maybe it’s because they are not alone, and at least with one another, so they seem to me a curiosity because they are so; everything is shared, there can’t be time for personal reflection, it is an accomplishment rather than a exercise of curiosity. I imagine looking through their photo albums, seeing them posing all over the world, boring me to death, much like all the photos of my bike in various places. For three days in a row, I’ve had a few hours in the same cafe watching the people arriving at the monument of Giacomo Puccini, maps in one hand, camera in the other, and I marvel at how quickly they stand for a picture before running off to the next spot. Some of them are serious wanna be photographers and they take out their big guns like a professional with that look of indifference, much like in by business, impressing the ones with little automatic cameras, getting down low, zooming in close, but what they fail to see is the truth of the magic which is the light, or the angle, for they are always standing to close to see. Not to self; this is the most generalized blabbering you have said and is not fair at all, even though I know what you mean ….
In the night, we said our good-bye’s, for in the morning, Federico and Bruna would be leaving for work, and I heading for Rome. Lucca, Italy holds a special place in my heart, for it is not an intended tourist destination, even though there are many tourists, this small city is more like a taste of Italy than of let’s say another more well known spot. But mostly it’s akin to the other few special places I’ve stayed over the course of my travels, for it is because of Federico and Bruna that I have experienced such good times and fond memories. For the truth is in my experience, and I think most anyone would agree, the unexpected places are truly the most rewarding.
I stopped in Pisa for a ‘drive by shooting’, managing to get my bike to two locations without being hassled, in fact no one said anything, even while the police walked by they didn’t say ‘Hey, a no’a parking’a here’a’. I have to admit my heart wasn’t in the pictures, just a stamp in the record books for I wanted to get to Rome and not spend anytime in Pisa, which is a shame really, but the truth. And also working with the new camera, no manual settings and no understanding yet of the correct frame or buttons or weight or anything made it seem strange so I just clicked and moved on. Note to self: you are truly a hypocrite for you took pictures just like the other people before.
In the above photo, the tower is leaning to fall on my bike, which I thought to be somewhat humorous, but don’t tell me or the bike this. What did I just say?
Seconds before the picture below, I saw a cop high-tailing it toward me and after a young man so I pulled over to let the cop get by the bike and the parked cars, but he gave up there, the kid beat him in the chase, at least for now I’m assuming.
