(Rome) I just finished a perfectly-prepared sardine antipasti, caprese salad, and a plate of grilled calamari. The wine was a Pinot Grigio from the area. Nice. It's hot as hell here, but a breeze is blowing off Palatine Hill, where Romulus and Remus suckled the she-wolf. When I close my eyes I can almost hear the ancient Romans in the Coliseum cheering as a Christian is eaten by lions. But the only thing being devoured around here these days is the country of Italy itself, in an economic free fall, its middle class chewed up like prosciutto on a dry panini and its hope for the future spoiling like tiramisu in the sun. I've been talking to people all over, gondoliers, bartenders, street barkers, nuns. I don't speak Italian but I find if I talk loud and use a fake Italian accent they understand me perfectly. I keep telling these poor uneducated bastards what we in America have learned from the Tea Party. A country, I explain, is just like a family sitting around the dinner table figuring out its household budget. If the family is spending more than it's taking in then it's time for some good, old-fashioned belt-tightening. I tell them, stop being such whiners and get behind the ECB-IMF-Merkel-Tea Party solution of austerity, structural adjustment, and "internal devaluation." My words are often received with a rousing cheer of, "bafangool!" which means "thank you for the wisdom!"
Thanks for the update. Here's a suggestion, though. You may want to "tighten up" your prose by dropping any sentences, words, syllables, letters, punctuation that is not related to "topless".
hey lloyd! you're not missin anything here.
just thought you should know...
I don't care about Charlie Rangle I'd rather read this piece by Dangle
Burma Shave
Remember to enda eacha wordo witha a vowelo.
On Vespas. Singing.
Dan Brown taught me they also have lasers, antimatter, and ancient conspiracies protecting the holy lucre.
Thanks for the update. Here's a suggestion, though. You may want to "tighten up" your prose by dropping any sentences, words, syllables, letters, punctuation that is not related to "topless".
Topless prosperity; bottomless recession.
They mostly say it in corrupted Sicilian, not corrupted Roman.