Monday, February 21, 2005

CHASE AND THE GERMANS

So I got a phone call today- “want to work today?”

“Sure I said, doing what”

OH MY GOD.

Cut to the Vatican, Chase pulls up, 40 German tourists in tow- and SOMEHOW I AM GIVING A TOUR of Rome to these eager people via Vespa.

It was absurd. We drove around for about 3 hours… in the rain… with me giving them (what little I knew) information about some of Rome’s more famed sites.

“When was this built?” One especially eager older German man wanted to know- referring to the coliseum…

“It was begun in 72 ad completed in 80 ad.. it took over 70,000 slaves to carry these stones from a quarry in a town called Tivoli some 17 miles away…”

And you know what’s amazing? That’s true… I know that. I don’t even know how I know that shit…. I just do.- I guess I’ve just been paying mild attention to some of the cheesy tour books that I was given as a gift over the last few months…

It is amazing, things said with certain conviction… with a certain air… people will believe ANYTHING you tell them if you say It in a way where they think they MUST believe. Why, it is the VERY CORNERSTONE of American Politics…

Anyway… so somehow I survived the day. It was pretty ridiculous though.


Me. A tour guide…. But I made some money (if I break it down hourly the last time I made that little was working as a house painter when I was 19…. Never said I was moving to Rome for the $$$$). And it was fun. Stupid, but fun.

Oh yea, and one more thing- the best part- all my tourists were wearing matching blue plastic ponchos. WOW. Hideous. Awesome.

2 comments:

Megan Hill said...

wait! how the hell did this happen??? is this the job that you were talking about wanting? and you got it??? i'm confused. that's amazing. you would be such a RAD tour guide. i love it!
can i come to rome and you show me around? and will you mind if i wear my blue poncho?

Chase Carter said...

no dude- this was not the job I wanted- that interview is at cinecitta (the film studio in Rome) and and it was changed to Thursday, tomorrow...(gulp). No official statement until after the damn meeting. The germans was a total freak thing I got from Alejandro and the Vespa rental house...I guess last minute they needed an English speaker (still don't know what happened to the previous one, or if they even had one...it was pretty unorganized).

Please do come to Rome, I'll pull out all my big words and little trivia and fuck it, we can both wear our blue ponchos.