Greetings from Robert Yarra in Italia:

I am in the gorgeous villa in Tuscania of my dear dear friend, the musician guitar player Francis Kuipers.

Every night is a private concert!

I spent the first night with Francis at Lake Bolsena. Last night was Tuscania, a medieval city. We dined at Trattoria La Torre Di Lavello with good friends including the painter Kokocinski, after visiting his glorious home and studio. He has a big exhibition in Napoli in March and has shown his magnificent work everywhere.

I am reading "You Can't Win" by Jack Black.

In the introduction by William Burroughs, he says: I was fascinated by the glimpse of an underworld of seedy rooming houses, pool parlors, cat houses and hobo jungles. I learned about the Johnson Family of good bums and thieves, with a code of conduct that made more sense to me than the arbitrary, hypocritical rules that were taken for granted as being "right" by my peers.

A Johnson pays his debts and keeps his word. He minds his own business, but will give help when help is needed and asked for. He does not hold out on hid confederates or cheat his landlady. He is what they call in show business "good people."

And later:

Looking back over the years, I remember the Johnsons...the old Mexican druggist who filled a prescription for morphineRx after ten shits had snarled it back to me: "we do not serve dope fiends!" Yes, I remember the Johnsons, and I remember those of the other persuasion. As a wise old black faggot said to me, "some people are shits, darling."

And likely to remain so. A basic split between shits and Johnsons has emerged. I see the world as a stage on which different actors are assigned different roles. Joseph Conrad arrived at a similar concept. Of course, any Johnson does do shitty things at times. But he knows enough to regret such actions. It is very rare that a hardcore shit acts like a Johnson He simply does not know what it means to be a Johnson, and is irrevocably committed to a contrary viewpoint. A direct confrontation of the shits and a Johnson could be as drastic as the conjunction of matter and antimatter: POOF! No reconciliation, no agreeing to disagree, is possible.

Anyway, so goes my musings in the cold morning in Tuscania.

Be sure to see Francis Kuipers on You Tube: Citizen Cake.