sorry for the rant...

There aren’t very many things in this world that I actively hate. I don’t like complaining about the small things because, well – what’s the point. The cliché is cliché for a reason – because it’s true: life is too short. I’d rather spend the time and energy doing something I enjoy. And I firmly believe that all things, in time, will pass - and tomorrow will come if you let it, and if you need to start over then to hell with the world, start over. The sad – but if you think about it, liberating – truth is that ultimately, when all is said and done, the world and time will not care what most of us do with our respective lives. Such is the nature of a grain of sand in a world of beaches.

So I choose to live for myself – and for the ones I love – in pursuit of happiness. In pursuit of bettering myself, and leaving the people I meet on this adventure warm and smiling. And so my world view does not have much room for hatred.

But there is one thing that I absolutely loathe – that I detest, that I… yes, I’ll say it: that I hate. That one thing is disrespect. Disrespect, specifically, for art.

I have been to a dozen or so museums on this trip so far – and I’m proud to say that the majority of people treat art with an almost saint-like reverence. They respect, and admire, and keep their distance, and let the works move them to whatever emotional end they settle on without demanding attention in return.

But oh – there are some… some people… some… boy, it gets to me. We were in Rome, not thirty days after the first ever opening of the House of Augustus, a beautifully unearthed grouping of rooms in the Palatine with pristinely preserved frescoes spreading from wall to the ceiling, of such rich and vibrant color you would have sworn the paint was still drying. And right there, in front of the attendant, this guy reaches out and rubs the wall. Rubs the wall! I was livid. And at the Louvre – the people reaching out to touch paintings, hanging on and molesting the sculptures, pointing and laughing. You know they ask you not to use your flash for a reason – they don’t just like saying it.

And then there are people like the guy who sledge-hammered Michelangelo’s Pieta in the Vatican. Livid… livid. I hope they sledge-hammered him, Misery-style.

So if I see someone rubbing their hands on a statue, or howling like a hyena at some wonderful piece of history, or talking loudly in a theater on their cell phone to their friend who wants to go drinking or maybe bowling – well then, that person will get the sharpest, most pointed, barbed and jagged look I can launch. And I hope it strikes him in the eye with Queequegian accuracy, and sticks in him like a ten-foot harpoon.

And that’s all I’m going to say about that.