By the way, I ate so much pasta and drank a lot of wine, and I lost two pounds.

Go Italy.

Go Italy. That's that might be the number one reason to go to Italy. That was that was

a good week. Okay. Welcome to The Manuel Transmission. I'm Brad.

And I'm Monica.

We're married business partners, and we sit down every week with coffee, vinyl, and a conversation.

Although I will say this week, it's not coffee. It's wine.

It is wine. It's Italian wine. If you're new, you're jumping in at an interesting time.

That's right. It's the beginning of season three. We're coming back from Rome, and we have a lot to unpack.

There is a lot.

I actually physically still need to unpack. I look. I'm not I told you, I'm not caught up. My email is a mess. My packing is still packed.

I'll catch up. I'll get there.

We're getting there. All I think all the laundry's done though.

You have been a champ. You did all the laundry. I really appreciate you. And I owe you a few things, like things that you've asked me to do that I just haven't gotten to yet, but I'll get there.

We've had a lot going on. Yeah. We came sliding back in.

We woke up to leave at what would have been 11PM Friday night Utah time to get up, get ready, have breakfast, go to the airport. We got home and went to bed by about midnight Saturday night Utah time. So it was twenty five hours of just being awake and traveling home. That was a long trip home. And then what we had something going on Sunday night.

Oh, no. No. We went to the movie. Oh, that's on Sunday. And then we came home, and we were planning to record the podcast right after the movie.

And we

I did not

have and then just ran out of steam.

You know, there was a problem with that plan from the beginning. There's a reason why when you go on a date, you go to dinner and then a movie. Yeah. We would You don't go to the movie and dinner because you don't go and eat a bucket of popcorn and then think you're gonna go have dinner.

I think after having all that good authentic food from real ingredients, coming home and having buttered popcorn and junior mints and Mhmm. Red vines and coke was like a shock to the system. And so came home and made this beautiful dinner with all imported from Italy products.

Then was too.

And then didn't eat it.

Yeah. I thought this might be cool to go through. I plugged this into chat cheap tea, gave it what we did, and it came back and said, first, you didn't just stay in hotels. You moved through different versions of Rome based on the hotels we stayed in.

I think that's right. I think that's that is a good way to describe what we did. It was really an interesting way to do it.

So the first place that we stayed, and it was right when we landed

And out by the airport.

It was thirty minutes outside of Rome, but we stayed at the QC Terme.

I think so.

We stayed there the first night. The kids recommended it. They had done alone. Yeah. But we also we learned that lesson when we went to London

last year. If you can do it, that's what you do. After you get off the plane, you book a room at a European spa and you go get a massage and soak in the various hydrotherapy pools. QC Terme was beautiful. Mean I There was.

The grounds

were It was amazing.

Spectacular. The spa was amazing. The room was great. The massage was probably the best ever I've ever experienced.

And the parakeets.

Oh, and there's parakeets.

Like a whole flock of

them. Yeah. They're brilliant green with these blue tails and a bright pink ring around their neck. They're ring neck Yeah. Parakeets.

It was crazy to see such a cool colorful bird in the wild. Yeah. And tons of them. They're all over the place.

Yeah. I put on my Instagram in the morning out the window that, like, you push the window open out of our room and it just overlooks these grounds. And you've got the parakeets flying by and this like beautiful tile roof with like little plants growing in it and overlooking the ground. It was just magical. So that was a great way to start.

We landed at what, 08:45 in the morning and we couldn't get into a room until three.

That was a little tough.

That was tough. We were tired. So we were able to drop our bags at the hotel and then we decided to go shopping. But then finding a car out there is actually really problematic. So we decided to walk back.

The problem is it isn't walkable.

There's no place to walk.

There's only room for cars. It's

And yet we did it.

But the way that we did it to avoid the part where it was truly dangerous was we went on this really long extra roundabout path that went along the Tiber River to find a place where we could get back to the road. And then we had to walk back on the dangerous road.

Yep. It was a little sketchy.

And we were tired. Yeah. So that part was a little rough, but it was beautiful.

It was a very fast week. It was a lot going

on. We packed so much into it that it feels like it was a really long week. Of course, it went by very quickly. But man, did we maximize the time. I mean, knew going in, this wasn't we don't need a break.

This isn't like a go relax trip. This was a go have an adventure trip. Yeah. And we had lots of adventures.

It was fun.

So we we had the spa. That was a good way to start to recover from the travel. And then we went into Rome. And we went straight to the Parco De Principe. We

entered Rome, but from the quiet side. We literally went from QC Spas, took the taxi all the way kind of to the opposite side of Rome or the North Side Of Rome on the other side of the Villa Borghese. The area was kinda quiet, residential. It wasn't like you walk outside and boom, you're in Rome and seeing ancient structures.

Because the massive grounds from the Villa Borghese, it's a huge park. That was a great way to start. So my friend John recommended that we, first thing, book tickets to go tour the Galleria Borghese. And, boy, was that a treat.

We should stop and talk about the Borghese.

The Borghese Gallery is the birthplace of nepotism. That's really where the word it's it was the it was the pope's nephew, which the pope doesn't have anyone to leave his inheritance to because popes don't have children because they're priests. They don't have legitimate children anyway. This particular pope, I think, had an illegitimate son, but he didn't have a legitimate son to whom he could impart his wealth. So he it was his nephew.

And his nephew took full advantage and crafted this incredible gallery, some by legitimate acquisition and some by sheer theft. There's a Raphael fresco in there that was straight up cut out of the wall and stolen in the middle of the night. But they were That family was patrons of Bernini. Bernini is the ambitious kind of successor to Challenger to Michelangelo. All of his statues encapsulate motion.

So the rape of Persephone, the Daphne, the the one where she's turning into the tree.

Right. Incredible work.

I mean, it was Apollo and Daphne is the is the one we're talking about. The with where she's turning into

the tree. Chasing her?

It was it was the last of a series of works commissioned by cardinal Scipione Borghese. The other one though that I thought was so cool. Oh, by the way, he also did his own David, which he put his own face into.

Oh, that's right.

Yeah. Which I thought was interesting, but his is much more motion oriented. The torso's twisting. He's getting ready to throw the stone. But the one I was looking for, the Venus Victrix by Canova, where he did that cushion.

Yes. That one was amazing.

Pauline Bonaparte's husband, Camilo Borghese.

That's right. She was Napoleon Bonaparte's sister?

She married into the Borghese family, and she wanted Venus to be sculpted, but she wanted her image to be Venus. The one I'm not seeing here is the one that was the three the the the child, the man, and the elderly man where you'd go around the back, you see their backs and it shows the passage of time. And I'm gonna mispronounce it. It's an anus, anus, ancizis, and Ascanius. I'm I'm totally butchering that.

Well, these are the three ace.

Yeah. The bay the boy, the man, and the Alduman. Mhmm. He the sculpture depicts a scene from the Aeneid.

They're fleeing.

Right? Yeah. Where Aeneas leads his family from a burning Troy. That's the one where you go around back of it and you see in a pillar basically, the boy's back, the man's back, and the elderly man's back. And you see the progression of time through the shape of their backs.

But anyways, it's assumed that Pietro Bernini, father of Gianluorenzo Bernini helped his son in the sculpture's creation. Pietro's artworks were famous and mannerist sculptures were even commissioned by the pope when Pope Paul the fifth saw the works of Gian Lorenzo. Anyway, the Borghese family commissioned a lot of Bernini's works. That's why there's so many Bernini's in one place. I think the only other place that has a bunch of Bernini's is the is Saint Peter's Basilica.

I was gonna say there Berninis in the in the Vatican in the Basilica.

That big black canopy Yeah. And that big altarpiece behind it Yep. And multiple statues. Anyway, it was just incredible to see these amazing Bernini sculptures all in one place. The

rape of Persephone, that piece, I don't know. It makes it look it's so real, and it makes the stone look soft, like he's squeezing this soft thigh and his hands is, like, imprinting in. Mhmm. To me, it felt like the rest of the the gallery opened up to me.

It's so cool. These these sculptures are just mind boggling.

And the Carvaggios.

Yes. Like his Bacchus, who is like the god of wine, he's he's supposed to be presented as, like, victorious, and and and Caravaggio painted him sick ly, but and put his own face on him. He's just such a rebel. And then the one where with Mary that was like, it's this massive commission that was put in the

It was in the Vatican.

In the Vatican, you know, it got pulled out after two days.

So it was Mary. It was a young Jesus.

And her Mary's mother.

And Mary's mother, Anne, is it? Anne. Uh-huh. And the first issue was that Mary was dressed in red, was which not what was supposed to happen. She was supposed to be in blue and white typically, but her dress is in all red.

Not to mention, she's kinda leaning over, and she's a little busty. So that

didn't in red. She's got her boobs hanging out. And the model for it was his mistress.

Yeah. Right. She was she was a prostitute. Right?

Yeah. That's right. That's who the

model was for that, and they all

knew it. They didn't like that.

And then the second was the Jesus was a little too old to be naked.

Right? It it wasn't a baby. Wasn't a baby. Was, maybe a seven year old.

Yeah. Yeah. It was just a young kid, and he was naked. And so she's kinda leaning over talking to this kid. And then Anne, Mary's mother, the model, was a beggar that stood outside of the Vatican before folks would walk in.

And so they would see the face of this lady outside of the Vatican before they walked in. And then they'd go in, and they'd see this painting, and they're like, that's the same woman. That's the woman out front. And so the pope was like, get this out of here.

Yeah. They got and he like, he got banished. He got, like, sent away.

In trouble. Yeah.

Also, it didn't help that Caravaggio murdered somebody.

He did that work, I believe, when he was on the run.

He was trying oh, no. No. No.

He he did many works whenever

Yeah.

He was he was, like, being sought after.

I say on the run. He was, like he went to another town.

Right. But one of those works was which I thought was really cool where he used his face as well was his David and Goliath. It was a young David who was holding the head of Goliath almost with remorse.

It was his apology.

It was his apology because it was his young face, Carvaggio's young face as David, and Goliath's face was aged Caravaggio.

It was him too. There he is both self portraits.

And it was like him, like, apologizing for what he had done.

Yeah. He wanted to be invited back. Right. But then he died.

But the painting was so incredible, and I developed a whole new appreciation for art. I think we're still a bit jet lagged.

Yeah. But We were pretty tired.

But what a cool tour to kinda kick things off. And we hadn't even seen Rome yet.

Yeah. We went back to the Parco De Principi and had lunch or dinner in their restaurant. It was excellent.

It was great.

I think, by the way, there were two pasta dishes that were incredible and compete for my favorite of all the pasta dishes. I have a clear favorite, but the close second is I'm just mentioning this because we already talked about QC Spa Tourmei. The one of my close second favorite was in their restaurant.

Which was the ravioli?

Those raviolis with the lemon ricotta in the middle and the tomato sauce. It

was amazing.

So good.

So good.

Okay. So then we went on and we went to the the Anantara. Right? The Anantara Palazzo Naidi Yep. Rome Hotel, close to the Termini Station.

That building is amazing.

And that bar was great.

That bar was awesome.

And also their breakfast buffet was great. And by the way, pro tip, the reason we stayed at so many different hotels, just one night each, is because Brad has a Platinum American Express and a Reserve American Express, and I have a Reserve American Express. And all of them have hotel credits that you get every six months or what have you. And so we used those. We were able to time it so that we had two from your platinum.

Mhmm.

So the Anantara, we had a $300 credit. And when we got there, they gave us a $150 additional credit to use toward meals. And they let us check-in at

It was 10:45.

10:45 in the morning, our room was ready, which normally you wouldn't be able to check-in until four. And they gave us late checkout until 4PM the next 04:00

checkout.

Awesome. So I can't guarantee you'll get that same deal if you do the fine hotels credit booking. But that's how we did it. We did it through the Platinum American Express fine hotels booking credit.

And it included breakfast.

Yeah. So it was a phenomenal deal at a five star, I believe, hotel. Oh, it's A beautiful hotel. We probably wouldn't have stayed there otherwise. And we had a great experience.

It was right by the Terminix Station.

It was definitely a luxury hotel experience. It's on the Piazza Della Republica.

By that massive museum.

Yep. And it says it's built over ancient Roman baths.

Oh, I mean, everything built in Rome built over something ancient underneath because True. Yeah. The city was built in layers.

So you'd go back to the Anantara?

Oh, yeah. I mean, it's pricey, but like I said, we got a good deal and it was awesome. Great service all around. We did have a clogged bathtub that they came and fixed. Yep.

I can't really complain about that.

We checked in at 10:45, and we were that close to Rome, Termini, and we needed to get on the train.

Oh, yeah. Because we headed up to, Spoleto.

That's right. So we got there early.

Well, we got there early. We were at the platform we thought was the right platform. Turns out there's more than one Bin 2 because we needed to be at Bin 2 East. Yep. And we realized that a little late because Bin 2 East is a bit of a haul.

And it was

And we had to run to catch our train. But we made our train.

Made our train. So took the train north to Spoleto and saw Marcello.

That okay. Watching you two, like, see each other as you he was right there when you stepped off the train.

That was awesome.

Both lit up like little kids and gave each other a big hug. It was just off to the races from there. It was like no time had passed. It was so fun to watch you two.

It was incredible. It was it was everything that I hoped for and and probably one of my favorite moments of the entire week.

So we're, like, walking through this incredible city as we head to this restaurant.

He's hustling us along because he's talking to the the restaurant owner who is keeping the restaurant open for us.

Because they close early on Mondays. We're talking, like, 2PM.

Yeah. And we're and we're hustling to get up there and grab a lunch.

We get there and they just he he's talking to them in Italian and telling them what to do and just bringing out course after course this incredible spread. And he's telling us, okay. Now that root thing, okay. There's really not a an English word for it, but it's gathered from the local hills. And those asparagus, those are wild.

They gather these from the the hill right here. The pasta was like handmade. That was my number one pasta dish from the whole trip. It was so good. Black truffle toast.

Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Yeah.

The wine, the local wine. It was incredible. And then we're walking through the city. He's like, oh, yeah. That arch right there.

That's my brother's terrace. By the way, it's a Roman arch. I'm like, how old is He's like, well, it's a Roman arch. He's like, a little more than 2,000 years old. Just wild.

And then we were walking over to get some gelato after lunch.

We had espresso. We had gelato.

We had first to get espresso.

It was like, this is the perfect Italian afternoon.

Then we're walking to get gelato, he's like, they're right there. Look through there. That's the amphitheater that was built in, like, seventy AD. Just crazy. Yeah.

How do you think of Spoleto when you reflect back on that?

I'm excited to go back. Just being able to reconnect with Marcello and see him in this small town and, like you you mentioned, walking around, everybody knows everybody. So his sister-in-law, he sees her

Oh, yeah.

Walking up. We go and have espresso, and he's talking to this person and then that. There was the tattoo guy, and you were suggesting, hey.

Maybe we would get

a tattoo. And Marcello says

Not after lunch. Like, no. No. He's been drinking. Don't get a tattoo right now.

That would have been interesting. But Spoleto was one of my highlights.

I I agree with that. That was pretty special. And then we were we we were able because we had the late. So we went back, we had dinner.

That's right.

Like a late dinner, and we woke up and took our time.

Had breakfast.

Had breakfast. The kids got in around

About the time we were having breakfast.

And they were able because we had the room till four, they were able to come in and take showers and get clean cleaned up and reset after their long journey.

We did Saint Patrick's Day with them as well.

Yeah. Irish pub in Rome on Saint Patrick's Day was pretty cool.

We started off, like, first thing in the morning.

Yeah. I think we were in an Irish pub having a Guinness by, like, 11AM.

It was too.

We went to multiple.

No. No. No. What was it called?

We didn't end up going to the Scholar or the

Scholar's Lounge. It was just packed. We went in and we went out.

Oh, yeah. But what was the one where we oh, it's Trinity College pub where we had the upper room.

Yeah.

Yeah. That was pretty cool. We also went to the Shamrock.

Yeah. Saint Patrick's Day was fun. And then we went and checked into our Airbnb.

In the neighborhood of Ricola in this apartment that was probably I don't know what year that

It's near Campo De Fiori.

Campo De Fiori is not called a square because it doesn't have a church. And because it's not a square, it's because it doesn't have a church, it's a Campo, Campo De Fiori and that's because there wasn't a church there which means they could do execution. It was huge for purposes. But the not the hotel, the apartment we stayed in was in a building that don't I didn't check the date, but it was at least a few 100 years old. Yeah.

The market every day?

Every day.

You can hear them setting up.

They're setting up in on this cobblestone square, and there's 50 or so tents. That's what they do. They have to set up and tear down every single day. And at the end of the night, after everybody tears down, the the entire cobblestone square is clear, and they bring they come in with sand and they clean the entire square, and it's it's beautiful, like, every day. And then the next morning, they come in and they do it again.

It was fun to be there for a few days and to just walk the neighborhood, and, that's that's the it was good to have that home base for a few days because from there, we went and did the we did the Vatican tour.

We started living like we were in Rome at that point where you're coming out of these small doorways, alleyways, and

And you wouldn't think a car would fit there,

but Oh my gosh.

Oh, They sure do.

Yeah. Our our Uber driver pulling up was like, deal, mule. Yeah.

That was really cool to have that little tiny taste of what it might be like to actually live there because we were staying in an apartment there. And that Campo De Fiori Walk we ate in that in the restaurants in that square multiple days in a row. We had the same breakfast spot three days in a row.

Yeah. We from there, we like you said, we one day, we did the Vatican tour, Saint Peter's Basilica.

Mind blowing.

That was, yeah, overwhelming.

The opulence is kind of gross, honestly.

It was By the end of it,

I'm a pretty history.

Not good. No. The next day,

we did the Somebody's gonna be mad that we said that, but it was just, like, over the top. It's I mean, it is

It's incredible.

Staggering. But, like, they've got yeah.

Anyway It's incredible. But then the next day, we did the Colosseum tour and realized much of the Colosseum was torn down.

It's dismantled to build the Vatican.

Build the Vatican. And it was like, okay. That's a little disappointing. Yeah. But that tour was incredible.

The Forum. We saw the Pantheon.

The Forum.

We just Trevy fountain.

We gotta pause on the Forum. Like, I don't even know how to still process what I saw. Nothing prepared me for it. I still don't know how to process what we experienced or the scale across space and time that is the Roman Forum and the Palatine Hill and the Capitoline Hill and the 3rd Hill, which I don't remember the name of. Unreal.

I don't even

Rome is cool.

I've never experienced anything like it. It's incredible.

It was spring break, and every student group was there. And the day specifically that we were at the Colosseum, the Vatican was closed.

Yes. Even more people

and student groups were

at all. You wouldn't have been as impatient with the crowds at the Colosseum had that one tour guide not been so rude and cut in front of everybody and just bullied past everybody.

That was my low.

Yeah. I know.

That was definitely one of my lows of

the week. Okay. So let's do high low really quick.

Okay. Alicia.

She was a lot.

Oh my gosh.

That was not cool what she did.

She was just rude and everybody was stressed because of

her Fellow tour guides called her out on it too and she was shameless.

She was shameless. It was so bad. Anyway. But I was just so so, like, frustrated in that moment going, you oof. So

You you took you were so stewing on it. I left to go use the bathroom and I came back and you had looked up Italian language to cuss somebody out.

I was ready to give it to her. I was gonna tell her how rude she was and I had a few choice words for her.

I'm glad you didn't run into her again.

Yeah. I mean, me too.

Your high, I'm guessing, was Spoleto or no?

There were a couple I mean, I think about it.

The whole week was

a high. Being able to be in a different country and share that experience with the kids, just being able to experience that with family is incredible. It was such a fun week. And Spoleto being able to reconnect with Marcello after thirty five years in that fashion, that definitely would it was just it was a perfect way to to kinda start the week and and experience Italy. What was your high and low?

Man, it's hard to narrow it down. My low I think I was there were a couple times where I was just really tired and I could've I felt like I kinda missed out on a couple of opportunities. But I I don't know. It's hard to pick a low when the week was so great. Yeah.

I think that's it. I just I didn't sleep well and I was pretty tired a couple of times, and I wasn't maybe as engaged as I could have been later in the day. But my high I mean, spiletto for sure, seeing the sitting at lunch and hearing you two just, like, recount old stories and just like the knowing glances that passed between you two as you like relived some of your mischief from the past. And he kinda like give me these little like glances like, is this okay to talk about in front of her? I'm like, oh my gosh, this was thirty five years ago.

It's okay. Probably the high other I mean, just all the incredible art and architecture, of course. It's just amazing. But so our nephew, Hunter, is there studying abroad as is his girlfriend. And she had a friend visiting.

And then Caleb and Sid were with us. And so we went out with them a couple of nights, but that Thursday night when we all went out and everybody's just having a really good time.

And Trastevere.

Yeah. And so that that last bar we all went to and everyone was just talking around the table. And then both times we went out well, were not with them multiple times, but there were two nights we went out with Caleb and Sid and Hunter and Isabella. And both times, they saw some they saw a friend they knew that they had met. One of them, they met, like, on spring break in Barcelona.

Crazy. It's just funny. Watching these kids live life in Rome at these age is just so cool. And then the other night, we they met these we ran into these two kids. They're twins that are actually from Idaho that they met through the for the foreign learning program.

Anyway, watching them do them do them in Rome, and then also seeing just how much Hunter, like, wanted to engage with us. I think he was a little homesick. That was just really neat. And then seeing how much they looked up to Caleb and Sid and hanging out with them because they're just, you know, a few years older. That was just neat to see, you know, the kids in a different setting and see them just live life on those terms.

It was really cool.

That was your high? Yeah. Cool. That was that was pretty fun. That was a good trip.

Probably the low was when we put the kids on a train and said goodbye. Mhmm. And they headed off to Pompeii, I was super excited for them to go do. I just it was it's not just saying goodbye to them on that trip. It's that was our chance to see them because they live in New York now.

Mhmm. So I won't see them again until we go visit them probably in May. So they went to Pompeii and we went to the H Borromini on again the recommendation of my friend John and what a great hotel. Also, we timed it right so that like the first half of the year fine hotels credit for your Amex went to Anantara but the second half of the year credit that we get went to H Borromini. So it's another fine hotels collection.

So we got upgraded to a suite. We got early check out check-in. We got late check out, I believe. It didn't matter because we left early in the morning.

Yeah. We had to get out of there.

But we got a beautiful breakfast that was included and it was boy was that a beautiful hotel room.

That was the best room.

That was the best room. It's also a very beautiful hotel. Yeah. It's in an a really old building that looks from the 4th Floor, you can look out the window into the basilica that it's attached to. It has great art, great service, beautiful room, great water pressure.

I loved all the water pressure in Rome. Yeah. Every Water

everywhere. The spring that's just naturally coming out of the the Trevi Fountain and all the fountains. Yep. All of them, they're called the Big Nose in Italian. I forget what that's called.

But like you just pure water coming out of fountains everywhere. Those were old Roman aqueducts. They knew what they were doing with

water. Yeah. They they figured it out. It was pretty cool. Also, so the last day well, the day that we checked into the h Borromini, we had the day to ourselves.

That was Friday. And we took a walk across town.

And we purposely didn't plan anything.

We didn't plan anything except there was a record store

Oh, yeah.

That we wanted to go to.

We had that was a long walk.

It was.

Five miles round trip.

But the the record store was called Transmission Records.

It's a great segue into the record we listen to.

Correct. So we went in, and I kinda knew I was gonna ask the shopkeeper for a recommendation. And when we walked into this store, just a lone guy sitting behind the counter, I asked him, hey. We're traveling from overseas. We're looking to take something back.

What do you suggest? And he kinda lit up at that point and said, I was just talking to somebody about this, and he recommended this album Affinity.

Recorded in 1970?

Mhmm. Like a British jazz and rock combo. He was very excited to recommend this album. I think their one and only album self titled album. You weren't exactly into it.

And I actually listened to it three times now. We listened to it twice the other day. And I would I'm listening to it, and I'm I'm like, I'm hearing so many different influences. I heard the doors, and she sounds a lot like Grace Slick from Jefferson Airplane. It's kind of this psychedelic total sixties, seventies song.

And I even heard something Floyd in there. So all of that said, I was digging it. And there's a song on there called mister Joy. If you just heard it just listening to it in the background, you're probably going, this is irritating. This is not good.

Thought that at multiple points during that record.

But I wanna play this for

you. Okay.

Remember when we talked about Jim Morrison? What's the song that he made all sexual?

Oh, the Van Morrison song?

That's right.

Oh, yeah. I heard this song.

It irritates you. Yeah. So listen, though.

Because it's an irritating song. I remember the song distinctly. Do you? I remember about this point, the song going, ugh. Jeez.

That is annoying. So mister Joy is my favorite toy. Winding up wind him up. He'll do anything I love. He'll do anything I want.

And now listen.

Is she orgasming right here? Basically. Yeah. It's the sixties and seventies, man. It was like the sexual revolution.

Yeah. She's not subtle about it. Your face right now. That's the song.

I mean, come on.

Oh, boy. Okay. Well, here's what I will say. As much as I personally, firsthand did not enjoy that record Mhmm. What did make it an a worthwhile and interesting and enjoyable experience was the the interest or the anthropological observation they had watching him light up and be excited to recommend this album.

And then so I was listening kind of through the eyes of or ears of like what did he love about this? And then because you have a connection to music from the sixties and seventies that I just don't, that nostalgia nostalgia for you adds an element of joy almost independent from the music itself. And so like I was just noticing all of that. And so for that reason like I got something out of it and there was some enjoyment in listening to it. But like for the music's sake, no.

Thank you. I'm I'd be okay if I never had to listen to that album again.

I hear you. No. I it was really cool that we're in Rome at this record store called Transmission Records. Right. And the recommendation was this album that we would never have listened to for any other reason except that it was recommended by this guy in Rome.

We wouldn't have even known of its existence. Also, I think I learned something because the one of the other records we bought was a 1970 recording of

Joni Mitchell.

Joni Mitchell live on the BBC. So I thought that would be interesting. I I think I don't really know anything about Joni Mitchell other than I saw her painted Portia somewhere that I was. And I was like, oh, that's cool. She seemed like a cool chick.

She has a hand painted Portia.

Yes, she does. I think you're thinking of

Hold on.

You're thinking of, not Joni Mitchell. It is I can't believe I I'm blanking on this. Oh, lord. Won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz? My friends all drive Porsches.

Janice Joplin. That's what it was. I had her confused with Janice Joplin. I saw Janice Joplin's painted Porsche and I was like, she must have been cool.

She was cool. And you listened to Joni Mitchell and

what I I only heard the beginning of it and I was like, okay. I don't like the music of the seventies.

I think it was a good little find for the the moment out of Rome. I thought it was pretty good.

It was an interesting experience. This dumb album. Come on. The only and okay. Whatever.

Whatever. It's my appreciation for it though came from seeing it through the eyes of the storekeeper in the record store in Rome and seeing Recognizing your your Recognizing your connection to music from the sixties and seventies and some of the fun reasons why. So maybe

Mister Joy.

Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I heard that song differently after you pointed out what it was really about. And now I might like that song even though before it annoyed me.

So maybe this season isn't necessarily just about starting something new.

Yeah. Maybe it's about returning to things with different eyes.

Yeah.

What a week to recap.

Yeah. So if you've made it through all of that, thank you for being with us. I was even gonna look up.

What was funny, it was that you were talking with your hands too. She's going, cha cha cha. See you next week.

Bye.

Bye.