2 News Vol. XXX, Issue 15 | Wednesday, July 15, 2009 A Dumb American Tells You Things About Those Italians start on green and switch to yellow after approxi - They’ll tag just about anything. Trains, walls, bill - mately .003 seconds and then to red after another boards, orifices... By Ross Barkan .0002 seconds. In the meantime, good luck crossing In Rome, they charge for bread and water at many while tiny but angry fuel-efficient cars (Italianos eating establishments. When you ask the waiter to Italia, Italia, how shall I sing of you? It’s been nary looove those Smart cars) growl in the crossing lane bring the check (ci porta il conto, per fervore) expect a week since I touched down on your shores and I’ve and one of the nearly two thousand motorcycles a six hour wait. Everybody’s chill over here. You’ll also already accumulated so much joy (and detritus) from shooting down the street at any given second run the learn that soda comes in weird skinny cans and Ital - your balmy, beer-soaked touch. It’s good to be young light and do their best to swerve around your nose ians lust for Fanta. and in the bosom of capitalistic intrigue. hair. Nice cars, those Italians have. I just pray le mac - Do not give anyone the thumbs up sign. This is Let’s start with an anecdote. My art history class is chine don’t send me to the morgue. extremely important. About the worst thing you can touring the ruins of the Roman forum, once a gather - If you are an attractive female and want to vaca - do in Italy (or the best if you crave a quick and painful ing place where the ancients swapped knowledge, re - tion in Rome, be prepared to be oggled and groped by death) is to run across an intersection and give the ligion, and precious goods. My advice is to trek in the the opposite sex. Do not speak of this “sexual harrass - motorists the double thumbs up. Let’s just say it’s the shadows of the de - equivalent of the crepit yet stunning middle finger, with palaces at least once. the added bonus that Feel the weight of two it also tells all the thousand years on viewers that what - your shoulders. Any - ever they say or do way, we’re walking in belongs up an ass - the sun and one bril - hole. God only liant student, a young knows what they lady hailing from our think thumbs down proud tradition of means. Stony Brook Univer - Gelato men are sity excellence, ges - tricksters. Gelato, for tures to the metal the uninformed, is scaffolding perched Italian for ice cream. against one of the While other capital - forum walls and says, ist countries got “Like, so, is that metal good at conquering stuff over there from and exploiting the Roman times or did hell out of smaller, we put it there?” Che weaker nations, Italy bello! I calmly ex - honed all of its intel - plained to her that the lectual and financial shiny scaffolding is of resources on gelato. our epoch, most likely Eating good gelato is erected in the year like taking a trip 2009 A.D. and not down a raging river 209 A.D. Nah, just of sugar, cream, and kidding. I told her the color. A hundred space alien commu - colors, a hundred nist Jews planted it flavors, random tiny there four thousand cones sticking out of years ago as part of a the scoop, magical mass conspiracy to fool earthlings into believing they ment” concept that exists in the United States. I’m sprinkles, mystical chips, and toppings the color of a have free will. She nodded slowly. (In all fairness, she pretty sure there is no Italian translation for it. I mean, pregnant sun...when the gelato enters you mouth, the didn’t know what scaffolding was either.) surely the words for “sexual” and “harassment” exist in orgy begins. Go to Italy, yell “vorrei fucking gelato” (I I won’t tell you too much about the sites because the Italian vocabulary but any culture that allows men would like fucking gelato) to every person you meet you can just go wikipedia that junk. No point in bor - in tight pink shirts and feathered hair to grab the and eat as much as you can. Trust me, everyone here ing you with a home movies-style recap of how lovely scarves of ladies walking down the street and yank eats or makes gelato. It’s their equivalent of our mil - the Palatine Hill is. I’ll sum it up nice and quick: an - them into their embrace isn’t one that enforces the tary-industrial complex. Even the bums have gelato. cient and medieval shit is cool. The Colosseum is big. good old-fashioned “no touching” rule. And please, It’s just a bit browner. I’m getting off topic, though, be - Trajan’s Column is underrated. The Pantheon has a American tourist girls looking for hot Italian men, cause you all must learn how the gelato makers behind badass oculus. don’t get into a random Italian dude’s car and let him the glass counter can trick the unsuspecting Ameri - Ok, a few things you need to know about Roma, drive you to his house. Also, don’t burst into the hotel can. I ordered chocolate and strawberry gelato in my Italia. Don’t J-walk. Ever. No, I mean it. You will fuck - room of your fellow male American tourists (or stu - shitty Italian and waited for the man to make it. He ing die. Don’t. Do. It. You see, the Romans have a spe - dents) to show them pictures you took of their did of course. But when he was done with my lovely cial driving technique that they delight in employing. sparkling abdominal muscles. Most male American cone he held it behind the glass partition. Now, as an It’s called “Get the fuck out of my way I’m driving here tourists (or students) do not want to witness this. ignorant American, I was unsure of what he was you pedestrian asshole.” Traffic lights for pedestrians Be on the lookout for the graffiti tag “hot boys.” doing. I attempted to reach through the glass. Reme - The Stony Brook Press News 3 bering that physics class I never took, I bottom of an asshole. realized my hand could not in fact pen - Last but not least, if you enjoy Insignificant Liberal Media etrate the glass. He kept holding it mobs, the loss of individuality, sweat, there. I searched frantically for secret Australians, t-shirts, and fear the final - Organization Wins trap doors, mini portals, wormholes, ity of your puny existence and enjoy not whatever, trying to get my damn gelato. knowing where the hell you are the next Insignificant Award From Finally, after many a jab against the day, do a pub crawl. I have not been glass the smirking gelato man holds the blessed yet to take part in this great Insignificant National gelato above the counter and I take it. spectacle but from what I have gath - He had tricked me. Twas no doors, ered, you pay the princely sum of 20 wormholes, etc. Just a silly little Amer - euro to “crawl” from bar to bar with a Think Tank ican trying to punch a hole through massive group of people. Some have and organize the fifty member publica - glass. Austrailian accents! The rest are dumb tions that can be found at schools across Italian women don’t want to sleep college kids like you and I. There’s free By Alex H. Nagler the country, though the bulk of them with you. Please, stop promoting these alcohol for one hour before you have to reside on the east coast and California. lies, smiling Americans who winked at start dropping the big bucks for a sip of The posters for Think Magazine Stony Brook is the only SUNY to have a me when I told them I was going to beer. In that hour it is best if you drink proudly proclaim themselves to be the recognized Campus Progress publica - Italy. yourself into oblivion in order to forget “latte sipping, arugula eating, Prius tion. The American bar Sloppy Sam’s in every subconscious terror you have ever driving” paper of Stony Brook Univer - Though only a year old, Campus Campo Dei Fiori is a hilarious cesspool. experienced. That’s not all. Every future sity. Its physical presence is mainly these Progress has taken note of Think , The room is around four hundred de - Nobel Laureate in the pub crawl gets a posters; Think has so far only published awarding it for being the best website grees (Fahrenheit or Celsius take your free t-shirt with such witty slogans as “I one issue, its inaugural issue to celebrate within the publications network. Peck pick) and the people love to sweat on came I saw I crawled.” Gotta love the both the start of itself and the Obama will pick this award up at the Campus you. Prepare to watch Yankee games on Julius Caesar reference. One day I hope administration. Save for that, the mag - Progress conference in Washington mute while throngs of Italian men to steal a t-shirt and run like mad. azine has not been physically seen since D.C. on July 9th. Peck hopes that the gather to watch drunken American col - Hopefully, the pub-crawling visionaries lege girls chant USA! USA! while their will be too inebriated to follow.