A New Beginning, Perhaps

Last evening I arrived at the studio at 4PM, about a half hour before my usual arrival time to find a studio which appeared to be about three times the size of the old studio. Also Richard, the studio technician told me he was there to help inaugurate the equipment for my first live broadcast in five months. He and Ellen then spent quite a lot of time getting things ready while I tried to do the same on my computer. Having downloaded yet another update last week, some things were again different and I had to find the correct way to make the presentation. I succeeded and off we went at about 4:50, about ten minutes ahead of schedule. I indicated to Ellen that I doubted whether my usual Friday evening audience was waiting with bated breath for the possible broadcast, so let's just get started. I did the show quite flawlessly except that some of the images with writing on the bottom were clearly being cut off. The cause was unknown to me, but that might be an easy thing to correct on my end. Other than that I felt quite strange and nervous doing the show, although as always happens to me, nobody would know there was anything different from my demeanor. The show was shorter tan usual at about 37 minutes, and I knew this by looking at the clock, but I was really happy to gotten that far. I took the DVD and went home where Laura told me she watched the show live on TV and it was good although I forgot to say some things that I honestly had forgotten about the places we visit. I did not show Laura the show beforehand, as I usually do, so that was a another problem which can easily be corrected. She did say that she heard a strange noise throughout the show. That noise is very prevalent on the DVD and I labored all last night with the possibility of doing the show over again. Ellen did not know what the noise was. I will probably do the show over again IF Richard can figure out what the noise was. If so, then I will make some necessary changes, talk with Laura about several things and try it again on the air. All this rests on what Richard can determine and I will keep you posted.

The show itself # 118 focused once again on the Tuscan adventure we took with Lidia, Sabrina and Giulio last May, 2015. It shows some very beautiful images of Tuscany in close to proximity to the region known for for its wine, Chianti.  I hope you get to see it, and we will try to make that happen.

The Flu Grounds Alan's Italy

Sorry to all my fans, but I have the Flu and cannot do my show on Friday evening. Perhaps next Friday. Shooting for March 11.

Oh No, Another Trip to Italy!

I planned a trip to Italy in 2016 after assuring everyone I knew, including Laura, that I did not want to go this year because of a lot of conflicting situations. There was a brief window of days available and I jumped right in. I actually asked her about two months ago where she would like to go. She said she would like to go back to the Amalfi Coast, staying in Sorrento and visiting Capri, the coast itself, Positano, Pompeii and Herculaneum. I then spent several weeks getting all that ready only to find her reading a post on Facebook from a friend of hers who is taking an artist group to Tuscany. She then said, much to my delight, that she wanted to return to Tuscany and even visit the artist group in the town of Radicofani which is just south of the val d'Orcia area of Tuscany instead of Sorento. I then planned a trip which became one of the boldest I ever planned.

It is very hard to visit Tuscany properly without driving. First of all it is difficult to pick out a base of operations. Second, you must get there without driving. Third, once you do that in order to see anything decent, you must drive. I chose Siena for several reasons. Although I had been there three times and Laura twice, I never stayed overnight. To truly experience a town you must stay at least one night. You just feel the mystery of the place in the darkness, smell the soot and smoke from the chimneys, and get lost amid the medieval streets. Also, Siena was big enough to allow for a lot of wandering, a lot of restaurants, and hotels. Also it was a good transportation hub for exploring Tuscany since I had NO INTENTION of driving anywhere. We decided on 4 days in Siena, 4 days in Florence, and then two days in Orvieto visiting with Franco Sala whom we missed the last time we were in Italy. Because the hotel I really wanted, the Palazzo Ravizza (rated number 3 out of 39 hotels by TripAdvisor) appeared to be fully booked (I assumed we booked too late for a lot of choices), I chose the Hotel Duomo which still appeared to be quite nice.

Then I had to figure out a way to see the rest of Tuscany, especially places I had never seen. I relied on Lidia and Luca who both graciously and wonderfully agreed to drive us around for two of the days in Siena. I also booked a taxi service to drive us to Siena from Rome Airport, and then on to Florence four days later, a very expensive proposition, but for a non driver, absolutely essential. I then booked our usual hotel in Orvieto, the Hotel Duomo (there are a million Hotel Duomos, LOL) and asked them to book a taxi to the Rome Airport for the trip home, a total of 10 days. A lot, a lot, a lot of money for taxis. To rent a car, however, would have cost just as much and caused me untold anxiety and gastro issues. I bit the bullet. While in Florence, we could see some of our favorite museums and Lidia promises a day out again with Sabrina and Giulio and dinner cooked by Giulio who is a chef at the Westin Excelsior in Florence. All set. Short trip, as we had decided last year. Trips seem to be longer and longer the older we get.

Suddenly without much reason I went back to look at Palazzo Ravizza and found they had a couple of rooms open. I did this on the bus getting to my teaching job in NYC, so spent a whole trip down there emailing with the hotel and texting with Laura. We now have the palazzo with a garden level room for two nights and a regular room for the other two. I cancelled Hotel Duomo. I felt really badly about since they had treated me very nicely, but the thought of spectacular Tuscan views from our room in a magnificent palazzo type hotel was overwhelming. It will be more costly, but I hope worth it.

While in Siena we will try to get west to Volterra, a place I spent time in with Lidia almost 15 years ago. Also we will try to get down to the val d'Orcia area to San Quricio, maybe Mt Amiata, and then Radicofani. Great material for TV shows.

So there it is, yet another trip to Italy and probably if all works out well a year's worth of Alan's Italy broadcasts.

Alan's Italy is Back on the Air..........Maybe

To all my loyal fans around the world all I can say is, as disappointed as many of you are, I am having an even worse time. The last broadcast was show # 117 back on October 9, 2015, almost 5 months ago. My engineer just told me to prepare for a show for next Friday evening, March 4. I spent yesterday and today trying very hard to get back into it. It was not easy having not only lost some (although as it turned out not much) interest, but also forgetting how to do some of the computer stuff on IPhoto. But as of this moment, I have a very nice show prepared Show # 118 - Montefioralle, the day we spent with Lidia, Sabrina, and Giulio showing around the stunning area of eastern Chianti. In fact I became so enthused that I actually had prepared 115 photos, way too much and spent the last hour paring that down considerably. Of course, I always have a very hard time dropping beautiful photos from a potential broadcast.

Now I wait. Next Friday I not so confidently place myself into the hands of my engineer who will probably be doing her first show in the new studio. Very, very scary!!!!! I am fully prepared to do the show, and then do it over again; that attitude is very unusually for me who always gets upset when I have to do a show over. I haven't even seen the new studio, but, again, I place myself in the hands of the person who has taken me this far - which is very far indeed. If it comes off successfully, I then must remember how to download to my computer and upload to Youtube. Gulp!!!

We shall see what happens but I also prepared for the next show # 119 which will focus on the day out in the heart of Chianti with Mary and Luca when they took us up the steep hill to the amazing town of Volpaia. We had a spectacular lunch made slightly less wonderful by the fact that my chronic gastro intestinal problems were bad that day. Still that show was quite nice ending up at Luca's and Mary's house and spending time with Luca marvelous daughter, Greta, who also took us back to Florence on the train. Then I still have two shows (which may become one) on two side trips from Varenna on Lake Como, a lunch several hundred feet above the town of Bellagio and a stroll along Lake Como to the tiny town of Fiumelatte which has a wonderful small waterfall on what is billed as the world's shortest river.

Then I would like to do two shows which I do not know if my audience will like. I would like to spend two shows talking about how to plan a trip to Italy and then how to actually navigate through the many difficult anxious aspects of actually taking such a trip. One of my followers, my friend Shawn from Chicago, loves the idea and even wants to contribute his own experiences with planning a trip. I wish other people would email me their thoughts. The show will not feature a lot of photos, but merely be me speaking directly at the camera using lists and some visuals. I have thought this for quite some time, but never actually did anything. Now I have the skeletal outline of such a series of shows. I hope that will be a public service to assist people who are thinking about taking a trip to Italy. Please let me hear from you at  alansitaly@gmail.com  Thanks!!!

Update

I consumed the last few weeks agonizing over watching my favorite sports team, the New York Mets, labor through the playoffs successfully and the World Series unsuccessfully. I still have vivid memories of the horrific plays in the field in the World Series that led to some of the losses and the insane managerial moves made by Terry Collins which were simply inexplicable at the time and in retrospect. I won't bore my Alan's Italy followers with details, although if you would like an analysis on a semi-expert level, I am the one to provide it. I have studied what could have been a wonderful end to an already stunningly surprising season which back in April nobody could foresee. Back then I would taken this season complete with the incredible disappointments. We all assumed that the Mets would be as mediocre as they have been in recent years, so actually getting to the World Series was an extraordinary achievement. Nonetheless true Met fans by the time the series began had long ago forgotten all the gratitude they should had and simply wanted, prayed for a series victory. It is not easy being a sports fan.

The Cable Access TV show known as Alan's Italy in still on hold pending the removal of all the equipment from the makeshift studio in the trailer to the new digs in the refurbished Woodstock Community Center. Fans will have to be content with the previous 116 shows (remember that the one which would have been the 117th show - actually Show # 116 -  has been removed because the subjects of the show disapproved of the final content). In the meantime it would make perfect sense if I spent the interlude developing new shows. In a very sporadic manner I have tried to accomplish this despite the honest appraisal of having lost some of my enthusiasm. I have tried to reignite my passion and will continue to try, and perhaps when I am truly able to once again broadcast, I will have some kind of epiphany and begin anew. For now I have several ideas, have created four new albums for shows that will probably be broadcasted at some future time and about a dozen total ideas for new shows. Since in all probability we will not go to Italy in 2016, missing only our second year in the past 14, the shows may be few and far between once production continues probably in December or January. I will do my best, mostly for my now very devoted audience which approaches 28,000 views as I write this with 101 subscribers, and over 9,000 reads on this blog. Even though Youtube videos which have gone viral amass much higher numbers, I am content that the very esoteric, intellectual, and refined nature of the show appeals to a small, albeit dedicated audience. It is for this audience primarily that I will attempt to sustain the show. I will keep you informed.

Better But Far From Perfect

Perhaps I am asking too much for perfection in an experience that clearly is not in my hands. Requesting exactly what we want in life when so many factors may mitigate the actual performance is probably unattainable for me in this endeavor. I have spoken very often about that concept on this blog, but being sort of a perfectionist or at least someone who wants to be as good as I am capable of being, I have come to expect difficulty. Last evening exemplified that. I arrived at the studio a bit later than usual because I am just so busy doing many other things.

It all began with the studio tech calling and leaving a message that the studio will be closed starting Monday so that he could move everything back to the new one in the refurbished community center. I was happy about that for several reasons. First, I need a break so that I could develop some new shows. Second, it would be nice to have a bathroom handy. It is just too stressful to not have one available for the one hour broadcast plus the extra time before and after. Third, perhaps more room would benefit my engineer who is clearly cramped most of the time. In fact we are both continually tripping over wires, equipment, and each other. Fourth, the actual workings of the console and cameras might also be better. Ellen corrected me when I told her that Richard had called me indicating that the closing would be next week not this. I told her for me this will be the last show for a while; she indicated probably December, but I will not use that as my target.

With only about 10 minutes to air time, Ellen gave me the video for show # 116 that she had edited, and then I sat at the table getting organized. With about five minutes to go, she lost the color on the tri-caster called Richard who told her what to do to fix the problem and off we went through the broadcast. From that point on things were very smooth. After all that is the only time I am actually in almost total control, and I was ready having already performed that show several weeks ago. As we concluded the show and the "outro" was being played, she inexplicably closed down the video with the song and the visual images not quite finished. She suggested that I give her the dvd and she would edited the full "outro" back into the video, but I declined and told her that I would edit that part of the show myself when I uploaded to Youtube so that the new ending would stop after the first song instead of both songs as we are used to doing.

On the way home I stopped off at an event at the Woodstock Artist Association for about an hour and then hurried home for dinner, to get ready for the start of the Division Series between the Mets and the Dodgers, and the hopefully spend time with the two videos. The first video of show 116 was perfectly edited by Ellen and I uploaded to Youtube, but there was a problem. I am used to choosing the lead photo that people see when they look at the video on my Youtube Channel, but that was not going smoothly. Otherwise Youtube chooses the image themselves randomly which is rarely suitable. I couldn't be bothered at that time, so I went ahead to the video for 117. The first thing I realized was that the intro sounded a bit strange, and even worse when I began speaking there was an echo. The echo only lasted slightly less than 60 seconds, so I uploaded anyway to Youtube. So....if you hear the sound as a bit strange, be patient because the sound improves very quickly thereafter.

In the morning I told Laura my dilemma with the lead photo on the channel for the two shows and she showed me another way to compress the photo on my computer than I had been using. That was the problem and now I have it exactly how I want it, EXCEPT those first 45 or so seconds when my voice has an echo.

So now I take a well earned hiatus, step back from the show for a couple of months. I will try to get some of my enthusiasm back that I had during the first three years. Honestly, I am getting a bit tired of the whole thing especially when I have all this extraneous stuff with which to contend. If I am successful I will finish the show # 118 on Fioralle, a stunning small town near Badia a Pasignano, and then I have about 10 more ideas including some on the air interviews. If I am able to get the enthusiasm back to continue, my biggest issue will be that we are not going to Italy next year!!! There are several reasons for this, but I will not get into them here. I anticipate, if possible, to return to Italy during April of 2017, although the details are far from being worked out. So if I must sustain the show, I will have difficulty finding suitable material for future broadcasts, but as I told Laura, "I have about 25,000 photos from trips going back years. I should be able to come up with something!!!" Stay tuned.

Pure Chaos

The worst broadcast we ever did due largely to a host of technical problems Ellen was having with the system from video to audio issues. I was also tentative because after installing a new operating system, Yosemite to my MacBook Pro. My problems paled by comparison with what turned out to be almost pure chaos!!!

First she couldn't get the microphone to work, and then after trying all three in the studio, finally got something working. Then as we began, the visual feed stopped working so I couldn't be seen and then we had severe interference. When I went home and saw the DVD of the show, I was horrified by the end product - positively awful. I thought after all that hassle at the studio I could go with an imperfect show and indicate to my audience what it is like to do public access, but it was so terrible that it would have been an embarrassment.

Called Ellen today and indicated that perhaps we should not attempt to broadcast until we have relocated back to the now completely renovated studio, but she felt confident that we can do it, so I acquiesced and we are trying the same show again next Friday. The content appeared excellent. I focused on the Tuscan adventure we had with my friend Lidia and her friend Sabrina and Sabrina's husband Giulio. I asked them to take me anywhere they felt best in Tuscany, preferably somewhere I had never seen. They chose a fabulous day which consisted of morning at the Badia a Pasignano, just west of the Chianti Region, then lunch at a charming restaurant with spectacular views near where Sabrina and her family used to spend their summers, topped off by the hill town of Fioralle not far away. Show # 117 will focus on Badia a Pasignano with two wonderful video interviews, followed by part 2 or Show # 118 on the lunch at Rignana and afternoon at Fioralle. Good plan, lousy broadcast facilities.

Things were so bad yesterday that I began to once again think about doing my own production. I would buy a video camera, set it up meticulously on me sitting at a table, and simply do my own DVD to be uploaded to Youtube. The trouble is that I like public access, feel loyalty to Woodstock and to Ellen, and might not be able to have the split screen concept using the tri-caster. I will give this more time, especially in the new studio which should become a reality in a few months.