Author Archives: Alan Weiss

Firenze

This is the birthplace of the Renaissance, and after driving through frightening traffic (I told the concierge to simply have Hertz come here and take the car away), we arrived at the Four Seasons, the former Medici Palace. We are installed in the Nobel Suite, and I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.

The mural on the bedroom ceiling.

Entering the bedroom.

The living room looking toward the second bath.

The detailed ceiling of the living room.

Part of the gardens from our windows.

A hidden row of closets down another hall.

From the bedroom looking into the living room.

Master bath.

The fireplace.

Looking toward the entry.

© Alan Weiss 2013

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The Adventures of Koufax and Buddy Beagle

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Reflections on Tuscany

Tomorrow we head for Florence from Forte dei Marmi.

• The mountains white not with snow but with marble.

• The impossibility of getting a bad meal.

• Very friendly, confident women and very argumentative insecure men.

• Cyclists who are defiant, rude, and dangerous.

• Streets built for chariots accommodating modern cars.

• Breathtaking countryside with cities build around churches and farms built around fortresses.

• The best food in the world.

• Truly remarkable red wine and passable white.

• Fun and cheerfulness and activities that defy any reports of a troubled economy.

• Dashing carabinieri who primp in the side view mirrors of parked cars.

• The most sophisticated, intelligent, automated highway toll collection system on earth, accepting credit cards, coins or bills, and sending you away with “Arrivederci!”

• Lamps older than America.

• Fleas markets with designer merchandise (not knock-offs).

• Women who look you in the eye and don’t stare at the ground.

• Indifferent airline service.

• A sometimes shocking personal body aroma from even lovely women.

• A happy marriage of old towns and news products.

• A joyousness in the mornings as people greet the new day.

Bread as gator in Lucca

One of 70 churches in Lucca

Delivering my sermon

The fabulous restaurant Buccadisanantonio

Fabulous facades on the churches

© Alan Weiss 2013

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What I’m Doing On My May Vacation

Forte dei Marmi is nestled between the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Carrera-marbeled Appennine Mountains like a spoiled child. Gated villas with huge hedgerows impossible to see from the tree-canopied streets populate the town. The shops are Prada and Gucci and Savorski and for the very well off.

This is still the slow season, where you can get into any restaurant and gad about without crowds.

The Tuscany postal system: a babe on a motorbike, smoking a cigarette along the way!

Carrera marble in the mountains

Part of the coast

Maria under her ancestral shopping logo

© Alan Weiss 2013

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Tuscany Travels

My wife’s ancestral home on her father’s side is Carmagnola, outside of Torino. We see her cousin Francesco once or twice a year. He owns a hugely successful wood design firm with global clients. Since my son won a stunning villa for a week in a charity poker game, he invited Cousin Jimmy’s family to come along and visit the homeland. Here are just a few of the 80+ photos I shot today.

This is about one-fifth of Francesco's operation.

Part of the valleys where the Barolo, Asti, and other grapes are grown.

A typical fortress village that exist all over the area.

Jason, Maria, and me.

A village street.

Another view from one of the fortresses.

Francesco is in the middle, he's 78, and the rest of the family crowds in. That's Cousin Jimmy, immortalized in one of my signature stores, in the light blue shirt on the right.

© Alan Weiss 2013

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Alan’s Monday Morning Memo – 5/20/13

May 20, 2013—Issue #191

This week’s focus point: I’m sitting in a villa in Forte dei Marmi in Tuscany. It is incredibly beautiful and peaceful. Instead of rushing from monument to monument and checking off historical points of interest, we’re simply spending a week immersed in the local culture and environment. We can walk or bike to shops, have some wine and espresso, and have high quality family time (there are 8 of us). You can’t find a bad meal in Italy, and cousin Jimmy and I are about to head out for morning coffee. We don’t have to go to Italy to realize that it’s important to obtain quality “down time,” which isn’t accomplished during “vacations” where we’re engaged in scavenger hunts to find every novelty and benefit possible in five days. Sometimes “domani” is a fine decision. It’s tough to live when you’re not enjoying life.

Monday Morning Perspective: Age is such a high price to pay for maturity. — Tom Stoppard (one of my favorite quotes of all time)

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© Alan Weiss 2013. All rights reserved

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Tuscany Again

It’s a crap shoot connecting from Tuscany, visit my Facebook page for photos and some comments on this incredible, one of best-ever trips with the extended family.

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In Case You Were Wondering What I Was Thinking

• American Idol is an example of a once-dominating franchise that ate itself to death through self-indulgence.

• The co-author of my first book in 1988 told me that extreme expressives have to applaud themselves if they can’t get anyone else to applaud them. Today, they are crawling all over Facebook, printing their latest clients testimonials, fan mail, and grammar school report cards.

• The next person who is a complete stranger to me and asks me to endorse his or her work seriously needs an electroshock. Can you say, “Ethics”? Only slightly dumber are the strangers who write me and would like referrals for their business.

• ”House of Cards” is at the same time intriguing, revolting, hysterical, and depressing. We have three episodes left and I don’t want it to end.

• I’ve noted some morons are now arguing that I’m wrong because at my age I don’t have the right perspective. Once it was that I was too young, occasionally because I am a male, frequently because I’m a New Yorker, and often because I was Jewish and then Catholic. The commonality, amongst all the bigotry? These are people who can’t argue an intellectual point because they have no ammunition with which to do so.

• When I look at the preponderance of comments on the social media platforms, I become seriously worried about our future, because these people have or can have children! (Imagine their rooms with wall-to-wall Successeries framed sayings….)

• Outside of the Four Seasons and Peninsula hotel chains, the next time I find a luxury hotel, with the entire management staff oriented toward the guest’s comfort and not revenue, will be the first.

• There’s a huge political dispute among the American Kennel Club, the German Shepherd Dog Club of America, and the White German Shepherd Dog Club of America over whether the white dogs are a separate breed, should be allowed to be shown in competition, and so on. Fortunately, the dogs have more brains than the club officers.

• I’m sitting in the combined Air France, Alitalia first class lounge at Logan Airport in Boston. Four members of management are doing nothing but moving furniture around, often right by us, and the woman looks at us and never smiles or acknowledges our existence. Not only is service generally worse in Europe, it’s even worse with European managers in the U.S.!

© Alan Weiss 2013

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Alan’s Thought For Today

A sales manager at a major New York property is trying to get two full weeks of my business next year, which would be worth six figures. I received a phone message at 8 this morning that she’s in a training class, and will call me during lunch break. I’m leaving for Italy.

Presumably, they are training her how to sell better, and keeping her from actually selling to a very valuable client. I am not making this up.

There is your definition of bureaucracy. Stay in the training program about selling so you can sell more, and don’t take time out to go sell more. Stick to the input, ignore the output.

© Alan Weiss 2013

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On to Rome

The car picks us up later today to go to Logan Airport and we’ll fly from Boston to Rome overnight, pick up a car, and drive to Forte dei Marmi (the marble fort). You can see our villa here: http://www.villafortedeimarmi.it/villa-gallery.html

My son won this in a charity poker game, along with his and his latest squeeze’s airfare from LA. We’re all converging, including the legendary Cousin Jimmy of one of my signature stories, and his wife and daughters. The place sleeps 10 and has a staff. On Monday we visit my wife’s and Jimmy’s ancestral home in Carmagnola, outside of Torino. In the square is a monument with the names of the founders of the village, where prominently listed is “Gallo.” (And my wife’s upset with me because I put a sign along our two-acre pond, “Alan’s Lake”!)

We have about a three-hour drive from Rome, but we may take a longer detour to drive along the sea.

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