Yesterday, I got up at 4 am to go to Pompei and get some pictures before sunrise. As you can see from my photo stream, this is not the first time I've done this. The one thing I have found it impossible to avoid at this time of day is the town crazy guy. It seems like every town around here has at least one. Pompei is no exception. When I first entered the Piazza, his bicycle was upside down on one end of the piazza, and he was walking around yelling at the the trees, the dogs, and the street cleaners. He seemed to not notice me at first. However, as soon as I started to setup for my picture, he comes over to say hello. Well, he kind of yelled it. I assume that was his intent, because his Neopolitan accent was so thick, I couldn't understand a single word he said. If you don't speak Italian, you have no idea the difference between Italian and Neopolitan. If you have ever heard a comedian or actor in a silly movie try to speak cajun, or pigeon, its kind of like that. It sounds kind of like Italian, but not really. Anyway, I politely tried to tell him in Italian, that I didn't speak Italian well, and to please excuse me. At this point, he had taken the front wheel off of his upside down bicycle and had been rolling it around the piazza. He yelled a little more and went back to rolling his wheel around. I coninued to setup for my picture as he walked on. At one point, he rolled his wheel across the entire piazza and it ran in to a small barrier at the front of the church. He then yelled something I can only assume was "GOAL !!". I didn't see him for a while after that, which was good for me as I managed to take most of my panorama pictures without him in them. (He did show up in one though.) As I was breaking down my rig and getting ready to leave, he came by again, with the wheel in his hand. He didn't look any different, (crazier or less crazy) than he did the first time he came up, but this time when he got close enough, he swung the wheel at me. I instinctly turned and took the wheel across the chest to protect my camera. The wheel also struck my tripod and knocked it over. He didn't really swing it hard, because it didn't hurt at all. However, he knocked over my tripod. I weighed my options on taking a swing at him, but in the end decided it was probably safer, and less expensive should something break, to just yell at him. I told him in plain Italian to "GO!". I picked up his wheel, which he had dropped after hitting me and my tripod, and threw it across the piazza, and yelled "GO!" again. After a bit of yelling, he finally walked away still ranting at the dogs, trees, and street cleaners, except now I could understand one word he was using in his rants. Photographer.
The things I go through for a good picture.
I just noticed that this is my 100th Post. WOOT!
