From the shores of Lake Como here in Maltrazio, Italia, this is obscure season four in American tragedy.

I'm your host, your friend, your ear lover, and literary mansplainer-in-chief Michael Ian Black-Supine.

In my rented boudoir.

Just feeling.

Very relaxed here in Italia.

The children have been with us all this last week. We spent several days in Rome where we did a lot of walking and a lot of eating.

Some sites were seen, but I would say it was mostly a walking adventure.

We were there on May 1st, May Day, as it is known, Labor Day,

as it is known here in Italy, and they take their Labor Day seriously here, unlike

in these here United States, where Labor Day is celebrated as an Italian friend of mine

remarked by people taking the day off to go to the mall to watch other people work.

And that is exactly right.

That is an American Labor Day.

But here, in Italy, things actually do shut down.

They celebrate their workers.

They have their communist marches and there was a concert going on in Rome.

Big concert all day affair and that same Italian friend said it was a communist concert.

And he was half kidding, but half serious.

There's a lot of complicated politics here. That's my understanding, although I couldn't

tell you the nature of those complicated politics. I just know that there's a lot of political

parties and there's always political upheaval going on. They can't keep a government together.

Laws are basically just suggestions here in Italy, a practice we seem to be adopting in the United

...