after puberty i started taking piano lessons to keep myself sharp and ad to my skills. who in the world would have thought that my teacher would be rick steves. he's a king from europe. he takes tours of the countries and towns and they give him anything he wants. like in the photo: beer and a pretsel. the awesome part is that he doesnt yell. BUT his smile isnt totally childlike. there are chunks of secrets stuck between his teeth.

my first piano lesson was in the winter and it was 28 degrees outside. i stood outside ricks palace for like 20 minutes before he opened the door. he made me show my ID before he'd let me in and i almost got frost bite on my eye lid. Finally the lesson was started but it was hard to pay attention since ricks steves kept rapping at weird times. he never does that on his show but be careful because he might do it any moment. i was doing the F# majer scale and steves yelled "holla" at me and pointed his hand at the wall. i just acted like it never happned.

i tried to pay rick, but hes full of tricks. at the end of the month id give him cold hard cash for the lessons but he would just throw it on the floor like it was nothing. but you know i would just leave it on the floor and go home. i dont even know how he did it but the money would be on my doorstep when i got home. AND the worst part is that it would be more money than i gave him! its hard.

diry secrets of rick steves:

1. rick will trick you any chance he gets. one time he put mayonaise on the piano. i dont like mayonaise and i through up. he said he was sorry and everything but it was really embaressing.

2. rick puts pizza juice soaked pizzo boxes in the recycle. my uncle works for the city and it pisses him off when he tries to turn it into new paper and it smells like pizza and rick spit and beer.

3. he made his kids cut there own hair but they were like 4 years old. that's dangerous, not supposed to give sissors to babies. its weird because they actually did a good job but still.

so rick if you can read this stop sending me money or you will be asking for more.

Click here to go back to Benny's website against sending him money

i posted this on October 30 2008