Rue de Paris

Nice
Friday, August 3, 2007

The youths, being the night before the wedding, are out doing what they always seem to do on such occasions – partying as bachelors and bachelorettes. In my long and varied life, I have never been to a bachelor party. It never occurred to me to throw one before my own marriages, and no one else suggested it, either.

If what male friends I’ve had held them before their marriages, I must not have been invited. Come to think of it, as most of my same-gender friends are gay, or got married far from where I lived, it’s probably just as well.

Possibly, this old (?) tradition is being reinvented by the present generation – that, at least, is what I choose to believe. I prefer these days to not consider what I may have missed in my life, but what I continue to see, smell, touch and feel in the present moments.

Readers beware: This will become a sensuous blog before it is over, Clouds have appeared over Mediterranean Coast tonight, though they appear to be dissipating even as I speculate on their intention. The weather lady on TV seemed to be excited, but if the graphics told the tale, we are in for one hot wedding tomorrow – around 90 degrees.

The usual refreshing night breeze is weak so far tonight. The window to my balcony is open, and in the windows opposite, I can see an old man, shirtless, milling about, while an old lady in a black housedress irons their clothes.

Girls back from the beach, partly hidden, reach out from behind the shades to hang their bikinis out to dry, though they are so tiny it would hardly seem to be a necessary gesture, especially the tops, which never get wet. A man with a large stomach dressed in shorts hangs over his balcony, smoking, and watching the foot traffic below.

Yes, we are having a party here at the corner of 20, Rue de Paris and Rue Lamartine. As the youths do the town, the Ancient Mariner decided to shop like the local he’s already become, traversing familiar streets to a well-stocked market, where he put together his Friday night meal.

Starting with sliced cucumber with sel fin and cornichons extra-fins au vinaigre, he soon progressed to Mouisse de foie and Petit Camembert on Pain de Mie accompanied by a nice Rose.

After a palette-clearing splash of Fiz Agzume, he proceeded to sample Duo de Pates et Courgettes Grilles ('yer basic veggies pasta salad), the jus de citron removing all memory of Rose from the experience. Now, it was time to munch some chips a’l ancienne, and the main course, salmon fromage frais on pain polaire.

This, naturally, required the return of Rose.

For dessert, there is yaourt gourmand, noix de coco, and an array of fruits.

Set aside for breakfast, along with the leftovers, are les sardines a l’huile vegetale et au piment.

* * *

On my way back to my hotel, where the party was to take place, I stopped at a window where kittens and puppies were playing, on display for sale, though by now of course the shop was closed.

I remembered that the best way to meet girls is to have a pet, and sure enough, within an instant a very pretty, dark-haired girl had joined me. “They are so cute,” she squealed, appealingly. One especially charming little pup caught her attention. “I want it!”

Instinctively, I knew she meant by it, mind you, not what I had to offer, but the puppy. So, reluctantly, I moved along, as more girls and more squeals reacted to the window scene. Alas, I’ve reached an age, where women smile at me only because I am no longer considered eligible or interesting, just safe and harmless.

If only they knew what my girlfriends know, ha!

Well, back to this party we are having here at the corner of Rues Paris & Lamartine. Our eyes, it turns out, were bigger than our stomach, which reminds me of a story about my little girl when she was around 3, some years ago now. She ran out after being chastised by her mother for failing to eat her meal to ask me, “Daddy, why are my eyes getting bigger than my stomach?”

Tomorrow, she will be married, once again. As her husband said, “After all, you only do this twice.”

-30-

A Different Me*

A Different Me

Nice, France

In a coastal resort town anywhere in the world, a life of relative debauchery appeals greatly to me. I see men of a certain age who chose this path, their skin leathery and deeply lined, their hair unkempt, their bodies, whether thin or swollen showing the effects of a life where pleasure trumped industry.

The dead giveaway is their eyes – still sharp even when sedated – on the lookout for the next good thing that just might come their way.

( Ref: Finders are Keepers by Hank Williams, Jr.)

And, one imagines, enough gifts get swept in on the tide to sustain a man such as this for many, many years. Maybe, at some point, a savior turns up, a woman perhaps, who eyes him up and down, and gauges her ability to clean him up, domesticate him, and thereby acquire a live-in gardener, plumber, and boating partner, if not the kind of guy you could ever take home to your family.

Dirty old men.

The phrase litters our literature, and why not? One need only visit the corners where hedonism still breathes, albeit in muted form, to locate the genus. As a man ages, he finds himself increasingly filling their necessary social role, even if he despises it. Rather like all other stereotypes – self-hating Jews, bitter women, happy Filipinos – our world seems to demand, at the end, that we conform to it, not the other way around.

The author and the observer are trying to discern whether this post is about sexual desire, addictions, escape fantasies, or some odd combination of all those, and more. Here, a cliché should suffice: The jury is out.

For starters, there is sexual attraction. In a place such as this one, there are so many half-naked women (or, if you prefer, men) that it would be hard to avoid conjuring the occasional sexual thought, especially if you’d been raised to think that as sinful.

My own upbringing was not overly repressive, and there was no Catholicism, asceticism, Islam or other sexually prohibitive influence in my childhood. Nevertheless, I was a deeply sexually repressed youth, so much so that I entirely missed the normal teenaged rites of passage, totally out of my own inhibitions.

Opportunities abounded, as they only can at a tender age, but I was closed up, to steal a phrase, “as tight as a crab’s buttocks.” (Ref: The Scorpion King.) Nevertheless, I did learn how to make out, finally, and some touching did occur.

But, at that stage of life, women seemed either unattainably perfect or aggressively frightening. The first time I smoked dope, in college, I freaked out, and kept seeing the girl who gave it to me peeking out behind trees as I ever so gradually made my way “home.” I do not remember her name, her face, or any other identifying characteristic about her, but these many years later I believe I owe her an apology and a Thank You for turning me on.

Did you know which American singer first turned on The Beatles or where it happened?

(Read my long-delayed but still upcoming book for the answer; or just do some random Internet research if you cannot wait that long.)

So, there was Kipling, Hemingway, and so many others. Even though I am on the French Riviera at the moment, I will not reference the many famous Americans who littered our literature with their elite fantasies during the last century.

If I were to live here, or anywhere as an ex-pat for that matter, it would be very, very quietly. Learning the language would be the first step; gathering stories would be my main mission. Every town and province has its stories, most of which lie there on the surface, like so much historical detritus.

Even lacking rudimentary French, I can perceive the stories that abound in this place, not to mention the ghosts. It is not the rich or the famous that interest me – if I stayed in these parts I would never visit Monaco or Monte Carlo or Cannes. They hold only an anti-appeal for me.

It is the ghosts who haunt these alleyways that speak to me, in a babble that is part French, for sure, with hints of something else, less accessible. Did you know there is a Southern French accent, much as there is a Southern Accent in the States? Yes, and it includes a finish not unlike the Bostonian dialect Stateside, which of course completely destroys my Southern analogy.

While we’re at it, let’s consider an even more preposterous case – the “Deep North” – Queensland’s coast in Australia.

Where were we?

Ah, qui, regarding the accent of the South of France. It is expressed like this: “Bon Journa.”

* * *

Funny how the mind wanders, especially when suffering from heatstroke. I think I was writing about the way as a man ages he only appreciates female beauty more, and therefore has to take care when staring not to offend the young ladies. After all, who wants a guy who could be her father, or even grandfather, lecherously eyeing her?

No one, of course, and that is the eternal dilemma of the dirty old man.

It seems there is no equivalent for old women; in fact, the evidence suggests that there are men available for every age and stage of a woman’s life.

* * *

On to the writing life.

Non-fiction never seems adequate in these places. What a writer wishes to do here is to create a story that somehow captures the magnitude of the released feelings that tropical heat evokes; originality would be Nice.

Alas, fate determines what we are able to say, when and how. For now, let me admit I never set out to be a responsible family man, and I easily could have turned into something else entirely.

And I may still…

-30-

*"Must be a different you, to be a me with a you." (Nada Surf)

Moon Over Cannes

A short train ride from sleepy little Nice is up-tempo Cannes, which displays its preference for film and film stars with elegant waterfront hotels, a harbor filled with yachts, a luxurious waterfront park filled with exotic vegetation, and miles of brand-name boutiques.

A waterfront rock concert, crepe vendors, a table piled high with candies all vie for the attention of well-heeled tourists strolling along the shore promenade. A gaggle of little local boys have perfected a continuous game of soccer, weaving in and out of pedestrian traffic, only rarely mis-timing a pass, which takes out a tourist or two.

Offshore on a small island dancers twirl fire sticks. A few groups of young men stagger around, their inability to hold their liquor on display to all, but apparently bothersome to few. The police come but refrain from arresting the intoxicated until and unless they do something more offensive than throwing their arms around strangers, giving them sloppy kisses.

Sharply-dressed young women giggle at the drunkards, and walk past quickly, holding on to each other's arms. An amazing range of ethnicities and languages populate this night in Cannes, but for the most part, only one class.

The riche.

-30-

Letter from VilleFranche

This ancient coastal town overlooks the main harbor of Nice from the safety of high, thick castle walls erected in the 1500s.



There is also an underground arcade of sorts, a lovely curved beach, and reputably the best Salade Nichoise in the region.



Of course, I ordered Nice Salad for my lunch, unwittingly, since I never look in guidebooks, but my companions informed me that the establishment we had chosen was indeed known for its rendition of this local dish.



We've also tracked down other regional specialties -- stuffed tomatoes, quiche, red ham slices, black olives, mussel & sea urchin soup, anchovies, ratatoulle, and fois gras.









Visiting the beach of small pebbles, I also searched out some of my beloved seaglass, tiny shells, and stones.


-30-

Letter Two from Nice

Grandson James and I seem to be taking Nice by storm. Not that it isn't tough being an American here. Buy a cup of coffee, a newspaper, and a croissant and you've blown your Euro stash for the day.



Don't even think about taking a taxi or eating in a restaurant!



I spoke with an American teacher who's here doing research for her fall classes (including teaching French) who said all she can afford is a daily coffee from a machine dispenser at the Internet cafe, which charges one Euro per hour. "They way to diet for Americans? Come to Europe!"



Nevertheless, it's entertainment enough just walking around this lovely city. Around any corner, you're likely to discover amazing architectural wonders, plazas, parks, and -- of course -- dozens of lovely women.



Here, I could write for months.



So many tourists stream through Nice that the locals all willingly speak English, Spanish, Portugese, German, Italian -- quite a change from Paris!

-30-

Letter from Nice

Hotel Plaisance
20, rue de Paris
Nice

Here, downtown in old Nice, my hotel room has a little balcony overlooking the narrow streets, not far from the Cote D Azur.

As fate determines, I am staying next door to where my son-in-law Loic first lived when he arrived here for his middle school and high school years, at 22, rue de Paris.

Driving here, we skirted the shoreline, passing along the Promenade d Anglais, the section where the English come to escape their bitter winters. Now, of course, it is summer – hot, steamy, string bikini weather for many more visitors than just the English.

Yet, flying in here as I did on British Midlands Airways, many of my planemates were British, and I enjoyed overhearing their conversations, especially the excited young people. My immediate seatmates, however, were an Asian couple, who, I decided, were certainly either Korean or Japanese.

One of the benefits of dating a Japanese woman is learning certain distinguishing characteristics among the various East Asian peoples. (Without boring you with the details, I’ll just wager I was right, at least about the woman. The man, actually, could have been Filipino, Thai, or even Indonesian. He was most certainly financially successful.)

There was a surprisingly large number of Asians on both of my flights the past twenty four hours. There also were an assortment of Europeans, including French, Germans, British, and Hassidic Jews, several Arabs, a Persian family, Indians, including Sikhs (I wonder if they still are allowed to carry their knives?), and a South African couple who run a Christian camp ground north of Capetown.

They sat next to me from San Francisco to London, and explained that they had just spent six weeks in the States visiting various Christian camps in the Midwest as well as in California.

Jews, Christians, Moslems – will they ever get along?

There were precious few African-Americans on the jumbo jet flying over Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Scotland, and finally the green fields of England. And not a single African or South American. For that matter, I did not detect the presence of any Russians, Central Asians, people from the Balkans or any Latinos at all.

It struck me, as we traversed a third or so of the globe, that only certain people move in the bubble of international travel. Because I have done it so many times, all over the world, this essential truth sometimes eludes me, but today I was reminded that perhaps five percent of the global population even qualifies as potential world travelers, which might give new meaning to the “mile high club” mythology.


My friend claims that flying makes you hungry and horny. I don’t know about the latter but I ate around four meals as I moved from the west coast of the U.S. to Nice.


***

Tonight, the wind dropped, and we ate outside. Loic's mom served a fabulous meal, details of wwhich I'll file tomorrow...

-30-

To France

It's been 20 years; my first baby girl was 11 at the time that I last visited France. But, tomorrow, I fly to London and then on to Nice, arriving Tuesday morning local time. The ceremony will be next Saturday, on what would have been my mother's 92nd birthday.

There isn't a weekend I do not think of my parents. The last time I talked to my Dad was on the first weekend of 1999. That Sunday night, he suffered a massive stroke, and he died early Monday morning. My Mother and I were at his side.

The last time I called my Mom for our weekend chat was in early fall 2002. She heard the phone ring, and my recorded message, but was too ill to get up and cross the room to talk to me. A week and a half later, she died. I was at her side, also.



For many years before these endings, I called my folks every single Saturday morning. They looked forward to my calls, I knew, but it was only near the end that I realized how much I looked forward to them, too.

There simply has never been any other people who so unconditionally supported me the way I am, regardless of how badly I screwed up or however messed up my life became. It was the era before parents became their kids' friends: That seems to be Baby Boomer characteristic.



***

For me, travel is always disruptive. I have my routines, my books, my haunts, and of course, my little children here. But, there I will have my older children, plus the French. One thing I like about Europe is that I feel like a writer there.

In America, you see, being a writer is seen as an oddity by most people. There is nothing familiar about artists to Americans; we are weirdos. Not in Europe!

-30-