2014-10 Paris

I may have started a trend, stunning in a country where the most innocuous of inclinations can take decades to percolate. While slogging in North America, it is my custom to mumble a “good morning” or “good day” to passing fellow joggers. That does not fly in a country where every indication of friendliness, no matter how benign, is met with deep suspicion.

And so I have taken to showing a “thumbs up” to passing runners, in truth a single thumb, as I don’t want to get ahead of myself and make the locals crazy. Today I actually had one return the upward thumb. Well, on second thought it may have been a different digit.

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King Juan Carlos of Spain has abdicated his throne. It’s about time. That man almost got me killed! It was long ago in a land far away, Barcelona, Spain, to be exact. I was managing a U. S. government exhibit and had an office above the exhibit floor with large glass windows so one could peer onto the activity below. My event was several weeks hence and I was working catch-up on a Saturday afternoon, while another event was in progress on the floor below.

I was attracted to some commotion on the floor and pressed against the window for a better look, when all at once a gaggle of nasty looking no-necks were pointing at me excitedly. It appears the newly crowned King Juan Carlos was visiting the exhibit surrounded by security (the misnamed Nationalists had made bodily threats.)

As I saw the good King being hustled off the floor I simultaneously heard the thunder of heavy boots on the stairs and my office door crashing open. All I could think was to shout “Americano,” but in Spain that is a cocktail, so I meekly turned to the wall, hands above my head. Spanish security forces are not renowned for their multi-linguistic skills, and it took a call to the American Consulate to square things away. The only question raised by the junior Embassy staffer on call was “what in the hell were you doing working on a Saturday.”

A nice segue into the story of how I came to spend a night in a Spanish Canary Islands jail for "camping on a beach that might flood." But a story for another time. Be sure to remind me.

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Encountered a pick-pocket the other day, rather he encountered me. Emerging from the Bonne Nouvelle (translation: Good News!!!) Metro, I felt a slight tug on the light jacket I had tied around my waist. Turning around, a 20-something thuggish looking sort was already backing away. I threw several of my favorite Anglo expletives, and in response he banged fists together indicating he was ready to take me on.

These things tick me off mightily. Here was an able-bodied young man (his body appearing abler than mine), and without some instructive result, he will be pursuing this line of work indefinitely. Lessons not taught nor learned invite bad behavior.

And so I descended several steps back down toward him (and yes, I hear all the females in my audience yelling ”idiot,” and they’re likely right), when 2 clochards (street people) up above joined the party. I assumed they were simply there to provide color commentary and not active participation, but in a rare moment of lucidity I hurled a few additional morsels of choice invective and turned away.

Interesting that I was wearing the very same jacket over a decade ago when a successful pick-pocketing took place as I was watching a carnival parade in New Orleans. Perhaps not so interesting for one who wears the same clothes for decades.

Maybe the French pick-pocket union should offer training scholarships in the Big Easy.

Several blocks away enjoying a beer to calm down, I had visions of finding a missile of some sort to even the playing field and returning to find the miscreant who was surely still in the area plying his evil trade. But the beer was so cold and tasty, the weather so warm, the view so inviting…

bientot

2014-09 Paris

Got involved in the “lost ring” scam today. Found myself at Opera, not sure why, quelle jardin zoologique” waiting for the light to change and wow, right at my feet a gentlemen picks up a gold ring. He gives me the zut alors look and I say pas le mien (not mine). He tries it on, doesn’t fit, another zut alors and is about to make his pitch, “it doesn’t fit me, so why don’t I let you have it for a modest stipend?”

I smile and say “do you speak English?” “A leeetle,” he replies.

"Then you will understand F*** off.”

He thinks for a second, twigs, scowls, and walks off.

Gotcha!

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A time-honored tradition for learning French is to watch TV, the questionable theory being that foreign words and phrases uttered by talking heads suddenly become intelligible. I tried this once. I lived with a cat that spoke constantly and I listened, faithfully, for what seemed like months but all I ever twigged was “feed me.

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Paris Metro stations are replete with warnings “ne pas descendre sur les voies. Danger de mort”. As every French schoolchild knows well, Mort is an evil troll who lives in the Metro tunnels and inflicts unspeakable carnage on those foolish enough to venture therein. Faire attention!

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The French are known for multitasking (if not multiachieving). Sit in a café and watch 6 women in conversation, all taking rapidly, non-stop, at the same time. Oh, and the men are worse.

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As I was slogging the other day, the thought occurred… If a gentleman of African descent is in charge of bats for a baseball team, given the sensitivity of the term “boy” in the minority community, should he be addressed as “Batman”? Just wondering.

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With my Commander-in-Chief in town last week I twigged on a long, long forgotten event. Don’t ask why. I was a junior staffer on loan to the White House assisting presidential advance teams (the folks who deploy in advance of a presidential foray and set the non-security agenda (the Secret Service handling the important stuff). 

I was in a meeting when one of the muckity-mucks noted that tomorrow is the President’s birthday and we’re all stumped as to how to celebrate it. The assemblage looked at one another and I, as yet unschooled in the maxim “never volunteer,” meekly spoke up.

“Whenever the President enters a public gathering the band plays “Ruffles & Flourishes (usually ta ta ta taaa, x 4), then breaks into “Hail to the Chief.” How about instead of Hail, after the Ruffles & Flourishes, the band strikes up “Happy Birthday.”

As the assemblage awaited official acknowledgement, the muckity walked over to me, asked my name, and sneered something like “you have no sense of protocol, the suggestion is absurd.” Though my body remained stationery, the rest of me slunk away mortified.

The following day in the rooftop bar of the Marriott Key Bridge where my staff and I often repaired at eventide to review the day’s events and kvetch about life in general, my ear caught a TV newscast covering a Presidential visit earlier in the day. I heard “ta-ta-ta-taaa, ta-ta-ta-taaa, ta-ta-ta-taaa, ta-ta-ta-taaa, Happy Birthday to You, Mr. President…..Happy Birthday to You…” POTUS smiled ear-to-ear, and as the TV panned across the stage, there was muckity, himself smiling as though he had been conferred eternal salvation. It was perhaps the best lesson in politics I ever received, and which I carry with me to this day.

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Paris is in the throes of an early solstice canicule, with outdoor cafes overflowing and nubile young Parisiannnes in wispy summer dresses swishing by on the way to some delicious rendezvous…oh and the World Cup is on as well.

2014-08 Paris

Today is The Longest Day, June 6, 70 years from the day that names like Omaha and Utah ceased to be just cities and states. If you’ve not read The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan, you should must. Like few other histories of that era, it weaves the joy (for some) the horror (for many), the serendipity and happenstance that came together on the beaches of Normandy. 

If you’ve read it, read it again! It provides a striking contrast to the giving of then to the taking of today where JFK’s “ask what you can do for your country” is but a distant memory, and dealing with the paparazzi is likened to the horrors of war.

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Heading out this morning to run jog slog I noticed a helicopter positioned stationery above the Invalides which I circumnavigate on the 5-k route I have set. Strange, never seen that before and don’t know if I have ever seen a chopper in the skies above Paris. Oh wait. My Commander in Chief is in town. Got it. Local joke is that half of Paris had to move to the suburbs to make room for his entourage.

The political world has descended on France to celebrate the D-Day occasion, most of whom never served honorably (or at all) in their respective militaries, save Putin who gets a pass based on his prior métier, and of course our own Commander in Chief, because he is, after all, the Commander in Chief.

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I thought of several really neat BLOG items while slogging today. Unfortunately they were left floating somewhere on the Quai d’Orsay.  Oh, and today’s slog was a personal best for Paris. Don’t embarrass me by asking the time.

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When I first came to Paris shortly after the American Civil War, those seen mumbling on the streets were deemed to be mentally deficient. Now they’re talking on their “mob-i-les.” And while the French often criticize les savauges (i.e. those not born in France or whose lineage does not extend back 5+ generations) for being loud, their voices rise an octave when speaking into cell phones.

In those early days the local joke was that half of France was waiting for a phone to be installed and the other half was waiting for a dial tone. At the time the wait for installation was 12-18 MONTHS, yes, not days or weeks but months. Now every 10 year old has her own pink princess cell.

My first apartment in Paris was arranged through the American Embassy and I insisted on a phone which I was told would be impossible. I dug in and they finally found one so equipped, for which I paid a handsome supplement. In 8 months I never used the device and it never rang, but I just couldn’t see living without a phone.

The philosophy was simple. Like with phone books. When I asked my Embassy secretary for a spare phonebook, she looked shocked and said n’existe plus (no longer available). The PTT produced books every 5 years, one for each subscriber, and no extras. I nicked hers!

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I maintain multiple mailing lists for this BLOG, a small one for acquaintances who, possibility out of charitable courtesy have not told me to bug off, and several larger ones containing the curious and those with too much idle time who have wandered in by happenstance. These lists have not grown, and while I have always maintained that I BLOG for personal satisfaction alone, ego dictates that an expanding audience feeds the self-esteem.

And so my first, and likely last promotion. Send me the emails of folks to add to the list. I won’t tell them who recommended their names! In return, your subscription will be extended for a year. But wait! The first 50 of you who supply names will get a subscription in perpetuity with a provision for passing on to your heirs when you leave the planet.

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I think my Commander in Chief is already in Normandy, but if I see him on the streets of Paris I’ll convey your regards.

Bientot