… paris street level
Train from Bordeaux pulls into Paris late afternoon on a Friday, montparnasse station a grey ugly concrete shell. I’m a bit on guard … I’ve heard stories about Paris, edgy dangerous and full of thieves. Cautious, I double check the station map before I get off the platform. A young African guy just off the train is standin around lookin a bit lost. No plans, no bookings, a few clues about possible jams and places to busk … a vague idea about camping rough on the edge of the city later in the evening. The station shopping mall is a bit more civilised … I hold back the urge for a decent coffee till I can find a bar in the outside world … but pick up a good map with an index of streets and coverage outside the inner tourist zone. A cigarette outside the station while I make a few plans. Whatever happens, the big pack is awkward and heavy, decide to store it at the station and travel light … horn, clarinet, and a few clothes in the laptop case.
Mapcheck: I’m not far from the eiffel tower, I’ll head there for a picnic and then cut across to the Louvre on the way to rue oberkampff, one of my clues for busking entertainment and music. Maybe I’ll find a place to stay, or maybe a decent dance club to dance the night off … and work it all out in the morning.
Priority cafe … around the station everything is touristy and expensive, even for coffee. I keep walking for a bit, and find a small place with a slightly more local flavour, ‘la chien qui fumer’ … coffee over the bar isn’t ridiculously expensive … stop for a cigarette and refreshment. Bliss. Small bakery next door has decent baguettes and a great pain au chocolat … I stock up, and plan a picnic near the eiffel tower … time to take in the icons before I have to put plans in place.
Short walk to the tower passing galleries, museums, negotiating crazy French traffic armed with the words ‘pouton de merde’. The tower appears in the distance, unmissable in paris, and visible just about everywhere on this side of the city. Pass the Rodin museum on the way, resolving to check it out sometime, and another that I still don’t know the name of. Tourists everywhere, beauty everywhere … formal and majestic sights. Approach the tower via a tree lined park … this is one of the most impressive tourist sites I’ve seen in Europe. Different seeing it up close. From the park, baguette in hand, it’s a joy to take in. A wonderful fusion of impudence, engineering, design and aesthtics. When I see things like this, always ponder why most of the icons of western culture come across as unconcious models of erect penises … in Paris, this is obvious. Moving closer, taking in the crowds … a monstrous queue waiting to pay 10E to get to the top. I’ve seen big cities from a distance before. It’s a finer view looking up through the tower’s legs admiring the detail, and taking it in like a giant metal spiders web. The loo has a warning about pickpockets, and with all the gawking tourists, it’s no wonder that business would be good.
A walk along the Seinne to the Louvre, the next icon to tick off. Distances are slightly more that I’d thought, and every corner has some small statue or important landmark. Bored of taking photos of these very quickly, but often turn around to take in Paris’s impudent prick as evening comes … lit up like it was wearing some surrealistic condom of light. Through the centre of town coming up to the Louvre … it’s been a long walk, and the small pack of essentials is just about as heavy as the big bag of crap (and a lot less comfortable to wear … only really designed to hold a laptop). Another museum, not sure which, three sculptures negligently slung up in the garden take my eye. Three Rodins tortured figure holding arms and contorting bodies trying to avoid some horrific site. A break they’re beautiful works, and there doesn’t seem to be anything or anyone around to stop me from taking them in from right up close. Difficult to avoid the impulse to caresse … a spider has made a home in one of the upraised bent arms … night is falling, time to incresse the pace a little. Wandering the sculpture garden just in front of the Louvre, many great works of the 20th and late nineteenth century … a plethora of classical figures, and a few scattered Parisians feeding the ducks.
Past a small arch, and the Louvre opens up in front of me. Night is falling, and it is a wonderful sight … the steel glass pyramids next to the classic architecture of the main building. At this stage. I ponder how many days it would take to absorb even a fragment of the art. It’s an enormous building, as I wander through one of the alleys, peering into one of the sculpture rooms, I realise how enormous. Most of it seems to be underground … but time is starting to run short. A map check, a cigarette, and I’m on my way. Tempting to check the acoustics of the alleys, but I prefer the idea of a bar lined street.
Easiest way to get where I’m heading in good time is the Metro, another spiders web crossing Paris, but there are stations near the museum, and my destination. Standing in the metro, trying to align my map with the transport map, and disentangle the maze of Paris’s underground train system. A few locals walk past with a comment in English, and an askew look in my direction … ‘isnt it better to ask a local if you have a problem’. A breath of Parisian arrogance, I ignore and think ‘but what if the problem is you!’. The locals are full of attitude. 30 seconds, and I have a plan, and I’m on my way.
Coming out of the metro somehere near Oberkampf. Maybe it isn’t as easy as I thought. The curved and angled streets are confusing, and out of view of the tower, I’ve lost my main landmark. A few false starts, and I stumble onto rue oberkampff almost by accident. This is a bit more like it.A lot of bars, one or two cheesy looking clubs, but a lot more grungy than the main tourist drag. I walk the distance of the street, past a few trattorias. Cafes and bars are full, but it’s a chilly evening and the tratts are deserted. It’s been a long journey, and I’m not sure whether I’m in enough form to hit up the tratts just yet … the new mouthpiece still feels a bit uncertain, and I’m not really confident of my tuning with it. I decide to find a street spot just to raise a bit of hell. The bars seem expensive … maybe a coffee later … one or two pumping decent soft cafe electronica from a dj.
A small doorway, and I set up. I’m really not sure about my tuning, my timing is all over the shop, and I can’t work out whether it would have sounded better if people could hear my secret hands-free accompaniment or not. I’m messy and fumbling on tunes I know well. But I keep pumping. A few coins thrown my way, more in sympathy. But a couple of african guys wander past. They are trying to catch my groove (difficult) or give me something to groove on themselves. At least they repect the energy, and it keeps me going. Come 11 o’clock and it’s time to do something a bit practical. I haven’t been playing well by my own measure, but I’ve laid my mess across a parisian street, so it feels pretty good. One of the African guys comes up, a dude or a gangster not sure which, sees that I’m headed for the mercado and offers to buy me a beer. Cool. We part, and I sit on a corner with a can of Desperado pondering my next move. Night clubbing it is. I’m not going to find a bed, and I really don’t feel like sleeping under a tree around here.
Night club queue, and I start a small conversation in English with a French girl over a light for a cigarette, share the rest of the Despeado, and the night is starting to look up. The chica, Milan, speaks good inglese and has been a year in Aus. But she wants pills and electro. We move onwards from rue oberkampff and the night of wild walking begins.
Milan is keen to play the game of being an Australian tourist. I’m a bit embarassed by this … I guess she wants to practise her English. She asks everybody we encounter if they know of some electro or where to get some ecstasy … sometimes calling into open windows, sometimes hassling dudes in bars and cafes … past midnight in Paris on a Friday night, this is all probably a safe thing. Cross the road badly, get some bad mouthing from a driver who had to stop, and we chant ‘well fuck you then’ almost in unison … that and a few other oz idioms, and I’m sure she really has spent a year in the old country. More than one person we ask direct us back to the club we left, but we keep pressing on back to the center of town. It’s funny for a while, but I decide to practice my bad spanish, and impersonate a lost Spanish tourist. I think this annoys her a bit. After a while we find an automated bike rack. My credit card is back in the big bag, and it’s too small a transaction to be worth encountering the international bank charges. We fumble around on one bike, awkward with my big bag … this lasts for about 100 metres and 1 near bingle. I think she’s bored of all this, and the bad spanish. She hope on the bike never to be seen again (by me that is).
Stop on a park bench, not quite sure where, and finish the last of the days baguettes. A bike would be good, so I wander back to the rack to see if there is any way I can make it happen. An egyptian guy, says his name is Didi, asks for a few papier for a joint, then offers to help me get a bike. There is a fair bit of stuffing around, and then out of a corner pops an African guy, asks if we want some pills. Into a side lane. In the normal course of events I wouldn’t but given the mission of the last hour (now about 1am) and the fact that it’s still in my mind to find Milan for a long overdue night of fun and debauchery I say yes to one, and then two. By australian standards, 5 euro for a pill even a bad one is good value. Five for twenty I balk at. Then my Egyptian friend offers to take two and a half, ok I take the deal four pills get shovelled into a papier, then the tobacco, then a concealed zip. I’m aware that people are watching which pockets things go into. I’m on my toes and very cautious. One pill goes into a pocket very quickly and the other 4 locked very tight inside my belt. The isolated pill disappears … I should have read this, but miss the sign. The dealer quickly disappears.
There’s another small game to do with the bikes. Ok so this guy will help me, but I say no money up front. If you can get a bike out of the rack with your card … sure that’s worth 30euro to me, but I want to see the bike out of the automatic lock. His card, unsurprisingly, can’t make the necessary transaction. There’s no more talk about getting a bike. No more talk about 10euro for the other two pills … a bit annoying as 4 pills are more than what I need or want, even at (what I think is) a bargain price. My guard is up, but I’m still staying open to possibility, and still in a party vibe. He suggests a coffee, and while we’re staying on main roads with people around this seems as good a plan as any. More walking … my feet are getting sore. But we head to the north of the inner city. Another joint on the way.
The cafe is nameless, and filled with people carrying their lives on their backs. We sit at a table near two people who seem to know him, but act as if they don’t … one seems to be cool and friendly, the other seems to have forgotten how to do this. Both have a dodgy air, bad sunglasses and tacky hats. I’m starting to feel a bit more stoned than I should be after a couple of joints. I thank the universe now for years of bad living and walking multi daynight stints without additives at dance parties. One of the new dudes offers me a joint out of the blue we are out of the cafe, but my bags afre locked tight. He seems ok (bad dentition aside), but now my guard is up. I’m careful, hiding my uncertainty, playing naive (as if I haven’t been really naive so far!), and being superficially friendly. I’m worried about how unusually stoned I feel. Slight waves of nausea. I hold it down. Puking in the loo now will leave me really vulnerable. A few minutes of controlled breathing and keeping an eye out in peripheral, and i’m holding my own. Doing the dolphin thing, and resting one eye at a time. Things are not looking good just at the moment. There is an inordinate curiosity about the practical details of my phone … capacity and how to use it. I keep it close. A few pointed questions about my sax case. Very glad that it looks like a pvc tube of junk. For the moment I think they’re buying the story that it’s a telescope. Certainly if they knew the crapped out backpack was a laptop case with a clarinet stashed in the corner, and the pvc tube with battered indian stickers was a saxophone, the ante would be upped. For the moment, I’m just a naive backpacker with a nice phone and a few E’s stashed and a 100euro or so (‘stasi’ on the street here). There are occaisional bumps and rubs, but nothing important or valuable in my pockets.
I declare my intention to return to the dance club, after many attempts to dissuade. I really want to lose the Egyptian guy but it’s difficult. He keeps hanging on trying to win the game. Am now pretty certain that he’s trying to outlast me and get everything I’ve got when I collapse. But years of all night partying have been good training for this moment. I turn down the next joint, but take a line of what I thought was coke … anything that might help. He says that he is returning to his place … invites me to stay but I know this is a bad idea, but it might be an easy way to ditch him … as long as I’m heading to rue oberkampff staying in wide, lit streets with passers by, and don’t fall asleep, things are ok. I stop randomly to rest my feet … they’re really starting to hurt, and once or twice to fight down waves of nausea. I vary the pace a lot. And try to avoid collsions and close bumps. It’s clear after about 20minutes that he’s going round in circles … he declares that he’s confused because of drugs … I know better … he’s looking behind, and I wonder what kind of connection is made with the guys back in the cafe. I’m looking in all directions at once as well. We’re not going anywhere. This is an endurance test, but he is pretty tired as well. I can’t find a way to ditch him without raising the stakes. I don’t want his friends to come back. I’m keeping the journey on wide well lit streets. We stop at a bus stop. He is very obviously as tired as I am. I don’t think he’s faking it now. Adrenalin and a history of long nights keeps me going. He tries to get me to sit down, but I say I need to stand … another wave of nausea … I do need to stand. He wants another run through my pockets, and comes up bumps into me. Very clumsy given we’re the only people on the street. I see his hand near one of my trouser pockets, and a tape sling half way out … a button up pocket to big a challenge for this guy, and the tape cling is tied and won’t slide easily. I think he’d spottded the bulge and thought it might be of value. But now the game is over. He knows this. I don’t want to raise the stakes, though I’m pumped and twice this guys size. He’s rough and from the streets of Paris, but unarmed. We’re both exhausted. – I’m going in that direction, and you’re going to stay here – It’s enough … I don’t think either of us want it to get worse than that right now.
I walk along one of the canals, hoping to get to the Seinne eventually. No time now for a map check. I’m pretty delirious. Am sure the line of powder was smack, and given that I was nauseous after the joints … that the joints were spiked with something or other. Probably something. My feet feel really fucking bad. But I keep walking. But I’m alone, and the streets are wide and bright. I keep walking till dawn, finding a bench to doze sitting up just after dawn, arms around the sax case, backpack locked and on my back.
Night of hell, but I’m almost insanely happy to have survived it. I check my feet … they are cut to crap. Where not blistered, they are tender and swollen. I keep walking. Find the antibiotic creme missing. The only thing worth more than 10c in the only pocket of my backpack without a lock. Laugh at the fact that the Egyptian guy has spent more on drugs than he’s won out of me. A dodgy spanish antibiotic and one pill of E is all that seems to be missing.
At least I have my toothbrush. I give into nausea, puke for the next 10 minutes and brush my teeth. Laughing insanely at the whole mess. Another guy comes to say hello. I’m a bit too cautious right now for socializing, but he gives me a stack of rave flyers, and points out a few decent clubs.
Stop at a supermarket, buy some fresh bandaids. Cover the sores, put on my shoes and keep walking. Walk for most of the rest of the day. No mood to play, but I’ve got enough food. Would like to take in some sights but rest is not possible, trust is not possible. Finally spot one hostel style accomodation, but I think I look like a mess, and probably still smell of the early morning chuck … resolve to return when I’ve found somewhere to clean up … it looks like a clean cut place anyway, possibly not my scene anyway … but not too far from rue oberkampff.
A few conversations and I’m sent criss crossing Paris on the metro looking for a cheap bed. Some say near the Latin Quarter, some say near gare de Lyon, some say across the river from the Louvre. In the end, I’ll realize that all these hints are slightly right and slightly wrong. My feet are seriously fucked. Still walking but it’s painful. A bad encounter in the metro with security guards who insist I where my shoes or get off the station. I point to the sores on my feet but the head guard has taken a dislike to me. He’d seen me trying to ask a few questions of a chinese busker on the station playing traditional music, and has decided I’m a suspicious character. I’m starting to really hate Paris and Parisiens … mumble a few curses in Espanol and keep moving. Now, I think the worst thing I’d done to piss him was failing to keep up appearances … a barefoot hippie in the subway is a bad look. Around the Louvre I stop to help an Egyptian guy with directions … I know jackshit of Paris, but I’ve got a better map than the average tourist. He’s impressed that I’d bothered to do what should be natural … helping a stranger … a warm invitation and a place to stay if I ever get to Egypt. We both agree that Paris is an incredibly cold hard and heartless city under the gloss glamor and beauty … and that the girls here are totally stuckup.
No luck after several hours wandering, no clues, hotel staff don’t seem to know anything, or to have rooms at any price … let alone one I can afford. It’s looking like another bad night. Stop near where I thought the hostel I’d seen earlier was. Can’t find it. Stumble into an oasis, ‘Fee Mini The’ on boulevard du temple … a small gallery cafe with vegan food … plead for them to serve me something … am struck by several things … that a place like this should be so rare in a city so dedicated to art … but the art of Paris is old art dead art for the most part. A city of art but no atrists. History. Have a chat with the owner of the cafe, and she gives me a few insights. Things started to get hard 3-4 years ago. I talk a bit about Australia. She has positive views on oz, but knows about our problems with indigenous mob. But her attitude is one that seems common with euros. That the problem is integrating them into society .. Imy attempt to explain that the problem is the opposite … that australia needs to integrate with indigenous culture. I thin she’s finding the conversation a bit too intense and bizarre. But the vegan torte … expensive and small but delicious … the coffee good strong and well earned … and one of her friends highlights a hostel on the map for me. Things seem to have turned for the better. I continue the saga via the Louvre. It’s about 10oclock, saturday night.
Pass one of the big discos, and chat with a few dudes on the way to an electro club. They ask about the sax case, and I break out the horn.Crank some blues and scrambled bop for 10 minutes. The giys like it and pop me some rum. Not in the mood for nightclubbing, and in anycase this looks like expensive commercial shite. In high spirits near the theatre de comedia, just around the corner, on my way to nowhere. Hear a dodgily tuned guitar playing hotel california. Wander near and start to sing ‘livin it up near the hotel de villa such a bourgeois place such a bourgeoius place’ and more on a similar vein. Invited into a cushy corner there by the African born guy playing … don’t think we ever swapped names. But we jam for a bit. He has an interesting style, partly african kora, partly blues, and an untunable guitar with a nearly broken neck, and missing tuning heads. He invites me to crash there … finds a blanket for me. More jam, and we’re joined by a polish guy and another french dude with half a dozen black dogs. The evening passes with music, and a conversation that crosses very close to conspiracy theory … where the money really is, how few people run the system … why one would choose the streets of this harsh and beautiful city as a home and lifestyle.
Then a good nights sleep on the streets of Paris … warm blaket, shoes off and a friendly dog warming my feet … almost homy but I still sleep with my head on the sax case and an arm through the straps of my pack. One dude has a Paris survival manual for people living on the street … health, toilets, showers, police, survival tips … published by the left wing city of Paris.. There are free loos roundabouts, and even a shower is possible nearby for a few hours on sunday morning.
Morning, take away cafe from one of the nearby bars, a loo break just in a nick of time at a nearby car park. According to the Paris street guide, the Sunday morning shower is a few blocks away, just across from the centre Pompidou. The first shower in several weeks … since leaving Granada, and the first hot one since I can’t remember when. Interesting to see who in Paris is in the free showers on a Sunday morning. This is a strange surprise. One guy here has a full beard dreads stinks of piss and is carrying his life in a laundry bag. But the rest look like ordinary Parisians … and many must be on the way to work in bars or cafes. Careful attention to grooming, shaving and hair. Though it’s a safe bet that all of these folk are sleeping rough somewhere in the inner city, the only one you would pick out of a lineup as such is our pisstinking friend. Nobody seems to see him … he has committed the cardinal sin in Paris of failing to keep up appearances.
Out of the shower, meet up with my African friend. I notice one guy eying my sax case, and some caribeeners are missing … I’ve been using these to clip things to the outside of my pack … I think my back had been turned for about 2 minutes, though I was watching the top of the sax case and the front of the bag. Back at the corner, I’m starting to see a different side of Paris and Parisians … occaisional coins thrown into our corner, a bottle of mineral water, a joint. Conversation on music and jamming is cruisy … when I let the topic stray onto politics it gets annoying. There is something of a defeatist attitude here … the problems are too big and the conspirators too deeply entrenched … maybe this is true, but no reason to surrender, no reason not to hope for change or to take positive action. We plan to busk later in the afternoon … go through the painful job of tuning the untunable guitar with pliers. With the broken neck it won’t hold a tune for more than a few minutes. There is a small joke from the quiet guy in the corner (this seems to be his spot … he has shelves , some books, and even a broom to sweep the area) … he passes me a hair clip and says ‘here is your clip’ … am thinking that some of the missing caribeeners are disappearing closer to home than I though. Not sure how to handle this … but stash everything else loose in the locked laptop pack. More music and conversation … ‘The French see the world as a comedy’ … the conspiracy theories are getting a bit annoying, and so is the defeatism … try to explain the American involvement in the big picture … that Bin Laden is a Saudi who started out with CIA backing … nobody will accept this … c’est bizzare .., and the French street folk are only seeing the shadows of rich French folk. I take a walk to try out busking in the Latin Quarter … I’ve quietly sunk the idea of busking with my friend … the untunable guitar might win coins, but it hurts my ears.
The latin quarter is one of the main bar zones just around the corner from the Sorbonne … probably once an alternative area with a uni crowd, but now expensive and lined with tourists. The beggars on the street here look like they’ve slipped out of a historical novel. Ancient grandmothers back bowed. Young girls. One girl, at first annoyed that I choose her corner for toccando, gives me some space … I pay her a bit of rent, a few coins … a bit later. Playing is hard, and the vibe strange. I make a few euros anyway, some good vibes from some people … some good vibes from Parisiens wandering through … more special to me than thanks from tourists at the moment. Not much in the way of dinero, but the playing had been fun, the narrow streets a generous acoustic for the sax, and I’ve enough loose change for a baguette, a pastry and a coffee in Cafe Richard, where it is ok to find a powerpoint and charge the phone. Don’t want to bring out the laptop from the bottom of its case, and the french adapters are wrong for its german plug, anyway.
Back at the Comedia corner. The conversation is getting annoying. The guys have found a bottle of red, and are more belligerent than before. It’s getting annoying, and the conspiracies repetitive the defeatism frustrating. I want to say … if you don’t want to change anything, then just shut the crap up about the problems … but I hold my peace. I think I have to find a place to stay … something, anything … my feet are killing me, and the sores and blisters have become seriously infected. It’s late afternoon … I give my african friend a cigarette from my last paper. ‘I’ve just got to go off and find some papers’ … He suggests a direction … when I pick up my backpack, he suggests that he can look after it (I’m not having any of this!) … no I want to keep everything together … he understands. As I leave he shakes my hand and says … it was good meeting you …. he knows my plan.
A long walk, and now my feet are killing me. The hostel is near the Gare de Lyon. One of the places wherethe previous day nobody in a bar or hotel knew the wherabouts of a hostel. I walk. Stumbling looking. Wander into a shop. Rows of cigarettes but no papers. My walk must be hysterical, limping on both feet carrying my shoes. I pass the guy who was ahead of me in the tobacconists. He seems rough scarred face, shaved head, black pseudo military outfit, very very pale skin. He looks at me and says come … I’ll give you a few cigarettes. He’s pretty confident I won’t find papers on a sunday night. He’s staying on a building site, with ongoing rennovations of an old chapel, probably security guard. He walks in, and brings me out 4 Marlboroughs. But he says ‘Have courage, have heart it will be ok’ … he seems to know my story … it is written in the bloodied mass of my feet. It’s an important moment to get such a blessed message, and I hang onto it … we part, shaking hands. I keep walking.No sign of a tobacconist open, but many signs of life on the paris streets, doorways with bags and bodies sleeping, sometimes just a sign of a recent occupation. Finally Gare de Lyon. Walk past a bar playing live flamenco, and I’m tempted to stop, but I’m exhausted and pained … I keep on to the hostel. Maybe I’ll check out this bar later. Hostel arrival, I flop … it’s a young crowd, cleancut Americans for the most part. A sign says ‘entrance only to under 25s’. I don’t let it phaze me. I’m comfortable warm, a place to sit and rest my feet. No idea if there’s any room here anyway but maybe some clues. My turn comes up, and it’s all cool … there’s a single room or a dorm. Fuck it. I take the room for two nights. He says you are lucky, pointing to the sign with the hostel age limit. Up stairs to my room … blliss to stop still, to lie down, to have security, privacy, and a loo within 5 metres. I’m asleep almost as soon as my head hits the pillow.
Next day the luxury of spurious tourism. I’ve decided to just bugger it all, and enjoy Paris in any way I can … Plan is to take in the Louvre. The crappy hostel breakfast (rolls and strawberry jam, instant coffee), and on the way … a proper morning espresso at a nearby bar, a pastry, and I’m on the metro to the mother of all museums … carrying only the sax case for the first time in a week or so. My feet are still really trashed, but the road is easier. I avoid the comedy theatre corner, and go straight to the gallery.
It’s too big to take in in an afternoon, or a day or a few … I opt for paintings, but make my way there through classical sculpture, a mock up of Napoleons rooms, a mass of objets d’arte. It’s all magnificent, opulent, but kind of backward looking. This is all history, and I think I’ve seen enough of museumland (licenced subsidiary of disneyland) in India. Perhaps I like my art relevant, perhaps the intensity of the past few days has given me more of a taste for living things than dead images. But the collection of classic paintings is astounding … room after room. Very glad not to have the numbing detail of a numbered tape machine telling me what the art was about. After a few rooms, I’ve stopped looking at every image. This is all french and flemish stuff. Religious themes, crucifixions, martyrdoms, kings and queens and dukes. It becomes boring very quickly, and I’m just moving around the room till something leaps out at me. Plenty does … rembrandt, rubens, vermeer blue me out and shake off the stupor … these have a timeless quality and penetrating humanism. For the rest, the images of peasants and their life touch me more than the magic of master technicians. Some fascinating explorations of perspective from the rennaisance. In one of the last rooms, an image of a corroboree from an early tourist to Van Diemans land.
Across to another building to see the Italian and Spanish masters … and of course the most iconic painting of all. I’ve walked a long way, but there is a vibrancy here that I connect to much more strongly. A figure leaps out of the wall at me, and st John draws me to a group of leonardo’s, opposite a collection of botticelli. These really hold my attention. Can’t put it in words. Then the main event. Can’t really get closer than 5 metres to the Mona Lisa. It’s clearly a wonderful work but here is not the place to appreciate it. I’m more interested in the crowds, 30 or more groups and couples getting photos done in front of the uber icon. It’s really more of a reflection on how we value art … that we value the label of greatness more than an emanation of greatness. I think Leonardo’s st John had a greater spiritual intensity, and more wonderful light. For the most part, I favor the theory that the mona lisa is a self portrait in drag … Da vinci had a twisted sense of humor, was as gay as a party hat, and carried this picture around for most of his life. I don’t think this theory will work on the crowds though. Finish the art lunch off with a fine desert of Goya … wonderfully twisted drawings, and intense paintings. Could have spent the whole day in here … and it’s quiet enough to actually enjoy the images. Exit the Louvre via the African collection … some very intense pieces, but I’m too braindead to enjoy them.
Some time in the previous couple of days I’d visited notre dame. Left there with comparable feelings. A beautiful building, a wonderful surface, very pretty, but god had left the house a long time ago.
Onwards then to lunch and toccando in the latin quarter. After the previous day, I don’t hold much hope for dinero, but it’s a nice place to play with the narrow lanes and bars. Moved on from a few places, and I find myself on the corner where I’d played the previous day. The same young girl is on the corner holding her cup … she moves on when I arrive, but it feels a bit like she is lending me her space for an hour or so. Feeling a bit more form now, more relaxed … some nice words from a few guitarists heading to a gig, a few people stop … music is flowing, and even coins are flowing. The bop tunes I’d fumbled two nights before are coming out a bit more cleanly. Towards the end, a senegalese guy, a percussionist, comes up. He’s clearly one of the musical cognoscenti in the area. I grab his number, give him mine … he points me to a gig/jam session at la basser salle that evening … one of the main small jazz venues hereabouts. My lips are getting worn, time for me to finish. A few coins for rent to the youg girl who holds the corner for most of the day. Good feelings, and a nice flow of coins … this is my best day in Paris on just about every level.
A few hours of wandering, a pastry, some coffee, and I make my way to la basser salle. Not too far from the comedia theatre corner. I get there a bit early, so have a warm up busk a few streets away. Too cold to be without shoes too painful to be wearing them. Cold is easier than pain … another nice few hours busking. A necessary few hours when I see the drink prices at la basser salle. Enjoy the first set there. A very free flowing latin funk style. Bass player singing everything from blues to standards. And the jams begin. Glad not to have been called up first … an easy tune I should know but never bothered with … then there is jam after jam … I seem to be being overlooked. Not sure if I’ve got the hang of the protocols here. A few people stuffing up tunes I know well. A billie holiday song I could walk all over. I’m confused … didn’t I put my name down earlier. Then a great but epically long funk over ‘proud mary’ with african falsetto. Nice but overplayed and not my scene … wait a minute, people seem to be just getting up. Now house lights flash. Last tune. Oh crap. Have I missed the boat. Step up and ask the bass player … what do you have to do to get a play here? He’s taken aback slightly. Ok have a go. I do. My horn is ready and I think I’m in form. Well I have to call the tune. It’s all a bit tricky with language, and the fact that the europeans use do re me … rather than the ‘american’ c,d,e … . Ask for a few latin tunes, but the pianist doesn’t know them. Something easy would be good anyway. OK ‘afro blue’ … he knows it. I have to start. I fumble it’s feeling messy … then I just think fuck I’ve busked this a million times in the last two months. Ignore everything and just launch it. Everyone follows, and it locks in. Through the head, and I’m off. My brain is full of the coltrane version. And I go for it. First time I’ve had a band behind me in ages … the form isn’t how I play it but I can hear my sound, and it feels great. Don’t really know whether I was playing shite, but it felt great. French horn and bass take a solo … can’t really find the form to bring back the head so we fade out on a mode. Coffee, and I’m back on the road. As I’m leaving, some nice comments from a couple of guys, and a positive vibe from the house bass player … welcoming to return … i say I’ve got to leave within the next day or so, but I’ll be back this way. And I reckon I will. A lot more confident now that I can do this, and I like this side of the paris music scene … mostly Paris jazz is very old school, swing is about as modern as it gets. This place has a lot more of a modern sound … lineup for the next few weeks is quite worldly.
Walking home, very late, no metro. Watching more of the street dwellers live their life. A girl asks for a cigarette … young old and somehow from a different century. Alternate teeth missing … she could be 30 or 50 … penetrating eyes … frail but strong, worn by life ..somehow glowing under her black hood. Merci msieur. I wish her a fond adieu. Back to the hostel, around 3am, my room keys the only ones on the hook. It’s a 10am checkout here. It’s going to be tight. I’d like to stay another night, but suspect it won’t be possible. But it’s a beautiful sleep, and as close to bliss as I’ve been in a long while.
Next morning. Time to move. A group is coming in that night. I’ve got to grab all my stuff. I think I’ve got to leave Paris today. My feet won’t take another nights wandering. I run around most of the day, do a few internet checks on transport option, walk the streets as best I can. Finally decide on the night train to Berlin. I don’t think I can hitch with all this stuff and these mangled infected feet. A play in the latin quarter, and some nice vibes from brazilian travellers, and a few other latin jazz fans. I’m running without accompaniment … headphones off, I can hear myself properly, can feel the sound … bugger the harmonies … playing for the vibe now, for the pleasure of having survived … playing from hell to purgatory to limbo to paradise. Late afternoon run back to montaparnasse, and repack the big bag. Make it up to gare du nord with a ticket in hand. There are police everywhere, ambulance and paramedics, something has happened, don’t care what … this is one of the hotspots of paris, close to the black holes of my first night.
The train arrives in time, leaves on schedule, and I bid paris a fond adieu. No other place has aroused such a strange mix of feelings. I’ve been enraptured by its beauty, hated its harshness, been blessed by its compassion and struck by its heartlessness, admired the strength of those living rough in it … at times an incredibly beautiful meat grinder of people … this magical city that has lent its name to the worlds most famous bimbo, and that is home to europe’s disneyland when the whole town seems like one enormous fucking disneyland … filled with tourists missing the city for its sights … I’ll be back when I’ve healed. Au ‘voir.
