May 2004

Into Le Crack Den*

*Actually it's Lieu du Galloise, but that is just too froo- froo.

Lefty and I gave up the quasi-socially acceptable addiction of nicotine inhalation a few months ago. In celebration of our 90 days (a momentous occasion when conquering an addiction) we decided to visit the capital of the land of the frogs. It has always been a dream of mine to see how and where the they live. Plus I though I was too cynical to fall for the cliché - Paris is sooooo fucking wonderful.

We took the EuroStar from London to Paris one fine April morn. For a good thirty minutes we starred at some overblown Ferris Wheel moving just slow enough to make you stare at it for twenty minutes to see if it is moving. I must give it to the Euros (both the trashy and non-trashy), they KNOW how to ride the train. In our fifth class seats we had more leg room than in American Airlines Business Class. The person in front of you could lean all the way back and it would not feel like they want to give you a blow job.

Both the English and French country sides were absolutely beautiful. Half the fields had these beautiful yellow flowers that even my farmer friend (not named Brown) knew what they were called. There was only one stop in a city name Lille, and we only went through two cities, London and Paris. Many have asked us about the Chunnel, and if you are one of those, well, its dark. It reminded me of being on a subway. Really. No shit. It was just like being on a train underground. One minute you are in an England, then it goes dark outside, and then you are in France. It's a tunnel like every other tunnel in the world.

Anyway, I am getting off track (pun is very much intended).

When we first got off in Paris, all I remember seeing is 'The Tie Rack,", not "Le Tie Rack," but just plain old "The Tie Rack." It is a real bummer when you enter into country that you have never been to, one where you vaguely understand the language and you see a store that you have seen all your life. But that soon changed. Once we started walking around and eating, lots of good eatin', the Paris charm worked its magic and soon Lefty and I became clichés.

Lefty and I were always going out to eat in cafes, Bistros, and just in parks with sandwiches from a bakery (which were some of the best sandwiches I have ever had, and I am really picky about these things). Even the really cheap and good house red wine, which was served cold in a couple of places, was great. The chilled wines were, I think, Gamy. I must recommend that if you have a cheap red wine that is almost drinkable, chill it. No shit, it makes it taste good.

So, Lefty and I were eating many meals in small closed in cafes that firmly believed people should be sitting as close to possible to each other, even if they did not know each other. And eat we would. But, each time we ate, we noticed something was missing. Here we were, in a café in France, there was an ashtray, or two, or three on the table, there were people around us, and it looked like they were smoking. We would hear lighters and matches, we would see smoke being exhaled, but where was the smoke going? Where the fuck was the smell? Why weren't we lusting after the kool refreshing nicotine smoke that fills the lungs and brings about a contentment that only fools deny? It just wasn't there. After we would leave: where the hell was the smell on our clothes? Not 48 hours earlier we where in a mostly empty trendy pub in Norwich, England for less than two hours, and the smell on my jacket after we left made me crazy. It smelled like I had just smoked a whole damn pack, and I didn't have a single one. In France we would come in with one scent and leave with the same on. What the fuck was going on here?!? Everyone was smoking around us, and we were neither going through withdrawal, nor smelling like smoke, nor smelling it at all. I swore that I would break down in Paris and buy a pack of smoke, but no, it looked like I would just break a blood vessel wondering where did the smoke and smell go?

But, after much thought and meditation, the most obvious solution arose. It is not one would immediately associate with a people whose females don't shave arms, legs, and probably the "bikini" area, thus making them look really unhygienic to us (especially given the fact our people like females looking like 10 year old girls with tits), a people who have only recently found out about deodorant, and they just don't have a dot com we can name. The solution was, unlike most bars and restaurants in the English speaking world, the French have discovered recent advances in indoor air-circulation technology. We tend to focus on indoor temperature control: "Can we make it 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter and 0 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer." But the French focus on sucking the old smelly air out and bring in the new, clean air. So you may not get pneumonia in the summer when going out to eat, but you will not notice the person next to you smoking.

Fucking Brilliant!