Week of Jan 26 2004

PARIS: The Nut I Couldn't Crack, or, The Face I Couldn't Fuck

Travelling overseas, especially to Europe, can be problematic for an American because Europeans think that Americans are loud, self-centered and arrogant. This is especially true for me because I really am loud, self-centered and arrogant.

I also tend laugh loudly and often, usually at my own jokes, and in Europe, unconcealed laughter is grounds for suspicion and sometimes arrest.

Still, I approached my journey to the belly of the European beast, France, with the ruddy determination of a Little Rascal. Let's put on a show!

I was there to help out my friend, My Robot Friend, along with another robot friend, Julie, who plays the electric violin. Our first show was at a club called Le Pulp, a hipster joint run by lesbians.

Our soundcheck went swimmingly and at around midnight the club opened, so I disappeared backstage to do my makeup. I'd noticed how colorful the lighting in the club was, and then, because I was in a country full of people who struck me as aloof, decided to do very simple, aloof makeup.. dark, linear eyeliner sweeping up towards my eyebrows.. but not too much.. and highlights on my inner eyelids, brows and cheekbones using a white iridescent powder that I was sure would reflect the club's colorful lighting flawlessly, thereby giving me a look, untouchable.

My lips would be minimal.. just a light sweep of pearly white sheer shimmer lipstick, just in case I spotted any Frenchies good enough to kiss.. and besides, combining dark eyes and dark lips is for whores and clowns.

Before shows, and especially if we're set up on a small stage on a dancefloor where we'll be surrounded by people, I like to go out and pretend to be setting up or checking on things. This way, my presence gets the crowd excited, or at least, curious about what's to come. I know that I look interesting. I'm very tall, and my face lends itself to cosmetics. I always draw stares. Here my challenge was to get the French excited.

My cosmetic ploy worked. Immediately upon seeing me, the DJ tapped me on the shoulder to tell me I looked beautiful, and two French lesbians (double trouble!) complimented my look. Voilà!

Of course the secret to looking aloof comes from just that: looking aloof. Actually being aloof is a crime worth nothing and one I never commit. I drown those around me in joy; it is the incongruity that appeals.

I spent a few minutes in the crowd smiling and chitchatting and then I spotted the most beautiful boy in France across the stage. He looked exotic.. lightskinned black with a touch of .. what was it? Something else? A heaping spoonful of innocence.. he was luscious, my prince and princess.. I love andogynous, exotic, boyish men, especially if they can dance and he could.

I was sure he'd been looking at me, because everyone had. The club wasn't that crowded yet and I was plainly visible and glowing. And lucky for me, he was right in front of the backstage entrance, so I made my way past him and smiled. He smiled back.

I retouched my lips and then made my way out again. This time I waved at him as I swept past, and he smiled again, and then I saw him saying something to a very large lesbian girl who gestured towards me.

Anytime in my life that I've missed an opportunity to get with someone, I've resolved to never let it happen again. Part of this comes from the fact that I find myself interested in very few people. Most human boys bore me to tears, in fact.

Never letting rare opportunities disappear means seizing them by the throat when they do appear. Besides, I've found that confidence often trumps anything else, even substance.

So I approached this beauty again and touched his face with my hand, and looked him in the eye, closely, knowing that my cosmetically enhanced beauty ought to shock him into rapture. A naughty smile, but before I could speak, he spoke.. and I couldn't understand a word he said.

Ermm.... "Parlez-vous anglais?"

He shook his head no. Drats! And then I think he asked if I spoke French, and I shook my head as well. French fails me, but what I should have said.. "Je t'adore!".. I said with my eyes.

What luck, I thought.. the most beautiful boy in Europe and he's mine. France, I thought, was in the palm of my hand, and soon this boy would be cumming in my hand, or elsewhere.

I'd chatted up lots of other people on the dancefloor, getting them excited for the show. One girl I met was, incongruously, Dominican..! I told her how happy I was to meet a Dominican in Paris because I love Dominicans (one of my best friends is Dominican, I love Dominican culture, their music, their outgoing spirit, their uncut cocks), and I told her how worried I was that the French wouldn't respond enthusiastically to the show because of how reserved and aloof they were. She sympathized and told me how sick of the French she was, but that her friends weren't like that, and that they'd cheer loudly for us.

The next time I walked out from backstage to check on things, she was waiting there for me with a lineup of French girls. She said, "Watch this!" and then cued them, and then they all cheered like maniacs for me..! It was hilarious and sweet, and I knew we'd have an awesome show thanks to people like her in the audience.

And so, the show.. there I was at my station, ready to start, when.. POOF. The power went out.

And so it was for another grueling three hours... power problems in the club. Ugh!

There wasn't much I could do other than wait at my station while the French lesbians who ran the club tried to figure things out. They managed to get the DJ Booth and sound and lighting on, but the circuit we were plugged into wouldn't work right at all.

By hour two of my wait, the most beautiful boy in the world had to leave. He tried to invite me somewhere.. I think.. for the next night, but I didn't know what he was saying, and we had to go to Lille the next morning anyway so I knew that was out. So frustrated was I, and hectic the atmosphere, that, regrettably, he left, and that was the end of that.

Oh, for the sun to have vanished from my life instead.

And one by one everyone else I had spoken to had to leave as well. By 4am, the women running the club had made no progress getting the power situation fixed, and then we started getting horrible sound feedback too, and so My Robot Friend was reduced to lipsyncing one song, and that was that.

Damnit.

By the time we got back to the hotel, it was 5:30am, and we had to be up at 8 to catch a train to Lille for sound check and a show that night. Due to jetlag I had trouble sleeping, and in fact didn't sleep at all, so at 7 I went to the hotel lobby and indulged in the free breakfast, a selection of dry croissants and mystery meats with cereal, toast and orange juice.

At 8, I began to feel shaky and sweat. My stomach churned. Hmm. I lied down in bed and tried to relax it off.. and then I felt it coming.. I ran to the bathroom and vomited.

I hate throwing up, and even months and months of vomiting every day when I had cancer have done nothing to assuage my hatred of the sensation. Plus, it's downright undignified. Still, I thought, better now than later, like when I'm around people or on the train.

Usually throwing up makes you feel better, at least in the short term, but it did nothing for me, and I felt worse and worse as we drove to the station. Damn it, I thought, I hate being sick in front of people. It looks so undignified and ruins my image. But I couldn't think it off and my relaxation techniques did nothing to quell the churning of my stomach.

At the station I found a bathroom (which I had to pay to use) and began to wonder what the fuck was wrong. I felt rotten... truly rotten and I couldn't stop gagging and coughing up bile. Naturally, former cancer boys like myself have to consider the worst at moments like this.

It took all of my energy and humility to admit to My Robot Friend that I wasn't going to be able to get on the train, and so one of the ladies who ran Pulp offered to let me stay at her place. As the train left, I vomited again for about five minutes.. awful.

And so I spent the rest of the day and night in a French lesbian's apartment, alternating between her bed and the bathroom, which was decorated with "DYKE" detergent and "PMS" soaps.. the kind of gay humor paraphernalia you'd find in a gay gift shop on the Castro.. was this my fate? Ugh.. to die in Paris, like Jim Morrison and Princess Diana before me, surrounded my PMS dish detergent and "I'm not a lesbian, but my girlfriend is" stickers.

Well, to make a long story short, I'm not going to die. I called my hospital in the morning and explained my symptoms and they guessed that it was food poisoning from that breakfast I had. I have a CATscan next week to make sure.

Early the next morning I felt well enough to travel and, in the absence of my lesbian hostess, who had stayed out all night and not come home, made my own shaky way to the train station, where I managed to faux-French my way to Lille on a train.

I am of the type who feels that the show must go on, and I felt like a failure to have missed the Lille show. Luckily, My Robot Friend is more human than I am, and so his understanding came with no clause, and I'm glad to have a friend like him.

He and Julie are convinced that God struck me down, because we'd visited Notre Dame the day of the show, and while there I lit a candle and said to Jesus, "Jesus: please make sure we have a good show tonight."

France is land of beautiful, old buildings, but I'd hate to live there. I hate being surrounded by old things, and it feels like they're trapped in it. Everywhere you look are old buildings and religion set in stone.

I love how New York is constantly tearing itself down and building anew. Part of being a New Yorker is knowing what used to be where, and now I'm here again, and I'm thrilled to be back. To hell with angels, cherubs, and prayers in dingy old churches.

until next week, remember..
when you dance, we are a part of what you feel.