invasion of europe

Episode #3

The longest day of my life

(The keyboards in foreign countries aren't the same, so there may be some errors, work with me. z and y are in different spots and what is ö and ä and ü)

I spent what would be my last night in Amsterdam, trying to find the comedy club, walking through the red light district and pondering whether or not Amsterdam is worth all the hype.

Here's how I see it... If you smoke pot and think bathing, or working, or brushing your teeth is something to do only on one day in June, then YES, Amsterdam is for you. Grab some cash, get on a plane and buy yourself a hooker, some hash and please stay here forever. The Dutch must have wished that some of these people would have died by now.

I went to the comedy show but was unable to go up as it was "Dutch Only" night. I watched a few comics go up, but it was hard to keep up. Dutch is a weird language and when it's spoken it sounds as if the person speaking has something caught in their throat while trying to say something in German. When you read Dutch, everything sounds edible. "van der kamp, van der slice, goobens, van hoot, der haasen, ice tean on der rockens" It all sounds lovely.

After leaving the show, I headed down to the red light district and took in the sights. I am looking forward to the world's sexiest hos and I apparently arrived on their night off. These women must be the understudies. Not great, not bad, but nothing turning my wheels.

The women are under glass and all you have to do is open a door and eat them, hump them, whatever. Had they wanted to lure me in, they should have been reading a book, pouring a hot bath or cooking soup not smoking a joint and filing their nails behind that glass door.

I called it a night at 10. I am so sick and I need rest. When I get to the room, my lesbians have turned into bisexuals and half of them are missing in the arms of other boys with hash goggles of their own. All but Charolette and her friend Mary, from Ireland. (all girls from Ireland are named Mary) are high or are humping. I could have paid to watch a live sex show in the red light district, or I could lay down in my bunk and watch a yound italian couple fuck like rabbits. Charolette and Mary are loving it like it was the secret installment in the Bridget Jones Diary.

I am stoned and I know it. I didn't do it on purpose, just a contact high from the hostel lobby which is also a coffee house.

A young girl in the room tells us that she and some other girls went to a sex club to watch a show and were encouraged to get involved with the other audience members. Now, she says she didn't do anything, but how often do stoned kids say no? (not that i would know what stoned kids say to sinister adults) anyway, I guess the whole thing got on the internet. Yes, the club ropes them in, films them and airs it. Charolette, Mary and I almost got dressed and left to find out for ourselves.

Instead, I woke up at 5 and walked out the door without saying goodbye to anyone. I walked through the empty Amsterdam streets and got on a train for Paris. Very, very, very sick. I could tell that there was something really wrong, but what could I do? Feeling impending doom the whole trip south to Paris was awful.

To keep my spirits high, I tried talking to my traincar neighbor, a Belgium woman that looks like Ray Ramono but funny. I never found out her name. She keeps me informed about where we are, but somewhere on the trip, I pass out and wake up in a pool of sweat and she is gone. The train conductor is trying to help me off the train with my bag. He gets me to the platform and into a wheelchair and I am being pushed out of the train station by somebody.

On my way down the ramp, a brown woman gets jumped by police for being brown. They trash her luggage and when nothing is found, they walk away without so much as a sorry or an explanation. Just don't be brown in Paris. I only point this out, because this is my first impression of Paris. It's Alabama, circa 1961. Or Paris, circa 1941.

I don't like Paris.

I get pushed out of the train station to the hospital ten feet from the front door. The train guy says something to the triage nurse, she looks at me, writes something on a piece of paper and then hands it to me. The train guy, LIFTS up the back of the wheel chair in an attempt to say, "this is the end of the road, bud, get off". I get out of the chair and he scampers off with his chair. On the piece of paper it says that I have a doctor's appointment the next day. Typical idiot french. I come into the emergency room and they give me an appointment.

I walk out of the hospital into the cold Paris air, free. Sick. Determined. It is the beautiful looking city that everyone says it is. But I only have a handful of things I want to see. Sadly, french people are everywhere and in the way.

First, the Louvre.

Much has been written about the beauty of Paris and it's magically hold it has on writers and artists. I can see it, but part of the glory of this place has to be it's purity and when I see GAP, Burger King and Coke. I don't feel the purity level is the same as it was for say, Picaso or Hemingway.

Subway ride, minor walk.

This place is huge. But it's mostly show. Most of the building isn't museum, but storage, education, offices, a mall and a some gov offices. The musuem itself is crawling with children, Asians and American French class students, all running amok and fucking up relations with the rest of the world. I have a straw, I have tic tacs. I have great aim. I love me.

The building is splendid. I won't describe it, read Dan Brown's book. It takes no time to find the Mona Lisa. Just follow the crowd. The rest of the museum is empty, but there are ten thousand people crowded around this one painting. Which, I want to point out, is the only painting that is protected in the whole museum. The only one.

The venus de milo, is hard to photograph. Lighting issues, sorry.

It took me more time to get out of the Louvre than it did to get in and when I do get out, I am miles away from the original entrance. This screws up my Notre Dame plans, but oh well, next stop, Arch thingy. Which is two million miles away. I am no longer sick, cause I am in too much pain to feel sick. I am lugging around a thirty pound pack all over Paris and my legs, feet and back are all done.

I walk past the oblisque, down the champ des lleyes, up a hill(?) and poof, arch. In the middle of the fucking road. Nada. Other than the fact that every major army for the past eight hundred years has walked this same route, I am not impressed with myself.

Arch, check.
Effifel tower, check. Looks like the one in Toyko really.
Notre Dame, check. Had to start taking cabs to reach this one.
Jim Morrison, check. The graffiti was gone, the bust was gone too. Just a written note and some flowers. The note said, "break on through Jim". If any of my fans ever left such a shitty note on my grave I would kill them and their seed. (booger sculptures, Dan)

I don't like French men and I have taken to saying, "are you decomposing or are you french?". These french men are really some of the worst creatures in the world. They hate everyone, have no value and cry when you hit them in the eye with a tic tac. Wimps. Is there a law that you can't shave below a stubble? Not one was willing to help me find my way. They constantly look at you and giggle. They duck when you shoot tic tacs at them. That's funny.

Their women however, I had to stop looking at them. It's really unfair that french women are taken with french men. Actually, french women like german men, but have been tempered to avoid that feeling altogether. It's something grandma taught them. Every French girl is named Marcel. It's illegal to keep them.

The rest of the women here are wanna be models, working models, rich people that wanna look like models, people that are the parody of french people from 1930 with berets and nose hair (they hate the tic tacs too) and tourists that have no idea that Paris is more than the fashion center of the universe.

Final Paris note... the food was great. the clothes.... don't ask. I would have bought some for myself, but this trip was meant to be rushed in the front, and slow, in the back. So expect most of my shopping in Italy.

I decided that the best plan was to get on a sleeper car to Frankfurt and rest as much as I can before the shows. I can't walk, I am so dizzy that I have stopped trying to read and I don't talk to save myself the embarassment. I need help.

It took four hours before the train arrived and I just laid on the floor of the train station without shoes on, almost in tears. I made fifteen euros. It turns out that I look worse than I thought. And, as it turns out, the worse you look, the freer the food, the freer the ride. And no bums talk to you. But neither will Marcels.

It takes me forty minutes to get on the train and into my car. I pass out the second my shoes are off and I wake up in Frankfurt.

I shall add the details of the story in tomorrow's post, I need a better computer keyboard and some rest, a bath, and some decent food.