Paris then HOME

We had finished our London shows and toasted the night several times with friends and allies who lived there amongst the sprawling boroughs and rows of identical houses. The shows we played were nothing to write home about (not that I ever wrote home as my parents think of me as emotionally self sufficient and I am pretty much banished from all family trips), but the shows were essentially pretty lame. The pay was crap, the turnout was poor and I personally felt we had overstayed our welcome in what we collectively considered to be the most soul sucking city on the planet. It wasn't that our guests wanted us out, on the contrary, but the way we had been living on tour with a ten Euro a day budget each and the reliance on hospitality from venues and club promotors to make 3 meals a day happen, didn't really fit with the sinister and unwelcoming London music scene we were only semi involved with. Basically every promoter and venue owner in London can go jump in the lake and hang round treading water until they get eaten by a massive sea monster for all I care. Except Tim from the Brixton Windmill, who was really nice, and reminded me of some kind of IRA freedom fighter with rotten teeth and thick black rimmed glasses that made his eyes seem unsettlingly large. The Brixton Windmill also had a flat roof, on which lived a giant Rottweiler called Roofdog who would pace up and down and look at you while you were outside smoking and, I can only assume, was there to ward off bad humans and burglars alike after midnight. Roofdog and Tim were solid but everyone else to do with music in London can get two fingers up the butt from a giant as far as I am concerned.
After playing tuesday, wednesday and thursday night we woke early on a grey friday morning and got into Jim The Eagle our trusty van to head towards Paris. Most of the guys had not been before, and even though Rob, Sam and I had, we were pretty excited to get back there because there is lots to look forward to like baguettes and babes and historical crud.
The band were going to stay one night and drive back to Berlin the next day while I was going to stay on for a few more and fly home on the Tuesday by myself. I thought it was a good chance to get the hell away from my band for about two seconds and also the idea of taking in some culture to soak up didn't totally make me want to puke when it was in reference to Paris, which I think is the most beautiful city in the world. Well, that I have visited anyway.
On the drive down after we had caught the ferry from Dover to Bolougne I had a quick round of 'What's In My Pie?' with Sam and Reyahn - this time it was a rhinoceros and a sleeping bag - but then I went back to mucking round on my computer. I was busy concocting a list of things I could still do with my life if I got struck by lightning and went blind and deaf at exactly the same time. Part of me is always wary of this happening, and I feel it is sensible to have a list stored somewhere so that I don't spend a long time wallowing about it, but can get straight back on with my life if it were to happen.
I got quite far and in little over an hour had a list of around forty things. I was keen to get up to 52 initially so I had one thing a week to do already preplanned for the first year I was without sight and hearing. Some of the highlights were:
a)Stand at pedestrian crossings and hold my finger underneath the blind persons pole to get the electric shock that tells you to cross
b) Be a waiter at the restaurant in Berlin which is totally pitch black and has blind people as waiters. Actually, I just realised that I probably would not be very good at that if I was deaf to be honest. I will take that off the list.
c) Go bike riding in a big empty field
d) Go motor bike riding in a big empty field
e) Do pressups, situps and other fitness
f) Have sex with anyone I want without ever feeling like I am not physically attracted to them
g) Sit around in women's sections of changing rooms or saunas without ever having to feel like I am perving on them or eavesdropping on their conversation

Anyway, that is just the tip of the iceberg. I was probably better off making a list of the things i COULD'NT do, as it would be much smaller.
Listening to music and looking out the window would have to be added to the list, and I would no doubt have to hire someone to help me look after Kenny Powers the pig and complete his training to go for the Guinness World book of records record. That would be hugely disappointing. Anyway, I don't like thinking about what I could'nt do if I was made blind and deaf by lightning as it is a real downer, so I will continue to focus on the list of things I could do, because as far as I see it, the glass is still half full. When in Rome. I was happy where the list was at by the time we rolled in to the outer suburbs of Paris, they were dirtier than I remember but I didn't really give a flying crap as the sun was out and the rest of the band were busy looking out the windows so I didn't have to listen to a bunch of senseless yabbering. I was glad not to be in charge of driving the tour van because French drivers are ferocious and there seems to be no lanes on any of the roundabouts. Sam was driving who is pretty much blind, Paris is pretty much the most dangerous city in Europe to drive in, it was an amazing combination. I didn't really care, I have been ready to get taken out in traffic since I was 15. I was resigned to the fact I would die being hit by a bus or something of the like. So I just didn't care, I was in Paris, home of baguettes and chocolate stuffed croissants.
There is essentially nowhere in the world that I have ever seen which is as good looking as Paris and combining that with the amount of absolute crack pot crazy homeless people walking around yelling out crud, you have got a pretty good mix of the best elements that a city should have. It always warms my heart when I look around to see a bunch of people who are lot further down the crazy path than I am because As far as I know, I have been losing my mind for just over a decade.