Part 31: "Jules & Jim" (the Road to Georgie Gold)
Jules & Jim. Constantine & Dave. Ocassionally (rarely) in your travels you meet a real pal who you warm to more than most.
Constantine, from some "kleine stadt" (small town) in East Germany, fitted this bill; an Engineer by profession, music-art orientated, altruistic and an all round good bloke.
I crash at his pad for a coupl´a days.
I allude to the classic Truffaut movie, "Jules & Jim" because - of course - it involves a mutual fascination with an enchantress named Lenore who we BOTH meet, simultaneouly whilst I´m cracking out tunes on the Friday nights streets of Karlsruhr (which, incidentally, means Charles´ retreat or Rest).
They love my music, the 3 of us go for beers at Radio "X", a music bar, and have a fine old time... And so begins a few days, a´la a Roman Holiday, filled with mucho mirth and a few melodramas/mishaps which includes my losing my wallet/I.D./credit card...and breaking my old faithful guitar!
(Lenore´s MOM, the Lady Monika, provides me with a new 6 string!)
The beautiful Lenore of course, is an Artist (like Natasha, in Paris); raven-haired, mysterious, vivacious, adoreable, and whilst she conquors both mine and Constantine´s heart, it is implicitly clear that neither of us will win her love beyond the parameters of the warmest friendship... And in this unique instance we are - maybe just 3 lonely people - happy in the concorde of togetherness and freed of romantic/sexual tension?
...During one interlude when Constantine is/has to leave for a business commitment, Lenore & I do the town, Lenore, pounding the Pilsners, matching THIS old War Horse, beer for beer, ending up at an old abatoir/slaughter-house, now converted into a Punk rock bar called, the "Alte HACKerei" (the old butcher´s shop/factory). And I dont really know how it worked out for Edgar Allen Poe (Lenore/died, probably...) but MY Lenore took suddenly ill/got drunk and began "barfing" (vomiting) in fine style.
Firstly, on the bar´s table (fortunately the place was dark and we were seated in
a corner/loud Punk music going on), so I run to the toilet, grab paper towels, return to table, but the "beautiful, raven-haired Lenore" has also "chundered" (Australian for vomit) all over the floor!
Back to the toilet. Get more towels. Rush back to the table.
BARF!!!
Lenore is pumping her guts!
(go get some more towels)
...Meantime, the other "Alte HACK-erei" patrons, several in number, wearing on & off Punk reagalia (Brit Union Jack flag tee-shirts/studs, etc) and the female barkeep (bleach blonde/anaemic) and 2 waitresses...seem little disturbed by Lenore´s plight; the latter, probably happy that I am cleaning up the mess!
...(Also) Meantime, the "beautiful, raven-haired Lenore" is kissing Wood/face down on the table, dribbling bile on the beer mats and the carpet of towels that I have provided, looking pale as death...and I´M taking her (wrist) pulse, telling the gawkers that "she´s my ex-wife/just flown in from L.A./ jet lagged/time zoned out/funny water, etc"...but am still astounded that NO-ONE really gives a crap...unlike in Denver (USA) where we´d be busted, Eighty-Sixed! -She´s 21, I`m her dad`s age, ergo, I go to jail for whatever the (summoned) ambulence/cop people can jam me up with!
Anyhow; nothing. And eventually, I relax (sort´a-kind´a), but when not semi-comatose/dribbling vomit, the "beautiful, raven-haired Lenore" is STILL unctuous, electively bolemic, whatever? -Let the Games begin!
ME: "Lenore, Sweetie? CARROTS & PEAS!"
Lenore: "BARF!"
ME: "Spaghetti meatballs!"
Lenore: "BARF!"
Me: "Chicken Vindaloo!"
Lenore: "BARF!"
Me: "Waterloo!"
Lenore: "BARF!"
Me: (lol) "BOOG-A-LOO!"
Lenore: "BARF-BARF!!!"
And so on, Lenore, like an "at your command" Squeezy Doll, she barfs on que...a date from Hell turns into a Comedic fiasco.
Constantine?... Well, buddy, ya should´a been there!
Cheers!.....:)
c 2010. Cafe "Le Journal", Karlsruhr/ Marnia bar tending/davedelacroix/our man in Europe.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Thursday, December 16, 2010
OUR MAN in EUROPE: dave delacroix: Part 30: Down to the Wire
Part 30: Down to the Wire
BLOG NOTE: The rest of this Blog/Book falls - loosely - under the sub-title: The ROAD to GEORGIE GOLD...and will probably NOT be sequential...
(OK)
...As William Shatner (Captain KIRK) sings...via a "fun-ster" T.V. commercial: "Does anyone REALLY know what Time it is?"
Think David Crosby: "Almost cut my hair."
I, too, have gotta say...I´m really missing YOU (dear ones)
Since I
Have been gone.
The best laid plans of Mice & Men... & seasons´ change, finding me with a busted guitar AND...a wallet (I.D., pixs of my kid/daughter, credit card.... and one very lonely condom) which I lost in a night´s revelry, naked in my (spiritual?) penury.
The Blackberry (phone), the Motorola (phone), the laptop, the "fashion" wardrobe, the huge "wheelie" bag, all gone by the wayside.
Physically 30llbs lighter, too, in a brutal winter season where body fat is actually an asset!
The Dave Delacroix "weight-loss" regimen: Go hungry. BE hungry.
Trust me. Even with "liquid bread" (beer) you lose the Pounds!... Hopefully, without losing your mind.
Yes. I´m down to the wire...in the Cafe Napoleon, Karlsruhr, Germany.
Wish I was in MEMPHIS!!!
c 2ß10 dave delacroix/our man in europe
BLOG NOTE: The rest of this Blog/Book falls - loosely - under the sub-title: The ROAD to GEORGIE GOLD...and will probably NOT be sequential...
(OK)
...As William Shatner (Captain KIRK) sings...via a "fun-ster" T.V. commercial: "Does anyone REALLY know what Time it is?"
Think David Crosby: "Almost cut my hair."
I, too, have gotta say...I´m really missing YOU (dear ones)
Since I
Have been gone.
The best laid plans of Mice & Men... & seasons´ change, finding me with a busted guitar AND...a wallet (I.D., pixs of my kid/daughter, credit card.... and one very lonely condom) which I lost in a night´s revelry, naked in my (spiritual?) penury.
The Blackberry (phone), the Motorola (phone), the laptop, the "fashion" wardrobe, the huge "wheelie" bag, all gone by the wayside.
Physically 30llbs lighter, too, in a brutal winter season where body fat is actually an asset!
The Dave Delacroix "weight-loss" regimen: Go hungry. BE hungry.
Trust me. Even with "liquid bread" (beer) you lose the Pounds!... Hopefully, without losing your mind.
Yes. I´m down to the wire...in the Cafe Napoleon, Karlsruhr, Germany.
Wish I was in MEMPHIS!!!
c 2ß10 dave delacroix/our man in europe
OUR MAN in EUROPE: dave delacroix: part 29: High Noon in Hochenheim
Part 29: High Noon in Hochenheim
Stealin´ a train ride South I arrive in thee "metropolis" of Hockenheim, home to Formula One Racing, apparently...
Not getting much further than the Bahnhof (station) er, "kiosk" (smokes, beer, hot dogs)...a "dress Casual" standing - no seats/tables - affair...with ashtrays and access to the Bahnhof toilet (you gotta ask for the Sclussel/key) in the Deutsche blitzkrieg Winter weather, I while away an hour or 3 drinking Eichbaun Pilsner with the local 3 Stooges; Curly, Larry & Karl-Heinz who - fashion-wise - could have tried out for B-roles in the Coen Bros movie, Fargo.
"JA!"
....and speak NO English...but MIRRIAM does! (the kiosk manager)
Oh yeah... A trifle too hammered to hitch-hike (South) to Karlsruhr....or (pondering) weaken and jump back on the Bahn (train)...? THAT is the question!
YOU decide.
2010. davedelacroix/cafe napoleon, Karlsruhr/our man in europe
Stealin´ a train ride South I arrive in thee "metropolis" of Hockenheim, home to Formula One Racing, apparently...
Not getting much further than the Bahnhof (station) er, "kiosk" (smokes, beer, hot dogs)...a "dress Casual" standing - no seats/tables - affair...with ashtrays and access to the Bahnhof toilet (you gotta ask for the Sclussel/key) in the Deutsche blitzkrieg Winter weather, I while away an hour or 3 drinking Eichbaun Pilsner with the local 3 Stooges; Curly, Larry & Karl-Heinz who - fashion-wise - could have tried out for B-roles in the Coen Bros movie, Fargo.
"JA!"
....and speak NO English...but MIRRIAM does! (the kiosk manager)
Oh yeah... A trifle too hammered to hitch-hike (South) to Karlsruhr....or (pondering) weaken and jump back on the Bahn (train)...? THAT is the question!
YOU decide.
2010. davedelacroix/cafe napoleon, Karlsruhr/our man in europe
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
OUR MAN in EUROPE: dave delacroix: Part 28: FACEBOOK!
Part 28: FACEBOOK!
BLOGGERS, unlicenced (?) scribes, diarretic wordsmiths, literary rabble, or rappers (Dick's from Mars!)...I could go on...like Facebook friends:
"Let's Friend. Let's DE-friend!"
...who wouldnt give each other the time of day (even if their hair was on fire!) if they showed up in person and knocked on each others door...
Nobody has 300 friends, for chrissakes!!!
...dominate our superficial times.
In these (Our Man in Europe) travels, I have been pleasantly surprised or dissapointed by inter-net connections/lack of, when I physically-geographically made/attempted TO FB connect...and where/when I made NEW friends, socially; resorting to establishing Facebook friendship?.... -instantly devalued that union/connections Spiritual dynamic.
...AND!...in conversation with "real" friends who are ALSO on Facebook (or any inter net social network)...everyone concurs: Inter net social "reality" really DOES suck, yet everyone acquieses TO suck!
....During these present travels I have been in TWO, er...gunfights of note. It goes with the territory.
(Actually, it goes with being Delacroix)
Once in Milano, within the splendour of the Grande Centrale Stazione, where I slammed a persistant panhandler. He went down and - courtesy of that citadel/palazzo's pristine-polished marble floor - slid, spreadeagled, in classic Hollywood fashion, a good 5 yards...witnessed, I might add, by 3 Carribineri (cops) who, refraining from getting involved and/or singing a celebratory "Santa Lucia!", nevertheless signalled their unaminous approval.
Another time, in a bar in high Germany where I dropped a guy, pulling him off a high bar stool... Alas, I was in my cups, so - apparently - I knocked the guy out (his head hitting the floor), but mine did, too, so we were BOTH - equally unconscious - carried out on makeshift stretchers much to the entertainment of the vaguely bemused/alcoholic crowd.
I mention these two events in the context of cyber-spaces's superficial Social reality. In a knife fight...you NEED a knife!
(A gun is even better)
Life IS/can be, and perhaps SHOULD BE...wonderfully dangerous.
-Mornings, dawnings, epiphones, of course, at this point...become important,
Like Beethoven's 9th Symphony.
A sweetheart's kiss.
Or - critically - like Satellite TV/a Liquor Store (if you live in the boonies!)
The "sonambulism"
of how WE/ I
try to BE free,
YOU!
...reading ME!
c 2010/Schloss Ludwigshafen/dave delacroix/our man in europe
BLOGGERS, unlicenced (?) scribes, diarretic wordsmiths, literary rabble, or rappers (Dick's from Mars!)...I could go on...like Facebook friends:
"Let's Friend. Let's DE-friend!"
...who wouldnt give each other the time of day (even if their hair was on fire!) if they showed up in person and knocked on each others door...
Nobody has 300 friends, for chrissakes!!!
...dominate our superficial times.
In these (Our Man in Europe) travels, I have been pleasantly surprised or dissapointed by inter-net connections/lack of, when I physically-geographically made/attempted TO FB connect...and where/when I made NEW friends, socially; resorting to establishing Facebook friendship?.... -instantly devalued that union/connections Spiritual dynamic.
...AND!...in conversation with "real" friends who are ALSO on Facebook (or any inter net social network)...everyone concurs: Inter net social "reality" really DOES suck, yet everyone acquieses TO suck!
....During these present travels I have been in TWO, er...gunfights of note. It goes with the territory.
(Actually, it goes with being Delacroix)
Once in Milano, within the splendour of the Grande Centrale Stazione, where I slammed a persistant panhandler. He went down and - courtesy of that citadel/palazzo's pristine-polished marble floor - slid, spreadeagled, in classic Hollywood fashion, a good 5 yards...witnessed, I might add, by 3 Carribineri (cops) who, refraining from getting involved and/or singing a celebratory "Santa Lucia!", nevertheless signalled their unaminous approval.
Another time, in a bar in high Germany where I dropped a guy, pulling him off a high bar stool... Alas, I was in my cups, so - apparently - I knocked the guy out (his head hitting the floor), but mine did, too, so we were BOTH - equally unconscious - carried out on makeshift stretchers much to the entertainment of the vaguely bemused/alcoholic crowd.
I mention these two events in the context of cyber-spaces's superficial Social reality. In a knife fight...you NEED a knife!
(A gun is even better)
Life IS/can be, and perhaps SHOULD BE...wonderfully dangerous.
-Mornings, dawnings, epiphones, of course, at this point...become important,
Like Beethoven's 9th Symphony.
A sweetheart's kiss.
Or - critically - like Satellite TV/a Liquor Store (if you live in the boonies!)
The "sonambulism"
of how WE/ I
try to BE free,
YOU!
...reading ME!
c 2010/Schloss Ludwigshafen/dave delacroix/our man in europe
OUR MAN in EUROPE: dave delacroix: Part 27: "JA-JA!"
Part 27: "Ja-ja!"
Back in Deutschland via the ICE Train (Paris to Frankfurt-3 hours-220kms per hour) it's the end of November. Everyone is - financially - down to the wire. My return from filming/recording and almost DYING - that Pneumonia thing - in Paris couldnt be more ill-timed, party-wise.
The Schloss is bereft of its usual joviality. The KILLER PEAR tree is quite out of Ammo! I see little of the Count (Herr Graff, Alex von Ludwigshafen). The harvest , the October Wine fests are all stowed as a perenial memory. Barren fields & frigid forests wear their Winter mantle of snow. The Black Pearl (bar), my downtown Usingen office STILL sparkles - when Nicky bartends - but the Bier Garten is padlocked. A chill prevails, even after 6 whiskies and a frieght train of beer.
I "kick" sometimes (happy hour) down the street at "Jasmines Bier Stube" (with the lovely Jasmine; 28, gorgeous, Turkish!). Licher (is sicher) beers. Drink 10 and you find you've only spent 10 Euros!
Pity Paris wasnt so obliging!?
And, of course, the blessed church bells hereabouts, as - incidentally - I was cogniscient of in Montmartre, tone the hour, devotional times, and WHO (somebody) got married or kopped it!
November. Crueler than April.
Ask Guy Fawkes!
A particular evening of note, however, at the Black Pearl, witnesses a rare flourish of business/activity. The Count (Herr Graff, Alex von Ludwigshafen) and several of his courtiers/retainers, male & female, arrive, boisterous and full of "joi de vie".
It's infectous of course, as I, some farmers boys, housewives - staple publicum - also brighten and re-aquaint themselves with varied reasons for why they are sitting in a bar and getting hammered on a cold Winter's midweek night.
After the usual "tangos" (to the juke box) and several shots of Assbach rum, "die Swimming Pool cocktails, or whatever...and playing every - chewing gum for the mind - electronic slot machine, one armed bandit and "gauche" gizmos a typical bar provides (for custumers without a brain) one of the Count's pals suggests a a game of Table FUSSBALL.
The Count, plus one, 2 others forming the opposing team
"Positions, Gentlemen!"
-Money in the slot. Out pops the "fussball". The game begins. The Fussball table rocks!
BANG! WACK! SWIVEL-SWIVEL! -you've all seen this.
4 Germans, however, playing this game, is uncannily entertaining. Intense, "SEHR" intense, almost theatrical. Someone scores a goal then does a lap of honor around the table (to a chorus of SLOW hand claps). Shots (liquor) are bought, toasted, slugged, the play continues, a lot of "yatter", cheering, girls gather round, hoop-la, cursing, back slapping, etc.
At some point, I notice that the Count (Herr Graff) and his team mate are rapidly losing/being slaughtered...by the other two Bravoes, who hold nothing back in showing their satisfaction....AND....It is at THIS POINT - on the cusp of total, utter defeat - that the Count (Herr Graff) "emits" (?) the most loudest, the most pungeant, the most ODIOUS fart (known to man!)....where upon his own team mate passes out and crumples to the floor like a sack of potatoes...and the once victorious opposition, turning yellow and green, respectively (odd?) wisely withdraw and concede the game.
Ja-ja!
c 2010 dave delacroix/our man in europe
Back in Deutschland via the ICE Train (Paris to Frankfurt-3 hours-220kms per hour) it's the end of November. Everyone is - financially - down to the wire. My return from filming/recording and almost DYING - that Pneumonia thing - in Paris couldnt be more ill-timed, party-wise.
The Schloss is bereft of its usual joviality. The KILLER PEAR tree is quite out of Ammo! I see little of the Count (Herr Graff, Alex von Ludwigshafen). The harvest , the October Wine fests are all stowed as a perenial memory. Barren fields & frigid forests wear their Winter mantle of snow. The Black Pearl (bar), my downtown Usingen office STILL sparkles - when Nicky bartends - but the Bier Garten is padlocked. A chill prevails, even after 6 whiskies and a frieght train of beer.
I "kick" sometimes (happy hour) down the street at "Jasmines Bier Stube" (with the lovely Jasmine; 28, gorgeous, Turkish!). Licher (is sicher) beers. Drink 10 and you find you've only spent 10 Euros!
Pity Paris wasnt so obliging!?
And, of course, the blessed church bells hereabouts, as - incidentally - I was cogniscient of in Montmartre, tone the hour, devotional times, and WHO (somebody) got married or kopped it!
November. Crueler than April.
Ask Guy Fawkes!
A particular evening of note, however, at the Black Pearl, witnesses a rare flourish of business/activity. The Count (Herr Graff, Alex von Ludwigshafen) and several of his courtiers/retainers, male & female, arrive, boisterous and full of "joi de vie".
It's infectous of course, as I, some farmers boys, housewives - staple publicum - also brighten and re-aquaint themselves with varied reasons for why they are sitting in a bar and getting hammered on a cold Winter's midweek night.
After the usual "tangos" (to the juke box) and several shots of Assbach rum, "die Swimming Pool cocktails, or whatever...and playing every - chewing gum for the mind - electronic slot machine, one armed bandit and "gauche" gizmos a typical bar provides (for custumers without a brain) one of the Count's pals suggests a a game of Table FUSSBALL.
The Count, plus one, 2 others forming the opposing team
"Positions, Gentlemen!"
-Money in the slot. Out pops the "fussball". The game begins. The Fussball table rocks!
BANG! WACK! SWIVEL-SWIVEL! -you've all seen this.
4 Germans, however, playing this game, is uncannily entertaining. Intense, "SEHR" intense, almost theatrical. Someone scores a goal then does a lap of honor around the table (to a chorus of SLOW hand claps). Shots (liquor) are bought, toasted, slugged, the play continues, a lot of "yatter", cheering, girls gather round, hoop-la, cursing, back slapping, etc.
At some point, I notice that the Count (Herr Graff) and his team mate are rapidly losing/being slaughtered...by the other two Bravoes, who hold nothing back in showing their satisfaction....AND....It is at THIS POINT - on the cusp of total, utter defeat - that the Count (Herr Graff) "emits" (?) the most loudest, the most pungeant, the most ODIOUS fart (known to man!)....where upon his own team mate passes out and crumples to the floor like a sack of potatoes...and the once victorious opposition, turning yellow and green, respectively (odd?) wisely withdraw and concede the game.
Ja-ja!
c 2010 dave delacroix/our man in europe
OUR MAN in Europe: dave delacroix: part 26: "Heiter bis Volkig".
Part 26: "Heiter bis Volkig".
....(This post should be, er... part 19....but, whatever)
...Touching on European travel, singing that 60's song: "Planes & boats & trains (keep passin by), are infact in abundance. The Euro "Greyhound" bus, too: the Euro-Liner...
Getting around is a logistical/fiscal no-brainer...and Europe - tansportationally - is most definitely "united", ergo, connected.
Yet, still being something of a Bohemian wanderer I must always - especially in Germany - opt for the Deutsche Craigslist type rideshare, the MIT FAHR ZENTRUM. There's an office/Buro - usually run by scruffy-ish student types - located in most German towns & cities. You sign up/e mail, chalk in your destination, kick in some gas money...and BA DA BING! - you're on your way! -usually with a coupl'a cool kids.
In my formative years, this was how - when not outright hitch-hiking - I always got around (I dont drive) and thereby established a network of friends - who more often than not - made frequent-repeat journeys that I could...
TIME OUT!
.... I'm beating off Summer bugs & flies here in the Schloss (Die Kastle von Ludwigshafen) garden...And have I mentioned the garden's "KILLER PEAR TREE"?
It's abundant fruit (the KILLER PEARS!) dont just mature then drop to the ground... They fire off the tree's branches LIKE MISSILES at great velocity...seemingly every time I walk by to dump organic trash/fetch fire wood or lounge nearby, drinking, thinking or attending to this book/blog.... But RARELY when any one else is around, whereby I have a really hard time conveying to the Count (Herr Graff) or any one else that this Pear tree is actually trying to kill me!!!
"Pard" my lapse of concentration, Denver/dear Blog supporters.
Where was I?
Oh yes. On many MIT FAHR ZENTRUM trips...I'd meet the most delightful people. Musicians, characters, regular Joes, future girlfriends, business folks.
One morable rideshare introduced me to a van load of "kunstlers", a travelling Theatre group - always in need of gas money - named Heiter Bis Volkig (Sunny to Cloudy) who were pure Fellini and with whom I toured for 3 months until, as they say, the money ran out. And once - I remember! - with a NUN; Sister...something: Maria, maybe.... BOY! Was THAT a bust!!? -Koln to Koblenz (60 miles, tops). It took 3 days. She drove at 5 miles per hour (no smoking), but she DID play guitar and "swore on a stack" that she'd appeared in a movie about an aeroplane!
Irish-German, I think...?
Anyways, so GO Europe! GO Mit Fahr Zentrum. And save yourself a buck or two.
FAST FORWARD 2 days: Frankfurt to Paris (France) in 5 hours. And, in this instance, driving through the night, I arrive in the City of Lights, step out of the car, say "Ciao, Mucker!" to my Mit Fahr driver-buddy, Wolfgang (a cross dresser from Leipzig) who drops me in a very deserted - early morning - Place de la Concorde, downtown Paris.
"Birds wings...rise noiselessly...into the sky... (Rimbaud)
c 2010. davedelacroix/our man in europe
....(This post should be, er... part 19....but, whatever)
...Touching on European travel, singing that 60's song: "Planes & boats & trains (keep passin by), are infact in abundance. The Euro "Greyhound" bus, too: the Euro-Liner...
Getting around is a logistical/fiscal no-brainer...and Europe - tansportationally - is most definitely "united", ergo, connected.
Yet, still being something of a Bohemian wanderer I must always - especially in Germany - opt for the Deutsche Craigslist type rideshare, the MIT FAHR ZENTRUM. There's an office/Buro - usually run by scruffy-ish student types - located in most German towns & cities. You sign up/e mail, chalk in your destination, kick in some gas money...and BA DA BING! - you're on your way! -usually with a coupl'a cool kids.
In my formative years, this was how - when not outright hitch-hiking - I always got around (I dont drive) and thereby established a network of friends - who more often than not - made frequent-repeat journeys that I could...
TIME OUT!
.... I'm beating off Summer bugs & flies here in the Schloss (Die Kastle von Ludwigshafen) garden...And have I mentioned the garden's "KILLER PEAR TREE"?
It's abundant fruit (the KILLER PEARS!) dont just mature then drop to the ground... They fire off the tree's branches LIKE MISSILES at great velocity...seemingly every time I walk by to dump organic trash/fetch fire wood or lounge nearby, drinking, thinking or attending to this book/blog.... But RARELY when any one else is around, whereby I have a really hard time conveying to the Count (Herr Graff) or any one else that this Pear tree is actually trying to kill me!!!
"Pard" my lapse of concentration, Denver/dear Blog supporters.
Where was I?
Oh yes. On many MIT FAHR ZENTRUM trips...I'd meet the most delightful people. Musicians, characters, regular Joes, future girlfriends, business folks.
One morable rideshare introduced me to a van load of "kunstlers", a travelling Theatre group - always in need of gas money - named Heiter Bis Volkig (Sunny to Cloudy) who were pure Fellini and with whom I toured for 3 months until, as they say, the money ran out. And once - I remember! - with a NUN; Sister...something: Maria, maybe.... BOY! Was THAT a bust!!? -Koln to Koblenz (60 miles, tops). It took 3 days. She drove at 5 miles per hour (no smoking), but she DID play guitar and "swore on a stack" that she'd appeared in a movie about an aeroplane!
Irish-German, I think...?
Anyways, so GO Europe! GO Mit Fahr Zentrum. And save yourself a buck or two.
FAST FORWARD 2 days: Frankfurt to Paris (France) in 5 hours. And, in this instance, driving through the night, I arrive in the City of Lights, step out of the car, say "Ciao, Mucker!" to my Mit Fahr driver-buddy, Wolfgang (a cross dresser from Leipzig) who drops me in a very deserted - early morning - Place de la Concorde, downtown Paris.
"Birds wings...rise noiselessly...into the sky... (Rimbaud)
c 2010. davedelacroix/our man in europe
OUR MAN in EUROPE: dave delacroix: part 25: newsflash!
Part 25: Newsflash
...Having recently announced to the WHOLE WORLD via the world wide web (that www. inter-net thing) that I was dying - and indeed, WAS - of pnuemonia...in that hell hole, the St. Pierre in Montmartre (40 euros per night, no phone, free wifi, cause there wasnt any!..a concierge with selective alzheimers, a shit hole, but the room DID come with an ashtray!)...I can now, fully & quite candidly declare that, in furtherence of said announcement...subject to a 98% chance/danger of "mental derrangement", despite a full/total "physical" recovery...that the news of my imminent death (sorta-kind'a) was infact, er... a tad exagerated.
AH-TISH-OO!
Mark Twain & I are both fine.
c 2010 Kaiserslautern/our man in europe/dave delacroix
...Having recently announced to the WHOLE WORLD via the world wide web (that www. inter-net thing) that I was dying - and indeed, WAS - of pnuemonia...in that hell hole, the St. Pierre in Montmartre (40 euros per night, no phone, free wifi, cause there wasnt any!..a concierge with selective alzheimers, a shit hole, but the room DID come with an ashtray!)...I can now, fully & quite candidly declare that, in furtherence of said announcement...subject to a 98% chance/danger of "mental derrangement", despite a full/total "physical" recovery...that the news of my imminent death (sorta-kind'a) was infact, er... a tad exagerated.
AH-TISH-OO!
Mark Twain & I are both fine.
c 2010 Kaiserslautern/our man in europe/dave delacroix
Monday, November 29, 2010
OUR MAN in EUROPE: Part 23: NATASHA part 1: (the whistler)
Natasha: Part 1: The Whistler
Roaming the boulevards and back streets of St. Germaine amidst the neon reds and yellow glow of restaurants, cafes, boutiques and Art galleries, the street coals that fuel this City of Lights (...that would be PARIS)
Me, in my leather & Stevie-Ray (Minnetonka) and Natasha, wearing her YETI fuzz cone hat, dressed to "model", "haut", fashion perfection...
She would, accompanying me, either sing a line from ANY popular song with a voice, ocassionally bordering on an Alpine yodel, vocally "click", "clock" & "cluck", or RAPID FIRE: "COOS", like a turtle dove on mescaline.....OR!....whistle casually, sometimes melodic or non-sensical.
A penetrating whistle: eeerie & soulful.
Either way; I, leading the way, to drinking haunts of yester-year (the legendary MAZET, by the Odeon, for example) always knew - without looking back or around - that she was always "with me" and just "where" she was....
...in the rain
crossing busy streets
dodging rush hour traffic
in the Social flurries
the crowds
"dans le Metro",
my shadow Song-bird:
My Natasha.
.....................................................................
NATASHA part 2: "L`, Atelier"
How we met is of vague consequence. Vague, because we were probably both in our cups.
The venerable "Cafe Rendezvous des Amis" in Montmartre comes to mind. My hangout, Picassos,s, too, once, staffed by a team of Artists, vivants, Chantreusses and Grande Amis!
Still, a Bar, in the American sense, more-so than a typical French Cafe.
PINK FLOYD in the mornings, Jazz, Blues, post meridian.
Omelettes to die for, incidentally
...le plat du jour
BIG BEERS!
Weekend, live music.
Smoking, alas, outside: November? -BRRRRRR
Interior decor?
-the fabulous photographic GENIUS of Miguel Cianca...
(miguel@cianca.fr)
....Bohemian portraiture, B/W faces on every wall, mine, too, may well be exhibited by now (masochists pls take note).
LE CAFE RENDEZVOUS DES AMIS, at the Rue Sevete & Rue Gabrielle in Montmartre: Do try!
Natasha? A recent habituee who, finding me there, locked in her genius - a Painter & conceptual Artist, a la Joseph Beuys/Cristo - trailed me home to my "A;telier" abode a street away. Infact, an Art gallery, owned by the Baroness Katarina Von XXX which I rented by the week, she (the Baroness) busy painting, etc., in Morrocco (spell?...spell in GERMAN!!!!) along with the enchanting HAKIMA, a close friend who sealed the gallery rental deal.
Natasha, who had her own apartment, nevertheless was my on and off "Atelier" house guest,
Dancing to bad French radio music.
Beaujolais Nouveau, of course.
"1664" French beer.
Packet Veg Soup, with spuds & champignons.
....Couldnt find HANERNERO chillis anywhere!!!
(I may have mentioned this before)
No matter. Feeling at home, Natasha and I always stoked "chilli hot" conversation and solved ALL the World,s problems between waltzes, tangos, rumbas and...yes!
We DID like to MAMBO!
...We never smoked in there. (the Atelier)
I mean, we NEVER smoked in there ONCE.
Not ONE cigarette.
Not one.
I swear!
The Turkish toilet in the back yard, however, was a challenge!
.............................................
Natasha: Part 3: Les Enfants Terrible
Natasha was, some time ago, asked by a Priest, to paint a mural on a newly restored Alpine cemetery wall.
...by a Priest.
The gentlemen of the CLOTH are clearly expanding from the genre of Paedophilia.
She,s over 21, blonde, a Lady and "tres" hot for chrissakes!?
Anyways, her mural is a hit with the locals - makes the Press! - and the Church rewards her to the extent that she can move to Paris (from Austria) for a while and further her studies/pursue her Art.
I want to know more about this Priest...but on this point, uniquely, she is quite reticient.
Her mural, incidentally, was quite "avante garde" and in no way Biblical or figuritive....but I AM FORGETTING that though very young, she,s a very determined Lady and, in essence, an ancient Soul, wise beyond her years.
Still... And if I sound jaded...or "affected"...it would be true.
Our time together is a mutual joy. We crave Intellectual companionship (no crime, mes amis). We share the same tastes in Art & Music, sing with GUSTO the same oddball songs and are as thick as thieves, liberating Parisian Street/road signs (for artistic purposes ONLY, you understand)....one, in yellow & black:
RUE BAREE
...we are as brother and sister, "les enfant terribles", or man & wife; the latter - if not Biblically - and....and...something greater than "caring" creeps into our friendship.
(there´,s that whistling again!)
I know at some point, should we remain together, I may exceed being caringly protective and become outright posessive.
I`m such a Prick!
Already, I "SHOO!" away hustlers & gawkers.
(Natasha pretends not to notice)
And I can HARDLY WAIT to meet that frickin Priest!!!!
................................................................
Natasha: part 4: Rue Baree
I`ve always admired or been in awe of the Artist who could actually work in public. People, buzzing around. Fuckers who yak, IN the room, when you``re creating Pieta.
Students in the Louvre, a blonde girl (like Natasha), I remember, sketching Picasso`s at an exhibit at the New York Gallery of Modern Art.
Sometimes she was engulfed, jostled by the dilitante/tourist hordes, and yet, she maintained her concentration.
...I come from the School of Mahler. I demand quiet, serenity (a good hangover) and isolation...except when I``m inspired. Then? I can write or compose in a crowded bar OR a football stadium.
...I know. Paradoxes abound. But mostly, give me Isolation UNTIL I feel isolated. (thank u vy muk)
Natasha has NO such qualms. Or maybe, because Delacroix is in the room she is not disturbed?
She has perfectly shaped dark eyebrows and, whilst painting (or attacking a canvas), her left brow hovers, then remains high, a la "sniper", the prey of her intentions, firmly in her cross-hairs....and, boldly, her hands/fingers; with all the precision of a Neuro-surgeon, cross-bred with a Butcher, executes her creative delivery.
It``s a noisey affair. Charcoal gets scratched/chain-sawed onto raw canvas. Paint splats! And she uses everything at hand!
Lipstick.
Stabillo marker pens.
Mustard from a tube! (Sharfer Senf)
A dab of wine/beer.
Spital, if necessary!
As she works,she does not speak at all. As for her clear blue eyes? They are - predictably - intent; glass shards of exigency.
There is no kind (ness) osmosis in her working aura. A cold, feverish, furnace prevails, perhaps? -but a furnace, nevertheless...and ALL is projection.
She rules.
At length, she pauses. There is sweat on her normally cool brow. She has been quite alone for an hour. Two?
I dont recall.
"RUE BAREE" (Road Blocked). The Canvas.
It``s done.
c 2010, davedelacroix/Black Pearl/Nicky bartending/Usingen/Germany/frickin Winter!!!!
Roaming the boulevards and back streets of St. Germaine amidst the neon reds and yellow glow of restaurants, cafes, boutiques and Art galleries, the street coals that fuel this City of Lights (...that would be PARIS)
Me, in my leather & Stevie-Ray (Minnetonka) and Natasha, wearing her YETI fuzz cone hat, dressed to "model", "haut", fashion perfection...
She would, accompanying me, either sing a line from ANY popular song with a voice, ocassionally bordering on an Alpine yodel, vocally "click", "clock" & "cluck", or RAPID FIRE: "COOS", like a turtle dove on mescaline.....OR!....whistle casually, sometimes melodic or non-sensical.
A penetrating whistle: eeerie & soulful.
Either way; I, leading the way, to drinking haunts of yester-year (the legendary MAZET, by the Odeon, for example) always knew - without looking back or around - that she was always "with me" and just "where" she was....
...in the rain
crossing busy streets
dodging rush hour traffic
in the Social flurries
the crowds
"dans le Metro",
my shadow Song-bird:
My Natasha.
.....................................................................
NATASHA part 2: "L`, Atelier"
How we met is of vague consequence. Vague, because we were probably both in our cups.
The venerable "Cafe Rendezvous des Amis" in Montmartre comes to mind. My hangout, Picassos,s, too, once, staffed by a team of Artists, vivants, Chantreusses and Grande Amis!
Still, a Bar, in the American sense, more-so than a typical French Cafe.
PINK FLOYD in the mornings, Jazz, Blues, post meridian.
Omelettes to die for, incidentally
...le plat du jour
BIG BEERS!
Weekend, live music.
Smoking, alas, outside: November? -BRRRRRR
Interior decor?
-the fabulous photographic GENIUS of Miguel Cianca...
(miguel@cianca.fr)
....Bohemian portraiture, B/W faces on every wall, mine, too, may well be exhibited by now (masochists pls take note).
LE CAFE RENDEZVOUS DES AMIS, at the Rue Sevete & Rue Gabrielle in Montmartre: Do try!
Natasha? A recent habituee who, finding me there, locked in her genius - a Painter & conceptual Artist, a la Joseph Beuys/Cristo - trailed me home to my "A;telier" abode a street away. Infact, an Art gallery, owned by the Baroness Katarina Von XXX which I rented by the week, she (the Baroness) busy painting, etc., in Morrocco (spell?...spell in GERMAN!!!!) along with the enchanting HAKIMA, a close friend who sealed the gallery rental deal.
Natasha, who had her own apartment, nevertheless was my on and off "Atelier" house guest,
Dancing to bad French radio music.
Beaujolais Nouveau, of course.
"1664" French beer.
Packet Veg Soup, with spuds & champignons.
....Couldnt find HANERNERO chillis anywhere!!!
(I may have mentioned this before)
No matter. Feeling at home, Natasha and I always stoked "chilli hot" conversation and solved ALL the World,s problems between waltzes, tangos, rumbas and...yes!
We DID like to MAMBO!
...We never smoked in there. (the Atelier)
I mean, we NEVER smoked in there ONCE.
Not ONE cigarette.
Not one.
I swear!
The Turkish toilet in the back yard, however, was a challenge!
.............................................
Natasha: Part 3: Les Enfants Terrible
Natasha was, some time ago, asked by a Priest, to paint a mural on a newly restored Alpine cemetery wall.
...by a Priest.
The gentlemen of the CLOTH are clearly expanding from the genre of Paedophilia.
She,s over 21, blonde, a Lady and "tres" hot for chrissakes!?
Anyways, her mural is a hit with the locals - makes the Press! - and the Church rewards her to the extent that she can move to Paris (from Austria) for a while and further her studies/pursue her Art.
I want to know more about this Priest...but on this point, uniquely, she is quite reticient.
Her mural, incidentally, was quite "avante garde" and in no way Biblical or figuritive....but I AM FORGETTING that though very young, she,s a very determined Lady and, in essence, an ancient Soul, wise beyond her years.
Still... And if I sound jaded...or "affected"...it would be true.
Our time together is a mutual joy. We crave Intellectual companionship (no crime, mes amis). We share the same tastes in Art & Music, sing with GUSTO the same oddball songs and are as thick as thieves, liberating Parisian Street/road signs (for artistic purposes ONLY, you understand)....one, in yellow & black:
RUE BAREE
...we are as brother and sister, "les enfant terribles", or man & wife; the latter - if not Biblically - and....and...something greater than "caring" creeps into our friendship.
(there´,s that whistling again!)
I know at some point, should we remain together, I may exceed being caringly protective and become outright posessive.
I`m such a Prick!
Already, I "SHOO!" away hustlers & gawkers.
(Natasha pretends not to notice)
And I can HARDLY WAIT to meet that frickin Priest!!!!
................................................................
Natasha: part 4: Rue Baree
I`ve always admired or been in awe of the Artist who could actually work in public. People, buzzing around. Fuckers who yak, IN the room, when you``re creating Pieta.
Students in the Louvre, a blonde girl (like Natasha), I remember, sketching Picasso`s at an exhibit at the New York Gallery of Modern Art.
Sometimes she was engulfed, jostled by the dilitante/tourist hordes, and yet, she maintained her concentration.
...I come from the School of Mahler. I demand quiet, serenity (a good hangover) and isolation...except when I``m inspired. Then? I can write or compose in a crowded bar OR a football stadium.
...I know. Paradoxes abound. But mostly, give me Isolation UNTIL I feel isolated. (thank u vy muk)
Natasha has NO such qualms. Or maybe, because Delacroix is in the room she is not disturbed?
She has perfectly shaped dark eyebrows and, whilst painting (or attacking a canvas), her left brow hovers, then remains high, a la "sniper", the prey of her intentions, firmly in her cross-hairs....and, boldly, her hands/fingers; with all the precision of a Neuro-surgeon, cross-bred with a Butcher, executes her creative delivery.
It``s a noisey affair. Charcoal gets scratched/chain-sawed onto raw canvas. Paint splats! And she uses everything at hand!
Lipstick.
Stabillo marker pens.
Mustard from a tube! (Sharfer Senf)
A dab of wine/beer.
Spital, if necessary!
As she works,she does not speak at all. As for her clear blue eyes? They are - predictably - intent; glass shards of exigency.
There is no kind (ness) osmosis in her working aura. A cold, feverish, furnace prevails, perhaps? -but a furnace, nevertheless...and ALL is projection.
She rules.
At length, she pauses. There is sweat on her normally cool brow. She has been quite alone for an hour. Two?
I dont recall.
"RUE BAREE" (Road Blocked). The Canvas.
It``s done.
c 2010, davedelacroix/Black Pearl/Nicky bartending/Usingen/Germany/frickin Winter!!!!
Saturday, November 13, 2010
OUR MAN in EUROPE/dave delacroix/Part 22: Breakfast in Bed!
Part 22: Breakfast in Bed!
(No-one ever said Blogs have to be sequential; our man in europe -in point!)
In Paris for 5 minutes...and aside of a bout of Pneumonia/extremely exagerated reports of my death abounding in cyber-space...I'm already in Love with a girl called (really!)
LOLA.
Quite (ahem!) un-requited, of course (she doesnt call back) I fold my despair and roam the Metro linguini, popping up at stations with mythical, mystical and Historical names.
Abesses.
Pigalle.
Who-ever "Madelaine" is...she must be very popular because everyone gets off there!
Rue de Bac, finally, and up to the street I come... en cue for an outbreak of biblical rain whereby the City, my Tuxedo AND I
get HOSED!!!!
At the nearest, er...watering hole...I attempt to restore my earlier "joi de vie" with a large Whisky, beer chasers:
"Rive gauche" Paris parades by.
Burberry umbrellas; TRES gauche! Surrounding stores displaying absolutely useless million dollar knick-knacks
(This aint Montmartre)
Bus stop! Bus stop!
A pantomime of old ladies. The only young one throws me a smile, I smile back; WE smile!....:)
Blonde, incidentally.
Should'a, could'a, ought'a ha, didn't...
I note - with mild disgust - that kiddie Scooters (the one's we had as children, back in the 60's) have had more sucess in Paris than any town in the U.S.A., especially with guys OVER 35 years old.
Why settle for a "leg-push" scooter when you can have a Pontiac...in Racing Car red?
...Fur lined-hooded Parkas... No eco-p.c. dead Skunk fur scruples in THIS town.
OOO! Actor Johnny Depp (Capt Jack) and escort, I kid you not! -now sitting at the next table. Furtive, talking in hushed tones;
"Good to see ya!"-I say NOT.
Arriving blondes are not so courteous, and...alas...ogle the poor man.
And the rain goes into Tropical gear, the rush hour (it's always rush hour in Paris) traffic roars and honks and splashes; my heated cafe trat-terrace; smoker's heaven.
OOO! I think I just lost/ate my last tooth whilst nibbling on the free snackie petite bagels!
...Tasted good, though. (?)
There's something quite satisfying about eating your own body parts. Like sucking the blood on a cut finger.
...I must make a note of that.
You get the flu?
You eat your foot!
"Heel or toe, Monsieur?"
"I'll leave it to the Chef.
"Breakfast in bed?"
"Buggered if I know!?.... Ask Captain Jack!!!"
c 2010. davedelacroix/our man in europe/ paris
(No-one ever said Blogs have to be sequential; our man in europe -in point!)
In Paris for 5 minutes...and aside of a bout of Pneumonia/extremely exagerated reports of my death abounding in cyber-space...I'm already in Love with a girl called (really!)
LOLA.
Quite (ahem!) un-requited, of course (she doesnt call back) I fold my despair and roam the Metro linguini, popping up at stations with mythical, mystical and Historical names.
Abesses.
Pigalle.
Who-ever "Madelaine" is...she must be very popular because everyone gets off there!
Rue de Bac, finally, and up to the street I come... en cue for an outbreak of biblical rain whereby the City, my Tuxedo AND I
get HOSED!!!!
At the nearest, er...watering hole...I attempt to restore my earlier "joi de vie" with a large Whisky, beer chasers:
"Rive gauche" Paris parades by.
Burberry umbrellas; TRES gauche! Surrounding stores displaying absolutely useless million dollar knick-knacks
(This aint Montmartre)
Bus stop! Bus stop!
A pantomime of old ladies. The only young one throws me a smile, I smile back; WE smile!....:)
Blonde, incidentally.
Should'a, could'a, ought'a ha, didn't...
I note - with mild disgust - that kiddie Scooters (the one's we had as children, back in the 60's) have had more sucess in Paris than any town in the U.S.A., especially with guys OVER 35 years old.
Why settle for a "leg-push" scooter when you can have a Pontiac...in Racing Car red?
...Fur lined-hooded Parkas... No eco-p.c. dead Skunk fur scruples in THIS town.
OOO! Actor Johnny Depp (Capt Jack) and escort, I kid you not! -now sitting at the next table. Furtive, talking in hushed tones;
"Good to see ya!"-I say NOT.
Arriving blondes are not so courteous, and...alas...ogle the poor man.
And the rain goes into Tropical gear, the rush hour (it's always rush hour in Paris) traffic roars and honks and splashes; my heated cafe trat-terrace; smoker's heaven.
OOO! I think I just lost/ate my last tooth whilst nibbling on the free snackie petite bagels!
...Tasted good, though. (?)
There's something quite satisfying about eating your own body parts. Like sucking the blood on a cut finger.
...I must make a note of that.
You get the flu?
You eat your foot!
"Heel or toe, Monsieur?"
"I'll leave it to the Chef.
"Breakfast in bed?"
"Buggered if I know!?.... Ask Captain Jack!!!"
c 2010. davedelacroix/our man in europe/ paris
OUR MAN in EUROPE/dave delacroix/Part 21: "Le Bizuth"
Part 21: "Le Bizuth"
(It means...."biscuit"?... I'll get back to you on that one)
This first November week "dans Paree", 2011; the deluge continues.
Having rented an "Atelier" (German Baroness's Art Gallery) in Montmartre with basic facilities, the deluge continues; NO RAIN! NO RAIN!
(Didnt work at Woodstock... Why should it work here?)
Stocking up on a can of Champignons
can of Peas & Carrots
X 2 Spuds
1 Onion (the size of a clove of Garlic/a kid's pea-knuckle)
Le "country Veg" Powdered soup
(Yummy!)
1 Lemon (a lemon is a lemon)
A "can" of pork & beans
-known in France as: Casulet
(a 12 pack, of course) Bier Francais: 1644
blonde stuff
I nevertheless - despite the inclement weather - forego the saucepan-hotplate feast and shower (take one), hit the local laundry-matte, coffee nearby whilst spin cycling (where I meet friend & colleague-songwriter, Celine) ...withdraw with cleaned goodies to the "Atelier", spruce up, screw my head on...and respond to the
burning bills in my wallet.
"Je suis, Allez!!!"
It's a day in the Life...leastways, till the money runs out.
Piss on, dear rain. I couldnt give a Monkeys! This the best Salute I can do!
In the "old days" I used to say: Cheers!
Salute!
Prossit!
Sante!
Skol!
Your Health!
Older now, I say,
Be well.
(Be good)
Be SAFE!
(You look like shit!)
Bon voyage!...
Or
See ya, Tomorrow!
(Ya think?)
c 2010 Cafe B. Rue de Bac, Paris/davedelacroix/our man in-Paris
(It means...."biscuit"?... I'll get back to you on that one)
This first November week "dans Paree", 2011; the deluge continues.
Having rented an "Atelier" (German Baroness's Art Gallery) in Montmartre with basic facilities, the deluge continues; NO RAIN! NO RAIN!
(Didnt work at Woodstock... Why should it work here?)
Stocking up on a can of Champignons
can of Peas & Carrots
X 2 Spuds
1 Onion (the size of a clove of Garlic/a kid's pea-knuckle)
Le "country Veg" Powdered soup
(Yummy!)
1 Lemon (a lemon is a lemon)
A "can" of pork & beans
-known in France as: Casulet
(a 12 pack, of course) Bier Francais: 1644
blonde stuff
I nevertheless - despite the inclement weather - forego the saucepan-hotplate feast and shower (take one), hit the local laundry-matte, coffee nearby whilst spin cycling (where I meet friend & colleague-songwriter, Celine) ...withdraw with cleaned goodies to the "Atelier", spruce up, screw my head on...and respond to the
burning bills in my wallet.
"Je suis, Allez!!!"
It's a day in the Life...leastways, till the money runs out.
Piss on, dear rain. I couldnt give a Monkeys! This the best Salute I can do!
In the "old days" I used to say: Cheers!
Salute!
Prossit!
Sante!
Skol!
Your Health!
Older now, I say,
Be well.
(Be good)
Be SAFE!
(You look like shit!)
Bon voyage!...
Or
See ya, Tomorrow!
(Ya think?)
c 2010 Cafe B. Rue de Bac, Paris/davedelacroix/our man in-Paris
Thursday, October 21, 2010
OUR MAN in EUROPE/dave delacroix/Part 20: Bela
Part 20: Bela
(an October morning in Montmartre)
At the Cafe des Amis, already into 3 "cafe au laits" and 2 large beers (here comes the Sun), Paris awakens, furtive, indecisive, hollow in limbs, the infrequent traffic tires...rumble across ancient cobble stones; my tired mind, busy, trying to decide what shade of "hangover"...it will wear.
I'm quite alone, here; situ side-walk cafe. The surrounding empty tables...like large Lily pads, awaiting the rain of the Day's commerce.
Still; Paris - at All hours - is on full fashionista-Alert-parade!
Pussy, Pussy every where...but not a drop to drink.
Leastways, it's how this morning's light catches me, dressed - head to toe - in BLACK (hat, leater jacket, etc) sitting, quite lonesome...like Bela Lugosi, like an old Vampire...on the last day of his 54th year (on God's good Earth), berethed (spell?) of (seems like) love, friendship, companionship, aneamic in a blood bank of Life...
WHOA, DUDE!
(Heavy)
But the clock of a nearby church (Sacre Coeur, probably) kicks in...and a nearby Inter-net Cafe awaits my presence;
I fold my Wings.
There's a punchline within my grasp, here, somewhere. But for the life of me...I just cannot find it!...
c. 2010. paris/in france mucker/davedelacroix/our man in europe
(an October morning in Montmartre)
At the Cafe des Amis, already into 3 "cafe au laits" and 2 large beers (here comes the Sun), Paris awakens, furtive, indecisive, hollow in limbs, the infrequent traffic tires...rumble across ancient cobble stones; my tired mind, busy, trying to decide what shade of "hangover"...it will wear.
I'm quite alone, here; situ side-walk cafe. The surrounding empty tables...like large Lily pads, awaiting the rain of the Day's commerce.
Still; Paris - at All hours - is on full fashionista-Alert-parade!
Pussy, Pussy every where...but not a drop to drink.
Leastways, it's how this morning's light catches me, dressed - head to toe - in BLACK (hat, leater jacket, etc) sitting, quite lonesome...like Bela Lugosi, like an old Vampire...on the last day of his 54th year (on God's good Earth), berethed (spell?) of (seems like) love, friendship, companionship, aneamic in a blood bank of Life...
WHOA, DUDE!
(Heavy)
But the clock of a nearby church (Sacre Coeur, probably) kicks in...and a nearby Inter-net Cafe awaits my presence;
I fold my Wings.
There's a punchline within my grasp, here, somewhere. But for the life of me...I just cannot find it!...
c. 2010. paris/in france mucker/davedelacroix/our man in europe
OUR MAN in EUROPE/dave delacroix/Part 19: The Forty Towers
Part 19: The Forty Towers (of Wisdom?)
(Moment: I'm pissing in the sink...)
Like an old friend, the Saint Pierre, Chambre (room) No. 11 awaited/greeted me...at the "Anvers" metro located/district hotel...like an old friend. Ye olde ceiling fan going: EEK-QUI, EEK QUI; definitively French with every swivel.
Throw verbal Salami at it? It'll come back verbal Pate foi Gras...so there's no use complaining.
On que/queue (a'la'ROMAN HOLIDAY) whilst trying to nap, construction guys across the alley way, demonically, sing full blast (this time Rossini) "arias" whilst duelling with "skill" Saws. In a hotel BOX, ERGO....yes I'm gonna whine!
That the TV didnt work with not a HOPE of WIFI, the "chambre's" (room) only real window of note didnt open, but the one in the shower (douche) cubicle wouldnt close...
October, kiddoes! BRRRRR!
...And I will spare you the (shared) WC description, except to say, NO DOOR LOCK, (T.P>bring your own) the rotting wooden door (cardboard, basically) wouldnt close, and stared - whilst seated... in one's most intimate Guardian Newspaper,crossword puzzle moments - right back at you, an inch from your nose...which like the hotel room (chambre 11) made entry-delivery/exit an operation demanding mucho management control! -in every personal, hygenic sense.
(Hoping that came out right)
(Probably not)
Chambre (room 11) carpeting, incidentally, installed by "UNDER-Carpeting INC", a kind of wafer-thin, sad, stained, pink sponge material; and chambre (room 11) lighting, in three shades of DIM, no plug for the "le sink", sparse stained blanketing (child patterns), the "le" Concierge" (reception dick head) a DWARF!...the "aged" hotel Porter, her twin brother....
Le result?
Strangely, I liked - not the hotel - but THEM!
Thus; le Hotel Saint Pierre, named after the Patron Saint of Plumbers, Firemen (?), Sailors (Ahoy!) and - like me - ridiculously UNDER-qualified Film-makers! -sometimes it's easy to sink, burn your old socks, buy a coupl'a new pairs....and make yourself - incredibly! - at home?...
The new French Revolution? The October Strikes? The Daily Demos? The Swat Cops? The rolling electrical blackouts?... Well; that's another story.
c 2010. oct/montmartre/paris/davedelacroix/our man in europe
(Moment: I'm pissing in the sink...)
Like an old friend, the Saint Pierre, Chambre (room) No. 11 awaited/greeted me...at the "Anvers" metro located/district hotel...like an old friend. Ye olde ceiling fan going: EEK-QUI, EEK QUI; definitively French with every swivel.
Throw verbal Salami at it? It'll come back verbal Pate foi Gras...so there's no use complaining.
On que/queue (a'la'ROMAN HOLIDAY) whilst trying to nap, construction guys across the alley way, demonically, sing full blast (this time Rossini) "arias" whilst duelling with "skill" Saws. In a hotel BOX, ERGO....yes I'm gonna whine!
That the TV didnt work with not a HOPE of WIFI, the "chambre's" (room) only real window of note didnt open, but the one in the shower (douche) cubicle wouldnt close...
October, kiddoes! BRRRRR!
...And I will spare you the (shared) WC description, except to say, NO DOOR LOCK, (T.P>bring your own) the rotting wooden door (cardboard, basically) wouldnt close, and stared - whilst seated... in one's most intimate Guardian Newspaper,crossword puzzle moments - right back at you, an inch from your nose...which like the hotel room (chambre 11) made entry-delivery/exit an operation demanding mucho management control! -in every personal, hygenic sense.
(Hoping that came out right)
(Probably not)
Chambre (room 11) carpeting, incidentally, installed by "UNDER-Carpeting INC", a kind of wafer-thin, sad, stained, pink sponge material; and chambre (room 11) lighting, in three shades of DIM, no plug for the "le sink", sparse stained blanketing (child patterns), the "le" Concierge" (reception dick head) a DWARF!...the "aged" hotel Porter, her twin brother....
Le result?
Strangely, I liked - not the hotel - but THEM!
Thus; le Hotel Saint Pierre, named after the Patron Saint of Plumbers, Firemen (?), Sailors (Ahoy!) and - like me - ridiculously UNDER-qualified Film-makers! -sometimes it's easy to sink, burn your old socks, buy a coupl'a new pairs....and make yourself - incredibly! - at home?...
The new French Revolution? The October Strikes? The Daily Demos? The Swat Cops? The rolling electrical blackouts?... Well; that's another story.
c 2010. oct/montmartre/paris/davedelacroix/our man in europe
Monday, October 4, 2010
OUR MAN in EUROPE/dave delacroix/Part 18: The Cuckoo's Nest
Part 18: The Cuckoo's Nest
Ripe from a Swiss (town of) Basel night spent with British Ex-pat's & "die loiter" (regulars) at the bar, Mr Pickwick (NINE Euros for a pint, for chrissakes!!!?) the dawn finds me stealing a ride on a (local) train to (the town) Lanfen, some 20 miles South then hiking in the crisp morning sun up the foothills of the eternally pristine Swiss Alps.
Expecting an "agony" of waits, hitch-hiking, a roadside apple tree provides a sumptuous breakfast (fruhstuck) and the (Deutsch) Swiss, god bless 'em, surprise!
Ride on ride.
Roger; on his way to visit his sick mother (OH, C"MON!?).
Brigette, who has a brother in the Music business: Swiss Patriotic Music (OH, GET OUTTA HERE!!??).
....But she's a "jewel", beautiful...and runs her own Floral delivery business, hence: Brigette's Blessings (.de) ... And I do believe SHE DID (...bless me), for dropping me off in/at some village/fork in the road, I'm immediately picked up by "Horst" in a mini-van...who drives me a good 60 miles (in Switzerland, that's like crossing the state of Kansas & Colorado, both), all the time exposed to the Alpine majesty of "Heidi", "Grandfather", "Belle & Sebastiane" and the RICOLA lozenge factory!
"Oh!" I exclaim, every half - mounain-winding - mile; "Just STOP IT!... Switzerland!? -just CUT THAT OUT!" -for the scenary is just OFF the Scale....
....which brings me to the "Cuckoo's Nest".
Finally over the "Sustan (?)" mountain pass (elevation: LSD), I find myself down in Oensingen, hitch-hiking...actually...on the Freeway-Auto-bahn...where I run afoul of the Law and get busted by Lindsey Lohan's Swiss counterpart (real pretty in real life), tightly wrapped in Swiss Highway Patrol uniform & Designer shades...who directs me - smilingly, but in NO uncertain terms - to "get the frick off the highway" via some highway Service/industrial road.
So I comply.
...It meanders this way & that, then there's a small industrial warehouse district...and then I "espsy" what looks like a college or school of some sort, thronged with young-ish people. And "thank god!", because I really need to use a restroom.
...Long story short? It's actually a HOSPITAL-residence for the Mentally Challenged, so straight away, I feel quite at home...waving my arms...to no-one in particular, queuing up for a free lunch, mucho coffees, bathroom, of course; and bantering with the cafeteria serving ladies about Beckburg, that magnificent castle (Schloss) that over looks Oensingen and the rich countryside, hereabouts.
Still waving my arms around - at no-one in particular - and now dribbling at the mouth with a messy face (it was BEANS day) I promise myself that on my next "proffessional" music tour I will include this "Cuckoo's Nest" to repay the generosity & warmth of these beautiful People.... And STILL waving my arms around, now demonically - at no-one in particular - I pick up my guitar/gear and take my leave, the Serving Ladies & luncheon residents, waving their "goodbyes" in return.
................
What to say about Switzerland? I could write pages! -Perhaps in the vein of this laconic blog...an update of Orson Welles' famous, THE THIRD MAN "Cuckoo Clock" speech is called for?
The awesome beauty of the land, the reserved charm of its People and the succinct calm of its Society/civilization...?
("Like the fella said:") For the last 100 years, other countries have boldly created The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, PICASSO, Udo Lindenburg (sic), BEAT POETRY, the....er....INTER-NET, film Directors UP the wazoo, Moon Landings (oh, yes: those things), Concordes & Dreamliners, the M1-A1 Tank, SAM Missiles, Nuclear Submarines (see where I'm going?) The Atom Bomb. The Hydrogen Bomb!
And what did the Swiss produce?
The Swiss Army Pocket Knife.
c. 2010. @ ze Black Pearl, following the "Code", Usingen/dave delacroix/our man in europe
Ripe from a Swiss (town of) Basel night spent with British Ex-pat's & "die loiter" (regulars) at the bar, Mr Pickwick (NINE Euros for a pint, for chrissakes!!!?) the dawn finds me stealing a ride on a (local) train to (the town) Lanfen, some 20 miles South then hiking in the crisp morning sun up the foothills of the eternally pristine Swiss Alps.
Expecting an "agony" of waits, hitch-hiking, a roadside apple tree provides a sumptuous breakfast (fruhstuck) and the (Deutsch) Swiss, god bless 'em, surprise!
Ride on ride.
Roger; on his way to visit his sick mother (OH, C"MON!?).
Brigette, who has a brother in the Music business: Swiss Patriotic Music (OH, GET OUTTA HERE!!??).
....But she's a "jewel", beautiful...and runs her own Floral delivery business, hence: Brigette's Blessings (.de) ... And I do believe SHE DID (...bless me), for dropping me off in/at some village/fork in the road, I'm immediately picked up by "Horst" in a mini-van...who drives me a good 60 miles (in Switzerland, that's like crossing the state of Kansas & Colorado, both), all the time exposed to the Alpine majesty of "Heidi", "Grandfather", "Belle & Sebastiane" and the RICOLA lozenge factory!
"Oh!" I exclaim, every half - mounain-winding - mile; "Just STOP IT!... Switzerland!? -just CUT THAT OUT!" -for the scenary is just OFF the Scale....
....which brings me to the "Cuckoo's Nest".
Finally over the "Sustan (?)" mountain pass (elevation: LSD), I find myself down in Oensingen, hitch-hiking...actually...on the Freeway-Auto-bahn...where I run afoul of the Law and get busted by Lindsey Lohan's Swiss counterpart (real pretty in real life), tightly wrapped in Swiss Highway Patrol uniform & Designer shades...who directs me - smilingly, but in NO uncertain terms - to "get the frick off the highway" via some highway Service/industrial road.
So I comply.
...It meanders this way & that, then there's a small industrial warehouse district...and then I "espsy" what looks like a college or school of some sort, thronged with young-ish people. And "thank god!", because I really need to use a restroom.
...Long story short? It's actually a HOSPITAL-residence for the Mentally Challenged, so straight away, I feel quite at home...waving my arms...to no-one in particular, queuing up for a free lunch, mucho coffees, bathroom, of course; and bantering with the cafeteria serving ladies about Beckburg, that magnificent castle (Schloss) that over looks Oensingen and the rich countryside, hereabouts.
Still waving my arms around - at no-one in particular - and now dribbling at the mouth with a messy face (it was BEANS day) I promise myself that on my next "proffessional" music tour I will include this "Cuckoo's Nest" to repay the generosity & warmth of these beautiful People.... And STILL waving my arms around, now demonically - at no-one in particular - I pick up my guitar/gear and take my leave, the Serving Ladies & luncheon residents, waving their "goodbyes" in return.
................
What to say about Switzerland? I could write pages! -Perhaps in the vein of this laconic blog...an update of Orson Welles' famous, THE THIRD MAN "Cuckoo Clock" speech is called for?
The awesome beauty of the land, the reserved charm of its People and the succinct calm of its Society/civilization...?
("Like the fella said:") For the last 100 years, other countries have boldly created The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, PICASSO, Udo Lindenburg (sic), BEAT POETRY, the....er....INTER-NET, film Directors UP the wazoo, Moon Landings (oh, yes: those things), Concordes & Dreamliners, the M1-A1 Tank, SAM Missiles, Nuclear Submarines (see where I'm going?) The Atom Bomb. The Hydrogen Bomb!
And what did the Swiss produce?
The Swiss Army Pocket Knife.
c. 2010. @ ze Black Pearl, following the "Code", Usingen/dave delacroix/our man in europe
OUR MAN in EUROPE/dave delacroix/Part 17: Die Jaegers
Part 17: Die Jaegers
On the cusp of an Autumnal Hessian dawn... "Seasons of mists and mellow fruitfulness..." Sebastian (the Fisher-King), Herr Graff, Count Alex von Ludwigshafen and "I" sip coffee, chew on schinken, black bread smothered in "sharfer senf" (hot mustard)...
Conversation is minimal ("pass the sugar").
You can feel the tension in the air.
The night before: mucho Bitburgers, Schapps, obscene drinking songs, rowdy, sometimes rowing. There was a Dumpling fight in the kitchen.
One of the Count's retainers must have cleaned up the mess as the room is now spotless.
....but I digress.
Now is all tension, repressed fever, repressed hangovers; we are alert, a trifle anxious, filled with anticipation for the morning's Hunt.
A feeling of dread. Nature's World. We will drink a "hair of the dog (that bit you)" before -with intent exageration - saunter out from the warm Schloss into the damp morning fog, before treading deep, then deeper into the surrounding dense forest of this world of Tannus. -where! (hark!) -if you halt in the thicket, wrapped in the veils of mist, you can still - though you must listen very hard! - echoes of the War cries of ancient Barbarians and the chants of Roman Legions, banging sword on shield: "Victa-Victorix-Victoric!"
After an hour or so of foot slogging, the Count (Herr Graff) and the "Fisher-Kaiser" are soon 100's of yards ahead of me, intent on stalking their prey...with a precision and sense of exactitude that non-Germanic people's can never understand... So! Finding a "designer" tree stump aside another that will do as a makeshift seat and writing desk, I establish myself: beer, cigarette, notebook, pen...and decide which parcel of ground will be my ashtray & "pissoir", respectively.
Thus, I crack a Bitburger (BB), smoke a "fag" and - for a while - enjoy the forest's primaevil tranquility, which (alas) is constantly shattered by groups of school children out hiking, yakking and enjoying the mountain forest - early morning - echoes
WHICH
...they swamp with a string of inane banalities;
"ECHO!!!"
Good.
Glad they got THAT one out of the way.
"EEEE-OH!!!"
And so on.
Thus the World's Future parcels by. (many groups)
Some, respectful.
"Guten tag."
Others, with looks of disdain at my smoking and early morning drinking. Nevertheless, the whole FUTURE WORLD parades by. The intelligent. The mischievous. The dullards. The athletic. The, sadly, kids born into drug abuse OR obesity! -one kid in particular, it's plain to see, will...after 20 years on the day shift at the Post Office, eat his 50,000 pasta dish, burp, then keel over backwards in his dinning chair and...be quite dead!
(Mr Creasote)
And then there's the "straggler", the Poet, the Outsider, the lonely kid, who drags his/her feet near my presence, unconsciously, yet accutely...aware in the fog of human awakening, he (or she) too, will one day sit in my place, with the potential to KNOW everything; the Universal glory of Being.
(Swallow hard, People)
...At some point (3 BB's later) the Fisher-King (Sebastian) returns from the advance to find me as he and the Count (Yup. Herr Graff) will go "off-track" to follow secret ways the forest hosts and which few mortals know. These lads, of course, have played here as children; they have carved their Sweethearts names on trees.
And so the Hunt continues...and the day, like (ahem!) a River of Time...that, initially babbles, brooks, falls, swirls, now opens up into a deep slow flow, rich & verdant; a breeze appears, though the fog does NOT clear. The dew soaked soil & foilage; it glistens.
And the fauna?
-Tuxedoed!
We cross the ancient Roman road, now known as RENN Strasse. The care-laden stones and traction, 2000 years old, still serving their purpose. We traverse "Alte Konig", the "Old - Celtic - King"-forrested mountain top, ringed by stone defense-parrapets. Once, headquarters to Amenius (Herman) the Etruscian, famed in history for anhiliating Octavian-Caesar's Legions at the massacre in the Tutterberg forest, further to the North.
....All this, and through which, with little regard, we trek; incidental tourists in Time's incomprehensible tapestry...but we are Hunters (Jaegers!) and LIKE Hunters we are intent only on the hunt...and closing in on the kill.
The silence is electric.
Squirrels have ceased their play.
The wild Boar, sniffing the air.
Deer; pensive, indecisive. Do they bolt or graze?
Lesser mammals retreat to their dens.
The Fisher-Kaiser, finger on mouth: "SSSSSCHHHHHSSSSSSS!!!!"
The Count, running fingers along his knife's cold blade.
"THERE!" shouts Sebastian.
The Count lets out a blood curdling scream!
"Victor-Victorix." I whisper.
And there, before us, like deer, naked, vulnerable, innocent, caught in the glare of a car's HI-beams, our prey, quite defenseless, nevertheless bold and bravely...face their fate. We have them surrounded, for these are the Mushrooms we have sought.
2010. At the Black Pearl/Nicky batending/Usingen/dave delacroix/our man in europe
On the cusp of an Autumnal Hessian dawn... "Seasons of mists and mellow fruitfulness..." Sebastian (the Fisher-King), Herr Graff, Count Alex von Ludwigshafen and "I" sip coffee, chew on schinken, black bread smothered in "sharfer senf" (hot mustard)...
Conversation is minimal ("pass the sugar").
You can feel the tension in the air.
The night before: mucho Bitburgers, Schapps, obscene drinking songs, rowdy, sometimes rowing. There was a Dumpling fight in the kitchen.
One of the Count's retainers must have cleaned up the mess as the room is now spotless.
....but I digress.
Now is all tension, repressed fever, repressed hangovers; we are alert, a trifle anxious, filled with anticipation for the morning's Hunt.
A feeling of dread. Nature's World. We will drink a "hair of the dog (that bit you)" before -with intent exageration - saunter out from the warm Schloss into the damp morning fog, before treading deep, then deeper into the surrounding dense forest of this world of Tannus. -where! (hark!) -if you halt in the thicket, wrapped in the veils of mist, you can still - though you must listen very hard! - echoes of the War cries of ancient Barbarians and the chants of Roman Legions, banging sword on shield: "Victa-Victorix-Victoric!"
After an hour or so of foot slogging, the Count (Herr Graff) and the "Fisher-Kaiser" are soon 100's of yards ahead of me, intent on stalking their prey...with a precision and sense of exactitude that non-Germanic people's can never understand... So! Finding a "designer" tree stump aside another that will do as a makeshift seat and writing desk, I establish myself: beer, cigarette, notebook, pen...and decide which parcel of ground will be my ashtray & "pissoir", respectively.
Thus, I crack a Bitburger (BB), smoke a "fag" and - for a while - enjoy the forest's primaevil tranquility, which (alas) is constantly shattered by groups of school children out hiking, yakking and enjoying the mountain forest - early morning - echoes
WHICH
...they swamp with a string of inane banalities;
"ECHO!!!"
Good.
Glad they got THAT one out of the way.
"EEEE-OH!!!"
And so on.
Thus the World's Future parcels by. (many groups)
Some, respectful.
"Guten tag."
Others, with looks of disdain at my smoking and early morning drinking. Nevertheless, the whole FUTURE WORLD parades by. The intelligent. The mischievous. The dullards. The athletic. The, sadly, kids born into drug abuse OR obesity! -one kid in particular, it's plain to see, will...after 20 years on the day shift at the Post Office, eat his 50,000 pasta dish, burp, then keel over backwards in his dinning chair and...be quite dead!
(Mr Creasote)
And then there's the "straggler", the Poet, the Outsider, the lonely kid, who drags his/her feet near my presence, unconsciously, yet accutely...aware in the fog of human awakening, he (or she) too, will one day sit in my place, with the potential to KNOW everything; the Universal glory of Being.
(Swallow hard, People)
...At some point (3 BB's later) the Fisher-King (Sebastian) returns from the advance to find me as he and the Count (Yup. Herr Graff) will go "off-track" to follow secret ways the forest hosts and which few mortals know. These lads, of course, have played here as children; they have carved their Sweethearts names on trees.
And so the Hunt continues...and the day, like (ahem!) a River of Time...that, initially babbles, brooks, falls, swirls, now opens up into a deep slow flow, rich & verdant; a breeze appears, though the fog does NOT clear. The dew soaked soil & foilage; it glistens.
And the fauna?
-Tuxedoed!
We cross the ancient Roman road, now known as RENN Strasse. The care-laden stones and traction, 2000 years old, still serving their purpose. We traverse "Alte Konig", the "Old - Celtic - King"-forrested mountain top, ringed by stone defense-parrapets. Once, headquarters to Amenius (Herman) the Etruscian, famed in history for anhiliating Octavian-Caesar's Legions at the massacre in the Tutterberg forest, further to the North.
....All this, and through which, with little regard, we trek; incidental tourists in Time's incomprehensible tapestry...but we are Hunters (Jaegers!) and LIKE Hunters we are intent only on the hunt...and closing in on the kill.
The silence is electric.
Squirrels have ceased their play.
The wild Boar, sniffing the air.
Deer; pensive, indecisive. Do they bolt or graze?
Lesser mammals retreat to their dens.
The Fisher-Kaiser, finger on mouth: "SSSSSCHHHHHSSSSSSS!!!!"
The Count, running fingers along his knife's cold blade.
"THERE!" shouts Sebastian.
The Count lets out a blood curdling scream!
"Victor-Victorix." I whisper.
And there, before us, like deer, naked, vulnerable, innocent, caught in the glare of a car's HI-beams, our prey, quite defenseless, nevertheless bold and bravely...face their fate. We have them surrounded, for these are the Mushrooms we have sought.
2010. At the Black Pearl/Nicky batending/Usingen/dave delacroix/our man in europe
Saturday, October 2, 2010
OUR MAN in EUROPE/dave delacroix/Part 16: Down on the Beat!
Part 16: Down on the Beat!
Back on the Street...it ALL comes back. Memories of a thousand towns, pre-Berlin Wall breakdown Europe, USA, Canada; the same highs, the same lows.
Givers? Charitable hearts? The kids, as always, are great, wanting to touch the Guitar, much to their mother's consternation:
"C'mon, lady! Cough up that Euro!"
Fashionistas, dismissive, but OLD ladies, always the givers...knowing I'm some mother's Son...down on the Beat.
Business guys, oddly, always prepped to chip in a Euro, Immigrants, sharing their change; the ocassional "stone cold" beauty, but with a heart of Gold, the one you want to really meet...but never do! -a Court of suitors, no doubt, like Penelope, swarming....whilst she awaits her Ullysess?...
Of course (I use that expression a lot) there's ALWAYS the (capital P) Parasite who cycles by, circles like a Great White, then stops, parks his Ass, sits TOO close and "ogles" away the potential business: why, infact, I stopped jammin' to write this Blog, hoping this "piece of shit" will starve of stimulae and piss off!
He'll sit for a while, waste my business hour, NEVER donate, then cycle away in all his Spiritual (sic) bankruptcy.
(There he goes...)
The mid afternoon street has gone dramatically quiet; hoping Tuesday's are not thee Dead day of the week....
...But back to my Public! - Then, there's the "clueless" gaggle, opposite me in the Mews, wondering if they can get that latest designer hand bag in their size...? The dim wit Mommas, gathered with carry-cart babies,
"CIAO-ing!" at the top of their voices; MAN! -it's Perambulator gridlock!!!
The sneak who wants your iconic photograph but does not want to pay.
The dum gals who, sitting next to you, munch down on Gelato or Donner Kebabs and kill your starving gut with intoxicating aromas.
...Man! I've seen it all!
Then there's (as here) the Piacenza (Italy) cops. A Hareem, for chrissakes! -Never outside of Lindsey Lohan in Switzerland have I seen such gorgeous cops! In peak fitness, uniform wrapped, blonde braided hair, glossy white side arms and holsters, plus the usual "gizmo" belt for lipstick, Mace... and spare bullets!
Ever greet two cops with: "Enchante, ladies"...?
Try THAT one in Denver, babee, and you're going DOWN with the accompanying MIRANDA warning of:
"If you DONT have a Priest (for last rites) one can be provided at no extra cost to your surviving family members.
A Rabbi or an Iman can also be supplied "on request" should you still have breath in your body...due to our restraining methods, which - incidentally - are absolutely for your own safety."
Yup! Italy's a different planet, and with Piacenza's fair haired Police Officiers, it's quite another "situ":
"PUR-LEEZE CUFF ME!!!"
Need I go on?
Interesting thing about busking in Italy, though; just sitting, there on smoke break or just sitting with your guitar all fagged out...people STILL throw money in the Hat, sometimes MORE than when you're actuallty playing!?
(A hint?)
-Fricked if I know!?...
c 2010. San Lazaro, near Borgomaro, Italy/dave delacroix/our man in europe
Back on the Street...it ALL comes back. Memories of a thousand towns, pre-Berlin Wall breakdown Europe, USA, Canada; the same highs, the same lows.
Givers? Charitable hearts? The kids, as always, are great, wanting to touch the Guitar, much to their mother's consternation:
"C'mon, lady! Cough up that Euro!"
Fashionistas, dismissive, but OLD ladies, always the givers...knowing I'm some mother's Son...down on the Beat.
Business guys, oddly, always prepped to chip in a Euro, Immigrants, sharing their change; the ocassional "stone cold" beauty, but with a heart of Gold, the one you want to really meet...but never do! -a Court of suitors, no doubt, like Penelope, swarming....whilst she awaits her Ullysess?...
Of course (I use that expression a lot) there's ALWAYS the (capital P) Parasite who cycles by, circles like a Great White, then stops, parks his Ass, sits TOO close and "ogles" away the potential business: why, infact, I stopped jammin' to write this Blog, hoping this "piece of shit" will starve of stimulae and piss off!
He'll sit for a while, waste my business hour, NEVER donate, then cycle away in all his Spiritual (sic) bankruptcy.
(There he goes...)
The mid afternoon street has gone dramatically quiet; hoping Tuesday's are not thee Dead day of the week....
...But back to my Public! - Then, there's the "clueless" gaggle, opposite me in the Mews, wondering if they can get that latest designer hand bag in their size...? The dim wit Mommas, gathered with carry-cart babies,
"CIAO-ing!" at the top of their voices; MAN! -it's Perambulator gridlock!!!
The sneak who wants your iconic photograph but does not want to pay.
The dum gals who, sitting next to you, munch down on Gelato or Donner Kebabs and kill your starving gut with intoxicating aromas.
...Man! I've seen it all!
Then there's (as here) the Piacenza (Italy) cops. A Hareem, for chrissakes! -Never outside of Lindsey Lohan in Switzerland have I seen such gorgeous cops! In peak fitness, uniform wrapped, blonde braided hair, glossy white side arms and holsters, plus the usual "gizmo" belt for lipstick, Mace... and spare bullets!
Ever greet two cops with: "Enchante, ladies"...?
Try THAT one in Denver, babee, and you're going DOWN with the accompanying MIRANDA warning of:
"If you DONT have a Priest (for last rites) one can be provided at no extra cost to your surviving family members.
A Rabbi or an Iman can also be supplied "on request" should you still have breath in your body...due to our restraining methods, which - incidentally - are absolutely for your own safety."
Yup! Italy's a different planet, and with Piacenza's fair haired Police Officiers, it's quite another "situ":
"PUR-LEEZE CUFF ME!!!"
Need I go on?
Interesting thing about busking in Italy, though; just sitting, there on smoke break or just sitting with your guitar all fagged out...people STILL throw money in the Hat, sometimes MORE than when you're actuallty playing!?
(A hint?)
-Fricked if I know!?...
c 2010. San Lazaro, near Borgomaro, Italy/dave delacroix/our man in europe
OUR MAN in EUROPE/dave delacroix/Part 15: The Lady in the Lake
Part 15: The Lady in the Lake
ACTION! MUSIC! Roll Soundtrack: Debussey!.....now fade music.....
Like well fed, yet nubile...flamingoes, the people bask in the late Summer sun around the small forest lined lake; a large pond, if you will.
Small chatter, mother nature (birds & bugs) audiable; the distant drone of vehicular commerce. A dragonfly alights on this page!
I'm the only "clothe-ie" in a gathering of Nudes that suggest (a painting by)Suerat, yet painted in an ancient time.
(A camp fire would give t a Barbarian edge!)
...I'd take off my clothes but, within an hour, I'd turn into a Lobster under the sun's rays....and after 20 or so minutes, the reclining-on-grass, naked assembly accept my presence with barely a chink of a glass of Pinot Grigio. PLUS! I don't leer, letch or ogle and clearly "get" the Peoples' opportunity to go "au naturelle".
My main worry is keeping the Bitburger Pilsner OUT of the sun, a 12 pack, no less - though we only plan to be here for an hour! - and NOT starting a forest fire with my oxygenated Drum tabacco "rollie" cigarettes!
No major bug problems, though; "Gott fur danke!"
But! To the point:
Naked, she lies, unpostured in all her reckless, half asleep, abandon. She will turn this way, then that...in all her natural splendour.
The pre-Autumnal sun gently carresses her tanned, lithe limbs, be-speckled by the lakeside's leafy canopy...until....warmed to perfection;
(Ouch! I almost started a forest fire!!!)
...warmed to perfection, she awakes, stretches her physique, towel wraps her ample buns and saunters, teasingly, down to the sedge lined lake-pond, dis-robes, then seduces the calm waters into enveloping her body with its cooling charm.
In stark contrast to Herr Graff, Count Alex von Ludwigshafen...who almost Goose-steps to the water's edge, marches up on to a small wooden jetty promonitory, then (a'la'Tarzan yodel) DIVES, causing a huge splash with his ample "excalibur" before even his torso hits the "aqua", sending dryads, gnats, frogs (I guess) and fish dispersing for their very mortality!
...but not even THIS dsturbs the "Lady in the Lake" who does not effect a stroke when she casually swims, but seemingly embraces the lake's "surface tension", though she cuts an awesome avenue through the declining sedge of water lillies, resplendent in their Sunday Best.
Meantime, word is out that there's an Englishman present and the Bugs are mustering in all their tenacious, tuxedoed glory.
And perhaps it's the Sea Level oxygenated-balmed air, but my scalp begins to itch like Mary (any Mary)!!!
All ths is lost on "Herr Graff", the Count, of course, who, invigorated by the lake water's chill, stand up in the shallows, all godly nature on view, and begins to sing an old German drinking song that reminds me of that Nino Rota composition from Fellini's Casanova, where the Prussian's start stamping their Jack boots!
"DOG-FISH!
DOG-FISH!
CAN I GET A TAXI!?
KISS-ME!
DOG=FISH!
An I will always
LOVE YOU!!!
(Intro choir)
...Hope the BEER
Dosent run out.......!!!!
DOG-FISH!
DOG-FISH!"
....ad infinitum
.....But for "the Lady in the Lake"...under the Goethe sun's dying embers, she glides, aquatic, in Peace.
She flees, or departs, eventually, but in my mind's eye, and to the end of my days, I see her, and will, still, spiraling in her ecstacy, into ever decreasing circles, until the tunnel vision of a fading imagination, ends.
c 2010. Bad Homburg/ dave delacroix/our man in europe
ACTION! MUSIC! Roll Soundtrack: Debussey!.....now fade music.....
Like well fed, yet nubile...flamingoes, the people bask in the late Summer sun around the small forest lined lake; a large pond, if you will.
Small chatter, mother nature (birds & bugs) audiable; the distant drone of vehicular commerce. A dragonfly alights on this page!
I'm the only "clothe-ie" in a gathering of Nudes that suggest (a painting by)Suerat, yet painted in an ancient time.
(A camp fire would give t a Barbarian edge!)
...I'd take off my clothes but, within an hour, I'd turn into a Lobster under the sun's rays....and after 20 or so minutes, the reclining-on-grass, naked assembly accept my presence with barely a chink of a glass of Pinot Grigio. PLUS! I don't leer, letch or ogle and clearly "get" the Peoples' opportunity to go "au naturelle".
My main worry is keeping the Bitburger Pilsner OUT of the sun, a 12 pack, no less - though we only plan to be here for an hour! - and NOT starting a forest fire with my oxygenated Drum tabacco "rollie" cigarettes!
No major bug problems, though; "Gott fur danke!"
But! To the point:
Naked, she lies, unpostured in all her reckless, half asleep, abandon. She will turn this way, then that...in all her natural splendour.
The pre-Autumnal sun gently carresses her tanned, lithe limbs, be-speckled by the lakeside's leafy canopy...until....warmed to perfection;
(Ouch! I almost started a forest fire!!!)
...warmed to perfection, she awakes, stretches her physique, towel wraps her ample buns and saunters, teasingly, down to the sedge lined lake-pond, dis-robes, then seduces the calm waters into enveloping her body with its cooling charm.
In stark contrast to Herr Graff, Count Alex von Ludwigshafen...who almost Goose-steps to the water's edge, marches up on to a small wooden jetty promonitory, then (a'la'Tarzan yodel) DIVES, causing a huge splash with his ample "excalibur" before even his torso hits the "aqua", sending dryads, gnats, frogs (I guess) and fish dispersing for their very mortality!
...but not even THIS dsturbs the "Lady in the Lake" who does not effect a stroke when she casually swims, but seemingly embraces the lake's "surface tension", though she cuts an awesome avenue through the declining sedge of water lillies, resplendent in their Sunday Best.
Meantime, word is out that there's an Englishman present and the Bugs are mustering in all their tenacious, tuxedoed glory.
And perhaps it's the Sea Level oxygenated-balmed air, but my scalp begins to itch like Mary (any Mary)!!!
All ths is lost on "Herr Graff", the Count, of course, who, invigorated by the lake water's chill, stand up in the shallows, all godly nature on view, and begins to sing an old German drinking song that reminds me of that Nino Rota composition from Fellini's Casanova, where the Prussian's start stamping their Jack boots!
"DOG-FISH!
DOG-FISH!
CAN I GET A TAXI!?
KISS-ME!
DOG=FISH!
An I will always
LOVE YOU!!!
(Intro choir)
...Hope the BEER
Dosent run out.......!!!!
DOG-FISH!
DOG-FISH!"
....ad infinitum
.....But for "the Lady in the Lake"...under the Goethe sun's dying embers, she glides, aquatic, in Peace.
She flees, or departs, eventually, but in my mind's eye, and to the end of my days, I see her, and will, still, spiraling in her ecstacy, into ever decreasing circles, until the tunnel vision of a fading imagination, ends.
c 2010. Bad Homburg/ dave delacroix/our man in europe
OUR MAN in EUROPE/dave delacroix/Part 14: Postcard to Jude
Part 14: Postcard to Jude
Dear Sweetie-Pie, all's well. Weather fine. Avoiding the sun, pebbles on the beach, etc.
How quickly we dispense with platitudes? And presently intoxicated on the high & lows of trans-contintenental travel and all its vicissitudes (?) I find myself, delivered from the hurly-burly of travel (Italy, Switzerland) back n Hessan (soon to be in Paris....the one in France), residing once again at the Schloss of Herr Graf, Count Alex von Ludwigshafen in the (now famous)Tannus region of Germany....in prep....wait a Mo!....I already mentioned Paree!
And here, you find me, in the early hours, drawn to the Schloss's cavenous kitchen, cooking up a famous Dave Delacroix Omelette, a.k.a. Myspace or Facebook.
I always thought it quite proper to give your Omelette a name; you can quote me!
The receipe (leastways, tonight) is thus: 1 egg
Pepper
Salt
Tomato-sliced thin
Bell pepper- ditto
BRIE - chunks!
Onion
Garlc
SCHINKENWURFEL
....in butter.
I think we ALWAYS agreed that "SCHINKENWURFEL" was thee secret ingredient to a "wholesome" Omelette on the basis that if "we" screwed it up on the stove top.... EGG Drop Noodle Soup, Goulash, or a complicated Curry would ensue?.... But then (yum-yum) I'm only quoting You!......:)
c. 2010, Usingen-at the Black Pearl, Gaby Bartending/ dave delacroix/our man in europe
Dear Sweetie-Pie, all's well. Weather fine. Avoiding the sun, pebbles on the beach, etc.
How quickly we dispense with platitudes? And presently intoxicated on the high & lows of trans-contintenental travel and all its vicissitudes (?) I find myself, delivered from the hurly-burly of travel (Italy, Switzerland) back n Hessan (soon to be in Paris....the one in France), residing once again at the Schloss of Herr Graf, Count Alex von Ludwigshafen in the (now famous)Tannus region of Germany....in prep....wait a Mo!....I already mentioned Paree!
And here, you find me, in the early hours, drawn to the Schloss's cavenous kitchen, cooking up a famous Dave Delacroix Omelette, a.k.a. Myspace or Facebook.
I always thought it quite proper to give your Omelette a name; you can quote me!
The receipe (leastways, tonight) is thus: 1 egg
Pepper
Salt
Tomato-sliced thin
Bell pepper- ditto
BRIE - chunks!
Onion
Garlc
SCHINKENWURFEL
....in butter.
I think we ALWAYS agreed that "SCHINKENWURFEL" was thee secret ingredient to a "wholesome" Omelette on the basis that if "we" screwed it up on the stove top.... EGG Drop Noodle Soup, Goulash, or a complicated Curry would ensue?.... But then (yum-yum) I'm only quoting You!......:)
c. 2010, Usingen-at the Black Pearl, Gaby Bartending/ dave delacroix/our man in europe
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
OUR MAN in EUROPE/dave delacroix/Part 13: Whale-Fish!
Part 13: Whale-Fish!
No one game is more under stated than the gentle, relaxing game of Bowls (Boules, Petanque). Forever big in France, I see my old Frieburger (German) friends have all grown into - what I thought was - ostensibly an old man´s pastime, chucking heavy metal (a clue?) balls around in a sand pit or barren patch of dusty ground.
CLONK. CLONK.
At the Freiburg GANTER Pilsner-beer, ´bier garten´, it´s positively a religious ritual.
CLONK. CLONK.
Here, several years ago, these guys would have been paralytically drunk, chasing Hilda, or, hungover, sipping jugs of milk, reading Wittgenstein, at the nearby bar, the WALFISCH (Whale-Fish), which, presently open, lies empty, with ceiling and walls studded with bones, skulls and the like; on the juke-box, the band Motorhead, probably, blasting to the people vacuum.
CLONK. CLONK.
But here, in the GANTER bier garten´s relative tranquility, the fast fading light of a Summer´s eve, gnats dancing under the elms by the banks of the Dreisam river, the lads, playing away, chucking those ball-missiles around, raises my own safety concern level...with every CLONK.
And yet, content with my beer and happy to be among old comrades, I surmise, people get old...or older, activities mellow, new wives, new - lesser intensive - lives. And having children, as some have, are always the great maturer, sometimes destroyer, especially of young provincial men´s lives and dreams.
...Thus I find (CLONK!) a tribe of friends whose raging youth, now ebbed, still clinging to the Pack, the Group. Some are rich, some, not so. Still the most intellectually provocative, are the financially challenged, who still talk well but need to collect our beer garden glasses for the return deposit at the distant garden bar... CLONK!!!
Still, it´s been a brilliant and idyllic German Breisgau Summer´s day, so I bid my ´adieu´s´ till we all meet later at the Heavy Metal bar of old, the Walfisch, and on departing the Bier Garten I - not quite unexpectedly - hear a loud CLONK, a loud piercing SCREAM and hue and cry.
An ambulance, with all it´s bells and whistles blaring, sirens past me before I even get 500 yards!
c. 2010. Freiburg I. Breisgau/ our man in europe/dave delacroix
No one game is more under stated than the gentle, relaxing game of Bowls (Boules, Petanque). Forever big in France, I see my old Frieburger (German) friends have all grown into - what I thought was - ostensibly an old man´s pastime, chucking heavy metal (a clue?) balls around in a sand pit or barren patch of dusty ground.
CLONK. CLONK.
At the Freiburg GANTER Pilsner-beer, ´bier garten´, it´s positively a religious ritual.
CLONK. CLONK.
Here, several years ago, these guys would have been paralytically drunk, chasing Hilda, or, hungover, sipping jugs of milk, reading Wittgenstein, at the nearby bar, the WALFISCH (Whale-Fish), which, presently open, lies empty, with ceiling and walls studded with bones, skulls and the like; on the juke-box, the band Motorhead, probably, blasting to the people vacuum.
CLONK. CLONK.
But here, in the GANTER bier garten´s relative tranquility, the fast fading light of a Summer´s eve, gnats dancing under the elms by the banks of the Dreisam river, the lads, playing away, chucking those ball-missiles around, raises my own safety concern level...with every CLONK.
And yet, content with my beer and happy to be among old comrades, I surmise, people get old...or older, activities mellow, new wives, new - lesser intensive - lives. And having children, as some have, are always the great maturer, sometimes destroyer, especially of young provincial men´s lives and dreams.
...Thus I find (CLONK!) a tribe of friends whose raging youth, now ebbed, still clinging to the Pack, the Group. Some are rich, some, not so. Still the most intellectually provocative, are the financially challenged, who still talk well but need to collect our beer garden glasses for the return deposit at the distant garden bar... CLONK!!!
Still, it´s been a brilliant and idyllic German Breisgau Summer´s day, so I bid my ´adieu´s´ till we all meet later at the Heavy Metal bar of old, the Walfisch, and on departing the Bier Garten I - not quite unexpectedly - hear a loud CLONK, a loud piercing SCREAM and hue and cry.
An ambulance, with all it´s bells and whistles blaring, sirens past me before I even get 500 yards!
c. 2010. Freiburg I. Breisgau/ our man in europe/dave delacroix
Saturday, September 4, 2010
OUR MAN in EUROPE/dave delacroix/Part 12: I am a Zimmermann
Part 12 : I am a Zimmermann
It would be remiss of me, having left Germany via Freiburg I. Breisgau and then travelling up and over the width of Switzerland not to write something of note....
In Frieburg, due to my all black clothes and Stevie Ray V. leather floppy hat, the locals confuse me with a Zimmermann,
"Das dar... ist ein Zimmermann!"
"Make way! Hier komt... ein Zimmermann!"....
(No. Weŕe not talking about Bob Dylan....and if you´re an idiot, please google, under "Z")
....Which, honestly, from a point of social respect, I quite enjoy... As...sometimes with a loaded wallet, sometimes NOT! -courtesy of those swines at Capitol One (Whatś in YOUR wallet?), this trip-holiday is punctuated by hairs and scares with ye olde Cap One Credit card...though, up to this point, not ruinously.
Zimmermanner are, of course, respected travelling Artisans as indeed. am I, so I enjoy the courtesy and recognition given by the German "cogniscenti", the Deutsche Dudette and Dudesters!
Freiburg (Freetown), established in the 1300´s as a free trade city. Even back then, I guess, there was a Ross Perot (Ross who?), olde world buildings, cobbled streets, "trad" German (Bavarian) restaurants (Schnitzel-City!) checkered with Shish-Kebab kiosks and a ZOO of streets musicians, buskers and entertainers, even a troop of Russian soldiers - in full uniform in the Summer heat - doing the Ruskie Cossack fandango!
Pur-leeze!...
My mind wanders... I´m supposed to be teaming up in Paris in October with my American Music-film crew...
Can y´all bring me some SELSIN BLUE anti-scalp-itch Shampoo...
Some Habernero Chillis...for my "on the road" curries...
And...remember that extra SAMSONITE "wheelie" bag I brought...full of prophylactics?
Well, so far?... Itś been a BUST!
2010, Sept. our man in europe/dave delacroix
It would be remiss of me, having left Germany via Freiburg I. Breisgau and then travelling up and over the width of Switzerland not to write something of note....
In Frieburg, due to my all black clothes and Stevie Ray V. leather floppy hat, the locals confuse me with a Zimmermann,
"Das dar... ist ein Zimmermann!"
"Make way! Hier komt... ein Zimmermann!"....
(No. Weŕe not talking about Bob Dylan....and if you´re an idiot, please google, under "Z")
....Which, honestly, from a point of social respect, I quite enjoy... As...sometimes with a loaded wallet, sometimes NOT! -courtesy of those swines at Capitol One (Whatś in YOUR wallet?), this trip-holiday is punctuated by hairs and scares with ye olde Cap One Credit card...though, up to this point, not ruinously.
Zimmermanner are, of course, respected travelling Artisans as indeed. am I, so I enjoy the courtesy and recognition given by the German "cogniscenti", the Deutsche Dudette and Dudesters!
Freiburg (Freetown), established in the 1300´s as a free trade city. Even back then, I guess, there was a Ross Perot (Ross who?), olde world buildings, cobbled streets, "trad" German (Bavarian) restaurants (Schnitzel-City!) checkered with Shish-Kebab kiosks and a ZOO of streets musicians, buskers and entertainers, even a troop of Russian soldiers - in full uniform in the Summer heat - doing the Ruskie Cossack fandango!
Pur-leeze!...
My mind wanders... I´m supposed to be teaming up in Paris in October with my American Music-film crew...
Can y´all bring me some SELSIN BLUE anti-scalp-itch Shampoo...
Some Habernero Chillis...for my "on the road" curries...
And...remember that extra SAMSONITE "wheelie" bag I brought...full of prophylactics?
Well, so far?... Itś been a BUST!
2010, Sept. our man in europe/dave delacroix
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
OUR MAN in EUROPE/dave delacroix/Part 11: The Valkyries
Part 11: The Valkyries
The tranquility of the late Summer´s dawning sun would give no warning. Children, innocent, gathering in the village school yard, quite oblivious. And the local Priest, administering some repairs to the venerable church, the Postman, half asleep, treading his small route, the Butcher, posting his daily specials of salamis and cold cuts, even the county Bus driver, lumbering, almost casually, squeezing his pre-analog (!) vehicle through pre-renaissance streets, whilst Artists hereabouts, not even close to awakening!... Yea! Nary a Soul was, indeed, wary of OUR arriving on our MOTO GUZZ1 1100 cc. with Panzer-like side-car, ascending into Italy from Swiss alpine heights, Nico, "der Kaiser biker", leather clad, goggles, helmet, and yours´ truly, similarly attired, though capped - in lieu of a spare lid - with WW1 German spike-army helmet, enthroned in the bikeś sidecar with bags, guitar, smoking a "rollie", clutching the black boom-box, Wagner-blasting: The Ride of the Valkyries!
Perhaps some outlying farmer, or some poor Shepherd boy, tending his flock with a cell phone, catching our progress, had telephoned ahead to give warning? -but no! Like lambs to the slaughter, we swooped down upon the ancient village of (name withheld due to film rights negotiations) and raising a ruckus, demanded the village´s lone cafe-bar to open and satiate our rabid thirst!
"Buonjorno, y´all! Campari and Soda. A Bloody Mary! Any nice girls ´round here?"
2010, sept. sent by Deutsche computer, near the town of...our man in europe: dave delacroix
The tranquility of the late Summer´s dawning sun would give no warning. Children, innocent, gathering in the village school yard, quite oblivious. And the local Priest, administering some repairs to the venerable church, the Postman, half asleep, treading his small route, the Butcher, posting his daily specials of salamis and cold cuts, even the county Bus driver, lumbering, almost casually, squeezing his pre-analog (!) vehicle through pre-renaissance streets, whilst Artists hereabouts, not even close to awakening!... Yea! Nary a Soul was, indeed, wary of OUR arriving on our MOTO GUZZ1 1100 cc. with Panzer-like side-car, ascending into Italy from Swiss alpine heights, Nico, "der Kaiser biker", leather clad, goggles, helmet, and yours´ truly, similarly attired, though capped - in lieu of a spare lid - with WW1 German spike-army helmet, enthroned in the bikeś sidecar with bags, guitar, smoking a "rollie", clutching the black boom-box, Wagner-blasting: The Ride of the Valkyries!
Perhaps some outlying farmer, or some poor Shepherd boy, tending his flock with a cell phone, catching our progress, had telephoned ahead to give warning? -but no! Like lambs to the slaughter, we swooped down upon the ancient village of (name withheld due to film rights negotiations) and raising a ruckus, demanded the village´s lone cafe-bar to open and satiate our rabid thirst!
"Buonjorno, y´all! Campari and Soda. A Bloody Mary! Any nice girls ´round here?"
2010, sept. sent by Deutsche computer, near the town of...our man in europe: dave delacroix
OUR MAN in Europe: dave delacroix: part 10: "Auf Wiedersehen, Herr Graf!"
Part 10: "Auf Wiedersehen, Herr Graf!"
On tour - as it were - in Europe, life becomes a micro-cosm, adventures, beginnings and endings fly by, fast forward, hello-goodbyes, whilst the "good" goodbyes... always kill you the most. And saying "Auf wiedersehen" to my gracious host (the Count) Herr Graf Alex von Ludwigshafen - who will drive me to the train station - makes goulash out of my blood, leaving me sizzling with emotion.
The Schloss, too, O venerable hospice! The bells, the bells! And the birds and the bees and all of the "Tannus" nature (bugs and all!) wild and free: Elysium!... For these are the (holy) days for which every vacationer pines, far from the hurly-burly of modern tourism.
It´s time to leave has I have gigs to the South in Freiburg I. Breisgau, by the Black Forest (Scwharzen-wald) and thence to Italy.
After several farewells to the folks of Usingen and friends of the "Schloss", the Count and I hit the road then stop atop a nearby hillock for a reflective view, the car is loaded with my gear plus a crate of Bitburger.
Drinking and enjoying a late afternoon cigarette, a church bells tomes from the distance and the sun´s embers coal-fire frame this land of golden crops. A short distance away a farmer drives a tractor, almost monotonously, pulling along some vehicle laden with hay.
In the short time I´ve been here...I´ve feasted, played concerts, formal and informal, have sat around camp fires by day and late into the night, swapping ideas and speaking of all things with the local "cogniscenti", and yet;
"Old man Reilly was right, Dave." says the Count. "We Artists come and go. We make Music, we speak Poetry, we philosophize!... "Aber", it´s a different light we shine on these...these Edens."
He pauses...his dark eyes, either tearful or glistening with a quiet terror. Then, sighing, "...But only the farmers have won."
I would wish for the film-soundtrack of that great Western movie, "The Magnificent Seven" to kick in!
Extinguishing his half smoked cigarette, the Count, Herr Graf Alex von Ludwigshafen, walks determinedly back to the car:
"We ride!"
2010, dave delacroix/ Merzingen/our man in europe
On tour - as it were - in Europe, life becomes a micro-cosm, adventures, beginnings and endings fly by, fast forward, hello-goodbyes, whilst the "good" goodbyes... always kill you the most. And saying "Auf wiedersehen" to my gracious host (the Count) Herr Graf Alex von Ludwigshafen - who will drive me to the train station - makes goulash out of my blood, leaving me sizzling with emotion.
The Schloss, too, O venerable hospice! The bells, the bells! And the birds and the bees and all of the "Tannus" nature (bugs and all!) wild and free: Elysium!... For these are the (holy) days for which every vacationer pines, far from the hurly-burly of modern tourism.
It´s time to leave has I have gigs to the South in Freiburg I. Breisgau, by the Black Forest (Scwharzen-wald) and thence to Italy.
After several farewells to the folks of Usingen and friends of the "Schloss", the Count and I hit the road then stop atop a nearby hillock for a reflective view, the car is loaded with my gear plus a crate of Bitburger.
Drinking and enjoying a late afternoon cigarette, a church bells tomes from the distance and the sun´s embers coal-fire frame this land of golden crops. A short distance away a farmer drives a tractor, almost monotonously, pulling along some vehicle laden with hay.
In the short time I´ve been here...I´ve feasted, played concerts, formal and informal, have sat around camp fires by day and late into the night, swapping ideas and speaking of all things with the local "cogniscenti", and yet;
"Old man Reilly was right, Dave." says the Count. "We Artists come and go. We make Music, we speak Poetry, we philosophize!... "Aber", it´s a different light we shine on these...these Edens."
He pauses...his dark eyes, either tearful or glistening with a quiet terror. Then, sighing, "...But only the farmers have won."
I would wish for the film-soundtrack of that great Western movie, "The Magnificent Seven" to kick in!
Extinguishing his half smoked cigarette, the Count, Herr Graf Alex von Ludwigshafen, walks determinedly back to the car:
"We ride!"
2010, dave delacroix/ Merzingen/our man in europe
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
OUR MAN in EUROPE/dave delacroix/Part 9: A Snake in June...
Part 9: A Snake in June...
From out of no-where, a great Summer storm blows in - from the Rockies, probably - forcing me to cancel an outdoor gig of music and bonfires/pagan exhibitionism in the Tannus forests; actually, quite near ROMAN Saalburg. (ref: euro-blog/part2: Saalburg, when it Sizzles!)
See? We Barbarians are still in evidence!
With nothing else planned and a let up in the rain, the Count (Herr Graf Alex von Ludwigshafen) and I decide to attend the Usingen "bottle-grill-nacht", a commercialized County Fair; beer stalls, Wurst (hot dog) stands, trinket sales and what-not, and a stage that features a really bad Bayeriche (Bavarian) electronic-music trio, who, on their final - interminally long - last set, depart from the German and crow out: "Usingen, Say YEAH! Usingen, Say YEAH!" -a portion of the fair-goers responding.
Both the Count and I are physically sick; the Count, unpopularly so - representing the local nobility - conscripted into serving the Hot Dogs!
...Moving along.
Later, we run into an old Black Pearl bar habituee, name of "Reilly", and join him in Apfelwein and end of County Fair reflections, sitting on bales of straw, strewn around the fairground site for just this purpose.
He (Reilly) is an old Soul, an ex world traveller, now retired; Usingen, his place of birth.
He had - on my arrival - remembered me from a 2003 visit and we had always gotten along famously, our life stories, a shared book.
In his brackish (yes, brackish) English, he said: "Dave? What do you 'make' here? This is the farmer's land; their farms, their families, their crops, their cattle... I too love your music, but...here, I think is not for you; here, only the farmers win; only the farmers can...won?"
Needless to say, Reilly imparts this with all good reverence, toasting the Count and myself with the rich, local Apfelwein.
The following day finds the Summer storm still lumbering across the sky, making travel plans uninviting and the "Schloss", damp and cold.
There's an old Wood stove in my chambers so I give myself a refresher course in how to make a good fire; pop on some www.myspace.com/davedelacroix tunes on my laptop and "liberate" some Sec and a bottle of Gonfalone Chianti from the wine cellar.
Reilly is right, of course. But... to quote Jack Nicholson's JAKE GITES' "Chinatown" character: "When you're right, you're right. YOU"RE RIGHT! -and You're Right!.... Now, quit messing with the Venetian Blinds! -I just had 'em installed!"
c 2010. dave delacroix/our man in europe
From out of no-where, a great Summer storm blows in - from the Rockies, probably - forcing me to cancel an outdoor gig of music and bonfires/pagan exhibitionism in the Tannus forests; actually, quite near ROMAN Saalburg. (ref: euro-blog/part2: Saalburg, when it Sizzles!)
See? We Barbarians are still in evidence!
With nothing else planned and a let up in the rain, the Count (Herr Graf Alex von Ludwigshafen) and I decide to attend the Usingen "bottle-grill-nacht", a commercialized County Fair; beer stalls, Wurst (hot dog) stands, trinket sales and what-not, and a stage that features a really bad Bayeriche (Bavarian) electronic-music trio, who, on their final - interminally long - last set, depart from the German and crow out: "Usingen, Say YEAH! Usingen, Say YEAH!" -a portion of the fair-goers responding.
Both the Count and I are physically sick; the Count, unpopularly so - representing the local nobility - conscripted into serving the Hot Dogs!
...Moving along.
Later, we run into an old Black Pearl bar habituee, name of "Reilly", and join him in Apfelwein and end of County Fair reflections, sitting on bales of straw, strewn around the fairground site for just this purpose.
He (Reilly) is an old Soul, an ex world traveller, now retired; Usingen, his place of birth.
He had - on my arrival - remembered me from a 2003 visit and we had always gotten along famously, our life stories, a shared book.
In his brackish (yes, brackish) English, he said: "Dave? What do you 'make' here? This is the farmer's land; their farms, their families, their crops, their cattle... I too love your music, but...here, I think is not for you; here, only the farmers win; only the farmers can...won?"
Needless to say, Reilly imparts this with all good reverence, toasting the Count and myself with the rich, local Apfelwein.
The following day finds the Summer storm still lumbering across the sky, making travel plans uninviting and the "Schloss", damp and cold.
There's an old Wood stove in my chambers so I give myself a refresher course in how to make a good fire; pop on some www.myspace.com/davedelacroix tunes on my laptop and "liberate" some Sec and a bottle of Gonfalone Chianti from the wine cellar.
Reilly is right, of course. But... to quote Jack Nicholson's JAKE GITES' "Chinatown" character: "When you're right, you're right. YOU"RE RIGHT! -and You're Right!.... Now, quit messing with the Venetian Blinds! -I just had 'em installed!"
c 2010. dave delacroix/our man in europe
Monday, August 16, 2010
OUR MAN in EUROPE/dave delacroix/Part 8: "Riders on the Storm".
Part 8: "Riders on the Storm."
Never put me in the front seat of a Taxi. Always...in the back.
It's late, having performed a Gig at Usingens Casablanca Music Palace; bar closing time, on the cusp of dawn.
"Gute nacht, Achim!!" (the Casa's charming owner)
Our Taxi driver for this evening; a farmer's wife-country girl:
"Where you go?"
...And I look at "mein chauffer", Roxanne (?); OK, Helmut! And with a wink to the lads and lasses crammed into the back seat, say: "Ich lieber dicht!"
The "great white" (big fella/girl) considers this for a moment, and without actually blinking an eye, says:
"Merzhausen!"
(Peels of laughter!)
Of course, "then"... I really AM in love.
(O Bitburgers! O Bitburgers!)
It's been something of a hectic past day and night. The Count's (Herr Graf Alex von Ludwigshafen) girlfriend, Udith, I've conscripted to be my "Agent de Livre" for a token 20% of all future earnings from Music & writings, which, on reflection, causes me some concern...as I already owe 20% to my Editors; Miss J. de Lorca (in the USA), Miss J. Manley (Australia), my Accountessa: a whopping 50% (also in the USA), investors, Patrons, etc., leaving me wondering just HOW I'm gonna pay the bills!...
OOPS! -yup. Tourist info;
"sur la route".
-Fricken Castle, on your left.
Camel Ranch (in Germany!), THERE! -right there!
Fachtwerkhausen, all over the place.
-ZOOM!
Roxanne/Helmuts zips us by!
Using-Merz, on the cusp of dawn.
c 2010. dave delacroix/our man in europe
Never put me in the front seat of a Taxi. Always...in the back.
It's late, having performed a Gig at Usingens Casablanca Music Palace; bar closing time, on the cusp of dawn.
"Gute nacht, Achim!!" (the Casa's charming owner)
Our Taxi driver for this evening; a farmer's wife-country girl:
"Where you go?"
...And I look at "mein chauffer", Roxanne (?); OK, Helmut! And with a wink to the lads and lasses crammed into the back seat, say: "Ich lieber dicht!"
The "great white" (big fella/girl) considers this for a moment, and without actually blinking an eye, says:
"Merzhausen!"
(Peels of laughter!)
Of course, "then"... I really AM in love.
(O Bitburgers! O Bitburgers!)
It's been something of a hectic past day and night. The Count's (Herr Graf Alex von Ludwigshafen) girlfriend, Udith, I've conscripted to be my "Agent de Livre" for a token 20% of all future earnings from Music & writings, which, on reflection, causes me some concern...as I already owe 20% to my Editors; Miss J. de Lorca (in the USA), Miss J. Manley (Australia), my Accountessa: a whopping 50% (also in the USA), investors, Patrons, etc., leaving me wondering just HOW I'm gonna pay the bills!...
OOPS! -yup. Tourist info;
"sur la route".
-Fricken Castle, on your left.
Camel Ranch (in Germany!), THERE! -right there!
Fachtwerkhausen, all over the place.
-ZOOM!
Roxanne/Helmuts zips us by!
Using-Merz, on the cusp of dawn.
c 2010. dave delacroix/our man in europe
Friday, August 13, 2010
OUR MAN in EUROPE/dave delacroix/Part 7: "Mein Blauer Himmel"
Part 7: "Mein Blauer Himmel"
The Gypsy Kings are blasting out their "Arabesque" via the jukebox, including "Bambolay-oh!", which - I surmise - hungover or not, would even inspire a Dominican Mother Superior to attempt the Lambada.
I'm holding the fort/ship in Usingen's Black Pearl bar - meticulously abiding by the "Code" - with leggy blonde barkeep, Gaby.
Just we two, mouthing every Spannish musical syllable and word, equally oblivious as to their content.
...Funny kind of day... Finally figured out how my new credit card works; finally figured out the Laptop's net-surf stick, the inter-net signal/lack of one.
In the community I wave to the odd soul...at the local market/beer store. They wave back; this I could get used to...amidst the "Tannus" Summer charm.
Initially, these parts were an alien world and on arriving, clad in black leather jacket and Stevie-Ray leather hat, promenading and viewing these "Fachwerkhausen" hamlets and Usingen Stadt itself, I must have appeared somewhat like Steve Martin's Todd Wilkinson character: the New York hood, relocated to no-where's Ville in the Witness Protection programme; the movie: MY BLUE HEAVEN....he, looking like a fish out of water.
"Hi, Mr Wilkinson!" hail the kids, cycling by his surburban tract housing home.
"Hi, Kids!" -he replies, standing - zoot suited - in the garden, posing with his lawn mower; DOH-ish, exhuding upper New Jersey confusion.
-As here (in Usingen):
(Me) "Guten tag!"
The locals: (in Deutsch) "Git the frick outta here!"
Ja-ja. It takes a while. Soon, the locals find out who you are, who you actually know here (the Count), then the invites gusher forth; swimming parties by local lakes, bonfire parties deep in the forest, BBQ's. Suddenly you're a flash in the pan-EDWARD SCISSORHANDS and EVERYONE wants a piece of you for their Social showcase.
Whilst the party lasts you WILL have fun, you MAY fall in love/and are bewitched.
So? SNIP-SNIP! ...."I'm WIV ju!.... NO! I DON'T mean, 'I'm WITH you', I mean: I AM WIV JU!"
...I make a note to pinch myself sometime soon, but meantime, savor these Salad days and all it's incumbent spiritual ephemera.
Valentin, Ivan, Horst, Udith, Nadine, Marius, the Count (Alexi) of course, Mikail, MAIKE "und alles" say "Hi!" to Denver, USA....whilst one is reminded of the Monty Python comedy sketch: "Can we call you Bruce?" -because for the life of me, I've REALLY searched but I can't find ANYONE with names like Steve, Bill or Janice!
"Prossit!"
Aug (I think) 2010, Usingen
c 2010 dave delacroix/our man in europe
The Gypsy Kings are blasting out their "Arabesque" via the jukebox, including "Bambolay-oh!", which - I surmise - hungover or not, would even inspire a Dominican Mother Superior to attempt the Lambada.
I'm holding the fort/ship in Usingen's Black Pearl bar - meticulously abiding by the "Code" - with leggy blonde barkeep, Gaby.
Just we two, mouthing every Spannish musical syllable and word, equally oblivious as to their content.
...Funny kind of day... Finally figured out how my new credit card works; finally figured out the Laptop's net-surf stick, the inter-net signal/lack of one.
In the community I wave to the odd soul...at the local market/beer store. They wave back; this I could get used to...amidst the "Tannus" Summer charm.
Initially, these parts were an alien world and on arriving, clad in black leather jacket and Stevie-Ray leather hat, promenading and viewing these "Fachwerkhausen" hamlets and Usingen Stadt itself, I must have appeared somewhat like Steve Martin's Todd Wilkinson character: the New York hood, relocated to no-where's Ville in the Witness Protection programme; the movie: MY BLUE HEAVEN....he, looking like a fish out of water.
"Hi, Mr Wilkinson!" hail the kids, cycling by his surburban tract housing home.
"Hi, Kids!" -he replies, standing - zoot suited - in the garden, posing with his lawn mower; DOH-ish, exhuding upper New Jersey confusion.
-As here (in Usingen):
(Me) "Guten tag!"
The locals: (in Deutsch) "Git the frick outta here!"
Ja-ja. It takes a while. Soon, the locals find out who you are, who you actually know here (the Count), then the invites gusher forth; swimming parties by local lakes, bonfire parties deep in the forest, BBQ's. Suddenly you're a flash in the pan-EDWARD SCISSORHANDS and EVERYONE wants a piece of you for their Social showcase.
Whilst the party lasts you WILL have fun, you MAY fall in love/and are bewitched.
So? SNIP-SNIP! ...."I'm WIV ju!.... NO! I DON'T mean, 'I'm WITH you', I mean: I AM WIV JU!"
...I make a note to pinch myself sometime soon, but meantime, savor these Salad days and all it's incumbent spiritual ephemera.
Valentin, Ivan, Horst, Udith, Nadine, Marius, the Count (Alexi) of course, Mikail, MAIKE "und alles" say "Hi!" to Denver, USA....whilst one is reminded of the Monty Python comedy sketch: "Can we call you Bruce?" -because for the life of me, I've REALLY searched but I can't find ANYONE with names like Steve, Bill or Janice!
"Prossit!"
Aug (I think) 2010, Usingen
c 2010 dave delacroix/our man in europe
Sunday, August 8, 2010
OUR MAN in EUROPE/dave delacroix/Part 6: The Bohemians.
Part 6: The Bohemians
As old as you get, traditional situations, recurr, never ending, punctuating your life-style "giving it" that style throughout your days. (I know: Wisdom-city!)
It's friday morning, hinting at noon, the "Tannus" Summer bounty is all around and presented on the long breakfast table in the Schloss's bounteous garden.
The characters in this scene (other than myself) are the Count (Herr Graff Alex von Ludwigshafen, Aristo - of course - and incidentally, an ex-Soccer star), Arnd (German name, pronounced, Aunt), musical instrument designer, including Mouth-harp, the beautiful Christiania (writer and translator) ...and Roland.
(Aside to the count) "Does anyone know what Roland does?"
No matter. An intellectual/fine mind of the first order.
....But! To "fruhstuck" (Breakfast) The sometimes overwhelming array of hams, cheeses, wursts, eggs, bread, fruit, schinkens, coffee/tea pots, Sec (Champers), etc., etc....
Personally, these gatherings...and as in this case, the morning after playing a concert (tack on late-after gig revelry) are here routine but it's all THIS boy can do to....to crack a Bitburger and fire up a smoke, glad to see my German comrades have an appetite and are as festive as the night before.
(Yay! Sleepovers!)
Thus a serenity casts its spell over the breakfast scene and much chatter, the company quite oblivious to this picture for future bouts of nostalgia, leastways: for me.
A digest of the last night's concert is worked and re-worked; who was (playing) brilliant? Who sucked? Who was that blonde in the leather? Name? Phone number?... Phone number?
DOH!
Then to Politics, of course, the War (any one), showbiz, someone cracks a joke: POP! More Sec. POP! More Bitburger. Thus, the day will pass into late afternoon, one by one the company dispersing; hugs, hugs, hugs.
...I'm thinking I've spent my life with these - not necessarily "these" - but "these" Bohemians. We've teamed up. We've come and gone, we've passed in the night, we've jammed Music, recited Poetry, hung out, road-tripped, holiday-ed, et. al: the blood of my Life's veins.
Finally, I alone remain, surrounded by the garden, the breakfast table's disarray; Christiana has taken a parting photograph of just this scene.
Perhaps, I reflect, we'll post it on the inter-net...? But then, Ding-Dong! -the Schloss's doorbell. A girlfriend from last night's concert has arrived bearing Video footage of that action.
POP! A new bottle of Sec.
-laptops flip open.
POP! Another Bitburger.
Once more, dear friends, into the breach!
Merzhausen. Aug 2010
c. 2010 dave delacroix/our man in europe
As old as you get, traditional situations, recurr, never ending, punctuating your life-style "giving it" that style throughout your days. (I know: Wisdom-city!)
It's friday morning, hinting at noon, the "Tannus" Summer bounty is all around and presented on the long breakfast table in the Schloss's bounteous garden.
The characters in this scene (other than myself) are the Count (Herr Graff Alex von Ludwigshafen, Aristo - of course - and incidentally, an ex-Soccer star), Arnd (German name, pronounced, Aunt), musical instrument designer, including Mouth-harp, the beautiful Christiania (writer and translator) ...and Roland.
(Aside to the count) "Does anyone know what Roland does?"
No matter. An intellectual/fine mind of the first order.
....But! To "fruhstuck" (Breakfast) The sometimes overwhelming array of hams, cheeses, wursts, eggs, bread, fruit, schinkens, coffee/tea pots, Sec (Champers), etc., etc....
Personally, these gatherings...and as in this case, the morning after playing a concert (tack on late-after gig revelry) are here routine but it's all THIS boy can do to....to crack a Bitburger and fire up a smoke, glad to see my German comrades have an appetite and are as festive as the night before.
(Yay! Sleepovers!)
Thus a serenity casts its spell over the breakfast scene and much chatter, the company quite oblivious to this picture for future bouts of nostalgia, leastways: for me.
A digest of the last night's concert is worked and re-worked; who was (playing) brilliant? Who sucked? Who was that blonde in the leather? Name? Phone number?... Phone number?
DOH!
Then to Politics, of course, the War (any one), showbiz, someone cracks a joke: POP! More Sec. POP! More Bitburger. Thus, the day will pass into late afternoon, one by one the company dispersing; hugs, hugs, hugs.
...I'm thinking I've spent my life with these - not necessarily "these" - but "these" Bohemians. We've teamed up. We've come and gone, we've passed in the night, we've jammed Music, recited Poetry, hung out, road-tripped, holiday-ed, et. al: the blood of my Life's veins.
Finally, I alone remain, surrounded by the garden, the breakfast table's disarray; Christiana has taken a parting photograph of just this scene.
Perhaps, I reflect, we'll post it on the inter-net...? But then, Ding-Dong! -the Schloss's doorbell. A girlfriend from last night's concert has arrived bearing Video footage of that action.
POP! A new bottle of Sec.
-laptops flip open.
POP! Another Bitburger.
Once more, dear friends, into the breach!
Merzhausen. Aug 2010
c. 2010 dave delacroix/our man in europe
Friday, August 6, 2010
OUR MAN in EUROPE/dave delacroix/Part 5: "Fanfare!"
Part 5: "Fanfare".
The BULBOUS ORGAN in the "kirche" (church) of Usingen promotes VIAGRA by its very existence; sublime, rotunde and magnificent in its every muscular posture.
It BALOONS at you!
...The thing, built/errected in 1749 AD positively oozes slumbering power and begs any passing electrician to turn on the juice in the latent hope that some nimble fingered Fraulein - finding the lights on - will happenstance impart her virginal concepts and drink deep from Music's well.
It's just a thought, of course.
However; when "ye olde local Sexton" (church-caretaker dude) shows up...
...coughing on a cigarette..
... breath rank with Apfelwein...
... grunting in shirt sleeves
... barely suspended pants...
... dangling
- upper ass crack bare -
...takes his place/spits on the reowned organ's keys...
...then launches into Emerson, Lake & Palmers version of Strauss's "Fanfare"...
(with gusto!)
....you know the rest of your day is shot.
Fortunately, "die kleine stadt" of Usingen is a dead ringer for Thomas Hardy's Casterbridge (the Mayor of): Dorchester. (England, Colonials!)
"Ach, so!" -there are many cafes/restaurants in which to find succour.
But back to the ORGAN... Rococco, baroque. A Moby Dick!
And if/when (stay with me) said Fraulein Virgin flutters into said church/discovers organ/ apparently at rest/ places her honest buns on the keyboard stool... and then her fingers caress its monstrous keys;
BEHOLD!!!!!
It's downright Spiritual.
The bells in this church have been seeing the local populace from birth to passing for centuries. No human rings them, of course; today they have a mechanical - clock-set - gizmo. (!?)
But...in THIS "Tannus" town, presently enjoying an Elysian Summer, the non-papist bells ring out at appointed, important times (usually, when I'm trying to crash) and people are born, live, love and die...and the farmers here abouts, tend their crops.....:)
Bad Anspach, Aug 2010 (at the Portuguese Club)
c 2010 our man in europe/dave delacroix
Note: look out for the next OUR MAN in EUROPE sketch: "On her Majesty's Frickin Service!"
The BULBOUS ORGAN in the "kirche" (church) of Usingen promotes VIAGRA by its very existence; sublime, rotunde and magnificent in its every muscular posture.
It BALOONS at you!
...The thing, built/errected in 1749 AD positively oozes slumbering power and begs any passing electrician to turn on the juice in the latent hope that some nimble fingered Fraulein - finding the lights on - will happenstance impart her virginal concepts and drink deep from Music's well.
It's just a thought, of course.
However; when "ye olde local Sexton" (church-caretaker dude) shows up...
...coughing on a cigarette..
... breath rank with Apfelwein...
... grunting in shirt sleeves
... barely suspended pants...
... dangling
- upper ass crack bare -
...takes his place/spits on the reowned organ's keys...
...then launches into Emerson, Lake & Palmers version of Strauss's "Fanfare"...
(with gusto!)
....you know the rest of your day is shot.
Fortunately, "die kleine stadt" of Usingen is a dead ringer for Thomas Hardy's Casterbridge (the Mayor of): Dorchester. (England, Colonials!)
"Ach, so!" -there are many cafes/restaurants in which to find succour.
But back to the ORGAN... Rococco, baroque. A Moby Dick!
And if/when (stay with me) said Fraulein Virgin flutters into said church/discovers organ/ apparently at rest/ places her honest buns on the keyboard stool... and then her fingers caress its monstrous keys;
BEHOLD!!!!!
It's downright Spiritual.
The bells in this church have been seeing the local populace from birth to passing for centuries. No human rings them, of course; today they have a mechanical - clock-set - gizmo. (!?)
But...in THIS "Tannus" town, presently enjoying an Elysian Summer, the non-papist bells ring out at appointed, important times (usually, when I'm trying to crash) and people are born, live, love and die...and the farmers here abouts, tend their crops.....:)
Bad Anspach, Aug 2010 (at the Portuguese Club)
c 2010 our man in europe/dave delacroix
Note: look out for the next OUR MAN in EUROPE sketch: "On her Majesty's Frickin Service!"
Monday, August 2, 2010
OUR MAN in EUROPE/dave delacroix: Part 4: "All that Jazz..."
Part 4: "All that Jazz..."
"Have you ever tried having sex with a Chicken?" asks Lenny Bruce.
"Yes! We know!" -we holler back: "THEY'RE TOO SHORT!!!"
A tad like Life. By the time you get a handle on it, you're dead.
So is the Chicken.
Opting to stay/reside overseas with friends - as opposed to getting cleaned out with Hotel expenses - is not dis-similar. You're IN -on the inside, but it's initially, alien; domestically, though quite educational.
..... Different people's routines, culture, wacky foods, habits, funny toilets, bathrooms, coffee pots. Who recycles? Who dosent? Don't pee in the garden, smoking, popping the "cork" at the crack of dawn, or inviting EVERYONE from the (new) local Pub to your host's address for drinks at 3 in the morning: Faux Pas City!
(Wotchagonnado?)
Eventually, however, you hopefully... strike a chord and learn how your overseas friends live, and they you; you hit or miss and are re-invited back, or excommunicated and sent into bemused exile.
With Musical AND Culinary talents at my disposal I invariably redeem myself, no matter what; sorta-mostly.
But then, I'm just one of THOSE guys who fits in pretty smart-ish: not quite the "DOS EQUIS Mexican beer TV ad" super-dude, but certainly debonair, a cool wardrobe, etiquette, languages, dialects, local customs: DOH? -no problemo!
"DOES ANYBODY HERE SPEAK FRICKIN' ENGLISH!?"
You can tell... just by looking at me. World traveller. I belong. Mr SMOOTH. Storm in a tea-cup!....(?)
In the space of a "holiday", however, you never really quite "go native" regardless of how many local tee-shirts you buy/wear (tres, tres gauche) and plunging into a foreign Supermarket CAN leave you confounded; like a scene from the movie, "The Hurt Locker". The indecipherable multitude of product labelling kills you, regardless of what they proffer.
Yet bewildered though you may be, your inner nature prevails. You buy some "blumen" (Roses) for your hostess, some "MEDICINAL" Marijuana for your host, you make a big deal out of cooking - for all - the simplest Curry.
A song in your heart?...
Then sing it.
You'll be fine.
Now! Where's that frickin' Chicken!?...
Watch out for the next OUR MAN in EUROPE: dave delacroix sketch: "All QUIET on the Western Front".
c 2010 davedelacroix/our man in europe
"Have you ever tried having sex with a Chicken?" asks Lenny Bruce.
"Yes! We know!" -we holler back: "THEY'RE TOO SHORT!!!"
A tad like Life. By the time you get a handle on it, you're dead.
So is the Chicken.
Opting to stay/reside overseas with friends - as opposed to getting cleaned out with Hotel expenses - is not dis-similar. You're IN -on the inside, but it's initially, alien; domestically, though quite educational.
..... Different people's routines, culture, wacky foods, habits, funny toilets, bathrooms, coffee pots. Who recycles? Who dosent? Don't pee in the garden, smoking, popping the "cork" at the crack of dawn, or inviting EVERYONE from the (new) local Pub to your host's address for drinks at 3 in the morning: Faux Pas City!
(Wotchagonnado?)
Eventually, however, you hopefully... strike a chord and learn how your overseas friends live, and they you; you hit or miss and are re-invited back, or excommunicated and sent into bemused exile.
With Musical AND Culinary talents at my disposal I invariably redeem myself, no matter what; sorta-mostly.
But then, I'm just one of THOSE guys who fits in pretty smart-ish: not quite the "DOS EQUIS Mexican beer TV ad" super-dude, but certainly debonair, a cool wardrobe, etiquette, languages, dialects, local customs: DOH? -no problemo!
"DOES ANYBODY HERE SPEAK FRICKIN' ENGLISH!?"
You can tell... just by looking at me. World traveller. I belong. Mr SMOOTH. Storm in a tea-cup!....(?)
In the space of a "holiday", however, you never really quite "go native" regardless of how many local tee-shirts you buy/wear (tres, tres gauche) and plunging into a foreign Supermarket CAN leave you confounded; like a scene from the movie, "The Hurt Locker". The indecipherable multitude of product labelling kills you, regardless of what they proffer.
Yet bewildered though you may be, your inner nature prevails. You buy some "blumen" (Roses) for your hostess, some "MEDICINAL" Marijuana for your host, you make a big deal out of cooking - for all - the simplest Curry.
A song in your heart?...
Then sing it.
You'll be fine.
Now! Where's that frickin' Chicken!?...
Watch out for the next OUR MAN in EUROPE: dave delacroix sketch: "All QUIET on the Western Front".
c 2010 davedelacroix/our man in europe
Saturday, July 31, 2010
OUR MAN in EUROPE/dave delacroix/Part 3: Dinner @ Trimalchios...
Part 3: Dinner @ Trimalchios...
...From the Roman epic "Satyricon" by Petronius, Emperor Nero's "arbiter of elegance" and imperial sidekick.
This'll be my "foodie" sketch...
...I know, I know. I havent got to France yet. I'm still in Germany.
Ahem! (clears throat)
Never before having Summered in Germany I experience a "kleine" culture shock. Everyone's happy and...I know, I know! -it - oddly - sucks. I was all prepared for Weimar Dark, Metallica "kunst" and Kurt Weill soundtracks with stone vogue blondes singing: "Show me the way to the next Whiskey bar..."
But no. It's: "Ja, Dave! Try this cocktail: Die Swimming Pool."
You die.
...Happy-ish.
This takes place at a bar in Usingen called THE BLACK PEARL which, on discovering, I knock at the door and ask for "Capt Jack", and I'm allowed entry as long as I follow "the Code", which is/are more like "guidelines"...
...And I really would like to tell you more about this event but then I'd have (to kill you) to tell you about my host, Count Alex von Ludwigshafen and his sprawling garden because every time we rustle up a meal, here in the "schloss", Herr Graf (the Count) rushes into the "halle" sized kitchen with the native (?) produce, plucked right out of the local soil!
Liebstockel (Haggikraut) -for soup.
Salbei (sauce)
Kresse (sauce)
Estragon, for fish.
Thymian, good for meat dishes.
And, yay! -garlic, onions, tomatoes, radishes, ad infinitum.
Counting all that and with old friend (from Roman Holiday days), Sebastian, who catches Trout from nearby streams....with his bare hands....this sketch unfolds with all the expectations of a Tony Bourdain - No Reservations! - epicurean epiphany.
Don't hold your breath.
-Which, of course, is personal and resides - outside of Celeb-Chef TV-land - within your own Soul.
That's what it's there for.
So in your life OR future travels, "Capt, says I!", with eyes streaming from chopping onions and beating off Summer flies, perhaps you find your own time to take a breath and then start grating onions, garlic, ginger and prepping the proverbial skillet?
Bon appetite!...
PS: I'm really not missing the Denver Broncos, Nuggets and...what's the other team's name?
Oh, right. The Shotgun Willies!
(NB: For non-Denver readers: Shotgun Willies. A Strip Club in Glendale-Denver)
WATCH OUT FOR the next "Our Man in Europe" blog: "I STILL love Paris!"
Usingen. July 2010
c 2010. dave delacroix/our man in europe
...From the Roman epic "Satyricon" by Petronius, Emperor Nero's "arbiter of elegance" and imperial sidekick.
This'll be my "foodie" sketch...
...I know, I know. I havent got to France yet. I'm still in Germany.
Ahem! (clears throat)
Never before having Summered in Germany I experience a "kleine" culture shock. Everyone's happy and...I know, I know! -it - oddly - sucks. I was all prepared for Weimar Dark, Metallica "kunst" and Kurt Weill soundtracks with stone vogue blondes singing: "Show me the way to the next Whiskey bar..."
But no. It's: "Ja, Dave! Try this cocktail: Die Swimming Pool."
You die.
...Happy-ish.
This takes place at a bar in Usingen called THE BLACK PEARL which, on discovering, I knock at the door and ask for "Capt Jack", and I'm allowed entry as long as I follow "the Code", which is/are more like "guidelines"...
...And I really would like to tell you more about this event but then I'd have (to kill you) to tell you about my host, Count Alex von Ludwigshafen and his sprawling garden because every time we rustle up a meal, here in the "schloss", Herr Graf (the Count) rushes into the "halle" sized kitchen with the native (?) produce, plucked right out of the local soil!
Liebstockel (Haggikraut) -for soup.
Salbei (sauce)
Kresse (sauce)
Estragon, for fish.
Thymian, good for meat dishes.
And, yay! -garlic, onions, tomatoes, radishes, ad infinitum.
Counting all that and with old friend (from Roman Holiday days), Sebastian, who catches Trout from nearby streams....with his bare hands....this sketch unfolds with all the expectations of a Tony Bourdain - No Reservations! - epicurean epiphany.
Don't hold your breath.
-Which, of course, is personal and resides - outside of Celeb-Chef TV-land - within your own Soul.
That's what it's there for.
So in your life OR future travels, "Capt, says I!", with eyes streaming from chopping onions and beating off Summer flies, perhaps you find your own time to take a breath and then start grating onions, garlic, ginger and prepping the proverbial skillet?
Bon appetite!...
PS: I'm really not missing the Denver Broncos, Nuggets and...what's the other team's name?
Oh, right. The Shotgun Willies!
(NB: For non-Denver readers: Shotgun Willies. A Strip Club in Glendale-Denver)
WATCH OUT FOR the next "Our Man in Europe" blog: "I STILL love Paris!"
Usingen. July 2010
c 2010. dave delacroix/our man in europe
OUR MAN in EUROPE/dave delacroix/Part 2: SAALBURG, when it Sizzles!...
Part 2: SAALBURG, when it Sizzles!...
Going back to one's roots (Europe, of course) is like crackin' out the old vinyl record collection; you find your favorite tracks all scratched to blazes!
Every now and then you want to stomp on the floor to re-invigorate "ye olde stereo".
Similarly with WI-FI today, when your cherished www.myspace.com/davedelacroix jukebox tracks keep "buffering"...
It's enough to piss off the Pope!
Saalburg: A reconstructed Roman frontier castle, or Roman-Vietnam Fire-base. Walls, towers, statues of Emperor Hadrian, drinking wells, gift shops, postcards, etc., surrounded by dense forests and - in its day - the proverbial bogey-man
This time, NOT "Charlie": the Barbarians; probably you and me, actually.
The museum exhibits there are intrinsically spectacular. Planes -for smoothing wood: missed that one in History class. But, yup! -bad English. But our Roman forebears pretty much invented everything we now take for granted: Oysters on the half shell...and the "wunder" Bra!
Germany -post losing at World Cup Soccer (2010) is experiencing a heat wave, so the "Romischer-Kastle", re-created (1897 - 1907) from its ancient ruins, dosent really convey the misery of living in Denver c. AD-150 or Saalburg, Germany.
Like American kids who visit Washington D.C. or English kids with the Tower of London, my host, Count Alex von Ludwigshafen, is familiar with this tourist trap: admission, 5 euros a'pop.
Note: Skip the Castle's "Bier-Haus" (way too tourist!) and, if you HAVE to bring children under the age of FIFTY-FIVE, you're an idiot!
Usingen, July 2010
c 2010. dave delacroix/our man in europe
Going back to one's roots (Europe, of course) is like crackin' out the old vinyl record collection; you find your favorite tracks all scratched to blazes!
Every now and then you want to stomp on the floor to re-invigorate "ye olde stereo".
Similarly with WI-FI today, when your cherished www.myspace.com/davedelacroix jukebox tracks keep "buffering"...
It's enough to piss off the Pope!
Saalburg: A reconstructed Roman frontier castle, or Roman-Vietnam Fire-base. Walls, towers, statues of Emperor Hadrian, drinking wells, gift shops, postcards, etc., surrounded by dense forests and - in its day - the proverbial bogey-man
This time, NOT "Charlie": the Barbarians; probably you and me, actually.
The museum exhibits there are intrinsically spectacular. Planes -for smoothing wood: missed that one in History class. But, yup! -bad English. But our Roman forebears pretty much invented everything we now take for granted: Oysters on the half shell...and the "wunder" Bra!
Germany -post losing at World Cup Soccer (2010) is experiencing a heat wave, so the "Romischer-Kastle", re-created (1897 - 1907) from its ancient ruins, dosent really convey the misery of living in Denver c. AD-150 or Saalburg, Germany.
Like American kids who visit Washington D.C. or English kids with the Tower of London, my host, Count Alex von Ludwigshafen, is familiar with this tourist trap: admission, 5 euros a'pop.
Note: Skip the Castle's "Bier-Haus" (way too tourist!) and, if you HAVE to bring children under the age of FIFTY-FIVE, you're an idiot!
Usingen, July 2010
c 2010. dave delacroix/our man in europe
OUR MAN in EUROPE/dave delacroix/Part 1: "Verboten till Frankfurt!"
1) "Verboten till Frankfurt!"
So fare thee well ol' trucking days of yore. Farewell, oblique times; my thumb at attention on bleached, tattered, freeway On-ramps, launching pads to nowhere in particular, their recurring names: North, South, Truth and ALL its Consequences-New Mexico. Adios to my old accessories, shoulder bag, guitar hunchback, the perpetual "rollie" cigarette...
Now? I am older and somehow more dependant, though not quite at the level of Blanche Dubois.
ROLL FILM SOUNDTRACK: "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers..."
-in the July 4th gridlock of airports, queuing, clutching E-tickets for check-ins with elephantine (SAMSONITE) "wheelie" bags, baggage fees, boarding cards, dignity stripped Homeland Security, from Denver to Chicago to...to Europe!
...And on today's fashion runway, Delacroix can be seen sporting laptops, E-books, cables, chargers and cell-phoned up to the gills, crammed into seat 48A of AIR INDIA's wide bodied 777, and SCREAMING - along with several infants - for that cigarette, "verboten" till Frankfurt!...
But then, on my arrival, old German friend, Count Alex von Ludwigshafen, plucks me from the "flughafen" maze and beamers (BMW) me out into the deep greens and wood scented wilds of the oulying country of Hessen, through Grimm Brothers-fairytale villages of timber framed houses and spruce goose postcard, tourist attractions; an antithesis of geo-shock and awe.
...Pausing at a deserted forest lake for a beer and a smoke, Keatsian stillness (Do I wake, or sleep?) showers the senses and a new rhythm is born, whilst church bells from a nearby hamlet Christen this pastoral moment.
In a day or two the funny-tummy and jet-lag will be exorcised and rusted shackles of routine, the habit of accrued domesticity, will crumple at my feet.
At my host's ramshackle "schloss"-cum-farmhouse near the ancient town of Usingen, BITBURGERS, SICHER Pilsners, DRUM tobacco, dark breads, bier-wurst, handkas, prosciutto, schinken, kartoffel-salat, "blau und grune kase", are all to be enjoyed. We will dally with Weisen-bier, apfel-wein, Mosels, Rhien-gau's and dry "Sec": Deutsche champagne. The Backerai, the Fleischer, grated "fenschel"...in peppers, herbs, "essig" and olive oil.
Such feastings are common here, morning, noon and night, and friends - old and new - with guitars "ist befehl" (are always "de rigeur"), so later, in the candle swathed wee hours when my turn comes to play, red-eyed but willing, I forego Willie Nelson's "On the Road, again" and render an old folk tune from Beatles-land:
"It's not the leaving of Liverpool
that grieves me,
but me' darling, when I think
of thee..."
Let the Games begin!
Merzhausen, July 2010
c 2010. All rights reserved. Dave Delacroix/Our Man in Europe.
So fare thee well ol' trucking days of yore. Farewell, oblique times; my thumb at attention on bleached, tattered, freeway On-ramps, launching pads to nowhere in particular, their recurring names: North, South, Truth and ALL its Consequences-New Mexico. Adios to my old accessories, shoulder bag, guitar hunchback, the perpetual "rollie" cigarette...
Now? I am older and somehow more dependant, though not quite at the level of Blanche Dubois.
ROLL FILM SOUNDTRACK: "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers..."
-in the July 4th gridlock of airports, queuing, clutching E-tickets for check-ins with elephantine (SAMSONITE) "wheelie" bags, baggage fees, boarding cards, dignity stripped Homeland Security, from Denver to Chicago to...to Europe!
...And on today's fashion runway, Delacroix can be seen sporting laptops, E-books, cables, chargers and cell-phoned up to the gills, crammed into seat 48A of AIR INDIA's wide bodied 777, and SCREAMING - along with several infants - for that cigarette, "verboten" till Frankfurt!...
But then, on my arrival, old German friend, Count Alex von Ludwigshafen, plucks me from the "flughafen" maze and beamers (BMW) me out into the deep greens and wood scented wilds of the oulying country of Hessen, through Grimm Brothers-fairytale villages of timber framed houses and spruce goose postcard, tourist attractions; an antithesis of geo-shock and awe.
...Pausing at a deserted forest lake for a beer and a smoke, Keatsian stillness (Do I wake, or sleep?) showers the senses and a new rhythm is born, whilst church bells from a nearby hamlet Christen this pastoral moment.
In a day or two the funny-tummy and jet-lag will be exorcised and rusted shackles of routine, the habit of accrued domesticity, will crumple at my feet.
At my host's ramshackle "schloss"-cum-farmhouse near the ancient town of Usingen, BITBURGERS, SICHER Pilsners, DRUM tobacco, dark breads, bier-wurst, handkas, prosciutto, schinken, kartoffel-salat, "blau und grune kase", are all to be enjoyed. We will dally with Weisen-bier, apfel-wein, Mosels, Rhien-gau's and dry "Sec": Deutsche champagne. The Backerai, the Fleischer, grated "fenschel"...in peppers, herbs, "essig" and olive oil.
Such feastings are common here, morning, noon and night, and friends - old and new - with guitars "ist befehl" (are always "de rigeur"), so later, in the candle swathed wee hours when my turn comes to play, red-eyed but willing, I forego Willie Nelson's "On the Road, again" and render an old folk tune from Beatles-land:
"It's not the leaving of Liverpool
that grieves me,
but me' darling, when I think
of thee..."
Let the Games begin!
Merzhausen, July 2010
c 2010. All rights reserved. Dave Delacroix/Our Man in Europe.
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