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