frenchy, i'm faking

Before I move on to my two more positive experiences in the country of France, Avignon and Nice, I would like to make a point about the obnoxiousness of the Parisians. Monday morning at around 6am, we embarked on a train journey to Avignon, home of the other Pope before the big guy in the Vatican City was numero uno. More on that later. But, extremely hung over on 5 bottles of wine, we were not very talkative in the cab. Though, apparently our cab driver was interested in quizzing us on who we voted for and asked how we feel about Condoleezza Rice. How he felt this was at all appropriate was behind me, but Cheryl was nice enough to answer curtly but politely in French.

The American girl living in Paris told me that the French are proud people and feel that when people visit Paris they should speak French. Which is, mildly understandable but ultimately selfish. If I spend a lot of money to visit someone’s country and take the time to take in their culture, I don’t think I should be punished because I wasn’t able to learn their language. It would be one thing if they didn’t speak English but they all do. They simply get nasty or non-responsive if you can’t speak French. The attitude really got a little old after awhile, even more so than the last time I wrote.

To say that I am thrilled to be on a train to Spain is an understatement. But I am getting ahead of myself.


Avignon might be have been my favourite stop so far. Avignon is a small historic town in the south east of France. Under the Great Western Schism, there were two popes, and one of them resided in a monstrous castle that is pretty much completely preserved. This serves as the major draw of the town although they do have an art festival annually. The whole town is less than 5 miles so we pretty much walked around everywhere. It was pretty much the perfect mix of modern and traditional European living. There was a high street, which is a term used in Europe, but mostly London, to indicate the street where anyone can get your basic amenities: food, water, banks, etc. There was a little less than a miles worth of modern-ish shopping with side streets filled with lesser known delicacies and shoppes. At the end of the street was a tremendous courtyard which faced the Palais de Pope. The castle was completely surreal and quite a fucking delight. The whole tour was self-guided using a little audio pad that was like a cell phone that everyone held to their ear when they wanted to inquire further about an item in the castle. We went to a second museum but it featured mostly Renaissance religious art and I fell asleep on a couch.

What is that you say? Thom! You haven’t mentioned the ladies! Well, Avignon (and Nice) for that matter were pretty much the highlight there too. Once you get south of Paris, the woman are pretty much just culled from every sick fantasy I could conjure of girls with dark hair, dark skin and dark eyes. Simply stunning, I could never do some of these chicas justice.. I saw two girls in Avignon whose faces I shant be forgetting any time soon which is motivation for learning French I suppose.

Lord, this train is making me sleepy. I’ll be back shortly. You should all be listening to Guided By Voices’ greatest hits right now!

i am a tree

Tuesday morning, another train, more sleep, sneaking glances at yet another wondrous brunette who speaks a language I don’t even have a cursory understanding of while simultaneously sitting next to what has to be the French Disaster Crew. Its been a few days and two cities since I’ve written last which means I will speed through my last day of Amsterdam, explain why Paris hacked it up like Ryan Adams on a bender (or Ryan Adams in a brief spat of sobriety, depending on who you ask), and tell all about the fantastic little French town called Avignon. I’ve decided to throw on “The Tyranny of Distance” since the announcement bell in the Avignon train station reminded me ot the opening of “Biomusicology.” Thus, I dedicate this post to Matth Siblo, who is a recently converted Jens Lekman fan (Venkman to his brethren) and is greatly missed on my oh so clichéd ponderous adventure through Europa.

Brief rant about Ted Leo at the Pitchfork Festival: While I wasn’t as close as SuperFanBrotherOfMine who I believe collected most of Ted’s sweat in a mason jar during his set, I commend him for drawing on all his albums, including the aforementioned opening track. The only other band to really pull that off was Mission of Burma, ironically, another punk rock band. While some bands I saw only had one or two appropriate albums to draw from (Jens, The National, Man Man, The Futureheads, Art Brut), bands who could have spread some of the love around their discography (Destroyer, Liars, Yo La Tengo) seemed to play for themselves. Spoon was truly the worst seeing as how they have four straight full lengths that have been enormously popular in the indie rock circles but only played from their last two LPs. Even then, where was “Sister Jack”? But, I digress.

Amsterdam Day Three. Actually, to backtrack to Day Two and a general theme: the weather. When the Glynner and I headed down to Austin last year to go to Austin City Limits, I packed one pair of jeans and one pair of mesh shorts anticipating Hurricane Rita. When we were smacked around by a heat wave I wound up swearing I would pack appropriately for all future trips.

But I didn’t.

For this trip I brought four pairs of shorts and one pair of jeans and no long sleeve shirts. Thus, it should come as no surprise as we’ve only seen one day of consistent sun the entire trip. Unfortunately for the town of Avignon, I lost my grey American Apparel track shorts in Paris. Thus, in the cold damp rain of Amsterdam, we went thrifting and I found a vintage Lacoste Sweater (when it was still Izod/Lacoste). But while I was in the store I heard a song I knew all the words to but just could not place the voice or the song. Naturally I asked the old man behind the counter who was singing the song and he pointed me in the direction of a pretty pretty Dutch girl. Now, as a student of Lookout!-era self deprecation, I was instantly intimidated since she was not only hot but exposing a portion of what were wonderfully sexy underwear. But I preserved, not for any romantic entanglements but let’s face it: not knowing what song you hear is so frustrating. It turned out to the Bright Eyes/Neva Divona split. Obviously the tune I recognized was a Neva sang track. She was very impressed that I knew the album and told her that one of my favourite Bright Eyes tunes was on that EP. It wasn’t until after we left that Cheryl told me she was way flirting with me and I probably should have asked her out. My biggest regret? Not being able to listen to “Thrift Store Girl” by Screeching Weasel with a little smirk on the train ride out of the ‘Dam. It always comes back to the Weasel, unless it deals with his literature.

To backtrack one more time, let me tell you all about Rasta Man for Freedom. This was some dreaded doofus who Cheryl and the Glynner “befriended” while I was calling my mother. He was pretty much a prototype for someone you meet during world travels. He has been to 25 odd countries, claims he can’t live somewhere you can’t smoke a joint in public (which limits him to Amsterdam) and encourages going to as many countries as possible. Which works for me except I don’t see the need to go down a check list of countries to attend. He was also extremely shady. He told us that he had lost his Passport the night before and that he exclusively breaks up weed and rolls on his Passport. Which segued nicely into him asking Cheryl for HER passport to break up his weed, as if the sturdy table we were sitting at wasn’t good enough. This situation really made me wonder what kind of ridiculous scam Rasta Man for Freedom was pulling. Better yet, does he think that putting drugs on the document you use to travel transcontinental the best way to go? His other fun catch phrase was, “Are you INSANE, man?” The dialogue to this nail biter of a conversation went something like this:

RastaManForFreedom: I went to LA and they don’t let you smoke in public parks.
Me: Yeah.
RastaManForFreedom: You want to know what I think of that? Don’t take this personally. Are you insane, man?
Me: I’m not going to take that personally.

The last day of Amsterdam was spent surveying the best coffee jams recommended by the person we had met the night before. One place, Damkring was actually featured in the movie Ocean’s 12, a fact which they didn’t hide at all seeing as how there was a picture of Brad Pitt behind the bar, and a flat screen television playing scene from the movie quite often. The vibe was great though and we wound up coming back at night for a nightcap. Also equally as good was a coffee jam called Amnesia, which faced the red light district. Leaving Amsterdam would have been hard if my body wasn’t ready to shut down. We didn’t go to bed until about 5am the next morning and had to be on a 10am train. We took a train to Brussels and then to Paris.

Now, I’ve been to Paris before and I think my favourite part was going to the Cite Metro stop, because I had such vivid memories of my second trip to Europe with Monsignor Farrell High School and my friends Tommy, Dave, and Josepe Mantia. For the most part, I was not impressed with Paris. Everyone has a bad day and I feel that goes for cities too. It was generally cold and rainy, with our second day there being completely soggy. For example, if you meet someone for the first time that person could have his own thing going on and not be very receptive or friendly. Still, the old adage that the French hate Americans certainly rang true. We had one waiter who threw our utensils at us, and with the exception of the extremely delicious and fancy bistro we attended, most of the rest of the help was generally nasty. People were just generally cold, even the hip area seemed kind of bland and there was just a bad vibe I couldn’t shake. At night I met up with an American girl living in Paris who was nice enough to take me around to some bars and smoke butts with me in front of Notre Dame. Still, my worst night in the UK was still more exciting than the nights I spent in Paris. I will say this though: they serve French Onion Soup everywhere (except they obviously drop the “French”) and the bowl I had at the aforementioned bistro was pretty much the best thing I’ve eaten on the trip so far.

Speaking of expensive delicious bistros. Since the menu didn’t have English translations, Glynner and I had Cheryl translate for us. When she told me they had veal with challots I was delighted and excited, pointing to the item on the menu since my French is well, awful. He replied, “How would you like your liver cooked?” I uttered, “medium” since that is pretty much my boilerplate response to how I’d like any meat cooked and immediately panicked. Those who know me know that I am a very good eater (read: understatement). I pretty much don’t eat only two foods: mushrooms and liver. The former can be a real issue, especially at a lot of Italian and Asian restaurants. But the latter hasn’t really been an issue since Jane (read: my mom) cooked it when I was about ten years old and I gagged it out in a napkin. Well, it was like being ten years old all over again when my delicious smelling veal liver came out. One gag later, I quickly gave up on the liver and moved on to what I thought was some kind of potato. Unfortunately it was a third food I realize I don’t like which is sauerkraut. This was not my favourite dinner by any stretch although the heaping amounts of delish cheese and bread in the (French) onion soup filled me up pretttttttttty good.

Enough about the soup.

My only tried and true highlight was the Modern Art Museum of Paris. It should be noted this is not the actual name of the museum but more a descriptive terms that I capitalized to seem authoritative. Like the Tate Modern and the MoMA, the building itself is one of the best pieces of art on the premises. If I read correctly, they are still working on the building that should be done around 2008. There wasn’t any particularly famous or well known artist featured (not that I saw, at the least) but there was a great visual/video art section sponsored by Canal films that was worth checking out. The best piece I saw was a circular repetitive montage of Grace Kelly, Tippi Hedren and a number of other Fifties archetypical housewives all making very similar motions as if they were in danger. The worst exhibit that I saw was the David Smith room. David Smith apparently was some welder who pretty much bent metal into various silly shapes and claimed that they meant something they couldn’t possibly convey to anyone that wasn’t David Smith. One sculpture was an obtuse metal object that was influenced by James Joyce (?) while others represented such topics as domestic strife and wildlife. I don’t mean to be so hard on you David Smith but you really shouldn’t have gotten your own room. Oh, and there was the requisite Warhol of Marilyn Monroe. Duhsies. The obvious highlight was the postcard section of the gift shop where I got this amazing postcard that I will not bother to describe but simply scan when I return to the states and share with anyone interested.

I was a dominate theme in a number of places

Its Saturday morning according to my laptop, which is still living and sleeping on New York time. I am barely conscious due to a complete lack of sleep and a full on night. I am at a four way table which contains me, Cheryl, the Glynner and a tall brunette French hipster musician who looks so fucking miserable to be sitting here with us that I can’t even help but want her. As a threesome we are nearly mute except for the low hum of Destroyer’s Rubies coming from my headphones and the sporadic chitter chatter of typing laptop keys. We are en route to Paris where we will spend two nights and one full day before sprinting for Avignon for a mere day and then on to the Riviera.

But first: Amsterdam. Our second morning had us waking up late and heading up to Barney’s for breakfast. I once heard that Adam Golub spent a whole week in Amsterdam (a ridiculous notion all its own) and that he ate in Barney’s food every single morning. Now, its pretty good food and it has its perks but I am fairly certain I got sick on their food 2/3 of the times we ate there. Upon sitting with a tall, tannish, American with spiky hair, expanded earlobes and a Ralph Lauren Polo shirt on, we were quickly brought up to speed on the local hot spots. Succeeding in any place you visit is as simple as finding someone reasonably cool to get a general idea on where not to go and if you are lucky, maybe even where TO go. This chap was no exception and the three of us would up hunting down a number of local haunts as a result. Typical of any American living in Amsterdam this chum was a laid back nice guy who loved the liberal atmosphere of Amsterdam. Also typically, he was definitely involved in some kind of shady dealing as evidenced by a friend of his scurrying over to our breakfast nook to (inadvertently) induce nausea with an awful set of teeth and a story that involves ear lobe expansion and his (then unnoticed) allergic reaction to titanium.

It should be noted we saw a forty year old man with a Clap Your Hands Say Yeah shirt on. He was quickly re-named “Clap Your Hands Say Young.” The wit is dry like a fine cham-pag-ne.

Following breakfast, pre-local house haunt, we shuffled over to the Central Station, the landmark and pretty much fixture of any traveler’s trip to Amsterdam. This is where we met another character, one which I was lucky enough to take a paparazzi-esque shot of. This was an African American male, with a shaved head, a blue checkerboard shirt, a picnic basket and a small Toto-esque dog. This guy was simply the world’s best Judy Garland punchline. Picture to follow!

The rest of the day and most of the night is just a jumble of coffee shops and eating. We strolled along the glorious red light district, where oddly enough people of all ages, sizes and shapes come to check out the wide array of Eastern European woman for sale, at least temporarily. The sex shows are actually pretty expensive considering it is simply two people have mechanical sex in front of a fairly nervy audience. It usually winds up being about twenty Euros, which seems a little excessive in light of the bargains just a few doors down. But, I digress.

Thursday night was relatively low key and saw the three of us engaged with another prime target of amusement. We will call this guy Rasta Man for Freedom because I am pretty sure that was the part of the e-mail address he tried to impart on us as he was stumbling and stuttering away. I wasn’t around when Cheryl first started talking to him but I will try to find out shortly since I am about to pass out and my computer is about out of battery. At this point my laptop stays powered for a solid 37 minutes, which is neither zesty nor fun. I only wish my computer had a secret camera to take a picture of this girl for Arthur but while I’m here I’ll set the scene: tall, at least 6’, pixie-esque face with short choppish brown hair with a pink headband. Light freckles. A black halter top with a red low cut v-neck sweater. Mustard and red pleated plaid skirt right above the knee with long black socks up her calves and black shoes. In the words of the Faces…

Let's Go to the Fucking Fair

With no surprise to anyone including myself, I have not been able to reiterate all my adventurous in a timely and consistent manner. As a matter of fact, every attempt at jotting down what I’ve done has been met with severe difficulty. As of now, its Friday at about 6:40pm in the ‘Dam, marooned in an awful reggae coffee shoppe because of torrential downpours. I was en route to one of my favourite coffee jams but the rain rerouted me. The reggae is loud but my headphones are louder and the Greg Dulli and the Twlight Singers are keeping it seductively sleazy up in my mens rea.

When I finally arrived Wednesday morning, I quickly met up with Glynn, followed by Cheryl less than one minute later. This was fairly amazing as we all took three different flights, and had been delayed by two hours and forty five minutes. Cheryl was so jubilant I pictured two flight attendants accidentally storing cocaine in the coffee filter of a crowded airplane and everyone gets all loopy. Why does that sound familiar? One ridiculously expensive cab ride later we landed near the train station.

We had no place to stay so we decided to grab a bite to eat at Barney’s, a really good diner type place that serves “American Breakfast.” For example, hash browns. No French Toast though. Oh!

Cheryl and the Glynner were concerned about our accomadations so we quickly ran to the tourism center which finds tourits places to stay all over town. Much to my chagrin, this was not a service that only sounded appealing to us. It was packed with crazy amounts of crazies. The motif of me mentioning how much I love European woman starts…… now now now now now now now (repeat robitcally and methodically). I love them.

We quickly realized we should just order something online. We ordered something fairly swanky that said it was 5 minutes from the Dam Centre. It was not. But we didn’t realize that until we walked around for an hour and a half, although at some point we stopped for coffee. Our hotel was actually located about a mile or so from the center and accessible mostly by cab or tram. The thing about Amsterdam is that the street names are retarded. Seriously. For example, our hotel is locaed on E. Constantine Huygensstraat. That intersects with Keizersgstraat. And so forth. Keep in mind though that no two maps of Amsterdam draw the city similarly and we have yet to find a map that lists every street. It should also be noted all the intersections are five ways and that there are wide barely visible bike lanes everywhere. With very very aggressive bikers. They all have very dainty little bells but boy do they use them viciously.

This is a great time to mention the woman on bikes. Beautiful woman in huge heels and skirts biking like its nothing at all. And not just a few; nearly every local bikes here. It is quite amazing to think of beautiful woman who don’t mind jumping on a bike. If someone can tell me why I find this wildly appealing, let me know.

For a locale known for their disorienting activities (sex shows make you dizzy), they make nothing very easy for confused out of towners. A funny scene: a man dressed like a concierge (right down to the name tag) is walking down the street and a bunch of tourists stagger over to him to ask directions. The man snaps, asking why people have opted to bother him so much in one day. The funny part is that he turns to me and asks, “what do I look like?” The problem was that he, in fact, looked like someone who was qualified to answer questions. I didn’t realize this until at least six minutes later.

Wednesday night Cheryl and I went out late, about 12:30am. The coffee jams close at 1am all over the city so you need to find late night bars. The first bar we came across was called Bar Surprise. And what a fucking delight. Seriously, this was like finding a big sheet of McLusky patches under your desk right before you stop working there.

The bar was filled with a local crowd who were, beautiful. Being from New York, I really am treated to hordes of the prettiest ladies in the world. But seriously, the Dutch are really great. I didn’t even know they made natural blondes. Even the dudes were kind hunky. Cheryl and I were well out of place but were bouncing around somewhat, thanks to Johnny Red and Grolsch. The real treat was the DJ who seemed to emulate Diplo in his cheesiness quotient. But this guy was getting floor reactions like I’ve never seen in New York. Seriously, not even like Joy Division at Mis-Shapes. Maybe “Disco 2000.” Songs I can remember that will probably be amended contintuously. Keep in mind the crowd was fulling on walloping to the following tunes interdispersed with Dutch songs they also knew by heart.

The List:
Dolly Parton “9 to 5”
Lionel Ritchie (??)- I believe the title is “All Night Long.” I was so happy to hear this song. It has that ill hook that goes “Fiesta... Forever.”
The Pointer Sisters or Donna Summer- “Celebrate Good Times” (another favourite of mine)
Cher- “Do You Believe”
Salt N’ Peppa- “Push It”
That 90’s techno hit that goes “Finally it has happened to me right in front of my face and I just can’t deny it.”

Here is where we also witnessed one of my favourite characters so far. Let’s call it like it is: you go to another country you know barely everyone and you selfishly believe you are in some surreal film where you are the only main person and everyone is an extra. Plus people in Europe are eager to hear your story. The specimen at Bar Surprise was exceptional because he entertained us for so long and we hardly knew thee. We will call him Blondie. Let me put him together. Tall, thin, blonde foppish hair, fair skin but tan. Cheryl erroneously (or earnestly) described him as Man Candy, a title only previously given to Matt Martin. He wore tight jeans with a white button down shirt tucked in and a preppy blue blazer. Basically he looked like a Polo ad. Now to truly appreciate this ripe piece of Man Candy you need to picture his dancing. He was very very enthusiastic about the music. Now he had an intro move… this move he did right before he’d bust into full on dance moves.

Stand up straight. Put your arms up like a zombie straight out in front of you. Now raise those about 45- 48 degrees upward. Now you are to wave those arms frantically like you are flagging down a car after your friend has been hit by a drunk driver. Also, he would be hopping.

The last place Cheryl and I wound up was a bar where they were playing the Pixies, “Here Comes Your Man,” which is the second time I’ve heard that out on a night where I really needed to hear a good tune. The first was the Kirsten Yuppie Bar Tour De Force in Soho, Fall 2003. A band eventually came on. There was a five string bass and dreads. Cheryl guessed they would be reggae. I said they would sound like Incubus. They were a cover jam band that covered “Tequila” for 20 minutes, much to Pee Wee’s chagrin. They also played the Santana song that Cheryl insists in quite famous but I only know it because it is featured prominently in “The Big Lebowski.” We went home several drinks later and slept in.

we hate all the same things

I got the airport at roughly 3:40pm for my 5:15pm flight. Once I was onboard the plane, I met a wonderful Dutch couple who were coming home from a visit to San Francisco, They had matching socks that indicated which foot they go on with a “R” or “L” which I thought was somewhat cute but they seemed embarrassed as it was unintentional. The man was a doctor and the woman was his “manager.” Little know fact: the Dutch all get at least 6 weeks straight off every year.

Unfortunetely, the enthusiasm I shared for the shaggy, generous (they bought my wine!) couple did not extend to the whole flight. First off, I missed sitting next to two drop dead gorgeous blonds. Second off, some doofus whose hair was being held back by his sunglasses DID get to sit next to them and was chatting with them shortly after we deboarded the first plane. The first plane, you ask? That is correct, sir or madam. Twenty minutes after the plane was supposed to take off, we were informed the plane didn’t meet safety regulations. Why they leave that sort of thing to the last minute is behind my comprehension, but I quickly ran to the other gate where we boarded at around 6:45pm, an hour and a half later than originally planned. Except that once we board we are informed that the food on the other plane was shell fish and to avoid an Airplane! situation (It’s a comedy where people get sick, but that’s not important right now) we need new food. So we sit on the plane until about 8:45pm when we finally take off.

The flight was pretty uneventful, marked only by the fact that the tray table in front of me was broken and I finished Ben Weasel’s novel “Like Hell,” only to subsequently lose it when I used the ATM when I landed in Amsterdam. The phrase “thinly veiled autobiography isn’t the best phrase, but it’s the first that comes to mind. The novel was very spotty to say the least. Also, Ben Weasel is probably the most unlikeable person I’ve ever even read about. Seriously, very few redeemable qualities in the man. It also reminded me of what turned me off about punk culture, although some of his musings ran true.

When I landed in Amsterdam, my two traveling companions greeted me and we jumped in a cab towards the city middle. Good spirits were flowing like blood from an open wound, perhaps from hitting oneself with the microphone. We were eating in Barney’s a mere 45 minutes later.

Punch Drunk Lust

The rule: this is to be updated as I go with little to no respect for grammar or spelling. Stops include Amsterdam, Paris, Avignon, Nice and Barcelona. Three countries in 12 days with two companions, Cheryl “Gang Bang” Courtney and Matt “The Glynner” Glynn. I will now make a formal bet with myself that we will lose Matt at least twice, let’s all just hope it is an intra-country mix up.

Beginning! Same exact gate as last year (www.thomineurope.blogspot.com) and thus I am leaving out of Newark, NJ via Continental Airlines. Same exact gate where I erroneously believed I was on the same plane as Devandra Banhart. A year later I think I’d be better able to spot the media’s favourite, if not only, neo-hippie. A woman to the right of me is filing the nail on her middle finger in a fashion that makes it impossible for me not to perceive that she is giving me the finger. Perception is reality, a mantra that may or may not be repeated in these very “pages.”

It is moments like this one where I sit back and try to find the person I’d like to be seated next to the very least (read: oldest or youngest on board) and the person I’d like to sit next to the most (read: cutest girl/quasi (in)famous bearded musician). I will inevitably wind up the farthest from anyone I wanted sit next to and if things go typically, the cutest girl will be situated right next to the latrine which I will frequent both when I need to use it substantively, or just want to screw around and stand up. It’s a long flight and anything can happen. When I say anything, I mean me peering up and down the garbage chute in the airplane bathroom.

Considering this is a flight to the ‘Dam I thought there would be at least one or so youngish person seeking adventure or at the very least unabashed debauchery. Suffice to say there are only a handful of people under 35 or over 10.

It should be noted that moments later I realized I was sitting in the section of a flight going to Denver, CO.

Car Radio.

M-m-my, m-m-my