9/9-12: Le Havre, Paris

You just don’t realize how short a two and a half hour walk on the side of the highway is when you’re carrying heavy bags and risking disappearing shoulders until you’re finally picked up by someone who in under 10 minutes drives you right back where you started at 150km/hour. Needless to say, my impression of French port cities remains poor.

In Paris we were reunited with our tour partners from last summer, Noam and Gilles, who would take us in their little car for the next 10 days. They hosted us in their apartment and baked us vegan artichoke and spinach pizza while caught up on gossip from the U.S. Noam insisted that in my blog I refer to her only as Boobies, which I won’t do, but as per her request I will explain how she got this nickname. Noam is Israeli and in Hebrew her French nickname “No-No” translates to “Lo-Lo,” which when translated back into French is the equivalent of the English word “boobies.” Not a fantastic story, but a good introduction to the multi-linguism we’ve since experienced in Europe. We printed up French translations of my song lyrics as well as a zine of song explanations to distribute at the shows, and I learned how briefly introduce 5 or 6 of my songs in French. Every time I successfully completed a sentence in French that was longer than 5 words I was greeted by roaring applause, the most popular sentence being “I have cds, tapes, and t-shirts for sale for 3-8 euros.” Nevertheless adjusting to a non-English speaking audience was tough, given how heavily my songs rely on words as a point of engagement.

I played a show at a bar who’s owner was extremely offended that I sat on one of the tables outside his bar and forbade me in French from entering the bar. In spite of my newly learned excuse “je ne parle pas français,” he kept yelling at me until Noam intervened. Apparently he had been deriding my character, saying “what do you think this is, a brothel?” In response to me telling him I didn’t speak French, he said “Anyone can say they don’t speak French, I don’t care.” Eventually, my entree was negotiated and I got to see two great bands, Les Louise Michels, and Comite Defaite, before playing my songs.

After the show I was feeling homesick and so Noam, Gilles and I walked across Paris for a couple hours, while Jordan and his new friend Valentine went out dancing at hipster bars. Valentine had just learned the meaning of the word “hipster” in a recent trip to the U.S. and he loved it. He explained that though he was quite fashionable, “I couldn’t be no hipster, I still listen to NOFX!” He’d point to various people in the club and ask Jordan “is that a hipster?” and if Jordan said “uh, yeah, maybe,” he’d exclaim loudly “FUCK THE HIPSTERS!!”