Paris 1977
PARIS September 27 - October 5, 1977
FLY TO PARIS
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1977. Leave Luchow's by cab at 4 and get onto line in the East Side Terminal at 4:05 and on bus at 4:20. Tell Dennis to get two tags while he's getting one for his luggage, and it's a good thing, since my nice American Tourister tag is strangely missing when I get my bag back in Paris from the plane. Lots of traffic and the bus goes by Queens boulevard for most of the time, just where the CITY bus would go that Dennis refused to think about. To the Pan-Am terminal at 5:10, still thinking it was TIA, and Dennis SAYS "Overseas National" a couple of times, but I don't make the connection until someone else asks a Pan-Am employee just where it is, and the line is HUGE, which is sad since the line started at 3, not 5, and we're among the last to get our seats, so we have to sit one behind the other on the aisle. Try to read but for the chatter of people around us and the whine (already!) of kids, and check in by 6:45, line up AGAIN to give in boarding passes, and they announce a delay to 8, and then to 8:30, and then we start boarding at 8, row-area by area, and it's stopped raining for the most part, but it's quite dark when we load at 8:30. But happily they ask 10 to move to the back to balance the plane for take-off to Boston, and we get WINDOW seats for the flight from 9 to 9:35. Then at 9:50 they say there's duty-free shop (US to France), but we have to be back in 45 minutes. Get booze by 10 and wash face to feel somewhat better (having told Dennis about my fear of flying, and he feels nicer to me because, as he says, "It makes you more human." As if I weren't before?), and move back by 10:15 to hear WE are to blame (somehow) and we're boarding at 11:15 and leaving at 12. Later we find it's our assigned SLOT across the Atlantic, so we can't leave until then. Sit and talk about the possibility of sleeping together at Dennis's in San Diego so that he wouldn't feel guilty about his folks, and they start moving us into the plane and I take my first page of notes on the plane at 11:22. FINALLY start moving at 12:15! They announce that it's 5 hours and 55 minutes to Paris. Finally OFF the ground at 12:35, and dinner, pretty lousy, is served at 2, without any booze to cushion the time passing, and NOTHING from the windows.
WALK MONTMARTRE TWICE
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28. No sleep, sun starts up about 4 am by my watch, and I move back and forth from exit porthole to exit porthole, except that my staring has attracted the attention of other starers, so I have to share the reddening sky, the brightening clouds, and the first sight of light off waves with a half-dozen prying women and cameramen who won't move their women from their window seats. Wait for the john a few times to pass the time, but there's no conversation with the quiet Jewish couple next to me, and I can't stand the incessant bellyaching of the "business types" across from me. First land sight: two islands far from a coast, which just MIGHT be Guernsey and Jersey, since the plane starts down as we fly over land and farms and going down at 6:20. Clouds clear and then close, and we land at Orly at 11:36 am their time, with the 5-hours' difference. Customs in a trice, meet Vivian at 11:55, and we claim bags and put them on the hotel stacks for Brochant *, Berthier **, or Suffern *** La Tour. Exchange rate at the airport is 4.87 for traveler's checks and 4.72 for bills, which makes me sad, but LATER I get a BETTER rate of exchange for bills than Dennis gets for his HIGHER rate for check and then taking off for their service charge. Dennis bitches about carrying the two bottles of booze that I bought and carried on, so he puts them into the bus rack and neither of us take them off, so of course he blames me because he SAID that I should take over from then on. Tried to tell Carlos to phone them for the Kahlua and Amaretto, but we get nothing back, losing $14.90 first off. Air France bus zips AROUND Paris, giving small sight of Rungis, and then nothing but yellow-lit tunnels and a far sight of the Eiffel Tower from a bridge across the Seine. Dennis slept and is feeling good, I'm tired but game for a full day to get used to the time-change. To Avenue Clichy and check in quickly to 232, on the third floor (and I explain RC to Dennis at LEAST 3 times), and it's modern, slick, BARE, and VERY functional: nightstand hangs ANYWHERE on wall-board, so we can push the beds together, NO drawers in room, and faucet from SINK raises to serve as the shower. FOUR hangers is all the closet will take, and it's probably things PRECISELY like that that determine whether the hotel gets one star (adequate), two stars (middle), or three stars (deluxe). We have a cup of the free welcoming coffee, and I have tea, get a walking tour brochure that we never use while reporting the booze gone, and walk down the Avenue de Clichy to the bank to cash $150 of Dennis's $300 in checks, getting 4.872, a twentieth of a percent better than the airport, and he loves the money and hates the fact that he has to handle it. The bank won't take dollars at all. I give him many lessons on money conversions on furniture, clothing, food, and restaurants that we pass, he loves the streets, can't get used to the street signs, and I catch up with my notes at 2:25 at the bank while he waits in line with others from the same hotel, smiling warily at each other. Dennis bites nails and stares at people doing business. (Note: Au Pichet du Tertre; Drouet above Richelieu for stamps.) We sit and talk on a bench, decide just to go out and walk around, doing walk 1a on the map: turn off at St. Michel to see the plain church and walk down the tiny side street that's SO Parisian, with interesting looking restaurants with probably dynamite food at low prices. Get a bit turned around and decide to see what the Cimetiere Montmartre is like, so we walk 2/3 around it before finding the entrance under Boulevard Caulaincourt, and down to an incredible mélange of stone, marble, angels, battered doorways, fresh flowers, plaster and ceramic flowers, and some names like Sacha Guitry and Hector Berlioz (the avenue, not the tomb), and I ask if there's a guide, but the guard says no, but I feel good with my French. Down Boulevard de Clichy past Moulin Rouge, then down the Rue Blanche and pass a flowery restaurant on Rue Rachel and finally locate the Boulevard des Batignolles and walk along the sunken railroad tracks until we get to the Square des Batignolles, which has a little amusement park for kids and a market where we look at meats and vegetables and fish, find the word for a "jeune vache," which I've forgotten, and return to the hotel along boring Rue Cardinet. Back at 5 to retrieve suitcase from lost-bag office, shower, call again for booze, phone people and get NO one, and decide at 7 to walk around Montmartre, doing walk 1b: Rue Guy Moquet to Rue Marcadet to Rue Maistre to Rue Lamarck, looking for restaurants, and Dennis likes the looks of Rue Damremont, but it takes us all around the hill without turning off, then probably up Rue Lepic and Norvins, but the streets are mounting and small, and all the places that look good are either EMPTY or too expensive or too common. I urge us higher and higher, Dennis is starving and grumpy, but I insist that I know about as much as HE does about the neighborhood, and I'd SAID during the day if he wanted to eat he should, since I wasn't going to be willing to eat in the hotel, and he said he could wait. He couldn't have it both ways! Up to Au Pichet du Tertre, finally, and see a menu that looked pretty good for only $8.50, but it's filled in the back with English, the food's not that good, my veal is just plain dry, but the paté is good and the Rillette is different and good. Out and search for Sacre Coeur, finding it and going inside to see the history of it, watch someone cruising, and then look over the city from the top of the hill. Ask for Rue Paul Feval and get directed down from Rustique, and there it is, but at 9:30 there's no answer at the door, and back to the hotel about 10:30 and I get both Jean-Claud's friend Claude AND Jean-Jacques at 11, make plans for the coming days, and flop into bed exhausted, to sleep IMMEDIATELY in the tiny room. The sense of excitement of being in a foreign city came back to me: restaurants looked interesting, sights were demanding, and I enjoyed my seemingly increased skill in speaking French, while Dennis tried stumbling along on his few words that, as he wrote in his cards, "I haven't learned to put into sentences or thoughts yet." He's very slow with the money, which makes me nudgy, and I'm constantly aware that we only have 7 days in this marvelous city, so we should see all of it that we can, BUT that it's Dennis's first time in Europe so I should defer to him a BIT when he just wants to look around and inhale the flavors of the city. Going with John Vinton taught me the idea of "going along with it," maybe being with Dennis will teach me more.
BEAUBOURG
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 29. Wake at 7:45 to maid coming in, put out the "Pas deranger" sign, and up to dress and downstairs for typical breakfast after a rather long line, and Dennis is dying to see Beaubourg. Find from the map that bus 74 goes there, down to the subway to buy a carnet of tickets for 11F, and fuss Dennis by digging at him to do things more quickly, such as asking for TWO books of tickets rather than just 1. Get on the bus, paying two tickets as demanded by the sign, since we're going to the end of the line at the Hotel de Ville, and ride past nothing save stamps on Drouot, flowers on Quai de la Megisserie, and the elaborate Hotel de Ville at the end. Pompidou Center is really a THING: red and green and blue and yellow amid the cements and blocks of Paris, and we're down the enormous central plaza to see hundreds of people walking around inside, but when we get around the other side, we find they're ALL workers and the museum isn't open until 12. Down to the Ile de la Cité, look around the crowded church, jammed with tourists, gaze at the primitive statuary on the facade, and then up to the tower to look at the dramatic clouds hanging low over the Eiffel Tower (no view from there today), pointing out buildings to Dennis, but not able to separate JJ's apartment house from the multitude that have gone up in that area. Sign says the guide is in the Bourdin tower, but after waiting until 11 rings, I go around to get the guide, fuming, and he lets us in and then expects us to tip him. If he's SAID something to me I had already rehearsed "JE suis le guide!" Buy a GREAT folding map and street directory of Paris for 15F, very useful. Down to the Ile St. Louis and walk the length of it, roaming along the Seine, and eat at Menestral or Mesentral at 12 on the Ile, good for 18F50 each with wine, rillette that's FAT, chicken, chestnuts, and charming couple from Stockholm. Ask for Berthillon's for ice cream, since we'd missed it the first time, and have Agenase (prune and Armagnac) and Noisette while Dennis has Praline aux Pignons, Grand Marnier, and Banana (Parfum), which turns out to be just another scoop of ice cream. Then walk back to Beaubourg through the Marais. In and find no good guide to it, but get attracted to the Crocodrome, a marvelously huge construction by Tinguely with thousands of parts and a huge mouth that opens and closes, and find people riding through it, so dash down to find that it costs 4F to ride little funhouse cars through little funhouse constructions, and it's fun anyway. Up to the library, then up all the escalators to look out from the top, great, and into the bar for harsh Calvados and he has Pernod, then down to the museum, which gradually gets to me with the sheer QUANTITY of what they have, though most of it isn't worth too much. Some of the accumulations are fun, some of the rooms a kick, and the bedroom is JUST like Mom's in my mind! Phone Jean-Claude at 6:15, from a phone that cost 70, and someone has written "Culture is expensive." He says to come to dinner Saturday at 8. Fine. Decide to get opera tickets for the future, but there's no cab to be had on the jammed streets, and so we walk to the Opera by 7:15 and find the box office thanks to Dennis, and he says they have seats for 10F, we can go in dressed as we are, so we DO! Place seems somewhat less grand that I remember, piles of litter in the anteroom off the grand salon, and a guy in black cape drags by looking at us. Many formal people in the crowd, even up high, and we walk up steps, looking all the way, 1F for seats, and find from the program that it's the modernistic "Cenerentola," and we're far up on the left and everything's done UNDER a stove-canopy ON the left of the stage, so we don't see ANYTHING. Add to that the added cameramen because they're planning for the TV show on Saturday, we can't see anyone, Frederica von Stade is pretty, but looks like a mannequin coming down on the elevator with her veil on her bridal gown at the ball, and the balloon isn't even that much fun, and most of the men are awful. The first act goes until 9:45, Dennis is totally disgusted, so we leave and walk back to Au Roy Gourmet to find it closed for the evening at 10:15, and we're back to Montmartre to find sex shops on St. Denis, up to Pigalle and find most are expensive or just closing, so we have first course at Petit Poucet, awful, then to Wimpy's for hamburgs, raw, MORE awful, walk back at 12:05 on dark street with Tunisian bakeries looking unappetizing. To hotel at 12:30, wash face, Dennis gets into cock and we both jerk off, he doing me by hand, by 1:50, and exhausted to sleep.
ARC/EIFFEL/TRAIN BLEU
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 30. Dream lots, up at 9 to shower and write all this by 9:47 as he showers, and we dress and get down at 10. Quick breakfast to 10:15, Dennis tries phoning his people, we're out at 10:30 to walk to the Arc de Triomphe via bustling Rue Cardinet, Jouffroy, and Avenue de Wagram, liking the flowers being sold on the Place des Ternes, and read the sign to the underpass with a pushy old fart who wants to tag along, then up at 11:15 and look all around the town with the map, BROAD Avenue Foch, then down at 12 after a mediocre film, but it's a bit off-center to see all Paris. Walk back to La Marée which is full for lunch, told to go down a block for another place, which he doesn't care for, then look into the Russian cathedral, walk long way toward the Eiffel Tower along Rue de Courcelles, pass the entrance to Parc Monceau, to Rue de Monceau, Rue de Berri, Avenue George V, and Ave. Pierre 1er de Serbie, to finally find a crowd at the Royal, but the price is good, so we wait from 1:15 to 1:30, and get out at 2:30, having had a reasonably good lunch with wine and salad for $5. Then pass the Guimet and enter to LOADS of stuff, most TOP quality, from more cultures than I thought they collected, and I'm DEAD tired of looking at the stuff by 4:15. On line at the Eiffel Tower at 4:45 and go rather quickly, staring at all the views from outside until it's too chilly, then down to a drink and sexy outlookers and take the rather scary ride down at 5:55, worth the trip. Cross to the Trocadero, but my sexy guy is so dirty with soot that he's not nearly as sexy now as he was, and we return to the hotel by 6:30. I wash my shirt and find the faucet "lifts off" when water is run through it faster, and this so turns Dennis on that when I come out he's stroking his long cock and we get into it in front of the mirror, and he jams it down my throat until I gag and taste bile. He come on my chest and it's 7:35, so we hurry to get ready and down for the subway and make the transfer, all with perfect timing so that we get to Gare de Lyon at 8:10. Ask for "Train Bleu" at info and he says "Voie F," which I think is strange, but PAST Voie E I see the entrance to the restaurant on the 1st stage and THEN see that Le Train Bleu is IN FACT at Voie F AT THAT TIME, since there's the "Percheria" or something, when we come out. I request to face "la gloire" when he seats us facing a wall, and HIS service is poor: he refuses to give us water, calls Andouillette and Frais de Veau "triperie" and forces a rather poor cote de veau on me when I can't make up my mind. But the DESSERT waiter is a kick: no Charlotte Russe for Dennis produced 3 desserts: a prune (Dennis laughs about the number of kinds of prunes they have; I suggest that I needed some the first few days, and maybe they're just being kind to tourists by serving them in so many ways) tart, an apple tart, and stiff meringue pie. Slow service prevents us from leaving before 10:45, and we get lost in some new building by going in, down futuristic corridors of tile and plaster and wood slatting and ceramics, and up a stairs to Tour Gamma B to find a cement-block corridor and a locked wooden construction door. Someone comes to help us, and I ask for the Seine, and he uses his card to open the door for us. Down a path to the street and go the wrong way until Dennis corrects me, and he's RIGHT! Over the Pont de Bercy and walk along the Blvd de la Gare, which seems to be obsoleted by a white bar through the blue street sign. Tacky street and I debate taking a subway but Dennis wants to walk, and when we get to the first stop there's a pissoir with people standing around, and Dennis goes in to chase out a fat man and sees a turd in the bottom. To the Place Pinel and about a DOZEN guys are flying around a urinal like a set of moths around a smelly flame. Dennis goes in, I feel conspicuous under the light and go under the subway to the shadows, too. He comes out, saying there was shy "feeling," but "it could have started," and we get to JJ's at 11:30 and he buzzes me up. He's the same, INCLUDING the statement that he's so old and NOT the same. He gives Dennis ouzo and water and me a vodka tonic and we chat until 1, when he tells us the subway STOPS at 1! We talked and laughed and he translates "Racupine" to "Roquepine" and finds our restaurant for us, and commiserates about our troubles finding a decent restaurant. We leave to see the last subway arrive at 1 am and catch a cab all the way across Paris for only 23F, $4.60, not bad at all for 1/2-hour trip. Up and wash and to bed at 1:50 to try lightwork, but fall asleep to have strange joyous dreams of putting together a show of great delight and confidence, sexy and humorous, with everyone cooperating and being marvelous. Wanted to remember the complicated dream, but I wasn't able to.
LOUVRE/MAILLOT/JEAN-CLAUDE'S DINNER
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 1. Up at 9:50 and down to breakfast at 10:50, everything closing, and subway to Louvre at 11:45, seeing parts of it and all three biggies, though Dennis isn't impressed with any of them. Dennis is then hungry, and we find La Soufflé on Mt. Thabor at 1:15 and have GREAT lunch of crevettes, poulet a l'Estragon, and chocolate soufflé to 2:30, and then back to Place Vendome and see Farjas poster and take down that address, then a girl with her white ass in the air, pants around her knees, pissing against a statue in the Tuilleries, which Dennis loves, and back in at 3:30 to look around lots, but the jewel room isn't nearly as grand as I remember it being, there are crowds of tourists everywhere, and all the floor plans are completely gone by the time we get there. I pick up a few later downstairs to see what marvelous guides they are. Coming back from the restaurant was one of the high points of the trip: the day was clear but cool, there was a light breeze blowing, and the sky was light blue with a high scattering of soft clouds as a backdrop, and then three enormous masses of the fluffiest possible cumulus clouds hovered over the courtyard of the Louvre, so that Dennis demanded that we stop and look at them, complaining not for the first time that I was walking too fast, and that he just wanted to SEE the city, not dash from place to place in it. It was quite beautiful. Louvre closes at 5, but we go to the john and buy a guide and get out of the shop about 5:10. Dennis phones Michelle and she's at 9 Passage Chanvin until 7 pm, so we hail a taxi after crossing to the left bank at rush hour and walking far to find one in a fairly CLEAR street, and we have to use OUR map to find the street and we're out about 6 to #9, but the garage man scratches his head and takes us across the street to #10 and a young and pretty girl, reminding me of Joyce Ostrin, and a tall blond Perry (?), her man with the house in La Perreux who asks us to stay there with them the next time; Aline, an older woman, and Maillot, a painter who's showing his paintings to the group, I guess for Michelle for the English-language paper she works on. His stuff is ugly de Kooning, with splayed legs and women torn apart, all very sketchy and monochromatic. Dennis loves three sketches: one of the ass of a woman either looking out a window or into a mirror, another of two women running, and another that I can't quite identify, and they talk about it in French (they've run out of wine to serve us, though they offer water in a champagne bottle, so I can't even blame booze on it), and finally Maillot suggests $50, saying something about that being better than 200F, so maybe there's a black market I don't know anything about. Dennis writes out a traveler's check and Maillot takes a long time to wrap them, after signing them with evident concern about his pictorial balances. At 7:20 we're into a Citroen Mule and rattle around past the flower market, which Dennis wants to see, to Beaubourg, seeing people still gathered in the plaza as usual, though they hate the fact that the government gave a million francs to Xenakis, alone, for the red-tent construction in front of the place, which they think should have been divided among many others. We're into another gallery, but it's 7:45 and we're out to the SAME busy street to try to catch cab to JC's, but after about a half an hour, when we finally go over to a taxi STAND which gets all the empties, I decide to take two metros and get there at 8:45, going to "second stage" and finding different name, and down one flight to see couple ringing a bell and I ask "Savez-vous Jean-Claude Perrin?" and door opens to reveal JC! In for non-English speaking party with JC and Claude Roommates, Juan and Rosa Pays-Basque, Jean-Marie Knowall, and Serge Prettyboy, and we start with good Kir, which Dennis loves, good paté and bread which they give to Dennis to serve, and spaghetti and good sauce, and then a fruit salad with cognac that's served with crème fraiche, which we all love. But it doesn't go well in coffee. We chat until 1, my French pretty good for most part, but Dennis just smiles and smiles at plump Rosa, who falls in love with him, while I fall in love with disparaging, cute Juan. We walk home feeling VERY tired and Dennis wants to have sex but after I wash face and clean teeth he's in bed and wants to wait until tomorrow. Set alarm for 8:30, but it's really set at 20:30, 12 hours and 10 minutes off, so it doesn't ring at all.
CHARTRES/MONTPARNASSE/ST. GERMAIN
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 2. Wake with a jolt at 9:40 and shave and brush teeth and get down to meet JJ at 10:05, parking in the forbidden zone outside the door. Invite him to coffee while we breakfast, and then he sees room while Dennis has second cup and JJ laughs and laughs at the room. Then we're off in drizzle to Chartres, getting some patches of sunlight to beautify the fields, and driving through narrow-roaded town (entering by a gate even he hadn't tried before, very picturesque) about 11:15. Into church at 11:45 after wandering through many streets of town, look at windows and statuary until 12:45, when Dennis is hungry. But Henry IV is full so we're over to La Grande Monarche Hotel for paté/melon/rillette (a HUGE portion), veal and ham (mediocre) and good Sancerre wine from JJ, and LOVELY pots of crème du café and chocolate (2 of each), and JJ's pear tart and he INSISTS on paying the bill for 180F. Climb up to the towers, smelling vaguely of bat shit, and look out over the clouded green fields and down into the little streets of town, but there's not really much to see except other parts of the church. Into the Treasury and a fragment called the Veil of the Virgin, and then JJ decides to travel non-highways to get to Maintenon along the Eure river, and we drive through pleasant villages with people studying their driveways. We look at Aqueduct ruins in the distance and one swan and the flowing Eure with weeds and tourists, and through a rather cramped palace to 6, with LOADS of portraits of the DeNoailles family, and I ask about the Vicomtesse who supported Dali, and she said that was a NEWER branch of the family, this was the OLD branch of the family that still lived here. Out and suggest returning by Versailles, but it's slow in traffic and when we get there at 7 it's completely dark, not at all lit. To Paris streets and up Rue de Vaugirard, which he says is one of the longest streets in Paris, to Montparnasse, and he finds a place to park and we're around the corner to La Coupole at 8 to have onion soup/mushrooms (trite), merlan, good but bony, as JJ said, and Daquoise (not so hot, I think with prunes again), and another good bottle of wine to make the evening pleasant, but there's no one around to compare with my Pierre Clementi sighting last time. Woman next to us again falls for Dennis's smile, but she insists he can't be American because he's so pleasant, and she doesn't like AMERICANS AT ALL, and then starts talking about money, money, money. She squints and blinks and her partner/lover stares myopically and totally stupidly. We mimic them for the rest of the evening to great laughter. I pay the 175F bill and he drives us to Rue de Rennes and we walk it to Saint Germain des Pres, finding Deux Magots and Café Flore practically empty, so we walk down the road, looking at the lousy paintings being displayed, and down to Odeon and turn and walk back, still most fascinated by the tight-fitting blue jeans that every Frenchman wears on the streets. Finally decide that Deux Magots is filling up more quickly, after seeing that the Café Flore has no one interesting inside, and sit on the corner and order a Mandarine, which tastes a bit sourish like Campari, and Dennis has hot chocolate, and we watch the ebbing crowd, punctuated by a character who suddenly crows like a rooster and then goes into his repertory of yodeling and crooning and yelling songs that we studiously avoid so we can continue talking. Dennis says he could live in the city, which I tell him to take with a grain of salt, since he's only been HERE for 5 days, so the newness of the city hasn't worn off yet, and this is only the first EUROPEAN city he's been in, so he has nothing to compare it with. He insists he could live here, even after I remind him that it would seem different if he worked here, couldn't go to expensive restaurants every night, and couldn't sit outdoors in cafes in the dead of winter. But still he'd love to live here. About 12:15 we walk down to the Odeon to catch a subway before they stop, and transfer to a train to La Fourche at 12:30, and decide to walk, so we get back to the hotel at 12:45 to shower and have sex, as both of us shooting on ourselves. We dry off at 2 and both write until 2:20 am to catch up. Strange we must look on the subway: he writing away in his notebook, me studying my subway map, but at least the SEX continues to be good through the trip, though he's increasingly annoyed at my irritability and my impatience with the amount of time it takes us to get GOING in the morning, after showers and shavings and coffee and breakfast.
SAINTE CHAPELLE/LA MAREE/CHAMPS ELYSEE/LIDO
MONDAY, OCTOBER 3. Up at 9:30 and down to ask Pam to reserve at the Lido for us, but she says hotel must do it, and AFTER we get all the information in, she says the charge is 10F! I fume but let it go. Metro to Louvre and cross to Ile de la Cité past some very few open bookstalls along the Seine, but they DO look interesting: cellophane-wrapped fine bindings, lots of trashy used books, sheet music and photographs and postcards and programs and posters, stamps and junk and good stuff all mixed in. Dennis loves fish, fowl, flower, and pet markets along Seine. Down stairs to Vedette-Bateaux to see Vert Galant, but it's a dried-grass triangle surrounded by rocks. Down stairs to weed-waved Seine and look at industrial boats across the way. Then through VERY quiet Dauphine Park and around Justice to Saint Chapelle, which is closed midday, so we continue to Flower Market and then decide to cross river and look for Beaujolais, which is closed on Monday. Cross river again and look for des Amis, and that TOO is closed Monday. Down Rue de la Bretonniere and find La Bretonniere restaurant with wine complete for 22F. I have a VERY greasy Parmentier omelet (leftovers or potatoes or both), and Dennis has (Veal) Sauté a l'Oriental. Butter is 3F and coffee is 4, so it all comes to 52, good enough. That's till about 2:30. Dennis wants to stay in the flower market and the sun comes out so I dash into Saint Chapelle and frown at slow discount tickets in front of me. Dash up DOWN stairs and ("My grandson gave me a see-through blouse" (invented, sadly)) find you should NOT paint walls on which stained glass shines: it looks fake, like too-powdery makeup, purple glowing spots on blue and red painted walls, like where drapery is rubbed through to concrete where people sit. Jammed with people, and downstairs to nice sales board that takes one franc and dispenses a card and 30c below. Meet Dennis outside at 3:30 and go toward Grand Palais, but I'd seen it was open EVERY day, so I stop in Louvre as Dennis goes to john and find Gustave Moreau Museum is closed on Tuesday and open till 5 TODAY. Grab Dennis and take two subways and dash up street by 4:35 to find it's closed MONDAY, too, as guide given by museum DID say. DISGUST! Walk back to Miromesnil and find Farjas exhibit and friendly gay guy quotes 900-7000F prices and gives us the pretty invitation/poster. Dennis loves the tapirs. Wander up street looking at galleries and I decide to start stamp-hunting, so stop in a travel agency for a phone book and nice girl tries to help, but the phone book says nothing we can figure out, so I get direction to PO on Boetie, see on map it's one street north, but that's being reconstructed and it IS south. "Achat de collections" gives three addresses, one for France, one for Andorra and Monaco, one on Le Bordonnaise for Outre-Mer that I recognize. Since we have lots of subway tickets left we subway back to hotel about 7 to find no room at Lido, and get 10F back. Phone for 1 am reservations and save 10F. Shower and subway to La Marée, there at 8, first in, and Dennis has Pastis and I a champagne-cassis, both good, and select 80F Pouligny Montrachat wine and he takes special: six belles belons au champagne and I get Delice de sole Ravigny. His oysters are VERY textured, and sole is so soft it sort of melts, compared to textured sole next night at Drouant. Paranoid waiters question arrivals until they prove they have reservations, then all is sweetness. Fully booked, and people are making phone reservations for the 12th. Out at 9:30 and walk to Champs Elysees to see lit Arc and wander drugstore and mirrored stairs to john, then to information place to look for Dennis's Beaubourg poster in the closed place, find no chance of a Lido cancellation, play games for 1F and I show Dennis how to play for our scores of 5-0, and watch auto-skill game crashing with flames and roar. Fun. Down to end and rebuilding Figaro office, fountains, Laurent, Ledoyen looking elegant, and Place de la Concorde and NICE CLEAR Luxor needle here. Turn JUST after midnight to see Arc lights have been turned off, and read sidewalk graffiti "Fuck this town that turns the lights off at midnight"! Back up for Dennis to get assaulted by taxi drivers offering "nice new girls" and into sex shop to see Target films selling for 300F, $60, and Manpower magazines for 150F. Dennis down to sad porno movies below, only one ugly guy. Out at 12:45 and across to LONG line at Lido, and get last seats at side table at right, not bad, and the show is fast, flashy, and talentless except for Rudy Cardenas. The champagne goes fast, as does the show, over at 2:30, and buy program and catch cab back to hotel at 3. Dennis doesn't want to sleep, and we play and play and tease and tease and decide not to come, but get to sleep, still squishy, at 4:40 am.
WALK/DES AMIS/STAMPS/GRAND PALAIS/DROUANT
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 4. Alarm at 10:30 is only a "TIK" and Dennis wants more sex, so we have sex to 11:10, coming in large shots, and walk down to Brochant Metro for Dennis to have a sandwich of dry sausage and coffee and I start writing 5 postcards that I bought at the hotel in celebration of the fact that they lowered their prices from 1F to 80c, but we even saw them as low as 50c on the Seine, still pretty high for 10. Write to Mom, Rita, Pope, Arny, and Star Center (which gets it either Tuesday or Wednesday, since it wasn't there Monday and was there Wednesday). Out about 12, me antsy about getting started so late and we subway to Champs Elysses to walk back up, change money, find the poster place closed, and walk to find Le Roquepine FULL for lunch. Then subway to des Amis and think Boudin is fish and it turns out to be BLOOD sausage of pork. Eat it, but UGH! Nice cozy place, more dogs for Dennis (he SAYS they like him for his SMILE), and then he goes to get his poster and I walk to Louvre PO (stopping at real pissoir, with its strange coating of mold and earthy smell) and buy all of Andorra and Monaco, knowing I'm getting duplicates, and the guy chews me out for not filling out the two-line form. Then out to subway to La Bordonnaise at 4:20 and find they closed at 4! Decide to come back next AM at 9:30. Subway to Grand Palais and meet Dennis at 4:45 and look at tacky displays that seem more ego-inflating GAMES than real design: stairs that are uncomfortable to climb, ceilings so low one would have to permanently duck, cheap chairs that rock as we sit on them, and such fantasies as houses with no roofs, beneath the sea, or with no windows. Wait for Chris Pages at 6, whom Dennis had cruised and given his number, but at 6:20 hear music from the theater and he doesn't use his lower body as we watch him for a few minutes. Subway to hotel at 7 for message to call JJ at work (from 3:15). Phone him at home: brother says he's usually back 8:30-9. Try non-working phones in lobby and clerk calls and says no answer. (Dennis: "Why is it that things seem so much better when you've eaten and had a glass of wine?") Dennis showers and shaves and I call Tour d'Argent to find no reservation COULD have been made today. Depressed and VERY body-weary (mind is active enough to still actively grumble), and up to tell Dennis to phone Maxim's (no answer) and Ledoyen, and I get into shower. Dress and ready to go down to meet Dennis and there's a knock and there's Dennis and Jean-Jacques! JJ looks at Michelin and thinks of Gare du Nord restaurant, but it isn't listed, so he finally suggests Drouant, a large old-fashioned place that he SAYS has just gone from one to two stars (though it's marked at 2 stars in my 1969 Guide and is only one now), is mainly for business lunches, and has two levels so it shouldn't be crowded. To his car after making reservations and we get there in the rain at 8:30 (I had called for Moulin Rouge reservations for 10:30, since Dennis liked the Lido so much, but told JJ about them, but we didn't go, since I was so tired), and have terrine with lovely tastes and GREAT patterns of fish (last night had the patterns IN the terrine of fish; this had the patterns of TASTES), Dennis has lobster soup that's mostly tomatoes, and JJ has salmon eggs that he shares with us on toast, but it's not a taste I like. My sole is textured, Dennis's riz de veau (sweetbreads) are dark and tasty and JJ says what should have been "Girolles" are "cepes" (large, fleshy mushrooms), and they BRING a sautéed platter of tiny, tasty Girolles with lots of apologies LATER, which is SUPER. JJ and I have sole Drouant, Dennis's dessert of peche flambé in kirsch is just simply spectacular, and my grand Marnier soufflé is good and JJ's pear tart is mediocre to everyone's taste. Sit till 11 talking, finishing our wine, and trying to make conversation in the almost-empty place, and JJ insists on paying the 443F bill, which is offered to him, but I take it, showing it to him with a smile later. He drives us home, we fall into bed at 12 after packing for tomorrow and setting alarm for 7:30. JJ's mother is into opera and he MIGHT be coming with her to New York in the spring, which means that I'll have to treat him to some good meals HERE, and not at "21," either. Dennis loves JJ, as should be, and I've been worrying about the flight a lot more than I'd care to admit, which, coupled with all the closeds and fulls of the past few days, puts me in a VERY unpleasant emotional place.
RETURN FLIGHT TO NYC FROM PARIS
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 5. I fall asleep fairly quickly and wake about 5:30, then 6:30, then 7, and try to do lightwork, but it doesn't work, thinking (not really CONCERNED, but thinking) of the flight. Dennis up at 7:20 and he showers and I pack and I shower and shave (much to his surprise) and put out bag by 8:05, much to his consternation. Down to breakfast, crowded so that we have to sit across from Japanese who sit side by side, and out at 8:45 to stamp place, getting there at 9:20, really too LATE if it'll take me 35 minutes to get back, but it's OPEN, and I look at lists and she asks if I can wait a few minutes, but I stammer "Je suis..." and she supplies "pressé," and I say "Oui, c'est le fait." Buy $150 in stamps and get back at 9:50 to sit with Dennis in the wet driveway outside and then move inside to seats he thought I'd never find at 10:15 and write all this. Then out to bus and wait for the third one to start filling and get in the front seat. Bus leaves hotel at 10:25 and around Peripherique to airport by 10:55. Dennis remembers gate N and we're in to be told we have to have tickets. Pam arrives and Carlos shouts that we have to fill out a card or paper with name and passport number, and we step out of shouting standing line and I write this at 11:15, catching up on Monday's diary. We have dinner in the tiny airport restaurant from 11:45 to 1:15, spending all but about $20, so we can't have dessert, and the beef is awful, and sit at gate 42 to find they're assigning NEW seats, so we go on line from 1:35. Finish writing diary (GOT to piss!) at 1:55, still not in GATE. In plane about 2:15 and get $2.50 earphones (and we'd gotten booze, so we're left with about $10!) and sit listening to classical track at 2:50, PROBABLY not in NYC for Actualism. "Silver Streak" goes on from 3 to 5 after the announcement of a more-then-two-hour wait for a slot due to Air Controller's strike. Almost OVER-tranquil pilot announces they've been having these problems for weeks, and I wonder about his being with plane from noon to AFTER midnight! The movie is rather fragmented, Gene Wilder not really a hero-type, but there's one good line: "You're beautiful"/"I like you a lot, too." But the final SLOW-MOTION shot of the train plowing through Chicago station is very well and convincingly done. At 5, as movie ends, we start moving, and finally take off at 5:20, with flight time to Boston announced at 7 1/2 hours! Dinner is at 9, and Dennis was writing his cookbook article or chatting with the woman sitting next to him as I sat glued to the window watching Paris disappear in the clouds, then sat looking over clouds with small breaks at a coast with marvelously surf-surrounded islands off rocky headlands, and then the clouds closed in completely for a slow-motion sunset which literally showed formations of Art Deco women striding, tresses and dresses streaming back in the jet stream, into the sunset, faces lifted to heaven and bosoms prowing into the west. The chicken is moderately better, but my stomach still feels full, but at least they served two cocktails before takeoff! Sunset starts at about 10, and I leave the window shade open for "Thieves" at 10:20 to 12:10, and that, too, is a rather silly film except for the woman in the balcony across who likes to take shirts from her lovers. The sky gets dark VERY slowly, and then there's some clearing in the clouds and by the time the sky is just blue-black, there's lights of a coast and the irregularities that must be Newfoundland below, then the huge Bras d'Or Lake of Nova Scotia confuses me until I see it later on the map, and there's the marvelous announcement that we're to go directly to New York, not to Boston first, and our landing is announced for 1:05, or 8:05 Atlantic time. 62 on ground sounds good. Land pretty directly at 1:10 after lots of great lights over Long Island and Connecticut and EVEN, I think, Newport, and we're into customs at 1:45. I'd gotten my bag soon, but sat behind couple who wrangled endlessly with customs, so I was about last out, having missed Dennis, and he's almost comatose with anxiety that I'd left him with only $1 in the airport, and I meet him at 2:45, we grab bus to east side, tacky, repack booze in bags, lug suitcases to Second and then grab cab to 42nd and 7th, spending last money, and to subway platform at 3:45 "our" time, 10:45 local time, and we part tiredly, me with 85 in my pocket, him with $1 for 1/2 & 1/2 for the morning, and I reset watch, get home at 11:15, look through some mail, and get to bed just after midnight, totally exhausted, almost too tired to sleep.
SUMMARY OF PARIS CHARTER TRIP
Flight going OVER starts at 4 pm and ends at noon in Paris, 15 hours for a 6-hour flight. Flight coming back starts at 10 am and ends at 2 am, 16 hours for a 7-hour flight! So the "eight-day" trip really only has 6 1/2 days in Paris. Our days could have been a MAXIMUM of 10 am - 1 am or 15 hours/day, so it's VERY roughly 100 hours for $275. Or we could say 92 hours for a "cost" of $3/hour. Compared with a "normal" 20-day trip, with 300 hours, that would surely "cost" less than $900, assuming $500 for flight and $10/person/day for hotel of $200, SO IT'S REALLY NO FINANCIAL BARGAIN!!! Except that the chance came up, we took it, and it was Dennis's first trip to Europe, and we found out how we affect each other when we travel. Surely I'd feel LESS pressured to fill every minute with activities if we had MORE time, and I'd rush around and cover fewer miles and then be less tired at the END. So I might be thinking that I would NOT take a trip to Paris again, unless I could have enough time to write to JJ and have him make reservations at ALL the restaurants we wanted to go to, AND we could plan many of the things we wanted to see there AND in the countryside. Well, maybe we COULD go once more! Surely I'd take the trip to Dakar for $300---going trans-Atlantic to west Africa for THAT is a bargain, and there'd be the adjoining countries to see (and get stamps from) too. The Brochant Latour hotel was a kick because without the charter I'd surely never stay in such a place. Dennis at least got the idea that the PEOPLE, for the most part, who travel on such charters aren't the greatest in the world, and there certainly aren't many GAY people there. Side thought: we DIDN'T get to any of the gay porno shows, nor to bars or baths, either, so there are THOSE things to do, and now that Dennis knows he likes shows, there'd be those to see, again suggesting that we have things to do there, if at least the sewers and catacombs tours and the Gustave Moreau and Cernushi museums---AND it wouldn't be in the cold weather, so we'd enjoy being outdoors in parks more, too. The possibility of staying in La Perreux is pleasant, and we'd have many of the "tourists musts" out of the way to make more room for just RELAXING into Paris. And since I don't do much lightwork on trips, being away for a week is advantageous, too. Interestingly, Dennis said we "had sex only twice," and I remembered at least 4 times, and when I check, we had sex Thursday, Friday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, for 5 out of the 6 full days that we were IN Paris!