I've Got Ramblin' Fever, Part II

Mrs. Troubadour and I have "living in France for a year" on our bucket list. Not that either of us is anywhere near the age where we have to be concerned with kicking that bucket, but we do plan on making the France thing happen within the next couple of years. If you added up the hours I've spent dreaming about this when I should be writing you'd see that I could have completed a few "War and Peace" sized manuscripts by now.

In regards to making that move, I just finished reading this excellent post from David Lebovitz. Have you ever been in a relationship with an extremely hot but certifiably crazy person? Most of your friends wanted you to end it, but a few understood. You'd defend your romantic choice, of course. "But look how beautiful (let's call this person 'Francis') is!" Or, "You don't know Francis like I do!" I suppose any culture can be infuriating at times, but the French do it with such style that I've no choice but to forgive them.

Paris is so beautiful it's ridiculous. After the initial sensory overload subsides a bit, you begin to notice the little details: the fleurs-de-lis worked into the wrought iron, the artful arrangements of the goods displayed in shop windows, the architectural details of the Haussmannian buildings. Go beyond Paris and venture into some of the smaller towns and villages and you'll still see beauty at every turn. If Paris is the flashy showgirl of France, many of the less populated cities are quiet beauties like the girl next door.

Paris is Intoxicating: Day Three and Adieu

We had to leave for the airport by 5pm. I thought the girls were going to cry. I thought I was going to cry. A three day trip to Paris is too short, and Jan and I both vowed that the next time we came it would be at least for a week, if not two. Indiana Jane and The Professor were up early, out the door of the Edouard VI and speed walking down to the Metro and into the heart of the city.



My last day in Paris was my first day in a week without the Lufthansa Flu. I could breath, smell, and most importantly, taste. The patisserie was a few steps from the hotel, and the lemon tart was delicious.



I suggested to Jan that rather than trying to cram an exhausting day of speed sightseeing into our schedule, we allowed ourselves to just be. We stayed close to what we now considered to be our neighborhood, taking in the architecture and doing a little last minute shopping.





We felt at home, and we must have looked it. Two college aged girls stopped and asked us for directions. A harried looking man in his thirties asked me in broken French if I spoke English. I spouted my phrase book French to the shop keepers with gusto, and was rewarded with smiles and remarks in French about the weather. We were treated like we belonged, and we felt like we belonged. From now on Paris was going to be our city, and we would visit her often.






Before we knew it, our first date with the City of Love was over, and we eagerly anticipated a long romance, and our chance to get to know her better.

Paris is Intoxicating: Day Two

The buildings that comprise the Musee du Louvre made us stop in our tracks. The former residence of the Sun King was magnificent in every way I could imagine: beautiful, enormous, regal. We paused to take photos before heading inside.

We knew going in that we couldn't possibly see everything in the Louvre in one day, or even one month. We also knew before going in that we would return to Paris again and again. Today we would look at the French sculpture exhibit before trying to get a glimpse of the Mona Lisa.


It was a Herculean effort to see as much as we did.


Even Mercury has to stop and take a short rest.


No surprise that this guy would be hanging out in the City of Love.


There are lots of other musicians in Paris.

If you are determined to see the Mona Lisa, be prepared to fight your way through the crowd.



After the Louvre Jan and I took a leisurely stroll along the Seine, taking in the sights and wishing we had more time to spend in this incredible city.



I bought a few posters from the vendors along the Seine as we made our way to Notre Dame. The lines to get in were long, so we were content to take a few photos before stopping at a small Bistro to get some hot soup.




Warmed by the soup and tired after a long day, Jan was ready to head back to Notre Dame to hail a taxi. I suggested that we walk a little more, crossing another bridge to get to the other side of the Île de la Cité. We were rewarded by a rendition of "Ma Vie En Rose" from this gentleman.


We strolled a bit more, invigorated by the perfect song for the setting, before grabbing a taxi and heading back to the hotel. We had dinner at one of the bistros on Boulevard du Montparnasse, then walked even more, taking in as many of the sights as we could before reluctantly calling it a night in preparation for our last day in Paris.

Tomorrow: Day Three and Adieu.

Paris is Intoxicating: Day One

I woke up early, still suffering from the Lufthansa Flu. Even at 5am there is life on the Boulevard du Montparnasse, although the pharmacies and patisseries are still closed. I walked for a few hours, watching the street sweepers remove a million cigarette butts from the sidewalk as the recycling trucks slowly prowled the boulevard to make room for another night of wine enhanced joie de vivre. I got back to the hotel at 7am and rested up while Jan showered in preparation for the day.



On our way to a neighborhood bistro the lens popped out of my glasses. There was an optician close to the bistro, so I stopped in to have it repaired. "Bonjour. J'ai casse mes lunettes. Povez-vous me les reparer, s'il vous plait?" The Berlitz French phrase book I picked up years ago before heading to Montreux has once again proved its worth. A few minutes later I could see again, Jan got an espresso and a smile at the bistro,



and we were on our way to Rue Cler.




We had lunch at a small cafe on Rue Cler, where Jan tried out her phrase book French on the waiter. After a great meal I stopped at the pharmacy to get some cold remedies while Jan shopped, then it was off to the Eiffel Tower.

Our three days in Paris were filled with clear skies and sunshine, but it was still windy and cold. Jan wanted to get to the second level of the tower, because there is a post office there that will stamp your postcards with an official Eiffel Tower postmark. We waited in line for about an hour and were rewarded with magnificent views of Paris.






After that it was back to the hotel to meet up with Indiana Jane and The Professor. The four of us took the Metro to the Champs Elysees to have dinner and pick up tickets to the Louvre.



We left the girls on the Champs Elysees and headed back to the hotel. Around the corner from the Edouard VI we saw a man actually roasting chestnuts. Being from Texas, this was my first experience with chestnuts. They smelled wonderful.




Tomorrow, day two.

Paris is Intoxicating: The Arrival.

We arrived in Paris the evening after Christmas for three sweet days of cliche busting wonder. The Eiffel Tower was dressed in blue, the Champs Elysees was decked out in all of its electric Christmas finery, and we all fell helplessly, eternally in love.



My friend Vince, who is originally from the south of France, once told me, "Willie, Paris is intoxicating." He was not exaggerating. After we checked into the Hotel Edouard VI on Boulevard du Montparnasse we grabbed dinner at a nearby Chinese restaurant, then it was off to bed for Jan so that she could rest up in preparation for the next day. The Professor, Indiana Jane and I made a beeline for the Eiffel Tower. We walked down the boulevard until we saw the Invalides,



then hooked a left and followed the beacon from Gustav Eiffel's marvel of the Industrial Age.

Paris is alive! Vienna was asleep when we were there, but from what The Professor has told us it barely has a pulse in the best of times. Paris, on the other hand, is vibrant, exciting, energetic, amazing, and a thousand other wonderful things. The three of us milled among the crowd, drinking in the sights and sounds and shaking our heads at our good fortune to find ourselves in such a magnificent place. Just before midnight we headed back to the hotel, each of us dreaming of the next few days.

Tomorrow: Day one.

Breathless in Vienna

I landed in Vienna with a bad case of the Lufthansa flu, probably contracted from one of the twenty or so people that bumped into me as I tried to sleep on the nine hour flight from Houston to Frankfurt. The seats were also tiny. In Frankfurt we changed planes and caught an Austrian Air flight into Vienna. The Hotel Herzherzog Rainer was beautiful. We checked in on Christmas Eve and tried to enjoy the mostly closed Christmas Market before meeting up with our oldest daughter, The Professor, who is taking a break from her studies to teach English in nearby Baden. She led me, my wife, and Indiana Jane into the subway and then the train station. Twenty minutes later she was showing off her culinary skills in her tiny basement apartment, and had just enough time to wow us before we headed back to Vienna and a few hours of blessed slumber.

We could have slept in, as it turns out. Vienna was mostly asleep on Christmas day, the cold I caught on the Lufthansa flight had strengthened to the point that I couldn't smell or taste anything, and all of the pharmacies in Vienna were closed. Oh, Vienna, you cold, heartless thing! Do the Viennese not get sick on holidays? And where was your Christmas cheer? I tried to speak your language through my painfully clogged sinus passages, but so many of you chose to be rude. A few of the souvenir shops were open and there were people milling about, so the day was not a total loss.



Tomorrow, Paris.

The Waiting Is The Hardest Part

Three very cool things are just around the corner. At the moment I'm in a holding pattern, biding my time until the fun starts. My wife and I own property outside of Austin in the Texas Hill Country, and will be moving there soon to build our dream home. About that same time I will begin recording a new CD, and at the end of the year we're taking a family vacation in Vienna and Paris. It's like I'm a kid again, and Christmas is still so far away.

Christmas was sometimes a pretty tough holiday when I was a kid. My stepfather worked as a union electrician, and went on strike every two or three years. Santa never skipped our home, but I did notice that some years he was considerably less generous than others. Occasionally the season was pretty good.
One year, when I was about ten, my mom woke me up in the middle of the night.

"Wanna know what you got for Christmas?!"

I had already figured out the deal with Santa, and excitedly agreed to this rare privilege. Mom grew up poor, and on her best Christmas probably received less than her children did on our worst. This year Christmas was especially good, and Mom was so happy she just had to tell someone. We snuck out of the room I shared with two of my brothers, and Mom showed me some of the toys I was getting. I couldn't believe my luck. It was the best Christmas yet, gift-wise. Mom let me play quietly with one of the toys for a few minutes, then it was back to bed so that she could re wrap my presents and hide them until Christmas morning.

Mom was a kid when she had me. Married at eighteen and a new mother at nineteen, looking back I marvel at what a kid she was for most of my childhood. She was and is a great mom, but when I become impatient, and start focusing on the destination rather than the journey, I remember that I come by it honestly.

Anticipation

Our youngest daughter called from Belize today. She's been in the jungle on an archeology dig (the girls are having a much more exciting time than we are) and comes home Tuesday. We booked the flight to Vienna and Paris after she left for Belize, so this is the first time she heard that the trip was definitely a "go". We discussed the possibility of going to Europe just before she left, and I mentioned that even though I would love to go to Paris, Prague was actually a lot closer and made more sense (I was just trying to be an adult. Secretly, I was also rooting for Paris.). Indiana Jane looked at me and said "I have not studied French since the ninth grade so we could go to Prague!"

In the end, romance won out over sensibility, and we booked a side trip to Paris. Now we just need a place to stay. I'm pulling for a short-term apartment rental, because it's harder to imagine yourself living in an exotic locale when you are checked in to a hotel. I've always been more of a traveler than a tourist. I like to shop in the same places that the locals shop, eat in their neighborhood establishments, and in general just be someone else when I am there, wherever "there" may happen to be. It has always made the trip more enjoyable for me.

That's not to say that I won't snap some pics of the Eiffel Tower, or visit a museum, but it's a better journey when I can take my time and meander. I'll also drop off a few promo packs to several of the clubs in Paris, and am working on getting at least one gig for this trip.

In regards to the local cuisine, I'm a man in touch with his appetite, and as far as I'm concerned, France is my excuse to indulge in the three C's. I will be ingesting great quantities of croissants, cheese, and chocolate.

Merry Ellen

Way back in 1992 I returned home to Texas after living in California for several years. I started playing music in the clubs around Houston and met most of the people that I still hang out with today. Merry Ellen is one of those people, and yesterday was her birthday.

She’s old enough to be our mother, and treats us all like her favorite child. Merry Ellen is a serious fan of live music, particularly original music. A few months after we met I thought I should write a song for her, as a thank you to all the times she came out to hear me perform, usually with two or three Merry Ellen groupies in tow. Many times she was the reason I wasn't putting on a private show for the bartender.I wrote the song for purely unselfish reasons, and as it often happens with unselfish acts, I was rewarded many, many times over for having written the song. She's followed me to Nashville for gigs at the Bluebird Cafe, and once, in a serendipitous convergence of life and luck, she planned a trip to Europe with her son shortly before I got a gig playing in Montreux, Switzerland.

"Oh, David", she said, "Let's swing down to Montreux and see Willie on our way to Paris."

I wasn't really on their way to Paris, but he's a dutiful son, so David drove eight hundred miles out of his way to make his mom happy.

The Merry Ellen Song
© 1992

Well she sits there in the front row, where there’s room to tap her toes,
She’s the number one music fan, everybody knows,
She’s helped so many people, she’s the rock we all lean on,
She’s also soft and fuzzy, her name is Featherstone,
Chorus
Merry Ellen will you come to hear me play tonight,
I’ve been working on a new song, I believe I’ve got it right,
I’ll sing all your favorites too, anything you say,
Merry Ellen will you come to hear me play.

She follows Shake and Jack, Michael Brim and Bill Ward too,
She’s even come to hear me and Dave Holder a time or two,
Bow Brannon, Terry Ridgeway, Gary Morris and Rusty Weir,
We all love it when somebody says, “Merry Ellen’s here,”
Repeat Chorus
You can see her with the top down, hair blowin’ in the breeze,
On her way to who knows where, to hear some melodies,
If you’ve never had her spiced pecans you’re missing quite a treat,
Homemade by Merry Ellen, and almost as sweet,
Repeat Chorus
Merry Ellen will you come to hear me play,
Merry Ellen will you come to hear me play.

Happy 79th birthday Merry Ellen!

Full Disclosure

I have started and stopped several blogs over the past few years. Each time, my desire to grow as a writer was soon crushed by the sheer boredom with whatever thin theme I hastily came up with. I'm a singer/songwriter, and my current writing skills (and attention span) seemed to be locked into a 3 minute time frame. Also, with a song, you can make it rhyme and maybe even dance to it.

I've heard for years that if you want to be a writer you should just write, many successful novelists have mentioned that bit of wisdom in countless interviews. I have been limiting myself with a too narrow focus, thinking I must write in order to produce, rather than writing for the simple joy I feel when creating something.

A few days ago, in preparation for an upcoming trip to Paris, I stumbled upon Misplaced In The Midwest. Here was a guy not only trying to accomplish many of the things I aim for, he was actually making it happen.
He started his blog as a daily writing exercise, which is what I should have done from the start.

So thanks, Misplaced In The Midwest, I'm totally copying you.

How I Motivate Myself To Exercise

First, the wrong way:

I imagine myself on the treadmill, then imagine my physique six or eight months later. Looking good! I’m sporting a new, hipper wardrobe to accentuate and celebrate the slim devil I have now become. For some reason, my hair is darker and fuller and I’ve also moved to Paris, apparently, because I’m surrounded by 17th century architecture as I stroll confidently down cobblestone streets, the other men jealous of the attention I’m receiving from their wives and girlfriends. Strange women stop to chat me up, and bat their eyes coquettishly just before I deliver the disappointing news that I am happily married, and not the type to stray. Bravely, they turn away, giving me one last lingering glance that says, “Someday, if I’m very lucky, I will find a man such as you.”

Reluctant to give up this beautiful daydream, I decide to catch a quick power nap in order to embellish the scenario a bit while resting up for my sure to be vigorous workout. Three hours later I snore myself awake, tossing the drool soaked throw pillow to the other end of the sofa on my way to the kitchen to grab a diet cola and a salty snack. Chips, maybe. I’ll workout tomorrow. One more day won’t make a difference.


A more effective way:

Our oldest daughter just graduated college and took a job teaching English in Vienna, Austria. She leaves in September and returns next June. We decided to join her over the Christmas holidays, with a side trip to Paris. Last week I started thinking with actual sincerity about getting on the treadmill, then started muttering about how boring it is to exercise. Then I imagined myself seven months from now while on our family trip to Europe. My wife and two daughters are out exploring the glorious city, having the time of their lives while I am holed up in the hotel room, face down on the bed, too tired to move after an hour of walking up and down cobble stoned streets. I fall asleep dreaming of skinny Frenchmen luring my wife and the girls with promises of private guided tours of the Paris few Americans ever get to see. Three hours later I snore myself awake in an otherwise empty hotel room while rooting through the mini-bar for something salty. I snapped myself out of this impending nightmare and got on the treadmill for half an hour, keeping cadence with the self-flagellating phrase, “Fat bastard, fat bastard.”

I have to say, I think I’ve found the proper motivation. It’s been a week now and I’ve only missed one day.