Leather Coat Paris

London 1978

In 1978 I had left NYC to join my model/girlfriend, Lisa. We lived in West London Studio, A two-story post modern complex on Fulham Road. Right at the entrance to the Chelsea football pitch. Game days we didn't leave the apartment. As the opposing crews waged war outside the pubs.

I had nothing to wear that declared I was from the South Shore of Boston and not Strafford Bridge or Westham. I bought a leather coat from a second-hand store on Kensington High Street. A little roughed up yet elegant

Lisa and I returned to America. She left again for Europe in the summer of 1979. She came back in 1981 with a Russian gangster. I liked Vadim. I worked for him at the Continental on West 25th Street. I left when I clocked FBI agents at the after-hours club. I’m wasn’t Vadim.

In 1982 I fled a joint police-FBI investigation to work as a physionomiste or doorman at Le Rex Club for the magazine Actuel on the Grand Boulevard in Paris. Opening night was with Toure Kinda. The basement was packed for the African superstar. A froggie longhair kept bugging me to come in. I told the babacool to wait his turn. Hectoring me with indecipherable French swears resulted in a nightlong ban.

"Twa oncule!" He strode to a dented double-parked Citroen Deux-Cheveaux. I thought nothing more of him, until he ran through the crowd and threw a bag at me. Yellow sprayed from it and I thought it was les frites or French Fries from the pseudo Mickey Ds next door.

Wrong It was yellow paint. Splat!

I stood stunned.

The hippie ran back to his voiture des peasants. The two cylinder engine would not start. Le choc of the attack triggered a rage. I ran the sidewalk, jumped atop a car hood and launched a kick through the hippie's driver side window. I leapt on the roof. Jumping up and down and up and down. Black steel toed combat boots smashed front windscreen. Shattered the passenger door window. The hippie cringed at the steering wheel. The boulevard sidewalks was crowded with club goers. I saw no one.

The car still refused to start. My boots took their toll.

The car coughed to life. The hippie shoved the shift into First and steered into the oncoming traffic. I tumbled to the street. He drove straight into a passing taxi. Crash. I wanted more and scrambled my feet. My security held me back.

Corinne my squeeze gave me a towel. I wiped off the paint. The ghost of it haunted the coat forever. Jean-Francois the publisher gave me 3000 francs. “Go out of town for a week."

I acted on his advice and took a train to London. With the coat. I stood in front of the West London Studio a few times. No sign of Lisa. Only the trace of yellow on the leather coat.

ps Upon my return my bouncers said that I had totaled the hippie’s car. They weren’t impressed. After all it was just a Deux Cheveaux.

Bridges and Typewriters 2014

In Jan. 1982 a french magazine ACTUEL hired me to work the work at their Paris nightclub, Le Rex. I bid good-bye to New York and flew from JFK to Heathrow with one bag of my best clothing and an Olivetti typewriter.

After a brief visit with friends in London, I boarded a train at Waterloo Station for Dover and caught a night ferry to Calais. The immigration officials stamped my passport with a six-month visa and I passed through customs without any of the smoking officials casting an eye in my direction. It was cold outside and I walked to the Calais train station.

My Olivetti Lettera 22 typewriter weighed a little over four kilograms. Nine pounds isn't much, but as I walked to the the Calais train station on a June evening, the weight grew heavier in my hand and crossing a bridge over the Calais canal I contemplated ditching it. The tide was out and the river bottom was thick with mud. The world didn't need another writer or another doorman at a nightclub, then again this world doesn't need much, so I trudged into the terminal with the Olivetti and bought a one-way ticket to Paris.

Gare Du Nord.

For me and my typewriter.

I have no idea where it is now, but me I'm in New York and my typing is as bad as ever.

TETE DE NAZI

SNATCH-MAG.COM asked French Music Mogul Bernard Zekri how he got into music. Comment êtes-vous arrivé à intégrer ce milieu ? J’avais un copain qui s’appelait Peter Smith, un écrivain irlandais avec une tête de nazi. Genre une tête carrée, les cheveux plaqués en arrière et les yeux bleus. Il avait un manteau en cuir noir ; il me faisait beaucoup marrer. Quand j’étais avec lui, je rentrais partout. Il a été une des premières clés pour que j’accède à ce monde. Tu prends ça dans la gueule quand tu es français, parce qu’à la même époque, Paris, c’était vraiment tristoune. Il n’y avait pas vraiment d’endroits pour écouter de la musique. Et en province, n’en parlons pas. Dans l’East Village, il y avait une jeunesse qui avait envie de brûler sa vie jusqu’au petit matin. Le temps était comme suspendu. La vie était plus facile, on n’était pas en train de penser à ce qui allait se passer dans cinq ans. Les gens n’avaient pas envie d’être stars, ils avaient juste envie d’être de grands artistes.

I love the last line.

These people didn't want to be stars. They wanted to be great artists.

Thanks for that line, Bernard.

I'm not so so sure about the 'tete de nazi', but a young poetress was over last night and said, "You were one scary motherfucker back then."

"And now?" Irene's last boyfriend thought I was not to be trusted.

"Oh you're a little princess."

A Nazi or a princess?

And nothing in between.

Perpignan 1982

In the summer of 1982 my college friend Nick Napoli came to Paris. We were closing the Rex Club with a 24-hour marathon of new wave and ethnic bands ending Toure Lunda and Virgin Prunes. The club's manager Olivier had a family beach home on the Cote Vermillion i.e. Perpignan on the Spanish border. Nick rented a car. We greeted the next morning on the Autoroute Du Sud.

Here are fotos of my friends.

We are still good friends.

England was taking back the Falklands, Israeli was aiding massacres in Lebanon, and Roland Garros was featuring championship tennis.

It was on the TV.

Olivier told his father that I was the 17th ranked tennis player in the USA.

He believed his son.

Dodo told the entire town about his guest

To this day I am # 17 in Perpignan.

Perpignan was an old city.

Old people lived within its walls.

For drinking we drove farther down the coast to Collioure.

It was for les jeunes.

We brought two girls back to Carnet-Plage

They were good fun.

But only in a non-Biblical sense.

For some reason William Buckley, Jr. was in town. He followed us around the city. I don't think he was after me.

Oliver agreed.

When he asked about wearing espadrilles, I said, "They look good on you."

It was the South of France.

Espadrilles sucked for climbing around the Templar ruins of the Langue d'Oc.

I thought it was funny.

Olivier was less amused.

But he didn't stay angry. Olivier, Walter, Nick, and I went to Collioure. The two girls were at a harborside cafe. The six of us drank pastis till sunset and switched to wine. I don't remember those girls names or the ride home to Carnet-Plage, but I woke in bed alone.

A lucky man.

We said 'au revoir' to the Brials.

And drove north to Paris.

It was a different France than Perpignan, especially for # 17.