I made a bold decision tonight and returned to the hobo village, located just a bit north of my apartment around Bastille. I decided to venture up there in hopes of somehow gaining entrance to a sold out concert, although I was anticipating some difficulty in regards to buying a ticket from someone off the street. I can barely order a packet of Metro tickets, let alone beg for and negotiate the price of a Keren Ann concert ticket.
But it has been a day of oddities, so I figured the French scalping attempts would just be added to the list. Just about 10 hours ago I was sitting in my apartment hallway watching a locksmith drill out my deadbolt. Of all things, he was wearing a Cleveland Indians cap. We got into a lively debate about baseball teams, but that did little to take away from the fact he was holding an enormous power tool that was dominating my lock. The whole thing is one bad, long story, but I did actually find one French person who truly loves America. Incredible!
I debated my options all day. One of them included taping a sign to my chest that said “Heeeey, spare ticket anyone?”, translated into French of course. My other brilliant scheme – walking around the entrance with a fistful of Euro bills – was deemed more likely to get me physically beaten with a brick than to secure a ticket. It turns out all I had to do was turn in a world class miming exhibition to the guy that was standing around the front doors looking at his watch.
And what a great show it was! The beer was a mere 6 Euro per pint, which is normal in a Paris bar. So it’s unlike the good ol’ USA, where once you get trapped in a concert venue or baseball stadium beer is suddenly a valuable commodity, and thus costs you triple vs. what it costs on the outside. And it’s interesting – there were about 500 patrons in this club, and people were sitting on the floor all the way up to the stage. I’ve never seen anything like it. On top of that, Ms. Keren Ann herself played a couple covers – remember the inspiring “But Then I Got High” song by Afro Man? And the Counting Crows song, where they’re singing about paving paradise in order to give cars a nice, new parking lot? Both played, and both great. Unfortunately, she did not play “Gold Digger,” although I was desperately holding out hope.
CREPE COUNT = 10
