Paris To Pamplona
I arrived in Paris full of hope and inspiration hoping to find my friend in the same mood. I peeled out of the train station and asked how much to the Astrid hotel 27 Avenue Carnot, F-75017 Paris. I arrived and they hadn’t heard of him but they were willing to give me another room. I called him on his Internet phone and I couldn’t talk to him but two calls brought him down stairs to the front desk and, oh the lady remembered everything.
We went up dumped my stuff off and went off to eat something. While eating I broached the conversation with, ‘What’s the plan?’ And all of a sudden things sounded better than good but then again there was this poison in his voice that set me on edge directly. I met Brett back in London when we were part of an exchange program. 30 years passed in between and a great deal of water under the bridge and some over but our paths didn’t cross until a couple years ago. He had a n idea to do a ‘Sun Also Rises’ film. He could pin down if it was a documentary or art and to this day still can’t. All of a sudden I realized he really didn’t have a plan, it was more like an excuse to get out of the U.S. desert.
I was game for anything not as the director but more of a participant behind the camera and get in front of it if needed. That first meeting for lunch turned my free spirit as it saw chains for a few years with ideas run by him and only by him. That sounds like the U.S. government talking about democracy. It was either his way or the highway. I drank as much of the Tattinger Champagne that I just bought as possible and bit my tongue momentarily. We were to wake at 3 am for some film work so it wasn’t a long night but due to sleeping in the same room before I knew I needed to beat him to sleep before both chain saw snorers throttled up.
He woke me at 4 am asking me if I was coming. I bounced out of bed, chucked my camera in a bag and figured I’d wake up on the way. Off we went toward the Arch du Triumph for a few photos and then circumvented it to what he said was the Eiffel tower that turned out to be a hotel with a red tower of beacons. From there on we were absolutely going in the wrong direction and I didn’t know what our goal was or I would have stopped him and looked at a map and headed down the Champs Elysees and figured it out from there but no. We walked into the dawn until both of our feet were bleeding, blistered, or aching. We did get good material but my questions began nagging at me, why hadn’t this all been sorted in the first place. I was to arrive on the 1stand I did and he arrived on the 28th. What happened between the 28thand the 1st? I heard from him he took a bath and fell asleep. That just burned. Why didn’t all these little shots get taken care of? What? Yeah I wanted to be involved but obviously he had time on his hands and Paris isn’t cheap. I didn’t understand and still don’t. We eventually got a cup of tea and a croissant and headed out for a taxi to get home to get my wallet and sort out the shoe thing. Lucky for us we were in time for breakfast included and a shower. It was 730 am.
We peeled out for Notre Dam and the Shakespeare bookstore, which is a shell of its previous self and only a curiosity point of interest due to people like Ernst Hemingway and a stack of incredible writers before, during, and after him. Oh yeah we needed to go there.
We wandered off and I mean wandered off. I still had no goal, I still had no purpose being there. All this could have been sorted on a map and found before I even got out of the pubs in England. We wandered this way and that and turned corners and zigzagged away from the river. Eventually I asked. “What are we doing? What am I doing? What do you need me for? At this his personality broke free and he barked back, If you don’t want to be here then go. I was immediately tempted but I wanted it to work, I wanted to be a part of this but I wasn’t going to waste my time. I started asking random people who eventually pointed in the right direction. First was a well dressed elderly gent crossing the road with us. I asked and his eyes lit up like neon candles. We got to the far side of the road and he explained as easily as day. Go through the park at a diagonal and then walk some more and you’re there. I think he wanted to come and show me personally but the misses might think he’s out playin’ around. He was eighty something and looked like a kid telling a secret; I wanted him to come, I needed him and I wanted to hear what he had to say.
We followed his directions sort of and instead of crossing over like the man said my friend decided he wanted to turn off. This infuriated me because he couldn’t find his way all morning. We ended up following what the man had said to a point when I walked into a Tobacco shop and asked the nice, beautiful African woman where it was and she pointed up the road and said if you miss it lad, you need new eyes. There it was across the street. This is where it really picked up speed.
We took a stack of photos from the center isle waiting for the traffic to lull so we wouldn’t get any blur in the photos or film that Brett was trying to get 10-15 seconds of. We moved on in with the days work completed and sat in for a beer and food. A waiter who showed us two menus one for inside and one for outside dining at the restaurant where Ernst Hemingway ate welcomed us in. We decided outside thinking the people walking by might be a good distraction and sat down in a far corner where we ordered oysters, mussels, a cheese platter and a couple beers. Stress fell away briefly.
There’s something about the women in Paris, not that they’re sexier than any others, it’s that they wear clothes appropriate to their bodies and look exceptional while doing it. We made eye contact with a husband and wife couple sitting not far away at the Dome restaurant where a man was facing us and ordered what we had. His wife was Japanese and a looker. After eating I went out for a smoke where I had seen him go in the past and he followed me and we engaged in a conversation that drew my friend out of the corner and the man’s wife off her seat. The man and I are originally both from California and the man started in on Ernst Hemingway, that’s what drew Brett out of the corner.
They are avid Ernst Hemingway fans and began wondering why they were born so late in life and why they couldn’t have been born back then where they felt they belonged. Being Japanese the woman, Coco could only show us secrets we wouldn’t get anywhere else and off we went to an alley behind the Montparnesse Building. The saying or joke goes that the only place to escape the ugliness of the building is to be in it and really high. Take that either way. The alley belonged to some eccentric and famous artists back in the same are but Hemingway wasn’t really part of this group but for sure would have visited it with some of his lady friends or through an invite to a party that he was sure to have attended. The alley is now buried in vines and forms a sanctuary of solace and a calming aura in the middle of Paris that is difficult to find. Artists still use the studios holding the alley in place and on one side is a museum with some of the past famous artists works that painted, drew or sculpted in the 50 meter green vined silence. We wandered on to the Select Bar, another of Ernst Hemingway hangouts. We went to a few others and even though the times have changed you still got a feeling of Paris back in the day. There is no lost generation anymore and yet some of us slip through the cracks of time or we’ve all passed through and now look back and see the truth of it, that most of us are lost. Due to some unforeseen complications I have backed out of the contemporary filming of Paris, the Pyrenees and Pamplona San Fermin 2015 festival. But that hasn’t stopped me from participating in Pamplona.
I took a train from Paris the following night and arrived in Pamplona with two new friends from Oakland, California. Lee Jackson and DJ Dave were lots of fun and we spent a few hours each afternoon getting acquainted and people watching. They’ve moved on to Berlin and I will remain to the end. Something is happening somewhere in Pamplona at all times. From the opening rocket, the running of the bulls, parades, marching bands, fireworks, dancing and all marinated in Sangria and cervesas. There are bull fights every night at 630 pm and the stadium holds I think 20,000 people. There are few seats available but there are a couple scalpers hanging around the perimeter where you can get a nose bleeder seat.
Hotels are packed to the gills and the prices are high for the festival. The food is amazing and I’m enjoying it all at least once from beginning to end. There are a few more days and the temperatures are on the rise. The public pool is a great way to spend a few afternoon hours and there is a carnival atmosphere for the children with rides, food, games, etc.
I already bought a ticket out of Pamplona for the coast. I’ll be on the beach in no time.
