One time I was in the town of Lübeck with two dancers from Australia, in a tiny room about the size of this keyboard I'm writing on, until one of them left us alone to "walk the dog" at 5 in the morning, while the other took me for a tango, but that has nothing to do with this story ...
And yes, I've had sex in Lübeck before, but I won't say how or when or with whom. Heh! Hot ... Must be something in the water.
And now on to the real story I was, pray tell, ready to tell. We were just sitting there in the hotel lobby, see, me and Dave from Philly and a german writer guy we'll call Augen. And suddenly these 17 French teenagers come stomping in! In a good way ... Hell, I'm not even sure I can describe it. They'd been having a REAL good time at the restaurant next door. They were singing and dancing in french (yes, they were dancing in french) and at least ten of them were HOT. Now then, um, maybe there were only 13 of them, but I'm sure that they were all 18 (our lawyers have been consulted for this piece). Thank you, Roman Polanski. Yes, they were up and ready to have a good time, NO MATTER WHO was sitting in that lobby. But it just happened to be us. (Like that song, "Darling Nicky.") And it just happened to be Dave's birthday. (This excuses him from all liabilities under german law.) And now I will describe the look on Dave from Philly's face as he witnessed this (multiple) blessing as they danced on in: a mix of shock and extacy and his eyes got as big as saucers filled with (Philly) cream cheese, and I heard him utter, "Geez." And I'd already started making jokes like, "Um, number 7 is the ONE!" but when I looked over and counted, number seven WAS the best one! Although it was hard to say, and dammit if that french accent doesn't kill a man on impact. Needless to say, considering that we didn't know these girls, and they didn't know us (I dare say we barely knew OURSELVES at this moment) we all warmed right up to each other in record time. There were two german university students there, too, looking all skeptical about the dubious lickety-split situation, very closed-minded, and I just thought, "Well, THEY will be gettin' no lovin' tonight!" And it had to be like that, see, 'cuz the Frenchies were leaving in the mourn, yezz, it was there last night! Parrrtyyyy. And here they were, making a grand entrance, and they'd even formed a chorus-line and were doing Can-Can kicks in unison. These girls were on fire. And Dave's subconscious phantasmical mind went, "Boing!" And I looked to the sky and whispered, "Oh, gawd, lordy, thank you!" and Augen just went, "Jesssus." We knew we were in for a treat. I just thought, "Don't be greedy, don't run over there - wait until they come over here." Makes it bettah. And they did, thank the almighty heavens (um, yes, the Pope is dead - see belated related story) in the skies of mercy! And one of them asked if I was a musician, and the danse began ...
What does this have to do with eleven russians, you may ask? (I'm getting to that.) And with 2 dancers from OZ? (absolutely nothing)
So we figured out that they were all around something-teen years old, and dangit it they weren't just the cutest! But we had no dirty deeds in mind (yet) and we busted into Dave from Philly's (count 'em) threeee bottles of champagne! But no, we would never encourage underage temptresses to indulge in drinking alcohol, of course not! (They insisted on doing that themselves.) At some point, a bottle of Jaegermeister appeared outta thin air, and I shared a sip with the 2nd cutest of the bunch. No english to be had, her delicious french lips pursed through a medley of, "This is bad stuff, taste like cough syrup, yuck!" (True.) Question of taste. And then I sang a verse from Björk's song "The Hunter." I'm going hunting, I AM the Hunter. (For all of our english readers, and french readers, "Jager-meister" means master of the hunt. One of the tasty french sex pastries asked me if I had a girlfriend. "No," I answered with a gulp. (Pause.) "Well," she said, "now you have all the choices you want!" Wow. Giggles all 'round the table. Yikes! Danger. And I looked over at Augen, and he was playing cards with the cute one (Number 4) he'd picked out fer himself, she all grins and whatnot, and I said to Dave, "Ya know, he's had this dream before ..." Heh. Suddenly one of them leans over to me and calls me, "Bond, James Bond." Damn, if that didn't get the juices flowin'! And Number 7, the one I'd had my eye on since the very beginning, came over and said, "Hi, I'm ____" (name ommitted, lawyers discretion) and I just melted all over the place. Then one of them asked me what my "impression is of french girls." And I sped off a very clever answer, all too quickly, and then they said, "Wait, wait! That was too fast, please say it slowly!" And so I said the exact same thing, but in a phoney Jim Carrey voice, "Verrrrrrry sloowwwwwlllllllyyyyyy." That got me some more giggles. Man, this is gettin' good! Now I understand what Johnny Depp is doing over there! He gets to listen to this shit all day! But to answer the girl (she had a t-shirt on that said "Princess") I just explained the short version of a brilliant affair I had in Paris (Eclaire, I call her in my new book), hoping to let on that I know a little bit of something about french girls, to which I did get a very quiet "Ooooh." But there's oh-so-much-more to learn ... "This could go on all night," someone said, and I hoped it could, and in fact, it did!
Yes, this is the fine art of international flirting, a yummy endeavor, and it STILL doesn't explain about the eleven russians ...
When will people stop thinking about clocks and learn that Love is TIMELESS! There was a feeling of love in that room. And it has nothing to do with bodies or countries or politics or sex. I've got an idea for a song, "Love Is A Shared Experience," and I've just got to write it down! Love is the opposite of confined things, it wanders, a moment felt between two souls, or twenty souls, the furious anti-thesis of any thing(s) within man-made boundaries. Limitless ...
And we all exchanged numbers and emails and a CD, all secretly knowing full well that it has NOTHING to do with the band! I cannot and willnot explain what happened that night with the french lovelies, for I am a gentleman. (Sir!) But I will say that it was extremely luscious. Talking 'bout the coffee, of course. Woke up the next day (still in the lobby!) and bonked my head, and there was some giggling again, because some of them were already up and nibbling on breakfast. I carried the Princess's bag to the airport shuttle, and she said something (in her language) that I'll never understand, but of course I did, and as we walked across the bridge (20 of us in all!) in the spring wind, with hand signals and accents flying and chapperones who'd also checked us out the night before, and somehow thought we were ok (!) yes, all of us knew that this was a special moment. A beautiful moment. As they drove away, they all gave us French kisses out the bus window. Amazing. "Jesssus," said Augen again. And I scrawled an entry in my trusty notebook that read, "Surrounded By Beauty."
The story of the russians was on a completely different night, but with a similar vibe. I drove to Lübeck to see their show, drove with a crazy klezmer band who had a gig in another club, got there thinking, "Oh man, I gotta get outta here and find the club where the russians are playing - I don't wanna hang out in THIS club," but of course, after the gig we drove back to the russian band's hotel, where we proceeded to drink much vodka, in said hotel which was ABOVE the klezmer club where my evening began, so you see you cannot excape your past, call it fate (Heh!) and I woke up in the club that I'd tried to escape, which is, ironically the same hotel where I met the french girls (much later) but, as I said - that's a different story entirely ... PEACE. -Todd
Posted by calico at April 12, 2005 04:26 PM