Do I really have a blog?

I didn't realize it, but some of my friends actually look at this blog. It's not been updated in months. A blog needs to be nurtured, to have a purpose. I thought that the blog's being about my work here had a purpose. But it turns out, I can comment end on end about what it is that I do and don't like about France, and to me it sounds always the same. Maybe one day I'll write out a real treatise about what it is in France that is ruining this once great nation.

But is that really interesting? I clearly had other things to do- I ignored this blog. The written word had to be nurtured, coddled. I stopped posting because I had other things to distract me from it. And also because I didn't think that there was any readership.

Eventually I will post pictures to this, of the stuff I've caught here and perhaps some things I find interesting. I've taken a good amount of photos while I've been here, hopefully I'll catch some more.

I'll also be back in America from August 11-17, yes it turns out, it is just that easy. I'm excited to come home for a few days.

Love love love.

Joe. Al-Hadj



PS. (SOME REAL CONTENT BELOW)


Why am I using a silly nickname like Hadj?

One may ask this question actually wondering.

On March 5th, 1984, consequently two days after I was born, and yet the day of my projected birth, my entire nuclear family shortened our last name from "Hadjialexiou" to just "Alexiou"

Apparently it was too long--two extra syllables pose a huge problem, it seems, and even back in Greece my Grandfather, Demitrious Yannis Hadjialexiou got the "Hadji" chopped off at school to save time for all the hard work that Greek people do (read: sarcasm).

Wait! Says someone who has read more than Harry Potter: Isn't Hadj or Haj some kind of title in Islam? Doesn't it get added to names of people who go on the pilgrimage to Mecca, for example, Al Haj Malik Shabaz? Are you a secret Muslim!? WHY HAVE YOU BEEN LYING TO ME THIS WHOLE TIME? WHY DO LUBOVITCH JEWS FROM CROWN HEIGHTS COME TO YOUR DOOR IN PARIS AT 6:30 PM WITHOUT FAIL ON FRIDAY TO MAKE YOU PUT ON T'FILLIN WHEN YOU'RE A GREEK MUSLIM!? THERE ARE GREEK MUSLIMS?!?!? AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhh


Shuttup. It's more simple than that, Greece, who was 'invaded' by the Ottoman Empire (Turks, people, Turks) around like 1680 or something like that, I dunno, took on a LOT of Turkish mediterranian culture and food, and silly outfits, and words, etc. So when Greek Orthodox Christians wanted to sound cool, or when they went on a "pilgrimage" to Jerusalem, they would add a "Hadj" to their name.

And then we cut it off!!! I also have such a limited connection to Greece now, I don't really speak the language, and here I am a Jew/Greek with pale-ass skin, green eyes, and blondish hair......where did my ethnic-ness go?! Why are I not dark haired and darked eyed, like all of the people I find insanely attractive?

Thus, Hadj, is me trying to regain my lost identity of some ethnic person that should get stared at and hated for not looking white enough.

Or, I'm just trying to sound cool with a cool nickname. BUT MINE IS REAL, unlike some other people I wouldn't DARE name but you all know who I'm talking about (hint---this nickname to which I refer comes from the word from the little bits of paper that you find in a book. And no, I don't mean sheets. Or bookmarks, jesus).


Oh right, ahem, France.


Oh crap, I'm supposed to be doing my job. laters!

PPS-- That was the longest post-script I've ever written.

Be less judgmental, your froggy-leg bastard

I think that my position in life, despite also being as diplomatic, is to be quite critical of things. I critique the French all of the time for their stupidity and ineffeciency--they call it a way of life. However, I would never be so critical of an infrastructure in a developing country, because it would be in turn a judgement of situation, and not just simply a way of life. More on this later? If I feel like it.

So perhaps I can discuss some otherwise previously unavailable or undiscovered things going on in the City of Light.

The Musée Orangerie: This museum, in the southwestern corner of the Tulleries gardens has been newly reopened. Its minor highlights are the impressionist collection it houses from various artists. However it's crowing glory and reason-to-be is indeed the two ovular rooms which contain massive, let me stress, massive water lily works by Monet.

These things are enormous...each of them is at least 20 feet long and six feet high. The rooms are all white, clean and sparse, probably so not to distract from the work They are all views of Monet's famous bridge, pond, and various trees that are in Giverny, from which all of his water lily paintings are inspired, in different lights and times of day. The paintings range from clear and downright beautiful to haunting, and confused and unclear, to me. In looking at them, I personally sat there and wondered just how much of art has been analyzed and understood. These paintings, in their intense size, violent brushstrokes, and impressionist vision, have no doubt been scrutinized, analyzed, every inch meaning something to some art scholar.

I can't possibly hope to understand the immensity of what they ponder over for hours. I'm sure some people hated them when they were finally finished. I'm pretty sure Money hated them, although they are in a sense his magnum opus. I really enjoyed that, art museums are such a great idea because you go there to stare blankly at a wall, searching for meaning, which is something people do anyway without paintings. Only in a museum, it makes you 'cultured!' (there is no such thing as cynicism or artsy-fartsy ponderings in parenthesis)


Parc des Buttes Chaumont/Parc de Belleville:

These places are tucked away in arrondissements with pathetically high numbers that no self respecting Parisian snob would ever go to, however they are fantastic, and the latter gives probably the best view of Paris that is possible. The former is a huge man-made structure, commissioned probably by Napoleon III, or Louis Napoleon, or one of those people who you can look up if you truly care. It has a massive rock-mountany thing in the middle of it with a stone gazebo that lots of people have griffitied their name into and some date "Rolf from Germany was here 12/5/04 and you don't know whether or not he means December 5th or May 12th because Europe (pronounced yer-up) is funny like that. The park also features a waterfall in a rock grotto, also man made, and dubbed according to Some French Person "Le meilleur lieu pour s'embrasser à Paris" (the best place to kiss in Paris). Well whoopty doo for you Frenchmeister.

So this post is supposed to be before the latest one, 'cause that's when I started it...since then, as I look back at this list of things I'm supposed to describe, it was started suchhh a long time ago. Then of course, the days fly by here, I'm not really sure what I've been up to. Ahem, I was saying...

Chartres- A small town outside of Paris with a capital-sized Cathedral, which jumps out at you when approaching on the train. The stained glass windows are supposed to be to DIE for, and I managed to focus on the only one with Old Testamate imagery (is any of this spelled correctly) which, if not posted in picture format at this reading, is indeed soon to come. The Cathedral at Chartres is beautiful and enormously tall, supposedly the widest "term for the part that is where all the pews are in front of the ever confusing altar-table thing in the center of a Cathedral" in all of France. Those altar table things, by the way, never ever cease to make me think of animal sacrifices, because it's always this big ass table, usually nice and glossy, of thick wood, or shiny stone like marble. And if they HAVE such a nice table that's perfect for chopping up vegetables and coordinating paganistic rituals with scenty crap and animal brains, why waste it? Or get a buffet going people, cmon, there's room for everyone!

I have, it seems, been to other museums and stuff within Paris, as well as other little trips, and also a lot of the inside of bars, a cadre of business which is probably more efficient than anything else in all of France. After all, if you can't get a drink in hand when you're done working super hard at not working, what's the point of life really??

Some really chewy, tasty bread, clearly. Mmm.

There are so many bakeries sprinked over this city that anyone can be snobby about them too. I just discovered a new good one near my place, and why that raises my spirits so much I couldn't possibly tell you.

Luckily the Dummy's guide even includes a little section all about friggen boulangeries and which ones are good. Well, they publish a 200 page guidebook on each one in all of Paris!!! Ahhh who cares, says one side of me, it's bread. If it's not stale and completely devoid of anything bread-like, than it's edible. So shuttup and chew.

Hmhmmm not so. We also need FANCY BREAD called brioche, which looks and tastes suspiciouslly like challah. I don't recall ever seeing anyone buy any, but there must be a demand because it's always there. Along with many other delectable treats.

Maybe within the next few days I will find a way to justify why I like living in France besides like, the food, the coffee, and the laid back Euro lifestyle...basically, if I can't consume (food, clothes buying, etc) do I really like France? That, I have no idea.

Demandez à un français pourquoi il aime son pays. Il vous dira --Ben, c'est la France, c'est mon pays, il faut que je l'aime. Qui serais-je sans la France? Mais rien...etc etc etc. They don't know either, except that everywhere else, in theory, people don't speak French so they've GOTTA love it. I can't tell you how many French people, after learning of my American-ness, will sit up and be like "Their French is TERRIBLE (americans), not you of course (blah random double edged compliment, merci beaucoup madame) I can't understand a WORD of it, they don't try...they don't want to learn other languages blahblahblah" meanwhile most French people command English like Helen Keller driving a bus. Only, as a very warm-hearted person, I'm pretty sure that Helen Keller would have been upset over the amount of damage she would have done with a bus in a crowded street.

Can you taste the cynicism? It's because I don't know how to behave otherwise.

Oh yawnn...that was a real post!!! A BIENTOT

Al Hadj Elex Iou....akistopoulous (this joke was Greek...cha! laugh, eet ees fonni...)

Fete de la Musique et Le gaypride

So the weekend before last was the gay pride parade, and even before then was the Fete de la Musique. These are some of the biggest summer "parties" you could say, where people wallk all over the streets everywhere and make noise and drink. Often bands perform in the streets and it is great (if they are African drummers), or crap (if they are French hard rock, metal, hip hop, or basically, anything copying music that is not a guy singing with an accordian. The French can still do that. They cannot, however, copy anything from America or even Britain correctly. Unless, of course, this French person is also black, another story).

And so, I stuck around some fantastic african drummers with a friend. And then we walked the streets for a long time, and then I go goaded into going into a club, which, although it was pretty, was filled with stupid people and sweaty men who liked to give hugs, but not that good kind of sweaty men---the chubby kind that don't give a shit about you, but want to hook up with your pretty chick friends. Every time I go to one of these places, I allow myself to have fun until I think thoughts like, ehhh i really don't like the crowd, which escalates to, I AM BETTER THAN EVERY SINGLE PERSON HERE. That thought is originally inspired by a middle-school friend, but it's also every French person's goal in life.

It's really tough to do that in a dance club for un français, because they have NO RHYTHM and cannot dance. Even more so than Jewish people I feel--at least we can go around in a circle on time. And if you're not over 75, we can even jump at the same time and feel the centripital force. Genious, I feel. Anyway so, watching these idiots try to dance to hip hop, ohhh man. I can't even really talk about it.


Next big event was the gay pride parade.

So I went and didn't exactly march, I was on a "char" (a float, en français--does it come from chariot?) with my friend and about 50 other gays from different youth organizations. The char was just a big 18 wheeler with the sides open, and a DJ with a massive sound system that left my ears ringing. On either side of the truck there was a big sign that said "Baiser Chic, Baiser Safe."


"Un baiser," btw, if it is a noun means "a kiss," but as a verb it means "to fuck". How really schizophrenic of them to have a word like that.

Bon, the theme for this year on this char was "SIDA", which if you are good at anagrams means AIDS. I got there very late and I was wearing a green tank top--however the colors to go along with their very depressing theme was black and red (why are black and red associated with AIDS? Nobody could actually tell me this but any time you argue with homosexuals about why something is a certain way involving their cause, they get VERY bitchy and turn into demons and try to steal your children. And the ironic part is the firey look in their eyes where you know they want to accuse you of being a homophobe, but they also know how dumb that will sound to someone wearing ass-tight pants and a tanktop at a gay pride parade. And they're probably excited a little by the abuse as well--ahem). Anyway, their very diplomatic solution to my predicament was so indicative of a very ill and backwards culture:

If you take your shirt off, you can get on the float!

it went something like this:


"Pardon, mais tu peux pas monter sur le char puisque tu portes un t-shirt vert."

"Mais je connais personne ici, que mon ami qui est déjà sur ton putain de char ou il se trouve 50 gens avec tous les couleurs du arc-en-ciel"

whisperwhisper "Tu sais, si tu enleve ton shirt tu peux monter"



Fine, well I am not exactly modest so I got on their "fucking char" as underlined (learn French curses!)

We danced on the truck for about 3 hours, as it wound up the left bank, starting in Montparnasse, up through the Latin Quarter, and across the bridge to the Marais a bit, and ended up in Bastille. I wanted to bring my camera, and even though I wasn't really in the huge, massive, and sprawling crowd of gays that surged through the center of Paris that day, to have a big camera with all the movement and commotion and ridiculousness would really have been somewhat of a burden.

I did miss out on some great photos ops, mostly crowds and crowds of people under famous Parisian street signs (I can see in my mind's eye, Blvd St Germain and ten million screaming homos), drag queens, men in their underwear dancing on telephone booths, and 100 shirtless youth dancing on the column in Bastille at the end.

I will keep the memories so it's not too much of a shame that I don't have the photos-It's okay because there are plenty online, i will add the links eventually!

After dancing for 3 hours I wanted to go to sleep on the pavement, but wouldn't you know it that EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM had plans to go out that night---

"Comment tu sors pas ce soir?? c'est le gaypride!!!! Il faut SORTIR!"

(How can you not go out tonight, it's gay pride! YOU HAVE TO GO OUT!)

so i went home and slept for a long time and eventually did go out again (how, I do not know)


Brilliantly, I woke up the next morning at 8am to go to a crazy allergist, who has sort of cured me. But I also went to the Barbes Rochechoart market (it only happens twice a week!) to buy bulk rates of fruit and olives, and fresh herbs because they have so much of it and it's extremely cheap (because every single person there is Algerian and so they just import the prices right over the Mediterranian!)

One little beur, who will be cute in 3 years if he eats something was flirting with a 45 year old African woman; "madame vous faites une bonne choix," he says, smelling the melon she picked out, "vous avez choisi le plus beau melon du jour!" Put it away pipsqueak. And why didn't you compliment my melon?

Anyway photos to come. And try to get up to date here Yoseph!

Ce n'est pas mon boulot

I have been here about two weeks--handed in my first deadline, which was a bit stressful but very satisfying. What is my job?? It's mostly fun.

I run all over the place writing down the new info of places like cafés, restaurants and hotels, and then updating their vital info (phone numbers, addresses, prices) in in immense word files using "Track Changes" an ingenious thing where everything you delete or write over turns red and crossed out, and everything you add is red and underlined. You can add little comments in little boxes about what you changed and what you generally think about what you're writing.

The creative aspect comes in when I write about the resto/hotel or whatever it is (in the gay tourist guide i'm doing as well, which is a seperate thing, it's also bars, clubs, gay saunas (ew) and dirty sex clubs (double ew and also slightly intriguing...JUST KIDDING). Also the little tips and tidbits, you write that in your own voice and use humor as you see fit, people respond to that lot.) There are more things to write and update, like walking tours, but more on that later.

One example of using your own voice is saying something like "this hotel has customer service à la française", i.e. they have shitty customer service because...FRENCH PEOPLE AND FRANCE IN GENERAL HAS TERRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE.

After being in 'developing nations' such as India and Guatemala, I can tell you that people in stores and restaurants, for example, actually WANT to help you so as to improve the economy and general life in such countries. In India you can't go to the bathroom without someone literally trying to squeeze the soap for you from the stupid machine; they practically zipper your fly for you if you don't stop them. In France, if you fell into a bear trap that happened to be located in the store you were shopping in, and you asked them for help in every language you know, their response would be:

Non, c'est pas mon boulot

which is

That's not my job.

They don't give a SHIT if their helping you makes their store better--in fact, chances are they are annoyed at you for shopping in it because it means that they have to do work. That might take away from their relaxation time, or just the general boredom that they have to deal with before they go to a café and sit around for 3 hours drinking coffee and smoking. Mind you, they're still sitting in the café doing nothing but at least it was their decision--god forbid they work more than 35 hours a week, something they've gone on strike about more times than they've actually been to work. Thus, they go to work, and sit around complaining about it, but the second someone tries to change the national laws about how much you have to work they go CRAZY.

They wake up at 5am and make signs and march around in the rain, yelling and screaming about the injustice done to them. Then they go back to work eventually and act all French for a while, and definately don't help you.

I'm not bitter though; what they call "French charm and culinary knowhow" is entirely why I have a job right now. In being here two weeks I have no less than 10 stories describing their lovely attitude, which can be saved for later. Safe to say, if they didn't know how to make good bread and fancy entrees (entrée in French means appetizer, how ironique!!), nobody would come to this stupid country. Before I say anything else negative (and I will), I love France. I love Paris, I love the French language and their way of doing things. They also need a huge overhaul otherwise it's all going down the chiottes (shitter) in ten years.

What's great about running around town writing down hotel shit is the stuff that I see in between, like great stores or antique fairs on the street. Those people also sit around and watch you look at their useless junk while they drink coffee and smoke cigarettes. Sometimes they try and sell it to you, but mainly they just look annoyed or amused that you moved around some of their silly 'brocante'.

In one of these fairs I bought a clay tobacco pipe with brass, which looked really cool to me because it was long and fairly Gandalf-ish.

I cleaned it and bought pipe tobacco to try it out. That in itself was a 15 minute conversation with a husband and wife cancer vendor--sorry, tobacco specialist--about how nobody smokes pipes anymore and what a shame it is.

Got home, and took pictures of my ultra cool self in black and white smoking it.

I look hyper-awesome and chill, no? Smoking a pipe is NOT easy, there is a whole silly process to packing, lighting, and smoking it.


This is my first puff



Here I am again, being Hemmingway, blowing my smoke towards someone attractive



Here I am after inhaling pipe smoke, which you aren't supposed to do




So there you go--I am on my way to being a Lost Generation writer and a cancer victim. Such is the life of a writer!!! So bleak, so full of...pipe smoke!!


Final note, French people laugh whenever you say "pipe" (sounds like "peep") because it sort of means penis.

Thus, to "faire la pipe" or "fume la pipe" is suggesting that you blow people. So go suck your pipe, France!!


-Hadj

Still working

SOOO yesterday I wrote up a post and this stupid website conked out and I couldn't save it. Mostly it was about freaking about about my first deadline, and a halfhearted attempt to put up a picture.

I was supposed to go to Normandie today with the 'rents, since they are visiting (bothering me in my first week of real work???) here in France. I didn't, I'll go tomorrow. It's just that easy!!!


Recipe for French lunch:


Une baguette, coupé.

un peu du buerre, du fromage (le tome, par exemple, est excellent et pas très connu)
des tomates
une demi-bouteille de Richard Tetedecon, 1999
un café (expresso, il n'y aura rien du café de chausettes à l'américaine)
12 cigarettes

-hadj

Starting

Wow did I ever start this blog for different reasons than normal: I will get into that later, but for now let it be known that here is my public journal of all the crap I am doing for my first job in the real world, updating the Paris for Dummy's guide.

Hopefully some of my amateur photography will make it up here, as well as my commentary on the perpetually snooty French, and the art of snubbing them (this is all you really learn in France, how to snub people). Amazing how the class system works in France--if you are an American, the even the lowliest beggar is better than you because he has one thing you don't: a stupid accent.

Apparently, I have an accent in French, but I daresay it is probably cute. It will get me laid, hopefully, if it hasn't already to begin with.

First Post!!!!


the Hadj (will explain later, shh)