On Expat Bars, or "One of the Many Signs That I'm Getting Older and More Boring"

I woke up and looked at my watch. 11:45. Not bad for being up 'til 5:00AM.

Only it was actually 12:45, thanks to Daylight Savings Time kicking in overnight. This not only officially made me wake up in the early afternoon again (a psychological phenomenon that makes me feel I've wasted the day), but also stymied my travel plans last night. Although I caught my first leg of the Métro trip home from Odéon before the 2:15AM cut off, by the time I was to transfer at Châtelet, it was technically 3:00AM, and woe be to anyone who thinks that a Métro driver will work one minute beyond their posted time.

So I had a nice walk home, occasionally shoving through a crowd of Paris Saint-Germain supporters out celebrating their team's win in the French Ligue championship cup. (Thank you, Ronan, for the correction!)

Of course, I had a different championship on my mind. I'd spent the evening holed up at The Moosehead, a Canadian bar in the 5th arrondissement that has NASN (North American Sports Network), and hence, the NCAA basketball tournament. Over the course of three miserable hours, I got to watch the pre-game show, the same commercials over and over (just like back home!), and UCLA handily beat Xavier for a berth in the Final Four.

Why miserable?

Because I hate expat bars.

Don't get me wrong. They're great places to get otherwise unattainable food (buffalo wings here, black pudding in the US, etc.), drink giant import beers on tap, and watch sports that are a big deal in their home countries. Were it not for expat bars, I wouldn't have been able to catch a previous NCAA Final Four in London, the last FIFA World Cup in the surprisingly soccer-averse Dominican Republic, or any of the Rugby World Cup back at home in San Francisco.

But come weekends, expat bars serve as unabashed meat markets. Back in the States, a club night known as French Tuesday is a popular haunt for Gaullic expats with international business cred... and the gold-digging women who love them. The craic at a good Irish pub is destroyed on Friday and Saturday nights by guys and gals doing Irish car bombs with their ears perked for any hint of a seductive brogue to take home and notch another flag in the bedpost. Here, you'll have groups of local dudes leering and seeking out the first jolie anglo-saxonne on the verge of a tequila blackout.

Again, I don't really have a problem with this. It's a worldwide tradition, and I myself can't deny the pleasures of a drunken snog with a veritable United Nations of girls met in foreigner-strewn bars in Sydney, Dublin, Barcelona, Prague, Costa Rica – you get the picture. If you're young and single - or just acting like it - there are few better places to hook up with others of the same mindset. Shoot a shot. Down a beer. Rinse and repeat 'til you've got your "I'm actually here on a diplomatic mission..." spiel down.

And as much as I appreciate this interpersonal dynamic, I'm older and married now. Not that I'm opposed to huge draft beers (I got drunk for less than 20€! YES!), hot drunk co-eds dancing on the table when "Billie Jean" comes on, or the ego-boost of hearing "Ooh, that guys' cute. And he's alone." But like millions of men around the world... I just want to watch the game.

And that's precisely what I did. I sampled The Moosehead's various beers, kept my eye on the flatscreen, and read the English-language classifieds in FUSAC magazine during all those insufferable media timeouts, ensuring that no popped collar, Hollister-sporting exchange student would "Hey bro!" me. And with the same workman-like efficiency of Coach Ben Howland's defense, I got up, put on my coat, and walked out as the final buzzer sounded. UCLA 76-57 Xavier.

I came home a little after 3:00 to find that my 30-something neighbors were having a party. Until 5:00, the music was still cranking, guests were still coming in and out, and the scent of booze, cigarettes, and various fried hors d'oeuvres were in the air.

Once college basketball is over, I'm gonna have to see if I can get in on that scene.

The Caffeine Crisis

In the 1970's, people queued for hours at gas stations all across the US just to get a few gallons of Regular to fuel their behemoth Chevys and Pontiacs and other pieces of Detroit Shit Steel.

In the 1980's, people queued for hours at shops all over the USSR just to get some lousy bread that was probably inedible anyway.

In the 1990's, people queued for hours in front of banks all over Argentina, trying to get their money out before the economy collapsed and English club kids swarmed the place for £1 hits of ecstasy.

Now, in the 2000's, France is facing a crisis: There is no coffee.

Ok, maybe not all of France. Maybe it's just in my vicinity.

I was out of coffee this morning. Few people can replicate the look of horror and sinking feeling deep within when I opened the can in which I keep my bag of Lavazza espresso. Like the bread incident the other week, I couldn't fathom what my morning would be like without coffee.

Luckily, I had the remainder of the 1.5L bottle of Pepsi from last weekend's ill-advised KFC mission, and I chugged that before making my way to the Métro station.

"I will survive," I thought. "I'll just double up on my morning coffee dosage at the office!"

For the last month, I've been dosing myself almost every hour with an unremarkable yet effective 30-cent instant espresso from the coffee/tea/cocoa vending machine in our break room. The coffee's not great by any means, but it sure beats falling asleep at my desk. And this morning I'd be counting on it that much more.

Lo and behold, the vending machine is no more.

Pony up the 80 cents for a can of soda? Nope. That machine's a goner, too.

It turns out our contract through the vending machine company ran out yesterday, and we're supposed to get all new machines on Monday. That's all fine and dandy, but it's three days from Monday, and I spent all of last night watching NCAA basketball. My eyes look as puffy and misshapen as Hillary Clinton's jowly cheeks, and dark as Dick Cheney's soul. I'm a bit sleepy, a bit irate, and not having had anything since I left the house this morning, my mouth tastes like a combo of Listerine (cool mint), toothpaste, and Pepsi.

As for all those wonderful Parisian sidewalk cafes serving up hot little demitasses of espresso day-in, day-out? Oh, they're there. But I'm in f'ing Clichy.

Espressos are 39 cents at the cantine. But they won't be open 'til noon. That's over an hour from now. Consider this my final transmission.


Update 11:34AM: Catastrophe Averted

Management has put out carafes of extra-super-strong coffee in the break room. The infusion into my bloodstream has begun.

Play an Accordion, Go to Jail

That old bumper sticker, which I'm sure was meant to be funny, always kind of bugged me.

Probably because I've always secretly liked the accordion. Sure, in unskilled hands, it's one of the few sounds in the world that makes a continuous loop of Air Supply and Christopher Cross seem like a refreshing alternative. But like its fellow air-and-finger-driven instrument the bagpipe, in the right hands it can make some of the most beautiful, traditional music out there, able to stir up emotion and bygone memories and imagery of the days of yore.

Or sometimes total ire, to the point that you wish accordion players would, indeed, be jailed.

I was squished on to the exceptionally crowded Métro ligne 9 last night trying to listen to Kanye drop some knowledge, when at some point I heard what I thought was an unfamiliar sample. "What the hell? Is that musette?" I know Mr. West recently sampled from the French by cribbing some Daft Punk for "Stronger," but what the hell was this dissonant accordion sample?

Turns out the accordion I was hearing wasn't from my iPod, but some guy at the other end of the car, playing for a hopeful (but rarely ever materializing) handful of change.

I normally don't mind this. Busking, I feel, is a fine tradition, earning a bit of spare change by entertaining passers by, showing off a bit of light in an otherwise cruel, dark world. I often throw a few centimes to sidewalk buskers in Paris or pence to the ones in the tube stations in London - a lot of whom are damn good.

But when you invade the enclosed capsule of hard working people's commutes, you're crossing the line. Already in close quarters with people sporting various levels of BO, booze breath, week-old-ashtray breath and worse, the last thing any commuter needs is someone taking up twice as much space and making ten times as much noise. It's simply poor form to try and have a captive audience like that.

I don't care how good you are at the accordion. If you're busking on a Métro car, all you're getting from me is a dirty look, and possibly the finger if I have enough room around me to raise my arm.

This is a much gentler response than I would have given five years ago. On an early morning RER train, my Australian buddies and I were headed to Versailles. I wasn't happy to be up that early. One of them had a screaming hangover. But the train ride was comfortable and smooth, smooth enough to nap (or in Tony's case, sleep it off). Until some bastard with an accordion and a little paper cup had to get on.

After five minutes, I couldn't take it. I stood up, started yelling at the guy - yelling things that at the time I didn't think were racist (but were). Somehow, my French got really convincing when I was angry and yelling, "Get the fuck out of here, you dirty Gyppo. Why don't you go get a real job instead of bothering these poor people? Go on now! Fuck off!"

I immediately felt bad after saying that, especially when he skulked off at the next stop shortly following my outburst. But I felt excused because the RER passengers broke out in applause. Feeling OK about that, I wound up doing the same thing to an accordion-playing boy somewhere around the Queensway stop in London the following week. He was probably no more than 11 years old, but - again - that didn't stop me from yelling at him, and the other passengers from cheering.

I'm older, and I think wiser now. Being relatively broke on the US dollar in a euro world, I can't imagine how rough it might be for someone who doesn't even have a proper job, working papers, et cetera. And while I think they are crossing the boundaries of respect by trying to peddle their music onboard the Métro, I have to take the high road and not get in their faces about it.

But until then, I have my outlet, and I can at least write about one of the greatest scourges of the Paris commute: The accordion-wielding GypsyRomani.

Still beats the hell out of driving, though.