Champagne in Paris: How It Became Evident That I Am a Character in a Movie

You know what? I am a fictional character, and I have incontrovertible proof. Have I told you the champagne story? No? Okay, sit down and I will unfurl this tale of truth. That’s a fancy way of saying this is a true story. This is one story of about a hundred and sixty three, but in a way it’s the story that proves everything.

I had been in France for all of three hours. I’d fallen asleep on the train from Chuck The Gallbladder and we were looking around Paris. I was there with my girlfriend at the time, since it’s France, we’ll call her Lezette. It sounds better than to say I was visiting a girl name Holly, which makes it sound like I was dating Angela from “Who’s The Boss” a contention she would agree with, but I would argue.

Now, in Paris there is an Obelisk. There was a giant Ferris Wheel, in front of The Louvre and in front of the Ferris Wheel there is still and obelisk. I only mention the Ferris Wheel that stood in the Place de la Concorde because I was given a choice. We could see the Ferris Wheel, or we could see the obelisk. This is important. I had an illusion of choice. If you are caught up in the story, you believe that I could have either gone to the obelisk or the ferris wheel. Not true, because I am not a real person, I am the main character in a movie. I have no agency, I have no free will, the writer and the director decided that I had to go to the obelisk.

Wait, I must set the scene, that’s important too. October in Paris is like May in Michigan. It’s warm, but it also rains and everything weather wise has that sort of constant changing aspect that brings a touch of magic to whatever you’re doing. The ground is wet from the rain, but it’s warm and inviting and there is going to be an adventure if you just go out and find it. It was night, I can’t remember how late, but late enough that the sun was gone. Not so late that the city was deserted. I’ve been to Boston, New York, LA, Cleveland... nothing shuts down like Paris does. After Midnight it’s like walking around a Film Noir where you know stuffs happening somewhere, but the streets are deserted.

So anyway, it was probably around ten at night, still warm and inviting and still fun to be had. Now, for reasons that aren’t always clear to outsiders I was being silly. I didn’t just walk, I stopped across the road saying “Gobalisk, goblalisk, gobalisk.” If you repeat the word “Obelisk” quite quickly, it sort of sounds like that and if I think something sounds sort of like something I push it and make it sound like that. This is both sort of childish and something that Lezette found deeply attractive at the time. She’d grown up in a world where people acted with dignity, a world where people wanted the approval of others, a word where people did not stomp and bounce their head and repeat the word “Gobalisk” over and over. She lived in a world where people behaved themselves, and did the things adults are supposed to do. In short, she had never seen someone who so utterly and completely failed at the single most important life-task of all, giving a shit.

Now, while I am completely distracted by my goofiness, a Frenchwoman approaches me with a bottle of champagne and a paper cup. Yeah, I’m talking a Dixie Cup here. She then approaches and speaks the sort of gibberish you get in France, probably a local dialect of some variety. Anyone know what the hell The French are supposed to speak? No, of course not, they’re just making up sounds! We’re just all so intimidated by the French being all French that we don’t call them on their bullshit.

Lezette makes a hand wave, because she never actually did ANYTHING in her life before I came along. I however, did everything until that moment in my mid-thirties, but that’s another story. This was Ocotober of 2001 and I did everything. So this woman is standing with her Dixie cup and her bottle and Lezette is trying to wave her off and if speaking apologetically in the local gibberish and I interject because that’s what you do when you are fictional. I spoke up, and I asked a question, and I caused a problem.

“Hold on, what’s she saying?” I asked, and it was that moment that the whole fake language thing dropped. See, French people can all speak English, most of them can do so better than those raised with the language.

“Oh,” She said smiling and it was that moment that I got a good look at this woman under the unflattering sodium lights. “Tonight is my hen party and my friends say I have to give a stranger champagne.” She then paused for a moment and added. “For luck!”

Her friends waved to me as I looked over at them and I smiled. I’m pretty sure Lezette was having the internal conflict equivalent of a conniption fit. This is not the sort of situation she had ever been in, or envisioned she might be in. A complete stranger, probably a lunatic, offering a cup of what simply had to be poison, so they could distract us before stabbing us to death. Our bodies would wash up on the shores of Lower Mongolia, which for those of you paying attention is a landlocked country. In her head though, we were dead the moment she talked to us.

“Okay.” I agreed “If it’s for luck.”

I took a big gulp, and the French woman and I stand cheek to cheek, she with a crystal flute and I with my Dixie cup while her friends photograph us. I wish her luck, she refills my Dixie cup, and we part ways. I stick my arm through Lezettes and we walk towards The Fountain of River Commerce and Navigation and she sort of looks at me and the conversation begins...

“I have lived in Paris for two years, and you’ve been here for roughly two hours.”

“Yeah. You want some of this?”

“Sure.”

“Is it any good? I know nothing about champagne.”

“How the hell do you do that?”

“Limited experience with it I suppose.”

“I have never had someone offer me champagne. she just walked up to you and gave you champagne.”

“You would have refused to have anything to do with that situation.”

“No one has ever even offered.”

“Sorry.”

“It makes me feel like the sidekick in a movie.”

“It’s my world. You’re just living in it.”

“No.”

“No?”

“These things don’t really happen in real life, you’re a character in a movie. You can’t really exist. You have to be a fictional character.”

This wasn’t the last conversation I would have about this subject. It wasn’t the last I would have with her, or with other people. There is the fact that people have trouble telling the difference between me telling a true story like this, and a tale of complete balderdash. Someone actually said to me recently “If anyone I know has traveled back in time and shot Hitler six times, it was probably you.” which tells you exactly the sort of thing I’m up against.

We’ve all been there.

I was sitting in a bar in Malta, waiting for my contact with a briefcase full of something unsavory, drinking the local excuse for beer, listening to a guy from Wales explaining the power of the Hulkamaniacs, when it occurred to me I needed to have my medication checked. Seriously, I have no recollection as to how I actually got to Malta, nor do I remember exactly what was in the case, or if ever I knew. All I can remember is that I was supposed to get it to Serbia and that the man at the other end would finish paying my fee.

I do remember that girl at the end of the bar though, but it would be hard to forget her after all the trouble she caused. Still, how many of us haven't gotten on the wrong side of the Mafia now and then over some little cutie in a bar? She’s fine by the way, living under an assumed name some place nice. That’s all the detail you need. Pretty sure there’s no one left alive with a grudge, but you can never be too sure.

I did eventually get the case into Serbia, and got myself out, but that’s a story for another day.

Old Cocktails: Manhattan (Paris Edition)

Back in the day, when I was living in Paris, I came across this drink. I was making my living by pretending to be a swami, bilking tourists and millionaires out of their “hard earned” cash while telling them “futures” which turned out to be “eerily accurate”. Of course, since I told most of them that they would be robbed blind and might end up dead, and the whole thing was a front for a band of robbers, the accuracy was more my way of trying to warn them and less powers from the darkest reaches.

One of the people who helped arrange clients for me to talk to was a young Italian named Josephine Tutaunt. Why an Italian girl was going around with a faux French name evades me to this day, but as I was calling my self Gregor DiCinzo, I can’t really complain. The recipe I am about to divulge is the one I remember best because it was the one Josephine liked to sip between… things we did in her little Pigalle apartment.

It was not like I had never had a Manhattan before, it being a fairly well known mixer, but the way the young lady in question made them was divine. Normally and properly, it’s supposed to be Kentucky Bourbon, Italian Vermouth and Angostura Bitters with a maraschino cherry dropped in with a bit of the syrup. However, nothing Josephine did was either normal or proper, that was my favorite thing about her. Her way of making them went as such…

4 Measures Irish Whiskey
2 Measures Vermouth
2 Drops Angostura Bitters
2 Drop Lemon Bittrs
1/2 Measure Grenadine
1 fresh strawberry (sliced in half)

Put the whiskey, vermouth, bitters and grenadine into a mixing glass with ice. Stir with a bar spoon while promising your current plaything all the enjoyment they’re about to have. Strain into two Cordial Glasses and drop the strawberries into the drinks. Drink slowly, paying special attention to remove the strawberry from the glass using only your tongue. Make passionate and continual love until another drink is required.

Serves two. If you have more than one plaything waiting, increase the amounts accordingly.

Shelter Protocol

When the Atomic War strikes and Armageddon is upon us, rules of etiquette and decorum still apply.

While it is important not to allow your personal bomb shelter to become over-crowded by waves of your panicking neighbors who came less prepared, one should remember not to allow the situation to get away from oneself. Brandishing a weapon might become necessary at some point, but even the lethal force is rarely considered polite. Never start with the shotgun, simply explain that the shelter only holds so many and there simply is not longer any room.

Never resort of vulgarity. Screaming “Back off motherfucker, or I’ll spray you all over the landscape” rarely makes anything better and never earns us any friends. Instead a simple “If required, I will shoot you… motherfucker” spoken in a calm and steady voice will be sufficient in most circumstances.



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Interesting Facts: Callisto

Callisto, the fourth moon of Jupiter and the third moon of Saturn (by weight) is actually a former asteroid that was caught and tamed by the gas giant’s gravity. It was originally a small scrap of rock, but has filled out quite nicely under the care of a loving owner. Callisto is actually the fifth name this moon has had. Each society to discover it has given it a different name, although all of those names have turned up as characters on Xena Warrior Princess.

Scientists speculate that below the surface of Callisto lies the biggest depository of raspberry jam existent in the galaxy. By 2036, NASA hopes to launch a probe that will be able to drill into the candy shell of Callisto can extract the jam for immediate retrieval. It’s hoped that the jam will arrive before the raspberry blight, which will wipe out the species in 2051. Said blight being long planned by the powerful Cherry Confederation who have long been tired of Raspberry’s popularity with the jam buying public.




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New Cocktails: It Sure Does Burn

It’s an odd thing, gaining a reputation in the international underworld community as a great bartender. Anyone can put a bullet in a public leader, or garrote a troublesome witness, but knowing how to make a good Mai Tai is something akin to magic. It can get you out of a lot of trouble, if people know about your skills. No one wants to kill a mixologist, or a cook. You can read a book, or listen to an mp3 player, or watch a dirty movie on your phone, all the other old skills have been taken over by technology. People sitting around an old barn outside Belgrade waiting for their contact need to eat and they need to drink. Even if you’ve betrayed people in the past, all can be forgiven when you take what had been thought of as meager supplies and deliver a tasty meal. If you can also mix the local paint thinner with whatever other liquids are at hand and produce something that doesn’t make people despair of life with the first sip, you will be like a protected species.

So I was in that barn outside Belgrade, and OF COURSE I’d hidden the money away. If I’d given it to that lot they’d just have spent it on the thug equivalent of sweets and comic books. No, far better it stay in my hands, I think we can all agree on that. The thing is, the guys I was working with had these... ideas about people not sharing out the wealth. Fortunately, I knew about this ahead of time. While we waited I made them up this little cocktail and got them to drink it.

1 measure vodka
1 measure Benzine
1 measure Gin
1 measure Hydrogen Peroxide
1 measure Ronsonol Lighter Fluid

Place a glass pitcher no metal or plastic please, onto the bar. Pour each ingredient into the glass carefully and put in the refrigerator. It’s best if no one actually sees you mixing this, because if they knew what you were up to they’d kill you. And considering what you’re up to, they have a point.

Stir with a wooden spoon, to avoid any possible corrosion. You’re dealing with some nasty stuff, after all.

Now, when it comes to service you probably will only have access to some kind of bar glasses but really you want martini glasses if you can get them. Pour the concoction into the chilled glasses, and stir with a peppermint stick three times counter clockwise.

Now, it’s at this point that you get a little unconventional. Wait for everyone to have a sip. If you’ve mixed right, it will be unpleasant for them, but they won’t actually notice that you’ve poisoned them. You take out the pencil torch you’ve been keeping in your pocket and light yours up. It’s at this point you hurl the rest of the pitcher’s contents at your befuddled former compatriots. The whole thing should go up quite magnificently and they may spill some of their own drinks and that’ll add to the blaze. It’s at this point that you grab the pistol under the bar and start shooting. Now I used a Walther P99 but anything with a reasonable magazine capacity can be brought to the party. Remember, you are double crossing armed thugs who have killed many times, now is not the time to pretend you never miss or that a Baby Browning .25 is as good as a Glock 9mm.