The City of Lights vs The Melting Pot.

Back in June when I went to France for the first time I wasn't drinking or smoking. It was a difficult trip. The weather was perfect and everyone in Paris seemed to be sitting out doors on the sidewalks drinking beers and espressos and smoking away. Believe me when I say it was kind of sad to be not joining in. In the past when I traveled to do a show, I would drink and smoke as much as I wanted. After all, alcohol and nicotene were ingredients there to help me cook up what ever I was to be making over there (not to mention using them as reliable crutches for whenever the stress level hit high). But I was committed to my clean living ways as I had been so sick when my liver stopped working. I didn't really even want to go back there. I was comfortable with myself, just as I was comfortable with the French for living the way that they did. The people I was working with all smoked and drank. And I was happy to be there hanging around with them.

One time I was asked to join some friends for dinner. I met the wife of one of my friends who noticed that I wasn't joining in with the festivities as it were.
"You don't drink or smoke cigarettes?" she asked. I explainedf that I had been very ill, and that it just didn't feel right to be doing that stuf right now. "Well thank god" she said. SHe said she was afraid that I was "One of those Americans" who were all fucking rightous about these things. I said "No." I am not like that. In fact, I am down right forgiving about that stuff. Come over to my studio and feel free to smoke. You can even ash right on the floor. I sill don't smoke or drink very much any more. I will now, have an occasional glass of wine. And I still day dream about when I will finally have clocked enough years in my life to take up smoking again in my sprint towards the finish line.

The other day I was on the subway. I was having enough trouble readjusting to being back in New York after a second trip to France this summer. I looked up and saw a poster of a glass brimming over like a head of frosty bubbles of a just poured beverage. But it was not bubbles that I was looking at, but a glass full of fat. The poster was designed to get you to drink water instead of sugary drinks! Yeech.
I fucking hate Mike Bloomberg and his self rightous benevolent despot routine. I want to move back to France.
DK