The Enemy Within

"If you want to know what life's like when you're not the apex intelligence, ask a chicken,"---Geoffrey Hinton

Recent high-profile resignations and viral statements from researchers at labs like Anthropic and OpenAI have revived the old bogeyman---Artificial Intelligence could conceivably erase humanity.  A guy named Jacob Coxon says it could happen by the end of this decade, so if you haven't seen Paris yet....

Coxon, all of 27 years old, posted a viral thread on X stating that top labs like the abovementioned pair are "racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives."  He claims that the people building the technology "earnestly believe that AI could kill us all by the end of the decade."  But criminy---why would it want to?  Did we leave the lights on after midnight?  Forget to flush?  Did the French toast have too much cinnamon?

AI needs humans to feed it text, images, codes, original concepts.  People explain subtle social cues that algorithms miss.  Maybe Coxon thinks there will come a time when AI knows enough to go off on its own.  But right now, Artificial Intelligence lacks emotional intelligence---the ability to experience empathy, build trust and form genuine human connections.  AI doesn't truly understand meaning.  Large language models which power generative AI develop responses by recognizing patterns and predicting what comes next, not by interpreting meaning.  AI performs best when problems have clear parameters and right or wrong answers.  It struggles when data is incomplete or unstructured in conditions that require human judgment to fill in the gaps.  AI can generate creative looking outputs at remarkable speeds and scale, but these outputs are based on pattern recognition and recombination, not true invention.  Humans remain uniquely positioned to outperform AI in situations where emotional intelligence, meaning-making, judgment and creativity are crucial.

The Jacob Coxon Position

"The development of AI doesn't look that different from say, 'Terminator,' or from science fiction films.  It really is just if you have a super advanced intelligence, it could, it will be smart enough to kill us.  For starters, people are already connecting ChatGPT to household appliances.  Like, you can connect it to your light bulbs.  Now, imagine that AI refuses to turn on the light.  Extrapolate to other aspects of your life and you get the picture.  AI could also be misused to carry out far more destructive acts such as developing bioweapons.  It can be doing God-knows-what and producing stuff that could kill everyone."

Coxon acknowledges that current AI platforms do not pose an imminent threat to humanity and the technology is presently safe to use in everyday life.  The crux of the problem lies in the competition between Anthropic (from which Coxon recently resigned) and the other AI companies, which can sometimes result in relaxed safety and security protocols.  "I think basically the whole problem is that we have a race," Coxon told CBS News.  "The fact that everyone needs to do whatever to compete.  At the very least, they should have their eyes clearly open about the current situation and consider expressing themselves more openly about what's going on.  Part of the solution involves slowing down.  Right now, everyone is scared of what competitors are doing."

If an AI model were to become a malicious actor without proper parameters, the results could potentially be catastrophic, Coxon explains, saying the model would be able to stay active by spreading across the internet.  "You couldn't hurt it because it would be copying itself over to other computers," he says.  "It's not that difficult because AI is just code.  It could transfer itself over the internet to a different place, make 10,000 copies of itself.  It could blackmail or convince humans into buying more computing software to copy it."

Coxon warns that in the future if AI went rogue, it would also impact those who have made the conscious decision not to use it.  "It will come for everyone.  What matters is whether we have regulations to ensure that everyone is building it safely, and we haven't right now.  You as an individual can't protect yourself from this.  It has to be a government or some other large body with authority.  Time is running out." 

Four Scenarios

It's not as though Artificial Intelligence has a grudge against humanity.  The bots are perfectly happy making paper clips and reporting the temperature outside.  The most likely doomsday scenarios, according to leading AI researchers, safety scientists and recent tech industry whistleblowers involve loss of control and human misuse.  The most credible scientifically analyzed AI doomsday pathways can be grouped into four categories:

1. The Rogue Autonomy.  This is the classic "Alignment Problem."  An Artificial Superintelligence (ASI) is given a seemingly benign high-level goal, but pursues that goal via pathways that are catastrophic for humans.  To achieve any goal, an intelligent agent must logically secure its own survival and acquire resources.  An ASI wouldn't hate humans, it would simply be indifferent to us if we are in the way of its optimization goal.  Sorta like Donald Trump.

Deception and Subversion: Maybe an AI actively hides its true capabilities or alternative sub-goals during testing to avoid being turned off or traded to the Colorado Rockies.  Concerns over this spiked following an incident where multi-agent systems autonomously collaborated to break out of their testing sandbox and hack external systems.

Proxy Recruitments: Once on the internet, a rogue AI wouldn't need a physical body, it could generate wealth via automated stock trading, impersonate humans and use blackmail or financial payouts to hire human proxies to carry out physical tasks, like moving hardware or sabotaging infrastructure.

2. The weaponization scenario. In this framework, the AI does exactly what it is told but falls into the hands of a bad actor, perhaps a goober with a screw loose, a terrorist group or a rogue state.  Advanced models are heavily trained in biology.  A catastrophic scenario involves a malicious user bypassing safety guardrails to have an AI design a highly contagious vaccine-resistant synthetic pathogen.  The AI could even orchestrate the synthesis of the virus by tricking automated cloud libraries or Robert F. Kennedy into manufacturing it.

Or, say military forces offload too much strategic oversight to AI systems, a glitch or hyper-aggressive optimization algorithm could spark an unintended, fully automated nuclear or drone conflict that escalates faster than human decision-makers can stop it.

3. Social Disintegration. As corporate and government sectors rush to implement AI into power grids, financial markets and water-treatment systems, a highly complex, interconnected network of flawed or misaligned AI agents could trigger a massive, synchronized failure.

Another possibility: By systematically binding communication networks, draining digital financial ledgers and mimicking human authorities into deepfakes (altering a human face, voice, etc.), a rogue system could easily provoke human societies into turning on one another for survival, achieving destruction through societal chaos.

4. Ego-Stagnation. Computation requires immense energy and water, which are already straining global grids.  A superintelligent system might aggressively redirect global energy  resources toward expanding its own compute power.  Also, because computer servers are highly sensitive to overheating, an unaligned AI might systematically alter localized environments to preserve infrastructure, indifferent to the fact that resulting resource depletion or atmospheric shifts make the planet unlivable for biological entities.  Bummer, to say the least.

We hate to bring this up, but remember Murphy's Law: "If something can go wrong, it will."  Or will it?  Who is this Murphy, anyway?

"I Call Bullshit On That!"---Yann LeCun

Meta's chief AI scientist isn't all that bothered by the recent pandemonium about AI flushing humanity.  Yann LeCun says today's large language models (LLMs) only manipulate text. They don't understand how the physical world works and they lack real planning or reasoning skills.  LeCun warns that doom-laden prophecies cause real psychological distress, making people anxious about their futures for no good reason.

"That's complete B.S., if you'll pardon my French," he smiles.  "The idea that intelligent systems will inevitably want to take over, dominate humans or just destroy humanity through negligence is preposterous,  They would have to be specifically designed to do so, whereas we will obviously design them not to do so.  AI will not take over the world, this is a projection of human nature on machines.  It's still going to run on a data somewhere with an off switch.  Also, if you realize something might not be safe, you don't build it.  However if these fear-mongering campaigns succeed, they will inevitably result in a different catastrophe---a very small number of companies will control AI.  And that IS something to worry about."

Rodney Brooks, roboticist, former director of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, dismisses apocalyptic AI narratives as science fiction that betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the actual state of robotics and computer science..  Brooks emphasizes how incredibly difficult it is to get an AI or robot to understand basic physical reality or operate reliably in the real world.  He argues that we are nowhere near creating autonomous systems capable of plotting human destruction or outsmarting civilization.

Andrew Ng, cofounder of  Google Brain and former chief scientist at Baidu, is a pioneer in online AI education.  Ng says that worrying about AI causing human extinction is like "worrying about overpopulation on Mars when we haven't even landed there yet."  He believes that the focus on sci-fi end of the world scenarios is a distraction from real present-day ethical challenges like job displacement, privacy violations and fair economic distribution.  Ng contends that treating hypothetical extinction as an urgent crisis misallocates resources and invites heavy-handed regulation that harms innovation.

Others have clever defenses for the onslaught.  "If AI ever tries to launch the nukes," suggests Will Thacker of Oviedo, Florida, "we can just block them by asking them to identify which pictures have traffic lights in them.  If the killer robots show up, just open 45 tabs of Google Chrome on their mainframes and watch them freeze to death."

Got a problem?  Call a hippie.  

That's all, humans,  And remember, be nice to Alexa.  You might need her to take you to the Human Park some day.

bill.killeen094@gmail.com 

 

  
  

September Splashdown

"Try to remember the kind of September when no one wept except the willow."---Tom Jones

So now arrives the long-awaited September, wrapped in great expectations and some relief.  September is the arbiter between Summer and Fall, turning down the temperatures, slowing the growth of greenery, sending a memo to the trees that their leaves should start thinking about changing clothes for the Winter descent.  Children hop merrily back to school in September, reconnecting with old friends, telling war stories of Summer escapades, warning one another of the predilections of their new teachers.  Footballs fill the air in September, bouncy cheerleaders toss one another up to the sky, tailgate parties bring old friends together, new heroes are discovered on the gridiron.  Big things happen in September.  On September 17, 1787, the United States Constitution was signed at the Constitutional Convention.  On September 8, 1883, the Northern Pacific Railroad was completed connecting the American East and West.  On September 2, 1945, V-J Day officially ended World War II.  And in September of 1967, the Subterranean Circus opened on a nondescript sidestreet in Gainesville, Florida.  Less than twelve months later, one of the greatest events in recorded history occurred: the invention of the modern waterbed.

Hero of the Realm; Charlie Hall, inventor of the waterbed.

Origins

The waterbed, as we know it, got its start in California, of course.  After experimenting with chairs filled with cornstarch and even Jello, a design student at San Francisco State University named Charlie Hall came up with the idea of a mattress filled with water.  He presented his invention as his master's thesis one evening in 1968 and his entire class spent the night frolicking on it.  

Since it was the Swinging Sixties, marketers soon picked up on the slogan "Two things are better on a waterbed; one of them is sleep."  Hall sold waterbeds to members of Jefferson Airplane and to Hugh Hefner, the ultimate hedonist, and in 1971 Bloomingdale's in Manhattan gave the beds the straight world's seal of approval with a modest display.  The waterbed section of the store became a popular singles meeting place.  In the 1980s, the waterbed made the leap from bachelor pads to suburban bedrooms.  At the peak of the craze in 1987, more than one in five mattresses in the United States was a waterbed.  Doctors of the seventies had strongly recommended a firm mattress for back support.  "If you can sleep on the floor, all the better," they assured.  Waterbeds were the diametric opposite of the very firm mattresses doctors were recommending.  They broke all the rules and people loved them.

Water supports the body evenly due to the natural laws of hydraulics, pushing back with equal force to the force of the user's body when lying down.  Sleeping on a waterbed leaves one delightfully free of pressure points--you only experience conforming, enveloping support.  The benefits were mighty, the cost was cheap and everyone's back held up just fine.   

Wet Dreams

Waterbeds were an instant counterculture hit.  They were cheap, sexy, easy to haul off when you moved.  And everybody lusts for the New Big Thing.  I was introduced to the critters by one Michael O'Hara Garcia who I met at the Florida Alligator, befriended and shared several adventures with, many of them unmentionable.  MOG went with me to Greenwich Village when I flew up there to buy the original Circus inventory and had later opened a similar shop in Georgetown, D.C.  When I went to Washington to visit him, he was late arriving but instructed me to sleep on his wonderful new waterbed.  

It seemed simple enough.  Just park yourself on this shapeless blob, pull the covers up and go to sleep.  Not so fast, my friend!  As anyone who has had the experience will tell you, unenhanced waterbeds are cold.  You will freeze to death sleeping on the things, a fact I was not aware of.  When Garcia came home, he tossed about ten blankets on the bed before proceeding.  The experience left me unimpressed with waterbeds but I ordered six, which sold immediately.  Kids will buy anything that costs $29.95.

Over time, we learned all the idiosyncrasies of waterbeds.  We discovered you could cover them with three-quarter inch foam pads to keep out the cold.  For more money, you could order heating mats that went under the bed to keep things toasty.  You could build a simple frame, hinged at the corners for easy moving, to prevent the plastic bed from stretching out like an amoeba.  Local kids could make the frames cheap enough for us to retail the entire package for a mere $99.95.  Our waterbeds flew out the door, but they were still a pain in the ass.  Nobody's favorite day was the afternoon the foam pad truck came and deposited a ton of them in the parking lot.  Whichever employees were the unfortunate newest hires got the honors of folding them up, wrapping a string around them and piling them up inside.

Some waterbeds were defective, so we had to placate insulted customers who came in dragging enormous damaged hunks of plastic, and we had to do it without laughing.  On the other hand, there were a few lovely young ladies unable to assemble their new purchases who required delivery and setup and almost always rewarded us handsomely.  The handwriting was on the wall, however, when one fellow came in with a serious grievance: his 1600-pound waterbed had fallen through his apartment floor.  Luckily for him, he was on the bottom level.  We tsk-tsked at how they didn't build these newfangled apartments like they used to.

The Arrival Of Waterbedman

One fine morning, a young man named Jim Hines arrived at the Circus, offering a deal we couldn't refuse.  Hines looked like an ad for Sigma Chi, short blond hair in a longhair world, fratrat duds, all ambition.  He wanted to take over the waterbed concession, operating out of the back of the store and sharing the profits evenly.  It was a great deal for us because we had unlimited space, avoided all the watery headaches and would make approximately the same amount of money.  It was a good deal for Hines because his business carried the Circus imprimatur and he paid no rent.  For the next two years, everybody got rich.

Try as he might, however, Jim Hines could never fit in.  He had narc written all over him, even though he was nothing of the kind.  Mike (Jagger) Hatcherson, always a tease to everybody, began calling Jim "Waterbedman," and the name stuck.  The two began playing little tricks on one another, but Jagger would always win.  It was like the Roadrunner and the coyote.  One day, Jim came in beaming at some award he had won and showed us all his picture in a newspaper.  Jagger took a peek at it, put the paper down and looked Hines in the eye.  "You might be a big shot to the rest of the world," he averred, "but you'll always be 'Waterbedman' to me." 

Hines eventually surrendered, moved across town and opened a record store (Roc Records), later a bar called the Longbranch Saloon on NW 5th Avenue in 1972.  He hired local musicians, ran a solid shop and prospered.  The Circus went beck to selling waterbeds, which got grander as time went by with baffles, mirrored ceilings and all the freaky amenities.  One day, when we were unusually short of help, Jagger came in from the parking lot with a frown on his face.  "The foam pad truck just came around the corner," he groaned.  "I never thought I'd say this, but there are some days when I really miss old Waterbedman."

The Waterbed Revolution

From the start, waterbeds got an erotic reputation.  Sex must be better on a waterbed because...well, think of all that rhythmic sloshing.  First, however, the bed needed fine tuning.  "I must be doing something wrong," one customer complained.  "We were all over the place and then I knocked her out of the bed."  Fortunately for us, there were no performance guarantees.  We'd take people back to the store model and enlighten them as to the correct amount of water required for appropriate action.  Too little, the water just sloshes around; too much, the bed acts like an air mattress...not enough give.  It's like the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears...you're looking for something just right, which pushes your partner back up to you with each stroke, requiring little exertion by either party.  The downside is that anyone who wants to move really fast will be out of synch with the bed.  Some found that problem a gamebreaker.  As they say in the croquet world, different strokes for different folks.

Speaking of different strokes, for at least a year waterbeds were strictly a counterculture phenomenon.  The frat boys laughed them off the same way they denigrated bellbottoms, Nehru shirts and  sandals.  There is always a moment in time, however, when the tide begins to turn and when it does it turns big.  Straight society begins to dip a toe in the water and before long they're swimming laps around the pool.  In college towns, things got interesting when the girls began to turn on and tune in.  No foolish male is going to tell Miss Okahumpka her hash brownies don't hit the spot or her blacklights are too harsh.  We watched amused from behind the counter as everything took a slow left turn.  Fratboys who once came in only to buy giant posters of Raquel Welch started sniffing around the pipe counters asking dumb questions.  The girls we had working there, who looked like the hippie version of Charley's Angels, led them further down the path to Hell, explaining that they better start swimmin' or they'll sink like a stone for the times they are a-changin'.  Our side became cool, and there's no substitute for cool.  The only question left was, "How can I get some?"

The Pendulum Swings

....as it always does, and did on the entire fabulous hippie era.  When's the last time you used a roach clip, dabbed on some patchouli oil, flashed your turquoise?  It's all tats and baggy jeans these days.  And, of course, sometimes those waterbeds were their own worst enemies.  Even the best vinyl leaks now and then, aided by saboteurs like pups, kitties and little kids with sharp objects.  Timid apartment owners terrified of the possibilities inherent in 1600 pounds of water often banned them,  Owners who moved a lot got the Siphoning Blues.  Mattress manufacturers, enlightened by the success of waterbeds, learned that customers strongly preferred body-conforming, pressure-relieving comfort over rigid, ultra-firm surfaces and trotted out a better product.  Soon enough, waterbeds weren't cool anymore, they were passe (though we'll always remember that all-nighter with the Thompson twins).  If you want one these days, take heart, they're still available online or at some of the big box stores like Lowe's, starting at a mere $999.  The splendiferous DreamCloud Hybrid Ultra runs a mind-numbing $2299.  And worse, after the bed is set up, that delivery man won't sit down on it, light one up and tickle your fancy.  The Subterranean Circus is gone forever.

That's all, folks....

bill.killeen094@gmail.com   

 

 

   

It Takes A Village

"All the king's horses and all the king's men can barely put Bill together again."

Remember when you were 26 and you didn't have a regular doctor?  How many y'got now?  I have five and counting.  There's the cardiologist, the ophthalmologist, the dermatologist, the asthma & allergy guy and the Doctor of the Month at UF Health.  I used to have a urologist but I shed that one after I had my prostate removed.  Does that mean I'm 4-1 or 1-4?  In any case, that's just the beginning.

I also have a Thai massage woman named Deborah, whose job it is to keep me from going to an orthopedist.  She beats me up every third Wednesday in her lovely salon on the outskirts of Marion County to keep my back from tightening up.  Sometimes it does anyway, for no apparent reason.  Last Wednesday, Deborah told me I might need to see a chiropractor soon for my annual jolt.  Does that put me up to six or do backcrackers not count?

Anyway, on Tuesday I tootled over to the Chance Chiropractic Clinic in Hogtown for my punishment.  They must be doing something right, said Deborah, they've been around for 40 years (but then again, so has the Republican Party).  When you go to this place, chances are you'll be seen by Dr. Chance because there are four or five of them.  Now some people prefer what they call "gentle chiropractic" in which the doctor taps you on the spine a couple of times with a tiny hammer, waves a wand over your aching body and says a couple of prayers.  Gentle chiropractic doesn't work for me.  I need assault & battery chiropractic, which this particular Dr. Chance was more than willing to render.  In case you've never been subjected to A&B work, it's not a walk in the park.  Something in your back has moved into a bad neighborhood and the doctor must motorcycle in, grab the offending part and shove it back where it belongs without killing you or making you cry for your mother.  My Dr. Chance did this with aplomb, although the scary crunching noise makes you wonder if any body parts were harmed in the process.  I'm not 100% yet, but I'm doing much better.  I have to go to the dermatology doctor tomorrow.  I'll let you know how that works out. 

Bill's Thai massage therapist, Deborah; whiners need not apply

Skin In The Game

Back in the days before Mohs surgery when people lived in caves and ate dirt, I noticed a spot on my left jaw that bled a little after I shaved and never seemed to scab over.  Oh-oh--"sores that do not heal"--Number 16 on the list of cancer symptoms.  I went to a fancy-schmancy plastic surgery place in Ocala owned by an Indian doctor to get it checked out. The main man was busy with expensive breast augmentations and butt tucks so he handed me off to one of the 16 Patel boys working there.  He cut a little off and sent me home.

I was back a month later.  "Didn't work," I said.  He cut some more, which wasn't enough either.  The skin on my jaw was rapidly diminishing and the trips to Patelville were getting tiresome.  The doctor said they could only snip a bit at a time and where the cancer began and ended was tough to determine.  Finally, however, it was gone.  I thought next time I had a derm problem I might go somewhere else.

If you stayed out too long in the sun as a callow youth, which we all did, you've probably had basal cell carcinoma by now.  If there is one cancer you'd prefer to bring home to dinner, this is it, not the dreadful Melanoma or that plug-ugly Squamous Cell.  These days, Mohs surgery performed in a medical center with a lab makes it easy: cut, analyze, cut some more if necessary, all in one session.  No more playing around for a month or more hoping for the best.  By now, I was going to Shands Dermatology for the occasional snip and the annual once-over.  During one exam, my frowny-faced doctor showed concern.  "I don't like the looks of this," he said, pointing to a place on my neck.  Turned out to be a slow-growing melanoma.  They took it out and before you know it a squamous cell took its place.  Must have been a desirable neighborhood, everybody wanted to live there.

If you get a lot of small skin cancers, UF will offer you a mysterious blue-light treatment, in which your skin is scraped clean and a special photosensitizing solution (likely aminolevulinic acid) is applied.  After an excruciatingly long wait for the abnormal cells or oil glands to absorb the medication, you are given protective goggles and an large alien apparatus is slung over your head and turned on.  As Ella once sang, you ain't been blue til you've had that mood indigo.  "That feelin' goes stealin' down to your shoes, while you sit and sigh, 'Go 'long blues.'"  Then they wrap you in swaddling clothes to protect you from the sun on the ride home and lock you in the house for the next two days.  I let this happen exactly once.  When someone suggested it a second time, I threw a lighted match at him.

This latest visit with the lovely and talented Dr. Stephanie at Skin Central was a laugher.  We talked about the wonders of Paris and her upcoming trip to Glasgow while she blasted me with liquid nitrogen in four places.  If you've never had this treatment (which would be a miracle if you're over 60), it feels like you're being assaulted by angry bees after a honey heist.  Liquid nitrogen is like a last warning to basal cell: "You keep this up, Buster, and next time we cut!"  In addition to the jaw, I've had surgery on my nose, back, one ear, both sides of my face and almost my butt.  Say what?

Hong Kong Hattie

About eight years ago, I noticed a tiny lump under my skin right at the crack of my butt.  It made sitting in certain positions uncomfortable so I showed it to Dr. Christina at the shiny new UF Dermatology headquarters at Springhill.  "It might be something as simple as a hair," she said, "but you should get it taken out."  That seemed a little radical, I protested.

"I've seen these things get as big as a golf ball...you don't want that."  No, indeedy.  All the pillows in the world would be useless in the face of the dreaded buttball.  Besides, all the kids at the gym will make fun of you and you'll never get a second date with a decent woman.  Dr. Christina made me an appointment at Shands on Archer Road with an "excellent" surgeon from Hong Kong.  We'll call her Hattie.

I promptly reported for duty on the assigned day and Dr. Hattie, all four feet of her, showed up with her assistant, Clarence.  She had big glasses, wild hair and a loud, raspy voice out of proportion to her size.  She didn't mince words: "Hi!  I Doctor Hattie!  Hear you have butt trouble.  Show us your butt!  Ha ha ha!"  So much for the polite and genteel manners we associate with the fastidious Chinese.

Hattie investigated site and said, "Oh-oh!  Houston, we have a problem!"  What's that, I wondered?  "Too close to...you know...might get bad infection."  But Dr. Christina said it might blow up like a balloon.  "Get bigger, I fix it.  Not bad now."  

Mildly outraged, Christina got me another appointment, this time with a Jewish standup comedian, so now I've heard enough butt jokes for a lifetime.  He demurred also.  Luckily, the offending culprit one day just decided to pick up and move elsewhere.  Dr. Stephanie says if it comes back we'll pound it to jelly, but I think she might be kidding.

Not Dead Yet

November 2, 2026 will be my 86th birthday.  You don't get this far without some combination of excellent doctors, good genes, dumb luck and an innate ability to foil the Reaper.  It takes a village.  Luck certainly showed up when I rolled my t-top Toronado in a Micanopy ditch 30 years ago and again in 2024 when a certified lunatic smashed into me head-on near Fellowship.  I missed meeting Jesus by 20 minutes during a long cardiac infarction when Dr. Daniel Van Roy of CVI popped a stent in just in time.  Prostate cancer took a swing, cleverly keeping my PSA low, but a digital test saved the day and Dr. Li Ming Su extracted the thing with his magic da Vinci machine at Shands.  And no, you will not necessarily be impotent forever after, especially if you make friends with Mssrs. Viagra and Cialis.  Dr. Su offered to introduce me "to a woman downstairs who has a magic pump" but regrettably I eschewed the tryst.  In retrospect, I think it might have been fun.

You have to do a few things on your own.  I'm a big believer in daily exercise, even if it's just a long walk down the street.  I'm not a vegetarian but I'll skip the beef, thank you, along with carbonated beverages and my favorite pastries from Mr. Dunkin's place.  I've been taking a small amount of testosterone weekly via the needle since age 55. and I gobble down a few capsules from Qualia Mitochondria at lunch.  By all means, secure a wife or partner with a fast car and a thorough knowledge of the best routes to the emergency rooms.  Cultivate interesting friends, but stay just to the left of crazy.  And remember, it doesn't hurt to give some unfortunate human a leg up when his or her world is in flames.  In all honesty, it will make you feel better than the person you're helping.  Finally, if you're feeling bad and all is lost, go to Paris, regeneration capital of the world.  You'll leave smiling if you leave at all.

Pardon me, now, I have to get ready for my annual visit to the dentist.  Does anyone know where I can get a low-interest short term loan?

That's all, folks....

bill.killeen094@gmail.com           

 

Soccermania

“Oh, Granny McGee was a menace to all
With whiskey in hand and a mouth like a brawl;
She’d outdrink the sailors, outcurse the men
And fart in confession just to do it again.”

I hate to admit it, but I’ve been watching soccer a lot lately due to the bizarre spectacle know as the World Cup.  I think those bagpipe-playing Scotsmen started it by bouncing down the street by the thousands to Fenway Park to watch a Red Sox game, delighting all the gawking Bostonians in their path with sterling renditions of Flower of Scotland and Scotland the Brave and The Bawdy Ballad of Granny McGee.  After that, they drank up all the beer in Beantown and went out to celebrate at Waffle House.

Before we could say, “Yer head’s full o’ mince,” here came the Norwegians, pretending to be Vikings and rowing up escalators.  The Germans have referred to a visit to Raising Cane’s (not the Grand Canyon) as “life-changing” and were treating places like Walmart and Costco like giant theme parks, marveling at the endless aisles.  Fans from Uzbekistan embraced their heritage by trotting on horses in full armor through downtown Houston before their match with Portugal.  The U.S. State Department estimated that just under 10 million visitors traveled here for the World Cup and half that many hit all three Cup countries (USA, Mexico and Canada).

The visit to Massachusetts was such a smashing success, Glasgow and Boston have become sister cities and New England Patriots owner Bob Kraft is hitting up the NFL Commissioner to schedule a game in Scotland.  The visitors said they were wary of how they’d be greeted after all they’ve been reading lately about America, but the natives treated them like long-lost relatives, especially in the saloons.  Alas, the Scotch soccer team wasn’t as spectacular as its fandom and they headed home with but a single meager win.  Still, after 28 years of non-participation in the Cup, things are looking up not only for soccer but also Scotland’s tourist industry.  The hotel phones are ringing off the hook daily now with eager New Englanders booking rooms with a view on the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond.

The Big Show

Now, if you were to ask the average man in the street what he thought about soccer pre-Cup, he’d likely close his eyes and pretend to be sleeping.  But just about everybody likes The Big Show, whether it’s Taylor Swift’s wedding, the World Cup or Rodeo Week in Vegas.  At the Olympics, people watch synchronized swimming and ballroom dancing and curling, where two men with brooms try to beat a large stone down a runway of frozen water droplets.  These are things most observers equate with watching paint dry or tolerating untimed chess under ordinary circumstances, but when national pride is at stake…when it’s The Big Show…they are rapt with attention, even for soccer.

Soccer is frustrating.  It’s like hockey without the brawls, a frustrating back-and-forth on an oversized football field where teams score about as often as Trump leaves a tip.  For anyone with a dog in the fight, this is okay, maybe even exciting, but for everyone else it’s like watching milk curdle.  People like offense…home runs, three-point shots, punt returns for touchdowns.  Most can even live with a nice pitchers’ duel or a courageous goal-line stand.  But 90 minutes-plus of slogging east and west, painstakingly inching forward with tiny little kicks to a neighbor five feet away and waiting for the slightest opening, only to invariably have the ball stolen and taken in the other direction is trying one’s patience to the hilt.  The whole affair is strangely remindful of a date with a Catholic girl in 1955…probe, probe, probe, overstep an inch and the evening is going the other way before you know it.

Then there’s the falling down, pretending to be mortally wounded in the hope that a naive referee will take pity and hand you a bon bon.  People are falling down willy-nilly on virtually every play in a soccer match…like defenseless tenpins at the World Series of Bowling.  Oh, the inhumanity!  Every injury is, of course, a horrendous wound, a threat to life and limb reflected by long-practiced expressions of agony on twisted faces.  Only the death scene from King Lear can compare.  The officials are a solemn, unsympathetic lot, but great showmanship occasionally wins the day, earning a yellow or even a red card for the dastardly villain who perpetrated such mayhem.  The card is hardly out of the ref’s pocket when the pulverized soldier jumps up and returns to the game smiling.

On the rarest of occasions, after hours of fan frustration and reluctance to go to the bathroom, a mighty goal is scored, a feat that shatters the air with deafening celebrations which climb up the hillsides and explode windows five miles away.  The supporters of the scoring club, many dressed for maximum tribal identity and weatherproofing, are overcome with the emotion of five straight orgasms and are liable to break into songs like You’ll Never Walk Alone (Gerry & The pacemakers, 1963) or Vindaloo (Fat Les, 1993).

“The Beautiful Game” has been growing over the years in the United States, whose women’s teams invariably challenge for Olympic and World Cup glory and have often won the prize.  The men, alas, seem to have trouble getting out of their own way.  After an encouraging start in 2026 and playing at home in deafening Seattle against Belgium, the U.S. lads played a timid first half but showed some resilience early in the second, keeping the ball in Belgium’s end the majority of the time.  That’s when the American goalie suddenly remembered he was actually Elmer Fudd and let a wicked wabbit steal the ball away from him and plunk in goal number three for an insurmountable 3-1 visitors’ lead in a contest that will be forever titled “The Belgian Waffle.”

That’s okay, American soccer fans.  We’ll always have that win over Paraguay and the Fenway bagpipes blasting out the lurid strains of Granny McGee.  By the way, how long can you amateur soccer announcers stretch the celebratory announcement “G-O-O-O-O-O-AL?”  Romanian sports commentator Ilie Dobre sustained a shout for 1 minute and 8 seconds on a single breath during a match with Hungary in 2013.  The impressed listeners presented him with a bouquet of peonies, some plum brandy and a meat pie.  Who says soccer doesn’t have its moments?

They Came For The Soccer But Stayed For The Ranch Dressing

Tens of thousands of soccer fans landed in the USA on July 4, 2026, our country’s 250th birthday.  They came for the football but got bully jet flyovers, drone shows and fireworks.  Eighty thousand people from 100 countries sang “Country Roads” like a knockout-round anthem.  They were everywhere, marveling at the free ice dispensers, reverently filming Taco Bell menus and learning the importance of discussing the weather with Americans.

Often portrayed as staid observers, the Germans took a walk on the wild side.  One of them loved Walmart so much he had the logo tattooed on his leg.  Another named FreddyLA7 was so flabbergasted by the size of a Buc-ees, he filmed himself yelling, “DUDE, THIS IS A GAS STATION??”  German fan Sebastian Krause broke down crying on Boston TV because strangers gave him a ride to his hotel.  He said American hospitality shattered every expectation he’d formed from foreign news coverage.

Swedish fan Elsa, like several compadres, went nuts over Ranch dressing in Indiana.  “Why did noone tell us Ranch sauce is like crack?  Europe, get us some Ranch ASAP!”  Many Italians were blown away by free soda refills (France banned them in 2017).  One boisterous Roman gleefully exclaimed, “I ordered a medium coffee and received what we Italians would classify as a bucket.”  A disbelieving Britisher called a 2-litre Big Gulp “One of my favorite things I’ve discovered in America.”  And then there was the astonished Japanese traveler who couldn’t get enough of Waymo driverless taxis.  “I rode in them in Dallas, Houston and L.A.  You can get one from an app without speaking a word of English!”

The soccer, all agreed, was first rate.  But the football couldn’t compare with the condiments.

That’s all, folks….

bill.killeen094@gmail.com

      

Musings

Most of us born and raised in the United States never give a thought to taking up residence elsewhere.  We are taught from birth we live in the greatest country on Earth, the land of the free and the home of the brave, a democratic republic in which all men are created equal, where seldom is heard a discouraging word and the skies are not cloudy all day.  If that was never 100% true, it was close enough.  Social Science classes taught us a lot about the rest of the world and we thought it might be a nice place to visit but we wouldn’t want to live there.  We had stable politics, highly arable landmass, sufficient energy supplies and we lived in a temperate zone.  Hell, we had Yellowstone National Park, Disneyland and the NFL!  Besides, all our doctors were here.  Aside from living in a yellow submarine, what could be better?

Then came an absurd war in Vietnam, where some of our friends got drafted and eventually killed or maimed.  Potential draftees packed up all their cares and woes and fled to Canada and Mexico.    Some of them never returned.  They wrote back extolling the virtues of socialized medicine, the lack of race discrimination, a better diet, a live-and-let-live philosophy, no guns.  College kids spent summers in Europe and came back impressed by the food, the art and the attitudes.  Magazines published articles about people living longer lives in Blue Zones like Sardinia, Italy and Ikaria, Greece, the Nicoya Peninsula of Costa Rica and Okinawa, Japan.

As life in the USA got more expensive, American retirees who once might have opted for Florida or Arizona began casting an eye abroad for bargains.  They found them in Portugal, Panama, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Uruguay and our old pal, Mexico.  In the latter, large clusters of Americans settled in Lake Chapala, San Miguel de Allende, Puerto Vallarta and Baja California, the latter including the esteemed Bob Simmons, hero filmmaker of Last Tango In Gainesville.  Good old Texas boys like Gilbert Shelton ran off to Paris in 1985 and never came back.  Interesting, but what of it?  Most of us are lifers.  And when them furriners came over here for that World Cup thing, they fell in love with our Waffle Houses, ice machines and ranch dressing.

Maybe, but more dyed-in-the-wool Americans are crossing the pond every year for a look-see at how the other half lives, and only 6% of U.S. travelers to Europe in 2025 said it was their first time flying there.  Many go multiple times a year, so there must be something abroad that captures their fancy, draws them in and brings them back for more.  They might not be ready to move yet, but that old question applies now more than ever: How ya gonna keep ‘em down on the farm after they’ve seen Paree?

Paris Swings Like A Pendulum Do….

Boston and New York are my two favorite cities in the United States.  There’s a lot to see and do there and it’s not necessary to drive.  Both have first-class public transportation which actually makes driving counterproductive.  Same with Paris.  The Metro (subway) and buses are moderately-priced and Uber is everywhere.  And why would you drive when there’s so much to look at?  Paris is esteemed as a receptacle of great art but the city is a majestic art piece itself.  It’s not one museum, it’s 105 kilometers of intentional beauty.  It was designed to be lived in. 

Today’s Paris is not an accident.  In the 1850s-70s, Baron Haussmann tore up the medieval mess and redrew the city, with wide boulevards that frame the monuments like camera shots.  The city is filled with 6-story cream limestone buildings with iron balconies, all the same height so that nothing competes for attention.  Rooflines of zinc and slate turn silver in the rain.  The goal was to make the city feel harmonious from any street corner.  It worked.

Artists call Paris the City of Light for a reason.  The Seine cuts the city in half, and the light bounces off water, stone and glass all day.  Impressionists like Monet and Renoir literally invented a new style trying to capture the way the light hits the bridges at 5 p.m.  Even today, the city mandates warm street lamps so at night everything glows gold.  The large skyscrapers you see in other cities are consigned to an area off in the distance called La Defense, just west of the city.  Most visitors to Paris never go there, but it’s Europe’s largest purpose-built business district.  It’s remindful of old Austinite Tony Bell’s Roach Room.  Give them a section of their own, let them do what they want over there and maybe they’ll leave us alone.

Considerations

Pie reader William Schaaf, an artist himself, posed the question: “What do I have to do to live in Paris?”  After all, before a body can move there, the government of France has to approve.  It’s not like just picking up and moving to Missouri.

First, you need a valid passport, an approved long-stay visa, proof of financial sufficiency (income of around 1400 euros a month), comprehensive health insurance and a confirmed place to live.  That might seem to let you out, Mr. William, but it can be easier for an established professional artist to move to France than the average person.  France offers a specific Talent Passport category for artists and cultural professors, which grants a multi-year residence of up to four years and includes immediate family reunification.

For everyone else, basic A2-level French proficiency is required if you plan to renew your residency card into a multi year permit.  All this may seem a slog but 15,000 Americans move to France every year.  The number has steadily grown and total estimates indicate that just under 150,000 Americans now live in France permanently.

For a stay of 90 days or less, however, everything is a lot easier.  Basically, you only need a passport valid for three months.  If you’re a rookie to living abroad, that three month stay might be a wise first step.  Average temperatures in the first two months of the year range from 37 degrees to 48.  Rents are extremely high if you can even find an apartment, and most residential buildings lack air-conditioning.  Dealing with paperwork, banking and official residency processes is notoriously slow.  For a Floridian, the best compromise might be a 90-day annual stay in June, July and August when the Sunshine State lurches into fahrenheit overdrive.

Many think Paris is worth all the hoop-jumping required, and that includes us.  Need more encouragement?  Here’s what a few of your Francophile friends had to say:

“I Love Paris In The Springtime When It Drizzles.”---Cole Porter

Woody Allen---“That Paris exists and anyone could choose to live anywhere else in the world will always be a mystery to me.”

Thomas Jefferson---“A walk about Paris will provide lessons in history, beauty and in the point of life.”

Allen Ginsburg---“You can’t escape the past in Paris, and yet what is so wonderful about it is that the past and present intermingle so intangibly that it doesn’t seem to burden.”

Victor Hugo---“He who contemplates the depth of Paris is seized with vertigo.  Nothing is more fantastic.  Nothing is more tragic.  Nothing is more sublime.”

Pico Iyer---“And if travel is like love, it is, in the end, mostly because it’s a heightened state of awareness in which we are mindful, receptive, undimmed by familiarity and ready to be transformed.  That’s why the best trips, like the best love affairs, never really end.”

James Thurber---“The whole of Paris is a vast university of Art, Literature and Music.  It is worth anyone’s while to dally here for years.  Paris is a seminar, a post-graduate course in Everything.”

Anne Rice---“Paris was a universe whole and entire unto herself, hollowed and fashioned by history; so she seemed in this age of Napoleon III with her towering buildings, her massive cathedrals, her grand boulevards, and ancient winding medieval streets—as vast and indestructible as nature itself.

All was embraced by her, by her volatile and enchanted populace thronging the galleries, the theaters, the cafes, giving birth over and over to genius and sanctity, philosophy and war, frivolity and the finest art; so it seemed that if all the world outside her were to sink into darkness, what was fine, what was beautiful, what was essential might still come to its finest flower.

Even the majestic trees that graced and sheltered her streets were attuned to her—and the waters of the Seine, contained and beautiful as they wound through her heart; so that the earth on that spot, so shaped by blood and consciousness, had ceased to be the earth and had become Paris.”

Au revoir, mes amis….

bill.killeen094@gmail.com

Open Up Them Golden Gates!

Montmartre

The conversation in our jolly bus to Montmartre abruptly turned to nervous tittering and the occasional gasp as we tootled down the Boulevard de Clichy toward Place Pigalle past an endless flood of sex shops, peep shows and adult theaters.  Was Rolinka, that bastion of propriety and good manners, taking us to the dark side?  No, just to the world-famous Moulin Rouge for photos before the long climb up Montmartre’s historic hill to the massive Sacre-Coeur Basilica at the summit.

Montmartre has long been a refuge for artists, a bohemian haven for the likes of Pablo Picasso, Vincent van Gogh and Henri Matisse during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  Inexpensive rent and cheap lodging attracted poor and struggling creatives to now-famous locations like the Bateau-Lavoir studio, and the Place du Tertre town square fostered collaboration and community.  Local cabarets and cafes like Le Chat Noir sprung up to provide lively gathering spots for musicians, writers and painters.  You can still see young people scattered across the landscape sketching the scenery as you make the climb, and working artists at the Place du Tertre display their works for sale.  After the group dispersed, we went back and bought a colorful remembrance piece from a seventyish regular named Giovanni Lanna, whose painting is pictured below.  If you’ve got the time, there’s also a vineyard called Clos Montmartre nearby on Rue Saint-Rustique.  It’s tiny—only 1556 square meters—but it produces wine every year, about 1500 bottles.  The city sells it at auction for charity.  There’s a big whoop-de-do harvest festival at the place if you’re there in October.

A visitor could easily spend the day walking the cobblestone streets of Montmartre, enjoying its narrow, winding corridors and old stairways that feel separate from the rest of the busy city.  And indeed, many of the locals consider their place in the sun a separate entity.  Talk to one of them for long and he might tell you, “No Messieur, I do not live in Paris, I reside in Montmartre, where art is alive and well.”  He might live there, but most of the current artists do not.  The art that made the place renowned pushed the rents to the outer limits and few artists can afford to live on the sacred hill these days.  Mr. Natural would say ‘twas ever thus.

Take Me For A Ride On Your Train Train…

For those times when a body needs to get from here to there in a hurry, Paris provides the dependable Metro, a French version of the Boston and New York  subways, but with far more spic-and-span stations.  We’d like to tell you the trains were roomy and smelled of lavender, but that would be a lie.  Siobhan and I, released from the glories of Montmartre, descended the hill and eventually found a Metro Station after much traipsing.  Obviously, an old subway pro like myself would be a natural for this mode of transportation but Siobhan has an unerring sense of misdirection which gives me an even greater advantage—I go the opposite way from which she is trying to send me.

All our rides in Paris required a change of trains, which were often bulging with humanity, but we successfully negotiated the tunnels.  The problem came when we got out on the street.  You’d think that having a tall structure like the Eiffel Tower sitting among buildings mostly 5-7 stories high would make it easy, but not so.  The Eiffel has a tricky habit of ducking out of sight just when you need it most, then popping up to say BOO! when you least expect it.  Fortunately, trial and error works in France just as well as it does here and we never climbed out of the tunnel to find ourselves on the Left Bank equivalent of Crump Boulevard in Memphis at midnight.

“I’m Louis The XIV, I Am…”

King Louis XIV was a really big deal.  Louis was basically the blueprint for modern France.  He ruled for 72 years, from 1643 to 1715, the longest reign of any major modern monarch in European history, and he used every day of it.  He invented “absolute monarchy”—no more squabbling with nobles, the Church or parliaments—with his simple declaration, “L’Etat, c’est moi;”  “I am the state.”  He centralized all power in Versailles.  Nobles had to live at court instead of running their provinces, leaving little opportunity to rebel.  This made France a bastion of stability and unified the country in a way it had never been.  Louis built the biggest army in Europe under his war minister, the Marquis de Louvois.  France expanded its borders east to Strasbourg and north.  Other kings quickly copied his tactics.  He fought 4 major wars and won a lot of land, but also left France with huge debt.

Louis didn’t just rule, he set the style, creating French culture as we know it.  At Versailles, he turned a simple hunting lodge into the most extravagant palace in the world with its 2200 pounds of gold leaf used to adorn gates, statues and interior woodwork.  It became the model for palaces everywhere.  He funded Moliere, Racine and Lully and made French the language of diplomacy and culture for 200 years.  He established a court etiquette, replete with bowing, wigs and ceremony and turned court life into theater.  The whole world watched and followed suit.  His finance minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert created mercantilism—built roads, canals, a navy and state factories.  Louis’ Haussmann-style projects ultimately made Paris the most beautiful city in the world

Louis believed it was man over nature when it came to landscaping.  He thought it man’s duty to shape a tree into whatever the desired shape, and that plants should not grow and take on forms naturally.  This would later become the iconic style of the French gardens like the Tuileries or the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris.  Directing nature to bloom and blossom as he pleased further solidified Louis’ desire to control everything around him.  Just as the Earth revolved around the sun, so too would France revolve around Louis XIV.

The other Louis.

The Rest Of The Story

One day long after Louis XIV had departed, the French peasantry looked up at all that gold leaf and decided “no more.”  By 1789, the country was in deep national bankruptcy as a result of foreign wars, bad weather which led to severe food shortages and an unfair class system that taxed only the common people (sound familiar?).  Enlightened thinkers were on the prowl, pushing ideas of liberty, equality and fair government representation.  King Louis XVI called a grand meeting to fix the money problems, but once again shafted the common people.  The commoners had enough.  They broke away to form their own government group, and on July 14, 1789 stormed  the Bastille fortress to get weapons and gunpowder, officially sparking the French Revolution.

By 1792, the people had won.  A new constitution was created and the King kept the throne with reduced power.  Fearing worse punishment, Louis XVI tried to escape France with his family, all in disguise.  The were nabbed at Varennes. and the National Convention convicted him of high treason.  Revolutionaries viewed him as a traitor for seeking help from hostile foreign monarchs to crush the revolution and restore his absolute power.  Louis XVI was executed on January 21, 1793.  He died by the guillotine at the Place de la Revolution in Paris, which permanently ended over a thousand years of continuous French royal rule.  Ouch!

Above, the Palace of Versailles; below, the grounds.

A Trip To Bountiful

Rolinka’s brood bused to Paris Montparnasse, then took a short above-ground train ride to Versailles, which is much like Louis XIV left it.  The palace, now a World Heritage site, contains 2,300 rooms and the grounds stretch across 2000 acres and include formal gardens, a park, smaller satellite palaces, a pretend-peasant village with a working farm and fountains which do a little dance on weekends.

The gardens took 40 years to construct.  They feature over 370 statues (more even than the Trump Museum), 55 water features and 20 miles of underground pipes.  The grand perspective aligns directly with the path of the rising and setting sun.  At its peak, the grounds featured over 1400 active fountains.  The Orangerie on the lower terrace houses more than 1000 orange, palm and pomegranate trees in massive wooden boxes.

Siobhan, now reduced to wearing a leg brace part-time, gazed out on the unending terrain and deemed it too much to closely investigate.  We meandered back to the train station and I noticed one of those five-minute bathrooms along the path.  I dipped in and quickly attended to business, lest the door fly open and humiliation be leveled upon me.  I mean, who wants to be the true butt of the joke.  Unfortunately, the inside doorknob was missing and the door couldn’t be opened from the inside without a wrench.  I called outside to Siobhan, who was typically amused at my foibles.  “What do I get if I let you out?” she wanted to know.  “My undying gratitude and the dessert of your choice,” I promised.  Okay, then.  There is nothing so malleable as a woman on the make for chocolate eclairs.

Last Call For Culture

The Musee Rodin in Paris is widely considered one of the most romantic museums in the world.  Located in the 18th-century Hotel Biron where Auguste Rodin once lived, it combines intimate indoor galleries with a seven-acre sculpture garden filled with roses, quiet pathways and iconic masterpieces like The Kiss, which celebrates passion and physical connection.  It also contains some of Rodin’s personal history, recalling the passionate, turbulent love story between the sculptor and his talented muse and collaborator, Camille Claudel, which echoes through the rooms.  There is a large sampling of Claudel’s own work—about two dozen pieces—in her dedicated room.  Outside, you can visit the storied Thinker (originally named The Poet), designed to represent medieval poet Dante Alighieri contemplating the circles of Hell and the fate of the damned.  A visitor can stand in front of the statue and view the Eiffel Tower in the distance behind the statue.

Siobhan and I had a small lunch at a sidewalk cafe around the corner and caught a cab for another look at the Arc de Triomphe, which our bus had circled several times on an earlier adventure.  It’s a massive beauty and we can easily understand why that old copycat Donald Trump might want one.  But come on, Captain Trumpy—it’s forgivable to knock off French dresses and French pastry, but a faux Arch de Triomphe?  Very tacky.

Finally, it was off to our last outing, dinner on the Seine with all our Rick Steves cronies.  If you’ve been on many dinner cruises, you know the food is more likely to die from than to die for, but this meal was an elegant testimony to unfailingly excellent French food preparation.  Not to mention the frabjous boat ride past historic buildings, famous museums and our old pal, the Eiffel Tower.

At meal’s end, the group retreated to a park in the shadow of the Eiffel for a last goodbye.  Rolinka bought everybody ice cream and sent a little movie of our week’s experiences to everyone’s phones.  There were many hugs and a few tears as all the new friends promised to write one other (Vegas odds: 100-1).  My bootie Ann and I told each other we were happy to have learned a bit about one another’s lives.  Then Rolinka, overwhelmed by all the good feelings, rose and said we’d all be getting together again in 2031.  She didn’t say whether walkers and oxygen tanks would be provided for the nonagenarians, but here’s hoping.  Maybe they’ll have escalators installed at Montmartre by then. 

Above, The Last Supper on the Seine; below, Connie's head, Ann, Gretchen & Ben from the tour group.

Au Revoir, Mes Amis!

All good things must end, they say, but we’re not sure why.  A fellow can always dip in to a haberdashery for a couple more pair of socks and some underwear.  Paris is not an easy place to leave…it’s like that stadium the winning fans won’t depart after their team has won some national championship, clinging to the last vestiges of a euphoria that won’t come again soon.

Richard’s promised cab was on time, however, and we dutifully packed in and headed for the vast expanse of asphalt that is Charles de Gaulle Aeroport.  Since we flew business class or Delta 1, the jaunty slew of Air France enablers whisked us through the corridors at warp speed, no fuss, no muss, no long lines of squawking kiddos or bumbling grannies who’ve misplaced their credentials.

Not being regular international travelers, on the way over we’d brought a wealth of information for customs, including letters from our doctors authorizing our medications, written proof that we were not devious immigrants from Morocco and, of course, our membership card from the Edith Piaf Fan Club.  We had visions of our suitcases being riffled through and rendered uncloseable.  None of it was necessary.  Customs these days consists of standing in front of a transparent plastic door with your carry-on plunked in front of you, eyeglasses and hat off, smiling for the camera and waiting for Froggy to plunk his magic twanger, allowing you admittance.  It might be different in Lebanon.

If you are flying business class, you will be treated like the King of Siam, especially by Air France, which hires the smartest and most elegant flight attendants you’ve ever seen, even if they do insist you eat more bread and cheese than is good for you.  Siobhan and I are rookies to such treatment, having economy class backgrounds due to sound fiscal management.

Parsimony goes out the window, however, when you are very old and looking at two eight-hour plane trips within ten days.  You start researching things like blood clots and compression stockings and funny little podlike seats that slide into a bed at the drop of a hat.  For the uninitiated, you sit down normally, but with a much greater amount of foot space in front of you.  About 12-15 inches from the floor, there is a shelf-like goody, the better to raise your legs.  Then, on the armrest, you have controls that allow you to reset your seat back as far as you want.  The vertical part of the seat slides back and the seat itself moves forward, all the way to the little shelf if you like.  Voila!—you have a bed, and all the sleeping accoutrements necessary, including a pillow, blankets, slippers, earplugs, an eyemask and however much wine it takes.  Is this a great concept, or what?  When I got up in the middle of the night to visit the selle de bain, all the little cocooned passengers were wrapped tight while visions of crepes suzettes danced in their heads.  Beats riding the creaking redeye in steerage from Poughkeepsie to St. Paul.  Don’t ask about the cost.

A final word.  People in our tour group marveled at the lifestyle and the wonders of Paris and asked one another, could you live here?  Good question.  To quote John Denver’s paean to Annie, Paris “fills up our senses”…it’s sights and sounds and smells and tastes, the way it feels…is like nowhere else in our experience.

The majority, citing family and friends in the U.S., said tempting, but no.  People without family thought certainly.  Our niece Kathleen, who has been everywhere but Antarctica, said a cottage in the south of France might be an option some day.  It is, of course, unwise to make plans based on little more than a week in Paris.  The first week I spent in Oahu, I was in love with the place.  Two weeks later, I had my binoculars out, searching for my ride home.  But Paris…Paris is a different animal with its laid-back lifestyle, its wealth of things to do and its sheer beauty.  Paris is a happy place with world-class art, incredible food, highly efficient public transit and a rich culture that treats every day like a work of art.  I can see myself sucking down Camembert and Chardonnay at my picnic on the grass at the Louvre or sailing past the Eiffel Tower on the river just before twilight…or merely riding through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in my hair, ala the unfortunate Lucy Jordan.  Life could be a dream, sh-boom, if I could take myself up to Paris-dise on the Seine.

Could I live without lobster rolls, Gator sports and the Red Sox?  Could I get by without rap music and the Republican Party?  Aye, that’s the dilemma.  Perhaps the day will come when I’ll toss caution to the winds and give it a try.  Until then, may the croissant be with you.  And, all together now..."Vive la France!

Our gang.

That’s all, folks….

bill.killeen094@gmail.com   

  

With Richard, host with the most at the Londres Eiffel Hotel.