Gay pride Paris 2010

This year’s gay pride in Paris took place june 26 (the date changes every year, so you have to check the web each time). As usual, the parade started in Montparnasse, going up towards saint michel crossed the river at the bridge Sully (Pont de Sully) and
finished at Place de la Bastille where there was a stage set up and a big crowd of people in all the cafés that surround this place.
I particularly liked this year’s gay pride that felt less commercial than the preceding years. Different associations always head the parade including Human Rights groups, organisations for the fight against HIV/AIDS, gay families and families of gays. There are also retired gay men and women. Couples that could be your gramps and granmas looking so ordinary they stick out like sore thumbs. I loved it. Instead of images of overmuscled men in leather string gyrating to the music on top of a decorated truck (there is one every year), the media should also show these regular people who look like everyone else including neigbors, families or whoever, but are gay!
There are also gays personnels from City hall, from the Police force, from the RATP which is the city transportation organisation (Homobus is what they called their float). The different political parties on the left (Partie Socialiste) and center were also represented though apparently missing is the gays from the right (apparently, cannot say if this is the truth, they boycott the parade because their political party, the right, has not kept the promise concerning gay rights. Only in France could a protest takes place as a non participation in a gay pride parade!).
Of course, there also a bunch of drag queens (always elaborately and fabulously dressed...what would we do without them?) and the sisters (don’t know if they belong to the order of Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence though).
The ambiance this year was really quite bon enfant and a good time I thought was had by everyone. Even the policemen (I guess there were policewomen but did not notice any where I was) who cound be found every so many meters and in different places in their vehicles seem to be enjoying themselves....
After a day like that, my friends and I decided to have a drink at La Chimère which is a nice little bar near métro Saint Paul. If you have a chance, go there and take a table outside (during happy hours, cocktails like in all Parisian bars are half price meaning about 7 euros). Try their melon or strawberry flavored Mojitos, mmmmmmm........Walking around le Marais that night, there are impromptu striptease in a street in front of gay bars and the streets Vieille du Tempe (near Central bar), Saint Croix de la bretonnerie (where the gay bookstore Le mot à la bouche is located) and rue des Archives (Open Café and Cox) were packed with happy people.

Le bal des pompiers: partying with the firefighters

A tradition that apparently started in the thirties (in Montmartre, which is a quarter in Paris near where I live now) Bastille Day is marked by a number of Bals des pompiers...meaning the ball (like party, so get your mind off the gutter for once) of the firemen/firefighters. These parties are highly popular and everyone can attend (for a fee, for instance for 6 euros you get in and get one free beer at the many stands that they set up in the caserne (caserne = fire station where firemen keep their trucks and stuff and where they sleep, eat and do whatever when they are on duty). The parties of certain casernes of Paris have become highly legendary that the queue to get in may snake several blocks away and 4 to 5 persons deep! This is the night when you could flirt with your heros (Parisian firemen are synonymous with heros) about whom you might have your wildest sexual fantasies (Generally, the firemen flirt with girls who flirt back that night in ways that would shame the most experienced gay man! But that is in public, in private, gay guys may just have as much as chance if not more lol).
My favorite is the one in the 4th arrondissement (rue de Séviggné) smacked in the gay area of Paris. After queueing for a while (and I mean it could be a very long while, but you could already admire the firemen who hang about assuring the security of everyone) and finally in the caserne, prepare yourself for body to body crowd either dancing, talking or just standing around admiring the beautiful caserne and the even more beautiful people who live in it (like many building in le Marais, the caserne of the 4th arrondissement is a beautiful old stone building with a big yard in the middle. This well-maintained building was even featured on a documentary on national television). On stage that is set up in the yard of the caserne, you might even see a group of firemen playing musical instruments and sing (No, you would not probably buy their CD, but for one night we indulge and applaud the heros on stage especially since they are feasts for the eyes!). Other bands may take over and give a real showto party goers. In another part (there is a smaller yard right after the entrance), there is music with DJ. The best moment comes much later usually. Around 3 am, certain firemen would go up on stage and dance to the piped in music and they might even do a striptease for you ! The night I went, they did strip off their shirt (not their pants, or the mystery would cease to exist I guess) while dancing like real disco queens or kings. Funnily, they never forgot to shout «This is for the girls» (just before they take their shirt off). But of course, many of the spectators are gay men from the hood or from all around Paris that come to this caserne because it is in the gay area. These men (ok, including me) would be the ones shouting «Take it all off !» the whole time the firemen are on stage. You should know that Paris’ firemen tend to be young, beautiful with a body to die for (they are, unlike the rest of France, REAL firemen who belong to the military corps I think).
The party would last all night, and the pompiers would by then be found on stage, behind bars (serving you drinks with a smile) or maybe snogging some girls (don’t know about boys, but again, we are in public here, they would not have shown their interest, if that is the case, in public). There would also be soldiers, French and foreign, who might have participated in the Bastille day parade that day, still in their uniform and looking completely sexy and in search of sex.
So, if you happen to be in Paris mid july, reserve the 13th or the 14th to attend these balls..
For those interested in history, as I said in the beginning the balls started in the Montmartre area of Paris....apparently the pompiers used to invite family and friends to the caserne on the 14th of july...there was food and orchestra etc which apparently attracted non relatives, neighbors or friends who started knocking on the doors of the caserne...this way, began the tradition of le bal des pompiers....
At the ball of this year, the caserne at rue Sévigné decided to do away with admission fee (you instead contribute however much you want) and since I went in the night of the 14th the line was actually shorter than usual (many people work on the 15th I guess. The ball in this caserne is held both the nights of the 13th and the 14th). Still, the ambiance is just great. You see people of all ages. For the first time I even saw a transvestite there (conversing with a very good looking fireman no less). Marines, legionnaires and other military units from France and other countries could also be found there having fun, drinking, dancing and ........

Modern life in France

France is a very modern country there is no doubt about it. It is also a very old country. All you need to do is look around and you see how far back France goes in comparison to the US or Australia.
Buildings date back to when the north American continent was still largely non white (like, I guess Red). When I was looking for apartments, I actually visited buildings that go back to dates unimaginable to those coming from the new world. A few of the buildings I visited used to be what they call here hôtel particulière or private castle that has been divided into apartments. In one fo these buildings in le Marais, I came across the widest stairways I have ever encountered in an apartment building (many tend to be narrow, especially when elevators were added later on, which took up the spaces occupied by these stairways previously). The lady visiting with me explained that this was to accomodate ladies in flare skirts that I guess used to visit the then grand if now not well maintained building. I could imagine these ladies with their hair piled up high, lifting their long skirt that flared from wall to wall climbing to attend soirées!
In many old buildings in le Marais which, despite the presence of several hotels particulieres, was apparently also for workers, you would see small toilets (I mean small, you’d better not be fat to fit in these toilets) in the stairways between floors. These go back to the time when apartments don’t have individual toilets and residents used these outside toilets. Nowadays, these generally non used (but may still be useable) toilets serve as places for illicit sex for some residents or places you could bring that someone you just met on the street you find exciting and dangerous for quickies ! Same thing for showers (one of the apartement in my building only has a sink and no shower)...this is probably why there are still public baths, not to be confused with hammams or sauna, everywhere in Paris (where for a fee you could take a shower I guess...have yet to visit one). It’s no surprise then that you would find a toilet in unlikely places in apartments (including in the closet like the apartment I occupied long ago) as these are added later.
One of the things that may also amuse you are the keys to your apartment. These are seriously ancient medieval looking keys which are large in size, heavy and look like they were made by someone pounding the hard metal into shape by his brute force!
So, don’t be surprised if you just got off the most modern airplane that is partly French (the Airbus A380) and walked onto a futuristic terminal building (CDG 2) only to find yourself in a hotel that have the toilets in the hallway or are handed a set of big old clanky keys. On the other hand, you may find yourself in a 17th century building accessible via keycards too! There was much discussion about whether the modern pyramide would go with the ancient buildings in the Louvre museum....but in fact this combo modern and historic could be found in everyday life in France.

The modern and the ancien that seem to coexist are also found in non physical institutions....Banking in France is another institution that still combines modernity and archaic ways. When you see French bank/credit cards, they will have chip cards, unlike American cards. These are very practical as you could pay everywhere and anywhere (apparently more) securely with your PIN. However, if you would for instance, activate an internet access to your account, you would still have to print the form and send it via snail mail. They will then send you your access code, again via snail mail (The code, like PIN for your cards, often cannot be changed which pose a challenge to remember all the different codes/PINs). Once, I noticed charges that appeared on my card statement that I never made. I notified my bank via telephone. This, however, had to be followed by a registered snail mail letter that is, get this, written by hand! Add to that a police report that you have to join to your handwirtten letter (When there were weird charges on my Australian cards, I simply called them and the disputed charges disappeared right away.). In banking as in many administrative things, sometimes ‘that is how things have always been done here’ primes over convinience and reasons....

A French Lover named Karem

In Australia and the US, we talk of French lovers as the ultimate lovers. They are passionate and good lovers that could transport anyone to the seventh sky (in French, septieme ciel). They may also be unfaithful which only makes them even more exciting. When I first came to Paris I wanted nothing more than a real authentic French lover. He would come in the afternoon after work with his ‘baise en ville’ (literal transaltion: fuck in town, non literal: a small bag where you could put the necessary for a quick tryst in an afternoon in town) and make love non stop until dinner time (hence the name cinq à sept lovers….lovers between 5 and 7 pm literally) before going back to his proper bourgeois wife. I would be left on the floor of my apartment in the fading light of Paris, bruised and blued but nonetheless with a smile and a fulfilled look in my eyes.

Well, that has happened indeed, though it has not left with quite with the fulfilled look in my eyes or an idiotic smile that indicates whatever happened just before has left me mushy brained. Interestingly, French men do not really believe in the stereotype that others have of them. Sure they know of it but men that I have met chortle at the idea. And even more interesting, in France the stereotype of good lovers actually are accorded to Arabs and Blacks. And contrary to French men, Arab men I know do know of this stereotype and proudly admit that it applies to them! The stereotype of Arab men is that they are CHAUD (literally, Hot. People will also say CHAUD LAPIN which literally stands for hot rabbit, a colloquial expression for someone who likes sex a lot) and always looking for sex, emotional and with admirable endurance. For Blacks, well, as in the US, they are supposed to be more generously hung than everyone else.

So, after a number of years in France, my French lovers tend to be named Karem and Samba rather than Jean-Marc or Francois….So, if you call and I don't respond, it might very well be that I was lying on the floor crossed eyed murmuring something in arabic or wolof.

Note:
If you're a gay male and you wish to make friends with gay Black and Arab French, there is a 'soirée' BBB (for Black Blanc Beur : Black, White and Arab...Beur is a slang for Arab French...literally it means butter of course)at Bus Palladium in Pigalle (Sunday evening tea dance).

French Kiss

It used to amuse me that the French kiss each other and shake hands a lot. When I first came here, every morning I felt like the President as I had to shake hands with everyone (yes, every morning, not just after a long period of not seeing each other) when I arrived at the office. With women, we kiss each other from the word go (that is, when we were first introduced); with men, we shake hands when we only know each other slightly or professionally but once we got to know each other it’s kisses all around). So, after a couple months or so, I always felt like Miss France as I would have to offer my cheeks (those on my face, of course) to be kissed or pucker my lips to kiss. One of the mysteries of rules about kissing is how many times people kiss each other. In Paris, we kiss each other twice, once on each cheek. When I was in the south, it was three times (so one cheek got two kisses and the other just a kiss), in other towns, it was even four times or twice on each cheek.

What may appear curious to Aussies and Americans is that French men kiss each other if they were friends. This no doubt contributes to the stereotype that certain Anglo friends of mine have: French men are gay or at least bisexual! Indeed, you might see a very virile looking guy (who probably works in construction) getting off his truck to meet another similarly dressed man (that is, dressed like a lumberjack) and also getting off a truck. They swagger toward each other and you could not be blamed if you expect a fight or at most a very manly hand shake. But instead they would give each other pecks on the cheeks! Often, when friends have not seen each other for a long time they would triple or quadruple the kisses exchanged….so once I was at Café Beaubourg with a French friend and there we saw a friend of his that he had not seen for ages…they exchanged kisses as if there was no tomorrow or that the night would last for ever. Yes, I think they first double the normal number of kisses to show their appreciation of finding each other again (in Paris, that means 4 pecks total) and lost count and had to start all over again (counting to 4 but lost track each time because at the same time they were gushing How are you’s and Been so long’s !).

But, or course, the most known of all kisses is the French kiss. That ultimate kiss that combines passion and love. Why do we call it a French kiss? I guess because we think the French are romantic, passionate and good lovers. The name the French have for what we call the French kiss is very vulgar though. Rouler une pelle is what they call it which could be literally translated as rolling a spade (as in gardening!). Not very romantic… in fact, downright unappetizing if you ask me. As a tourist, I used to admire couples ‘rolling their spade’ in each other’s mouth on quaint parks and bridges of Paris. It just seems so right since we believe that love is in the air in Paris. That is, until I learned that (rumor or the truth, I still don’t know) the city of Paris employs people to kiss in different places to maintain the image of Paris as the city of love. So, next time you see a nice couple who seem to be so passionately in love and kissing romantically on the Pont des Arts, look closer to make sure that they are not civil servants doing their job!

Monmartre Bus

As I have said elsewhere, I have left the fourth district (le Marais) and am now living in the ninth district of Paris (Anvers) just below Monmartre.
Now when one evokes Montmartre one tends to think of le Sacré coeur (the modern version of Notre Dame, though design-wise nothing like each other...An interesting tidbit about Sacre Coeur is that it gets really white after the rain because water actually starts a chemical reaction producing white color in the stones used to build this cathedral).
Of Monmartre, one also thinks of artists (painters are concentrated here as well as other artists) and of course, Village ! Montmartre does feel like a village with its small streets, neighborhood shops (still there despite the invasion of chain and less neighborly stores) and markets (food or paintings or junks).

Here I would like to give you a tip of a fun way for visiting Montmartre. This is via the public bus called (appropriately) Montmartre Bus. The bus they use for this route is electric and it is way smaller than the regular buses you see in Paris but bigger than minibuses that may be used for tours by tourist companies. The most interesting part of course is the routing. The bus will take you (if you start at Mairie du XVIIIe area, Métro Jules Joffrin) via all the small streets in Montmartre, passing the interesting places that could be found here (including Place Dalida, named after the famed singer that has become an icon of gay French). From the bus, you would be able to have an overview of Paris, circle le Sacre Coeur, worry about whether the bus would make it up the very steep incline of a very small street without scraping the skin of pedestrians already pinning themselves against buildings, or squeeze past between the sidewalk and a parked car.

The passangers of the bus would tend to be a mix between locals and tourists...the locals seem to know the bus drivers and banter with them freely. Best to sit in way in the back to enjoy the view, especially when the bus circle le Sacre Coeur (when you go from Mairie du XVIII to Pigalle)...you will be treated to a wonderful view of Paris including the eye sore Tour Montparnasse way near the Gare Montparnasse in the south (so you do get to see a long way off from here) as well as (quick though) the Eiffel Tower. Of course you could get off here and take the stairway down (or the little metro like funiculaire to go to the Métro station Anvers).

If you decide to get off the bus at Pigalle, you could see my other entry on Pigalle to get oriented...Indeed, the bus route is interesting also because the neighborhoods change as we mosey on the route...from the very mixed not very rich neighborhood to the rich on top of the hill of Montmartre and down to the, some may think, seedy Pigalle. But don't count Pigalle out (or consider it only for sex). Pigalle is cabaret also, night life, Amélie Poulin and all the rest that we associate with the original Paris!

Paris cold snow and rain (Random thoughts again, stuck at home because of the weather)

2009-2010 could probably be considered one of the coldest, longest and wierdest winter in my memory. Wierd because the temperature yoyoes so much...one day you could be walking along the canal with a light jacket and the next day you have to cover yourself in wool from top to bottom with nary an inch of skin shown and still feel the cold.
Rainy Paris could still be romantic. Indeed my most romantic memory was of a rainy Paris, traversing le pont des arts with my boyfriend. Rain was falling lightly but it was very very foggy. My boyfriend kissed me then amidst the fog and the falling rain with his lips that felt at first cold and then warm and then definitely hot. That was also the last time I kissed him so romantically since in the months that followed, he decided he wanted to be het, married a woman and got fat.
But when Paris gets too cold, it was difficult to go out and walk and enjoy the city. If you decided to take the boatride, go early to secure the seats in the glass protected part in the bottom. Trust me, even if you think you could handle the cold, after 5 minutes in the open deck you would freeze and could not care less if you had just passed the narrowest house in Paris or the Palais de Tokio.
Streets tend to be empty, and just neighborhood bars with regulars might be full (the thought of not seeing each other for these regulars even for one night was too much to bear). The saddest part is that many cafés might be empty simply because smokers decide not to go in the cold cold nights because it was not even possible to sit in the heated terrace to enjoy a cigarette between dinner courses. Yes, ever since the anti smoking law, smokers desert cafés in cold nights because it was just much more comfortable sitting in one's own heated home in front of the telly and smoke to your heart's content.
Talking about heated home (and watching tv), a sad recent observation is the more and more homeless people that could be found in many corners of Paris. Many avoid shelters provided by the city (and in any case, there ware not enough shelters in the city. Sometimes metro stations are left open all night to be used as shelter by the homeless)and opt to camp in parks or in street corners maybe near street grills that let out warm steam. This is one social problem that France has to deal with maybe in more recent times compared to the US, but the cracks are definitely there. The atmosphere that reigns over France today seems to be more of tension, desperation and pessimism. The rich as in many societies of course are spared...but more and more of the French people who are not rich seem to be feeling the pinch.

The, at, in and La/le/les: How are we supposed to get them right ever?

For non-French speakers, especially Anglophones, French is difficult not only because it is confusing to pronounce (and get a good accent going) but also because of a real headache associated with the gender of things/nouns…In French (like in German, by the way) nouns are masculine or feminine (in German, you may want to add neutral with respect to gender!). Forget about finding some kind of logic or pattern to guess when things are likely to be feminine or masculine. I tried that and there is no logic that I could detect. You just have to memorize the gender of each word. This might have explained why I admired French kids who seem to have no problem whatsoever associating a gender article to words (Actually, after my French got better, I noticed that they do make mistakes though much less frequently than me…And often now I notice their mother correcting the gender of things when they get it wrong).

Foreign speakers tend to develop different strategies to overcome this little problem that the French seem to notice (often, they would indirectly correct you by repeating the noun and emphasizing the right gender of the noun, like “Oh yes, of course, LA table over there is free….”): I have a friend who seems to always mention things in plural (which works for the article itself, but when you have to add adjective….they also have to agree with the gender!); I have also tried to avoid altogether mentioning the gender article if I could (by pretending that I was taking a breath for instance just before saying the noun, or whispering it quickly); or, of course, a last option you mention both genders…like: “Le….(pause) La…table over there is free ?”.
Add to that the use of “of” (de in French), “to” (à in French) that follow certain words. In French, when you want to say “I am thinking OF you” you actually say “Je pense à toi” (I am thinking TO you). And “continue to….” is often expressed as “continuer de…” (literally: continue of). The French also has an additional word to our two “YES” (Oui) and “NO” (Non), namely Si. “Si” is used when you answer affirmatively to a question framed in the negative (Don’t you like what I cooked? SI, bien sur! Or Yes, of course! That is, the YES here is SI and not OUI!).

Of course, if you had a mean streak like me, you would also make fun (privately) of how the French speak English. They certainly have problems with THE….not just in pronouncing it (Often they say Zeh) but in using it too. I saw a graffiti (in English) scrawled on a mail box that read: We want the mail on the time….no guessing the writer was French. They tend to eliminate ‘the’ altogether or use it too much in unlikely places too. FUN is another word that is often used wrong. Fun is an adjective but in their zeal for rules, the French often add ‘y’ to make it really an adjective. So, your friends might say “Oh the party last night was really funny” (meaning, the party was fun!) or “Mr. X is such a funny person” (they might not mean that Mr. X tells a lot of joke or is unusual/weird, but that Mr. X likes to party and have fun). They also use English words bizarrely (and don’t even try to correct them because they would still think that they are right and you have no idea what you’re talking about…please see another post of mine for weird use of English words in French)..for instance, if someone tells you there’s a ‘self’ around the corner he or she probably meant that there is a self-service shop there (and is not being philosophical about finding one’s self). When I go to a bakery and ask for a doughnut they always repeat it to correct me by saying Un (one) doughnutS..yes, the s is pronounced and compulsory even if you’re asking for just one doughnut. But don’t ask for Trois (three) cakes (another English word bizarrely adopted by the French) they will pronounce it like cake in singular (as are most words in French where the plural forms are only noticeable in writing but not in pronunciation except when the words actually change in their plural forms such as mal (ache) that becomes maux (aches)).

Last but not least are what the French call les faux amis (literally, fake friends) referring to words that are similar but have totally different meaning in French and in English. How many times have I heard “Oh but he is such as sensible person”…what the speaker meant was that he is such as sensitive guy…Extra for English speakers means something more (than expected or than usual) but in French it means better than most or the best!

So, next time you find yourself in a funny party, just try to be extra so that you could meet lots of sensible new friends!