N.B.A.C.H.G.

hey ya'll this here is my first mass communiquéé and i hate to do this because it's not the most personal way to send a letter, but if i repeat a story one to many times it looses it's life. so in the interest  of saving this stories life without electrical shocks i 've had to sacrifice its personal nature  i'm hoping that god, and the rest of you, will find some way to forgive me....please.

     for anyone that i forgot to tell; im in europe and have been for almost two months. i've lived in london for most of this time but this here adventure thankfully took me out of the grease pit and threw me into the fire.

     

      on just another london night, not unlike this one, i was wondering aimlessly through the heart of downtown as it beat furiously on in its erratic pulse. this evening i had my little old acoustic guitar and strummed mindlessly on it as i walked (ethan you know the no woman / wendy chords i always strum) looking generally for and at nothing in particular. somehow something in particular managed to stumbled across me and unknowing i became entwined in the beginning of a grand adventure. ok ok i'll get to the point and stop all this dilly dallying around. BAM!! a group of touristy folks walk by and one anonymous  female voice shouts out, "play us a song" well all of you know( or i think you do) that i can't play a song on this damn thing and use it mostly just to meet people. " I can't play a song" i shout back. lucky for me that stops the crowd and once again the guitar has reeled helpless victims into my clutches....HA HA HA(think of evil laugh).

    "oh come on, you have to know stairway to heaven" and the voice takes a face,  and it's beautiful!!

    "no, can't play that one"

 "then you have to know free bird. everyone knows either stairway or free bird" 

     "nope"

  one of the five or six people in the group steps forward and saves the day.

"i can play stairway" he says

not only that, it turns out he can play lyal lovet also so you know this guy is cool, but .....he's canadian so he can't be that cool and it makes it ok to steal his girlfriend. (that's for steve, austin and the N.B.A.C.H.G. if you guys can even remember what that is)

uuuhhhh where was i.......

 oh yea the girl,  how could i  forget. As phil plays stairway to heaven i strike up a conversation with the beautiful girl that went some thing like this.

" So Baby, i couldn't help noticing that your a sexy sweet little thing from america"

ok just kidding i don't talk like that at all. i said

"hey, your from america"

" yeah, i'm from california"

" hey, me too. what part?"   and yes i do start every sentence with "hey"( check the beginning of this message)

   "lake Tahoe."

   "hey, wow i'm from sonora. do you know where that is?"

 "yeah. i have a friend there"

 and... blah ...blah... blah

so far this is the general theme of every conversation here, because something like 40% of people in london are from some where else. where are you from...followed directly by "how long have you been here".. and then the amazing finisher "where have you been here" or  the startling change up "where are you going next"

any how i'm invited to walk with them on their little sonjour around town. only used sojour cause' i heard it today even though i hate this word. we walk around we talk around. she tells me that she just met all the folks  we're on parade with at the hostel, so i know i don't have to steal her from anyone. but damn i wanted to take her from the canadian and have my revenge for all that canada has taken from us. well some other time, but beware canada i'm on to you, i know your little game, oh yeah i know.

  As the night goes on i realize more and more that she digs me and this is culminated in a semi final maneuver where i walk everyone back home and she decides to say goodbye to everyone and walk the streets with me in the wee little hours of the morn. sun rise finds us chatting in the park, and me wanting to but being to much of a wuss to kiss her. luckily i know her and i see that if i wait she'll take the initiativee and that's always better. as the sun rises the she makes her move and soft lips touch mine. after a little bit of kissy face we walk around and talk some more we dig each other and all seems well. wait wait what's this at eleven o'clock  yes eleven in morning, this very morning of the sun rise she will fly to paris. aaaahhhhhhhhh i feel this new fire being smothered, she's slipping through my evil grasp. but what about love ,  sweet kisses america , baseball, apple pie, hippies , day dreams of european romance and all the other things i thought we had in common? how can she be gone just like that?

 sorry. that was my best attempt at building up drama and suspense. the punch line is..........

she asks me to fly to paris to meet her later that very day. hmmmmm we've only known each other one day; i have almost no money;  this girl is in love with me, i must carefully weigh... my... optio.......OK   i'll do it. still it seems unreal and far off in this daze of non sleep but the reality of it slaps me hard in the face at the internet cafe where she uses her credit card to buy me the ticket. time is running out, she has to catch a train and i have to shower and prepare for my flight. on our parting just a little kiss and a huge gap, we look at each other and realize that we are about to part  and meet again in paris no longer strangers. "am i crazy" is the question each of us must be asking ourselves, yes was defiantly my answer.

     and then there i go flying.

          i have no time to be shocked or surprised.

       i have no time for doubt or second guessing.

    i'm on a plane then im asleep then i'm in paris then i have to find our meeting place. 

my plane is late.  the airport is far from downtown paris.  our rondevue point  is away from the train station. im three hours later than our planed meeting. and when i get there she's not there, i wait and she's not there, i wait and she's still not there.

every minute seems an eternity and suddenly i have all the time in the world to worry to doubt to second guess. was she here but thought i decided to ditch out on her and take the free ticket to paris she bought?? did she change her mind and decide that it was a bad idea to run to paris with a stranger and stand me up??? am i stupid for being here???? ahahhhhhh

but then here she is and i feel good i feel great and life comes flooding in to drowns all the worry.

paris hmmm paris what a shit hole of an area that we stayed in. it was late night she had reservations at this hostel i had no place. so again we decided to walk around until late drinking cheep wine that tasted like gas. but around two an idea struck. the hostel has a deck right? and i have spiderman skills right? so why not climb up and sneak into your room? its two in the morning, tomorrow is french independence day, i'm drunk climbing up a two story gutter to sleep in a dorm with 4 paying strangers and still nothing seems out of the ordinary.

one nap gives way to another and were lying on a field in the shadow of the eiffel tower basking in the sound of fire works and sun. another all-nighter this time in the company of thousands of patriotic french. at four in the morning when we return to the hostel i walk right in and they assume that i pay to stay ,and i wonder why i almost fell off the side of a building yesterday getting in. sleep sleep sleep falafel falafel falafel "hey dewey, would you come to switzerland with me....please?"

how can i say no, oh yeah except for that whole almost no money thing that i have going on.

"I'll pay."  she says and tells me i;m an angel in disguise.

this is good this is too good this is mad wack crazy stupid good yo.

and the dream continues.

 this night we spent in a nice little hotel in a much hipper area of paris that's full of young people, clubs, bars and little eateries. the whole day however was wasted finding how to get a train to the jazz festival in switzerland that she wants to hit up.

wake up roll over. yep the world is still a perfect beautiful place and there is still a pretty face next to me. 

     we're on a train then another sleeping sleeping always napping the nature of my existence.

 so this is switzerland. ahhh the fresh air the alps the laundered money. yes all this is good.

i'm shocked they don't use the euro and i throw a few remaining euros in my back pack, little do i know that these will prove to be very handy in a desperately uncertain unforeseen future.

but now money seems to be nothing and the two of us throw around each others money like confetti. again we arrange a way to sneak me into the hostel for free. we watch free music we talk it up we eat hot food and look at booths selling festival junk to the needy masses. two days pass in this way and we decide to go clubbing on this second night but first to smoke a little hash given to us by a stranger in paris who played us a cd of his band and invited us to his up coming show. but no,    we had to go to switzerland.

 dwelling in the shadows

sitting on the ground

hiding from the eyes

 still somehow we're found

and not just found mind you we're out right caught

by none other than my best friend the cops.

before i even notice a hand reaches into my line of sight and pulls the pipe and hash from my hand. WHAT, i look up agitated. i think some one is trying to rob me but no the badge in his hand tells me otherwise. we get searched we get questioned we get dragged off to an interrogation room. yeah!!! boy howdy this a hoot.

after a lengthy conversation with the coppers where we didn't really understand anything because they didn't speek English and wow i didn't speak french. it came down to me getting a ticket for a hundred fifty swiss frances that some how (thank you so much mom) i was able to take from my account but  that left me with less than a dollar. that's it though, they release me no jail, no kick in the pants, nothing. well except for all my money. anyhow that night is ruined and we return to the hostel to sulk over our loss. the morning comes and reveals a sun it's the first that we have seen of that old chap in a few days and it really makes the festival take off. previously we had been standing in the rain enjoying a free two day shower. this night we see the most jamming dance music i have ever heard. it's this  crazy gypsies get down then back up again music. there are like two hundred people watching the band and for some reason i'm the only one dancing. i never dance. i can't dance. but here i am shaking my rump and doing the country music chicken wing dance. this music was so alive and bouncing i couldn't resist.

ok i'm almost done talking but i won't stop not just yet  not when my luck takes off soaring to new heights. while walking around i'm approached by the most beautiful girl i've seen , it hurts to look at her. "hey do you want tickets to the show tonight?" she asks. "uuhhhhhhhhh..yes?" i say as if unsure it's the right answer.

"i saw the two of you walking around with back packs and i thought you looked like you could use some free tickets to the show."

"thank you i would love this" i go on to tell her that this is a great final night for me after getting robbed by the cops the night before.

"oh that's so sad" she tells me and offers to get me stoned to make up for the bad luck of last night. i grab amy (the girl i'm traveling with) and the three of us find a secluded place to burn one down. a bunch of talk leads our new friend to ask us where we're staying tonight.  uh we have no place. "oh really, come stay with me on the couch at my place" man this just keeps getting better. we end up talking for hours and the show she gave us tickets to is over but we go back to her place and smoke some more and then hit the sack. morning finds me alone with fourteen dollars in my shoe. hmmmm... a little investigation and i find the girls chatting in the kitchen soon amy must leave to catch a plane to spain and i must find my way back to london. we have tea and a chatty time. i'm now in love with our hostess, despite her boyfriend, and want to marry her and have fourteen children who are forced to decide between careers as models or rock stars. but we don't always get what we want do we. just most of the time.

      it's time to part ways with my romance as Amy is given a ride to the train then off to spain. goodbye...parting is such sweet sorrow.....and all those other worn out statements. we will meet again in london before the end of an era.  the decision has been made i'll hitch hick back to london form switzerland the way i was meant to live this life. the fourteen dollars or swiss frances actually that are in my shoe were given to me by amy who was afraid that i would starve on the way home to london only because i was actually down to zero dollars. i spend all day with my new friends and stephen (the boyfriend) prints me out a map of the best rout to london from where we are then we drink beer and i convince him to show me a slide show of his year long trek around the world. we talk for hours then around five ot six i realize it's time to actually get this mission underway and ask for a ride out to the road. but no these people wont let me go.  they insist on  extending to me even more generosity then i can handel. i tried the "no no i'm fine you don't need to give me that" tactic i tried the old chinese thing i heard once where you say no to any gift two times to be sure that your not being helped out of courtesy but out of genuine interest in you, but no matter how hard i tried i couldn't leave until they had forced upon me fifty five euros, food, beer, and a bag of weed. damn these are good people.

          my luck rarely seems to stretch it's self thin and the first car that drives by stops and i'm bound for france. it's a mere two and a half days to the cost and the quickest ferry to england. my rides were fun, most of the people didn't speak english resulting in fantastic one sided conversations each of us saying a thing or two then letting the other talk with out a single thing actually being communicated. i see now how little language matters and how far you can get with hand signals and facial expressions. i make it to the cost it was easy. i'm down to twenty euros the ticket is 27. this is when i rifle through the pack hoping that some money had fallen from heaven and accidentally found its way into my back pack. WOW, it did. the euros i had forgotten when i arrived in switzerland, the pound and a half left from england and the swiss frances amy gave me all added up to just enough to push me past the 27 mark. the wine is cheep but im still abel to make out the white cliffs of dover through the haze in my head. oh yea i forgot that once i'm england i still needed money to reach london. only a small miscalculation, nothing a few hours of busking can't fix. busking is the english word for playing music or performing on the street for money. i take a bus. i land in london penny less with the security of a job waiting for me in the morning. i know in a few days i'll be rich and in love again . the world still hasn't lost it's gleam though i've lost  a few days of sleep and all my money. hell i couldn't really have spent a better week if i had planned it for years.   

 lots of details left out some intentionally some forgotten others to boring or lengthy, ask for them if you dare i might find some time is by busy schedule as a traveling salesman to tell you anything you might want to hear.

bye ya all

love dewey

ps by the time you read this i'll be in liverpool trying my luck selling paintings. themoney is good and the people are better. last week i made around $600 in four days so i'm rich again for the time being. later everyone.

pps i hope everyone gets my canadian jokes

This Notebook Analysis is part of retrospective of my life taken from emails that I sent or received on the First of the Month.