France Fiction

Friday, November 11, 2005

Last night was Hendrik Hegray's opening at France Fiction. There's something about this moppet-headed little bugger that always makes me laugh. I'm just a little surprised his moustache happens to be real now. He's exactly the type of character to paint his moustache in. The work was lots of collage, magazine cut-outs, and drawings on cut-outs, the naive style.

I showed up after the wine was finished, but before my friends had arrived. The Dead Zone. In many ways, I'm quite sensitive. I get very scared if I don't have some kind of lady-in-waiting by my side. If I walk into an opening alone and I don't see anyone there, I'm quite likely to just walk away. Standing around a well-lit place with lots of young sexy people all busy sexing each other up while you feel mated to the wall is very uncomfortable.

I pulled out my cellphone and started to call my various agents around town. One was stuck in a traffic jam, the other one was stirring pasta, and the last one went straight to messages. Finally, I gave in and talked to someone I had a passing acquaintance with and suddenly, I was surrounded by boys. Boys I barely know. It was a pleasant turn in the situation, and then, Kim threw herself in my arms, and I knew everything was going to be ok.

There was this pirate-type guy who howled at the moon and serenaded all the girls with a line of dime-store prose. There was another guy who apparently looks like Tony Curtis but sounds like Danny BlahBlahBlah, the guy who does the voice dubbing in french for Tony. For french people, this guy is really Tony Curtis, and he kept trying to get me to jump into his SUV. In the US, guys who ask you to jump into their SUV can only be obeyed if they're somehow studly enough to have put GHB into your drink.

Then we hightailed outta there, to Kim's place, the concrete palace. Julien made us listen to Arabic techno while telling me that my love for glass harps was vaguely lame. I wanted more giggles, but the boy and I had some ironing to do. Luckily, this one ended amicably. I stayed long after everyone else left, yapping to Kim about random stuff. I really like Kim because she always keeps the upper hand. It's so nice to be with someone who's in control like that. You don't have to bother about a single thing while she's strangling Hendrik on the floor.

However, I got tired and left. On my way home, climbing up the Menilmontant hill, I passed a barrage of police cars near the high-rise apartments on my left. Their lights were flashing and they were blocking all traffic going up the hill. As I walked further, I thought I saw a little tiny bit of smoke. Then, passing the ambulance, I saw a white sheet laid on the ground, and a hand slightly curled poking out from underneath. I walked on, further up the hill, and saw a tiny smoking Morris mini, with a huge dent on the front left side. It was really awful.