Marriage Snapshots

THE WEDDING

Before I start, I need to establish that I was looking really hot in
new black pants, a new white t-shirt, and a three-generation old red
paisley jacket. It was hard for me to get up that morning because I had
only slept 10 hours out of the last 48, and I hadn't had a drink in 2
days, so I wasn't feeling as hot as I looked. But I really wanted to
lend my support to the groom, he's a close friend since many years, so
off I go.

Episode 1: Wedding in the Town Hall.

First there's this bitch who announces in officialese that these people
whose names she can't pronounce are getting married, and will we all
stand and show ourselves humbled by the priviledge of setting eyes on
the fucking mayor. Fucking mayor comes in looking like a Disneyland
mayor, medal and sash included, and announces that the couple are very
priviledged to live in his neighborhood, oh and incidentally, they are
getting married. "I am marrying Stephan, waiter, with Mila, waiter."
That lacked class somehow. "Now, I'm gonna read the fucking Civil Code
defining that your duty as a couple is to get your money legally tied
up and to push out babies that you raise as generically and with as
little expense to the State as possible. Thank you, now you can sign
here, and here and here, and your whole family can sign here and here
also. Now the bitch will read you what you have just signed." Then the
bitch botches her way through an unintelligible document basically just
saying that they are married now and could never have done it without
France and a hell of a lot of lawyers. Incidentally, this is such an
emotional experience that the bride and about five other people are
already crying, and it's only 10 minutes into this long day. The result
of the civil wedding is that the couple gets a little typed and stamped
booklet that says on page 1 "X son of A married Y daughter of B on this
date". On page 2 it says "X deceased _____________ and Y deceased
________________", and on page 3: "Kid #1=", and then Kid #2, and so
on. It's called the Family Booklet and constitutes an official document
that has to be presented left and right by everyone in the family
forever. But it might as well be called the Breeding Record it seems to
me.

Episode 2: The Caf?.

So next we all go across the street and drink a few bottles of
champagne, and I get for the first time the impression that is going to
remain with me through the day, namely, that everyone here knows
his/her part by some genetically transmitted clich?, except for me. The
bride has to kiss the groom every minute, in between which she snaps at
his friends or kisses her parents. The families have to get to know
each other and everyone else in a frantic way, like they have to write
character profiles 5 minutes later, not like this is the beginning of a
lifelong relationship. The kids have to strut around in clothes they
aren't used to wearing, and spoof the adults. Above all, the GUYS, by
which I mean all the male friends of my generation, which technically
includes me but which part I can't act right at all, the GUYS have to
split their time between being loud, being lewd, drinking (yes that
part I can do), buying the groom drinks, boasting and teasing each
other like 10 year olds, hitting each other, claiming they will never
get married, flirting with any girl present, and having sudden bursts
of sincerity hugging the groom or the bride or anyone and avowing that
they find this moment very profound and touching. Each guy had to
exhibit all of these activities at least once each every five minutes,
and nothing else, on and on for hours. The other guys there were true
experts at this behavior, they were all bartenders in fact, but I found
it exhausting and I was very bad at it. Meanwhile, any people who found
out that I was American or that I was a tour guide had to add to their
duties with equal frequency any conversation with me that I have
already had at least 1000 times, such as: the difference between France
and US, the beauty of France, or the glories of being a tour guide. So
you can imagine how very tired and bored and even sad I am feeling by
11am, one hour into the day.

Episode 3: Lunch at the Bride's Parents' House.

Make no mistake about it, all these people are good people, genuine
people, all eager to welcome me into the family as a friend of the
groom. But here are a few things that annoyed me. First of all, in the
living room of the house, there is NOT ONE ATTRACTIVE THING. It is
amazing that you can fill a room so full of stuff and not have one
attractive thing. The best things were some wine bottles, which being
full had their appeal but can't exactly be called works of art. The rug
on the floor was not attractive because it was both ugly and dirty. The
furniture was not attractive because it was both ugly and broken. The
bathmat portraying a medieval hunting scene that was hung on the east
wall was not attractive. The 3d spraybrushed plastic mural on the west
wall portraying a couple kissing in a swamp next to a motorcycle was
also not attractive. The collection of cigarette lighters was not
attractive (although maybe it wasn't supposed to be). The other 8000
souvenirs from the top ten cheesy tourist places in Europe were not
attractive. The dog was not attractive, nor was his smell. Well, the
parents were not attractive and neither were the grandparents, who
between the four of them had I think 10 teeth. And they played ugly
music. And for lunch they went and picked up some roast chickens and
potato chips from down the street. Can I just tell you? I am NOT a
snob. But this was unlike any wedding day I had ever seen.

Now let me tell you how these people have a conversation, as I was
learning about it. The first sentence is always the same: "HEY!" Always
they say "HEY", in order to interrupt any other conversation that's
trying to happen. Then they say: "One time, one time" (and then they
touch you on the knee if you're sitting or on the arm if you're
standing), "One time, [insert any unusual fact that elicits absolutely
no response, like] I had a nephew who brought me a bottle of wine worth
$100!" Now the ONLY thing I can say to that is a smile and a wow and
try to contribute my own one time experience along those lines, but I
can't because the person says, stepping closer and touching me again,
"HEY!, and ONE time, ONE time", and then mentions another bottle of
wine, and another, and then shows you a bottle of wine, and then says
"HEY, ONE TIME, ONE TIME, I heard of a friend who had a really big
bottle of wine!!!!!" And then they change the subject or they get cut
off by someone else who knows how to say "HEY" like that and runs off
with his own list of impressive revelations "One time I stayed awake
for 3 days in a row!" I absolutely could not have any exchange in such
an atmosphere. I did make some progress because I managed once to
mention a bottle of wine I had once had (which was actually a lie, that
might be part of the secret), and because I learned by the end of the
evening that I could have perfect communion with one 80 year old
Spanish grandfather if I just punched him in the arm everytime I saw
him, then he would punch me and cackle and walk away happy. But on the
whole I had my deepest talks with the dog. This lunch lasted 4
hours!!

My friend, these people are NOT strange, they are average!
That is to say, normal!
We are not average. Our reality is about 1) individuality, and 2)
exchange.
That is REALLY FUCKING RARE IN THIS WORLD!
The vast majority of people, their reality 98\% of the time is to
pantomime what was taught to them.
And to be comfortable with that and because of that!
And people like that in my life make so little impression on me that I
don't get messed up about them that often, and then today I got such an
enormous dose.
Most people around the world feel proud when they find themselves
exactly where their parents were, whereas we and people in our circles
want to be different.
All the people we know want to be Somebody, but we don't know most
people, and when you start to open your eyes to a bigger group of the
world, you see that most people want to be Nobody.
They want to get married under the title of "waiter" and they want
EVERY SINGLE WORD AND GESTURE of the whole day, on the part of
everyone, to be exactly the same as a million other weddings.
Most of the cultures of the world are based on that. Throughout
history.
And most people are workers and not thinkers,
and most marriages are about making babies.
And mothers cry because they think they are watching themselves and
that therefore
the daughter is gone,
and the daughters cry for exactly the same reason,
and the boys become men on only that day because they have reproduced
their own father.
And I'm not sure there is anything wrong with that.
But it sure is weird to me, nothing like what I've come to want. I'm
one of the tiny minority that thinks I'm something special, even when
it kills me and I don't know why. So they all get the joys of community
and I'm in excruciating solitude most of the time.

Episode 4: Church Wedding!
someone else. At the Chagall Museum in Nice, a typical example. Not one
but three old French bitches from the museum are interrogating me about
my group and giving me instructions "How many people? How old each one?
Where are their passports? What school from? Nationality? Put their
bags here. Does a teacher have a teacher identity card?" The kids: "How
long do we have to stay? Do I have to check this bag? Where are we
going this afternoon? I want to get my bellybutton pierced. Do I have
to check this bag? Can we go out after dinner? Are you coming to the
airport with us tomorrow?" One of my teachers had misunderstood and
gone back to the hotel without telling me, leaving her kids in my care,
but the other teachers were asking: "How long can we stay? Where is the
hotel? Is Chagall's such and such painting here? What time is dinner?
Why did that other teacher go back to the hotel? Brianna is feeling
sick." and at the same time telling their kids to check their bags in
the wrong place and to go inside before they had their tickets. Then
the teacher's 10 year old son, just to contribute to the pandemonium
and show he understands my role, comes to my face and says "WHO WHAT
WHERE WHEN WHY!?!?!" The funny thing is, he was trying to help. So I
didn't kill him. I didn't kill anyone. I smiled, and gave the different
groups different posters to stand under 20 feet away from me so I could
figure out one thing at a time. 30 seconds later they were in the
museum enjoying it. I now first have to exchange pleasantries with the
museum bitches so they explain to me politely the proper documents to
have ready next time. Then I go in and try and give the kids some basic
lines to appreciate in the art, "Can you find the horse in every
painting? Who is the horse? Which one is your favorite?" Soon they are
calling each other over to show each other different stuff. Then I go
make sure my teachers are enjoying themselves (the gay professor has
calmed down now, he says, "Magical! Just magical!" he says "I come here
every trip and I just love it! How can I complain?!" and I DON'T say
"You complain like a five year old girl at least 3 times a day."). So I
leave them to it for half an hour while I go find the secret path that
cuts under the traintracks back to our hotel and isn't on any map. I
find it next to a pagoda.

Now I'm on my third trip already. This group has been totally surreal
-- all black boys from Kentucky with their mothers. Their language
knows no plural or auxiliary verbs: "When we eats again, ma'am?" is not
incorrect so I understand a good 85\\% of what they say. As of
yesterday, I was raised to the honorable rank of Brother Joshua.

They are here to sing for the poor unsuspecting French. Last night was
their first concert, in a Performing Arts School. These kids are age 8
- 20, and they stood up in their suits and ties and had a true church
meeting. They swayed and stomped and snapped their fingers and clapped
and closed their eyes, and the mothers were vocal in the audience. The
French students' jaws chipped the wood floor. Then the French students
got up and sang French classics like Edith Piaf and Jacques Brel,
acting out all the angst, and the Americans' mouths hung open.

I reckon for everyone involved it was like if you were walking down the
street and ran into Mickey Mouse. Not the cartoon of him or someone
dressed as him, but the real thing. You'd be like, "What? That guy
really exists?!? I thought he was just an icon, a stereotype." The
French people didn't want us to leave, and they exchanged
addresses.

I'm not such a bad boy. I worked extremely hard all winter teaching and
paid off all my credit card debts. I have now not one debt. Do you know
anyone else like that? Now I am laying away for... Something. I've been
doing the tours and then I had a month off. Have you ever had that
either? a month with no work and no place to go? It kind of sucks,
because I am not responsible enough to have such a great liberty. I got
extremely drunk 5 days a week, never went to bed before dawn or got up
before 2pm or left my apartment before 5pm. I played my guitar only
about 2x a week, and I didn't start my novel or anything, although I
did spend some good times with new and old friends, in town, on the
phone, and on the net. And I didn't spend too much money, really.

Boys don't stop maturing at age 12, they actually go in reverse and get
less mature. Then in college they make up some of the lost ground if
they are lucky. But if they study business they usually finish with a
mental age of 4. America is encouraging everyone to act like children,
to think only of one's self and the immediate moment, to believe that
everything is fine and good and homogenous and static. Not all
societies have been like this.

Yesterday I came back from Rome to Paris again. I put the group on
their plane at 6am. The next 2 flights to Paris were full so I drank
beer and played guitar. Then at noon the airport went on strike for 6
hours. I called my company to see if they would pay me a hotel room,
but they said no so I just slept on the airport floor for about 3 hours
and had some shitty expensive lunch. Then I went back into Rome to see
if there was a night train or something, but I didn't like what I saw
so I went back to the airport. I finally got registered on an 8:30pm
flight, which they announced at 9 had technical problems, at 10 that
they had found a piece that would fix it, and we took off at 11:30pm. I
got to Paris at 1:15 in the morning and waited until 2:15 for a taxi.
It was raining so hard in Paris that the highways were flooded and we
had to take back roads; I got home at 3am. What a nightmare.

I'm back now, and back for awhile. Yes, the tour season is probably
done for me, and done right. My last tour was a real whopper with 80
people and 6 performances and 7 and pass out, so I had to evict them when I finally
felt I had given to the last dregs of my energy, love, and patience to
this good friend of mine whom I would have liked to see have so much
better (I mean a better ceremony because his wife is a hot little
character). I don't know how I ended up sober enough to drive two
people home to Paris and drop them at their door. And then I went home
and broke the whiskey bottle I had stolen from the reception, cut my
finger on the broken glass, and attempted to wash my cd-player out in
the sink before consigning myself to the void.

Isn't marriage a nightmare?