Paris - Day 8

     My day started with a trip to a cemetery.  I went to see if I could find a fellow by the name of Jim Morrison. Both my son Ben and my friend Kim said that they wanted me to go see this guy. This being the trip of doing the cliche I said of course I would go pay a visit to the music icon. Any reason to visit a cemetery is a good one for me. I'll tell ya, though, the more cemeteries I visit, the more comfortable I feel in having made the decision to be cremated and thrown. For the record I want most of me to be thrown off Prospect Rock in Johnson, some thrown at camp and a little bit put on my dad's grave in LA.


     Time, weather and assholes are not kind to cemeteries. I'd rather just be floating with the wind than having my grave desecrated by vandals, birds, floods, tree roots, etc.


     At the Cimetiere du Pere Lachaise the office has maps detailing plots of famous people. There are two maps - one for literary figures and another for musical figures. The lanes in the cemetery are just as jumbled as the streets in Paris so good luck getting where you're headed without getting off track at least once. There was a lady out front stopping people and insisting that she is the guide and you can't go in without paying her to be the guide. I think she's a real guide but she's a schister too and I told her I was a guide as well and I didn't need her services. It wasn't a complete lie. I guided myself.


     I found Mr. Morrison and the only other one I wanted to see - Gertrude Stein. I was in there over an hour. Cemeteries are very peaceful places and I took a few minutes to sit down and finally write out my postcards. Here are some pictures from JM's plot:

     Do you remember buying 45's and listening to the A-side over and over again? Did you ever accidentally play the B-side and wonder what the eff? I'm the kind of person who bought the 45 and listened to the B-side on purpose hoping for some kind of the same as the A-side but different, edgy. Going into the Dali Museum is the kind of thing that makes a person say "what the eff". This place has about 300 of Dali's B-side works but I really thought the whole thing was fascinating. This guy was right on the edge of every line of being. I wish I had discovered him earlier in life.

     For dinner I went to the Moulin Rouge. It's a 3 course meal and for this chick who pretty much calls Denny's home I was way out of my comfort zone, but I muddled through and survived - used all the wrong utensils and totally didn't see the potatoes under the fish - but I survived. I had a half bottle of champagne all to myself, too. I could only get through a glass and a half before I knew it was time to stop so I offered the rest of my bottle to a couple at my table they were lushes and happy to take the rest of the bottle off my hands.


     The show was fantastic. Two hours full of singing, dancing and costumes. There was so much going on the whole time. Magnificent, truly magnificent. It's a spectacular spectacle to quote the movie. No pictures allowed so you only get an exterior shot from the Starbucks across the street. PS: the best caramel machiato I've ever had I had this afternoon at this Starbucks.