As seen from Just Above Sunset

Monday, 9 August 2004

Topic: Election Notes

The Bad-Boy Vote

Last weekend in Just Above Sunset, the weekly virtual magazine that is parent to this web log, you might have noticed this bit of dialog in Political Discourse: There seem to be some disagreements on methodology... - where Joseph, now living in France, had this comment on the new Republican tactic just announced, to go after Kerry with "derision" as a tactic, a sort of frat-boy thing, and what the Democrats should do about it...

... it's not so much that Democrats aren't good at derision, or avoid petty fights. It's that completely lacking self-awareness, the Bush-type personality is simply impervious to it.

You've seen this - it's the mark of the true bully.

You can say anything you want about them, but no matter how true, clever or embarrassing, they will stand there with this shit-eating grin (not the fake grin of the self-aware person who has momentarily been stunned or shamed, but the genuine, vapid article). They will think of something really witless to say and make you look like the idiot.

Why? Because you have to have some awareness of how others see you, of your own faults and imperfections and some inner acknowledgment of the validity of the criticisms of others. If not, the remark just slides right off.

When an entire nation admires a bully, I begin to wonder if some psycho-sociological force isn't at play. Do American men today feel so powerless and ineffectual, so limp-dicked, so henpecked by their wives, so disposable at their jobs, so despised by their children, so scared of the world that they must resort to infantile bully worship?

And as I commented, maybe so.

Bully-worship is empowering, when nothing else is. Something about surrogate power, I suppose - and as I have maintained for a long time, this has to do with seeing someone doing or saying what you wish you could do or say, but cannot. When Bush tells the rest of the world to shove it - choose your issue or treaty or international law or whatever (the constitution will do as an example too) - the folks Joseph identifies get at least a partial erection. That'll do. Bush's election strategy will be to play to that strength, if that's the right word.

And right on schedule, from Jim Sleeper, a lecturer in political science at Yale, and the author of "Liberal Racism" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), we get a good summary of how this all will work out. It really is a frat-boy thing, and Sleeper shows how our president is not much different than he was as an undergraduate at Yale.

He's Got the Bad-Boy Vote Sewed Up
Jim Sleeper, The Los Angeles Times, August 9, 2004

Unfortunately there is no way to show here the photograph of George Bush that accompanies this piece - a clipping from the Yale student newspaper the Times does not make available on the net. It's a black-and-white sports-action close-up of Bush at Yale in a rugby game. He's got a hammerlock on a guy from the opposing team, a smirk on his face, and he's in punching the other guy good and hard in the side of the head. This was thirty years ago. The caption reads - "George Bush delivers illegal, but gratifying right hook to opposing ball carrier." A right hook, no less.

Sleeper seems to think this somehow symbolically explains one reason why Bush still is riding high in the polling and hasn't really dropped in popularity much at all since the Kerry nomination. And here's how Sleeper explains Bush's continuing popularity -

He owes more than a little something to the "bad boy" vote that no pollster captures as well as this photo and caption do.

What I have in mind here isn't the bad guy in a detective story or the stand-up guy in "The Sopranos," or even some rock-band poseur. He may actually be a good guy most of the time, like millions of this country's mischievous frat boys who like getting away with things but who aren't that bad as long as they don't get into anything too far over their heads.

As president of his chapter of the DKE fraternity, Bush sounded a classic bad-boy note when he said he "didn't learn a damned thing" at Yale. "The reason was that he didn't try," Jacob Weisberg reported this spring in Yale Alumni Magazine. "One year, the star of the football team spotted him in the back row during [course-] shopping period. 'Hey, George Bush is in this class!' Calvin Hill, '69, shouted to his teammates. 'This is the one for us!' "

So his leadership style was born. The smirking frat-boy leads the others in mocking the whole business. You can take all the intellectual pretensions of college and books and learning and do a goof on it, and lead men. Readers who, like me, attended Denison University at the same time remember how it was with the frat-boys. They thought the rest of us were all fools. And they let us know that.

But what does Jim Sleeper really know of this? Is he making this up? He says he isn't.

I was in that room that day. Bush gave them a grinning thumbs up and, I have to admit, everyone laughed. He had a certain charm about getting away with things, like DKE's custom of "branding" new members' on the butt, a less-than-noble tradition he managed to protect when it came under fire.

Ah, I had forgotten about that branding thing Bush managed to get away with.

An old Denison friend wrote me about this today -

I was wondering if you'd seen the interview with Gary Trudeau (Doonesbury) in Rolling Stone. Trudeau was two years behind GWB at Yale, and in a weird twist of fate, a hazing scandal at Bush's fraternity prompted someone to request Trudeau to do a cartoon about it - his very first cartoon. Bush was rush chairman, a role he was perfectly suited for, and which he still plays, according to Trudeau. Bush was a sarcastic preppy who gave people nicknames, and was very good at making people feel comfortable, and also at making people feel uncomfortable. The hazing incident? They were branding freshman bare bottoms with red-hot coat hanger branding irons.

This puts comments about the torture at Abu Ghraib not being our "American nature" and Rush Limbaugh's dismissal of the scandal as nothing more than a college prank, in a different light.

Frat-boy group-enforced cruelty to calculated derision - their answers to a lot of unexamined fear and anger... who wants to examine fear and anger? It's easier to see some ass kicked.

Clare sort of nails it here, doesn't she?

An excerpt for the Rolling Stone interview with Trudeau is here, and an MSNBC summary here. Bush and those nicknames and mockery? Trudeau comments - "He was extremely skilled at controlling people and outcomes in that way. Little bits of perfectly placed humiliation."

And now that's how we do politics.

Sleeper in the Los Angeles Times comments that this is a problem -

Being that kind of bad boy may be OK if you're cutting a history class or smirking behind your hand at some radical grad student leading your discussion section - but not when you're staging a commander in chief's flight-deck landing or a Thanksgiving Day pop-up in Baghdad.

Really? Ask Karl Rove about that. Look at the poll numbers.

Sleeper does point out that "Bad Boys" don't get that far very often and Bush himself would tell you that he's changed a lot since college. When Bush turned forty he stopped drinking and found Jesus, after all. He's a new man?

Key people don't believe that -

But I don't think the difference matters much to the bad boys he's left behind, including some classmates I know who are raising money for him, not to mention the up-and-comers I taught at Yale last year. Whether they cheered Bush's flight-deck landing or are reliving the joys of intramural rugby, they think he has shown them how to mess up yet still swagger off the field with an impish grin.

Leadership by example? I guess.

But it's really not a partisan political thing. Sleeper points out that this has less to do with crude and bullying Republicans than you'd think.

This really is an apolitical, "guy" thing, like the thunderous welcome Bill Clinton got from a huge crowd of college boys, with their baseball caps on backward, at the University of Illinois' Urbana-Champaign campus on Jan. 28, 1998, only days after rumors of his Monica Lewinsky affair surfaced. Just the day before, 120 million Americans had been riveted, watching him pull off a triumphal, almost defiant, State of the Union address.

"Yeah, Bi-i-i-i-lll!" the college boys roared lustily, and not because Al Gore had just warmed them up with news of Clinton's tuition loans, Hope scholarships and his plans to add slots for more AmeriCorps volunteers. Bad Boy Bill entered the hall to a booming rendition of the rock band Kansas' "Carry On My Wayward Son." He was greeted like a rock star, with no boos or catcalls.

Whoa, Nellie! Clinton and Bush are just alike? Their popularity with male voters depends on them playing the bad boy? That is a strange linkage, but it feels right.

Well, Bush is our president. Many of us misfits managed to make it through college in the late sixties doing what we did, even with the frat-boys mocking most of what we said, most of what we did, and most of what we thought - and most everything we cared about. Four more years of this?

Been there. Done that. We can manage.
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Jim Sleeper himself did drop us a line - and makes an important clarification -

I really enjoyed your commentary on this! But when you get to saying "Whoa, Nellie! Clinton and Bush are just alike? Their popularity with male voters depends on them playing the bad boy? That is a strange linkage, but it feels right...," you might take note of how I ended my column, in the very next paragraph:

"Whoever wrote that caption under George's rugby photo would understand. What he shouldn't understand is how anyone could act as if Iraq were just rugby or a dalliance. A history lesson ignored might be more like it."

The point being, that Bill Clinton's dalliance is nowhere on a scale with what George Bush is doing to the country in his "bad boy" mode, whether in Iraq or, for that matter, on the budget.

Indeed so. Yes, there is a difference - a big one.
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Bob Harris writing at This Modern World, when questioned about his own harping on this rugby business, says it really isn't that very important. His problem is with this, the administration's new pet project, National Preparedness Month - September 2004

Harris adds this perspective on the Yale rugby business -

Finally, no, of course this isn't supposed to be more important than other issues like the War On Tara, "voting" machines which are anything but, the slow Guantanamization of American life, or the rest of our impending doom during the incompetent reign of a corrupt alcoholic chimpanzee who thinks he talks to God. September ... is National Frighten The Children Just Before The Election month. That alone is way more a part of our future than whether or not Bush slugged a guy, drove drunk, dodged Vietnam, profited from insider trades, took sadistic delight in executing people, or ignored repeated warnings about Al-Qaeda until it was too goddam late.

But the past is prologue.

Of course it is. As Michael Josephson, the schlock radio guru says, character counts. Except when it doesn't.

[Note: Harris says he too has been trading emails with Jim Sleeper. Sleeper has written me two notes so far - but none of his email addresses (AOL) are working so I haven't been able to thank him yet, or trade quips. My replies to him just bounce back. The Yale man of many books, and numerous reviews in the New York Review of Books, compliments me and I cannot reach him! ]
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A late comment from Bob Patterson, also know as "The World's Laziest Journalist" -

There was a country song titled "Ladies Love Outlaws" that had a refrain that went "Outlaws touch ladies deep down in their souls" but in the final rendering of the line it was changed to "Outlaws touch ladies ... anywhere they want to ... "

Outlaws, bad boys, rebels . . . nonconformists all.

Camus in "The Rebel" says (although I can not find the exact passage despite several attempts) that one way society disarms the rebel is to absorb them into the upper class. Thus the Rolling Stones become the Rolling Stones Incorporated. They lose their cutting edge when they have a stake in the establishment they used to rebel against.

Bush as bad boy?

It maybe a matter of semantics. Not a bad boy. (Think the wrong side of the tracks.) It's the spoiled brat. Richie Rich. I read somewhere before he was elected that it would be dangerous to have him as a president because he did not know the value of a budget. He had no experience about planning how to pay for a purchase. Buy an invasion of Iraq? No problem! Put it on the charge card and dad's accountants will take care of it when the bill comes due.

He seems to be living up to that psychological profile quite well.

Four more years! Or as James Cagney said when he pushed the grapefruit into May Marsh's face: "You'll take it and like it. See!"

Isn't someone a bully only until they lose their first big fight? As long as they pick on the little guys, they remain bullies. Lose to a bigger guy, and then you can start to worry about a little guy who might take you too. George W is in the process of realizing that he is losing a fight. It hasn't quite dawned on him fully yet.

Maybe so. But don't count on him losing.

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Bob Harris at the website This Modern World has published the photo of George Bush at Yale that was in the print edition of The Los Angeles Times but not on line. The photo is credited to the Yale yearbook (the caption is in the original). This is what is being discussed at the top of this column.

Here is a bit of what Harris has to say about the photo -

It's not in the Times' online version, and the rest of the country should see it, I think.

Incidentally, while rugby is a contact sport, every player knows that tackling above the shoulders is a foul. So is leaving your feet during a tackle. Either of these is serious enough that the other team is immediately awarded a penalty kick, often directly resulting in points for the other team.

So even without throwing a punch, Bush is already well outside fair play.

Grasping an opponent by the back of the head and punching him in the face is beyond the pale - I've watched rugby avidly for years, and I've never seen it during an open-field tackle like this, honest - and will typically result in a player being immediately sent off.

I'm sure by next week Karl Rove will have a collection of rugby players claiming that John Kerry was even worse...

Rugby has rules? Yeah, I suppose it does.

And the consequence of this old photograph hitting the web? For those who think that rules are for losers, and that those who insist we play the rules - you know, the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions and all that - are sissies, well, this photo gets Bush more votes. Harris is wrong to think otherwise.

I suspect most pro-Bush websites have posted this photo today - proudly.

Minor note - this from May 5, 2004 -

With all the controversy about John Kerry's Vietnam medals and ribbons, who'd have thought that loyal George W. Bush aide Karen Hughes would be the one to catch the President fibbing about a supposed varsity letter? In her new book, "Ten Minutes From Normal," Hughes recounts a conversation with Bush after Russian President Vladimir Putin grilled him on his Yale days.

"President Putin knew you had played rugby, but he didn't have the context. I mean, you just played for one semester in college, right?" Hughes said.

Bush corrected: "I played for a year, and it was the varsity."

Yesterday, a Yale spokeswoman confirmed that there's no such thing as varsity rugby at Yale - not when Bush was an undergrad in the 1960s ....

Screw the rules and lie too? Bush as bad boy. You have to love it. And all this is, in its own small way, a winner for Bush.

(That last reference was uncovered by Atrios over at Eshaton.)

Posted by Alan at 18:53 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Friday, 13 August 2004 14:57 PDT home

Sunday, 8 August 2004

Topic: Couldn't be so...

Political Discourse - New Factors

Here is the curious trigger -

International team to monitor presidential election
Observers will be part of OSCE's human rights office
David de Sola - CNN Sunday, August 8, 2004 Posted: 8:22 PM EDT (0022 GMT)

And the bare bones of the story?

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A team of international observers will monitor the presidential election in November, according to the U.S. State Department.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe was invited to monitor the election by the State Department. The observers will come from the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights.

It will be the first time such a team has been present for a U.S. presidential election.

"The U.S. is obliged to invite us, as all OSCE countries should," spokeswoman Urdur Gunnarsdottir said. "It's not legally binding, but it's a political commitment. They signed a document 10 years ago to ask OSCE to observe elections."

Thirteen Democratic members of the House of Representatives, raising the specter of possible civil rights violations that they said took place in Florida and elsewhere in the 2000 election, wrote to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in July, asking him to send observers.

After Annan rejected their request, saying the administration must make the application, the Democrats asked Secretary of State Colin Powell to do so.

The issue was hotly debated in the House, and Republicans got an amendment to a foreign aid bill that barred federal funds from being used for the United Nations to monitor U.S. elections, The Associated Press reported.

In a letter dated July 30 and released last week, Assistant Secretary of State Paul Kelly told the Democrats about the invitation to OSCE, without mentioning the U.N. issue.

"I am pleased that Secretary Powell is as committed as I am to a fair and democratic process," said Democratic Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas, who spearheaded the effort to get U.N. observers.

"The presence of monitors will assure Americans that America cares about their votes and it cares about its standing in the world," she said in a news release.

And the item goes on in more detail about the process.

And what reaction did this announcement trigger?

Needless to say, some folks are angry with this. The folks at Free Republic, one of the somewhat right of center websites out there, suggest that this calls for armed defense of our country. See a UN inspector? Shoot him (or her) dead. This is what you do when a foreign force invades your country.

Here are some of the comments -

If I see one BLUE HELMET ... No threat - just a promise! They do not have to be wearing the helmets or uniforms (then they are illegal agents) either.

I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic ... SO HELP ME GOD.

Just let me see the blue helmet at my polling district. The person that's wearing it will not be harmed but don't count on that "Petty Blue" thing surviving.

I wonder how many of them have been paid by George Soros to pass themselves off as Democrats and vote.

This is bull-shiite! I'll be wearing my Sig P239 in full view. And the wife with her Walther PPKS. If a blue helmet peers behind the curtain there will be a reaction... Confrontation! This is a slap at AMERICA's face.

It is totally and 100 percent against everything I was taught about America and why I FOUGHT for this country and, yes, I even have three Purple Hearts of my own to go with it, but a hell of a lot of scars to go with them. I will continue to fight to the DEATH (theirs) to keep my family, my friends, and my country free. As the unofficial USMC motto states: I am not here to die for my country - I am here to make that other son-of-a-bitch DIE for his!

You get the idea. The UN dudes will be in some danger. Folks are ticked off by this item.

Colin Powell and Assistant Secretary of State Paul Kelly better watch their backs too.

Curiously, when it comes to the shooting part, the somewhat left of center folks do have a problem. They favor gun control laws, and probably don't have any guns handy. Oh well.

Personal Note: A few years ago I was dating a woman who taught French at UCLA, and one evening while driving down Sunset, near La Cienega as I recall, with the top down on the car, she asked me if I had a gun. Convertibles can, I suppose, make one feel vulnerable. She was amazed I didn't keep one handy in the car and another at home. I told her packing heat never occurred to me. Well, it hadn't. At first she just snorted derisively, but as we talked that derision soon turned to deep anger. How could I be so careless with my safety, and so cavalier with her safety? Ah, maybe she had a point, given how things are heating up these days. Needless to say that relationship didn't last long.

Posted by Alan at 21:22 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Monday, 9 August 2004 07:17 PDT home

Topic: Photos

Heads Up!

The new issue of the virtual magazine (the webzine), the parent to this weblog, Just Above Sunset - Volume 2, Number 31 - was posted to the net a few hours ago. Blogging here resumes later.

Special this week - a new piece from Phillip Raines, on the Boogie in the Georgia mountains. Musicians? Heads up!

Ric Erickson in Paris reports, with photos, on Friday night - rollerblade madness - and on Saturday night dancing on the quai. But what was that fellow doing performing "Hotel California" under the bridge - and why were all those Parisians singing along?

Bob Patterson gets his own section with three new columns, and the one on voting scams is scary.

Should Elvis be on a bumper sticker making fun of conservatives? No? Then submit your own ideas. See Rehabilitating the word LIBERAL - and Elvis? for that.

There is much more - and the first item in the photography section will give you a good idea about life in Hollywood.

What appeared here - as much more modest items - is extended - as the weekend items clarify points, add new detail, and incorporate comments from readers around the world.

Current Events

Political Discourse: There seem to be some disagreements on methodology...

The L-Word: Rehabilitating the word LIBERAL - and Elvis?

Words: The president once again says something really dumb, which is a Freudian slip or not, or...

Election Notes: Tough Times for the Third Man (Ralph Nader not Orson Welles)

High Finance: You can't touch me! Ha! (Cheney and Halliburton)

History: It's always the French, isn't it? The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798

UK Notes: They do wonder about us...

The Law: Ignorance of the law is no excuse... an odd little item here...

Odds and Ends: Oklahoma and Los Angeles - Details, details, details...

Sidebar: Realism from the Right?

Features

Gig Chronicles: The Boogie (Phillip Raines plays North Georgia)

Paris Weekly: Friday night - La rando du vendredi ? Paris... and dancing Saturday night (text and photos from our man in Paris)

Quotes: Useful Pithy Observations... Immanuel Fichte and Erica Jong together at last

Bob Patterson

WLJ Weekly: The World's Laziest Journalist - Fresno, Tigers, the Deprong Mori, and Penn State

Election Trick Extra: A voter problem that may not register with the major media...

Book Wrangler: If there are ghosts, writers and awards then we must ask: Are there awards for ghostwriters?

Photography

Photography: Two Eyes on Los Angeles

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Bob Patterson captures this bit of Hollywood...

Posted by Alan at 18:41 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
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Saturday, 7 August 2004

Topic: Election Notes

Sidebar: Realism from the Right?

Last weekend in Just Above Sunset I mentioned that the New York Times columnist David Brooks was being pretty clear about how we got this War on Terror idea a bit backwards. See What to Make of the 9/11 Commission's Report for that. He suggests that we need to start emphasizing ideology instead of terror - because that is what we a fighting. Military actions have their limitations.

Brooks was also discussed here - June 20, 2004 - David Brooks: "Isn't it pretty to think so?" - reviewing his writing. He is the author of the best seller Bobos in Paradise and its new follow-up On Paradise Drive. Brooks has been the younger of the two token conservative columnists at the Times (the other is the senior William Safire) since September 2003 - after being the moderate, reasonable guy at the neoconservative pro-war Weekly Standard.

His column in this weekend's Times caught my eye. It seemed awfully reasonable - or at least ground in the here and now.

Selling the Sizzle
The New York Times, Saturday, August 07, 2004

He basically suggests the presidential campaign is all empty gesture on both sides -

We've got 43 million people without health insurance. We're relying on energy sources that are politically dangerous and economically unsustainable. Wage growth is not what it should be, and yesterday's jobs numbers suggest that strong economic growth may not be producing strong job growth. Would it be illegal in these circumstances for at least one presidential candidate to propose policies remotely in proportion to the problems that confront us?

Apparently so. John Kerry and the Democrats spent their convention talking about broad values like unity and military service and almost no time talking about specific proposals. And if you peek in at a Bush campaign event, it's like a traveling road show of proper emotions. Bush will remind the crowd of the feelings we all experienced on Sept. 11. Then there will be several paragraphs on the importance of loving thy neighbor, and several minutes spent reciting the accomplishments of Term 1.

No offense, but where's the beef?

Kerry at least has a reputation for caution. It's not surprising that his policies are orthodox Democratic ideas. Bush's hallmark is boldness, but when it comes to laying out an agenda for the second term, he has been remarkably timid.

He's dropped hints over the past eight months that he is about to unveil a second-term agenda (for those of us waiting, this has been the longest striptease act in human history). But even the ideas that are bandied about are mostly small.

Yes, community colleges should get a little more help. Yes, flextime is a good idea. Yes, high schools should be held accountable. But this is not exactly the New Deal or the New Frontier. It's more like the New Minor Modifications of Existing Programs.

Couldn't have said it better myself. But the rest is about an essay Michael Porter and Elizabeth Olmsted Teisberg wrote in the June Harvard Business Review on healthcare. Read it whole thing if that interests you.

Rick, The News Guy in Atlanta, takes issue -

Once again, I find myself on the other side from David Brooks.

I was beginning to get annoyed with all that Republican sniping in Boston that Kerry was not giving us much by way of specific policy proposals. Yes, it's nice to hear some examples here and there, mostly because it gives us an idea of the big picture of what the guy wants to do. But that's really about it. Otherwise, we just get a long list of campaign promises that later we can accuse the candidate of breaking once he gets into office. I personally would rather give him more leeway to deal with real situations when he gets to the White House.

After all, I'm not voting for a policy, I'm voting for a person who will put together a team to do the sorts of things that I would like to see get done.

Fair enough. Specifics can cripple you. We do vote for the general approach of one guy or the other.

But I reminded Rick of Brooks' parting shot. "People used to complain that selling a president was like selling a bar of soap. But when you buy soap, at least you get the soap. In this campaign you just get two guys telling you that they really value cleanliness."

Rick's response? "Now that sentiment is something I can almost endorse."

Ah yes, but as cleanliness is next to godliness, as they say, I'm afraid this campaign will be fought along those lines, with Bush, the man of God exercising His wishes, scolding the not-Catholic-enough Kerry. Each will need to claim both cleanliness and godliness. A soft-soap campaign? Something like that.

Posted by Alan at 12:23 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
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Friday, 6 August 2004

Topic: Photos

Friday night: La rando du vendredi ? Paris

Ric Erickson drops a line from Paris -

With all the publicity I've been giving Paris Plage in the sunshine and yesterday's rain - it seems only fair to mention that the year-round Paris Friday night roller rando carries on, rolls on, rolls around Paris for 3 hours every Friday night. Attached photo taken on Avenue du Maine, shortly after 22:00 start tonight from the Gare Montparnasse. Some liberal things never change.

Paris Plage? - Ric's photo and text at Eighteen More Days of Paris Plage from 31 July.

And there is this general explanation.

In was back in 2002 that this brave project was launched to turn two miles of the Right Bank of the Seine (near the Pont Neuf and Hotel de Ville) into a beach, complete with white sand, palm trees, sunbeds and parasols, for the summer season. It has returned every year since - welcome to the Paris Plage. The ?1 million initiative, branded by the Socialist mayor Bertrand Delanoe, as "a bit crazy", has become a permanent annual event. The Parisians literally took to the beach and showed what a good idea they thought it was! In addition to lounging on the sunbeds, visitors can take part in a range of free sporting activities, including petanque and volleyball, and dance in the old-time dance cafes, known as ginguettes.

A beach with palm trees in Paris? Why not? Everyone needs a little beach time.

Ric also mentions the word liberal because the posting here - Words, words, words... - on that term - has generated a lot of comment that will be incorporated in a much longer version of same in this Sunday's issue of Just Above Sunset - the weekly parent to this web log. Parisians are liberals, of course. And John Kerry speaks French.

I sent this back to Ric -

I wish I could capture the rumble as the hoard approaches - and I do remember the first time I heard that low rumble in the distance. As an L.A. guy my first thought was - Shit, another damned earthquake! - but then I got it, and they rounded the corner from rue des Rennes and right onto boulevard St-Germain under my hotel window and off toward the Odeon. Cool.

Ric shot this back -

Apropos 'rumble' - the patience of held-up automobilistas is astonishing. While the horde passes, somewhat slowly if there's a lot of them, the conducteurs cool their Friday night heels with nary a beep from a klaxon. With traffic stopped, yes, you can hear the rollers - but it's more of a swishing sound. So, as they traverse Paris the first thing you notice is the fall-off of traffic noise. Why did it get quiet? Then this wagon train of party people on little wheelies comes along, passes for ten to twenty minutes, and the end is swept up by six police vans and a couple of SAMU ambulances with the twinkling blue lights.

Yes, they pass in a swish - but you hear a distant rumble first.

So Paris has this thing on Friday evenings when thousands of rollerbladers take to the streets en masse. It is odd, no?

Every Friday evening of the year, from ten (22h00) to one in the morning (01h00) and the route for 8 August (Le parcours du 06/08/2004) is here:

And the website is pari-roller.com (click on the little UK flag for the English version) -

You can watch or join a group at Friday Night Fever starting from Gare Montparnasse. At 22h00 (that's ten at night) rollerbladers take off for an eighteen mile tour around the city (with police escort). If in town, give a call for details - Rollerbladers Association: Loi 1901 23-5 Rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau Tel 01 44549442

But I think you can just go join in.

Ric sort of did once - see Paris:- Friday, 30. July 1999: The Friday Night Roller 'Rando' for the real deal.

But at ten at night here in Hollywood on any Friday it is already seven the next Saturday morning in Paris. Ah. Over. Missed it.

Posted by Alan at 18:15 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
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