For a while, I was a pedophile priest

In 1992, I decided to join my university’s theater group. They only played Shakespeare. The English version was to be played on May 1^st of every year. In the afternoon we would play the traditional English version in true Elizabethan style, and the English accent of 17^th century England had to be respected as well. You can just imagine what a group a French students sounded like when they attempted to speak Elizabethan English.

Then later that day, we would play the French version, but this time in a more modern manner. Both plays were played on the same day and we were talking of an 8 hour show in total.

That year, the most excellent and lamentable tragedy of Romeo & Juliet was the chosen play. The director decided that since I had nasty eye-brows I would play Tybalt, the mean guy who kills Mercutio and eventually gets killed by Romeo himself. I had always wanted to play the bad guy so this suited me fine although I wasn’t good at it. I sounded more like a hysterical hyena that kept on screaming things at Benvolio such as: “What, art thou drawn among these heartless hinds? Turn thee Benvolio, look upon thy death.” and stuff... I eventually ended up fencing in tights after every single verbal exchange and eventually died a dramatic death as the audience applauded the happiness of getting rid of me.
I didn’t even manage to play dead that well, as I had a bad cold. Imagine, the vision of this coughing corpse in the middle of the stage made the audience feel how worth their money I was. Basicaly people were laughing their tits off and kept on throwing oranges at me. Since, in true Shakespearian style, rotten fruits and vegetables had been placed in the audience, for the crowd to freely express their anger at a character they disliked.

As far as the more modern French version was concerned, remember it was 1992 and the war in Bosnia had reached its climax. We were therefore to play it in true Bosnian war lord style. Our director thought that the rivality between the Montagues and the Capulets was so representative of the inter-ethnic fightings taking place in former Yugoslavia. Hence the moustaches and kalashnikov we had to wear and carry on stage and instead of fencing elegantly, we would stick knives into each other and blow grenades back and forth.

The director decided that a suitable part for me would be to play Friar Laurence. I was happy to get that part until he added at the end of the audition: “and I’d like you to act very gay on stage, as I’ve always thought Friar Laurence did it with Romeo”. The various scandals of catholic priests molesting young boys was also a modern concept at the time and my mission was apparently to be the personification of evil in both English and French. International bitch, ahead of my time.

In 1992, I was a total closet case and acted butch wherever I went. (attempted to act butch was a more appropriate description). Therefore playing someone gay was disturbing but extremely appealing. Had he asked me to act gay as I looked it and I would have never been able to play anything else but a gay character? Or did he really think that Friar Laurence had done it with Romeo?

Needless to say that I played the gay character much better than the mean one and my performance was very appreciated. I had to pick flowers on stage, smelt them, fixed my hair and caress Romeo on the back.

The show started well and the pace was good, the audience reacted fine, laughed at the right times and went "oh" when they were supposed to be surprised. However, the balcony scene didn't go well at all as parts of Juliet’s balcony collapsed as Romeo was climbing it. Somehow, it cast a spell on the whole play and the rest was going to be talk of the town, but not for the right reasons. . It did keep the audience awake though.

Juliet was a good looking girl, a very nice one too, an extremely smart girl with a strong personality. However, as one can never be perfect, she was a dreadful actress. She recited her role without putting any emotions in it, sighed a lot, basically she wasn’t into it. She had been forced to take the part for her looks and everything she said sounded like: “Oh! Romeo, I adore thee (sigh), let me kiss thee (whatever!), so kiss me and let’s get this over and done with (like!)”.

You may remember that there’s a scene in Romeo & Juliet where Juliet threatens Friar Laurence to stab herself if he doesn’t find a solution to their impossible love ordeal.

Juliet: O, shut the door! and when thou hast done so,
Come weep with me--past hope, past cure, past help!

Friar: Ah, Juliet, I already know thy grief;
It strains me past the compass of my wits.
I hear thou must, and nothing may prorogue it,

On Thursday next be married to this County.

Juliet: Tell me not, friar, that thou hearest of this,
Unless thou tell me how I may prevent it.

If in thy wisdom thou canst give no help,
Do thou but call my resolution wise
And with this knife I'll help it presently.

*****

Well, now here is how the scene went in the 1992 French version, with me as the gay friar:

Juliet: O old Friar, hand me this potion or I shall kill myself (whatever!)
Gay Friar: You are mad girlfriend, you‘re way hysterical, take some prozac!
Juliet: If you do not hand me this potion

now, I shall kill myself with this...

She panicked and said as loudly as she said the rest:

Juliet: Shit Mickael, I left the fucking knife backstage!
Gay Friar (turning red and whispering): That’s ok, carry on, pretend you have a knife in your hand, doesn’t matter, for God’s sake!
Juliet (as loudly as ever): But I can’t die if I don’t have my knife, how credible would that be?
Gay Friar (still whispering): C’mon, we don’t have time for that, they’re going to start realizing something’s wrong, move on!
Juliet (back on track): Oh Friar, I shall kill myself with this knife (and she bursts out laughing as someone hands the knife from behind the backstage curtain).

An arm, a hand, a knife sticks out of the curtain. It looks completely ridiculous.

The audience was furious and oranges were copiously thrown on Juliet’s white gown. (they were not supposed to be left there during the French version). Then she said:

Juliet (whispering this time): I wanna go home now, this play sucks and I can’t possibly die with orange stains on my gown!
Gay Friar: You’re a cunt, you suck at this and I hate you!
Juliet (still whispering): How can you say this to me! You fucking pedophile priest! See how I can finish this play looking fabulous!

And she went on reciting. The play was a complete disaster and Juliet was finally replaced before our international tour.

Some people claimed that they thought this whole act was made on purpose. That was nice of them.

Introducing my father

Ladies and gentlemen, please meet B my dad. Then you wonder how I turned the way I did!!! Anyway, didn't Papa Frog look dashing on New Year's eve?

I'm wondering...

...how old a granny should be to justify my giving up my seat in the subway? Most of you kind people will claim you don't think for a second and just do your Mother Theresa at once. But it's not that simple, you see...
It always takes me several minutes to figure out what I should do:

- Is she old enough to get my seat?
- Is she going to be upset if I give her my seat since she doesn't consider herself old enough to be given a seat?
- Does she look like she deserves to be given my seat?
- Should I pretend I haven't seen her?
- Will anybody else give her their seat, damn it?
- Isn't it healthy for old people to stand up every now and then in order for their muscles to keep working?
- Should I wait until she falls on the ground to give up my seat?
- Does she look crooked enough to sit down?
- Isn't she going to get off soon?
- Why didn't I give her my seat?

You see, it's important to sit down and take time to think sometimes.

Go Greyhound! and leave the weirdos to us...

When I was 17, I bought a cheap plane ticket to New York and decided I would travel through the US to do my own Thelma and Louise. Without Thelma and the car though.

So Louise left with ideas of far-west and Hollywood. Secretly, I hoped I would end up in LA and be discovered as soon as I stepped off the Greyhound bus. In America, anything was possible. I knew it.

I bought a one-month Greyhound bus pass and headed west. Needless to say that I didn’t make it there and didn’t actually make it anywhere. But still I was hopeful.

I sat on those buses for days. I still remember the smell of cheap scent-stick through these buses. I found these vehicles quite comfortable with good leg-room. Unusual for me who was more used to small cars, small buses and small people. When I saw the population traveling on these buses I immediately understood the necessity for space though.

I didn’t know what the word weirdo meant by then, but after this experience I did. I don’t think I ever met that many fascinating creatures gathered at the same place.

First I met some weird people with straw hats and neat clothes. They didn’t move a toe during the whole trips and they wouldn’t talk to anyone, not even to one another. But unfortunately, at that time, I was already this annoying nosey Frenchman who felt it was absolutely legitimate to ask all sorts of disturbing questions to everybody. What the hell, I was away from my home country, my parents were far and I could do whatever I wanted.

So I talked to these funny people with the funky hats. Here is the exchange I had with an old man on the bus.

Me: Cool hat!

Him: (…)

Me: Can I try it on?

Him: (…)

Me: oh sorry, I know my English is not very good but CAN-I-TRY-IT-ON? (inisting on every syllable as you do when you talk to foreigners with poor language skills)

Him: (…)

Me: (to myself) : What's wrong with him? Is that what they call a weirdo?

When the bus stopped in some remote little village in deep Pennsylvania, I saw lots of those hat-people walking around or riding wagons of some sort. A few years later, I saw the movie Witness and understood I had made a very big mistake and an unforgivable faux-pas.

-------

Innocently, I believed that Americans were cool and had all in a way or another some special connections to Hollywood or the music industry.

Suddenly this big black guy sits next to me and we start chatting.

Me: Hi!

Him: Oh hi! I’m so happy you are so interested in my life, let me tell you everything...

And he talked non-stop between Baltimore and Charlotte, North Carolina.

Here is a summary of what he basically said to me: when he heard that I was a foreigner, he informed me that he was James Brown’s son (the singer). First I thought he was bullshitting me, but then he showed me his ID and it did say James Brown Jr on it. To us French, everything that is written or on a legal document can only be true, so of course I believed him. I was so impressed and felt totally star-struck. I was so happy! This could only happen in America. He said he worked in the music industry and knew both Madonna and Whitney Houston. He actually revealed amazing secrets to me: Madonna is nice but short. Whitney is lovely but she sleeps with women. I felt so honoured to be shared such secrets and knew this would remain a very special moment in my life.

A few weeks later, I heard that James Brown's only son had died in a car accident many years before I met him. I also checked James Brown Jr. in a Charlotte phone book and was amazed to find 14 pages of "heirs" to the famous singer. So I thought, is that what they call a weirdo?

-------

Then there was the guy who was a large as a house and who also turned out to be a wacko.

There was only one seat left on the bus I was riding. This seat was next to mine. When I saw him attempting to get on that bus, I immediately put all my bags on the empty seat and started pretending to be deeply asleep. As soon as he saw the empty seat next to me, he yelled and said something I didn’t quite catch that ended in fuck. He pushed me and my bags against the window and had firmly decided that I would suffer a slow and painful death squeezed between the window and his tummy. It was impressive how he didn’t need one of those travel-cushions, his head held straight during the whole trip as conveniently placed flesh-cushions surrounded his neck and made him look very comfy.

I had never seen such a large person, I was both fascinated and scared. His love handles were as large and wobbly as an air bag and I thought that if I leaned against them to sleep, it would certainly be very comfortable and he would surely not feel a thing. That would have been great if he hadn’t been a weirdo on top of that. In the middle of the night, as I was still pretending to sleep, he looked at me and started yelling YOU SON OF A BITCH! I did understand that expression but said that I wasn’t American and that I didn’t understand what he was saying “sorry, no English, no English” I said.

I really didn’t think I had taken a Japanese accent when I said that but apparently I did. Since he yelled: You FUCKING JAPANESE SHIT, GO BACK TO YOUR COUNTRY… or something like that. People around were laughing as I was slowly but definitely turning into something liquid next to him. Basically, as we say in French: I was so scared that you could have put a walnut in my ass-crack and I would have made oil out of it!

And then I took another bus from New York to Boston but woke up at the Canadian border in the middle of the night, but that's another story as I ended up visiting Québec and Montréal, which was cool.

I was 17. I can’t believe I found all that amusing and I’m not even telling you about these long nights I spent in bus stations waiting for my connections. Watching these small black & white televisions, trying not to fall asleep on plastic armchairs. I wonder if these TV chairs still exist. I remember all these people sleeping in lockers at the stations, these old ladies who sat next to me and asked if I could protect them if something happened. (ok, yeah you’re laughing, well so was I). I would also sleep on buses, wouldn’t take showers for days, and ate at tacky diners. Talked to the strangest people.

On these buses I met with Americans who told me their whole life-stories in details. Some slept on my shoulder, some ate up all my chips, some gave me presents and some stole my money, some smelt of dead animals and some smelt of cologne. Some were crying a lover left behind and some were eager to arrive. Some played footsie with me and some got to do more. The strangest thing was how uninhibited everyone was, there was absolutely no had shell on these people, it was all raw and honest. I can still remember where they got on and where they got off. I believed that after the private conversations we would get into, we would at least keep in touch, they did say how "absolutely wonderful it'd been to meet me" and "how we were like best-friends already" and "we should definitely exchange phone numbers" but they always got off the buses, said bye and never asked for a phone number.

I made such trips three summers in a row, traveled through more than 30 states , saw the most amazing landscapes and met the weirdest people.

Yes, I was in deep America, a bit disillusioned but for a strange reason, more in love with it than ever.

So I guess, I'm the weirdo.

Spell with Babs

A few weeks ago, Babs from Babsbitchin' International wrote me a sweet poem. I promised I would write somthing back so here it is. But as I'm very much into teaching, I had to give certain pedagogical virtues to the amazing piece of art I created. So see how you can sing and learn how to spell at the same time. It's like the perfect combination between school and entertainment. View the video and sing along, the lyrics are written below. Hope you'll like it Babs! Special thanks to you for being such an inspiration in my amazing art...


Song for Babs
B - a Barb, a wired bitch
I - think she can be a witch
T - a drink she'd never drink
C - how she drives you really mad
H - she aches more than you think
E - a drug she's surely had
S - a sexy charming bitch

and that's why we love our Babs, Babs, Babs...

I had a good Easter. How about you?

Confessions on the fourth floor (Happy Easter)

For the first time in weeks, I'm all by myself on a Saturday night. It's Easter weekend and I haven't planned anything for the short holiday. And it feels great.

Recently I've been travelling quite a bit for work and the few nights I've been in Paris haven't been spent in my apartment. (naughty me). My place looks like a giant mess. Hurricane Katrina found my apartment two weeks ago and has left it dying since then. The plants are dead and I left without doing the dishes. Since I've been allowing myself to be really lazy this weekend, I took a nap all afternoon and looked at the ceiling after that. I still haven't done the dishes. The real questions are:

- Should I do the dishes knowing that it's going to take at least 2 hours of my precious time off?
- Should I throw it all away and pretend it never existed?
- Should I wait until small funghi start growing on it and then throw it away?

It's raining cats and dogs and I hate Easter.

I don't even know what Easter means. Was it when Jesus died or was it when he became reincarnated? I'm so religiously illiterate. I'm a little bit ashamed about that as I'm supposed to be catholic and all, and I used to go to "Wednesday school" which is religious education for kids on Wednesday mornings (kids don't go to school on Wednesdays in France, they just go to religious class).

I never really listened to anything Sister Marie Thérèse said when she taught us about Jesus. I could only focus on the big wart on her face and wonder if she found Jesus because she really loved him or if she knew she would never get a chance to get laid and therefore found Jesus? I'm still wondering.

Then there was father Francis who begged me to confess. I didn't understand what it meant. So he said I had to tell the truth to Jesus and tell him all my sins. (What the hell? I thought but not in so many words)

I was 10.

The only sin I was guilty of (back then) was of not understanding what the word confess meant. I said to him i didn't have anything to say. He looked puzzled and said that we are all guilty of sins and that it's just a matter of admitting them and then we would be forgiven. After a long discussion, father Francis forced me to admit that I had been a bad influence on my little sister the day I helped her cut her Barbie's hair and hung the doll with a condom on the balcony. But now that I admitted it, I would be forgiven and everything would be fine.

I felt horribly guilty after having confessed something I didn't know I should feel guilty about.

When Marie-Thérèse would tell us about Jesus' amazing life, she would show us pictures. In the pictures, Jesus always looked handsome and clean. The only thing I could focus on was how often Jesus could actually shower, year 25. Not very often I assumed so how could he look so dashing and well-trimmed then? I was convinced Sister Marie-Thérèse was inventing Jesus' life story as she spoke.

The other thing I would focus on was Sister Marie-Thérèse's drewl that ran through her deep mouth-wrinkles. Sister Marie-Thérèse was so excited about Jesus' life that she would talk about it with emotion and occasional saliva production. She would either spit or drewl out of excitment. It made Jesus' life look really disgusting to me.

And then there was confirmation. I was happy I got to wear a white gown and received lots of presents, never really understanding how I had ended up in this white dress and feeling that confession at least had a point as I had just received this top-notch radio alarm clock. Real good quality.

Despite a supposedly strong traditional catholic heritage of latin countries, France is not any in-your-face religious society. I don't know ANYBODY who goes to church and I never talk religion with my friends. Ever. Not that we don't want to, but just that we don't know anything about it. I remember when, a few years ago, I did a survey among people I knew, on what Easter was all about. Most people answered in a clumsy, slightly guilty manner something that didn't really make any sense. It went from: "That's when Jesus rang some bells in some church to ask people to pray or somethin" to "that was the day when Jesus and the Apostles ate Easter chocolate for the first time and it was so good that Jesus went straight to heaven". Ok the last one was meant as a joke, but still none of the answers seemed right.

Last year, John-Paul II died and suddenly news reports showed how thousands of French people went to churches and looked genuinely sad and prayed liek they never had. I wondered where these people came from as, among the people I know, I can't even think of a single person who goes to church or really cares about what happens in the Vatican.

Ok, I know that some of you are not happy about what you are reading right now, you're feeling I'm not being very respectful of the traditions and Jesus and stuff. But that's not at all the case. I'm jsut saying that I'm complete idiot and that I don't even know what Easter is all about and I'm honestly admitting this serious lack of world knowledge, so please no preaching, just teach me. So will somebody explain it to me? Oh! and also I'd like to know why Good Friday is good? I don't know what it means, I just know I wasn't supposed to eat meat and have sex.

ooops!

Good Friday was good to me though and I'm sure Jesus is happy for me.

So Happy Easter!

(whatever that means)

Favorite Kodak Moment

Click here

Objective Beach 2006

The sun is shining, the temperature is warmer, people on the streets are starting to undress and reveal their 3 month-results of intensive winter gym training. Frog City is at its best in the sunshine. The sun reflects on the white façades and people seem somehow friendlier. Yesterday I was at the store and I even had a chat with two clients while waiting in line. This never happens in Frog Land usually.

Although the sun has an undeniable positive impact on me and my hormones, I just feel so lazy while I should be hopping & ribbitting back and forth, up and down. My motivation to work is at its lowest and I can’t even bother to write on my blog. How worrying is that?

I was reading Rob7534’s fabulous blog today and could see that Rob was feeling as lazy as I was. Is there something in the air? Change of weather? A new virus transmitted by blog users only! Reading the comments, I found Xmichra’s most pertinent comment about implementing a 2 month vacation for the people. I am so in favor of that. Let’s demonstrate!

When you think about it, we are all mammals, all we care for is food, sleep and sex. Therefore, the mammals we are should be allowed to take a yearly winter break of at least 2 months in order to 1) Diet and 2) Get our beauty sleep to face the summer. But instead of hibernating like our fellow bears and beavers, we are expected to work even more during the winter. So we finally get to our vacation time and we’re just too drained to relax.

As far as I’m concerned, I need to sleep at least 10 hours per night in order to function during the day. Now, because of work and blogging, I’ve recently been staying up till 2 am most nights. You can therefore imagine how efficient I’ve been lately.

Usually when I work out (er… it’s weird for me to see these two concepts in the same sentence “usually” and “work out” but anyway), so usually when I work out (lol), I get so much energy and my brain seems to function so much better. I even do stuff at work! I mean work stuff! I guess I just need to get started. Looking at my love-handles in the mirror every morning helps motivate me but I sometimes think “What the hell, there’s nothing to do, love-handles are HOT! Let’s celebrate and have 14 buttered croissants for breakfast! Yay!”

Please, somebody, tell me something that can motivate me! My summer vacation is in 3 months and I need to move my tushy and go back to that gym or I’m going to look like a giant blob on legs for Beach 2006!
By the way, I’ve changed my summer plans. I’m not going to Algeria any longer. Too complicated. Instead, I’m going with a group of friends to tour Portugal, Southern Spain and Northern Morocco. Doesn’t that sound fun? However, I’ve never been to either Portugal or Morocco and I need major info about the spots I shouldn’t miss while I’m there. Yes, I’m talking to you Coffee Girl!

Have a look at the second video below (the 1st one doesn't work, but I don't know how to remove it), and see how glorious I look in the morning! Enjoy!