if you ever find yourself on a rainy day watching the documentary on woody allen’s european jazz tour “wild man blues” i hightly recommend it.

finally we see what the woodman saw in soon-yi, the same thing i saw in the teens when i was in that phase. to have a perky young woman guide you around the dark twisty alleys of old europe is a treat in itself. and sometimes i think the youngsters seek out such relationships and sometimes i think it is a blessing.

we watch as woody isnt at all taking advantage of his former step daughter and now wife, if anything we see her care for him in a manner that not only seems appealing but warranted. woody stumbles around the huge italian suite like mr maggoo having no idea where the indoor pool is or his bedroom for that matter.

i bring this up because in the olden days i had a very nice traveling companion who would do good things for us like keep me out of trouble, most of which started with my mouth. while traveling my heart opens and i end up talking to everyone. chris can tell you how a simple train ride from paris to venice ends up in an all night party with the train conductor, an aspiring model and two guitarists, where in order to get our own couchette i am enlisted to put pillowcases on pillows(!) for twenty minutes.

ashley however was the best one for me on the road as she was protective and jealous, wanting all atention and conversation to revolve around her, thus when strangers ended up talking with me for more than five minutes she would either drag me off somewhere suddenly or blatantly pout thus ending all conversations. this would keep me out of trouble. what trouble? the trouble of meeting all walks of life and the parties that they were to invite us to. the trouble of ending up drunk within an hour in a foregin land with a foreign party with a forgeign map and no phone on the first night of vacation.

or in a foreign coffee shop despite making the promise that i wouldnt go to one for fear of coming across as just another american tourist doing the typical ugly american things. i didnt know it was a coffee shop. it looked like a nice bar. and all i wanted was a pepsi.

she asked me if id like it in the bottle with a straw and i said yes. she had flat pumas, fishnets, a ridiculous miniskirt that just flopped around the hips and a pirate shirt and a nametag that had lots of a’s in it.

previously i had met some australians at a bar who had offerred me a half pot half tobacco cigarrette puff and i said nah but drank with them because they were singing and i asked them if they knew any pogues songs and they knew pretty much all of them starting with “south australia” which we sang maybe ten times. it got annoying after the third time but by the fifth time i had knocked back enough rums that i was begining to understand the words.

the general rule of thumb is you dont want to be caught in the red light district after dark but i woke up at one of the australians friends rooms. we both had our clothes on and one hand was on her ass and one hand was under the pillow that she was sleeping on. it was three am. who was this girl i thought. cute. not super cute but cute enough. what had i said to her? was that my laker hat on her blonde head?

she spoke the crazy language that i hear a lot in this city. gotta give em props for sticking with that language. whatever it is. its pretty. she whispered and followed me into the hall speaking the nice words and holding my hand.

i told her that i was hungry and heading home. and she said no no. red light district. how fucked up would it be if the only words you knew in english were no and red light district. she was saying this because in order to get to my hotel id have to walk through the famous area known for its legal prositution and illegal drug dealing and pimping.

i was hoping that it would also be famous for late night eateries, particularily something chinese. as i walked through the mazelike tiny alleyways i was tempted to smell my fingers to see if they could refresh my memory but its so cold here right now, if you remove your hands from your coat they will break right off. im getting gloves and a coat tomorrow. serious.

i ended up settling for a shawerma served not in a pita but in a french roll with french fries. a rasta man approached me as the dude was fixing my dinner and asked me if i wanted any e i said no thank you. coke? no thank you. a fat joint for a euro? uh.

and they say you shouldnt get weed from people you dont know because they might lace it with something and i always thought why on earth would people spend extra money and time to put more drugs in your drugs?

and now it’s 641am and i wish i had my teenage accompliss because she would have kept me out of trouble or she could have told me what had happened last night, but mostly she wouldnt have allowed me to pass out whenever it was that i passed out because now im up at 642, off schedule and this is how jet lag can get you.

tomorrow (wednesday) im meeting adam from sliceny, john from americablog, alice from finslippy, mark from bicyclemark and los angeles blogger mr brian flemming at Cafe Americain, at the American Hotel, Leidseplein 28 at 4:20pm so if youre in town stop by and say hola or holla or whatever it is that they say here.