ReidOnTravel

What are the Top 10 Paris of the ’20s?

‘Paris of the ’20s’ means a place with artistic energy that helps set trends and lazy hours for expats with means to do so. I think? More about creating a poem than setting up a business (sorry Shanghai). Anyway I’ve long wondered what the Paris of the ’20s is for each decade. Here’s my first attempt at defining it. Any other thoughts?

1. Paris of the ’20s (1920s): Paris
2. Paris of the ’20s (1930s): Berlin, pre-Nazi
3. Paris of the ’20s (1940s): LA, rise of Hollywood
4. Paris of the ’20s (1950s): Rome, la dolce vita
5. Paris of the ’20s (1960s): London, yeah baby
6. Paris of the ’20s (1970s): Berlin, edgy but all the cool musicians went
7. Paris of the ’20s (1980s): NYC, once everyone found out about CBGB
8. Paris of the ’20s (1990s): Prague, poster child of the expat era
9. Paris of the ’20s (2000s): Phnom Penh, poster child of the expat era
10. Paris of the ’20s (2010s): Brooklyn

Journey timeline

I invite you, courtesy of Wikipedia, to take in the timeline for the band Journey:

Another reason why Robbie Robertson is a jerk

This weekend HBO airs the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, which I had the pleasure of attending a few weeks ago. No Axl doesn’t show for Guns N’ Roses, Rod Stewart misses a Faces reunion. But Green Day kick starts it with a repeatedly profane opener and Donovan gives his speech as a poem he wrote (and memorized) for the occasion. About a quarter of the Cleveland audience thought it was a joke. Classic.

If you watch the show, note how the Band’s Robbie Robertson, once again, makes an ass out of himself. A guy who always felt justified to adopt Dylan cool just because he was around him for awhile, stepped up before lesser-known members of the hall were inducted, and said:

With my old band, I wrote a song called ‘Look Out Cleveland.’ See? I knew Cleveland rocks before anyone.

Think about that for a second. Think about how insecure a Canadian man can be. In 1979 Ian Hunter wrote a, mostly bad, song called ‘Cleveland Rocks,’ which the city (and Drew Carey) adores — no one else does. But Robertson thinks because he put ‘Cleveland’ in a title of a vague lyric that mentioned Houston as many times as Cleveland, he somehow won a race. The song has nothing to do with Cleveland’s rockability. It’s about a dumb storm, Robbie. You should know, you wrote it.

By the way Cleveland doesn’t need anyone to tell them they rock. They’ve known a long time. The term ‘rock’n’roll’ was first used anywhere on Cleveland radio 17 years before the Band name-dropped it.

Justice 1, Robbie Robertson 0

Here’s to Richard Reid

Perhaps we should judge a life by how one is remembered. My dad, who died 10 years ago today, had a SRO funeral. A few hundred Tulsans filled the aisles around seats fit for 200. Many were people I’d never met. Friends from high school. And patients without medical insurance my dad, ever the old school doctor, had visited on unbilled house calls, often bringing him at odds with his more business-minded peers.

My dad was right. He made a habit of taking little self-deprecating comic jabs at the well-to-do, the privileged, the millionaires of Tulsa — and there are many. The chic Utica Square shopping mall became, in a purposeful self-mocking drawl, ‘OO-TA-KEE Square.’ He called Toyotas ‘tee-OH-tas.’ He once, in a moment of weakness, bought a red Cadillac, then traded it in a week later he was so embarrassed to drive it. Often he’d stop on the way home from work, to look for and collect golf balls overshot by richer doctors outside the walls of a country club. My dad shunned and ignored status, be it ‘MD’ or otherwise. A lieutenant in the navy, he’d pass the officers table in the mess hall to dine with the privates. His favorite people tended to be waiters and clerks and cash attendants. When I’d get upset over something — a book report grade or a football game — he’d say, good-naturedly in a hilariously over-pronounced voice, ‘someone is taking things a LIT-TLE too seriously.’ It let me know that in the end very little that consumes us really matters that much.

Nine months before he died, Lonely Planet sent me on a research trip around the Great Plains, and I cajoled him away from work for a few days of South Dakota roadtripping. I drove the whole way, letting him soak in scenery he’d never expected to see and always wanted to. I purposely approached Mt Rushmore the back way, weaving through the stunning Needle Highway, until we reached, suddenly, a full frontal view of four US presidents in stone. ‘Oh!,’ he said by impulse. Usually one who remained dryly hilarious about everything he did, I’ll never forget this unguarded reaction of joy. Somewhere video exists of the trip, but I’ve still not had the heart to watch it.

The day after he died, I flew back to Tulsa from San Francisco and we found a manila envelope filled with instructions of what to do. He had pre-paid for a gravestone to be beside his brother’s in Bartlesville. He wanted to be cremated. He include a few quotes he wanted to be shared at his service, which included words from Lincoln, Gandhi and the Talmud. Not your standard material for a First Presbyterian service in Oklahoma.

But what was best was his suggestions for who to direct it. An African-American South Baptist preacher patient of his I had never met. Tulsa remains a pretty segregated place, sadly evident from the tragic shootings in north Tulsa a week ago. And I have to think my dad’s choice might have raised a few eyebrows. Good. But I know why he picked him: because he respected him, his passion; he was a friend.

But best of all, finding that envelope on that sad day ended up a parting gift. A chance to collaborate with my dad again, on one last thing. It brought him back to life again for me. Like he always will be.

As I said at the service in 2002, I’ve accidentally been called ‘Richard’ on occasion most of my life. It’s a mistake I’ve never minded.

Hate Letters at Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame

So, the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame is pretty fantastic. Just the opening 14-minute film that traces the roots of rock’n’roll from Robert Johnson and gospel and Hank Williams and Bob Wills and Woody Guthrie had me hooked.

My favorite object, by far, was a hate letter sent to the Rolling Stones in 1966 from a local in Fiji. And I mean HATE letter. Written in cursive, it reads in part:

“You are DIRTY and STINK… I hope that you hurry up and go away from clean Fiji… We HATE HATE HATE you. I’m speaking on behalf of 640 kids who all hate you.”

Also I got to talk with the head curator Howard Kramer, a goateed guy from Detroit originally. I asked the bands that he hears most complaints over not being inducted. ‘Oh, those people,’ he said. ‘I can’t believe people wouldn’t come just because their one band isn’t here. The four we hear the most about would be Chicago*, Rush, Moody Blues and KISS.’

I previously banned the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame for not even considering Rush (they have considered some of the others). All it took me was an invite to the induction ceremony to change my tune.

It is a very very good museum. (Even though there was an exhibit on Genesis.)

* I really hope to meet someone in the Cetera Induction Army who feels so strongly about Chicago they’d get upset over this.