Walter Agnew Moore II, Roving Rock Journalist
8 December 2001, Amiens, Down By The River, France

So there I am, just rebirthed from the restroom, trying to find a gap in the crowd at Cafe Blinji, and Tall Laurent yells in my ear: "WALTER! In France, you have to PUSH!"

I push. Don't jolt or slam, just a steady I'm-a-comin-through push, and I start to ease through the press like a tapeworm section passing through a cow. Halfway through, I look back for approval from Tall Laurent—he has been monitoring my progress like a parent watching his somewhat dim child ride a bike without training wheels for the first time—and he grins and shoots me a Mentos commercial thumbs-up.

I have just been made part of the local band Ribo, who are playing in the corner of this small smokey closet of a club that is packed sardine style, that is, if sardines squirmed rhythmically to music. At least, I think I'm in the band. I played some songs with them anyway. It's kind of hard to put two and two together, quite noisy, and even though they say a drink relaxes you and makes it easier for you to understand a foreign language, a lot of drinks counteract the process. And they keep buying me drinks.

When did this night start? Seems like days instead of hours ago that I was down in the village of Salouel tutoring a restaurant owner's kid in English. The girl did great except that she consistently pronounced "he" as "the", and vice-versa. I got her to the point where she was understandable reading the passage, and, saying she might need help again in the future, she whipped out her omni-present portable phone and before I knew it, I had given my phone number to a 13-year-old girl who works in a bar.

There are only about 900 things that could go wrong with this. I immediately went to her mother, and said "She's doing great now. I just gave her my number, so if she needs help again, you (her mother) can call me and I will come here (to this public place) to study English (and nothing else, ever) with her." 

It was a long walk up black muddy paths from little Salouel to my chic urban pad in Amiens ("represent for the South Side, yeah, yeah..."), and to say the least, I was already tired before I even started walking. So I was in high Mope Mode in my room, seriously considered blowing off the invitation I had received from some drunk violin players the week before to bring my guitar and check out this Cafe Blinji thingy.

Then, as always when I'm about to wimp out, the fierce red-headed ghost of my Grandfather Billy McKenzie popped through the wall, ducked under the bunk-bed, snatched me up by the collar and shook me like a dog-toy: 

"What's the matter with you, boy? You gonna stay in this room all night? HELL no. You gonna pick up that git-box, and we're goin downtown if I have to DRAG you!"

It's good to have a crazy Bama guardian angel. I do as instructed and am out the door. So cold I'm afraid the guitar strings are gonna pop right there on my back.

For strength, I first stop into My Goodness Irish Pub. The owner's wife Nathalie and my clone, Michael the Barman, do not know where Cafe Blinji is, but they are quite indignant that I walked into their bar with a guitar and plan to play elsewhere. They start persuading me to come in some other time to play for them.

(This sure isn't Austin, Texas).

The vague directions to Blinji lead me into a maze of side-streets by the train station that are as dark and empty as the set of a spy movie. No sound but my shoes clicking on the pavement. I'm calculating how bad my guitar will get smashed if I get mugged, and looking for a way out, Cafe Blinji doesn't exist.

Then I hear the singing.

On a corner. Lit up. Windows steamed over. Big as a medium-sized suburban den. At least 20 people laughing and ordering from the smiling duo behind the long high bar, singing, swaying and dancing and singing with the musicians. The warm air hits my face at the same time as several people that I don't know come up to me and say: "Walter! You came! You'll play some songs with us?"

How surreal, and how pleasant. It's like I've been coming here for years. Billy mutters "Told you so" as he dissappears into a corner.

When it's my turn to play, Short Laurent introduces me as his American friend. Renaud stands next to me with another guitar. I tell the crowd I just came from Texas, famous for guns and the death penalty, and I want to sing them a song about pistols written by a Texan who is against the death penalty. We rip into Steve Earle's "Devil's Right Hand", they yell back the chorus, Short Laurent pops out of the back room with a banjo and puts a Pogue-ish feel to it. Somebody's whaling on a hand-drum.

It kind of blurs after that. Laurent and Renaud want to practice together and swap songs, they seem to have a large floating membership in the band, and it seems that I am being invited to take part whenever we all can. Renaud's girlfriend has me scrawl my number on a cigarette pack. Sangria in another bar where the walls and ceiling are made of wicker place-mats hanging inches above gas-fired heaters, and a rock-star blond kid from Brazil is talking to us in French, Spanish, Portuguese, English, and German. six or seven people jammed clown-style into tiny French cars, maniacally speeding in both forward and reverse through the twisted lanes of St. Leu. Ordering kebab from a window while freezing drunk people bob up and down to keep warm. An all-night card game and tea in a smoked-up apartment over a doctor's office. Getting driven back home in another crowded car. It is 5 am.

And do I get to sleep late? No way; Billy McKenzie wakes me up and says the laundry has been stinking up the room for far too long now.