The Montmartre Arcade Fire

Artistic/symbolic blurriness or low battery? You decide.

I napped and "worked" until 10:30 on Saturday night, showered and made it to Montmartre at midnight. For those unfamiliar, Montmartre is on the far northern end of Paris (I think), on a hill with a cathedral overlooking the city. The tourists sit on the steps of the Sacre Coeur and watch the city change colors in the sunset and there are artists and clowns and the Moulin Rouge is somewhere around there to visit. However, locals and badasses like myself go there after dark to get shitty and start some fucking fights beyotch. Or they can drink alone too, which is also pretty cool.

I walked up all 120 steps to find a place to eat, only to realize that the only restaurants open at night were all the way back down. I settled in for couscous and white wine at this quiet little (err...cute) Moroccan place called Petit Bleu.

I bought a huge bottle of Heineken (one Euro) from a shop next door and headed on up the 120 steps again, which felt like double the second time and after two whole glasses of wine at dinner. At the top, there were all kinds of hooligans and punks, sitting on the steps, smoking dope and drinking hard. I felt completely out of place. I walked my way to the lower set of steps when I heard the angsty notes of Rebellion (Lies) by Arcade Fire coming from a nearby car.

I know Arcade Fire fans are (like) totally supposed to hate it when people other than them are listening to Arcade Fire and stuff, but I belied my indie leanings and got a little bit happy. I know this is totally hipster-frat of me, but I went over to them and asked them for a lighter so I could jimmy the cap off of my bottle (secretly, I actually had a key with me that would have accomplished this task) and then they asked me where I was from and then we started chatting about Arcade Fire and drinking and then we shot up brown mule heroin in the backseat.

So we all hung out for a bit and I asked if they liked the NEW Arcade Fire album and they said NON! they did not even have it so we did an iPod switcheroo and I picked a song off the new album to play (I was going to go with No Cars Go but seeing that we were beside a car and the song is about not wanting to be in a place where cars can travel and that was a little too hipster-ironic, I opted for Antichrist Television Blues) and they thought I was SO COOL, but only one of them spoke English well and it was the girl whose boyfriend was there so that was a little bit awkward especially because I am so charming and she was laughing at my witticisms and her boyfriend was clearly NON COOL with this which totally goes against the entire code of Arcade Fire and so I moseyed on off after a bit to chill on the steps.

This picture really doesn't do the view (or anything for that matter) justice.

The view from the steps was wonderful at night, you can see a lot of the small houses and buildings and the landmarks and it all seems comprehensible all splayed out like that in front of you. There were also people drumming and playing guitar and urinating in public and doing drugs. One drunken guy on the upper set of steps slipped and fell down about eight of the steps and everyone there applauded loudly until he stood up holding his wrist and took a major bow. Then they went wild.

Later some hooligans started throwing bottles from the top set of steps to the road between the two sets of steps and starting cheering as cars drove over the glass. They totally showed those people in their cars and I decided to go. The Metro was not running by 2:30 and I was "tips" and not in a place where I wanted to be. I jumped on the first bus I saw and it actually went to my block across town after 45 minutes of cutting through the city and watching the different people get on and off.

The lessons of Montmartre are these: Mutual appreciation for the Arcade Fire will only bring out the worst in other people, the hooligans of Montmartre are really not that cool, and if you are going to eat shit down a flight of stairs, make sure you take a bow and the applause will only grow. Here endeth the lesson.