Goodbye, Grenoble

Grenoble is a wonderful city. Having had two days off here, I got quite a sense of what kind of a place this is. First of all, it is a mountain town for all intents and purposes, nestled in between huge peaks of the French Alps. It has been extremely gray here, with dark brooding clouds blanketing the tops of the surrounding mountains. After our wonderful Thai feast on Friday night, we boys in the group had all of Saturday to get into trouble. After waking up around 12:30 and totally skipping breakfast, the four of us set out in our mighty van for a little tiny town called Chamrousse, about an hour’s drive into the mountains.

Cynthia guided us surely through the curves and switchbacks of the steep ascent, and we were all extremely happy to have her back on board. It’s funny, but I figure that all of the GPS and navigation systems in the cars of today choose probably the same handful of female voices to give directions. It’s a voice which is robotic, gentle, unassuming, and altogether completely annoying – to me at least. My parents have a navigation system in their car in LA, and I always end up yelling at the voice and frantically scrambling to mute it. Anyways, Cynthia did her job well on this day.

The drive itself was totally majestic. Usually I would reserve this word for times when magical beings or wizardry is involved, but the landscape of this day trip totally merits its use. It had been raining for most of the morning, but had cleared up enough that the sun was shining bright outside. We passed these tiny little villas and mini-towns on our way up the mountain, all of them looking timeless and extremely French in character. One town had a little park with a beautiful old merry-go-round in the middle that almost brought our expedition to a temporary halt, but we had to press on. James had been the biggest proponent of our Saturday adventure, urging us to escape the friendly confines of Hotel Splendid and try and do something. He was looking to discover some sort of motor-powered entertainment, like renting some 4-wheelers, or even mopeds, and figured it would be easiest to achieve in a less urban center. I, being a lover of going fast, was certainly on board. As we got higher and higher up the mountain, the drive became frightening. I rode shotgun, and was therefore face to face with a drop of about 5,000 feet directly out my window. Luckily, Nuno again proved himself a capable pilot and steered clear of danger the entire way.

The peaks which we had seen from a distance in Grenoble proper now became much more visible and much greater in scale. They weren’t like your average mountains; not like the Rockies, not like the Sierra Nevadas, not like the Cascades. These were clearly ALPS. Our ears started to pop, and Brian even became a little woozy on account of the altitude. But, after many perilous turns, we made it to Chamrousse. To our great surprise, Chamrousse was nothing more than a ski resort, plain and simple. People were walking around in silly one-piece ski suits that looked like they were straight out of the costume department of the movie “Ski Patrol.” French kids ran around awkwardly in ski boots, with parents chasing behind them shouting warnings in disgruntled pursuit. Apparently, this was no ordinary Saturday…It was a holiday.

Our first order of business was food, so we stopped in at a place called “La Cantina” to satisfy our hunger. As we sat down, I looked over at Brian to see a look of extreme chagrin on his face. I asked him if he was alright, and after a pause, he told me what was afflicting him so. He pointed up, and gestured to me to listen to the music playing on the stereo. It was your typical, run-of-the-mill American wanker blues guitar playing, complete with shuffle drum pattern and cheesy vocals. I’d heard music like this hundreds of times before but never paid any mind to it. Apparently, this was the sound of a dude named “Poppa Chubby,” whom Brian had played for during the Summer of 2002 and into 2003. Aside from the egregious and vulgar pun behind the man’s stage name (his real name is Ted Horowitz), this music was genuinely bad. Apparently he had been a reoccurring character on the downtown NYC blues scene, running jam sessions at cheesy clubs like “terra blues” and “bleecker street blues bar” and being an all around blues nazi to all parties involved. Brian proceeded to launch into a series of horror stories about this madman, each one complete with mentions of thrown chairs, physical altercations, scare tactics, passive aggression, and utter disregard for the well-being of fellow members in the band. Nuno, James, and I listened with our jaws agape as Brian continued. The waiter overheard us talking about “Poppa Chubby,” and brought over the CD, thinking we would actually want to check it out. “You like Poppa Chubby?” He asked us in his thick, smoky French accent. Brian laughed and told him he had once been Mr. Chubby’s official drummer. On the cover of the CD was a picture of this dude. He was fat, completely bald, and covered in tattoos. He looked like a man you might want to make friends with if you were in jail and hadn’t found someone to make you his bitch yet. Brian wrapped up his vignettes and we ordered our food. Nuno and Brian again ordered pizzas – Nuno’s with only mushroom and tomato sauce, Brian’s with just plain cheese – while James and I went all out and ordered double cheeseburgers.

After quickly consuming our lunch, we asked our waiter where we would be able to find some motor-centric entertainment around the resort. We had already ruled out skiing on account of our lack of proper gear and funds, but were determined to prolong our stay in Chamrousse nonetheless. The waiter went into the back and returned with a brochure for a snowmobile course right around the corner. He said that when there is snow, it is a snowmobile course, and when there is no snow they run 4-wheelers around. This news was extremely good news, and our enthusiasm was beyond obvious. This waiter, I believe his name was Marcel but I could be completely making that up, proved extremely helpful in our search for speed and gasoline-powered excitement. He called up the snowmobile place for us, and made the necessary inquiries. I overheard him in French saying that “there are four Americans here who would like to do use the snowmobiles?” and then something about the schedule being full, and then stuff I couldn’t understand. He got off the phone and told us that indeed the schedule for the afternoon was all booked up, but that the snowmobile wranglers were willing to pull four extra machines out if we could get there by 4pm. Seeing as it was 3:30 at that point, we were in business. We paid the check, but some extra Winter gear, and headed over to the snowmobile course. As we waited, we threw snowballs, made loud jokes, and gave high fives. Somehow the snow and the prospect of speed had transformed us back into little ten year olds.

After some paperwork, it became time for us to mount up. We were to follow a guide in a neon vest around this course, keep 5 meters behind the nearest machine, and avoid being totally irresponsible. Those were the rules. I was behind James, followed by Brian and Nuno in the respective third and fourth spots. For a half an hour, we booked around this course, revving the engines and cutting in and out of trees, happily zooming over bumps and little jumps. Every so often we’d have to stop and wait for Nuno, whose caution kept him a little further back. Every time we looked back at each other there was a flicker of youthful exuberance in our eyes, and a dumb smile across our faces. It was beautiful.

Once the half-hour was up, we returned to the snowmobile home base, cheering and laughing and congratulating ourselves on a job well done. As we piled back into the van, Nuno commented that this was “the best day-off on tour EVER.” And even though my touring tenure is not so advanced, I agreed. We made our way back down the mountain as dusk grew near, recovering and coming down from the fun of the day. We got back to the hotel around 7, and decided on seeing a movie around the corner. Nuno stayed home as we watched “The Good German,”a Steven Soderbergh movie with George Clooney and Cate Blanchett. It was good, and I found myself desperately trying to follow along with the French subtitles accompanying the original English dialogue. Needless to say, that activity was exhausting and made my brain hurt. Afterwards, we ate lamb kebab sandwiches and French fries. Even Brian caved in on his vegetarian leanings to dine on the sweet meat. Having stuffed ourselves properly, we walked around for a bit and headed home around 11pm. I left Brian and James and went to have one drink right around the corner from Hotel Splendid, thinking it would be an easy nightcap without any real mentionable aspects. But when I arrived at the bar, called “JS Café,” I was stopped at the door by a dude who muttered something in French which I couldn’t quite make out. I responded that I was only there for a drink, to which he replied, “GAY CLUB….” All of a sudden the bad dance music and somewhat odd vibe made more sense. But still, this dude was totally discriminating against me. And how was he to know that I’m not gay? I was even dressed halfway decently! Regardless, I had a whiskey somewhere else and went home.

So, that pretty much wraps up our Saturday off in Grenoble. Sunday was a show day, so it was back to business as usual. Shara arrived from her visit to a friend around noon, and we went to the venue around 3pm. The venue was all seats, and our set was to start at 6 (sort of like a matinee I guess). In the dressing room was a plate of various delicious local cheeses, as well as a nice bottle of wine and some other fixins. This show also proved to be our first stone-cold sellout of the tour, a fact which I found extremely exciting. We rocked, and afterwards ate a wonderful dinner with the crew at a nearby restaurant. And, seeing as our van call would be at 8am for our trip to Paris the next day, I found myself happily, comfortably asleep before midnight. All in all, Grenoble was an extremely pleasant chapter in the “My Brightest Diamond 2007 Winter European Tour” saga. Good times, good times.