Paint-In Gets Go Ahead

This is made up - Frank Watson didn't really say this.

News from the 'Café Metropole Club'

Paris:- Thursday, 20. May 1999:- As I did last week, I've included a few new letters from reader's - downpage - and I'm thinking of Denise Fondren's jab in the ribs about the Club becoming like 'office hours.'

The idea has certainly increased the incoming email; all of which gets answered. Nobody has written to say I shouldn't do this Café Metropole Club thing.

To get it started, it seems as if there shouldn't be too much work to do. But in a way, it has already started, and I feel that it is already generating more work. The reason I proposed it in the first place is that I know that I'll have the time to spend on it in the future - but, now there is still first and foremost the weekly magazine taking up nearly all the time.

Last week I talked to Herb Malsman's 'Visions by Herb' microphone for three hours, and the weekend before I talked for three hours with Frank Watson, from Uppsala, Sweden.

Here is what Frank had to say about it - after a 40-hour bus ride back to Uppsala:

Email from Frank Watson, via the Internet: Tuesday, 18. May 1999:-

Hey Rick!

Paris was wonderful, I really love that town. I'm not much for cities but somehow, even though Paris is ever much a city with concrete, gas fumes and all, it doesn't seem like a city. Just a big... Paris.

I got a lot of thoughts running around in my head after our conversation and your thoughts on the Café Metropole Club - Bunnies indeed, I was telling you to hold your camera level!

It's interesting to note that in the midst of the Information Technology age and virtual reality running out your ears , that the tourist industry is bigger than ever.

Just as information is not knowledge, knowledge is not experience. Everybody knows there is something called the Eiffel Tower in Paris and knows exactly what it looks like. But until they've been there and seen and experienced it, it isn't their Eiffel Tower.

That's why I come to Paris: to experience it and that's why I got in touch with you. You write the text for Metropole, but you're more than Metropole.

The voice, the person, the gestures, the asides, the interruptions, the sun, the people walking by, at the next table - all this was part of Paris and will be part of the Café Metropole Club. See you in Paris!

Last week I was not absolutely certain that I would be assigned an entry to the 'paint-in' on the Champs-Elysées, but it has been confirmed.

Also, just so you don't think it will be all fun and games, as we artists are apt to say - the organizers also sent a 'press' invitation, so I will have to cover the event for Metropole as well. While painting, signing possible autographs for Café Metropole Club members, I will have to 'cover' me in words and photos, in other words.

This will badly conflict with my plans to work no more than two 35-hour weeks per week. However I am counting on the assistance of future Club member, Don Smith or Seattle, to do some of the photography on the occasion.

One of the ideas for the actual Club, when it is in operation, is to ask 'members' to allow themselves to be photographed when they visit it. After I get a bit of an interview, the members' visits to the Club will be put online - on this page, on this day - ifthis is the day of the week eventually chosen.