I have attached a pictoral of Kerry, myself, and that third-wheeling Tour da Eiffel.
The photo was taken by one of five Dudes at the table neighboring ours, while a second of said Dudes, greatly concerned for the future of our captured memory, back-seat-drove the hell out of the pic – it’s all part of the typical Romantic Dinner Cruise shtick, standard stuff… with the exception of the fun little J’rry twist.
Through my travels I have come to understand a certain truth: People, while distracted from the moment, try to capture the moment, wanting nothing but that silver-screen, model modelled, postcard idea of Perfect... and they fail. They struggle for that moment, fight for that moment, fight over that moment, but never even get the chance to lose that moment since their frustration in not being able to capture it, keeps them from ever being in it. They place all their focus on what the moment should be or could be and never spend any time letting the moment capture them.
This little marry-go-round of fun is usually the behind the scenes Cole's Notes for all those plastic faced smiles that fill the many point-and-shoot images of the traveler’s repertoire (a repertoire one tends to get the chance to suffer through when friends catch you in their “wanna see our pictures” trap). Half-Happy hiding the Misery that masks Happy’s other half. So that was this – that was what this picture was, however, instead of Kerry and I (Kerry and Jack, as in Jack and Kerry, as in J’rry…) fighting and scene-making and ruining the moment in order to try and capture it, we watched as 'Dude 1 vs Dude 2' reached eerie levels of “Like an Old Married Couple”, high-jacking our chance at baseless anger.
They went through all the stages of creating perfectly instilled drama, and weren’t even in the shot. What you do see in the shot, captured ever so subtly in our smiles, is a reflection of Dude-Drama flirting beautifully with the overwhelming atmosphere of our moment. In the end, this picture managed to climb the Best-Of Europa ladder by completely filling itself with “Moment” AND adding a plus-one to the invite in “5 Strange Dudes on a Boat”. Perfection.
We offered a return shot of their gathering but they declined. And no, they did not turn down the offer because they felt awkward being 5 Dudes on a Romantic Dinner Cruise of the Romantic Seine River in Romantic Pay-Ree. They declined the photo because they didn’t want to mess around with our amateurish abilities during this special piece of life – they had already invested 20 euro a pop in the half a dozen professionally captured moments of “5 Dudes” courtesy of the paid pro and her camera made of gold (and by ‘gold’ I mean the cold hard cash that sits between ‘Reasonably Priced’ and ‘Tulip-style inflation’ that she pockets and lines her bed with in order to answer “comfortably” to the price-tag’s companion ‘How do you sleep at night?’).
There are times when you find “Great”, times when you are lucky enough to catch “Special”, even times when the world waits and lets you get lost in “Magic”, then, there is “J’rry & Eiffel from the Seine – by the artist 5-Dudes”… Moments don’t get much better than that.
A few little extras finding their way into our photograph:
Lovin' the Illusion - notice how the man in the white shirt at the table behind ours has managed to strategically position himself in a way that makes it appear as though I am 3oo butter-ball lbs of French Cuisine stuffed mess.
A Half Hitchcock - though only a partial cameo, the arm in the foreground is actually an unnamed Dude #3 who is leaning forward and adding a Reach-and-Point to his peanut gallery commentary of Dude 1's camera work.
The 2nd Shooter - passed Kerry, passed the blurred waitress, and nuzzled up next to the left hand frame of the pic is a curious individual who at the end of the night introduced himself and participated in a brief small-talking back and forth with us. Why you might ask? Because he had taken a picture of this "Lovely couple, and wanted to know a bit of (their) story". It should be noted that this stockerazzi moment was brought to you by kindness and romance, and was in no way as creepy as it sounds now that I re-read the words.
Magic or Muscle - and finally, with most of these scratch-on-the-screen distractions only affecting the perimeter of the centre piece, I bring to you my favourite bit of photo funny business, and I bring it to you right at the focal point: a passing tower, a donnybrook of Dudes, and only one chair... as I float beside Kerry one might ask 'Is it magic or is it muscle... ?'
