Paris Passion Magazine

Some weeks ago, I mentioned my bohemian life-style to SemperFidelis when we were exchanging about our respective stays in London in the 80s.

That was then one of these episodes and it was to be followed by another, longer period of free wheeling when I was a street vendor in Paris for a certain number of magazines.

Last week I was cruising on the web and eventually landed on this page. Wow, Paris Passion magazine was just one of these magazines and specifically the one I started my street hawker career with in July 1985, three months after I've returned from London. 

Only in Wikipedia! Obviously the article has been written by an insider, possibly the founder of the magazine.

360 days per year, from 8:pm to 1:am (talk of lazy, subsidized French workers...) from July 1985 to July 1989 I would hit the streets of the Les Halles district which was one of the vibrant, trendy places where to spend an evening in Paris during the 80s.

Since making money never was my ultimate raison de vivre, I was cashing in enough to pay the rent and the bills but my reward was that my life style was immensely fun and free (*).

All in all, I've sold over 5,000 copies of that English speaking magazine which means that I've met and talked to something like 5,000 American customers (a certain number of Brits too but mainly American buyers), a number one can multiply roughly by two since I was also selling that fashion magazine which boasted to be the most expensive magazine in the world (that was the slogan).

Of course I wouldn't spend hours talking with each and every American visitor (I was making a living after all) but yet, every day I would exchange and discuss with a good many number of people from about every corner of the Great Nation (aka the Land of the Free).

So, even if I have never set foot in the US, I suppose I can say I am not totally unaware and ignorant of what people across the pond look like and how to communicate with them. Notwithstanding the daily visits to the staff at the offices of the magazine, rue du pont neuf (well, this is not the rue of course but the pont neuf where the rue comes from).

Oh! Did I mention the American innocent girls who were lost in Paris and looking for a nice and friendly Parisian to help them out but were too afraid to ask because they couldn't speak French? Oh, well, I just did my duty when the opportunity would arise sir.

So, looking back to my past,  my 30s weren't a complete waste of time after all and leading a Bohemian like life isn't deprived of some positive aspects.

(*) Recently asked whether he regretted not to be a millionaire, Jimmy Wales answered that his life was much more interesting that theirs.