July 4th week in 2001, thanks to comedian extraordinaire Rich Hall, I was booked for a stand-up comedy gig at L' Hotel Du Nord in Paris, France.

To make the trip even more exciting and worthwhile, I bookended gigs at the London Comedy Store and Toomler in Amsterdam. Toomler was located in the basement of the Hilton, the same hotel that John and Yoko staged their bed-in for peace in 1969, protesting the Vietnam War.

Using frequent flier miles, I was able to fly myself and my girlfriend Valerie to experience this tour de force.

When we got to the train station in Paris, we were searching for the club manager/booker, Karel Beer. We had to find the guy who was looking for the guy and gal who were looking for the guy.
Lots of eye darting and furtive glances with complete strangers until we found our man.

The meeting was very surreal to start off as he was a bit unkempt and had some leaves in his hair and on his sport coat. He took us to a local coffee shop and we sat outside and mapped out the next few hours.
He gave us the name of the hotel where we were staying and how to get there. He told me where the club was and how to get there from our hotel.

Karel explained to me that I was the only performer on the show. That he would come out at the beginning and introduce the event and talk about upcoming shows, and then bring me up.
He went on to say that I would do a 45 minute set, which I figured as much, but then Karel threw me off by saying we'd take a 10-15 minute intermission break and then I'd come out and do my second 45 minute set.
"To the same crowd???"
Yes, he said. The same crowd.
An hour and a half??? I thought loudly with my inside voice.
"Au Secours!!!!!"

I had only gone longer than an hour onstage once in my life up until that point.
It was a gig at Harvard Law School and it was one of those magical moments in one's comedy history.
I was only scheduled for 45 minutes, yet with all the cylinders clicking, and propelled by the energy and laughter of the crowd, I had finally wished them goodnight after doing an hour and fifteen minutes.

I got to the Parisian hotel as quickly as I could and called Rich Hall.
"What the hell did you get me into?"

He told me not to panic. He said L'Hotel Du Nord was one of the greatest comedy venues in the world. That the crowds came out strong and that they were a playful bunch. It was akin to a jazz club for comedy. That I could easily riff and ad-lib and work the crowd for the first 45 minutes and then take a break for the interval, and come back and do my act in the second half.

Despite quitting cigarettes for the fourth time in my life, for about seven months,
I started smoking again!
Valerie suggested that we go check out The Louvre that afternoon, and I implored her to go without me, because I had to write new material.
She went over to the museum and I sat by The River Seine with a pen, a yellow legal pad and a pack of Gitanes cigarettes.
In a frantic attempt to make up for the stage time I was going to have trouble filling, I started to write down story lines from my life that I could possibly share with the audience. I also made a note to slow everything down to a crawl, in order to make these stories last!
Instead of enjoying the scenery around me, I smoked more cigarettes.
In Seine in the membrane.

Valerie met back up with me and she was smiling from ear to shining ear because she had a magical day in the City of Lights.
She held my hand and assured me that I would be fine and we headed over to the club.

It was an intimate room, terrifically laid out, and it was sold out.
This was the only English speaking comedy room in the area and the ex-pats took to it like flies on honey.
The club mostly booked music acts, and occasionally they would book a comedian.
It was the genius of Karel's booking and tastes that made this room so special.

Karel did a brief intro and then brought me up. I put out a cigarette in the ash tray and made my way up onto the stage.
I hadn't been this nervous in a long time.
I started to work the crowd to find out about them, who they were, and where they came from.
Folks were from all over the world, and only two people in the crowd were originally from Paris.
The ad-libs and the playfulness worked like a charm. I was crushing it with them and we were having a ball together.

Every ad-lib.
Every story.
Every joke.
BOOM!

I was light on my feet up on that stage and it was dreamy.
After what felt like about a half hour or so, I checked my watch to see how much time was left before I took the break.
I had to do a double take.
I had done an hour and five minutes!!!!

What???

"Ladies and Gentleman, I have had a blast so far, but let's take a break and I will see you after the interval!"
Big applause!!!

I was so thrilled! I basically only had to do twenty five minutes more to fulfill my time and I had barely touched any of my material.
I went back up onstage after the break and ended up doing another hour.
They even wanted an encore and I came back out and played for another ten minutes.

The Paris gig became a thing.
Every year on or about July 4th, Karel would have me in Paris.
I'd secure London and Amsterdam on either end to make it fun and worthwhile.

In 2002 I came back and did a night at the L' Hotel du Nord and then two nights in the Sound Gallery art venue next door.
It was so brutally hot, and we had no air conditioning in the adjoining art gallery. With the help of some powerful and well-placed fans and some great wine, the shows went well. The reason we were in this art house is that the hotel had booked a seers convention. Not Sears. Seers!!!
Surprised they didn't see that coming.

The only year it didn't work out was in 2003 when there was a deathly heatwave in France that killed nearly fifteen thousand people.
We had booked the date, and I was already in Europe, and because of the sheer horror of the weather that summer, we cancelled the shows. I took a side trip to Latvia before I continued onto Amsterdam for the final leg of the journey.

In 2004, I came a day earlier because James Taylor was playing at The Olympia in Paris on July 3rd and Karel had secured seats for he and I.
The odd thing about the show is that in-between songs, James spoke only French. He was very adept as he had the audience laughing in every break, yet it meant nothing to me.
C'est la Vie!

The "Pink Panther" remake was also being filmed at that time in Paris, and Kevin Nealon called up Steve Martin and Kevin Kline to invite them to come see me at the club. They had said yes, but unfortunately the filming went way over that night and my two very special guests did not make it to the show.

Even more unfortunately, L' Hotel du Nord was sold shortly thereafter and they reconstructed the place and there was no comedy there ever again.

Yet every July 4th, I fondly look back at my magical times as An American in Paris.