Nice, Day 4
Day 4 in Nice. Bonjour. Sitting in a cafe on the Riviera writing. Now that’s an unexpected marker of success - being a poor English writing undergraduate from Pitt back in 1993 to writing from a position of leisure in the leisure capital of the world.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a staple of any free-thinker with a liberal education. Among many takeaways from the book, a single one I recall easily is his instructions to his students - he was a professor out west somewhere - to get past the overwhelming nature of trying to capture everything with your writing - which many times leaves you at a loss to where to begin or end - and instead start with something small. His example was a building - don’t begin by trying to capture the hundreds of details that make up any particular building you may be studying but instead concentrate on a single brick and work outwards, slowly. It’s important quality as I begin to construct my memoirs.
I come across that thought in my memory bank as I organize my thoughts from this trip - thoughts that span food, thai massage, beaches, the Riviera, French small business, lack of American franchises like Starbucks and Dunkin, personal debt, Fitzgerald/Antibes, trump news 4000 miles away, smoking, family, updated Malibu thoughts, small Riviera towns and thoughts, the embarrassing count of massages and treatments and shaves and haircuts I’ve gotten here, and what I will cover here this morning, - from a coffee house from south Nice - electronic bicycles and the short term rental scheme of Lime. I know, it’s an active mind.
The coffee house is a little outside, a little south, of the tourist district on Rue de France. It’s the weekend now so we are experiencing a quickening of the pulse of the Riviera. We arrived on a Tuesday, and now it’s Saturday. Ports are full of yachts, reservations are a must, and traffic has picked up. Currently, 7 men past 40 and mostly past 50 are drinking beer, coffee and shooting the shit. I guess this is café society. It’s lively, and most people here seem like they frequent the place and are well-acquainted with each other. It’s an intimacy America lacks by every measure, especially for middle aged+ men, who are most vulnerable in the US for lack of the emotional support from any angle that sustains mental health. Empathic loud comfortable conversation with no obligations with fellow men - it’s rare in America outside of church. It’s why American men are so lonely, and have such mental health and related quality of life related issues - it’s just a lonely existence of obligations in all directions.
If you can’t beat them join them, so I just got a beer for 3 euros. It’s 11:45. A.M. My nephew rolled in around 4am, so I haven’t seen or heard much of him yet today. Here in this coffee shop there is a sense of home I feel even though I can’t understand a word anyone is saying. There’s not a rush, not a hurry. They are here to socialize. Day drinking in Nice.
(Just heard from my nephew by text who rolled in from a Nice party Friday around 4am - can’t wait to hear the stories).
I’m a bicyclist. Own I think 3 nice bikes - mountain bike, road bike, and now a gravel bike (made for non-paved rail trails). Probably around $12k in 2 wheel transport. Light, fast, durable. But I had never ridden an electric bike and looked at them with disdain for the ease of effort they demand (I was guessing since I never had ridden one). But here in Nice, the Lime bikes are all around. No docking like the citibanks of NYC - no app needed. Linked directly to your Uber account under ‘2 Wheels’. So I hop on one of these, after being told several times the electric boost is just a helping aide going up a hill, but fuck no - you push on that pedal for the first time and off you go at a speed you’d be hard pressed to maintain even as a moderate rider. The bike literally takes off when you press the pedal - sure you push the pedal, but you are only doing the act of peddling, the motion - the electric does the rest. Is it pedaling or peddling? To lazy to check.
These French lime bikes have these handy bells built into to each handle bar for easy alert, and a basket in from to store your carry-ons while riding. Once we got the fever, we really came down with it, and now we plan our days - not just our days, but our next vacation - around knowing the convenience these bikes offer. You can cover some ground, and anyone who rides bikes knows, life is different on a bike - the views, the action, the perspective.
(The man in the wheelchair drinking a beer was just rolled outside over the non-handicapped 8” entry ledge so he could enjoy a smoke.)
Don’t get me wrong - none of this is replacing the arduous nature of a 30 mile road bike ride in the Catskills or the 15 mile mountain bike ride along the Delaware River on the McDade trail, but there is a time and place for these machines. They literally are like a moped. I guess in some ways, that’s where the differences begin - at least on the electric machine, it’s not like a hybrid car where you are using gas or using electric. On these machines, you are always on electric, and the act of riding without it is futile and fruitless as the bikes really aren’t made to ride without the assist, so contrary to what I thought - that you get a boost when you need it on an incline - the electric bike is a constant assist - you literally don’t break a sweat. I’m sure there is some exercise involved in the constant pedalling but as for increased heartrate and beneficial exertion, there is nearly zero.
(The buzz of the conversation is constant, though the characters keep changing. It’s noon.)
That doesn’t change the fact that there is certainly a place for these bikes in my life, especially if you live in a small town or city (say St Petes) where getting short distances (say under 5 miles) is common. The ease of transport, and quality of transport is amazing and more helpful than a moped in terms of getting un-motorized lift to your destination.
So, you take a picture of the scan code, get a reading of the mileage left on the bike, and off you go. When you finish, you ‘finish your ride’ by parking in the right location and with a push of the button wallah, you are done.
We did learn a few things - in fact, half our plans or more on this trip were met with unexpected zig zags along the completion journey. One of our first important lessons, and this involved some sub-lessons as well, is that these bikes operate in ‘zones of operation’ meaning you can’t just go anywhere - sure, obvious in retrospect but what isn’t. So when we concocted this great plan to take our enthusiasm for electronic biking to the next level, we devised a plan to ride from Nice to Antibes, a ride of maybe 15 miles, which isn’t much on a regular bike but is still a bit of an adventure for the average person.
Turns out, the zone of operation ends where Nice ends and that’s about 10 miles outside of Nice and 5 miles short of Antibes. And this is where the mechanical nature of the electronic bike comes clear - once the electric power gets cut - which is what happens when you pass the edge of the zone of operation, these big cumbersome bikes turn into a crossfit Assault bike where the harder you pedal, the more the bike resists - it literally is not meant to be ridden without the electric assist, which was completely unknown to me.
So we scratch our heads, thinking the electric charge was low, finally figured out it was in fact a zone of operation issue, and had to limp back a few miles into the zone of operation so we could find an allowable place to leave our bikes. And then Ubered to cap d’antibes to lunch at Le Rother, literally within the shadows of where Scott and Zelda wrote, drank and disintegrated as his early rise gave way to an early denouement of a shooting star - but that’s a different topic for a different day, as detailed in paragraph 2.
(Just ordered beer 3 - they are smaller so it’s not as bad as it seems - but now the bartender/barista is keeping an eye on me as he spots a serious professional who needs his refills. The Cafe has mostly emptied, it’s 12:30, and just a table or two of talking and some laughs).
Just this morning, I found a bike and cruised up to Castel beach club where we had reservations for the day which I canceled since I have no idea when my nephew will be waking and the winds were whipping off the ocean at 20mph, and then cruised over the Port of Nice, over into North Nice and back again on the Promenade des anglais. The beach club goers in 20 mph ocean winds reminds of the beach goers in Miami when it’s cold and overcast - just sort of sad, or the skiers who insist on skiing bald mountains in March.
Turned out to be a nice sunny breezy day in Nice at the beginning of the 'the season'.
French Riviera
The first full day in Nice, after arriving at noon Monday, mostly refreshed from our lie flat biz class seats from PHL to NCE. Although it needs to be said that from anywhere to anywhere, from economy to biz class, American Airlines is definitely the ghetto of the major carriers. I have a couple of million points on American from back in the day (part of my 14,000,000 reward/points/miles portfolio earned with construction purchases over the last few years) and it’s no wonder I still have them - American sucks. Even when they try hard like a transcontinental biz class arrangement, it still feels like a class-climber with aged attendants, shitty website and food quality that could generously be labeled lackluster. I like that I’ve been around enough to tease out differences of 1st class life. At this point, I’m half tempted to trade in the miles for pennies on the dollar, just because I’m not a fan of the delays, cancellations, etc… that seem related to each and every American experience, though to be honest, the soggy kinda gross breakfast might have been the final straw - I should have slept through it.
I'm gone for 10 days and during that time we will sell $2m of real estate. That will be house 4 and 5 up in Ashokan, monetizing like crazy after 26 months of outlay.
Through a small party that got smaller still as people's lives got in the way the day before leaving, but it was a nice day and the grounds were looking good.
me.
The Riviera. Of course, it didn’t take long for me to dig into Nice’s role, and position in WW2, since France was such an unfortunate victim/player/collaborator/resister in the war.
As always, I spend a lot of time walking around new cities and I think we put on 8 miles yesterday, in a pretty small city, so we saw a lot. I’m here with my nephew, who I’m travelling with since my 15 yr old would be rather home with his friends, and I’m pretty sure hates me. I’m exaggerating - he might not hate me, though it seems like it, but he definitely wouldn’t relish 2 weeks with me, solo, traveling.
So we are getting a lot of ‘wow, I wish I had a uncle llike that’, who flies them biz class transatlantic to a swanky airbnb 2 blocks from the Med Sea for a mostly paid for trip. He’s 27 so in a perfect position to take in the scene. Ballers do what ballers do, right?
Sitting on a 6th floor walk-up balcony getting baked by the sun around 11:30 am. Pigeons and dove dive bomb and squawk. Large planes descend into the airport. Fitzgerald’s ghost haunts the alleyways. Lot of English speaking among the natives. Bought some flowers, baguette and chocolate croissants this morning (and my nephew didn’t even notice the flowers! Men!).
We’ve been careful to clarify he’s my nephew since with his mustache he’s sporting he can look a little freddy mercury if you know what I mean, but even that gets complicated since the role of ‘nephew’ took a dark cultural twist with season 2 of White Lotus.
Day 2 - yesterday - was spent in leisure, with a slow morning, some mid-afternoon beach time, some time killing this and that, then a 10 mile electric bike ride, and then a 4 mile hike along the coast heading north out of Nice to Villefranche-Sur-Mur. I’m a bike rider but had never used an electronic bike - I’m hooked, super fun.
Day 3 with a 13 miles day trip to Antibes by electronic bicycle along the dedicated sea-side promenade and we found ourselves in the cap d'Antibes, little inlets carved into the land from the Mediterranean. Just so happens, just the area where Fitzgerald wrote Tender is the Night, literally. With characters of Rosemary, Dick and Nicole Diver, and a host of others, whittling the way the deco summer in the late 20's. In my final culling of my packing, which were only carry ons, I left that book at home since it seemed unlikely I would read two books while away with my reading pace these days.
Memorial Day thoughts and reflections
4 days until my 27 yr old nephew and I head out to the South of France. With a basecamp in Nice, we explore north and south from there - though I guess it’s mostly north. I think I’m going to get a shave each day at a different barber, whittle away the days with strolls and hikes and naps, and do my best to put down my damn phone. Besides our business class seats and our what looks to be a pretty fabulous Airbnb, we have zero, nunka, plans laid out ahead of time.
It’s Friday morning, and I don’t leave until Monday, mid-day, so that leaves time to throw a party on Sunday by the pool. That should be fun and the weather should be great - which is a miracle.
Our local bike shop in Milford where I live runs a few weekly ‘no-drop’ bike rides - Monday night 10+ miles of mountain biking and Thursdays 24 miles of road biking. No drop means you wait at intervals for the slowest, which can be a bit of a pain, but turns out not too bad. Even for aging gent like myself, get out on that bike enough and stamina and strength improvements are sure to follow.
I’m thinking about selling my baby, my 1972 Chevy Malibu. Why? I’m not sure. More on that a little later. But I’m giving it real consideration. I guess it’s a little bit of spitefulness because the weather sucks so much anymore, and a little bit of consolidation of assets and expenses. When you are moving from playing with $1.3m a month of cash flow, to some sort of much more fixed income existence, you start looking at every expense. With Catskill Farms, the last 4 years have been so go-go, that we piled on expenses without a lot of micro-controls. Don’t me wrong, I’m always careful with my money, but when you are doing as much business as we are/were, it’s impossible not to put on a little expense fat. We have trucks we don’t use, phones we don’t use, computers we don’t use, key man life insurance policies far in excess of the amount I borrow anymore (the bank likes me to have life insurance equal to their lines of credit limits they give me), etc… So we are looking at every expense.
But the cherry red Malibu with the white interiors I picked up 4 or 5 years ago is such a nice car - and when I say nice I don’t mean ‘nice’ like you are afraid to drive it. I mean ‘nice’ as in you can’t love driving it around. Those seats are comfy like a couch. I’ve done a few big road trips of 3000 miles plus in it, once with the dog, and once with my nephew and son. It’s not a big expense - insurance is cheap and don’t owe anything on it. But it’s a lightly used asset, and those are on the chopping block.
While you are in it, it’s hard to remember what it used to be like. Since March of 2020, me and my staff have lived a life of ‘hold on for your dear life’ of business expansion, taking a company that likes to build 6-8 homes a year and tripling that, overnight, across a two hour travel distance, within dozens of small municipalities each with their own rules. It’s only now that we are down to 9, and soon down to 7, that I begin to remember that life was not always the way it was for the last 4 years, when I used to take mental health Mondays and long weekend Fridays, in the same week, consistently.
We did that volume of business in the toughest business climate one could imagine, the Covid climate where all rules were off the table, where the rules changed on a daily basis, where people’s lives were actually dependent on our efforts, where supply and labor chains were completely disrupted. We expanded - doubled or more- right into the face of those challenges. And put 50 families into homes. And made a lot of money. And worked everyday, all day. We took our job seriously, unlike most other builders out there.
So it’s only now that we are down to 7 or 8 homes, which is still double what most building companies can handle, that the toll of those years becomes clear, as the new reduced workday reveals itself. Where every little detail doesn’t threaten the big picture.
The problem I was beginning to have - and when I say beginning - I mean for the last year or two, is I had so many problems to solve it became impossible to really understand which problems were big and which were not, which needed one type of reaction, and which needed a different type. It was just all one big tangled mess of problem-solving, employee and sub management, a hamster wheel of booking business and building homes. I carried the load for dozens of families and hundreds of vendors, subtractors and employees, let alone my family and even my dog. All needed me.
It’s nice to be needed. But it’s going to be nice not to be needed so much. To hang up the hero’s cap/cape, and just be an ordinary joe. That’s what I’m starting to see now that we are returning to our origins of 6 homes a year. Where I can just shrug my shoulders and let it be, not having to rush in to fix it.
Got my garden in, only by the skin of my teeth and the help of a good friend. If I would have left from France without getting it straighten up, it probably wouldn't have happened this year.
Baseball season is in full swing from my 45+ men's league.
And the two books Im taking on the trip. I'm a Fitzgerald fan, so I've read all of his stuff several times. Tender is the Night is set in the Riviera, in the 20's, at the height of his fame. And Death in the Riviera is hopefully tolerable as a low-effort read.
As they say in France, Au revoir. See you in a few weeks.
Friday afternoon in Olivebridge
Heavy lift after heavy lift. Problem solving after problem solving. Then two final walk-thrus on nearly completed homes.
This is Primo, who reinvented his grandfather's gas/tire/convenience store into a vital go-to general market in the Olivebridge area.
You have to zoom in to see the baby smiling to get the real impact of the joy at this meeting. These folks were the first to sign up for a home in the project.
And the young family below checking out their Ranch on 10+ acres.
Below, the Team. James, in the back, is getting ready to do a 28 mile rim to rim, one day, Grand Canyon hike over Memorial Day.
I love this style Barn house with the first floor primary suite, lots of volume of space and big back porch. This one will be for sale, but no one knows about it yet. It'll be the last one sold in Ashokan. I'm thinking I will build the whole thing and sell it, maybe with a pool and a garage. It's a beautiful piece of land.
