Night in New Orleans – like a night in Paris back in 1998

Watching the scenes from New Orleans last night – and you just know it was a long, alcohol-fueled adventure, quite possibly full of unspeakable things – reminded me of one of my very favorite soccer memories.

I was in France in 1998 when Les Bleus shocked the world by, first, finding their way into the World Cup final, and then by roughing up favored Brazil.

That was on July 12, launching a celebration for the ages. The hooting and hollering began just after final kickoff all over Paris. About four hours later, all words written and work finally done, I emerged from the stadium and tried to find a cab.

It would have been easier to find a virgin working in brothel at that moment.

The streets were unbelievably packed, so I suppose the cabbies were stuck in revelry-created gridlock. Or perhaps they were just staying close to the city (Stade de France is on the outskirts of Paris). Or maybe they were just drunk, I don’t know.

Myself and another writer wandered the stadium periphery (not a fantastic neighborhood, by the way) tactically plotting our next move. It took well over an hour to finally turn up willing participant, someone willing to dive into the madness.

The streets were absurd as we got close to the city. French fans were apoplectic with delight, literally dancing in the streets and paying perilously little attention to rules of the road – or to any reasonable tenets of personal safety. Our daredevil driver, God bless him, in a series of swift, accurate and harrowing maneuvers somehow got us to our hotel.

France took the next day off, celebrating all day and all night, leading up to …

July 14, which is Bastille Day, which happens to be the badass of celebration days in France anyway. It started with military flyovers, which passed directly over my hotel. Sweet.

I’ll never forget the scene later that afternoon. I was near the Bastille monument, speaking to my editor on the phone. He was a friend, and I wanted to give him some sense of the scene, which would also help him understand the what I was writing about the madness of the moment. So I called from the city streets instead of calling from the increasingly deserted media center.

This was around 4 p.m., and the streets were still packed, still crawling with revelers, still teeming over a din of horn honks, shouts and song, still glistening from spilled wine and beer, still spotted with vomit and God knows what else. And there were popping sounds, too.

Over here, we would immediately think of gunfire. As weapons aren’t as ubiquitous there, I figured out quickly they were firecrackers. But they kept popping close to me, and I couldn’t quite figure out where they were coming from.

Then it all came clear! While I was still on the phone, yelling into the mouthpiece to be heard, I figured out that revelers had climbed on the Bastille monument and were literally throwing firecrackers into the crowd. A few girls seemed unnerved by it all – but a lot of people were aware and unfazed. I wondered perhaps, so long as you were paying attention, if you probably weren’t going to get hurt. Not too badly, anyway.

Then I glanced over and noticed a line of ambulances! Just sitting there. Waiting their turn in the cue, like so many cabs lined up at an airport. The only logical conclusion by anyone adhering to the Darwin principals: the authorities were expecting injuries. Plenty of them, judging by the number of medical personnel near the stack of ambulances.

I told my editor: “Hey, man. I gotta let you go. I think I need to pay more attention to what’s happening around me. I don’t want to finish my six weeks in France in the back of one of those ambulances.”