An ominous knockoff of Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Dani California” starts to play over the speakers of the café. I’m here in Paris on what could be described as “business” to some, but probably wouldn’t be to most. You see, I’m in the business of art. Not selling it. Making it. And I came to Paris because, sooner or later, that’s what every “true” artist is supposed to do. Never mind how much that statement ignores the socioeconomic status of an artist who probably doesn’t have the means to travel to Paris, but anyway…it’s obvious no one cares about those types, right? So here I am, the “type” that “people” (who, I don’t know) should care about in terms of the fact that I dragged my ass to Paris to confirm my artistic status. So committed to the cause that I’d taken to setting up an easel at various points along the Seine every day. Every single day. That was a lot of days for someone who planned to stay here for two months.

Yes, two whole months of drinking red wine and eating baguettes and being as cliché as possible—minus the donning of a beret (everyone has their limits). Only to find myself in a café that passionately refused to let me forget about where I really came from: California. Not just anywhere in California, but the big kahuna: Los Angeles. The very place that thousands of songs are written about, many of them by Red Hot Chili Peppers. “Dani California” being no exception to their rule. You know, the one about how every album had to have at least one song on it that somehow referenced the Golden State. Stadium Arcadium had more than one of those, but “Dani California” was the apex. Which is why it was placed as track one and released as the first single. Something I know “offhand” not because I looked it up, but because I bought the album the day it came out. It was Cinco de Mayo, 2006, and I decided to knock off school early and drive to Tower to pick it up. Not the one on Sunset, the one that everyone still oohs and aahs about, but the one on Maxella Avenue in Marina Del Rey, that no one ever gave enough of a shit about to remember. But I’ll always remember it. It was the one place in L.A. that had ever “bequeathed” me with a celebrity sighting: Elijah Wood. Who I only noticed because of his short stature and the girl he was with that seemed way too out of his league. But then I realized he was famous and it all made sense.

Anyway, that’s why I remember that “Dani California” was the opening track. I listened to the album repeatedly that summer, logging hours and hours/miles and miles as I blasted it in my car. This was before I chose to become a painter. Before I chose to renounce Red Hot Chili Peppers as a result of that decision. The band no longer felt “authentic” to the lifestyle I wanted to lead. In fact, whenever I tried to go back to listening to them after making my decision, they sounded downright douchey. Which pained me in certain ways, because I know they remain emblematic of my home state. Have, in their way, done a lot of “good” to “represent” it, even if Kiedis kind of ruined that by being a known sexual abuser (him and Flea and Chad Smith). But “whatever,” isn’t it? Like trying to pretend that anyone cares about the artists who can never travel outside of their own confines to truly “explore their potential” by “expanding their horizons.” The artists who become irrelevant because they don’t have enough money. An ultimate irony. Just like hearing this goddamn song—or an off-brand version of it—at what I had thought was an “obscure” enough café to not even have the budget for speakers scattered throughout the restaurant.

To hear it right then, while I was away from my home state felt pointed in a heightened way because the Palisades and Eaton fires were raging. Which is why the part where Anthony Kiedis is supposed to be the one singing, “California, rest in peace” caught my attention. Alerted me to the fact that this was some random, saxophone-laden track (who knew there could be a Muzak-y cover of “Dani California”?), not the actual hit single from RHCP. Something that felt particularly offensive considering the circumstances of what was going on in Los Angeles right then. Not just the Muzak-y interpretation, but Kiedis saying, “California, rest in peace” like some sort of death warrant. Of course, I knew he didn’t mean it like that. That, in the song, he was telling California to essentially “watch its back” and “show its teeth” because Dani was about to blow through the state. Dani, who is supposed to be so wild and weird that even California can’t handle her.

I guess that was how I felt in general with regard to “my place” there lately. I had reached a point where I felt too weird and even too wild for it. That was part of what compelled me to fly away to Paris. Even if only for a little while. That I had timed the trip to occur when the city was in the midst of a catastrophe did, however, manage to stab at my otherwise cold heart with multiple pangs of guilt. But why should I feel guilty? Wasn’t it my right to leave? And it’s not like I wasn’t going back. Unless, of course, I met someone, fell madly in love and bought further into this cliché I was so patently embracing. And it was at that moment that Jean-Luc walked into the café, almost instantly humming along to the tune of “Dani California.” So at least I knew, right away, that he must hold some appreciation for the state (I told myself it wasn’t for the band). That he wasn’t one of those Parisians who was only about New York. Fucking New York.

When our eyes met ever so briefly, but long enough for him to take it as a sign to approach me, that was when the woman imitating Kiedis sang, “She’s a lover, baby, and a fighter/Shoulda seen her comin’ when it got a little brighter.” But Jean-Luc never saw what was coming. Never saw me coming (save for in bed later that night). That I was going to be his wife, that he was going to be the reason I could (and would even want to) stay in France. To betray my land (California, not the United States) as I claimed I never would. But right then, in that moment, we were just two strangers, one actually vibing to this horrendous cover, and the other wondering when it would goddamn end already.