IN THE PIPELINE/DAVE IN PARIS NEXT TO GENE HACKMAN

Yes, Paris--the city of lights/on the road with Russ just after Lady Diana was killed. I quizzed the female clerk at the jewelry store next to the hotel where Dodi bought her the ring--but she would not admit she was the one who sold it to him. Lodging at the historic Timhotel. Historic because there was still WW ll shrapnel lodged in the lobby walls.

France, the culinary capital of the globe--so why was the worst meal I ever had was in France? On the menu for the dinner cruise on the seine was goose gizzard about $150 a pop. Didn't order it.

Yeah, that guy standing next to me in the Paris art museum was the actor Gene Hackman with his wife. Didn't speak to him although I longed to yell out his great line in the movie "The French Connection". As NYC narcotics cop Popeye Doyle he walks into a druggie bar and starts accusing the patrons of picking their feet in Poughkeepsie. That's how they hide their shoot-up drug marks on their arms by shooting-up between their toes. He rough-houses the guys in the bar as they drop all their stashes on the floor. That flick has one of the all time great chase scenes as Popeye chases down a bad dude on the subway and puts him away. Another great role for hackman was little bill in the Clint Eastwood movie " Unforgiven." Clint takes care of him, too.

I previously noted I had a friendly exchange with Yoko Ono on the streets of Paris, so that was two celeb encounters in one trip. This breaking story just in. The Lizard King front man of the doors, Jim Morrison is buried in a Paris cemetery--we thought -- when we visited the gravesite. A report just broke that Morrison faked his death and has been living in Wisconsin working as a school janitor for decades.