Da-da ID'd by French Nationals (UPDATED)

The culprit.

This is fun. Da-da's reporting live from the field, currently at some obscure, old hotel where movie stars used to hang out (hey, the rooms were cheap), a waypoint on a longer roadtrip. Forced out of the room at 6:30 am by the earlybird piranha brothers, Da-da was recently sitting in the lobby of the hotel, hiding from his fate of loading the car and wrangling spent nuclear monkey material into the Jeep, when two 20-something French nationals, wearing matching Abercrombie and Fitch gear, suddenly stopped before Da-da where he sat, and stared at him.

"Excuse me, please. Are you a... hippie?"

Ok, Da-da was indeed wearing his loud green Grateful Dead Celtic tie-dye (sorry Dead fans, Da-da's never heard anything the Dead has done, he just liked the shirt), but his hair is short and his beard... well, moderately trimmed, and he's wearing a highly distressed San Francisco Giants cap. He looks absolutely nothing like a hippie. But, while Da-da would normally have come up with a sharp zinger comment, he got no sleep last night, and was frankly puzzled by the fact that there were TWO such matching French Abercrombie couples in Da-da's hotel, so... in this confusion vortex, all Da-da could answer was (if you'll pardon the first-person):

"Yes. I am a hippy."

The French couple was thrilled and immediately asked if they could have their pictures taken with Da-da. He conceded and the front desk clerk immortalized the moment, the French couple giggling after Da-da answered their query about his name, deadpan: "They call me, Da-da."

Da-da is now inextricably intertwined in the memories of at least two French people and their immediate families as Da-da, the Hippy. Da-da can't make this stuff up, folks.

UPDATE: Later in the trip, another hotel, another tie-dye shirt... while riding up in an elevator, Da-da overheard a German tween whisper to his father and younger sister, in German, entre eux, nodding toward Da-da: "Du siehst? Ein Hippie." Da-da sighed and just looked at the kid, who looked a little pale at that point (maybe hippies are the equivalent of some Nietzschean Superzombie in Europe). Da-da can understand a handful of languages very well, German being one of his best. The elevator doors opened and Da-da stepped out, saying, "Das ist krass geil." The tween's jaw dropped and that was that, hippienessity notwithstanding.