Paris, FEMA, snoring, documentary

Originally published 9/17/05

This is a long rambling blog about a bunch of topics and updates on my escapades in Paris.

I'll start with my first opportunity to write about Katrina. I'm so glad first of all that the two people I know from New Orleans got out safely with their families despite losing their homes. There's significant issues that we have with race, class and our government's ability to respond to emergency. In terms of race and class the people who are most likely to be affected the most severly have no way to get out of danger in a reasonable amount of time. What should happen in middle sized city is swarms of public transportation, school buses, taxis should be shipping people out as soon as possible. There should be emergency workers waiting out the city for the storm to pass and return to begin restoration. So what's going to happen in any other place if there's a major hurricane, tornado, or earthquake. FEMA was entirely inept through the beginning of the debacle. And they were not crippled, because that assumes there was actually some outside pressure that was stifling them.

I was shooting a story for Karson Yiu in Washington, DC for the Virgin Islands tv station he was working for in May this year. We visited FEMA's headquarters and the communications director--the balding grey-haired man you'll see on tv--came into the office for the interview. Besides him and the tech guys who were playing with their vcrs and showing us the lighting, there was NOBODY IN THE OFFICE! I think there was about 40 desks without a soul in the chairs. Our country's main coordination office to act when shit hits the fan is vacant. Where the fuck are all those people? I guess I didn't even think too much of it at the time, but they should be on-call 24 hours and in instant contact with every emergency services branch in America. Alright I won't complain anymore.

So I'm Paris right now and Bush still looks like an idiot.

Here's the link to my documentary: you can watch the 28:30 video courtesy of Medill: dispatch.medill.northwestern.edu/ramgen/archives/misc/bossone_hiv_aids.rm?start=3.4

I'm averaging like 4 or 5 hours of sleep a night. I'm on a binger that I thought started last week but is probably going back to a few weeks before I left Chicago. It's the combination of coffee, half a pack of cigarretes a day, drinking at night, lack of sleep, and eating meat, bread and cheese every day that is making my stomache have it's own pulse. My hands are shaking, which is scary. And going to the bathroom frequently sucks. Especially since every Paris bathroom smells awful. This city is so fucking dirty. It's worse than any other I've seen. It has plenty of nice parts, but the streets are lined with trash and every Metro stairway smells like mad piss. I didn't even realize how dirty it was till I yelled at my friend for throwing a cigarette wrapper on the ground and she told me I was crazy. Then I actually opened my eyes, which was at 2:30 in the morning after partying for several days straight. Cans, papers, carpets, clothing, food wrappers, and any object that will take 2 seconds to fall out your hands are everywhere. The bathroom toilets often do not have a toilet seat and smell on antiseptic and urine, the bathrooms themselves are often so foul smelling that you can only hope to breath through your mouth. Urinals are frequently walls that could be midget showers.

I'm staying with Marcel and Scott who go to Medill with me. We also live with an electronic music maker from England and a French chic. Scott snores like a boar and sometimes he and Marcel are a cacophony of snorts and choking. I bought earplugs, my futon bed is sloped in the middle so I never fall asleep before they do. Some nights I'm getting like 4 hours of solid sleep and then the three of us stumble out of bed, rotate in the bathroom, and bounce to school late, stopping on the way for some coffee to go. Much to my dismay there are in fact starbucks in Paris, but there's really no point to them other than having some American place to waste your money on. Not that it isn't really easy to blow your money on shit you don't need in this city. It's more expensive than New York. Happy Hour beers are 5 euros, which tranlates to more than six bucks. Other times beers can be like 8 euros. I'm practically burning money here.

I went to a dance club that cost 10 euros for a smirnoff ice (they didn't have any other beers, I swear). The club was playing 80's remix techno that the "Frogs" loved. The guys here are so corny. They've got flopped hair cuts and small button-down shirts tucked into their tight jeans while they're standing on tables and chairs mouthing the words to "Like a Virgin" and every other wimpy 80's song. But the women are so beautiful. I used a bad pick up line on one of them but I didn't get anywhere since the music was so loud and I couldn't understand her accent. I didn't get rejected, but I didn't even dance with her, so it's only a partial confidence booster.

Alright kids I gotta bounce.