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I've been here a week! And the whirlwind of activity continues: Another concert at New Morning where I saw Jim Hall try to keep up with the young bucks he had brought with him, he did just OK. I'm sure he's the shit and all, but he just doesn't have the gas he used to I guess. OK, It's all good, of course, but today I'm officially frustrated as I can't seem to get my ISP to figure out why I haven't been able to figure out why I can get my mail, I can connect to the web, I can even get to other ftp sites, but I can't for the life of me connect to my users server to get my website up! I know that my throngs of fans await my every move and image, so it's important that I get this stuff up and running right away, right? Oh well, after a week I still haven't been able to upload from here, but I know we'll get it up there soon... Lots of things cross your mind when you travel to a city and as you walk around you think to yourself... "Gee, I bet Mom would find this interesting." or "Rob would think this is cool!" Ya know, stuff like that, so I'm gonna try to stay sober enough one night a week so's I can get a weekly journal up with images and comment about the culture here, the images, the music, and life in this place that's much older than the city I was born in. Ah, France! A place where
guys kiss each other in the streets, where the letter G is
pronounced "J" and the letter J is pronounce "G," where to
say 70 you say "sixty-ten," to say 80 you say "four-twenty,"
90 is "four-twenty, ten," and 99 is
"four-twenty-ten-nine." Everything is walking distance here via the Metro. It takes some time changing trains at correspondence stations sometimes, but any two points on the map can be accessed by a short walk to and from the nearest Metro stations. there is a system here similar to San Francisco: the Metro is like Muni (but better!) Then there is the RER which is like BART, bigger, faster trains with less stops and cover the area outside Paris as well, then there area the trains which are so on-time that if your watch sais that the train is late, change your watch. And on top of that is the fast train system, the TGV's. There is really no need for a car here unless you work outside of town, or have a lot of equipment to haul for those Heavy Metal gigs. People are friendly! Just
about every day, somebody either at the bar Relais Magenta
on the corner or anywhere else is very happy to assist when
I need help. A lady spent half of her lunch hour, writing
down the names of jazz clubs for me on Friday. The BBC rules and CNN sucks! Unless all you care about is Clinton's sex life and don't give a damn about what's really going on in the world which is wide spread political corruption, and power grabs in small countries where the people live every day in fear of those with the guns and "political" might. The BBC really is spreading the word as to how messed up the rest of the world really is, and I feel incredibly lucky to be an American. I fell that I've lived in a vacuum up 'til now. (For those of you who know me, you KNOW I'm not much of a political jargon-meister) but the reports from the globe never cease to amaze me how power corrupts, and atrocities are happening all over. In Malaysia the police are driving around, cutting off people's hands who took part in a free election, India and Pakistan bomb each other daily on their collective border, the government in Algiers is a joke, as well as just about every other African country as those with the might or guns intimidate the public into accepting their "Leadership," and it goes on and on, not to mention the little Hitler in Yugoslavia killing the men at gunpoint and sending the women and children to walk miles on foot to get out of "their" country, and how their spin machine has adopted the Bill Clinton system system of "just say it ain't happening, wait a while and it will just go away and everybody will forget about it after awhile." I watched a Serbian correspondent today on BBC wail away at how NATO had created this crisis, and that the ethnic Albanians were leaving the country because of NATO bombs not Melocevic, and that Clinton and NATO were doing this for amusement. Wow! I never knew I was so isolated and that CNN's coverage of anything that isn't about Washington is insufficient. It's mind-boggling to see how much of this crap is going on and it's overwhelming to think of how many of the world's people live in pain, suffering and fear of persecution by the powerful. Yes, I'm lucky to be here, and am truly a blessed man. Wow, I'm usually not such a world thinker, but when you see this stuff on international TV in the morning as you wake up, you think about it. On a lighter note, Saji,
Rod, Mike and Krisi ALL arrive this week and I've got to go
make reservations and mark up my calendar... Get some good walking shoes and start wearing them in NOW. Those of you who don't like walking, don't come! (Or bring LOTS of cash for all those taxi's) |
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