Monday, June 15, 2009

Arrival in Bergerac, France.

I've been here for three days.

It took me 25 hours to get from LA to Bergerac.

Flew into Paris and then, directly from the airport, took two trains to the South of France, where one can appreciate lush rolling hills, an endless sea of vineyards along the thin, two-lane highways, and a slice of humanity that really seems to squeeze the juice out of life.

35 hour workweeks are the law around these parts. If you work any more than that, you begin to build up vacation days. Sounds pretty damned civilized if you ask me...a guy who worked months and months of 70 hour weeks as an editor in Los Angeles.

Anyway, my friend Gary who lives here in Bergerac, threw a welcome party for me, my second night here, that filled up his apartment, overlooking the Dordogne River, to the gills. Everyone brought food, wine, and, yes, even Absinthe. Two guys brought guitars and sang songs for hours: some French ones and some American.

It was my first time partaking of absinthe and after doing so my consciousness proceeded to fly out the south-facing window and over the Dordogne River for a while before returning back to the party. The mixture of songs, and French being spoken by all the guests (but especially the women) were just as intoxicating as the beverages.

Artists, musicians, and social workers were present for the event. The absinthe was brought by the only tatoo artist in the area, a colorful, raspy-voiced Austrian named Martin. Gary and I had a visit last night in Martin's converted horse stables, (which looked to be from a Renaissance painting) over a few glasses of wine, and we will have more on him later.

As it so happens, my second day in Bergerac, Gary had a job shooting a wedding a few towns over which provided a good opportunity for me to film him with my video camera. I need a lot of B-roll for when I do his interview about living in France for the past two years.

I have never seen such a picturesque wedding. I got some good footage, which is key, because I'm here to capture as much as possible of the life here and return to LA and make something out of it.

It is also noteworthy that I was hit on by one of the bridesmaids who was a shamanistic drummer living in Bordeaux. I'm just throwing that in there for good measure.

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