What I was leading up to, before the last post, was Abu Ghraib. That's when shit got excruciatingly serious, undermining everything others thought America (and Americans) stood for, and when all eyes turned to me - as an American in France - asking what I felt about my country. I'd given it some thought by then, so I could articulate American values in a kind of MOR attitude most still scoffed at.
But, every now and then, while they're at it - and since they're asking where I stand and all - what exactly am I made of, anyway?
Once, I was "guest of honor" at a soiree, thrown specifically so a vain, well-muscled and toned, but extremely insecure French host could loudly bash Bush with glee, finally, because he was in the company of his friends.
That didn't end well.
Socialism, it's failures like being unable to satisfy even the smallest requirements of most restaurant menus, Smart cars that couldn't make the slightest incline, outrageously-priced diesel fuel, sky high taxes on everything - "Television Tax" - resulting in a kind of "snitch" culture ("I paid mine") village life's outright costume drama "plotting" like you see in the movies, with lots of rumor-mongering and fact-free decision making, and all saturated by a IT MUST BE FRENCH AT ALL COST entertainment industry, so limp, after being excited to see blacks on TV, I stopped relying on even those, allowed to perform, to always have rhythm. And few have a real job.
That's how bad Socialism is.
But how much had I really left?
Other there, America is everywhere, but cut up and reduced from Freedom to fetish. Clothing stores are called California. "Friends" DVDs were massive sellers. Dance floors filled up to "Surfing U.S.A." and Joan Jett's "I Love Rock 'N' Roll" but seem lost, and even got angry, when presented with anything that didn't cater to their quirks, like hating every Barry White song but one, and like their favorite Billy Paul anthem (I didn't even know there was anybody's favorite Billy Paul anthem) it's pretty much unknown in America and awful. I started counting how many times I'd hear Toto's "Hold The Line" over time, not because it's a bad song but seemed to be causing me a kind of PTSD, and I still didn't know if I'd be leaving for a while.
Calls to my friends back home were holding me up now. They'd send me music, buck me up.
Stay in the pace and outlook of France, and you'll see how hours are squeezed into seconds, very quickly - or they'll smugly ignore everything, just to be contrary - in which case the slowing can take much, much longer. Like working in a homeopathy company, or entering a time before we expected results, little more important than what can accompany a picnic actually gets accomplished. Wasn't no dot-com boom over there. Ah, now I'm back to the effects of socialism.
Doesn't anybody get that?
I don't mean to say France doesn't have talent - it does - but they're mostly conventional liberal sheeple, "in rebellion," yada, yada, yawn, and I could get better than that back home.
What was different was, I now knew, I didn't want anything like that back home.
I saw bumper stickers in the windsurfing South of France saying Kerry would sweep that thing.
Everything appeared to be falling out of sync,...
Just for the sake of curiosity -- what's the one Barry White song they like? (I'm finding it a bit hard to believe they only like just one, because Barry's kind of hard to hate; may not like absolutely everything he does, but he's hard to hate).
ReplyDeleteEuropeans are kinda hard to understand (although easier to understand than Americans who want to turn us into Europeans...which is just an awful, ultimately unworkable idea imhao).
PW