Ooooh France!

July 18-22nd 2007

I arrive in Roubaix (North of France) with my 'dead body' suitcase. My friend Jamel Shabazz has hooked me up with his boy Nadjib. Nadjib is supposed to be the man. I'm outside of the station waiting and I notice the obligatory drunk singing and dancing in front of the train station half dressed. He's swinging his dreads and the sun is baking his bare chest. He's wasted. Totally wasted. But because this is a French drunk, he's getting totally wasted with a bottle of champagne! Gotta have style!

Nadjib is a DJ/Producer living in Roubaix. He totally took care of me while I was in France. First of all he cooked dinner every night (Yes, French men like to cook), made a bed for me, introduced me to all his CRAZY friends, surprised me for my birthday, took me to Belgium, introduced me to his fabulous parents, and worked his butt off as my asistant and translator. Jamel was right, he's the man. Here's the Algerian scenerio: Nadjib is French Algerian. One day he tells me he wants to show me something........'This is a picture of my uncle. He was the person who started the Algerian revolution against the French. He later became the first president of Algeria. Malcom X, Angela Davis and all the Black Panthers came to Algeria. This is another picture of my uncle with his best friend....Sadam Hussein! At that point my eyes bulged out of my head!

Nadjib's friends are crazy French Algerians too! First of all I've NEVER seen people smoke so much in my life! It was unbelievable even for Europe. When I say smoke, I mean smoke a cigarette down to the filter and then roll one. They also really like their Scotch Whiskey, Ricard, Jazz and Hip-Hop. The first night I arrived it was just Nadjib and I for dinner. Each night the number grew and the nights got longer.

I had my first Algerian birthday party on the 19th. Of course I met someone with the same birthday! We started off in a infamous Algerian bar run by a man named Moushtek. Moushtek is a cross between Al Pacino and Joe Pesci but Algerian style. I was suprised with champagne and Algerian blues and disco music. One of the locals started discussing America and said 'America is too hot. Too hot. They need to cool down'. He then grabbed the flag and threw it into a refrigerator! Another man grabbed the flag and proceeded to make a muslim head wrap out of it. All on video. Gotta document!. We later made our way back to the apartment where Nadjib cooked and suprised me with a big pastry and some earrings. The food did not last long.

While in Roubaix I got some baaaad photos. Things I can't even believe. For instance I saw some men dressed in the holy muslim dress standing on a corner. I asked Nadjib to tell them about my project. He looked at me like I was CRAZY. 'You want ME to ask them to pose with the American Flag?!' He did, and belive it or not, one of the men let me photograph him. It was amazing! Another day, a man grabbed the flag, dropped his pants and..........You gotta see the book and video to find out!

One of my last nights in Roubaix was incredible. We were really tired from shooting all day, so Nadjib said 'Hey let's go to Belgium with a couple of friends and have a nice dinner and chill.' Dinner, Belgium, Chill....sounds good to me. Well about 10 of his friends show up and we pile into the cars and head for a quiet Belgian dinner.........

We arrive in Gent, Belgium and the place is packed with over 100,000 people. They are having a 10 day / 24 hour music festival. It's crazy. Stages floating on canals, DJ's all over the place, large screens, food, alcohol, graffitti murals and a bunch of drunk French and Belgians. Gent looks like a fairy tale town. Castles, Poseiden statues, beautiful boats sailing down the canals and cobble stone streets. Unbelievable. Let's just say we had a good time. Nice and quiet! What do you do after partying all night in Belgium? You drive back to France and then get up and drive back to Belgium in the morning to shoot! We're crazy like that.

The next day I met Nadjib's parents the Ben Bella's. His father is an amazing abstract painter with an incredible 'studio'. The 'studio' is three stories high and literally packed with paintings, african sculptures, and pottery. It is a stunning enviornment. His parents are so gracious, they even cooked me a wonderful Sunday lunch of lamb, tabouleh and pastries. Just thinking about it makes me hungry again.

So anyway, I finally left for the train station and realized I mixed up the departure time by three hours. So what did we do? We went over to another friend's house and she baked a quiche and we looked at African art books and drank wine. Then I left again. Au Revoir Roubaix!
Next stop Berlin......