Alexis and I communicate in half-French half-English crazytalk, and a lot of the time we don't completely understand each other, or we think we do, but it turns out we don't. He explained to me the other day that he wanted me to come with him somewhere, and I didn't quite follow completely, but it was something about his band (
The Dead Sexy Inc.; he quit
Lycosia recently) and also something about graphics and websites and comics and pixel art and video games and dvds and some guy named Olivier and also the guy
Stéphane from The Dead Sexy Inc. whom I met last year when I saw the band play in London. So I said okay man, let's go, and we jumped in his car and drove down to Place d'Italie, for who-knows-what exactly. Alexis and I are always teaching each other slang from our respective languages, so during the drive I taught him the intricacies of how to say all kinds of stuff sucks; "that sucks," "this sucks," "that fucking guy sucks," "your band totally sucks," etc. The last time I was in Alexis' car was in the
Bosnian countryside last year, and I'm constantly sort of stunned by these experiences I'm having now that I'm back in Paris where my life is looping back around and bumping into itself again. Kind of impossible to explain, but it really grabs me sometimes.
Anyway, it turns out we were going to this multimedia production/advertising shop called Alerte Orange, which happens to be where The Dead Sexy Inc. produced their last album, and Stéphane works there sometimes as a freelance photographer. The reception area was full of poster art from dvd releases and video game ads and other cool stuff they've produced there, and then I remembered that this was the place whose website Alexis had shown me the other day so he could make me watch a European Nintendo Wii commercial they'd produced with the Dead Sexy's music in it, which is a pretty amazing thing right there, seeing my roommate's band get huge exposure all over Europe like that. So, obviously they do really high-profile work at this place, and I became more and more excited to be there; I got to see one of the recording studios where some rock n' rollers were editing their album, and some big quiet room full of nerds at computers, probably the graphic design studio. So, Alexis' friend Olivier is the boss and maybe the owner (I think) and an ex-punk rocker, and the whole point of my going with Alexis that day was for me to meet Olivier and talk about how he might be able to use me for web design work or even small Flash-based video games or whatever. Olivier and I talked for a long time and looked through basically everything on my website together, and I was able to express myself really well in French, but I almost never understood anything he said; he's a fast-talking, all-business sort of guy, and Alexis stood next to him the whole time and kept looking at me to make sure I was following, and I'm sure he could tell I wasn't, so I guess he sort of memorized everything Olivier said so he could tell me later on a little bit slower. After Olivier and I were done looking through all my web design and illustration and comics stuff, and even all my pixel art, he stood up and said some stuff and I thanked him for talking to me and he left. As soon as he was gone, Alexis got super excited and asked me if I understood what Olivier had said. I told him I didn't, not really, and Alexis told me that Olivier wants to have all my old comics translated and published in France, and he has a couple websites he wants me to design, for starters, and we'll see how that stuff goes and then talk about some new projects. So, incredible, this is great news, and could be the beginning of my getting more established in France. Nothing is definite, of course, but it was clear that this is a very hip, professional shop they're running, and Olivier is obviously a really professional guy (I've met enough of these guys to know the difference in a second, believe me), so it doesn't feel like bullshit, but of course I'm not counting on anything and we'll see how it works out. In any case, it was a really cool feeling to have this guy who's produced all these extremely high-profile multimedia projects just glance through my work and immediately decide he wanted to work with me.
While Olivier was telling me about the shop and the work they do, he gave me a huge catalog outlining all their projects from the last year or so (which was presumably printed up to show potential clients). Alexis mentioned that there was a picture of him and Lada in there in one of the video game ads, and jokingly warned me, "Rigole pas" ("Don't laugh"). So of course, I went looking for it right away, and voila...
Edit: I'd never heard Lada speak Italian before today (she's Bosnian but spent half her life in Italy and is fluent in about five languages, French and English among them), but I can hear her in the living room right now with an Italian guy and an Italian lady and a (presumably) Italian dog, and the dog is barking and sniffing around my bedroom door and Lada is laughing and saying something about l'Americano and the other folks are laughing too. I'm feeling too shy to go say hi, for some reason, but it's nice to have all this happy Italian chatter in the background while I'm listening to gospel music and working on the website for the
puppetmaker in my small, pink, vagina-like bedroom. What a seriously weird life I've ended up with.
