:: planetoïd ::

LAPUTA DAY !

yesterday was public holiday in france, and i got a chance to, well, do nothing.
i got some friends who where around there for this few days, and we decided to make some barbecue all together, yesterday night, at Dude's place, which is a 50 kms ride from my town.
nothing special, isn't it ?

as it was a very hot and sunshiny day (and as i'm on negative at bank), i decided to not take the train, and to make some hitchiking in the afternoon, which looked like an adventure, believe me ; first, i forgot to take my wallet with me, which looked like a little march to the other side of the town : hitchikers knows that no cars stops while in the center of town, uh.

after a walk under some really hot sun, i finally reach the exit of the town, and some young b-boy, complete with training clothes, last metallic (and awful) Nike shoes, took me in some deluxe BMW cab, french rap loud in the speakers, filling his lung with some real tasty weed, right to the next little town in the next suburbs.

the guy was surprising cause he was a total cliché, i mean people were watching us at our crossing, hearing "...now you can suck my motherfuckin' dick, biiaaaaatch...", but the guy was a real nice citizen, stopping to let people walking across the road, driving slowly and seemly even if the road was clear, even stopping on our prior road to let bicycles crossing it ; he had plans and it was just sad cause he could have drive me, he said, offering me a few weed while dropping me out of the car. i was grateful and all, and walked to the next area where i could clearly be in viewing field of the next drivers.

10 minutes later, a VW minivan reduce his speed, and 5 guys, dreadlock and pure reggae crap (god, i hate this french bad dub wave...), just showed me the fuck finger while shouting "are you full of sweat, sucker ?" and "walk, lazy guy !" ; i don't remember i was a bad boy enough for doing this kind of attitude while being younger (however, i was really stupid too), but i asked/shout them if they were sharing the same brain, too, but they didn't answer, just going faster. fuckers.

30 minutes later, some 50 years old little guy stopped in his little car, and offered me to go to a town in the middle in my wonderful and amazing trip ; we didn't talk that much even if i tried once or two, but the guy was listening to some tape playing in his stereo.
strange tape, indeed.
strong melodic arrangments, and dialogues, but... in english (i wanna say then that i'm a french living in france, uh).

at first i was thinking about some radiophonic pieces, you know, these plays they do especially for the radio use ; i haven't heard any for years, but it was quite strange in the rhythm, the tone wasn't this clear, and of course, it was in english, not this usal.
i tried to focus on the dialog, but the wind going in the car and the noise of the motor didn't help me. i've heard some words and it looked to me like some sci-fi or heroic fantasy pieces...
until i heard "this is Laputa". I'm not an otaku that much, but it was clear : it was some Miyazaki stuff played there, i recognized the story after identifying it !

as the man told me he got to quit the main road, he found a place to let me go out, but i made my frankly too curious guy while leaving it :
me : "sorry, don't wanna be too curious, but it's not usual to hear the kind of stuff you listen to. can i ask what is it exactly ?
him : ah ah ah, well, i know it ain't this easy ; well, i suppose. in fact, i didn't find the original soundtrack of a movie i saw recently and really like, so i made a copy of this very film on a audio only format. in fact, it's coming directly from the dvd of...
me : is this Laputa from Miyazaki ?
him : ???... ahhh exactly ! you knew the dialogs, even if english ? or do you know it as much as i am ?
me : no, no, i just heard "laputa" in the talk between some characters, and i recognized it, but i'm not fan enough to recognize it from its english dialogs ! but yes indeed, i saw this movie, i truly love Miyazaki...
him : this is really funny ! i'm a real fan of his work, i saw each of his movies several times, and i love to listen to it even while driving.
me : yeah, i realy loved Totoro and Mononoke, which are my faves.
him : greeeat ! you saw Kiki ?
me : yep, but i got to say that it's not on of my favorites ones. i...
him : well, i said the same thing while leaving the cinema, but i thinked about it twice, and it's fantastic the smart notions Miyazaki inject in his stuff, even Kiki ; it's so much better done than any Disney...
me : yes, it's quite sad that we had to wait for so many times before seing any of his movies...
him : ...sure, but think about it, we got one per year, it's a great thing too !"

we talked about a few moment, and seing how enthousiastic the guy was, i remembered that i got a keychains from the bus-cat from Totoro, even 2 of it, so i told the guy that if he comes through my town, he can have a stop by the bookshop i work for, and passing by the comics section, i'll give him some Miyazaki little gift, as a "thank you" for helping me in this afternoon.
in the middle of the countryside, the guy was already a customer of the shop !

the last kilometers were done thanks to a young pair, some silent guy and a very talkative girl, coming back from a picnic and looking for a bathing place around ; the girl was really kind, offering me cookies and all, while offering me to drop me at the exact place i wanna go, "no worries if it ain't on our road".

there's some days where i nearly gain some hope in humanity. 8)

my old pal Tom took me while leaving his parents place in a real little village near our friend's place ; we grab Fab too and went at Dude's place, where we eat and drink quietly his barbecued food, remembering how cool it is to spend time with good friends, and all of us were ok to say that we probably doesn't do this often enough. we looked closer to this Hellboy trailer, and i'm quite enthousiastic about what i saw, i gotta say ; we'll see if Del Toro loves Mignola as much as he repeats in every interviews here and there. we saw also Michel Gondry' "External sunshine of a spotless mind", his next movie with a Jim Carrey who doesn't look like its usual Jim "faces" Carrey anymore (which could be great). we talked about many things, but unfortunately, i was the only one living away from there and working tomorrow, and with this public holiday day, i only got a very few choices of train timetable for going back home. Dude provided the ticket for me, which was cool as i'm just totally broke. Dude, i owe you Peeters' Lupus part. 2, no worries. 8)

Fab, working for Virgin France, got some promo cd's and dvd's for all of us, and i came back by train with a bag with Spike Jonze/Michel Gondry/Chris Cunningham Directors' label dvd, Jared Leto's 30 seconds to Mars album, Adrian Sherwood CD for RealWorld, some Gonzales stuff, some old Kid 606 remix of Depeche Mode, some Sofa Surfers stuff, dj Mehdi's Espion LP, some Liars stuff, the huge and already classic Neptunes' track "Beautiful" from Snoop Dogg and Pharrell (i didn't wanna hear about Snoop since loooong, but when i first heard "beautiful" i was mad for it : i gotta admit, i'm more or less a Neptunes freak, nearly ready to buy it...), Sebastien Tellier CD, and, how cool, Dwele's CD. Thanks again, Fab. 8)

but after all this hooot times, by midnight it was thunderstorm time, and raining a lot. in the middle of the way back to my town, while in the train, some very big lightning flashed our eyes and some big noise broke my ears right at the same time ; the train quickly stopped in the middle of nowhere, we were 2 in the wagon and i was already fucked up, thinking of going out under the violent rain with my only t-shirt... shit.
finally, after a few minutes, the train started again, and i quit my town' train station for going home, at last ; on the road to my flat (near the station) is the place where there's lots of prostitutes, and all of them told me something, either "sweetheart", "mister", "lonely bwwwoy" or "darling", which were the last instalments in this day where everybody was kind with me.
yes, i know, they weren't telling me nice things for pleasure, or for free, but shut up, i didn't ask you anything. 8)

now it's 2:00, it's not raining anymore and it's refreshing outside, i'll finish this Takeshi Kaiko book and sleep instead of listening news at the radio (an US raid killed some civilians iraki, the catholic church officialy says homosexual marriage in france should be a wrong thing, israel shooted some palestinians, the corpse of a young boy disepeared a month ago was founded somewhere, well, the usual and classic news...).
thanks for reading. 8)