Strapped into my bondage gear all day

Location Cafe outside 'Whole Foods' supermarket (good cos organic or bad cos supermarket?) | Mood Disturbed | Date 7 June 2006
Filed in:
Author (full name): 
Franny Armstrong
Location: 
Cafe outside 'Whole Foods' supermarket (good cos organic or bad cos supermarket?)
Mood: 
Disturbed
Soundtrack: 
Jazz band playing standards in the street - 50-year-old woman on the drums. Yahey.
Ailments: 
Sunburnt hands. Bruised back.
Date: 
7 June 2006
Current crisis: 
Still no progress
Current silver lining: 
Fairtrade local coffee with organic soya milk

This has rapidly turned into the Spanner Films sell out tour. When we're not driving to the local health food store (too hot to walk, oh the irony, turn up the AC), we're drinking Starbucks (the only place open in the devastated areas) iced coffee out of plastic glasses (with two-thirds of the population gone, it's easier for restaurants to pay for disposables than to find someone to wash dishes. Oh the irony pt 2).

Spent all day sitting in the trunk of our hire car, strapped into my bondage gear (cheap arse steadicam) filming more and more devastation. Shots looked super-smooth, but I needed five hands. Two to hold the glidecam, two to operate the camera and one to hold onto the car. All went well till Lizzie forgot about me and set off with a start. At least I managed to fall backwards into the trunk (do I mean boot?), smacking my back as I did, rather than forwards into the road.

Franny bondage

Got so addicted to getting the perfect shot that didn't notice the heatstroke till I started hallucinating. Or was I hallucinating because I noticed?? Is the whole world not noticing because they're hallucinating? Why has New Orleans been forgotten? Is it the future we don't dare confront? (Hmm, think the heatstroke may not have completely worn off, four hours later.)

Fairly alarming when a Homeless Guy started throwing rocks at us as we filmed the "car cemetery" under the highway. More than 20,000 hurricane-destroyed cars. But luckily our instinct for the shot prevailed and Lizzie carried on driving at the same slow speed and I carried on filming from my vulnerable position hoping that Homeless Guy's aim was as poor as his fitness. It was.

Apparently about a third of the people are now back in the city. Which coincidentally happens to be the carrying capacity of the planet, according to my latest bedside reading - meaning we have 6 billion people now and without oil the planet can support about 2 billion. Is it a coincidence that the city feels fantastic? Plenty of people around, everyone looking out for each other, but no queues, no gridlock, not too much fighting.

Had one good thought: there's severe hurricanes predicted for this year as well, so we'll come back and evacuate or ride through one with our character - follow whatever they do.