Clusterfuck, Parisian Style

Weeks ago I got an invitation in the mail from the Ambassador of the United States, to attend a commemoration for the 40th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King Jr. Getting on the American-expatriate radar here doesn’t happen overnight and so this was my very first invite to the Ambassador’s Residence at the American Embassy in the 8th arrondissement, about two buildings down from the Palais de l’Elysées (the French White House). Not exactly my crowd, but then I’m 37, maybe my crowd is changing. How many things like this did Jimmy Baldwin go to in his day? So I went.

I walked in late for “Champ de Sons,” a one-man show put on for the event by Emile Abossolo-M’bo, an excellent actor/comedian of Cameroonese origin. I say “excellent” judging from the crowd reaction and all the faces M’bo pulled and the different voices he pulled off, but his performance was in French only, so I only understood 10% of the gist.

I showed up alone, only to discover that I’ve met more people in Paris over the years than I realized. So who was there (the true arbiter of any event)? Claude Grunitzky sat next to me during M’bo’s show, in town for TraceTV’s recent forum on blacks in the French media. (Claude founded the urban culture bible Trace under the original True magazine name back in 1995. We met when I studied abroad in London then, writing for True.) Hors d’oeuvres and free drinks were served afterwards and the lawn was opened up to everyone, about 300 of us in all. Author Jake Lamar, a former Time writer and Bronx native who’s been living here for over a decade, was in the house. Two years ago Jake brought me over to the apartment of sixtysomething Morehouse grad Tannie Stovall, who hosts a get-together for black men only every Friday at his place. (Director Melvin Van Peebles has been known to float through.) I hadn’t seen him since then, but Tannie was there too. And sexy Trace staffer Sandra Etienne had a drink in hand.

Cameroonese guitarist Franck Biyong recognized me from MySpace believe it or not and handed me Haïti Market, a CD from his band Massak; expect a real analysis soon on this furthermucker. This is truly a 21st century expat event, because Jennifer Bullock, a cultural affairs officer at the US Embassy, recognized me from Facebook. (Maybe this happens all over America these days, but it’d never happened to me in France.) I somehow met student Serge Noukoue and his Howard study-abroad buddy Shamira Muhammad, and Serge introduced me to Ricki Stevenson, who’s been running Black Paris Tours here since 1998. Overall, it was a good old-fashioned clusterfuck like I’m used to in Sex and the City-fied Manhattan, but Parisian style. Free wine on George Bush’s dime!