Pras Michel - PBS - August 20, 2007

From the I'm a little late, but it's ok department... Brian from KCET wrote in to tell us about an interview by Tavis Smiley of Pras Michel talking of his cool new documentary "Skid Row"... you can still get at it online... or just watch it below. Thanks Brian!

From Brian...

Pras Michel of The Fugees Talks About Living On The Streets Of
CityplaceLos Angeles On “Tavis Smiley.”

Pras Michel was the director and star of the documentary “Skid Row.” In
the documentary he lives on the streets of downtown placeCityLos Angeles
for 9 days in an area called “skid row,” where there are approximately
11,000 homeless people living on the streets.

During the documentary Pras was budgeted one dollar a day. Anything else
he needed he had to come up with a way to get on his own. During the
interview with Tavis Smiley, Pras talks about learning to pan handle, and
what it takes to survive on the streets. He describes one ironic scene in
the movie in which he is pan handling underneath a billboard that displays
him and the rest of his Fugees counterparts.

He also describes one of the hardest things of being homeless is that when
a person is homeless people don’t even acknowledge them. He talks about
how people try to pretend that homeless people aren’t around, the act like
“they don’t exist.” He goes on to state that “when they don’t see you,
the glamorous life, no one cares.”

You can watch the entire interview tonight on “Tavis Smiley.” For show
times in your area you can go to http://www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/.
You can also get a copy of the transcripts and an audio podcast for the
show on the web site.