Category Archives: 90s

Drunk in Moscow, Not Idaho 1994

In 1994 I traveled from Malaysia to Paris on Aeroflot. The Kuala Lumpur-Karachi-Dubai-Moscow-Paris flight time to Moscow totaled about 24 hours. None of them were comfortable in the flimsy chairs of the Soviet era jetliner. Disembarking at Moscow, I discovered that my connecting flight to Charles De Gaulle was delayed until the next morning. A […]

BET ON CRAZY 1 by Peter Nolan Smith

In the 1970s I knew very little about diamonds as a child other than Superman could squeeze coal with his steel-hard hands to create diamonds and my father had bought a diamond ring for my mother. It was a hundredth of the size of the diamonds Superman never gave to Lois Lane, but my mother […]

The 420 Bus to Hollywood

In the late spring of 1995 I lived with Scottie Taylor in a North Hollywood pool house. The homeowner ran a strip club off West Pico Boulevard. Dennis’ dancers sunbathed nude in the mornings. They were Jesus freaks and read the Bible like a choir of fallen angels. Scottie and I were sinners in their […]

Beyond The Border

Over the years my friends’ sons and daughters suspected that my travels were connected to the CIA or some criminal enterprise. My denials only confirmed their opinions, mostly because none of them wanted to become their parents, unless they were rich. Recently young man contacted me on Facebook and asked if I was in Thailand […]

A TASTE FOR THE EAST 1990

My first trip to the Orient was in 1990. A round-the-world ticket. One destination was Singapore. The Straits city was already undergoing its metamorphosis from a colonial port to a gleaming metropolis of skyscrapers. Raffles had been closed for renovations. I stayed at a cheap Chinese hotel in a decrepit godown. The walls climbed toward […]