Category Archives: france

Hate/Love Le Ballade de Melody Nelson

Music sucks in Pattaya. Old farangs sing to HOTEL CALIFORNIA and bar girls dance to boy band love ballads, while Thai bands play dinosaur rock for drunken tourists. Nothing wrong with a bad reprise of SMOKE ON THE WATER, except I once lived in nightclubs and bars in which music meant more than a tune […]

HISTOIRE DE MELODIE NELSON by Serge Gainsbourg

Music sucked in Pattaya. Old farangs sing HOTEL CALIFORNIA and bar girls dance to boy band love ballads, while Thai bands play dinosaur rock for drunken tourists. Nothing was wrong with a bad reprise of SMOKE ON THE WATER, except I once hung out in nightclubs and bars in which music meant more than a […]

Les Miserables

A year ago at a dinner on the Upper East Side an American art collector mentioned that he had called a hotel in France to rent a room and the desk clerk informed Devlin that the only available room was on the ground floor. “Where is the entrance?” “Next to the desk.” “So your guests […]

Bastille Day 1789

2 July 1789 The Bastille – Paris The Marquis De Sade was in the stone fortress on charges of perversion. In the afternoon a prisoner cried from his window. “Ils tuent les prisonniers.” The guards subdued the inmate, but his words sparked a smoldering rumor and the rumor spread through the poor neighborhood awaiting a […]

FEAR OF HEIGHTS By Peter Nolan Smith

As the summer surrendered in August 1989. The days were colder on the Cote du Rousillion. I ended my stay in Perpignan by the Spanish border and hitchhiked east to visit English friends in the Luberon. We had a great time touring the historic valley. There I survived a suicide attempt when a wild boar […]