Dinner on the Alley in Honfleur

Dinner with John and Mike. France 2002

Francophone, Paris 2001

John Jordan yaks on a Parisian pay phone in this image made from multiple video frames. It was late, we caught the Metro to La Defense but the trams from there to Suresnes had stopped running so we had to hoof it a couple or three kilometers back to Mike's house. Of course we had no maps and had never made the trip on foot before so it was a very indirect route until we finally got some where that looked familiar.

Lazy Potomac on a Hazy Day in July

At a bend in the river the Potomac flows slowly past the town of Hancock, MD. My friend John and I walk along a section of the C&O canal that once followed the river all the way to Washington D.C. Maryland in the summer can be a hot, humid, somewhat oppressive place even up in the "highlands" of the piedmont and mountain areas. The river has that smell that rivers have and it made me wish we had a canoe so we could set off down stream.

"The Streets of Charleston-A QM Production"

These shots look to me like scenes from one of those cop shows I used to love as a kid in the '70s. Let's call this one "Smokey and DeGennaro" and we'll say it's about two cops from up north. The big guy, Smokey, is an easy going, laid back, by-the-book detective and Degennaro is a streetwise vice cop who isn't afraid to bust a few heads. They are on special assignment from the NYPD, "on loan" to the Charleston, South Carolina police force. Think "McCloud" meets "My Cousin Vinny."

This episode finds them on the trail of some redneck gun runners who have teamed up with the Irish Mafia. The gang sends cheap, saturday night specials up north and brings shipments of "extacy" pills back down south hidden inside kegs of Guinness. Thanks to some creative "good cop-bad cop" routines our heroes convince some sorry stoolies to give up the location of the gang's hideout. But things go badly and Smokey buys the farm when they are ambushed in a set up. Later he's laid to rest in the ancient burial ground and in the closing scene DeGennaro vows to bring the culprits to justice.

Next episode we find out Smokey is OK thanks to a bullet-proof vest. The funeral was staged to fake out the bad guys. The show gets cancelled after only half a season but a spin-off about Smokey's little brother "Babajayjay" who is a yoga instructor turned turned private eye runs for two more years.

Boycott France? Why don't I just call it "Freedom Land" and continue to enjoy.

Visiting Mike, a high school buddy who now lives in Paris, we celebrated Bastille Day with Roman candles. Would they shoot off Parisian Candles in Italy?