April is going to be a crazy month around Chez Martinez. We have guests staying for almost the entire month, and one thing nobody tells you about living in Paris is that people will visit you—a lot. Like, a lot, A LOT.
And people are needy.
Can we go…
And I can’t very well say, “No, you’re a very capable adult, you can fuck off on your own,” can I? Or can I?
This means my time will be usurped by a lot of hand-holding around town, experiencing this city through someone else seeing it for the first time. Again.
I am so fucking benevolent.
But all jokes aside, that means getting a lot done before April. Over the last several days, that’s meant scripting, recording, and editing the next several episodes of A Chicano in Paris.
When I first started the podcast portion of my Substack, I had no idea what I wanted it to be. In fact, if you paid close attention, you probably noticed months between the first “episode” and the next. And even that was just a one-off to help visitors.
Of course, that effort is wasted if they don’t listen to it and still burden me with the same questions it answers. Looking at you, Jason.
Then I started thinking about some random shit I know about France—things like The Lioness of Brittany and The Parisii (episode coming soon). What started as a brainstorming session turned into an idea for a five—maybe ten—episode stretch about lesser-known but no less fascinating moments in French history.
To get it to ten (it currently sits at four), I had to do a lot of work in a short amount of time if I wanted to avoid guests whining about me not spending enough time with them. So I dug in and got to work.
I brainstormed with various AIs (yes, yes, I am a terrible human being for using a tool that acts as the perfect assistant) and put together a potential list. Then I did a cursory Google search on the ones that piqued my interest. When a topic grabbed me, I cobbled together something loosely resembling an outline and started writing. Once I had a draft, I refined the details and fact-checked the history.
Let’s be honest—I tend to ramble. I wanted my scripts to sound like me, but also… not too much like my usual me. Make sense?
Section by section, the rewrites and re-rewrites continued until I was satisfied.
At some point, I stepped away to clear my head. When I came back to my MacBook, I noticed something resembling a theme. Most of what had piqued my interest—and led to an episode—had, at its core, a touch of rebellion and resistance.
I hadn’t planned it that way. Maybe that’s just who the French are—no matter where you look in their history, you’ll find their spirit of resistance.
As I fought back tears reading a letter from a 17-year-old Resistance fighter (forcing me to re-record and then re-re-record), it hit me: the people in these episodes were real. And within them was a courage we are all going to need in the coming months—maybe even years. A courage so many in the world are already forced to display.
And it wasn’t just the French Resistance in WWII. Even in defeat, French history is about resistance. In the Battle of Puebla, the French were the ones being resisted—by an outmatched band of Mexicans who said, not today. The Cathars standing up to the Catholic Church. The simple baguette keeping a country fed and fighting. All stories of resistance. Of courage. Even of hope.
As cheesy (yes, there’s an episode on cheese coming) as it sounds, I felt a bit subversive—like my little, insignificant podcast was both a middle finger and a call to arms. That was never my intention when I started this. But it truly is the first thing I’ve created in a long, long time that I actually feel, well, proud of.
In Hollywood parlance, I have six episodes in the can. They’ll be released over the next six weeks, every Friday at 09:00 EST.
• Unsung Heroes: The Women and Teenagers of the French Resistance—and Their Legacy Today
• Marcel Petiot – The Serial Killer of Nazi-Occupied Paris
• The Secret History of French Food
• Cinco de Mayo – The Day Mexico Checked the French Empire (working title)
• The Albigensian Crusade – France’s Forgotten Holy War
• The Parisii – The Original Parisians
One last thing. You’ll notice (or not) that I no longer use a Substack URL. From now on, when you share my ‘stack, you can just share: chicanoinparis.com.
And as always, for the rest of March, the badass woman of the day will be shared at—wait for it—09:00 EST. Or is it 10:00 now that you’ve had the time change and we haven’t? Whatever. You really should just set your clocks to Paris time to keep up with me anyway.
As ever, thank you for reading, listening, and sharing.
