Draft:Alain Pacadis

Alain Pacadis

Alain Pacadis, born on July 5, 1949, in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, and died on December 12, 1986, in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, was a French journalist and author.

Biography

Son on the war (1949-1967)

Alain Pacadis was born during the baby boom, to a Greek father who immigrated to France in 1927, and a French mother of Jewish faith, who miraculously survived the roundups. The family lived at 95 rue de Charonne in Paris. This would be his address for the rest of his life.

His father died in 1966, worn out by years of hard work. Alain, an only child, was left alone with a mother who protected him to the point of suffocation. He was a solitary, serious child, with an unattractive appearance, passionate about uniformology and historical battles. After his baccalaureate, a diligent student, he attended classes at the École du Louvre and the Institute of Art and Archaeology.

Liberation, Destruction (1968-1971)

It was during May 1968 that he discovered a certain freedom, forming friendships with other students. On March 6, 1970, his mother committed suicide. In the few words she left behind, she explained that she was ending her life so that her son could finally be free. This loss would haunt Alain Pacadis for the rest of his life. Devastated, he fell into a pathological fear of loneliness that would never leave him.

He creates a new family with a few friends, with whom he travels to Crete, then, like many young people of the time, he heads to Goa. In Turkey, and then in Afghanistan, he discovers drugs and spends his days smoking kif. Eventually, running out of money, he stops in Kabul and returns to Paris.

The birth of a dandy (1972-1974)

In the early 1970s, Pacadis abandoned his studies and only attended the courses that interested him, such as those by Olivier Revault d'Allonnes and Bernard Teyssèdre. Furthermore, he became involved with organizations like Vive la révolution and the Homosexual Front for Revolutionary Action (FHAR), and more specifically with the Gazolines, alongside Maud Molyneux, Marie-France, Paquita Paquin, and especially Dinah, a young transgender woman with whom he would have several years of tumultuous love affairs.

Pacadis becomes passionate about Andy Warhol, The Velvet Underground, and Nico, whom he met in 1970. Often scruffy, he takes more and more drugs and casually attends the UER (University Department of Plastic Arts) at Paris-I University, where he refines his underground culture. For him, the hippie movement has fizzled out, and he is now fascinated by the New York underground.

1973 was an important year for Pacadis: first, he wrote his first article for the new and short-lived newspaper Le Saltimbanque, a dissident offshoot of Actuel; then, he met the man who would become both his mentor and his best friend, Yves Adrien, who was writing at the time for the magazine Rock & Folk.

With Marc Zermati, an employee of Open Market, Pacadis and Adrien would be among the first to cover the birth of a movement that was not yet called punk. For the time being, they echoed an entire rock scene still unknown in France: David Bowie (album Aladdin Sane), the Stooges (album Raw Power), the New York Dolls, and Lou Reed (album Berlin).

Pacadis, who now signs as "Alain Pacadis, underground reporter," struggles to get his articles published, despite the modest notoriety he has gained within the Parisian underground scene. Actuel even caricatures him by calling him "Alain Picradis," but Jean-François Bizot stubbornly refuses to publish his texts. He then decides to leave for Istanbul.

Upon his return, paradoxically, it is to a newspaper funded by the Paris City Hall and aligned with the UDR, Le Pluriel, that he will contribute, creating a column called "Underground in Paris." But it is in June 1975, with his debut at Libération, that he truly steps into the role of his dandy columnist persona.

A young punk man (1975-1977)

Very quickly, his weekly column (titled "White Flash" starting in November 1975) sparks strong reactions, both from readers and some Libé collaborators, with Serge July at the forefront, who question his legitimacy. Fed by the books of William S. Burroughs, Pacadis writes about rock, cinema, drugs, sexuality, and his articles leave no one indifferent.

The year 1976 marks the rise of the punk movement. Pacadis has discovered the American musical avant-garde (Patti Smith, Suicide, Television, the Ramones) and British punk, with the Sex Pistols at the forefront. In France, he meets Elodie Lauten, then the Stinky Toys, to whom he devotes an entire column for their first concert.

A new magazine, Façade, is launched, modeled after Andy Warhol's Interview. Alain Pacadis contributes starting with the second issue. One of his first pieces is an interview with Serge Gainsbourg, which is more of a conversation, with each asking questions of the other. This meeting will mark the beginning of a friendship, as both men share a certain ugliness and a taste for excess.

In October 1976, Libération dedicates a double-page spread to the punk movement, in the form of an alphabetical guide. The letter A is devoted to Alain Pacadis, now an essential figure on the subject.

Over time, Pacadis becomes increasingly open in his articles, which take the form of a personal diary, not hesitating to recount his nocturnal life between the Bataclan and Les Bains Douches, among other "places of perdition." He stages himself, tells his life story, becoming one of the first French representatives of gonzo journalism, inspired by Hunter S. Thompson's original method that encourages an overt subjectivity in reporting. He takes more and more drugs, neglects his health and hygiene, alternating between periods of melancholy and euphoria. Sometimes, Alain Pacadis simply recycles the same articles in different newspapers.

Palace years (1978-1980)

In 1978, his first book, Un jeune homme chic, was published by Éditions du Sagittaire. This compilation of texts and excerpts from his diary earned him an invitation to appear on the Apostrophes show, in an episode titled "Some People of Today." As the punk movement wanes, Pacadis struggles to write, and his collaboration with Libé halts for a few months. The rise of disco plunges him into what would become his main activity until the end of his life: night-clubbing.

On March 5, 1978, Fabrice Emaer opened a new nightclub, Le Palace, in a former Italian-style theater on Rue du Faubourg-Montmartre in Paris. Within a few weeks, this place became the must-visit spot for Parisian night owls. Pacadis, who no longer writes much except for L'Écho des savanes or Façade, is part of the eclectic crowd at Le Palace, and every night, he comes to linger there with his existential malaise until the early morning. He deteriorates in drugs, alcohol, and boredom, cultivating the image of a neglected dandy, eternally broke.

In July 1979, he began a new series of columns for Libération: every Monday, in the "Nightclubbing" section, he recounts his nights of wandering with a certain detachment, takes stock of Parisian parties, and talks about dance, drugs, and sex. Still far from gaining unanimous approval within the newspaper and its readership, he nonetheless becomes an essential figure. Both an underground reporter and a society columnist, he subtly paints a portrait of a society in full transformation. That year, Pacadis is thirty years old.

80's fan (1981-1983)

A new decade begins, colder, more industrial, a "novö" decade, according to the term coined by Yves Adrien. In his columns, Pacadis writes about Kraftwerk, Joy Division, and still Iggy Pop, recounts his feverish loves, and buries disco.

The era also aims to be more intimate: Fabrice Emaer opens Le Privilège, a sort of private lounge within Le Palace, where he organizes both sumptuous and sophisticated parties. Pacadis, who is of course one of its mainstays, also writes for its magazine, simply called Palace.

Glam-punk icon (1984-1986)

In cinema, Pacadis plays the role of a snitching drug dealer in Les Frères Pétard (by Hervé Palud, 1986, with Gérard Lanvin and Jacques Villeret). He also appears in Les Aventures d'Eddie Turley by Gérard Courant, presented at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival, and in Nuit docile by Guy Gilles the same year.

A documentary was made about him in 2003, Alain Pacadis, un héros in, directed by Grégory Hervelin and Vladimir Tybin. It reveals, among other things, that the circumstances of his death remain unclear. His partner at the time was accused of strangling him in the early morning as he returned to their 9m² apartment on Rue de Charonne, desperate after another of his nights out. He denies having murdered him, claiming that he acted at Pacadis' request.

He was cremated at the Père-Lachaise Cemetery, and his ashes rest in the columbarium (case No. 15,359).

Publications

• Un jeune homme chic, éditions du Sagittaire, 1978 ; réédition 2002 chez Denoël ; réédition chez Héros-Limite, 2018.
• Nightclubbing : Articles 1973-1986, Denoël, mars 2005, ISBN 978-2207255384.

Cinema

• Une jeunesse dorée (2019), Eva Ionesco, playing by Hugo Dillon.

Annexes

• Alexis Bernier et François Buot, L'Esprit des seventies, Grasset, 1994, réédité en 2013 sous le titre :
  • Alexis Bernier; François Buot (2013). Alain Pacadis. Attitudes (in French). Le Mot et le Reste. p. 359. ISBN 9782360540921. ABFB2013.
• Olivier Stupp, « Pacadis le magnifique » Technikart, No. 61, 1 avril 2002
• Alexis Bernier et François Buot, « Alain Pacadis, clochard céleste », Le Bonbon nuit, No. 33, 2013