Bart John Calendar, 53, loved France. He began his life at the American Hospital in Paris on Valentine’s Day 1969 and that life ended recently in his apartment in Montpellier following a series of strokes.
Bart, a brilliant and passionate writer, led a bohemian, Hemingwayesque lifestyle in France after spending several years as a reporter at the Asbury Park Press through the mid 1990s, until moving to The Home News and Tribune in New Brunswick in 1996. Bart was a master storyteller, voracious reader, avid video game player and loved being on a stage. He was known for his quirky, dark sense of humor which frequently came across via his online persona as the “Drunken Expat Writer – Montpellier Madman.”
Bart first moved to Montpellier in September 2000 with his then-wife Jessica Nesterak (married in 1998) where they began a freelance business, capturing the early entrepreneurial spirit of the new electronic age. He divorced years later, returned to the States briefly and moved back to Montpellier in 2003, where he subsequently met his longtime girlfriend and business partner Christine Cantera. Bart had a loyal following and he and Christine ran a thriving freelance business for 17 years until his death.
He attended Ranney School in Tinton Falls, graduated from Monmouth Regional High School in 1987 where he was very involved in the drama department, and graduated from Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, in 1991, where he studied film and literature. He spent a summer in high school as an exchange student in Paris and his junior year abroad in Montpellier.
A devotee of Keith Richards, he defined his essence through the words of his favorite authors, Bret Easton Ellis, James Ellroy and Hunter S. Thompson.
Bart is survived by his parents, Carl and Jody Calendar of Tinton Falls and New Hampshire; his brother Shane and sister-in-law Kate; his niece Devin; his nephew Luke; and countless other friends and relatives.
A memorial service will be held in the United States in a month or two.
The article originally appeared in the October 20 – 26, 2022 print edition of The Two River Times.
