Category Archives: Bars of the World Tour

A bit of picture-taking

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Another warm day here in the city of a thousand spires, although not as unashamedly sunny as yesterday. I stayed in bed a little extra, but started getting antsy. I got up and sat at the computer for a while, poking at one project, prodding another, but not feeling inspired. I had been lamenting not putting the camera to use more often, so I loaded up the gear and headed to one of the many graveyards nearby, one that has a large church in the middle of it. I had ideas of the bare winter branches framing the spire against the sky, while grave markers huddled like sheep beneath.

There’s a reason I call what I do picture-taking rather than photography. My first observation: when a I look at something, it is amazing how much I do not see. A shot that I think is going to be a picture of a spire behind some trees turns out to be a picture of trees. Where the heck did that evergreen come from – the one taking up a third of the frame? Granted, I do try to include a little extra in the shot, with the intention of cropping later, but sometimes it’s just ridiculous.

One important technique for separating foreground and background is depth of focus, making the object of the picture sharp while keeping the rest of the busy world indistinct. I have many, many pictures that, in retrospect, would have benefitted greatly from a judicious use of that tool. (I can’t tell you how many snowy angel carvings in the very cluttered Olšansky Hřbitovy are lost to the background.) So today I was standing in a much more orderly graveyard, scratching my noggin, trying to remember which way to adjust the aperture to reduce the depth of focus, so my object is sharp and the rest isn’t. I remembered incorrectly, and cranked the aperture far in the wrong direction. I now have lots of pictures displaying the surrounding noise with remarkable clarity.

Live and learn, I guess, though in my case the latter half of that axiom has yet to kick in.

Thanks!

At the Helm in Strašnice

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U Kormidla is a new place (I think). It is a longer walk to come here than it is to go to Little Café Near Home, but if today is an indication, there are definitely times when the extra walk is worth it. The bar has a nautical theme, celebrating the Czech Republic’s long and highly regarded maritime tradition (‘Ahoy’ is, after all, the most common informal greeting.)

I made my way down the stairs from street level, and my immediate impression was highly favorable. Two pretty girls sat at the corner of the bar, not smoking. There was a large group filling the back of the place, all dressed in black (we’re in cemetary country, out here in StraÅ¡nice), also not smoking. I made myself comfortable, enjoyed the smoothness of a Kozel dark, and communicated easily with the waiter with his nice, slow diction.

It is not a big place (although it dwarfs Little Café Near Home), dim but not dark, filled with rich wood and occasional brass highlights. It tiptoes dangerously on the borderline of kitsch, but overall it works. All these non-smokers in here is probably a fluke, but even when someone does light up the fumes are whisked away from where I sit. There is a staircase that leads up to a few more tables and the kitchen. My Bora-Bora chicken was heavier than I would expect from an island delicacy, but hey, this is the Czech Republic.

It is time for me to mosey along, now, but I will be back.

Thanks!

Sunday Morning

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It is a balmy morning, well above freezing, easily the warmest day of this year. The sun was shining brightly as I made my way through the quiet streets of Strašnice; the only others out at this time on a Sunday morning are the old men and their wiener dogs.

What is any right-thinking non-wiener-dog-owning person doing out on a Sunday morning, no matter how bright and shiny it may be? What Siren song drew me from my home, my fortress of solitude, my haven in the hurly-burly world that is Strašnice? Fast food.

It was late when I got home last night. Really late. I was at Roma with fuego, and we all know how that can go. It was a night of Pirates and hockey. Pirates of the White Sand, I’m happy to report, is making progress. The version fuego brought back from the secret underground laboratories of North America is good enough we can actually show it to people, and many of the tweaks to make it even better are quite simple. Last night we worked up a list of improvements, and except for one really stupid bit that fuego seems to find delightful we’re in good shape. The last hour of the evening was dedicated to me finding new ways to explain how stupid that bit is.

I staggered home as the wee hours of the morning were growing up. I mounted the stairs and when I opened the door I was not hit by the blast of tropical air that Soup Boy prefers. He was still awake. Well, moving, anyway; awake might be a bit of a stretch. “Heater’s not working,” he managed to mumble. “No hot water, either.” I tried pushing the reset button on the heater, just as Soup Boy had already done, but you never know. He might not have pushed the button correctly. In this case, my button-pushing was no more effective than his, so I shuffled into my room and flopped into bed, too tired even to plug in the electric heater in my room.

This morning I awoke, perhaps a little later than usual, but usual is difficult to define. I shuffled around a bit, found a valve on the water heater to allow more water into the radiator system, and groped my way to the kitchen for some tea. Ah, tea, the leaf that built an empire, where would I be without your magical alkaloid? As the kettle hissed and burbled I stood, semi-conscious, contemplating the paper bag on the counter. Slowly the friendly logo and happy marketing slogans sank in. McDonald’s. As I looked at that bag the craving started, the conditioned reflex born of forty years of exposure to relentless marketing. I wanted some of that.

And so now I sit, far from home, tired, muddled, sated, nibbling the last of my fries, watching parents struggle with children who are not yet finished crawling through the giant hamster tubes. Man, I wish they had those when I was a tot.

Thanks!

Dancing ’till Dawn

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I was sitting at the Little Café Near Home, writing, when the message came. There’s some sort of Olympics Thing going on right now, so the TV was on, directly over my head, and the few other patrons were all turned in my direction but not looking at me. The two dogs in the place seemed indifferent to the sports, but were very disappointed that their owners were not allowing them to play. Such is the life of a large dog in a small café.

My phone chimed and when I got to a good stopping point in the prose, I hauled it out to find two messages from Belladonna. “Reserved Stones tickets”, one said; the other read “We’re going out tonight. Wanna come?” I slowly typed out a message to respond to both her texts, left out an important word, and sent my confusing reply, which was supposed to say that I was interested in the Rolling Stones in June but tonight I was working and would not be coming out to play.

Work was going well; I had thought of a very good nuance to the way Hunter is messed up in later chapters of The Monster Within. (Man, I’ll be glad when that book is published so I can get it out of my head.) Except for a brief stint of Internet access at the bowling alley I had been writing for 13 hours, but I wasn’t tired. When it works, you run with it. I was scruffy and wearing the same clothes as the day before. It was after 9 pm when Belladonna and Firenze finally convinced me I should come out. It was, after all, Saturday Night. I figured if they were going to stay out late enough I could scrub down and join them.

Stay out late enough? Hah. They weren’t even going to get started until midnight. The style here is to get to the club district before public transportation shuts down, and party until it starts back up again. So, at a time I would ordinarily be considering sweet slumber, I was heading back out the door. I found the designated place, was soon joined by the ladies, and after answering a few questions (“What do you mean, ‘the evening ended awkwardly and uncertainly’?”) we danced the night away.

It was fun. Toward the end my poor small-talk skills began to show — I’m good at listening but not so good at sustaining a conversation. I’m comfortable with silences; unfortunately the interesting things going on are all inside my head, where they stay.

The evening ended with a walk through silent cobbled streets, snow falling gently around us.

Thanks!

A night on the town.

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I have long thought it would be fun to go to a bar with a vast whiskey collection, throw down credit card, and have a knowledgeable bartender pour me a Tour of Scotland, providing wee sips of a wide variety of single malts and telling me about each one. Last night I came close.

There is a bar here in Prague, a copy of one in New York, apparently, called Books and Bar. Or was it Bar and Books? In any case, it is a bar, and shelves of books (mostly in German for some reason, and obviously not meant to be read) adorn one of the walls. It is more upscale than the places I usually find myself, but sometimes it’s fun to pretend I’m sophisticated, and since we had invited Belladonna to join us, it seemed like a good time to try a place that Soup Boy had been encouraging me to visit anyway. Soup Boy (storyboarder for Pirates and now my roommate) had invited some of his friends out as well, but only Little John was free. So we set out for the city center, hoping that Belladonna would also bring friends.

Another acquaintance of Soup Boy, who we will call Hole, spotted us entering the establishment and came in to say hi. We chatted a bit and then he went off to work out. The Boy and I sat, and soon after Belladonna arrived with two friends in tow, fellow med students. Conversation was pleasant and unforced, and when Little John arrived, adding his limitless energy to the affair, things were going quite nicely.

I ordered a flight of Whiskey – six small glasses of the good stuff. (I paid extra for the very, very good stuff, that cash from being an extra burning a hole in my pocket.) As I slowly made my way around the islands and the highlands I appreciated the variety of different flavors, how each achieved a different balance of Earth (peat), Air (vapors), Fire (alcohol’s ‘bite’), and Water (smoothness). Truly the booze of the gods, and I was hitchhiking through the pantheon.

Sometime while I was enjoying my travels Hole returned. Belladonna knew him, and did not like him—not at all. In a cascading guilt by association Soup Boy was demoted a few notches, and I took a hit as well. (This just after she had started to recover from learning my age. I am rather older than she thought—Firenze, bless her sweet heart, guessed I was 29—and Belladonna has about her an air of maturity that made me think she was older.)

A note about Little John. I’ve only met him a couple of times, but I’ve seen how his exuberance can really keep a gathering lively. There is a danger, though, that someone else can turn his power to the Dark Side, and that is what happened when Hole showed up. I don’t think Firenze was aware of the crude humor being directed at her, not at first anyway, but the evening’s vibe, which had survived a couple of bumps, was now deteriorating rapidly. A change of venue was called for.

So we went to another place new to me, called M1, where the seating, inconvenient for large groups, led to me having a very pleasant conversation with Firenze, Soup Boy chatting with Belladonna, and Little John and Hole hovering and getting bored. They eventually left, and the mood recovered, but the evening ended somewhat awkwardly and uncertainly. It was, overall, a lot of fun, and it’s (almost) always nice to get out and meet new people. Hopefully we’ll be able to hang out again sometime.

Thanks!

Wow

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I’m sitting at the Cheap Beer Place, my first time in this august establishment for a few months. As I write this I’m listening to a woman sing “When the saints come marching in”, slowly, in Czech, to the accompaniment of a single synthesizer. That in itself, is enough to warp one’s sense of reality.

At the table in front of me, her back to me, is a woman with a she-mullet. Curly hair towers over her head, and is pulled back behind her ears. I’m pretty sure this was a big style in the ’80’s. I can’t think of any specific actresses or pop stars, but I know I’ve seen the she-mullet before. It’s still not flattering.

There’s a guy punching numbers into the juke box now. He seems ordinary enough. In his non-number-punching hand is a plastic bag with a single roll and a tub of potted meat. This man came prepared.

So now, presumably, the songs he requested are beginning to play. Wow. It’s some sort of children’s choir, accompanied by electric bass and countless people whistling. Oh, and now an electric piano. Thank god, it’s fading out, giving way to We Are The Champions. Sing it, Freddie.

Time passes, the music changes. Now I think I’m listening to Blink-sto osmdesat dva (182, in czech). There’s no mistaking the rhythm, and the accordion is subtle.

***

Never did finish explaining what was so dang surreal about that day – the following day I had a fever and I now have recollections of conversations that could not have actually happened. I’m better now, but I won’t be able to finish the above episode today, either.

Thanks!

Home

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I was talking to Soup Boy this evening, comparing notes about our holiday visits to the states. We are following wandering stars, Soup and I, and our intersection in this town is more about coincidence than fate. The Boy is younger than I am, and has not settled down on his own the way I did in San Diego. Until this Christmas, however, “home” for him had always meant his parents’ place, the building he had grown up in with the rest of his family.

On his last visit, he realized that something had changed. It was not “home” anymore, it was the place he had grown up. It was his parents’ home. He was there, and he was a visitor. Not to take away from people who cannot afford a roof over their heads, but there’s a difference between homeless and houseless. I sold my house, and I left my home. Now I live here.

Soup Boy and I talked for quite a while about what home is. Actually, he did most of the talking, because he had been doing most of the thinking. He was visiting friends in Los Angeles, and he talked about what he would do when he got home. “You mean, back to my place,” the friend would clarify. Soup Boy came to the realization that for him, home was wherever he was. Soup Boy is a snail, a Jet-Set snail who can traverse continents in an afternoon, but home is with him wherever he goes.

For me, the definition of Home is different. Home to me is any place I can feel I belong, any place that when I walk in people look up and know my face, and I can sit and do my thing and it’s part of the rhythm of the place. Home is where I’m part of the background, contributing my own hum to the room tone. Home is not a perfect place; here at the Little Cafe right now the window is closed and the smoke is making my eyes burn, my lungs ache, and I’m not going to be able to wear these clothes into my apartment. Still, for the hardships, I feel a connection to the people here. Although bartender turnover seems to have been 100 percent in the time I was gone, all the regular dogs are here.

Dog is not a euphemism in this case. There’s a cocker spaniel curled at my feet as I write this, happy that I am home.

Thanks!

The Lodge, Minneapolis Airport

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I was glad I had a window seat as the plane glided smoothly over the prairie. I looked down on the small towns that dotted the land, surrounded by fields now dormant and covered with a light blanket of snow. As we approached Minneapolis the lakes became more numerous, frozen over, cross-crossed by whiter stripes resulting from a glacial version of plate tectonics. As we got lower I saw that the surface of the ice was scored with tire tracks from countless vehicles, and dotted with fishermen’s shacks, some in clusters, others off on their own. On islands I could see houses, isolated in the summer, in the middle of a parking lot during the months of ice.

I have three hours to kill here in the Twin Cities, and how better than to take out a loan so I can afford a single airport beer. Leinenkugel’s Red – a local better-than-awful brew. Sitting near me is a gray-haired man returning to Saudi Arabia after a cruise with his family. He is an engineer working as a contractor for Haliburton, where he specializes in drilling sideways. “Oh, like when you want to set up a well on the border and send it under your neighbor,” I said. “Exactly,” he replied.

Although he has dual Canadian-Saudi citizenship, he is not flying directly into Saudi Arabia, but into Bahrain instead. “When you fly into Saudi, they search you carefully, and confiscate all your porn and everything,” he explained. “Bahrain is just a whorehouse. Then you can drive down the causeway.” He is also planning to spend some time with the whores in bahrain, as lond as he is in the neighborhood.

His family, I take it, lives on this side of the Atlantic, as does he when he is not working. His daughter left a note in his suitcase asking him to stay home more.

He had enjoyed the cruise, but didn’t like how structured the trip was. “The boat won’t wait for you,” he said. “I wanted to golf, but there was no time.” Apparently there was also no time for prostitutes. On a cruise. With his family. We are certainly not of the same world, he and I. I made myself busy on my phone, burining off the last minutes on my account, in part so he would stop telling me things. Man, it’s going to be a long nine hours if we’re in the same row on the plane.

Thanks!

Ned’s, Albuquerque, NM

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I sit now, perched atop a wobbly stool at one of those tall tables that signify the bar section of a restaurant. I have put a lot of miles on today; this morning I awoke within earshot of the breakers in Ocean Beach, and now I sit not far from the Rio Grande.

Note: Wearing boxers and a new pair of Levi’s is not good if you’re going to be behind the wheel for thirteen hours.

I finally got all my chores done out in California, and most of my bases touched. I didn’t manage to see all the people I was hoping to see, and some of the meetings were terribly brief, but it was a good side trip. I’ll get up to Northern California on my next trip. The book tour – yeah, that’s the ticket. (Soup Boy reports that no rejection letters have reached my pad in Prague, which must mean that I’ve been accepted by everyone.)

Other than the pants thing, no great insights came from the day’s travels, no epiphanies struck as the miles slid past. I thought of a good setting for a story, but not the story to put in it. I had a green chile and bean burrito in Winslow, but while the sauce was satisfyingly spicy, there weren’t actual green chiles in it. Now my intestines are tying themselves in knots.

This is a peaceful bar, a local’s place, nice but not ferny. Not the kind of place people bring laptops, but none of the places I go are, until I get there to set the new precedent. Ben Folds is singing about his girlfriend the brick. People are laughing, and some of the people are pretty drunk. It is early yet, but I don’t feel like looking anyone up here in town tonight. I’m tired. Hanging with Amy wasn’t nearly as draining as it has been in the past, but now it’s time to hole up in an undisclosed location for a few hours. Tomorrow I have a bazillion things to do, and the next day I fly back to Prague, so this is my last chance for a while.

Addendum: While sitting here, working on a short story, I have finally heard “Bad Day” in the US. Regular readers know it as “You Wrote a Bad Song“.

Thanks!

I had an episode, but…

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It was a good episode, too. It started with the line “I woke to the sound of the cat puking,” and described my morning a couple of days ago. Or, at least, it started that way, but quickly spiraled into Fear and Loathing in Ocean Beach. Look for it in a bookstore near you.

Another reason I haven’t posted much lately (besides laziness, of course) is that many of my adventures involve Amy, and despite her insistence on a life of abstinence and purity (she’s pregnant) I still wouldn’t want her to get tarred with my brush. There’s litigation involved. On top of that is The Short Story That Would Not Die, limited Internet access, and the aforementioned laziness to contend with.

But I can share this with you: right now I’m in a little coffee shop, wearing shorts and sandals, looking across the street to where the waves are rolling in to shore. The surf has lost the rampaging fury it showed a week ago when I got here, but it’s still right nice to look at. Life is, without a doubt, good.

Thanks!

New Years Eve at Lucy’s

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Oh, what a night. What a night indeed.

I rolled into San Diego early, before drivers were too drunk. Amy was bartending at a private party, so I was left to my own devices on New Year’s eve. I wanted to keep my activities close to where I slept. Amy said that Rose (rhymes with rocks) was having a New Year’s eve party in the neighborhood, but I felt funny about crashing it (I never hung around with Rose much except when she was behind the bar), so I went to Lucy’s, a friendly enough place outside the party zone in Ocean Beach. I found a barstool and appraised the beer selection and the beer slinger. The two graying barflies to my left and were flattering her with sincere hyperbole. She was good to look at, no doubt about it.

Her shift was soon going to be over, however, and the beers cost more than I wanted to pay. I began to consider a move to Tiny’s, just up the street, where Erica might be working. Then Christina showed up, and I decided to keep my butt right where it was. The new bartender was dressed to kill, and she had plenty of ammunition. We got to chit-chatting, and I learned that she was getting married in eight days. A pity, true, but her girlfriends were coming in later. I entertained the idea that perhaps the friendly barkeep could act as an ice breaker, overcoming my natural reticence (with all people except bartenders).

The final obstacle for the evening was cash flow. Lucy’s doesn’t believe in credit. No problem; there is a cash machine in the corner.

Um… big problem. I opened my wallet to find no card there. I was down to two dollars, and no way to get more before the banks opened on Tuesday. Tuesday felt a long, long, way away. I looked all over for the card, no luck. I called Callahan’s, where I had had lunch, and they reported no card there, either. Just bloody grand. Time to call the bank and stop the card. I walked back through the rain to Amy’s house. As I called the bank, my phone informed me that I was almost out of credit. “OK,” I said to myself, first call the phone company, then the bank. I dialed T-mobile, only to realize that without the credit card number I would not be able to add minutes.

Right then. The bank, and make it quick. I dialed the number (toll free but that didn’t help me one bit), only to wait and listen to silence. Getting more nervous, I called again and made my way through the menu system. (Note to any banks who issue credit cards – “put a stop on a lost or stolen card” should be right at the top of the first menu.) Next I needed to type in my account number. Quickly I punched in the digits. “Invalid Account number,” the soulless voice said. I started punching numbers again, only to hear the line go dead.

“Crap!” I shouted in Amy’s empty apartment. I checked my remaining time. Seven minutes. I dialed the bank again, and more quickly made my way through the menus to the “enter your account number” prompt. I punched in the digits again, and watched as my phone doubled up a number (my phone keypad has a very bad tendency to double-punch keys). Failure again, and once more cut off. I clenched my fists and looked up at the ceiling, jaw clamped shut, for the moment unable even to speak profanity. Four minutes left on the phone. I searched once more for the missing card, the one I knew would turn up as soon as I canceled it. No luck.

Out there somewhere, someone was buying the whole bar a round on my card. I called the bank one more time, and failed one more time.

That is when I did the pissed-off dance. No one has ever seen the dance before, and I have never mentioned it to anyone before. It is an unplanned and unchoreographed expression of primal rage, an anger that most of you who know me as a mild-mannered and steady kind of guy would not suspect. I don’t know what profanity I was shouting repeatedly as I jumped up and down, spinning in circles, in something like the Incredible Hulk’s posture.

The good thing about the pissed-off dance is that even as I do it, there is some part of me that knows how silly it looks. It is that realization that brings me back to earth.

I went to a nearby pay phone and canceled the card. The next day, New Years Day, was Amy’s birthday (six years to go…). We hung out, did fun things, and she had to pay for everything. I sure know how to show a girl a good time. Today I came back into Callahan’s, and the first thing Diane said was, “You left your card here the other day!” Arrgh.

2

Thanks!

Neto’s Passtime Bar, Gila Bend, Arizona

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I hadn’t planned on stopping today, but somewhere between Pistachio Rock and Gila Bend inspiration hit me head-on and I had to stop and do something about it.

It was one of those moments that catch you off-guard, although they seem to be more routine in the desert than elsewhere. I was driving into the sunset, in true western fashion, and let me tell you, it was one hell of a sunset. It started out subtle; the sky an ever-deepening blue, a few wispy clouds adding their own commas and question marks to the sky. I rounded a barren, jagged hill, and across the plain in front of me was splendor. Saguaros slid past, their arms akimbo in gestures of praise and wonder, standing in silhouette against the vibrant pinks and oranges that filled the western sky. Farther away the rocky hills became mysterious shapes, almost reminding me of things.

I spun the radio, and landed on a Spanish-language station without accordions. The next song that came on was achingly beautiful, a woman singing of sorrow in a language any human could understand. I will probably never hear that song again, and I will never know who the singer was. Like the sunset, it was just for that one moment and then gone forever.

The station fuzzed out on the outskirts of Gila Bend, but I decided to stop anyway. I found a hotel that advertised wireless internet and checked in. The signal doesn’t reach my room. The bathtub faucet was dripping — a sign of evil in this arid land — but I could not make it stop. I closed the bathroom door to at least shut out the sound, and realized I had a locked door between me and the toilet. The large Coke and 32-oz Gatorade I had consumed on my desert trek chose that very moment to make it known that their probation was up and they were ready to be released right now.

Back at the lobby to get a large paperclip to spring the door, I asked if there was a bar nearby, where I could sit, have a couple of beers, and maybe get some work done. The lobby staff exchanged a skeptical look. “Just down the street a couple of blocks,” the guy said, “there’s a bar. It’s the only bar in town.”

“Can I just sit in your restaurant and have a beer?”

“They don’t serve alcohol. There’s a circle-K across the street,” he added helpfully.

“Is the bar any good?” I asked.

The guy nodded, and got a confirming nod from the girl. “Yeah, it’s a good bar. I like it anyway.” Good enough for me. I had given him the opportunity to issue a safety warning and he hadn’t. Chances of getting beat up or knifed seemed low enough to take the walk up the road.

Now I sit in a long, narrow building constructed of cinder block, listening to “All My Ex’s Live In Texas”. There are no windows and no chairs that can be thrown in a fight. It is winter, and there is a large box fan set up on the table next to mine. Most of the light in here comes from neon beer signs (the only exception is a string of blue christmas lights), and almost everyone in here is sitting at the bar. The freight trains pass right outside the door, blowing their lonesome whistles through the security mesh and adding to the crooning of Patsy Cline doing a song I don’t recognize.

The only nice car in the parking lot belongs to a guy I assume to be the owner. Someone is wearing an obscene amount of perfume or cologne. I’ll sneak a picture once the locals have becomed accustomed to a guy being in the bar with a laptop. In a way, I feel like Diane Fossey with the mountain gorillas of Rwanda. They will accept me, but I can’t do too much all at once.

Beers are two dollars and everything comes in longneck bottles. I won’t tell you what I’m drinking, but rest assured the word “lite” is not in the name anywhere. An obscure Stevie Ray Vaughn song has just come on the juke box and it’s time to order a second beer.

***
Time has passed, just how much I’m not exactly sure. I’ve been here, trying to put a short story out of my misery. A few minutes ago a longneck appeared at my table. “It’s from that guy over there, Gary,” the bartender explained. I thanked her and sent a toast Gary’s way when he finally looked over.

This is a very friendly bar. I have spotted chairs that could be thrown, but I will not revise the above description because I like it, and reality be damned. There’s a good vibe here, the oasis-in-the-trackless-desert vibe. We come from different places, we’re going different places, but at this moment we are together, bound by a common need. And at the oasis there is an eclectic jukebox, and there is joy.

Thanks!

Christmas Eve in Los Alamos – Farolitolicious!

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The stars are close here, and on a still, cold, cloudless, moonless night there are a lot of them. Find a dark place, look up, and you will see them. 2.7 fucking buttloads of them, to be exact. (This number was scientifically determined many years ago by our crack stellar research team.)

On Christmas Eve the street lights are turned off over much of Barranca Mesa, and cars drive slowly, with only their running lights, and the stars shine down in all their brilliance. It’s a good night to take a little walk.

Just why are such unsafe driving conditions not only tolerated, but encouraged? Farolitos, of course. Often called lumenarias (opening the speaker up to correction by the more pedantic traditionalists), these little fires were first invented to act as runway markers for when the Baby Jesus was coming in for a landing. These days their job is simply to look cool, to provide a festive atmosphere without resorting to brash blinking and color. Farolitos glow, a calm and peaceful light that is more a “Silent Night” feeling than a “Jingle Bells” one. It fits with the tempo of New Mexico – it’s not a hurly-burly go-go-go sort of decoration.

Out at the end of Barranca Mesa, the whole neighborhood farolitafies, the street lights are turned off, and the neighborhood becomes a destination for people to slowly cruise or (better) walk, taking in the simple beauty for miles.

Farolito 101

For those among you not familiar with this tradition, farolitos require a little more effort to set up than strings of little blinky lights, but when you and friends work as a team things go quickly and it’s a nice way to spend the waning hours of Christmas Eve. The construction is simple, requiring a paper bag, ballast (usually sand), and a candle.

… and that’s all there is to it (although you do not want me to be in charge of folding over the tops of the paper bags. Many bags were injured this year in the creation of farolitos at my house).

Of course, technology never rests, and at the olde homestead we no longer use primitive sand for the ballast, rather we have specialized bricks, just the size of a typical farolito bag, with a hole ready to accommodate a typical votive candle.

Farolitos are a gentle light, and while photogenic, they require a long exposure. Most of the pics I took this year are hopelessly shaken (I should have used the 2-second delay even when using my little mini-tripod). Here is one of the homestead, including fuego’s giant automobile (dubbed by fuego the “hotelsmobile” and by my parents as “the #$@*!! thing blocking the driveway that has long overstayed its welcome”).

As you can see, the parents favor a combination of electric and external combustion, enjoying the everyday colored lights and augmenting them on christmas eve with the farolitos. This is not uncommon, and allows the festive feeling to continue long after the candles have all burned away.

On the walk between John H’s place and Jojo’s, lugging beers and stopping often for photos, we met others out as well, enjoying the unseasonably warm evening. I’ll be putting up more photos at the gallery shortly.

Thanks!

Word on the street… it’s Christmas.

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Tonight is a complicated story, filled with intrigue and the betrayal of innocence. Rudolph garroted and hauled off to the slaughterhouse. I have the pictures, but I’m tired now, so good night and merry christmas.

Thanks!

El Parasol

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It is one of the simple pleasures of life, sitting down to a well-constructed cheeseburger, taking a bite, and tasting the green chile, feeling the burn but more than that appreciating the pungent flavor.

There is something going horribly wrong in our nation right now, as restaurants compete to put more and more beef on their burgers. Half pound and three quarter pound burgers are supplanting more rational sizes as the marketing departments of restaurants and fast food chains have decided that More is Better. This is a very American sort of trend, but now we are faced with burgers out of balance. Sure, beef is an important part of the burger, but a carefully crafted hamburger is not only about the beef, it is an ensemble, with each element making a valuable contribution. This is especially true of the green chile cheeseburger.

The pinnacle of humanity’s culinary progress, the properly-constructed green chile cheeseburger is a delicate — and subjective — art form, an organic sculpture that bursts in your mouth with the first bite and lingers long after the final swallow. The chile must be hot and flavorful, and abundant, yet the meat, cheese, and other fixings must not be overpowered. Each ingredient has a role to play, from the crunch of the onions to the smoothness of the cheese.

I just polished off a darn fine green chile cheeseburger here at El Parasol. For those who know the town, it is located where Los Alamos Building and Loan was when I opened my first bank account there a bazillion years ago.

One side effect of not going overboard with the beef: the burgers are cheaper as well. The guy in line in front of me ordered a GCCB, as did the woman behind me. Looking around I see some people with burritos and other New Mexican fare, but the GCCB’s are all around me. And no wonder. Mine was damn yummy.

Perhaps I am being less critical, as it is the first green chile cheeseburger that I’ve had in a long time, but boy did it hit the spot. I wonder what it would take to get them to open one of these in Prague…

Thanks!