Category Archives: Bars of the World Tour

More Road

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I write this in Kingman, AZ. When I set out this morning I asserted that today was about miles, gobbling up highway and not getting distracted by the little blue lines on the map. I even drove with the top up much of the day. To call the drive a success, however, I really should still be on the road, chewing up a few more miles. Tomorrow will be a long drive.

With the top up, it is still possible to have Road Trip Moments, and often music will play a larger role, due to reduced wind noise. As I hit the ramp from I-25 to I-40 the Who was playinig “Going Mobile”, and the Mountain Dew purchased at Santo Domingo was kicking in. Hell, yeah, baby, the po-lice and the tax man won’t catch me, I’m mobile.

Still, the freeway is a marvel of engineering designed to make travel boring, and it did its job admirably.

Somewhere around Gallup I was in the slow lane (being a fine, upright, law-abiding citizen), and I saw a white dog standing right in the middle of the fast lane, fairly well camouflaged. I was already aware of the BMW and the semi truck side-by-side behind me; things looked very bad for the dog. My plan: ease over closer to the dog and honk the horn, startling him into the median. Still not ideal, but better than where he was.

My plan had one major flaw: by the time I came up with it, I was well past the dog, and watching the drama unfold in my rear-view mirror. I didn’t really want to see a dog get smushed, but I couldn’t not look, either. The BMW driver didn’t see the dog until the last moment, and swerved toward the median to avoid it. The dog got a clue at last, and skipped away from the hurtling sport sedan — almost, but not quite, into the path of the truck. The last I saw, the dog was standing, straddling the white stripes as the truck blew past it. I do not know the end of that story.

I could have sworn there was a gas station just past Winslow that was relatively cheap. There isn’t. Yours truly was getting a little worried for a while. I turned off the Air Conditioning to improve mileage, and buy the time I found fuel I was One Sweaty Dude. I put the top down when I refueled, and turned off the music. It was having a tendency to drag me out of the story I have been playing with in my head.

Other than that, there’s not much to report from today’s travels. I now return to Mad Dog’s Dog House for dinner. I wonder if they’ll remember me from last winter.

Thanks!

A Long Ramble

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Note: When you spend a long time driving, you have a lot of time to think of stuff. I pulled a few paragraphs out of this episode and put them in one of their own, but this is still one hell of a muddled ramble. Even without the Theology and sociology, we’ve got us some philosophy, a (somewhat disguised) treatise on storytelling, thoughts on agricultural practices, lovely, curvaceous roads, and lunch. Not in that order.

I slept rather late this morning, in a awkward position it would seem as my entire left arm was numb when I finally stirred. I lifted it and flexed it, enjoying the curious feeling while it lasted. How nice it is to be easily amused.

Awake, showered, ponytailed and behatted, coated liberally with PABA, I got the hell out of Dodge. One more life ambition checked off. I headed in the direction of Garden City. All around me food was being made. Big round fields of it stretched across the landscape, the radius of the circles defined by the length of the irrigation pipe. I heard the grumbling engines working to draw the water from the depths and pump it out to the thirsty plants. Sometimes I passed other factories dedicated to turning the vegetable food into meat food. The only exception to the single-minded devotion to food production was an occasional oil well. One way or another, it was all about energy.

I was well past Garden City when I started to wonder if that was the way I really should be going. Not so much, it turns out. At Lakin I made a course correction, crossing the Arkansas River and heading due south on Sunflower 25. The Arkansas was bone dry. As I went south the land became more sere, the spaces between the verdant circles greater and the uncultivated areas scrubbier. It occurred to me that, like the oil, the water would run out some day as well.

The highway was not crowded, and I was gradually catching up to an SUV. I thought I smelled burning rubber, and soon after a cloud of blue smoke came from the left side of the SUV. Only after a few more seconds did the driver hit his brakes and begin to move to the side of the road, the smoke getting thicker all the while. At first it was difficult to tell in the mirage of the hot pavement, but it seemed like something was separating from the truck. The something resolved itself into a tire, or at least the tread of a tire, a big rubber donut bounding across the road and into the ditch on the other side. The SUV pulled over, its naked, shiny chrome rim shooting sparks as it dragged across the pavement. The truck had super-low-profile tires on expensive wheels, and one of the tires had lost its sidewalls and gone off on its own. Important note to people who buy fancy tires like that: Check the pressure often. Those tiny sidewalls don’t give you any room for error.

Hugoton is an attractive little farm town, and I decided it would be a good place to break my fast. I stopped at Dominoes, which was doing a fair lunch business when I walked in. It may surprise you to learn that I was the only long-haired male in the place wearing a Hawaiian shirt and sandals. As any Czech will tell you, however, a friendly hello to the people in charge will almost always be returned in kind, and I found I had stumbled into a very friendly place. By Czech standards. The men in their blue jeans and shirts with snaps discussed offshore drilling and the price of oil (down nine cents), along with farm topics, and the waitress spent her time trying to drown me with iced tea. Ah, America! When I paid, she asked, “do you want some ice tea to go?”

I joined highway 56 in its dogged pursuit of WSW, across the Oklahoma panhandle. It’s the sort of road that people joke isn’t 100 miles but the same mile 100 times. One mile was different, however. At the side of the road was a cross, elaborately decorated. Someone had died there, presumably as the result of an automobile accident. I had to wonder, why there? Sometimes when you see a roadside memorial you can piece together what happened. A sudden curve or the end of a passing lane. You can see the threat the driver faced and understand it. Other times, like this time, there are no such clues, no such reason. It could have been any place along that road. But it happened there, at that mile, and that is where the story ends (or begins?), and that mile is forever changed.

I imagine there were people who asked, why him? after the accident. Perhaps there were clues, the driver’s own personal dangerous curves — drugs or alcohol or fatigue or cell phone. Perhaps not. Perhaps, just like that unlikely mile, there was nothing to mark that person for death. Someone else ran him off the road. He had a blowout. In that case, why him is just as meaningless as why there. There’s really now answer at all, no reason it might not be me next time.

Fuel in Clayton, and a decision to take the Cimarron-Taos scenic route. Not a difficult choice, really. I found myself on the sort of road small sports cars are made for, on the sort of day that convertibles are made for. (Note to drivers of big-ass pickup trucks creeping along at twenty miles per hour: If you see a bunch of cars behind you, just pull over for a moment. It’s obvious you’re not in a hurry anyway.)

How is it that Taos, NM, has near-perpetual traffic problems?

Now I am at the folk’s house, windows open, the temperature comfortably cool, thinking that I’ve spent way too much time blogging tonight (as I’m sure many of you will agree), especially since I have a story I thought up out there on the road that I want to start working on. That’s the thing about the road — you just can’t stop thinking of stuff.

Thanks!

Dodge City (and don’t you forget it!)

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This morning I awoke feeling surprisingly fresh, considering “3 a.m.” and “Scotch Whiskey” were the two most notable factors when I went to bed last night. This morning was the last event in the Campbell conference — a get-together between the writers who won awards and (primarily) the writers from the workshops. It was very interesting hearing what the awardees had to say about how they got noticed, how they approached their work, and a variety of other topics. One thing I learned: It is very difficult to get a story into F&SF.

Interestingly, I have had a story in F&SF. Furthermore, it was revealed that Gordon van Gelder, the editor, almost never says that if a story is fixed he might reconsider publishing it. I made a note to self: Make the changes he suggested and resubmit “The Importance of Being Paranoid.” So, that made me feel good, to have cracked a market that other, better-known writers had yet to break into. I managed to keep my yap shut during the discussion; it would have come off as boasting to mention my success.

Another thing I learned: Even successful writers rarely make enough money to support themselves. I’m going to have to get more serious about turing Jer’s Software Hut into a business, I’m afraid. So it goes.

There were a few other tidbits, some good humor, and an overall friendly atmosphere. There were references to many names I didn’t recognize. Then it was over, and lunch ensued. Remember how I modestly did not bring up my good fortune with F&SF during the meeting? As we gathered for one last lunch together, I managed to drop my previous success into every conversation, even as a little voice in my head gently suggested that I shut the hell up. So much for modesty. And now I’ve told you. I’d probably tell the waiter at the family restaurant I’m in right now, but he’d only pretend to care.

Finally it was time for me to beat feet. I lingered long enough to not be actually rude about taking off without appropriate goodbye-gestures, then I slathered on the sunscreen, turned up the tunes, and pointed the car west and south, back the way I had come.

After artfully dodging the toll road between Lawrence and Topeka, I found myself on a stretch of I-70, notable for having quite a lot less truck traffic than my old friend Interstate 40. I let the radio spin in search of electric guitars, and a song came on that took me back, the way a special song will, to another time. I relived the time I first heard the song while carving the sun-dappled curves of a tiny road in the Santa Cruz mountains. Those were the days.

I prefer small roads, and I regretted missing the chance to get the hell out of Dodge on the way out to the workshops. Who knows how long until such an opportunity arises again? I left the freeway behind. Dodgeward ho!

The drive was unremarkable, the rolling topography of eastern Kansas gradually losing amplitude. Just outside of Dodge City there was a point just high enough to allow for an overlook at the side of the road, providing a sweeping vista of a vast feed lot filled with filthy cows. You really know which way the wind is blowing around here.

Now I am in Dodge, cheap lodging secured for the night (free WiFi but the people in charge don’t know the password — they’re working on it). Dodge city is proudly living in the past; everywhere you look are reminders of the wild and wooly cowboy days. The brick streets of the old downtown are nice, but the place is pretty quiet on a Sunday evening. Much of the town is quite shameless in its catering to tourists.

After a fruitless search for a local place to get a burger and a beer (there was one tourist-trap looking place with a packed parking lot that I chose to drive past), I am in the climate over-controlled splendor of Applebee’s (rhymes with saltees). Maybe it’s regional, but every meal I’ve had in this corner of Kansas (both of them) have been so loaded with salt that the meal was almost ruined. Hey! Kansas! If I want to bury the meal in salt, I’ll add it myself! There’s a shaker right on the table! Although maybe all Applebee’s are this way. Bleah.

It’s not really fair to say after such a short exposure, but overall I’d say Dodge city is well worth getting the hell out of. Tomorrow will be a success after only a few miles.

Thanks!

We’re Not In Oz Anymore

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I am in Kansas now, in a friendly town called Garden City. Man, I’m glad I decided to make the drive from Chama to Lawrence in two days. I’m tired. Cumbres pass seems like a long time ago.

Because I was making the trip in two days, I didn’t worry about getting an early start. Eventually I made my way down the dirt road to the highway, paused to slather on sunscreen, and turned the car north. Chama was quiet (no surprise there) and the mile markers ticked away the short life of New Mexico road 17. As I slipped across the border into Colorado the native american radio station was playing the blues. I reached the station at Cumbres Pass just as the train pulled in with a final chuff, pausing to rest and make sure the brakes were in good shape before the long descent into Antonito. I had no such worries myself and carried on without hesitation.

I made my way through the high passes, happy to see patches of snow, and then down through drifting cottonwood fuzz. In a villiage whose name I didn’t catch, I passed a small church, roofless, windowless, the two towers flanking the door echoing the architecture of old spanish missions. Within, people were gathering, setting up folding chairs for a noontime mass. I imagine that God had a particularly good view of the pious folk gathering below.

Once past Antonito the terrain became less interesting, and I had time to wonder if the cumulus clouds building on the horizon were going to be relevant to me. I wasn’t too worried, the thunderstorms build up their energy over the mountains, and roads prefer to go between the peaks. Eventually the storms would break free of their terrestrial moorings and wander over the plain, but it was early yet for that sort of shenanigans.

I approached the bank of boiling clouds, and sure enough the road found a gap between them — almost. Suddenly the air turned chill and a few big drops smacked against the windshield. There was certainly no need to stop and put the top up, however, that would have allowed rain to come in. I carried on and was soon clear of the storm. The thunderhead gave chase, but there was no way it was going to catch me.

Highway 10 between Hollister and La Junta is the sort of road where you entertain yourself by measuring how many miles the road goes without turning (ten miles, twice, but no truly spectacular straightnesses). La Junta was all I expected it to be. I wondered as I drove into town, whether one of the farms I passed was where my buddy John grew up. There was no plaque or roadside monument that I saw, so there was no telling.

Note to La Junta signage people: Take all the signs that say highway 50 that are on roads other than highway 50, and put them on highway 50 instead. When you put up a sign that says “to highway 50” you might want to follow that up with the next turn that is also necessary to reach the promised road. I’m just saying is all.

Beyond La Junta I passed through scattered farming communities, including Hasty, CO (speed laws strictly enforced). Then, Kansas. The ranch land gradually gave way to better soil and farms, and by the time I reached Holcomb the rolling hills were gone and one could reasonably measure the curvature of the earth by observing distant grain silos. I had plenty of daylight, but no interest in driving further; not long after came Garden City and the promise of hotel rooms with Internet access.

I checked in and the friendly desk attendant showed me where to go for a burger and a beer, marking my course on a map. I followed the (quite simple) directions and drove directly to a great big church. An error on the clerk’s part, or a hint? Only God and clerk know, but after some searching I found the promised bar, and here I sit at Jax Sports Grille (A winning place!), tired, annoyed by a salty baked potato (though the burger wasn’t bad), checking over which parts of my body I missed with the sunscreen (back of left hand, inside of left elbow, small spot on right temple) and which parts could have used more (almost everywhere else). Sometimes the key to a good drive is knowing when to stop.

Thanks!

7-Mile-High Blues

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Flying out of Las Vegas the plane made a long, slow turn to the east, for Albuquerque. I sat in 2A, a window seat on the left side, and watched as the ground gradually fell away, the works of man changing scale and becoming more abstract, the white lines of dirt roads like geometric scars on the desert surface. Hoover Dam slipped past, the sprawling lake it held back a deep blue against the naked rock that surrounded it.

The Grand Canyon followed, about the time the captain came on the intercom and in the chatty fashion that pilots have these days told us we were at our cruising altitude of 37,000 feet. A long way to go up, just to come down again an hour later. I studied the contours of the canyon, fractally serpentine, and thought of the rocks found at the bottom, a billion years old. A long time, no matter how you figure it. I started to get that feeling. The writer feeling.

It’s a peculiar sort of melancholy, hardly a sadness at all, that comes sometimes as a herald of change, a reminder that the world is in motion and so are we. It’s a feeling everyone knows, perhaps when you close the door and you’re alone in your new apartment for the first time, or when you say goodbye to a friend who’s moving out of town, or when you can’t sleep at night and the sound of the neighborhood turns mysterious, and the wind is whispering secrets of the past and future.

Saturday That Girl and I had a particularly good day, sharing a part of her life in a way neither of us had known before, and here it was Sunday and I was seven miles up, heading away from her at hundreds of miles an hour. Heading toward… heading toward an uncertain future, a future as a writer, a professional, part of a community of writers dedicated to working together to improve our craft. In just a few days I’ll be in Kansas, surrounded by the successful and the un-, talking shop and perhaps making connections and decisions that will affect the rest of my life.

It’s about time, after all.

Thanks!

Escape from Oz, part 2: The Longest Day

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Here I am, another airport, more waiting. I must say that Heathrow Terminal 4 is not my favorite air travel experience. Despite quite a few innovations and a host of people dedicated to getting people previewed, checked in, screened, double-checked, then through security, the outer departures area was a zoo of milling, confused humanity. One simple thing they could add: A sign indicating which airlines could be found in which check-in zones. At any rate, I’m through all that now, waiting at gate 5 to get on flight 5 to take me over the ocean to Houston.

Right now there are carts driving past with beepers beeping, there’s an alarm beeper of some sort going off, there’s an announcement that has no hope of being understood over the din. I am in a loud place, my first tea of the morning still cooling to a consumable temperature, echoes of trains still rattling in my head. Ah, for the lovely quiet morning of yesterday!

—-

Hours have passed, miles are a memory now and I’m in Houston, Texas. Well, I’m in an airport, and there are signs here and there that tell me that the airport is in Houston. No way to tell, otherwise, except some of the shops have a distinctively Texas flavor. (Pro Bass Shop, for instance, so you can stock up on huntin’ and fishin’ gear before you get on your plane. I was about to scoff at that store until I saw a gaggle of Japanese businessmen venture in. Then it all made sense.) It occurs to me that I really should have brought my Rice University baseball cap.

The flight from London was, while I wouldn’t go so far as to call it pleasant — it’s not like I was sorry to get off the plane — was remarkably non-unpleasant. The Continental Airlines 777 had more leg room than I’ve come to expect, and that little bit of extra space can make a big difference. There were some bumpy intervals, but overall the flight was nicer than I’ve come to expect. So thumbs up to Continental for taking out a couple rows of seats and giving their passengers a little room to breathe.

Getting through passport control and customs was as simple as it’s ever been, and going back through security went smoothly. But despite the swiftly moving lines, there was a general tension that is always present during this process. Strange that with all the other lines and bureaucratic silliness that travelers go through, that for this one step tension is high and people get really bent out of shape. In London Heathrow, there are signs that say (more or less) “Please do not assault the security personnel”. I think it could be that there is such emphasis on getting people though quickly at all costs that what results is inherently stressful for security employees and travelers alike. What could they do differently so that all parties concerned could just relax a little?

First thing – more space before and after to take all your luggage apart and more space on the other side to put it all back together again. There’s a big human pile-up on both sides of security as people try to comply with whatever the daily regulations are.

The Prague airport is actually a little more relaxed; individual gates have their own security, so you don’t have a chokepoint with thousands of people all trying to get through. And since everyone in the security line is catching the same plane, there are fewer worries about getting left behind.

Anyway, didn’t mean to go off on that tangent, but that’s why we call it Muddled Ramblings.

Here I sit in a shopping mall that planes park next to, enjoying a beer and a Buffalo Chicken sandwich. I sort of expected something that was related to Buffalo hot wings, but no. Oh, well. I will sign the credit card receipt with my eyes closed.

And hey! I’m getting a very weak, but free Wi-Fi signal here! We’ll see if I can stay connected and the battery lives long enough for me to post…

Thanks!

Stealth Police Station

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I’m sitting at a friendly pub, watching London go past. There’s something about this town, something I’m not sure Londoners are comfortable with themselves, but it’s something that is there nonetheless. They have everything here, and everyone.

I’m sitting at the window of the pub, and beyond the glass the fascinating world is doing its stuff. There is a gate across the street, and it took me a while to notice that a lot of police were passing through it. In and out, like bees at the hive’s entrance. I started to suspect that behind that unmarked gate was a police station. A few meters up the road is a mast with four cameras mounted, capturing every detail of all who pass.

This situation bothers me. Through the iron gate police officers pass, wearing ballistic vests but carrying no sidearms. Those men and women, I salute. Those are the good guys, and I’ll fight anyone who says they aren’t. But the police station is unmarked. I expect that the Lebanese bakery on one side and the Oriental health store on the other are happy about that, but to me, it’s a bad idea. The bad guys can figure out where the police station is, anyway. I mean, hell, I figured it out.

WARNING: Profanity ahead

So, rather than hide, I’d put up a sign: Hey! We are the motherfuckin Police and we are here, and WE ARE NOT AFRAID OF YOU! At the very least, someone who needs help would know where to go.

Thanks!

Escape From Oz, part 1: To London!

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I’m sitting at the Prague airport right now, doing what all air travelers do: wait. I will be in London in about three hours (two by the clock), and when I arrive I will have no local currency. This isn’t usually a concern; cash machines are everywhere. Only it just occurred to me that since I just made the maximum daily withdrawal to pay my rent, there will be no love from those machines until tomorrow. Hm. Fortunately Great Britain is much more credit-card-friendly than the Czech Republic, so I should be all right. I’ll find out soon enough — long before I can post this.

At the far end of the waiting area is a fussy child. Anyone want to lay odds on the chances it’s in the seat next to mine?

—-

For those of you who stopped to lay odds on the probability of my being trapped with loud children, fear not; I was several rows away from what turned out to be loud pair of siblings, and boy am I glad I wasn’t closer. At my distance they were only mildly annoying. I arrived, passed through the bureaucratic barriers with no difficulty (although the passport guy said “Czechoslovakia”, something I thought the folks protecting Britain’s borders would be up-to-date on.)

I sit now facing a lovely English breakfast. Excuse me…

Ahh, that hit the spot nicely. A little more tea, and true happiness will be mine. (Actually I just warned the waitress that I would probably be drinking “rather a lot of tea”. There are some phrases that the English do better than anyone else.)

Where was I? Right. Luton Airport, favored destination of the ultra-cheap airlines. It’s a ways outside London, but there are plenty of options available, the cheapest being an express bus. I managed to coax a small amount of the local currency out of a cash machine, then I went to the bus counter and a very helpful woman went to a great deal of trouble looking up just where my hotel was, and the best place to get off the bus. Then she ran down my options for mass transit tickets to get from there to my destination, based on what my plans were for the city for (quite literally) the rest of my life.

The bus trip went without incident (except they made me put my backpack in the luggage area for no reason that I could discern, and I worried about all the valuable things being so far out of my control for the entire trip – I watched closely at stops where people claimed their own stuff) and after a bit of wandering in the Victoria Station area I got myself to Earl’s Court Tube Station, by any indication quite close to my hotel.

I got off the tube and right there was a sign indicating the street I was looking for, with a helpful arrow and everything. This was going to be a piece of cake! The address I sought was 36 Earl’s Court Gardens. I walked up the street, then noticed that the house on my right was numbered 20, the one after that 18. I turned back and identified house number 22. There were no buildings on the other side of the street. Now, with this information one might reasonably conclude that even-numbered buildings were on one side of the street and that 36 lay in the direction I had come from. One might also be incorrect.

It took a phone call to the hotel (itself a bit confusing because my printout with their number omitted the lead zero; it was not until I saw the pay phone’s number that I thought to try that) to resolve the difficulty. The hotel was on the other side of the street, at the other end. The numbers counted (by two’s) down one side of the street then (by 1’s) up the other!

The hotel guy was very friendly, and the hotel took only cash, including a ten-pound key deposit. I didn’t have enough. No problem, however; he took all I had and said I could pay the rest tomorrow. I got settled in, slaked my powerful thirst at the sink, with cupped hands, then headed into the night with only a two-pound coin to my name. My plan was to find a credit-accepting place that was going to be open for a while, but I was tired, had a headache, and when I saw the golden arches I changed my plan. A Quarter-Pounder with Cheese was £1.99 (half the price, incidentally, of my tube ticket to go five stops). I returned to my room with a rather sorry example of the American delicacy, one penny, and still no cup.

My room is nice enough, if spartan, certainly adequate for my purposes. For those out there lulled to sleep by the sound of passing trains, it would be heaven. The underground makes a brief overground appearance right outside my window. My window does not close tightly.

As one falls asleep, there is a phase when thoughts get rather deliciously disconnected, associations get freer, and the absurd is perfectly ordinary. I spent a long time last night dipping into that realm only to be dragged back out of it by a passing train. My thoughts when in that state were consistently about the trains, but because of my repeated rise to a more conscious level, I awoke this morning with actual memories about things like the three talismans that would reduce train noise, but that I needed to make a note in my review of the hotel that the one I had wasn’t working very well. It took a while to sort out truth from fiction.

Now I sit at The Courtfield, a fairly upscale pub, quiet at this time of the morning, watching a very modern double-decker bus go by outside (“We Will We Will Rock You – the musical with Queen and Ben Elton” the banner on its side reads), while people slide mail into the big red Royal Mail box on the sidewalk. I’m on my third cup of tea and feeling quite content. My ambitions for the day are being steadily reduced; just a visit to the Czech embassy will do, right after I sample one of the traditional cask-conditioned ales on offer here.

—-

A final addendum: After striking out completely at the embassy, I wandered the neighborhood around my hotel looking for a place with the following three criteria: 1) traditional ale 2) Wi-Fi 3) accepts credit cards.

And here I am at the Prince of Teck. Life is good.

Thanks!

Just About Ready to Roll

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Tomorrow evening my travels begin. The to-do list was extraordinarily long this time around, and when I get on the plane to London tomorrow evening I think there will still be things un-done. It didn’t help that I picked up a couple of small jobs to earn a little cash, and of course the one that paid the least turns out to be a time-sucking monster. (It’s an interesting time-sucking monster, however.) Still, I said I would do it so I will. It’s not done yet but the client knows that I will finish it when I can.

But all the important things are checked off now (except two, which I will be heading out to do in a few minutes). Tomorrow night I arrive in London; after two nights there I hop a plane for California. Then I have some freedom for a while, but somewhere in there I have to do a bucketload of reading and critiquing the writing of the other workshop participants.

I’ve been a bit of a stress monkey the last few days, especially over the paying gigs, but there comes a time when there’s just nothing left to be done about it anymore except take a deep breath, relax, and get on the plane.

Thanks!

What I Did Last Friday

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I haven’t been very regular about posting lately; sorry about that. It’s not that nothing has been happening — quite the contrary in fact. One thing I’ve been working on is a small documentary with fuego. It’s not entirely my story to tell; but it all begins one night in the distant past when the Little Café Near Home didn’t close at the usual time. In fact, it stayed open for a long time, and there were beers, and Becherovka, and other beverages involved. Exactly what happened next is the subject of great speculation, so fuego assembled a crack forensics team (himself) and a camera crew (me) to trace the route he possibly took on the way home that fateful night.

Somewhere out there is a bush fuego fought. (Judging from appearances later, the bush won. This may or may not be when he dented his laptop.) Somewhere out there is a hotel foyer with vending machines, between which fuego decided to take a little nap. The hotel might or might not be near a gas station. The rest is shrouded in mystery.

We knew it was going to be a major undertaking, so we got an early start with breakfast at Café Fuzzy. fuego was carrying the backpack he had worn that night, a pair of headphones similar to the ones he lost that night, and various other props. Once I had a bit of tea in my bloodstream we repaired to Little Café Near Home to begin the quest — after a wee bit of Becherovka for inspiration, of course.

The trek took us from my quiet little neighborhood, past a sprawling cemetery or two, and then into a busier part of town that I don’t frequent very often. We stopped at key intersections along the way, trying to figure out just why fuego ended up walking the direction he did. We tried a few experimental shots as well, and the traditional view-from-the-passing-tram shot and whatnot.

Finally we reached the neighborhood of Karlin, where most evidence indicates the hotel should be. (The bush may have been the victim of construction.) We walked the streets of Karlin as the sunny morning gave way to clouds and eventually rain. Still we persevered, searching for clues that would lead us to the fabled hotel, stopping only at a little bar called Bistro 4×4 to transfer data from cameras to computer — and have a wee nip of Becherovka — and another break for a late lunch and all that. Then it was right back out on the streets. The rain eventually moved on.

We didn’t find the hotel. There are only so many streets to search, and we did them all. No hotel. After something like ten miles of wandering, we realized that a new plan was called for. The new plan: go to a bar we passed on the way and watch hockey. This new plan turned out to be much simpler; and after a short tram ride we were settled comfortably in an old rail car turned into a bar called Orient Express.

It turned out to be a day of questions rather than answers. We still have more filming to do, and more research as well. Will we ever find the hotel? Does it really exist at all, or is it some sort of ghost inn, that only appears when the moon is full, a Shangri-La for weary, disoriented travelers?

pivo!

Pivo on the Orient Express

Thanks!

D’oh!

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In case you haven’t heard, I’m coming to the US this summer. All kinds of things are going on, from intensive writing camp to hanging with That Girl. It’s going to be a good summer. But meanwhile, back here in the old world, I have some paperwork to take care of, to affirm my legal presence here. I’m not so good at paperwork and I intend never to be, so I have paid someone to guide me through the legal jungle. With a bit of nagging on my part he has done far better than I would ever manage at assembling all the bits of paper that demonstrate that I can contribute here. So I have a big wad of documents prepared by various czech authorities, and now I can submit an application to be allowed to stay for a while.

The catch is, that one must submit this application from outside the area one wants to stay. This makes London a good place to apply, because the English consider themselves outside of everything. There is a large part of Europe that is now a big passport-free zone, and it is best for me to apply outside of that zone. Happily, the best plane fares to the US are also out of London, and flights from Prague to London are practically free.

So, I talked to my guy, picked an appointment date at the embassy out of a list, and bought plane tickets. Time was running out; if you wait too long fares go way up. I was already worried that I had waited too long, so I picked a date, told Visa Guy, and bought my tickets.

Only, I didn’t get that date. One massive financial commitment later, I now find that I’m spending a day in London without any political benefit. The Czech embassy will not see me that day. Plan B: visit on the way back. In the meantime, it will be nice to be in the British National Museum on my own, free to study the minor bits of the Egyptian collection that strike my fancy, to muse over stone pillows and odd bronze sculptures at my own pace. So, it’s not a total disaster.

Thanks!

Exchange Rate Blues

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I charge $30 for a license that allows a person to use Jer’s Novel Writer without being nagged occasionally. When I first came to visit the Czech Republic, that money could buy me more than 120 beers at one of the cheaper places. Now, just a few years later, thirty bucks buys about 22 beers in the same bars.

Thanks!

A Night I Won’t Soon Remember

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“You still up for Andy’s party?” fuego asks via text message. I consider. It’s raining out; I’m tempted to just stay in and work. That Girl would be waking up soon, and I haven’t chatted with her in a while; my Internet has been down again. But there’s no food in the place, so sooner or later I’ll have to go get some in any case. Plus, I know I’ll regret not saying goodbye to Andy.

Andy and I have a history, of sorts. I met him at fuego’s wedding reception, a fateful No Pants Day when Andy got very drunk and then wanted to dive home. I, on the other hand, thought maybe he shouldn’t. What ensued was a rather comical series of events that included me chasing him through the park. Fun was had by all. (I was going to put a link to the episode where I described that night, but it seems I never wrote about it.)

With that in mind, I decide to don my armor and go be social for an evening.

Not on an empty stomach, however; fuego and I agree to meet at Pizzeria Roma for some fortification before we dive into the party. As we eat our pizzas fuego gestured to the TV playing behind me. “That girl was in the very first movie I ever worked on over here.” I turn to see a face I don’t recognize, but that doesn’t mean much — I would have been more surprised if I had recognized her. “She’s a real cutie,” fuego says, which means she was also pleasant to work with, or that would have been what fuego remembered.

Another problem emerges — neither of us know where the party is. fuego has a general idea, but he’s been trying to contact Andy for more specific details. We chat, order another round of beers, and finally decide to hop the trams and at least get into the right neighborhood. We hop off tram 16 near the Yacht club, in the shadow of Vyšehrad. The rain has stopped. The streets are quiet on Saturday night. fuego gets instructions from Andy; we’ve still got two tram stops to go, but we decide to walk. We pass the water works and the fancy swimming complex with its 10-meter diving platforms. To our right the river is silent in the darkness.

We arrived at last to find the party well under way. I don’t recognize many faces, but that’s expected. At one point I’m standing with fuego, Andy, and two others, laughing at a story about one of them being detained in Britain for attempting to work without due authorization. (The film fuego had just wrapped had gone to England to shoot some beach scenes.) “Here we are,” fuego says (or something like that). “The four of us all worked on my very first film here in the Czech Republic, nine years ago.” “Is that the one that what’s-her-name was in?” I ask. It turns out it was, and all four of them agreed that she had been very attractive — especially Andy, who had walked into her trailer when she was topless.

So I hang out, drinking free beer, talking to movie people about movie stuff. There is a large spread of food that no one is touching, and a pig turning on a spit outside. A band sets up, two fiddles, a string bass, and a hammer dulcimer. It’s difficult to describe the music; primarily gypsy but with a dose of dixieland mixed in. It’s fun, anyway. There is talk, and more drinking, and even a little dancing. I am labeled as “guy who will dance with girls whose boyfriends don’t want to dance.” In this capacity I am given a crash course in the waltz. Things get better when I give up on 1-2-3, 1-2-3… and just go with 1.., 1.., 1… When the song is over she compliments me on my dancing prowess, but I think she is just being kind. At least I didn’t injure her.

Andy gives a farewell speech, inviting all of us to visit him in Australia, and also to feel free to use his summer house in France. Woo hoo!

Some time later come the flavored vodka shots. The band finally calls it a night, but Andy isn’t finished, and although the crowd has dwindled there are still plenty of people ready to rally in support. Andy’s wife leaves, taking the car keys with her.

Around sunrise, the party collapses. The last of us stagger into the new day. Andy wants to find a bar to keep drinking. Some think this is a good idea, but others point out that Andy just might have had enough already. After a few minutes of indecision and dissension in the ranks I grow weary of the vibe and turn up the road, thinking that I’ll walk a bit before I get on a tram.

Under gray skies I tromp up the hill to my house, kick off my shoes, and try to compose a note to That Girl. Even such a simple task is too much; I turn and flop onto the Curiously Uncomfortable Couch and am asleep before I even close my eyes.

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Thanks!

New Faces

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I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but this spring has been a prodigious one as far as pregnancies go around here. You can’t swing a cat in this neighborhood without hitting a pregnant lady. Knowing what was going on, I wasn’t terribly surprised to see that the (now-literally) mom and pop palačink

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Blue Monday

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I walked into Little Café Near Home Monday afternoon to discover a jam session going on. Some kids I more-or-less recognized were playing guitar, singing, and improvising percussion instruments. “It’s a blue Monday” Martin said. The music came out sounding pretty good, so I settled in and popped open a book. (I was too far from the electricity to work, and really not that sorry to have an excuse to leave the computer in the bag.)

I’m reasonably sure it was just coincidence that the harmonica player happened by; he didn’t seem to know any of the others, and he didn’t bring his own harmonica. So, in one of those delightful convergences that the universe likes to offer up now and then, my ears, a harmonica, and a very good harmonica player all followed different vectors to arrive at the Little Café Near Home at the same time.

Good singing’, good playin’. The guy playing bar stool was pretty good as well, but his performance degraded steadily (and increased in volume) as he drank. That notwithstanding, there are a lot of worse ways to spend an afternoon.

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Thanks!