Mad Dog’s, Kingman, Arizona

It’s been a long day, and a quiet haven with decent beer is just the thing. I’m sitting now at Mad Dog’s. It is quiet in here right now, a couple of locals are playing pool, a few more are sitting at the bar, and I’m across the room in one of the booths. There are televisions, but the big ones are turned off due to lack of sports, and the small ones are quiet enough to be avoidable. I am drinking Black Dog Ale, which has a nice balance between hops and malt. It is also quite reasonably priced. There are paper towel dispensers on the tables, an indication that ribs are on the menu. There is a very big Iguana in an enclosure, and he’s territorial. I looked in on him and he immediately began to go into the old head-bobbing, throat-flap-showing, weird-disk-throat-things (ears?) flashing routine. The dude’s got to be five feet long.

Behind the bar is a pitcher to hold donations for Biker Bob. To meet his expenses. I asked, and Bob’s dead now. Pancreatic cancer. The locals lost a bit of color recently. I wonder how long that pitcher will be there. Could you take it down? Will you rate a pitcher?

As I write this, I am pausing periodically to take a deep breath. Air in, stress out. Prolonged adrenaline shock. It all started in Holbrook, where I had planned to stop so I could assault the pass in Flagstaff after the storm passed. That was going to leave a long, long drive tomorrow, and then I heard the weather guy say that things were going to be no better in the morning, and perhaps worse. I decided to forge ahead.

At first things went pretty well. The snow started coming down in big, fat, flakes, but there was enough traffic to keep the slow lane fairly clear. We all just slowed down to 40 mph and trundled on. At the flagstaff exit that leads to the hotels, things were going well enough that I decided to keep going.

The “things going well enough” lasted another mile. There I was in a long line of trucks keeping the slush churning so it wouldn’t freeze, then every damn one of them went south on I-17 toward Phoenix. Road conditions got suddenly, dramatically worse, and they stayed that way. To make matters worse, there was no place to pull over to put on chains. In Donner Pass chains are commonplace, but through Flagstaff no one had them, or, like me, they were unable to find a place to put them on. The next exit was a ways on, and after slipping and sliding down the road I reached the exit to find it unplowed and untracked. I decided not to guess just where the road was, and continued on down the freeway at a nerve-wracking 20 mph.

At one point traffic came to a stop as we worked past an accident. Despite the level ground the back wheels broke free when I tried to start moving again. Finally I put the car in 2nd gear and worked the clutch very, very gently and managed to creep forward again. After a couple of miles of barely moving, my clutch leg was wearing out.

My old ice-driving skills slowly came back to me, and things were going smoother, but there were accidents everywhere. On truck had a trailer folded in a big ‘V’, with boxes strewn about, interspersed with what looked like loaves of bread. There were plenty of solo spinouts as well. Traffic crept on, and in the distance I saw another truck off to the side of the road, next to a structure I couldn’t make out. As I got closer I realized that I was looking at the underside of a horse trailer that had tipped over. Holy crap. As I passed I saw the two horses standing off to the side, but that must have been a pretty traumatic time getting them out of the tipped-over trailer. I hope they weren’t hurt.

Not long after that a truck passed me. It was a flatbed trailer carrying steel, and as it pulled up next to me it hit the brakes. I could just imagine the trailer skidding to the side and swatting me off the road like a fly. I started making emergency contingency plans. Nothing happened. We all continued our creep over the divide and gradually down the other side.

After a while tires started making the splashy hiss of water, but it was a long time before anyone on the road summoned the courage to speed up. The collective trauma of the pass still held us all, and it wasn’t until many miles later that traffic gradually picked up speed again. That was fine with me. Snow turned to rain as darkness fell, Half the traffic sped up while the other half continued to creep along, adding one last threat before I saw the lights of Kingman and said, “No mas.”

The girl at the hotel desk pointed me to Mad Dog’s, an easy walk, and it was the right choice. The juke box is playing now, and the tunes are pretty good (at this moment Jimi Hendrix is playing “The Wind Cries Mary”), and loud enough to be worthwhile.

One more deep breath, one more beer. It’s OK now.

2

Almost Got Lynched Last Night

I decided to grab a green chile pizza for dinner last night and enjoy it next door at the Canyon Bar and Grill while catching the Monday Night Football game. (Pizza Hut uses surprisingly good green chile; unfortunately this time I didn’t try to call in the order until they were closed.) By the end of the first quarter I managed to care about the outcome of the game, at least a little bit, and I decided I wanted the Baltimore Ravens to bring low the undefeated New England Patriots.

Sorry about that, Baltimore. (Baltimore lost in the final seconds in a rather bizarre sequence of events.)

I hadn’t even explained my curse to anyone present when, near the end of the first half, Baltimore intercepted a pass. “Hooray!” the bar shouted. They, like me, mostly wanted New England to lose, but I was surprised at the sudden surge of emotion. The Baltimore player took the ball and began running back the other way. “Don’t fumble!” I shouted at the runner, loud enough for the whole bar to hear me.

Half a second later, the ball squirted loose, and New England recovered. I’m pretty sure the other people in the bar were just joking when they talked about taking me outside and beating me up.

Maybe I’m missing something.

I’m at the Budvar Bar Near Home, and the TV news is on. We’ve had a storm coming through, and with it inconvenience. I was just watching footage of a crew wading through snow to clear a rather small fallen tree off the tracks while a train waited. They cut the tree into bite-sized morsels and tossed them to the side.

If only there had been something nearby with the ability to pull with great force. They could have cleared the tree in a fraction of the time.

1

About Last Thursday…

I was interrupted as I began to chronicle the day, and as a consequence there is now much more story to tell. As days pass the immediacy of the events is lost, which may be a good thing — the details swiftly forgotten are probably the ones that would only have cluttered the narrative anyway. When last we broke off in this narrative, the Cute Little Red-Haired Girl was smiling at me, and bringing me tea. That in itself is enough to make for a fine day, but this day things were just getting rolling. Sitting in Café Fuzzy I had no idea about the twists and turns awaiting me that day.

As I had my American Breakfast (bagel with bacon and egg, hold the ketchup), I struggled with my NaNoWroMo offering for the year until blood was seeping from the corners of my eyes. As I was writing Yet Another Political Discussion rather than action or characterization, my phone chimed. I checked and it was a message from Graybeard. “Casting today, US commercial, period piece.” Just which period was not specified. The message included a very large number for the compensation. Literally a year’s rent. Certainly worth checking out. Graybeard and I worked out that we would get there at the beginning of the casting period and hang out in the bar attached to the casting agency.

My condition at that moment could charitably be called ‘scruffy’. Some work was going to be required before I presented myself for the camera. (You can leave your sarcastic comments below. Jerks.) Thus, a mere couple of hours later, I was scraped clean and gussied up, heading out on the town. Not wanting to waste the effort on a casting that would almost certainly prove to be a waste of time, I dropped a line to Don Diego, telling him that I would be out and about. Things happen around Don Diego.

I got to Jam Café a bit early, and sat and had the official One Too Many. Tea, that is. I was a little twitchy from the steady stream of Earl Gray provided by the Cute Little Red-Haired Girl, and as I sat at the café I told myself, “No caffeine. Whatever you do, no caffeine. You’re twitchy enough already. It’ll show on the tape. No caffeine. No caffeine.” “What are you having?” the waitress asked. “Black tea,” I answered.

I was, it turns out, making two big mistakes at the same time. (Generally I’m not that good at multitasking, but sometimes I manage.) I was making myself unnaturally twitchy before going into an inherently nervous situation, and I was doing so while not signing in and getting a place early in the afternoon. I dropped Graybeard a line to discover that he had decided not to come out until later. When the official start time of the casting rolled round I signed in and was assigned number 70. Dang. I sent a message to Don Diego saying I would be a little later than expected.

Time and memory are a peculiar couple — when memorable events are happening quickly the experience of the moment seems to flash by, but in retrospect memory, which is partitioned by events rather than by the ticks of a clock, will represent that whirlwind of experience as a longer period. On the other hand, when nothing is happening at all, the subjective time is endless, but the memory is just a blink. My next hour is now just a forgettable moment. I had a book, but it was boring. I put it away and put my brain in neutral.

Time crawled by. I was going to be even even later. I sent Don Diego another message. “Wanna be in a commercial?” “Why not?” was the reply. I was happy that I would at least have someone to stand around with. He arrived and signed in, and was given number 140. As we waited, a tall blonde girl arrived. For convenience we’ll call her 147.

Not too long after the arrival of Don Diego (recognizing the time-accelerating effect of having an interesting person around), it was my turn. With a whole bunch of people I was herded into the studio. We were lined up by number and were photographed in turn (I concentrated on my face and let my posture go slack, which is not good – modeling is actually pretty complicated). Then it was time to talk to the video camera, and in my group I was easily the best. Hands down, far and away the best. Only one other person in the group spoke English well. Then he asked for a couple more facial expressions, including “a little smile.” My little smile was about the most forced and unnatural expression imaginable, stiff and strained, and while I was working on that I lost my focus on the camera. (Note to self – it’s video – you can move!)

“How’d you do?” asked Don Diego. “I’m not changing my travel plans,” I answered. Now it was time to wait for his turn. “I’m going to flirt with her,” he said, referring to 147. He did. Across the space of five meters he focussed on her. She smiled, blushed, looked away, and was beautifully charming. Don Diego decided to escalate. “Do you think I should sing to her? I’m going to sing to her.” he walked over and sang to her. Not just any song, but “Some Velvet Morning”, which is a really odd song to start with. For a moment (though 147 later denied this) she had a look of abject fear in her eyes, which quickly gave way to a mighty blush.

I won’t go into all the details, but later as the three of us conversed, she asked him, “aren’t you going to ask for my phone number?”

They never auditioned. She was minutes away from going in but had to catch a bus home to Brno.

*****

This seems to be the episode that will never be written. Another day has passed since I wrote the above, a period in which more beers were sacrificed to the gods of conviviality, a night in which I was mocked by a pretty girl for the way I said Záplatím (I said it more like Záplatim) only moments after she has chastised me for not using my Czech enough, and a night in which the Little Café Near Home did not close at the posted hour.

My only hope now is to finish the description of the first part of my day, and leave the second part alluded to in my previous post to your imaginations. Perhaps it will show up in some fiction some day.

*****

They never auditioned. She was minutes away from going in but had to catch a bus home to Brno. She left to catch her bus back home, Don Diego followed. I got a text from him later thanking me for my excellent wing-man support, though I don’t think I did much.

Meanwhile, Graybeard had arrived with two other folks; one was student of his, and the other was the daughter of another student. I joined them in the café section of the casting agency and ordered a beer. Graybeard had tipped them off about the audition as well, and the more the merrier. They were numbered in the 240’s, so they still had quite a wait in front of them. We chatted, I had another beer. I coached the two rookies about what to expect inside, and about the mistakes I made, so perhaps some good would have come of the adventure. It turns out that Miss 241 lives near where I do; she likes to go bowling at B&B. Maybe I’ll run into her there sometime.

Finally Graybeard and 241 were called in for their moment before the camera. 248 and I chatted for a bit, and then another face I recognized came in. Prague is definitely a small town. The new arrival was Lucien, a good guy and a poet to boot. (Lucien is his real name; and he has written some poems I like very much. If you run into him, be sure to buy his latest effort.) He joined us, the others left, and the two of us hung out chatting about writing and stuff until his number came up. I could have waited for him, but by then I was feeling the effects of my hang-out-a-thon and made excuses.

I decided to walk home, but spontaneously dropped into a place called fuego to write about my day. As long as I was at fuego:the bar, I decided to drop a line to fuego:the brother and see if he wanted to join me. He did, and his arrival at fuego:the bar is what interrupted my previous episode. We had a beer or two and discussed the writer’s strike and how to best exploit it.

To abbreviate the night, more people I knew arrived, completely by coincidence. Eventually I was with a boisterous group of Americans, a loud bunch made all the louder by the hot acoustics of the room we were in. This is why I prefer my Americans in small groups. The female of the species was underrepresented, but there was Delilah. fuego:the brother was about the only guy there not to hit on her. She was worried about getting home, so I promised that I would walk her to the train station before it was too late.

Suddenly it was time for her to go. I tossed fuego:the brother some cash so he could pay the tab (which was going to be complicated with all the table-shifting going on — sorry about that, bro, but trains wait for no one, not even pretty girls). At last I was going to be in a setting where we could talk quietly, and I cold be myself (whatever that means). Only… one of my own buddies, I guy I’ve known for some time, pulled the complete anti-wingman move of tagging along, bringing his large, energetic (and rather loud) personality into the mix. Bird-dogged by a buddy!

In fairness, he was probably unaware that I was interested in Delilah, as my main goal while in fuego:the bar was to not be an asshole like everyone else there hitting on her. The thing was, it was working. In all likelihood nothing would have come of the walk to the train station, but chances like that are, for me, ridiculously rare. When we reached the metro station I decided to walk home rather than stick with them. I was rather annoyed by then, and that’s not the way to be around people.

So, guys, when you’re hanging out having a few brews and the quiet, unassuming guy manages to get some quiet time with the belle of the ball, let him have his moment. In Top Gun terms, when the wing man has a target, the lead plane should get out of the way or planes will crash and lives will be lost.

The brisk walk home was pleasant, and calmed my nerves a bit. (It is not the walk through Prague of the previous episode; that happened the next night.)

Delilah doesn’t know it yet, but since then she has saved my life. That, however, is another story.

My Walk Home.

It is late, I am tired; I don’t know how far I’ll get with this tonight. I suspect that this account of my last hour will be somewhat disjointed and lacking the rich atmospheric descriptions which it deserves, but that’s the way it goes, sometimes. And yes, yes, I know I promised to tell you about yesterday, but that will have to wait. Tonight all I have the energy for is a small tale about the end of today.

I don’t get down to The Globe much, maybe once a year. It’s down near the center of town, where beers tend to get pricey, and I find myself venturing into the center less and less. The Globe is also a favorite among Americans, and while I appreciate talking to people now and then, it’s not the sort of vibe I look for on a general basis. Tonight, however, I was at the Globe, and I had a damn good time. There was music, conviviality, and a generally friendly feeling in the air. This story is not about that.

The café was closing, and there were still quite a few people there, some of whom I knew, others I had just met. “You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here,” the saying goes, and the group seemed to be trapped by the option. I knew, however, that I was going home. “Where are you going to catch the tram?” Don Diego asked me. “I’m walking,” I replied. “Walking to… the tram?” he asked. “No. Home.” I could have told him exactly how the walk would go. Instead I am telling you.

I said goodbye to the group, and started up the street. There was some agreement that most of the rest of them were going the same direction, so I paused and looked back. There was no action. Don’t say goodbye twice, I decided, and left the group to mill about. I set off. The wind had died down but it was still chilly, but when I got into stride I unbuttoned my coat to let the cold air in. By the time I was passing through the drunken brit section of town, I was moving. The pickpockets and pimps did not even glance my way; I passed through them with point A firmly behind and point B directly ahead, and all their games require slowing the target down.

At the top of Václavské NámÄ›sti I popped into the McDonald’s for my long-overdue supper. I purchased my McRoyal(tm) (rhymes with Quarter Pounder(tm)) from a guy who quite obviously hated his job selling deadly food to drunks, then I was back out on the street, throwing back the 26 glorious grams of shimmering fat which will form a gelatinous layer in my already-abused stomach, somehow making things better. By the time I was past the museum the burger was just a happy memory. It was Friday night, so there was still a fair amount of foot traffic as I passed though Žižkov. I considered some of the all-night places I passed, thinking perhaps that one last beer might compliment the burger nicely, but the temptation was only slight. I was in motion.

Between the long skinny park and Flora I heard a small crash and looked ahead to see a very drunk person struggling to stand back up. I crossed to the other side of the street, reflecting that I was not going to compare well with any Samaritans who might be out and about. Hopefully the door the drunk was trying to open was his own.

Past Flora are the graveyards, predictably dark and quiet, and the skeletal remains of Autobazar Å koda, a car dealership, now defunct. The signs are still out, and streamers rattle metallically in the night wind, but there are no cars anymore, and no guard dog to dutifully bark at me, reminding me once again that I should just keep walking. I miss that dog; we were starting to get along. Past the ghost dealership is the empty lot that only weeks ago hosted a circus; the ruts made by the big trucks as they carried the show away still visible. I am almost home.

I consider once more stopping in somewhere for a final beer. What I really want is to bring something home with me, to keep me company while I write about my walk, but this is Strašnice. I turn left at the final graveyard and find my way home, roughly an hour after I set out. Perhaps there were other hours today that were more significant — hours of accomplishment and interaction, connections made and ideas shared — but looking back, my hour alone on the streets of Prague late at night was my favorite.

2

Hospoda Feng Shui

You all have heard of Feng Shui (note to self: look up spelling before posting this). It’s about making a place harmonious for human habitation, about the way energy moves through a place (not to me confused in any way with the definition of energy employed in Physics. Those two energies are completely unrelated). I don’t really know a whole lot about the Feng and/or Shui, except that there are some parts that sound an awful lot like common sense.

In any case, a Czech pub has it’s own rules of Feng Shui, not based so much on wind and water but on tradition and history. There are people who have settled in at the same table in the same pub every day for the last fifty years. The Czechs have a sense of nationalism, but it pales next to their tableism. Had the communists started moving people to different tables within each pub, the revolution would have come much sooner.

Of course, occasionally you get the tourist who just doesn’t know better, who, having no appreciation of tradition, comes in and sits at a table that everyone else knows is already reserved. Such an act throws the entire bar out of balance, as many of the regulars simply cannot imagine sitting somewhere else in the bar. This is magnified when there is a group of tables and the visiting savage breaks the connectivity. Still, those things happen, and while the tourist won’t be welcomed with open arms, the Czechs are a roll-with-the-punches sort of folk, and generally interlopers don’t stay long.

But then you have the guy who maybe should know better — the guy you’ve seen a couple of times before, who doesn’t just grab a beer and a snack before leaving again, but opens up a frickin’ laptop of all things, and settles in to stay a while. That’s what they had to deal with at the Pink Gambrinus Pub tonight. I knew the table next to mine was a regular’s table, but I thought I was all right. It was when I ordered a snack and a minute later heard my order repeated at the table behind me, along with a reference to oxen, that I realized I was cramping the regulars’ style.

The service there is about as friendly and attentive as any you’ll find in these parts, so there was never any pressure on me to leave — far from it, in fact, as my first attempt to say I was finished resulted in another beer. (I have a bad habit of starting with “Ahh…” as I compose my Czech, which is the start of ‘Ano’, which means ‘yes’. That my “Ne” (no) sounds more like “Nay” doesn’t help.) Anyway, I stayed longer than I intended to. By the time I packed up and left, the regulars had dispersed into the rain.

It’s a nice place, and I’m sure I can be forgiven for that one mistake, but next time I go back, I’ll find another place to sit.

1

A damn good night.

Live band karaoke. Beautiful women everywhere. Free beer. Can it possibly get better?

Yes, it can.

I was pleased when Don Diego invited me to the shindig. As you may have noticed from the sparse entries lately, life has settled into a routine around here. Routine, and not terribly exciting. People invite me to stuff, but if I’ve got a groove going in my work, I tend to back out. Also, most people tend to go out on the “weekend” (some sort of business ritual, I understand), and so everybody has plans at the same time, and the bars are at their most crowded and smoky. How can you get any work done in a place like that?

Don Diego and I scan the list of songs and go to sign up. Although we are just about the first ones on the list, the girl in charge tells Don Diego that his song is already taken. He chooses another. I scowl at the list again. There is nothing really in my wheelhouse, and fortunately for the bar there is no Billy Idol, either. I make a choice and scribble it down.

The outing was organized by a local language school where Don Diego teaches English. “One thing I have to tell you,” he had to tell me, “there are a lot of really good-looking women there.” I put this factum in the “good” column and was all the more eager for the night to roll round. When we learned that the karaoke was in front of a live band, I didn’t quite know which column that belonged in. On the one hand, it’s simply a kick to get up and front a bunch of talented professional musicians, to be a part of their act if only for a moment. On the other hand, you are limited to what they know how to play. For instance, there might be relatively few songs in English, and you might find yourself singing a song that’s just a little too high for your rusty vocal cords.

The first regular takes the stage and the band begins to play. “Hey, that’s the song I was going to do,” Don Diego says. Obviously the girl has sung it before; she belts it out with confidence and more than just a little style. This is not going to be your average drunks-with-microphones sort of karaoke. Oh, no, not at all.

The party ostensibly started at 19.00 (rhymes with 7 p.m.), and we got there only a few minutes after that to find that things were still pretty quiet. Don Diego decided that his first entrance (and consequently mine) wasn’t grand enough, so we took a mulligan and arrived a second time. He was with the circus; he knows the importance of showmanship.

We sat and I found myself chatting with a very pleasant bunch of people, all involved with the language school. It was an easy-going bunch, and I was very happy to have on my right a particularly charming young woman, who we will call Lily. Across from me sat the recruiter for the language school. “Do you need a job?” she asked early in the evening. I had just been looking at my finances earlier that day, and I had to admit that the time for gainful employment was looming. She gave me her card. Apparently the screening process is pretty rigorous, so there’s always a chance I’ll wash out later on in the process. We can hope, anyway.

‘What are you going to sing?’ People ask me when they see I am holding a lyric sheet. I show them the song. ‘Oohhh… nice. I like that one,’ they each say in turn. I nod. I like it too, but I’m not sure I can actually sing it. The regulars are, as a bunch, pretty dang good.

More good news followed. Yes indeed, the company had opened a tab at the bar, and until the money ran out, beer and wine were free. Of course this can be a dangerous situation, especially when one is trying to make a good first impression on a new group of people. Don Diego and I reached the same conclusion at about the same time. The trick was to get the free alcohol into key other people at the party.

The group ebbed and flowed around the tables, and while I had some time alone to contemplate my good fortune, I was never lonely; there was conversation to be had all around me, and Don Diego never left me hanging, although most of his attention was on the girl who had first recruited him into the school; he had gone to the interview just to spend time with her. She struck me as a Czech version of Cameron Diaz — something about her smile just charmed my socks off.

Don Diego takes the stage, loosens his  shirt, and strikes a pose. He isn’t just up there to sing a song, oh, no. He is about to put on a show. The music starts, Don Diego puts away the lyric sheet. He kicks ass.

I found myself talking to Red, a very pretty and very pleasant girl who worked at the school. Her eyes lit up when she heard I was a writer. Yes, her eyes lit up. Halogens, I think. We talked about literature for a while, about favorite writers (making it obvious I don’t read enough), and she asked me if I was published. “Short stories, yes, but I’m better at writing than I am at selling.” My current line. “Have you tried publishing here?” she asked. I told her I had not.

In classic bad news/good news fashion she told me that her boyfriend is an editor at a publishing house here and is looking for American writers. Did I get her contact information? Of course not. I was too busy downplaying the literary merit of my stories. A big opportunity falls in my lap, and I drop it like a hot buttered potato. Hopefully I can pick it up before it rolls away completely.

A confession here: I’ve got a pretty major inferiority complex when it comes to presenting myself to people who know and love literature. This set includes almost all Czechs. It makes me say and do the stupidest things imaginable, and turns me into the same sort of asshole that I most dislike among the American writers here in Prague.

I had signed up right after Don Diego, but my name is not called next. Just as well; that’s going to be a tough act to follow. Another song goes by, and another. Had I been forgotten? Is that a bad thing or a blessing in disguise?

The night wore on at a gentle pace, with plenty of good conversation with interesting people who are not afraid of being happy. Eventually the band was finished, and the party started to dissipate. Don Diego and I resolved to go somewhere quiet for a nightcap and to chat about the most excellent time that was, apparently, had by all. Lily was still there, and determined to stay, despite our attempts to lure her away into the next phase of the party. We bid her farewell (after exchange of phone numbers), and in an I-can’t-believe-I-just-did-that moment I pulled the old kiss-on-the-cheek-sudden-shift trick. Grand larceny smooch.

As the dude finished his most perfect rendition and the crowd when wild, I turned to Red and said, “My worst nightmare is that I’m next.” After a bit of confusion I heard, ‘Let it Be’. My song. Shit.

I looked for Red to say goodbye. I never got her contact information, but I know she’s out there somewhere, and I will find her again. In the (relative) quiet of another bar whose name I’ve already forgotten, Don Diego and I sat with our final Gambrinuses of the night and reflected on what a damn good evening we had had. I’ve got to get out more often.

There is clapping and cheering among the language school people as I take the stage. It’s show time! I am about to sing “Let it Be”, a beautiful song of sorrow and hope, a song carried by the vocals, that rises steadily to a grand conclusion: There will be an answer, Let it be. I set my posture, getting into character, and the exercise calms me. I am ready. I will not be taking the chorus down an octave; it’s all or nothing tonight. The music starts.

2

Zombie infestation at Little Café Near Home!

PlanningShot.jpg

fuego and Soup Boy plan the first shot.

The other day fuego was poking around online when he discovered a video contest. The contest is sponsored by the company that makes some sort of shower gel, so the videos are to show people who are dirty getting clean again. This particular shower gel advertises heavily in magazines like Maxim, which is essentially Playboy for illiterate wimps. Right away, then, it is safe to assume that the winning videos will have sexy women in them.

fuego and Soup Boy put their heads together and came up with a storyboard. In the story… zombies! I don’t think they even knew it was Zombie Month. Soup Boy scored a fairly high-end camera and rounded up the cast while fuego recruited an accomplished makeup special effects artist and got a production assistant in the bargain. I set to work trying to get permission to use interesting zombie-worthy music.

The first bit of shooting was at a castle an hour’s drive outside of Prague, and it was just the three of us. This weekend it was time to get the shots with the zombie babes. I held the ideal table at the Little Café Near Home while the makeup guy went to work on the actresses. It created quite a stir when the first two arrived at the vanguard of the film crew, staggering in with a shuffling zombie gait. They looked… dead. (A little too dead, I thought. This shot is supposed to be after the miraculous transformation wrought by the shower goo, leaving the girls looking only slightly dead.) The girls came over and greeted me by name, which surprised the other customers, who are used to me just sitting in my corner and working.

The crew invaded and began to set up. fuego echoed my concern about the makeup, but when you get a major guy in the biz working for you voluntarily, you don’t complain too much. I tried to be helpful, which for the most part meant staying out of the way. fuego enjoyed calling out (in Czech), “OK, look dead, people!” After a few takes it was over, and the crew packed and left, off to shoot the dirtier (and more risqué) “before” scenes. Alas, some of the zombie babes were shy, so as a nonessential male I was not invited on set for the lingerie portions of the shoot. Oh, well.

Yesterday I got a message from fuego. Sure enough, the zombie babes need to be cleaner for the “after” shot. Tonight, the Zombie Babes will strike again! Watch out!

So you’re sitting in a bar…

Unique and interesting. They’re not a bunch you wouldn’t expect to find hanging out together. Except…

The circus is in town, just up the road. Maybe it’s just me, maybe it’s my romantic idea of the SHOW fed by my friendship with a guy who spent a few years in the biz, but the pull of the four-mast big top of Cirkus Berousek would be a siren song of disaster but for one sobering fact. While I would sell my soul to the circus, in return I have nothing to offer. Well, almost nothing…

CIRCUS HR REPRESENTATIVE: So… (she flips though papers, not finding what she is looking for. She folds her fingers in front of her and regards me. We are not in an office, but a crowded and humid trailer where my request for tea was answered with diluted coffee.) …you want to be in the circus.

JERRY: Yes.

CIRC HR REP: And what can you do?

What can I do? That’s always the catch. To be in the circus you need more than a wandering frame of mind, you need either a physique that says ‘the big top will rise despite the snow’, or you need some sort of reason that strangers might want throw down a buck to keep you alive. The whole “what do you do” question is tough for those of us who don’t do much of anything.

JERRY: Well, I speak with the Voice of Authority.

C. HR. R.: Explain.

JERRY: I can say the most ridiculous nonsense and people will believe me.

C. HR. R.: For example?

JERRY: I can bench-press forty-seven times my own weight.

C. HR. R.: Really?!? That’s amazing! When can you start?

Sadly, that’s the best-case scenario, and it just leads to total humiliation later, when I am killed trying to bench-press a mere four times my weight. The Voice of Authority is like a gun with a backwards barrel.

Double Whammy

The bartender asks, “You want another?”

“Nah. I’ve gotta go home.”

He nods knowingly. “You seem sad tonight.”

Shit. Am I that obvious? And where the hell does a pimple-faced beer slinger get off even tiptoeing over the surface of sadness? Where in your world of primal teenage lust have you ever had the chance to understand deep, permanent, sorrow? If the cure to a broken heart is a new thang, what happens when there are no more thangs? Take your whole ‘there’s always tomorrow’ platitude and choke on it.

Still, the little bastard was right. I was sad tonight. Am. Women shined me on not one but twice, chopped-liverificating me to the harshest degree. The second shine was from my favorite bartender in this country. She was intoxicated and in a hurry to get back to the party downstairs, so I will cut myself some slack. Still, there was a big hole where “it’s great to see you again” might have fit.

I probably would have passed that over with a chuckle were I not already feeling raw from a previous shine. I suspect I have only myself to blame in the end, but I wrote in these pages a while back about a woman (name rhymes with feevah!) who out of the blue started talking to me. Perhaps it was my public expression of joy over this event, or perhaps I cashed in on another opportunity to make a complete ass of myself, but she doesn’t talk to me any longer. She doesn’t even look at me. She would be more comfortable if I didn’t exist at all. Which, overall, pretty much sucks.

fuego

I’m at a new place, one that my brother found. It serves his favorite kind of beer (usually), and is a cozy place, below street level. When fuego gave me directions how to find it, they ended with “go up about 2 1/2 blocks and it will be obvious.” As I walked up the street I smiled. There was the Bernard sign. No mystery which of the several taverns on the block was the one I was looking for.

As I got closer, the choice became even more obvious. The name of the place is ‘fuego’. Alas, despite the name there is no fireplace here. Despite living in a place where buildings don’t burn and the winters are cold, almost nowhere to be found in this city is a bar or café with a fireplace.

The music that is playing right now is pure ’80’s power pop, generic in every way, lacking in anything that would single out which hair band is responsible for this stuff. There was one instrumental in which the guitar sounded like Joe Satriani, but what he’d be doing with those other losers, and why the producer wouldn’t let him loose on the other songs as well, will remain forever a mystery.

Soundtrack and fireplace notwithstanding, this is a pretty nice place to get some work done.

2

The Best Place in the World to Drink Beer

One of the things about the last day of summer—it may turn out to be the next-to-last. You never know. There’s a compounding effect, as each one is more appreciated than the one before. I was back on the hill Sunday, enjoying perhaps the last warm day of the year for a second time.

The people I was with were well-traveled individuals, putting my wandrings to shame (although, not being players of the ex-pat game they never tried to put me to shame). I asked my drinking companions, “Have you ever, anywhere, ever seen a more beautiful place to sit and enjoy a beer?”

Letna2.jpg

Beer drinkers enjoy a sunny afternoon in one of the world’s best places to sip a pivo.

Uker, who’s been around (he was traveling with the first person ever to be diagnosed with malaria in Mongolia), thought for a while and said, “Nope. There’s nothing like this.” Or something like that. I wasn’t taking notes. I have in the past asked this question of other folks who’ve been around and about. They will look out over the city, think about it for a while, and shake their heads. There are some nice places out there, but this place is a mystical convergence of beer, peace, beauty, and people who love beer, peace, and beauty.

I know some people who could make a case for their own back porches as the best place on the planet for sipping suds (I have had such a porch myself), and those people are fortunate indeed, but for the sake of this discussion I think it necessary that we limit the contenders to drinking and eating establishments that a traveler could visit without an invitation. Ultimately, compiling a list of the most beautiful places in the world to have a drink may be the greatest service this blog ever performs.

So now I throw down the gauntlet. Do you know a place that can compete with this? If I get any responses (especially with pictures), I’ll set up a special page to list the best the world has to offer. I may add a couple more myself. There are some damn fine places out there.

The Last Breath of Summer

A while back I wrote a story about the first warm day of the year. It is about beginnings, and about the endings that, like winter, must surely follow. The first warm day is a magical event; not only is the city transformed, not only do the people around you seem to have shed their dour moods along with their winter jackets, it is as if the rays of the sun shine straight into your soul, and the air that fills your lungs makes it feel like you haven’t inhaled in months. It is not a day for working.

The last warm day of the year has a similar magic. If the beginning of summer carries with it the knowledge that there will be an end, the last warm day is greeted with thanksgiving — one more day of summer. A reprieve. There have already been cold days, the clouds have settled in and look like they’re planning to stick around for a few months. (I was in the city center a couple weeks back, and I was surprised to see so many tourists. I had to remind myself that summer still lingered in much of the northern hemisphere.) Then out of nowhere comes one or two beautiful days. There is a chill to the air, there’s no forgetting what’s coming, but that just adds to the magic. This is a bonus day, a day life didn’t have to give you, but you caught it in a good mood. Life smiled indulgently and said, “Oh, I suppose one more can’t hurt.”

Sunday was such a day. When given such a gift, you owe it to life to make the most of it. You wouldn’t want to appear ungrateful, after all. So it was that Sunday afternoon found fuego and me sitting in the very beer garden where the above story takes place, chatting about this and that, watching the dogs play, and enjoying long silences while we looked out over the Old Town. The place was full, but they know how to keep things moving at the beer window.

We had arrived in the early afternoon; by the time we left the sun had set long since. We watched as the light put the city through a series of transformations, through the Golden Hour and into the night. I imagined people sitting on that same hillside one hundred years ago. I looked for buildings that wouldn’t have been there back then, and I thought about what the scene in the park might have looked like, thinking about the images of nicely-attired members of the Austro-Hungarian Empire out for a promenade, parasols twirling lazily.

The styles and mannerisms might change, but I’m sure the people back then talked about the same things fuego and I discussed: the beauty of the city spread out before us, and our great fortune to have one more warm day to enjoy it.

Soup Boy’s Birthday Party

Walking home tonight I knew for a fact that the killer pup of autobazaar škoda is gone. I feel a wistful nostalgia when I walk past the place now, running my fingers along the links that in months past clearly defined the line between passer-by and victim. The business has changed, the angry dog is gone, and I feel cheated. I was wearing him down. We would have been friends eventually.

“I’d love to hear from you,” I said, for perhaps the thirty-fifth time, knowing as I did that I was probably killing any possibilty that I ever would. Even the most sincere sentiment wears out. But she was Scottish. You can’t blame me. The final time I said that tonight, we had just walked past the short edge of one of the world’s largest graveyards. I blathered on for a bit, older Scottish sister responded intelligently, it was all good. As we walked up the road, I realized that there were only smart people in our group of three. I also realized that I was doing a piss-poor job of proving I belonged.

“You’re not leaving. Here, have this beer.” I don’t even remember the dude’s name, but he was dead set on my presence in Bunkr. In this case he caught me pausing with a pair of Scottish sisters on my way out, so I wasn’t too upset about staying a little longer.

“A— –b– — –r–” she said. Between the loud music and my Rock-n-roll ears, more than once she said something I really wish I’d understood. It’s like riding the funicular up the side of the mountain, but when you’re close to the top the chain slips and you’re halfway down again. Still, halfway is better than nowhere. Time to make sure she understands that I’d like to hear from her again before she goes back to Scotland.

Even Jose gives up on dancing. The music is a wierd blend of techno and acid jazz. It’s interesting, but you’ve got to go emo to dance it. Every move has to have the suggestion of a fatalistic shrug.

“I’m shy,” she said. “You wouldn’t understand.” Wronger words were never spoken, but how to make her understand, after she had seen me and Jose putting on a dance lesson for the locals? That she was married made it possible for me to talk to her. Otherwise, forget about it.

[present tense… All Her Favorite Fruits by Camper van Beethoven is a heartbreakingly beautiful song. As I type it’s playing in my ears, and well, dang.]

There are a few reasons to dance. The best reason is for the music. If the sounds move you, move. You never know how much time you have before…

“We’re going to Bunkr,” Soup Boy said. “They have some Acid Jazz DJ’s from England there tonight.” Bunkr, it turns out, is well-named. It’s a long way down underground to get there. I understand the Nazis built it. Or someone else.

“This place is ours.” This is how the Boy throws a party. Big dinner at his favorite Greek place, then a short march to a five-star hotel where the entire spa section is exclusively ours. Swimming, sauna, and whatnot, all waiting for the Philistines. Pool girls took our bottles and served up the drinks, so we wouldn’t hurt outselves with the glass. Soup Boy should get older more often.

Now I must sleep…

Just another day.

It has rained hard off an on the last couple of days as thunderstorms wander around the city. The rain is welcome; the whole city was starting to smell like dog poop.

It seems to be a special night here at the bowling alley. As I wait for my pizza and try to get my head into some sort of creative place I’m watching what must be the Awkward Bowlers Who Look Like They’re Going To Fall Down But Somehow Knock a Lot of Pins Over League. It’s one of your more entertaining leagues.

Although, as I watch a bit more, I think I might have been closer to the truth than I realized. The more I watch the more I get the feeling that there are teams of awkward bowlers competing against each other. Some of the most awkward of all even brought their own bowling balls. One of those is one of the few skinny guys down there; his style is to run at the line as fast as he can and let go of the ball. His partner is a big, fat guy who has to release the ball well behind the line because he needs a few more steps to bring himself to a stop. Then there’s the guy who uses the pendulum method, but his release point sends the ball well down the alley before it even lands.

Holy crap! One team has a secret handshake!

When ESPN launched and they were desperate for programming, this is the kind of stuff they would show. Who is there now to broadcast Czech Awkward Bowling League? Makes me wish I had a video camera.

For all that, however, while it’s surprising to me that no one has gotten hurt, these guys are knocking pins over, picking up spares, and all that.

It has to be a league. Some of them aren’t even drinking beer. You call that bowling?