Tag Archives: bars

Farley’s, Roswell, NM

Posted on by
Reply

I considered filing this one under Bars, since although I spent the day on Pirate-related tasks, I didn’t accomplish much. I spent the morning writing, something I had been pining to do, and then I hit the road. I scouted some more roads, this time to the east of Albuquerque, looking for a better location for the shoot. The terrain just isn’t deserty enough; the only bar next to two-lane that I found was in distinctly alpine territory. I asked some bikers if they had any suggestions, but they couldn’t come up with anything close enough to the city. They were yuppie bikers, as so many bikers are these days, so really all they were familiar with were nice places that get crowded.

So it was I shifted into the second phase of my travels: PropQuest, a thin excuse for a road trip. There are a couple of key props that will make a big difference in the overall feel of the movie. They’re not the kinds of things that will be sitting on truck stop shelves, so I set out to find them. One of the props, I figured, if it existed at all would be in Roswell, NM, and this would be the ideal weekend to come down to visit, as this is the weekend of their UFO festival.

It was late in the afternoon when I got here, and the temperature was over 100 F. There wasn’t much going on at all in the blocked-off section of main street. A few vendors had booths up, but only the snow-cone guy was doing any business. I’ll try again tonight – there’s a parade at 9, after things cool off a bit. There were several UFO crap shops, but none had what I was looking for. Surely I’m not the first person to need a rubber alien suitable for putting in a jar of fake formaldehyde. I’ll try to find it online tonight.

Now I’m at Farley’s, a big place with reasonable prices. It’s a bit boomy in here, but all I really care about is the air conditioning. I’ve had so much iced tea I’m starting to vibrate with an audible hum. After I finish my green chile won tons I’m heading back to the hotel and an internet connection. Tomorrow: White Sands, to plunder the gift shop.

1

Thanks!

The Tractor Bar, Los Lunas, NM

Posted on by
4

I ran some errands this morning, moving large numbers of ones and zeroes about the globe, then I headed out into the desert to look for locations. It was good to be on the road again. I stopped at a truck stop along I-40 for Gatorade and found a key prop for Pirates sitting on a shelf of unlikely tourist crap. I thought to get sunscreen as well.

Wild Horse Mesa Bar Not long after that I was on a little two-laner, windows down, radio blasting, and I felt it. The road. Only this time I was out there to look at the road and really see it, rather than just be swept away by the beauty of it all. My destination was the Wild Horse Mesa Bar, whose giant, fading OPEN sign, red letters four feet high, was lying. The little open sign in the window, one that at least was capable of telling the truth, was also lying. The bar was closed. Only the dog on the front sidewalk was honest. The building is trapezoidal and there is not enough room inside for anything except actors and crew. We’ll have to bring shade for everyone else if we try to shoot here.

On the other hand, I can’t imagine them hesitating to allow us in to shoot. If everyone on the crew bought one beer, I suspect it would be their best week in years.

On I went, taking fewer pictures of straight road as I realized that straight road was not going to be a problem to find. When there was a stretch with interesting terrain about, I stopped for a look-see. Eventually I reached Los Lunas, and the next bar on my list to check out. It was the opposite end of the spectrum, from the Wild Horse, being a modern brewpub.

Ahhh, a microbrew IPA in the true overhopped American style. There’s nothing better. I came in snapping pictures, telling them I’m scouting locations for a movie. They are familiar with the festival here, as they are a sponsor. Hopefully that will make them more amenable to being a location as well. They’ve been very accommodating so far, giving me al little mini-tour. I got the feeling that the woman I was talking to was in charge right now, but I don’t know if her decision-making mojo goes beyond that.

After this I’m heading out into uncharted water, to see what I can find on the East side of the Monzano Mountains, but it will have to be good to justify travel times. I better have some good food here to make sure I last the journey.

Thanks!

(Almost) the happiest guy on Earth.

Posted on by
5

Tonight I said, “If you can plug in my laptop behind the bar, bring me Dos Equis draft and a Green Chile Cheeseburger, I’ll be the happiest guy on Earth.”

“No problem,” she said.

“Lots of green chile.”

“You got it.”

Then she plugged in my laptop, but it seems there is no juice in that outlet. That’s the “almost” part. It’s the only outlet in the bar that’s not in a closed section. I’m typing as fast as I can.

I’m not supposed to be here right now. I was taking a leisurely morning in Merry Olde England trying to find Internet access. I was foiled by little things at every turning. I was checking in quite early for my flight and a dude asked it I wanted to jump an earlier one. “Cool,” I thought. I’ll use the extra layover time in Dallas to get in touch with everyone.” I had to hustle to make the flight, but I was on my way dang near three hours ahead of schedule.

I didn’t notice that they also gave me an earlier flight to Albuquerque. Once I got through Immigration and customs in Dallas I looked to see what gate to go to. It was then I noticed the time to begin boarding had already passed. D’oh! After an airport sprint to the gate I took five minutes to try to get online but the pay service was so slow I hadn’t even managed to give them money before I had to go.

So I landed in the Duke City three hours early, and nobody knows. But you know, that’s OK. Of the airports I’ve been through on this trip, this is by far the best one to hang out in. Free Internet, green chile, and, of course, beer. It’s quieter, and just a lot less hectic. In the end, things worked out pretty well.

Thanks!

The bar with the propeller on it

Posted on by
6

I’ve walked by this place many times, but I’ve never come in. The propeller is stuck on the corner of the building, over a small solarium with a single table. Around the table are arrayed three mannequins wearing WWII-era flight suits. Inside the place is as much museum as it is bar. There is the cockpit section of a spitfire as an architectural feature, and the place is packed with RAF memorabilia. Model spitfires are shooting down germans over my head. The little biscuit that came with my tea was in the shape of an airplane.

At first I was a bit surprised to see such a British place in a Prague neighborhood, but of course the pilots in those planes over my head aren’t British, they’re Czech. The tipoff is the beer. They serve Czech beer, not English. The guys in the flight suits are members of the Czechoslovak air force who were forbidden from taking to the skies as the Nazis invaded. Many escaped Czechoslovakia and provided the RAF with a critical boost during their finest hour.

Right now, on a lovely Sunday afternoon, I have the room to myself. There are some tourists in the next room, but this is a peaceful spot just now. No excuses at all for not getting back to work on my novel. None.

Maybe I’ll see what’s on the menu…

Hmm. The menu is chock-full of stuff. It contains a brief and difficult-to-decipher history of Frank Wing, Czech aviation pioneer, and founder of Wing’s Club, which is what this place is called. Wing built some of the first aircraft, founded aviation companies, ran for president (or prime minister or whatever), and ended up working for Boeing in the US after he fled Czechoslovakia in the late ’30’s. “Wing” is the translation of his name into English, but while that is an interesting coincidence, even better is his wife’s maiden name: “Propeller”. I figure when they learned each other’s names they knew they had no choice.

Before becoming an industrialist and politician, Frank had been part of the bodyguard for Archduke Franz Ferdinand. I guess he wasn’t as good at bodyguarding as he was building aircraft. It’s a little vague on whether he flew combat during WWI, but it seems likely.

He was a strong advocate of the Czech republic developing its own ability to manufacture aircraft rather than buy them off other countries, and the industries he helped to develop were of great interest to their German neighbors. He died in a car accident near Detroit, rushing to an emergency meeting of Czech nationals living in the US called as the Nazis threatened his homeland. Remember: statistically speaking, the most dangerous part of your flight is the drive to the airport.

His wife, Mrs. Propeller-Wing, apparently was a model and did lingerie shows for the troops, while Frank’s mother was a high-wire artist, and performed while heavily pregnant with… uh, HEY! WAIT A MINUTE! Who wrote this? Dr. Pants? It’s embarrassing how credulous I am. Even while I recognized some parts of the story as obvious bullshit, it took fuego to point out that the whole thing was utter rubbish.

When I was a kid people would test-drive practical jokes on me. If I caught on, they knew it wouldn’t work on anybody.

Also on the menu is a pretty good selection of food, at maybe-a-little-higher-than-typical prices. They have stuffed dumplings shot from a canon, though. Gotta like that. I don’t even think that’s a bad translation – it’s written like it’s supposed to be unusual. Might have to order some if I get to see the canon.

“Open wide!” *BLAM* “Yum!” Now that’s what I call fine dining, as long as their aim is good.

Thanks!

My head is in a really neat place

Posted on by
13

I’m in a bar with free Internet access. I don’t know what I’m paying for beers right now and I don’t want to know. It’s not important. If only the %(^%*&^$ at the next table would stop smoking I’d be a happy, happy man.

[moved to a different table next to an outlet]

But here I am. Connected. On the air. Reaching out to my media empire, which yearns for me. Or something.

There are even pretty girls here, but at this moment every single one of them that I can see from where I sit is smoking. This is becoming increasingly irritating as I live down the remains of a head cold. There’s good ventilation here, but it only goes so far. Another very attractive woman just came in, and stopped at the bar for an ashtray on the way to her table.

The other day fuego, MaK, and I were in a restaurant for a late brunch, and we had a most pleasant time. On the way out we paused to speak to a friend of fuego’s and I was introduced. It came out that I was learning czech, and the friend said, “He needs a czech girlfriend, then,” or something like that. My response was “No, that would be too much work,” but nobody was paying any attention to me. But it goes beyond the simple fact I don’t need another project (and having a girlfriend is work — don’t let anyone tell you otherwise). On top of that, every girl here smokes.

Two more women just arrived and sat at the table just upwind of me. The bartender recognized them and brought over an ashtray. In my field of vision right now, there are nine women and no men except the bartenders. Damn near paradise, if my sinuses weren’t cowering behind my occipital lobe for shelter.

All right. enough bitching about the smoke. This is Europe, after all, and except for Slovakia it’s a smoky place. I knew that when I signed up. I’m told that Europe is following California’s lead and will be banning smoking in public places, leaving my heart divided. I dislike banning things, and I consistently vote against banning things, even smoking in public, but I sure do like life better when no one is puffing up nearby.

All right. NOW there’s been enough bitching about the smoke. I will not bitch about it any more. I will squint my eyes and try to see what I am writing though the haze and write about something besides the smoke. After all, this episode is all about how great it is to be here.

Here, in fact, is a mall. Glossy, glitzy, and modern, there is no czech character here. I first went to a cafe nearby where I was told they had free internet. A lie. A BIG, FAT, LIE. (Ano, ještÄ› jedno, prosím.) I had a feeling about this place though. [There is now a male patron in my field of vision, and his girlfriend just lit up. D’oh! bitching again!] Outside in the mall proper an authoritative voice just came booming through the PA system. I have no idea what he said, and it couldn’t have been too important because everyone else ignored it, too. But whoever was speaking certainly felt important.

“Blah, blah, blablablah, Blah.” It’s the same in any language.

I think that’s where I’ll leave this episode, which also can be summarized as “Blah, blah, blablablah, Blah.”

Blah.

Thanks!

It’s a Schizophrenic Little Bar, But it doesn’t Suck.

Posted on by
1

I sit, knocking out a backlog of blog stories, sipping from a tall, thin, glass of Zwettler (a German beer). The café has six small tables, closely packed, and four stools at the bar. The sun is pounding in through the west-facing window with an intensity I have not seen lately.

When I got here today I thought perhaps I had come through the wrong door. I even recognized one face from the Cheap Budvar Place next door. The place was thick with flavored smoke and old men. My favorite neighborhood bartender was working, though, so I knew I belonged. She’s past her prime now, perhaps, which means I can still think when she’s around.

I made my way to the last empty table, settled in, and after a few minutes opened the laptop. After I had been working for a few minutes a guy near me started speaking louder in my direction. I actually did the look-over-the-shoulder thing to see who behind me he was talking to. No, he was talking to me. he had Harry Carray glasses and was wearing a suit only a golfer could love. He said some more stuff at me. I made an honest attempt to understand, but it’s hard enough figuring out what sober czechs are talking about. I finally had to shrug and apologize for not speaking czech.

It was as if I had “You don’t say, sir; please expand on that fascinating observation.” No sooner had I explained that I didn’t know what the hell he was saying that he opened up the tap and let the conversation fly. The man’s little buddy turned to give me a shrug and a smile filled with unhappy teeth. Instantly I liked Little Buddy. He was apologizing for his friend in a way, and I was apologizing to him for not knowing the local jazz, but more than that we were sharing a joke.

Gradually a transition took place. I’ve seen it happen once before here, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t publish that episode. As I’ve been sitting here, the bar has gently transitioned into a gay bar. I’m sure of that – for all the Czechs pride themselves on their laissez-faire attitude they seem less tolerant of homosexuality. Then again, I’m not really the guy to judge that.

But the old men with their cigars have been replaced with younger men who exchange clandestine gestures of familiarity. Perhaps at this moment this is not a gay bar but an in-the-closet bar. Or maybe these are just regular guys who are more physically expressive than their czech brethren. It’s all the same to me. [An aside: three or four years ago I was in a gay bar in San Diego, and I was worried about what I would do if some guy hit on me. Then it occurred to me that if no women hit on me in my regular bars, no men would hit on me either. Being non-sexy means I can go to any bar I want, and damn if they don’t mix the drinks twice as strong in gay bars. Karaoke night in Vegas, at a bar with the “buy one drink with good booze and drink beer free the rest of the night” deal, was a night to remember. I sang Kinks and Queen.]

Back to the here and now. There’s one guy, thinning gray streaky hair, bad teeth, scruffy, me in fifteen more years, standing at the bar. He’s watching the window and the door, and demanding far more of the bartender than she wants to give. I know that look; bartenders have looked at me that way many times.

There are three guys in one knot, speaking earnestly, and since I can’t understand them it sounds terribly important. Aesthetics, I think, or perhaps the nature of consciousness.

Another changing of the guard is taking place. The second couple just came in, young and with enough scent to send an owl running for cover. [Nature note: owls are the greatest natural enemy of skunks. I’ve been told by people who should know that some owls will leave a dead skunk rotting in the nest to keep other predators away from their offspring.] My eyes are watering. I’m sure there are times I don’t smell good, but this, this is a smell the person chose to wear on purpose.

I’ll save the rest of that rant for another day. What’s important is that the nature of this tiny place is changing again, as the sun makes its way toward the horizon. It is turning into a place to bring a date. Couples, groups, kids with their infectious cheer are starting to arrive. The music, which I hadn’t noticed before, seems to be moving with the trend; right now there is a calypso-disco cover of a 70’s disco song playing. D-I-S-C-O.

How does this place change so readily? Have the different groups come to a tacit understanding of who gets the bar when? Is it just that the place is so small that when one group dominates the others find somewhere else? There are other bars in the area; down the hill are restaurant bars and close by is the Cheap Budvar Place (not to be confused with the Cheap Beer Place, which in retrospect should have been named Cheap Gambrinus Place). This place is different than the others, though. They aren’t like the fancy places with a full menu, there’s a neighborhood feel here. At the same time this place is not like smoky boozerias that dominate this neighborhood. It’s a little place, with a fleeting touch of class.

Thanks!

She Who Smiles Rarely smiled often

Posted on by
5

It started a couple of weeks ago with New York Guy. Man, what an asshole. We rolled our eyes together and I got a smile. When I came in tonight she was behind the bar and she gave a ghost of a smile as we exchanged the briefest of pleasantries before I headed for a table in the back.

It was She Who Smiles Rarely who took my order. “Steak zhuh kurzhitschkafrig,” I said.

“Steak z ku?ecího?”

“Ano, Steak z kurzhetsho”

That went back and forth a couple of times. She knew exactly what I wanted, and she was helping me learn to say it. Steak from chicken thing, A local delicacy. Finally I punted on the pronunciation and just said “Dvah nahtct awesome”. They write down the order by number anyway. With a smile she drilled me on the correct pronunciation of 28. We worked out that I also wanted rice and she was gone.

It was her next visit I really scored. My beer was perilously close to empty and she came by and asked “One more beer?” In English. I mentioned in a previous episode that if they spoke english here I didn’t want to know about it. I waved my hands in the negative while I said, “Je

3

Thanks!

Hollywood Nights in Prague

Posted on by
9

Today began the shooting on fuego’s Top Secret movie project. They didn’t mention to fuego at the start the Top Secretness of the movie, which led to an ugly moment for the wayward Second AD, but now things are safely under wraps again and you can rest assured that none of the details of the film will be revealed herein.

There will be a few details about the kickoff party, to which fuego graciously invited me. I met lots of cool film people, mostly on the production side, and I enjoyed myself quite a bit. When we first arrived a very pretty girl greeted fuego warmly, and when her hints went completely ignored there was no ruboff on me whatsoever. It was only a matter of moments before she was being groped by the director and the director’s brother. The director, who I believe fuego now refers to as “Barbara” (rhymes with knee-high sloth), had his name on the back of his t-shirt and I think the shirt had his picture on the front but I may be wrong about that. It was dark and beer was free.

After Barbara (rhymes with knee-high sloth) and the girl disappeared for a while the director returned and came over and sat where fuego and I were hanging with some other folks. Actually, he didn’t sit, there was a couch along one side of the table and he sacked out on it. Maybe sacked out isn’t the right word, either — his posture wasn’t sleepy but he was very relaxed. He didn’t sit, he didn’t sack out, what he did was lounge, and he did a damn fine job of it. We talked for a bit and he seemed like a good guy, considering his name is Barbara (no offense, Mom). He even seemed genuinely interested when I said I was a writer, but his interest waned when I could cite no major publishing credits. By then he’d partially opened his fly and had his hand down his pants, making extensive and protracted adjustments. I found it difficult to converse in those circumstances.

I met another girl who fuego told me was the girlfriend of another friend of his. I’m guessing that won’t be the case much longer, although I suppose that depends on the sort of relationship they have. At one point, briefly, I thought she was hitting on me. I convinced myself that couldn’t be the case and at any rate I wouldn’t do something that could put fuego in a bad spot with his buddy. When she started hitting on the other guy there was no doubt. Sorry, Mortimer (rhymes with hairy).

This pseudonym thing is fun!

My mistake was going to Roma while I waited for fuego to finish work. It’s not that I had very many beers at Roma, and I didn’t have that many at the party, but combined, it was just too much. As far as I know I only made a complete ass of myself with one other person, but the potential number of people who are now saying, “I like fuego (rhymes with pill) but his brother (rhymes with dairy) is a jerk” is pretty large. I think for the most part I was fine, but that one chick was annoyed, if not downright cheesed. We won’t go into it. Other people were still smiling at me at the end of the evening, and at least I kept my hand out of my pants. And everyone else’s pants, for that matter.

Luckily it was about two and a half kilometers home from the second bar; a walk through the cool predawn air was just what I needed.

1

Thanks!

Never mind.

Posted on by
7

So I’m sitting here in the nice little café an easy stagger from where I live. The bartender strikes me as having gypsy blood – raven hair and striking blue eyes. It’s a good look. I could be wrong about the gypsy thing. I don’t even know how to ask. At the table next to mine is a blonde, taller than I am, I suspect, watching me write as she drinks her wine. Even though she can’t see the screen and even if she could she wouldn’t understand the words, I am self-conscious.

I think she knows I am alone, the same way I know she is alone. As long as the laptop is open, that’s all it will ever be.

Closing up the laptop now; maybe there’ll be another episode later. (Yeah. Right.)

Er, even as I typed the above she packed up and left. Timing, man, timing.

Skip forward. I’m still here in this bar, and there’s a german shepherd at my feet. His mistress is yet another beautiful woman, who is smoking right behind me. I have thoroughly won the dog over. I’m good with dogs. They rarely smoke. Owner of big dog attempted to speak with me when I had moved big dog to heights of ecstasy, but I just wimped out and talked to the pup. Lame. She knows now I don’t speak czech worth a crap, but I closed the door on any attempt to communicate. I’m such a dork.

It’s funny. I can ignore almost any human distraction in a bar, but when it’s dogs I’m sucked in. Another dog has arrived and that dog is barking love sonnets to my new best friend. Best friend’s owner has made it clear that she doesn’t want new dog anywhere close. “Let them play,” I thought. It seemed to me the iron-discipline chick was being a hardass, but then it dawned on me. The bitch is in heat. I’m referring to the dog, of course. When I wrote ‘he’ above I was mistaken. Never was too good at that stuff.

So the evening rolled on and I actually did talk to the girl and her friends more, but a lot of the time I was just smiling and nodding. I’ve never seen the little place so busy – it was still jumping at closing time. They have an outlet so I can plug in while I work there, so there’s not much reason for me to leave. All told I was there for almost twelve hours, working for about ten of them.

Thanks!

Shakespeare’s

Posted on by
Reply

I am in a gentle place. There are books all around. At the table next to me earlier was the editorial staff of a new literary magazine working out how to deal with a legal complaint because they have the same initials as another literary magazine here. I should have introduced myself, but they were all so earnest and young and passionate and shit and really I don’t have time for that right now. I’ll drop them an email.

The music here is gentle. There are electric guitars and stuff, but they don’t get too carried away. Right now they are playing a pop song that underneath is Pachelbel’s canon. That’s OK, the P-man laid down a good tune. It is being followed by one of U2’s less aggressive tracks (notably, not With Or Without You, which starts out a lot like Pachelbel’s canon). Mellow white American music. No, U2 is not Irish anymore. Just listen to their music. It’s good, but it ain’t no Bloody Sunday.

The people in this place are, at least on the surface, gentle. They read books, speak softly to one another, and shout into their mobile phones. The crowd is young and more than half are American. Moments ago I broke down and spoke english to the girls at the table next to mine. More on that later, if my battery holds up.

It is a gentle place, and I am editing The Test. By coincidence I am working on the most graphically violent bit of writing I have ever done. It’s a powerful scene, and there’s no getting around it, and to pull my punches would weaken the story, but there’s no denying that it’s ugly. I will be embarrassed when Mom reads it. I’m embarrassed the idea of it came out of my head.

But it did, and there’s no taking it back now. If you want to show the evil of slavery, you have to show what happens to the slaves. While technically slavery is an abomination in the depicted society, the enormous gap between rich and poor has created a de facto slavery that is just as bad. So here I am, contemplating violence and degradation, the crushing of the human spirit, while I sit in a very nice bar drinking very good beer.

OK, the girls at the next table. They are at the table the editorial staff held before, and one of those left a sweater. The presence of the unclaimed wool has chased people from the table even when the rest of the bar was pretty full. A girl came in, and hesitated by the table. I had the laptop closed, conserving electrons while I contemplated the worst things that one human could do to another. I glanced her way and she asked with gestures whether the table was taken. I gestured that it was not. I wondered if she was czech and took me for american or whether she was american and took me for a czech.

The answer came when the waiter approached. She’s American. She’s moving out of town, and she doesn’t know how to say ashtray in czech. I don’t know either, but I don’t smoke. When her friend showed up I broke my vow of Czech to offer sell them the sweater. They didn’t buy it.

There was another girl in here earlier, very pretty, with her German Shepherd and her American Boyfriend (in that order). I don’t know where she was from, because her voice didn’t ring out across the small room. Probably she was czech, then. The dog was a sweetheart. There are no dogs in the scenes of terrible violence I honed to a knife’s edge today. I have that to be thankful for.

Thanks!

Pub 12

Posted on by
1

I am in the Slovak version of an English pub. I was hoping for a pale ale of some sort, but the Guinness is mighty fine. I just got here, so there’s not much to say yet. There’s a strong wireless signal, but the network has been secured.

European history will be marked by the

* * *

Time has passed and I have been pleasantly interrupted by a distractingly attractive bartender, a black frenchman who works for IBM, and a hungarian family on holiday. All of them in their own ways mark European history, but for the life of me I’ll never know what great wisdom I was prepared to impart above. There I was, on the verge of bringing the continents together, predicting the future for crying out loud, and I forgot what I was going to say. Woe, continents! I have condemned you to continue your drift, aimless and destructive.

There’s a cover of California Dreamin’ running around, and while it’s pretty damn disco, all the leaves are brown here, and the sky is often gray. I wear long pants and socks all the time. If I were back in San Diego on a Friday afternoon I’d be at Callahan’s or Tiki, doing much what I’m doing now, but it would be warm outside. I would have taken off my shades when I went in. I would have kicked off my shoes (although at Joe’s Place (r.i.p.) stealing my shoes and hiding them was a matter of sport for a while). But California, while a legend, is not a myth. The days are easy there, and the nights are warm. The women are as beautiful as science can achieve, and there are good cheap beer nights if you know where to look.

It’s nice.

I’ve been in Europe for a few months now, and I can’t help but think where I’m going next. It’s cowardly, really. I have heard many times people speak with admiration about what I have done and continue to do, but in the end, what does it pile up to? If I never stay still, I never have to form attachments. I have a bit coming up at Piker Press about that – I really hadn’t planned the story to come out that way, but it just happened. I’ve slowed down my submission rate over there because most of my short bits have the same tone and I want people to say “Hey! Cool! There’s one by Jerry this week!” Instead of “I read it last week.”

I’m rambling now, not writing, which by the title of this here blog I’m allowed to do, but I don’t want to alienate any more regulars, so I’ll stop.

Thanks!

Dateline: Liptovský Hrádok, Slovakia

Posted on by
11

It was a pleasant trip down here yesterday. fuego did the driving, MaK the navigating, and I the passengering. To navigate in this country you have to know the names of every damn village and cottage between your start point and your destination — referring to roads by number at an intersection is rare, and using the same town name at two consecutive intersections also seems to be against the rules. Sometimes even when you do recognize a town name on a sign it’s difficult to tell what intersection the sign is referring to.

One wrong turn eventually led us to a little place whose name translated (with only a little license on my part) to “Snowville”. It was pretty and appropriately named. The snow was coming down hard as we went through, and it seemed that everyone in town was out with shovels. We got to see the village twice, as we reached a dead end at the far end of town. The road went on, but when we asked a guy if we could get through he said “maybe in a Jeep.”

Eventually we got here and settled in. This place is nice, and very inexpensive. We have the bottom floor of a house — two bedrooms and a fully-equipped kitchen — for less than $30 per night.

Once we settled in it was time to set out in search of pivo and a bite to eat. We quickly discovered that options are limited in L. Hradek. We walked down to the most center-of-town-like area and surveyed our options, but one place had the wrong kind of beer, one was an English-style Pub which was right out as far as MaK was concerned, and one was a not-so-special hotel restaurant. Finally we asked some people on the street where a good place to go would be. After much discussion, first directing us to one place and then another, we said we just wanted to go to a place to have a nice beer and relax. One of the guys took charge, and walked with us to a place very close to our little home away from home. The man said hello to everyone in the pub, including the kitchen help.

It wasn’t a fancy place at all, but it was comfortable. It is part of a hotel that serves a sports complex; I assume it is where teams stay when they visit. We sat, our beers came, MaK chugged hers in the Czech fashion, and we settled in for a nice meal. My dinner was excellent. While sipping my dessert beer I said to fuego, “You know what I like about this place? It’s not smoky.”

fuego looked around and noticed that there were no ash trays on the tables. It turns out we were in a non-smoking bar. fuego asked if this was a Slovak law, and the bartender said no, they just didn’t want people smoking in there. I honestly never thought I would find anything like that in Eastern Europe, where tobacco is a food group. When we were done we bought some beers to go and made the short walk back here, tired, happy, and not smelling of smoke. It was a good day.

Thanks!

Doesn’t ANYone here speak English?

Posted on by
3

There are two waitresses at U Sladečku, a.k.a. Crazy Daisy, who I have taken as a personal challenge. Both are brunette, slender, and pretty. If either speaks English I don’t want to know about it. One of them I have dubbed the Anti-Amy. Put Amy and the Anti-Amy side-by-side and they could easily pass as sisters. At least, until they start talking. Or, well, when Amy starts talking. The anti-Amy doesn’t say a whole lot. To anyone.

The czechs, I am often reminded, are a reserved people. That’s OK with me; I’m fairly reserved myself. Amy is not reserved. Not at all.

The Anti-Amy was not working today, but the other she-of-the-hard-won-smile was. Compared to the Anti-Amy she’s a ball of fire, which means on occasion she will toss a litte half-smile my way when I fuck up the czech badly enough but in a sincere way. Also working tonight was a skinny blonde with bad teeth who on rare occasions is almost friendly.

I sat with my back to the wall farthest from the door, next to the piano upon which menus are stacked. I settled in with a beer and a bowl of soup and looked for more parts of The Test that I could delete. (I found a bit I really liked that had been orphaned – it really hurt to delete “The madman Lawrence is back.” “He’s better then?” “I’m not sure. He seems all right, but he has your finger. He says he wants to return it.” You don’t get chances to write stuff like that often.) ANYway, I was unwriting along and a piano player settles in on his little red pillow and starts tickling the ivories. I had been about to leave, but I prolonged my stay.

By this time the place is pretty crowded, and all the open tables have “reserved” tags on them. I feel kind of bad taking up a table at times like that, but I’ve noticed that Crazy Daisy has a pretty plastic definition of “reserved”. At a certain time of night they want to make sure their tables are used efficiently. So it was that there were several tables unoccupied but reserved. It’s all about asking nicely. I sat in my corner, watching the ebb and flow of the bar, listening to the piano, and working on a part of the story that still makes me misty (embarrassing when you’re sitting next to the piano player, facing the whole bar).

“Do you have menus in english?” comes the voice across the room in unmistakable New York. “Do you speak English?” he throws at Smiles-Only-Rarely with hostility and disdain. He turns to the whole bar, his arms spread wide. “Does ANYBODY here speak English?”

Smiles-Only-Rarely turns away from the abuse to fetch the menus from where they sit next to my head. I catch her eye and smile ruefully, shaking my head, skrunching my eyes in a pained expression. Is it? Yes it is! A fleeting smile. She collects two menus and turns back into their sarcastic entitled bitchiness. He’s continuing to be a complete asshat, and suddenly Smiles-Only-Rarely notices, seemingly for the first time, the “reserved” tag on the table. Alas, all the other tables are reserved as well. No room in the inn. His New York victimhood fully confirmed, he escorts his wife out in a self-righteous huff. See ya, pal. Some of us have to live here after you convince everyone that Americans are jerks.

Smiles-Only-Rarely returns with the unneeded menus. She looks at me again. “New York,” I said, shaking my head. “Even Americans hate them.” I don’t know if she understood me, I doubt she did, but I got a real, honest-to-God smile. I love New York.

Thanks!

The Roma Time Warp

Posted on by
13

Pizzeria Roma. It’s a nice place. Friendly service, good pizza, not too smoky most days, it’s a place to go and get things done. fuego and I met there Wednesday with a full agenda. Vacuum cleaners to sell, scripts to discuss. Writer stuff. I got there at about four in the afternoon to find fuego marking up some copy for the vacuum catalog.

I settled in across from him and tried to get my brain around another in a series of short stories that begins with Moonlight Sonata. This one, I have a character and I have the theme, but the story was stuck. So while I rambled on in the hope of stumbling across a story fuego was pounding his head against why this particular vacuum cleaner is superior to all others.

Time passed. Since neither of us was enjoying tremendous success, we were starting to interrupt each other, to talk about more interesting things. fuego punted on Zepter and hauled out his laptop, and produced an item that can only have negative long-term consequences—a splitter to allow us to plug in to the already-occupied outlet. There is now no limit to how long we can stay.

And when I say no limit, I mean just that. Roma never closes. So we sat and discussed a short screenplay adaptation of a thing I wrote you have never read, discussed the script competition it is targeted for (which may not even happen this year), and came to an understanding about the feel of the whole piece. We thought about shots but didn’t really get into the dialog so much. This story will be much more adaptable than other things I wrote. So we got some good stuff done on that.

Then, out came Zepter again. There’s a big pile of copy here for just one friggin vacuum cleaner. Naturally, being me, I had many opinions to express and now I’m a co-writer for this crap. We spent some time bashing our heads against that. (Copy writing is hard—not only do you need to be interesting, you have to be informative and not provably false.)

fuego and I wrapped up at last, having advanced the art on many fronts but without a breakthrough. The last phase of the evening was spent marking up paper, so I didn’t have my computer’s clock in front of me. fuego checked his phone, and his eyes bugged out, just a little bit. “Do you know what time it is?” he asked me.

I knew by the way he asked that it was way later than I thought. I thought it was probably about 2 a.m., so I added a couple of hours and guessed “Ummm… four?”

“Almost six-thirty,” he said. “Dang.”

As I walked the two miles home in the dawn’s early light, I reflected that Pizzeria Roma has done something that Einstein and his bunch had given up on. There in an innocuous semi-subterranean all-night restaurant, the laws of the space-time continuum as we know it have been suspended. Perhaps there is a black hole in there, somewhere near the oven, that they installed to hasten pizza service, and its effects are felt throughout the bar. Perhaps the pizza sauce is laced with a subtle psychotic drug that deadens the consumer’s sense of time passing. Whatever it is, I want the rest of my Wednesday back. Not that I was doing anything useful with it—it’s just the principle of the thing.

Thanks!

The bar in the park whose name escapes me at the moment

Posted on by
5

This is a nice place. It is the place fuego and MaK will have a party the day after they are married (no pants day). I expect, in deference to the bride, I will wear pants on that occasion, as indeed I am wearing pants right now.

I am in the corner of the large room, on a raised area where bands set up, looking out over the main area. Snow is falling outside, and czech punk rock (complete with accordion) is playing on the sound system. The beer is exceptionally good here. There is a cast-iron stove burning merrily and keeping this place a little warmer than warm enough. As I write this the bartender is adding more fuel. Strictly speaking, I could be quite comfortable without pants right now, except for the looks of shock and revulsion from the other patrons.

The whole pants thing leads me to reflect on how many days in a row I’ve worn long pants and even — gasp! — socks. It’s a different life here, that’s for sure. Takes some getting used to. On the plus side, you haven’t heard me lament forgetting my sunscreen lately. The suntan I got driving across the deserts of the American southwest with the top down is gone now. Now I’m in the climate my complexion evolved to deal with.

A question: Why do white americans, who enjoy tremendous advantages over blacks, work so hard to turn their skin as dark as they can, to the point of giving themselves cancer?

To my left is a reminder of a difference between American bars and Czech ones. In the US, when you see a girl drinking beer in a bar, you can assume with reasonable confidence that she is of a certain age. While that age is appearing younger and younger to me every year, there are two girls who have been here longer than I have, and they are young. I think only one of them is drinking beer, however.

I’m listening to tři sestry cover the old Sex Pistols classic EMI. It rocks, but you can’t really hear the accordion.

The dog at the next table is looking at me funny. Friggin’ poodles. Excuse me while I go pick a fight…

Thanks!