I read the news today, oh boy

I've been called out on the infrequency of this web log by both Hetzners. "Remiss," says Erik. "Irregular," says Ian. Admitted. For them, I'm going to try to do a "day in the life" post - a no-point, factual piece that will give a few details of my life in Prague. Fear not, it will gloss over the boring stuff and most likely include many, many digressions.

It's Friday, and I wake at quarter to nine. I have my Czech lessons today. I stumble around my apartment, groggy and cold until about nine thirty. Normally, I head down to the "cafe' zhardska" for a quick cappucino before going to class. But today class is going to be held in a cafe, so I don't bother. Besides, I'm really tired of the Euro-trash-pop radio station they always have on in the cafe, and I haven't really figured out how to order drinks to go. Ok, so I'm a goober.

Digression 1: I've finally found a way to truly laze around - don't drink coffee. The other day, I had nothing to do, and skipped morning coffee. I found myself pleasantly out-of-it, and where normally I might have stayed inside, doing stupid things with more energy, I went out and puttered around in the sun. Good day.

Digression 1a: The Czech people haven't yet caught on to the fancy naming trend we have. One brand of water is simply "Dobrá voda" - translates to "Good Water". This is everywhere - Good this, good that. I find it simple and effective, as far as advertising goes.

Czech Class today is unusual in a couple of respects - usually it is held in a very nice apartment (dobrý byt) that's owned by my teacher, Miroslav. But the rains came this week, and his roof leaked for what's apparently the third time. We hold class in a small bar down the street. Also unusual is the absence of my classmate, Julianna. Julianna is an Irish lady, a mother whose husband has been transferred to Prague and looks to be staying for at least 5 years. It sounds like a hard life. Julianna is not bad as a student, although she doesn't put too much effort into correct pronunciation - but maybe she does, and it's just really hard to kill off an accent. I know my lazy california "A" sound tends to drop too far into my throat, which Miroslav corrects - but I can't really hear the difference.

Miroslav himself is somewhere in his 30s, somewhat stout, and probably the most energetic teacher I have ever had. I'm reminded somewhat of an analogy made about my sister's driving habits: "Like a rat on speed." Beginning language teachers, strangely, have to be the most skilled of all language teachers. You have to be fluent in at least two languages, have a good grasp of the mechanics of your own language, and be very very patient. Especially with Czech, because it has about a zillion rules.

Today we sat in the cafe, drank coffee, smoked cigarettes, and did a review. We did basic nouns, verb (werb) conjugation, and the accusative form of basic nouns.

Digression #2: I have no idea why Miroslav says "werb" instead of "verb". The czechs have a perfectly good "vuh" sound, in fact it's all over the place. Perhaps "werb" is in-joke, but I don't get it.

The accusative form is meant to denote the object of a subject sentence. In Czech, you have to change the endings of pretty much everything - adjectives, verbs, and nouns. So whereas a cup of coffee is simply "kava", if you want to buy coffee you have to say "Dám sí kavu." Then there's about 8 or 9 different classes of nouns, (masculine & soft|hard ending & animate|inanimate, feminine & soft|hard ending, neuteur & soft|hard ending). Mercifully, some of these classes of nouns aren't declined. It still is a lot to know just to order lunch, though. We've talked about this - the first month of class is not inherently useful in the outside world - in Czech, one seems to have to spend quite a bit of time on the building blocks.

Class ends, and I grab my skateboard and head up the street near the modern art museum of Prague. There's some music happening today, and it sounds great - Eastern European female acapella group, lots of yipping and beautiful singing. But it's too bleeding cold out today to linger. I skate on, down into the park. This is a large park on the northwest side of Prague, next to a large convention hall and the T-Mobile Arena (where last entry's Ice Hockey match was held). Again, it's a cold day, and the park is nearly empty - perfect for skating around.

I work for awhile on my ollie. For those who don't know, this is the most basic and fundamental skateboard trick. It involves slamming the tail of the board on the ground, then jumping and pulling the board into the air with your front foot. With me, it usually looks like a fish attempting to skip down the sidewalk - I'm getting closer, but I usually mess up either slamming the board on the ground, or pulling the board into the air. The former involves the board flying out in front of me, the latter involves coming down hard on my right foot. My right ankle is complaining very loudly these days - it's over-used in skateboarding. You push off with your right foot, jump off onto your right foot when you're going far too fast down a hill, and generally abuse the hell out of it.

I skate around the back side of the convention center, and decide to have a little lunch at one of the many, many food stands around the place. The convention center itself is quite gorgeous - it looks like a modern parisian palace. Very nice. Lunch today is "Smažený sýr, hranolký a malé pivo." This is a breaded and deep-fried cheese, french fries (with tartar sauce), and a small beer. The whole thing costs about 3 bucks. I watch people buying tickets for the convention center, and notice that it's for the "erotica 2004 sex praha". I notice the class of people - the geeky tourists, the greasy men, and the young girl / older man combination that I can't quite get a handle on. It's about this time that I start drafting this post in my head, and immediately I am stuck with the hook from "A good day" by Ice Cube. This will stay in my head all the way home, annoyingly enough.

I catch the metro home. The entry-way to my flat smells of sauerkraut, and I curse my neighbors in my head. They are possibly the least-friendly people I know in Prague. Every time they see me, their faces assume a expression of fear and disgust. When I locked myself out, I cried out piteously to one of them for help as I was sleeping on my doorstep. Granted, they probably thought I was high or something, and I couldn't effectively communicate, but still. Stop for at least a fucking minute and try to understand when someone's locked out.

Ok, now I'm just getting spiteful at my neighbors, so I'd better stop.

Zen and the art of not understanding

The question I get asked the most, anywhere, is "Why Prague?" I'll easily admit that I really don't have a good answer. "No reason," I say. This often leaves a confused and somewhat uncomfortable look on the face of whoever I'm talking to. The conversation splits a few ways from here. The helpful ones - the ones that like me already - usually start to offer reasons:
- Cheap beer. (Did I mention that the beer is cheap in Prague?)
- Beautiful women.
- Decent climate.

And I agree - I don't see anything wrong with these things, in fact I'm definitely in favor of all of them. But I feel that it's somehow wrong to actually subscribe to this list of reasons; the reasons for going anywhere or doing anything, I feel, are motivated by a deep set of emotions, circumstances, and mindset.

But here's the great thing about doing things for no readily available reason: you get to make them up as you go along.
-sequiter.

I went to an Ice-Hockey game with my new buddy (I'm not big on the term "buddy", but Radko uses it a lot, so what the hell) Radko. Radko's a travelling guy, works as a sales manager something-or-other for a company that does home integration. He's passionately Czech - loves knedlik (terrible Czech dumplings), Smazheny syr (fried cheese things) and treats Pilsner Urquell (Plzen in Prague) as something of a religous experience. Optimistic, friendly, speaks very good english - a good guy to know.

Anyway, so we're at the hockey game, my first. After the second period, I step out in the parking lot for a cigarette, while Radko goes to the bathroom. Suddenly, I'm in a large crowd of people, all smoking and chatting and doing everything that one generally does on breaks. I can't understand a word - maybe if I listened to one conversation at a time I could pick out the gist, or at least recognize a couple of words. But here's the thing:

It sounds beautiful. Like birds chirping. Or crickets, really loud crickets.

It's then that I formulated my reason for coming here. When you understand what's going on around you, you begin to not see things. It's probably a very useful thing: brain says "yup, seen that, I know what it is. Next!" But when surrounded by strange and unfamiliar surroundings, you get do a couple of things:

One, you can live much more in a fantasy world. The couple sitting next to you on the subway might be discussing the finer points of Borges, or Dostoyvsky. You never know!

But more importantly, you are freed to actually think about the way things are. The construction of things. Your brain is forced out of its groove, to re-examine what it finds. The experience can be very primal (I found myself very frightened in an unknown part of the city last night), or very analytical, like a child constantly asking questions about the world, and coming to some initial conclusions. But either way, you're learning something, and looking at the world slightly differently than before.

Buy it? That's why I came to Prague. Maybe.

Later that evening (after ice-hockey), I spent an hour or so with Radko and his friends in a bar in Stare Mesto (old-town). It was much the same miscomprehension - "what was that word?" "Are they discussing something interesting?" ("Is Radko talking about me?" There's that egotistical child coming around.) Who knows. The conversation drops into English for a few minutes when the topic of American cities comes up, but for the most part I'm left without much comprehension. And I'm left to invent stories about the faces I see, and to struggle with all my might to catch the drift of the conversation.

While walking home, Radko turns to me and mutters disgustedly, "All we talked about was flights. Flights, fucking, and drugs."

Well

You've not lived until you've broken into your own apartment through a high bathroom window, half-drunk, removing the window from the hinges, hoping no one calls the police, etc. American resourcefulness strikes again. Or something.

Also - the importance of specific words. I can say "I don't have ..." (my keys). Nemam' ... but I have no idea what the word for "key" is. I can also say: "Prosim vas, vime kde ... ", which is "Excuse me please, do you know where..." but I have no idea how to say "where the landlord lives".

Also. I have bought a skateboard. this is silly, you say. Well, yes.

Quickly, I have learned to hate the following:
-cracks in the sidewalk
-the fact that most of Prague is not paved, but laid out in stone in a very pretty fasion
-Cars
-Pedestrians

But I had a good deal of fun today skating around. I feel it's mostly idiotic to try take up skateboarding at 24, but then again, what the hell. I had my first spill, hurt my elbow, and continued on.

Another also: I am happy to be back in Prague. I visited london last weekend, and long story short, I found myself walking down the street on Tuesday smiling all to hell that I was back in my semi-adoptive town. I really do love this place.

ChoozaPalooza

My company, GarageBand.com, is announcing a ten-city voter-registration tour called "ChoozaPalooza." A ten-city tour with 11 cities, natch. We rip off Spinal Tap at each and every opportunity.

Next week, they're going on a winnebago trip, holding free concerts to showcase independent musicians from each city they visit and register voters for the coming U.S. election (get that bozo outta there), hitting 6 states from the Midwest to the East Coast.

If you can, help support the causes of voter registration and local music: make a small contribution and get a cool T-shirt. Check 'em out at http://www.ChoozaPalooza.com.

Also, for any of y'all with friends or relatives in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, or Pennsylvania, please e-mail this to them so they can attend a local event. There's a full schedule on the website.

ChoozaPalooza - It's like a walk for charity, except we drive everywhere and have a stupid name.

Colonize Mars, damnit!

Hanging out at Propoganda the other night, I met a Czech artist named Ilka. My toady-ish method of actually entering into a conversation was to ask to see his portfolio. He had shown it to most of the patrons at the bar, all of whom had feigned a passing interest in his art. Now I'm not sure if this is a good habit or not, but when I first meet someone, I can be a charming motherfucker. It's seems like a biological reaction of sorts, and usually fades pretty quickly - as many of you know - but it's there, and useful. So I asked to see his portfolio, and actually took a decent look at some of the Japanese-ish ink drawings contained therein.

Conversation eventually turned to America, the war, all of that stuff. When I'm actually in the country, I'm horrified at what we're doing in the world. But whenever I meet a foreigner who begins to criticize America, a sort of misguided patriotism arises. (Footnote: I once drove a British and an Australian girl to Mount Rushmore. The Aussie commented "It's not that big." Same feeling.)
I try to stifle it and look with some sort of reality on the situation.

Ilka had his own view on America, and what it should do. Specifically, if America was to lead the world, it must have a vision, a dream. And that vision should be to colonize Mars. I attempted to impress upon him the difficulties with this plan - the speed of light is going to kick your ass everyday, I said. He was having none of it. Colonize Mars. Yeah.

On a wooden post beside the bar, was a postcard, with a picture of Prague, four flags in each corner, one American, one British, one German, and one French. A headline read "welcome our liberators". At that moment, I began to understand a bit better what was going on. The Czechs have historically been kind of a fucked over people. The Nazis set up shop in Prague, and the Russians didn't really help much after that. So when the Soviet Union collapsed under what in all likelihood was it's own idiocy, they bought into the myth that in fact, America and others had liberated them from the yoke of communism.

But heroes often fail, as the song goes. And now the conquering heroes are beginning to look like the bungling idiots that we always were. And worse. I attempted to impress this on Ilka, but he was having none of it.

Colonize Mars.

Also, I miss you all, and California. The things they do to Mexican food here are atrocious.