Hot Rods and Unhot Bods
My recent wanderings around San Francisco took me to the opposite side of the Bay, to lovely San Rafael, a community tucked into wooded foothills at the southern end of super rich Marin County. The day I arrived the town happened to be hosting that most American of events—a classic car show. Main Street—or whatever the central drag through San Rafael was actually called—had been closed down, and more than three-hundred gleaming examples of mostly citrus-colored automotive artistry were on display.
Sadly, nothing much of interest happened at this extravaganza, but I did see some mighty nice rides and felt compelled to post them here. It occurred to me that the whole event seemed to exist in an eddy where time had stopped moving forward
around the time
American Graffiti first hit the cinemas. Back then gas was plentiful and inexpensive, the American greenback reigned supreme, and the only thing anyone knew about the Middle East was that it had camels.
Walking around in this time bubble, I wished some of my international friends were with me. The streets were packed with the exact type of Americans they hate, but have never actually met. Yes, there were real patriots out and about—people who vote red, travel by motorhome, and believe global warming is nothing more than a confabulation of the liberal media. Freedom fries, anyone?
I’m willing to mount my political stallion and brandish the leftist standard any time I find myself within the camp of the enemy, but it’s pretty hard when faced with these all-American types because they’re so fucking nice. The car show was a reminder
that I actually like these people. For one thing, they’re amiable. Just can’t get around that fact. They are also polite. Spend a little time in Los Angeles or New York and you get the feeling those particular Americans are just a nudge away from going Patrick Bateman on you. But these all-American types believe—incredibly—that the world is uncomplicated.
Faced with so many grinning examples of the species, I started to wonder if perhaps they were right. Look at this guy below with an engine on his head (and a gearbox or something coming out of his ass). Does he look like he has a worry in the world? Certainly he wants people to believe he doesn’t. What will be will be, he seems to be saying, even if the Buddha physique he's sporting hints at an angioplasty on his sunny horizon. But potbellies were the norm that day. This is where all the obese
Americans had gotten to, it seemed, because I wasn't seeing any in sleek and toned San Francisco. In fact, I can only say one thing for certain about the day in San Rafael—when regular Americans come out of the woodwork, you see some seriously unattractive people. For me, that’s reason enough to live overseas.
Prague Again, and a San Fran Chicken Bus
While Ari was spending May Day being smoke bombed in Prague, I spent Cinco de Mayo wandering around San Francisco and coincidentally found myself at a café called Prague. I was touring the town with my English friend Kim, who was passing through on her way to Oz via Cuba. I’d met Kim in Guatemala, where her humor made her a favorite among my friends. Accompanying us were Steve, who I have traveled with many times to places like Mexico and Portugal, and Dan, who was the impetus behind my Iceland trip, and whose antics are detailed in the posts Flags of Our Soccer Hooligans, Part 1 & Part 2. Dan flew to Guatemala for two of my three birthday fortnights there, and, being a stuntman, generally raised hell. He’s also Ari’s cousin, and we met working together at
South Park, before he got his stunt career going. Hope you got all that.
So it was Cinco de Mayo, and Kim, Dan, Steve and I were all in San Francisco sitting in a café called Prague. Kim had never been to the Bay and had suggested a walking tour. The tour morphed into a pub crawl—everything morphs into a pub crawl with me because, truly, I like to get to know a city through its watering holes. Our crawl started at Prague (sedate, relaxing), moved to a place in Chinatown called the Buddha Bar (dingy, suspect), and thence downtown to the famous Irish Bank Bar. The Bank Bar is a lively place, with the wooden décor typical of its ilk, and an outdoor section set up in an alley between two tall brick buildings. The crowd was businessclones and financiers all the way, with a few local hipsters mixed in. Around 5 p.m. all this changed when a chicken bus pulled up in the mouth of the alley.
As most Central American travelers can explain, a chicken bus is an American school bus converted for use as intramunicipal transport. Because it is more cost-effective for poor countries than buying and operating modern buses, nations like Guatemala and El Salvador buy old U.S. school buses and use them as the backbone of their transportation system. Individual owners pimp the buses and what results is something that wouldn’t look out of place at your local drag strip. In Guatemala
these transformations are taken to the nth degree. We’re talking muscled-out engines, glitter paint jobs, chrome exhausts, crazy lighting systems, stereos that could drive a house party, and—always—a beloved's name emblazoned on the sides. The “chicken bus” moniker is derived from the myth that if you ride one, there will invariably be chickens running in the aisles. In truth, these buses get so packed that any animal would quickly be crushed. I’ve never seen animals or any other commercial cargo ride anywhere but on top, in crates or cages lashed to the luggage rack.
Anyway, like an apparition conjured from my memory, this chicken bus appeared at the Irish Bank Bar. Out tumbled about twenty Mexicans, along with a five-piece mariachi band, and some model types dressed in black tops and miniskirts. This crowd poured into the alley and began singing and dancing, as the model types distributed maracas and sombreros. Pretty soon there was a real party going on, and quite a few members of the suit-and-tie army were trying to make time with the freespirited models. I finally asked one of the girls what was going on, and she explained that this was the latest stop for them on an all day Cinco de Mayo pub crawl. I’m not sure if I knew it was Cinco de Mayo until that moment. I’ve sort of lost track of American holidays over the years (yes, I’m calling Cinco de Mayo an American holiday, just like St. Patrick’s Day).
After perhaps an hour the partiers gathered to head on to the next destination. I asked one of the model types if we could join them. She said, “Hell yeah, absolutely.” Not long afterward we were on the chicken bus. What I liked most about this part is that other people tried to crash the party and were turned away. I guess the Cinco de Mayo crazies could tell we were cool folk, useful at a party. Actually, while part of my motivation for joining the crowd was that I knew wherever they were going would be fun, I also wanted to see what it felt like to ride on a chicken bus in San Francisco. So much of my life has revolved around these things. I still remember my first chicken bus ride, into the wilds of El Salvador in search of the Tortuga Surf Lodge, only to end up lost at a coastal crossroads.
Inside, the San Fran bus was exactly as I remembered—too many people packed into seats meant for grade-schoolers, and a loud sound system blasting ranchero music. Where this bus beat those in Central America is that there was a giant tub of Tecates on ice, shots of tequila being poured, and mariachis playing in between bumps. It was a great nostalgia trip. In Guatemala I eventually boycotted the chicken buses, mainly because
gringos always have to fight not to be cheated on the fares. It was draining after a while. No matter how good my Spanish was, nor how savvy I was about the local customs, my black skin told the
cobrador—the fare collector—that I was a foreigner ripe for cheating. Whites have to deal with this too, of course—
cobradores are equal opportunity cheaters. Eventually I learned to simply give the correct fare and ignore anything else that was said to me. Sometimes this worked fine, but other times the
cobrador threatened to toss me off the bus if I didn't pony up more
quetzales. My answer was always something along the lines of: “Go ahead, if you can.” I never got tossed off a bus. But even winning these battles felt like losing somehow, and after a year of this I finally went totally bougie and simply chartered a car whenever I had to travel.
But this particular day in San Fran, riding a chicken bus was about the coolest thing I could imagine. After a twenty minute journey we were deposited at another bar and more mariachi was played, more dances danced, more shots knocked back, until around sunset the party petered out. Everyone was headed home to get refreshed for the real partying later that night. We walked out into the San Francisco dusk with no idea where we were. Not only had the bus taken a circuitous route, its windows had been covered with banners and placards, making it impossible to see where we were going. We stood on a corner to hail a cab and a guy in a Lincoln town car stopped at the light and gave us the eye. After a moment he yelled that he’d give us a ride wherever we needed to go. Turns out he was the owner of a limousine service—FG Limo—and a hell of a nice guy. If you’re ever in the Bay and need a sweet ride, Rufus J. Fields is the man. For the price of a comparable cab ride he took us in luxury back to where we’d started—Prague.
Labels: chicken bus, cinco de mayo, guatemala, prague café
Prague Spring and More Absinthe
I promised myself no more absinthe, since this was my second visit to Prague in this lifetime. This time around, I wished to explore the capital of the Bohemian kingdom a different way. Already saw the castle and the cathedrals and every beer cellar over 500 hundred years old. Good things, no doubt, but this time around I needed to feel something a bit more modern and day to day. So I only had one beer on the plane, and made it to the Charles Bridge from the airport via bus and metro, all by myself. Feeling like such a big boy, I went on to meet up with my Helsinki mate who'd extended the invitation, and started sharing time with some new characters.
Actually, the first night of the trip, I did see Stan the Man rip up the guitar at
Glen's again. But that's what you do on a Monday night in Prague, and the cellar was packed with locals, travelers, expats, and tourists alike. I also haunted a few pubs and cellars I had before, and I did stroll across the Charles Bridge more than a few times. But this time I had local rabbit and moose paté, as well as the usual cabbage soup or goulash. Definitely did not shy away from drinking beer with lunch. This is Bohemia after all, and Staropramen and Pilsner Urquell remain great draws. They may not run as cheap as 50 cents a half liter anymore, but about 1 euro on average does not make me cry. But spring fever does make want to me cry—all the way to church to thank god, any god, for excellent work in the continuing evolution of gorgeous beer maidens.
So back to the topic at hand. On May Day, had moose paté, followed by farmer's dumplings, sauerkraut, with a bloody mary to start. As a recovering barman, I always appreciate the classics, and this lunch establishment delivered a good, balanced, breakfast of champions in a glass. I finished the paté, then we heard it. Boom. Yep, that was a smoke bomb, right outside the front door of the restaurant. I noted excellent timing on our part, since we had drinks on the table, some nutrition in our stomachs, and a round of beer on the way.
Then the tourists made themselves obvious by approaching the window to take pictures. But in my experience political rallies are often on the edge of becoming outright riots, so I'd learned to stay away from the windows. A girl who sat at the table with me and my friend said it must be the anarchists. Sure enough, the kids were running around the street without any order of procession, setting off another smoke bomb. With colorful hair, piercings, and discount tattoos everywhere, they were ready to make their statement.
And here came their cause
du jour—the fucking neo-nazis had organized a march, complete with police escort. I knew this looked worse than reality. I
hoped it looked worse than reality. Anarchists never deal with the law, and nazis need order like a toddler refusing to wean; therefore, it appeared the Czech state goons, er, officers, protected the skinheads and pushed away the street punks. This modern spin on
Quadrophenia (or was that
West Side Story?), capped off quickly. The actors had their motivation, yet knew nothing about getting out of character. The tourist table next to us took a picture of a punk urinating in the street between two cars.
We skipped dessert.
Willing to wait out the battle between dumb new order and even younger chaos, we sipped our beers and made prudent plans. We would stroll through parks along the River Ultava, then find a cool beer garden we hadn't seen before, sit down, drink beer, and observe. Enjoy Prague in spring. My friend figured he could call up some old friends to join us. Since they were all struggling artists, they were waking up in the early afternoon, and had no problem having one or two beers before work. They just needed time to gather up the courage to go outside. Our friend who brought us to lunch had to run off to work, and suggested we meet up later at the pub for the Liverpool/Chelsea match. Funny thing about Europe, no matter where you go, football goes on.
Sitting on a terrace of an old flour mill, we enjoyed feeling the Earth rotate in the universe. Some of the locals and expats told me how Prague is mainly an atheist society. Funny, I could understand maintaining a large community as generally secular, but I never heard anyone say this is all atheist. But I noticed the cathedrals and synagogues are concert halls more often, and people do not attend mass or temple in droves as in Mediterranean countries. Bohemia commanded a different kind of pilgrimage.
The beer maiden came to the table with another round, and I had to find a god again, any god, just to give a nod, a thumbs up, more acknowledgments for nice work. As I walk my path to hell, any hell, I like to try and make out the local graffiti and figure out how people express themselves. Prague is the film capital of Europe, due to the low costs of location shooting and extensive experience in theater, it seems. A local helped to translate a few things which seemed to be out of Robin Hood. The stuff in the bathroom seemed somewhat more political. Quite a great place to take one's time for political expression. As we moved on to the pub to catch the football, I reflected on the day. May Day in my hometown of Helsinki has a different vibe. Then again, many things have a different vibe when compared to a spring afternoon in Prague. The grass, the leaves, the flowers, and the aroma cannot compare to anything else.
Time for another beer, and we hit the pub, missing the kickoff by about ten minutes. Not a thing to worry about, since friends of friends I just met had a few chairs free. The beer came to the table at a casual pace, but on a busy night, I could never get upset over casual service. When in Bohemia, start drinking early. Everything works itself out after that. We chatted about football, travel, and another place we should check out after the match. Turns out they had some good graffiti, and the actors I had met before would end up there after their performance or rehearsal or whatever.
When we got to the next bar, it was late and I wondered if they would serve us. I forgot that we were in Prague—service continues until you pass out or turn asshole. I met some new best friends, and one told me this was a dangerous bar. I noticed everybody was friendly, and asked what made it dangerous. She smiled and said, "You'll find out."
Perhaps my reputation preceded me.
I found my way to the toilet, somehow took more pictures of graffiti with my phone. Back at the table, somebody suggested something strong for a toast, since this was an excellent spring night, followed by an excellent spring day, and this summer was going to be the best. The Czech girl I had just met reminded me, "Like I said, this is a dangerous bar."
Realizing what she meant, I said, “How about some absinthe?”
I made it back to my room that night, worked all three keys through all three locks perfectly, and woke up on a spring morning in Prague. Some clichés grow from true experience. Bohemian life, I dig it.
Labels: prague, travel, u maleho glena
Absinthe Goes Stateside
A U.S. company has decided to manufacture absinthe for sale in the United States. For those who have never tried it, absinthe is an anise-flavored liqueur with a taste similar to that of black licorice—everybody’s favorite flavor. Well, perhaps not, but absinthe has always been about more than mere taste. Its reputation and history are of mythic proportions. It is the ultimate insider cocktail, the one that says you have been around the block—not just the block in your neighborhood, but the
croisette in Cannes, or the Piazza Duomo in Milan. Absinthe possesses more cool factor than Hemingway’s
mojitos and James Bond’s martinis together—shaken or stirred.
Absinthe originated in Switzerland, but reached the height of its popularity during the Belle Époque in France, particularly among Parisian artists and writers. Name the figure and he or she had a relationship with absinthe. Oscar Wilde penned verse about it, and painters such as Degas (his
L’absinthe appears above), Toulouse Lautrec, and others made the drink a subject of their work—and a prime objective of their evenings. References to Pernod—the most popular brand of absinthe at that time—abound in early twentieth century fiction the way "Moet" pops up in American rap songs. Over time, absinthe gained a reputation for being dangerously addictive, even psychologically damaging, with the chemical thujone being fingered as the culprit. By 1915, the drink was banned in many European countries and the United States, even though there was no evidence—then or now—showing it to be any more psychoactive or addictive than ordinary alcohol.
A black market for absinthe arose. Owning a bottle became a sign of prestige. People plied one another for their absinthe conections. In the early 1990s the European Union legalized it once again, but in the United States, the chemical thujone remained a controlled substance. Fortunately, the law of the U.S. has never yet been the law of the world, and Americans could try absinthe simply by boarding an airplane and flying far away. The first time I tried the drink was in Finland. I discovered that despite the presence of thujol, star anise, fennel and grand wormwood, absinthe’s main ingredient is really its cloak of ritual. Even in a crowded bar in Helsinki, where people probably drink absinthe fairly often, people tend to observe the process. As the drink is prepared, you begin to feel spotlighted, like a violinist about to take a solo.
One reason people may watch is because preparing an absinthe is a detailed undertaking, with a somewhat illicit taint. The machinations bear superficial resemblance to those for preparing a spike of heroin—this is if you use the burn method, which was preferred in the bar I was at (pictured above). In the burn method, a spoon containing a sugar cube is placed over the glass and the liqueur is poured over the cube until the glass is filled. The cube is then lighted. As it burns, cold water is dripped over the sugar, extinguishing the flame and diluting the drink to taste. The components that are not soluble in water, mostly those from the anise and fennel, cloud the drink, resulting in a milky opalescence called the
louche. The flame also burns off some of the alcohol, doubly tempering the drink—not a bad idea when dealing with a substance that commonly tops out at 140 proof.
By the time you bring the absinthe to your lips things will have quieted down a fraction in the bar. People will have noticed the cool blue flame, and are perhaps discussing the first time they tried absinthe themselves, or explaining the ritual to friends. In that way, absinthe seems a superior drink to me—it changes the mood in a bar, very slightly. In that way it’s very much like the pop of a champagne cork. It’s a signal to others that the evening is gearing up just a little.
There are other methods for drinking absinthe. The bar where I ordered it in Portugal just a few months ago didn’t subscribe to the flame technique. I did a round with the bartender and a girl, and the bartender filled a shot glass first, added a sugar-covered lemon and skipped the water entirely. He mentioned that a good quality absinthe doesn’t necessarily require sugar
either, but that girls overwhelmingly prefer the drink sweetened. I knew from looking at labels that some Swiss distillers recommend sugar-free consumption of their brands, but for my money, the sugar helps. In this case he used brown sugar—a surprise, but a pleasant one.
As far as absinthe driving men to madness, I can say that while I may have gone mad later that evening, it had nothing to do with the absinthe, but more likely the many
cuba libres I drank afterward and the fact that I stayed out in the bars until 4:30 a.m. Every time I drink absinthe this happens. But I think it simply means that I only order it when I mean to signal unusually evil intentions for the night. I used to carry a small lock which I used as a keyring, and it served the same purpose. On certain nights I would use a key to open the lock. The open lock meant Lord Pig was loose. Absinthe is the same for me—it means my primal self is free.
The U.S. company planning to market absinthe—Viridian Spirits of Manhasset, N.Y.—has invented a version free of thujol to avoid any nasty legal entanglements. It also plans to cut back the anise flavor, producing something more palatable for Americans. Other manufacturers have done exactly this in other countries. For instance Czech absinthe contains little or no anise, which makes it considerably more bitter, but also does away with the black jellybean flavor. Whether Viridian’s absinthe-lite will catch on is another question entirely. Already I hate the brand name—Lucid—because it seems like a disclaimer, a one-word public service announcement stenciled on a bottle of 140-proof booze. When you can already see the minds of the legal protection team at work in the name of a product you have to feel some suspicion. Perhaps Lucid's marketers don't mean it that way, but in the end the name doesn't matter. The idea of American absinthe doesn't sound quite right. As I told a friend: “It doesn’t really have that cool factor, does it? It’s like smoking a cigar that isn’t Cuban.”
Labels: absinthe, degas, helsinki, portugal
My recent wanderings around San Francisco took me to the opposite side of the Bay, to lovely San Rafael, a community tucked into wooded foothills at the southern end of super rich Marin County. The day I arrived the town happened to be hosting that most American of events—a classic car show. Main Street—or whatever the central drag through San Rafael was actually called—had been closed down, and more than three-hundred gleaming examples of mostly citrus-colored automotive artistry were on display.
around the time American Graffiti first hit the cinemas. Back then gas was plentiful and inexpensive, the American greenback reigned supreme, and the only thing anyone knew about the Middle East was that it had camels.
that I actually like these people. For one thing, they’re amiable. Just can’t get around that fact. They are also polite. Spend a little time in Los Angeles or New York and you get the feeling those particular Americans are just a nudge away from going Patrick Bateman on you. But these all-American types believe—incredibly—that the world is uncomplicated.
Americans had gotten to, it seemed, because I wasn't seeing any in sleek and toned San Francisco. In fact, I can only say one thing for certain about the day in San Rafael—when regular Americans come out of the woodwork, you see some seriously unattractive people. For me, that’s reason enough to live overseas.
