Notes From the Lockdown Part 3:

The Shitty Sequel

I don't know about you people, but I've had just about enough of this fucking coronavirus. Just when we thought we were out of the woods, the crazed corona creature reared its ugly head again. We did the lockdown. Twice. Each time we were released into the wild again, gulping fresh air like a whale who's been underwater too long (Ok. I'm the whale in this analogy), then forced to submerge again.

There was absolutely no problem working at home due to being a writer. Hell, I hate commuting in tin cans full of dismal people going to dismal jobs they hate – only because it adds hours to my work day. Working at home means I get to wake up whenever and take breaks whenever. But there is a downside to working at home.

Apparently, there's a slow process of devolution and entropy inherent in the process. According to the philosophers at The Oatmeal, it's only a matter of time between leaving the office water cooler conversations behind and total loss of personal hygiene and bladder control. Apparently, we need offices to keep us civilized.

For me, I just missed the damn pub and my beer and fried cheese.

Third Time's A Charm

We all know the drill: the first movie is charming, refreshing, and even sometimes, a rollicking tour de force. The first time the virus closed CZ tighter than a frog's asshole (and that shit's watertight. Word.), it was a novelty. Stay home and work? Hells yeah, baby! Wear a mask? Mkay, I can do that.

But in the pandemic sequel, they locked our asses down again for the second time. I started missing the Czech pub. I can't begin to describe the Czech pub experience, but it has to be the single most gratifying pub experience in the world after the Irish pub. Czech pubs possess a certain spirit (hundreds actually), a casual style of dining (greasy yummy gimmeh!), and a calm that borders on the mystical.

Just when we thought it was safe to go back into the water: lockdown part 3. The thing I don't get about this is the fact that during the 1^st two lockdowns, Czechia was the safest country in Europe. While the virus was cutting a deadly swath through Italy, Spain, and France, CZ locked its borders and stopped the flow of incoming people so fast it would put Trump's border wall to shame.

But then they released the lockdown, and we went back to work, shopping, eating/drinking (pubs!), and the rest. And just like in the time of the Spanish Flu in America after WWI, people quarantined, were released, and partied like it was 1919. Then el bastardo Spanish Flu virus returned with a vengeance for the sequel (This time, it's personal) and killed 50 million people globally. All those poor fux wanted to do after forced quarantine was to go out in public, get liquored up, and French kiss random strangers. As one does.

Essential Business

One of the most hotly contested aspects of the coronavirus lockdown in the Czech Republic is the closure of everything except what the government deems 'essential business.' Sure, pubs are considered essential to every Czech who contributes to the global title of Highest Beer Consumers in the World. But not to the government. There was apparently too much laughing and drinking and hugging and spitting in each others faces, even though it is rarely in anger.

So the gubmint decided to close all pubs and restaurants, allowing for food pickup windows and food delivery. But this time, they did not allow people to stand outside the beer window and drink. This time, in their infinite wisdom, They decided to make public drinking illegal. This time, it was fucking personal. One of the greatest charms of Czechia (and Europe in general) is that some random douchebag cop won't walk up to you while you're having a beer on a park bench and tell you to pour it out (as in Mair-Kuh, where I'm from). Oh yeah, Mr. Redneck Cop, yessuh! Then I poured the beer down my throat while he yelled at me to stop. I told him that pouring beer on the ground was alcohol abuse. And to go fuck himself (maybe). I digress.

So by telling the Czech public that they weren't ready to leave their hovels and eat, drink, and be merry, they announced a list of restrictions. Among them, a list of exceptions to the lockdown, which they called 'essential businesses.'

Restaurants and pubs weren't apparently essential businesses. But flower shops were. Mysteriously, flower shops all over Czechia kept supplying lovers and mourners with flowers nonstop. Which is weird. There's still love in the time of coronavirus, but funerals were halted. Nobody could go to funerals. I guess they piled up the bodies in freezers for months (or cremated them), because I didn't see any floating down the river.

The wife told me the flower shops stayed open because the fearless leader of CZ is an oligarch who prospered in agriculture, including flowers and such. Go figure. Corruption in the Czech Republic? Say it isn't so!

Flea markets were apparently considered essential business. Lucky for me, because one of my favorite weekend pastimes is to go walking around vast areas of concrete landscapes in search of wacky items to add to my growing list of projects which I'll never finish. But it keeps the body and soul moving, as it were. Currently I'm working on a home tiki bar and DIY retro/steampunk lamps built from scrap.

The biggest flea market in Prague is the one near u Elektry tram stop in Vysočany. That place is YUGE. It's about 2km long and a half km wide. I like to go there for the necessary walking to stave off atrophy, pursue my hobby as a budding hoarder, and get to the far end of the flea for some fine draft beer.

I don't know why random trash and treasures are considered essential business, but you can be sure there was some serious bribery behind it. While nobody needs to be sitting in a tiny sauna breathing sweat and viruses from strangers, certainly nobody needs to buy second-hand lamps from random Slobs from Slobovia.

And just when I popped my head out for a flea market stroll after the second lockdown, I was caught on camera in the Czech media, which said something like 'shame on these bastards for going to flea markets in a pandemic.' The news rag went on to say how people weren't respecting safe distances, blah, blah, blah.

While I was at the flea, I remember thinking something like 'WTF are all those people doing over there at that table?' Naturally, I wandered over. It was a table full of second-hand electronics you could find in a garbage can: old chargers, plugs, cables, adapters, and various items only a person living in a cave without electricity would find appealing.

Once I got to the table, I knew it was a setup. Seriously? Who would buy this shit? Then my wife sent me the news: my Wide Ass (Inc) was captured by the Czech media at the flea market (must have been a wide angle lens). I'm easy to spot, even though it's from behind. I'm the largest human in the photo.

Darkest Before Dawn

There's supposed to be a vaccine on the horizon. While I just came up for air on Thursday to have fried cheese and beer at the pub, the good news is on the way. We can now go back to all the drinking and cheesing and gallivanting we normally do. But we still wear masks. And we squirt the anti-viral hand gel on our hands when we enter the shrines of CZ consumerism.

Last night I had my first fried cheese and beer in a pub in more than a month. And this is the single most religious experience an atheist can possibly have in pandemic times. Just in time for Xmas.

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I wish you all my sincere best wishes during these troubling times; and happy holidays!

- Ho ho ho, Big Sir

Notes From the Lockdown

or Love in the Age of Coronavirus

- Prague, CZ March 2020

It's Day 5 of the coronavirus quarantine in the Czech Republic. Borders slammed shut, all but essential grocery stores are closed, and masks are now required for all people outside. As of March 16, nobody is allowed in or out of the Czech Republic until somebody kills this evil little coronabug.

Normally people would think 'Hey, being trapped in the country with the largest beer consumption in the world ain't bad.' Normally that would be a good thing, just drowning your sorrows in the pub with the other poor slobs in Slobovia. But the pubs closed. Now the panic really begins in earnest. But since the Czech Republic consists of 50% drunks and 50% thieves, the government came up with a solution to keep the locals from setting the cars on fire and bashing in the pub windows to raid the medicine cabinet: beer windows. Just saunter up to the pub window, pay your money, and a hand thrusts the beer through the window.

Window Beer

On Sunday I ordered a pint of Guinness through a pub window in a nice pub in Žižkov. In this sad version of a drive-thru window, people just get their beer and stand 2 meters apart from each other and drink on the sidewalk in the cold. The pub was aptly named U Sadu. The charm wore off after one pint and I left.

But only a handful of pubs have the walk-up window. Most are closed. I saw an old man on the nearly deserted Prague streets yesterday with a bag of groceries and no face mask. Was he insane? Doesn't he know that he'll probably die if he catches the damn bug? Then I saw the contents of his paper bag as I passed: bottles of vodka and rolls of toilet paper. Apparently that's all you need in a viral apocalypse.

State of Emergency Declared

Czechia is the only country in Europe with such strict quarantine measures. Almost EVERYTHING is closed in Prague. The Czech government declared a state of emergency in a very brief statement, followed by a bunch of specific things which are hereby verboten for the next 30 days. They even released them in English for a change. Probably because they think the coronavirus is being spread by all the dang foreigners, not all these fucking Czechs who can't cover their mouths when coughing.

In addition to closing every damn thing, the long list of new rules includes closing offices and shops, forcing people to stay at home, requiring them to wear masks in public, and banning all events. The last one is a bitch. I bought tickets to see William Shatner in Prague last December. The event was scheduled for March 15 – and canceled the day before. Shat happens. But not in Europe.

Hoarding of Masks and TP

The CZ government requires people to wear masks in public and avoid general contact with others. That's all fine and dandy, but all the masks sold out in about 5 minutes. So the government decreed that those without masks must wrap scarves around their faces. I can fully understand the draconian mask laws here. Every other Czech aged 8 to 80 in this country puts one finger on a nostril and blows snot noodles on the sidewalk. And they love to loudly hawk up lung oysters and shoot them everywhere. Forcing them to wear masks might put an damper on some of that white trashery.

Smile!

But I've gotta hand it to the mask creativity of these people. In lieu of buying actual masks, Czechs just wrap scarves around their mugs. Or make their own masks at home. I've seen all colors of material wrapped around surly faces, from pillow cases to old Christmas socks. One lady strolled by with a red purse, red shoes, wearing a red mask while talking on her red cell phone. You go girl! Better red than dead!

Czechs must really be shitting themselves, because they are buying up every last roll of toilet paper they can get their hands on. People panic buy. Every time there's a hint of an emergency, scared sheep stock up on a billion pills and canned food. But this time, they're raiding the toilet paper shelves.

Why? Do they think that the companies will stop producing TP in the wake of coronavirus? And how is TP the ultimate measure of survival? This must fall under the 50% of Czechs who are drunks. Only drunks think survival depends solely on booze and TP. Like the old man in the street the other day with the bag of booze and buttwipes. Or my drunken college flatmate. He only ever bought booze and TP. Damn, did he see the future?

Free Movement Prohibited

If you've ever wondered about what life behind the Iron Curtain was like, wonder no more. As of this moment, the CZ guvvie dragged out the Old Commie Rule Book on this one. Cross border travel is restricted, and even taking leisurely walks is verboten. Everyone out for a walk must walk with a specific purpose. They're not even sugar coating the thing, as the doc reads 'Prohibition of Free Movement of Persons.'

Of course they can't prohibit people from shopping, and they specify exactly what is allowed. And everything on the list is completely fucking sold out. Masks, medicine, hand sanitizer, and TP. A worse bunch of capitalists I've never seen.

I demand that these people be returned to communist bondage at once, where standing in lines for oranges and toilet paper was the norm. They not only like it, they pine for it. The grocers regularly have sales called 'retro week' for a taste of the good old times: cans of processed meat by-products and random goods with plain brown wrappers.

Wide Body Jetsetter Grounded

As I wander through the ghost mall in search of the solitary store where I can buy canned beans for burritos, I think of those zombie apocalypse films. How can you not? There's panic, empty spaces, and bloody lunatics robbing the stores of precious rolls of shit tickets.

Do Not Approach the Bus Driver

One of the nice things about the lockdown is that family time isn't affected. I can still prop up the fluffy pillows in bed next to my sweetie, and watch 28 Days Later, followed by 28 Weeks Later. As one does.

I think about European history during war time. How the expat writers bumming around Europe writing their novels were suddenly whisked away by embassies and returned from whence they came.

I can't be whisked away anywhere, and not just because I'm pushing 300 lbs. I'm not an expat (and not much of a writer, if I'm being honest), I'm a permanent resident of the Czech Republic, forced to stay here until the virus dies out. I canceled my yearly trip the states to see my family. I didn't want to contract coronavirus while stuck in a plane for 14 hours, land in the states, go to dinner with family, and accidentally kill my dad. That would be awkward.

Soon after my decision to stay grounded, the Czech government made it official by slamming the borders shut. So by decree of the government of Czechia, I'm stuck here with all the slobs from Slobovia, without my pubs or my fried cheese for the foreseeable future. Fortunately, I can work from home.

But I can't cram my wide body into a jet. Fuck. Well, I'm off to the ghost mall soon; it's the only place I can go. I'll wander past all the closed shops and darkened halls to the light at the end of the virus-ridden tunnel: the only open supermarket. I think I'll get a bottle of vodka and a roll of TP, if I can get one.

Today I fast-walked with purpose, shoulders bent forward to the wind with the ghost mall up ahead. I now work at home and want to avoid this whole damn corona-poxy-lips thing. But it's amazing how quickly you run out of things in the viral apocalypse. I was wearing my mask, as were most sensible people I passed. But then a homeless man rose from a bench and lurched toward me with his hand out. The rat bastard wasn't wearing a mask or a scarf and he was asking for money. I gave him the stiff arm and shook my head no.

With no mask and sleeping in the cold, that guy wouldn't last much longer. But for a second, when he got in my face without a mask, I felt this urge to knock him down and run. That's what survival mode does to humans. Everyone gives each other the hairy eyeball, no trust.

In my case, I've probably just watched too many zombie apocalypse movies.

Prague Bus Driver, Day 7 of the Viral Apocalypse