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.

--

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

- Ho ho ho, Big Sir

Notes From the Lockdown Part Deux

or A Breath of Fresh Air...

It's now officially been 2 full months since the Czech borders slammed shut and the everyone started wearing masks. Stores closed, restaurants closed, pubs closed, and a certain Wide Body Jetsetter huddled in his hovel while he shivered, shook, and gently rocked back and forth in a fetal position.

No, I am not afraid of getting the coronavirus. All that shivering, shaking, and gentle rocking was withdrawal symptoms. How in the holy hell was I supposed to get my pivo and smažený sýr?

Straight From Mother Nature's Poxy Lips

Just when you thought it was safe to go about your normal dull routine, Mother Nature chucks a killer virus into the world for shits n giggles. Thanks, Ma. Aren't there enough things already out there to kill us? Sharks, grizzlies, tornadoes, lightning, drunk drivers, cancer, terrorists, and NRA members? Nope. Apparently we humans are getting too big for our britches and we must be stopped at all costs. Mother Nature is a bitch.

That ho has been trying to kill us since we crawled out of the primordial ooze. After millions of years grunting and flinging poo at each other in caves, we finally got the renaissance retrofit. Age of reason, mental expansion, and the ability to kill each other in larger and larger numbers. So why does Ma keep chucking all these fucking viruses at us? Black plague, small pox, AIDS, SARS, MERS, and COVID-19. Mother Nature hates us, I tell you. Her and the animal rights activists.

But we keep coming up with cures for most of the evil kisses blown from Mother Nature's Poxy Lips. As soon as we do, we let our guard down. We go back to our dull routines until the next crisis comes along.

Not a Plot

The worse thing about the internet is that there's no filter. The sheer megatons of bullshit circles the globe at lightning speed through broadband lines pushing gigaquads of data into the minds of people with no judgement whatsoever. Social media is one giant incubator for cockamamie ideas, and no idea is too silly to share. Hmm. This here wackjob comment has 3.2 million shares. It must be true, thought nobody with a brain, ever.

Fourth Horseman

We were put into panic mode while people started dying. So we looked for answers from the media, the internet, our 'fearless leaders.' WRONG. Nobody knew shit. Especially the politicians. Did you hear the one about how the virus was deliberately created in a lab in China? You did? You really shouldn't listen to Trump. You'll rot your brain. Or you'll inject weed killer or some dumbass thing.

A nice doco I watched on Netflix (the only thing to do during lockdown) was called Coronavirus Explained. All those charts and graphs were neato, especially with jazzy background music. The condensed version: this virus is a clever little bugger. For something not even considered to be a living thing, a virus reproduces like rabbits on meth. And the creepy part: it evolves to become a more effective killing machine.

All those charts and graphs showed how a virus like SARS killed people too quickly, so we got a handle on it by this little concept called quarantine. But this COVID bugger doesn't kill everyone. It wants to survive to reproduce, so killing all of its hosts is counterproductive. This tricky bitch hides in carriers without symptoms, who go on with their dull routines, passing in on to other carriers and/or killing buttloads of people. This virus is hip to the whole quarantine bag.

So while people in China and Italy started dying in huge numbers, the Czech Republic slammed the borders shut and locked down the country. Prague became a ghost town, people huddled in their hovels, and the country practically stalled. Meanwhile, over in Merrucka, El Trumpo and his Quixotic lapdogs managed to do fuckall, and now the U.S. has more coronavirus deaths than anywhere else in the world combined.

Can We Breathe Yet?

People are slowly hitting the Prague streets again, some with masks, most with their noses sticking out over the top. The tension was loosening and I could feel the pent-up frustration of pent-up people dissolving.

So I decided to have a Sunday outing, first by returning a newly-purchased laptop for service (they don't make 'em like they use to!) at Alza. I wandered through the near-vacant Prague Market area after I dropped off my lappy at the geek hut, and I heard the sweet sound of live jazz music wafting on the breeze. I followed it like a spastic beatnik until I found the source: a jam session in a fenced-in beer garden. They weren't serving beer, but damn those cats could jam. I sat on a bench nearby and listened for a while. It was the sound of freedom.

For Strength!

Then I decided to go and test out the free movement principle, since the beer windows in select pubs are also serving food. So I went over to the same pub mentioned in my first Notes from the Lockdown post, U Sadu. I missed my Sunday Guinness, what can I say?

So I sat there on outdoor seating conveniently spaced 2 meters apart, and ordered my Guinness from an actual waitress, who actually brought it to me at my table. I stared at the glorious cascade of black and tan beer bubbles shimmering and rising to form the creamy head. You can't tell from the photo; I was wearing shades and a mask. But I was getting all misty, I tell ya.

I took in the lay of the land. Joggers blew by with sneakers plopping over cobblestones, a baby chirped at a table nearby, and the waitress brought me a menu. When I asked if I could order fried cheese, she said yes. I wanted to fall on the cobblestones like a sack of beer-soaked potatoes and kiss her feet with joy. But I didn't. Social distancing and such.

I lowered my mask to drink my first pint. I had to. Sucking a pint of Guinness through my mask would be like being waterboarded by the Irish Republican Army. Soon I was on to my second, third, and fourth Guinness. And then the fried cheese. The mask lay unworn on the table.

After 2 months without fried cheese and beer in an actual pub, the clouds parted, the heavens opened, and a ray of sunshine beamed upon my full moon face. I completely forgot coronavirus for exactly the amount of time it took me to wolf down 4 pints of Guinness and a plate of fried cheese and french fries.

And O the joy which flooded my soul. And my guts!

We Don't Need No Stinking Bridges!

Cruising On 7 Prague Ferry Boats on the Vltava River

A thousand bursts of sunlight reflect off the Vltava's waves like paparazzi flashes amid the smooth gliding of swan starlets. I'm on the river with a beer in my hand and I'm reminded of my river hometown. There, millionaire douchebags sail up to the overpriced river bars. Here in Prague, a solitary ferry boat chugs up to the landing and I climb aboard.

There are 17 bridges spanning the Vltava River in Prague, but other than Chuck (Charles Bridge to the tourists), bridges are like. So boring. Fortunately, Prague also runs ferry boats across the river all throughout the city for those who don't feel like braving the tourist hordes on the Charles Bridge or risking their lives on the many decrepit and crumbling bridges in Prague.

I've lived in Prague off and on for more than 10 years and I'd never even heard of the river ferries. They don't seem to be mentioned in any guidebooks I've ever read, nor do they strive to be noticed in any way at all. Since I spend too much time on my pc and rarely get out like I used to, I decided to ride all 7 ferries in Prague over the last month. Because that's how I roll. Um, float.

So don your most ridiculous sailing attire, get your map app humming, and look for the word přívoz. Don't worry, there's also a nice blue square icon with a white slash through it. This is apparently the symbol for ferry.

P7: Pražská tržnice - Rohanský ostrov: Maiden Voyage

Prague river ferries are part of the Prague Integrated Transport (PIT). The acronym is much better in Czech. The same 32 CZK tram/metro/bus ticket you normally use works on the ferries. If you have a month ticket or daily pass, you can also use the ferries for free. If you don't, just buy a normal ticket on the boat. On certain ferries, the ride is free. You can also take your bike, your kids, your dog and your baggage. But don't do that shit, you selfish fuck. Choose only one of those things. My wide body needs to sit somewhere.

While waiting for the ferry to arrive at the dock, I wondered how a Prague ferryman would behave. Prague transport operators run the gamut from screaming mulletheads (buses) to homicidal maniacs (trams). I was half expecting either a morose Stygian ferryman or a pleasantly-soused rummy. I was surprised to find a jovial man with a blue-and-white striped shirt, 80s shades and beard stubble. He pointed to the rear of the small boat to a white, fake leather couch seat. He threw the stick forward and my wide ass plunked down on the seat. Zappa and Clapton songs cranked out of a solitary speaker as the cool breeze whipped off of the water. I almost expected to be offered a Mojito.

The P7 ferry crosses over to Karlín, with a third mystery stop at Štvanice Island. I have no idea how to get there. That's ok. There's not much there. Instead, disembark and carry out your orders on Rohanský Ostrov. Walk up the steps and veer to the right. Walk a few minutes until you arrive at a bunch of concrete slabs crafted into benches. Sidle up to the bar shack and order a craft beer. Another shack serves burgers and fries. Swing your head from left to right. If the coast is clear of hipsters, sip your beer and munch your burger in peace and relax. There are also plenty of places for the chilluns to run and swing around the place.

P1: Sedlec - Zámky and P2: Podhoří - V Podbabě

The farthest ferry boat trip from Central Prague is also the most fun: P1 from Sedlec to Zámky. The fastest way to Sedlec is an hourly train running from Nádraží Libeň to Sedlec. The trip only takes 10-15 minutes to cross the entire city. Screw trams and the Metro. That shit takes 40 minutes. Hop on the Sedlec train at Nádraží Holešovice as well, or start at Nádraží Libeň if you happen to be Libeň la vida loca like me. The best part is that both the train and ferry are included in your PIT ticket.

A brief walk from the Sedlec station down to the ferry landing affords an idyllic view of country life just outside of the city. While you wait for the ferry, you can already see people on the opposite shore biking, rollerblading, and sitting drinking beer in a little beer garden. You may begin salivating while dreaming of the tasty beer awaiting your river crossing.

Once on the opposite shore (Zámky), you are immediately greeted by a beer shack serving the Golden Stuff of Life in a nice garden setting. You can also grab a snack there or visit a nearby dog shelter. Or you can just take my advice and walk down the bike/blade/foot path along the river back in the direction of Prague. It's only a couple of km's back to another ferry port, with 3 or 4 nice little shacky-wackies along the way for you to stop in and slake your thirst and fill your belly with junk food, all with a nice river view. And if you thought I was just in this for the short boat ride and the walk, you're on the wrong page, Bubba.

Stop at U Sluníčka to cop a squat on a nice terrace with a radio playing Czech country music. The friendly old timer serves two kinds of beer: country AND western. A short walk past U Sluníčka is a smaller shack named Modrá Kotva, which sells ice cream and beer. There is also a little kiddie playground. Now that your beer tank is filled, you're ready for the longer part of the walk. Keep on dodging those cyclists and bladers until you round the bend in the river to the last two stops on the tour. Hit up Stánek u Vody for a great variety of beer, homemade sodas and grilled snacks. They've got a barrel grill with a smokestack on it, yo. And on the hot days of summer, a cool mist from an elevated water hose helps you chill. You can also bounce yer chilluns on a trampoline to keep them away from your beer. Kids have a collective genetic memory stored from medieval times when the water was so bad that they gave beer to chilluns to keep them from dying of thirst. That's why they keep trying to steal your beer to this day. You're welcome.

If you still need to stop for a beer again before you leave (and I would be personally disappointed if you didn't), yet another beer garden awaits a few steps down the path. Kolonial serves the popular Únětické pivo in several varieties, along with food, like my personal favorite gut buster: Smažený fucking sýr. Oh yeah. After your beer and sýr, board the P2 at the Podhoří ferry landing nearby and take it back across the river to V Podbabě. A short bus ride later and you're at Podbaba, where you can take a train or a tram home.

P5: Císařská louka - Výtoň - Náplavka Smíchov

This ferry line gives you more bang for the buck. Three different ferry landings deliver a longer ride than most of the other ferries. Start from Výtoň tram stop, walk down Náplavka toward the rail bridge crossing the river. Right below the bridge is the ferry landing. Depending on which ferry you catch, you'll either be ferried to the opposite side of the river (Náplavka Smíchov) or Císařská louka, a long island with an amazing view of Vyšehrad Castle on its rocky perch. There's also a shack renting boats and selling beer.

The ferry to Náplavka Smíchov is best for taking in the dual farmer's markets operating on opposite sides of the Vltava on Saturdays. It's 90% overpriced hipster bollox and vegan bait, but the beer is tasty. Also, the P5 is one of the only free ferries on the river. Which means it delivers more bang for no buck.

P3: Lihovar - Veslařský ostrov

Another ferry ride with a decent duration is the P3. Most of the ferries plow the river in a beeline for the opposite shore, but this one navigates a diagonal course between Lihovar and Veslařský ostrov, which lets you enjoy the cool river breeze and the hypnotic hum of the motor even longer. It's not the most popular ferry route, so you might even get to ride alone and pretend you are some kind of low rent gangsta with his own boat and captain. Hey, my delusions have no grandeur. Once you reach the island, there's really not much to do there but walk across a bridge to the shore and board a botel moored on the Vltava. That way you can still get your beer/boat combo to make the trip worth it. After a pleasant buzz, I walked back across the bridge to the island and took the ferry back to Lihovar and the tram stop nearby.

P6: Lahovičky - Nádraží Modřany: Goatpocalypse Now!

The P6 ferry drops you off on a desolate shore; scrub brush and tall grass and nothing else. Resist the urge to go straight ahead down the dirt path. That leads to absolutely nothing but a highway you can't cross. Trust me. I walked that bastard in search of a microbrewery called Kail. Never got there. Veer to the right immediately upon leaving the ferry and walk down the river path for several minutes until you see signs of civilization. Here I use the word 'civilization' very loosely. You'll come upon a very bizarre scene: dozens of dilapidated campers, vans, caravans, and old trucks in a junkyard setting. And goats. Dozens of goats staring at you with those evil little devil eyes.

Fortunately there's a beer shack (Stánek u Alexe a Irči) in the middle of the goat apocalypse. After you step over the little clusters of goatshit, have a seat on some very worn plastic furniture and sip your beer. Hey! Look at that! It's Kail beer. Sipping a microbrew in the middle of a herd of goats has got to be one of the most bizarre things I have ever done. This just proves that Czechs will put a beer tap ANYWHERE. But don't you worry about those goats. By this time they'll be back to happily chewing on caravan furniture and bleating merrily. Too bad they didn't serve Kozel beer.

P8: Troja - Císařský ostrov

Last and certainly least, the P8 ferry is just a replacement for the collapsed bike/foot bridge that used to connect the island to Troja. There is nothing to do on that little island except step over heaping mounds of horse doovers and dog piles from the stables and kennels. You can safely skip this ferry unless you enjoy all dogs and horses and no beer. And with that, my ferry guide to Prague is complete.

Waitaminit, Big Sir! You said 7 ferries and I see P8!

You can count. I'm so proud of you! You may have also noticed that I omitted P4. Not because I enjoy messing with you (though it's tempting), but because P4 is so far out of Prague that it hardly seems worth the trip. Also, only one leg of the ferry journey is connected with Prague public transit. You could easily get sucked into sailing out of Prague for 150 crowns down the Beroun River toward Karlstejn...which sounds pretty good actually. But it's not in the scope of this particular blog post. Maybe next time...

This Indian Summer (Babí léto, or granny summer in CZ) is done for, but there are a few sunny days left. You've got until the end of October to get yer butt out there, take these ferries, and enjoy those beer shacks. The ferries stop running and the shacks slam shut (many are open only on weekends now). Then there's nothing left to do but go home and burrow in for the long winter and dream of Spring.

Smells Like Czech Spirit

There must be at least one metric fuckton of internet advice for cheap travel and how to do the whole Eurothang on a tight budget. They all talk about cheap hotels, cheap flights, etc. But then they neglect the obvious. What if you move to another country and stay there? What the hell do you do when you run out of money and get that nervous twitch that screams GIMME BOOZE?

I'm not an alcoholic, but I played one on TV. As your Wide Body Russian general, I command you to drink vodka if you happen to be stuck in Russia. You'll need it. That Putin is a scary fuck. Especially when he's shirtless on horseback. But if you happen to be stuck in Prague, as many of us are, take my advice: drink the local spirit. Find out what it is, drink it, live it and love it.

The Beer Spirit

But Big Sir, ain't beer the Czech local spirit? No. Beer is not a spirit, Junior, but it most definitely is the most popular beverage in Czechia, the one which earns them the dubious honor of being the country with the most per capita beer consumption in the world. Per capita is pig latin for dividing the total beer sales with the total population, every man, woman, child and baby, to get a number that sounds very impressive. It's lazy math. Most of the babies here don't drink beer, and if they do, they can't handle it at all. And nobody is willing to go door to door to survey the beer consumption of the common peeps.

Proof that per capita stats are bullshit: Germany held the title of being the biggest beer drinkers in the world for at least an eon. It's true. Some of them are HUGE. That's why they invented bucket pants. But the Artist Formerly Known As Czechoslovakia had a velvet divorce, the husband kept the beer, the Bohemia, and the tourism, and that poor bitch Slovakia kept their wine drinking and the velvet Elvis paintings. Now Bohemia was suddenly promoted to the King of Beer Drinking simply due to long division and lazy bullshit numbers.

One thing is true though. Czech beer drinking is legendary. They first started brewing beer in Bohemia in 993 at the Břevnov Monastery in Prague. You can still go there today and drink beer. Fuck yeah. Euro-monks started beer, perfected beer and made it holy. WBJ beer rules: if a bottle of beer has a monk or a goat on the label, I drink it in the name of the father, the son, and the holy goat. Beer brewing during medieval times was a healthy alternative to getting dysentery from drinking the Gothic water. That's when children started to drink beer proper. So maybe the whole per capita thing started then as well.

Drunk as a monk

Sage Advice From the Godfather of Expat Alcoholics

One year I decided to leave the brisk Prague winter for the warmer climes of Cyprus. It was easy math: I wasn't making any money over winter, I was spending all my time in the Tiki Taky bar pining for the sun while drowning my sorrows in sunny beach drinks. A friend lived in Cyprus at the time and invited me to drive around Cyprus in his caravan. I was immediately worried. The flights were cheap enough, and crashing on the floor of his van would cost me gas and beer. But Czech beer was about a buck. Everywhere else in the world it was 5 bucks.

“Wherever you go, learn to drink the local spirit,” said the drunken expat sage. I later discovered that in southern Cyprus, Zivania was the cheap local spirit of choice. Zivania is a cheap brandy distilled from grape skins or something like that. When faced with five dollar beers, my friend and I chose to spend that same five bux to buy a bottle of 'Nirvana' as we called it. On brief forays into North Cyprus, the Turkish Cypriots smiled and shared their raki with me.

The Prague Spirit: Gargle and Swallow

Of course they have local spirits in Czechia, and it is my duty as your attorney to inform you that they are all cheap and disgusting. But if you are faced with sudden twitches from debilitating alcoholism or the fear of gluten in the beer, you may need to suck it up, buttercup. After you choose to stay here and your travel money runs out, you are faced with some very harsh choices:

1. Teach English
2. Work in a call center
3. Pimp your juicy booty out to pay the rent
4. Learn to cut your booze budget

I've tried all the above except the sales of my juicy booty. I'm saving that for marriage. I've tried all of the local Czech spirits, for medicinal purposes y'understand. The most popular ones are (in no particular order) Becherovka, Fernet, Slivovice, and the Mother of All Hooch: Absinthe. While each spirit varies in its ability to gag you, tie you up and torture you til you vomit and/or shit your guts out, they're all cheap enough to fuck your ass up on a budget. The bad news: most of these spirits taste like either mouthwash or cough syrup. The good news: if you are the kind of ninja who has rifled through your medicine cabinet at home looking to get an after-hours fix from your Robitussin or Scope, you would be perfectly at home in Prague.

Becherovka

This is often described as either herbal, aperitif or digestif. That means they want to sell it to hippies who drink it both before and after each meal. It is made in Karlovy Vary, aka Karlsbad, home of a major film festival and a more major Russian mafia presence. It's the only town in the Czech Republic where I've seen more Russian newspapers than Czech ones. To prepare for the Becher experience, imagine throwing a shot of mouthwash at your throat. Gargle, rinse, repeat. If you are desperate, swallow that swill.

Aparently, Becher's got a bunch of herbs n shit, so it's supposed to be a healthier way to get you blotto. I once knew an American expat who was addicted to Becherovka. At the end he was seen curled up in a fetal position clutching an empty Becher bottle, gently rocking back and forth and staring at the bottle with red eyes. They had to ship him back Stateside in a basket, but his breath was minty fresh.

Fernet

Shoe polish?

The choice of the proletariat. It's normally about a buck a shot, compared to 3-to-5 bucks a shot for anything remotely drinkable. This shit is 40% alcohol and 100% cheap at a buck a shot. If you're in the average working class Czech pub (and you should be, what are you, a bistro bitch?) and you see a Czech man with a beer and a shot, chances are it's a Fernet. Unless it's his birthday. Then it might be a shot of Slivovice.

Slivovice

You'll find Slivovice (plum brandy) in two types: the respectable kind sold in normal Czech bars with pictures of plums on the label, and the homemade variety, offered willy-nilly at someone's birthday party. Domaci slivo is most likely made in the bathtub of an unemployed truck driver. Sure, the booze may kill all bacteria in the bathtub, but who wants to drink dodgy chunky style booze unless they are constipated and in dire need of a super colon blow cure? ExLax ain't got nothing on this shit.

Absinthe

Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder.

Absinthe is one of those rare liquors that get banned by the Powers That Be. Too many people were getting fucked up on a major hallucinogenic level and too many artists were getting inspiration. While this type of behavior flew in France for la bohème, the Prague commies forbade it in Bohemia. Maybe it was banned due to its association with wormwood, hallucinations and rebellion in general. I can't be certain, but maybe lighting a match under a spoonful of absinthe and a sugar cube was too much like a heroin ritual to be allowed to permeate the general masses with impunity.

--

Gentle reader, I sure hope my medicinal advice finds you well. As your Wide Body Jet Setter, your Personal Jesus, and your attorney, I advise you to enjoy life with a pinch of salt, a shot of the local spirit and a liberal application of the liquor arts.

The Swine Club

A Blunt Instrument Best Used in Hand-to-Hand Combat

The first rule of The Swine Club is: you tell EVERYONE on the internet about The Swine Club. You just need to know the secret code: Pečene vepřove koleno (petch-eh-nee veh-przhovee koh-leh-no). This is Czech for 'roasted pork knee.' It is a massive chunk of swine flesh served on the bone, au naturel, on a board with a knife sticking out of it. Czechs don't merely cook their piggies. They get medieval on their knees.

Photo by Gabriela Sarževská

I've had several friends ask me for the code when they were about to visit Prague for the first time. It usually went something like this: 'Where can I get that piggy-thingamajig on a piece of wood?' To which I replied, 'Oh, you mean the large, greasy piece of roasted swine that you pick up by the bone and use to club uppity vegans into submission? That would be the koleno. And you are in luck, my carnivorous friend: you can get that almost EVERYWHERE in Prague (or at least everywhere vegans fear to tread).

You might be thinking, 'Why would I want that? I'm happy with fast food chains and safe food options.' I'll tell you why. Remember the Medieval World scene from The Cable Guy? Piles of meat on the plates, scraps and bones on the floor. And jousting. And a disenfranchised chick saying 'I'm your serving wench, Julie.' You know you'd pork that.

Der Schweinenhammer

Bohemian and Bavarian cuisine (if you can call a diet based largely on beer and pork 'cuisine.' It is also known as Muslimsbane) are similar. In Bavaria (Munich und freunds) they call my dear Pork Mallet Schweinshaxe, also badly translated as 'pork knuckle.' Who the fuck puts knuckles on pigs? Anywho, I prefer the more barbaric word der schweinenhammer, or pork hammer. Don't worry. You won't have to remember that one because it's not on the menu. I just made that shit up because it sounds cool. That's what we wordsmiths do. We hammer words until they squeal. Sometimes we kneecap the bitches, and occasionally, but only rarely, we get medieval on their asses.

But whether we call it koleno or haxe, they both have the same effect on you. After you eat it you will feel like you've been pounded in the stomach by the red hot hammer of a medieval blacksmith. This feeling is what your humble culinary servant WBJ calls The Hammer of the Gods. It hurts. It hurts so good.

Baskets of Bread and Other Useless Shit

The Pig Cudgel usually comes with mustard, sauerkraut, horseradish and a huge basket of bread. Don't fill up on the bread. Trust me (think: stomach hammer). This beast is 1 kilo of meat, fat, grease and bone. Use the bread sparingly, just to absorb the greasy blow of the swine club, use the mustard and horseradish as an antiseptic balm for the roast beast, and tip the server. He/she just might know the Heimlich maneuver.

You can find koleno in most tradtional Czech hospodas (pubs) or restaurace (guess). Make sure it's served on the board with the knife. You will feel like either a viking warrior or a klingon. Unless you're a vegan. Then you'll feel about as useless as an asshole on an elbow. Or a knee. Or a knuckle...

Smažený Sýr!

One Wide Man's Comfort Food

Fried Cheese. It's the stuff of life. Or at least the stuff of my life in the Czech Republic. Everyone needs to find their vice, their relief from the pain and suffering of being mortal. Some choose heroin, meth, crack, hoes, or heroin-addicted, methed-up crack hoes. I do not judge. For me, my vices are The Beer and The Sýr. I guess I would call fried cheese my comfort food. But that's not saying enough. It doesn't 'comfort' me in the way that macaroni and cheese comforts a white trash stoner. My smažený sýr (pronounced smazheny seer) experience is more like trying to stuff a slab of greasy cheese into a hollowed out knitting needle and jam that bitch into my tongue. I'm almost ready to seek help.

Tourists and travelers alike want to know what Real Czech Food is. Yeah, you can have gulash, but the Hungrarians already had that, and sure, you can score some chunks of roasted meat and sauerkraut, but the Germans probably invented that shit as well. If you want something so real, so tasty and so gawdamn decadent that Czechs themselves swear it's the FIRST thing they eat after returning from abroad—it's the fried cheese.

Photo by Gabriela Sarževská

'But we already have that,' a skeptical American friend said. 'Au contrare, mon frer,' I corrected, you have your mozzarella sticks. In Czechia, they take 2 fuckin' SLABS of cheese, batter the beJAYzus out of 'em, then chuck 'em in the deep fryer right next to your order of fries, then throw it all on a plate with tartar sauce. Occasionally there are small strips of sad sauerkraut or shredded parsley on the side as a garnish. You can safely ignore that shit and dive right on into your hunka hunka burnin' cheese.

Fried cheese is like sex: the worst fried cheese I have EVER had...wasn't bad. It was served in a train station, lukewarm, rigid, rushed and served with no enthusiasm by an old woman who clearly hated her job. And then there was the fried cheese...

The Smažený Sýr Zine

Back before weblogs became blogs, feckless writers who couldn't be published in magazines wrote zines. These poorly crafted tomes were oftentimes the alternative mini manifestos of whatever subcultures were popular before the iphones made zombies of our chilluns. I wrote one of those things, hand printed in pen and ink, to be released in Prague in the late 90s in the height of the (sticking fingers in air in ridiculous quote signs) Prague Literati (unfingerquote). There was just a metric fuckton of American wannabe writers (and Brits as well) living in Prague, sucking up the fried cheese, cheap beer and doe-eyed babes like a whale sucks brine through baleen.

My Smažený Sýr Zine was subtitled 'A Toxic By-product of the Prague Literati.' At the time, too many poetry readings were being given by thin, twitching vegans under the banner of Beefstew. When I first arrived in Prague in '97 with 400 bux in my pocket, I was also a misguided vegetarian. My last girlfriend in the States had warped my brain and stomach into a new diet without meat. Since then I have discovered that the vegetarian diet doesn't work for large men. All the tofu in the world won't fill the protein void. And kale? Gofuckyerself.

I chose cheese. It was in a restaurant near Karlovo namesti where my cheese cherry was first heated, stretched, and broken. The joint was full of smoke and beer and just the kind of apathy that made me comfortable in my own skin. I took the unintelligible Czech menu from the unintelligible Czech waiter and pointed to the plate of the man at the next table The man was cutting into a fried, breaded pillow of something which oozed onto a pile of french fries. 'Is that vegetarian?' I asked. 'It's cheese,' he replied. Then he brought me one.

And with that, Craig Robinson was in love.

I needed to tell the people. They needed to know my love. I wanted to start cults of fried cheeseheads which would put the Green Bay Packers fans to shame. And I wanted to smear the sýr all over the local newspapers and shout cheesy yelps of joy from the rooftops.

The Smažený Sýr Zine project withered in the udder. I had hand printed one—all 4 pages of it (double sided A4, folded in half) and all I needed was the money for a copy machine. I would print HUNDREDS of these cheesy little bastards, change the global diet, and jam my middle finger up the collective noses of all those wannabe 'Prague Writers.' Maybe the project died because a good friend of mine read it and called me a fucking idiot. Or maybe it died because the world wasn't ready to embrace a radical deep fried cheese diet, one which would throw the Earth off its axis from our sheer heavy human MASS. Or maybe I didn't have fifty bux to print the damn thing. You and I will never know. Oh, the bullet we dodged.

In the meantime, I attend cheese church religiously, looking for my sacred cow. Many times I have thought about writing reviews about where to get the best fried cheese in Prague, but the lack of culinary consistency in this country makes me think the cooks are on a rotating prison work furlough. You can get a perfect fried cheese in a pub one day, and the next—total fucking hockey puck. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason.

Cheese Spotting

As mentioned before, bad fried cheese and bad sex are still better than a sharp stick in the eye, so fried cheese reviews might seem pointless with such a non-gourmet food. But after a few thousand pounds of cheesy goodness washed down with cheap, delicious Czech beer, I can offer the following fried cheese guidelines with absolute authority.

1. The cheese must be at least 40% fat in order to melt well. Otherwise you are eating a rubber hockey puck. You can often get 3 or 4 diffferent types of fried cheese: the basic eidam, the snooty camembert, and the risky blue cheese. My staple is the eidam (eidamer in Deutsch).
   
   
2. The fries must be cut thick and fresh on the premises and fried to a golden perfection. Anything less is just frozen fast food fries. The better joints even let you choose the style of your fries: traditional, 'American' (wedges) or boiled potatoes. But don't order the latter unless you are a starving Russian author just released from prison.
   
   
3. The tartar sauce must come in a mini gravy boat with lots of little green herbal chunks. If they try to fob off a package of tartar sauce, you can feel free to deduct that shit from the tip. Cheap-ass-bitch tax, I call it.
   
   
   
4. If a menu has fried cheese and french fries on it, but doesn't include the tartar sauce in the price, keep walking. These cheap ass Czech fucks like to charge for condiments. Hell, they even charge 50 cents for each ketchup packet in McDonald's or any other American fast food joint. The nerve.
   
   
5. Hit the lunch menus between 11am and 2pm. It's a few bucks cheaper. Some of the more enlightened restaurants extend those golden, cheesy hours to 3 or 4pm, knowing that some of us don't get up at 5am, work in factories, and eat lunch at 11am.
   
   
6. After all I've said, you still might be tempted to get one of the meat dishes from the lunch menu. Don't do it, I'm telling you. Unless you like eating three tiny, outdated, discount market chunks of stringy, fatty, grisly, dried out meat served in a sea of universal brown sauce and a metric fuckton of dried out dumpling paperweights. Trust me, life is too short for that shit.

The blogger is chock full of fried cheese as he posts this. But he still needs to ask you:

Where did you have your best fried cheese in Prague? 
Where can I find that tasty shit?

Photo by Gabriela Sarževská

Would You Mind Not Eating? I'm Smoking Here!

If you happen to swagger into a Czech restaurant in Prague you could be in for a surprise: all of your clothing, your hair, your food and your drink will smell like cigarettes. If you are a smoker, you probably won't even notice. Or maybe you would; even the last bastions of the Global Smokers Republic which haven't been closed down by uppity pink lungers—have ventilation. There is no word in Czech for ventilation. If there is, it is merely academic and probably archaic. If you happen to wade through the blue-gray pub/restaurant smoke cloud and happen to see something resembling a small fan in the wall or the window, you won't see the fucking thing spinning. It may be due to a number of reasons, the least of which include:

A)  Communism. Commies love black lung disease. They find it quite yummy.

B)  Legal loopholes. I was told of a 'law' which declared that all pubs and restaurants must have ventilation. I was then told that you could find nowhere in that same 'law' which said that the ventilation must be functional.

C)  Cheapness. Why fix something if it will cost twenty bucks?

I'm gonna hafta go with A) Communism and yummy black lung disease.

Exhibit A: a ventilation fan at the pub across the street had its poor little metal slats kicked in overnight (no doubt by roving hordes of commie black lungers) and I was looking at a gaping hole in the wall with shreds of tin. Over the course of the day after, the pub owners had various people scratch their heads, pace around like they were looking for loopholes, fix the damaged vent, then flip it on to test it. For about 5 minutes, the newly-repaired horizontal tin slats flapped up and down while smoke belched out. Then they turned it off and went back inside. No use losing all the precious pub smoke. 'But Big Sir, WTF are you doing eating in a pub?' Glad you asked. In the Czech Republic, they have the pivnice (beer hall), hospoda (pub) and restaurace (restaurant). All of them do beer and food (to some degree) and they are all united with one purpose: to choke you with cigarette smoke.

A Little Leary

I'm trying to view things from the smoker's point of view. But I can't. Even though my favorite rant god Denis Leary told me smoking was the bee's knees, I couldn't quite hack it. I tried smoking for about five minutes in the 90s and I discovered it was disgusting and expensive. How people decide to devote their lives and wallets to this useless fucking habit is beyond me.

I do booze. Booze gives me a nice little head buzz and relaxes all my aching muscles (typing rants hurts). For the price of one pack of cigarettes in Europe I can buy a whole bottle of booze and get blotto. Now THERE'S a fuckin' habit worth its weight.

So, while the Global Smoking Ban had crept slowly eastward from Hippie Central in California, it never reached the Czech Republic. I just returned after 6 years in Germany, and the Czechs STILL smoke like chimneys. EVERYWHERE. I got used to the smoky Czech pub over the years because the only non-smoking restaurants were either fast food chains for tourists or fancy food for yuppie fucks. I'm neither, so I'm forced to go to the smoky Czech pub. There was even a bit of reverse culture shock when I visited places I'd been years before when they were smoke chokers—to now see the effects of smoking laws. Upon my return to California after several years abroad (during which time they enacted the public smoking ban), I was heading to a bar with a good friend. As he was pulling up to park, I shouted LOOK AT ALL THE PEOPLE OUTSIDE! IS THE BAR ON FIRE OR WHAT?!? My friend laughed and said, 'No, idiot, those are the smokers stepping out for a smoke.' The same type of situation greeted me in an empty pub in Cork, Ireland in 2008. All of the people were out for a smoke. I asked the only patron remaining in the pub how the smoking ban has affected the cultural phenomenon known as the Irish Pub.

"Now ye can smell da farts" was his reply. Gawd I love the Irish wit.

----

UPDATE: Summer of 2017 marks the end of smoking in Prague pubs and restaurants. We can now breathe easily. Now we non-smokers get to hear all the whiny smokers complaining. Worry not, O chimney breath: you can still find plenty of scofflaws who let people smoke in their pubs. Just follow your nose.

Big Sir's Tip: visit the Czech restaurant/pub between the hours of 11am and 2pm on weekdays. Most of them have a temporary lunch time smoking ban in place while you chew and sip. And the food is about half price for the daily lunch menu.