They Smited Me With Science!

Spinning the Wheel of Vaccine Side Effects

–

There I was, safe in the assumption that science has got my back. When my number was called (age group), I marched to the vaccination site in a parking lot next to a cemetery in Prague. I should have known that this was a sign. I should have known that even though I had chosen the LEAST likely brand of vaccine to cause nasty side effects (Pfizer), that things could always go tits up.

Maybe I shouldn't have made the remark about hideous side effects like infected bumps in the junkal region. Am I CRAZY? Am I a PROPHET? Am I just tempting fate?

Oh, yeah. Side effects followed. Like hell raining from above instead of below, I got smitten in the biblical sense of the word. The fifth seal of the viral apocalypse was opened, and infectious bumps rained down upon me, dangerously close to my junkal region.

Science decided to smite me. Or maybe it was the god of the rednecks, smiting me for being an unapologetic atheist. What a god! If the fecker exists, why would anyone follow a monster like that?

Angry Boils

Have you seen the classic cult movie How to Get Ahead in Advertising? Oh, it's a doozy. It's a classic formula flick: Man gets boil on neck, man screams at boil as it grows in size and anger, boil literally comes to a head, and replaces the man's head and takes over everything.

A few days after my intramuscular injection of untested hard drugs (aka corona vaccine), I started getting weird pimples in weird places. Left buttock, right buttock, chest, left thigh. One after the other, they appeared, angry enough to cause me to pop them rather than give them a second thought.

I've had plenty of experience dealing with pimples as an adolescent, and now that I'm in my second adolescence (middle age), I know EXACTLY how to deal with the feckers. At first I attributed the sudden appearance of these nostalgic reminders of pubescence as a side effect of working at home and ordering KFC bucket deliveries.

But then something strange happened: the angry boil on top of my left thigh grew in prominence. Pissed off that I would try to squeeze the life out of the fecker, the oozing chancre decided to try to take over my life. And for the last 5 days, it did.

Nemocnice Bulovka

Every city has a medical institution that is so subpar that it gets a bad reputation. And nicknames follow. Way back when I was a feckless yoot with a low-paying post-high-school job, I drove Ford Escorts carrying packages of nuclear medicine to hospitals up and down the California valley. I loved the rock music blaring on the speakers, windows down, wind in my hair, 70 mph on CA highways, carrying unknown isotopes in needles waiting to be injected into unknown people.

One of the hospitals on my route was the UCD Med Center, a teaching branch of the University of California, Davis Medical degree program. Part of the program was an outreach for indigent locals, meaning, poor people without insurance.

The waiting rooms were full of them as I rushed past with my radioactive payload waiting to be delivered. They coughed, sweated, stank, and pissed themselves as an introduction. We soon began calling the place the UCD Wretch Center. The name stuck. Oh, the humanity.

Cut to: Act 2 in Big Sir's life, middle age, living in Prague. After a week of cursing my growing carbuncle, it got REALLY painful. Like making-me-limp-all-day painful. It grew to the size of a golf ball, so I went to the nearest emergency room.

Sadly, when you are Libeň La Vida Loca in an industrial Prague suburb, that emergency room is at the infamous Nemocnice Bulovka. Bulovka Hospital is not just a dilapidated, confusing sprawl of crumbling buildings with the accessibility of a hostile foreign country, they built the fucker on several hills. Because they wanted the shuffling, moaning, staggering, limping fucks to WORK for their treatment.

Cabs can't park inside, buses don't take you anywhere near the building you need to go. And you need to go to several. Just for one problem. But on a Friday night, it's the only place you can go if you fear that the oozing, infected, black-and-crimson-red, golf-ball-sized blight on your thigh just might possibly be slowly killing you.

The Evil Eye

I waited outside the night emergency room entrance at Nemocnice Bulovka. It seemed like the back entrance to a library rather than a building of medical treatment. I asked a young couple in front of me just in case. “Yeah, this is the emergency room entrance,” they said.

“Are you in the line?” I asked. They answered 'yes' and I joined them, standing. No seats for the wicked.

Soon they went inside and I was next at the outside entrance. Then a carload of loud yoots listening to mindless disco music pulled up and dumped its payload of babyshit onto the sidewalk. I call them babyshit because they were so green that they had no idea of the rules of ordinary, well-formed, solid shirtbird adults like me.

So they cut in front of me, barged through the door, and took their place right behind the kindly couple who had previously advised me. Then I heard them laughing and speaking Russian. Da. Da-hahaha.

So I looked through the window and gave them the Evil Eye. The same type of Evil Eye that was burning inside the angry boil dangerously close to my junkal region. It was an eye raised during the Cold War, watching the Russians and Americans scoff, threaten, cajole, and abuse each other nonstop. Fortunately for mankind, the Russians ran out of credit first. End of Cold War.

But Fuck the Russians anyway. They STILL wanna take over the world. That's how I was raised, and these sons-of-Stalin whores just Pushkined past me like a piece of American trailer trash (how did they know?).

I began the hairy eyeball routine with the weakest of the group. As they tittered and whispered, an older one would look out the window at me to check the threat. They found the burning Evil Eye watching them. Yes, I am old, fat, and hobbled from a leg infection that burns like a white hot knife wound. But I am ANGRIER than my boil. And in the immortal words of Ivan Drago: I must BREAK you.

They must have seen me channeling Dolph Lundgren, because the oldest one soon came out with younguns in tow, and said 'we go after you.' Or maybe they saw my tiny role as a Russian General in the casino commercial. Mad respect. You don't fuck with that dude.

That's right, bitches. Age and treachery before youth and ambition.

Another Ring of Hell

After my referral from the emergency room physician, I hobbled uphill to the next ring of hell. It was the surgery center, and I was in for a fine Friday night indeed. At first I was pleasantly surprised. The long, dimly-lit hallway only held a half dozen people waiting for treatment. So I checked in with the medical receptionist, who told me to take a seat at the end of the hall.

I plunked down on one of the rows of cold steel chairs lining the hall of the basement in the Bulovka surgery center. It was exactly like sitting at a bus stop in a ghetto. Why did they make the seats out of steel? Easier to clean? Durable? Or just another ring of hell the poor wretches must work through to receive their treatment.

After three hours I wondered why I had not brought a book. My phone battery had died, there was no reception in the basement anyway, and I had been to CZ hospitals several times before. You always wait at least 2 hours, even when you have an appointment for a specific time. It's the commie way. You must wait long enough to earn the right to be called a patient.

Finally, the door swung open and they called my name. I limped in, and they told me to take off my pants. They must have read my file from the previous doctor. Rarely do I have that effect on people otherwise.

On a side note, I remember reading a sales pitch for a private medical clinic disparaging ordinary public Czech health insurance. “They are cold, impersonal, and will command you to unceremoniously undress in front of a room full of people.” Hmm. Maybe the expats expect them to play Pomp and Circumstance first? I'm sure the finer halls of medicine have disco music and stripper poles for the money-grubbing whores. #dieyuppiescum!

Those of us who live in the real world (aka American refugees, non-yuppie-scum, etc) take the public health insurance offered by the employer. So far, it has probably saved my life a few times. So when I bitch and moan about Czech medicine, it's only the natural reaction of a sick person with a finger suddenly thrust up the buttockal region. Yes, it is abrupt, invasive, sudden, and stern. But it is fair.

Nonspecific Abscess

After my unceremonious disrobing without music, I proceeded to receive the diagnosis: nonspecific abscess. After some brief interrogation (are you gonna kill me cuz I'm American?), the doctor told me that I had a nonspecific abscess possibly due to my COVID vaccination. What? B-B-but. I got the PFIZER. Ain't that the good jab?

She smiled the knowing smile of someone in the medical profession who pretends to know everything. But just practicing.

So she wielded the metal tools of her trade dangerously close to my junkal region, looked down her nose at me and said nothing. She didn't speak English. And my Czech is bad on a good day, when there's no evil boil burning on me like hellfire.

First came a small sting. She then said 'lokal.' I got it. Local anesthetic. Cool. Pop away, doc. Then came a scalpel. Ooh. This is getting good. I expect a right proper gorefest to follow. My hand slowly covered my junkal region, just in case. I never know if the night doctors have exceeded their 5 cocktail maximum.

I kept looking over my belly at the progress of the wide-awake mini surgery. There was blood. There was pus. There were weird colors of both. Suddenly, the attending nurse pointed to the doctor's name tag. She stopped cutting and swabbing blood and pus to look.

Aw Jeez. Did I spurt some on ya, doc? My bad. I'm embarrassed. It was an awfully angry boil on an awfully angry dude. So sorry.

But then she laughed, and the nurse tittered. They pointed to each other's name tags and compared them. I understood from bits and chunks of Czech convo that the doctor's name tag photo was new, and that the nurse was jealous. Hers was old and outdated, just like her and the hospital. This exchange went on for a minute.

In case you may be questioning the nastiness of my particular ailment, right when the two ladies were comparing badge photos, an elder nurse walked by and glanced at my open wound. The grimace on her face said everything. In her 60 years of service, there was still something that could twist her face like a pretzel. Not a comforting thing when you are on the surgical table.

Um, hey? Sucking leg wound down here? Ladies, will you please mop up the gore, give me some pain meds, and shove my ass out the outpatient door? Compare badge photos later, if you please.

The Aftermath

I finally got home after midnight. I slammed down some wine and antibiotics, limped to bed, and got up the next day to repeat the process. I had to go back to the Bulovka Hellspital. Four days in a row. Each time a 3-4 hour wait followed.

But I remembered to bring a book. And water. And a snack just in case. I was always told to sit at the far end of the hall at the third door. It's what they call triage. The most serious cases go first. And as angry as my boil and I may be, others have it worse. But everyone in the hallway in Bulovka looks like they're in the same degree of suffering. But I had to wait 6 hours on Friday night, 4 hours on Saturday, and only 2 hours each visit on Sunday and Monday.

It wasn't about the time of day I arrived, it was about the random spinning wheel of fate. It's a bit more obvious in the U.S. Gunshot and stab wounds go first, followed by heart attacks, overdoses, and trouble breathing. But in CZ, you can't tell. A surprising lack of violence here. And zero crack or meth. Just a bunch of people suffering in silence together in a dimly-lit basement hallway of a decrepit old hospital on the side of a suburban Prague hill.

But sometimes a gurney full of fresh pain would come rolling in with ambulance personnel pushing. And I would get pushed to the back of the pain bus again. Such is the nature of probability. Open book, shift buttocks on steel seat, soldier on. Be patient, my patient.

On Monday I got the good news: my wound was healing (they had slashed, sliced, drained, and re-bandaged it 4 times by then). Better yet, this doctor spoke English. He said that I didn't have to keep coming back to Bulovka after this. I could choose the closest clinic to my address.

Now I have a day off from the hospital for the first time in 4 days. I had previously taken Friday and Monday off from work just to relax, pre-boil. But like the man said, man makes plans, God laughs. Fecker.

The last doctor I visited at Bulovka was so friendly that I almost expected him to ask 'Can I do anything else for you?'

I should have replied: Yeah. After 14 hours of sitting on your hospital's cold steel benches, I have a new side effect. Can you kindly treat the angry 'roids which are now festering and burgeoning and brimming with anger inside my angry ass?

Yes, gentle readers. I went into the Bulovka hospital for a four-day treatment of an angry boil and left with a burning ring of fire.

The Takeaway

I don't want this to discourage anyone from getting the vaccine. It's how we beat this thing. But if somehow, somewhere, somebody crawls out of the primordial ooze (alt-right fux) and says: See! Vaccines don't work! They give you the same angry boils I got when I went to that Tijuana Donkey Show!

I can't tell those type of people anything. It's like talking to a wall, a rock, or a religious person. Same stony stare. They might believe that Bill Gates is inserting microbots into the vaccine to take over their minds. And that aliens took their cows and themselves up for a brief whirl around the planet with a side excursion of bonus anal probe.

Weird how rednecks don't believe in science, but they do seem to believe in science fiction.

I'm vexed my damn self. I'll still continue to believe in science, even though the pharmacy business has so tainted the process that profits supersede results.

In the meantime, take some time to read up on the various flavors of vaccines out there, including the long list of side effects. Keep in mind that the side effects are usually much milder than the short and long term effects of the actual coronavirus. That shit could kill you, regardless of age.

Me, I've just got angry boils and a case of the old bum grapes. Like Gloria Gaynor and my Sactown homeboys Cake said, I Will Survive.

Getting My Jab

Spinning the Wheel of Vaccines in Prague

–

Sorry I haven't written sooner. COVID didn't kill me, but all the lockdown restrictions surely beat the hell out of my joie de vivre. I've had a full-time writing gig for the past 2.5 years, so my blog posts have been few and far between.

It's like when I was a photographer and I never had time to take 'fun' photos in my spare time. Or no creativity left. It's like that with writing, too. Recently I've been moved to a new project at work which is much less writing and much more image-oriented work.

For the past year and a half, I've lived under the shadow of a pandemic reportedly so serious that Czechia was rated as a 'red state' in terms of emergency status. Not commie red or redneck red, nothing so sinister, mind you. But I couldn't travel. And for a Wide Body Jetsetter, that's almost as bad as taking away my beloved fried cheese.

The Wheel of Vaccines

There has been a shortage of vaccines in the Czech Republic as well. While the government 'leaders' (I use this term loosely; more like a gang of former commies caught with their hands in the cash register of Capitalism) hemmed and hawed about 'what to do' every other week, the rest of the world began inoculating their peeps.

But in a country with an unapologetic drunk for a president and a parliament full of smarmy used car salesmen for politicians, it's a wonder we got a vaccine in Czechia at all. But we finally did.

And then the vaccine ran out. So they had to order more from other countries. And in came the flood of unknown, never-before-heard-of vaccines that would put a Prague knockoff shoe salesmen to shame.

There was no Pfizer, so they had something called Moderna. Followed by Johnson & Johnson. Then Nano-Bio-Something. Then AstraZeneca. Then the Russians had to ooze out from beneath their radioactive tombs and dump something called Sputnik on us. Nyet, privyet.

The difference between the vaccines is probably like Coke & Pepsi. They each do the same thing: quench your thirst, rot your teeth, and make you morbidly obese after 40 years of drinking the stuff. Mind you, I am not morbidly obese due to Coke or Pepsi. Smažený sýr and pivo are solely responsible for my morbid obesity.

Each vaccine ostensibly protects you against COVID, but each one has its own unique side effects. How much of this is based on actual research and Facebook memes is uncertain. But you get the idea.

I've heard that Moderna might kill a small number of people. Or wait, was that BioNTech? I do have it on good authority that a woman who works with my wife heard about some women from another neighborhood who got red bumps all over their junkal regions after receiving the AstraZeneca jab.

Gimme the Pfizer

I did the usual amount of reading up on vaccines till my eyes glazed over and I needed a drink. Then I started listening to all the recommendations proffered by the hearsay of third-party old wives tales.

The Czech government said we don't get to choose our vaccine flavor, but I got the inside scoop on where they were serving up the cool vials full of Pfizer. And THAT was the place I registered.

As it happens, the Vinohrady hospital set up a special vaccination site not far from their main block of clinics, conveniently located near a massive cemetery. Nothing like walking a kilometer past a sprawling cemetery to get in the mood for your jabs. And if an American has a bad reaction from the jab, they can just chuck 'em over the cemetary fence for the krematorium proletariat to clean up.

I don't know why I favored the Pfizer. I just hadn't heard any stories of crotch rot or infections of the junkal regions associated with it.

Sputnik? Are the Russians serious with this thing or what? Sorry, I'm not injecting something called Sputnik into my bloodstream. Even if it's 50% vodka and gives out a killer buzz.

The last time I heard of Russian needles, millions of poor malchiks were slamming something called krokodil into their veins. It got them high, twitchy, nervous, and crazy, just like any other street drug. Except that this shit turns the victim's skin into something resembling crocodile skin. Hence the name of the drug.

Somewhere between the Soviet Sputnik spacecraft in the 60s, growing up in the Cold War 80s, to the Crocodile junkies littering the streets of Mother Russia, I lost the narrative.

First Jab

The vaccine is administered in two jabs one month apart. I'm not sure if this is due to lack of supply, safety, or what. So I got my confirmation, went to the site (they didn't even give me a street address. I had to Google that shit), and sat down waiting for my needle.

I finally did my registration, shuffled the medical info, and was sent to an vaccination box. The whole parking lot was filled with what looked like a dozen shipping containers retrofitted for medicinal purposes. It looked like the first scene of your basic zombie apocalypse movie right before the infected monkeys escape from their cages.

The staff members were nice, but one of the questions struck me as odd.

“What country are you from?” asked the nurse with the computer.

“America?” I replied. Suddenly I sounded like a fucking Millennial. You know, how every sentence ends with an uncertainty. 'Um, like, I'm in a hurry? Cuz I'm like, going to work now?'

Upon hearing me say 'America,' the needle nurse perked up and presented the needle. I rolled up my sleeve and she plunged the needle into my left upper arm. Then she cackled Death to Americans! and began stabbing me with the needle over and over and over and...

Sorry. I've been cooped up too long. And I was sitting in a parking lot full of shipping containers located near a cemetery for fuck's sake. That will get the old imagination churning.

After my injection, I sat with a few dozen others in a special waiting area. If you didn't keel over 15 minutes after your jab, you're good to go. Anyway, no serious side effects so far. The old sore arm routine, not much else. The crumpled sign on the injection box I entered said 'Pfizer' on it. Did that mean that we were getting the Pfizer vaccine, or that the parking lot was sponsored by the Pfizer company?

Well, I'll let you know if I develop any clusters of boils on my junkal region or if I suddenly sprout crocodile skin.

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

Prague Pickpockets Going Broke During Lockdown

(With a Nod to The Onion)

Ever since the coronavirus took over the world, businesses have closed, people either work from home or lose their jobs, and we wonder if this is the next human reset button from that queen bitch Mother Nature. The COVID thang has impacted all creatures great and small. But nobody has been hit harder than the unseen masses of Prague workers who rely on the most personal of contact: the pickpocket.

Touch and Go

Prague has been hit especially hard during this crisis as it produces nothing other than tourism and marginally driveable cars. But the industry hit hardest by this crisis is the age old profession of pick-pocketing. Where there are tourists, there are pickpockets. And Prague is a capital of both. When the waiters aren't padding your bill, taxis will. And if you still have money left on your way back to your hotel, you can rest assured that a pickpocket will relieve you of whatever you have left.

Until now. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and nothing is more desperate than social distancing. You can't hug, shake hands, or even bump fists without a icky feeling of potential contagion. And you most definitely cannot pick anyone's pocket.

Just like the swarthy, smarmy pimps posing as taxi drivers exist to rip off tourists, the seedy underbelly of Prague life is propped up by the humble pickpocket. This artful dodger is firmly entrenched in the very fabric of Prague life, so much so that all the guidebooks are filled with warnings about pickpockets.

And the pickpockets pay no mind at all. Cops gave them a wink and a pass, and Czech laws are so fucktarded that a cop must actually witness a pickpocket taking your wallet from you before they will step in. That's because cops are paid off, but that's a different story.

Thief Trade in Danger

But now the pickpockets are seriously worried. How are they going to make a livelihood in the age of social distancing? Also, once the Czech borders slammed shut tighter than a frog's asshole (and that shit's watertight), no tourist targets were anywhere to be found.

Speaking with Honza, a self-proclaimed pickpocket, he was vexed. How was he going to milk the sacred cash cow of tourists when there were no tourists?

"I have no idea what I'm gonna do now," Honza wondered. "This fucking country has been closed for nearly 3 months. THREE MONTHS WITH NO TOURISTS! How am I going to eat when there are no pockets to pick?!? These local Czechs are so broke they can't pay attention, so where will I get my income? There's not exactly an unemployment option for people in my line of work!"

Honza (not his real name) is not even a gypsy. Czechs blame gypsies for all the crime in the Czech Republic, but that's just a smoke screen. Especially when it comes to pickpocketing – because gypsies are so damn bad at it. A pair of loud mouthed gypsy kids approaching a tourist will not be getting anywhere near their pockets. They can only produce results at the very bottom of the pickpocket food chain – on the night trams, preying on passed out drunks.

"I trained for making widgets," Honza explained, "but the fuckin' country turned from Commieville to Mickey D's overnight and the widget factory closed. Who knew nobody would buy widgets any more? Am I supposed to flip McBurgers now? No. Fucking. Way!"

"So I did the only thing a sensible Czech would do: I learned a new trade. Sliding your hand inside a target's pocket is the ultimate rush – and payday! Hell-LO! And it's dead easy in Prague. Trams crammed with loud Americans and Brits staring at their phones nonstop. They're not even paying attention to their pockets! Candy from a baby, I tell you – muahahahaha!"

But now they've got signs everywhere: Wear a mask. Stay 2 meters apart. Avoid unnecessary contact. How is Honza and the mighty army of black market petty thieves going to survive this crisis? Prague taxi drivers have flooded the social media forums complaining about how they haven't been able to rob a single tourist for months. And the scourge of Uber. And Czech waiters can no longer pad the bills of drunk tourists.

Survival of the Fittest

How will Czechia survive this crisis? How will thieves make a living? Fortunately for Czech parasites, there is always a way to make money for the lucky few who got free flats and entire buildings under post-Communist restitution. Even when the entire Czech economy shut down for 3 months, landlords will still get their drop of blood from their tenant hosts. The Czech government has decreed that those who could not pay their rent during the coronavirus crisis could not be evicted from their flats. But they would be in debt to their landlord indefinitely.

So if you want to survive in post-viral Prague, you'd better buy a block of flats (if you have a spare million bucks), or learn a trade that will never go out of style in Prague: the gentle art of pickpocketing.

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!

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