Melvis Is My Stage Name

Or How Karaoke Changed My Life (No. Really, Man)

The following contains Elvis impersonation and karaoke addiction.

You have been warned.

Czech Karaoke Championship

It began as a drunken experiment with me on a mic mumbling Elvis tunes. I wasn't like those loud and proud karaoke fools who throw their hearts and voices into it for the love of musical exhibitionism. I was with a group of fellow students in an Aussie bar in London. I was the class clown, so I had to get up there and damn the consequences. So I mumbled drunken Elvis with my mouth mashed on the mic. I know. How unsanitary. How many other drooling drunks had gone before me?

So along with the shared saliva and camaraderie of a communal microphone were the hazy memories of magnificent firsts: our first trip abroad, our first croaky karaoke, and for some of the group, their first time drinking legally whilst under 21. Hell, I think half of those kids only went on the London Semester trip so they could pub crawl at age 18. I was there because my photojournalism prof had fucked off on sabbatical, leaving me with a semester full of empty dreams and broken promises (or vice versa). Good enough reasons, one and all. And in that last minute Hail Mary pass at the sky, with a heart cracked and leaking purple piss and vinegar, I got on a plane. And my life changed forever.

Free Your Mind and Your Ass Will Follow

Try something new. If you have no courage, pick up a glass and pour yourself some liquid courage. If you do not drink, don't want something new and are too shy to try, just give up and get into the gawd damned box. Darwin will erase your wimpy ass.

While the origin of karaoke is rather unimportant compared to its awesome power to free your soul, consider Japan. Kara = empty and oke = orchestra. They not only invented the fucking thing, they made it a required social outing for managers and employees of large companies. I can only imagine the hours spent before work doing jumping jacks and push-ups, followed by 10 hours of mind-numbing, robotic labor, followed by being forced to sing 'Don't Worry, Be Happy' in front of the entire day shift. This was the original corporate team building exercise. It was also a way to separate the men from the boys during promotion time. If you could not do your jumping jacks, pushups, robotic labor, heavy drinking AND singing your guts out—you might as well stick a ginsu in your gullet.

London Semester: Pub Crawls, Fish and Chips and Karaoke

(Punctuated by Occasional Inconvenient Studying)

The very first flight I'd ever taken was for my study abroad semester in London. I was still reeling from the jet-lag and the pub crawling when classes had finally commenced.

"You're late again, Craig," said the English teacher.

"Don't you mean, 'You, squire, are tardy once again?'" I might have said (It's all a blur. But I'm a smartass, so, yeah, I probably said that.)

As I slumped into my seat I definitely remember uttering what would become my mantra for the rest of the semester: 'This classroom shit is seriously fucking with my pub crawling schedule.'

So there you have it: the beginnings of my broad career as a wide body jetsetter (and functional alcoholic) began with the simple need to pub crawl in a slightly more interesting place than California. During that 5 months in London I learned a great deal: A) The people match their weather: cold, cloudy and dripping with sarcasm, B) Curry, C) Brits don't like Americans (who knew?) D) I wanted to travel and live abroad for the rest of my life. And I also learned an important life lesson that didn't involve curry spice or strong ale tolerance. My spastic, in-your-face social retardation could safely be channeled through a microphone. In public. A group of Aussie chicks were a-flutter. Our token lesbian student cried out 'You could make me switch!' to the shock of her roommates. I have it on video, so she should have an excellent career in politics.

A Praguelodyte and the Birth of Melvis

My microphone mumblings continued in Prague, Czech Republic (One half of The Artist Formerly Known As Czechoslovakia). I read somewhere that some people were going there. I heard that Prague had expat newspapers and websites just itching for writers and photographers. And the best part: even if you failed at that, you could always teach English. The only requirement to teach English in Prague in 1997 was to have an English-speaking tongue flopping around in your mouth. And since the local 'papers' paid DICK, I chose to teach. My first interview for a Prague language school went exactly like this:

Interviewer: "Are you a native speaker of English?"

Me: "Yes."

Interviewer: "Where are you from?"

Me: "California."

Interviewer: "Can you start tomorrow? We pay 200 crowns per hour."

Me: "I don't think that's enough time for me to prepare a lesson. Next week would be better."

Interviewer: "Can you start tomorrow? We pay 300 crowns per hour."

Me: "Preparation, schmeparation. I'll do it."

Melvis Beta

So when I wasn't showing up late to lessons or teaching students about the failed American Dream propaganda and the magic of my favorite dystopian films, I would further vent my spleen on the karaoke stage. This quickly became a habit and later, an addiction. When I knew I officially had a karaoke singing problem was when I paid a woman a hundred bux to sew me an Elvis costume. I was making about $200 per month in those days, so to spend half your monthly income for your singing habit is worthy of an intervention. But the Czech Karaoke Championship was coming up. I needed to dazzle them. Karaoke isn't about the best singer; it's about dazzling the crowd. And I was going to bedazzle a costume, wear a sequin encrusted belt, and thrust my pelvic prowess and fake karate moves at them, Viva Las Vegas style. I squeezed my belly into the white jumpsuit, pulled the zipper past my belly up to my sparse chest hair (pulling a few along the way), and Melvis was born.

The Big Night came. It was down to me and my rival, Johnny Night-train. All of the other mic-slingers had bitten the dust in the blare of stage lights and the screams of the crowd of hundreds. I went out there to unleash my final song, my crusher, my crowd pleaser, my heart breaker and life taker: Suspicious Fucking Minds. I wowed them, I wooed them, I got them clapping and howling, and when I kicked upwards and sideways with each crescendo, I knew I had the prize. And then the Night-train sidled up to the mic while I was huffing and puffing in my beer. The stage went dark. Then a spotlight hit him. Then he went full metal tranny on our asses and sang Like a Virgin. Like Madonna. It was freaky, seeing a tall man dressed in black rub his chest and wriggle like a serpent. Then he dropped to his knees, fairly fellating the mic and rubbing his nethers while squealing.

The rat bastard won. Madonna had kicked Melvis' ass in a fair fight. He was number one, and I was a big, fat, stinking hunk of burning number two.

Melvis 2.0: Berlin

Defeated, I dragged my lounge lizard ass to Berlin. A new town, full of promise: cheap rents, tons of feckless wanderers and creative types, a liberal loophole in conservative Germany. A new life for the serial expat and a tabula rasa in cyberspace for a new blog: Dunkin' Berliner. 2009 was a great time to live in Berlin. The vibe was easy, the rents were cheap, and the gentrification process was only in its infancy. The hipster beardbeast had not yet sunken its gluten free claws into the Berlin Bear. You could sit in a park all day grilling on portable grills and swilling from portable potables (like Sternberg export, at 40 cents per bottle, a perennial favorite of punks and cheapos like me). Then one day in Mauerpark, I heard a croon like a clarion call: karaoke on the horizon. I swaggered directly into the ultimate mosh pit of outdoor karaoke: the Bearpit Karaoke. This is the stuff of legends: one man, one bike, one laptop, two speakers and a microphone. In that open air stage I found my addiction again.

Bearpit Karaoke in Mauerpark

But the Bearpit grew in popularity, from mere dozens to several hundred people clapping and cheering and beering on a sunny Sunday afternoon. It became harder to get on stage as the list grew longer. I felt that twitch and that itch. I needed my fix. So I jumped into the jumpsuit and threw myself at the crowd. It went wild. There are videos of me on YouTube. But it wasn't enough. I needed to dazzle them more. Such is the nature of addiction. A short stroll across Mauerpark is the flea market, home to all sorts of overpriced bric-a-brac sold to hipsters by Turks. One bagful of rhinestones and sequins, one patient girlfriend with needle and thread, and one month later: Melvis 2.0 was ready for action. I was going to get on the that stage again, not just to dazzle and shine. I was going to propose to my lady in my Melvis costume in front of 1000 people and the internet. I was going to sing Love Me Tender like Nicholas Cage in Wild at Heart. But the season was over. The rains came, the karaoke crowd subsided. And my new costume hit the mothballs again.

I never did get to propose on stage. We got married anyway. We eloped in Gibraltar, honeymooned on the Costa del Sol, and I did end up singing Love Me Tender to my new bride in the resort bar in front of dozens. Anti-climatic? Maybe. Sweet and romantic in the most cheesy way? Oh yeah.

A Wardrobe Malfunction of Elvisian Proportions

Got Any Blue Suede Shoes?

Don't rest on your laurels. You get fat and you crush them. Well, at least I did. After a few years I kept my shiny superhero costume in a bag in the closet, until one fine day. The Hard Rock Cafe Berlin had the ultimate karaoke event: Sing For Your Supper. Sign up, sing your guts out backed up by a live band(!) and stuff a burger in your face for FREE. This is better than a karaoke contest. Even if I wasn't the best, I would get free food! This was the perfect opportunity for the Melvis costume to come out of the closet and back into the limelight.

I talked to the manager. It was all set up: before my name was called, I would have 5 minutes to sneak off to das wasserschrank, slip into my costume and then storm that Berlin stage in a blitzkrieg of buh-huh HUHs and fake karate moves and a gyrating pelvis amid a real live band!

FUCK. The zipper on my massive, custom made jumpsuit hit my seedy underbelly and split. All those 40 cent beers added up to a fortune in failure. I tried to suck in the gut and rezip. But it split again, this time just between my gut and my groin. Zipper stuck, belly and sack out in the breeze. It was a fail. An epic fail. And then a voice:

HRC Manager: 'Melvis! We're Waiting! Let's go!'

Me: 'Wardrobe failure.'

HRCM: 'Well suck it in and get out here!'

Me: 'No. Really. They really don't want to see what's hanging out. It would put them off their supper. Maybe get me arrested.'

So I sulked in the toilet until the next singer had come and gone. I donned my civvies and slithered back to my table, which was right below the Great White Belt of the King himself. I looked up at the blue plastic prescription bottle which was (oddly) included in the display. I wanted to crack the glass and hope for a pill to swallow. Then I would slither off back to die on the toilet, just like The King.

--

I've done a few karaokes since then, mostly low key, sans sartorial flair. The Melvis 2.0 suit never got to strut and fret its hour upon stage. I got too fat to fit into the fucking thing, truth be told. But it lurks in the back of the closet, waiting for me to either lose weight or to pay a tailor to enlarge the thing. And when that day comes.....Lawdy, Miss Clawdy.

My favorite yokee dealers in Prague:

Žižkov Karaoke

La Loca

Photos by Gabriela Sarževská

We Can Be Heroes

Just for one day.

HEROES! GET YER HEROES! TODAY ONLY! screamed the newspaper salesman in my head. One downside to a 20 year media boycott (no telly, no radio, no 'news' other than online) is that I heard about Bowie's death via my fb wall. Days after. So I can't remember the exact time and place. I remember when Elvis died: I was in the back seat of Dad's car and the news oozed through the radio off the tongue of one of those sleazy, doped up rock n roll radio announcers to the backdrop of 'Moody Blue.' As well it should have. Those were the days. Now and forever, instead of remembering the exact time one of my heroes (like Bowie) died, I'll remember a homogeneous blob of news McNuggets served up via (anti)social media.

I don't have a telly, but I still managed to 'acquire/finagle' some American late night comedy shows. All of them had Bowie bits (not 'bits' as in 'pieces' of him, my sick UK/Irish friends). Memorials, footage, music, all of it. They showed flowers and candles on Bowie's Hollywood star, outside his house, outside all of his former houses ever—including his Berlin residence (my auld pal Der Irische Berliner was there). Though I was in Prague at the time of hearing of Bowie's passing, I will never forget my Berlin-Bowie connection.

It was early December in 2008, the last day of my Scouting For the Next tour. It was the end of my Decade of Decadence in Prague and I needed a new country to violate. I was on a 3 day bender, a tiki bar tour of Berlin with one of my Pragueish-American (that's a nationality), Prague-tiki-bar-owning friends. We were hung-the-fuck-over, sprawled out in the lobby of a Berlin-Kreuzberg youth hostel, awaiting our return to Prague. They were playing Bowie on the hostel speakers. Then I heard the softly warbling voice of Bowie transform, Reichisch-dictator-like, into ICCCCHHH!!!! ICH BIN DER KÖNIG! UND DUUUUUUU!!!! DU KÖNIGEN!!! Bowie was screaming 'Heroes.' In Deutsch (Deutsch must be screamed to be truly effective)!  At the time, I had no idea that Bowie had lived/loved/recorded in Berlin. HELDEN done in Deutsch confirmed it: only non-Americans bother to learn the language of their host countries. The truly great ones even learn to sing it (though to be honest, English lends itself better to lyrics. I mean ICCCCCHHHH? Really? I fucking LOVE IT).

While I age ungracefully, wideness setting in the body and mind, I remember my heroes, and where I was when they died. Most of them died while I was abroad. Bukowski, Hunter S. Thompson, DeForest Kelley (Bones!), and Bowie. Most of my heroes are/were rebels, outlaws and misfits. I would have it no other way. What put the choke in my throat about Bowie's death wasn't the flowers, the mourners or the non-stop Bowie-a-thon music. It was a scribbled note left on Bowie's Hollywood star, which bore a quote by another famous misfit, Guillermo del Toro:

"Bowie existed so all of us misfits learned that oddity was a precious thing."

And so he did. And I'm feeling pretty fucking proud to be an oddity right about now.

Bir Sir (when he was just a little sir) saw Bowie perform live in Mountain View some time in the 90s.  It's all a haze.

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.

Über Rexpat

The....CRONE.....the.....CRONE...

There was a film about the expats in Prague. It was low budget, über-specific, and full of Kafka references and in jokes suitable only for wannabe writers, drunken English teachers and other hapless fuckers with high expectations drowning in a sea of cheap beer. But in the bowels of that particular bog lies a sad truth:

We keep coming back. The film Rex-patriates parodies the sad losers, exuberant dreamers and trust fund slackers who can find no other place to call home. The city, the beer and the women are all beautiful, cheap and gorgeous. But unlike 'creative and cultured' cities like Paris or (recently) Berlin, Prague does in fact suffer fools gladly. I lived in Prague from 1997 to 2008, bouncing back and forth between the States until those bounces became fewer and further between. But even after a failed six year mission to wipe the smelly hipsters off the face of Berlin (2009 to 2015), I returned to Prague. Hi, my name is Craig. I am a rexpat and an exuberant dreamer with no funds in which to trust. So I make my meager way in this world. My way. Every day.

 Já jsem vůl

In past lives I was a Praguelodyte and a Dunkin' Berliner. Now I am a loose can(n)on, a feckless wanderer, a blogger without a cause. Sixteen years spent in Prague and Berlin eating and drinking several metric tonnes of fried cheese, beer, sausage and donuts has made me what I am today: The Wide Body Jetsetter. I am dangerously close to paying for two seats on the plane.

Serial Expatriate

I keep arguing that if you live abroad long enough, you can shed the expatriate label and become something else. What that 'something' is is yet to be determined. I'd like to think I am an American refugee, but this is now not the time nor place for that argument. I have in fact fled my home country in search of a better life. But as I am from a rich country, did not leave with bombs falling behind me, and I did not arrive in a rubber dinghy with children clinging to the sides, I'm just a garden variety rexpat. I'm not a digital nomad; I don't live on an beach in Thailand writing travel blogs and/or designing websites like my good friends Ari and Michael. I'm jealous of them and those like them. But I may just lack the true grit needed to weather the humidity, malaria and mosquito storms. That and the fact that I hate the heat. I wear a Hawaiian shirt in the frozen meat locker of Central Europe.

Stayed Tuned

Travel, fucker. Burn the job, the house, the kids (just kidding; take them with you) and get out of the system which is bringing you down. Choose your own life, your own rules, your own way. The only thing keeping you from doing exactly what you are meant to do in your life is fear. That's OK. I have it too, every time I relocate without a plan. In this blog I will tell you all about the good, the bad and the ugly of living abroad, dodging red tape, traveling on a shoestring and living abroad long term. I will probably also include various scraps of all the other 20 years of travel stories which didn't fit into my Prague or Berlin parameters. Sometimes I will just tell you the best place to get a kickass burrito or a truly dope pizza. Or maybe just dope (I'll have to ask my stoner friends, though).