Thursday, April 27, 2006

Wednesdays with Trannies

A good friend (whose name starts with "m" and rhymes with "bike") has just rented a new apartment. I went to see it last night and was suitably impressed. Besides the usual mod cons (electric lighting, gas heating, running water, non-communal bathroom, kitchen sink) the place is located in a pretty courtyard that I would describe as reminiscent of Cordoba only I've never seen Cordoba so that would be a big fat lie and I'm trying to cut down on those AND it's located ABOVE a TRANSVESTITE CABARET.

Entrance is free on Wednesdays and having seen last night's show, I understand why. (At right is an artist's rendition of the act we saw - a guy dressed like a pregnant Mrs. Roper singing some Czech song that was not the theme to Three's Company.)

Come to think of it, the apartment has a sort of Three's Company feel to it, which my friend "bike" actually remarked on as were looking around.

My life often feels like a sitcom - on a good day Seinfeld, on a bad day, Who's the Boss? - so the idea of being a recurring character on Three's Company doesn't startle me as much as it might some. This is especially true since the cafe in the courtyard serves 21 kc Gambrinus. With enough 21 kc Gambrinus, I could sit through an episode of the real Three's Company.

So, if you're looking for me this summer and I'm not out rowing behind a barge full of medical waste while drinking beer (my favorite summer form of exercise, as some of you may remember from an earlier post) I'll be at the Regal Beagle. Posted by Picasa

Friday, April 21, 2006

Sweet Home Buckinghamshire?

This scene has played out three times in as many days: I'm sitting at my desk, surfing the web for recipes that will somehow allow me to whip up a meal using the ingredients I have in my fridge (mustard, salad dressing, shortening, frozen peas) when I suddenly hear the strains of "Sweet Home Alabama."

I leap to my feet, scurry to the window (getting tangled in my computer/radio/reading lamp electrical cords and almost causing half my room to collapse in on itself) and realize the sound is coming from a vehicle stopped in traffic out front of my house. But WHICH VEHICLE?

Today, I determined two things:

1. It's not the old school Lynyrd Skynyrd version of "Sweet Home Alabama," (you know, the song that was actually a big screw you to Neil Young for his song "Cortez the Killer" which Skynyrd considered anti-South American*), it's just that distinctive - what do the kids call it? a riff? - with some guy rapping over it. And I don't even think he's rapping about Alabama, but I can't really tell.

2. It seemed to be coming from a black SUV with UK plates.

If this were an episode of "Murder, She Wrote" it would be the beginning and Jessica would now find out who was driving that SUV and why they were so devoted to "Sweet Home Alabama" that they played it constantly (because they must - this has happened at completely different times each day).

This is MY show, however, and I say "It came from a black SUV with Brit plates - CASE CLOSED."

Roll credits.

*I know, I know, it was "Southern Man." But I'm a total spaz when it comes to knowing things about the music I listen to - things like who sings it, what's it called, what's the name of that pear-shaped instrument with the strings the lead singer plays? I always come to grief in discussions about music because I run up against people who can not only answer questions like these, they can also tell you what the studio musicians had for lunch the day they recorded this track, what brand of guitar pick the bass player used, where the drummer bought his pants. So I've decided to give up any attempt at being right and concentrate instead on being extravagantly, gloriously WRONG!

Thursday, April 20, 2006

You've Always Got Time*

Tim Horton's, for those of you who haven't already had this bit of Canadiana shoved down your throat by a rabid Canuck nationalist (i.e. me), is a Canadian coffee chain. (Owned by Wendy's, an American hamburger chain, which I guess means Tim's is technically no longer Canadian, but I can only follow these questions of ownership back about two levels before I fall asleep, which is why Time Warner/AOL/CNN/Likvidace will take over the world without me noticing.)

Where was I?

Oh yes, so Tim Horton's, the erstwhile Canadian coffee chain, often has contests where you "Roll Up the Rim to WIN" ("Derroule le rebord pour GAGNER" in French which, as you will soon see, is actually germane to this story).

Recently, a 10-year-old girl in Montreal found a Tim Horton's cup in the garbage can outside her school. She "enlisted the help of a 12-year-old girl" to derroule le rebord, and what do you know? They GAGNER-ED a Toyota RAV 4. I'm not sure what that is, but it's worth $28,700, which explains why:

1. The family of the second girl demanded she get half of it.
2. The school janitor, who claims it was his cup, hired a lawyer who demanded DNA testing on the cup to prove this.

Tim Horton's has decided to award the Toyota RAV 4 to the family of the 10-year-old girl. This, to me, seems fair, and that's fitting because the original Tim Horton was a hockey player renowned for his gentlemanly play. He would never have fought over a contest prize. Of course, he probably wouldn't have dived into a garbage can after a used paper coffee cup either, but passons, passons.

*Old Tim Horton's slogan, as was "Your Friend Along the Way." The cups and trays, which can be found scattered profusely along all the major and most of the minor highways in Canada, also feature the phrase "Keep Canada Clean."

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Digital Planet

There's this contest on the BBC World Service now where you can win a digital camera (that's a camera you operate with your fingers) just by telling them about the picture you'd take if you won.

I decided the way to win would be to tell them I live in Prague and I want to take a picture of some traditional Prague institution that's in danger of disappearing now that the country has joined the EU.

I started trying to come up with the perfect subject and I realized the best shot would combine a bunch of these things, so I'm going to write and say I would take a picture of a smoking wiener dog with a mullet serving me a well-poured beer that I didn't order. (And yes, I realize EU membership has not, as yet, posed any threat to Czech wiener dogs, but that doesn't mean it won't - once canine mobility becomes a reality we could be up to our ankles in German Shepherds, French Poodles, and Italian Sausage Dogs.)

Of course, I won't win. Some guy from Nigeria will win and I won't be able to grudge him the digital camera because how can you grudge some guy from Nigeria anything? That's right, you can't.

Maybe, instead, I can write a children's story about a wiener dog with a mullet who smokes and serves beer without the children even having to ask. I'll call it, "The Little Mole." Posted by Picasa

Thursday, April 13, 2006

From the "How's that again?" department

Read this and tell me it doesn't sound like someone asked your grandma to write a New York Times article about nicknames:


Nicknames have been around for centuries, long before the digital age and even before Shakespeare was scribbling iambic pentameter with an inky quill. They have been the province of schoolchildren, athletes, crooners and mobsters, and have described everyone from Queen Elizabeth I (the Virgin Queen) to Loretta Swit's Hot Lips Houlihan character on the "M*A*S*H" television series.



Your grandma, who hasn't been able to see the television that well in recent years and has taken to listening to the radio (or the blender) instead.

Everyone from Queen Elizabeth I to Hot Lips Houlihan? Why not: Everyone from Ethelred (the Unready) to Jerry Mathers' Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver on the "Leave it to Beaver" television series?

Everyone from Idi "Big Daddy" Amin to Vincent Pastore's "Big Pussy" on "The Sopranos" television series.

Everyone from my father's childhood friend "Creamer" Doyle to whatever we're calling Jimmy this week.

In short, everyone.

Pretty much.

Come in Tokyo...
Shuffling toward Bethlehem

The latest trend in all the hip publications (Time, Newsweek, The Watchtower) is to have someone (preferably a celebrity) put their iPod on shuffle then comment on the first five or so songs that come up. iPods, in case you haven't heard, hold literally DOZENS of songs, it's like having a jukebox in your pocket, only not so heavy, and you don't need coins.

I was all set to do this when I remembered I don't own an iPod. So then I thought I could do it with a friend's MP3 player, but I realized I don't really know anything about the songs he listens to (except that they all seem to be sung by incredibly sensitive men from Montreal. I lived in Montreal for two years and never met any incredibly sensitive men, unless you include the ones who wept in their poutine when the Canadiens lost).

THEN I hit on the idea of putting three CD's in my stereo and hitting "shuffle," until I remembered there ARE three CD's in my stereo and they've been there ever since it died sometime before Christmas and hitting "shuffle" probably isn't going to bring it back to life.

Which brought me to my final option (presses play):

Song 1: Cry! Cry! Cry!

Oh! This is the first track on "The Legend of Johnny Cash" CD my sister gave me for Christmas! I always listen to this song first when I play this CD.

Song 2:Hey Porter

This is the second song on "The Legend of Johnny Cash" CD my sister gave me for Christmas. I usually listen to it right after "Cry! Cry! Cry!" I don't know why, it just always seems to happen that way.

Song 3: Folsom Prison Blues

I think this is the third song on that Johnny Cash CD my sister gave me for Christmas, although I also have this song on an old Johnny Cash CD I bought myself, but I didn't just change the CD so I guess this is on the one I got from my sister. It's great.

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

The Road Not Taken

Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like if I'd never left Cape Breton Island.

Apparently, it would have looked something like thisPosted by Picasa

Monday, April 10, 2006

If I had a hammer

Pictured at right is one of the (by my estimate) 3,500 cobblestones that were hammered into place outside my window this weekend. At the crack of 7 a.m. on Saturday (and again on Sunday) the clink of tiny hammers mixed with the merry laughter of Ukrainian workmen (really merry - drunken, it suddenly occurs to me) came drifting through my window.

They had lots to say to each other, and in my "don't speak the language" paranoia, I assumed, of course, that they were talking about me:

Workman #1: Watch this, I'm going to hammer these in as hard as I can! It is 7 a.m. after all, time to get up and spill the coffee! (A reference to the time I spilled a pot of coffee all over my stove just before the gas man arrived; I believe, of course, that the gas man somehow told the Ukrainian workers about my messy kitchen).

Workman #2: BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Workman #1: Why should we have to be up at dawn while lazy foreigners lie in bed nursing their Krusovice hangovers until noon? (More paranoia, the workmen not only know I'm foreign and hungover, they know what kind of beer I was drinking last night.)

Workman #2: BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Workman #1: Let's see, it's 11 a.m. We could finish this today or we could stop for no particular reason and come back again tomorrow at 7 a.m. What do you think?

Workman #2: BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Workman #1: That's what I thought you'd say! To the pub! Posted by Picasa

Friday, April 07, 2006

Apple Pie

I made an apple pie last night for the first annual "Chicken Curry, Apple Pie, 'Magnificent Seven'" night at my place. (A success, which gives me hope for my next event, the "Pork Medallions, Chocolate Cheesecake, 'It Happened One Night'" night).

The best thing about making apple pie is that you get to have apple pie for breakfast the next morning, which I did, as you can see by the accompanying photo. (I usually have better table manners, but when there's no table, I figure what the hell?)

I'm wearing my baseball uniform because I have a game later today.

Ah, spring. Posted by Picasa
At Ease

I patrolled my stretch of the river yesterday (in the company of a golden retriever) and am pleased to report the waters are receding.

Launch your paddleboats, cast your bread, bait your hooks - the Vltava is once again open for business.

Except the restaurant below my house, which got flooded to the gunnels and will probably reek of dead carp for months to come. Posted by Picasa

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

He not only saves, he scores

A professor at Florida State University (whose name is apparently Doron Nof, and yeah, it sounds like an April Fools joke, but I tried spelling it backwards and it doesn't spell anything so I'm guessing it's real) says that rather than walking on water, Jesus may have walked on a freak ice patch that formed on the Sea of Galilee during cold periods that occurred between 2,500 and 1,500 years ago.

Extrapolating wildly from this hypothesis, which is pretty wild to begin with, I'm going to suggest that Jesus may have not just walked on ice, he may have played hockey. In the Galilee League. With a few of the apostles. Using unleavened bread for pucks.

That would make the Virgin Mary a hockey mom: getting up at dawn to take Jesus to practice, packing his equipment bag, organizing fundraisers - like donkey washes - to buy uniforms, screaming abuse at the other children, telling Jesus he should learn to puck handle like his cousin John ("The Baptist").

I've created a "Skating Jesus" prototype to cash in on this theory, because what's the use of a theory if you can't cash in on it?

Those of you who would like to know more about Nof's ideas, but whose subscriptions to the Paleolimnological Journal have expired, can find his article here. Posted by Picasa

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Because you asked...

The water is STILL HIGH. Okay? Are you all satisfied? You people who think that just because I announce I'm planning to monitor the flooding (and create a special CNN-esque icon to mark the posts) I'M ACTUALLY GOING TO DO IT? Me? The same woman who gave herself two years to move to New York and MISSED THE DEADLINE? Please.

Besides, it's not like i have nothing better to do than sit here with my eyes glued to the rising brown waters of the Vltava. I HAVE A LIFE, PEOPLE. I have dogs to walk, and cats to feed, and friends to meet for lunch, at least, I thought she was my friend until she STOOD ME UP like ONE MINUTE before i walked into the restaurant! And I want to try out this new recipe I just found and I may have to salt my own pork for it and I DON'T KNOW NUTHIN' ABOUT SALTIN' NO PORK!

So if you'll look closely at the icon, it's been somewhat modified - I am not going to "watch" the floods, I am going to "talk" about them. BUT ONLY WHEN I DAMN WELL FEEL LIKE IT. Posted by Picasa
Home Is Where the Giant Fiddle Is

People ask me, "Mary, what is it you like best about your home town?" and I always take a moment to respond (but not too long, people tend to lose interest pretty quickly) because there are so many things I like about my home town.

Is it the Boutique Caliope? A gift shop in the "new" (opened in 1974) mall that pronounces its own name wrong? (So that "caliope" rhymes with "antelope.")

Is it steak darts?

Is it going to see the Rod Stewart tribute band at Smooth Herman's cabaret on "ladies'" night then coming out and getting a big greasy helping of Fuzzy's Fries from a chip wagon that started life as a milk truck?

It has, at various times over the years, been all of these things, but not anymore. As of last year, this became my favorite thing about my home town: