March 31
Destiny Unbound?

Like a box Cracker Jack found on the bathroom floor of your favorite all male adult theatre, my last night in Prague was full of surprises! Before I left for Denmark, my Uncle Alan had given me the names and numbers of people he knew in Europe – distant cousins and old business associates or people he knew from his many years of traveling the world. Of course, I haven’t called any of these people. There’s no reason to willingly dive headfirst into an awkward situation But while in Prague, my uncle has repeatedly e-mailed me reminders to call a guy named George Nussbaum, “…or else.” George is a vaguely-if-at-all-related cousin by marriage who has been living in the city since 1991 where he has found success in the billboard business and happiness with a native woman 14 years his junior. After experiencing the Prague club scene last night with my buddy Eisman who is spending the semester here, I figured I might as well give George a ring and at the very least, get a free dinner out of it.

A quick note about last night: I met up with Eis at the Bombay Bar with Peter and Megan from my study tour, had a drink, and then headed to Radhost to celebrate Black Music Night. In Europe, rap and hip-hop are affectionately lumped together as “Black Music,” and Black Music Night is the one night each week when the clubs give their techno records a rest to acknowledge the great strides blacks have made in the repressively white music industry. Interestingly enough, jazz and blues are collectively known as “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk.” The club was alright - met some obnoxious Americans and nearly got my ass beat for calling out a Czech guy who was wearing a Hugo Boss-designed, Grateful Dead-themed t-shirt. And the Czech women, well, they wouldn’t talk to me if I were on fire holding a bag of money. But I did manage to sneak this sweet pic of a dude who looked remarkably like a Barry Bonds type person.



George picked me up tonight at the hotel where I’m staying illegally in Megan’s room. That means, I’m not paying for the room, but I am sleeping in it and using the shower (the Chinese call it “entrepreneurship”). I invited Megan along, more as insurance for a shitty evening (she was gonna fake a water break), but as it turned out all the worrying was for naught. George introduced himself and drove us to a happening restaurant/bar/club that hasn’t yet been discovered by tourists where two of his friends joined us for a delicious dinner (I had the goulash, I always have the goulash) that included a shot of the beloved national drink, Becherovka. It tasted like burning, but I sipped it down to save face. George is a short, very pleasant man in his mid-forties. He wrestled at Loomis Chaffee and did fratty stuff at Georgetown, and then moved to Prague after the Velvet Revolution. He’s pretty much an aging campus legend desperately trying to hold on to whatever cool sensibility he once had while struggling to keep up with the American zeitgeist (he had not heard of Curb Your Enthusiasm, the poor guy). But we found common ground in our insatiable appetites for talking about women who we’re never going to bang (you don’t have to point out that he has a wife, and therefore, a good excuse). Most of the dinner conversation was spent pointing out various hotties in the restaurant and commenting on their bodies and/or faces. I felt bad for Megan at times, but George did his part by including her in his sexual objectification.

After dinner we checked out the bar/club area of the restaurant/bar/club, which was just a short, spiraling walk downstairs. We were standing around, cruising some beers, when this young American guy who had overheard us struck up a conversation. He introduced himself as a writer from Los Angeles who had just arrived in Europe to aimlessly drive around in a rented car, and that’s all I needed to hear before I started thinking this guy could be the Dean Moriarty to my Sal Paradise. We stood there by the bar and got to talking about writing and comedy and music and New York and LA (and their whacky differences!), and by the end of it we had both decided some sort of cosmic force had driven us to meet in this random Prague bar, on this my last and his first night in the city. A quick biographical sketch of Tyler: 25 year-old writer, currently living in Studio City, originally from the Seattle, WA area. Dropped out of high school in ’99 to tour with Phish, briefly dabbled in film school before dropping out to pursue independent film. He’s bumming around Europe with a rented car for a few months before heading to far-east Russia to film Siberian tigers in the wild, or something extreme and nutty like that. Our mutual love and appreciation for The Simpsons was discovered pretty early in the course of conversation, quickly followed by the realization that we are both huge fans with a PH. He regaled me with stories from the road, including his acid-for-tickets trade with a random French before the 10/7/00 Shoreline show, what turned out to be Phish’s last show for more than two years as the band took an extended hiatus from touring. He also described his first encounter with Trey during which his ex-girlfriend blew a line with the Mr. Anastasio in a private backstage room after one of his 70 Volt show (Trey, putting the crack rock in rockstar). The most awe-inspiring tidbit: Tyler had just completed an original Simpsons script as a writing exercise, but due to some inside connections, the episode might actually get produced in the upcoming season. He said the hapless and underrated Gil is featured prominently. This guy was a Simspns writer, or at least, the closest thing to a Simpsons writer that I’ve ever met. Unbelievable.

The whole time I was talking with him, I just keep picturing us in the Simpsons writing room, pitching a hilarious script that had even George Meyer cracking up. Every generation has a group of prolific writers who manage to come together and create magic: The Inklings, the Beats, the Pythons, the Lamps, the Yacht Rockers. I entertain the fantastic notion that I could be a part of that next generation, and I feel like Tyler could be part of it too. But like a fucking moron, I didn’t get his contact info before I lost him in the crowded bar. So I’m a little bummed out, but I have a strange feeling we'll meet again someday, if this whole comedy-writing career works out (it's the same strange feeling I got when I made the switch from nail scissors to nail clippers). Nonetheless but alwaysthemore, if someone reading this knows of a writer named Tyler from Studio City, tell him about THE SPOT, and tell him to shave those sideburns. (THE SPOT – that’s the new hip spin I’ve put on my blog. Think Saved by the Bell’s THE MAX and Mark Fidrych’s nickname THE BIRD, and then forget about those things, and remember to floss).