White Stripes Strike Prague

I've seen their faces and read their names more often than I've heard the music. Jack and Meg White. The White Stripes.

They're fun to write about because you can easily differentiate them from other bands.

They're the brother and sister rock duo that aren't really brother and sister, but ex-husband and wife.

They're also the band that takes only 29 hours to record an album and not eleven years like the last Axl Rose release.

They're the band that makes all their instruments from scratch in an abandoned auto parts warehouse in Hamtramck, Michigan.

Jack's the one with the tattoo of the Virgin Mary eating a Coney dog. Meg's the one with a the tattoo of Tramp (from Disney's Lady and the Tramp) making love to the bluebird of happiness (Rolling Stone, December 2003).

Like the many rock journalists who adore The White Stripes, I could go on and on about them and their lives. But what's more important? The music, right?

Though I haven't kept up with the White Stripes during their meteoric rise to international fame, I did first hear them years ago when I used to live in the Detroit area. At the time they were called The Ex-Eunuchs. Jack was still going by the name John Gillis and he and Meg White were just second cousins at the time.

The show was at Benchwarmers Bar & Grill. Jack was playing a guitar that he had made which looked like it weighed 120 pounds. The main body was made from an old Edsel Fender and the strings were held in place my rotating spark plugs. Meg's gear consisted of oil drums that had been canvassed over, headlights on music stands and the front grill of an old Cadillac Fleetwood.
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They were doing entirely covers, a lot of old R&B, also some upbeat songs like Bang-Shang-a-Lang (an Archies song from the 60's), some Brian Hyland pop classics and some stripped down, grunged up versions of Falco's Der Kommissar and Hinter uns die Sintflut.

Despite the one dollar a glass beer special that night, The Ex-Eunuchs only managed to draw a crowds of 30 or 40 people, most of them fellow Hamtramck rock musicians and some of the regulars who worked at A & E Autobody across the street.

Which brings me to last night's concert at the Archa Theatre in Prague. True to their DIY austere ethos, there was no amazing light show. There were no gospel choir. No dancers in tight shorts. Not even a cello. There was just Jack and Meg and a half a dozen spectacular costume changes, ranging from mariachi suits to Napoleonic battle uniforms to Maoist rebel fatigues to the obligatory 70’s glam-wear.

The international crowd of Europeans and Americans had high expectations for this show, which came at the high (for Prague) ticket price of 950 Czech krona (38 USD). Fortunately, being a blog star has its advantages and I was able to get free tickets from the Archa management team (Thanks Jiri and Petra!!!).

Those who’d come to hear Seven Nation Army, Jolene and Mama’s Boy were not disappointed. Those who’d come to hear Bang-Shang-a-Lang were probably a bit miffed over how much Jack and Meg have have distanced themselves from their Detroit roots. But there were few of us.

Brain Soup

We had a hailstorm on Monday. There were pellets of ice 2cm in diameter pounding against my window. It took some of the paint off the window frame. It took some of the window frame too (I have old crumbling apart window frames).

In town, huge gusts of winds were knocking pedestrians on their ass and construction workers off rooftops. Three elderly German tourists had to be fished out of the Vlatava. A baby pig at the Bohnice animal farm caught a strong gust and went airborne. Flew 15 meters before whacking a medical student on the back of her head. Knocked her out cold. Twenty minutes later, all was calm. People went back outside to clean up and enjoy the sunshine.

Amy was telling me about the flying pig. She used to work at Bohnice doing clinical research in Behavioral Neurobiology, or “Poking About in the Brain,” as it’s sometimes called. I was at Amy’s place in Prague 8, near the new Kobylisy Metro Station. Her and her boyfriend Pavel were having a Memorial Day cookout in their backyard. Skewered meats and vegetables, as well as pineapple, which Amy insisted was really good grilled.

Some of Amy’s vegetable garden had taken a pummeling from the ice storm. A few trays of baby lettuce, tomatoes and carrots were smashed apart, dirt and sprouts splattered on the cement patio. Some of them were badly injured, but would be eventually recover. Some would remain in a permanent vegetative state. She was still cleaning up the carnage when I arrived for the cookout.

I helped Amy gather up the wounded and repot them. Those left for dead were unceremoniously hurled onto the open grass.

“I spoke to my parents last night,” Amy said. “They hadn’t heard anything about the Downing Street Memo. Can you believe that? It’s been—what now?—three weeks since the news came out?”

Amy’s parents live in Ohio. Perhaps they don’t have news in Ohio. Listening to the BBC and European news networks we sometimes fear that stories like the Downing Street Memo, Guantanamo Bay and the discovery of Cenozoic Era cloning projects are either downplayed or never covered by the American media.

“It’s the smoking gun,” I said. “But it’s not going to make any difference. With a Republican controlled congress there’s no way he’s going to be impeached. And, really, Americans don’t care.”

Of course, all expat Americans speak about “Americans” as if we’re not ones ourselves. Talking about Americans is like looking into a mirror and not being able to recognize yourself. We like to think we’re a different sort of American, but it’s not always clear just how true that is.

Some expats believe that leaving America and choosing to live in another country is about as strong a political statement as you can make. But does that mean that by living in France, Italy, Czech Republic—wherever—we approve of their politics? Americans are great at making grand ideological justification for their actions, but what it usually comes down to, as with most people, is convenience. Like George W. Bush believing that war, fear mongering and capital punishment are Christian actions, we believe what is convenient for us to believe.

There have been interesting “split brain” experiments done in which the left and right hemispheres of the brain are divided and can’t communicate with each other. Researchers will tell one hemisphere of the brain something, like “Pick up this spoon.” Then they’ll ask the right hemisphere a question like, “Why did you pick up that spoon.” The right hemisphere doesn’t know it was given a command and it searches for a justification for the spoon in its hand.

“Ah…well…I guess I’m expecting some soup.”

Bush’s belief that his war on terrorism will make the world a better place, is a bit like saying he’s preparing for soup.

Battling the Monster Worms

I had dinner with my friend C. Carlton Sheff yesterday. We met in a small Chinese Take-Away restaurant in Karlin, near where he lives, the part of Prague that was completely underwater during the 2002 flood. C.C. spent last year in Kyoto, with his girlfriend Kristyana, studying Japanese calligraphy and Bushido. Since his return to Prague in January, I haven’t seen much of him. He’s been busy writing a new novel and I’ve been busy carrying on with my secret life.

Like most American expats, we discussed the declining American Empire as a way of assuring each other we got out just in time.

“Airport security is the first thing to go,” said C.C. “They’re so desperate to fill all these new security positions that they hire just about anyone. Don’t even look at their past criminal records. I usually just get the pork fried rice. When Kristyana and I were in the U.S. for Christmas we had this dumb ass security guard who went through my bag, then threw it down on the ground upside down. Are you getting a beer? I just reached down to set in upright and he snapped at me. I couldn’t complain, couldn’t say anything. If I did he probably would have detained me and I would have missed my flight. Try the Chicken with Five Spices. That’s a case where the wrong person is given entirely too much power and it’s happening more and more like that in the U.S.”

After the waitress came and took our order, I asked C.C. what his new book is about.

“I’ve been reading a lot on the cold war lately. Have you read any Alan Furst? He’s written a series of books about World War II and Central Europe – Hungary, Poland, Romania...And then I started reading some of the political theory of Hannah Arendt. You know who I’m talking about? She escaped Germany in World War II and went on to write about power and totalitarianism and evil, like, what is evil? Is evil really some powerful force or is it just a lack of will, a slothful banality of mankind? So that, plus my recent studies on Bushido started my brain ticking…That’s fast.”

The waitress had just returned with our dishes. She set them down before us. My Chicken with Five Spices looked like a typical sweet and sour chicken. It also had peas mixed in with it. I hate peas. I consider peas evil. I would have to pick them out.

“What was I saying?” Continued C.C. “Yeah, right. So I started getting this image of giant, monstrous creatures rising out of the ocean devouring everything in their path. It’s going to cross a lot of genres. It’s sort of a Cold War-Science Fiction-Political Thriller with a sword fighting hero who lives his life as if he were looking toward each present moment from the time of his death."

“What sort of monstrous creatures?”

“There’s this nuclear testing going on at the bottom of the Artic Sea, which rouses these giant prehistoric words from their aquatic slumber.”

"Words?"

"Did I say words? I mean worms. Giant, monstrous worms"

“Is this something you picked up from reading Hannah Arendt?”

“Not exactly. I mean, it’s kind of in there. If you read The Origins of Totalitarianism or On Violence it’s there, just not so metaphorically.”

The More Biennales the Merrier

While Flash Art Magazine founders Giancarlo Politi and Helena Kontova and Milan Knízák, Director of the National Gallery in Prague, are busy battling it out over who’s Art Biennale is the real Prague Art Biennale, artist Bohumil Kmonicek has taken advantage of the confusion by launching his own Prague Biennale out of his apartment in Vysocany.

An invitation to the Kmonicek Biennale arrived by email. Unlike the other two Biennales in Prague that chose to compete for public attention with opening festivities on May 26, Kmonicek got a jump start on things by choosing May 25 for the opening of his 2005 Prague Biennale.

I tend to get lost every time I go to Vysocany. (Though friends have taken me to the Modra Opice “Blue Monkey” Bar numerous times, please don’t ask me to lead the way there.) True to form, it took me a good hour before I finally discovered Kmonicek’s gray cinder block apartment building on Mezitratova Street (thanks to a 3 x 3 meter sign in the dirt out front which reads: “Koberce Brázda s.r.o. Proud Sponsors of Prague Biennale”).

I rang Kmonicek’s buzzer. Without a word spoken over the intercom, the steel and glass door buzzed open. I assumed the colorful tape arrows along the walls and stairwell were directing me towards the Biennale. After three flights of stairs, the arrows lead me to a door with a large poster of a beautiful girl in lingerie laying upon a plush red carpet and the words “Spolecnost KOBERCE BRÁZDA s.r.o. vznikla v roce 1993 welcome you Prague Biennale!”

Unsurprisingly, Kmonicek’s Biennale contained many of his own works. Prominently displayed was a large sofa wrapped entirely in duct tape and twine titled klobása premoci or “Sausage Surprise,” But there were also works by a number of other Czech artists, including Jakub Dadák, Petr Brnák, and Jana Culíkova. Representing artists from abroad were Peter Nigel (UK), Petr Jurinová (SK) and Petr Poroshenko (UA), or The Three Peters, as Kmonicek referes to them in the Biennale's catalog.

During the time of my visit, Kmonicek was very busy trying to remove wine stains from the floor of the main exhibition hall (his living room), but I managed to get him to respond to a few questions about the biennale. I first asked about the current divisiveness in Prague's art scene. "This is good," was Kmonicek's firm, unqualified response.

Pressing him further, I asked, "You don't think that the competition from two major exhibitions, both calling themselves Prague Biennales, taking place at the same time as yours will draw attention away from your biennale?"

"First, let me tell you the true answer," said Komenica, rising on his knees and wringing the wet wine-stained rag into a bucket. "This is not my Biennale. This is artists' biennale. I do it for artists everwhere. I think, 'Why not?' I have place for exhibition. I know artists. I know money for promotion. Really, this anyone can do. Maybe we should all be having Biennales, you think?"

I thought it was maybe a good idea. I plan to speak to my flatmate Lawrence and see if he's up for having a Biennale in our apartment in Zizkov. I'll keep you posted if we do.