Skotsko II

We got safely home Sunday, with various degrees of tiredness and hangover – not just from the whiskey and cider and copious quantities of “Best” brew, but also from the experience of travel and performance. Our last show in Greenock (former sugar capital of Europe in the 18th century – where all the British West Indies molasses came to be processed into sugar) had 11 attendees; even if the theater had been packed, though, it would have been tough. I was having trouble mustering the energy and attention to simply keep on playing.

It was a lovely trip, and was very interesting to see the Scottish bluegrass scene. They’re a country about half the size of Czech Republic…and apparently have about 3 bands who play on a reasonable level.  But there is a lot of activity – part of which is the annual visits of top euro and US bands.  So the small community  bluegrassers isn’t getting much younger, but at least they’re enjoying some fine concerts along the way.  Brings up interesting questions of sustainability.

for more photos, see:    www.flickr.com/photos/blidgood

Many thanks to the community there, especially John Sheldon (tireless organizer and expediter) and Alec Rennie, who hosted Vita and I in his home, and fed us spectacular breakfasts and tea.

Elusive Fox

2008-4-15

I heard tell of a Czech version of “fox on the run” (US pop-country song, now a bluegrass standard) by a gent named Vacláv Neckař – all this from a friend who just got together a piece on him that she is airing on Radio Praha. She was giving an idea of some of his songs–having heard them too much editing the sound files–and sang one that was unmistakeably “like a fox.” (This is Rosie, who interviewed me a while back for Radio Praha, and after I loaned her “Limonadovy Joe” went to interview the actress that played the luscivious Tornado Lou, Květa Fialová – see that page HERE )
Back to Neckař; he was the antiheroic “star” of Jiri Menzel’s “Closely Watched Trains” (1968 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, from the eponymous novel by Bohumil Hrabal) and the (front) man of pop (power) trio “Golden Kids.” (it’s not kids as in boys and girls, but as in juvenile goats. Thanks, Czechs! ) Interestingly enough, Vacláv was recently accused of reporting on colleagues to the StB ( the former state security apparatus: http://www.radio.cz/en/news/92777 – the ghosts of communism still haunt…)

For the media-minded of you, here’s a GK hit:

…and a gratuitous though contemporaneous Mannfred Mannnn version of “fox” that is nice (and perhaps sparked a Czech version?):

Sorry for all the tangents – it’s all just to good….

My main point: Anyone know more details on a Neckar (czech-texted) version? (instead of “like a fox,” is the refrain “kolem nas”…? or “jako slon” …? )

I’ll be tuning in to Rosie’s feature once it’s up online, and you can too – after Sunday, head to www.radio.cz and then click through to music features, down the menu on the left side of the page.

Nemocnice Motol

2008-1-21   -    I’ve streamlined my journal entries and various writing projects into one folder named “daily work.”  My account of the 21st of January, 2008 is both the substance and story of the work I did that day.  It was mostly waiting; I went to the hospital.  One of my toes is a bit off, and I wanted someone to take a look at it.  So I rolled onto the bus at Vetrnik and down the hill to Nemocnice Motol, our local teaching/University hospital.  As far as we can tell, it’s a reputable institution.  But it is Czech, and so it is at times just….different.

The folks at the foreign section desk sent me to Surgery.  About 1.5 hour wait, and then a nice visit with a MUDr. and his assisting sestra (an awkward Czechism– a holdover from nun-hospitals? –especially for folks like our friend Viktor, who is a nurse, or in Czech, a “sister.”)  He looked my toe over carefully and decided that he didn’t know; could be a fungus, some sort of embolism…but the flesh still seems healthy…I’m giving gory details here because that’s how it went, the MUDr. and I conversing about what was going on.  It was odd to be so dialectical there on the gauze-topped table.

And disappointing in its inconclusivity.  But I am reassured that nothing’s going to “start fallin’ off a man” anytime soon, and he said to come right back if something changes in the next few days.  Before I left, I got a transfer to dermatology, and the sestra complimented my Czech.

Upstairs at “skin services” (dermatology wasn’t on the list, but I got the words worked out eventually after staring at the big hospital map for a while) we had some communication problems, and I thought I was waiting for service..but was just sitting there. when I approached the door the first lady pointed to, a nurse who kept ushering other patients in and out told me to wait.
I listened to some consort music, the end of a lecture on Evil, a talk by Melvin Butler on his research in Jamaican pentecostal churches. and on the whole was doing pretty well on the patience thing.
After another two hours, I asked again, and got the same stream of Czech:
“you need to ORDER.”
I asked what that means.
“It means….Order!”
Ah.  we are really getting places here.
“I’m an idiot.  A foreigner.  I don’t know what that word means in this context, it’s the one I use when I get water at a restaurant.  Could you please explain?”
When she switched into “you’re an idiot” mode, things got clearer. She had been telling me to”set up an appointment” – But the door she kept pointing to was locked, with a big sign that said “Do Not Knock” on it, and its hefty sestra was having none of me.  So my third time there at the main reception, the lady snatched my referral paper, and came back with the first possible appointment, for 14/2, Valentine’s day, at 10am written at the top.
Bless you, Czech.  My whole day is gone.