Emmanuel Burgin's Blog

Hickey Books



[image error]

Here I am with my friend and mentor Ken Kuhlken having a drink and discussing my publishing future. It looks like I am back on the literary horse again. Ken, a recipient of several mystery writer awards, is also the Co-Founder of the small press Hickey Books.

I am pleased to inform my friends and relatives that I have agreed to publish with Hickey Books and it looks as if the first book out the gate will be a re-issue of ‘Vagabond Blues’ (shameless plug to follow) a San Diego Book Award Finalist. It will be re-issued with a new cover. And my second Bean Bandits book ‘Four Days at the World of Speed: Bean Bandits Chasing the Land Speed Record’ will follow shortly thereafter.

I am excited to partner with Ken and I encourage you all to seek out his and other Hickey authors at Hickey Books.com or on BookBub, an eBook site for all you Nook and Kindle subscribers. I recently joined BookBub as a reader but soon will have my own eBooks to sell.

On a side note, for my meeting with Ken I happened to park in front of Maxwell’s House of Books, an Independent bookstore in La Mesa that I had sadly forgotten. After my visit with Ken, I stopped in and, naturally, had to purchase a few books. Coincidentally a book that Ken forgot to bring to the meeting in which he said he had used a couple of incidents involving my relatives, those engaged in Mexican politics, I found at Maxwell’s.

Said book ‘the Answer to Everything’ is a page turner. I began reading it last night and I could not put it down. The relatives (you know who you are) will get a kick out of this book. Also, as a reminder, if you do not want to see parts of your life in a book, do not befriend a fiction writer.  Peace.

[image error]



[image error]



[image error]

.col-md-2 {
float:left;
width: 16.6667%;
}





.col-md-2 {
float:left;
width: 16.6667%;
}


Share



.col-md-2 {
float:left;
width: 16.6667%;
}

by Emmanuel Burgin

I wrote “A Chicano in Prague” upon my return from Prague twenty years ago. Arriving back in my home state of California, I was struck dumbfounded not only by Governor Pete Wilson’s rhetoric on immigration but, also, by the many willing to follow him. And I found my mother fearful to venture outside even though she had been in the states legally for sixty-four years and had seen two sons serve in the U.S. military during the Vietnam era. Her fear stemmed from having seen two older brothers, although here in the states legally with workers permits, picked up by immigration officers and without due process of the law thrown into a box car on a train a mile long and shipped back to Mexico.

So here I am, twenty years after, never realizing I had been on a slow march to oppression. So in deference to my family history please indulge me if I say that a racist, misogynist who espouses hate and surrounds himself with white supremacist will never be my king. I will resist. I will fight the king in the tower. I will fight with my words. Never my king.

 

A Chicano in Prague

Oppression: Whether communist, fascist or economic, the power to degrade people’s lives speaks the same language.

Los Angeles Times

August 30, 1996|EMMANUEL BURGIN | Emmanuel Burgin is a contributing writer to El Sol de San Diego newspaper. He recently returned to San Diego from Prague where he completed his first novel and began research on a second.

 

PRAGUE — Am I the first Chicano in Prague? Rudolfo Anaya, the esteemed Chicano writer, can lay claim to being the first Chicano to travel to China. It’s from “A Chicano in China,” his journal of that journey, that I derive my title.

Although it would be an accomplishment, something to tell the grandkids, I doubt that I am the first Chicano in Prague; we travel everywhere now, borders never having grasped our imagination, akin, perhaps, to the Native Americans’ inability to conceptualize the owning of Mother Earth.

My sojourn here to live among the people has been twofold: that I may begin to understand the effects an oppressive communist regime has had on its people and to witness the struggle to Westernize in the face of the tidal wave called the global economy.

In so doing, I hope to better understand the intolerant attitudes that sometimes rear their ugly heads in my country. In California, oppression of rights, the plague of the downtrodden, has joined with economic struggle and taken a place at the kitchen table of the immigrant and working poor. The battle to retain rights granted by the Constitution, compounded by the historical economic struggle that all immigrants have known has created a crucible in which something volatile is brewing.

I was greatly alarmed and affected by Proposition 187. Not so much by the politics and the rhetoric of the politicians–after all, politics is a dirty business–but by the public’s prevalent eagerness and acceptance of this mean-spirited rhetoric.

There is always a deeper meaning behind the action. A wildfire needs grass, shrubs and trees to consume in order to move forward. I am alarmed at the deeper meaning of this acceptance: the insensitivity of a friend, the latent racism of a kindly neighbor.

Language that is designed to separate and abuse and spread fear, in other words, oppress, eventually settle comfortably into the laps of those whose ideas of what a good society should be are, those who are, in the extreme, racist and, to say the least, not very understanding of the multiethnic society that we are.

Dialogue of oppression can be wrapped in many colorful packages (economic stability, rights of citizens, unfair tax burdens, crime) but it is still the language of oppression, words that fan the flames of frustration, anger, hate and racism.

It is good to remember the words of Gyorgy Konrad, a leading Hungarian writer who as a child barely escaped Auschwitz, then the Arrow Cross, the Hungarian Fascist party that wanted to shoot him and dump his body into the Danube.

“Intimidating or constraining or killing one’s fellow man for belonging to this or that group has become inimical to Europeans, despite their long history of racial, national and class hatred, or rather because they have learned from their history and finally realize that discrimination leads to murder.”

When our representatives try to pass legislation that will divide the people and discriminate against a segment of the population, we are in dangerous territory.

I am trying not to lose my mind. I am trying to center myself, trying to dissipate my anger. I am watching my country turn its back on refugees on a most solemn day this International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

I am thinking of those Jews on the MS St. Louis sailing away from evil toward the shining light of hope, the light of freedom, the light of life toward our lady we Americans so proudly show off to the world.

I am thinking of when those refugees arrived at our shores: the land of free and the home of brave. I was trying to walk in their shoes, feel the wear of their clothes. What was it they felt, glee, relief? And cheers. Did they cheer? Or were they quiet in prayer.

What expressions are theirs, when their heart is full, when their spirit finds its room, when the spirit is released, when it is lifted? What is theirs?

The word I know comes passed down from the churches of the slaves. It is in their songs: Glory, Glory Hallelujah! It rings out in their marches Hallelujah! We shall overcome. And it is in their dreams Hallelujah! “Free at last, Free at last. Thank God almighty Free at last.”

But we Americans: The sons and daughters of Mother Liberty. We turned them away. We turned away those refugees seeking safety in our arms. We turned the Jews away. We did not want them here, those nine hundred. We sent them back into the shadows, into the darkness back into the hands of Hitler, into Nazi Germany. We sent them back and placed them into deaths hands.

And today of all days we have done it again. And I am trying not to lose my mind.

How many will die this time?

If you believe in God, then, God forgive us. If you believe in God, then, God help us.

For we have done it again.

November 18, 2016 by Michael Winship

This post first appeared on BillMoyers.com.

A friend of mine who has dual Israeli-American citizenship tells the story of entering an elevator in Jerusalem shortly after a bullying right-wing government had taken over the country.

The other passenger was ostentatiously puffing on a big cigar. My friend pointed to the no smoking sign and politely, in Hebrew, asked the man to douse his smoke.

“Eff you,” the man replied. “We’re in charge now.” Only he didn’t say, “Eff.”

Sound familiar? Well, it’s a tiptoe through the tulips compared to what’s going on in the United States right now.

Incidents of hate-related violence and other abuses have proliferated throughout this lovely land of ours. The presidential campaign and now the election results have further allowed the pinheads of society to let their racist, misogynistic, anti-Semitic and Islamophobic freak flags fly. Despite denials from many on the right and the Trump transition team, this is really happening — unlike that avalanche of fake news stories that have been overwhelming social media.

(And yes, I know have been scattered incidents in which Trump followers have been vilified on the streets, but far fewer.)

Journalists who investigated Trump, his businesses, family and associates have been mailed anti-Semitic screeds or threatened with violence and even death. Women who have reported on Trump have been sent the vilest sexist epithets. Kshama Sawant, the socialist city council member from Seattle who recently urged protests at Trump’s inauguration in January has been targeted for email and phone attacks, some of which have suggested that she kill herself.

Just about everyone I know has a story or two or three from the last week and a half. My friend Deana tells of a part-Asian co-worker swung at by a white male who mistook him as being from the Middle East, of a friend’s boyfriend who was told to “Go back to Africa” on his Facebook page, of another friend’s middle-school-aged daughter and other girls who were pushed around by boys in her class, some wearing Trump T-shirts and shouting hateful things about women.

From the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC): “Between Wednesday, Nov. 9, the day after the presidential election, and the morning of Monday, Nov. 14, [SPLC] collected 437 reports of hateful intimidation and harassment… Venues of harassment included K-12 schools (99), businesses (76) and universities (67). Common also was vandalism and leafleting on private property (40) and epithets and slurs hurled from moving vehicles (38).”

A new report from the FBI states that last year, hate crimes were up 6 percent, with a two-thirds increase in attacks against Muslims. According to their statistics, “There were 5,818 single-bias incidents involving 7,121 victims. Of those victims, 59.2 percent were targeted because of a race/ethnicity/ancestry bias; 19.7 percent because of a religious bias; 17.7 percent because of a sexual-orientation bias; 1.7 percent because of a gender-identity bias; 1.2 percent because of a disability bias; and 0.4 percent because of a gender bias.”

Camila Domonosket at NPR notes, “The FBI report is based on local law enforcement data. It almost certainly understates the scale of the problem: In 2014, the Bureau of Justice Statistics estimated, based on victim surveys, that 60 percent of hate crimes are never reported to police.”

Here in New York City, the police department reports that so far in 2016, hate crimes have jumped 30 percent from the same period last year, “including a spike during last week’s hotly contested presidential election,” according to DNAInfo New York. “NYPD statistics show that anti-Muslim and anti-‘sexual orientation’ motivations were responsible for much of the rise.”

But what was Donald Trump’s response to the reports of the upswing in hate crimes after his election? “I am very surprised to hear that,” he told 60 Minutes’ Lesley Stahl. “I hate to hear that, I mean I hate to hear that.”

Lesley Stahl: But you do hear it?

Donald Trump: I don’t hear it — I saw, I saw one or two instances…

Lesley Stahl: On social media?

Donald Trump: But I think it’s a very small amount. Again, I think it’s —

Lesley Stahl: Do you want to say anything to those people?

Donald Trump: I would say don’t do it, that’s terrible, ‘cause I’m gonna bring this country together.

Lesley Stahl: They’re harassing Latinos, Muslims —

Donald Trump: I am so saddened to hear that. And I say, “Stop it.” If it — if it helps. I will say this, and I will say right to the cameras: Stop it.

“Stop it.” Really? That’s all? You sounded like a parent telling the kids in the back seat to quit fidgeting. Make your condemnation swift, adamant and loud. We know you know how to do loud. Demand that it cease.

And while we’re at it, Mr. President-elect, the appointment of your campaign CEO Steve Bannon as counselor and chief White House strategist makes a hideous situation even worse. Cancel it.

This is, after all, the person who — more than a year ago! — Joshua Green at Bloomberg BusinessWeek succinctly described as “the most dangerous political operative in America.”

Julia Zorthian at TIME magazine writes that as head of the alt-right news website Breitbart, “Bannon has given voice to some of the unsavory forces floating around the conservative movement’s fringe, including a resurgence of white nationalism. His appointment has fueled anger, with critics decrying Bannon’s connections to racist and anti-Semitic views.”

In recent days, many of you have seen some of Breitbart’s headlines: “Bill Kristol: Republican spoiler, renegade Jew,” “Birth control makes women unattractive and crazy,” “Would you rather your child had feminism or cancer?” and “Gay rights have made us dumber, it’s time to get back in the closet.”

Even The Washington Post’s Kathleen Parker, who cut Bannon some slack in a recent column, concluded that “he has been willing to strategically encourage people’s hate as a way of inciting them to action. How these methods will manifest themselves in the White House remains to be seen. But we can uncomfortably imagine that Trump under Bannon’s direction will do whatever it takes to get what he wants.” Swell.

So hate speech and Steve Bannon: a perfect pair. Donald Trump, you’ve let this evil genie out of the bottle. Set an example for a country so viciously torn asunder.

Use one of your two remaining wishes and end this madness.

 

 

Hell No! Trump Must Go!

When I began reporting for a small local newspaper, I remembered standing in front of my editor’s desk and gazing at a poster of a poem on the wall.

“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

            Pastor Martin Niemöller

As a Writer I take it to heart to speak out for the oppressed, to be a voice for the voiceless, to speak truth to power, and to speak out against tyranny.

This past year I watched the Trump campaign sprout into existence like a weed and then I watched quietly as it grew and gained momentum. From a distance I looked on bemused as I might observe the antics of a buffoon at the zoo. But bemusement slowly gave way and uneasiness crept in as the weed multiplied, nourished by the language of division, of accusation, and of guilt by association. My uneasiness became fearfulness as I watched the rallies become violent all the while from the pulpit of hate the finger of Trump jabbed and pointed and cheered them onward.

I became alarmed and perplexed, as friends jumped on the Trump band wagon, telling me they were angry at the political establishment, furious at the loss of the middle class and frustrated at politicians corrupted by Wall Street and corporations. And just sick and tired of the political system. On deaf ears I expressed my shared anger and frustration but not their choice of leader to voice such sentiment.

In quiet moments I considered if the Trumps would come for me someday, suppressing my freedom of speech, my freedom to write and eventually my freedom to think? As a writer born in a country for which freedom of speech is a constitutional right why was I having these thoughts? Because Fascism had become palpable, what had been just words, echoing from once upon a time had sprouted into existence before my eyes. And the poem of wisdom upon the wall which had been brought forth and thrown against this rising tide of hate had called to me.

So, while I can, I will exercise my right and speak out against the language of division and hate, against the threat of free speech: the tenet of democracy. I will speak out against the bully pulpit of Trumpism.

The love for freedom is the fertile ground from which self rule springs forth and free speech and the right to protest is its flower, a bloom we cannot allow to suffer the heel of oppression and fear. Anyone who spreads fear through their actions or words is against the people of a free nation and cannot be a friend of democracy no matter how many stars and stripes he or she may wave. Trump is not the way. Be vigilant tending the garden of freedom. We reap what we sow.

Therefore, as I stand on the walls of the City of Democracy and I lookout at the beachhead of the Alt-Right and I gaze upon their gift of Trump placed at the gates of the City I turn to its citizens and I say Hell no! Trump must go!

 

 

Emmanuel Burgin

At my local watering hole a bittersweet moment occurred. Chalked on the board of available beers was an AleSmith Tony’s Take .394 named in the honor of the late great Padre Hall of Famer and his final batting average in the shorten baseball strike season of 1994.

I had interviewed Tony a few days before the strike began; ending his bid to reach the .400 batting average last achieved in 1947 by baseball titan and Tony’s idol Ted Williams. The strike also cancelled the World Series, something not even World War ll had done. The strike would become a black eye on America’s pastime.

As a reporter for a small local newspaper getting an interview with Tony in the midst of his great pursuit of baseball history would be no small feat.

That summer day I took a seat in the dugout and nervously studied my notes and waited. When Tony stepped out of the clubhouse tunnel and into the dugout, I stood and introduced myself, and he quickly stated not today, come by tomorrow. Then up the steps he went bat over his shoulder on his way to a dozen interviews and eventually to batting practice.

I left deflated but returned the next day and sat in the same spot and waited. I heard a major sports magazine writer was in the ballpark looking to feature Tony and gazing towards the batting cage I spied the well-known writer near home plate chatting with ball players and coaches as if he had known them all his life.

Also, I could see the television crews and sports reporters lined along the first base line waiting to get a few words with Tony. When Tony finished with the TV crews he’d move on to the Major newspapers, and then with the time left he’d get in a few swings before the game: truly a media circus.

Tony I thought would never have time for me.  I wanted to leave.  Yet, I stayed and soon Tony approached me in the dugout. I remained seated this time and as he neared I smiled and made eye contact, he gave me a glance, a smile and not missing a step turned quickly and went towards the throng of reporters and news crews. I was crushed and embarrassed.

Then he stopped as if pondering something. Had he recalled his promise?  He could easily have ignored me, his time so precious, interviewees waiting, batting practice needed. Then he pivoted gracefully and looked at me for a moment and then he walked toward me with his bat over his shoulder, skipping down the steps he pointed at me and said “Go” and sat next to me in the dugout.

I knew Tony played basketball at Long Beach Poly High School because I had attended Lynwood high and our undefeated teams had met in the state’s biggest game that year. I would use this to ease into the interview.

“Ooooh we beat you bad” Tony said with a big smile, then gave that distinctive laugh.

They had and Tony, their star point guard, led the way. We reminisced about the big game, the big plays, and the great players who participated. We laughed and chuckled like high school kids. Every once in a while I looked up to see reporters on deadlines not at all happy with me.  I finally asked a few questions, and then explained I had to end the interview because I had a second story to cover about an award recipient. I pointed to the ceremony beginning across the infield along the third base line.

“Yeah, yeah go” Tony said.

I thanked Mr. Gwynn and dashed toward the ceremony running past the gallery of reporters and the magazine writer, doing my best to ignore them.

Tony kept his word and a reporter for a small local newspaper is forever grateful. Cheers Mr. Gwynn.

Tony never held any bitterness about the strike. He was glad it happened when it did knowing if he were batting .400 at the time of the strike some would have questioned whether he could have accomplished the feat over a full season. He had made peace with the baseball gods and his missed appointment with destiny. But me, after the strike and his lost opportunity at baseball immortality and his chance to stand next to his idol Ted Williams as an equal, I had had it. I was never right with the game after that.

What Happened On the Comeback, Baby?

Your woman

Says something

About something

And you can’t hear

It anymore

So

You’re out the door

Get in your

Car

And go south on

The 5

But the traffic

Backs up

So you decide

To go east

And around it

But

Then you see

The sign to Las Vegas

And you know there

Is some open road

And six hours later

You’re at the crap table

Crapping out

On the Come Bet

You turn and there is a fine

Lady you once knew

looking sorrowful

Because she was

Hoping you would have

Won and taking her

For a spin

again

And

She lays

A hand on your

Chest

And says

Oh, What Happened On the Comeback, baby?

Your mind is searching

For something sharp

To say

But your mind

Is dull

And your body

Tired

And your only thought

Is

Do I have

Enough gas

To make it home

Your life didn’t

Come out right

Your phenom arm

Gave out before

You made it to

The big leagues

You

Left the

Game for a few

Years

Then tried a

Comeback

As an infielder

But light hitting

Infielders

Are a dime

A dozen

You took a job

As a sports bookie

In Vegas

Because that’s

Where you quit

The game

You met

A chorus girl

And moved to

Hollywood when

She got a bit

Part in a movie

You

  Took a job selling

Tickets

At the Alamo

That’s what the employees call the stadium

Box office

That sits out in the middle of parking lot C

The wife’s movie

Career didn’t

Pan out

And she’s

Selling real estate

Now

And

sometimes

Those crashed dreams

Fall on your

Heads

Like a

Hard rain

And there is

Nothing to do

But cover

And run

You were hoping

For Little Joe on the

Come Bet

But you crapped

twice

It was Little Joe’s that

Laid you out

Took all

Of the nothing you had left

That

  Turned you from

The table

With nothing

But the drink

In your hand

And

Not a penny

To your name

You

Lean against the

Table

Throw your

Elbows up

To brace yourself

Because

Your legs are weak

And

The world is

Creeping in

And

You’re rounding

Second to

Nowhere

And

The good

Looking blond

With the

Sorrowful eyes

Those

eyes you once knew

Is

Asking

What Happened On the Comeback, Baby?

And

For a moment

You thought

You had an answer

But it is passed you like a fastball

High and tight

Your mind has

Dulled out

Like your body

And

Third base is so far away

Still/and

You are wondering

If I turn third

Just right

Can I make it home?

Do I have

Enough in me

Enough gas

To make home

Espresso Newspaper

November 1998

Galeire Kamzik: The Center of the Center

“So what brings you to the center of the center of such a most unstable region at such an opportune time?”

The professor of Socioeconomics at Charles University of Prague, whom I had just met, had leaned over my shoulder, as I sat at the bar, to pose the question directly to my ear. Then he squeezed in between the bar stools and waited for my response.

I had been contemplating my bottled beer, a Pilsner Urquell, considered one of the best beers in the world if not the best, when the question drew me out. In the crowded little bar of Galeire Kamzik (Chamois) it is not hard to find someone willing to engage in conversation. Questions can come rapid fire and it is necessary to all ways to be metaphorically on your toes because Kamzik does not draw the usual crowd.

Galeire Kamzik is about 50 meters from Prague’s historic center–Staromestske Namesti (Old Town Square). It is a place that no one goes looking for. Tucked away at the end of the blind street Koza (Billy Goat) where the narrow, cobbled stoned street intersects with two gated corridors, which are locked by 9:00 p.m., Galeire Kamzik is all but unknown even to locals.

The only outsiders who find Kamzik are drunks, those looking to get drunk, or the occasional adventurous tourist, the one who sticks his nose into all the nooks and crannies, who upon seeing a place normally frequented only by locals isn’t afraid to step in and have a least one drink.

In the spring of 1996, I spent two months in Prague on a writing project. After a day of writing, I went into the center in search of Pivo (beer), which isn’t hard to find, considering Czechs drink more beer than any other people.

Wandering through a corridor, I heard the Rolling Stones’ song “Jumping Jack Flash.” I followed the music to Galeire Kamzik. Fifteen foot windows framed in dark wood enclose the bar. One set of windows look onto a white walled corridor, the other onto Koza. Inside are seven, small, dark wood round tables and more chairs than can ever fit around them. An L shaped bar seats eight.

The floor is of worn wood planks and in the center of the bar is a pillar that supports the neo-Gothic arches of the vaulted ceiling. On the plastered walls, yellowed from years of cigarette smoke, hang large original paintings by Czech artist. Above the entrance to the restrooms is a portrait of the Mona Lisa with horns and a joint in her hand.

It is a place lacking pretenses, where one time dissidents come to be among their peers. It is a place where the Rolling Stones’ songs, rebellious music for rebellious spirits, is played almost continuously. It is a place where early in the morning on a whim the bars owner, Joseph Mungo, will play communist work songs and all the patrons sing along, recalling every word to every song because for them it had been mandatory under the Communist regime to know these songs. So, effortlessly, they sing at the top of their voices, however, now no longer singing to remember but rather to never forget.

On many nights I am reminded that it is a place to take shelter from a storm.

Mungo–“The Rolling Stones are my life”– sang in a rock ‘n roll band during the Communist regime, gravitating toward the rebel music because it raised the ire of the government. A band that became too popular drew the attention of government officials and soon were prohibited to play. The length of suspension depended on the success of the band and ranged from six months to two years. Every musician, a Czech musician friend told me, tried to be very successful.

On any given night at Galerie Kamzik you might find the famous Czech painter Michael Rittstein or a half a dozen other well known painters and graphic artist, or Richard Nemcock, owner of the famous rock n’ roll club Bunkrs.

Here you might find magazine publishers discussing their latest issues, or the professor of Economics, whom after the Velvet Revolution was invited to Lecture at Harvard and whom eventually worked alongside Noam Chomsky.

Here the band Savle Mece (Swords and Sabers), one of the best Jazz and Blues fusion bands in Europe, whose trumpeter Miro is probably the best trumpeter in the Czech Republic, drops in after their shows to cool down. Mungo keeps a light on for them and like the great Jazz movie- they wonder in “Around Midnight” and stay sometimes until dawn, drinking slivovice, a Moravian moonshine.

Miro’s girlfriend, Barra, a well known Czech actress and host of her own political-talk-game show, “The Guillotine,” sometimes accompanies him to Kamzik. The ex-minister of finance drinks here too, as does the one time top anchorman of the communist period, the Peter Jennings of his time.

On the wall are snapshots, the kind pinned to bulletin boards of your own local bar, except when you look closely at these photos, the Kamzik patrons are shown with their arms around Mick Jagger, or are greeting the Dala Lama, or having a drink with Czech President Vaclav Havel.

It’s here to the center (Kamzik) of the center that they all come to unwind. Here they come to be themselves. As Robert, the lead singer of the bars band “Get Back to the Grave” (a snip young women say to older men whose passes are unwelcome), says “Here we are all family.”

My arrival at such an “opportune time” was serendipitous, arriving one week before the national elections. The “unstable time” mentioned by the professor was in reference to the results of that election. The Civic Democratic Party (ODS), the right-wing conservative, pro-privatization party that had run the country since 1992 and President Vaclav Havel’s choice of parties had fallen on hard times.

Prime Minister and ODS party leader Vaclav Klaus, a brilliant politician but like many brilliant politicians arrogant to a fault, had led the country into an unstable economic breach. Then while struggling to right the ship a scandal, the disclosure that members of Klaus’s cabinet had access to a secret Swiss account and, moreover, were unable to explain the source of several million crowns worth of political donations, all but cost Klaus and the ODS re-election.

The people’s disgust with the economy, lowering of living standards, and the ODS lapse in ethics brought the Social-Democratic Party (CSSD), once thought moribund, back to power.

A year ago, to broach the possibility of a left-wing socialist Czech government would have brought laughter and jeers of absurdity, yet this absurdity is now a reality. Furthermore, as the Czechs try to find that comfort zone with a left-wing government, they still must contend with a lack of strong leadership because, although the CSSD did win a majority of votes, they did not win enough parliamentary seats to form a majority government, leaving the people without a leader in a economic crisis that demands strong leadership.

In the ensuing weeks, the CSSD attempted a coalition with the minority parties, the Freedom Union (US) and the ultra-conservative right-wing Christian Democratic (KDU-CSL), but they wanted nothing to do with the left-wing CSSD and its foul tempered, brow-beating leader and now Czech Prime Minister Milos Zeman. Quietly in the wings former Prime Minister Klaus waited.

Klaus was finally approached by his hated arch rival Zeman about forming a government. In negotiations, which could have been nothing but arduous, Klaus secured the position of Parliament chairman. But it is a government some say will not last more than six months, an assumption that continues to lead to an unstable economy and a lack of confidence from the international financial world. Zeman himself called this compromise with Klaus and the ODS a “Suicidal Government,” a coalition no less he feels “will last the four-year term.”

The mood of Praguers, to say the least, is subdued. Uncertainty is again their companion. Although, this time it is not an oppressive regime that distorts their way but rather the unstable, fragile world of Global economics–a far greater foe.

So I gathered my thoughts then formulated my answer and told the professor that social economics is what brought me here to the center (Prague) to see for myself the affects Western cultural and Capitalism will have on a country that for fifty years lived under Fascist and Communist rule. What brought me to the center of the center was a matter of great luck.

He nodded, laughed and slapped me on the back and then wandered toward his table for another whiskey. Soon I was joined by Peter, the professor of economics and former colleague of Chomsky. In 1996 I had a long discussion with Peter on the Nature of Man; a discussion that, subsequently, helped me to frame many of my thoughts on Mankind’s’ social, economic and political problems; a discussion that lasted well into the early morning.

In short, Peter stated that man was good but that his systems, which were man made and, therefore, “artificial,” were the bane of man’s existence.

This time we had a long discussion on Raw Capitalism and the International Monetary Fund and their probable devastating affect on local cultural, a conclusion we both agreed upon. When I realized that this magical city of Prague might have its great cultural suppressed or altered by Globalization, something that Fascism and Communism had tried and failed, I looked up from my beer with a feeling of despair.

“So what do we do?” I asked, hopeful that here at the center of the center there might be an answer.

Peter stood leaning against the bar, his left hand on his hip, looking at me, contemplating my question. Gradually, his contemplative expression gave way to a smile then the smile became a grin, and then in a burst of enthusiasm he put an arm around my shoulders and squeezed.

“By then, hopefully, we’ll be dead and not have to worry about it,” Peter answered and began to laugh. I too began to laugh and soon we had drawn the attention of the patrons of Galerie Kamzik.

How to explain, although, I realize here, like everywhere, there are no answers, but now it doesn’t seem to bother me as much.

It is July first nineteen sixty-eight

A Monday afternoon

I’m ten and I’m playing

Catch with a friend on the

Lawn of the apartments my

Father owns

The day air is still,

the air

heavy against the skin

An L.A. summer day

My oldest brother Eddie

is cleaning his white ’64 Thunderbird

The driver’s side door is open

The radio tuned to the Dodger’s game

Vin Scully is calling the game

Bob Gibson and the Cardinals

against Don Drysdale

Gibson has pitched 47 scoreless Innings

Drysdale has the record at 58

Something has to give

My brother has been out of the Navy

four years, and he’s sharing a room

with me and my other brother Claudio

I’m the youngest Eddie the oldest

Eddie still wakes

at 4 or is it 5 a.m. and begins

spit shinning his shoes.

He just got a job at

McDonald Douglas

Putting rivets in the engine’s of

turbines

some of his friends are in Vietnam

I watch him detailing the

Dashboard of the car

Drysdale strikes out Edwards looking

It‘s the bottom of the first

and Gibson is taking the mound

My dad and brother Claudio

are not into sports

but Eddie and I can’t get

enough

Eddie played baseball at

Centennial High

He played with Reggie Smith

who later would become the right fielder for the

Dodgers

Willie Davis comes to the plate

Eddie stops rubbing the dash

and I keep the ball in my

glove, turning it slowly feeling the

stitching and waxed leather hide

Davis grounds out

and we go back to what

we were doing

Scully’s words

go out of the chrome and

white car and

linger in the air

He’s telling a story now

and I listen and he takes me back

to before I was born

I hear names like DiMaggio

and Warren Spahn, Dizzy

and Duke Snider, and Pee Wee Reese

The names dance in the still

air all around me

Polo Grounds and Ebbets Field

I can see these places

see the crowds and

see the players hitting and

running

The Dodgers have runners

on the corner

I don’t want Gibson to

break Drysdale’s record

Not long after Eddie returned

from overseas we are

at the kitchen table

a yellow Formica top

and all chrome

he has the sports page

spread across the table

he has a toothpick in his

mouth

I am kneeling on a chair

With my elbows on the table

That was the day he taught

Me how to read a box score

Soon I was reading every word of

The sports page, I would read

The Herald and the Times

The Herald and the Times Sports writer’s

Bud Furillo, Jim Murray,

Became my writing teachers

My brother is seventy this weekend

and in bad health

could be the bottom of the ninth for

him but he is still

swinging away

No bigger Dodger fan

than my brother

His birthday last week was

Dodger themed, his cake

Dodger stadium of course

The Thunderbird gleams in the

Sun and it’s reflection off the chrome

blinds me temporarily and I

lose track of the ball

It rolls to the Date palm

Home plate when we play with a plastic bat and ball

Real games are played across Willowbrook street

Along the train tracks

Beside the wooden warehouse

Scully’s voice leaps from the

car

the ball gets by the catcher

Gabrielson is coming home from third

And Vin Scully says

and that’s it folks 47 innings

Drysdale’s streak is safe for

Now

there’s no cheering from

us, maybe, just relief

I have a little more pep

on my throw

Eddie is at the rear fender

with a cloth wiping quickly

putting that final shine

on

like he does with

his shoes in the morning

I don’t know how much time

I have with my brother

But I will always have that summer day.