Is this where the bread line starts?I may be thinking wishfully, and it could just be that train stations everywhere resemble the Soviet Union to some extent, but a part of me desperately wants to believe that Prague hasn't developed quite so much as everyone says.
With time to kill before being picked up by my Peruvian friend, I decide to hang around the adjacent McDonald's for a while, since it's either that or shoo away flies and vagabonds at the train station. This is where I find the picture of the former Communist bloc for which I so desperately hoped.
They've got TV screens littered about the restaurant, and they're airing a station called MyTV (though not the one that plays old "Malcolm in the Middle" reruns). No, this is more like MTV, but with a Y, as in, "Y the fuck are they playing a Spin Doctors video in 2008?"
I took the liberty of recording a sample of the playlist for your reading pleasure:
"Video Killed the Radio Star," The Buggles (incidentally, the first video ever aired on MTV)
"Amish Paradise," Weird Al Yankovic (Do they have Amish people in Central Europe? Do the jokes even translate?)
"Private Eyes," Hall and Oates
"What's Up," 4 Non Blondes
"Two Princes," The Spin Doctors
If that's not a Communist party waiting to break out, I don't know what is. And since I know nothing of these people, it's impossible to determine exactly whether these videos are being played nostalgically or not. I figured that globalization would have wiped out such out-of-touch commie cliches by now, but maybe old habits die hard.
Which brings me to another point: Hipsters have always reminded me of Eastern Europeans, and vice versa. This could be because, at least prior to the age of the Internet, the time it took for an outmoded fashion trend to become "retro" seemed to be exactly the amount of time for the Eastern bloc to receive it in the first place. This lends credence to my theory that Eastern Europeans are and will always be the hippest people in the world, whether they are aware of it or not.
Hipster or impoverished Eastern European? You make the call.Now, perhaps this McDonald's exists inside a vacuum, and perhaps it does not. In any case, I pity the poor bastards who still have rap metal to look forward to.
Other observations from the train station:
- One of the local vagrants, upon learning that I was American, decided to demonstrate American and Russian politics to me in a rather dramatic fashion. Basically, he started dancing around like a chicken. Those of you familiar with "Arrested Development" will know exactly what I'm talking about:
To you, Mr. Bush, I say only this: Caw ca caw ca caw!- The Czechs appear to be very specific in their prohibitions:
So much for that roller disco birthday party I've been planning.###
