Prague’s Alternative Medicine Issue #25, February 7th–20th, 2003 FREE Every Other Friday A Tale of Two Cities Car Busters leads the charge for an auto-free future. p8 Havel’s Last Shot p6 ● Sushi p20 ● Plus City Guide, Film, Clubs, Books & More! Free soft drink with any order over 70 Kč (expires March 31, 2003) Revoluční 4 Tel. 222 322 022 Open 10am-midnight the prague pill February 6—20, 2003 3 active ingredients sTreeT Auto Destruct 8 p8 Meet the people who want to kill your wheels. Northern Lights 10 Meet the people who made Manchester. Raw Deal 20 Meet the people who serve up sushi. Letters 4 Red Meat 4 City Beat 5 p10 City Shot 5 Analysis 6 Syndicate This 7 Film 10 City Guide 12 Get on the Guestlist 14 Books 15 Music 16 Prague Log 17 Art 18 Savage Love 19 This Modern World 19 Dish 20 Classifieds 22 p20 Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles 22 LeTTer From THe PuBLisHer Hey friends. We Pill co-founder who, together with Micah have a new lineup Jayne, put this paper on the map. We here at the Pill. salute you, bro. And wish you the best in It’s not as though New York, New York. May your scribbles we haven’t had to move more (and bigger) mountains. face changes But enough gushing. We have work to around here since do. It’s time to make the doughnuts. Day One. It’s just Starting next issue (#26) Andy Markowitz that this time we’re is our editor. He’s an old-school (but not really mixing it up. that old) city-paper veteran from Baltimore. The long and He’s got chops, believe it. He takes over short of it is this: Jeff Koyen (a.k.a. The the editorial desk along with our two young Ringer) drifted by our office last Spring, shotguns (but not that young), Joshua stuck around to take our training wheels Cohen and Travis Jeppesen. It’s gonna be off, and boosted the paper in a big, big great, this new Pill of ours. You’ll see. Enjoy way. He’d planned on leaving later this it with us. Spring – but then he suddenly landed a dream job as editor-in-chief of New York Press, a free city paper like ours but with 100 more pages in it, and so left last week. Yours, Thanks for helping us out, Jeff. No hard John Caulkins feelings, really. Now, about taking Alex with Publisher you . Alexander Zaitchik is going to New York too, to be Jeff’s associate editor. Alex is a ISSUE TWENTY-FOUR, FEBRUARY 7TH—20TH, 2003 Publisher: John Caulkins Editors: Micah Jayne, Alexander Zaitchik Editor at Large: Jeff Koyen Uncle: Andy Markowitz Production Director: Filip Bezděk Listings Editor: Markéta Hofmeisterová Senior Staff Writers: Joshua Cohen, Travis Jeppesen Contributing Writers: Arie Farnam, Scott MacMillan, Tony Ozuna, Marek Tomin Copy Editor: Jennifer Sokolowsky Translation: Kathleen Hayes Financial Director: Barbara Źebrowska Advertising Director: Eva Hádrová (e-mail: [email protected]) Advertising Representatives: Menef Khalife Distribution: www.conspiracy.cz The above bags were purchased for 5 Kč each at a potraviny in A complete list of current distribution points can be found at www.pill.cz. Printed by Ringier Print, a. s. the Prague 1 neighborhood of Malá Strana. The full range of the Czech Republic’s plastic-bag supply can be appreciated only The Prague Pill is published by alt.media praha s.r.o.,* Karmelitská 18, 110 00, Praha 1, Phone: 257 534 015, over a lifetime of shopping. A historical approach to the phone/fax: 257 534 016, e-mail: [email protected], www.pill.cz ISSN 1213-7391. * Also licensed in the New York City phenomenon of colorful Czech plastic bags still awaits proper treatment by one of this country’s finer galleries. 4 February 6—20, 2003 the prague pill ìDo you go along with anything until it becomes obviously wrong even to the corrupt establishment that you are supposed to be an alternative to?î [email protected] —Elisabeth Hangar and Stefan Landers Our Letters Page: Better Than Phone Sex? This issue: Havel’s messy friends, Prague versus Berlin, a coda on Dean Reed . and the ongoing prostitution debate. Republic of Diapers life. Sometimes I just think those had the same last name as the qualifier above the other adverts? Or stereotypes were trotted out in the insignificant facts should be out there American revolutionary buried in the are the ones for the whorehouses not belief that abusive xenophobia is Dear Pill boys, for everybody to ponder. So, I write. Kremlin wall, John Reed. really advertisements, but some kind of good for a laugh. Jan Pavelka’s recollection of the 1978 What else can a poor woman do Regards, trade? It’s appropriate that a self- meeting of dissident intellectuals and these days to get some fuckin’ Scott Spires Finally, in your condemnation of the confessed Scot should claim the the Czech underground at Havel’s attention, except for walking topless Chicago, Ill., USA movie The Guru, you ironically criticise stereotype for his nation of being cottage [“King’s Exit,” Pill #24] raises into an Irish pub, since that is not an [email protected] that it doesn’t “deal with the plight of willing to “show their arses to anyone many important issues, all revolving option? sex workers” sufficiently, but then call who cares to look.” Scotland must be around the question: Why did Egon Fact #1: The Mona Lisa is not only the director and screenwriter “sorority proud of you Mr Francis. I certainly Bondy shit himself in Havel’s bed? As a painting, it is also a restaurant not Prague über alles girls.” We feel sorry for anyone so haven’t seen as big an arse since an idealist Marxist, was he unable to far from Vaclavske Namesti. This confused between ideas of political Helmut Kohl wore jodhpurs. contain himself, sensing a “withering place I remember “dearly.” However, Ahoj Pill, correctness and hostility towards And Prague is now apparently in away of the state” in that surreal visiting this place could cost you a I can feel the good intentions in “girls” that you cannot relax and enjoy Eastern Europe. Check your atlas, Mr. atmosphere of freedom? Or was the fortune, especially if you happen to Micah Jayne’s recent article “Deaf in such a simply delightful film. Francis. Perhaps you’d like our loutish infantile act a moment of “living in be a polite Swedish person who is One Ear” [Pill #24], but I disagree on We try to feel sorry for the 100 visitors to decamp to other “Eastern truth” which the others failed to notice trying not to disturb any kind of a couple of points. The statement percent “boy” management of the European towns” like Vienna? (perhaps due to their hardened peace. The thing about this restaurant “Prague is stuck in a dope smoking paper, but really, you should be Curious that Mr. Francis has such a digestive systems)? is that they charge for everything, youth culture” sounds too general ashamed. hatred for the English given that they In “The Power of the Powerless” even things that you have not ordered and a little arrogant – almost a Elisabeth Hangar may be the one nation on earth who Havel defines living in truth as a or eaten, like ketchup, soya or bread, provocation. Especially as it is taken Stefan Landers would appreciate his schoolboy “bacteriological weapon” that ferments maybe salt or pepper too. I guess I out of context and printed as a pull- [email protected] humour. We do not need your and grows in the semidarkness, was supposed to have felt some kind quote. Of course, there’s a lot of that patronising drooling, sir. Grow up, get hidden from the gaze of power, until it of gratitude that I went into their type of youth culture, but I’d like to Dear Elisabeth and Stefan, a life, or get laid (according to a “finally surfaces into the light of day as restaurant. I had sort of forgotten remind you of the teahouse culture, Thanks for the spirited little attack. fellow correspondent in Pill #24 there an assortment of shocking surprises about that place because it was over where young people also gather. The answer to your first point is are now sufficient brothels in Prague to the system, usually too late to cover three months ago, but then yesterday There are usually no cigarettes and simply: No, we don’t think legally so that even someone with your them up in the usual fashion.” That is a similar thing happened. no alcohol and people listen to operating brothels represent a dubious grasp of geography should to say, was it something Havel put in Close to the Andel tram station mostly alternative music. I also think “corrupt establishment.” Consensual be able to find one). his special Ružyn gulaš? The answer there is a place called The Penguin on it is unfair to even raise the commercial sex between adults is not Billy Wallace to this disturbing question is unknown Zborovská street. At first I loved it: nice expectation that Prague, as a capital the same as human slavery. Moreover, Scottish Writers Group and Bondy remains secluded in the staff, nice food, not too expensive. of a little and poor country, could the editorial side of this paper has [email protected] countryside, in dignified silence. What Then – boom – the bill came. 100 Kc have the same variety of live music nothing, nada, nic to do with the ad we do know is that Havel has often for service, more money than my as Berlin.