Sitting in a gay bar in my new neighborhood. Think Dickie is rubbing off on me since he took me to a gay bar in Paris.

Looking for a quiet place to finish my gateway grant proposal (more than a week late) and went to a place I thought would be mellow near my new apartment … The Piano Bar.

There is a piano here, but it looks likes it’s only played on Show Tune Sundays. Yeah. Being treated to Backstreet Boys and the broad from 10,000 Maniacs.

At any rate the Prague Post seems like it’s going to be all right. I’ve filed one story … an American in Thailand finds backpack on a beach on the nine month anniversary of that fucker (tsunami). Googles her. A Prague Post piece pops up—a survivor story—and contacts us because he wants to send the contents.

Working on another story re: Czech prime minister’s desire and attempt to recruit more foreign students to the universities here and will attend a conference Sun. & Mon. where I will attempt to interview former CIA chief Jim Woolsey and Jim Zogby, the founder and president of the Arab American Institute.

Not as exciting as the “adventures” (as Karen Calabria like to call them) that some of friends and colleagues are having in Nairobi, Caracas and India, but I’m trying to squeeze $2,0000 out a Medill grant to get to Vietnam for a week in late November.

If that fails, I’m going to pitch an in-depth feature to the Atlantic, New Yorker or shit, maybe Playboy re: the thriving sex business in Prague. If anyone back home has ideas for weird angles, let me know. Maybe we can get a large enough advance to get another pair of eyes and hands over here to cover the story properly.

To do it right might require another person. After all, somebody’s going to have to hold the camera. If I learned one thing Paris (from a NYT’s storyteller) it’s that multi-media storytelling isn’t the future, it’s the present.

I thought I just saw a girl walk in a few minutes ago but it must have been a guy with a ponytail.

I have yet to be invited out for beers with my new colleagues, including Sara Michael’s girlfriends, but as I told a couple of them today, “I probably wouldn’t be as good with the girltalk.” Where’s Dickie when the girls need one of the guys to be one of the girls?

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It’s an interesting time to be away from motheramerica. DeLay’s in hot water, Roy Moore, the ten s judge (thou shall not capitalize such foolishness) formerly of Birmingham, Ala., is barnstorming across the bible belt (see this month’s Atlantic) with his “Rock” raising money at alarming rate in his bid to become the next governor of a state that still calls a racist cocksucker like George Wallace one of its own.

And the Bush administration might have finally run out of spin with the Katrina/Rita debacle (despite Dickie’s uncle) and the calculated choice of Harriet Meirs to succeed Ms. O’Connor on SCOTUS.

His decision to try and ram through a woman (good for Bush for not nominating another white male) with no judicial experience and therefore no judicial record for the Dems to criticize, might just blow up in his face. Little Georgie is used to getting his way and these events might just send him running home to daddy crying. While ole’ Jim Dobson has labeled Miers a great conservative pick, many Republicans are openly questioning their commander & chief’s old friend.

If the president makes it through the fallout from the hurricanes (Santorum introduces legislation to prevent hurricanes—S. Nery) and the Miers’ nomination unscathed, Karl Rove may go down as the greatest direct mail marketer turned political fixer in the history of Washington. Picture “The Wolf,” Harvey Keitel’s character from Pulp Fiction, working for a client with a lot more blood on his hands.

No administration outside of Chicago reeks of cronyism as much as this Bush’s appointees. The Bosses would be proud if the weren’t Democrats.

She was his personal attorney 10 years ago. Think she doesn’t have any dirt on the self-righteous hypocrite? How many calls do you think Ms. Miers got a call from Laura deep in the heart of Texas just after closing time, pleading, “Harriet, can you meet me down at the police station? George has been drinking again.”

Being the most powerful female attorney in Texas may qualify her to prosecute execution cases for the Beijing, but it hardly qualifies her to sit on our nation’s highest court.

If the Democrat’s don’t pull up their pants and strike while the time is right (yeah politics is dirty and sometimes you have to kick the bastard in the balls when he’s down and before his rich fixers can step in and clean up his mess—again), we’re going to be in for at least another six years of watching the rich get richer and the poor forgotten. And more of our boys and girls blow to fucking bits in the Middle East than any non-neo-con can stomach.

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Can anybody explain to me the European’s aversion to ice and dryers? While I applaud their mature, liberal stance on everything related to sex, I can’t imagine why anybody would want an Absolut and Pepsi without ice … even a Pepsi for that matter. And dryers? I’m wearing wet trousers even though they spent more than 24 hours on my drying rack. You wonder why people come to America, although we all know it’s not for the warm fuzzy embrace of the current government.

On the other hand, at least in Czech you can drink half liters of great beer for a buck almost anywhere. Maybe that’s why nobody seems concerned about drinking a cold Coke. And you know you’ve left our fair land when said fucking Coke costs more in the bar than a half liter of beer. Christ! You can almost convince yourself you are saving money by drinking beer here.

I know I have been rambling but the 19th Hole has been closed to long and look … I’m lonely. This is what happens when you cocksuckers leave me alone with my thoughts.

Being far away from family and friends makes me, and probably most of us, realize how god damn lucky we are. Yeah … I miss Sportscenter, Peanut Butter and fine Bourbon, but it’s the great friends and family I (we) miss the most.

Those of you who can’t be at O’Hare to greet me when I touch down on Dec. 20 from this “adventure,” can kiss my ass. Unless you have somewhere more important to be, like at work, writing a great fucking story … or better yet with your best friends … or family … or in a bar getting drunk because you’ve never been this/that far away from the most important things in your life.

That is all.