B92 Blog

A disenchanted American nation was ready to vote in a Georgia peanut farmer as president, to put away the hallucinogenics which blurred out most of the late 60s and early 70s, to put away their anti-Vietnam War banners, and start over again. The morale of US of A was lagging by defeat in Asia, humiliation in the White House, and the beginnings of recession and the Energy Crisis.

Enter the Italian Stallion: Rocky Balboa

Rocky, the film of the year, was the story of loser made good. Many people called it the embodiment of the American Dream. How a down and out Philadelphia boxer moves up the ranks to challenge and defeat the heavyweight champion of the world is the kind of rags to riches story which is called "inspirational" and "quintessentially American."

"I must have a giraffe," he concluded.

Over the past days, all I am reading about is a supposed vigilante who haunts Bulevar Revolucije and metes out justice against the Parking Offenders along that Belgrade thoroughfare. According to various blogs, internet forums, and RTS television reporters, he cruises down the street in a Vengeance Mobile (this is my name for it) and spray-paints the rows of double parked cars and those brilliant drivers who park in the middle of the street.

When the decision was finally made to cough up USD 700 billion to bailout the Greatest Financial Show on Earth, the American taxpayer's elected representatives decided to give the poor silly bankers another chance, thus ushering in the thing that no one wants to talk about:

"The Great Depression II: The Revenge"
Opening REALLY soon in theatres REALLY near you

There are certain times during the year in which the people of the White City are suddenly and inexplicably unavailable. Between Christmas and New Year is a flexible gap of weeks in which people phase in and out of our space-time continuum. Then we are all here until May when the Easter-May Day vortex consumes a good 30% of our acquaintances.

At the moment, the remnants of the citizenry who are in Belgrade are hiding from the sun. Meetings get put off, people on the other end of the phone sound like they just woke up from an afternoon nap (even in the morning), "lunches," which already begin late as far as my hunger cycles are concerned, begin to drift more and more toward the evening.

I had been standing there for about ten minutes before someone saved me.

Entering the bus for the first time a few years ago, I went to the ticket punching machine and place my ticket inside. And I stood and waited for the machine to automatically clamp its electronic jaws on the ticket and officially stamp my presence on the bus. The machine, naturally, did nothing. I stared in impatience. I placed it inside again. I waited again. Nothing.

At this point, a kind stranger came over to me and wordlessly ended my puzzlement. He grabbed the lever and pulled, stamping my ticket.

Far from being a reference to Portugal (whose song I thought was lovely by the way), the moment of reflection is now descending on Belgrade. Eurovision has come, exploded, and drifted off in the direction of Moscow. And the question which I am left with is what does it all mean?

The hype of this watershed event for Serbia and Belgrade has already been subsumed in the day-to-day guesswork about the next government. The organization of Eurovision in Belgrade seems to have been superb. The flooding of the White City streets with thousands of visitors caused no problems around town, the atmosphere was lively, and no ugly incidents (usually to be expected with so many bodies in one space) were splashed across the headlines.

When I was a boy in the Iowa cornfields (actually we lived in a house), the making of fried chicken happened with blissful regularity. My sister and I would be whisked from kitchen to kitchen to consume fried chicken. I have a distinct recollection of telling Lula that her chicken tasted better than the Colonel's.

Immortality achieved.

With this as a background, I must admit that since those bucolic days of yesteryear until only very recently, I had not paid a single visit on Colonel Sanders (now a license rather than a name) or Kentucky Fried Chicken (as we once knew it, now a mere abbreviation, KFC). During these more than 30 intervening years, this purveyor of extra crispy and coleslaw was off my Fast Food Radar (which, by the way makes, the Hubble Space Telescope look like a Kinder egg sneak-a-scope).

And then the Colonel came to Serbia.

One fine day, a couple of weeks ago, I heard the announcement that if the Radicals should win the upcoming presidential elections – i.e., Smiling Tommy Nik – that she was ready to pack up and leave the country.

Hm, I told her.

Of course, this set the wheels spinning. It does not take much, admittedly, but spinning they were set nevertheless.

He was referring to the Great Blic List of 50 Most Powerful Foreigners – published today – from which my humble foreignness was inconspicuously absent. In reality, the lists that I could hope to be on would be more like

List of 50 Bald People

List of 50 Big-Mouthed Complainers

List of 50 Inconsistent Bloggists

List of 50 Foreign Curmudgeons

List of 50 People who Really Do Not Belong on a List of 50 People Published in the Press