Archives for posts with tag: Ivan Chocholouš

THE TRADER OF EVERY PORT

December 4, 2014 //
1

Always Ready For A New Business

Haresh Shah

chickenbiz2

Must have been early 1990 when landed on my desk is an impressive corporate brochure of Autraco Holdings based in Vienna, Austria. In the cover letter signed by its CEO Rolf Dolina, he expresses his desire to want to publish Playboy magazine in Czechoslovakia. But we are already in negotiations with Vladimír Tichý of the Gennex Corporation, the publishers of magazines, books, films and video that included the Czech language edition of ComputerWorld. That in itself wouldn’t have stopped me from entertaining another option, especially because the Autraco Holdings boasts of its wide reach in the former eastern European countries that include Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland. The countries where they are sole distributors of Memorex USA, Honda automobiles and Fuji films. Enclosed with the letter are some issues of the Czech language version of Germany’s Burda Moden, widely distributed and hugely popular women’s magazine – similar to the Simplicity patterns in the United States. The magazine he was publishing with Hana Wagenhofer – his Prague based business partner in several joint ventures. And it is mainly for Hanna that he is so keen on doing Playboy. It would give her a stronger presence on the Czech publishing scene.

From the look of it, the corporation seems to be financially healthy and thriving, with dozens of entities spread over ten European nations. Looks more like a department store of consumer products, up until then deprived to the communist block. Also included in their portfolio are Palmer’s and Elizabeth Arden fashion and beauty products. A far cry from really creating a high quality magazine. But I realize that for any successful entrepreneur like Rolf Dolina, everything is a “product”, as it is for our group President William Stokkan. I remember when International Publishing was absorbed by Bill’s Licensing and Merchandizing division, me often chiding him that magazines don’t have customers, they have readers. He would smirk and say, whatever! And yet, smart enough to know the difference.

For the businessmen aspiring to be publishers, the thinking must go; They can find some good translators, sign up with a printing company and distributors and voila! Other details are just logistics. That is, until they meet me do they realize that you can’t make a successful local edition of any magazine just by translating the content. Unlike other products, it doesn’t come pre-produced. That they really need to create it issue by an issue of their own, month after month, for which they need an entire editorial staff, advertising and distribution arms.

Ditto, the small independent publishers. Even though they do have some idea of what sort of infra-structure making of a magazine takes. And still they think soon as they put Playboy logo on the cover, it should fly off the newsstands like the pigeons off Piazza San Marcos in Venice. Suddenly it would become their flagship and above all they would be known as the publishers of the local edition of Playboy – Hugh M. Hefner reincarnate of their countries.

Up until the opening up of the previously closed markets of the eastern Europe, Playboy had signed up with the major local publishers, some even larger corporations than PEI in Chicago. Once the agreement was signed, they would have a team devoted exclusively to Playboy, and one more title would be absorbed into their wider network of other publications. Not so with the emerging markets such as Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland – the first of the three viable eastern European markets. There are no established publishers for us to hook up with. There is no tradition of free journalism. The people with some professional knowledge of the media had emerged from the state’s propaganda machinery who worked within the stringent constraints of communism. The field is wide open to anyone who wants to explore. Suddenly there are small time hustlers with BIG ideas. Some of them, serious contenders, others without a clue.

And then there are the Western entrepreneurs – the expats returning home and some like Rolf Dolina, well established businessmen across the driving distances of the Eastern borders. Rolf is already doing business in several of those countries and is the go getter – the kind who grabs an opportunity when he sees one. And he knows how to make and cultivate contacts. He is a quick study and learns ropes incredibly fast. Never mind the product. In India, they would call him sub bunder ka vepari – the trader of every port. He is smart, shrewd and calculating, not to mention, charming. Making money is his passion and of many business cards he carries, the one of them is an illustration of the rooster just having settled his hen in the process of laying eggs, turning around and chasing another chick before she gets away. The tag line at the bottom says: always ready for a new business.

You can’t help but respect their daring and tenacity. Even so, the first thing I do is to try to dissuade them, because as Jorge Fontevecchia of Editorial Perfil in Argentina once put it: only to your enemies do you suggest publishing as a business. Another argument I make is that asking for Playboy’s hand is like wanting to marry a rich man’s totally spoiled daughter and it takes more than money to keep her in the style she is used and aspires to. I have gotten some laughs out of it, but you can’t dissuade someone who has hopelessly fallen in love with the idea.

In such cases I try my best to avoid meeting face-to-face with such prospects. What if I end up liking him or her? But when he sets his heart on something, Rolf is not that easily dissuaded and he is not the kind to give up that easily. After some months of fax correspondence Rolf seems to have understood that doing a serious magazine was a different ball game altogether. Not too long after, he calls my office in Chicago and casually mentions that he is in Florida, and wouldn’t mind flying to Chicago and talk with me personally. During his visit, we have a pleasant Indian lunch at my favorite of the time, Bombay Palace. Even though I had forgotten all about it, Rolf still fondly remembers that meal.

A month earlier, I had hosted the Czech team in Chicago and over that beautiful fall week sat down with them at my home around the dining table and taken them through the nuts and bolts of making of Playboy magazine – with as Ivan (Chocholouš) still remembers, Beethoven’s Symphony #9 playing in the background. Ivan couldn’t help but ask: whether there was any significance behind me playing that particular music? Not really. But it gave me an idea to use it as an example for what I was just then trying to communicate. I was taking them through the making of Playboy, page by page, and one of the things I always want to hammer into the minds of a new team is the concept of pacing.

To make it simple, you don’t place a cartoon behind a cartoon, non-fiction doesn’t follow another non-fiction, ditto the pictorials. You can’t have every illustration as a two page spread or a single page opening. The magazine, like a symphony has to have a certain rhythm which segues from one note to another. The fan of classical music, Ivan immediately understood it, something he still brings up in conversations. At the end of our weeklong orientation and the brain storming, we had agreed on the next steps. For them to go home and begin to put together the first few issues. I would take several trips to Prague and work with them and we would shoot for the early 1991 launch.

●●●

Well before the Berlin Wall crumbled on November 9, 1989, Hungary was already wiggling out of the tight ropes of the Soviet Union. Popping up were many young entrepreneurs and starting up private businesses. Among them, Dezsö Futász, the suave and dynamic publisher of the Hungarian edition of Scientific America and ComputerWorld.

Approached me on his behalf were the Hungarian expats and venture capitalists, John and Eva Breyer of Invent Corporation, based in Hillsborough, California. The breathtaking story of their escape across the border into Austria and on to the United States during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution in itself would make for an incredible and thrilling love story. But for the time being, I would stick to the story of Playboy’s arrival in the eastern Europe.

After the initial exchange of information, my boss Bill and I met in my office with Eva and Dezsö in the early spring of 1989. Over the next several months we work on the details of launching of Playboy’s first edition behind the Iron Curtain. As we had just began to put together the pages of the first issue of the Hungarian edition, I remember how our entire team had put everything away and rushed over to the Kossuth Lajos tér to join the jubilant crowd gathered outside Hungary’s Parliament Building to witness the historic moment of Matyas Szuros, Hungary`s acting president declaring Hungary to be an independent nation.

It was Monday, October 23, 1989. Sixteen days ahead of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The exuberant crowd and the joy that rippled through us took me back forty two years to the night of August 15, 1947 to Bori Bunder in Bombay, and to the jubilant crowds celebrating India’s independence from the British. I still can feel the exhilaration and the thrill of that night. Seven years old, perched on the shoulders of an adult, I was surrounded by an euphoria with beating of the drums, screams of joy, chanting – the fireworks lighting up the sky and the Indo-Gothic façade of the Victoria Terminus lit up like a bride was something I still cherish like a distant dream that’s still well and alive in my memory. The Hungarian edition of Playboy launches on November 28, 1989, nineteen days after the people began to carry bits and pieces of the Berlin wall home as souvenirs.

It’s almost a year later that I am sitting with Rolf Dolina in Chicago’s Bombay Palace restaurant. It is clear to me that he is smitten with the idea of publishing a Playboy in the eastern Europe, where his businesses reign supreme. I tell Rolf about how far along we already were with the Czech edition. Nothing I could do.

But I am thinking, perhaps he can team up with Dezsö in Hungary. A whole year in publishing Playboy there, the economy and the weaning optimism of the country is setting in and the magazine is not doing as well as anticipated. Though it has already established itself as the class in itself against which others are measured. They are struggling. What the magazine needs is some infusion of cash and someone like Rolf’s expertise and the business acumen.

Over the next month or so I speak with Dezsö, Eva and Rolf, resulting in Dezsö, his partner Andras Toro, Rolf and I meeting in Budapest. Rolf is willing to land helping hand in Hungary, but his heart is still set on Czechoslovakia. Dezsö is connected with Vladimír Tichý in Prague through their common thread of ComputerWorld. The next day, Dezsö and I drive to Prague and meet with Vladimír and his right hand man Ivan Chocholouš. A day later, Rolf drives in from Vienna and the three of them reach an accord. Rolf gets to help Dezsö as well as gets to participate in Czechoslovakia. Eventually he would buy out Vladimír. Mission accomplished!

When we launch the Czechoslovakian edition on April 25, 1991, I am on the stage of Lucerna  Palace with Playmate Christy Thom (February 1991) by my side, announcing the arrival of the Czech Playboy. Standing on the side are: the publisher Vladimír Tichý and the co-publisher Hana Wagenhofer, while Rolf is hobnobbing in the crowd, feeling like a million dollars, smug and with a big smile on his face. Like the German Playmate Barbara Corser (July 1975) once said to me: Haresh, if you want something bad enough, you somehow manage to get it.

© Haresh Shah 2014

Illustration: Celia Rose Marks

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

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Next Friday, December 12, 2014

THE ARABIAN NIGHT

Of the multitude of PR events sponsored by Playboy across the world, Playboy Germany’s 20th anniversary’s BIG BANG party sticks out the most in my memory. And then there was a low key event just a year before.

 

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Categories Czechoslovakia, Eastern Europe, Entrepreneurs, Friendship, Hungary, Playboy, Profile

PORK, DUMPLINGS AND CABBAGE

February 6, 2014 //
1

 And The Power Of The Power Before And After The Communism

Haresh Shah

hotelrubble

‘So what are some of the Czech specialties?’

‘We only have three.’

‘And they are?’

‘Pork, dumplings and cabbage. Dumplings, pork and cabbage and cabbage, dumplings and pork.’ Answers Ivan (Chocholouš) and breaks out in a big laugh.

‘And of course there is Svíčková…’ he continues. Which is not as common to come by.

Every time I return to Prague, my dilemma remains the same. What to eat? There are other things on the menu – klobasa? Breaded and fried chicken breasts?  Fried cheese? Fruit dumplings? But time and time again, Ivan will make me take the U turn and order Vepřo, Knedlo, Zelo. By now he knows my taste. More like my sensitivity to the fat contents and the toughness of the meat normally served by most of the local restaurants. Pork, dumplings and cabbage being the national dish, the chances are that in a good restaurant the cut they serve would be tender compared to the neighborhood hospodas.

This is the late spring of 1990. Mere seven months since the Velvet Revolution and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Most of the restaurants are still owned and operated by the State, where the quality level of the ingredients is far below the accepted standards of even the cheapest places across the border, say in Austria and Germany. I am having hard time with the fat-filled meat tough as leather. For someone who grew up in a staunch vegetarian family, in early days in the West, I would find even the tender most filet mignon a bit hard to swallow. What they served up in the Czech restaurants during those early days at the end of the communism, was not something I looked forward to.

I have similar problem in Hungary every time I visit Budapest. And would in Warsaw, Poland a couple of years later. Even though the Berlin wall didn’t fall until November of 1989, the Hungarians had already began to disregard the constraints of the communism almost a year before when the first inquiry from the couple of Hungarian born and now living in the States venture capitalist landed on my desk, expressing desire to launch a Hungarian edition of Playboy. John and Eva Bryer had somehow managed to escape to Austria and onto the United States following the Hungarian revolution of 1956, in the fashion of the cold war breath taking suspense story, making it good across the ocean. Now in their middle age, they brought us young and ambitious independent Hungarian publisher, Deszo Futasz, who had already been publishing the Hungarian edition of IMG’s Computer World magazine, which lead to Playboy licensing its first edition behind what was still considered to be the iron curtain.

On my first trip to Budapest in the spring of 1989, I was very much looking forward to the authentic Hungarian Goulash – a spicy paprika doused meat stew served on the bed of spätzle.Something I had loved when I lived and worked in Offenburg in Germany and something I frequently ordered at the Bahnhof Restaurant and at Engel where I would meet my Hungarian friend Sinaida for lunch. But when I ordered it in Budapest, it was nothing like what I remembered it to be. First of all, it wasn’t spicy at all. A bit watered down even and bland. The meat tough with rinds of fat around it. Something I just couldn’t stomach. Wiener Schnitzel contained pork instead of traditional tender veal. Even in better hotels and restaurants, it was tough going. As good a wine as Hungary makes, not up until later did I get to taste them. The saving grace in Czechoslovakia were their excellent beers like Pilsner Urquell, original Budweiser and the local Staropramen.

In the neighborhood restaurants, you’re greeted with small flimsy squares of disintegrating tissues that passed for napkins. Even McDonalds had better napkins, but unlike in the States, they were rationed to one with each order. Once I commented on them to Kirke’s Mirek Drozda, who along with his wife Mirka, runs a graphic arts studio-come stock photo agency.

‘Compared to what we used to have, this is luxury.’ Mirek says to me and then picking up his napkin proceeds to tear it at the folded creases and piles on the table the resulting four pieces.

‘This is what we got before the revolution!’ What could one say?

When I launched the first edition behind the former Iron Curtain country Hungary, as was my tradition, I had invited all European editors to attend the inauguration. We were all staying at Hilton up the hill on the Buda side of the Danube. Once it must have been a luxurious hotel and it still boasted five stars, but at a closer look you realize that the place has long been neglected and is in dire need of repair with peeling wall paints and battered and old cheap looking furniture. Sad remnants of the glory long past of the Austro-Hungarian empire of fin-de-siècle. When I get out of the shower and am getting ready, I realize that I have run out of my hand and body lotion and hope to buy some from the lobby shop downstairs.

Just then I hear a knock on my door. Standing outside in his pajamas is our German editor-in-chief Andreas Odenwald. He is holding in his hands a mangled and squeezed-out of-it-the-last-drop, a blue tube of Nivea moisturizing cream.

‘I need some cream.’ He says.

‘I do too, I’m afraid.’ I grab the empty plastic bottle from the bathroom, turn it upside down and squeeze it to the hollow sound. Not a drip. We break out laughing.

Having checked out the hotel kiosk and not finding any, Andreas and I venture out in search of Nivea. I still remember looks on our faces as we stood in the middle of the empty shelves of a drogerie. Forget about the imported Nivea, there wasn’t anything there that even came closer to a hand cream. Such an unnecessary bourgeois waste!

Little over a year later, I am in Prague. I split my stay between Forum ( now Hotel Corinthia) which is five star modern, prim an proper like any other international chain and then at U tři Pstrosu, a small boutique hotel on the Mala Strana.  It is certainty a charming little place. Followed by even a smaller and cozier jewel box of seven room B & B, U raka, near the Prague castle. It is owned by a husband and a wife team. He is a photographer and his wife, an artist. The main floor, which is also a large open hall, showcases both of their works. Quite impressive. The place is a walled enclave with well groomed small Japanese garden and even smaller detached structure by the huge main gate that serves as the reception, the breakfast room, the lounge and the kitchen. It’s a true B & B where they take your breakfast  orders the night before. The husband gets in his car every morning, drives to the closest German border and picks up fresh supply – mainly fresh fruits and other produce. My friend Susi from Munich has joined me, who’s crazy about fresh fruits, yogurts.

But in-between, probably at Ivan’s recommendation, I want to try out one of the communist era’s landmarks, Hotel Praha. When Ivan tells me that prior to the party bosses having decided to build themselves a concrete monument, the property was a vast and a beautiful park called Petschkova zahrada, loved and enjoyed by everyone. He remembers the park fondly and with a certain sense of sadness – the place he used to visit during his childhood. There were of course many protests against them razing their beloved park. But to no avail. As my good old Mom would have said: prudence doesn’t work against the power. Or as Joni Mitchell so aptly sums up in her song: They paved paradise, to put up a parking lot.

Built at the total cost of 800 million Czech crown, all of its 136 rooms have a view of the Prague Castle. Opened in 1981, at the height of the communist regime’s glory days, it was not opened to the public but was exclusively meant to accommodate the high ranking party officials as well as the foreign dignitaries and was the home to the Communist Chapter of Czechoslovakia. The Velvet Revolution of of 1989, caused the hotel to be taken over by the city administration and they ran the place up until the year 2000. Beyond that it would be taken over by the corporate giants Falcon Capital and turn it into a luxury hotel in an attempt to recapture the country’s most recent history and possibly the nostalgia.

So here I am, in January of 1991, residing in an impressive, albeit totally run down building. It has the reception area vast as an arena, looking dark and desolate because of the lack of anything to fill the space. Elsewhere it would have been a bustling lobby bar. The high ceilings make the space look even emptier. And the rounded palatial stairs leading down to the ballrooms and other conference halls, devoid of any human traffic are engulfed in the gloomy dimness. And then there is a swimming pool, with the vast body of water looking like a sinister black hole.

Ivan tells me that those stairs used to hold fashion shows, with the audience looking up and the models descending those stairs in their dainty little steps, stopping and taking their bows. Definitely the pride and joy of the communist regime, where they entertained foreign and local dignitaries and accommodated them in one of their rooms. I could certainly imagine the grandeur of the days past. Fortunately, I could see for myself, how awesome the place could have been, when years later in my post-Playboy days, working with Ivan at Mona, he would hold one of the company Christmas parties there with about a thousand guests and cornucopia of food and booze, music and dance. And what I remember the most is how elegant all the women looked in their long and glittery outfits. And how absolutely breathtaking it was to watch them descend one step at a time with their long dresses billowing so seductively. Especially, my co-creator in making of Esmeralda special, Alice Sedliská wrapped up in her floating green dress in the image of Leticia Calderon in the title role.

But let me take you back in time and in to my room. Having ridden into a sluggish ascending elevator and walk through dimly lit corridor, the room reminds me of my room at the Indian Student Hostel on Fitzroy Square in London. A single bunk like bed flush with the corner, a desk and a chair stacked against the right wall. I am not sure if there is an armchair of sorts. Fortunately, there is a full size window overlooking the garden and the Prague Castle, of which the hotel is so proud. My London room had a sink, but we had to use communal toilets and showers. My room at Praha is equipped with a bathroom of its own. Their breakfast buffet is meager even by the eastern European standards. It’s crying out for tender loving care and some well invested hard cash. Though it stands in the prestigious residential quarter of Prague 6, when you put it in perspective, it is tucked away in the remote corner, far away from the glitter and the glory of the city that calls itself Zlata Praha – the Golden Prague.

The irony of it all is: Thanks to the privatization of the place, up until a year ago, it had become one of the Prague’s alternative luxury hotels at $300+ a night rooms. Even Tom Cruise stayed there during the filming of Mission Impossible 4, and loved it. And just as the people of the country had began to accept it as a monument to its recent communist history, in early 2013, the hotel was abruptly closed down without explanation, leaving guests with reservations stranded and scrambling for rooms elsewhere. The new owner, Petr Kellner, of PPF, said to be the richest man of the country plans to demolish the hotel and put up in its place an upscale school to be named Open Gate. There has been protests against it, but once again – this time around, not only the power but also talking is the clanging cash.

© Haresh Shah 2014

Illustration: Celia Rose Marks

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Next Friday, February 14, 2013

 THE PEEPING TOMS

If  you’re lucky, it’s only once in a life time that you meet a person quite like Franz Hermann Gomfers, let alone call him your friend.  Here was the man, for whom everyday of his life was a Karneval. Yes, like in Rio. But he would argue it to be the one in Köln. It wouldn’t be fair to compare his parties to that Playboy mansion’s. FHG as we called him, had a style of his own.        

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Categories Communism, Czechoslovakia, Food & Wine

THE STORY OF MY TUXEDO

March 28, 2013 //
3

What Good Is A Teacher If His Pupil Can’t One Up Him?

Haresh Shah

bowtie3b

I am talking to Ivan (Chocholouš) on the kitchen phone, looking out at the first tulips that have popped up in the flower bed in the backyard of my house in Evanston. It’s Wednesday the April 17th, in the year 1991. It’s been hectic as can be. I have taken off half a day to stay home and work on the final details of the launch in Czechoslovakia – only eight days away, Based on what Ivan reports from Prague, everything seems to be going smoothly with organizing of the launch events. The press conference, welcoming of the  European editors, catering, transportation. And the most importantly, now that I have signed off on every single page, the first issue is now ready to roll off the presses.

Normally what they could have sent to me via courier;  had to be faxed for my final approval. All 120 pages of the issue. Mary and I stand by all through the transmission, hoping that the telephone lines between Chicago and the printing plant in Vienna wouldn’t break down. That the fax machines would hold up for this continuous hours long transmission. As the machine spews out the pages after pages, I sit down to put them together in order. Pasting and folding and trimming to the size  with Xacto knife.  Finally I could look at the black and white mini version of the first issue of our Czechoslovakian edition. We had of course discussed all of it just a couple of weeks before in person during my most recent visit to Prague. We had kept some pages open to accommodate the last minute ads coming in. Which I had not seen.  But of what I had seen,  they have followed my instructions to the T.  Now I am giving it one last look before giving them my final okay. I am pleased at the job they have done, but with one small exception. I am not quite happy with the placement of an ad visually clashing with the facing editorial page. I page through the issue several times and decide that its something we could easily fix by swapping the offending ad with another one in front of the book. And voila, we would have a perfectly balanced issue. I communicate this to Ivan, who in turn passes it on to the people at Gistel Druck. The next day, we’re on the phone again.

‘You know, the Gistel people tell me that to switch those pages is not as simple as you told me it would be.’

‘Why is that?’

‘Because it would take a lot of work and time, which we don’t have.’

‘Lot of time? It shouldn’t take more than an hour, if that!’

‘They say it will take several hours.!’

‘Several hours? They are bullshitting you.’

‘Of course I don’t know as much about the printing process as you do, but they sound quite convincing to me.’

‘That’s precisely why printers do it – knowing that you’re sure to be lost once they begin with their technical mumbo-jumbo.’

‘I don’t know. Honestly, I am lost. Perhaps you want to talk to them?’

‘I will if you want me to.  But just tell them that I really don’t understand why it should take so long. Tell them it’s something I can do with my left hand.’

At that point I am not thinking that they had probably gone ahead and stripped everything together in signatures and may even have made sets of plate ready flats. Worse yet, already  burned the plates. Something they weren’t supposed to do before the customers have given their final okay. Squeezed between me in Chicago and the printers in Vienna, Ivan agrees to push them one more time. Since now I have challenged them and their professionalism, however grudgingly, they do it.

Ivan reports back to me during the conversation I am now having with him.

‘We have now made changes as you wanted.’

‘Thanks Ivan. I really appreciate it..’

‘I am glad to have been able to satisfy you.’ As he says this, I sense a bit of hurt in his voice mixed with a mild sarcasm and realize it must have taken some doing on his part to have the printers make the swap.

‘I hope you’ll agree with me that now the issue looks as perfect as we can make it. I know it wouldn’t have been as big a deal, had we left those pages the way they were. But as long as it was still possible to correct them, I don’t see why we shouldn’t.

To which Ivan mumbles something like; ‘of course you’re right.’

I can’t help but still hear in his voice a man placed between a rock and a hard place. Considering the limitations he must face, he has done a great job and I love him for that. Plus our relationship is beginning to evolve into a friendship.  So I try to further smooth things over.

‘You know Ivan, it may seem like a lot of work right now, but in the end what matters the  most are small details, because at the end of the day the difference between good and excellent are little things.’

And we switch back talking about the launch. I tell him that Playboy Products would provide their Men’s cologne to be included in the goody bag. That the US Playmate Christy Thom (February 1991)  was all set to fly in from Los Angeles to be by the side of Czechoslovakia’s own, voluptuous Playmate Šarka Lukešová whom we had flown into Chicago to be shot.

Ivan confirms that Hotel Diplomat would provide accommodation for the visitors and that booked for me was the presidential suite. The press conference too would take place in the ballroom of the hotel but the actual launch would be at Pálac Lucerna – the landmark building owned by the Havel family and located right in the heart of Václalvské náměstí.  That arranged were three black Mercedez Benz stretched sedans to pick up guests from the airport and scurry around the VIPs. And he rattles off who’s who of the Czechoslovakia’s elite guest list to include Václav Klaus, the Finance Minister and soon to be the Prime Minister and eventually the President of the Czech Republic. Pavel Rychetský, the Vice Chair of the Government,  Jaroslav Kořan, the minister of information who would go on to become the mayor of Prague and later editor-in-chief of Playboy Czech Republic. That the stars Myloš Kapecký and Jiřina Bohdalová were going to be the honored guests. That the beautiful television personality Magdalena Dietlová too would be hobnobbing in the crowd. And that the iconic singer Karel Gott – the country’s equivalent of Frank Sinatra would grace the event with his performance. And the highlight of the evening would be the exquisite culinary spread catered by no other than the Michelin Starred Chef, Alfons Schuhbeck from Munich.

Half of those names go over my head. But sensing his excitement, I feel that Ivan has gathered  the crème de la crème of the Czechoslovakian society and politics.

‘How about Václav Havel?’

‘Well, I am not sure. We have of course invited the President and he hasn’t yet declined. Knowing him, he just might show up.’

‘Wow!’ I go. And then pause for a breather. ‘From what you tell me, this sounds like a black tie affair.’

‘It is. Vlado (Vladimir Tichý) went to Vienna to buy his tuxedo. Dolina (Rolf) is planning to wear his white tux and Hana (Wagenhofer) I am sure will be her elegant self as usual.’ (The  three principals of the VIPress Czechoslovakia, a.s., the publishers of the Czech edition at the time. )

‘Hum!’ I mutter. Then pause again to digest the information.

‘Sounds really great. Congratulations to you. You have done really a great job. I don’t remember any launch quite so grand and glamorous as what you have planned.’

I pause one more time, looking outside at the gleaming tulips, I am thinking: And I don’t even have a tuxedo. The only time I was required to attend such an event was Playboy Holland’s first anniversary in Amsterdam. But at the time, our cool service editor Mick Boskamp – who’s still a close friend – had foresight enough  to get my measurements in advance and arranged a rental  for me. The second time was several years later in Hong Kong when we did Miss Playboy International Beauty Pageant and I was to hand out editor’s choice award to the winner on the live television broadcast. The TVB producer insisted that I do it wearing a tux. And then I even had ample time to have one custom made. But I didn’t see any sense in it and I guess I was being just plain cheap! Seeing my hesitance, the producer took me to the prop room and had me fitted with one.

‘Well, that sounds really great.’ I repeat myself. ‘But I am afraid I don’t own a tux and I am leaving for Prague in two days and have our Turkish publisher Ali Karacan in town so won’t even have time to look at renting one.’ My mindset is still fixed on renting  and not just go out and buying one.

The silence on Ivan’s side of the line prevails. But in retrospect, I should have heard the loud screeching of the wheels frantically turning inside his brain.

‘Well, I guess I just will have to wear my best dark suit.’ I say.

‘I guess,’ he echoes.

‘In fact, I have really a good one. Dark rusty brown, almost black. I bought it a little over a year ago just for the Hungarian launch.’

‘I am sure it’s really nice. Especially knowing your taste.’

‘It really is. You will see.’

‘It doesn’t matter. You’ll still be a big hit. We love you with or without a tuxedo. But you know Haresh, someone just told me not long a go that the difference between good and excellent are little things!’

I want to jump up and down and throw the receiver out the window and smash it into those swaying tulips, watching their petals erupt up in the air and scream.  ‘You fucking son of a bitch!!!

© Haresh Shah 2013

Illustration: Jordan Rutherford

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

Next Friday, April 5, 2013

MY SPRING VALENTINE

Its Easter weekend already and the sun is shining bright and the temperature in Chicago is creeping upwards, slowly but surely. And I am thinking of the decades-a-go-winter in Amsterdam and the many faces of love.  And then one of them reappearing years later on a beautiful spring day just like today, only warmer – because it’s Santa Barbara, California.

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Categories Czechoslovakia