… and that is precisely the reason that it tends to be the stable where THINK conducts many of its interviews. Thus, this month was going to be no different.
As is the case with all our interviews, I had no idea who this guy was, what he was about, or even what he looked like. I knew jack and shit about Lucky Lucaso and when I asked The Boss why he deserved a spread, he simply stated is his almighty, all knowing decree: “Because he’s cool.” HAH. We’ll see about that, Goddamnit…
But, it should be stated that enroute to our rendezvous my skepticism started to fade away when he called me 20 min before we had to meet…
“Hey Man! This is Lucaso. Where are you?!”
“Umm… I’m on my way. It (the interview) is at 8, right?
“Uhh yeah! 8! I’m just here waiting for you, man. Been here for like a half hour! Hurry up, I’m already drunk!”
Sweet Jesus.
Anyone with the gall to arrive 30 minutes early for an interview just to cut through the foreplay and get right down to the fat of the matter, was clearly a beast not be fucked with.
Stumbling in, I peered around for anyone who would resemble a Lucky Lucaso and although a few did seem Lucasoish, none of the poor bastards actually looked “Lucky”.
The place was packed and I didn’t have a clue until I saw Curtis Jones holding court in the side room. I explained my dilemma, and although seemingly unsympathetic to the cause, he guided me over to the main room and pointed to the last stool at the bar.
That was Lucky Lucaso. He looked like a guy who has fun every minute the ticker goes by on the clock of life. I started to walk over and he spotted me, smiled and made room at the bar.
As soon as we got acquainted he was all over the place. First there was the story about the time he had a suit made out of Christmas Tree lights to wear at a party, and then the time he was doing a party for Mecca and, with a friend, whom were both done up in Cowboy and Indian attire, were leading a pony through Mecca when it shit in the club.
“Can you believe that fucking shit, man? This fucking pony, shit in the middle of the fucking dance floor!”
Lucaso was open and willing to tell anything and everything. About his past, about Prague, about the Spanish army and about jail. But five minutes in to listening to his English marinated with a thick Latin accent, I swore the guy was Puerto Rican. I was totally wrong.
Lucaso is Czech, but when at age three, he and his mother moved to Benidorm Alicante, Spain, where he stayed until he was twenty. That was in ’92. That was Prague. Since he returned here, he has become somewhat of an anomaly in this city of golden spires. Definitely being part of the force that drives this city into whichever direction it’s headed, Lucky Lucaso has centered most of his energy into promotion.
Be it parties, films, a vineyard in Petic Moc, an epic 4 hour documentary on the evolution of Prague or god knows what else, he serves the city he loves. “I’m a Prague guy…I wanna give something to the people.”
His parties though are seemingly his livelihood. He, and with the utmost acknowledgment to Pierro (the man whom he calls the Brains behind all that he does), in the past have brought Prague some it’s most memorable nights of hedonism. Be it the Private Parties at Radost, Circus of Prague or the countless events at Mecca, they are hell-bent on offering the night a good time.
Throughout the interview he was completely bent towards his upcoming event: The Trabant Party at Mecca (was on the 4th and be damned that you missed it). Not just so much that it was his latest party, but for the fact that A: he owns a Trabant and B: he sent out invitations to the largest Trabant organization in the Republic.
Cracking smiles over the thought of all these guys puttering up in their Trabant to the front door of Mecca and being totally swept out from under their feet once they realized what they were into. “…I’m also releasing my album at the Trabant party. That’s the real big thing about this party, for me at least… Prague DJs have this Deep Style, which is fine. It’s good, but people here want to party – so I have a happy style you can party too.”
Apart from promoting, Lucaso has also acted in a number of films (such as Samotari) and a few commercials (including playing a cop in a spot for recruiting kids to sign up with the police). But the story he really gets a kick out of is during the premiere for the film, Pernikova Vez. His mother came to see her son on the screen.
“…But she had just gotten through some plastic surgery and had to wear real dark sunglasses to cover the scars, but it made her look like a movie star from the 50s. And afterwards, at the after party, she was running around stealing drinks right from the hands of random people. She was so drunk she was dancing the flamingo on top of tables! My MOM, man! I couldn’t believe it. When my friends saw her, they was just like, ‘Man, now I know which egg you come from!'”
In spite of all of his self pledged love for Prague, it’s people and it’s nightlife, for most of 2000-2001 he had left the city for something of a curveball to the routine. He had signed up to work on a Celebrity Cruise ship which essentially constituted in terms of going two times around the world under the banner of pure, blatant debauchery…a.k.a.: Paradise.
“My plan was this: I had no money, but doing this I would get paid 2,500 USD a month. But, in the end, I left with no money. Why? Because all that was in my plan was to Drink like hell and to Fuck like hell… like a sailor, ya know?”
“That’s great! But really now – to you- what’s a good trip? Rozumis?
“A good trip? Rozumim. Good trip is like when some friends and me were driving around in my Trabant and we took this big balloon, like 2 or more meters big, and tied to the back of the car. And then turned on the police light in the front window and I got on the roof and did like Teen Wolf. You know Michael J. Fox?”
“Yeah! Totally, used to love Teen Wolf”
“Yeah! So I was doing the Teen Wolf on the roof of my Trabant with all this shit going on! I love that car man. I tell you, if I am gonna drive anything, anything at all; it’s either gonna be a brand new Porsche, or a fucking Trabant.
The cops won’t even stop us. One time they tried. Freaked out when they saw this guy driving a Trabant wearing a mask from the movie Scream and having a police light on in the window. But now when ever I drive by, they just wave.”
The man has style.
“So if that’s a good trip, then what’s a bad trip?”
“Bad Trip? Never had one, man. Don’t believe in them.”
Right. But I couldn’t hide my blatant speculation. He spotted it and leaned in…
“Yesterday, my girlfriend left me. I am serious. 2 years I was with this girl and she left me. Just yesterday. And it hurts, you know? It hurts bad, but why should I be closed?”
With that came our first pause. Bad news for an interview I imagine, but it happens. After a bit he tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I’ve ever been in a Trabant. I said no, and with a smile he told me to take my drink and follow him. I got up from the barstool to pick up the tab but my hand was waved away. Lucaso shook his head while counting out a few hundred crowns. I don’t think this would ever happen again. The interviewee paying the tab?! Everything was backwards.
As we headed toward the door he asked Curtis Jones if he wanted to come along. Pierro and some other people said they were headed that way too. When I asked where we were going I was told a party… As soon as we got outside I was able to see what Lucaso had meant. His goddamned car was a manifested provocation of just about every degree possible.
In my mind I already had us pinned to get picked up by the cops on the grounds of sheer principle, or even worse; being man-handled by a group of ravenous, English hoodlums too loaded up on booze and too let down by their fading dreams for the Czech female conquest. Hosed down in puke green paint with huge, man-eating flames bellowing off from the hood meant this fucker had paid it’s dues and was well on it’s way to become our coffin on wheels.
We climbed in, drink in hand, and bunkered down. When he turned the motor over she spat and coughed till smoke poured out from the back. The cloud behind us grew so large so fast that I was sure that the car was on fire and I figured we would have been safer in a Pinto; But apparently this was something that Lucaso was used to and had a can of air freshener ready. He sprayed out the window into the street which was now engulfed in a sea of carbon monoxide.
“Ne problem,” Curtis assured us from riding shotgun “Mam Insurance.”
And with that we were off.
He tooled the fiery sprite through the narrow streets of Staro Mesto at high speed, taking note of the hoards of Belgium tourist who were out that night, in competition for those looking for a burn. But in the end they made easy targets and were dealt with accordingly.
We arrived at Cafe Cafe, where Lucaso had an “in” for the CD release party of Dara Rollins. Up until this point things were going smoothly, but then bad noise erupted at the door. Men pleading for a reason to beat the crap out of you weren’t budging. I remember Curtis turning to us, asking “They don’t know who I am. Why don’t they know who I am?”
When I tried “No, no. It’s okay, we’re with Think Magazine,” one of the bastards laughed…
Lucaso, with his open arms, smiled and laughed quickly diffusing the heating situation and ushered us into the room full of sharks. Once the doors closed he turned to me and said; “Yeah, I mean, it’s like a crazy night.”
And with that he went into the crowd. Nothing but hugs and kisses for everyone he knew and even a few he didn’t know, because in Lucaso’s world, we’re all friends. He had found his element and wasn’t about to let it slip with neglect. I reckoned at this point the interview was over so I headed over to the bar and took full advantage of the free booze. I would occasionally turn and seek him out in the crowd. See him holding court with whatever group he happened to be with at that instant.
While in this moment of solitude, playing with the empty can of Red Bull, I found that all this time Pierro the Brain had been quickly drinking next to me. We both smiled and he started up…
“I tell him to eat lots of hard bread.”
“Why do you do that?”
“Because he’ll enjoy the fresh bread later”
Pierro seems clearly like a seasoned veteran from the battlefield of life. He is short, subdued, and humble. The opposite of Lucaso.
Where Lucaso drives a puke green Trabant with painted flames bellowing up from the hood, Pierro drives a Ford. Pierro is the brains and Lucaso is the energy.
When I ask him what’s next as far as promotions, parties and such he list off a few upcoming events but then stops and laughs…
“After this year, I’m going on Pension.”
When I ask him why, he proceeds to tell me that everything is going to change. That it has already started to change, but much more is on its way. It’s a wind that he doesn’t like and doesn’t want to take part of. I cough up if the EU has had anything to do with it?
He stops for a moment and we both turn. Lucaso is off, posing for a photographer from some gossip magazine. He’s in the middle of a horde of models. Face lit up like the 4th of July with one arm around a bombshell blonde and the other outstretched toward the camera. He’s in his element. In the center of people. Putting smiles on them and on himself.
Pierro and I turn back to our drinks.
“Yeah that too.” He mutters. “They helped fuck it all up. It’s all going to change.”
