Keep Your Hands to Yourself (and off My F*cking City)

I live in the city of Prague, just off the corner of Lightness and Unbearable. Prague is known for its vibrant nightlife, for buildings so beautiful they rob you of breath. Over seven million visitors come here each year. There’s tons of them in town at this very moment, turning Prague’s Christmas markets into a sea of stupid.

Unlike the Greek islands or other seasonal hotspots, tourists flock to the Bohemian capital throughout the livelong year. They clog up the streets, clog up the bars, drink and yell and barf until the crack of bloody dawn. Worst of all, they vandalize.

That’s Charles Bridge. It’s one of the city’s most popular attractions. Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV laid the bridge’s foundation stone on July 9, 1357 at exactly 5:31 a.m.

Take a moment to note the date and time. If we begin with the year, then continue on with the day, month, and hour, the numbers form a palindrome: 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 7, 5, 3, 1.

In charge of building the Charles Bridge was the extraordinary Petr Parléř, who was also responsible for St. Vitus Cathedral. Story goes that Parléř mixed egg yolks into the mortar in order to strengthen the bridge’s construction.

Prett cool, right? An admirable moment in human achievement? The kind that pumps your battered heart with a welcome whoosh of hope?

Not to this prick.

This is the work of a 23 year-old jagoff who was visiting Prague with his older brother. He got drunk and bought spray paint and debased the bridge while looking for a place to piss.

He wound up being slapped with a laughable fine and expelled from the country for five whole years. That’ll teach him to not be a dick.

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Of course, Prague’s not the only place that attracts this type of cretin. How about the fuckwit who defaced the Luxor Temple? Or the loser who carved his and his moronic girlfriend’s initials into the Colosseum? Or the unconscionable maggot who chipped an earlobe off an ancient Moai statue during his trip to Easter Island?

Who the hell are these braindead punks? Under what rock did they slither out of? Why do they insist on destroying works of cultural and historical import?

Which leads me (naturally) to the Georgia Satellites, and their debut single, Keep Your Hands to Yourself.

This southern rock banger made it to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the winter of 1987. They were denied the coveted #1 spot by those hairsprayed bimbos in Bon Jovi who were Livin’ on a Prayer.

Keep Your Hands to Yourself is a simple song. Not just musically, but lyrically as well. Basically, it follows a guy who’s trying to get laid. Except the girl he desires isn’t your average behind-the-shed skank. ‘No hug-ee, no kiss-ee’, she informs our horny narrator, ‘until I get a weddin’ ring’.

The guy pleads his case, but the lady says, please: spare me your lines and keep your hands where I can see ‘em. She does this out of a sense of respect.

Ah, respect. I remember thee well.

Here’s one of the vandals I mentioned earlier, defacing the Colosseum while smiling like a twat. Think he lost a wink of sleep? Think ‘respect’ is high on the list of his crayon-scribbled priorities?

Idiots like him are everywhere, and they’re on the rise. I’m sure you’ve seen them in your city, too. Monuments of progress, of creativity and triumph, violated by the empty and the ignorant, by narcissists starved for likes and clicks.

How did we reach such a nauseating low point? More importantly, what do we do?

I say we get biblical. Eye for an eye. Or, in this case, face for a face.

Want to defile a sacred landmark? Better hope we don’t catch you then.

Because you won’t get fined. And you won’t go to jail. Instead, you’ll receive a permanent tattoo across your protruding forehead. Big ugly letters will mark the name of the cultural treasure you laid your hands on.

Charles Bridge.
The Colosseum.
The master copy of Ernest Goes to Camp.

You deface it, we deface you.

And we do it to the strains of Bon fucking Jovi.