A 911 Day Spent With Beer Guzzling Czechs in Berlin

Editor's note: db has decided that some readers may be confused as to which part of a particular Dunkin' Berliner blog is 25% satire, which is 25% comedic rant and which is the 50% bullshit.  In order to make it easier, db has decided to italicize and colorize anything slightly bullshitty.  The rest you have to figure out yer damn self.  Oh, as per usual, 0% faggy poetry.

I packed up the girl and the dog and headed into Neukoelln for a Czech street festival at Richardplatz.

I know what you're thinking: 'yer an American.  It's September 11.  You're thinking of all the pain, death and mayhem when the towlies took down the Twin Towers.  Yer goin' to the kebab 'hood to kick some camel jockey ass, AINTCHA?'

No, dear reader, that would be politically incorrect, vile, violent and offensive.  Not to mention I would need a MUCH BIGGER POSSE in that area of town.  The real reason I went was because my girl is Czech and she dragged me there to meet her Czech friends.  And there was Czech beer on tap.  Reasons enough.

I remember thinking I should bring my camera, but this insane little buzzer goes off in my head whenever I am about to go to any event which will consist largely of heinous bier abuse.  I don't want to have anything happen to my fancy-shmancy camera, the least of which could include:  damage due to droppage, damage due to beer droolage, damage due to pukage, loss due to theft, loss due to drunkenness or loss due to me suddenly at the last minute snapping into post-traumatic-9/11 redneck mode and swinging the camera wildly into Turbanated heads.

So I left the camera at home.  Which turned out to be a pity, since this wasn't just a collection of heinous bier abusers standing around and/or staggering into trees.  There was actual hootenanny style action with groups of people rolling giant bales of hay around the square for prizes and bier.  It was a very photogenic moment sadly missed due to reasons listed above.  Now I'll have to try the thousand words method.  Fuck.

My girlfriend mentioned before we got there that people would be 'rolling in the dry grass,' which I thought was just Czech code for 'drunken, boorish behavior #243.'  No, what she meant to say was 'rolling large bales of hay willy nilly around the square.'  I was immediately tempted to teach her one of my redneck English lessons ala 'y'know what a Roll in The Hay means in English, dontcha?' but I opted only for a slightly confusing reference which would leave her slightly confused.  Damn, I could've parlayed that cowboy cliche into some actual action later on in the evening.  Damn you bier, damn you to hell.  Then again, maybe not.

I did note with some degree of smirky-educated-white-trashian satisfaction the sheer insanity of these folksy, redneck style games.  I mean, to whit: 1) There's not one stick of hay occurring naturally ANYWHERE in the city limits of Berlin, 2) Neukoellners are NOT farmers, nor have they EVER been farmers, rolled in the hay or rolled hay down squares historically, and 3) one of the bales of hay nearly ran over a breeder and her progeny which were standing oblivious in the middle of the road in a manner typical of Berliner breeder menschen, like 'oh, I've managed to shit out another kid on welfare look at the little blond bastard ain't 'e cute? looks just like his unemployed, drunken welfare-suckin' daddy and don't you dare bump into me with bike, foot, or Gott Verbot a giant rolling bale of hay.' She had to run for cover with baby in tow. No bullshit. I smiled smugly. Fucken breeders. Heh.

So there I was, mid baby hate, mid buzz and mid redneck English lesson, when it occurred to me that these type of games were probably being performed this very 9/11 day in some backwoods, dried-up farmville in the YEW ESS of FUCKIN' AY with actual rednecks, pissy beer and thoughts of 'God damn YEW, towel jockey, yew fucked us REEEEEL gooooood, but today we YEWnite as WON and YEEEEE-HAWWW drink us some pissy swill, bitch about the towlies and roll us some hay bales n try to roll us a cowgirl in actual hay, and HEY! if that don't work, we'll form a posse and look for camel jocks and if that don't work, well God Dammit we'll just hafta cornhole us a drunk.'

The Czech Svijany beer on tap was tasty and came in two varieties: pilsner and unfiltered pilsner.  We tried both in slightly-less-than-heinous quantities and were satisfied.  I like the fact that the small town of Svijany can peddle its liquid luxury in Big Ole Berlin.  It makes me happy that the little brewer can still compete with the Big Corporate Beer.  But I suppose that's fairly easy as Berliner bier is sheise.  I prefer Bavarian bier, anything with a monk on the label.  Or Leipzig bier, anything with a punk on the label. Sternburg aus Leipzig.  Mmmmm.  Sternburg.  Not just for drunken punx! (tm)

In conclusion I just have to say this:  Nine years after some fools crashed into some big buildings and plunged us into another godawful long-ass war for all the wrong reasons, it's good to know that we could all just meet in Berlin and hold hands, Czech, American, Berliner and Neukoellner alike, and get our collective buzz on.  No bullshit.  Except the hand holding.  That was figurative.  Do you think an American would actually hold hands with a....

Photo by re-ality, taken from Flickr after I read that it was ok to do so.