The other day I took a stroll down memory lane. Don’t ever do that, I’m telling you.
The familiar old neighborhood of Prenzlauer Berg was home to
me and my lovely wife for 5 years before we were banished to the Berlin
hinterlands. I only mention that my wife
is lovely so you will feel sorry for us when I tell you how we got railroaded
right on out of there by the gentrification scumlords. If it were just grumpy old moi, myself
und ich (or me and an ugly wife) who
lost a place to live, you might just think ‘GOOD! Get rid of the grumpy old
ugly fucks and let the new Rich but Sexy Berliners move in!’ As one does.
I initially went down to my old Helmholz kiez
(Danziger-Duncker-Prenzlauer Allee) to pick up some second hand lights for
sale. A nice, waiflike couple was
sitting in their empty commercial space waiting to sell me their old lights so
they could embark upon their new voyage of their new image in their new
commercial space. I still don’t know
what in the flying fuck they were selling. There was a counter, a mini espresso
machine and some dishes. And a cat. Their
website is just as mysterious. Apparently that’s all you need in Berlin
if you are a Trustafarian. The lights weren’t as advertised and I couldn’t use
them. So I thanked them for wasting my
time (I did it in a very smooth way, I’m telling you. The couple looked fragile and earnest, and
this combo can still the harshest of tongues. Even mine.) Off I went.
I passed the closed Café Lyrik and remembered the spell cast
by the Witch. Free ‘music’ (using the
term loosely) with overpriced drinks and a performance sounding something like a
steel kitty in a blender (complete with metallic screams and feverish, glass
scratching death knells), followed by a donation cup shaken so vigorously in
our faces that everybody had to stop drinking and stare to see how much we WERE
NOT putting in. Apparently 15 EUR was
NOT enough for the avant garde scheisse we were watching. The Witch told me so. And the Deutschbag at the next table scoffed
out loud when I refused to give more. I
won’t say don’t go there. If you are NOT
a brain dead, self important Trustafarian with delusions of grandeur, you
probably already have the good sense not to (Dunkin’ Berliner flash mob idea:
everybody cram into that tiny ‘art/music’ space, don’t order a damn thing and
then dump a sock full of pennies into the collection plate. Smack those bitches up).
I continued my walk down memory lane (aka Danziger strasse)
and passed the empty windows of the Fuss-feti-fisch. This is a place where you can stick your feet
in a fish tank and have swarms of little fish eat the barnacles and toe jam
right off your sunken feet. There are aquariums in the windows full of feet
sucking fish, lights and signs and benches with towels, but that place is NEVER
open. Meaning: MAFIA MUTHA FUCKAZ. Don’t go there either. Hell, if you need your toe jam eaten, let me
know. I know poor artists who will eat your
toes out on a stage for loose change, I’m tellin’ ya.
No trip down Memory Lane
is complete without a visit to your old flat, the place you used to call home,
the place where some yuppie fucks are now living. Gentrification is a BITCH. I wanted to see the type of quality human
beings who could possibly replace my loser ass, who could possibly be a better
tenant than me, who in the HELL would want to pay more than 600 EUR for a studio
apartment. It couldn't be yuppies; they only live in large lofts, not studio apartments. This I already knew. But I tend to read ahead in the script, so it was
no surprise that the new tenant was just a number: my old
buzzer simply read ‘60’. In fact, most
of the flats in our old building were now part of the growing scourge of holiday rentals in desirable hoods. They weren’t even hiding it. A large
banner now hangs above Dunckerstrasse 90A and proudly proclaims BERLINER LEBEN HOLIDAY
RENTALS. Nine of the 12 flats in our
building were already owned by Das Leben when we moved in. When we lived there,
I do recall an ungodly amount of suitcases thumping up and down the stairs and
late night screams in Mediterranean languages.
We were happy to endure it as proud members of the multi-kulti Berlin
life (aka Berliner Leben). But we were forced out. When our contract was ready to be renewed,
they refused us (after paying rent on time every month for a year), saying in
writing “It is a free market. We can
rent to whomever we choose.” Harsh words from harsh cunts. Why have regular
tenants at a fixed rate when you can kick them out and charge 70 EUR per night
as a holiday rental? There is now only
one of our original neighbors left in our building: Riewoldt (pronounced ‘revolt’). As I recall, the door to his flat had been
kicked in a few times and there were blatant splinter/spackle/patch jobs done
on the door. Fight da powah, Herr
Riewoldt.
There is a growing resistance to these types of predatory
rental investors (scumlords, et al) and laws are being drafted as I write this.
As I was doing my due diligence
(Googling), I discovered a fact that would be shocking if I were able to be
shocked at this point. The busy-bodied
little man who dogged us the entire time we lived at Dunckerstr. 90A (saying he
was the hausmeister) was in fact the
very agent provocateur behind the Berliner Leben tenant ousting: Marcus
Buthmann (whom we called Buttman) was talking seven shades of scheisse to the
press about his proud holiday rentals.
That’s right: the same Buttman who helped us out the door; the exact
same cocksucker. And that’s not libel—the
man does indeed suck cock.
In a city that changes as much, as often and as constantly
as Berlin, nobody seems to notice
that a very large rug is being pulled out from under our feet. Sure, sluggish student paralegal interns are
rising from their hangovers to wave the flag.
Too little, too late. The
scumlords are winning.
I crossed the street with the mixed emotions of knowing I
was right and being powerless to do a damn thing about being wronged. Skinny
old American fucks in suits talked on phones in lofty voices while a German
teenager in hip hop attire trudged by in high swagger mode, oozing anger in his
neo-yuppie hell. Even the small
courtyard recreation area across the street from my old digs was being torn
up. The ruins of the ping pong tables we
used to play upon were lying on the ground beneath the plows of the machine. CAT
operators smoked and laughed in the midst of the mayhem.
I switched to high swagger mode and trudged past the usual
sushi bars, trendy cafes and yoga holes of Yuppie Central. Even my old hole-in-the-wall kebab joint had
been renovated and neon-ensconced. Dunkin’ Berliner truth: the smaller and grungier
the hole in the wall, the better the food.
The bigger the space, the more neon cacti, the more bland the food, the more yuppie it is.
Period. This area used to be commie, punk rock, artist, drifter, and
dreamer. Now it is just another
non-threatening place for yuppies and breeders to take root and grow money
trees. Because that’s what
gentrification is all about: rip out the old, plant the new, harvest the money
crop. We who choose to live our lives in pursuit of something other than money
are not worthy of living in a cool neighborhood. We don’t stand a chance. Because we have
neither money nor power; nor do we want anything to do with any of that shit. So They win. Again. Always.
Maybe one day, one of us will snap. Necks.
