Choose Your Haircut: Skinhead or Hitlerjugend

Bitch Week at Dunkin' Berliner continues with today's installment: "Waaaah!  I'm in the Hitlerjugend!"

I believe you can only get two haircuts in Berlin:  The Skinhead and The Hitlerjugend.  I know this because no matter how many times I have gone in to any hair salon in Berlin and no matter how much German I’ve tried to learn or how much English the stylist spoke—these are the only options. I want the cut faded up the sides and back and neatly short—but not jarhead—on top.  I couldn’t explain it to them no matter how hard I tried.  Even when the stylist spoke perfect English, her clippers would slam to a halt at my occipital ridge at the back of my skull.  The scissors were picked up and a hard line between neck and crown formed. The result was the infamous look of the 1930s Hitlerjugend.  If I deigned to complain about this, they would abruptly slam the scissors on the table, pick up the previously-discarded shears and proceed to buzz cut me into skinhead land.

After a while I grew tired of this.  Colored people and foreigners were suddenly crossing the street or diving into the suicidal Berlin bike lanes.  I thought it was because I am large and scary, but my friends laugh at the thought of me scaring anyone.  I started wearing caps and hats until the hair grew back.  Eventually I bit the bullet and bought a buzz cut machine of my own at Rossmann.

The guide marks on the clippers I bought show 10 marks.  But you already know there are only two (even if you didn’t read ahead).  The ‘medium’ marks don’t cut anything and neither does any mark above the medium level.  I tried to shear the back of my own head in the mirror and the only setting that worked was the skinhead setting.   This means that if you continue over your entire skull, you will be branded a skinhead, be invited to shop at Thor Steinar and have Nazi cops buying you donuts (well, this could be a benefit for a Dunkin’ Berliner I suppose).  My clippers slammed into the occipital ridge again.  I didn’t want to go further out of fear of total skinheaditude.  So I stopped.  The familiar ridge formed on the back and sides of my skull. Jahwohl, you guessed it:  I looked like something between a Hitlerjugend and the Pope.  My friends commented on it.  I gave excuses and blamed the Skinhead-o-Cut 2000 machine I used.

Today I went back to the same hair salon I had been before.  I decided to give them another chance.  There was a different woman there:  60 years old, piles of poodle hair, jowls and a look on her face like she was shitfaced drunk.  Or DDR communist.  Or both.  I sat down in the chair.  I had spent an hour on the internet locating and printing a picture of the cut I wanted.  She laughed and told me to put it down.  She had everything under control.  The clippers slammed into my occipital ridge so hard I think chunks of dandruff and skin must have flown out.  I let her continue.  She buzzed the edges of my ears and hit my head several times with the scissors as I held my eyes shut.

I can’t show you a picture of me in this blog.  I am not quite Hitlerjugend, not quite skinhead, but worse:  some kind of mutated mole who was in a fight with a hedge clipper.  I will be wearing my hat again so the nice colored people and foreigners won’t have to dive into the treacherous Berlin bike lanes as I walk down the street.

Nazi Freedom in Berlin

Stepping Out for Donuts, Running Into a Wall of Cops

MAY 1, 2010, 15:00    It is now the fourth hour of the lockdown. I cannot leave my own street in Prenzlauer Berg because a bunch of fucking bonehead Nazis have the freedom to march in our fine, leafy, breeder-ridden streets. And the cops protect them. And all of this in a country where Nazism is technically illegal. Apparently there’s a bureaucratic form for everything, even illegal activities. Just sign the appropriate forms and you can waste police money and time for any asinine belief system you follow. Sure, they can’t wear the swastika. Nope, they can’t do the ‘zieg heil.’ But what the hell does it all mean when they can just wear black and obtain permission to walk the streets anyway? It’s as if a group of child rapists got to walk down the street freely and proudly. As long as the cops don’t see any child rape t-shirts on them and they don’t rape a child directly in front of them, alles gut. Same logic, different lowlife.

I saw there was nothing to eat in my flat and naturally I thought of going out to grab myself a fistful of lard-and-fake-fruit-sugar ecstasy as any Dunkin’ Berliner would do. So I stepped out to find a fence at the end of my street with a wall of cops in riot gear behind it. They weren’t letting anyone through—unless they were on their way home and they showed the cops their id with their address on it. We waited. I snapped pics of cops in various bored poses. At least I was able to take their pictures without having my skull tenderized by batons. Try taking a picture of a cop in America and see if you don’t wake up in the hospital with your camera up your ass.

 

We waited some more. We walked up and down the streets and saw that we were blocked in from all exit points. A friend of mine called me to see if I was going to Kreuzberg for the Annual May First Anarchy March and Yuppie Vehicle Roast.  I said I couldn’t go as I was locked down. My friend asked what I was going to do and all I could think of was raiding the police vans in search of stray donuts. There MUST be a box of Berliners in one of those riot vans.

 

I finally managed to obtain a Snickers Bar and a bottle of Sternburg beer from the only shop open within the police blockade. They had no real food and definitely no donuts, so I grabbed the bottle and the candy and walked down the street trying to blend in with all the other helpless victims of Nazi atrocity. One old drunk was babbling like a village idiot to each and every passerby. At one point he even took his drunken diatribe to the police line. They just laughed at him and rolled their eyes. The cops had special pockets in their riot vests for their juice drinks and apfel schorle. How cute. The drunk? Only a bottle of Sternburg*, no special pockets. No wonder he was ridiculed.

*This Dunkin’ Berliner blog post was brought to you by Sternburg Export Bier aus Leipzig. Discriminating Berliners who know strong, cheap beer choose Sternburg Export. Mmmm, Sternburg….. not just for drunken punks anymore.

Photos copyright Dunkin' Berliner

Obama With a Hitler Mustache and Some Pretty Confused German Kids

What?!? WTF? MY president?  A FASCIST?  Say it isn't so.  Well, y'know, the German yoots are AWFULLY tired of having to bear the burden of their ancestors' sins.  They're just a little bit bored of hearing about Hitler every time they raise their hands to hail a taxi (hint: German kids, don't all raise your hands at once to hail a taxi, this looks suspicous; just one previously-elected-in-a-ridiculously-bureaucratic-ritual group representative is enough).

They didn't whip out the Obama Hitler photo right away.  They simply had a slightly dumpy, bespectacled young chick step in front of me while I was walking the dog the other day.  She seemed harmless.  I thought she wanted me to join Greenpeace or Oxfam or something or other. She ranted about eco fascists, genocide, the New World Order, and so on.  Then I told her that I didn't speak German.  So she had to repeat the whole tirade in English (I'm wicked).  I may be evil, but DAMN, the fact that she could rant in 2 languages was fairly impressive.  So I continued to listen.  She started condeming groups like Greenpeace, etc. as the eco fascists.  I was being entertained (the only thing missing was popcorn), so I went along with it.

"You mean, the big bunch of green kids is wrong to try to save the Earth?"  said I.
"Are you kidding?" said she, "They are the WORST fascists of all the ultra liberal groups!
(at this point I wanted to stop her and suggest that the term 'fascist' ONLY applies to the right wing, but why not let the poor sons and daughters of stormtroopers writhe in irony?)

"BARK!!! BARK!!! Woof!" the dog chimed in.
"Oh, your dog has an opinion, too!" she went on.
"No, we've just been walking for a half hour in minus 5 and he's telling me to get my white ass inside."
"He said that? What's his name?"
"Black."
(quizzical look from the Hitler Jugend) "Well, you should read our literature.  Have you heard of the LaRouche movement?"
"No, but I don't watch German TV."
"They're not German," a tired looking guy in the group added, "but you should know about them, being American."
"I'm the typical ignorant American you've read about," I explained.
The girl put a magazine in my hand, and since it didn't have pictures of Jesus and beams of light on it, I actually held it for a minute or two.  Then I flipped it over and saw the O-BOMB-A:

"Now you seriously don't think that there is ANY connection between Obama and HITLER, do you?"

"Yes!" They blasphemed, "With his healthcare and his genocide and his fascism and his..."

"Sorry, hon, you are out of your TREE."

"Vas?"

"Never mind.  But seriously, comparing Obama to Hitler is like comparing Jesus Christ to Hitler (at this point I was yearning for the Jesus in beams o' light pamphlet instead). They are not even CLOSE.  GET IT??"

"Would you let me finish?" she begged.
"Rant on, sister."
"Blah blah BLAH.  And some BLAH. And to BLAH BLAH that, there was BLAH!!!!!"
"TRILLIONS!" the haggard faced male said.
"And do you believe that Obama is HELPING the sick?" a new voice joined.  A black voice.  An African yoot joined the chorus of Hitler Jugend Gegen Obama, Inc.

I think he saw my jaw drop.  No, really?  I thought.  You. Can't. Be. Serious.  How much are these SS progeny paying you?  Please, brother.  Give anotha brotha a chance.  Stop associating with these SS ass clowns and get a real job.  I just can't take it.

He must have heard my thoughts or saw the flabbergasted look of shock and horror on my face.  Or maybe his English wasn't up to snuff.  He left the conversation.

"Ach!!! Bad dog!!!  Look!  Your bad dog has PISSED on our booth!" she chastised.

It was really hard to hide a grin.  I wagged my finger in the dog's face and said 'bad.'  No exclamation point.  I found it funny.

"Well, maybe you find it funny to talk with us, but you really don't want to accept the Truth," she proclaimed.
"No, I didn't find it funny.  I think 'fun' was the word you were looking for, and it wasn't fun either.  Entertaining, yes."
"Meeting me was the best thing that happened to you today.  And you want to leave before you can hear the Truth," she pontificated.

Damn, the Moonies got NOTHIN' on these cats.

"The day is young," I said, "it could always get better."
"You are the man who is going up the escalator and passes all the pretty girls and hopes to get a prettier one," the tired man chimed in (what was he? Her PIMP?).

I didn't want to insult the young lady, so I apologized for the piss on the booth, tipped my hat while leaving and said

"Yup."

Seat Nazis

I had no idea the Seat Nazis existed. I knew about Soup Nazis, mind you; Jerry Seinfeld and Co. sat me down for 30 minutes and explained that one to me quite clearly. You stand in the line; you don’t ask questions, you have your soup order ready before you get to the front of the line. When your turn has come, the Soup Nazi screams at you to step forward, eyes forward, order your soup. You do. You have no choice.

So, fumbling around with my movie ticket in Berlin as usual, I wonder if it will be the same as in Prague: the queue, the surly ticket salesmonkey, the language problems, the usual. You give them the money and they decide where you sit. Or you decide--if you want to grab them by the neck and twist their screens and their necks to do your bidding. Even after doing the Twist, I still fuck it up. Every single mother fucking time. I can’t do this European cinema seat thing. No, really, it’s completely ridiculous to anyone with a half a brain (as I have). I like to pay and sit in the seat of my choice as all God fearin’, freedom lovin’, rootin’ tootin’, red neckin’ Americans do.

The seat that was assigned to me was already taken. As usual. Apparently, I am supposed to skulk up to the offending bastard and say ‘Entschuldigen, getten sie aus mein sitzplatzt, schweinhund.’ But I am not a Deutschbag. So I don’t say it. I usually just sit in another seat in the vicinity of my originally-assigned seat. Which is all fine and dandy, no blood, no foul…until the Seat Nazi comes in. And suddenly I’m in THEIR seat. They stuff their ticket stub in your face. You fumble for yours. You throw a ticket block, already knowing that you are in THEIR seat and THEY know it. So you have to play the dumb auslander, which pleases them to no end. Or just try to explain it. In this case, the number of the seat was not lit up or posted in shiny letters. It was sewn into the dark red plush fabric in slightly darker red thread. On the seat back, directly behind my back. Imagine my confusion.

‘What? Huh? Oh! You paid for THIS EXACT SEAT, huh? Like, Oh. My. God. I am SUCH an idiot. Mea Culpa. But somebody is already in my officially-assigned seat and I don’t want to have to stand up and walk over there and displace them, looking like a fucking Deutschebag in the process.’

The teenage couple stood hovering over me. The GIRL goose stepped forward, blonde hair and blue eyes flashing in the half light. She looked like Julie Delpy’s cheery, cheeky Hitler Jugend character in ‘Europa, Europa.’ ‘Ja, gut. Zo. Zo you vill shtand up und valk over there, ja.’ It wasn’t a question. It was an order. From the blonde haired, blue eyed member of the Neue Hitler Jugend. I imagine that to certain guys this could be a turn on. Perhaps to sad, lily livered milksops. I can see why the skinny, quivering teen boy had his girlfriend to speak for him in these awkward cases. He was the effeminate, emasculated German Moby male to his girlfriend’s Strong Deutsche Frau. It was a rather pathetic display, a teenage German girl barking orders at a middle aged American man. But what could I do? I was certainly not going to stand up and bitch slap his girlfriend, nossir. I am not a cad. So I stood up, flashed Blondie a condescending smile and did exactly as she told me. She plopped down in my warm seat and gave me the kind of dismissive wave reserved for the blondest members of the Master Race. Cunt.

So I had to push some people over a seat or two. I apologized. I showed them my ticket. They saw me get shifted down by Blondie. They knew I was in the wrong seat and needed my original seat. So they moved. Shit rolls downhill. But as I sat down, the middle-aged German man to my right—the same man who moved his jacket off my seat to let me sit—told me the secret: ‘yes, there are normal people and there are the Seat Nazis.’

‘Yes, I believe I just met one. But she is so young,’ I said, loud enough for the whole row to hear. ‘I can’t believe that young people here are so fucking anal retentive. She should have a Mohawk and a head full of chemicals for Chrissakes.’ As I sat there chewing the fat with the good-humored German gent, I thought about how I really would have no gripe if the cinema was full. Sure, you want yer goddamn pre-planned seat so you don’t have to crane your neck in the front row or the side seats. But every single time the Seat Nazi has pounced on me in the past, the cinema was at half capacity at best. So if someone can’t be flexible enough to forgive the foreigner’s faux pas and find a seat directly in front of or directly behind their originally-assigned seat, this is the hallmark of a Seat Nazi. It is the absolute NEED to flash the party badge (ticket) and send someone to the concentration camp (another seat).

There we sat, 2 middle aged men, one German, one American, discussing ‘these crazy kids nowadays.’ I thought it was backward somehow; don’t the youth of today complain about the rigid, conservative Nazi old people? I imagine a Seat Nazi has no age. It could be anyone with a low self esteem, somehow desperate to cling to any chance to grab a bit of ‘power.’ I was reminded of a quote from ‘The Office:’

“Wow. That is the least amount of power I’ve ever seen go to someone’s head.”