“Journalism is not a profession or a
trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits — a false doorway to
the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the
building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the
sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage.”
We were circling somewhere between
Basel and Zurich when the booze began to take hold. I remember saying something like “I feel a
bit light headed; maybe the Captain should land…” And suddenly there was a
terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge advertisements
for chocolate, uberexpensive watches and little red pocket knives with endless
accessories; the plane screens flashed crass consumerism in cramped tin
compartments hurtling in a 666 km/h descent on Zurich. And a voice was screaming: “Holy Jesus!
Who are these goddamn animals?”
We were greeted in grand
style in the Swiss Airlines airport lounge.
And by ‘grand style’ I mean there were a half dozen of us in the lounge;
none of the other feckless fools standing outside with their noses pressed against
the glass were allowed in. I pushed
passed the greeting committee and went straight to the bar. Singapore Sling? No.
Long Island? No.
This was getting worse by the second.
Goddamn it, you swine! I’m a doctor of journalism! The barman poured me a white wine and I gave
him a ‘this had better be chilled, or
I’ll sick my Samoan attorney on you’ type of look. It was.
So I didn’t. They dragged me out of the lounge after only 15 minutes and
two rapidly swilled white wines. They pointed to their uberwatches and The
Schedule.
There was no welcome wagon,
no van and no minibus. We were given a 3
day public transport ticket and taken to a crowded train. I stuck my head into the Swiss Airlines swag
bag and spied the little chocolates. There was a moment of chaos while the
cabin pressure, the pre- mid- and post flight booze were wearing off, then a moment
of clarity and a sudden burst of snorfling sounds as I sucked down the whole
bagful of chocolate. Next we had to
transfer to a street tram to complete our journey to the hotel. What kind of atavistic Hun made this
schedule?
I was told by my editor to
‘be on my best behaviour.’ But since he
included the British ‘u’ in what We Who Use the Modern English call ‘behavior,’
my inner attorney advised me that I had the perfect loophole to unleash the
Gonzo Beast on these Chocolate Clock People.
We arrived at the hotel, a
gaudy, modern monstrosity in a barren, treeless suburb. There were strange, crudely drawn critters on
the interior walls and a reception desk hidden beneath a godawful concrete
stairway. I started to see lizards
crawling everywhere. Then they wanted to
put a lien on my credit card. To cover the extras, they said.
“Extras? What extras? Like room service?”
“We don’t have room service,
sir.”
So I refused to give them my
card. How can a ninja go Gonzo and
stagger around the hotel room with a snorkel full of Margarita if there are
personal consequences? After a spell, I got
a pass from the Swiss Miss in Charge with a promise to only raid the mini bar
if she was invited. If only I had the time, Missy.
I lugged my own bags into
the room. This was a ‘design
hotel.’ Which meant you didn’t get room
service, bellhops or any other of that other superfluous shit. But you got a room with enough critters drawn
on the walls to elicit the most heinous hallucinations and flashbacks. The only
thing for it was to dive headfirst into the mini bar. The ‘mini bar’ had only
two tiny bottles of beer and a huge amount of useless mineral water. They were clearly fucking with me now. Big mistake,
Bubba.
Cocktails with True Grit
“But our trip was
different. It was a classic affirmation of everything right and true and decent
in the national character. It was a gross, physical salute to the fantastic possibilities
of life in this country—but only for those with true grit. And we were chock
full of that.” - HST
After only 15 minutes at the
hotel the cattle wrangler stuck the electric prod in. We snapped to attention at the shock
and were taken to meet our next guide.
His name was Marc and he was introduced to us as The King of Night
Clubs. I saw my chance. Maybe this trip wouldn’t go completely tits
up after all.
Marc welcomed us into a big
dirt parking lot with stacks of shipping containers everywhere and a sign reading Frau Gerolds Garten. He insisted it was an open air bar. There were people seated on skip furniture
laughing giddily with drinks in their hands, so I chose to believe him. Minutes later we had two liters of Margarita
in front of us, strawberry and raspberry.
He showed us the gardens from which the strawberries and raspberries had
sprung and how the Swiss love nature blah blah blah. I missed his speech while I was spitting a
gob of fruit seeds into the bushes. I
wasn’t being rude; I was recycling.
Those seeds would take root and grow a Margarita plant one day…
We climbed up some makeshift
steel stairs attached to the side of a huge shipping container. On top of this was a smaller shipping
container with the front cut out to make a bar and a large sun deck filled with
many humans drinking. Marc explained
that the area was once a major industrial area full of warehouses and
(apparently) shipping containers. I
looked around: train station, warehouses
and tall buildings. Yup, it looked exactly like Detroit in 1970. I
needed another drink. A line of gin and tonics appeared with sliced cucumbers
and whole chunks of black pepper corns floating on top. I horsed mine down and looked at my squeamish
British compatriots. What?
You don’t like flotsam and jetsam in your drinks? I took the one slid over to me and horsed it
down.
After leading us through
liters of margaritas and ginormous amounts of gin and tonics, our fearless
leader was showing signs of the drink; his tour jive started slowly sinking
into complaints about the costs and hassles of running the bar. “Why should I pay 30,000 EUR to make the bar
containers fireproof? I mean…they’re
made of METAL…” Marc mentioned that he
was a lawyer. “As your attorney I advise
you to drink up and forget,” I offered.
“And don’t spare the gin, Jeeves.”
The evening continued very
much in this manner, with Marc showing us one bar after the other. At one point one of the Limeys mentioned the
schedule. And dinner. Marc apologized for the lack of food at one
of his river bars and ordered us some pizza.
“That’s ok, Marco,” I offered, “You don’t have to feed us. You have to get us DRUNK!” Those were apparently the magic words. A whole bottle of gin, a bucket of ice,
bottles of tonic and a cup of black peppercorns appeared. The Limeys stared cross-eyed at the
pepper. The….horror. The…horror. I reached for the bottle of gin and the ice.
Smoke on the Water (and Fire in the Sky)
After what seemed like a 10
mile walk, we wrapped up our evening with a fantastic fireworks show over Lake Zurich. We flopped
down on folding chairs flung against a wall of the Seebad Enge badi bar: a day
time lake / swimming pool throws the hip waders and kiddy toys into a shed and
rolls out the booze barrels at night. My
imagination staggered at the possibilities: drunks, darkness and water. I dove into the booze and skipped the
water. Bottles of sparkling wine appeared
and disappeared. I did most of the heavy
lifting; I owed these Huns for the excessive frog marching. I guess they figured on ‘helping us’ by
having us walk 3 miles between bars to sweat off the toxins. Well, baby, I need to KEEP my toxins and the
bastards now owed me double in recompense.
The fireworks filled the sky
as techno music shook the speakers.
Somebody said something about sync.
I don’t see how you can match lake cannons with speakers squawking 120
beats per minute.
- Brit Blogger #1: Does anybody think this (techno) is music?
- Me: Only pitiful, young, ecstasy-addled fools.
Our first guide abandoned us
to the lake creatures and empty bottles.
I glared at her as she walked away.
How in the holy hell were we supposed to get back to our nondescript
concrete bunker in the suburbs without a semi-sober guide? Sensing my confusion and discontent, Marc the
Night Club King grabbed me by the elbow and led me in a wavering line up some
fancy steps leading to a swanky nightclub with a killer lake view. Swank has guards. In this case, a muscular
thug in a tight fitting tuxedo and an earpiece.
Marc began arguing with the well dressed goon when he stopped us at the
entrance. The Swiss words began to flow
like fondue: hot, cheesy and heavy on
the wine. Marc insisted that he was
partner in the nightclub in question—in fact, the bouncer’s boss—and that he
would have no compunction whatsoever to drink champagne out of his empty
fucking skull if he didn’t let us in (or my imagined Swiss equivalent). The bouncer was having none of it, and I
feared our Night Club King would get crowned.
‘Way-HAAAAYYYY! Marc!’
I interrupted, ‘Don’t sweat it, man!
As a rule I never drink in any establishment with large, well dressed
thugs at the door!’
He flashed me a drunken
smile and apologized for the arrogant brute at the door. As we staggered away, it became clear that
nobody would be able to guide us back to our hotel. In fact, only 2 of our original group were
still in tow. The others had fucked off
to bed like proper working journos. They
would miss most of the booze and the entire bouncer thug story. Poor bastards.
Clockwork, My Ass
“No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy
the ticket, take the ride...and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than
what you had in mind, well...maybe chalk it off to forced conscious expansion:
Tune in, freak out, get beaten.” - HST
The whole city of Zurich ground to a halt for their little festival. Public transport was stopped in the city
center after dark. It was pushing 2am and nobody had told us. They had flown us there, stuck us in a weird
hotel in the industrial suburbs and abandoned our drunken asses by the
waterfront. Clearly they hated bloggers. That could be the only explanation. Did they think we wouldn’t write about
it? Did they think we were legally and
morally bound to blow sunshine up their kiesters just because they gave us
chocolate and booze?
I won’t go into detail about
the trip back to the hotel—which I will call The Horror Show—but suffice it to
say, there was no working public transport and a metric fuckton of
walking. I got back to the hotel at 4am.
Four full hours of sleep
later and the next tour guide was knocking at my door.
A sweet and hesitant female
voice ventured: “Craig? We’re leaving in
20 minutes!”
“FUCK OFF, YOU SWINE!!!”
I pulled my underwear off my
head and put it back on my behind. I
have no idea how it migrates. I blame
evil hotel gnomes. And Nixon. I stumbled
downstairs for the coffee. Midway
through my 2nd cup I loaded up a plateful of breakfast buffet and
sat down just as the other bright-eyed and bushy tailed morning people were
getting ready to leave. You’re not journalists or even bloggers. You wake up early and you like it. You are librarians at best. When our new guide (how many do we need?) tried to beckon me to the door I wrapped my
arms around my plate and growled like a badger with a bad hangover. They backed away slowly and told me they
would meet me at the second tourist trap on the schedule. I would miss the chocolate factory tour. Well,
fuck me. But as much as I love Oompa Loompas, I love my coffee and greasy bacon even more.
After the third tour guide
had come and gone I noticed a trend:
Spanish, Italian and other Mediterranean ladies led us through the Zurich streets for the weekend. Where
are the Real Swiss? Where are they
hiding? What are they hiding? Give me a stout, blonde, yodeling mountain
man with steel blue eyes and one hand on the alpine goat teat and the other on
the secret stash of Nazi gold. HE and
only HE will take us to the treasure! Show me the hidden gold. Fuck the fest. YOU know what I’m talking about: the vats of golden Jew teeth rattling around
beneath these pristine streets.
Town and City
I plowed through the old
streets of Zurich alone as I am wont to do. Nobody guiding me, nobody telling me what to
do, to see, to eat, to drink. I decided
that the best way to salvage this Swiss story was to do it as Frank said, My
Way. To its credit, Old Zurich is most
charming and beautiful. But the
romanticism of the narrow, curving, cobblestone streets is stifled by the cold,
antiseptic sting of the price tag. Once
you’ve spent ten years staggering and stumbling through lantern-lit Old Prague
nights full of 50-cent-per-pint beer you are ruined. No other suitor of any price or class has
even half a chance. Zurich has cleaner water, though. In fact, it is the clearest water I have ever
seen in my life. In a continent full of
thousand-year-old cities with mucky, medieval rivers winding through them, the Limmat River
runs crystal clear and clean. You can
even see the rocks and pebbles on the bottom of the stream. But no gold teeth; I strained and scanned for
naught.
If only their banks were this
transparent.
The rest of the trip was
fraught with the usual peril: walking
until the feet were numb, passing hundreds of street stands selling crap that
will kill you, followed by the inevitable abandonment at the water’s edge. While Americans are well known for their loud
complaints, by the end of the second day of this holy hell even the stiff upper
lips of the British contingent were twitching like chipmunks in a mustard gas
attack. On my last night in Zurich I was ready to pack it in, go back to my
concrete bunker and drink that mini bar mineral water. But my erstwhile comrades in arms, the stalwart
British bloggers, wiping mustard gas from their eyes and picking peppercorns
from their twisted, yellow teeth—convinced me to stay. As I sat on a wooden bench I filled my
swollen feet with as much alcohol as would trickle down my long legs, the Saturday
night lake show was about to begin.
And then something truly
magical happened: I began to enjoy
myself. We were in the eye of the storm
and it was indeed peaceful. The giant
speakers and the stage were set. The sun
was down, the moon was up and everyone looked to the sky. We heard some whuppa-whuppa-whuppa sounds and the choppers were over us. Fireworks began to shoot from below us and
the helicopters were weaving between them.
One of the chopper pilots was clearly out of his mind. He seemed to be flying lower than the others,
faster than the others and closer to the exploding fireworks. It was like a grandiose scene from Apocalypse
Now.
“If they play Wagner’s ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ right now I am going to shit my fucking pants!” I yelled at my British Blogger chum.
“If he flies any closer to
us I will shit mine!” he replied.
The helicopters swooped
upward out of the fury of the fireworks into the empty night sky. And then the parachutes opened in a flash of
red lights. The music cued to the action
perfectly as the Bond film theme “Skyfall” boomed from the stage speakers. Dozens of tiny white umbrellas lit up in red
circled the lake and began their swirling descent through the exploding
fireworks and down to the water. Soon
they grew larger and you could just make out the humans dangling on strings; puppets
dancing in red light. The Swiss had
finally done it: they showed me
something I had never seen before and would never see hence. They did not play ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ and
I did not shit my pants. But after the
whole ‘Skyfall’ experience, I may have let slip a drop of pee.
The Conspiracy
Once again, the long journey
home was like picking up my own teeth with broken fingers.
Then there was the morning
after. Some atavistic Hun had decided
that this was to be the way it was: more
endless walking, more abandonment, more pain.
It was in these sporadic failures in the schedule that I was forced to
see through the kaleidoscope that was placed in front of my weary eyes. When suddenly left to my own devices, I could
see what a horrible money pit I was stuck in:
10 EUR beers, 5 EUR water, 12 EUR snacks. It was as if the entire Swiss Tourism Board
was fattening bloggers up for the slaughter of future tourists. After waiting
at the previously agreed meet point for an hour all alone, it seemed abundantly
clear that they wanted to teach me something; maybe patience; maybe
perseverance in the face of gross incompetence. In any case, it was
working: my plane was leaving in one
hour and I was nowhere near the airport.
Phone calls to our Mediterranean guides fell on deaf voice mails and
text messages went unanswered.
In spite of all their
attempts to waylay and befuddle my progress, the Swiss lost. I made it to the airport with minutes to
spare, swore jovially at my British Blogger chums as I ran past them in their
check in lines, and I wondered to myself if Nixon was laughing at me in the
middle of this chocolate-coated clusterfuck.
Sure, Tricky Dick. You were looking
up from Hell on me while I was walking on the same cobblestone streets which
cover the buried fortunes of the entire Right Wing from Hitler to…well, YOU. And I was too distracted by the Big Golden
Chocolate Clock Festival to notice.
I’m not sure what is was that made that seem odd to me;
maybe it was his blond hair, his blue eyes, or his square jaw hoisted in the
air when he said ‘Only white!’ with pride.
White pride. Or maybe I’m being
paranoid. Maybe it was the 8 hours on my
feet with my goddamn dogs barking. Maybe
he did not in fact mean ‘You are here in Germany. All we have to offer you are white
lights. Und you vill like zem. Colored lights are for other countries with
colorful persons and colorful personalities.’
