THREE STREIKS, YER OUT MUTTA FICKA

S-bahn Strikes Rip Berlin Apart, Piss Off Donut Munchers

 

I try to love the Berlin Bear in spite of all the damage it does me when it hugs.  It’s a love/hate thang.  I get dazzled by the tutu dance, and then suddenly I want to set fire to the fur and watch it dance the Watusi.

Twenty five years after the Bear kicked the Commies out, dropped a wall and reunified a nation, they still.  Have not.  Got their shit together.  In this particular case I am referring to the crippling S-bahn strikes (German: STREIK! with an exclamation, screamed aloud for effect).  I think this blog post might be the hat trick for the number of colossal fuckups perpetrated by the BVG, Deutsche Bahn and the S-bahn. 

Your transport ticket may cover all modes of transport in Berlin (S-bahn, U-bahn, trams and buses), but this in no way covers the frustration, anger, missed meetings and lost time encountered when one of these independent-and-oft-uppity modes of transit goes terribly awry.  I’m talking constant construction (often more than once on the same stretch of the same line—in the same year), delays, and sudden failures of a particular line on a weekly basis and the general breakdowns.  And that’s not even counting when the Umbrella Corp shuts down one branch under its own soggy roof for (I’m not making this up) failure to do weekly train wheel inspections.

German efficiency, my pimply white ass.

And the cheeky motherhumpers have the SACK to raise the ticket prices once or even twice a year for 5 years in a row.  If I had a goat to get, this would be what got it.  I have been tempted to ‘ride black’ (a nice little Germanism for riding without a ticket; probably with some inherent racsim) in protest, but this is a hard position to back up in the face of groups of ticket controllers in your face in a cramped metal box hurtling toward the next station—where Gestapo and dogs await.  They shake you down for money on the spot (especially and specifically if you are an ausländer).

What I suggest is this:  since there seems to be no end to the gross incompetence inherent in the Berlin transport system, we need to get together.  Solidarity, mein soldaten. I propose that we gather in groups the day after the next time they have a 3 or 4 day strike and ride en masse (to confuse them with French) and Schwarz (black as the Ace of Spades, baby).  When the Ticket Kontroll goose-steps up to us, we give them The Fury Finger.

When we are asked to meet the Gestapo and their canine backup barkers in the next station, we’ll hold up signs saying FAHRER STREIK! KEIN GELD FUR SCHWEIN! (Riders strike! No money for pigs!)

Maybe they’ll even treat us to the super soaker water cannon tanks they usually reserve for riots and/or unwashed punk rockers.

Note: the blogger lives in the Berlin hinterlands and the only transport services available to his cranky ass are S-bahn service and some slow-ass buses to rely upon.  That and he is middle aged and probably hormonal due to Manopause.

Image credit: Cat de Leon, painting 'Lucky Strike.'

Orifices

Two Little Assholes and One Big Mouth

Berliners will crash into you on crowded public transport without a single fucking ‘entschuldigung.’  Get used to it.  Fuck knows I’m trying.  You can blame the big city and you can blame the stars and Mars and whatever.  Dump a heat wave on a slow moving tram, jam it full of people and shake it.

I’m not the asshole who stands in the doorway of the tram with a large suitcase blocking people trying to get in.  That would be the Deutschbag.  Me, I try to move further into the tram with my big suitcase in tow.  I am not always traveling with a big suitcase, but if I am it is most certainly full of Berliner jelly donuts--or camera gear going to/from an out-of-town photo shoot.

I had just spent the last 6 hours on a sweltering hot train trip from Prague which should have taken 5 hours and most definitely should have been air conditioned.  All of the previous train trips were (air conditioned; most certainly not on time).  It was 11pm in the hottest and most humid night I can remember since 1966 when I was stuck in a Saigon hell hole and received a bamboo shank in the neck which facilitated my rebirth into yet another level of hell.

I digress.  Enter asshole number one:  German female pushing her way onto the tram (normally I wouldn’t refer to a female as an asshole, but what issued forth shortly after our chance encounter can only be described as a load of scheisse being forced out of a very spastic orifice), pushing ahead of the crowd.  Seeing her impatience, I tried to move my large self and my suitcase deeper into the sweltering tube of crowded hell in order to make room.  My efforts were repaid in kind by two hands beating my sides like Rocky training on a side of beef.  I turned to survey the impatient Deutschbagette.  “Where are you going?  There’s no space!” It was true.  If I moved one centimeter forward I would be tip deep in someone’s ass.  And a dude’s no less.  She kept pushing on my back.  I told her to chill out.  She wouldn’t.

“I don’t want to chill out! Fuck you and your fucking koffer!”  She then jumped up on my suitcase, walked over the top of it and dropped down on my feet in front of me.  Clearly this woman was mentally ill.  I was exhausted and about as close to a heat stroke as a 286 lb dude can be without a rebirth or a reboot.  I tried on my best Berliner Schnauze in the face of obvious insanity:  “Are you ok?  Alles gut now?”

“YES!!!” the crazy bitch screamed.  “I doubt it,” I replied.

Enter Asshole number two:  “THAT’S MY GIRLFRIEND!” in an American accent.

Me: “OK.”

Asshole number two:  “SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!!  SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!”

(German tram youth echoing):  “Shut da fuck up, shut da fuck up.  Hee hee.”

Me (to self): very funny, German yoots, but you are not helping.

Asshole number two:  “SHUT THE FUCK UP OR I WILL FUCK YOU UP!!!!!”

I gave him the smirk I give to every Chihuahua who barks at the Big Dog.  It was kind of sad.  Asshole number two was about 5 foot 9, 50 years old, scrawny with long, grayish hippy hair.  The only thing this pussy could fuck up was his morning joint roll.  I was exhausted and in shock.  His retarded girlfriend had just beat my sides and jumped over me to be close to her asshole.  I am not one to interfere with assholes in love, so I let it slide.

I stood there on the 100 degree tram stewing in my own juices (literally) and thinking about what needed to be said:

Dude, clearly I understand the situation.  This here ugly, mentally retarded bitch of yours is all you can get and you are lucky to have her.  I got between you and your stupid bitch and you needed to monkey up and howl at me.  I admire the fact that you spun around and never stopped screaming at me even though you MUST have seen that I am double your size and could crush you without even half trying.  You are only following your simian psyche and I suppose I can respect that. But what you don’t know is that I’ve been taking shit from bigger assholes than you my entire life.  As I got older, the assholes got bigger.  Some of them gathered in threes in London alleys and jumped me.  Some of them jumped me from behind and kicked my legs out from under me in the Prague snow and kicked my ribs in while I was down.  Others, a select few who were brave enough to look me in the face, got my full wrath.  One of them got a broken nose with a geyser of blood.  Another (your exact size and weight) was lifted off his feet and bounced so hard off the ground that he slid-slammed into a door--I thought I was in a cartoon.  Bitches didn’t get up.  Word.

I resisted the urge to bounce-flip your dumb ass because I understand. I got between your monkey ass and your spastic girlfriend.  You have to protect her; this is hardwired in the male DNA.  I even stuffed down my shock and rage and apologized for getting in between such simian love.  It was all I could do to apologize.  For three stops I fought the urge to say ‘Exit next stop, fucktard.’ To this day I think of picking your scrawny ass up and slamming you into your ugly, retarded bitch.  If only to make me feel like I didn’t suck up all the shit in the world for nothing.

And if only to keep another pair of stupid Berlin monkeys from breeding.  But I suppose you already have.  Enjoy your Hartz IV careers, assholes.