Hochlander Fünf: Die Hoffnung

Or “David Hasselhoff Returns to Berlin Lookin’ For Freedom”

Thank the tiki gods; the Hoff is on the case.  Just when all Berliners had lost hope, just when the Evil Capitalist Swine were about to tear down a protected (nod wink) historical monument, aka East Side Gallery—the Hoff swooped down from the sky like a hawk to save our dignity and maybe even our Berliner jelly donuts.

The man is all about dignity.  Sure, his hero’s cape is stained with (hamburgers, beer and puke) the excess of his slow decline into the dustbin of kitsch pop culture history. Yes, he talked to a car in a tv series.  Sure, he ran slo mo on fictitious beaches watching bouncing breasts as his mostly teen audience watched his bouncing belly.  Und jawohl! He sang in German on stage to throngs of squealing mädchens.  He also wore a sparkling lounge lizard suit at the Berlin Wall in 1989 and sang ‘Lookin’ For Freedom.’  And that’s all you need to know.

I’ll take any hero I can get.  Because the gentrification war is not being won by anyone but the Usual Suspects, Those Who Hold All the Cards: The Man.  I’ve read the comments on the news forums.  Nerdy lawyers types suggest that all property is for sale to the highest bidder—who have the right to do whatever they see fit with that property. On the other extreme, drugged out party kids want to have techno raves and free love on the former Death Strip behind the wall.  And the rest of us wonder just how in the fuck the status of a public historical monument can be sold for a few million to shortsighted investors.

I’m just going to come out and say it:  Berlin tourism ain’t all dat.  With the exception of a handful of architectural pieces of antiquity and a few trendy neighborhoods, Berlin is just a vast expanse of disco dance floor space waiting to be filled with a vast expanse of empty heads looking to bob those heads in/on ecstasy.  These poor but sexy kids dance the night away while their parents sell the few meager scraps of heritage left.

The excitement of an ever-changing, culturally evolving city is quashed and quelled by simple, stupid, base profit motive.  The East Side Gallery / Berlin Wall monument is number 2 on the list of tourist attractions.  Brandenburg Gate is number 1.  I don’t even know what the others are, there are so few left.  War razed Berlin, developers raped Berlin.  High rise luxury condos in Berlin are about as out of place as high rise luxury apartments in Warsaw. The end most certainly does not justify the fucking means.  And the mean fucks are fucking Berlin. Meanly.

An aging icon girds loins for war.  Stained and stigmatized, our icon finds renewed hoffnung (hope) decades after the shame, the derision and the controversy.  The icon has been cleaned up, propped up and presented to the masses. Some want to forget the aging icon and bury all associated memories at the end of its heyday in the 80s.

But the Hoff and the Berlin Wall are still standing.  For now.

UPDATE: The fuckers managed to steal (for it is theft clear and simple) 3 more sections from the wall before I could write and upload this story.  Either I need to speed up or developers need to slow the fuck down.

The Hoff

I don’t know if they call him Das Hoff or Die Hoff in Germany.  And I don’t really care.  Sure, he prefers to eat his hamburgers commando style – down and dirty drunk on the floor like a Saigon whore.  He drove a car with more brains than him on an 80s TV show and the teen girls ripped his clothes off and fainted at the mere sight of The Hoff’s sweaty shag carpet chest.  He was the male bimbo lifeguard in a veritable sea o’beach babes in the ludicrously successful Bay Watch. I’ve glanced at TVs in Czech Republic, Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Slovakia and Germany and they all played dubbed versions of Baywatch.  You can turn on a TV set in a hotel anywhere in the world and you will see Bay Watch.  The Hoff is everywhere you want to be, six hours before you get there.

My Hoff Awareness was marginal at best before I moved to Berlin.  I didn’t think I would have to worry about various aspects of my sheisse culture following me here. I thought that Berliners would be urban sophisticates and cynical world citizens.  Nope.  Mostly white trash breeders and wearers of mullets and shitty jeans, Berliners are.  Either that or a bunch of fucking techno-weenie faggots with bad fashion addictions. Now now, if you are a Berliner and you are reading this, don’t be offended, you are probably not from Berlin.  Nobody is.  Except maybe Kennedy.  Everyone else in Berlin is but a tourist hoping to come to Berlin and be something, do something, get something, steal something—maybe a brief glance of The Hoff.   Yes, The Hoff is a ridiculous parody of the worst pop culture has to offer us.  But HE SANG AT THE BERLIN FUCKING WALL WHEN IT FELL (or shortly thereafter, there was no YouTube or facebook back then, mind you).  A Hoff discussion started in an expat group on a train leaving Berlin into the countryside.  “The Hoff is huge is Germany,” one of the group said.  “Do you think those giggling German kids over there are listening to The Hoff on their Ipods right now?” I asked.  We agreed that they probably were.  You wouldn’t think spastic, giggly teens would listen to has-been Germo-American pop stars, but you would be surprised.  Just look at the video for “Du” by The Hoff.  Near the end of the song he is practically raped by barely pubescent girls.  Apparently they like to lay their weary heads on a heaving chest full of sweaty man carpet.  And what Berliner teen wouldn’t?  Girl or boy?