STERNI UBER ALLES!!!

The following conversation takes place entirely in German.  You are reading the translation of the notes which were pried out of the cold, dead hand of the witness.

Give me a Sterni, asshole!

Lick my greasy Mohawk, Deutschbag!

C’mon!  I begged most of the money!  All you did was flirt with the chicks walking into the store!

Both of you are fucked!  It was MY dog that made us get all the change for the beer today.

Shut up, bitch!  Your dog ate my fucking homework!

Oh, right… when was the last time YOU went to school?  Were there cars, or did you suck dick on horseback?

Shut up, fake punk bitch.  Your parents TOTALLY bought you all your piercings and tattoos. On layaway.  Your shirt says ‘Fight the system’ but you couldn’t fight a sprinkler system.

Look you idiots:  I was out here for like, HOURS and the bitch with the dog just got here.  No WAY is she getting my Sterni.  I’m just sayin.’

We got 4 euros in 4 hours…that’s like 10 Sternis.  Three of us.  Uhhhh…. How many do we each get?

I don’t have a fucking clue.  The bitch’s dog ate my fucking homework!

Both of you guys can suck my dog’s dick!

Oh, you’re soooo cool, Punk Rock Girl. I think some asshole wrote a song about you.  It sucked more dick than YOU!

All right you two, either fuck or fight, but for the love of GOTT, give me my fucking STERNI!

I want to break something!

Break open a STERNI!!!

Sternburg bier aus Leipzig ROCKS in ways I cannot begin to explain!  It’s like a malty, amber microbrew—only DIRT CHEAP! Like the people who drink it!

You said it.  All this anarchy is making me thirsty.  STERNI, anyone?

Yet Another Friedrichshain Protest

ROWDY YOOTS FULL O' PISS N VINEGAR GATHER;
MATING RITUALS ENSUE

The Mohawks gathered round Friedrichshain the other day and made some noise. Again. Apparently ‘They’ weren’t listening to the Mohawks. Again. But that’s okay, that won’t stop kids full of piss and vinegar from grabbing some fabric and spray paint and waving their flags in an open invitation to compare Mohawks. The hawks were awful purty at this particular shindig: blue ones, red ones, pink ones and black ones were everywhere. I caught several rows of kids with the same color hawk; rows of pink Mohawks held up a bright red banner which read ‘Brunnen Bleibt’, which means literally ‘Pink Mohawk Social Club.’ Rival factions of blue-and-black-haired punks held up a black sign with letters which were so unclear that several members of the club were caught scratching their heads trying to decipher their own messages.

But what are the Crips without the Bloods to counter them? The various colors of Mohawk gangs milled about waiting for any conflict that might be on its way from what the Punx like to affectionately refer to as
‘der schweinenmenschen’ or literally ‘The Pigs’, aka the Fuzz, the Heat, Five-Oh, Bacon, Cops, or your friendly neighborhood Berlin riot control officers. I’ve seen a few of these Berlin protests before. The Berlin police like to fence the punks in with a nice row of Paddy Wagons. Usually about 25 riot vehicles, or roughly 1 vehicle for every 3 protestors. I mean it is complete overkill, the police presence. At this particular protest they even brought in the van of geek cops with laptops and satellite gear. Apparently, you’ve got to keep one step ahead of these pink, blue and black haired devils. They even brought in the Super Soakers: huge water tanks on wheels with twin nozzles for spraying the unruly mob. My girlfriend asked why the nozzles were so narrow on the ends. She thought if fired the cannons would only yield but a drizzle. I explained the effects of concentrated water pressure through a very narrow opening. A standard, S.F. hippy protest would have Super Soaker vehicles with standard sized water cannons and wide nozzles. The purpose of this was to give the stinking hippies a much needed group bath. However, the Berlin cops like to fire the same amount of water with great pressure through tiny twin steel nozzles. This not only gives the Berlin punk squatters a much needed group bath, but the pressure from these babies will literally knock them to the ground and roll them across the street through a brick wall.

And after all, being flung about like a sack of beer-soaked taters by the Super Soakers at a Berlin riot is the Number 2 Requirement for membership in the Pink Mohawk Social Club.

Crap! Forgot to Blog About the May 1 Kreuzberg Riots!

Oh, yeah, they didn't have any this year. The rioters were too affected by the Global Crisis, Inc. to afford Che Guevara shirts and gas for their Molotov Cocktails. That and I got too pissed from drinking beer in the sun all day to post. I slept for 20 hours or something. I did manage to get some purty punk pix, though. See some of my punk pics and commentary here.

Berlin Cops Adore Nazis, Push Antifascist Demonstrators Around A Bit

I've always heard that Nazi or Neo-Nazism is illegal in Germany. Wearing the swastika or other Nazi symbols, singing 'Deutschland Uber Alles' and doing Hitler's high-handed salute, are all verboten.

Recently I've come to realize that this is total bullshit. I first had my suspicions several years ago on a visit to a small town in the former East Germany. There was a large tent with a party going on and a bonfire outside. After waltzing into their tent for some fun, I noticed that everyone was bald. With bomber jackets, camo pants and high-laced boots. I had walked into a skinhead party in a village field. So, casually, I ate some of their munchies, drank a few of their beers and slowly strolled away without speaking to anyone.

Upon my arrival in Berlin a couple of months ago, there was a fashion issue of the local English rag 'Exberliner.' I despise fashion as any red-blooded heterosexual from the States would (ich bin ein Redneck), but I picked up the mag anyway hoping to find ads for pubs and grub. I found that they covered all areas of fashion in Berlin, including NAZI FASHION. WTF? I thought this Nazi b.s. was unacceptable. Well, the clothing had some mods (I dunno, maybe a pretzel on the armband instead of swassie), but it was undeniably clothing for goose-stepping fools with too much time on their hands.

Today I was awakened from my Saturday afternoon nap to the sound of shouting. Usually the Berlin party crowd waits til after midnight to begin their drunken howls under my balcony. Not today. I stepped outside to see a large crowd of young whippersnappers wearing black clothes and bandannas pulled over their mouths, marching. Various street punks joined in to provide some local color. I was drowsy as any fat slob who eats pizza and beer all the time would be after a nap, but I snapped to attention when a white-helmet-sporting-cop started pushing one of the protesters around. The kid wasn't doing anything. In fact, he was headed AWAY from the shouting youth. But the cops wanted him fenced in. I went for the camera and took a couple of mediocre shots from the balcony. I headed down to the street to find out what was going on, and while people were milling around on the street corner I discovered the following: the shouting miscreants were various members of anti-fascist groups protesting the opening of a new(neo?)Nazi clothing store. I have to wonder where these brain dead boneheads get the money for designer fashions (one such brand I read about is Thor Steiner, a Norwegian designer who makes clothing for fascists)? Maybe they pay for their swag with gold teeth ripped from the mouths of dead Jews.

I hung around to get some snaps, but I got a bit nervous when one of the cops started video taping me as I was taking pics (see above left). I'm not usually keen on photographing cops in any country, especially ones where the cops actually wear jackboots and grimaces as part of their uniform. Today's coppers wore jumpsuits and helmets as well. In a country where Neo-Nazism is technically illegal, why does the largest city in Germany not only tolerate fascism, but recruit some of them as cops?