Swiss My Ass! Fear and Loathing at Zuri Faescht

(With a nod to the late Hunter S. Thompson)

“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.”

- Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

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 2^nd 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.

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?

Jesus H. Christ on a Bicycle

By owning a bike in Berlin you are issued a notarized, stamped (in triplicate) License to Be an Asshole.  You and your overpriced, faggy little bicycle are now the King of the Road.  Fuck motorists.  Fuck pedestrians. Fuck yeah!  There are naturally numerous regulations in Germany regarding the rights and behavior of cyclists.  Cyclists seem to have all of the former and fuckall of the latter.  If there are any rules for cyclists in Berlin I certainly haven’t seen them.  They have their own bike lane on most sidewalks.  This is the officially designated and holy bike lane reserved only for Bicycle Believers.  Heathen infidel pedestrians are not allowed to set foot inside.  You must leap over it and pray you aren’t given a shower of “SHEISSE!” screams and shaken fists. You could be struck and killed by a cyclist going 50km an hour and you wouldn’t have a case in German court.  Even if the cyclist was out of The Zone and weaving in and out of pedestrians like traffic cones in a racing course. In fact, German law states clearly that the cyclist has the right to urinate on your lifeless body before tying it to his bike and dragging you through the streets of Berlin.

“Case 10439: Jesus H. Christ on a Bike versus Feckless Idiot Pedestrian”

J.H.C.B.: “Your honor, I was minding my own business on my bike when F.I.P. stepped in my way.”

Judge:  “Did you ring your faggy little bike bell?”

J.H.C.B.: “Religiously.”

Judge: “Did you attempt to slow down?”

J.H.C.B.: “Good GOD no!”

Judge:  “And after you struck and killed the 80 year old woman, what did you do?”

J.H.C.B.:  “Got off my bike and checked for damage.  The old bitch’s dentures were stuck on my 1260 EUR racing frame!  So I yelled at the body.  Then I spit on it.  Then I felt the uncontrollable desire to urinate on the corpse.”

Judge:  “Did you drop a load of sheisse on the corpse?”

J.H.C.B.:  “Good GOD no!  I’m a religious man!”

Judge:  “Fair enough.  The court orders the F.I.P.’s grandchildren to pay for J.H.C.B.’s bicycle damage. Case dismissed.”

Ok, maybe I should graduate from blogging to writing plays.  The dialog just flows out of my keyboard like butter on hot Georgia asphalt.

I digress.  Assholes.  They are a protected bunch of spastic, muscular orifices.  Every time I witness a red-faced Deutschbag on a bike screaming at some hapless elderly couple for straying into the Sacred Bikeway to Heaven I can feel them moving up on The List.  Right before I eventually leave Berlin permanently I will tally up all of the names on The List and provide you with the name of the Biggest Deutschbag and publish it here.  Cyclists are crawling up The List all the time.

Cyclists are heavily protected by law.  The city of Berlin rarely bothers to make a separate bike lane between street and sidewalk—a sensible solution embraced by the rest of the world.  Instead, recently a fresh splash of red other than the blood of some of the slower pedestrians hit the bike lanes:  Corner-to-corner painted lanes all along Schoenhauser Allee.  This only encourages the bastards and gives them more balls than their carefully-selected cycling shorts.  Today I witnessed a proud, arrogant, sweaty pair of these neue ballchen in action.  An installer’s work van had to stop suddenly while turning right on a side street.  Another motorist was pulling out of a parking space and the van had no choice but to use the brakes (unlike Berliner cyclists, who pay up to 2000 EUR for bikes with faggy little child’s bike bells and no brakes whatsoever).  This unfortunate motorist did not get out and paint a caricature of The Prophet on the side of his van, but his sacrilege was the same: his van sat motionless smack dab in the middle of the newly-painted bicycle crosswalk (fuck, I wish pedestrians had those). A Berliner cyclist blowing along the sidewalk like greased lightning hit that corner at 50 km/h, expecting to see pedestrian and motor vehicle part like the Red Sea before his Mosesian ass.  When this didn’t happen, His Royal Mounted Deutschbagishness slammed on his bike brakes (apparently for the first time) and spewed forth the kind of Deutsch screeching that made Hitler famous. The profanity began to fly.  The cyclist, who resembled one of those scrawny, nerdly Moby males you see all over Berlin, proceeded to bang on the side of the van with his open hand.  In an alternate universe (maybe NYC), the van doors slid open, the workers selected their lead pipes and beat seven shades of sheisse out of the cyclist.  Here on Planet Berlin, however, the van simply burned rubber getting out of the way of the nerd on his scrawny metal steed.

I live in the breeder capital of Europe:  Prenzlauer Berg.  I read that there are nearly 400,000 bicycles on the streets of Berlin.  At the same time.  And given that P’berg wombs push more screaming little payloads into prams and into streets than half of the Third World combined, you can imagine the inevitable daytime soap opera just waiting to pop:  The screaming cyclist meets the waddling mother-and-pram.  This is what scientists refer to as “Unstoppable force meets immovable object.”  I bear witness to this law of nature. Once I saw a Cyclist vs. Breeder smackdown on the same corner mentioned above. The screams flew from breeder and cyclist alike.  Nobody moved.  I had time to go up to my flat, pop some corn, butter and salt it, and return to the scene of the drama, which was still in progress. 

Pseudo-Deutsch

In the true spirit of the uberliteratii, those of Joycean stature who reinvent the language whenever it bleedin’ well suits them, I offer the following blog post, written (almost) entirely in Pseudo-Deutsch, a language composed of equal parts bier and schwein, just like the Deutschbags who speak it.  And as always with any Germanic words of more than 4 syllables and 12 letters, look for the root words; apply your decoder ring, and guten apetit!

Das ist mein erste sheisseblog mit alles pseudoDeutschsprechen.  Die bloggen ist uber:

-         Farhtenauslanderbarfen

-         Auslanderhorden befuckenmeinherzlichzitty

-         Auslanderschweinen

-         Pissung und Shittung

-         Die bestestbiergarten und Schweinerei in Berlin

Ein auslandergebarft in mein U-bahnfahrten in die weg das mein haus.  Die grossebarf kommt in mein direktion! Ich!  Ichy!  Das schweinenauslandergebarf rannt in die direction auf mein fuss!  Mein neue shuhe un mein perfektlich uberkleen diskohosen war in danger!  Das is NICHT die erste zeit ich zee die schweinenauslander machen SHEISSE in mein herzlich zitty.  Ebertag ist schweinentag mit auslander.  Warum?  Das ist fakt: alle auslander gestinkt.  Nicht auf bier-und-wurst-gestinken, das ist normal.  Die auslander gestankt von pissung und shittung. Aus dem gutterhausen und die schweinerei kommt die auslander.  NichtsprechenDeutschenschweinen kommt to Berlin und betaken die bestest bier, die wurstschwein und die frauenmitgrossenbusen.

Scheisse!  Auslander RAUS! Sniffenmeinfahrten! Suckenmeinshaft!  Das ist mein zitty, mein schwein, mein frauen und mein bier.  Runst du von Spanien oder Norgeland.  Du art NICHT wilkommen hier.  Also:  Spanien ist besser fur auslander, naturlich!  Und Norgeland, nicht getten mich startet…

This post goes out to all the Nazi Deutschbags who are alive and well in Germany.  They know who they are.  They block MY STREET and march with cops protecting them, they sneer and laugh at foreigners when we walk down the street (saying things loudly like DEUTSCH! when they hear us speaking English) and yell at us when we try to do something simple like buy a fucking train ticket.  Fuck you, Germany.  Time to clean house, bitches.  If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.  Guess you never heard that one because a black man said it.   Word.

ATTACK OF THE KILLER CUCUMBERS!!!

The theme to “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes” was running through my head as I read the news:  Germans are stuffing cucumbers into their mouths, ruminating, swallowing, digesting, expelling-bloodily-out-the-wazzoo, then, sometimes, dying.  This is the Dunkin’ Berliner Way™ of saying the E .Coli has hit the fan and nobody is safe.

I’ve never been a big fan of veggies.  Even years ago when some crazy hippie girlfriend talked me into being a vegetarian, I mainly ate french fries and beer.  And donuts.  If someone would say to me “Dude!  You KNOW that donuts are fried in animal fat and what the HELL are you doing?!”  I would then rip their liver out and serve it with a nice Chianti.  I was a shitty vegetarian.

I digress.  How did I get from Killer Cucumbers to jelly donuts?  Rhetorical question.  Oh yeah:  so the other day I was getting my weekly kebab from Tayfun’s Bistro on Schoenhauser Allee near Wisbyer str. (I recommend it.  E. Coli free since 1989) and noticed they had none of the usual sliced cucumbers in their salad buffet line up.  If I were still suffering from delusions of vegetarianism, I might have said ‘WTF!  How can I like, get my like, falafel without cucumbers, dude!’  Fortunately, I’ve always hated cucumbers anyway (and most other raw veggies for that matter) so I am in no real danger of dying.  So I asked the kindly kebabman to sling piles of cayenne pepper into my kebab to induce bloody diarrhea in lieu of the lack of properly-tainted E. Coli cucumbers.  I totally appreciated the substitution.  And WOW! what a spicy kebab!!!  No, I really ate a kebab with a fistful of cayenne pepper just the other day.  This concludes the factual part of the blog.  We now continue with the comedic rant/satire portion of the blog, already in progress.

Some Germans just don’t get it.  First the Deutschbags on High played the Blame the Spain Game and managed to cripple Spain’s entire economy (apparently veggies, salsa, salsa dancing and Being Chased by the Bulls represent the entire economy of Spain) by suggesting that the Evil Killer Cucumbers were sent from Spain due to some ancient grudge incurred by some ancient treaty which wasn’t honored.  Ok, I made that up.

Germans REALLY don’t get it:  today at the REWE market, piles of plastic wrapped cucumbers stared up at me like some deliberate, phallic fuck you to common sense.  Like, HELLO? We are in NORTHERN GERMANY.  And the people dying from the Killer Cucumbers are in NORTHERN GERMANY.  But that won’t stop the steady march of Capitalist farmers from peddling their deadly wares on an unsuspecting P’berg neighborhood.  Apparently by wrapping them in plastic and putting a sticker on the cucumbers which proclaimed ‘NICHT aus SPANIEN!!!’ that people would still buy them.  Hell, if they wanted total safety they should have ditched the plastic wrap in favor of cucumber condoms.

The lady in line in front of me had not one but two cucumbers in her basket at the checkout stand.  I was just thinking ‘GUT GOTT, woman!!  How can you buy this?  Don’t you read the news???’  Then she turned around and I saw that she had other more pressing problems.  She had a hard face lined with years of abuse, alcohol, drugs, men/women or other types.  She glared at me as if she was reading my mind and presented the stern face of consternation which lines the face of all Berliners who live on sauerkraut and booze.  I then realized that the potential threat of death by bloody diarrhea was the LEAST of this woman’s problems.  And that maybe, just maybe, she had no intention of eating those sanitized, wrapped-in-plastic cucumbers, monster sized.  God DAMN, I’m a dirty fucker.

American Refugees

‘I have an idea that some men are born out of their due place. Accident has cast them amid certain surroundings, but they have always a nostalgia for a home they know not. They are strangers in their birthplace, and the leafy lanes they have known from childhood or the populous streets in which they have played, remain but a place of passage. They may spend their whole lives aliens among their kindred and remain aloof among the only scenes they have ever known. Perhaps it is this sense of strangeness that sends men far and wide in the search for something permanent, to which they may attach themselves. Perhaps some deep-rooted atavism urges the wanderer back to lands which his ancestors left in the dim beginnings of history. Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs. Here is the home he sought, and he will settle amid scenes that he has never seen before, among men he has never known, as though they were familiar to him from his birth. Here at last he finds rest.’

 -W. Somerset Maugham, "The Moon and Sixpence," Ch. L

I posted this quote in the beginning of the rollicking tour de force that is the Dunkin' Berliner Blog.  The only thing I have to add is this: you can also remain an alien in whatever land(s) you settle in..  All you have to do is shut the fuck up and not talk to anybody.

Yes, I'm an anti-social fucker.  I prefer the companionship of jelly donuts to most of the people I meet. Misanthrope?  Maybe.  I think 'we who have lived outside our native countries for many years' (expat, shmexpat--I'm a refugee, mutha fucka) are tired of other expats most of all.  At least I am.  I stumbled into the Prater biergarten last night around 10pm and the joint was hopping.  Every table was occupied and you could barely hear a German word spoken.  If Al Qaeda wanted to rain down any of their monkey religion savagery on "Western Infidels", this would be one of the places (only not when I'm there.  If you read this and do that shitty thing you do in the name of your stupid fucking made up 'god' I will personally arrive in your afterlife and sew up all 72 virgins so you will have to remain a total jerk off for all of eternity.  No Sand Monkeys in MY fucking biergarten.  You've been warned.)

I digress.  I joined a table with an expat friend.  The Questions immediately ensued.  Which brings me to the point of this blog post:  What is the expat question you hate the most?

A)  Where are you from?
B)  How long have you been here?
C)  What do you do?
D)  And do you actually make money with that?
E)  All of the above.

The winner of today's poll will receive my personal accolades, personal mention and I'll hit the like button on yer fb page, even if it is some hokey New Age Bollox like yoga n shit.

Word.


This blog was brought to you by the Fund For Angry White Guys Abroad and the Navy Seals.  "Navy Seals:  Opening Up Economy Sized Cans of Whoop Ass since 1961!(tm)"

Descending into the Seedy Underbelly of Berlin ... sort of

We went to the Leather Club to find a strap-on full leather gimp suit for our dog.  It’s a sausage dog, so the dimensions would have to be just right.  We pushed through the heavy plastic vertical slats that you would find in any meat locker or a leather shop in Berlin and into the leather accessories section.  We looked at the usual bondage masks with the zipper-faces and ball-gag mouth pieces.  We checked out the garden variety leather-and-steel-ringed penis sheaths and giant black double dongs.  We were starting to think this place was just way too gay for our hound dog.

“Why don’t we just take four of those leather ringy penis thingy sheaths and just put one on each of the dog’s legs?”  I ventured.

“No,” she said, “those things are black leather and the dog is black.  You wouldn’t even see the fucking things against his fur.”

“But they’ve got the silver ringy thingy and…”

“NO!!!”

We descended further down the rabbit hole.  In the next room there was a mini bar.  We each grabbed a bottle of beer before wading through the art fags who had gathered for the art show that was going on (incidentally) at the Leather Club while we happened to be shopping for our Full Doggie Jacket.

“Fear,” the barman said.

“No, I’m not afraid.  I’ve seen this shit before in S.F.  Giant black double dongs don’t even raise my eyebrow any more.”

“He said vier,” the guy next to him said, “Four Euro for the beers.”

“Cute dog by the way,” he added.

We gave up on asking for the doggie section.  Clearly these fags were way too conservative for the kind of canine costuming we had in mind.  Another back room separated by yet another wall of those heavy plastic vertical slats.  We had just watched a b movie about a missing girl and a sex dungeon with hallways and rooms separated by these exact same clear plastic curtain slats.  Fucking rabbits and their fucking holes.

The next room was a small boxed-in section of a corridor leading further down the rabbit hole.  A small group of college-aged girls sat on a leather bench talking, drinking and smoking.  A gay fuck film was projected on the wall above them.  They were completely oblivious and unimpressed.  We walked on.  The maze continued.  There were dozens of side compartments and ante rooms with the same redundant vertical plastic barriers.  Some had benches and ropes.  Others had handcuffs and small beds with handcuffs on the posts.  It’s just not enough for some people to render a simple ass pounding.  Apparently some people need the Gimp from Pulp Fiction and a bed with a set of handcuffs.  There were buckets in each room and the little woman wondered what they were for and I didn’t EVEN wanna go there.

Deeper down the hole we saw a back room with more rooms and a couple of gay guys standing around.  I got the words ‘hinter’ and ‘nicht’ and some head shakes.  We get it.  No straights allowed.  We left the den of iniquity with our dog just as we had walked in.   The dog looked up and wagged his tail.  He would get no leather action that night.

*photo taken from a website far more depraved than this here blog

German Toilets, Emasculation and Film School for Scheisse Videos

It was only a matter of time before I broached the subject.   I was going to breach the subject, break on through to the other side; leave it leaking, as it were.  But my deliberate malapropisms merely confuse people.  Perhaps it’s the redneck accent in which I deliver the news.

I’m avoiding again; sorry.  Okay:  shit, piss, pinkel and sheisse.  There, I’ve gone and said it.  I’ve had to drink and eat large amounts of beer and donuts while living in Berlin.  As a result, I’ve had to look at the ridiculous sticker on my toilet lid for quite a while now:  the silhouette of the peeing man with the line through him, the ‘don’t pee standing’ sticker, or the ‘keinenpinkelnbestandungschweinhund’ as it simply said in simple German.  Of course this must have been left by the previous tenants, no doubt a fine German family of upstanding social status and non-standing pissing status, a family with a large, strong woman who beat her poor, emasculated-post-war-Moby-maybe-man with her terrible swift loo brush.

Then someone told me that it was normal for German men to sit down while peeing, that it was necessary to avoid the splash of urine onto the sacred seat above.  Right.  The country known for its uber-efficiency in ALL OTHER THINGS designed this paltry device:  The Trophy Toilet.  It’s that peculiar flat shelf directly in the center of the toilet where normally there would be a wide open space full of a gallon of water.  It’s what we in the West have been using since the barn and the outhouse.  We went directly from crapping in a hole in the ground to the Powerflush 2000.  I once read that a measure of a culture is in the way it deals with its waste products.  A lot can be said about a culture which moves too quickly.  Perhaps we missed a great deal of culture when we decided that it was better to mask, drown and dispose of our waste as quickly as possible.  Maybe the Germans were onto something when they decided to keep their waste hovering directly below the lid for easy inspection and diagnosis of all the nut and corn content of their fibrous feces.

Sure, it had to be a logical, medical, holistic reason that the flat shelf was there, hoisting my gawdawful anal progeny high above the low water mark where it can choke me with the stench, or when standing to pee, splash back with a thrust in direct proportion to the amount of beer I had consumed.  There can be no other explanation for this uber-inefficiency, this blatant disregard for culture from the culture who gave us so much, y’know….culture.  UNLESS…

American Culture Answers German Culture: The South Park German Sheisse Video.

[person speaking German on "cliteris" website]

Kyle: Dude, it's a lady getting pooed on!

Stan: Whoa! Is it Cartman's mom?

Cartman: Oh, very funny!

Kyle: Hey! It IS Cartman's mom!

Mrs. Cartman: [man speaking German on computer] All righty then!

Cartman: SON OF A BI...

[shocks]

Cartman: AHHH!

Ike: [bounces in] Ba ba ba ba.

Kyle: Get out of here, Ike. You're too young for this stuff!

Ike: Bullshit.

Stan: What's she doing now?

German: Essen meine scheisse.

Mrs. Cartman: Okey-dokey!

Kyle, Stan, Cartman: [they see something gross] AWWWWWW!

Stan: [pukes] Click it off, dude, click it off!

[Kyle clicks it off]

Stan: Dude, what the fuck is wrong with German people?

I am not educated enough to tell you why the Germans can give us buttloads of composers, philosophers and all of modern psychology and NOT give us a proper fucking toilet.  But I’m just going to assume that German men are not all emasculated, simpering fools who sit down each and every single time they have to take a piss.  I don’t believe that the treaty that ended the war had the clause “and you shall give up your arms, weapons, military bases, delusions of Aryan grandeur, nationalism and the God given right for your men to stand up to urinate from here on out.”

I am starting to be convinced that the Germans LOVE their sheisse--and not just because it made it all the way over to South Park, U.S.A.

Footnotes:

Chocolate poo: http://www.schokoscheisse.de/

Kackel Dackel, the crapping daschund toy for KINDER!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOdEE-Z919A

German Chix: Then and Now

I remember meeting a few expats around various tables in nightspots in Berlin during my first few months here.  I don't remember much of what they had to say as it was so banal.  My shit was too.  But there was this Indian dude at the table who, upon hearing someone say 'German girls,' jumped out of his shell and proclaimed "German girls are so boring."

I'm not sure what this guy meant.  Clearly he was one of 'those of the I.T. persuasion' out of the subcontinent who thought he was just, shall we say, Too Cool For School or All Dat and a Bag of Chips.  I smiled at him and imagined that the only experience he had with German girls was a glass of beer thrown in his face followed by a sheise storm.  Really.  Dude.  Put down the Kama Sutra.  And back away.

If pop music is any indicator of the social climate of a nation (let's just suspend disbelief, OKAY?), the pop songs on the radio in Germany are screaming for attention.  Some of the screamers are girls.  German girls.  Enter:  Tic Tac Toe (I'd do it.  Heh), a German girl band one hit wonder whose video 'Hey! Mr. Wichtig' (Hey! Mr. Right) caught my attention when I first hit Germany for the first time in 1997.  I was visiting a friend in Dusseldorf, he had MTV, they played the beJAYzus out of this video.


Tic Tac Toe - Mr. Wichtig

http://www.myspace.com/ogcjm1982 | MySpace Video

These three amigas were part hip hop, part reggae, part b.s. pop.  And all the way feminist.  They weren't having any of the usual muscle men with their kleine schlongs or their weak dancing.  I'm not sure what they were having.  Probably each other.  More powah to ya, babies.

That was then.  This is now.  Enter:  Eurovision song contest.  I think this is some huge karaoke singer's version of 'Who Wants to Be a Star' or 'American Idol.'  Generally there are tragic results.  Which means I never hear of the hapless winners.  But sometimes, just sometimes, a sickly sweet, infectious pop voice pumps through the shitty speakers of my local kebab joint and I have to wonder to myself "who dis?"

I hate pop music.  I hate how it has no soul, no jazz, and no lyrics capable of catering to anyone over the age of 14.  But sometimes, just sometimes, a sickly sweet German girl with a slightly-Australian accent hits the speakers and bends my head slightly, just slightly, to the left.  And I give it a listen.



Both videos are bouncy, full of grrrrl attitude and all that.  Both songs made me bob my head to the left and/or right when I first heard them.  Obviously I prefer the second one because it was sung in English and I could feel for the poor young German girl who had 'painted her toenails for you' just the other day.  Wow, you've come a long way, baby.

But the first video had its lively island beats and rappy fist pumps to da man who dared to have muscles and nothing else.  Both the song and the girls in it had a certain je ne sais quoi.  Only in German.  So years after I had lived in the Czech Republic and Tic Tac Toe's silly pseudo-Ger-maican pop riffs had faded from my memory, a new beast hits the pop charts.  This time, she's wearing new blue underwear, sporting freshly-painted toenails, and is looking for your love.  She's your personal satellite.  Which is German for 'stalker.'

And Deepak said German girls were boring.

Bush Meets Merkel, Gets Bitch Slapped

Or How I Imagine The Conversation Went

“It’s okay, George….the doors have been sealed for our protection and privacy,” Chancellor Merkel assured.

“Uh….yeah…uh…well. heh. You see, Ms. Merkel, it’s like this: I’m not sure I trust a country that said ‘Fuck you’ to America when we needed you.”

“All of your SS agents are outside guarding you, just as mine are. Would you like some tea? Or maybe something stronger, like a….how do you say? …Jack on the Rocks?”
“Well, thank yuh….I just might do that—ah mean, drink that.”

“Coming right up! Anything for a freund, right George?”

“I’m used to people calling me ‘Mr. President,’ Ma’am.”

“Of course you are, Mr. George, of course you are. And rightly so.”

“Why did you ask me here?”
“It’s because you say you are a Christian, George.”

“Of course I am! Who’s sayin’ ahm not?!”

“Nobody, George, nobody!”

“Well, Angie….uh, can ah call you that, Ms. Merkel?”

“That’s Angela, or MRS. Merkel, to you, Mr. George.”

“Why don’t you call me ‘Mr. President’ like everyone else?”
“Well, I think that’s not the important thing right now---by the way, how’s your Jack?”
(taking a gulp) “Heh! That’s the ticket! Nothin’ like a taste o’ home.”

“Good, George! I’m glad we can be of service to our freund in America.”

“Look, I’d be much obliged if one of my boys was in here with us, y’know what uh mean?”

“You fancy boys, Mr. George?”

“Whaddaya mean? Ahm talkin’ about muh boys in the secret service!”

“Oh, of course, your SS boys. Like I said, they are waiting outside. Shall I get them some Jack Rocks as well, Mr. George?”

“Look, Merkel…uhhh….you cain’t scare a Texan with all this Euro-Femi-nazi….crap! I know Germans voted for you, and prob’ly some Frenchies as well. But they said you was a CHRISTIAN, GOD DAMMIT!”

“George, you’re upset. Take a drink.”
(gulping) “Ahhhh. Right. Like ah wuz sayin…”

“You want to know why I asked you here, George?”

“Uh, now would be the time, Merkel honey. Heh”

“Well, after you invited me to your ranch and shoveled all that beef down my neck, I had to return the favor.”

“You got beef for me?”

“Not exactly.”

“Heh! Not that it would hold a, y’know, candle to Texas beef!”
“Of course not, George. We have no beef with Texas. Here we deal strictly in schwein. Schwein of the highest quality.”

“Well, let’s pork!”
“Whatever do you mean, George?”
“Let’s get animal! Physical! Ah wanna get ANIMAL! Let’s get into animal, lemme hear yer body talk, body talk!”

“I’m calling the SS boys in now, George. You are acting strange.”
“NO!!! NOT THE SS!!! Uhhh. Wait... Yours or mine….heh heh”

“I’m going to tell you something you are not going to want to hear, George.”
“uhhhhhhh…”

“The fact is, George, you are about to be replaced by a black man. Yes, it terrifies you. A good old Texas boy like you, sure it does. But they are taking over the world. One nation at a time. I just spoke with him last week and—“

“—NOT HIM! Tell me yer not talkin’ bout HIM!”

“—that’s right, George, I’m talking about Mr. Barack Obama.”

“STOP!!!! RED ALERT!!!! EAGLE IN TROUBLE!!! CRASH THE OVAL OFFICE!!!”

“George, you’re being silly! Nobody can come in here! I told you that. And we are not in your little Oval Office.”

“bb…but, I AM THE PRESIDENT! Of the YOU NIGHTED STATES!”

“Of course, George, we know that. Take another drink. Here, have the whole bottle.”

(glug glug glug) “Ahhhh. That’s better. Yuh got any coke, Angie?”

“Ein Coca Cola? Sure! One mome-“

“NO! I meant the white powdery refreshment, baby cakes.”

“Now George, my Christian Democratic Party wouldn’t approve of me giving the U.S. President anything other than bier, bratwurst, pretzels, or Jack Rocks.”

Prenzlauer Berg: Don’t Drink the Water

They said Prenzlauer Berg was a yuppie hellhole. They said it was gone, lost to gentrification and exorbitant rents. They said only “certain types” of people lived there. For the record, all of it is lies. I was afraid of The Prenzl, mainly because of what ‘they’ said. I fear gentrification and its effects on average people. So I swallowed the lies and lived in Friedrichshain for the bulk of this year. That neighborhood, my friends, has been sold to The Devil: Yuppie be thy name. F’hain is the doomed ‘hood, the one which is being sucked down the pipe by the real estate demons who lurk beneath the slimy surface of all that purports to be, ahem, ‘hip.’ But what I found when I left The Hain to move into my new P’berg flat was that the people in Prenzlauer Berg were not yuppies and not average, they were worse: they are all a bunch of God damned BREEDERS.

I don’t know why every other person in P’berg is a mother pushing a stroller. I can’t figure out why the only entry for Prenzlauer Berg in the TTG wiki has no actual information about the neighborhood except that it is “fertile.”

http://www.toytowngermany.com/wiki/Prenzlauer_Berg

Perhaps it is in the water. P’berg water is lukewarm from the tap even after being run for several minutes. If city water isn’t icy cold from the tap in October I just don’t trust it. If it doesn’t come from deep enough in the earth, it’s as if it’s been circumvented, redirected, adulterated and redelivered. Or maybe it isn’t a PROconceptive agent released into the water, but more of a psychotropic substance which, when applied to the water supply and the bloodstream of a healthy female P’berg resident, causes sporadic and unnatural advancement of the biological clock. Skip the prom, the drugs, the fun; go directly to motherhood. Fuck. In. Ell. I hope my girlfriend’s birth control can hold out against the chemical onslaught.

Or maybe it is in the System itself. I can’t verify the figures, but I get the distinct impression that the German government pays people to breed. Yes, there is this thing called social welfare, or Hartz IV, and some people say it pays punk rockers to party, while others say it is a much needed antidote to the Berlin economic sickness. In layman’s terms: no work, no worries, the rest of Germany pays.

It doesn’t matter to me personally what the wymyns choose to do with their uteri, or what the German Government does with its peoples’ tax money. But I will go on record: the next white trash bitch who slams her stroller into me and shouts at me to move will have her progeny ripped from the pram, weighed, measured, processed and barbequed right there on the sidewalk. Turkish kebabs ain’t got NOTHIN’ on my baby back ribs…