The Overpriced Organic Grapes of Wrath

Food seems to be a big concern in rich countries recently.  Not that they’ve run out, not that they’ve sent it all to the starving African chilluns out of white guilt, but the worry is that They are putting Shit into The Food.  And We all know who They are: Monsanto.  Apparently, our very digestion is at stake.  If We eat food grown from seeds by Them, We are unwittingly condemning ourselves to bowel cancer on an apocalyptic scale.  You see, apparently, They fuck with The Food.

I’m no stranger to food scares.  Back when I was a starving student (O how I miss those days and so does my waistline) studying in London (I spent all my dough on the flight; hunger followed), I found a way to eat for free from time to time:  Hare. Fuckin. Krishna.  In the midst of the infamous SoHo red light district in London lies a Hare Krishna temple-slash-vegetarian restaurant-slash-your-hair-into-a-baldy-pony-tail.  I dragged my hungry ass there to sit and listen to their Krishna chanting and the rumbling bellies of others for an hour or so until they would feed us.  I was happy with this arrangement as I was a vegetarian at that time.  Nobody tried to convert me or cut my hair.  But I believe I caught a few of them looking at my long, flowing, hippie student pony tail with lust.

Then I took some friends there.  Then some bastard said to me: ‘You know They fuck with The Food.’

‘Waddaya mean, Bugsy?’ I says to the mook.

‘They put Salt Peter in the Krishna food.’

‘What the fuck, Chuck?’

‘Salt Peter makes yer wanger go all doughy like, see?’

At the time I was more concerned with my empty stomach than my salty peter, so I threw that particular conspiracy theorist on the woodpile with the rest of them who dared to disparage the starving student vegetarian life.

Back to The Now. Now people say that They are fucking with the global food supply.  I have to take issue.  My food supply is constant and unrelenting.  I have the 300 lbs to prove it.

‘The Evil Monsanto is doing evil things to poor little plants and making them into Frankenplants!  Genetic modification, boooooo!’

Like what?

‘Fish DNA in tomatoes and shit like that!  Mllleeegggghfffft!’

I don’t eat tomatoes.

‘But THEY.  Shouldn’t PUT. SHIT. In our FOOD!’

They pump all sorts of hormones in milk and beef and the women are milky and the men are beefy.  What’s your problem now?

‘I !     DO NOT!      EAT MEAT!     OR DRINK MILK!!!’

Ok, now I’m starting to get it.  You’re one of those silly little vegan fucks, aren’t you?  Well, good luck with the micro-organic diet.  I’m going to get a STEAK AND GUINNESS PIE and wash it down with EXTRA STRONG MICRO BREW STOUT.  Please enjoy your puke green wheatgrass tea and raw cabbage with the other sad little fuckers in the corner over there.  Take a sad selfie while you’re at it.  Then post it on a Change the World website.  Silly Rabbit. Don’t you know?  If we suddenly stop eating meat, all those cows and pigs will wander into traffic and be killed.  And here you say you care for animals.

Yes, I get it.  You’re worried about genetically modified foods, though your reasoning is about as sound as any twitching, undernourished hippie’s could possibly be.  The problem is with uber-Capitalism.  The bigger the farm companies, the more profits they need to make (rather than just food), so the more they need to tweak things to produce larger crop yields and larger profits.  They’re not spending millions on genetic plant research just to fuck with some uppity vegans (as entertaining as that may sound).  They are ‘probably’ (don’t really know and don’t really care) just trying to build a better tomato, one which is resistant to pests and maybe even allows the use of less pesticide.  Or it doubles the output and profits.  If you don’t like this idea, you could always grow your own veggies in a community plot outside of a squat in Berlin.  You won’t even need salad dressing; all of the puke, piss and vinegar from the punks will coat your sprouts for ya—in both chunky ranch and balsamic.

The Overpriced Organic Grapes of Wrath

Veganism started off as any religion does, with strict rules and practices.  Don’t eat this, eat that; dress this way, don’t dress that way. Fuck this way, not that way, and only this type of person—but only after this ritual.  Then it starts to propagate, like some bacteria in a Petri dish.  Soon it gets on some lab assistant’s coat, leaves the lab and now you have an epidemic trend on your hands.

When you walk into one of those organic / bio food shops, you’ll notice the price of this particular religion is quite steep. Who in the flying FUCK can afford these prices?  Maybe the twitchy little vegans in the corner taking selfies aren’t skinny from the vegan diet—they just can’t afford the fucking thing.  Have you seen the prices?  It is a huge scam.  The label says ‘bio’ or ‘organic’ so it costs double.  Why?  Because the lack of pesticide use cuts the crop in half, thus doubling the price?  No.  Because the whole organic thang is trendy, followed by trustafians, yuppies and other vapid individuals who like to think that paying more for something is better.  How do you know it’s organic?  Because it says so on the label? Damn, there really is a sucker born every minute.  Any fool with a computer and a printer can make a label.  There is no way to certify if something is truly pesticide free and organically grown as they say.  The government does not get involved in verifying marketing claims—they only occasionally check the rat turd levels in the sausages (which are tasty, by the way; that rich, smoky flavor makes EVERYTHING tasty).

So the big trend is to slap a BIO label on something and charge double.  And the suckers suck it down like tequila-swilling Tijuana whores.   Hell, it wouldn’t be so funny if it wasn’t so goddamned stupid.  I’ve even seen a kiosk in P’berg selling (ahem) ‘Bio Currywurst.’ 

So apparently, vegans aren’t the only fools falling for this BIO bollox.

It's the End of The World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)

So what’s this mumbo jumbo about Mayan calendars and the end of the world?  I don’t pay attention to the classic crackpots with the signs saying ‘The End is Nigh,’ so this should come as no surprise when I have to cry BULLSCHEISSE! and let slip the dogs of sanity.  Everyone with half a brain knows that the fuckin’ world ain’t gonna end any time soon.  And if it did, would it be forecast by ass clowns on a mud hut pyramid 2000 years ago between human sacrifices?  And then, would it be all of sudden like?  Ka-BOOM!?

Entropy takes its sweet time.  It’s a one way ticket to midnight, all going down. You see, all matter breaks down into lesser forms of matter over time.  The ice in your glass melts in the hot room, your car runs itself into the ground and the food in your mouth gets reduced into inert matter (aka scheisse).  Can the End of the World™ happen in one day?  Only in the minds of religious freaks and other weak minded, superstitious fools.  The fundamentalist born again Christians believe that they will literally be yanked by the hair by Jesus up into the clouds.  They call this The End Times, The Rapture, and some other gobbledygook I couldn’t quite follow in Sunday school.  Some of those weaker minded fools in the church who couldn’t quite grok it grew up, grew a beard, drew a sign and did the Thorazine Shuffle on Main Street.

Religious nuts and other feeble minded people believe the most ludicrous things.  Global warming doesn’t exist in the conservative, religious mind.  Because the earth doesn’t matter; belongs to Satan, it does.  Jesus will yank all those believers up by their hair into Heaven.  The rest of us will have to deal with the Zombie Apocalypse.  Or Satan and his minions.  One of those two events.

We love endings.  In films, happy ones.  In real life, apparently, we only want the whole fucking thing to fall apart—suddenly—so we don’t have to think about our own individual oblivion.  If everyone is going with you into the abyss at once, it ain’t so lonely now, is it?  Think of the huge popularity of the zombie films.  The first zombie films had them taking over the small town malls.  Now every other film and tv show that’s NOT about vampires is about zombies taking over the world.  All of it.  From Tokyo to Tennessee. A few years ago when facebook was new, I hit the ‘like’ button on something called ‘The Zombie Apocalypse.’  It was an event I could attend.  I think the date is coming soon, probably right around the time the Mayans ran out of calendar pages.  I like a good social parody and the Zombie Walk flash mobs you hear about.  I’m hoping that I’ll open my door soon and see my zombie neighbor eating my landlord.  That will be a most excellent start for the end of the world for me.  Then I don’t have to pay rent, YEEE-HAAAWWWW!!!

Mayans, shmayans.  What did they know? Nice pyramids, nice hot sauce, nice human sacrifice. The irony was that the real end of the Mayan world happened five minutes after they wrote the calendar.  It was off by a few thousand years; it was just over the hills, sporting metal helmets, spearheads and the Spanish language.  I suspect these conquistadors even had a dusty bible or two in their luggage.

Things fall apart; it’s scientific.

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.

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

A 911 Day Spent With Beer Guzzling Czechs in Berlin

Editor's note: db has decided that some readers may be confused as to which part of a particular Dunkin' Berliner blog is 25% satire, which is 25% comedic rant and which is the 50% bullshit.  In order to make it easier, db has decided to italicize and colorize anything slightly bullshitty.  The rest you have to figure out yer damn self.  Oh, as per usual, 0% faggy poetry.

I packed up the girl and the dog and headed into Neukoelln for a Czech street festival at Richardplatz.

I know what you're thinking: 'yer an American.  It's September 11.  You're thinking of all the pain, death and mayhem when the towlies took down the Twin Towers.  Yer goin' to the kebab 'hood to kick some camel jockey ass, AINTCHA?'

No, dear reader, that would be politically incorrect, vile, violent and offensive.  Not to mention I would need a MUCH BIGGER POSSE in that area of town.  The real reason I went was because my girl is Czech and she dragged me there to meet her Czech friends.  And there was Czech beer on tap.  Reasons enough.

I remember thinking I should bring my camera, but this insane little buzzer goes off in my head whenever I am about to go to any event which will consist largely of heinous bier abuse.  I don't want to have anything happen to my fancy-shmancy camera, the least of which could include:  damage due to droppage, damage due to beer droolage, damage due to pukage, loss due to theft, loss due to drunkenness or loss due to me suddenly at the last minute snapping into post-traumatic-9/11 redneck mode and swinging the camera wildly into Turbanated heads.

So I left the camera at home.  Which turned out to be a pity, since this wasn't just a collection of heinous bier abusers standing around and/or staggering into trees.  There was actual hootenanny style action with groups of people rolling giant bales of hay around the square for prizes and bier.  It was a very photogenic moment sadly missed due to reasons listed above.  Now I'll have to try the thousand words method.  Fuck.

My girlfriend mentioned before we got there that people would be 'rolling in the dry grass,' which I thought was just Czech code for 'drunken, boorish behavior #243.'  No, what she meant to say was 'rolling large bales of hay willy nilly around the square.'  I was immediately tempted to teach her one of my redneck English lessons ala 'y'know what a Roll in The Hay means in English, dontcha?' but I opted only for a slightly confusing reference which would leave her slightly confused.  Damn, I could've parlayed that cowboy cliche into some actual action later on in the evening.  Damn you bier, damn you to hell.  Then again, maybe not.

I did note with some degree of smirky-educated-white-trashian satisfaction the sheer insanity of these folksy, redneck style games.  I mean, to whit: 1) There's not one stick of hay occurring naturally ANYWHERE in the city limits of Berlin, 2) Neukoellners are NOT farmers, nor have they EVER been farmers, rolled in the hay or rolled hay down squares historically, and 3) one of the bales of hay nearly ran over a breeder and her progeny which were standing oblivious in the middle of the road in a manner typical of Berliner breeder menschen, like 'oh, I've managed to shit out another kid on welfare look at the little blond bastard ain't 'e cute? looks just like his unemployed, drunken welfare-suckin' daddy and don't you dare bump into me with bike, foot, or Gott Verbot a giant rolling bale of hay.' She had to run for cover with baby in tow. No bullshit. I smiled smugly. Fucken breeders. Heh.

So there I was, mid baby hate, mid buzz and mid redneck English lesson, when it occurred to me that these type of games were probably being performed this very 9/11 day in some backwoods, dried-up farmville in the YEW ESS of FUCKIN' AY with actual rednecks, pissy beer and thoughts of 'God damn YEW, towel jockey, yew fucked us REEEEEL gooooood, but today we YEWnite as WON and YEEEEE-HAWWW drink us some pissy swill, bitch about the towlies and roll us some hay bales n try to roll us a cowgirl in actual hay, and HEY! if that don't work, we'll form a posse and look for camel jocks and if that don't work, well God Dammit we'll just hafta cornhole us a drunk.'

The Czech Svijany beer on tap was tasty and came in two varieties: pilsner and unfiltered pilsner.  We tried both in slightly-less-than-heinous quantities and were satisfied.  I like the fact that the small town of Svijany can peddle its liquid luxury in Big Ole Berlin.  It makes me happy that the little brewer can still compete with the Big Corporate Beer.  But I suppose that's fairly easy as Berliner bier is sheise.  I prefer Bavarian bier, anything with a monk on the label.  Or Leipzig bier, anything with a punk on the label. Sternburg aus Leipzig.  Mmmmm.  Sternburg.  Not just for drunken punx! (tm)

In conclusion I just have to say this:  Nine years after some fools crashed into some big buildings and plunged us into another godawful long-ass war for all the wrong reasons, it's good to know that we could all just meet in Berlin and hold hands, Czech, American, Berliner and Neukoellner alike, and get our collective buzz on.  No bullshit.  Except the hand holding.  That was figurative.  Do you think an American would actually hold hands with a....

Photo by re-ality, taken from Flickr after I read that it was ok to do so.

Breakfast of Champions

Sometimes a picture is worth (at least) a dozen words.

DUNKIN' BERLINER

CAPTION CONTEST !!!

Which of the following captions works BEST for the picture?

A)  Fruhstuck Weltmeister
B)  The girlfriend is on vacation and I'll eat whatever I want to goddamit
C)  Punk rock breakfast in Berlin
D)  Dude needs some SERIOUS help
E)  Other (pick your own)

The winner of the Dunkin' Berliner caption contest will win donuts.  Or accolades.  Or mention on this blog.

Add your caption in the comment section below to WIN WIN WIN !!!!

Tea Baggersee

Sometimes the desk fan isn't enough and you have to go out into the sweltering heat and pack yourself into shiny metal boxes on rails to get to the Berlin lakes.  We were well prepared with sandwiches, mineral water and wine. I fought my girlfriend tooth and nail on this one.

'You mean we have to go out into the HEAT and BAKE on dirty SHORES with random GERMANS in Speedos?' I decided that I had no choice but to placate the g.f. and get with the program.   I couldn't picture the combination of me away from my laptop; sitting in direct sun; drinking; not dying from heatstroke.

Truth be told I haven't been swimming in years.  The last time I attempted to haul my elephantine ass into a water scenario was in a lake in the Czech Republic about 10 years ago.  I was with a bunch of friends on the shore of a suburban lake outside of Prague.  I was standing there in the water minding my own business when a communist relic in a canoe paddled up to me and shouted at me.  I said 'niggu, proSEEM' which is Czech for 'nigga please.' I couldn't see my transgression. The man kept gesticulating and pointing at my midriff.

"What?!!  My BELLY is too BIG for your BEACH????"  That wasn't the case.  Many other beer-swilling Czech men with prominent paunches paddled freely about us.  No. It wasn't the belly.  It was the shorts.  After some deliberation I discovered that I wasn't allowed to enter the water without the requisite communist Speedo.  There was no use explaining to the frustrated Czech man that Where I Come From Got Dammit Only Fags or Olympic Swimmers Wear Speedos.  And that it was a lake.  And that no possible damage could come to the lake from my raggedy-ass shorts.  I just had to leave.

Ten years later I'm on the shore of a Berlin lake and a helicopter is hovering over us.  Me, the g.f. and her friends from work all stared up at the whirlybird from our semi-comfortable perch on the burnt grass shores of Baggersee. We had just completed a full circle of the lake on foot.  The girls couldn't decide on which stretch of garbage-strewn shore would work best for their recreational purposes.  Now that we had found a spot, we had The Eye in The Sky hovering over us.  The chopper had circled the lake a few times before deciding to hover directly over us for several minutes.  The girls were getting giddy.  They wondered if they were spying on us.  Being as we are foreigners.  With alcohol.  On a German lake shore.  Having the godawful audacity to enjoy ourselves.  I told them they were paranoid.  Foreigners can't be seen from helicopter altitude and they couldn't possibly identify the clear substance in our cups as alcohol.  If that were in fact illegal on this particular shore.

"Tango Foxtrot Niner this is Bagger Eins.  Do you see the man without the Speedo? Over."
"Negative Bagger Eins, proceed to the man without Speedo and provide areal recon, over."

But then it became crystal clear to me: The chopper would land near us, whipping up a storm of dirt and dead grass.  An SS storm trooper would charge our fair beach blanket donut dip and accost us with a lesson in German law with the proffer of an outstretched arm and a Speedo for me.  If that were the case, I would have to shed my prudish cultural inhibitions and display my yam bag just like the rest of these deluded Euro-fools.  I kicked back on the beach blanket under my straw hat, red Hawaiian shirt, Blues Brothers shades and knee-length shorts.  I smiled to der himmel uber and mouthed the words 'Bring It On, Deutschbag."

The ladies were getting very nervous.  I was calculating the cost of helicopter fuel and pilots and salaries of the feckless fools hovering 30 meters overhead and deciding that the myth of a broke Berlin was due largely in part to gross administrative waste.  The copter hovered.  Meanwhile a crew of two garbage cleanup men swept our perimeter.   I wondered when the Blitzkrieg would begin.  Eventually they all left, ground and aerial recon alike.  I looked around wondering what other sight may have attracted the interest of the helicopter police.  Then my eyes beheld an awful truth in the tall grass behind us:  a buck naked man stretched out on a blanket, no Speedo anywhere to be seen.

I'm not going to digress into my encounters on nude beaches around the world.  I'm just going to quote a shy journalist woman from my hometown newspaper who, upon going to her first nude beach for a story, discovered the same Awful Truth that I had witnessed many times up to and including today:  "A scrotum is not easy on the eyes."

So the teabagger behind us was probably what drew the helicopter.  Or not.  It's hard to tell with these Rule Types.  After more than a year and a half living in Berlin I still have absolutely no idea what the rules are.  So I go where I'm told to go by the crowd, hauling the booze, the chips, the blankets, the donuts, the attitude.  But you will never catch my Moby anywhere near anything resembling a Speedo.  There are some things you don't need laws for; only common sense.

Photo grabbed off the internet.  Nobody would claim credit for an image that bloody obscene.

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.

Ludicrous Sports #43: Autoball

Ok, I got bored and switched on the German telly and I’m here to report—now I’ve seen it all: two tiny European cars and a giant inflatable rubber ball. The object? Drive as fast as you can (not easy for one of these zero-point-two liter-engine roller skates they drive in Europe) into the large rubber ball, knocking it into the opponent’s goal. Of course the drivers skid and slide into each other while chasing the elusive ball; madcap hijinks ensue.  And they call this sport Autoball.

The first contenders were from Italy and Ghana. The guy from Ghana had no chance. It seemed that he was just sitting there idling and revving his engine while the Italian drove circles around him. But wait!   I haven’t even got to the LUDICROUS part yet! Each time the Italian scored, the German announcer/DJ played some silly schlager music with an Italian bent. Something like “Aye-yi-yi! Pasta-Pizza for me! Aye-yi-yi! Pizza wonderbar!” I shit you not. I shudder to think what they would have played if the Ghana guy had scored.

Next match: Germany vs. Ireland. The drivers skidded and slammed into each other more than the ball. It was the Irishman’s fault. He kept driving on the left (groan). The Irishman’s skidding shenanigans left him in a smoking car. He had to change cars mid match. The German’s car faired better, even though the whole kraut mobile was composed of 50% duct-taped lights and fenders. At one point the Irishman drove his car into the German and pinned him to the wall so he couldn’t keep scoring goal after goal against him. The German, not having any of it, reached out of his window and started banging on the hood of the Irish car. Then he flipped the Irishman off.
What a friggin' Deutschbag.

“OOOOOHHHH!!!! Das grosse finger!” the announcer yelled.

Whenever the German driver scored his numerous goals (something like 5 to 0) against the hapless Irishman, the German schlager music would start up, this time something like “Ja, ja, ja! Ich bin Deutschland! Ja, Ja, Ja!” The Irish driver sadly scored no goals and we did not get to hear the German schlager version of a whisky-fueled jig. But that’s probably a good thing.

For the exciting tie-breaker, chock full of goal upon goal and schlager song upon schlager song, check this video.

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.”