Filed under: alltag, made in berlin | Tags: friedrichshain, krankenschein, kreuzberg
No! it’s not what you think! I AM NOT faking.
But the festive German tradition of the Krankenschein is new to me and causing pangs of guilt and confusion. It seems too good to be true….there must be a catch. I wasn’t prepared for this, my doctor didn’t brief me. I get a whole week? Just to recover from swine flu (diagnosis courtesy myself, M.D.)? Am I supposed to work from home during this time? Am I allowed to watch TV?
Concerned and afraid, I asked my good friend E, resident expert on being a USAmerican in Berlin Germany. Ever thoughtful and ready to help, she created a personalized itinerary.
ME “What will I do?”
E: “well, when in Rome…” (i.e. unemployed in Kreuzberg/Friedrichshain)
8:30 crack day’s first beer on U1 near kottbusser tor
9:00 switch to U8, continue drinking, become slightly more belligerent
10:00 find creepy fluorescent-lit bar/arcade in neukölln where you can spend the morning
12:00 lunch of cheap döner (yell at turkish worker while enjoying his food!)
1:00 sell drugs at görlitzer park
2:00 buy beer (and whole chicken) at that stand by görlitzer park
3:00 arrive at alexanderplatz by mysterious means. sit on the fountain and heckle tourists
4:00-4:30 stumble down skalitzer straße, buy a beer, cross the oberbaumbrücke, meander towards favorite strandbar on simon-dach
4:30 arrive just in time for happy hour(s)
4:30 – 7 chat with your fellow stammgäste about being on hartz iv. try with little success to engage young tourist couple.
7:00 abendbrot! beer is like the new bread.
8:00 accidentally join a group of american coolios for a concert event in friedrichshain basement. they dig your “homeless” look and give you drugs. vice germany photog very interested in your eyepatch.
8:15 things turn sour. asked to leave
8:30 forcibly removed
9:00 [no data available] remainder of day spent in blackout, emerge approx. 10 hours later at hookah bar on simon dach reeking of pot and fryer grease. leer at spanish tourists.
Thanks E, always lookin out for a homegirl.
Filed under: alltag, art, made in berlin, streetart, travels | Tags: friedrichshain, kreuzberg, ubiquitous streetart
And this is the part where I force you retroactively to come with me on a ruminative walk I took yesterday on which 1) I felt sorry for myself for maybe (probably) having swine flu and 2) took a picture of each thing i stopped to look at.
Come! come! Don’t dilly-dally there’s existential ponderings in store.
I present a tour of art and other oddities close enough to my home that I was able to tour them before I started wheezing.
Snarky commentary will be kept to a minimum, pinky swear yo.
these little guys live close by.
so much better than the zoo! ew, the zoo. last time i went there the lions freaked out and almost ate everyone.
ok then i took two steps and found some more things.
his job is making sure the animals are OK.
whoa, jim caviezel? no i think it’s jesus! wait no jim caviezel IS jesus, or like his earthly persona, which still doesn’t explain why he is looking all muralized in front of this cafe.
moving on.
(doomed to eternity on the same wall directly below jesus caviezel)
this reminded me of my childhood because you have to use your IMAGINATION to know what they’re saying.
i walked ahead for a block or two and ran into this little spitfire TOTally not caring about how badly she was clashing with the leaves behind. tacky, but ballsy.
the elegant berries disapproved.
anyway before you know it we’re crossing the bridge, off to the weird lands of kreuzberg, which, when you get to know it, you realize is actually a little like those people who when you meet them seem kind of dirty-cool smart-arty and standoffish but turn out to be completely…
oh no oh no! wtf!
danger.
aww nm, that is adorable, yes?
my mental image of berlin: funny-shaped rooftops against a big sky, with the chopped-off looking sheer white faces of sad amputated houses left to stare at empty lots alone. except usually there’s actually a face on it (no really, e.g.)
after sundown, our walk turns weird, with an orange tinge of evil.
you know it’s almost october when empty supermarkets seem so spooooky.
and there is something marrow-freezingly sinister about “Chem. Reinigung” that I can’t quite put my finger on…
anyway it is weird walking by people with their partay faces on while yourself feeling like something somebody tried to drown in a bag. an addled sense of vertigo with a twinge of nostalgia.
but mostly just SERIOUSLY hoping you don’t run into anyone you know.
and after all that walking you must be tired.
i leave you with: the shoe.
good night.
Filed under: club, concerts, getting dancey, music | Tags: CdV, drinks, friendly fires, indie rock, kreuzberg, lido, music
OR: FRIENDLY FIRES, FINALLY
we are all excited and happy.
Saturday night found urs truly just returned from work, withered into a chair like a popped balloon, airless and distended and slack. BUT the knowledge of two presale tix to indie british popmakers Friendly Fires at Lido electrocuted me to my feet and wafted me all the way to U1 schlesisches tor, or was it the redbull.
once there it was quick dinner with friends, lil bit o wine, surprise lil mini rotkäppchen from my purse on the way to the club, at the door my waterbottle was taken bc doorkeepers are friends of dehydration. or thirsty themselves and not squeamish. what is the official rationale? do they just assume theres vodka in there? does any1 over 19 and under 49 ever carry vodka in waterbottles?
Lido is a great place to see a concert, wide, high-ceilinged, maximal acoustics minimal claustrophobia.
(bad lighting for photography tho)
there was no opener, friendly fires came on right around 10 on the dot.
on the earlier numbers, art garfunkel and some hacker provided backup horn sxn.
the bassist was a bore, later found out he is only a temporary band member for live shows.
guitarist, edd gibson, was focused and intense.precious.
drummer jack savidge appeared to be ensconced in a supercomputer.
and singer ed macfarlane writhed and jumped like a salmon being tazered.
i was only able to get pics after he settled down & started playing guitar, the others are too blurry to make out.
sometimes they switched instruments. a dustbuster came into play, among other things.
friendly fires play a tenacious, urgent sort of dancerock reminiscent of bloc party/franz ferdinand, but with a more generous splosh of disco in the mix.
everyone had fun.
the crowd tonight was lucky enough to hop&jump to the tune of a world premiere. but what was it called again?? hm
forgot my 3D glasses, unfortch. is that why the pics came out a little flat this time?
afterparty (our own little postgame, that is) was located across the street and down a ways at club der visionäre, what a great place to chill after being zapped through with music. great bunch of ppl hanging around on the dock, as always, tho pics thwarted by almost total darkness. wonder how many tipsyteeterers have flopped right over into the brownish waters over the years?
Filed under: art, made in berlin, streetart | Tags: graffiti, kreuzberg, ubiquitous streetart
jaundice?
location: U Schlesisches Tor
Filed under: alltag, boutiques, clothes clothes clothes, style, vintage | Tags: fabrics, humana, kafka, kreuzberg, lindt, shopping, threads, thriftstores, ubiquitous streetart, vintage, visby
OR: HOW I LEARNED ABOUT TREND TRANSPARENT
One of the charming aspects of living in Germany is that periodically you are invited to immerse yourself in Kafka’s bureaucratic nightmare world. This is truly a delight for any person.
Yesterday it was a matter of officially registering myself as a resident of Berlin, receiving a card which will permit me to pay taxes (thanx) and getting sthg of unclear nature called a “rote Karte”, the last of which having mutated into my mission for today.
My notes begin like this: ‘the problem with writing when bored may be that you only ever have boring things to say’. o right. good point.
I go on to establish myself as a creepy ubahn character. ‘its fun to look @ppl until just that instant when it gets weird; they feel your eyes on them, maybe wonder whats going through your head, glance back, hostile, curious, alarmed, confused, bemused.’
Followed by a nonsequitur ‘wtf postnasal drip from antibiotics?’ i rly was wondering this at the time though (is it normal? still don’t know)
On the U8 I think about the U8. Chummy, harmless, it is nice and wide, like the U5, there’s enough space for everybody’s knees and elbows, babies and dogs. It’s full of friendly types like tourists and large clean families, shoppers and activeppl. it is not like the U1, cagey and hard, eyelinerstalebeerknowinglaughter. My furtive observational demeanor is definitively out of place here.
Outside, the weather is playing jokes again, one minute rain like the ocean turned upsidedown then it stops abruptly & before I have time to close it the wind has turned my umbrella inside out snapping one of its mechanical spiderlegs so it droops sadly now on one side like a tent left out in the backyard all summer. sometimes the sun comes out.
Shortly after I enter the preposterous beehive of hallways and offices and waiting rooms that is the Bürgeramt. having finished registering without a hitch and only a short wait, miracle miracle, I logically decide to travel around the corner to the Finanzamt for my Lohnsteuerkarte. Here I wander around until I find the Info-area, take a number, the ticker dings instantly, I walk in, notice how I had to take a number even though no one else is waiting.
The woman sends me back to the Bürgeramt. This is where Lohnsteuerkarten are to be had. I slink back around the block, get a new number (for which i also have to wait in a line in some obscure and unmarked corner of the waiting room) back to my seat, back to watching the sign like a digital alarm clock from the 80s, bigred lightup numbers chiming every 30 sec sounding like the seatbelt light on an airplane. 177. i have 188, had 165 earlier. if i’d known.
Now the number sign seems to be using it’s imagination, getting zany and bold, 245, 457, 321. 188?plz?
For reasons unknown, the Bürgeramt had a book exchange table downstairs, which donated these treasures to me:
While waiting i get sthg advertised as peach iced tea from the coffee machine, out drops a tiny crimped brown plastic cup and almost just as quickly it was frothing over with mysterious brew, this continued for 10 sec, fizzy liquid sloshing into the grate underneath. what I got, finally, tasted like when you order gingerale at a chinese restaurant but there is no syrup left in the fountain so you get like bubbly dishwater. drank it all.
There is a flat-screen TV in one corner playing a program called “Warte-TV für Berliner Bürgerämter”, this seems like the strangest thing thats happened all day. Now they are showing sthg called “Kleintier-Vermittlung”, helping rodents connect with other rodents, rabbits seeking chinchillas, bios include details like “had a cold”.
Finally finally finally it is my turn, I find the room, I sit down, I talk to the lady, she makes a big mean sad face at me, I don’t need what I think I need (Lohnsteuerkarte), in fact she can’t give me one just now, it is not allowed for me to have this. It has taken me 2 hrs to find this out.
So instead of throwing myself into oncoming traffic I spend an hour in a thrift store. Lindt 2nd Hand Clothes, Kortestr. 16 (tel 030 691 79 10), open mon-fri 11-18h. Slightly less self-destructive and just as effective at helping me forget my wasted day. at first went inside because it used to be a chocolate shop, still has Lindt signs all over the place, probably i was hungry. it is one of those weird berlin stores with baby doll heads and weird crocheted items for dubious purposes propped up everywhere you look. they have a pretty good selection, of course hand-picked and so multiple times what you would expect to pay for ‘old clothes’, youll pay btw 9 and 15 for a shirt, 20-30 for a dress. weird or interesting or “kult” items can be disproportionately exorbitant, this pair of white 80s overalls i thought were ‘kinda cool’ would have cost 70. but then i found this amazing fur hat (too small for my head but fit the mysize barbie it was perched on just great), only 24. in the end I emerged with a weird shiny green suit perfect for the court jester I sorta felt like.
but it is pretty cool, no?
so Rote Karte today, which, as I found out only today, verifies that I understand what typhus is and that i should stay home from work if i have it. They also made sure (via video and pamphlet) that I know how to recognize when I have it, since food poisoning is obv so fun its sometimes easy to forget ur sick. This was today: flashback to high school health class, a room that smells like chalk and sweat and dirty mopwater, rowed up mismatched chairs facing an open TV cabinet. The movie will be 18 mins says the woman who led us here from the waiting room like ducklings, wider than she is tall. The poor Spanish kid I saved from being sent home until he could return with a translator (he spoke some English) is sitting next to me, not understanding a word.
To recover I go shopping again. First I take the S-Bahn to Warschauer Str., Visby store on Gärnterstraße outfits me with a spacesuit, perfect for all this rain and hellweather.
finally on the way home, in hopes of finding thrift items NOT priced at twice what they cost when they were new, I hit Humana 2nd hand, Frankfurter Tor 3, a 5-story behemoth that somehow managed to contain nothing of value or interest, and even so was overpriced, besides an umbrella, another useful item for this weather, which i managed to haggle down to 3 euro, tossing my crippled one on the way out.
Humana might be worth investigating for raw amusement factor, though, the 5th floor being comprised entirely of what some alien interpreted as “TREND”, 50s/60s/70s/80s vintage, though it happens to be a selection of the most horrible things in the store, not necessarily even all that old.
Trend Transparent seems to be items made of brightly colored, fine mesh, something Topanga might have worn on Boy Meets World. Humana keeps the secret of this trend highly guarded. (actually im pretty sure i knew about this trend when i was in 6th grade.) Its time the whole world learned about trend transparent.
Filed under: bar, concerts, getting dancey, music | Tags: arena, for a minor reflection, glashaus, iceland, indie rock, kreuzberg, postrock, skakkamanage
Last night was Tuesday night here in Berlin, so probably where you are too, and that means only one thing: another fabulous, poorly-attended concert. in one of the best little enclaves of summer in berlin (whose motto at the moment, btw, is “scheiss sommer”). Namely a little events-facility called Glashaus, part of a bigger complex called Arena, which also includes the badeschiff, where you can swim. just across the river from freischwimmer, where you can eat and drink, on the CdV (where you can drink) side. so much waterfront fun in one spot. where scary soldiers once patrolled the border between east and west and trespassers were shot on sight is now the site of a dreamy riverside industrialsurrealistic little playground, scary deathfactory until a magic spell turned it to candy.
out front a secret garden: giant benches, little red lights like fireflies, rolling soft minigolfcourse turf
rape alley or rabbit hole?
we reach a gate, stout security guard with a gauged out ear, im just tilting the last drop from my becks gold into my mouth and drop it in the trash next to his feet. about to walk by when he gestures for us to step closer. uhoh.
“the codeword”. he looks left and right quickly, lowers his voice, “is iceland”. steps back into the shadows against the wall where the high cast-iron fence intersects the building. wha?
he repeats…’tix are 13 euro. unless you say iceland at the door’.
so this is my second free concert in a week, unexpectedly. why did the man decide we were worthy of such an honor? was it pity? a momentary lapse of judgment? something in the way i politely set my emtpy bottle into the trash can rather than throwing it so it shatters? we’ll probably never know, must accept our good fortune humbly and wordlessly.
we truly do enter into a glashaus, with a glasbar that cycles icily through the colors of the rainbow.
it’s two icelandic bands tonight (so you see how ingenious the secretpassword was): For a Minor Reflection with Skakkamanage. The former’s been compared to Sigur Rós and also praised by them, and i think i understand why, tho if ur looking for a sigur rós clone you certainly won’t find it here. comparisons to Godspeed You! Black Emperor abound also, and are musically closer to the mark, but in terms of character Reflection is miles away from of Godspeed’s moody anonymity.
skakka is first and they set the tone real well.
the members of for a minor reflection looked surprisingly young. they are in fact only 20 years old each. they tried to joke with the audience but had very limited german, which kept turning into english, which made them terribly endearing. at one point they asked us to buy their shirts or they would have to give them away, to homeless people in iceland, which when u think about it kinda seemed like a better incentive NOT to buy the shirts..
outfitted an icelandic streetperson with cool band gear last night. tax deduction?
for a minor reflection has a swelling, rising falling, sad and searching sound that i always associate with heavily electronic icelandic rock, whether this has any basis in reality. its the music of whalesong and glaciers moving and pale sun striking snow. one of the songs was even accompanied by a guitar effect that sounded like whale cries–a temporary guest backup orca choir. it was beautiful.
the guitarists hunched over and swayed around the stage like reeds in wind.
near the end they played the keyboard together for one song.
next to the melodic sad maturity of their music, the very young band showed a sweetness i hope they don’t lose.
Filed under: art, made in berlin, streetart | Tags: graffiti, kreuzberg, ubiquitous streetart
bling
side of a building, Ecke Schlesische Str./Cuvrystr.
Filed under: club, concerts, getting dancey, music | Tags: ghostface killah, hip-hop, kreuzberg, music, partyy, wu-tang clan
last night was indeed the show i had all been waiting for…free tickets to Ghostface Killah (+Dilated Peoples) @ dot club in xberg. so fate chose this day to glower on me and i was sick sick: antibiotics, chugging-one-corona-in-front-of-the-club-makes-me-feel-like-I’m-in-another-dimension kind of sick. no matter, no matter: for any former member of the wtc i would jump right up from my death bed. i mean, provided the show was free.
so me and my finally acquired +1 (should it have been so complicated to find another soul interested in seeing ghostface for free?) by some sort of phagocytosis oozed through the organism of hoodies and beards and bleary eyes and baggies changing hands, into the bottleneck just in front of the cement steps that were the only way in and were finally regurgitated on the other side of the door, where lo&behold our names were cleared.
coat check, straight for the stage since i wasnt drinking anymore anyway. nosir not 2nite. again it was a squeezing and a lurching, like cartoon people being propelled between two cogs.
firstact liquid crystal project, didn’t hear much of it but it was soothing and smooth, jazzy with a saxophone. didn’t exactly set the tone, which the DJs did their best at in between with some biggie smalls, cypress hill.
dilated peoples were new to me. strike me as one of those weird big name underground groups, sort of levitating for years in the limbo between perpetual obscurity and entering the mainstream canon, as if by choice, keeping it’ real’. at first they really pumped energy into the audience. you could tell they were trying.
it was fun and the beats felt right and people even knew the words. but at some point, quite suddenly it seemd–and yes maybe it was just me,the infection catching up with me again–it seemed like everyone just got tired.the english boys behind me had reached a stage of drunkenness where my glares and wtfs no longer sufficed to keep them from stepping on my toes. it was only a matter of time before they began intentionally elbowing, then jumping, then ricocheting with abandon.things turned malignant. vibes went hard, cold, jagged, despite DPs repeated entreaties to light up the good shit. (what is their political message, exactly?) everyone wanted to hear the old stuff, they both only wanted to push their respective new solo material. this was received with something like bristly acquiescence.
mostly…they just seemed really into being high. i give them a B+, but i think got this feeling like the crowd was the malfunctioning part in the music machine, like DP could have really laid it down if we’d been more into it.
it’s ok because when ghostface came on the contrast was palpable, he’s it, hard to his very core. when he didn’t feel like doing a song anymore, he just sort of waved his hand and it was over, nah, next. he’s a prince and he knows it, blasé, half-lidded demeanor, so much more thrilling than frantic MCs who try to blow the audience up like a balloon, veins spidering out of their temples ready to explode spitspraying the front rows; ghostface acts, at least, like he doesn’t give a fuck. the edgy vibes harmonized now, people were jumping for real, toes were no longer safe from other toes, small people just went down.
what thrills me about his demeanor though wouldn’t have to be stretched very far to bridge over into critique–he performed without heart or energy, say–which i might have difficulty arguing with. it did go too far even for me when he started complaining repeatedly about the lights–they were too bright, he only wanted red ones and blue ones blah. then he told us we weren’t as good as the crowd in prague. who cares about what they did in prague?
ONE question still puzzles me tho…wtf is the long, sad story behind this backup turkey? maybe he just did enough blow to think it was a good idea to jump onstage and wave his tattoos and puffy face around? :
hey man, cool shirt.
let’s try and forget he exists. though my disease pulled me to bed even before the set was over (tho it couldn’t be called early), i saw enough to say ghostface is still a Great rapper. that’s Great with a capital G, a marble statue lyricist, and i really want to forgive him for griping about the lights. i have every reason to believe his new album will follow up on ironman, supreme clientele, fishscale in a big way. i do hope he delivers.
parting words from the ghost himself…a video I made with my picturetaking camera, so please excuse that the quality is feeble. words only mostly intelligible. (the lead-in, & reason I started recording in the first place, was a little soliloquy about how most hiphop artists suck now& dont inspire him to write rhymes)
