It’s a goddamn
fine city.
Berlin. A
city that by 1945 was leveled to the ground. 90% laid to rubble.
The world didn’t want it and the world wanted to make a point. The British were
pissed. The Russians were pissed. The Americans were pissed. And most
God-Fearing Germans got the hell out of here. Like some pie served on Easter
Sunday, the whole town was split three ways, all left to the bombers. It was like
the Middle East back in the day with the British. Let’s cut some arbitrary
lines in the sand (literally) and call it a country.
The West side
of Berlin kept on going. So did the East. But, under some serious Communistic
spirits, the GDR came in, orderly as a sexless house frau, and declared, “always
the future”. And the future they implemented, with their own special breed of
gray and brown totalitarianism.
Although
nudity and public baths were very popular. To the future, indeed. Artists were
under surveillance. Protesters were detained. Watch that film “The Lives Of
Others” (one of the finest films made about the subject) and you’ll get a
glimpse of what went down circa Ronald Reagan in the West. While we were playing
with Atari’s, Artists merely kilometers from where I write this blog right now
were interrogated and imprisoned. The history of the city, and its more ugly
reminders of the tyranny of terror, still remain, hidden between newly furnished
condos and bougie coffee houses. I’m staying in Prenzlauer Berg, minutes from where state officials of the GDR had their homes, and past that, the working class German
folk after the Wall came tumbling down.
People were
already talking shit about where I’m lucky enough to stay. They repeated to me,
before I flew out here: “It’s just Williamsburg with Currywurst.” But always
leave it to a New Yorker to hate on something. Either it ‘was cool’, or it’s ‘too
cool’, or ‘wanna-be cool’. Whatever it is, it’s just not enough. Just do a
minor historic look through the blogs of The Bartender Knows this year alone.
Dating failures, talking shit on real jobs and ‘white people shit’, the Tinder
Hell trilogy; the whole year was a litany towards the unhappy, albeit
sarcastically unhappy. The year was okay. It started with me in New Orleans
(Paris’s punk rock stepchild) and ends with me in the Fatherland, Berlin. And
past that, Prenzlauer Berg: as the German people call it now—stroller land.
They are
right. The hood, with its long windowed with balcony gardened streets, do have an incredible amount of young mothers (shit, I would get someone here pregnant too). The
cafes, tables practically empty during the twilight hour, spreading out on the
patio, reminiscent of Pamplona, Spain, days after the running of the bulls—sporadically
busy, undetermined crowds, one minute full with dialogue and cigarette smoke,
the next, a veritable ghost town. A couple whispers to each other along the
tables adorned by candlelight. You can hear your footsteps echo along the
Strassen, while you wander, quite confused, and again—culture shock strikes.
I’ve gotten
used to living in a world where nothing makes sense. Have you ever
working an insanely busy bar, 3 deep a spot, on a Saturday night? The movements
just come easy, you watch mouths move and you make out barely understandable
dialects. The language here, unfortunately for me, is a haze of sound, both
intriguing and quite lyrical when spoken by the locals. The haze is simply not
knowing what anyone is talking about. I regret suddenly not taking German in
high school. It just goes to show why my sister Laura is smarter than I am. She
was such a ‘seltsame kleine madchen’, and probably deserves to be here more
than I, for there is something civilized around these parts, more so than Paris
even, that she would like.
No matter what cynicism New York
may have shown toward me mentioning coming to Berlin to write, all of them agreed: “It is an Artist’s city.” I was excited. Maybe I could find inspiration. I
was already chalk full, of course, but certainly ready for something else.
Any jaded person
that’s aged a bit will have to raise an eyebrow at the mention of ‘finding
inspiration’ through a geographic cure. To the millennials, it is almost
mocked. Hell, the last 4 decades have been the most cynical of them all.
Geography, I highly doubt, can
change a person. It only shows them for who they really are. Especially if they
can’t speak the language.
“Mein Deutsch ist schreklich!” is
how I open all conversations. Already, Germans began to smile. This was lucky
for me, because to make another person laugh in their native language makes for
smooth sailing. But it took a couple of stepping stones for this bartender to
make his way through the dimly lit streets of stone and bike lanes (yes,
people, they take bikes very
seriously here).
STONE 1:
It is not only perfectly legal, but
not even frowned upon to drink in the streets. Anywhere. All the time. I can’t believe
in all the years I have been an American (say it, gruffly, American), in the land of the free and the home of the brave, and
been able, like a grown motherfucker, pound a beer on a sidewalk at 11 in the
morning. I don’t know if it’s because I
grew up in a relatively strict environment, back then it was either the school
teachers or the police fucking with me (or vice-versa), I’m left with a feeling
of utter gratuity to be able to raise that class to the sky, in front of
children, God and everybody (this one’s for you, Bill), and put down an ice
cold Budweiser (no guys, the Czech Republic kind) in the afternoon light.
Berlin is an alcoholic’s paradise.
They just don’t care. Now if you jay-walk, then they look sadly at you, shaking
their heads. Germans like order. They like logic. To them, it’s like, just
wait. You got a beer in your hand, don’t you?
Chill the fuck out.
STONE 2:
Now armed with alcoholic privileges,
I was almost there. There meaning feeling
comfortable. That place where, despite the rush noise of the language barrier,
the foreign streets (Germany beats out anyone when it comes to Stassen names),
there is a calm.
But somewhere deep below the language
wave, there is this incredible silence
here in Berlin. I was having lunch with a lovely girl from Paris the other day
and she even mentioned it, of course, in her charming French Girl English Accent:
“The quiet is absolutely everywhere. Except, of course, for the clubs. There
are always the clubs.”
Luckily for me, I could care less
about the clubs. The thought of me being partially alone in a throng of hot
sweating people in the darkness, writhing to pulsing electronic music sound
horrifying. I’m such a “let’s be bar stool buddies and just get drunk and talk”
kind of guy.
Okay. Drugs. The right drugs and I’d
be dancing to Lady Gaga at 6 in the morning. It happens.
And one night, walking within this quiet, I started to worry. Like a New
Yorker, there’s something about the death-quiet that makes the City alarm go off in our
heads. That’s when you are going to get stabbed. Stick to the lit streets, the
main fares. The silence reached out to me, clasping around my ears, sending
chills down my spine.
Then I heard a note. A piano note.
An echo of something. The chords came down, loud, ricocheting off the narrow
streets, fraying the net of silence around me. I walked slowly to the music.
I came to a small art installation gallery; black interior, wooden bar, with 20 foot high ceilings adorned with all manner
of truss and lighting gear shadowed in darkness. A small sign in chalk
read: Composer Playing Tonight. Satie, Chopin, Etc. Free. I walked into the
bar. The chamber was filled with music, the skin on my arms perked up. The
bartender, rolled cigarette half smoked between his thin lips, leans over
lazily.
“Ein Bier, bitte,” I say, relying
on the essentials of the German language. The bartender nods, comes back with a
gigantic mug of beer. It’s something like 2 bucks. I smile. He smiles. There is
nothing to say. We both turn back to the music and then everything is okay.
STONE 3:
The Dive Bar. You know I need it, folks.
The Berliners do not drink like we do. Like our version of alcoholic is almost
funny. These guys get drunk, fall down, ruin family legacies and shit. They have
beer halls and clubs. It’s either a casual café and a mug, or MDA and cocaine
and metal music. Death metal is big round these parts. As if the place wasn’t
haunted enough.
Though when I say the Berliners do
not drink like us, I mean there has not been one night I’ve been out talking to
strangers (everyone is from somewhere else: The Neatherlands, Austraila, France,
Canada, Britian, Irish) that has not somehow been about art and art history.
The Berliners are not playin’. These fuckers dig Art. Let it be known—far and
wide.
That’s why gay culture is cool
here. They have taste. That’s why you can smoke weed whenever you want. The lot
of these folks work only 3 days a week.
It’s not Williamsburg. Williamsburg
is full of anxiety-induced haters and IKEA brand yuppies. The
competition is strong in the Big Apps, and maybe that’s why New York is cool.
Hell, I’ve just recently received my locals’ pass in the imaginary mailbox,
signed by the Mayor of ‘you’ve been in New York too long’.
But I found a dive bar by my place
(big shout out to 8MM BAR in this, son!).
The bartenders are friendly, but
not overly so. It’s dark. Strange images are projected on the wall. There’s
somehow always a corner available. It’s dark and red. Jim Jarmusch would drink
there.
These were the Berlin stones I
needed to tread across the river of new moments that, just behind the cracking
dam upstream, awaited me in the coming weeks.
To be continued….
IT'S TRUE: BERLIN GOT FUCKED. BUT IT'S BACK, BABY...ROSE FROM THE DIRT...
YEAH. TRY DRINKING 31 OF THESE...
CHOPIN ALWAYS SAVES MY DAY.
