Rantings of a Thousand Voices

Today I drove my mother's car into a brick mailbox, taking it off it's foundation. The front bumper's off, tie-rod and the axle are both broken, and the front wheel is hanging on by the shocks. You know how they say that in a car accident everything slows down? That's bullshit. However, airbags are definitely loud, and it scraped/burned by forearm upon deploy. Otherwise I'm okay.

While I would rather this had not happened and take responsibility for it (there goes a few thousand dollars), it was kind of exhilarating. On the upside, by insurance record wipes fresh when I turn 21, so this is only on there for 5 weeks.

Stare at a screen long enough and you stare through it. Burn through it. Throw it away. It's distracting.

I ought to be better about keeping appointments with myself.

All our best tools turn against us.

Long story long,

I went out to a club in Friedrichshain last night. This is the first time I've been out on my own to a place that wasn't a concert, but I knew the music would be good and I figured it might be a more conducive setting to meet people than a show.

As I stood drinking a gin and tonic, a girl asked me for a light (lesson #1, always carry matches). She was blonde and dressed head to toe in black. She had a nose ring. She had a lip ring. Even her gums were pierced.

I ended up, after the most absurdly awkward time sitting and staring at each other thanks to the language barrier, to a her and her friend. From what I could hear from her over the music, her name is Carolin, she is 23, an Ossi, and on welfare while waiting for a study place in a university. She wants to do psych research. I didn't talk much to her friend, but I gathered that her name was Mariana and that the two of them were roommates.

I sat there while the two of them chain smoked. I saw Mariana take something, probably ecstasy. I don't know if Carolin did, but it came out of her purse. I don't know how I feel about this.

We talked (with some difficulty, between the language and the volume of the music) about the Smashing Pumpkins and Nirvana and what it means to be punk. We sang along to the music.

I wonder what the rule for calling someone is in Germany. Three days in the states, is it the same here? More? Less?

As I have said before, language barriers suck. Whenever I'm surrounded by people speaking German I feel left out. Whenever people speak to me in English I feel patronized. I can't win. At least I thought so.

I have encountered one person here who I feel understands my dilemma, the Turkish man who works in the Döner shop that I frequent. I don't know his name, but he is always patient with my poor German and manages (thanks to a good bit of pointing) to get my order right. I get the feeling he understands what it is not to be able to ask properly for what you want, having had to learn German as a second language himself. He has never said anything to me in English, he probably doesn't know English. Tonight, when I pointed to the corn that I wanted, he said, "Mit Mais." He's the only person I've met here outside of school and my host-family that has taught me a new word in German.

That's the title of the first song I understood the refrain from last night. I was at a punk bar, the Clash, and saw Die Mimmi's play. Apparently they've been around awhile, and I think it was some kind of anniversary of the band, because they showed a slide show before the concert that was not unlike looking at family photos, but for a punk band. The show was fun, and I moshed a bit, though not for long. The bar was filled with smoke and I couldn't breathe after jumping around so much. Additionally, I had lost one of my contact lenses, so I couldn't see too well. Disorientation aside, I couldn't help take notice of all the gorgeous suicide girls (auf Deutsch, "alles die sehr Schone Selbstmordmadchen").

Anyway, I have my first German punk record, and a sneaking suspicion that I'll be learning German in places like that.

"Prague never lets you go... this dear little mother has sharp claws."

--Franz Kafka

I have just returned from spending the weekend in Prague. As with anything worth telling about, somethings went horribly wrong, others better than expected, still other went completely unanticipated.

I arrived on Friday afternoon shortly after four. After getting a 3-day transit pass from a ticketer who spoke no English, I set out to find my hostel. Naturally, I ended up going the wrong way on the tram, and it took me awhile to find the place. Once I got there and checked in I tried calling Tim to see about meeting up with the rest of the group, all of whom had booked a different hostel and arrived on separate trains. The cell phone I was using was set in German, and I had no clue how to chains the settings to English. I had also wrote down Tim's number incorrectly. At the time, I had no way of knowing whether I had the wrong number or if the phone simply didn't work outside Germany.

Frustrated, and not wanting to miss seeing things while trying to figure out the fucking phone, I set out alone to Prague Castle alone. Once again, I got lost on the tram along the way. Eventually I got to the castle and found, contrary to what I had found online, that it was in fact not open during the evening. However, the grounds and the church were, so I wandered around this ancient castle for nearly two hours, taking pictures of it in the lamplight. I then did the same around the old town square. By then I was freezing, hungry, lonely, and irritated.

I headed back to the hostel to call it an early night. I sat at the bar downstairs and ordered an Irish coffee. The bartender was bored out of her mind, and kept trying to get me to order a cocktail so that she'd have something to do. She saw me playing with a matchbook and started tossing one after another of them at me. (I have a half dozen now.) I ended up talking to her, the owner (an Englishman), and the guy playing guitar in the corner (who happened to be from DC). The owner kept trying to convince me to order various different drinks, and finally offered me top-shelf absinthe for only 100 crowns.

The absinthe was served in a tumbler over ice, with a sieve-spoon with two sugar cubes resting on the top of the glass. The absinthe was poured over the sugar into the glass. The sugar was then lit on fire, melting in a pale blue flame and caramelizing in the absinthe. It was quite a drink.

About a half hour later, a girl walked into the bar who may have well been an absinthe hallucination. She was wearing a short, chrome skirt over multi-colored leggings and an off-white sweater under a cartoon blue jacket. Her hair was in pigtails, and she had a piercing just under her lip. She said something to me in Czech. Her name was Lucie. We ended up talking, and she invited me to join her and her friends in the bar in the basement, then she left. I finished my absinthe and followed.

I met her downstairs in what was as much a cave as a basement. She sat at a table with a number of other people, only one of which she had known before that night. I wasn't clear whether he was her boyfriend, or just a friend from back home in Bernau, but apparently he is now a famous electronic music artist in Prague. He gave me a CD. Lucie gave me her email address.

That was my first night in Prague.

To be continued....

"I like the inconveniences... I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin... I'm claiming the right to be unhappy... Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind... I claim them all."
~Aldous Huxely, Brave New World

I have been eating potato soup for three days. Yesterday it was cold.

A vague approximation of "Icy-Hot", which I could use about now.

Went ice-skating today with the "International Club". International or not, I was still the only one there who didn't speak any German. Combined with the fact that my ice skating ability only barely surpasses my German ability, it was an awkward afternoon.

Not being able to communicate is beginning to annoy me.

And now for a long overdue update:

I haven't had the time/energy to write in this thing lately, as I've been bogged down with school work. This past week I've had double readings for every class (from both last week and this week), so I feel like that's all I've been doing. I'm finally caught up.

Last weekend I went bar hoping with my host-father's nephew. There was an absolutely stunning girl sitting with a group in a metal bar we went to first. Long, straight red hair, flawless pale skin, a number of piercings in one ear, dramatic eye makeup, black and red bands cuffing her wrists, all wrapped up in black. How do you hit on a girl in German?

Later that evening, I ended up talking to an Ossi (East German), who apparently grew up pretty well off in the GDR (former East Germany). He said his family had both a flat and a summer home, and that they never had trouble getting permission to cross the border. He also said that his father would get phone calls and go off somewhere, no one knew where, for a week at a time. Sounds suspicious. Anyway, he said that things in the GDR were actually not bad, and that the biggest thing was that you couldn't get the newest, shiniest gadget. You could get a TV, but not VCR. If it were still around today, you could get a stereo and a razor, just not an iPhone.

My host family took me to see a concert matinée last Sunday, Barenboim playing Franz Liszt.

Yesterday after class a small group of us went to the Gemaldegalerie for an assignment. I'm not usually a fan of Renaissance art, but there were a few pieces there I liked.

Today we got a tour of the Bundeskanzleramt, the German equivalent of the White House. The structure is very open with a lot of glass. I don't much like it. It's too much space for to few people, not at all intimate. But I did get some cool pictures of some of the things inside.

When I got home this evening, the neighbor's door looked like it had been hacked at with an ax. Looks like somebody broke into the whistling guy's place.

I found out today that Brave New World is one of the required readings for one of my classes. I literally just finished it on the plane last week. I now have two copies of the same book.

As I was returning from my morning class, I was stopped by a pair of Korean students. They first approached me in German, then in poor English once I introduced myself as an American. They seemed lost, and I figured I could direct them to someone who could direct them to the main campus. After a lengthy period of trying to figure out what they were saying, I found out they were not lost after all, they were proselytizing. Some kind of reverse missionaries? I thought this was odd.

Um... How do you say, "Very no"?

I had my first German class today, and I feel pretty dumb. I'm twenty years old and I'm back to learning my ABCs, which I have trouble pronouncing. The teacher doesn't so much explain the meaning of things as repeat them until you figure it out from the context. This may take awhile.

The man who lives next door always whistles, so I always know when he is coming or going from his apartment.

I need to get supplies.

I couldn't sleep at all last night, due to having slept until 2pm the night before. All I have to show for a night of laying in bed for seven hours is a soar throat. I'm supposed to be headed out for a bar crawl right now, but I figured "fuck it". I'm tired and I feel shitty. Plus classes start tomorrow and the last thing I need is a hangover on top of everything.

Anyway, I toured the historic center city, "mitte" today. Starting from the Brandenburg Gate, we walked along where the wall used to be to the Reichstag, the Soviet War Memorial, a number of embassies (notably the US, UK, France, Russia, and North Korea), the site of the old imperial palace, the former site of Hitler's chancellery, and the bunker where he died. I forgot my camera, although I did get a few pictures on my phone (the old Nazi propaganda office where Joseph Gerbles worked).

Oh, and BTW, German google is censored.

I've been in Berlin now for four days. Things have been a bit of a mess. Had trouble getting my PC set up for wireless internet here, so my email's overloaded with junkmail.

I can't take money out of the ATMs here because my account is a savings account rather than checking. It will take a few days to have that changed and my new ATM card shipped to me. So until then, I am penniless in Europe.

Aside from that, the most difficult thing for me has been ordering food in restaurants, and I've been reduced to pointing a lot. I did manage to get a nice, dark beer last night though. In fact, tonight is the first night I that haven't had a drink since I left.

I'm slowly picking up German. Just words here and there. Monday I start actual lessons, so that ought to help.

The holidays are finally over, which means that, starting tomorrow, I have the house to myself during the day. It also means I won't have access to a car, so I'm virtually stuck here. Plenty of time to work on projects.

I've been learning to play "Something in the Way", which, while only two chords, is made tricky by the changing rhythm/arpeggiation while singing it. See previous comments on syncopation.

In the words of Brenden Coffey, "Here's to a brand new year, where we'll try not to repeat the mistakes that we will repeat anyway!"

Also, Rock Band is amazing fun, but playing drums is hard. I have a blister.

I'm back to writing in this thing after an unintentionally long hiatus. I'm typing this with the added distraction of watching Nirvana's MTV Unplugged appearance (possibly the best live album ever recorded), namely during the commercials.

Anyway, I've made some mild accomplishments thus far over break: some painting, some song writing, and minimal German-learning. Ten days until Berlin. I'm gonna be lost for a bit, so this should be interesting.

Once you realize this, that you'll never figure it all out, you cease to work toward figuring it all out. Instead, it is better to figure out what you will do with yourself knowing that you'll never have it all figured out.

Something of a tautology.