Resident Evil

so when I lived in Boston I complained that people from Massachusetts were hyper-aggressive, loudmouthed, provincial, small-minded assholes whose view of reality ends at the 495 loop. and in San Francisco I railed against Californians as shallow, duplicitous, passive-aggressive, narcissistic phonies whose view of reality ends at the surface of their own skin. so here I am in Berlin and what do you know? I have a litany of complaints about the Germans. sure there are arguments to be made that they are sour, humorless, chain smoking, obsessive, alcoholics whose county barely qualifies as second world or that they stay fit by frowning intensely every minute of their lives or that their undeserved reputation for order and control is belied by 80% of their streets being covered in dog shit or that they never miss an opportunity to honk, glare or yell at one another or that their habit of pushing through each other can be likened to pushing yourself to the front of the line to nowhere (I mean getting there first means nothing Fritz, because in the end you're still in Germany after all). but I've started to suspect that I may play some small part in the fact that I hate all the people wherever I live. perhaps I carry unfocused and smoldering fury that gets directed at those around me. it could be that I project my worst anxieties onto the faces of the people I see in the streets whether its Sully form Charlestown yammering in his hideous semi-human accent or Blair from Ventura equating his spin class with transcendence or Hans from Pottsdamm living the idiom that to 'frown is to live'. could it in fact all be my own faults I see in others, my own shortcomings assigned unfairly to the blank canvesses of the strangers I see daily?


.....nope. its really them. they all do suck. wierd, huh? good thing I'm so awesome to help balance things out.

Upon The Wind

oh dancing girl,
so like a flame,
glitter so bright,
from so far away,
o dance with me softly,
and oft as a heartbeat,
as mine does for thee,
only for thee
I lay my kiss
gently upon the wind,
so it may carry,
to the ends of the world,
to find you sweet,
and there nestle softly,
upon thy lips,
upon the wind

There is no connection ...

three days sober and my attitude is much better, but there is no connection between the two. damn I hope my brother sends those shoes soon, my feets is cold and wet!

Beer is bitter but not me

I don't know why I'm so angry these days.

I guess I railed against California in a similar way and that place is heaven compared to Berlin and Boston, my other two hometowns. maybe I am just a hardened 'Masshole' after all. I know I'm a complainer in general but I either have to shut up and learn to appreciate this place or go home. living in a state of constant simmering fury is lame and frankly makes me worse than any stern-faced German I'm likely to see. somebody said to me the other day 'when you see someone without a smile, give him one of yours'. I think I need to take that advice. I stand by my first impressions ... except the tone. life is weird, people are weirder and just because this place is so different doesn't absolve me of my duty to make the world a slightly less terrible place. also I think I was running out of creative energy when I wrote about the Turkish community. they are in fact much more like Americans than the Germans are and I think I painted them as being clods when in fact they by and large cool people from an even stranger culture than the Europeans. I mean I've never even been to a Muslim country so maybe by comparison Turks in Berlin are freewheelin' and whacky. I guess I'm feeling contrite after yet another drunken night where I did and said stupid shit. I also lost one of my gloves! and dammit it has gotten MUCH colder these past couple of days! it snowed twice here this weekend, not enough to really be a hassle but thats real snow and its falling from the sky and landing on me! preposterous! unheard of! yeah, before I left town I basically fucked up two friendships and left a third in such a bizarre state that I don't know if I'll ever see this person again. on top of that I nearly torpedoed another since arriving, writing but thankfully not sending the most hurtful email I could possibly write and believe me its one of my unfortunate talents to make words hurt. sitting here I am remembering my first days here a mere four weeks ago, they seem like such distant memories as my view of Berlin has changed so much, and hopefully will continue to do so to the point where I actually like being here and its not just a crazy adventure that will come to an end. I do intend to return to San Francisco after a time (3 months? a year?) but until then I better get to living here, and I mean that in the Shawshank Redemption sense.

p.s. Yngwie Malsteen's real name is Lars Johan Yngve Lannerbäck

First impressions of Berlin (mostly bad)

Berlin is strange, man. I mean odd in so many ways I don't know what to think. Its a hip, happening major European capitol, its got everything they got anywhere else, food, arts, bands, and shit they don't: old ass places and old ass culture etc. people: its filled with attractive and interesting people, but its also primordial and stuck in the middle ages in some ways. the people here have a thing for the serious. they call it ernsthaft literally 'serious living'. they find it a virtue to look serious in public, no goofing around is seen in a positive light. they frown their way through life with an unwavering assurance that it is the proper way to comport oneself at all times. take the subway or walk down the street or go to work (I got a job in this quasi-godforsaken place) and I guarantee you'll see hundreds of unhappy-looking faces. now that doesn't mean they are unhappy, they just think its important to look unhappy ALL THE FUCKING TIME! I thought for sure that would translate to an efficiency far greater than laid-back old San Francisco but no, it really doesn't. they are in many ways less efficient, less focused, less accomplished for all of their degrees (the HR chick has a masters in Psychology that she got specifically for HR work!). their problem is they value following rules more than getting the thing the rule pertains to done. outcome is far less important than the strict adherance to the letter of each and every rule. you will see germans yelling at each other for breaking simple rules and it sounds ugly (but to be fair they got stuck with one ugly sounding language) but they are into fun too, as long as its taken seriously: warm weekend day? great, up early ride the bike to the destination, enjoy it vigorously, eat boxed lunch, return home, mission accomplished. none of this 'lets just see what happens' nonsense for these people. in fact I could not have chosen a country I am less suited to live in. I am serious about being silly. I think the greatest works of heart and mind come from improvisational thinking (my greatest works always came to me in what I call 'the space between thoughts') and that nothing is funnier and sometimes even wiser than an inspired non sequitor. so yeah, I'm collosal fucking misfit here. smoking: ok, I'll admit I smoke a cigarette every now and again when drinking, and more often if there's weed in there but this is a city of smokers. I was joking that the main sport here is competitive frowning and their main export is second hand smoke. you can smell cigarette smoke every minute of every day. people smoke until the instant they step inside and are putting a fresh butt in their mouths and readying their lighters before they start to exit. its revolting. and they are so defensive of their habits. in the states people at least know on some level their habit sucks and others have some right to disapprove but not here, boy. nosiree bob, infringe on a Berliners right to smoke and its war. dogshit: coats every sidewalk and those sidewalks are mostly cobblestone. nobody here picks up their dogs shit and it creates a veritable mine field when walking anywhere (where's your efficiancy and order now, Heinze?!?). the turks: in California we have the latinos here they have the turks. also, unpleasant looking on the streets but in a more surley way, like being a man rests on how pissed off you look. they opperate the 27.5 millions donor kabap (schwarma) joints that occupy every block of the city. there's 1.9 million of them in Berlin, lets say half are men (the women are subjugated in what appears to my untrained eye as 'muslim lite' and never look at you) and factoring in the percentage very cool ones I've met that makes about 500,000 assholes. I don't get in street fights in general but I've had a dozen or so opportunities this past month and its only a matter of time before somebody gets badly hurt. sorry I don't take well to scumbags mean-mugging me, its their country I know, but there's only so much I can take. the weather: ok, lets be fair, I arrived exactly when the weather goes south and it has been gray and dismal the whole time I've been here. the jury is out on this one until (if!) I see the spring.

a poem more about me than her, but ...

whenever I miss the ball
I think of you
your gown unsoiled
but not for lack of wearing
I wore thin, I did
thought I had a tower to climb
and maybe I did too
maybe down to you
maybe bullshit anyway
who can tell?
hell, made a good story
as long as I left
the story part out.
fly north and west,
stop at the sea
and never think of me

2 poems for a dude I used to know

1.
I'm not sorry
really, sorry
I just ain't
tried but I can't
bring myself
to fake that funk
it happened
I did it
kinda low
but fuck it
life goes on
and so do I
bye

2.
there's more where
that came from
old friend
rivers flow
through fingers
linger if you
will, still
life fills up craters and
over, and over
we come to
the well. can't
you tell?