This weekend in Lüneburg was the, excuse me, Das Oktoberfest. It is nothing, so I have heard, compared to the real Oktoberfest in Munich. There it is inadvisable to look under the tables unless you want to look at a flowing river of puke and piss. In Lüneburg it was not so intense but interesting none the less.

On the first night, me and Jens didn’t go the Das Oktoberfest but instead went on a short pub crawl at the end of which we decided to stop at a Kneipe called “Zur Neuen Sülze.” Usually this place is pretty tough but tolerable. I had a really interesting birthday there. What we didn’t take into account this night of course was Das Oktoberfest going on about half a mile away. When the tent closed down at about three am, those who were not yet drunk enough came over to finish the job and do it right. Whenever I go there they are always playing really bad 80’s shit. I like to piss people off by putting “Playing With Fire” by The Rolling Stones and anything from James Brown. Last weekend was no exception. In went the Euros. We got some fries and sat in the corner out on the deck to observe the going-ons. This night was especially colorful. Nazi skinheads on one side staring down the Turks, Turks on the other side staring down the skinheads, and Hells Angels just waiting for the fun to begin. People making out and getting naked. Unfortunately it wasn’t anybody I would like to see making out and getting naked. Then some really funny guy (sarcasm) was pulling down his pants and farting in peoples faces. He was really amusing himself. I’ll think I will hold off going there for a while. It was a little traumatic.

Oh yeah. Back to Das Oktoberfest:

It was basically a fun fair with rides and games and a huge tent filled with long picnic tables, a non-stop oompa-oompa band in the corner, and lots of waitresses with medieval cleavage serving up the beer. So we went in and had a small beer. In the case of Das Oktoberfest, that means a half liter. We also had a few tasty sausages with mustard.

Fairs and carnivals always bring out a certain element of society that you usually don’t see that often. I mean, where else does one go to see a family of mullets? I’m not just talking one or two. I mean the whole family. 4 smaller mullets all following the Alpha-Mullet? A fun-fair/carnival of course. Where do they hang out during the day when there is no carnival? It’s not like they follow it around, thats what the carnies are for (Another social stratum in and of itself). Anyway, I digress. I’ll publish my essay on German Mullets some other day.

The highlight of my short visit to das Lüneburger Oktoberfest was during a song from the oompa-oompa band. Some elderly fella apparenly thought it was a group participation sing-along and proceeded to jump alone onto the table. After 5 seconds he fell onto the ground and immediately stands back up, uninjured, minus toupeé. He promptly picked it up, dusted it off, and plopped it back on his head. Needless to say it looked very unnatural after that. Sorta like a critter, or a tribble, or..something. I’m sure he had fun though.

Anger

Well, I was trying to take a pause from the news and other assorted media because it was just driving me crazy. It is just so depressing. The Man In Black, Ritter, and this:

In the two years since law enforcement agencies gained fresh powers to help them track down and punish terrorists, police and prosecutors have increasingly turned the force of the new laws not on al-Qaida cells but on people charged with common crimes.

The Justice Department said it has used authority given to it by the USA Patriot Act to crack down on currency smugglers and seize money hidden overseas by alleged bookies, con artists and drug dealers.

I for one welcome our new Orwellian overlords.

Or this:

The nation’s schools are telling an unbalanced story of their own country, offering students plenty about America’s failings but not enough about its values and freedoms, says a report drawing support across the ideological spectrum.

Without a change of approach, schools will continue to turn out large numbers of students who are disengaged in society and unappreciative of democracy, the report contends.

I would like to support such a program but I can also understand why a lot of kids might feel the way they do about America’s past and especially America’s present. Take a look at this article published the day after in the Guardian concerning thousands of top secret documents that have been declassified in the last 5 years:

September 11 1973 was a day of terror and bloodshed in Chile. After months of rising tension, army troops stormed the presidential palace, leaving President Salvador Allende dead and thousands prisoners throughout this previously democratic nation. (Emphasis is mine)

Oh it gets better….

The top secret documents accumulatively detail the crude workings of Washington during the Cold War. “It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup,” reads a CIA document from October 1970. “It is imperative that these actions be implemented clandestinely and securely so that the USG [US government] and American hand be well hidden.”

Read the article and then ask yourself how it feels to be a proud American. That is if your were lucky enough to be born in the middle of the North American continent. I’m all for teaching kids to love their country. It’s that love for one’s country that should inspire them to make it better, but hell can you blame them for saying, “Aw fuck it”? I don’t understand how when people hear about what went on in Chile, Viet Nam, Afgahnistan, Iraq, Central America, Panama, Etcetera, et-fucking-cetera, that they don’t get mad and demand that heads roll. Innocent people being killed for economical gain is not what I was taught to be American Values. Future History Teachers of America! Can we get some Truth? Die Zeit ist reif für eine Revolution.

War of words Interesting article about English words invading the German language. Sometimes I hear words that are obviously English but I have no idea what they mean because they are used in a completely different context. This is especially common in the IT sector, in which I work. Often I have no idea what someone is talking about and half of the words are in English. Kids on the street here are all about cool English phrases. “Whazzup” They often sound like they are trying sooo hard to be cool and I just laugh at them with bored amusement. I also hear tough guy english phrases translated directly into German. For example: aufsteppen for Step off! or “Ich werde dich kappen” for “I’m gonna cap you.” German kids with blue eyes and blond hair dress to the nines like hard-core thuggin’ gangstas but they have no idea that if they were to be seen like that in SouthSide Chicago or in Compton they would have their lilly white asses handed to them so fast. It is so weird how American pop culture is so prevalent everywhere. Not a put down. Just an observation.

There is not much new going on here. I’ve been having a couple of hard weeks at work. I wish I could get into it here but I can’t. I’ve been putting up with way more than I have to. I’ve been pushed real close to getting up and walking out. There is a stupid little stamp in my passport called an “Aufenthaltserlaubnis” that won’t let me do it.

Hello Rock. Say, do you know my friend Hard Place?

I did go to the Handwerkerstrasse in the Aldstadt here in Lüneburg on Sat. The Altstadt (old city) is the oldest part of Lüneburg. All the buildings and houses are carefully restored and they look really good considering they are all like 600(!) years old. Anyway, they blocked off the streets and even covered up all modern street signs and lights. The local craft guilds set up traditional workshops and hawked their wares. There was local brewed beer, traditional medieval food (uh no thanks, the chunky mustard looks a little too traditional. I’ll pass), and even a witch being dragged through the streets. Fun for the whole family.

I finished the Harry Potter book. Not bad, not bad. Little bit more psychologically dark than the others. Lots of British sayings like nutter and blimey!. They even say “Damn” and “Hell”. Sweet.

Here is a great link concerning the false notion held by many Americans who believe that Saddam Hussein was in some way responsible for Sept. 11. If you are one of the 45% of Americans who believe this, you are wrong and have been lied to. Have a nice day.

Here are pictures from my trip to America.

While I’ve been sick here I’ve read three books that I highly recommend.

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
The author enters the minimum-wage work force to see for herself how the people who have to work in that sector fair. Makes me grateful that when I was working in restaurants I was living with parents and had a support network.

Fast Food Nation
The fast food industry is evil. So evil. The one phrase that sums it up: There is shit in the meat. Vegetarians, I totally understand where your’re coming from. I’ll try never to eat fast food again. I say try because mmmmm….. burger.

And finally, The Da Vinci Code
I read it in about a day straight through. Totally awesome. My Dad and siblings weren’t kidding.

That Eazy-E can really rap his ass off!

I ran into Wesley Willis at a Kinkos in Wicker Park, Chicago. To be honest I smelled him as soon as I walked in the door. We were both making flyers for our bands. The clerk was trying to kiss his ass saying, “Wow, Wesley, I love your stuff. Do you have any tour/album plans, blah, blah, blah?” Wesely told the guy to fuck off and and get out of his way. As I busted out laughing he started lunging at me trying to head butt me I think. At the time I didn’t know that was his schtick. Then he told me to get the fuck out of his way, which I did due to the fact that Wesley was a very large man. Anyway he died last Thursday. Here’s a link to the the story. Here is another. I was hanging out at Heiko’s apartment in Lehrte a few months back and he had the Wesley Willis album with Rock and Roll McDonalds on it. It was a new experience for my friend Jens. We sat around and laughed. The refrain was in our heads for the remainder of the weekend.

Update: Here is a great interview with Wesley from April 19, 1996.

Damn. Still sick. One week of vacation and one week of being sick. Vacation being the best week natch. I need DSL so I can upload those photos.

I’ll have some pictures up soon from the trip. For now though, a recap…

Getting to New York was a little problematic due to the blackouts. I was packing on Thursday night and was about to go to bed and I decided to check the news on last time before hitting the sack. I knew there would be some problems and in the back of my mind I thought I would be staying in Germany. On Friday, the day of my flight, Meike tried calling the Air France customer service line and it ended in a shouting match. The only way to find out what was going on would be to go out to the airport and take my chances.

The cute little French lady at the counter was most helpful and instead of sending me through Paris to JFK, sent me through Prague to Newark on Czech Airlines. Czech Airlines was pretty cool but very laid back. It wasn’t really clear that the flight was boarding. They just threw open the doors and let the word spread that we could board.

Got to Newark and was picked up by sister and a friend. Due to the blackout induced panic traffic, a normal 1 hour trip to the airport took about 3.5 hours. The trip back to CT was much quicker.

I stayed up to about 1:30 am that night which means I was awake for about 24 hours. I was in it to win it.

On Saturday I chilled and had dinner at my sisters place and saw Pirates of the Caribbean. I thought it was a good film. My only gripe is the dialogue of the British soldiers. They always had something witty, profound, and grammatically impressive to say. I know lots of Britons. They don’t talk like that at all.

On Sunday I surprised my mom when she came back from a short trip with my dad. I tried to keep it a surprise between just me and my sister but keeping a secret under wraps in my family is like trying to drink water with a fork. So everyone knew except my mom but she probably knew something was going on.

During the week I went into NYC and saw my friend Bob, who I haven’t seen in years. It was so awesome to see him. Equally awesome to see was my friend Kim. I had a really good time visiting them both.

There were some other people I tried to see but it just didn’t pan out. It sucks but that is the way it is. It is really hard to cram everything into one week. I mostly just wanted to spend time with my family.

Being in America was very surreal. I felt like a foreigner most of the time gawking at all the big stores and cars and streets. Very few people talked about the war in Iraq. In Germany and in most of the rest of the world it is the topic of the day. It’s one of the first things on everybody’s lips. In America people hardly talk about it. There was hardly anything about it on the news. It was present in the New York Times but still not discussed. It seemed that people just wanted to avoid conflict and argument so they just didn’t discuss it. Anybody that I did talk to about it was generally against the Bush regime as a whole and was not in favor of the war. Hmm, go figure.

I had a really good time and I wish I could have stayed longer but the ticket was so expensive just to stay an extra week. My advice is to book way in advance.

On Saturday night after a birthday/BBQ I went to the airport and took off. I missed my connection in Paris and had to take a flight 3 hours later. When I got to the terminal it was still 20 minutes till the connecting flight was to take off but they wouldn’t tell me what gate it was at and wouldn’t let me on the plane. Those fucks. Seriously, you never know what kind of surprises are in store when you fly with Air Chance.

To make things worse the altitude fucked up my ears and gave me a real bad cold/ear infection. Lame. I won’t be back to work till the earliest Thursday. Not so lame.