Gemütlich as Fuck

Today I got some new furniture, a thing I ordinarily don't do. A swiveling velvet armchair to stick in the corner, and a sweet little cabinet to put my amplifier on. The wood is beautifully flamed on the two front doors of the cabinet, which are a paler shade than the rest, and framed by my cherry-wood speakers the combination of the colors give my parquet floors a lovely compliment.  The apartment is coming together, it only took about seven months. I've never been one to take pleasure in the possession of things, especially those things which will likely end up on the sidewalk when it's time to leave Berlin, but there is something comforting about cultivating a cozy space. This will be even more true once winter comes and fills the city with frosted windows, gives all the roofs glassy teeth.

I can't explain how nice it is to experience seasons again. Full force seasons. That's not to say San Francisco didn't have seasons, because it did, but not with the same intensity.  

Let's see what I'm saying once winter arrives.

Now fall has fallen. Colorful leaves rain down like flecks of rust from the limbs of balding trees. They litter the streets. Today, when passing in front of Hasenheide park, in the center of the lawn where people sat beside their bikes drinking beers and laughing, there was a tree surrounded at its trunk in a thick pile of yellow leaves. I wished I had my camera to capture how striking it looked. Q has admonished me for not carrying my camera with me everywhere I go in Berlin. In truth I've barely taken a single photo. The only proper photos I took in Berlin were of Nadine. Maybe this weekend I'll take a trip to the Elbe Mountains near Dresden. Apparently there are some stunning hikes there and it's only about two hours from Berlin. I remember seeing the area from the train window on the way to Prague. There was a river, or was it a stream, that danced in and out of the foreground while old looking mountains and the occasional castle jutted up into the scene.

But there's always the possibility of staying in town this weekend. A friend is playing a show. It would be nice to abstain from partying for another weekend, but I can't make any guarantees. As good as it is to give the body a rest, these are the last days of nice weather - it might be wise to enjoy them while they last. There's always this tug of war between surplus and scarcity, satisfaction and yearning, doing and not doing. On the one hand, we should make it a point to soak up every moment of every day, to seek stimulation and the exhilaration of excess, if only for the sole reason that one day we'll die. While we exist we should experience all that's offered to us, and often. But even existing, in this sense, isn't so simple and can be further broken down into types of existence; while we exist and are able-bodied, while we exist and are still young. The mantra should be do what you can while you can, before you can't. It's imperative that we live life in the imperative. This doesn't mean all of life should be spent in some gluttonous, hedonistic pursuit of pleasure at the cost of everything else, but rather, that we live passionately. Not with blind passion, however. We should also be passionate about tempering our passions when the situation calls for it - in situations where we might be wrong, or when our passions may hurt someone else, or ourselves. The guidelines are straightforward enough, but impossible to get right all the time.

Here's to trying.

SS

I know I have stories to finish, but I don't have the energy tonight. I also don't want to let more than a few days get away from me without writing because that'll break the habit. Early yesterday I helped two friends move. Together with a team of maybe six Germans, we placed all of the couple's belongings in a large Mercedes van and sent them off. Certain pieces of furniture were back-breaking, notably a 300lb bed that had three grown men struggling and grunting, and a wooden desk that was surely made of stone. They moved from Berlin to southern Germany, not far from Munich. After the van was packed and I gave them long hugs goodbye, they donated me a plant. It has become a German tradition for me to inherit the plants of parting friends, perhaps to keep me company. I wonder if plants feel unsafe in a new home the way animals might. Marie's plant, which I've named Hans von Bismark, is leaning strangely forward since yesterday, as if he's about to fall right out of his pot. I hope transporting him here wasn't too stressful. Marina's plants are doing well. Maybe being near to my small cacti provides them a sense of community. Hans is over in the corner by the ladder and the wireless router, completely estranged from his leafy green brethren.

My back was a bit strained after the move so I took it easy. I ran some errands, the last of which involved picking up an amplifier to evaluate over the weekend. The music it makes with my speakers is fine, but the new system doesn't sound as nice as in San Francisco. Perhaps the acoustics of this room aren't as good; the ceilings here are much taller. What the amplifier lacks in warmth and bass, it makes up for in clarity. Earlier it tackled "Gold Dust Woman" beautifully, rendering those drobo drags with perfectly dreamy dimensionality. The backing vocals full of howling that emerge in the latter part of the song were reproduced so eerily well that I thought someone in the courtyard was yelling. I'm not sure if I'll keep the amplifier though because I find the bass really lacking in fullness. As mentioned before, this might be a problem of the room and not so much a fault of the amplifier, so I'll need to think it over. I also find it doesn't sound that great at lower volumes, either.

All day I've felt drained. It's not even 9:30 yet, or, as we like to say in Germany, 21:30, but I think I'm going to get ready for bed.

Sleepy Sunday.

cOcktoberfest

Hallo! Guten Abend Leute! It's been a long time. It doesn't feel that way, but surely, at least based on the number on my calendar, I cannot deny that we've all been hurtling through the present into the future for many moons now. Is everyone a bit taller now? Maybe a little bit more of a baller? I hope so.

Over the last few days there have been repeated petitions for me to start writing here again. And though the numbers be few, the time seems right to indulge friends and family. Afterall, how else will they be able to stay up to date on my deterioration. Wow, I spelled that correctly on my first try. Maybe my mind's not as messed up as it seems. Berlin has been abusive on the brain; the parties, the drugs, the sex clubs. Speaking of which, I was at one two Saturday's ago. I stayed home from work on Tuesday because the cumulative damage of being doused in piss in the women's bathroom of Kit Kat had taken its toll on my immune system. As I lie asleep in my bed I was buzzed awake by my phone which I'd neglected to silence. The message was from a co-worker. He'd sent me a text saying I hope you're okay, followed by a link from Germany's equivalent of the CDC which had begun urging everyone who'd been at Kit Kat on Saturday to seek out immediate medical attention. There had been an outbreak of viral meningitis. Great. Grrreat!

Tony the Tiger didn't have shit on me.

Actually, now that you mention it, I do vaguely remember a man with dinner-plate sized pupils wearing a tiger onesy and shitting into another man's mouth in front of an open bathroom stall. There's our patient zero right there, boys. Fecophilia for the win! I'm kidding, but that probably did happen at this club. It's hard to describe the place: it really needs to be experienced. Inconceivably, there's a sauna and a pool inside. Have I written about this here before? It's been so long I've forgotten. I've only gone twice, but the spunky charm isn't something that can easily be washed away; from one's clothes, skin, eyes, memory. Everyone is naked, or almost naked, wearing latex or fishnets, or nipple tape. On the dancefloor in the basement I saw an old man masturbating while a leather-clad man viciously spanked a girl's ass raw in front of a bunch of giddy onlookers. Around the corner, people were fucking on hospital beds. In the hallway a black girl with curly hair and a flat stomach was fingering herself on a couch. The level of unfettered hedonistic bohemian depravity cannot be adequately conveyed, even by a filthy reprobate like me.

But Berlin clubs aren't what I want to write about here. If you want to see those, come visit me. We'll stay out til sunrise in hazy, smoke-filled clubs dancing to blaring minimalist techno til your toes bleed. What I want to talk about is human connection and closeness. Sharing spaces. Creating spaces to share. Being in time with another person. Those around us are infinitely special. It should be our duty, not just as people, but as bringers of the tide, to discover what that special quality in another is, and celebrate it. Rain love down upon them in a warm sparkling fucking jamboree, you know, like in the bathrooms at Kit Kat.

I finally got my ass back in the gym this morning. Already my muscles are sore and sleepy. It's 8:30 but it feels like my balls are turning into pumpkins. I realize there isn't a need for such vulgarity and talk of testicles, but I also realize there isn't a need to write anything at all. So I'm going to purge this pent-up scatological energy like a morbidly obese impacted woman spraying tsunami torrents of shit from her blackened spasmodic anus. Ah, yeah, there's a segue for us. Gather round children, gather round. Let me treat you to a tragic tale of woe from a few weeks ago. I forgot that I had started to write something for you all:

I’m writing this from where I sit on a cold toilet, perched on the rim like a stone gargoyle.

--Currently, shit is spraying in long fountains from my asshole--

About fifteen minutes ago I drank a bottle of medicinal-strength diuretic to prepare my digestive tract for some raunchy double-penetration. It tasted cloying, like saltwater and cough syrup.

-- Piss is pouring madly out of my ass right now--

There’s no reason to even wipe it. To do so would be futile, like trying to mop at a monsoon. Tears are streaming warmly from my brown eye, down my cheeks, over the backside of my balls. Luckily the unopened package of baby wipes on the sink will allow me to deal with this as frictionlessly as possible. Terrible bouts of intestinal turbulence torment my insides. The smell is wretchedly cheesy. How have I wandered so wayward, dear reader? What sordid circumstances led me here, a hostage on the porcelain throne? Well, I’ll tell you how I’ve come to find myself at the mercy of modern medicine’s ass-obliterating alchemy. Such a diabolical arsenal of liquid laxatives are a warm gun fit to be aimed only at the head of a dolt like me. It all started in mid July, just outside of Dublin:

I was to travel to Ireland for a friend’s wedding.

--I’m shitting with enough force that I think it just ricocheted off the bowl and back onto my ass--

In the weeks before I’d arrived, Ireland had been hit by record warming. When we rode out of Dublin I could see the historically green-haired hills dyed blonde in uneven patches. My friend James said a lack of rainfall threatened crops all across the countryside. Irish lads everywhere were scattering to nearby bars where the SPF of pub roofs were said to be a whopping 1000 (thanks for the numbers, Seamus). The landscape was reminiscent of northern California, in the rolling golden hills of Sonoma.

We got to the wedding and sat in sweaty suits under the blaring midday sun. It was small, a couple dozen people at most, mainly from France and Ireland but with a few San Franciscan exceptions.

--Imagine if I were a chocolate cow being milked; imagine the sound of it hitting the metal bucket--

The night before the wedding we took a cab ride to the castle grounds where the ceremony and party were to take place. Some of the guests had already arrived, mostly family members of the bride, Sara. It was clear by the empty bottles of wine and the Irish air of inebriation that the pre-party had officially begun, probably hours ago. A fresh bottle of wine was opened for us. T, James and I began drinking. We continued to do so until several more bottles had been sacrificed on the altar of coming matrimony.

--Okay, the shitstorm has been reduced to a mere drizzle--

So on this beautifully sunny wedding day, we eagerly awaited the opening of champagne bottles, or, at least I did. From where I sat I could see the ingredients for fishbowl-sized glasses of Negronis waiting to be assembled. At some point, and I must have been distracted by the shining bottles of booze because I didn’t notice this, but a donkey had made its way into the wedding party. With a glistening mane and a goofy, absentminded kind of self-importance, it paraded around and stole the gaze of children and parents alike as the onlookers looked on confused. Later we’d come to learn that this was part of a joke the bride wanted to play on the groom, or vice versa.

After the vows were exchanged I proceeded to drink countless cocktails, numerous beers, untold quantities of wine, and more swigs of Buckfast than I care to admit before smoking some pot. After that, I remember the angry face of a man whose girlfriend kept chatting to me and giggling at things I don’t remember saying. I remember dancing in a kitchen and playing giant Jenga while antagonizing my opponents with a Godzilla-like frenzy. The next morning there were pictures of Polaroids on my phone of me posing with people I don’t know.

--Okay, I’m leaving the bathroom now--

In the morning a hangover greeted me as a retaliation to my revelry; balance. Some hair of the dog helped, but set me on a dangerous path of risking repeating yesterday’s and yesterday’s mistakes. In the hotel room a live version of Velvet Underground’s “Waiting For My Man” played,

Feel sick and dirty, more dead than alive

We sped back down to Dublin to meet our friends Seamus and Krista. But first we had to check in at our hotel. Dragging our luggage from the car to the room was a miserable ordeal that I would have paid someone handsomely to have avoided. The weight of T’s bag, which was surely 300lbs, and full of bowling balls - or the limbs of stolen sculptures from the latter period of the Renaissance - broke me. Carrying them up the stairs gave me multiple hernias which roamed openly around my lower abdomen like cats chasing each other under a blanket. Once we made it to the room I collapsed into the bed and begged Jesus to end my suffering. Rocking back and forth in fetal position, chanting please, please Jesus, I shook my hernias like holy maracas while I waited for James to park the car. T laughed at me and took pictures. After James arrived we decided to go somewhere close by to get food. Because the final game of the World Cup was on, most of the bars were crowded and obnoxiously noisy. This landed us at capitalism’s safe haven, The Hard Rock Cafe. I struggled to drink the frosty glass of Guinness that sat in front of me while I ate my macaroni and cheese and tried not to vomit. My stomach was badly bloated at this point but I soldiered on. By the time I finished eating I had a pain in my chest.

From the looks of it, I appeared to be in my third trimester. The fingers on my left hand had grown partially numb and they tingled with an irritating pins-and-needles premonition. Of course when large quantities of alcohol are involved one cannot help but wonder if maybe this time is the last time; if this is the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.

We finished eating and then walked to a nearby bar to watch the game and wait for Seamus and Krista. My condition worsened rapidly and it became increasingly clear that some type of cardiac catastrophe was galloping my way. I was sure of it. My nerves were shot. My liver was leather. My mind was a stinking swamp. My kidneys had shriveled and dried out, become raisins. My heart must have also suffered an equally toxic transformation. Palpitations. Skipped beats. This wasn’t a remix, it was an attack. A stroke, not of genius, but of the heart. I couldn’t shake it. I couldn’t take it. Almost, almost as I sat there at the table in front of T and James watching Croatia lose to Spain, I almost had a panic attack were it not for the sudden arrival of Krista and Seamus.

After a few minutes it became clear they were only in marginally better shape than I was. They’d been partying at a festival for days, carousing with Irish poets and getting far too little sleep inside a far too little tent. So gently at first, and then fiercely, we commiserated on the relentless nature of our self abuse, questioning our illogical behavior while pounding a few more pints of Guinness before we relocated to a nearby bar. It was here that Seamus pulled me aside and revealed his secret. He looked me in the eyes, put his hand on my shoulder and pulled it in real close.

He said, "O, it was awful. I didn't think I was going to make it out. I was curled up in the hotel room with the fear of God in me. Just terror, pure terror."

"I know, Seamy," I said, "I know exactly how you feel. It was real bad. I thought I was dying right before you guys arrived. James and T were gonna have to watch me go into cardiac arrest and throw me in the back of an ambulance."

I looked at him knowingly and slowly lifted up my shirt. I held out one of my misshapen hernia lumps to him, placed it in one hand, and then the other. With a relieved smile, he did the same. While I don't remember much of what happened after this, I do remember drinking more. At one point my stomach was so full of Guinness it looked like the Hindenburg. I remember one of us literally eating ice cream off the sidewalk. I remember someone almost slipping on a puddle of vomit. But I don't think that was near the ice cream. We were all staying in the same hotel, and since we had to catch a flight back to Berlin in the morning, we decided to do the responsible thing and call it a night. In the morning after we said our goodbyes James dropped T and I off at the airport.

We spent the next week in Berlin drinking morning, noon, and night, with no breaks in between. Well, there were little breaks, ones where we'd go see the Berlin Wall or the Victory Column, Brandenburg Gate and other touristy things, but what you have to know about Berlin is that you can drink in the streets. So every time we were walking, we were drinking. By the end of the trip, after we'd been drinking already for countless hours, I realized I wasn't even drunk. Didn't even have a buzz. I won't tell you what I had to do to get one.

Who am I kidding, yes I will! We had to drink three carafes of wine and three shots. Each. This is when I knew we had achieved something truly monstrous. To attack one's liver with such perverse persistence is not normal.

Wait.

I know I'm in the middle of a story about an impending colonoscopy, but I just realized it's Oktober and I haven't gone to an Oktoberfest party! I was invited to one on Saturday, but I smoked pot and saw a movie with a friend instead. After, having successfully smuggled half a bottle of wine each into our bellies during the film, we sat drinking on the dirty subway floor while listening to Velvet Underground on my phone while we waited for another friend to arrive and take us to a party where we'd continue to drink and dance til well into Sunday. What I mean to say is that my time for a proper Oktoberfest stein-guzzler is running out. There's a German myth, a children's fairy tale I believe, about what happens if one misses Oktoberfest. Legend has it that should you forfeit your patriotic duty to swill liter after liter of authentic German beer until you pass out in a gutter wearing a pair of Lederhosen that you've pissed in, you must suffer the fearsome blitzkrieg of cOcktoberfest. I don't think I need to explain much about what that involves. I'll try to attend a party tomorrow to prevent this.

Pray for me friends, pray for me.

(I'll write more tomorrow...or the day after...or the day after that)