Back to Abnormal
I'm back.
I don't know if there's an actual "normalcy" that I can claim to return to, since about a year and a half ago. At least at this point, things have stopped being so crunchy that I couldn't bring myself to write, let alone eat or sleep.
If my first round in Berlin was characterised by not enough housing, this second round has seen too much of it. In September, I went back to New York for a month, sublet my apartment, and returned to Berlin, only to have my coop board's management company inform me from afar that my subletters could not move in.
Never mind that I had discussed my subletters with the management company before leaving. Somehow, this didn't ring a bell with anyone there until I was back in Germany and the subletters were hauling their furniture up to the apartment, awakening the management company like a grumpy dragon in a nineteenth-century opera.
There were fees to pay. There were credit checks. There were long applications that made German bureaucracy look lightweight. Incredibly, my subletters agreed to undergo this journey through red tape -- as long as I paid all their fees. Figuring doing so would be cheaper than paying six months' rent, I coughed up the money and sent it to the management company. After eight days of no communication, the subletters informed me they'd changed their mind. They were outta there. Oh, and could I pay for their U-Haul along with their full refund? Otherwise, they'd have to make this a legal matter.
Damn shame I'd sent all my things at great expense and asspain to Berlin, eh? I couldn't believe it was over; I'd have to go home, ask for my old job back. So much for the experiment. Maybe it hadn't been time to move to Europe yet. Silly idea... who the hell did I think I was... etc.
Seemed pretty much "worst case scenario" until I realised (1) there were in fact worse cases, and this wasn't quite it yet; (2) getting someone else to sublet was going to be difficult, but not impossible; and (3) I have amazing friends and family. I owe you guys, big-time.
At the time of writing, nothing's absolutely finalised yet, but it's on the way, and thank Buddha for all y'all. I've seen no better personal illustration of how we're all connected. Sure, not crawling home says something about me, but it also speaks to the power of communication and the support that I have in others. Profound gratitude goes out to each of you who gave a damn in this messy world, rife with potential for both disaster and redemption.
OK, Let's Backtrack a Bit: Late August/Early September
Experiencing New York as a visitor was weird because it was so familiar. My first night: $50 cab ride home, humid weather, crickets chittering in Prospect Park. (Jenner was right -- in Berlin you don't hear crickets.) Next morning, stepped outside, knew where everything was, spoke without having to think, didn't have to perform the little mental flip converting Euros to dollars. And p.s., the dollar stank against the Euro this summer, but by and large I ate cheaper in Berlin. Not that you can't find expensive in Berlin. But I didn't see a whole lot of cheap in New York. Not much had changed. $11 for a burger on Fifth Avenue in Brooklyn?
I was almost afraid to like sleeping in my own bed again, snuggling with my cat, touring my old stomping grounds, because I knew I was going back to Germany at the end of the month. What if I missed New York too much?
The life I'd built there still towered around me, except the job I'd cheerfully blown off. I hung out at an old firehouse downtown with a bunch of students cheering Obama's nomination acceptance speech. I rode my touring bike everywhere, a nice adjustment after the ridiculous Klunkenbike I'd bought for 70€ in Berlin. I got a new camera to replace the one stolen. I cleaned my apartment, made storage arrangements, and sent things back to Germany, stressing all the while, blowing steam off whenever I could afford to.
I danced at an East Village club playing The Electronic Music, and immediately ran into Germans and confused them in my role as "new resident of Berlin visiting the city I used to live in." One thing we all agreed on was that the music was good, but there was no place to dance -- but that worked out fine, as New Yorkers are too cool to dance most of the time. Have to admit, that night I felt pretty damn Ich Bin Berliner. Ever since America's Cranky Fascist Mayor squatted on New York's nightlife and let 'er rip, it's pretty hard to compare it to Berlin's weekly three-day parties. The Man still doesn't really run Berlin, despite what happened to the Ministerium für Entspannung (coming up).
So, the Man was easy to bid farewell. My friends were not. I visited as many as I could, stored all your love, conversations, and embraces deep within for this journey, as contact of this quality will be scarce for a while. I made multiple pilgrimages to CoSM, forged new connections there, strengthened old ones, talked with Alex and Allyson Grey. Drank long and deeply of that kinship. There aren't many places you can walk into, skip the small talk, and get right into discussing vision, art, and the Universal Mind Lattice without getting the hairy eyeball. My new friend Ren summed CoSM up best: "Alex conceived it as a community for artists, the antidote to the personal darkness you must work in to create art."
As I said on my last evening there, I carry you all with me forever -- and I'll be back with some books and music I've been creating.
But First, A Bunch of Volks in Dirndls and Lederhosen
AirBerlin brought me back to Germany in the nondescript hours sometime between wee and morning -- not to Berlin, but Munich, for rehearsals. I'd gotten better about packing, probably because I'd left most of the elephants in Berlin last time, yet somehow all the bags had doubled in weight during the flight. Likely due to the jet-laggy expansion of the day to 1.5 times its normal length, and my inability to sleep on planes.
When not otherwise engaged in resurrecting 1200-year-old music, rikochan9 and I frittered away hours on the Wies'n, the epicenter of Oktoberfest, replete with tents, rollercoasters (which rikochan9 staunchly avoided), and of course, liquid German gold and its inevitable consequences: drunken partygoers, uh, going wherever the going was good, usually on trees at the edge of the Wies'n.
We actually got into one of the tents, a nearly impossible feat if you haven't made reservations a year ago. Upon hearing we'd breached the Löwenbräu tent, a German friend of ours commented, "Oh, the English-speaking tent." Indeed. Full of Australians, New Zealanders, the occasional Briton, and us. Decked out in party hats, medieval Miracle Bras, blow-up sheep (it was the English-speaking tent), and leather Dr. Dentons, the assembly succeeded in both amusing and alarming the less drunken participants, passing out as they danced tabletop, brass band blaring traditional German drinking songs from Michael Jackson's Thriller. Three broken beer steins into the show (wuppsi!), we felt fortunate to leave before the inevitable fistfight.
Homecoming in Berlin
The following Tuesday, I took the train back. Got all my stuff home on the S- and U-Bahn, then up five flights of stairs. Chivalry is not dead, but a couple gallant Berlin volunteers might well have been after that night. Hernias at least. Once home, warm welcome from my flatmates, Jenner and Julius, two tall, stunning blonde Californian females. The neighbours' kids were playing pirates and ghosts next door. I jumped around with them, had pizza at their place, then Jenner and I hung out watching silly crap on the internet til bedtime (otherwise known as "morning").
Julius sleeps in a big black case in the living room, which I guess would qualify as Goth if she weren't a 16' albino python.
I sleep on a smaller black snake case too, and I don't know what that qualifies me for except "free bed." No harder than the floor, and doesn't look quite as Early Collegiate Flophouse as the ol' mattress-on-floor model. On top of my snake case is a 10€ futon I bought off the room's last inhabitant, some bedding Jenner let me borrow, and the ThermaRest air mattress that cushioned my bones camping this summer. Works great even inside!
I do have one piece of furniture superior to any I own back in New York, and that's my two-tier glass desk, 45€ on a local used-furniture forum. Getting that thing from Mitte (City Centre) and upstairs was a lesson in gravity. "Weak force," indeed. Some things are not meant to be moved by man alone -- it has to be at least two men. Several chips of glass, a lot of swearing, an unenthusiastic taxi driver, and one kind, strong, Eastern European neighbour lady later, there was desk: all my electronic and studio equipment is racked stylishly near the slanted windows of my room.
The rest of my stuff is still racked stylishly in my suitcase and several cardboard boxes. Personal unnecessary-spending freeze, don'tcha know.
Berlin Cycles
Bikes don't fall under the freeze. For one, a monthly public-transit pass is 72€. Berlin may be on the poor side of the German economy, but they had to redo the U-Bahn and S-Bahn after the Wall came down.
Also, after my month in New York riding a bike with more than three gears, I'd decided that while I wasn't up to getting one of my NYC bikes to Berlin, I was going to buy a decent one. If I had to spend more than three digits' worth of Euros on it, I'd bite the bullet. Better than biting the dust. Or even my lip, whilst screeching to a precarious halt on 70€ worth of coaster brakes.
I got lucky. In a single 12-hour period, I (1) found a decent mountain bike on craigslist for 60€, (2) bought it and rode to a poetry slam on Stargarder Straße where some guy on the way out gave me his 12€ ticket, and (3) lost my cellphone.
What?
Oh yeah, and (4), retracing my path, found it again on the street three hours later.
Next day, rode to an event I found cancelled on arrival, and decided to go exploring instead of back home to mope. Discovered some strange little bars and revival cinemas in Mitte tucked away in back courtyards and dusty nooks, as well as placards announcing a demonstration against government surveillance, to be held the following Saturday.
Berlin Recycles
Rode to the demonstration, too. We all made it pretty clear that surveillance sucks, while shooting pics and videos of each other.
Found a flyer announcing six afterparties. Showed up at two: first, RAW-Tempel in Friedrichshain. I wandered past a locked building like a high school, then a water tower that people in harnesses were climbing... a café decorated with papier-mâché palm trees... cement courtyard with a techno DJ serenading ten empty umbrella tables in the chilly darkness... a single wall standing vigil, every window smashed; a freight entrance where a rock band was setting up; sandboxes filled with cigarette butts and a tiny red plastic shovel; train tracks ending abruptly in crabgrass.
This is what Berlin does with its abandoned bombed-out train stations: installs pitons and jungle décor, then sells beer and CDs out of empty windowframes to confused British tourists. As in the days of responsible native hunters, nothing goes wasted. Every part of the prewar and East German legacy is used, even the epaulets and big dusty red stars, if not already harvested by the hip-ass café down Revaler Strasse.
And then there is C-Base, which I visited after RAW-Tempel.
A few million years ago, so it is told, an alien space station fell from orbit and crashed near the Jannowitzbrücke (that's a bridge, folks). Ten years ago diverse laptop-wielders and other circuitheads discovered it and now use it as a clubhouse, called C-Base.
Come to think of it, when I was a kid I discovered the same sort of thing in my mother's basement in Evanston, Illinois. Except my aliens had more than a passing resemblance to Batman, and only magic marker and cardboard for building materials.
Apparently, aliens are lousy pilots. But their space stations make pretty awesome clubhouses.
The Man Does Not Run Berlin
Mostly.
The Man may be storing your data and videotaping you sitting on the toilet, but he hasn't got C-Base yet. To put it in perspective, the ancient alien glory of C-Base's backyard is situated right on the Spree. This would never happen in New York. Waterfront property? Not for aliens or grubby kids who've spent their wardrobe budget on PowerBooks. Enterprising native Terran developers in New York scap up that kind of juicy real estate meat without opposition. Whereas last summer, some Berlin developers tried to bag a large portion of the Spree waterfront. The proposal was put to the good citizens of Kreuzberg, the relevant district of Berlin. They voted: no thanks, it would be nice not to have to make six figures to hang out on the shore.
Compare and contrast with what just happened to Coney Island.
However, I said mostly the Man doesn't run Berlin, did I not?
Alas. Even camouflaged with a jaunty authoritarian name, the Ministerium für Entspannung failed to ward off the wardens of society. The Ministry was raided sometime when I was in New York. Police were shocked -- simply shocked -- to discover a few persons of substance in attendance. The matter came before a judge, who was unkind enough to label all the guests as "questionable" (that's Herr and Frau Questionable to you, Your Honourable Mega-Majestickal Lord Highnessness, sir). And thus the Man forced the Ministry to pretend it was under new management before it went right back to doing as it had been.
Which, of course, was simply providing beautifully twisted sounds to beautifully twisted people who seem to love it, quite a lot. Chemicals sold separately.
The Ministry is now an Agency. Society is safe again.
Questions of Survival
But no, of course it isn't all Schkittels und Bier here. Even in Berlin, Schkittels und Bier cost Euros. And the sublet that was supposed to be taking care of the rent back in expensive ol' New York had blown up in my face like something out of a Wile E. Coyote master scheme. I was discovering the sand-in-hourglass nature of the money in my savings account. Like time, it flies when you're having fun. Or even when you're not.
Also, if you're an American on a tourist visa in Germany, and you want to stay longer than three months (legally, anyway), getting a job contract is the bureaucratic equivalent to Willy Wonka's Golden Ticket. Hiring preference goes to Germans first, then EU citizens, then The Rest of Us.
Hark back to the summer, and all my unanswered emails. I'd had two interviews so far in Germany, no dice, as well as a form email from Ableton informing me with brittle Teutonic dispatch that I was "not the ideal candidate for this position."
I wasn't lonely anymore in Berlin -- living with Jenner, great neighbours, and I'd kept my promise to myself over the summer to get out there and meet people -- but anxiety was kicking my ass.
Friends pointed out a call center where I could work as a native English speaker. I began the application process, an insistent little voice within asking was this the dream?
Not exactly, I answered. But neither is running out of money. This is a stopgap measure, okay? Chill out.
Consulting the Great Gazoogle, I found Lotos-Vihara, a Theravada Buddhist temple in Mitte, and went to their beginners' session on meditation. Over the summer, I'd had my first attempts at meditation, and realised the difficulty of keeping racing thoughts from taking over my mind.
Now letting the thoughts go felt like a relief rather than a chore. My thoughts still wound up taking over my mind occasionally, but it was nice to know I didn't have to think about how my life seemed to be falling apart. (Or impose just such a narrative on what was happening, either.) In this moment, I could simply feel myself being alive, taking in breath, releasing it. I could take action to deal with the lengthening chain of infelicities, later.
But now was the moment not to. Different moments, different purposes.
After meditating, we all introduced ourselves. At least half of us were not from Berlin, and looking to establish new lives. I met a woman from France and a few other pleasant newbies. The beginners' class ended, and we went to the main room and listened to some teachings. Interesting to hear familiar Buddhist concepts in German. Oh, so that's how you say 'attachment'!
As the session wrapped up, the French lady sidled up and said, "You said you're looking for a job... do you translate?" And she gave me the name of a translation agency in Charlottenburg.
Hard to describe that moment. If I were a laptop running out of battery power, and someone pointed out an outlet...
Without analogy, overwhelming gratitude and surprise verging on shock: someone I'd known for an hour opened a giant door, just because she heard me mention something.
Note to self: always mention something.
Plugged In
I applied online. They wrote back. Two days later, I took a test, translating from German to English. The two texts turned out to be some excruciatingly detailed legal warnings concerning child seats, and instructions for disassembling and transporting gear by crane.
Two and a half hours later, I handed the work in, hoping I'd gotten the right meaning for Blasmaschine (couldn't be "bubble machine" -- settled on "blower" after poring over various technical-German websites). "We'll let you know the results next Tuesday," they said, which gave my pounding headache enough time to subside.
In the interim, I went to dinner and the movies with some new expat friends. Stormed the Ministerium für Entspannung -- sorry, Tanzagentur Ost -- and danced until my legs went all soggy and the floor tipped under my feet. 7am. Unaided by "questionable" chemical means, I knew unless I left I'd become a couch casualty, which in such a locale is akin to sleeping in a giant ashtray. I rode home. Took in a nice sunrise over the Oberbaumbrücke (yep, another bridge). Slept. Ate. Breathed. Went on a date. Meditated at Lotos-Vihara again. Wrote some music. Wrote some words. Wow, I'd missed it. Being constantly scared shitless of going broke in a foreign country doesn't do wonders for creativity, as it turns out.
The test results came in. I'd passed. No call center for me. Just a freelance contract.
The immigration lawyer I hired for her laxative effect on German bureaucracy assures me I'll have my visa by year's end.
It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Weihnachten
Monday, despite balmy (for North Germany) temperatures, all the golden leaves dropped off the trees, leaving branches bare and streets full. Soon, Christmas markets will be setting up, Glühwein and tipsy song will flow in the streets, and I'll be translating the little manuals that go in the glove compartment of Mercedes-Benzes -- part-time, which will bring in enough money to live nicely, legally even, in Berlin, so I can work on my writing and music.
And maybe by then, too, the Wile E. Coyote Memorial Sublet will have grudgingly packed its Acme Leather Case with Suspicious Protruding Antenna and left the Roadrunner unharmed.
All of which, even with the crane-vocabulary headaches, is how I originally envisioned life might go here.
Meep-meep!
Next:
I don't know if there's an actual "normalcy" that I can claim to return to, since about a year and a half ago. At least at this point, things have stopped being so crunchy that I couldn't bring myself to write, let alone eat or sleep.
If my first round in Berlin was characterised by not enough housing, this second round has seen too much of it. In September, I went back to New York for a month, sublet my apartment, and returned to Berlin, only to have my coop board's management company inform me from afar that my subletters could not move in.
Never mind that I had discussed my subletters with the management company before leaving. Somehow, this didn't ring a bell with anyone there until I was back in Germany and the subletters were hauling their furniture up to the apartment, awakening the management company like a grumpy dragon in a nineteenth-century opera.
There were fees to pay. There were credit checks. There were long applications that made German bureaucracy look lightweight. Incredibly, my subletters agreed to undergo this journey through red tape -- as long as I paid all their fees. Figuring doing so would be cheaper than paying six months' rent, I coughed up the money and sent it to the management company. After eight days of no communication, the subletters informed me they'd changed their mind. They were outta there. Oh, and could I pay for their U-Haul along with their full refund? Otherwise, they'd have to make this a legal matter.
Damn shame I'd sent all my things at great expense and asspain to Berlin, eh? I couldn't believe it was over; I'd have to go home, ask for my old job back. So much for the experiment. Maybe it hadn't been time to move to Europe yet. Silly idea... who the hell did I think I was... etc.
Seemed pretty much "worst case scenario" until I realised (1) there were in fact worse cases, and this wasn't quite it yet; (2) getting someone else to sublet was going to be difficult, but not impossible; and (3) I have amazing friends and family. I owe you guys, big-time.
At the time of writing, nothing's absolutely finalised yet, but it's on the way, and thank Buddha for all y'all. I've seen no better personal illustration of how we're all connected. Sure, not crawling home says something about me, but it also speaks to the power of communication and the support that I have in others. Profound gratitude goes out to each of you who gave a damn in this messy world, rife with potential for both disaster and redemption.
OK, Let's Backtrack a Bit: Late August/Early September
Experiencing New York as a visitor was weird because it was so familiar. My first night: $50 cab ride home, humid weather, crickets chittering in Prospect Park. (Jenner was right -- in Berlin you don't hear crickets.) Next morning, stepped outside, knew where everything was, spoke without having to think, didn't have to perform the little mental flip converting Euros to dollars. And p.s., the dollar stank against the Euro this summer, but by and large I ate cheaper in Berlin. Not that you can't find expensive in Berlin. But I didn't see a whole lot of cheap in New York. Not much had changed. $11 for a burger on Fifth Avenue in Brooklyn?
I was almost afraid to like sleeping in my own bed again, snuggling with my cat, touring my old stomping grounds, because I knew I was going back to Germany at the end of the month. What if I missed New York too much?
The life I'd built there still towered around me, except the job I'd cheerfully blown off. I hung out at an old firehouse downtown with a bunch of students cheering Obama's nomination acceptance speech. I rode my touring bike everywhere, a nice adjustment after the ridiculous Klunkenbike I'd bought for 70€ in Berlin. I got a new camera to replace the one stolen. I cleaned my apartment, made storage arrangements, and sent things back to Germany, stressing all the while, blowing steam off whenever I could afford to.
I danced at an East Village club playing The Electronic Music, and immediately ran into Germans and confused them in my role as "new resident of Berlin visiting the city I used to live in." One thing we all agreed on was that the music was good, but there was no place to dance -- but that worked out fine, as New Yorkers are too cool to dance most of the time. Have to admit, that night I felt pretty damn Ich Bin Berliner. Ever since America's Cranky Fascist Mayor squatted on New York's nightlife and let 'er rip, it's pretty hard to compare it to Berlin's weekly three-day parties. The Man still doesn't really run Berlin, despite what happened to the Ministerium für Entspannung (coming up).
So, the Man was easy to bid farewell. My friends were not. I visited as many as I could, stored all your love, conversations, and embraces deep within for this journey, as contact of this quality will be scarce for a while. I made multiple pilgrimages to CoSM, forged new connections there, strengthened old ones, talked with Alex and Allyson Grey. Drank long and deeply of that kinship. There aren't many places you can walk into, skip the small talk, and get right into discussing vision, art, and the Universal Mind Lattice without getting the hairy eyeball. My new friend Ren summed CoSM up best: "Alex conceived it as a community for artists, the antidote to the personal darkness you must work in to create art."
As I said on my last evening there, I carry you all with me forever -- and I'll be back with some books and music I've been creating.
But First, A Bunch of Volks in Dirndls and Lederhosen
AirBerlin brought me back to Germany in the nondescript hours sometime between wee and morning -- not to Berlin, but Munich, for rehearsals. I'd gotten better about packing, probably because I'd left most of the elephants in Berlin last time, yet somehow all the bags had doubled in weight during the flight. Likely due to the jet-laggy expansion of the day to 1.5 times its normal length, and my inability to sleep on planes.
When not otherwise engaged in resurrecting 1200-year-old music, rikochan9 and I frittered away hours on the Wies'n, the epicenter of Oktoberfest, replete with tents, rollercoasters (which rikochan9 staunchly avoided), and of course, liquid German gold and its inevitable consequences: drunken partygoers, uh, going wherever the going was good, usually on trees at the edge of the Wies'n.
We actually got into one of the tents, a nearly impossible feat if you haven't made reservations a year ago. Upon hearing we'd breached the Löwenbräu tent, a German friend of ours commented, "Oh, the English-speaking tent." Indeed. Full of Australians, New Zealanders, the occasional Briton, and us. Decked out in party hats, medieval Miracle Bras, blow-up sheep (it was the English-speaking tent), and leather Dr. Dentons, the assembly succeeded in both amusing and alarming the less drunken participants, passing out as they danced tabletop, brass band blaring traditional German drinking songs from Michael Jackson's Thriller. Three broken beer steins into the show (wuppsi!), we felt fortunate to leave before the inevitable fistfight.
Homecoming in Berlin
The following Tuesday, I took the train back. Got all my stuff home on the S- and U-Bahn, then up five flights of stairs. Chivalry is not dead, but a couple gallant Berlin volunteers might well have been after that night. Hernias at least. Once home, warm welcome from my flatmates, Jenner and Julius, two tall, stunning blonde Californian females. The neighbours' kids were playing pirates and ghosts next door. I jumped around with them, had pizza at their place, then Jenner and I hung out watching silly crap on the internet til bedtime (otherwise known as "morning").
Julius sleeps in a big black case in the living room, which I guess would qualify as Goth if she weren't a 16' albino python.
I sleep on a smaller black snake case too, and I don't know what that qualifies me for except "free bed." No harder than the floor, and doesn't look quite as Early Collegiate Flophouse as the ol' mattress-on-floor model. On top of my snake case is a 10€ futon I bought off the room's last inhabitant, some bedding Jenner let me borrow, and the ThermaRest air mattress that cushioned my bones camping this summer. Works great even inside!
I do have one piece of furniture superior to any I own back in New York, and that's my two-tier glass desk, 45€ on a local used-furniture forum. Getting that thing from Mitte (City Centre) and upstairs was a lesson in gravity. "Weak force," indeed. Some things are not meant to be moved by man alone -- it has to be at least two men. Several chips of glass, a lot of swearing, an unenthusiastic taxi driver, and one kind, strong, Eastern European neighbour lady later, there was desk: all my electronic and studio equipment is racked stylishly near the slanted windows of my room.
The rest of my stuff is still racked stylishly in my suitcase and several cardboard boxes. Personal unnecessary-spending freeze, don'tcha know.
Berlin Cycles
Bikes don't fall under the freeze. For one, a monthly public-transit pass is 72€. Berlin may be on the poor side of the German economy, but they had to redo the U-Bahn and S-Bahn after the Wall came down.
Also, after my month in New York riding a bike with more than three gears, I'd decided that while I wasn't up to getting one of my NYC bikes to Berlin, I was going to buy a decent one. If I had to spend more than three digits' worth of Euros on it, I'd bite the bullet. Better than biting the dust. Or even my lip, whilst screeching to a precarious halt on 70€ worth of coaster brakes.
I got lucky. In a single 12-hour period, I (1) found a decent mountain bike on craigslist for 60€, (2) bought it and rode to a poetry slam on Stargarder Straße where some guy on the way out gave me his 12€ ticket, and (3) lost my cellphone.
What?
Oh yeah, and (4), retracing my path, found it again on the street three hours later.
Next day, rode to an event I found cancelled on arrival, and decided to go exploring instead of back home to mope. Discovered some strange little bars and revival cinemas in Mitte tucked away in back courtyards and dusty nooks, as well as placards announcing a demonstration against government surveillance, to be held the following Saturday.
Berlin Recycles
Rode to the demonstration, too. We all made it pretty clear that surveillance sucks, while shooting pics and videos of each other.
Found a flyer announcing six afterparties. Showed up at two: first, RAW-Tempel in Friedrichshain. I wandered past a locked building like a high school, then a water tower that people in harnesses were climbing... a café decorated with papier-mâché palm trees... cement courtyard with a techno DJ serenading ten empty umbrella tables in the chilly darkness... a single wall standing vigil, every window smashed; a freight entrance where a rock band was setting up; sandboxes filled with cigarette butts and a tiny red plastic shovel; train tracks ending abruptly in crabgrass.
This is what Berlin does with its abandoned bombed-out train stations: installs pitons and jungle décor, then sells beer and CDs out of empty windowframes to confused British tourists. As in the days of responsible native hunters, nothing goes wasted. Every part of the prewar and East German legacy is used, even the epaulets and big dusty red stars, if not already harvested by the hip-ass café down Revaler Strasse.
And then there is C-Base, which I visited after RAW-Tempel.
A few million years ago, so it is told, an alien space station fell from orbit and crashed near the Jannowitzbrücke (that's a bridge, folks). Ten years ago diverse laptop-wielders and other circuitheads discovered it and now use it as a clubhouse, called C-Base.
Come to think of it, when I was a kid I discovered the same sort of thing in my mother's basement in Evanston, Illinois. Except my aliens had more than a passing resemblance to Batman, and only magic marker and cardboard for building materials.
Apparently, aliens are lousy pilots. But their space stations make pretty awesome clubhouses.
The Man Does Not Run Berlin
Mostly.
The Man may be storing your data and videotaping you sitting on the toilet, but he hasn't got C-Base yet. To put it in perspective, the ancient alien glory of C-Base's backyard is situated right on the Spree. This would never happen in New York. Waterfront property? Not for aliens or grubby kids who've spent their wardrobe budget on PowerBooks. Enterprising native Terran developers in New York scap up that kind of juicy real estate meat without opposition. Whereas last summer, some Berlin developers tried to bag a large portion of the Spree waterfront. The proposal was put to the good citizens of Kreuzberg, the relevant district of Berlin. They voted: no thanks, it would be nice not to have to make six figures to hang out on the shore.
Compare and contrast with what just happened to Coney Island.
However, I said mostly the Man doesn't run Berlin, did I not?
Alas. Even camouflaged with a jaunty authoritarian name, the Ministerium für Entspannung failed to ward off the wardens of society. The Ministry was raided sometime when I was in New York. Police were shocked -- simply shocked -- to discover a few persons of substance in attendance. The matter came before a judge, who was unkind enough to label all the guests as "questionable" (that's Herr and Frau Questionable to you, Your Honourable Mega-Majestickal Lord Highnessness, sir). And thus the Man forced the Ministry to pretend it was under new management before it went right back to doing as it had been.
Which, of course, was simply providing beautifully twisted sounds to beautifully twisted people who seem to love it, quite a lot. Chemicals sold separately.
The Ministry is now an Agency. Society is safe again.
Questions of Survival
But no, of course it isn't all Schkittels und Bier here. Even in Berlin, Schkittels und Bier cost Euros. And the sublet that was supposed to be taking care of the rent back in expensive ol' New York had blown up in my face like something out of a Wile E. Coyote master scheme. I was discovering the sand-in-hourglass nature of the money in my savings account. Like time, it flies when you're having fun. Or even when you're not.
Also, if you're an American on a tourist visa in Germany, and you want to stay longer than three months (legally, anyway), getting a job contract is the bureaucratic equivalent to Willy Wonka's Golden Ticket. Hiring preference goes to Germans first, then EU citizens, then The Rest of Us.
Hark back to the summer, and all my unanswered emails. I'd had two interviews so far in Germany, no dice, as well as a form email from Ableton informing me with brittle Teutonic dispatch that I was "not the ideal candidate for this position."
I wasn't lonely anymore in Berlin -- living with Jenner, great neighbours, and I'd kept my promise to myself over the summer to get out there and meet people -- but anxiety was kicking my ass.
Friends pointed out a call center where I could work as a native English speaker. I began the application process, an insistent little voice within asking was this the dream?
Not exactly, I answered. But neither is running out of money. This is a stopgap measure, okay? Chill out.
Consulting the Great Gazoogle, I found Lotos-Vihara, a Theravada Buddhist temple in Mitte, and went to their beginners' session on meditation. Over the summer, I'd had my first attempts at meditation, and realised the difficulty of keeping racing thoughts from taking over my mind.
Now letting the thoughts go felt like a relief rather than a chore. My thoughts still wound up taking over my mind occasionally, but it was nice to know I didn't have to think about how my life seemed to be falling apart. (Or impose just such a narrative on what was happening, either.) In this moment, I could simply feel myself being alive, taking in breath, releasing it. I could take action to deal with the lengthening chain of infelicities, later.
But now was the moment not to. Different moments, different purposes.
After meditating, we all introduced ourselves. At least half of us were not from Berlin, and looking to establish new lives. I met a woman from France and a few other pleasant newbies. The beginners' class ended, and we went to the main room and listened to some teachings. Interesting to hear familiar Buddhist concepts in German. Oh, so that's how you say 'attachment'!
As the session wrapped up, the French lady sidled up and said, "You said you're looking for a job... do you translate?" And she gave me the name of a translation agency in Charlottenburg.
Hard to describe that moment. If I were a laptop running out of battery power, and someone pointed out an outlet...
Without analogy, overwhelming gratitude and surprise verging on shock: someone I'd known for an hour opened a giant door, just because she heard me mention something.
Note to self: always mention something.
Plugged In
I applied online. They wrote back. Two days later, I took a test, translating from German to English. The two texts turned out to be some excruciatingly detailed legal warnings concerning child seats, and instructions for disassembling and transporting gear by crane.
Two and a half hours later, I handed the work in, hoping I'd gotten the right meaning for Blasmaschine (couldn't be "bubble machine" -- settled on "blower" after poring over various technical-German websites). "We'll let you know the results next Tuesday," they said, which gave my pounding headache enough time to subside.
In the interim, I went to dinner and the movies with some new expat friends. Stormed the Ministerium für Entspannung -- sorry, Tanzagentur Ost -- and danced until my legs went all soggy and the floor tipped under my feet. 7am. Unaided by "questionable" chemical means, I knew unless I left I'd become a couch casualty, which in such a locale is akin to sleeping in a giant ashtray. I rode home. Took in a nice sunrise over the Oberbaumbrücke (yep, another bridge). Slept. Ate. Breathed. Went on a date. Meditated at Lotos-Vihara again. Wrote some music. Wrote some words. Wow, I'd missed it. Being constantly scared shitless of going broke in a foreign country doesn't do wonders for creativity, as it turns out.
The test results came in. I'd passed. No call center for me. Just a freelance contract.
The immigration lawyer I hired for her laxative effect on German bureaucracy assures me I'll have my visa by year's end.
It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Weihnachten
Monday, despite balmy (for North Germany) temperatures, all the golden leaves dropped off the trees, leaving branches bare and streets full. Soon, Christmas markets will be setting up, Glühwein and tipsy song will flow in the streets, and I'll be translating the little manuals that go in the glove compartment of Mercedes-Benzes -- part-time, which will bring in enough money to live nicely, legally even, in Berlin, so I can work on my writing and music.
And maybe by then, too, the Wile E. Coyote Memorial Sublet will have grudgingly packed its Acme Leather Case with Suspicious Protruding Antenna and left the Roadrunner unharmed.
All of which, even with the crane-vocabulary headaches, is how I originally envisioned life might go here.
Meep-meep!
Next:
- The Man Does Not Run Berlin (Part Two, or Three, or Whatever We're Up To Now)
- A Visit to a Secret Fulcrum of History
- Dates I've Had, or Vice Versa
- Legal Aliens from Planet Wasauchimmermann
- Some Musings on Street Art, Peaceful Anarchy, and "The People."