Dear Maria am Ostbahnhof

You suck. Every time I go to see a show, the cover is too much (12 euros is the least I've ever paid) and never announced beforehand. Your bartenders are rude and mix crappy overpriced drinks. Your second room is always lame, with the same lame DJs spinning the same lame industrial goth music regardless of the lineup in the main room. I could put up with all that if I could only get to enjoy the musicians I go to see. But no. Your sound system is badly arranged. You let too many people in most nights and so the main room gets crowded to all hell and no one can dance or see anything. You either have the headliner go on at 11 p.m. or 6 a.m. (whichever time you think will be more inconvenient). As a result, I paid my 12 euros last night to see Doppler Effekt and only got to see 5 minutes of them because you put them before every other musician in the line up, a time when most people haven't even left their houses to go out. What gives? I'm done with you. Go to hell.

The Auslanderbehorde Disapproves of My Nationality...

But will give me a work permit anyway! That's right, I got my arbeitslaubnis (work permit) today so I can begin work just as soon as my boss contacts me and says she has a class for me. Yay! It was a pretty tame day at the auslanderbehorde (foreign resident's office)- a line around the block an hour and a half before the doors were even open and then, once the golden hour finally arrived, everyone rushed the door cutting in front of people ruthlessly to get to the head of the line. Guh. Something odd: there was a notice on the pole in front of the building that said that persons of certain nationalities would not be serviced today as there was a strike coinciding with 9/11. These nationalities included: Arabic, American, Afghanistan, Iraqi, Iranian, and Israeli among others. The notice said something about terrorism but was hard for me to translate as it was written in very formal Deutsch with lots of long, conjoined words. Luckily, the strike did not apply to me as I already had an appointment. Still, I think that is pretty lame. Many Americans do not approve of this war, and many of the other nationalities they listed probably don't either. I mean, why do you think we left our own country?

Fury in the Slaughterhouse: Lightning Fields: A Pirate Bar

We've been busy the past couple days because my good friend Avri and his friend Cliff came to stay with us on Thursday. The main goal of their trip (in addition to seeing me/Berlin) was to go to a concert for a band that Cliff has been a huge fan of for many many years called Fury in the Slaughterhouse. The concert was on Friday and we rented a car and drove for hours in traffic and rain (or I should say Carlos drove for hours in traffic and rain) to Hannover. The concert itself was maybe not my biggest cup of tea. But I think Cliff at least had a good time as the band dedicated a song to him for coming all the way from America (and the drummer's wife later called him insane). Carlos and I had a pretty miserable time as we did not have backstage passes and spent much of the time after the concert dodging drunken Hannoverins and trying to figure out where the car was in the rain. We didn't get back until 5 and fell asleep upon arrival. After returning the car the next day, we realized we had paid over 200 euros for the whole experience, which is about 75 dollars each. This morning on the table there was a note written to Carlos from Avri stating his gratitude and suggesting that we had all gotten into more than we had bargained for.

On Saturday, Los and I went to the Sugimoto exhibit at the Neu National Gallery. Sugimoto was at the De Young Museum last year so a lot of the works on display we had already seen. But his newest segment, Lightning Fields, is simply amazing. Negatives of photos of lightning bolts were hung in front of a lit screen (much in the same way x-rays are observed by doctors). The result is that you can see all the "fibers" of the bolts, and the intricate root-like patterns mirrored in other bolts. It was pretty amazing. We took home a poster of his picture of the diorama at Madame Tussards of Henry the 8th. Sugimoto's website is here in case you want to take a look: http://www.sugimotohiroshi.com/ We also saw a temporary exhibit on Rupprecht Geiger who is now 100 years old and experimenting with bright neon colors that are almost too much for human perception. Take that young people.

Sunday we tried to find fun stuff in Berlin amuse our visitors with, but as it was raining not much could be found. We mostly ended up wandering trying to find the Jewish Museum but never did. We stopped at Yaam (a reggae club that was supposed to be having a festival) which was nearly vacant and infested with bees. Los went home. The rest of us went to a pirate bar and had drinks while waiting for a band featuring a violin, guitar, drumset, accordian, and a unicycle (or so we thought) to set up. While waiting, one of Berlin's colorful locals with a bit too much alcohol in 'em came over and started talking to us about the Police. He started off by singing "Sending out an SOS" (which was the song currently on the itunes shuffle lazily abandoned by the bartender). Then he crouched down in front of the table so he was eye level with us and told us how he had seen Sting play at the Ziegman Sea (?) in Overalls(!) And do you know what he was singing?" he asked us incredulously. "No, what?" "He was singing..." his voice escalated rapidly to the point where he was screaming, "about the RHINE!" The small, disinterested waitress came over and with a wristful series of hand gestures told the gentleman to leave. We decided at this point to leave and went to Burgermeister (a sub-metro hamburger joint where railings with padding = seats) for dinner where we overheard a festival band doing covers of "Jump, Jump" "Just Like A Pill" and other songs featured in "NOW" CDs. We went back to the Pirate Bar to see if the unicycle band was up an running. It was, but only in the usual way bar bands are. We left. Went home. Fell asleep.

Liquidrom

I'm going here tomorrow because I neeeed it, damnit.

My 4th of July

-Fireworks: none (naturally)
-Drinks consumed: 1 glass rose, 0,5 liters Hefeweisen
-Strangers hitting on my friend Sandra who insisted on sitting at our table and holding long awkward conversations with her: 05
-Languages spoken (by me): 04 (by others): 06
-Insults (re: Bush and / or the USA): 11
-Insults (re: my appearance / my gemischt gypsy heritage): 03
-Returned Home: EARLY - approx. 12:30
-Rain: constant, but unenthusiastic.