Choose Your Haircut: Skinhead or Hitlerjugend

Bitch Week at Dunkin' Berliner continues with today's installment: "Waaaah!  I'm in the Hitlerjugend!"

I believe you can only get two haircuts in Berlin:  The Skinhead and The Hitlerjugend.  I know this because no matter how many times I have gone in to any hair salon in Berlin and no matter how much German I’ve tried to learn or how much English the stylist spoke—these are the only options.

I want the cut faded up the sides and back and neatly short—but not jarhead—on top.  I couldn’t explain it to them no matter how hard I tried.  Even when the stylist spoke perfect English, her clippers would slam to a halt at my occipital ridge at the back of my skull.  The scissors were picked up and a hard line between neck and crown formed. The result was the infamous look of the 1930s Hitlerjugend.  If I deigned to complain about this, they would abruptly slam the scissors on the table, pick up the previously-discarded shears and proceed to buzz cut me into skinhead land.

After a while I grew tired of this.  Colored people and foreigners were suddenly crossing the street or diving into the suicidal Berlin bike lanes.  I thought it was because I am large and scary, but my friends laugh at the thought of me scaring anyone.  I started wearing caps and hats until the hair grew back.  Eventually I bit the bullet and bought a buzz cut machine of my own at Rossmann.

The guide marks on the clippers I bought show 10 marks.  But you already know there are only two (even if you didn’t read ahead).  The ‘medium’ marks don’t cut anything and neither does any mark above the medium level.  I tried to shear the back of my own head in the mirror and the only setting that worked was the skinhead setting.   This means that if you continue over your entire skull, you will be branded a skinhead, be invited to shop at Thor Steinar and have Nazi cops buying you donuts (well, this could be a benefit for a Dunkin’ Berliner I suppose).  My clippers slammed into the occipital ridge again.  I didn’t want to go further out of fear of total skinheaditude.  So I stopped.  The familiar ridge formed on the back and sides of my skull. Jahwohl, you guessed it:  I looked like something between a Hitlerjugend and the Pope.  My friends commented on it.  I gave excuses and blamed the Skinhead-o-Cut 2000 machine I used.

Today I went back to the same hair salon I had been before.  I decided to give them another chance.  There was a different woman there:  60 years old, piles of poodle hair, jowls and a look on her face like she was shitfaced drunk.  Or DDR communist.  Or both.  I sat down in the chair.  I had spent an hour on the internet locating and printing a picture of the cut I wanted.  She laughed and told me to put it down.  She had everything under control.  The clippers slammed into my occipital ridge so hard I think chunks of dandruff and skin must have flown out.  I let her continue.  She buzzed the edges of my ears and hit my head several times with the scissors as I held my eyes shut.

I can’t show you a picture of me in this blog.  I am not quite Hitlerjugend, not quite skinhead, but worse:  some kind of mutated mole who was in a fight with a hedge clipper.  I will be wearing my hat again so the nice colored people and foreigners won’t have to dive into the treacherous Berlin bike lanes as I walk down the street.

Used to Be's Don't Count Anymore...

...they just lie on the floor til we sweep them away.

- Neil Diamond

God dammit, culinary consistency would be nice.  I don’t mean in the giant-chain-Mickey D’s-same-damn-garbage-from-Muskogee-to-Moscow sort of consistency.  I would just like to have the same decent food from the same restaurant more than 3 times.  In a row.  That’s what makes me an American, I suppose.  I like to bitch when something just ain’t right.  I never could understand when one of my Limey cousins, after consuming a four course curry meal, could smile and say, ‘That was a bit crap.’  To me, not the staff.  Bit of the old stiff upper lip, I suppose.  Mustn’t grumble.

Bollox. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, and I intend to do my fair share of squeaking, yessiree.  If you don’t bitch and complain, you wind up shoveling the same shit into your face for all of eternity. And that there is the real bitch.

We can’t expect much from the fast food circuit.  A different relative every other day can’t learn the menu, yada yada yada. I used to think it was kind of okay when my kebab was slightly different each time.  But that there is a slippery slope, my friends.  The next thing you know, you’ve gone from a sandwich with nicely-roasted meat, fresh sauce and vegetables wrapped in a crispy bread crust—to a soggy mush of flavorless, watery sauce, boiled meat and dry bread.  The kind that falls apart all over your nice bowling shirt.  Fuckers.  I’ve killed for less.  In one of the wars.  I can’t remember which.

Don’t go to Babel on Kastanienallee.  They used to be The Shizzle; now they’re not.

Don’t go to Dolores (American style burritos) on Rosa-Lux.  Same story.  I was a regular for my first year in Berlin.  I would tell the manager each and every time I visited that I was more than happy with everything, and not to change a thing.

Fuckers changed a thing.  Or two.  One of them was the product.  It used to be good.  It used to be fanfuckingtastic. I used to cross town to pick up a couple of giant burritos stuffed with the works and bring them home or sit by the fountain at Alex and watch people plummet from the tall building behind the Burger King.  Suddenly the Perfect Burrito became the perfect door stop.  The quality of the ingredients went down; they started putting stupid shit inside, like fajita vegetables instead of the usual perfecto mix.  Then they reduced the size of the thing by nearly half.  For the same price (around 7 EUR for the deluxe burrito).  It’s like Woody Allen said, “The food here is so bad.  And in such small portions.”  I gave them the benefit of the doubt three times.  I brought people there and I was embarrassed by how bad the food was.  These people probably think I’m some kind of fucking earthworm which sucks up any and all dirt into my gullet.  My Berlin gourmet card has been revoked and I’ll never be invited to the gala regatta yacht race and wear a crested smoking jacket with matching Captain’s cap.  Fuck.

Yesterday the schwarma at Babel was so bad that I had to throw it in the garbage can uneaten.  I had just had more than my fill of beer at Prater, so any port in storm would normally do a hungry drunk.  But the shit they served yesterday was suitable only for the bin rats.  On the way home we stopped by our old favorite, the tried and true, trusty standby kebab joint called Tayfun’s Bistro.  I’m rarely disappointed there.  I always get a reasonably good sandwich for a reasonably good price.  Last night I saw a new face behind the counter, one I’d never seen before.  I almost ordered only a bottled beer.  Out of fear.

The Yellow Cigarette Man

You’ve seen them standing around, listless, shiftless, feckless.  To me, the lone Asians standing against the walls on every other block in Friedrichshain (and later in Prenzlauer Berg) stuck out like sore thumbs the first few times I saw them.  I was thinking to myself ‘now what the fuck is THAT guy doing standing there against that wall every time I walk by—without a grocery store behind him or a cigarette in his mouth to keep him occupied?’

Then I saw The Exchange: a middle-aged mullet sauntered up, looked the Asian up and down.  The Asian shot glances up and down the street (DRUG DEAL! I thought) and proceeded to produce a small yellow packet of cigarettes.  Money slid from palm to palm and the yellow cigarettes slid into the pocket of the mullet.   I don’t know the significance of the yellow packets of cigarettes (Asian brand?), but I quickly figured out that What Was Going Down was the sale of cut rate, no tax, non-German-government-sanctioned ciggies.  What we in the States refer to as ‘bootlegging.’

The Yellow Cigarette Man disappears whenever a cop car rolls past.  I’ve seen the guy standing there one minute—then vanish.  I’m going to assume he’s clinging to the bottom of the mini van parked to the left.  We had the same Yellow Cigarette Man on our green, leafy, breeder-ridden, P’Berg street for months.  He was around 60 years old, with the kind of weathered face seen only on Himalayan Sherpas.  He was there 6 days a week (heh. NOTHING runs on Sundays in Germany.), 12 months a year.  When the weather turned to ice the Yellow Cigarette Man was still standing there alone, with only his parka-ensconced face and the warm glow of Capitalism to keep him alive.

Then one day the Yellow Cigarette Man was gone.  I had gotten used to seeing him on my daily dog walks and/or shopping hauls.  I checked under the mini vans on the street:  nothing.  I was starting to worry that the mullets wouldn’t be sucking cheap fags on street corners in Berlin any longer.  Or that the Actual Man had applied his merciless Jack Boot to the ass of our friendly neighborhood alternative business executive.

Then the Yellow Cigarette Woman appeared one fine spring day.  Just as the first leaves of spring sprung from the buds on the old P’Berg tree branches and the newest babes of welfare pushed their way out of the white trash wombs, she appeared.  ‘HALLO!’ she said, smiling at each passerby.  A young, 20-something Asian girl had replaced the leather-faced Sherpa to which I had grown accustomed.  Maybe the Old Yellow Cigarette Man wasn’t fast enough to evade the ever-prowling Police Eye, or maybe he could no longer cling to the bottom of neighborhood mini van.

Now there is a regularly changing cast of Cigarette People on our street.  They no longer sell the yellow packets of cigarettes—my last stolen glance spied a different colored packet.  There is only ever one cig peddler at a time, either a young woman or a young man, both Asian.  I’ve never been there when there was a changing of the guard.  One day there is the young HALLO! woman, the next day a young man.  I’ve watched them pull entire cartons of cigarettes out of the most unlikely of places—from under moped rain covers, and even those long, narrow sidewalk street gratings you see near building walls.  Hell, once I even saw one of them prize a carton off the bottom of the mini van parked on the street.

The Last Bukowski Book

 I finally found the last Bukowski book I haven’t read yet:  ‘Hollywood’.  There it stood high atop a hill of books, a shining beacon into the dull, smoggy haze of my valley.  It was right up there on the top shelf and a ladder climb was necessary to reach the damn thing.  I asked the clerk at St.George’s Bookstore in P’berg if customers were allowed to climb the ladders and rummage through the top shelf books.  ‘Break a leg’ he said.  ‘Great,’ I thought, ‘at 260 lbs. I bloody well might.’

I climbed down the rickety ladder clutching ‘Hollywood’ in my cold, clammy palm (it was minus 5 outside and I sweat anyway.  That’s how one gets cold and clammy palms.)  I couldn’t believe it, so I had to say it out loud.  “Wow!  I finally found the last Bukowski book I haven’t read!  I’ve been looking for years in every English language bookstore in Europe!’  The clerk flashed me an unimpressed smirk.  Perhaps he was waiting for me to fall off the ladder to add some Vaudevillian amusement to his quiet bookstore wasted English degree life.

‘Hollywood’ was written by Monsignor Bukowski, the High Priest of the Low Life (I just made that up and I expect it to soon be added to his long list of titles, right under ‘The Drunk Poet Laureate’) while he was writing the screenplay for the biopic film ‘Barfly’ about his drunken life as a writer or his life as a drunken writer, not sure which.  It’s a bit hazy (heh).  I have always idolized Bukowski and the film ‘Barfly’ is considered by me and several of my closest friends to be the All Time Best Movie to Pass Out Watching After Drinking.

The book was also in the used section, which is unheard of for Bukowski books in the English language bookstores of Europe.  Usually you can find a Bukowski book or two (usually ‘Ham on Rye’ or ‘Women’) for the nicely marked-up premium import price of 20 or 30 EUR per book.  So I was doubly pleased to find ‘Hollywood’ at the nicely marked up, premium USED import price of only 6.50 EUR.  Sure, that’s triple what you’d pay in any second hand bookstore in the States, but hey, we’re not.

Once I asked a Prague English bookstore clerk why I could never find any Bukowski, Kerouac or Hunter S. Thompson in the used section.  And why they had only new ones hidden behind the counter, requiring me to ask about them every time and thereby looking like some kind of drunken wannabe writer stereotype.  He flashed the international smirk of the wasted English degree clerk and said ‘Cuz lowlife mutha fuckas kept stealing them all.’

So now I have it in my grasp, the Holy Grail of Holy Shit, what promises to be a great mix of the bacchanalian excesses of one of the most famous modern writers and the cocaine-and-hooker-fueled corruption of the California Casting Couch.

I can’t wait.  I’m almost afraid to crack open the damn book.  Because the mother fucker just might be in Deutsch.

The Best Spaeti in Berlin

When you want to buy things at night in Berlin, you go to the spaetkauf (late shop), or spaeti for short.  In short order you get your fix:  caffeine, nicotine, alcohol.  The best spaeti are open 24 hours for your addiction pleasure.  Some spaeti are open round the clock, while others tow the line and close at a more respectable midnight.

In order to have a Best Spaeti you must necessarily have a Worst Spaeti.  The worst ones are on the main streets and have internet cafes and telephone booths inside.  This is great if you happen to be completely without internet connection in the 21^st century or like to make phone calls inside of sweaty wooden boxes.  That’s ok if you do.  I’m not your judge.  These bad spaeti charge double for the same beer you would buy at the good spaeti. And it's piss warm.  Even the ones in the back of the fridge.

The Best Spaeti in Berlin is on a side street off of the four streets junction in Northern Prenzlauer Berg.  The four streets meet and change all in one intersection:  to the North, Schoenhauser Allee becomes Berliner strasse; from the West, Bornholmer strasse hits the intersection and moseys on into Wisyber strasse proper.  This rare occurrence of major streets meeting and changing names is referred to as a Deutschenklusterfick.  Just as was depicted in Scorcese’s “Gangs of New York”, four gangs met at a crossroads to fight it out:  The Shoenhausers, the Bornholmers, the Real Berliners and the Wisbyers. The leaders of each gang all died in the muck and mud of the intersection and...

After the battle the men were mighty thirsty.  The survivors drank beer at a spaeti around the corner.  This historical spaeti had a cardboard cutout of a fine young damsel holding a beer and sign which read ‘160 brands of beer.’

To this day you can find it.  This is my favorite spaeti because you can get Bavarian monk beer in devilishly strong varieties.  If you’re feeling a bit peckish you can get warm German and Russian food made by a guy with a mullet and a greasy apron.  I won’t tell you the name of the Best Spaeti in Berlin because A) I may not remember the name; B) the responsible blogger doesn’t lead the tourists to The Good Shit.  But you’ve got the history, the intersection, and, hopefully by now, a powerful thirst.

Prost!

(hint: you walk down Schoenhauser Allee until it becomes Berliner strasse.  Then you take one of the side streets nearby.  Look for the cardboard chick with the beers.)

The Sum Total of Human Knowledge on Strike

I was just now going to wikipedia, as one does when, well, you know.  I was probably looking up some factoid to include in the non-bullshit segment of the Dunkin’ Berliner Blog, just to make sure I had my facts straight, in order to keep this here blog from tumbling into the Abyss of Total Bullshit (or bullscheisse as the locals say).  I got the Wikipedia Blackout Page.

And it started off as such a good day:  9am, down to the donut pusher; drei pfannkuchen mit kirsch, bitte, chuckles from the staff at my lousy pronunciation, me clearing my throat and throwing such a DRRRRRReeeiiii at them that the staff and customers had the biggest chuckle that this here one man donut theater has ever witnessed in the presence of fresh donuts; back to the flat to push the last bit of code over the cliff and launch my long-awaited (mainly by myself) new photography website into the cyberwaves; bowl of Turkish coffee Czech style, throw a fistful of espresso and boiling water into the biggest fuckoff coffee mug I could find at the Boxhagener flea market for under ein Euro, a veritable Cornucopia of Christian Crank, as it were; chase out the cobwebs and become the productive human I always knew I would be; last bits of website done by noon, all contacts in address book spammed profusely by 1pm.

Met my photographer buddy for tea and crumpets (I don’t even know WTF a crumpet is but it looks good when I write it); discussed the downfall of Western Civilization and/or the need for more work in the barren Berlin wastelands; went out for Vietnamese food; returned home...

BLACKOUT.  I couldn’t get The Knowledge.  Instead, I got the stark blackout page announcing a protest of some dumbass legislation in Amerkkka about the internet.   I’m not going to analyze it overmuch; I’m just an educated hick from Sacramento with a penchant for deep fried lard pastry and too much time on his hands.

For the record:  I tried to contact my Congressman but I don’t have one; if I did I’d surely be on his hit list.  I wanted to fb the hell out of it, but I was thrown such a shit storm of illegible captcha that I thought the Black House was taken over by Sharia law.  Try this:  hit refresh over and over in the captcha form.  Watch it degrade into a bigger and bigger mush of squiggly lines.

 

“And they were singin’ bye, bye Miss American Pie, drove a Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry.”

“You can have my [insert sacred item here*] when you pry it from my cold, dead hand.”

[Fade to black]

*suggestions:  donut, gun, internet, brain, money, doobie, booby, crucifix

Get in Line

The only thing I will get in line for, EVER, is Siebert’s Berliner pfannkuchen mit kirsch. The line (‘queue’ for those who don’t speak Yank) outside of Siebert Bakery and Konditorei in P’berg is brutal.  They sell the best baked goods in the known universe out of a shop smaller than my bathroom.  Really, more people could fit inside my bathroom than inside the Siebert shop (not that I’ve tried it).  So don’t let the line of a dozen people or more standing outside fool you.  They simply cannot cram everyone inside all at once.  But if you would really like to experience a pre-1989 communist bread line, go to Siebert on Saturday morning.  They close at noon on Saturday and do not re-open until Tuesday.  And since they mix crack cocaine into their flour to ensure a growing throng of junkies outside the shop at all times—you’d better wake up early on Saturday if you want your donut fix before night time.

Today I woke up at 9am.  This is the earliest I will ever wake up unless somebody is paying me to take photos at this time.  It had been at least two weeks since my last donut fix and I was getting awfully twitchy.  I was getting the DTs (donut tremors) and it was high time I had my high. Really, they put crack cocaine in the flour.  I’ve seen ‘em do it.  A cold wind chill bit at my ears; the Berlin winter is coming fast.  Which most of us would agree is unfair as we had no fucking summer whatsoever in Berlin.  Mother Nature is robbing us blind.  Bitch.  I got in line after peering between the first two bodies near the door—I needed to check the window display for my drug.  Someone sneered at me.  No, dear Deutschbag, I’m not trying to cut in line.  I’m doing inventory.  Get over it.

Twenty or more people were in the line.  I stood there watching the back of the neck in front of me.  Dark gray jacket and light gray scarf.  The pale skin of One Who Resides under Gray Skies.  Once again Berlin reminded me of the foggy city of San Francisco., where two things are out of place:  Cowboy hats and sun tans.  They wore a lot of black and gray in that city as well when I was living there.  Except for the god damned hippies.  Tie-dyed and bushy tailed tofu eaters.  Rainbow people.

Someone once told me they didn’t have the same kind of communism in the DDR—that the infamous bread lines only existed in the Eastern Blok countries under communism.  I always thought that all commies lived solely on canned meat, vodka and potatoes. Period.  History and urban mythology, traditions. Siebert Bakery has a century-long tradition. And a fierce logo:  Two fire-breathing lions are cutting coffee beans and carving pretzels with broad swords.  Then they present them to the king.  And they’ve been doing this since 1906.  Uninterrupted?  I wonder. Eastern Germany and East Berlin were walled off from the West for nearly 50 years.  Surely they didn’t get donuts and free flats AND free Trabants under communism.  I’ll be sure to ask the nice bakery lady to clarify that.  And if it’s true, I’m officially quitting capitalism and joining the communist party.  Tomorrow.

Siebert Backerei / Konditorei

Schönfließer Straße 12, Berlin - Prenzlauer Berg