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Tag: Berlin

Dave Chapelle in Berlin – How I learned to open a bottle with anything

If you live in Germany long enough, you start to become German. And some day, that may allow you to open a bottle of beer for Dave Chapelle in Berlin with whatever you have in your pocket.

Allow me to explain: Germany seemed most magical to me back when I was an exchange student in 19… well let’s just say Helmut Kohl was chancellor. But I was also blown away by the occasional Teutonic sorcery when I returned a decade later as an adult. Things like German math. Or the German ability to open a beer bottle with specifically a lighter but generally anything.

Although the advent of craft beer (and previously microbrews) brought the traditional beer bottle back to the US, most of my American beer drinking was done with screw-top bottles. And by “beer drinking” I mean “college”. Hello various Budweiser products. I don’t know why so many American brewers use screw-top bottles nor am I aware, beyond simple convenience, of the pros and cons of the invention.

I just know that Germany does not use them.

And so you may find yourself in the middle of Mauerpark (or any German park) with a bottle of beer, and you may find yourself with no bottle opener, and you may ask yourself, “My God, what have I done?”

And a German will come over and say, “Hey, that’s no problem.” And grab the bottle with one hand and pop the top off with a lighter in the other and then just move on as if they didn’t just perform some Harry Potter wizardry. The first time you see it you will expect an owl to swing down and carry the enchanted lighter back to Hogwarts for safekeeping. I know I did.

After watching my German friends perform this feat for about six months, I decided to try it myself. I spent a good year just prying bottle tops off with anything, including lighters, that was nearby, ruining almost every tool I used. And breaking more than a few bottles.

“No,” a guy in a park finally told me. “All you’re trying to do is get some leverage and apply the force vertically to the underside of the cap. Don’t try to pry it off.”

Germans and their physics and logic.

It still took me another year to finally get it right. And now I can open beer bottles with almost anything solid. Almost every time. All you have to do it get some leverage and apply a little vertical force to the underside of the cap.

All of this was training for the night Dave Chapelle performed at Quatsch Comedy Club in Berlin. I got there early and sat in the front row next to my good friends and fellow comics Carmen Chraim and Alex Upatov . Near the end of his set, Dave ordered an unopened beer from the bar staff as if he lived in Game of Thrones, which if I retold here would get both me and Dave in hot water but was hilarious in the moment.

I can only assume that Dave thought he would get a beer with a screwtop. The waitress brought the unopened beer, sans screwtop, and handed it to him.

“I know I ordered an unopened beer,” Dave said, “but can I get a bottle opener?” The waitress didn’t hear him and it was as if Commissioner Gordon had shone the Bat Signal on Quatsch’s back curtain and I was Batman. I knew I had my work ID and holder in my pocket and that I could get a beer bottle open with that. Except at that moment I noticed Carmen had also seen the Bat signal and thought she was Batman. She was rifling through her bag to find a bottle opener.

dave chapelle in Berlin
Dave Chapelle beer opener (patent pending).

I did what any gentleman would do in that situation and half-stood while yelling, “Dave! Give me your bottle!” And as I did I reached my right arm out, ostensibly to grab Dave’s bottle but actually to block any view Dave might have of Carmen and her potential Batman-ness. I was born only for this moment and I would not have it usurped by Carmen. Did I say, “gentleman?” I meant, “mercenary.”

Dave handed me his bottle and I opened it and there was a little banter between me and Dave where he discussed his odd affinity for Portland (Oregon) and I just smiled. Like a male praying mantis, I knew I had served my purpose.

And I had cemented my position as apprentice German wizard.

dave chapelle in Berlin
IPA, if yer wondering.
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Tagesspiegel says living in Berlin is making your brain shrink

A recent article in Tagesspiegel detailed how living in Berlin changes your brain. That sentence, like the article, is a bit of linguistic gymnastics because it’s big cities that change your brain, researchers have proven, not specifically Berlin, though Berlin is a big city. The article couples this data with some very informed anecdotes and theories from very capable experts to come to the conclusion that Berlin, in the past and now, makes you into a different person, which explains why 60,000 people move here every year. Well, that and the cheap rent. And it being legal to drink beer in the M10.

Allow me to summarize, because either you don’t speak German, or you don’t have time to read a (very well-written) 3,000-word article (honestly, where do Germans find the time to read the behemoth, often-droning articles in their dailies? Productivity would climb 10 percent here if German journalists once a week considered using the inverted pyramid). Apparently, researchers have discovered that people who grow up in big cities have a smaller prefrontal cortex than their rural counterparts. The more time you spend in a big city as a child, the smaller it is. I have a degree in Lit. I have no idea what that means. Also, your amygdala gets over-stimulated, just like in people with depression and panic disorders. Again, Lit degree.

living in berlin
Berlin is hard, yo.

The problem, according to psychiatrist Mazda Adli at Charité, is that our brains were formed tens of thousands of years ago and can’t really deal with the stresses and density of a big city. As soon as we step out the front door, the brains of New Yorkers, Tokoyers, Berliners and Wahlberliners think we’re about to be attacked by a saber-tooth tiger or have spotted the perfect woolly mammoth for a weekend feast. Our brains are ready to murder and flee while we’re just trying to get a Club Mate at the Späti. We’re überfordert (overwhelmed). Always.

Living in Berlin is different

The article also lays out some differences in big cities. In Munich, they’ve discovered, people don’t go sprinting down the stairs of a subway station to catch their U7 at the last second. They walk and wait, in perfect Bavarian decency, for the next one, which is weird because subways don’t come as often in Munich. Here Tagesspiegel quotes Martina Löw, a professor at the Technische Universität (Technical University, the one on Ernst Reuter Platz): “People change depending on which city they move to … Cities are small universes that develop their own minutiae.” Even if you don’t like and don’t adopt the minutiae, you still have to deal with it, creating different rules for every city – you may not try to force your way onto the subway/tram before everyone gets off, but you’ll still have to deal with Berliners trying to do so.

Then we get to the meat, to the thing that makes Berlin different from all the other big cities: The individual. Everybody in Berlin is into themselves, Tagesspiegel claims, which lets everyone be themselves. No one’s going to care how you dress or what you do, because they only care about what they’re wearing or what they’re doing. So much so that your neighbors won’t greet you as they pass on the stairs, not even after a decade. That’s not only annoying but, according to the paper, it also makes people distrust others outside their cliques. In pre-war Germany it was the bureaucrats against the workers. Then Ossis against Wessis. Berliners (natives) against Wahlberliner (transplants). The Kreuzbergers against the Charlottenburgers. The Sharks hating the Jets. Oh, and the generic hate of the Schwaben (literally, people from Swabia in southern Germany but, generally in Berlin, anyone who has more money than you).

“Division was always a strong narrative in Berlin,” Professor Löw told Tagesspiegel. “There is very little trust in the things that connect us in Berlin. There’s no sense of a community.“ The academic admits that there are no studies to back up this thesis, but she still thinks it’s right. People in Berlin all believe they are different from each other, she says, and they like it that way: “Completely refusing to even think or live or feel community – that is very typical for Berlin. And of course that has consequences for the way people act.”

living in Berlin
Each and every one different and unique.

The article points out that this can make Berlin a brutal place for people who feel like outsiders but don’t want to feel like outsiders – if everyone else has a THING and you don’t, you might feel like there’s something wrong with you. I’m paraphrasing here. Possibly even projecting. But it’s what I took from it.

Psychiatrist Adli has some tips. He says you should make the city yours. Get to know your neighborhood and the people in it, even if you hate them (though in the article it didn’t say “hate”, it said, “even if you wish pimples on them,” which is a very endearing German saying). He also recommended taking every available mode of transport. DriveNow, the subway, Taxis, your feet. Or that bike you stole last week outside that café. “The feeling of being able to cover almost every route without any trouble in a reasonable time gives a special feeling of ownership in relation to the city.”

So there you have it: Your prefrontal cortex is getting smaller. Your amygdala is over-stimulated. You’re doing you. And you don’t call your mother often enough. Welcome to Berlin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The first time I came to Berlin

I came to Berlin for the first time three different times. Granted, it was a different city two of those times, but I still came to Berlin for the first time three different times.

The first time I came to Berlin for the first time was in 1987. Back then, I wanted to be a professional bike racer when I grew up and the Tour de France was starting in Berlin to celebrate the city’s 750th anniversary. In a bit of poor teenage planning, the friend of a friend where I was supposed to crash never showed up and so me and the American friend I was traveling with had to use all of our money to get a hotel for the first two nights we were there.

first time in Berlin
I’m going to be a pro! Actually, no yer not.

Luckily, the Tour de France had a massive marketing parade a half an hour before the race every day. They handed out crates of Sprite and boxes of pumpernickel bread like the Shriners tossing Toostie Pops at a July 4 parade. The Sprite and pumpernickel was our only sustenance for those first two days until I bumped into yet another friend who loaned us some cash.

We bought döner kebabs and hostel beds with the money and hung out with Allan Peiper, a professional from the Panasonic team, in between races. He was super-nice. Later, as I watched a recap of the race on TV, I even saw us watching from a grassy median somewhere in West Berlin. Over the past few days I’ve been watching scratchy YouTube vids of the Berlin stages trying to find my younger self. I’ll let you know if he shows up.

The thing I remember most from that trip is discovering that the cycling giants – the men who were my heroes – were very short. Like just as tall as I am. Bob Roll. Phil Anderson. And Stephen Roche. The great Greg Lemond was a giant of the time too but he wasn’t there because he’d just had a hunting accident, but I would later see him at other races and discover, yes, he’s short too. I also remember the East German border guards stamping my passport and using mirrors to look for stowaways under the train. We also took time to look at THE WALL.

Berlin, a second time

The second time I came to Berlin for the first time was in 1995 as I was mourning my mother’s premature death by backpacking through Europe. I stayed in a hostel on what I now know is Chausseestrasse in eastern Berlin and walked 45 minutes with an Aussie backpacker through Mitte and Hackesche Markt to a club she knew called Delicious Donuts, which I would get to know better when I moved here. She danced and danced and danced as I alternately slept and thought about what I wanted to do with my life. I had no idea about ecstasy at the time and just marveled at her ability to keep grooving for hours. We hiked back to the hostel as the sun came up and I remember thinking some of the shops and galleries on Oranienburgerstrasse seemed interesting but mostly everything looked rundown and maybe scary. Plus the ever-present Fernsehturm looming over everything. It felt like the Stasi still had its eye on me.

The first time for the last time

The last time I came to Berlin for the first time was in 1998 after I’d moved to Frankfurt to work for Bloomberg News. Nobody in our office wanted to go to Berlin (imagine!) to cover anything so they started sending me whenever something went down in Berlin, which was about 1/10th as often as these days (the government was still in Bonn). I asked my co-workers what to do in Berlin and they suggested Oranienburgerstrasse in the former east.

Tacheles, sans hookers and dealers. Photo thanks John Graham via Creative Commons.

I was dating an American woman and she went with me on that first trip. After I was done for the day we got in a cab. “Oranienburgerstrasse!” we announced. I’m embarrassed to admit that I had no idea it was the same street I’d walked down three years prior. Even more embarrassing, my hotel was at the Friedrichstrasse station just a few short blocks away. We could have – and should have – walked. But hey: Expense account.

Oranienburger strasse was very Mad Max. Many of the buildings were gray, decrepit and vacant and empty lots were overgrown and surrounded by mangled, rusty fencing. People seemed to seep in and out of every door, window and dirt path. A massive, bombed out department store set the dystopian tone for the entire street. Behind its grand, crumbling façade was a multi-story artist squat known as Tacheles with bars, studios and a movie theater. A ground floor resident welded huge steel beasts while listening to techno every night. The street itself was lined with bars, prostitutes and dealers.

It was fantastic. Oddly, lots of places in Eastern Europe still look this way and I wouldn’t call them fantastic. I’d call them scary.

When I got out of the cab, I looked around and felt inspired. When my girlfriend got out, she grabbed my arm. “Are you sure this is OK?” she asked. “Maybe we should go back to the hotel.” The cab pulled away, leaving us little choice. We went across the street to a bar whose entire interior was painted red (or was it orange?). Even though I went several times over the next couple of years, I could never remember its name. My girlfriend never quite felt safe that night but I somehow knew this was the the last time I would be going to Berlin for the first time.

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Why this bi-national couple (DE/US) moved to the U.S.

There’s a German saying about moving that might explain why Germans don’t move very often: Drei Mal umgezogen is einmal abgebrannt, or moving three times is like losing everything in a housefire.

The comment focuses on the costs of a move but not the benefits – a bigger house, a better view or a different country. But fair enough, moving is expensive.

I bring up the saying because we are hours away from our third move – one housefire – in about six years. Two of those trans-Atlantic. Over the past few months, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about why we’ve lived where we did – and where we will.

Our Portland zu Hause

When my (German) wife and I got married, living abroad was always going to be part of life for one of us. At the time, we were living in Berlin so it was me that was living abroad but I felt like there was an unspoken agreement that someday it would be her. Although, really it was spoken because any time I’d say something about moving to the U.S. she would say: “It’s only fair. You’ve lived in Germany all this time.” Except she’d say it in German.

I come from a small-but-close family so we flew to the U.S. once a year to visit everyone and keep the kids in the loop. Grandma. Various uncles and aunts. My parents. And we always included a side visit to check out other American cities for possible habitation, though we always found reasons not to move.

NYC and San Fran – too expensive. Minneapolis? Too cold in the winter and muggy (and buggy) in the summer. Chicago? See Minneapolis. The triangle in North Carolina? We’re not really southerners and it felt remote-ish.

One year, when the kids were daycare age, we planned a side trip to Seattle and I was confident we’d end up moving there. I even started looking at neighborhoods and schools. The Pacific Northwest had always had a draw – I grew up enthralled by the idea of Yetis and wondering at the mystery of D.B. Cooper.

Moving to the U.S.

But we weren’t wowed by Seattle. I’m still not. However, we had planned a side trip for our side trip – to Portland, Oregon, for the simple reason that most of the bands we had been listening to were from there – Dandy Warhols, Helio Sequence, the Shins. I thought it would be the only time in my life I’d see Portland but after a day or two it became the most likely candidate for a move.

In fact, we started planning a move but decided against it in the end. I would have had to get a job with just one or two weeks’ vacation per year and we’d have to pay for daycare – thousands a month. In Berlin, I already had a good, flexible gig and daycare would be like $50 a month for food or something. Basically free.

That put moving to the U.S. on ice for about a decade.

Then, two years ago, with my mid-life crisis picking up speed and my wife tiring of the shop she’d co-founded and been running for five years, we started thinking about America again. The kids were in middle school and we figured it was really our last chance before their roots grew too deep.

So she sold the shop and I convinced my then-employer to let me work from Portland.

“We’re trying two years and then I’m moving back to Berlin to die,” I told everyone, and then expanded on the idea. “If we lose a kid in a school shooting, we’ll be back after six months. If it’s otherwise awful, a year. If it goes as planned, we’ll be back in two. If it’s great, this is good-bye.”

People always ask why we moved back to the U.S., which surprises me. For all its blemishes, the U.S. is still where I grew up and a place I love. I wanted to show my kids the country and let their English bloom (it exploded, I’d say). I also wanted to see what it felt like being an adult in the U.S. Really! I can’t explain it but I just wanted to be one of those lacrosse fathers I see in movies, and watch how my German wife reacted to her all-women’s book club. American parents, of a sort.

Like most things in life, the past two years in Portland didn’t always go as planned. The kids thrived in their American school. We met some fantastic, inspiring people. But the wife and I have been underwhelmed by our career opportunities.

So we’re moving back. To die (hopefully in 30 or 40 years).

It’s the dreaded third move but there’s another German saying I like: Alle gute Dinge sind drei. It’s a saying we have too: The third time’s a charm.

Even if it feels like a housefire.

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German Cafes Do Coffee and Cake Right

I was watching Tagesschau (German news) the other night and saw a report about an exhibition in Dusseldorf on (West?) German café culture and it reminded me of yet another corner of Germany I found magical – the café.

The first time I encountered one was when I was an exchange student and we had just completed one of my guest family’s weekly shopping excursions to Mönchengladbach. We had just gathered everything we needed from the shops in the Fußgängerzone (pedestrian street) when my host mother announced that we’d be making one final stop.

“Can’t we just go home?” I thought. I wanted to go back to reading Asterix and Obelix in my room rather than sweat through more small talk in my emerging German.

Inside, the café was as busy and crowded as the shopping street outside. A glass counter full of cakes and pastries ran the length of its lower level and was backed by middle-aged women in what looked like maid’s outfits. They seemed harried. But what cakes!

“Pick out any piece and I’ll find a seat,” my host mother said. I started to sweat. I’d been in-country about two months, my German wasn’t even at immigrant cab driver level and I had no idea how a German café worked.

I had no idea how to pick out a piece of cake.

My host mother sensed my confusion and said as she walked away, “Tell the woman what piece you want and bring me the piece of paper.”

A piece of paper. Right. I thought I was supposed to get cake.

One of the maids behind the counter asked me what I wanted and I pointed at a piece. She then tore a piece of paper in half and handed me one half about the size of a price tag. It was yellow with a printed number in black. And she had scribbled something in red on hers. Maybe a number. Maybe code. Maybe a plea for help.

The piece I ordered probably had chocolate pieces on chocolate icing spread on top of chocolate cake with fluffy chocolate filling. I know my teen-age self. And knowing my host mother, she had probably picked out something with fruit.

Host mothers always get something with fruit.

After ordering, I found my host mother upstairs perched at a two-top against a window. We could watch the chaos outside while suffering from the chaos inside. There were people everywhere, inside and out.

German Cafes

I wondered how my cake would make it from downstairs to upstairs. How it would make it through all those people. I figured it probably wouldn’t but I masked my disappointment and smiled in agreement when my host mother offered to order me a hot chocolate.

At least I’d get some chocolate.

Kännchen oder Tasse (pot or cup)?” she wanted to know. At the time, I had no idea what she was asking so I just stared back. She waved me off.

Our waitress arrived, also wearing a maid outfit, and my host mother ordered our drinks and handed her our pieces of paper. I had no idea what was going on but I was confident I wouldn’t be eating cake.

Would our new maid try to describe us to the maid downstairs to get our cake order? How would that work? What if their descriptions didn’t match up and we ended up with cookies or, worse, no cake?

I had no time to make small talk with my host mother, I was busy mourning the loss of my cake.

Then, a few minutes later, our waitress reappeared with our drinks. Our drinks! I didn’t just get a hot chocolate. I got a kännchen – my own little pot of hot chocolate! What? Magic!

Also, the waitress had our cakes. The right cakes.

I know, right? More magic!

Kaffee und Kuchen

The system made no sense to me so my host mother explained it to me – the first woman-in-a-maid’s-outfit behind the counter put a piece of paper identical to my piece of paper on a plate with my cake order and our waitress just matched up the pieces of paper.

It still seemed miraculous to me, as if my cake had floated out of the display case, through all the people and up the stairs to me. In Mönchengladbach.

“It still seems magical to me,” my wife said last night when I recounted this story. We used to go to Café Richter in Charlottenburg in Berlin because they sometimes had the tiny pieces of paper. The Tagesspiegel once did a story on what it dubbed Schnipsel-cafés (scrap of paper cafés) in Berlin, after the pieces of paper used to record the cake orders.

The magic of that Schnipsel-café in Mönchengladbach stayed with me for over a decade until I returned to Germany as a reporter in Frankfurt. I made my co-workers go with me to Café Liebfrauenberg because I knew they’d do the German trick with the kuchen (cake) and paper there.

My co-workers weren’t impressed by the ordering system but they loved the cakes. And they thought the Kännchen were pretty impressive too.

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How Berlin communicates: Berlinerisch

Nothing defines native Berliners more than their accent, known as Berlinerisch. The accent is more than just a staccato ending to words and pronouncing Gs as if they were Js. Berlinerisch is also an attitude that combines indifference, hostility and humor in differing degrees. As an outsider, I often sense more hostility where there’s more indifference and, as a humorist, I’m often jealous of the quick wit sometimes injected into mundane situations.

Berlinerisch is best summed up by a popular Berlin saying: “Nich anjeschissen ist jenuch jelobt,” or: Not insulting you was compliment enough. It’s like the city saying to you: If I didn’t call you an asshole, I must like you. Now shut up and eat your Currywurst. It’s like hanging out with an old man.

Berlinerisch

Once, a gay friend and his then-boyfriend were visiting from London. We’ll call them Scott and James, because that’s their names. We took them for beers in Schöneberg since Cologne was too far. The idea was to knock back a few and then head home, leaving Scott and James to explore Schöneberg. After the first beer, Scott said he wanted to start exploring early while we were around in case he had any questions.

Turns out, he would have questions.

He headed to a bar called New Action around the corner alone.

A few minutes later he stormed back, flustered.

“You would not believe how that bartender treated me!” he said, and recounted his story. He had been alarmed by a sign announcing a dresscode outside the bar – patrons must wear pants and a shirt, it said. Scott met the code but James did not. Scott thought he’d ask the staff how serious the dresscode was.

“I’m dressed OK but my boyfriend just has on shorts and a t-shirt – can he still come in?” he asked the barkeep.

“I don’t know,” the bartender snapped back in English, backed by Berlinerisch. “IS HE HUMAN?”

To which Scott took immediate offense. He understood the tone and the generalizing as an invitation for him to leave and a hint that his boyfriend would not be welcome.

My wife laughed: “He was trying to tell you that everyone is welcome. It’s fine.”

“Are you sure? It’s like he barked it at me. I think he hates me.”

“Welcome to Berlin,” my wife said. “Go back with James and if you don’t get in we’ll go somewhere else, otherwise we’ll see you when you get home.”

We didn’t see them until the next morning.

Berlinerisch: Se können hier schwimmen …

Another time I stopped at a combination café and Spätkauf (convenience store­) in Mitte for a quick machine-generated coffee while I waited for an appointment. It was the kind of spartanly decorated place that opened shortly after the Wall fell and was staffed by robust, well-built women who can operate heavy machinery, slaughter all kinds of livestock with a pocketknife and make perfect Schwarzwälder Kirschtorten.

After a few minutes an aging gentleman entered. He was clearly from somewhere in Lower Saxony (probably Hannover but maybe Detmold) and was probably visiting an adult offspring who had recently located to the Hauptstadt. He was neatly but not fashionably dressed and probably drove a C-Class Mercedes. Germans would recognize him as a special breed known as a Spiesser, which is best translated as “squares” but is most often referred to by their colloquial title: Dad.

“Excuse me,” the man said to the ladies behind the counter.

Ja!” they bellowed back. In normal customer service the “ja” would be couched as a polite question. In Berlinerisch, it’s intimidation.

“Can one drink a coffee here?” he asked.

I almost pitied him.

“You could go swimming here if you brought enough water!” the woman behind the counter bellowed in perfect Berlinerisch.

The man turned bright red and stammered a bit. He may have been close to tears.

The woman saved him from herself: “Black or with milk?” she wanted to know.

He ended up ordering some bread with cheese as well.

“Is everyone here like that?” he asked me. He was realizing all the documentaries, news reports and first-hand reports of Berlinerisch he’d seen were true.

“Yes,” I said.

“Interesting,” he answered.

It always is, I said. It always is.

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This is how you beat the Zollamt

Ah, Christmastime in Germany. Glühwein. Adventkalendars. And at least one trip to the Zollamt (customs office) to retrieve seized packages. I always enjoy the Zollamt because of a luxury unique to Germany: The ability to have heated arguments with armed government officials without ending up in jail.

Or the hospital.

The argument-with-a-cop thing is something I discovered after living in Berlin for a year when a German friend shouted his way out of a ticket from a tubby Polizist. It was like the cop was even thankful to have a discussion.

Every visit to the Zollamt starts with a letter saying they’ve seized a package and suspect the contents may exceed the €45 limit on gifts sent from abroad. A bit rude and presumptuous, really. They then invite you to stop by for a chat to retrieve your package.

Zollamt Berlin
This is an old picture of the place but it still looks like this.

The Zollamt in Berlin is a mid-sized warehouse sandwiched into a No Man’s Land between a sketchy corner of Schöneberg and the northern tip of Friedenau, a borough no one’s ever heard of. The Hauptadt’s Bielefeld, if you will. It’s filled with vanilla customs officials whose dream in life is to catch a 21-year-old student trying to sneak a cut-rate iPhone into the country via Deutsche Post without paying sales tax or duties.

You’d think a customs officer would want to break up an international poaching ring or discover 1,200 tons of cocaine hidden in a teal teddy bear but you’d be wrong. They want to pop Kai from Heidelberg with his hands in the customs cookie jar.

And they suspect everyone called to their place of work of being Kai from Heidelberg.

On my last visit there, I was paired with a dour customs officer convinced she was facing her daily Kai. I knew I was anything but. Every year, German customs seizes packages filled with gifts from my stepmother for my kids. And every year I leave smiling without paying a dime because I know something the Zollamt is incapable of learning: My stepmother knows international law in deep detail. Not because she wants to exploit it, but because she’s so fearful of breaking it.

Every one of those packages contains less than €45 worth of gifts, which is also a great reason to limit your spending on your grandkids.

The customs official met me as I entered the rear warehouse and pushed my stepmother’s package at me across the steel counter.

“What’s in here?” She asked.

“Gifts for my kids from my parents.” I always like to throw the kid thing in there. I like to hint that they’re harming the bond between child and grandparent. That they’re trying to take something from my children. Like they’d even take candy from a baby. Because they would, actually, if it wasn’t declared and exceeded €45.

“We’ll see about that,” she said, going on the offensive. “Please open it.”

At this point they hand you the box and an industrial box cutter, which seems odd. Customs officials are armed, presumably because dangerous people end up there. And the first thing they do is hand you a weapon.

And I always want to say: “You’re the one so eager to see what’s in it – you open it.” But there’s probably some goofy legal reason they’re not allowed to even though they’ve probably x-rayed it, which is little different.

Ok, someday I’ll say it. Actually, no I won’t.

I opened the box and pulled out the gifts. My stepmother no longer wraps them because every one of her packages gets seized. Every. Single. One. I get to wrap them.

The customs official quickly grabbed a paint-by-numbers set in a futuristic packaging. You know, the kind of thing your mother might buy at Safeway to shut you up while she tries to pick out a cantaloupe.

“A-ha!,” the customs officer said, “What do we have here? Electronics?”

“It’s a gift for my daughter. Paints, not electronics,” I offered. The kid thing again. I’m ruthless.

“I’m going to look it up,” she said accusingly. She clearly thought my stepmother and I were locked in a conspiracy to smuggle paint-by-numbers sets. She grabbed the toy and headed to her desk. This woman would not only take candy from a baby, she’d make the baby unwrap it first.

This is what the Zollamt – the arm of the German government tasked with protecting Europe’s most populous country from nefarious and illegal shipments – does to determine the price of presents: Checks Amazon. Really. They do it so much Amazon should charge a commission.

I watched with joy as the woman discovered the non-value of the toy and returned to the counter.

Next, she grabbed a winter coat which, granted, could push the value of the shipment above the limit. That is, had the package been sent by anyone but my stepmother.

“What do we have here?” she said, accusingly again.

“A jacket for my son,” I said. Who would be so cruel as to deny a growing boy a jacket during a Berlin winter? This woman, that’s who.

She inspected the coat and smiled. Villains always smile.

“There’s no price tag on here! I think we all know why there’s no price tag!”

She thought she had her Kai. She grabbed the coat and moved back to her desk for a little Amazoning.

“You’re right,” I said. “We do know why there’s no price tag – or have you never received a present?”

This sounds rhetorical but at that point it seemed a possibility.

“Of course I have,” she mumbled. I knew I was nearing victory.

Her colleague must have sensed her impending defeat. He stepped in to help: “Why don’t you go wait in the waiting room and we’ll check the value of the shipment? We’ll call you when we’re ready,” he said.

I only had to wait a few minutes. When I was called back into the warehouse the first customs official had disappeared and the remaining officers were seated at their desks. The box had been repacked and was deserted on the counter.

“You guys done with your Internet research? Can I go?” I was probably smiling.

“Yes,” the officer said. He didn’t even look at me.

“Merry Christmas,” I said as I left.

Silence.

What’s the value of triumphing over German bureaucrats (with guns!)? It’s just an extra gift my stepmother throws in every Christmas.

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The time I got serenaded on Berlin’s Ringbahn.

The Ringbahn (ring subway) in Berlin used to be the hinterlands. Few people ever ventured past Mauerpark, Tempelhof airport (when it was still an airport) or the Gedächtniskirche (Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church), let alone ride the Ringbahn.

I always saw it as an adventure. As soon as the doors closed at Schönhauser Allee or Prenzlauer Allee, a time warp opened and I was somewhere near Bucharest. At every stop I expected people to get on with live chickens or maybe a goat. There were always colorful people on the Ringbahn, left over from what Berlin was and unaware of what it was becoming.

I liked it. It was that feeling right at the peak of the biggest hill on a rollercoaster, when you know it’s all going to accelerate and it might just come off the rails and kill you.

Ringbahn Berlin

Driving to a job interview last week reminded me of the Ringbahn. I had had to ride the looping Berlin subway the last time I interviewed for a job – over a decade ago. The job interview back then was with a newswire in Frankfurt and I had to wear a suit. Black. German designer. I’ve had it forever.

That interview went well but I turned them down. I’m pretty sure they’re still mad at me. Yes, all of a newswire is mad at me 10 years later.

The boss on the Ringbahn

After interviewing with the newswire, I had an argument with the voice in my head as I walked to the gate at the Frankfurt airport before flying home. If you’ve ever flown through Frankfurt, you know there are two things you do at that airport: Walk a long way to your gate and walk a long way to your gate.

Me: “Take your suit off before you fly back to Berlin.”

Me: “What? Why?”

Me: “It’s Berlin. Nobody wears suits in Berlin. You’ll look like a noob. Also: Where is our gate?”

Me: “Plenty of people wear suits in Berlin and this is me. I’ve lived in Berlin forever. I am allowed to wear a suit in Berlin if I want to. Plus, if no one wears suits in Berlin, then wearing a suit in Berlin is punk.”

Me: “Noob.”

I still wasn’t at my gate.

Then I got off the plane and onto a bus and then onto the Ringbahn. To get home I’d have to take a tram as well, because Tegel is the airport Berliners love to call central – so central it requires a bus, a subway and a tram to get there. Or a €30 taxi fare.

“Hey,” the voice in my head said as soon as I took a seat, “You should have taken the suit off.”

I finally agreed with the voice – the Ringbahn seemed allergic to suits. It was (is?) a working man’s train. About then two semi-threatening punks came tumbling down the aisle, loudly talking about where to sit.

Lass uns hier sitzen (Let’s sit here),” the man said, “Neben Chef (Next to the boss).” I was trying to avoid his gaze as he sat in the chair across the aisle. His female companion, who had apparently just partaken in a substance that made her very absent, sat two rows back.

He smiled at me – the boss – and I told myself that I had told myself to take off the suit. Since I’m a paranoic when it comes to personal safety, I was I hoping for a gentle mugging. Something short of murder.

“Na, chef?” he said. I smiled and enjoyed the last few minutes of my life.

When the subway started, he started beatboxing, which seemed an odd thing for a punk to do.

As the train picked up speed, he started rapping:

Wo sitzt der Boss?

Da sitzt der Boss!

Wer ist der Boss?

Der ist der Boss!

Wer kennt den Boss?

Wir kennen den Boss!“

(Where’s the boss? There‘s the boss! Who’s the boss? He’s the boss! Who knows the boss? …)

It went on for several minutes, each stanza changing but with the all-important “boss” as the hook. I was equal parts impressed with the freestyling and afraid for my well-being. He would look back at his companion for approval and around at the other passengers for admiration.

I’m certain they felt the same way I did: Nice freestyling but if you’re going to hurt anyone, hurt the guy wearing the suit. Who wears a suit on the ringbahn?

Unnerved, I got off a stop early and decided to walk home from the Schönhauser Allee stop. In my suit.

I didn’t wear a suit to my job interview last week. But I turned down that job too.

I don’t want to be the boss.

 

 

 

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There’s (Another) American Series Starring Berlin

I didn’t even know there was a broadcaster (channel? station?) called EPiX and, had I known, I probably would have thought: If you call yourself EPiX with a little “i” and an “X”, you are probably anything but epic. Do people even say “epic” anymore? Hasn’t it been replaced with “legit” or an emoji of a poop unicorn? Or an emoji of poop and unicorns? I’m so old.

Anyway, turns out this new channel/station/broadcaster has made this new series called Berlin Station about – wait for it – American spies in Berlin. The creators were really going out on a limb on this one. Really taking a risk with the concept.

But anyway my little Roku pitched me this series one Portland night during a deep bout of homesickness and both my German wife and I thought: Let’s watch this teaser episode and see how much it sucks while seeing a bit of Berlin. Sentimental Schadenfreude, if you will.

Berlin series
This is an actual publicity photo from Berlin Station. It’s just Berlin. They get Berlin. And they’re taking the M2.

And we were surprised when it didn’t suck. Well not so bad as naming your channel/station/broadcaster “EPiX”. It was surprisingly intriguing, even though it treads across a carpet more worn than the rejection line at Berghain.

What Berlin Station does really well is show Berlin. Like all the time. I watched Homeland in Berlin and it could have been filmed anywhere with a few establishing shots below the Fernsehturm or on Oberbaumbrücke. The point of Homeland in Berlin – beyond capitalizing on the Hauptstadt hype and covering the tired ground of a spook past – seemed to be seeing if Carrie could look even more anguished in a country known for its anguish.

Berlin was an afterthought to Claire Dane’s furrowed brow.

Another real Berlin series

But Berlin Station seems to be filmed by people who know and love Germany’s biggest city, rather than creative types on a stopover from London or Hollywood. As someone who misses his Wahlheimat (adopted home), Berlin Station does an amazing job of showing diverse corners of the city.

It also lets its characters speak German. Like, whenever there would be an interaction in German in Berlin, that’s the language the characters speak. However, this also underlines the film as a work of fiction since the American dude played by Richard Armitage speaks almost fluent German. An American speaking German! Nice joke! But bilingual programming is a refreshing upgrade.

Of course they go out to the tattered radar domes of Teufelsberg but they also spend an amazing amount of time on Kotti – including a chase scene through those elaborate balconies and staircases above and around Kaisers, Monarch, Paloma and West Germany. You know, the ones you’ve always sworn you would explore more but never did out of fear for your personal safety?

We liked the teaser episode so much we watched the second one. The season debuts Oct. 16 — wherever you can get EPiX.

“It’s like sightseeing,” my wife said. “If you want Berlin, here’s your series. If you want story, not so much.”

But the creators’ knowledge of the bear city goes even further: In one scene especially poignant for Wahlberliner (voluntary Berliners), a spy operative played by Rhys Ifans notes that the avocados at the Turkish grocer aren’t even ripe.

It’s like the producers of Berlin Station know our pain. They are us. And they’ve given up on good guacamole too.

There’s plenty of overacting and goofy plot turns and a bit too much time spent in the sort of slick, high-priced nightclubs Berlin doesn’t have, but the thing has a great feel – and (did I mention?) a lot of Berlin. Though lacking depth, its texture is reminiscent of A Most Wanted Man – one of my most favorite Berlin films next to the 1985 Anthony Edwards spy epic, Gotcha!.

I’m going to have to subscribe to EPiX long enough to watch the other eight episodes.

And then epically cancel my subscription.

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Look Who’s Back: Writing jokes for Hitler

I just finished reading Er is wieder da. For those not in the know, Er ist wieder da (Look Who’s Back) is a fictional take on Hitler coming back to life in central Berlin in 2011.

It’s humorous fiction. Really.

And for those doubly not in the know, they made it into a movie in 2014. And that movie will debut on Netflix in non-German-speaking parts of the world on April 9.

Look Who's Back/Er ist wieder da
Photo thanks Constantin Film Verleih GmbH.

And for those triply not in the know – I’m in the movie. So, like, my Netflix debut is Friday.

Back in 2014 I got a call from an acquaintance in the movie business. He asked if I had any interest in playing comedy coach for a mysterious someone. My answer was: Not really. I’m only skilled at two things and neither of them is comedy coach.

He then asked if I, instead, had any interest in writing jokes for the mysterious someone.

“Maybe,” I said.

“With pay.”

“When should I be there?”

A couple days later – a Wednesday, I believe – I found myself sitting with comedy friends on the set of an unrelated TV show in a studio in southeastern Berlin. Near that airport that never opens.

The acquaintance who invited me introduced to us to someone who claimed to be a director.

The director reminded me of Animal from The Muppet Show. At the very least, they had the same taste in fashion.

He asked us if we knew about the book. He said he was making the film.

“We’re not supposed to tell you,” he said, “but it seems to work better when you know.”

We were going to be writing jokes for Hitler, he said.

I wondered if I was living in a Mel Brooks play. I debated singing Springtime for Hitler.

https://youtu.be/kHmYIo7bcUw

But soon Christoph Maria Herbst showed up. If you’re quadruply not in the know, Christoph Maria Herbst is a big-time German comedy actor who actually played the lead in the German version of The Office (called Stromberg, for those keeping score at home). Just think of some middle-aged comedic actor you’re familiar with.

Are you thinking of that actor?

Good. Christoph Maria Herbst isn’t that famous. Because Germany.

But you get what I mean: it was cool to see him.

He was in character. He said he had a guy with him who either was or was not Hitler but either way would be getting a TV show and we should write jokes for that TV show. Nothing was sacred he said and, during a group brainstorm, made clear the direction he wanted us to go with our humor.

It’s a direction everyone goes, just not in front of cameras. But if cameras, then probably for a lot more than they were paying us.

I was starting to get nervous.

I wasn’t sure the jokes that were forming in my head were OK.

When it comes to borderline culture questions in Germany, I turn to a select collection of Teutonic friends. They have similar political and humanistic leanings as I and I trust them to answer my questions in sticky German situations.

Like if it’s OK to participate when someone asks you to write jokes for Hitler.

One of those friends was sitting next to me on that set – a comedian and filmmaker named Georg – so I figured it was OK.

But it was more than just the day’s task that was making me nervous.

The entire time two beefy security guards had been circling the set, looking unhappy.

Were they part of the scenery? Or had the production company hired them just in case some lefty activists decided to drop in on Hitler?

They were either perfectly cast and were playing their part very well or were beefy security guards with questionable political beliefs.

I couldn’t stop sweating.

Christoph Maria Herbst (you couldn’t not write all three of his names every time either) had us each write five jokes and then he read them aloud. I don’t remember any of the ones I wrote. He then picked his favorites and left to get the man who was either Hitler or a man pretending to be Hitler.

In the book, he’s Hitler. That day on set, he was actor Oliver Masucci. But I still tried to imagine what it would be like if Masucci really were Hitler.

My imagination apparently isn’t good enough. Because I couldn’t.

Look who’s back: And he was

Hitler asked for our advice on his humor and was not amused when I suggested he go for self-deprecation. The Führer making fun of himself would be hilarious, I assured him.

He assured me that wouldn’t happen. Even though he wasn’t really Hitler he was still very menacing, like if Vladimir Putin was standing right there but without the ability to cause you to have a car accident on the way home.

About this time Georg started freaking out. He started telling everyone how he would have no part of this. That it was unfair to Germany’s past (or something like that).

I started wondering what I had gotten myself into. I decided that if Georg stormed out, I would storm out too, like two Clark Gables in Gone with the Wind. Or maybe Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.

To hell with the money. I had principles (though I would be a bit disappointed because I’m pretty sure no one ever remotely as famous as Hitler would ever ask me to write jokes for them again).

But Georg stayed and so did I.

Animal the director showed up a few more times and I eventually got escorted off by the security guards for offending Der Führer with my self-deprecation suggestion.

This was a bit unnerving.

They say if you’re ever kidnapped you should make yourself more human to the kidnappers by telling them about your personal life. After finding myself behind the set alone with the hulking, clearly-miffed security guards, I figured humanizing myself might prevent any beatings they were contemplating.

“So, uh, are you guys actors or security guards?” I inquired.

Das hier ist alles scheisse,” the blonder of the two barked back (“This is all bullshit.”) I considered checking to see if my health insurance card was in my wallet.

I still have no idea what he meant.

Dude, Georg

Afterward, standing in the sun, I asked Georg if we were ethically OK or if the whole thing went too far.

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“In there. You were freaking out.”

“That? I knew what was going down all along.”

“Holy shit! I thought you were totally against it! I was ready to leave with you!”

“Yeah,” he said, pulling on his e-cigarette. “It’s called acting.”

Months later, after my wife saw the film, I told her what I just told you.

“They’re really good,” she said. “You can totally see that that’s what you’re thinking. But your joke is one of the best in that section.”

I can’t wait to see it on Friday.

I hope my wife is right.

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