Clown Workshop today and the Ponderance of "Home"

I really want to write a post about my new neighborhood, Kruezberg, but I think I'll wait to take some more photos so I can actually show you what it looks like as well as tell you about the vibrant colors of the murals and graffiti.  It definitely rivals San Francisco's Mission District in terms of 2-D street art.
My new living arrangement has it's high points and low points.  I think I'm still adjusting.  It's true, I have my own room and bathroom on a separate floor from the family whose children I'm caring for, but it seems that when I was told that the living room was not used much, what the parents really meant was that THEY don't use the living room so often.  There was a family from Hamburg with three or four kids staying in it for 2 nights.  This I am completely fine with, but I wish someone had told me in advance.  It was a complete surprise.  I think I will ask the mother to please keep me informed of guests in the living room for my mental health and such.  My "kitchen" (an electric kettle, fridge, sink, microwave and two burner portable electric stove) is in the living room, and well, it's disconcerting to feel like you can't make yourself i cup of tea without being "on," especially when you have planned  quiet, reclusive evening of noodles, tea and Kurt Vonnegut for yourself and then an army of sugared-up (yet adorable) kids arrive.
Still, I can't complain much.  I am, after all, living rent free.
The upside to this gentle invasion was that the visitors offered to take Younis to Kita on Friday morning, so I got to go to Roberts dinner party, where I met some great people. They spoke English with me but mostly German with each other, little of which I understood.  My progress with the language is slow but noticeable, though in a party environment with people talking fast and several conversations going on at once, I don't stand a chance.

My trip across the Atlantic, my decision to stay in a country where I struggle with language, it has made me think about the concept of home a lot.  What the hell is home?  I had one in San Francisco, a place where I felt safe and protected, almost up to the point when I left.  Then I made the mistake of letting someone I was dating move in with me and my feeling safety vanished.  I got a little back in the end, when he moved out (finally) 3 weeks before I left the continent.  Living at Bridge's plae on Hermannstraße, I couldn't relax.  I felt extreme comfort at Tobi and Jana's place in Lichtenberg, a type of acceptance and a willingness to let me be myself that I strive for in a living situation, but I knew from the beginning that it was a temporary situation, living in other people's rooms, surrounded by other people's things.
Now I have my own space but there are unspoken rules that I must abide by.  I hang out at Robert's house a lot get along with his roommates.  I'm comfortable here.  Is where I live home?  Is Robert's flat home?  Do I still have a home in California?  My stuff and some of my friends are there.  Hmm, things to think about.
I am searching for a home that is mine, a WG (community living space) in March or April.  A place with only adults, where I can make eggs and coffee in my underwear if I want to, where I can feel completely comfortable having friends over.  We will see.

In other news, I am co-teaching a clowning and dance workshop today at the Shake! Zirkus from 2 to 5.  Getting paid to do what I do well!  Oh, yes!

Last night HE was BUILT FOR SPEED!

Eve wrote it down before I did, so I'm going to link to her blog here and just say, I CONCUR!  And I have found my home.

Juggling: The Thing I Said I Could Never Do!

On Sunday I went to the flea market at Boxhagener Platz, twisted balloons for 3 hours, and made 40 Euro.  Not quite enough to live on, but not bad at all!  I ran out of balloons though, and the only place I know to get them so far they are 10 Euro for a bag of 100.  But I heard I can find them somewhere near RAW, a circus/art space on Revelarstrasse for 7 Euro, so that's bettter.  I'm teaching a 2 hour clown workshop on Wednesday night and Eve and I have a gig on Thursday.  Tomorrow morning at 11 I am going to register my address with the police at the Beurgeramt, then I have tandem speaking with Simone and then rehearsal with Eve.  It will be a long, long day and I will have a sense of accomplishment at the end, I hope.
The weather here has shifted.  It is like the Outer Sunset, gray and cold.  I am glad I bought that winter coat at the thrift store.
I have a feeling inside time is coming.  Any computer people have ideas about how to get English language TV and movies to stream in Germany?  Mirror sites, etc?

But now for the really exciting stuff:  Yesterday after twisting balloons, I called Eve to meet up and she said she was at the circus.  I thought she meant the Shake circus by the Ostbanhoff, where Daniel and Sharon live, so I went there.  She actually meant RAW, the space I will be teaching at next week.  But Sharon was home and did not mind that I stopped by.  We ate pastries and went to Goerlitzer Park with Zigi.  I started tossing and dropping a juggling club.  Sharon started trying to instruct me and I almost had a temper tantrum, but he didn't let it get to him.  He just started passing clubs to me, and I got really frustrated, but he just kept doing it, and then I started catching them!  We did this for about two hours.  It was incredible!  For him, it was just juggling practice, but for me, it was beyond intimate, allowing someone to watch me fail in this specific way over and over again.  There was no judgement of good or bad.  Just practice, just the motion.  I caught a lot with my left hand, less with my right.  My truncated digit gives me more of a challenge here, but I can do it.  And passing clubs is fun!  I have a new hobby.

Today I was supposed to go to a contact class with Eve, but we got lost and I got frustrated and basically feel like I need to spend some time alone this week because there has been a lot of data coming at me and not enough processing time.
I was sad this morning.  Overwhelmed and overloaded.  B-- left this afternoon to be in the US for 3 weeks and I am really looking forward to being more comfortable in my home.  It is hard to relax with so many rules and when you know everything you do may be criticized.  She can't help it.  It's just the way she is. But I need to find somewhere else to live.  By November 1st would be nice.  I'm interviewing for a place on Saturday.  Cross fingers!
My head is a messy and out of control swampland right now.  Partially hormonal, I'm sure, but also there is a feeling of displacement.  Technically I can come home to the States, but if I do, I know how that story goes.  So I attempt to get a Visa so I can stay longer, but I've all the stress of "what if."  Of course, if I can't get the Visa, there is always Thailand.  It's possible that I could volunteer at a permaculture center in Chaing Mai for a time.  A lot of things are possible, regardless of money.  There are parts of me that have faded away, possibly permanently, and this is terrifying.  The world of possibility is open to me, and this is also terrifying.
I may have a job for 6  hours a week (2x a week for 3 hours) playing with a little boy and speaking English.  This would amount to just under 50 Euro a week, which is not enough to live off by itself, but would help a lot.
And I am starting to rehearse with a guitarist.
There is so much opportunity for me here.  Everything tells me to stay.  Still, some days are hard.  I absorb the stress of others so easily, and I am already nervous about having the apartment be perfect when B-- comes home on the 26th.  It's nervewracking.
Maybe I should just make this commitment to only seeing people for work related things these next few days and then going home and dealing with myself. Hey, things come in cycles.  To learn and to grow hurts sometime.  And I am learning and growing a lot, so I guess the hard days are to be expected.
I hope Eve had a good time at the contact class.  I got Pommes Frittes (French fries) at the Currywurst place on Hermannstrasse and met a girl named Etta who just quit her job in the fashion industry and might trade English lessons in exchange for using her sewing machine.  I'm now in a cafe I just dicovered in my neighborhhod called Frolein Langer.  I think this is my new spot.  Many couches, candlelight, WLAN, and an international crowd.  Sweet!

Together At Last: HE at Barbie Deinhoff's

On Saturday night Eve and I had our first gig together in Berlin at a small queer cafe in Kreuzberg called Barbie Dienhoff's.  We got there early and were welcomed by a tiny square stage and a backroom with mirror and lamp.  This was also the beer storeroom so it was a little cramped.  Neither of us are at all a princess, so this was just fine with us.  We got ready and then sort of hung out.  We were not scheduled to go on until at least 10, and it was only 9.  The bartender, a French guy named Valentin, was positively adorable and delivered drinks to us in our dressing room."
So what, I ask you, are two clowns locked in a beer storeroom to do?  We took it to the streets!  Sharon and Daniel showed up with Daniel's aerialist partner, Asia when Eve was directing me to get up, sit, do things outside. The fun just began!  I feel that our friends being there helped fuel our bizarre walk-around street performance.  They played along as we pole danced in the window and strutted on the street, Eve taking sips of people's beers and me pulling limes out of my pants.  The lovely Sadie Lune showed up, which made me very happy.  For some reason, that lady always puts a smile on my face. 
Around 10:30 we finally began. Eve danced to get the crowd interested and then brought out me in the big cake puppet.  We had been working the cakedance a lot, and discovered some new things, and I am happy to say that it finally works!  I had a lot of fun performing with Eve.  I love our partnership, the way we trust each other and can bounce off of each other's cues, but something happened for me onstage during my last solo number.  Something bizarre and unexplainable.  A chapter closed.

For as long as I can remember, I have been creating work that is somehow about gender and sexuality.  These have been the themes that have been driving me, making my creative wheels turn, giving me my edge.  I am shocked to say that at age 35 (I'll be 36 in December) I think I am done with these topics exploring these topics in the ways I have been.  I am still interested in the way people develop, in what we are attracted to, and I will always and forever consider myself a part of the queer and transgendered community, no matter who I date or what my own personal gender identity may be, but I don't think I am interested in talking about it onstage at the moment.  This is a real shock to me!
And now my question is, what is next?

I have a polka-dot apron.  Yesterday I put it and my nose on and met Eve, Daniel and Sharon at Boxhagener Platz fleamarket, where we were going to busk.  But instead of playing like a clown, I ended up twisting balloons.  I guess this is what I do when I busk.  I made about 12 Euro in a few hours.  Not great, but not horrible either.  The apron,though.  It changed things for me.  Feminine and domestic, this fashion article brings a new light to making a dog or a lion out of a tube of latex, a creation of something from nothing.

Later on, I had a gig at Scheinbar, where I would put my nose on and sing "My Man," a song written for American Vaudeville star and Jewish icon Fanny Brice.
 Again, the apron!  The song, me, my presence was changed by this old-fashioned article.  And I am no
t going to resist the new costume.  Where can I go with this new feeling?  I wonder?

One other performer I must speak of at Scheinbar (get ready):  Frank Sanazi.  www.franksanazi.com
I don't remember the last time I laughed so hard.  Wow.  This kind of comedy takes some real chutzpah.  It was awesome.

I actually managed to get home at a reasonable hour and get some sleep.  Today I had plans to go busk by the museums or Brandenberger Tor because it's a holiday and the museums are closed, so the place will be crawling with tourists, but honestly, I have been working really hard and am beginning to feel slightly rundown.  Maybe I'll take a day off.

Rosh Hashonnah: Not So Traditional After All

On Thursday Eve and I rehearsed in a small park in Prenzlauerberg.  I don't remember the name of it, but it's a strange little spot on Papalallee that is a park, playground and cemetery with a theater next to it.  I tried on Eve's moustache and became Boris.  I wonder who this guy is.  I think he is part walrus.  I'd be interested to play around inside him and see what happens.  He is either a cowboy or some sort of lazy cop.  In any case, he is confused.

After rehearsal, I went to Eve's place.  She is living on the top floor of an old squat that is now a flat with roof access.  I am hoping that I can move into her room when she goes if I do indeed figure out a way to stay.  The place is amazing, a little gritty, high ceilings, art everywhere.  On the balcony is a miniature/forest, swampland, complete with DIY pond.  The roof is accessible by ladder and gives a beautiful view.

We bask in the sun for a bit and then I have to come back to Neukölln for a tandem speaking appointment.  S-- a friend of B--'s, is working on her English and has agreed to help me with German.  At 6 the bell rings and I invite Simone up.  She is a stout woman with mannish haircut, and a slight left-side deficit.  Her eyes are firey and she has a warm smile.  I like her immediately.  We figure out how we will structure our time.  An hour of English, and hour of German.  Perfect.  She speaks enough of my language to have a conversation.  She asks me about clown and I tell her about the idea of the other.  We talk about Artuad.  She is working on a writing project called "Handi-captured" challenging notions of disability and looking at how every person has deficits and is able-bodied at once.  She says she is an in-between person.  Due to certain things that have happened to her, she cannot do things that she used to with out help, but she is an independent and strong woman, and likes to do most things by herself.  I tell her a little bit about me.  She asks me to write a one-page story for the project.  My deadline is the 12th of Oktober.  Yes!

At 20:30 she goes and Daniel rings the bell.  I get ready to go to this Rosh Hashonnah celebration, trying to look nice, conservative.  I did not bring so many clothes with me, so this is not an easy task.  The woman having the party is orthodox, which makes me nervous, but I will be with my friends, people I trust.  They will keep me safe and comfortable. 
Before we go to meet Sharon at Hermannplatz, which is about 3 blocks away, Daniel looks at the directions in his email.  Of course, they are in Hebrew, so I can't read them.  We walk to Hermannplatz, Daniel chattering playfully and me a bundle of nerves and caffiene.  I begin to smile in spite of myself, and by the time we get to the plaza, I am dancing to music in my head.  Sharon arrives in a huge bicycle with a seat on the front.  "Get on!"  He says in his authoritative tone.  I laugh and decline.  We shove each other around a little bit. 
We try to figure out where we are going.  The directions say to take the U-7 to Nuekölln station and then walk to some address.  It's written in Hebrew.  I have no idea what it says, so I just say, "Okay!"
Daniel and I hop on the train.  Sharon pedals off.  He'll meet us there.  Outside the station, we reconvene under a bridge.  I pull out my map and we look for the street we are supposed to go to.  It is nowhere.  Sharon takes the map, turns it over to the list of street names, stares at it.  "I never remember the order of the letters."  He says, handing me the map, "Can you find it?"
This shocks me for a moment.  Sharon has a brilliant and complex mind, speaks two languages fluently (Hebrew, English.)  But it makes sense. Both he and Daniel grew up with a separate alphabet.  I keep finding myself in these situations where everyone has something separate to contribute of equal importance.  All auslanders (foriegners), we all sort of need each other.
I find the street and the location on the grid.  It is on the other side of Berlin.  What to do?  If we try to go there now, we won't get there until midnight.  We can't call the host because she cannot pick up the phone due to it being the high holy days and her being orthodox.  And we are hungry.  We begin to walk.  "No sausage."  I request.  "I've had enough sausage."
"Oh, but this is traditional food for Rosh Hashonnah." Sharon chides.  (Sausage is pork.  Do the math, goyem.)
We don't want döner.  We don't want shawerma.  We want pizza.  "Harvey,"  Sharon says in his commanding voice.  "Use your powers.  Find us pizza."  We walk along.  I focus on pizza.  After 3 blocks, it appears, but it is pricey. 
"Sorry. " I say.  "I forgot to focus on cheap pizza."
Daniel begins to chant, "Cheap, cheap, cheap."  Too more blocks and voila!  2 euro pizza!

I get a margarita pizza and the Israelis both get salami and cheese.  Our pies come.  "Shana Tova," we all say and laugh.  Not only is salami unkosher, but they are eating it with cheese.  After, I want to go to a park.  I have a few bier in my backpack and, hey, it's new year's.  We walk and talk about all kinds of stuff.  Life, death, the soul, what it is and where it goes, pick up Daniel's bike, which is by my place. Eventually we reach Templehof Freiheit, only to find that it's closed.  We sit on the side of the bike path.  It's woodsy.  Sharon pops open the bier with his lighter, Daniel stretches out on his back.  I here rustling in the bushes and turn to my right. A fox is staring at me!  It is still, we are still.  Sharon moves his leg and the fox darts back to his hidden safety.  I feel magic in the air.  "Shana Tova!' Sharon and I clink bier bottles and Daniel's plastic one filled with water. 
We finish our biers.  Again, Sharon tells me to get on the front of the bike.  I acquiesce and get a ride home.  "Tchuss!"  I yell after the boys.  Daniel has sped off ahead. "Good night, Harvey!"  Sharon's voice trails off as he pedals toward his home at the circus.
My first observance of the Jewish New Year.  Nice!

We have plans to go hiking in the forest for Yom Kippur.

Shana Tova, Artist Visa, Playing To A Dead Crowd

HE: A Genderstranged Clown Duo

Shana Tova everyone!  It's Rosh Hashannah, the Jewish New Year, and tonight, for the first time in my life at age 35, I will celebrate!  The Israeli boys invited me to a dinner party thrown by an orthodox Jew.  I'm a little nervous, hope I can come up with something appropriate to wear.  But I'm also quite excited to finally get a chance to do this high holy days thing, and to do it in Deutschland.

In the park yesterday, Daniel and I talk about life and relationships.  The conversation comes around to Jewishness and our voices get a little hushed.  It feels so liberating and free to be here.  I feel I can flaunt the fact that I'm strange and queer, but I have to talk to someone I good long while before I'll reveal my heritage to them.  I have known Sharon and Daniel for almost 2 weeks, and it's not a long time, and yet we are all bonded.  I think our blood has a lot to do with it.  There is a part of all three of us that is ready.  Ready for it to happen again.  Ready to hide, fight or stand.  We know that if things turn, we are there for each other.  It is our Jewishness that makes it so.  I never thought that these issues were buried so deep inside me, but I guess they are there.  And Berlin pulls them to the surface.  Slowly.

I think about my homeland, the USA, and what we have done.  We have massacred a native people, stolen people from another continent and held them in bondage.  Just last week, an innocent man was framed and killed by our government because of the color of his skin (ref: Troy Davis.)  How are these hundreds of years of systematic oppression different than Hitler's brief reign?  I don't have any answers, and I know these questions are unpopular, but still they are there and keep me awake at night.

Last night I had a small gig at the Kookaburra Comedy Club on Schönhauser Allee.  The night was put together by an eccentric performer and MC from Stuttgart named Otto Kuhne.  Other performers where a cellist and singer of the comic variety named Matthias and an AMAZING beatboxer named Pete the Beat.  I have heard a lot of beatboxing in my life, but I have never heard anything like this.  Pete was in his late 40s and claims to have introduced beatboxing to Germany.  He was a very humble and friendly guy, and completely expert in his craft.  I would believe he was the first one to beatbox here. 
I only made 10 Euro, which is a bummer, but the night was really lovely and I have seldom met three nicer guys.  I didn't even feel weird sharing a dressing room with them.  They were all courteous, spoke English to me, made me feel like a competent and important artist.  Really, I was playing for them, because truth to tell there were about 7 people in the audience including Eve, and during my set, maybe one person laughed one time. 
It was so frustrating!  I feel like I did my job as a clown!  I listened to the audience,  I asked them what they wanted.  Too much?  Not enough?  They gave me NOTHING!  So I just had to go on and get my eight minutes over with.  And then I was done.  And the person who booked me was happy with my performance, and that's the part that mattered.

After, Eve and I go to a store, get a bier.  The cashier opens them for us and we walk out to the street to find a step to sit on outside a closed shop.  "Shana Tova," I clink Eve's bottle with mine. 
"Shana Tova!"  She says to loudly.  I wince.
"Eve, you've got to-"  I stop.  How do I explain this to her.
"What?" 
We talk about our separate ancestries and I learn about the French-Canadians. 
It starts to make sense to me why French and French-Canadians don't want to speak English.

We make a rehearsal plan, talk about busking.  I hop on the train to Alexanderplatz and then transfer to the U-8, getting home around midnight.

Even with all these heavy thoughts, I think I have decided to stay here for as long as I can.  I try to convince myself to come home to the bay area, but aside from friends and family (which I value most dearly) what is there for me  in California?  I've no place to live, no job until June, am a slave to the public transit system (which is quite mediocre) and everything is expensive.  Though the current exchange rate is 1.36 USD to every Euro, food and rent are quite cheap here and, if nothing else, I am respected for my craft.  Also, no one who is part of the circus world has told me I do not belong!  A major life-changing shift. 
So I am trying to find out what the possibilities are for changing/refunding my return flight on November 30th.  Tomorrow or Monday I will go and register for a month long German language program, collect my bank statements, photocopy my passport, buy German insurance and ask Bridge for a signed paper saying I reside at this address.  I believe I can get a visa extension of at least 3 months this way.  It's true, I'm only here until November 15th, but that's plenty of time to find a place.  If anyone knows of anyone in Berlin renting a room for 250 Euro a month or less, let me know. I'm currently seeking an under the table job, too.  Made one inquiry about an English-speaking nanny position I found on Craigslist and am going to find out about stagehand stuff.

Last night people in my dreams where speaking German.  I only understood a few words.  I don't know what they where talking about, but I now it was German.  I have never had a dream in a foriegn language before.  This place, it has seeped into my consciousness.  It wants me to stay.

It's all a little stressful and overwhelming, but I believe I can do this.  If anyone would like to make a contribution, financial or energetic, to the Harvey fund, now would be the time.
http://www.gofundme.com/8y660

Circus, Disability, Cops in the Head

First, a cheers to small successes:

My sim-card was running low.  I slip on my sandals (it's sunny today) descend the five flights of stairs and walk down the street to the cell phone shop.

"Hallo, Ich will nach ober meine sime-karte."

The guy behind the counter asks, "Zwanzig?"

"Fünfzehn."  I reply.

He presses some buttons, hands me back my phone.  "Danke.  Tchuss."  And I walk out the of store.  No English!  First time.  It is a microscopic thing, this interaction, but something
something
is starting to happen.

I begin to relax.  No longer do I sit forward, alert, stressed on the U-Bahn, furtively listening for the announcement of my stop in what used to sound like a peanut butter-mouthed language.  I start to hear word separation, consider sentence structure.  Mind you, I still have no idea what anyone is talking about.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I feel blessed to have fallen into the crowd of people that are surrounding me.  Last night I went to a circus-varieté/cabaret at Zirkus Zack.  I wasn't sure if anyone I knew would be there except Jana, who was the stage manager/director.  I was a bit nervous about finding the place, but it was very near the Ostkruez S-Bahn stop.  I walk into a compound that feels like burning man.  The ground is packed dirt.  There is a permanent bathroom but everything else seems fairly mobile.  Some trailers, one of which is a concessions stand.  At this point, I am quite used to not understanding most of what is being said around me.  I don't feel self-conscious about being alone.  In fact, I feel strangely safe.  But I do get a little bored sometimes.  I see a child about age 4, take out my balloons.  "Hallo!  Hund oder Katze?"  The child looks at her mother.  I say to her mom, "Ich speche kein Deutsch."
Mom smiles, says to kid, "Hund oder Katze?"
"Hund."  The child says, so I make her a balloon dog.
There is another child, "Hund, katze oder blumen?"
"Blumen." She gets a flower.
An area in the dirt is cleared and fire arts start, poi, staff, some crazy looking apparatus I don't know the name of that resembles a staff but has big flaming rings on the end.  I feel like I'm in Black Rock City except this is real life.  An announcement is made.  I don't understand what is said, but everyone lines up by the tent opening to go inside, so I follow. The old adage, "If everyone else jumped off a cliff, would you do it too?" comes to mind.   There is a certain amount of trust I must put into those around me these days, I suppose..
"Harvey," a familiar voice says my name, though it is not one of the Israelis.  I turn.  Tobias, with his wavy salt and pepper hair and prominent nose saunters over to me.  "Hallo!   Come, Vie are closer in zie line."  Tobias has this amazing accent, soft, gentle, precise.  He is from Southern Germany.  I wonder if they all sound like this down there.  I join him, his girlfriend Jule and their friend Robert.  They all speak English.  Tobias and I start to talk about heady stuff, performance theory and psychology, but he doesn't have the English for the more complicated terms, and I definitely don't have the German.
Inside, we sit together.  The Israelis show up and Sharon comes and sits next to me.  The show begins.  The premise, a hotel. Clowns, aerialists and acrobats tell a story line that is possibly a bit thin, but then again, I cannot understand what is being said onstage.  The talent is amazing.  There is breathtaking sole tissu act, some very talented jugglers, and a few incredible clowns.
There seems to be a different set of taboo here in Berlin than in California.  Even is San Francisco, I feel that references to sexuality and gender in the media  are somewhat marginalized and most definitely only for 18+.  On the other hand, violence is not only accepted but expected.  We Americans are addicted to guns, to war, to blood.  Here, it is rather opposite.  While this wasn't necessarily a family show, there were definitely people with kids there, and there was a lot of sexuality happening in the clown work on stage.
There was a cross-dressing man who played both male and female roles in a tryst under the sheets, complete with the sounds of creaking bedsprings and then acted as the woman who had to get out of bed to pee and wanted to get back into bed for another romp.  A female clown did something with cigarettes, stole cigarettes from someone in the audience, and then sort of freaked out and told the audience that we should all love each other RIGHT NOW!  There was a sort of slow build to all of this.  I believe the act was about desire.  Or something.  Whatever it was, it made my sides ache.
My favorite part, though, was two naked men in a bathtub.  I am told that this is a copy of a sketch by a famous German comedian who just died, (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/24/germany-comedy-loriot) I am not sure what they were talking about, however I believe some of it had to do with penis size and that the water was cold, and that the rubber duckie was an intruder and not allowed in the tub.  They both took turns standing up (multiple times) and revealing that they were indeed naked and one was possibly Jewish (if you don't get it, ask someone else), manhoods, wobbling around unashamedly.
This would never happen in America.  Not in a million years.  Berlin, Ich liebe dich.

But there was something that happened to me inside.  See, I have always had this rocky relationship with my body, not how it looks but the way it moves, the things it is capable of.  I'm a brain injury survivor, grew up with words like "special" and "disabled" pasted onto me.  These labels were meant to help me by helping others understand me. (At least, that's how I feel about it now.)  But because of these labels, I was allowed to think movement was a scary space, and also a space that I was excused from inhabiting.  In graduate school, I had to learn to dance.  It was terrifying.  I didn't want to do it.  I almost dropped out.  I almost got kicked out.  I would run out of the studio crying and lock myself in the bathroom like a child at the simplest request to cross the floor in a group improvisation.  I had nightmares and insomnia at the same time.  Cold sweats, dry mouth, the whole thing.  Phobia.  It. Was Not. Fun.
But then this thing happened, where I looked across the circle we were sitting in and realized that we were all fallible. Specifically, it was that someone else in the class (a person I thought was a very graceful mover) couldn't touch his toes, either. And I started to have fun.  And I started to love to move.  And I started to dance.  My second year of graduate school, I went to circus school, and it was a place I definitely did not belong.  It was the polar opposite of the loving support from that first year of my studies.  There was only one right way to do things, and I was not doing it.  I tried and tried and tried at juggling, acrobatics, rolla bolla.  And then my dad had a stroke and all my strength, effort and will power went elsewhere.  The circus became a door that was closed to me.  There was no love for me there, no ensemble, only judgement and alienation.  So I've had a pretty bad attitude toward the circus for about 5 years.
But I come here, to Germany, to Berlin, where all of a sudden, the type of person I am is no longer oppressed.  Jewish, queer, an artist, I may not be rolling in the dough, but I feel so safe here.  Safer than I feel in San Francisco, anyway.  The first place I perform here is a circus tent.   The first person I meet (beside Tobias) is an aerialist.  I don't say anything about my head injury. No one asks me about my scars, the way I move.  I am a clown.  I make the audience laugh.  That is good enough for them.
Watching this show last night, though, all these things bubble up inside me.  Things I thought I left in Amerika but things I can't leave in Amerika because they are inside me. They will come with me wherever I go.  I am not going to do even the simplest acrobatics.  I am not going to juggle.  My left arm will never straighten.  I will never in all my days be able to bear weight on it or effectively straighten it without having minor surgery and physical therapy (and I just don't have the insurance for that, thanks USA.)  But none of these people know that, none of them are asking and none of them care.  I don't need to validate any part of myself to anyone.  I am a clown who has come from Amerika.  That is all and that is enough.
In this city, I will never need a driver's license because the transit is so amazing and the streets are safe.  I can be an artist and no one questions my contribution to society.  I am not angry here.  I feel like I have a place.
The learning curve for this language is slow, but I can handle it.  I wonder if it is time to put my old baggage to rest, to dump it somewhere, to emerge, to transform.  I am beginning to have real, true conversations with people and this seems like a difficult thing to translate from die Englisch sprache.  Though it is true, no matter how far we run, our pasts will be with us, no matter how long we wait, until the oceans run dry, this stuff will be there.

My Life in the Circus has Begun!

It's midnight.  I got home half an hour ago from my first gig in Berlin, Zir Couplet Varieté at imShake! tent at Ostbanhof.  I just have to blurt it out: I SLAUGHTERED this audience!  They would not stop laughing!  It was hard to go on to the next part of the act because they just wouldn't stop!  It was my first time performing this work in a venue that wasn't "queer" or alternative in some way, and you know, it was better!  They where not expecting me to go there, so when I did, it was all the more outrageous!  And I learned so much about what I was doing from this audience.  My character, this poor, sweet, confused clown who just wants to be loved, she is a child!  She has no idea that what she is doing might be inappropriate.  There is nothing sexual or erotic going on for her, just what feels good and what does not.  There's nothing in my 8 minute solo piece (see www.harveyrabbit.net if you don't know what I'm talking about and want to)  that is inappropriate for children.  And I really feel that way after performing for a mainstream audience this evening.

I'm getting the DVD of this performance in the coming month and will post it for you to witness.

The cakedance, well, the puppet is a constant work in progress and in need of seemingly constant repair.  I've only been working with it for a couple of weeks, so there is still a lot of discovery that can happen with that.  It didn't bomb, but it was "interesting," as in the audience watching but not laughing so much.  The best part is that I get to do it again tomorrow!

I really want to write about all the amazing people I met and tell describe for you the incredibleness of the environment, but I am just dead beat, so here are a few half-assed pictures.  This tired-assed clown is going to bed.  (well, i'm finishing my delicious german bier first.)

Stranger in a Strange Land

Prenzlauerberg

A lot happens in two days when you're in a new place.  I still haven't taken pictures around Neukollon (my neighborhood) yet.  This place makes me a bit shy and nervous.  It's fairly working class and there is not a whole lot of English.  Everyone should give themselves this experience of not knowing the language where they live.  There is a certain sort of being vulnerable in the universe that I feel people who are American might not experience if they never leave.  English is a universal language.  Most people in the 1st and 2nd world have at least heard English before.  There are several people in my country who equate not speaking English with a lack of intelligence.  There is a fear and hatred of immigrants and refugees.  "Why can't they just learn English?"  I feel a great empathy for people who have the chutzpah to cross into the US, legally or illegally, without being fluent in English.
Yesterday was a horrible day.  I tried to buy a monatskarte (a monthly pass for public transit) from the Turkish guy at the newspaper stand and my pronunciation was so bad that I had to show him what I had written down in order for him to understand me.  It cost 74 Euro, which sounds like a lot, but it is much cheaper than paying the fare every time you want to go anywhere.  I left the store ashamed, holding back tears as I walked down Hermanstrasse to the electronics store so I could buy some blank cds.  Seems I forgot to pack a sound cue CD for my first gig (which is tomorrow night.)  On the way I passed a cemetery and I thought to myself, "I could go sit in the cemetery and cry.  No one would bother me because people are allowed and expected to cry in cemeteries.  I wouldn't have to tell anyone I don't speak German or that I only speak English.  I could stop feeling like a disgusting American or an imbecile."  I couldn't find the entrance, though, so I sucked it up and kept walking.  At Conrad, the electronic store, I approach an employee.  "Ich spreche kein Deutsch.  Sprechen zie Englisch?"
"Oh, ja," he says. "You can speak English here.  Is no problem."  And I want to kiss his feet. 
He tells me where the CD's are.  I check out without having to say anything except, "Danke," and then decide to wander.  There is a small outdoor market selling handbags, produce and kaffee on Karl-Marxstrasse.  I wander around but don't need anything so I start heading back up my street.  I look down a side street and see trees.  I decide to walk towards them.  A park!  Volkspark is huge and I will explore it again with a camera someday when I am feeling a bit more secure about being here.  There are Nigerian and Arab drug dealers around, but they leave you alone if you don't make eye contact.  I sit on a bench, plug my ipod into the speakers on my kitty backpack, and read my book while listening to David Bowie.  Some dude in a hoodie comes and sits down on the end of the bench.  I scoot over.  It doesn't matter.  He totally ignores me, rolls a spliff and walks away.  After a while it is too cold to stay out.  I didn't bring anything long-sleeved because my dino hoodie was still wet from the wash. 
Back in front of my building, I see there is a 1 Euro shop (like a dollar store) across the street.  I buy some crap and come home.  B-- s getting ready to leave for the weekend.  I am excited to be alone in the apartment, which is beautiful.  My room is enormous by San Francisco standards.  The toilet is separate from the bathing room and the walls are papered with envelopes.  The door is all stamps.  European toilets are weird.  There is a small platform with no standing water where you eliminate, and then a little hole with water below it that leads down into the plumbing.  After you go, you flush and all this water sprays across the little platform, forcing everything down the little hole.  You need to scrub the toilet every time you go number two.  TMI?  Just sharing my experience folks.  We're all human, right?
The bathroom is huge and tiled in shiny red.  The walls have a collage of different roses all over and the ceiling is silver.  There are a separate tub and shower.  I took a bath tonight. Yessss!


So today I decided that having a good day was imperative.  I fight my shy streak and call Julika, a sculptor and jewelery maker I met at my artist residency in the Czech Republic four years ago.  I tell her I am in Berlin for two months and would like to see her.  She invites me to dinner at her flat in Pankow with her 11 year old son, Neo and her boyfriend Norbert.  That's at 7:30, but at 3 pm I want to wander, so I go to the one place in Berlin that I know: Prenzlaurberg.  Everyone complains that it is so gentrified and all this, but I love it.  This area always makes me feel great!  So after rehearsing alone in my room with the video camera for a few hours, eating soft-boiled eggs and toast for breakfast, getting a German simcard for my phone, I am off on the U-8, which is right outside my front door.  I get off the train at Alexanderplatz to transfer to the U-2.  A Berlin train station is not like a BART stop.  It is a metropolitan area underground.  There are hosiery shops and cafés, places to get your watch fixed and kiosks where you may buy beer, wine and liquor.  On the actual train platform, you can buy alcohol, magazines and newspaper.  And there is no brown paper bag of shame you must wrap around your elixir.  You can just open it and drink it on the train, in the street, anywhere.  No social stigma.  They also sell cans of Jim Beam whiskey that you can drink straight.  Like Budwieser. 
I disembark the train at Eberswalderstrasse and I know where I am!  I wander down Kastanianalee, a street with many shops, galleries, artspaces and old squats, buy a kaffee at the MorningGlory café and sit outside at in an orange plastic chair next to one of the retro-60s tables, then by a tourist map and some postcards.  (If y'all want a postcard, send me your address and I'll do my best to mail you one.)  I finally feel like a normal human being!  Also, I find the language school is still there.  I go in.  "Sprechen zie Englisch?"  (I can say this extremely well! And it's a language school.  Of course the man behind the front desk speaks English.)  I inquire about programs.  There is a one-week class for 4 hours in the morning (20 hours total) for 180 Euro ($248) which includes books and all administrative fees.  At this point, I don't know if I can afford it, but then again, we'll see how the next few weeks go.  My pronunciation is TERRIBLE, my vocabulary minscule, and I want to be able to talk to folks.  I am also considering finding a tutor, a student who needs some extra money, that I could work with, because really, I just need conversational.  Of course, I am a bit of a nerd and really like school, so we'll see what happens.  I think I just need to be a bit patient with myself.  After all, I've only been here 3 days.
I take the train to Pankow around 7:15.  It is only two stops on the U-2.  Amazingly, I don't get lost finding Julika's address, Hydenstrasse 7.  When I arrive, She and Neo are fixing a window downstairs.  There is art dust, pieces of sculpture and grout everywhere.  I immediately feel at home.  Neo is taking English at school, though his favorite subject is biology.  Norbert comes home with bier.  He speaks no English but is very nice.  We try to communicate with each other and can both see the humor in the situation.  What a relief! 
Upstairs, Julika's flat is an art storm, the exact opposite of where I am living.  Mildly cluttered, there are knick-knacks and pieces of metal and clay on every shelf.  The only plumbing in the place so far is in the raised clawfoot bathtub, next to the toilet in her studio, which is next to the kitchen.  The pad is downright funky!  I feel the intense pressure of trying to fit in lift from my body.  I am smiling helium.  Neo has two pet rats that are allowed the run of the house.  They are adorable, sweet.  I miss animals immensely, and it means a lot to me that he let's me hold the albino one for as long as I like.  We all contribute to the meal.  I have found a bottle of California wine.  I chose it partially because it was from my home, but also because it was only 2,50 Euro.  I make a salad of tomato, cucumber, apple, artichoke heart, onion and caper.  We have also potatoes, zucchini, and smoked flounder.  Julika sings with a choir and invites me to practice on Monday.  I will go!  It is nice to have a friend.  Also, for the first time since I began my travels, my stomach is sated to the point where I cannot eat another bite, though they all keep trying to feed me. 
At 10:30, I depart, wanting to get lots of rest before my first gig.  I am already shaking in my shows.  The 8-minute piece, I know in my bones, but the cake piece is so new and is hard to practice on my own with no one to press play.  That, and I'm having some structural issues with the puppet.  I think I got them worked out, though.  In a panic I sent Tobias, my contact at ZirCouplet, an email saying I wasn't sure about the 3 minute act (the cakedance) and he said we could just decide at tech, which is at 4 pm.  Though I started writing this email last night when I got home, I am now finishing it on Saturday, the 17th at 11:30 am.  It's time to put a tail shake in it, shower, and ready myself for this evening.  I am so nervous I can't tell whether I am frozen or flying.  I hope they laugh!  But one thing is for sure: I'm going to get paid.