22 March 2012

Berlin gegen Rassismus


I am always delighted by the extreme lengths people will go in Berlin to make sure that there are safe spaces for everybody.  One of my favorite cafes, Tristeza, is not a queer cafe, yet the bathroom is plastered with stickers that say things like, "Smash Homophobia," "Space Invaders Against Transphobia," and "Whenever We Fist, We Win."  There is definitely a giant movement toward integration of all people here.  I wonder how much this has to do with what happened here in the '30s and '40s, Hitlers attack on Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and people with disabilities.  Probably a lot.  
I find the governments acknowledgement of these atrocities refreshing.  When I think about my own government, it makes me a bit ashamed.  I was at a party the other week and a woman asked me about America.
"My friend's daughter went to high school in America for a year," she said.  "And she said there was nothing about what happened to the Native Americans in the history book.  And when she asked about it, the teacher changed the subject.  Also, is it true that there is a holiday for Christopher Colombus?"  
I had to agree with her that honoring Colombus with his own National holiday was not far from celebrating Hitler's birthday, which NOBODY (except for the people you never want to meet) does.  I did mention that what was once called Colombus day is now known as Indigenous People's day, but sadly only to the liberals and radical left.  I remember being taught that Colombus did a really great thing by 'discovering' the Americas when I was in elementary school.  Why was I taught this instead of being taught about the genocide he and his crew committed?  American textbook companies, you sure like to point the finger of blame at other nations, but have you ever looked in the mirror?  What is this crap we teach our kids.

Unfortunately, this beautiful bubble of tolerance I am living in here in Berlin is not where everyone lives.  While the Jewish people are very protected here (because of that whole holocaust thing) and no one freely admits to anti-Jewish sentiments, there are a few groups that face a lot of intolerance.  See, Berlin is a city full of immigrants, immigrants from other countries in Europe and the world.  And one of the largest immigrant populations here are the Turkish.  I had never been exposed to Turkish culture before moving to Berlin.  You know how in California, there is a lot of Mexican influence (food, art, language, music)?  Well, its the same in Berlin with the Turkish influence.  And you know how there are a lot of stereotypes and deeply-rooted prejudices about Mexican culture in California/America?  Well, it's the same in Berlin/Germany, but with Turkish culture.  Me, I don't get it.  I mean, Turkish people have skin that is the same color as mine, so how can anyone tell who's Turkish and who is white (and what does white mean, anyway.  I have met Germans with a very strong anti-Polish sentiment.  And Polish people are white, but in the balance of power, there is racism against them.  Oy vey, this is getting complicated.)
I was smacked in the face with this anti-Turkish sentiment yesterday when I went to get a bank account at the Sparkasse at Kottbusser Tor yesterday.  Kotbusser Tor is great.  It's a part of Kreuzberg I really enjoy.  There is a vibrant diversity there that makes me feel alive.  Turkish, Arabic, and African influence all mix with German culture and make the air electric!  But the woman who helped me open my bank account didn't think so.  
They had one banker who was fluent in English, so I had to make a special appointment to get my account opened.  This woman and I had the same birthday, December 19.  I thought that was very cool.  She was very friendly with a solid build, thick wrists and a pillowy bust, a fake tan and high hairline.  She asked me some questions and I answered them and somehow we got on the subject of the area the bank was in.  "This can be such a stressful area." 
"Oh, I really like it.  So many different cultures.  I think it's exciting."
And then she launches into, "There are so many people here who have lived her for a long time and don't speak any German.  Thirty years, some of them, and they just have their own communities and never have to learn German."
I know what she's getting at, and I don't want to go there.  "I know some Canadians and British people who have been here 5 years and don't speak ANY German."  I try to steer us away from the inevitable.
"Oh, know.  Americans and English people always learn German," she prattles on, "but these Turkish and Arabic people, they just move here and then they don't even try."
Oh, lady, please shut up and just give me my bank account.  Please?  Do you understand that you sound like a fucking Nazi?  You don't know if I am of Turkish decent.  You only know that I am American, which means I could be anything.  "All the Turkish and Arabic people I know speak excellent German," I say (and it's true.) "Myself, I'm having a really hard time with the language."
After this, we just sort of go on with opening the account, I make a 50€ deposit, and I leave as soon as I can.
But I am still thinking about this woman. What made her think it was okay to say all these things to me?  Does she have any idea she is racist?  Probably not.  It reminds me about how I have heard people in Santa Barbara talk about Mexicans, or people in San Francisco talk about Chinese.  I really wanted to say to this lady, "You go to another country and deal with immigration if you think it's so easy.  Otherwise, shut the fuck up."  
And the fact that it is okay with some people to not speak the native language of where you are as long as you are a native English speaker?  That is just messed up!  What makes English a more valuable language than Turkish or Arabic.  It is nice to have a universal language, and I feel very lucky that it is my mother tongue, but there is so much culture in language, and by saying that English is valuable and Turkish is not, one essentially negates Turkish culture.  And that, my friends, is racist.  
I hope I haven't offended anyone with anything I've said here.  Am I racist?  I wonder.  If any of this does not sit right with you, please comment!  Let's start a conversation.



Innsbruckeplatz


18 March 2012

Jonathon Coulton

Recently I acquired the Jonathon Coulton Discography.  Since I've been in Berlin, I've had a lot of problems with my iTunes.  To be honest, I haven't been listening to a lot of music.  And I haven't been listening to a lot of songwriters. 
Jonathon Coulton, what can I say?  You put my in stitches with your space-invaders/robot obsession and obvious internet addiction and bring me to tears with your poignant ballads about love, alienation, and childhood. 
I love "The Town Crotch" on Thing A Week 1. It's a love song, actually.  See, there's this girl, a senior in high school, who is good to go anytime.  She has a reputation.  She's the chick that the guys get their rocks off with and then treat like shit.  She lets them because she wants to feel good about herself, like people are attracted to her.  She needs so much validation.  But this guy, he loves her in a beautiful, innocent way.  And it's because she makes him feel special, wanted.  She's got that flirtatious magic about her that makes her feel beautiful.  A tale told in the first person with vulnerability and compassion, the song is no-frills, raw and real.
 
"Podsafe Christmas Song," on the same album, cracks me up.  It makes jabs at the RIAA and is sung in an absolutely Saccharin manner.  He's also got a song about Ikea, which I've posted before, and love songs to his Shop Vac as well as his Laptop.
Jonathon Coulton, you activate the creative synapses in my brain.  Thanks for your strange, honest, and witty lyrics.  You inspire me.


14 March 2012

Some photos

There's a lot to write, I suppose, but I don't really feel like writing at the moment.  Still, these photos are nice.
Paleolithic Cuisine?  What?  The place was one of those organic, we-grow-it and-make-it all-from-scratch type cafes that you find in the Bay Area.  A little pretentious, expensive, a place you'd go after yoga or a high-colonic enema.  But Paleolithic?  I guess they're trying to say that they don't using modern preservatives, but I'm not sure they don't serve fossils.  Hmm.
 These big frogs are on Weserstraße just a few blocks past Silver Future.  There is also a Theatre/Circus space there, Maneg3, for youth, I think.  The design of the whole place makes me smile.
Maneg3












10 March 2012

Friedenau Friedhof (Cemetery)

I haven't written much lately, and for that, dear readers, I apologize.  I've been busy with appointments, improvising, painting(!) and also, I've been a little ill.  Most of my illness seems to have been stress-related, weird stuff going on with my digestive system and the need to sleep for almost 2 whole days.  But finally, my body has settled into the good old, "hey, you've got a sore throat!"  This, I know how to deal with.
Why the stress, you might wonder? It seemed like things were going so well.  Artist visa, loving partner, finally a cool home with a like-minded queer genderwarrior, an improv group, so what's with the stressy stomach?
Well, I must say that all of the above things make me feel amazing, and in truth, life IS going extremely well.  I'm sort of broke but, after doing my budget (but before doing my taxes, hmm) it looks like I will have just enough money to get by until I return to the States to work for 10 weeks.  I do feel very good about my living situation and I am having fun, learning things, and making good contacts in my Improv group, the Space Station Players, led by this guy
Genderwarrior Headquarters

But quite frankly, German bureaucracy has got me down.  See, in Germany, it is required of every person to have healthcare.  You can't go see a doctor if you don't have it.  There are no community clinics like there are in the States, at least not that I know of.  Part of the caveat of my Visa is that I have health insurance.  No problem, right?  I had private insurance for a moment (very expensive) in order to obtain my Visa, and now I'm on public insurance, although there is a little foggy as to who is providing it?  See I applied for Artist's Insurance, which is about half the cost as regular insurance for a self-employed person, but they want all this proof (beyond the pile of papers I already sent them) that I am indeed a money making professional here in Germany.  (My stomach begins to twist even as I write this.)  Give me a break!  I have been here not even 6 months, am trying to learn what I have come to understand is an extremely difficult language, and have been lost behind a pile of paperwork since November!  Where in god's name am I supposed to find the mental space to find gigs or make work when I'm busy filling out forms?  And 6 months is not a long time!  Seriously, it takes a few years of work and toil for an artist to make their mark.  But the insurance people want to see something NOW!  So I'm trying to compile any and everything I can regarding pay and written reviews of my work, regardless of whether it's from the States or not in the next week.  Unfortunately, many of my reviews are in a box in America somewhere and not on my hardrive.  Hmm, but we'll see what I can do.  I'm going to get some free professional advice on Monday.  The worst that can happen is I get rejected, owe the TK (public insurance, not artist insurance) a bunch of money, set up a payment plan, and try again with the KSK (artist insurance.)  It would probably help me a lot if I would stop switching genres, too.  Hmm
Enough of this nauseating bureaucratic shit.  I discovered a really amazing Cemetery down the street from where I live and took some photos.  Please enjoy them.
No Gravestone, just markers and ivy

Wall of Names

A little "patio" for the dead

Cool structure in cemetery.  Possibly a chapel?

A place to sit and think among the dead

Where there is death, there is also so much life

Cemetery Wildlife

Directly across the street, you can buy a headstone!

This is also directly across the street.  Hey, not far to go, I guess.

02 March 2012

Ikea!

S Friedenau
I have a home in Berlin.  Finally.  And after almost 6 months, I have my own bed, too.  Something I really never thought about (because I've had the same blankets and pillows since college) was having to buy bedding.  Sure, I would buy a new sheet every once in a while when one of mine got too stained with the monthly or too threadbare and full of holes, but I never really thought I'd be without blankets and pillows.
Well, when you think you are just going away for a few months and then you end up moving to another country, you end up with needs such as these. 
I recently had a small sun of cash from an experimental film I did.  (UDK Student's thesis work.)  So I decided to go to Ikea and get myself some bedding.  Dear readers, I pride myself on being anti-consumerist, on finding things on the street and in the trash, on buying used instead of new, on living with less rather than more.  But when I got off the train at Sudkreuz yesterday to go to Ikea, I am ashamed to admit that as I walked the short distance from the station to the store entrance, my pulse quickened.  I developed an extra spring in my step.  An involuntary, dopey grin arrived on my face and wouldn't leave.  I started to sing little snippets of songs.  The excitement I felt upon entering the home-making superstore was damn near erotic.  I had only one thing on my mind: Swedish meatballs.
As I made a beeline for the cafe, I began to think about my mother, the biggest Ikea lover of them all.  She's coming to visit me in Berlin in April, and I am making lists of inexpensive and fun things for us to do.  Through my mind flashed, "Ikea cafe and looking at all the pretty Ikea arrangements."
THIS IS A HORRIBLE IDEA!  ONE DOES NOT FLY ACROSS THE OCEAN TO GO TO IKEA!
Forgive me mother.  It was just my delirious excitement at my mass-produced, Swedish-style meal on a tray.
After eating one of those shrimp-and-egg open-face sandwiches and drinking a cup of coffee, I ventured into the children's section, where I gazed longingly at the stuffed animals, the creative and colorful lighting, the heart-shaped mirrors.  I grabbed a pack of acrylic paint and a stuffed red-heart with arms, then remembered I was on a budget and put them back.
In the closet/storage section, I fell into a deep trance with the collapsible boxes.  When I came to, I had a set of hanging cubbies (SKUBB: Black) and a hanging wardrobe (SKUBB: white) under my arm.  Since my closet situation was basicly a suitcase full of stuff on the floor of a wardrobe, I decided to keep both of these things.  I'd take the doors off the wardrobe when I got home and have an exposed closet, making my tiny (less that 10 sq. m) room seem bigger. 
My bed.  Mine.  I own it!  Exciting stuff, this having a home.
I did not allow myself to go to the kitchen section but instead went straight to the marketplace where, using more self-control then an addict in a pharmacy, I bypassed the many colorful and oddly shaped containers for things like laundry, the shower, etc, and went directly to the bedding.  I bought a comforter, two fitted sheets (one red, one black), a duvet and pillowcase set (Blue polka dots), two pillows (80cm x 80 cm, standard European size) one more soft and expensive for sleeping and one a little lower quality for leaning against, a set of 80cm x 80 cm pillowcases (red) and a set of 40cm x 80cm pillowcases (black) because I have not changed my pillowcase for the pillow I brough from the States (40cm x 80cm) since September.  Possibly disgusting but hey, we don't have dryers on this side of the pond, so if you want to do your laundry, you must wait until at least the next day to wear your freshly cleaned clothes again.
I spent 140€ which was almost within the budget I gave myself for spending and definitely within the "if you want to eat next week you can't spend more than this" number.  And it feels wonderful to have my own bed, to not sleep in my sleeping bag or use someone else's stuff.  I am no longer travelling and wandering.  I live here.  In Berlin.  I have a home.
Yes.