Tale of the Fishwife

After John Kerry was defeated in the 2004 American election, I blamed Bruce Springsteen. Well, to be fair, I only partly blamed him.

See, I am pretty sure that when the Democratic party parades their celebrity endorsers, as they have done in the last two elections and are doing again in the current one, it drives a wedge between the candidate and his or her potential constituency. Naturally, Republicans try to do the same, but for them, it backfires to their advantage because only lame “stars” like Chuck Norris pony up. I believe the result is that the GOP ends up looking more like autograph seekers than the famous elite who sign their names on books and posters and the glorious bosoms of adoring fans. And let’s face it, most Americans are autograph seekers who just want to vote for a guy who understands their needs.

Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t vote for Bush, and I won’t pull the lever for McCain, either. But will I support Obama? Gosh, I don’t know. Sometimes I think he’s great. In my lifetime, I’ve never been so moved by a public speaker as I have been by him, and all of my friends think he’s simply the bees’ knees. But he’s a crafty politician, too, and I occasionally find his policy choices maddening. Here are four quick examples: (1) He proved two weeks ago that privacy isn’t as important to him as it is to me when he sided with Republicans and voted for a bill that allows warrantless surveillance of international telephone calls and emails. (2) Despite his lifelong fight for civil rights, he still believes that marriage is an institution meant only for a man and a woman. (3) He thinks it’s OK to fuse religion with government-sponsored programs, as he proved earlier this month when he came out in support of George W. Bush-type faith-based initiatives. And worst of all (4) Jennifer Aniston has endorsed him.

Barack Obama has spent a lot of time and money campaigning for change, but I can’t always figure out how he’s so different from the rest of the bunch. All that seems to be changing in his campaign these days is his heart, and that makes me wonder if I’ll even bother voting at all…

By the way, as he did for John Kerry, Bruce Springsteen has also come out in support of Obama. Only this time around, the Boss might blow my whole theory and actually do a candidate some good. You see, it was just revealed in an article by Reuters that “[Springsteen's] comments at 1988 concert helped fed [sic] East Germans’ discontent,” and, it seems, he was probably one of the key catalysts for bringing down the Berlin wall. Heck, who wouldn’t want a guy like that on his team? That’s an endorsement that’s almost good enough to guarantee my vote. But, then again, it kind of makes me wonder: What the hell has Jennifer Aniston ever done?

What a nice venue, the amphitheater at Monbijoufestspiele!

Last night a little more than 100 of us sat sprawled out there on risers made of fresh-smelling pine as we watched and listened to Detektivbyrån out of Gothenburg, Sweden. The scene was a real wonder, what with the shiny dome of the newly renovated Bode Museum in the background; dozens of potted plants set up behind the band; and the natural flora that towered over the theater, including a Japanese maple that seemed to “get” the trio as it clicked its leaves together in time while the group did their thing.

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Just a quick note about the item that I mentioned at the bottom of yesterday’s post. I noticed this morning that news outlets around India and beyond are running wild with the story about a Nazi war criminal, Johann Bach, who was supposedly captured in Indian jungles.  But I’m evermore convinced that it’s all a big hoax.  The guy was supposedly 88-years-old, and he dragged an 18th Century piano with him across the globe these past 50 years. Add to that the fact that many of the news items say that he was captured by the German intelligence group “Perus Narkp,” which doesn’t exist as near as I can tell, and it’s all too rich to believe. If I had the time, I’d try to confirm this for sure, but alas, I’m off to earn my bread. If it is all a big joke, though, I’m looking forward to laughing at it.

UPDATE

Et voilá! A Hoax, indeed. (click here).

UPDATE II

If you’re still interested in this story, you can inform yourself about the group that is claiming responsibility for the Perus Narkp hoax by clicking here.

A day or two after bawling on the Fishwife about my desire to earn some colorful Euros, I reluctantly strapped on a tie, matted down my hair, pressed my thumbs and convinced some nice people that they could do a lot worse than give me money. I should’ve wished for something else, I guess, because they gave me the work, and it’s been keeping me so busy that I haven’t had the appetite or energy to keep this little project of mine from turning into a dusty hellhole.

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I’m afraid I’ve been too busy lately to puzzle out any sort of decent post. So, until I can get it together, I thought I’d share a nice quote that I read last night in Saul Bellow’s novel Humboldt’s Gift. For a moment after I read it, I was sure he was describing the blogosphere, but then I remembered that he published the book 33 years ago.

“America is a didactic country whose people always offer their personal experiences as a helpful lesson to the rest, hoping to hearten them and to do them good—an intensive sort of public-relations project. There are times when I see this as idealism. There are other times when it looks to me like pure delirium. With everyone sold on the good how does all the evil get done?”

This morning, as I was doing my ablutions, I listened to the Kinks’ Low Budget at a really high volume. I expect that most people don’t know this album very well, if they know it at all, and I guess that’s OK. It pains me to think that more of the world is interested in listening to Mick Jagger than to Ray Davies, but I’ve grown used to living with this kind of injustice.

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I’m not going to have a chance to update the Fishwife this week the way I’d like to, so I thought I’d quickly continue with the Mark Bittman theme I started at the end of my last post.

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Yesterday, as I did my usual Sunday-afternoon pimp-stroll down Bergmannstrasse, I lowered my turtle-shell sunglasses and peeped into the newly renovated Barcomi’s American-style cafe. They do a brisk business, Barcomi’s do. It must be because of their delicious roasty-tasting coffee, or maybe their bagels and lox, because it sure as shit isn’t their American-style cookies that’s doing it. Holy crap are their tragically flat Snickerdoodles abominable—there’s not whiff of Cream of Tartar in them—and my high school cafeteria served better chocolate chip cookies. It’s a shame, really. Not because I want to spend all of my hard earned dough buying up their baked goods, but because I had hoped that their confections would taste so good that I’d want to buy one of the cookbooks they’re always flogging.

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There I was, sitting at my big glass desk, looking out onto Bryant Park as I waited for an intern to finish cutting limes for a Friday afternoon Gin and Tonic. I thought to myself, “I’m bored.”

A few weeks later, I asked my boss for a private meeting. “I’m moving to Berlin,” I told him.

“That’s fantastic,” he said. Then he got quiet, and confided, “Don’t tell anyone, but I’m chucking it in, too.”

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The Republic of Texas, which is almost twice the size of Germany, has long been an American hot spot for Germans. They began emigrating there in the 1830s, and they’ve never stopped. In fact, according to the 2000 census, 11 percent of the state’s population claims German ancestry (second to only Mexican), and they have umpteen towns that owe a debt of thanks to German settlers. There’s Fredricksburg where, according to Wikipedia, over a thousand people still sprechen Deutsch zu Hause, although most of them probably speak a Texas-German dialect (seriously). There’s Muenster up on the Oklahoma boarder. There’s Schulenburg, Frelsburg, Weimar, Westphalia, Deutschburg, and New Braunfels. Then there’s my favorite of all, Luckenbach, home to Outlaw Country music. Over the years, I’ve loved hearing my dad spin a sad, but blue-ribbon yarn about how he watched a cowboy-poet friend kill himself on booze in that tiny town (population 3).

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