Yip yip yip yip yip yip yip yip/Mum mum mum mum mum mum/Get a Job/Sha na na na, sha na na na na na

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.”

It all made perfect sense to us. He had big ideas that would set him up for life, and I had big ideas to try and find a new life.

“Gee whiz and besides,” I reasoned, “the way magazines are folding they might hardly exist by the time I get back to the US. I’ll learn a new trade before it’s too late!” Furthermore, my romantic idea of NY, NY (a helluva town) never quite aligned with reality (Orlando in the making), and I just couldn’t stomach living in the capital of Gimme, Gimme anymore. (But, oh, did we have some fun parties while it lasted.)

So I took my wife’s hand and we split. “I’ll try my luck in some new racket,” I assured her along the way, “and then take it from there.”

She put her arm over my shoulders and said, “You sure?”

And, at first it was great fun. There I was on German TV saying, in English, “It’s a fuckin’ Nazi loot!”, and that was me performing with a theater group in fancy cities known for their flaky pastries and modern architecture. And there I was again, supplementing my income by freelance writing for American publications. So many free hours, so much time to wander cheap, cheap Berlin and think.

Then, the dollar started to tank. Really tank.

Not too long ago, with Euros in my eyes, I took out my resume. As is German custom, I pasted my picture at the top of it. I chose the one that makes me look like a cross between old Tom Hanks, young Jackie Chan, and Liza Minelli, circa 1988. I scribbled my birth date on it (Chinese year of the Water Rat); changed the font three or four times (Courier, Curlz MT, Wingdings…); took out all the adjectives (breakneck, elegant, futuristic, thorny…); put them back in; caught 14 or 15 typos; und so weiter, etcetera, etcetera, and so forth. Then, I got called for an interview.

Did you know that in Germany you’re supposed to wear a suit and tie to an interview?

Shit.

***

Two completely unrelated items of business:

(1.)Berlin was in the New York Times again. The article is all about the impending demise of Tempelhof airport, and it’s a pretty good read, if not a bit lopsided in its vision. This is my favorite paragraph:

Then delay followed delay in the way things do here. What a glorious city Berlin is, and what a mess. It is bankrupt and underpopulated. Big companies like Sony, Samsung and Mercedes, enticed after reunification by subsidies intended to boost business, took advantage of the offers then skipped town.

If you’ve never been to Tempelhof, you should visit before it closes its doors for good. I think it’s a really stunning building, but then, I have an intimate relationship with it. Some nights, when I can’t sleep, I watch the airport’s searchlight as it bounces around the sky, looking for nothing in particular. We’re a lot alike, that light and me. I’ll really miss it if it’s extinguished.

(2.)The second piece of Berlin-relevant information I want to point you to is a set of four links I found over at Metafilter.com. Click on them, and they’ll take you to assorted Berlin-based video blogs which you may or may not find interesting.

Mind you, I’m not recommending them, I’m just pointing out their existence—a lot of the content is so hyper cool and exclusive that unless you’ve got a piercing on or near to your genitals, your attendance is probably discouraged. Still, it’s not all bad. If you watch a particularly nauseating clip, just do what I do, and switch over to YouTube where they’ve got some videos of babies laughing. Ha! Just thinking about them has me LOLing my ass off! (ED: insert hilarious emoticon here to communicate how funny laughing babies truly can be.)

…Ah! I nearly forgot. What I would like to recommend are the comments on the Metafilter posting which argue about whether or not Berlin truly is the hippest city on Earth. There’s nothing exclusive about that party, and if you live in Berlin, you might even chuckle once or twice at some of the observations about our home. (ED: insert mildly amused emoticon here to underscore my pleasure when reading the above-mentioned Metafilter comments, and also to indicate end of this posting).