RANDOM JOURNAL NOTES

8.19.00 I have my little notebook with me too so I can jot notes as we go or at meals and then transfer to this big notebk - no thought too small!

8.19.00 Bob had a Weissenbier Kristall which looked pale and sissy like I would like it - but I tasted it and it had that scary after taste like dirty socks that I don't like. My palate is pretty limited on beer appreciation.

8.20.00 [We decided to] go to a cheesy disco around the corner. I think if we knew someone who lived around here they would have told us not to go there. It was loud, technothump, blacklight, strobelight, very young crowd - but we had a drink (like we needed it) and watched the TV screen with explicit phone sex ads including one with a girl and a cigar that had me covering my eyes.

8.20.00 There are more loathsome people in this world than rent-a-cops, they're museum guards in Berlin. Every museum has about 1 guard every 4 feet and they aren't the least bit friendly -- they give you the evil eye and you can't carry an umbrella or Godknows what else.

8.22.00 Yesterday a woman ran up and asked me (in German) where there was a phone. I smiled and shook my head. She kept talking and I said, "I don't understand" so she's like "telephone" and making hand signals. Lady, I'm a fricking tourist - I've been here 3 days. I have no idea where a phone is.

8.22.00 You can buy beer at McDonalds. It costs 2.80 DM so $1.40 and we don't know what kind - just "bier." The most expensive beer I've seen on any menu was a Miller Draft, as if.

8.22.00 Yesterday we went to the zoo train station to fix our train reservation. Bob shows the lady -- who told us she spoke little English -- our tix and asked if they "looked okay." Not surprisingly, she didn't understand. He asks again if she can look through them and I say sarcastically "are they good tickets?" And she says "Berlin. Prague. Ticket. Yes, good." Hysterical.

8.22.00 [on the train to Prague] A British lady wanks about the [train] car - apparently not luxurious enough for her. gees. Also wanks about a 1 1/2 hour delay from the previous day. Obviously she's never flown Delta Airlines.

Margin note: (B.O. not a priority in Czech)

8.22.00 We exit the train (SBahn) at Babelsberg. A nice big sign points left. I chide Bob for not seeing it. Turns out this is wrong and we have to backtrack. Panic about which bus. When all else fails, ask the surly, unhappy public employee bus driver.

[From the Volcano Show at Filmpark Babelsberg]
8.22.00 The best loud heavy metal music. Germans love HM! We went to World of Music [giant record store] and WOM has a whole section of heavy metal as big as the jazz section. I LOVE IT. It's a blood thing. Me, heavy metal, I love it. ... You can tell when a massive stunt sequence is coming because the heavy metal amps up. My Mom would have had a coronary. . . . They light a guy on fire -- he runs around. Later they do it again. What a job. JA [my nickname for the Jennifer Anniston look-a-like in the volcano show] gets to fight and gets beat up. She gets to rappel from the roof and fly from the stage to the seats on a wire while water sprays and fire surges under her feet. How do I get this job? On the set is a big machine gun that spits fire without reloading. How fun is that? ... In the second show, Vladmir -- an impossibly gorgeous swarthy guy got lit on fire twice. Bob keeps taking my picture in the dorkiest poses. I feel sorry for anyone who has to look at our pictures. But even more sorry for the people who have to watch home movies from Babelsberg. Parents will take photos of their kids doing anything.

9.1.00 At the end of the tour we are dropped off at the only concessionaire: McDonalds, absolutely packed to the gunnywales. Even Bob gives up. We eat dried figs and peanuts from the backpack and Bob buys a pitiful ice cream.

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PHOTOGRAPH: Wall climbing at Babelsberg. Dig my shoes. Photographer: Bobman.

This page was made on December 13, 2000. Featured artist: Smashing Pumpkins. Featured beverage: Merlot. My computer is a much loved lime iMac named Yoda. My software is BBEdit 5.0 which I am barely competent at using and Dreamweaver at which I am even worse.

Posted: 12.13.00
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