Dumb-Ass Dobbs

It is unfortunate that I must torture myself with watching the news at breakfast, of course. And especially in these months and days counting down to a U.S. presidential election. But torture myself I do, and this morning with Larry King Live on CNN. Larry was speaking last night with Lou Dobbs, re-Christened here to the more appropriate name DAD, who is shilling his "Independence Day: The Awakening of the American Spirit.”*

But back to CNN.

DAD wants to pass on his wisdom to the U.S. public.

Oh?

Here’s just a few gems of that Dobbs would like CNN viewers to believe.

On Governor Eliot Spitzer’s initiative to have only legally licensed drivers on New York streets, including undocumented immigrants, Dobbs: “What is the purpose of an American driver's license? It's de facto citizenship.”

For those of you not familiar with the process, USA.gov clarifies that “a U.S. driver's license is not a federal document, but it's a permit issued by one of the 50 states' motor vehicle departments.”

Wow. I bet any immigrant applying for a U.S. green card knows the difference between citizenship and a driver’s test, so why not you, DAD?

On the state of education in the U.S., Dobbs: “Almost half of the black students in the country are dropping out of high school.”

I am sure this will be a matter of surprise for the U.S. Department of Education, whose most current statistics show 10.4 percent for blacks and 6.0 percent for whites.

From whom are you getting your information, DAD? The Klan?

On his detractors, Dobbs: “The fact of the matter is I have tried to bring rationality -- despite the accusations of xenophobia, racism, nonsense…”

How could we ever doubt you, DAD?

--
* I am hyperlinking DAD's book to the Noam Chomsky website to better awaken my fellow Americans. (You're welcome.)

I expect better, Obama!

Vicki sent me a WTF message today on the McClurkin-Obama controversy. As the queer press is spinning it, the Obama campaign has gotten into bed with an anti-gay gospel singer. I would love to believe differently but, yeah Vicki, my own mini-research backs it up. Dang. WTF.

So I have some some questions for my fellow Obama supporters.

1) Why a gospel tour at all? We Black folks listen to all kinds of music, and gospel is the least of it these days. What's with the religious pandering?

2) And what's with the Obama staff's lack of oversight? In the Google era, surely the Obama team could have read about his views in advance and averted this disaster by not inviting him along at all.

3) Why not admit fault? Gaffs will occur, but I cannot believe that the Obama team is willing to endure this crisis rather than simply ask this man to step aside. If McClurkin's as supportive of the Obama campaign as he insists in today's press, certainly he would choose to step aside for the greater good of the campaign?

To which, McClurkin states in today's paper that he is not anti-gay. I went back to his piece in Charisma Magazine, and can only note that he's mincing words (i.e. "God hates the sin, not the sinner.") I've been there as a Christian, and know that this place of pity is not the same as supporting a LGBT rights agenda.

Here's a clip from the article:

"These tendencies surfaced because a broken man thrust an 8-year-old boy into this whirlwind. Thus my first sexual relationship was with a man. Before I could ever know the purpose or pleasure of a woman, have my first date or even my first kiss, the wound was inflicted, and the seed was planted."

Before you go all liberal with this "he's just talking about his own experience" stuff, let's clarify that he's hooked "a message" onto this experience for his fellow Christians.

"There may be some who will read this and resent some of the statements made about homosexuality. I understand. Some have no desire to change this lifestyle. But there are countless numbers of people who are not happy in this lifestyle and want to be freed from it...For them, I write this without apology, knowing that I've been through this and have experienced God's power to change my lifestyle. I believed that I was meant to be a whole man, made for one woman, and God brought it all about. I am delivered, and I know God can deliver others too."

McClurkin wrote a book with this same message, by the way.

McClurkin sees those "in the lifestyle" as broken people, abused and in need of healing just as he was. While I understand and support his quest to understand the affect of his rape on his sexual development, the message of "gays are broken and should be delivered by God from their sin" has given succor to the hatemongers (including Our Dear Idiot, Mr. Bush).

And, hey, this idea that violence turns victims from their real sexual orientation should be scoffed at. Indeed, you Andrea Dworkin fans notwithstanding, I think we can all agree that the Obama campaign would (and should) run from someone who'd issue a statement like that on the origins of female heterosexuality.

To which, let's rightfully ask the Obama campaign why they believe defending this performer under the "Embrace the Change" banner makes sense.

---

Related: Nooses in the news. WTF.

Voices

On 7/29/07, Tammi L. Coles wrote:

Raining men here, metaphorically and literally.
Was with Thomas this morning at his place when
we heard a loud crashing of glass, a scream, a thud
and then more screaming. A man had fallen (or
jumped?) from a fourth floor window. I stroked his
back until the ambulance crew arrived, trying to keep
him calm. Thomas and I were both pretty shaken
thereafter. Not even 7:30 in the morning, and hard to
return to sleep.

At least it was dry then, and I didn't have to see the
rain carry his blood about the ground. Pouring cats
and dogs now.

Copying this to Nielsy because how many times do I want
to tell that story?? For the blog? ((shudder))

Miss you both.

Tammi

---

8/1/07

The neighbors have been talking. They remember us in the courtyard with the police, the blood and our fallen man. They come to Thomas for news and to offer... what can they do exactly?

His friend finally brings news. The hospital. His legs. An induced coma. But what we want to know is

Why? asks Thomas.
Why?

Voices, said the friend. He suffers from schizophrenia had stopped taking his medication. He was hearing voices and, speculates the friend, wanted them to stop.

Balcony daze, part two

I never get sick, Adam said, snuffling and sneezing about the office. I watched him carefully: where he put his hand on the doorknob, the way he held the phone...

My body fought it for most of the weekend. But late on Sunday afternoon I fell into Griebnitzee, and climbed out, laughing, in my soaking sundress. Maybe that was enough. (But, oh, What a glorious day we had!)

So I am home sick. And without "the nighttime sneezing, sniffling, stuffy head, fever, so you can rest medicine" of good ol' American television to keep me company.

Still, I have my memories of a wonderful weekend. A kick-ass Modest Mouse concert on Thursday night with Niels and Julian, crowned by sex on the balcony in the late cool air. Then the six of us -- Julian, Jill, Rossi, Steffi, Horst, and I -- crowded out there on Friday night, laughing and drinking and making right idiots of ourselves. Saturday's race from the crowded Freibad Pankow with Stephanie, landing just moments before the rain shower at her favorite chocolate cafe. Mmmm. Kakao. Fantastic. The so-late-it's-dawn of Sunday morning, leaning against Julian in the queue for the Berghain before finally giving in to our exhaustion and cycling home. Later, in the heat of the day, kayaking on the lake -- oh the lake! -- with Nils and Jenny, whom I met the same day. Afterwards, a late night of relaxing with Wendy, David, and Julian at the Angus on Kreuzbergstrasse.

Even worn, sore and ill, I couldn't resist the balcony this morning. I've planted flowers and herbs -- Niels even pointed out my very first tomato. Wunderbar.

P.S. to Julian: are we there yet?

Square Muffin

Mark, Sara, Robert and I had a routine of it: an early swim at the downtown Y, followed by breakfast at our usual hangout, then making our way to work.

There is something in routine alone that is the essence of love.

So when Sara asked what I wanted her to bring from Washington, I joked and said, why, a square muffin!

Not only did she pack me a muffin, she brought me a card signed with good wishes by the familiar faces of those places. From Keith, who works the gym's front desk. From the owner of the City Place cafe. (We called it "the Square Muffin place.") Even Pat, the woman who worked the desk of the women's locker room, signed.

Man, I still remember the argument we'd had over that bottle of shampoo...

Did I mention that the square muffin place makes them round now?

ROUND.

Sweet and tasty nonetheless.

The 300 Left? No thanks, Mr. Zizek.

Regarding "The True Hollywood Left" by Slavoj Zizek in which he defends the film 300 against critics who decried its fascist ideas.

What most frustrates me about the Zizek piece is what frustrates me in general about the rationale of militarism: it suggests that warfare is as right a path to freedom (or better) as any other means. It refuses to look at the consequences of militarism: a circumscribed freedom (of constant suspicion of treachery, of the suppression of dissent and democratic processes, of borders and related identities), structures that continue to place us on the path to "needing" militarism and violence to "defend" our rights (enslavement to weaponry and armies, for example), and the ready dismissal of discourse and negotiation as first or even penultimate choices for defending freedom.

This argument refuses to acknowledge that because militarism MUST be "us versus them" to achieve its goals it is the rationale of the mob. As such, however well-organized under charismatic leadership, it is fundamentally contrary to humanity's real potential for freedom.

Zizek also refuses to see in THIS depiction of militarism the very nature of race and male supremacy. Come on, 300 makes no bones about this: it is rippling-abs male and gleaming white. Is this the idea of freedom that should be "thoroughly defended"? Not only did 300 ridicule any femininity outside of male control -- including homosexuality/homoeroticism -- it framed it within the other classic Western symbols of "weakness" and "evil" (dark skin, turbans, disability).

And although Zizek sees the U.S. in 300's Persia, there is nothing to support it within the current or past political reality of U.S. politics. What "multiculturalist different-lifestyles paradise" is he talking about? It is certainly not the one that *I* know nor that of the Bush White House.

No, no, the critics of 300 are right on target: the film is saying that if we don't defend our (male-dominated, white) freedom, THIS (brown, female, same-gender loving) is what we can fear to become.

The Left need not reclaim these values to win the war for humanity. It is this militarist model of living that has brought us to this place of increasing commodification, continuing disenfranchisement, and environmental destruction. There is plenty of pain, discipline and sacrifice that comes with imagining a different kind of world without smug claims that the Left simply needs to get behind what is at its most basic "might equals right."

-- Tammi

P.S. Don't remind me that the film LOOKED GOOD, Niels. :P

P.P.S. to Jill and Andreas: we were right.

--
Bonus link: video interview of artist, activist and restaurant entrepreneur Andy Shallal on his murals depicting nonviolent social justice struggles. I have seen his work myself at Busboys & Poets. Many thanks to Angelyn for the link.

Freedom Fries, redux

So I am listening to the BBC this morning and hear that the U.S. plans to investigate an official at the French company, TOTAL, over dealings with Iran. The BBC news guy -- don't know his name but he looks like the actor Rupert Everett -- says, with a straight face, quote,

"bribing foreign officials has been illegal under U.S. law since 1977."

Wow. Really?

Let's all commend the Security and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice for their steadfast and unbiased anti-corruption initiatives into the dealings of foreign corporations. And let's not forget to applaud the BBC for this stellar example of muckraking journalism.

Sigh.

I am not sure which is worse, readers:

(1) That I am so jaded that I want to re-write that as "bribing foreign officials...public policy since the dawn of government."

(2) That even after the last bring-us-war lies were revealed, the U.S. government still plays its citizens for suckers. I mean, think of the decision on this: "Cool! A Frenchie in Iran! Let's do it!"

(3) That the Rupert look-alike didn't start gagging on air because that was a really fucking foul line to read aloud and call "news."

---

Bonus link 14 Apr: If you haven't already discovered the wonders of Mark Fiore's political animation, check out his classic gem on Looting!

What if God was one of us...and had office hours?

From Vicki, this morning's humor: Barack Obama cast as Jesus by a student artist, generating calls to his art school (good and bad) and the candidate actually having to "distance" himself from the artist.

Jesus.

So George W. Bush can claim to be God's avenging angel, but a 24 year old can create derivative art and make the Democratic Party nervous?

I mean, the Obama campaign spokeswoman actually felt compelled to say

...we respect First Amendment rights and don't think the artist was trying to be offensive...

Good lord.

And just in time for the Easter Bunny, same article:

The piece [on Obama] comes amid Catholic outrage in New York that led to an art gallery canceling an exhibit featuring a nude 6-foot-tall, anatomically correct chocolate sculpture of Jesus Christ.

That's outrageous?

I am mounting a public campaign to ask that Holy Father Benedict XVI issue an edict demanding churches cancel their Easter Egg Hunts immediately. No more associating chocolate, bunnies, searches through the grass and good family times with the CRUCIFIXION.

Join my campaign! Please write your request IN LATIN to

His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI
Apostolic Palace
VATICAN CITY

or via e-mail benedictxvi@vatican.va

Dating auf Deutsch

Thomas ducks into a hair salon to ask. I stand outside with our bikes, looking around to see if, by some chance, we've simply missed the sign. It doesn't take too long though before he is back out on the curb with a stylist. She's pointing, but her German is too fast for me to follow. I catch "across the street" and "first floor." And, really, that's enough.

As it turns out, there is no sign to miss. Just a simple buzzer among many. Very discreet.

Münzsalon.

We are buzzed into the ground floor. I am immediately impressed by the grandeur of the building. The carvings along the ceiling are ornate enough to be readily distinguished from the regulation style buildings typical of post-World War II Berlin. And the dark wood of the banister – smooth as silk under my stroking fingers – is, I think, rich enough to smell.

We climb to the first floor and our door. It is broad, thick and, like the buzzer downstairs, unmarked. Thomas fumbles a bit with the knob. Locked. But it’s the signal, I suppose, that the attendants are waiting for.

The door swings open to a crowded, narrow fork in the hall, spreading left and right like wide open arms.

One of the attendants ushers us in. The other shuffles a list at a softly lit hostess stand.

Name?

Thomas is taken aback. I take a guess that this is the first he's heard of the need for a reservation.

There's a guest list?

So much for the reading.

But whether it’s the clutch of people all pressing into the door with their ready names, the others who are busily shedding their jackets to get out of the way or my crestfallen look, the attendant decides to ignore our oversight and waves us on.

The interior of the Münzsalon is as impressive as the ground floor entry, with expansive floors and high ceilings throughout. But the rooms are studies in alternate periods of interior design.

One room has the feel of a 1950s library on a Hollywood set. It's all dark wood and leather furniture. Guests lounging in their easy, relaxed poses. Cigarettes between practiced fingers and lips.

The main room, in contrast, is chic in a modernistic style. Low black furniture, long and sleek without ornamentation. The ceiling lights neither draping chandeliers nor recessed sockets but bold, black fabric rings with radiating metal spokes.

Throughout is the clatter of plates, the tinkle of glass and the low voices of guests taking their seats.

Thomas and I, our beer and wine in hand, settle back against our comfortably soft, black booth at the front of the room. Three others – two young women and a man – squeeze in on our right. The reader takes her place in a booth just to our left. She has a small reading lamp, a glass of water and a large printout of her script.

In short order, the mistress of ceremonies comes forward to introduce the reader, the author and the night's events. It is all in German, so I strain to understand. The night's reading will be the German translation of "Apfel, Huhn und Puschkin" by the Russian author, Julia Belomlinskaja. The reading will be augmented by a soundtrack as well as images played against the wall behind the reader. Afterwards, the author herself will sing some Russian folk songs to us.

I think that is what she said.

Our mistress is seated for no more than a brief moment before the author rises to address the crowd. She knows very little German, so speaks to us in a broken and heavily-accented English.

I, of course, understand every word she says. More so than I did the far more eloquently delivered German introduction. And I understand more than enough to convey to Thomas – with certainty but in, no doubt, my broken and heavily-accented German – that the woman is frankly zany.

Her "verrückt-ness" is an asset to the book. I lose myself in both the reader's evocative delivery and in the story itself, of a Saint Petersburg woman who has immigrated to good ol' New York, New York.

And we are a part of it.

Of the gossipy neighborhood girlfriends. Of the crowded skyline. Of the musicians playing their souls out on the streets.

The reader shuts off her light to let the music of the scene play. There is an abstract sax player on the screen and he is covering Louis Armstrong's What a Wonderful World.

The reader drops a coin into a theatre-prop cup. Clink! The author then leaps up and makes a grand show of putting in a dollar.

Thomas laces his fingers in mine.

Red Sweater Days

March 3

Jessica swears that Julian and I were salivating, and she was disgusted. Less because of our drooling (we were not!) but because the object of our attention was wearing unattractive baggy rolled up jeans with that oh-so-flattering red sweater. I mean, how COULD we ignore the jeans?

I had never heard of Au Revoir Simone before, this girlband out of Brooklyn, New York with their three keyboards, flower-power long hair and what Julian describes as their "soft-focus" sound. But Jessica and I have been out to quite a few music events in just the past couple of months, and I've come to trust Julian's music taste (and those of his friends, by extension).

So off to Bastard we go.

Bastard is a tight little club space in Prenzlauer Berg, on the hip Kastanienallee and next to the equally well-known Prater Garten.

At least, it is well known to some. When Ingo suggests we meet there just the night before, I sound like a hick with my "where's THAT?" cluelessness.

It turns out that I had been there once before for a drum-n-bass dance night with my coworkers. Um, I will censor out the events of that evening to protect the not-so-innocent. Let me just leave it with "good times were had by all."

Bastard had a nice little club feel when I was there then. But tonight, it is packed wall-to-wall with people out to hear Au Revoir Simone. Maybe some were also there for the opening act: a too-cool-for-school Berlin group called I Might Be Wrong. Baggier jeans, Beatles-style hair cuts and a singer who refuses (simply REFUSES) to smile. (She read somewhere that smiling is NEVER cool.)

The babes of Simone must have skipped that lesson. Thank god. And Ms. Red Sweater doesn't just smile.

She beams.

Drooling or not, Julian and I enjoy every minute of the spring-day-and-bubble-gum sound of our winsome threesome. It is not that all the songs are light-hearted. The song they dedicate to their "best friend in Berlin" is about a breakup.

They apologize for that, which makes me laugh.

Jessica rolls her eyes.


---

March 14

Jessica is teaching an English class tonight, so it is just Julian and me at the Lido for Console. Neither of us had been to the Lido before, but it is just one block from my favorite Italian restaurant on Schlesisches Strasse and, after dinner, Martin walks us there.

I have walked past this place a hundred times and not seen it, I exclaim.

Well, they are not always open, Martin coolly replies.

The Lido is not Bastard, thank goodness. Although brimming with people, there is still room to breath. (And, later, I'll find, to twist and shout.) While not exactly cavernous, the room's high ceilings suggest an almost dreamy vastness.

When Console starts, that's what I do. I close my eyes. Dream. I imagine then that I will open my eyes to a room emptied of people. Ok, maybe a sole bartender remains. And the heat of all those bodies still radiate. But the flesh -- of guests, band, and even Julian -- is swept away like so many sand castles on the shore.

It is just me, the vastness and the gentle pull of the music.

It helps that Console leads with a couple of tracks that are heady like that. But they don't stay there. I am back in the filled hall, Julian is near, and the music is throb throb throbbing. A few people hold out-- stare at the stage, listen intently, drink their beers.

But the rest of us are caught in the flow. A turning, dipping, whirling mess of our sweat and cries.

What joy this!

And I know it. Just know it.

The walls are pulsing.

This is my prayer.

The Kit Kat Club is having their 13th anniversary celebration this coming Saturday. If it is at all like the Hustler Ball event that I attended during Richard's visit, it should be FANTASTIC.

(Oh Niels, will I ever say that word again without hearing YOU say it?)

Speaking of which, Rob P. says that he will come along on Saturday and sent this FANTASTIC poem by Ruth L. Schwartz with his reply. My pleasure to share it with you.

Oh God, Fuck me
by Ruth L. Schwartz

Fuck me, oh god, with ordinary things
the things you love best in the world -

like trees in spring, exposing themselves,
flashing leaf buds so firm and swollen

I want to take them in my mouth.
Speaking of trees, fuck me with birds

say, an enormous raucous crow,
proud as a man with his hands down his pants,

and then a sparrow, intimately brown,
discreet and cautious as a concubine.

Fuck me with my kitchen faucet, dripping
like a nymphomaniac,

all night slowly filling and filling,
then overflowing the bowls in the sink

and with the downstairs neighbour's vacuum,
that great sucking noisy dragon

making the dirty come clean.
Fuck me with breakfast, with English muffins

the spirit of the dough aroused
by browning, thrilled by buttering

Fuck me with orange juice,
its concentrated sweetness,

which makes the mouth as happy as summer
leaves sweet flecks of foam like spit

along the inside of the glass.
Fuck me with coffee, strong and hot,

and then with cream poured into coffee
blossoming like mushroom clouds,

opening like parachutes.
Fuck me with the ticking

clock, which is the ticking
bomb, which is the ticking heart -

the heart we heard in the first months,
in the original nakedness,

before we were squalling and born.
Fuck me with the unwashed spoon

proud with its coffee stain -
the faint swirl of a useful life

pooled into its center, round as a world.



P.S. To a certain someone who is reading this blog: shhhhh... Your mouth is a tomb, remember? ;-)

Schreit wie am spieß

Welcome to the 2007 edition of getting to know your friends. What you are supposed to do is copy (not forward) this entire e-mail and paste it onto a new e-mail that you'll send. Change all the answers so they apply to you, and then send this to a whole bunch of people including the person who sent it to you. Put your name in the subject line. The theory is that you will learn a lot of little things about your friends, if you did not know them already.

1. What time is it: 12:13 AM CET

2. What time did you get up this morning? Can't remember, but there was a headache in there...

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? Scott Walker: 30 Century Man. A documentary at the Berlinale. Um, seeing a percussionist pound meat for "the right sound" is just what I expect of art films.

4. What is your favorite TV show? Don't have one because I HAVE A LIFE. Wait, then why am I answering this...

5. What did you have for breakfast? Skipped it today, but had a nice lunch with Wendy. Did we really talk about sex clubs or was I fantasizing again?

6. What is your middle name? Rhymes with navel. Ok, not really...

7. What is your favorite cuisine? East Asian, whatever it is.

8. What foods do you dislike? Things that are still moving...and percussionist-pounded meat.

9. Your favorite chips? People have favorites?

10. What is your favorite CD? Of all time or now? Hm. Maybe ABBA? "If you change your mind, I'm the first in line... " Kidding!

11. What kind of car do you drive? It's called PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION. Leave the U.S., and you will love it too.

12. Favorite sandwich? Eggs and cheese on wheat.

13. What are characteristics you can't stand? Hypocrisy, lack of self-awareness and control of the White House.

14. What are your favorite clothes? Whatever it is, it is probably black...or no clothes at all.

15. If you could go anywhere on vacation, where would it be? Does "from my own thoughts" count?

49. What time did you finish this e-mail? 12:40, but that's because I got into a long conversation with Vicki who called to wish me a Happy Valentine's Day and catch me up on figure skating news. And because I skipped questions 15-48. Oh, and 50 ain't happening either.

Doug, for the love of god, just don't ever send one of these again.

Man, are you gonna fry...

And in my continuing coverage of the fall of the (former) pastor Ted Haggard, right-wing zealot and full-time hypocrite, this gem from the New York Times:

[clip]
Forced by a gay sex scandal to resign as president of the National Association of Evangelicals, the Rev. Ted Haggard now feels that after three weeks of intensive counseling, he is “completely heterosexual,”...
[/clip]

After a one-night intensive course in ass-fucking, I am sure everything will be fine again.

Let's all thank God for that, shall we?

I know I am.

The Devil Wears Prada...but only authentic Prada.

Okay, so I posted the other day about high-end urinal sales in the states, as found in the Most E-Mailed article list of the New York Times. I was still shaking my head over that one, when...

This morning at #1 on the Washington Post site: "Virginia Men Face U.S. Trial In Peddling of Phony Purses." It seems that a "purse party" goer got suspicious when those Hermes handbags selling for $19.99 seemed too good to be true.

[snip]

The trial in one of the nation's largest counterfeiting prosecutions will feature testimony from representatives of Gucci, Kate Spade and other leading designer labels, according to court documents. Exhibit A will be a sampling of hundreds of purses, hauled into the courtroom one box at a time.

The case is bringing scrutiny to a widespread problem that has been publicly visible for years: trafficking in handbags...

[/snip]

Trafficking.
In handbags.

When I think of all those well-heeled women perched on the witness stand or scattered throughout the audience, decrying the exploitation wrought against Fendi, Chanel, Coach and Louis Vuitton, I want to...I want to...

OH GOD THE HORROR!!!!

I mean, where else can a child worker from Latin America have her 8 cents per day work praised as it should be if not in the hands of a real appreciator of Haute Couture?

I mean, what has the world come to?

---

Are you also trapped in the Matrix? Today's bonus link: a different perspective on the world of fashion as brought to you by the National Labor Committee, www.nlcnet.org.

For the High-End Bathroom, Something Reeks

Although living in Germany has given me some reprieve from the aggressive onslaught of political news and advertising in Washington, D.C., I still make a point of reading the Washington Post and New York Times online almost daily. (Think "Tammi's LaLaLand," but with updates on the insanity of the world.)

The NYT has a feature tracking the articles that are most popular among the site's "hey, you gotta read this" set. This Top 10 list usually offers up a curious mix from science and technology innovation to lurid accounts of the entertainment business.

Today at No. 6: an article on luxury urinals.

That's right, URINALS.

According to the interviews and research conducted by freelance writer, Suzanne Gannon, urinals are going upscale. Bathroom fixture companies, like Germany's own Duravit (see photo), have found that home owners in the U.S. are now willing to shell out $1,000 for off-the-shelf models that are slightly improved over the baseball stadium variety.

Motion sensors! Infrared-triggered flush!

Some wealthier patrons, according to Ms. Gannon, are even willing to pay $10,000 for specially commissioned "one-of-a-kind" urinals (in attractive floral designs no less).

No offense to the (genius!) artist who came up with this (brilliant!) idea, but

W T F.

I can imagine plenty of things that we po' folk could do with $10,000. The retirement of school loan debt. Vacation travel with family and friends. Donations to victims of natural disasters.

Or, hey, how about even $10,000 for the the Fox News "soldier of the day" whose crusade to get basic sleeping mats for he and his fellow soldiers has been turned into a hate campaign against a Pakistani mattress store whose employee dared to suggest that, no, it would be better for you to leave Iraq.

The terrorist!

Want your guests WOWed and ASTOUNDED by the one spot where they can (at least symbolically) piss on you and your priorities? Yeah, available in the good old U.S. of fucking A.



And, um, p.s. to the Duravit employees in Hornberg, Germany, who go to a giant toilet each day for work. It's often like that for the rest of us, just not so obvious.

Bonus link of the day: The World Toilet Organization. Sign up now for World Toilet College!

The letter

Kim happened to write me THE SAME DAY, also asking for your address. I sent that along in a separate e-mail to you both. Do drop her a line. She is going through a bit of a rough spell (finishing graduate school, boy trouble). Although you've been out of touch for a while, I hope this is a good time to reconnect.

I am right now sitting at 100Wasser, a cafe named after a famous German architect (Hundertwasser). Do you know him? Google his name for examples of his work.

Hm. I just did. Friedensreich Hundertwasser. Turns out he's not even German, but Austrian. Lordy.

I had never heard of him before moving to Berlin although this is, admittedly, more a reflection of my cluelessness about architects in general rather than German (or Austrian) architects specifically.

Are you still doing those architectural tours of Chicago?

Right now, I am enjoying my "farmer's breakfast," an omelette of potatoes, bacon, vegetables and onions. It is snowing like a scene from a Christmas Carol, so it's also a pleasant time to write. I wouldn't mind more bacon though.

Things for me are well. Work is going well (although the pay is nothing I would have accepted in the U.S.) and my base of friends grows.

Last night, I was out with Jennifer, a fellow American feminist who escaped (as she says it) from the U.S. just one week before the Sept 11th attacks. We were joined by my politically-disinterested but quite-the-hottie coworker, Markus. He looks a bit like one of the elves from Lord of the Rings. Tall, blond and with strong features. The very Aryan of Hitler's warped dreams, I suppose.

We talked quite a bit about movies, mainly horror and sci-fi. I got to finally confess my desire to be a vampire (the clothes! living for ever! sexy neck bites!). Jennifer was disgusted. "Besides," she reminds us, "I'm a vegetarian."

I want to write movie scripts with moments like that.

Mind you, Jennifer loves horror movies, and the more gore, the better. She has read feminist analysis on it though. :)

You would like her.

On blood and such, glad to hear that you are recovering from the idiocy of our fellow humans. I met a runner here who was hit by a motorist who, like yours, wanted to sue him for the damage to his car. WTF. I can only wonder what planet people like that live on, where human casualty, dismemberment or disabling is deemed less important than some factory-manufactured part. (Um, it is THIS planet, and I am just frickin' naive.)

I can identify the click of a lighter now without even turning around. Smokers.

Of course, 100Wasser *has* created a new non-smoking section, but my laptop battery has been on the fritz and the sole plug in this Internet-ready place is in the smokers section. Still, this IS progress in Germany. I think I heard that it is the #1 smoking capital of Europe. (Heard it from the friend of a friend of a friend who...)

Anyway, sorry to hear that the parents made the final break. I suppose your mum is doing ok? How are things with your dad? Are the siblings well? Do say hello for me.

And what's this about a vandalized locker? The dissolution of a friendship? A year of hell?

I am WOEFULLY out of the loop here, and I am sorry. You're right that e-mail is substandard for maintaining the intimacy of friendship. It doesn't help that I don't enjoy talking on the phone that much. (Some people would laugh to hear me say that, but it's true.) In any case, your phone number disappeared into my dead Palm Pilot. Send it again. There is no reason that we cannot actually make time and gab like we're sitting on a couch together.

To which, Kim says that she might want to visit in August or September. What about you? Maybe we can do a Wild Women's Tour of Europe (yes, all in Title Case, as it deserves). Think cocktails, smart clubs and German landscapes made even more beautiful by Summer.

And, if we're lucky, the clothes! living forever! sexy neck bites!

Your silly friend,

Tammi

The new bra

So when we were together last week, I was wearing a new bra and panty set. Funnily enough, you made a comment about my previous purchase of a dress. Like "why would you buy something that makes your tits look great when I am not around to notice."

You didn't notice the bra. And, damn, I looked good.

Okay, okay, we were in the living room and it was dark. And, jaja, I didn't stop you to say "hey, clueless man, look!" (Although I did try to take my clothes off slowly...)

But, and in light of our "burlap bag" talk of some time ago, I have changed my mind on that strategy.

I bought two bra sets. One in black and one in a deep blue. Cute things with lace trim. I was excited when I bought them. I will leave you to interpret what I mean by that.

For our next date, choose the color you want me to wear. Again, your choices are black and blue. Then, please, take a moment to compliment (even if all you want to do is "get to the good bits.")

I hope this public notice helps.

Stumbling in RL

StumbleUpon is a nifty little program really, the double-click 'Net answer to channel surfing. Click click. Darwin. Click click. Cooking. Click click. Porn. A community of wanderers.

I'm bored.

Click click. "X number of ways to reduce stress." Leave the house early. Give more love than taking. Reduce caffeine. I open the StumbleUpon link to view comments left by other wanderers. I leave my own idea: 'Log off?' I need a little kick out the door. I shut down, wash up, and go.

The day is not as bright as the small bit of light that had filtered through the window. The day is warmer than I expect, sure, but the wind is fierce, and pulls at my coat like an insistent child.

But I want to walk, and need it after all these days cooped up with my cold. So I skip the brunch spots of Friedrichshain and walk to Kreuzberg. I cross the Oberbaumbrücke, pass a little cafe (mmm, sehr lecker) and drop into my favorite Italian restaurant.

Is French onion soup French? A silly question and it hardly matters. I rave about this restaurant's soup. It's always served piping hot in a deliciously-spiced broth, topped with a thick onion ring and smothered under a bubbling-brown crust of cheese. I wolf it down, but have room for more (no doubt the body's rebound from being sick). I order the steak and broccoli plate.

Yum. Broccoli seared in whole green peppercorns and olive oil. A nicely browned steak with a rosy-pink center, albeit drenched in a peppercorn sauce that I have to scrap away. The blood of the beef pools in the sauce. I pretend not to notice.

I make sure to eat all of my broccoli, but the steak is too much. I sigh a bit from the guilt, as if some fussy mother were sitting across from me at the table. (The waste! There's a child starving in Africa!) I stab it a bit with my knife. Give up.

It is not that I have anywhere to go. Martin lives nearby, but there's no answer to my buzz at the door. I amuse myself with visions of him drunk and weary from Petra's birthday party or, alternatively, waking on the other side of town to some woman he doesn't plan to see again.

I imagine his frown when I tell him this.

I am aimless and wandering in the wind.

It's just 15 minutes to Treptow, but everything is closed there and, worse, the rain and wind have picked up. I am pushed, pulled and pushed again.

Fuck it. I run for a passing bus, flash my pass and hop on for a short trip right back to where I've started.

Still, I don't go back to the restaurant but head for the little cafe. No smokers today. Nice. And the big windows let in all the available light, for what that's worth.

The train rolls by on its elevated track, bright yellow happiness like a determined perky blond. (It *will* be a beautiful day today!)

But it's gray gray gray. And on the walk back -- across the bridge, up the hill, past the station -- the wind whips into a frenzy. Little yelps as people clutch their coats and each other. An older woman wrestles with her torn and warped umbrella. I worry that the wind is strong enough to lift and throw me up and over the railing -- a useless flapping of green wings then down onto the tracks below.

Not so impossible. The new main train station lost an metal girder -- SMASH! -- in a crash of iron and glass. I am, in comparison, a feather.

The jewelry store, the video store, the next cafe.

Why am I not at home?

Click click.

SexyBack

Dirty babe
You see the shackles
Baby I’m your slave
I’ll let you whip me if I misbehave
It’s just that no one makes me feel this way

I am home sick today. I blame Niels, but he's healthy and it hardly matters. Sniffles, sneezing and coughs wrack my entire body. My back aches with the sheer effort of breathing. Damn asthma. Where is Martin and his sadistic massages when I need one?

So I spend the day indoors, reading Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, chatting online and listening to music. Recent tracks by Death Cab for Cutie from Vicki, Kaiser Chiefs and Billy Talent from Niels and, um, Justin Timberlake, Usher and Rhianna.

Take that and rewind it back
Lil' Jon got the beat to make ya booty go (smack)

For Saturday's games and dancing, I had built a new party playlist and loaded it with more "popular" tracks. I rationalized that it was an effort to tempt Irene onto the living room dance floor. We had gone out dancing in the previous week, a first in our year's friendship and a surprise of an invitation. Frankly, I thought Irene didn't dance.

It depends on the music, she says. She dances with her head back and her eyes closed. Swaying.

oohoohoo du hübsches ding
ich versteck meinen ehering
klingelingeling wir könntens bring
doch wir nuckeln nur am drink
oohoohoo du hübsches ding
du bist queen und ich bin king
wenn ich dich seh dann muss ich sing':
"tingalingaling you pretty thing"

My music didn't do it for Irene, so she spent most of the evening playing Uno rather than dancing. In any case, well, she was my convenient excuse for buying the pop tracks. Truth was, these songs had caught my attention each time I heard them on the radio. I listened to iTunes clips, bit my nail like an indecisive girl and bought them.

Well woman the way the time cold I wanna be keepin' you warm
I got the right temperature for shelter you from the storm
Oh lord, gal I got the right tactics to turn you on, and girl I...
Wanna be the Papa...You can be the Mom....oh oh!

There are moments when my relationship to music is like of a teen boy sneaking peeks at the porno mags. I am absolutely fascinated by what some music does to my body, but I nurse the same pathetic shame that my time is not spent in, er, higher-level pursuits.

I mean, come on, Justin Timberlake AND Thievery Corporation? Nelly Furtado AND Gotan Project?

Schizophrenic is not just the name of my favorite JC Chasez album...

look at you with my hands down your pants
check you out getting fucked while we dance
look at you check you out!

Fucking on the dance floor
fucking on the dance floor
everybody's fucking
fucking on the dance floor

Um, I have read some FANTASTIC books this year. Really.

Sigh.

What remains

Martin is right: I have neglected to talk of the parties, games nights, food fests and book group dinners that have normalized my life here in Berlin. So, in honor of Saturday's one year celebration of the anniversary of my arrival, I would like to offer this photo and a memorializing sample of what I had to wash up, recycle and sweep away.

15 red wine bottles (two of which managed to escape notice)

13 beer bottles (*who* brought the Budweiser???)

12 cigarette butts (Desmond…)

3 complaints from the neighbors (oops!)

2 feet that still ache from dancing (damn the neighbors)

and 1 much-loved deck of Uno cards (go Jörn!)

Even emptying the balcony ashtray was a joy.
Thank you all so much for coming.

Veal

or my exaggerated notes of a drunken speech to Eleni on the popular rules of dating, delivered after a horrible meal of chicken nachos washed down by two delicious margaritas.

You have been invited to a dinner party by a gracious hostess known for her meticulously planned events. The table is laid out for a perfect number of guests, some known to each other, but some not. They are of the right age, the right social class and the right male/female balance. It is an evening of so much promise.

By some means, you have discovered that the main dish of the evening will be veal.

Veal makes your mouth water.
Veal makes you weak in the knees.
Veal tickles your tummy with pleasure.

In short, you *love* veal.

Now, you *could* lean over to the hostess and tell the her that you enjoy veal so much that you would like it served first. Warum nicht?

The hostess will, no doubt, swallow her disapproval, maybe fingering the collar of her simple but chic dress or that flattering necklace that her husband gave her just last Christmas. She will politely explain, as if to a child, there is an order to these things...

No no, you argue. The body cares little for the order of things. The body knows nothing of butternut squash soup lightly blessed with ginger and a dash of lime, nor of arugula tossed with slices of fennel, shavings of Parmesan and the thrust of fresh cracked pepper.

Of this foreplay of the senses, the body cares not a whit. The body speaks a simple language of fat, carbohydrates and proteins.

Yes, you could argue that.

But as you insist upon it, your voice no longer tempered by soft inquiry but passionately-alive with what you know of your truth, you'll look madly around the table for your allies. You know they want the veal too.

But, mmmm, they murmur with their eyes avoiding yours, what a delicious soup!