Working, Bloody Working

It’s another cold week in Berlin and we’re in another apartment for a short 10 days. Our dream loft apartment is just around the corner, we move in at the beginning of next month, but still it seems like an eon away.

So for these 10 days we’re sharing with a bloke called Peer. He rents out his spare room for short term stays. Apparently he likes to meet new people and I guess he likes them to come to him. Admittedly, Peer's flat kicks it over the last place we were in, the one which had a shower in the kitchen and toilet in the closet (see pics below on previous post), so comparatively, we’re in heaven. It’s clean, light, and warm.

No complaints.

Work on the other hand, 'ist nicht so gut.' Germany is a country that is still yet to define its own minimum wage laws.

But then,this isn’t such a bad story because it does have a good ending. I know this is going to sound really cheesy, but I got to be that bloke that every man wants to be, I got to be the hero for my lady .

The other week, Sandy was attempting to leave her job. To put it bluntly, she had a shit job. It was a two-hours-a-week teaching Mc-Gig. The Mc-Company she was employed by had her locked into a dodgy contract which stated she had to give them 3 months advance notice if she planned to leave.

Now, I know people make five year plans for their careers, and whether I think those things are bollocks or not is irrelevant, no one is going to make a career (or even a living) on two hours a week.

The other side is, being a freelance teacher, you can easily be replaced (some might suggest this can be done too easily). So naturally with all these facts, she made a decision to give up those two hours a week and take a more permanent position with better pay. From the point of view of her boss, this was obviously an irresponsible and stupid decision.

Ronald McDumsfeld we’ll call him - the boss. He lost it. If you can imagine a man with a pig's face holding his breath until he turns red before screaming, ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ you might have a picture.

He threatened to call immigration. The Cops. Anyone who could scare her.

He harassed her with numerous phone calls and emails about, how he was going to do this and that, about how she had stolen his property. What property? The folder he had given her to use to teach his classes. She said she would return them asap.

He said, ‘It must be returned by 9:30am or I'm going to call the police.’

Sandy was distraught. I was getting angrier. Some bloke who I’d never met was causing my lady a lot of stress. Naturally I said, with my heightened male awareness, ‘He should go F**k himself.’

Sandy was more polite, but still no dice. These people were from another planet.

‘Let me talk to them, baby,’ I said, sweetly. She looked at me a little unsure. ‘Trust me.’

His wife answered the phone, she has a thick German accent.

‘My I speak to Mr McDumsfeld?’ I inquired.

‘Not here.’ She barked.

‘Well, could you tell him, that I, Sandy's husband, will return your beloved folders next week.’

‘Sandy? You know Sandy?

'Yes. Now tell Charlie to stop this nonsense about threatening to call the police. I’ll bring your folders in next week.'

'They must be here tomorrow! 9:30am!'

'I don't think you understand. I have a job and a life.'

'You must speak to my husband. He's here now. I'll put him on.'

'No, it's a simple message, you can let him know. I’ll be in next week.’

Click!

The following week, I did return them, but leading up to it I was feeling a little anxious. I was expecting at least an argument because they had already called one of Sandy's friends, who she worked with, and abused the poor girl over the phone.

I didn't trust them, no one did, so because of this and the fact that I enjoy taking the piss, I decided to take some photos of them when I returned the folders (see right - Mrs Ronald McDumsfeld).

This way I’d have the evidence if I needed it (after all they had already threatened us with the police – not that I could imagine any cop taking it seriously) but also in a small way, by taking a picture of them, I would be getting a little piece of satisfaction by forcing them to do something which they didn’t want to do.

Disappointingly though, Ronald wasn’t there, only his wife. Perhaps he was hiding behind her again, like he did with the phone, waiting in another room listening to her conversation, but I don’t know.

She wasn’t too keen to have her photo taken either. Who is by strangers?

'You can't be trusted.' I explained holding up the camera, 'and it's also proof that I have returned the folders.'

She glared at me. 'Smile.' I clicked one off (see above). ‘Now, let's get one of us together.’

She was goods enough to smile for the second. 'Now can you tell your husband something for me?

'What would that be?'

'Please tell him, he’s a horrible man. '

I walked out, thinking, that was a pretty lame thing to call him, I could’ve called him anything and all I could think of was 'Horrible!' God. I hate those moments when you have the chance to say anything, but it's only in retrospect you can think of the perfect thing. But then, she wasn't really the one who I wanted to say it to either. So if i had let my cannons loose and my brain go awol, kind of like Ronald had done to Sandy, it wouldn't have been the justice I wanted either.

So go on Angela Merkel bring on some worker reforms to Germany. The people here sure need them because this country is one of the few western countries who hasn't set minimum wage standards yet. It seems the employers are holding all the cards.

In the Closet...

My Head!

So I've been lazy and haven't written for a while. Well there was Xmas and New Year's. Who can keep up with everything during those times? Not You. Not Me. Not even the demented personifications we've created can keep up their efforts after the parties are over. You don't see Santa or Jesus for months after their big week.

As for Berlin, it seems Sandy and I are between houses, jobs, lives, worlds, languages, and everything in this city. It´s like we´ve fallen into the cracks of some parallel society, where everyone speaks German to each other, except to us.

Yes, we're learning but most people appear to feel a bit silly when they let us to talk to them in broken German when they can speak fluent English (unlike the French).

So we're between houses too, next month we move into the most awesome amazing loft apartment.

This week though we're taking whatever we can get. The place we're in at the moment has a shower in the kitchen, you have stand next to the stove which is at the same height, a serious occupational heath and safety nightmare, and but then the craziest thing is the toilet. It's in a closet.

Below I've attached a pic of our crazy kitchen shower and the closet dunny. The toilet ain't so bad, 'cept that you have to announce you're gonna drop a number two before you do it. It's an odd sort of etiquette with having to tell someone what you're intending to do, you could say it's pre-meditated 'merde,' Otherwise if you don't announce it, you might get sprung when someone walks down the hall. 'Hello,' you'd say,'Don't mind me. I'm just doing one of those perfectly human functions.'

No, i don't think bodily functions can bring Sandy and me closer together. it's not our relationship's final frontier. No way. A shit between lovers is like like mixing your work life with your private life. I'm sure it works for some people, but then so do foot fetishes, which I assume most people consider the idea of sniffing an old shoe while wanking just plain odd.

What about dropping a turd in front of your boss? Personally, I'd feel a little more than odd.

Our shower on the other hand is a bit of a novelty. Bathing next the kettle while cooking some soup has led me to believe its not such a bad idea.

Anyway, I'm sorry, some of the old Aussie crudeness slipped out on that one. I was on a bit of a roll I guess. This was originally meant to be written for a friend, i've decided to post it, they'll mind a bit, but.....

Oh God, I'm lazy. More soon. Honest. I swear.

Art Pic from inside the Berlin's Sony Centre

RAW Sampler

Here's a RAW video sample of the music documentary stuff I do.



It contains the Fiery Furnaces, the Hard Ons , Buck 65, Rogers Sisters and loads of others

Down and Out in Berlin

Berlin ist sehr kuhl -

As you can see I've been learning deutsch. It's going well, but sometimes it feels like I'm forcing my mouth into weird shapes, like I'm making it do yoga moves without stretching. Can you say, 'The Lotus Position?' Oh God, I think I pulled my tongue.

Berlin's cool, we're renting a nice furnished apartment and I'm searching like mad for a job. The city seems to be built on unemployment. There's no money here. You particularly notice it when going for job interviews. It's like you're the only one in the whole city dressed in a suit. You feel like an alien from Mars.

People on the train point their fingers, while saying, "Hey! Look at the freak, everyone!"
All the heads turn. I'm thinking, 'Keep your head down they're not staring at you.' Everybody is staring. It's a national pastime.

I might as well have dressed in my birthday suit. Nobody wears a suit. Nobody has a job.

An interview I had last week I wore the 'said clothing' and the job was an editing position at a tourism mag. I pressed the bell at the entrance. Dark clouds loomed over this massive warehouse. It was like something out of Scooby Doo. A punk kid with a hundred piercings opened the door a crack. He was gawking at me like I looked freaky.

"Um..." I coughed to break our silence. 'I'm here to see Chris.'

'Cool.' He let me in.

Moments later, I was in a small office with Chris. He's one of the those young dynamic Americans who talk in catch phrases, went to some ivy league breeding house, and his major goal in life is to be listed in Forbes before he's 30. He seems like the only dude making money in this city and he's making a tonne of it from tourism. We talked for an hour. One of the kids had called me to come in, but he didn't have any editing jobs. Hell, he didn't even know why I was there.

I was all dressed up with no where to work.

His magazine is a free rag for tourists which has the same content reprinted in it each month with loads of advertising. The punk kids hand it out for him. Sure, there's more to it, but it's long and boring.

He did offer me a job though. It'll be writing for an upcoming guidebook in the future. That's not really helpful for now though, is it? So dressed like the New York banker, I said my good byes to him and his punks kids and went out into the wilderness of Berlin.

So tourism is rampant in Berlin. The art scene is amazing. Loads of artists seem to have flocked here. No, I'm not about to sign up as another arty types who sells his wares along the Spree every weekend. What would i sell? The pic above? It's hardly great. Or perhaps another visual interpretation on poverty and hunger. No i reckon those guys might have that covered.

So I'm trying to get some other writing work sorted out in London and other places where i can telecommute and I've got a few other things in the pipes, but things have certainly slowed down. I might admit defeat soon and take up some teaching work.

John Howard - Election Sedition Spoof

Click To Play

Buddies overseas part.1

Click To Play

Buddies overseas part.2

So Roadtripping has been great.

I can’t tell you how many times Sandy and I have gone somewhere, places we’ve planned to visit and had to save a bundle to get there then when we’ve arrive, said, “Wow! This place is cool, but wouldn’t it be rad to come here with your mates?’

Now we have. We’ve been road-tripping through Spain with our buddies, and there’s nothing better than hooking up with your buddies overseas.

On our first night in Valencia we wandered dark streets, dodging crowds and ducking up alleys with graffiti over walls where we found a bar which had traditional music flooding from it. We sat on the street, bought a round of drinks and talked through the hours, telling stories and catching up.

I got curious about the music coming from the upstairs though, so naturally I checked it out. I’d like to point out old wooden stairs aren’t ideal for creeping up to take subtle peeks. So when I poked my head up, a room full of about thirty old blokes were staring at me. Cigars were hanging out their mouths and they were sitting around a massive table like it was a boardroom meeting, except they all were holding guitars, some big, some little, and some mandolins. I had stumbled up at the end of one of their songs.

‘Bravo,’ I said, clapped, and felt lame, but said it again.

The nearest bloke smiled. The others looked at each other, shrugged and began talking about which song they’d like to play next. So I asked the guy if he’d mind if I invited my amigos up. He shrugged. Good enough.

We spent the next hour watching in awe. At one point I got jealous because Mook, Arnie and Erin got to sing with them and I didn’t, but then I got the opportunity to use the clapping sticks, which is not quite the same because you might say being given clapping sticks is a bit like the musical equivalent of being put in remedial class, but then when I was twelve I was given the prestigious job of playing the triangle at the Sydney Opera House for my school so I was happily at home..

The old bloke who’d lent me his sticks told me, “We play together since university. Every week on Wednesday.” I looked at him. He was old, but some of his buddies looked like they could’ve retired twice. These guys had been playing together longer than the Stones.

The first time I got an inkling of how good travelling overseas with friends could be was when Sandy and I hooked up with my friend Gus in India. He was arriving after us and I’d told him that at Mumbai airport a bloke with a limo would be meeting him. I know a limo sounds a little far fetched, but at the time when I told him, I honestly had every intention of doing it. Really. It would’ve happened too, had we not used up our free Marriot hotel points at the bar.

He arrived at the airport expecting to see a well dressed Indian gentleman holding a cardboard sign with his name on it. Instead, he got a zillion screaming Indians. Hands outstretched as they tried to grab his clothing. He stood safely behind the last barrier of airport arrivals gob-smacked. His eyes searching the crowd for his name. Every one of them wanted his money and his bags in their taxi.

Sandy and I were sitting on top of an old wall behind this, in the car park, watching, and giggling as he walked up and down the line of screamers searching franticly.

When he finally found us, he wanted to kill us. Then hug us. Then kill us. It set the tone for a great holiday. We were a force to be reckoned with, no Indian tout felt capable of ripping us off, because together we would argue, scream, dance, and occasionally sing to get a fair price on things.

Seeing Europe with your buddies is just as good. It’s perfect because it’s the road trip which I love, and it’s also completely foreign, sometimes it seems so far removed from what I know it feels like another planet, just like outback Australia.

Think rural highway restaurants, an experience everywhere and in Spain don’t expect those folk to speak a word of English, like you can imagine it isn’t at the forefront of people’s minds out the back of Wagga Wagga, Australia. Fair enough too. So we try our little phrases, like, ‘Aola. Como estas?’ This often goes completely spastic on me though, because I did Spanish lessons but never really practised, so I guess I’m a little falsely confident. I once asked if I could have the three waitresses instead of three beers. Sandy’s Spanish is tops and often saves me.

It doesn’t always work out her way though. In Tuscany, Italy, Sandy and I hooked up with my parents. This was very special. They were renting an apartment in the countryside where we stayed on their couch for a few days. This was during my birthday so Dad treated us to some lovely provincial Italian food in the local town where Sandy impressed my parents by chatting to the waitress in Spanish, apparently Italian is similar. Personally, I think the waitress looked a little confused.

My Mum and Dad were impressed though and Dad took it upon himself to educate us about Italy. He drove us to Florence to see the Uffizi Gallery.

Let me just say, my old man he loves technology. He loves the new gadgets, computers, video cameras, etc. So of course when he and Mum were renting their car, you can imagine his delight when the girl behind the counter offered them a GPS mapping system.

Sandy and I were a little blown away it. We’ve travelled all of Europe with this tatty map book that has several pages stuck together with sticky tape. Its great and we love it, but not many libraries or bookstores would stock it because A-, it’s out of date and B-, it’s in German.

Dad’s GPS had a cutesy American girl’s voice which told him when to turn, a TV screen showed a map which moved with the car. But then Sandy and I get by with our book because surprisingly enough Europeans have road signs.

So getting to Florence seemed a little more difficult than necessary. We drove around a park six times because of Miss Cutesy’s directions. Dad’s neck went red. Admittedly I didn’t help the old man’s frustration by making smart arse comments from the backseat. When he did finally park the car he frog marched Mum, Sandy and me through the streets of Florence to the Gallery.

To his credit though, if he hadn’t hurried us we would’ve missed our booking because the gallery lets people in at allotted times and we would’ve missed the whole thing. It was well worth it - think Da Vinci’s, Michelangelo’s, Caravaggio’s and Botticelli’s (he did The Birth of Venus, it’s of that naked lady who’s standing in a clam with her hands covering her naughty bits).

Europe’s got loads of amazing art and architecture. It’s easy to understand why it’s on most people’s “to do list”. We’ve been road tripping for only a few months and we have seen loads, but I think its losing its edge for me. Can it be that an old building is starting to look like just another old building?

I wanna feel awed again. It’s only been a few months and I don’t wanna be de-sensitised. Not yet.

We’ve just got to Berlin. “Wow, look at that!”