Observing Hermann...

Look, I read the papers. I watch the news. I know the deal. I knew that Germany was hurting, but up until now I had no idea just how much. But now it’s out. According to a shocking report released by Merrill Lynch, just a mere 767,000 Germans are dollar millionaires in this country. That’s roughly 1 out of every 100 Germans. Let me repeat that: That’s roughly 1 out of every 100 Germans. I’m speechless. I had no idea. I am like so sorry.

There are more frigging millionaires here than anywhere else in the world apart from the US and Japan. I'm like neidisch already.

Like I said, I knew that Germany was hurting, but up until now I had no idea just how much. How little, I mean. Man, these folks aren’t hurting at all.

Hast du was, bist du was.

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Logisch.

Ich bin nun mal ein jelly doughnut.

Who is this mysterious, German-speaking Sam guy that Khaled el-Masri, the Lebanese-born professional victim at the center of a parliamentary committee looking into the role of the BND during the Iraq War keeps referring to? El-Masri swears up and down that Sam was a German agent who interrogated him after the CIA renditioned him in that most extraordinary way.

But that simply can’t be because that would be “bad” and the Germans never do “bad” things anymore so something really-really fishy must be going on here you guys.

I can’t say that I know for sure who this Sam guy is. I don’t. But after having done a little research using a specially-developed computer program I located on the Internet developed especially for this purpose (they call it “Google”), I have come up with a theory. I don’t want to give everything away just yet, but I can tell you that my theory does have a lot to do with green eggs and ham.

Dr. Suess finde ich Süß.

Kommentare auf Deutsch immer gern gesehen.

Help me, I’m German. Or at least that’s the feeling I got after having read “Keine Zeit und immer im Plan” by Susanne Gaschke in Die Zeit. She has painted a picture of her countrymen that is not only right on the money (for my money), she has also opened up my eyes as to why it is that they and I so frequently, no, practically always rub each other the wrong way: We are way much too alike. Relationships like that just can’t work.

Germans never have any time, you see. That’s why they (we?) don’t like to wait. They go mad when their trains or dinner guests come late. It’s a fixation of sorts, this insistence upon reliability. If things aren’t clearly structured and reliable – if they can’t be properly planned, in other words - the Germans (and those like them) begin breaking out in a rash. You don’t necessarily see it, this rash, but it’s a rash all the same. Let’s call it the reliability rash. And you’ve either got this fixation and potential rash problem or you don’t, by the way. So don’t lose any sleep over it. I’ve got it.

And why are Germans like that, you ask? It’s simple, really. People with too much time on their hands are looked upon with suspicion in this country. They always have been. They are obviously up to no good. “Real” Germans are always doing something, you see, whether they are actually doing something or not. It’s just what they do. And I have to plead guilty to this one, too.

Then there’s the German problem with German space. Not German space as in the Wernher von Braun kind of German space, German space as in you’d-better-keep-at-least-one-arm’s-length-away-from-me-buddy kind of German space. If you ever want to make a German even more nervous than he already is, step up close to him and get all up in his face. Red lights start flashing and the whole bit. Somewhere in his head, I mean. Don’t pat them on the shoulder, either. And don’t even think about giving him a hug. Unless, of course, you’re married to him or something and you’ve already had kids together. I can’t stand people up in my face, either.

So what happens? The World Cup comes along and changes all of this. It alters German space and German time. Not only is it okay that reliability and punctuality get thrown out the window, it’s welcome. It’s understood. This German time fixation has turned out to be relative after all and anything but absolute and once you relate it to the World Cup, it practically ceases to exist. German space has collapsed into itself. Nothing can be properly planned here at the moment, nothing that doesn’t have to do with the World Cup, that is. People show up to work late or not at all and if they do you’ll probably find them in a conference room somewhere with everybody else watching a match. The streets and stores are curiously empty. The area around the Brandenburg Gate is curiously full (brought about through the collapse of space?). And it’s full of people touching each other and getting all up into each other’s faces! Yuk.

Many of you who have been to this country won’t believe me, but it’s true. I know, I’ve actually skipped work myself and have been to the Fan Mile at Brandenburg Gate, too. I even yelled once and bumped into someone by accident (have it on film).

But everything I’ve ever seen on Star Trek tells me that warps in time and space don’t last forever so I’m not too worried about any of this. I’m sure that once the World Cup is over and Germany is World Champion again everything will fall back into to its proper place i.e. German space and time again. Ouch. I just reread that last sentence. How depressing. I feel myself getting a rash. Well I guess it’s back to Unter den Linden for me.

Submitted to Carnival of German-American Relations

In two completely unrelated stories, right at the very moment when it comes out that the expected boom in the German sex industry due to the armies of World Cup visitors isn’t going to happen, former German Foreign Minister and know-it-all vom Dienst (professional) Joschka Fischer (his friends call him Jo-Jo, by the way) decides to turn his back on his party and country and fly off to live a life of Saus und Brause (high life) in the USA after all.

Yeah, right. How could there possibly be a connection there?

He’s off to Princeton to do that “visiting professor” kind of thang. Hello? He’s going to Princeton?  Everybody knows that Princeton is a hotbed of sex and decadence and a haven for hedonists and irresponsible libertines and other disturbers of the moral order as we know it and has always had the hottest girls.

Germany’s once so most popular politician will be missed here by all (not) and somebody even suggested that a few days of national mourning might be appropriate I think but I’m not sure so don’t quote me on that. The German Green Party could not be reached for comment on any of this because they thought he would never leave.

Gib dein breites Wissen und tiefe Erfahrung weiter, Junge.

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Ich bitte darum!

I guess our loss to Ghana yesterday was a little bit too much for some of us to take. We’re out of the World Cup and I’m not going to cry. Not here, not now. So congratulations to all of you Ghanaians out there. Honest. No fooling. Grrrr. I mean it’s not like that German Schiedsrichter (referee) made a bad call with that penalty shot or anything…

Hey, win a few, lose a few. Or was that win none, lose a few?

Es kommt wie es kommt.

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Logisch.

Humiliating initiation rituals have always been a laugh a minute here in Germany, but this one here takes the fruit cake. A Bundeswehr spokesman has confirmed that new recruits to the 263rd Paratroopers Battalion took part in “corporals’ admissions parties” by having dried fruit inserted into that place where the sun never shines and then being slapped with paddles. Oooh!

“These practices are shocking and inexcusable,” said one defense spokesman. “And it’s disgusting stuff like this that could damage the Bundeswehr’s impeccable and worldwide respected reputation for, eh, something.”

Members of the battalion company involved are now going to be “punished” by not being allowed to take part in the planned election monitoring mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo. German dried fruit wholesalers were thrilled by this news and many close to the Bundeswehr now fear that well over half the army could now be reaching for their stash of California prunes at this very moment.

It was not immediately known if any collateral damage was caused by this incident, butt, I mean, but an internal inquiry is now underway. You know, like a probe. A further examination? An exploration, that is. The Bundeswehr is looking into it, in other words.

Der Feldwebel lässt die Arbeit ruhen und freut sich auf den Afternoon.

In a valiant and lonely attempt to belehre (instruct) his fellow countrymen about the hidden dangers of feeling good about yourself and having unadulterated fun, a Berlin journalist has taken it upon himself to point out that the Brandenburg Gate is being abused for commercial purposes. Like, duh. And I’m sure that nobody had noticed that one yet.

Crowds at national monuments like this are only allowed if you’re having a revolution, I guess. No other capital city would allow its landmarks to be mistreated in this way, he writes, World Cup or not. The Berliner Zeitung journalist, obviously a new arrival from Planet Mars, is actually pretending to be concerned about the giant soccer ball and giant public viewing screen on either side of the famous Berlin monument.

"In no other capital city of the world can one see such an undignified treatment of the nation's holy sites. The Statue of Liberty, the Arc de Triomphe, the National Monument in Rome wedged between an advertisement and the back of a stage?" he wrote.

Hmmm. That’s strange. That comment about the Statue of Liberty, I mean.

Greifswald isn’t a capital city, though, and this statue wasn't built with (quite) the same commercial intention he is referring to, so I guess his statement is pretty much "on the money".

Wir sind das Fußballvolk!

Kommentare auf Deutsch immer gern gesehen.

Where are all the ritual howls of protest? No time or interest, it seems. Everybody’s too busy doing the real screaming at the stadiums and public viewing areas at the moment instead. The German government gave the go-ahead on a 3 per cent increase to the value added tax the other day and no one even seemed to care, for instance.

Three other unpopular bills are about to get pushed through the parliament before the World Cup final on July 9, as well: An education system power-swapping plan between federal and state governments allowing Berlin more say at the university level, a major health reform compromise which promises to finally-maybe-perhaps get a tighter hold upon out-of-control health spending and then, gulp, the 2007 Budget.

Wildly popular sporting events and unpopular political decisions are made for each other, it seems. And then everybody goes off on summer vacation afterwards. It’s all pretty clever, really.

I mean, Merkel could rob somebody at gunpoint right now and nobody would notice. Wait a minute, she already has.

Frag nicht, was dein Land für dich tun kann. Frag lieber, wer heute Abend spielt.

Kommentare auf Deutsch? ich bitte darum! 

Let’s be honest, people. Berliners just don’t act this way in real life. They don’t “smile”, they aren’t “polite”, they wouldn’t think of being “helpful” and they sure the hell aren’t “friendly”. Not in public, anyway (in private they’re much worse, of course). But wherever you go in this town these days, you can’t escape hoards of smiling and polite Berliners helpfully directing you to the nearest Word Cup venue in the friendliest of ways. They don’t even get pissed off when you tell them you’re not going to a World Cup venue. The pitiful jackasses. They don’t have me fooled.

The World Cup has turned this place into some kind of a bizarre Chronic Love Parade, only nobody’s passing out any ecstasy yet. Well nobody’s given me any. This friendliness and niceness is unnatural here. It’s wrong. Taken out of context like this, friendliness is downright evil here (think Austin Powers). I smell a rat.

The bakery lady gave me an extra breakfast roll the other day. It was a Camping Brötchen, too. For a week or so now, the old bags with the canes only crowd into the bus at the last moment so you finally get a chance to crowd in first (I swear they’re waiting on purpose). Fistfights for parking space are down dramatically. I haven’t seen a dog pile on the street since the USA – Italy match. The sun's even shining here these days for cryin’ out loud!

Wait, I’ve got it. Now I know how they're pulling this number off (whoever they are). It’s in the water. The ecstasy, I mean. They’ve put it in the bottled water they sell here in Berlin. I drink tap water, see? I’m an American and we don’t know any better. That’s why I haven’t become, well, one of them.

This is just like The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I’ve got to report this to the Ordnungsamt or somebody immediately! Wait a minute. No I don’t.

Kann ich Ihnen behilflich sein?

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Logisch.