Berlin is for Lovers

I went to Berlin a few weeks ago. Here are two tales of finding love in Deutschland.

1. Sarah and I were scarfing down our hostel breakfast, and as I sloppily chewed some stale, shitty chocolate cereal that I was only eating because it was called "JA," I noticed a rather attractive Asian Australian girl saunter into room wearing a short shirt and shorter pair of boxers. Although I swear I was focused on my JAs, Sarah claims I stared at the AA for roughly 20 minutes. Regardless of who was right, for the rest of our trip Sarah busted my ass about shameless checking out another ass, directly in front of her.

What I should have told Sarah sooner, was that these were my only two interactions with the sauntering Aussie.

AA and I sat at the hostel's communal table making small talk about stuff to do in Berlin — it was at this point that I learned that she was in deed Asian and Australian, in case you were wondering how I cracked that case. Roughly five minutes into the conversation I realized that I had unconsciously been devouring piles of crumbs by licking my fingers and sticking them into a nearly-empty dish of cookies -- cookies that were motherfucking scrumptious I should add, as I ate all every intact cookie the night before.

I was even classier in our second encounter, when I got up in the middle of the night, left the bed with Sarah, paced to the bathroom, noticed AA sitting at her computer by herself and pretended not to see. Then I threw up everything in my body into a toilet that was positioned 24 inches from where she was sitting, only separated by a thin wall. I know, I know, where's a solid Berlin Wall when you need one.

Since you're the same curious reader who wondered just how I figured out her intriguing ethnicity, you're probably wondering why I vomited. In fact you probably said to yourself, "Justin, you only vomited once in all of 2011, and now you've puked ~8 times in 2012, what's going on here?" A bit too much drinking coupled with the fact that I ate a massive kebab sandwich, equally massive schnitzel, and Bavarian pretzel before gorging myself at dinner. That's what went on. Don't be concerned. Also don't be concerned that I'm alluding to this girl who is not my fiance as a Love, this blog is for entertainment purposes only.

2. When you're in a local bar on the outskirts of town, and you're younger than everyone else in said bar by at least 35 years, and you can't see your hand in front of your face because of the dense clouds of cigarette smoke, you don't have to look for love, it finds you. In this case, love came in the form of a 900-year-old drunk Spanish-German man, who greeted a table of Sarah (one could argue that she's been my main love this whole time, but that would make this blog post less interesting), myself, and a British couple from our hostel, who joined us for the evening. And Mr. Old Drunken Love came hard and fast, first sputtering his affinity for Sarah and the Brit girl in a mix of German, Spanish, and gibberish. Then telling me how handsome I was, rubbing my head violently, before removing my glasses, so he could thoroughly rub my face and tell my how great my skin was. If 1995 Dan Patrick were with us, he definitely would have said "You can't stop him, you can only hope to contain him." But he was not there.

The drunkard then sat down with us, rambled on and on, before finally giving grope-hugs to Sarah and the Brit girl, and giving my face one more solid rub. He then vanished into the cloud of smoke, leaving us all wanting less.

Other things I enjoyed, maybe even loved about Berlin:

- The crack den/art space Tacheles, where Sarah and I went one night expecting a crazy party, but unfortunately the crazy party du night was a queer/gay party, which wasn't quite the crazy party we were looking for.

- The Mauer Park Market.

- Watching a dude try to kick a pomme fritte maker's ass in the middle of the night. Presumably because the ketch-up in Berlin sucks.

- Learning about German history. And seeing a magazine with my name on it. Damn shame it was Nazi propaganda, but you can't win them all.

Pictures (no loves featured):

Pro Idiots

Last Friday Sarah and I went to see a clown show, performed by Stefano Iamboloni who also bills himself as "Idiota Profesional.¹" We had no idea what to expect other than the fact that an alt-monthly said the show "promises to sketch a soul into the darkness, do hula hoop dancing, and put things in tu boca," so I braced myself for hula hoops and the possibility that the hoops might end up in my mouth.

We walked the couple blocks to the venue El Colmado, which resembled a Williamsburg event space that's purposely only been 20% renovated from its original state of shambles because A) it looks more vintage chic that way, and more importantly B) their budget does not allow for more than a shitty bar and shittier table and chairs. In an effort to one up Billyburg (and prevent death) the ceiling was suspended by brightly painted metal tension rods, which provided that special "this could all fall in on us" mystique — the same quality that makes Chilean mining so sexy².

After taking in the scene for 15 minutes, Sarah, myself and the other 10 people in the crowd were introduced to Sr. Idiota Profesional, a guy in a fancy cheap suit. He began with a monologue about how the company that was supposed to perform the night's Shakespearean play was in a plane accident³ so he would be performing the entire play himself, by trumpet. He said this in a serious tone three times over, for a comedic effect, which also helped Sarah and I understand what he was saying.

His entire performance was divided into acts, one was about "funky" music, which involved him dancing/lip-syncing to several different genres of music. There was a bit on childhood, where he dramatically reminisced about the joys of playing with friends as a kid, before breaking into "If You're Happy and You Know it" with all 12 of us singing along. After this, he got to the topic of love and called a girl from the audience to engage in an intense pillow fight with him, a battle so intense that for a moment I thought the girl might have been planted in the crowd. But she was not, she was a just a damn good pillow fighter.

One of his other moments involved him singing "We Are the World" and walking out into the street to sing at random people walking by. Each bit was broken up by him acting like he was going to play his trumpet, before promptly putting the trumpet down before he'd blow a note. Then he triumphantly raised an all-important "caja de misterio (mystery box)" that's contents he could not reveal until the end.

For his final act, he ripped off his suit to reveal a superhero costume of neon green tights with gold accents⁴. He called himself "Super Bello Man" or something like that. I can't remember, but it was all vastly entertaining.

Afterward we hung out, complimented his act, and learned that the Pro Idiot spoke fluent English, as well as Italian, so I guess I'm the barely bilingual idiot now. He talked about the art of contemporary clowning and how it's much different in Spain than it is in the United States. He also told me he doesn't do stand-up comedy because he thinks stand-up comics feel superior to the crowd, if only I better understood Catalan socialism, I'm sure I could easily string the two together. He also told us his goals were to make the show "much stupider" and use less words. Interesting goals.

Despite the fact that I've made this sound like a shitty show that would be performed on a cruise ship⁵, for kids, or for kids on a cruise ship⁶, Sarah and I actually really, really enjoyed the whole thing. I was happy watching the entire thing. I was happy afterward. I was happy with my 5€ investment in the performance. The only thing that pissed me off was that the big reveal at the end of the "caja de misterio" opened up to a sign that said "The End," and I was mainly pissed that it did not say "El Fin."

However, looking back on it, I wonder if I really only enjoyed it because it was all in Spanish and I took pride in understanding it. This is a phenomena that I'm starting to pay attention to more and more as I think I get way too much fun out of translating things. I wonder if the tens of millions of English-as-a-second-language Americans get that much pleasure from every single thing they do in the States. Then again, perhaps in a month's time I've became such a progressive European that I don't care about missing the NFL conference finals, as I can only find amusement in the haute-comedy of clowning.

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1. Until this show the dumbest-named act I had ever seen was "My Robot Friend," who actually was far worse than Idiota Professional, in that MRF wore a really shitty robot costume that was loaded with strobe lights. At one point in the show he pantomimed masturbating while ejaculating ping pong balls at the crowd. Later in his performance, his nose started bleeding uncontrollably — a result of either rocking out too hard or being blown out of his mind, most likely a combination of both.

2. Probably waayyyy too late to make a Chilean miners joke. I'm sorry.

3. Thankfully this has nothing to do with a plane crash, but I find the whole Spanair abrupt shutdown very interesting.

4. I was really glad it was not an It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia "Green Man" suit, because I fucking hate anyone outside of Charlie Kelly who wears that suit.

5. If anybody else heard NPR's initial story about the Italian coast guard commander Gregorio De Falco becoming a hero for telling the captain of the capsized Costa Concordia to "Get back onboard dammit." Then read that "De Falco's Italian expletive is actually much harsher than "damn it" — but the line has become a national catchphrase and is Italy's top trending hashtag, or keyword on Twitter."

Then wondered what really was that profanity and poorly Googled and could not find it because you're an idiot. Well, after two weeks I finally figured it out: "The Italian word De Falco used, "cazzo" in Italian, literally is slang for penis but it is also commonly used to emphasize something." Now I can sleep.

6. I imagine all of those things would pay better than whatever Idiota Profesional made for the gig I saw.

7. I've been reading Grantland too much and I read about 80% of Eating the Dinosaur. This damn footnoting just kinda grew on me. I apologize. I also realize this footnote does not tie into anything above. Again, I apologize.

Also let the Google cache record show that Stefano Iamboloni is a very talented individual and this silly blog is not meant to slight him in any way.

It Ain't Half Islamabad

For the month of January I've been living in an apartment in lower El Raval, which is an Arab pocket in Barcelona. Before I got to Spain, I figured I would not blend in with the people as I'm not a tortured painter who wears cool linen button-ups, but by my neighborhood's standards my linen shirt expectations were short by about 24 inches.

I haven't engaged in a conversation with a fellow neighbor that went any deeper than "How much for this zucchini, roll of paper towels, and jug of water?" (note: that's just a small sampling of things I've bought from the local bodega, you can only imagine the other mind-blowing items I've picked up. Also try to imagine how sexy it sounds in a shitty American-faux-Catalan accent). But these encounters have inspired me to chase after even loftier dialogues, and because I have an endless amount of time on my hands, here is my dream scenario:

Me: (Walking by the prayer center on my block) Hey, nice mosque.

Muslim: Thanks a lot.

Me: Did you say thank salat?

Muslim: No, I said, "Thanks a lot."

Me: Oh. Well, aren't you glad I took Middle Eastern Religions as a gen-ed during my freshman year of college and know what salat is?

Muslim: (Looks puzzled, for many reasons: primarily this conversation's subject matter (or lack there of) and secondly because it's at this point he realizes he's been speaking English, which he's never done before. He ends up saying nothing in an effort to abruptly end this terrible talk.)

Me: (Contemplates swinging the subject to what I remember from my Introduction to Meteorology and Climatology course. Decides to save the altostatus chatter for another day. Walks away.)

So there it is, only a couple weeks in, and I'm creating fictional conversations with Spanish Muslims. Perhaps I should get a job soon, but how am I supposed to work when there are still four more pillars of Islam to make terribly lame word puns off.

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The picture above is taken in a vacant lot between my apartment and the Muslim prayer center. The chrome handle that's located one story off the ground represents my ever-so-slight grasp on Islam. It also represents that when somebody demolished the building that once stood there, they forgot to scrape the wall of the ceramic tile and handle. I'm not sure what the graffiti of "7AZ+" signifies, but I'm looking into it.

In Sickness

When I get sick I normally believe it’s just a mental thing that I can overcome by using "mind-over-matter" tricks I learned from watching a TV special on Tibetan monks. But in this case my cable-TV-learned voodoo could not defeat the Spanish bacteria tearing apart my stomach.

After ignoring all symptoms for days, I decided I was just a soldier among the ranks of Kellen Winslow and Percy Miller and the best way to remedy this mentally-insane driven illness was to go out to dinner. As I sat there sipping my vino tinto molecule-by-molecule and ghostly staring at my food with full knowledge that whatever I managed to put down would be coming back up momentarily, I realized I was neither a "fucking soldier" or a "soulja," but just a fucking idiot for going out in the first place.

We left dinner early and took a cab back toward our apartment, I got out and promptly began to throw up all over La Rambla de Raval, an oval-shaped plaza near our apartment that's not quite as ideal as a toilet in terms of places I should be throwing up.

I spent the next four days vomiting, diarrhea-ing, and staying couch ridden, which allowed me to re-familiarize myself with the entire blogosphere — essentially doing the same thing I’d be doing if I was working, except for the whole expelling all substances in my body part. And I sat on a purple couch instead of an office chair, that part was nice.

The kind soul that she is, Sarah went to the farmacia to pick me up some medicine, pantomiming all my illnesses to compensate for lack of Spanish-speaking skills. I took the prescribed potion and proceeded to spend a lot more time in the bathroom. Right after I gulped my fourth dose of the mystery Spanish medication, I decided it might be a good idea to Google exactly what I was taking and figure out perhaps if I lost something (other than control of bowels) in translation. I then learned that Primperan stops vomiting, but induces diarrhea. Dammit. I couldn’t believe I fell for the oldest trick in the book: get engaged, move to Barcelona, get really sick, and have your prometida give you medicine that gives you diarrhea.

Then because I’m a complete idiot I took a bunch of medication that Sarah brought home despite the fact that every word on it was in Russian (why the meds were Russian is a post for another day). Like anyone who takes pharmaceutical advice from Yakov Smirnoff, I assumed that in Soviet Russia the drug warning labels read you!... or something to that effect. The Rusky meds didn’t do anything for me either, but they didn't make me sicker.

To combat getting fooled thrice times over, I mustered the energy to go to the farmacia myself, there were two old Spanish men working behind the counter, and if there’s any demographic of people I trust, it’s grey-haired Spanish men that appear to be over 55, them and any Native American who still lives in a tepee.

These wise men gave me some Fortasec, for the low cost €2.70, which allowed me to start eating – and properly digesting – real food again. Now I feel like a million euros (that’s a 1.2818 million dollars to all my American friends). Thanks Fortasec!

Until I find a job, I'm going to make relentless plug pharmaceutical drugs until one of them throws me some money.

Gettin' Catalan Wit It

I’m living in Spain now. I like to call it an early, albeit temporary retirement. Every year professional athletes retire at a young age to pursue other interests and/or go bankrupt, further develop pain-pill addictions, and sink into deep post-playing-days depressions. Why shouldn't a copywriter who earned in the low-mid-range five figures be afforded that same opportunity?

Actually moving to Spain has been the life plan for some time, I always claimed that moving to New York City was just a multi-year layover before moving to Barcelona. It’s also the fulfillment of a lot of office-job-induced day dreams — dreams in which I had become so delusional that quitting my job, one that I actually very much enjoyed, to move to a foreign country with no plan made sense.

My other dream was to spend a December working in a Christmas tree lot on the Southside and Northside of Chicago, where I'd discuss Christmas and Derrick Rose with as many Chicagoans as possible, before eventually writing a book on how segregation and socioeconomics play affect Christmas and Bulls fandom. But that idea still needs to be fleshed out a bit more, and Rose is still a few years away from hitting the apex of his career, so I decided moving to Spain would be wiser.

And this plan — the Spain one, not vending Christmas trees in Chicago — made perfect sense to every single person from all walks of life I talked to. My favorite piece of advice came during one of the six times in 2011 that I practiced journalism and talked to real writer Jeff Pearlman, who said, “Do you have a plan for when you get over there? Because it would probably be better if you didn’t.” Brilliant. And just the kind of advice I needed to feel good about putting off any thought of forging a plan until I got to Barcelona, except for the obvious goals of seeing as much of Europe as possible and potentially getting a job at a pastry shop. But since arriving I’m yet to find a pastry shop that meets my criteria (pastry shop criteria to come in a future post).

Now that I’m here I’ve got all the time in the world to enjoy not having a job and attempt to suppress freak-outs about not having a job. I spent the first week fretting over how Barcelona is not New York City. Because it's perfectly rational expect (within 48 hours no less) to have the same love for a city in which you've lived for three years and developed countless friendships, when you show up in a country to which you've never been, where you only kinda speak the language, and know absolutely nobody.

My grandest fear is that I had it all in NYC, and by all I mean access to cheap-and-delicious lamb pizza plus almost-infinite chances to listen to Young Jeezy albums with people who enjoyed TM103 just as much, and for the very same reasons I do. What a world I had. Maybe if I have time between making croissants and confections, I will start an ex-pat club for people who simultaneously ironically and genuinely love Jeezy as much as I do.

I’ve since made peace with my decision to live in a city where I see a cloud once every 14 days, it's 60° in Janurary, I don’t work, and I share in a luxurious apartment with my prometida (my word of preference because fiancé still sounds weird to me. I also probably should have mentioned that I moved here with my prometida higher in this post. I'll work on not burying important details as this era of WheresPMac progresses). Having minimal responsibility and unlimited freedom can be rather enjoyable.

Especially when I consider the alternate is not seeing the Sun during a frigid NYC winter with my weekly highlight coming from "Bagel Monday," a phenomen I’ve learned about from my former co-workers who Facebooked about the greatness of free bagels at the office. But dammit, I do really miss NYC bagels.

Hopefully I’ll stumble into Paul McPherson again and during my what-the-hell-am-I-doing freak-outs I remember some of the first words he said to me in Monte Hermosa: “Man, Argentina's alright,” he sighed before taking a long pause and schemingly rubbing his hands together, actually I can’t remember if he made that motion, but lets just pretend he did because it makes the story 10% better. “As soon as I find some bitches and weed things will be better.”

So in the infinite wisdom of my all-time favorite NBA burn-out-turned Euro-league burn-out-turned-Argentine-league-burnout, I should be good on the former and just need to work on the latter of his formula for adjusting to a foreign location.

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Something I pathetically don’t know: The name of Spain's president, or really anything about their government

Something I pathetically do know: Sebastian Telfair is averaging 3.8 points per game in the six games of the Suns' dismal 2012 season

Why I like the picture at the top of this post: It's taken from the top of Parc Guell, which is cool. More importantly, it's got basketball hoops and someone graffiti'd "Anarkia y Birra Fria" (Anarchy and Cold Beer), an ingenious phrase that I will definitely steal, should I decide to join any Occupy movements abroad.

Canadian Adventures Part II

I got off the bus in Vancouver and took their above-ground rail system toward my temporary digs. On my way, I stumbled upon a Costco and I grabbed a hot dog because having been out of the States for almost 45 minutes had caused me to grow rather homesick.

Then I got to my Airbnb apartment and it was just as amazing as it looked in the pictures. I departed to hit Gas Town, which is a touristy part of town and was disappointed with how lame it was, but I was able to buy my friend a Vancouver White Caps tee, so there was some success.

And aside from terribly kitschy Canada tourist junk, I stumbled upon a rack of this:

and a rack of this:

Both of which made me very happy.

Then after walking around in the pouring rain for a few hours I went back to my apartment and talked to Jennifer, who was my Airbnb hostess. She was insanely nice and answered my many questions on her Airbnb career and about Canada. She told me she'd hosted about 40 travelers and they were all great except for one Middle Eastern guy who tried to treat her like a slave because she was a woman. One of her favorite guests was a single 50-year-old woman who stayed with her for two weeks during the Olympics.

Jennifer said she could tell why the woman was single because she had five cats. Which is only two more cats than Jennifer kept in her apartment, but apparently the difference between three and five is a lot to cat people.

As you'd expect from anyone who continuously lets random strangers stay in their home, Jennifer was slightly off. She told me she was dating a 35-year-old Aussie who she would move in with, except that he lives with his mom in Victoria. To which I responded, "Isn't that were Steve Nash is from?" because I was unsure of what else I might have to say about her relationship. She loved her three cats to death. Their names were Bean, Bertha and Buddy, who as she told me, despite his name, he won't be your buddy. I was OK with this as I was mainly looking for a nice place to stay and I did not need too much cat companionship.

Jennifer was kind enough to let me use her netbook. "Just log in under Bean Industries, it's Bean's fictional company," she told me. Of course it was.

She recalled the time Bertha was Facebook, but she had to delete Bertha's account because it maxed at the capacity of 5,000 friends and was constantly receiving "lewd messages" from other cats on Facebook. I never knew Facebook had a cat cybering underbelly, but it sounded about right.

Jennifer also told me that she had a brother who was 11 years younger than her and did not hesitate to let me know he was the accident child. He worked at McDonald's and she was now studying public health at the local community college after she quit her job at the train station. All of which did not explain how she was living in the nicest apartment of the 25th floor of a brand new apartment building in downtown Vancouver. Maybe she ran a paysite for Bertha.

When I wasn't eating delicious teriyaki udon noodles and watching hockey with Jennifer, I was exploring the city and being continually underwhelmed. I visited a thrift shop with hopes of finding any piece of Vancouver Grizzlies gear, but I came up with nothing, which made me feel like the whole trip was for not. The coolest thing I did was visit the campus of the University of British Columbia, where I walked around listening to weird Moby songs on a dark cloud-covered day as I reflected upon my own college experience and let shit get real. There is heavy sarcasm in that last sentence, I just needed to clarify that.

I went in as many buildings as I could. Their rec center is shit compared to Arizona's, but then again Arizona's is rather insane, and the UBC rec did have an actual dojo, so maybe they win.

Their campus was directly next to Wreck Beach, which apparently is a popular nude beach in the summer, but during the winter it was just a spooky, log covered beach that was entirely empty except for a bum and a skim boarder.

The proudest point of the trip was when Jennifer taught me the names of all the provinces and I felt like a better American for actually knowing something about our neighbors up north. Then the next day I realized there were northern territories that I was completely oblivious to, and I again felt retarded.

Overall Canada was nice and Jennifer left me the following feedback on my Airbnb account, which I am now considering adding to my resume:

"Justin was a terrific guest - I can't really say enough great things about him! It was more like having family over for a visit and he's welcome back anytime.

Canadian Adventures Part I

This blog has been many things. From the ultimate go-to site for dramatically exaggerated/partially-fictional Nic Wise game recaps to a place where I could dump throw-away posts to make myself kinda feel like a writer and perhaps convince potential employers I was a legitimate writer (which that run-on sentence disproves), but I think in its prime WPM was a travel blog. So now I am gonna temporarily throw the blog back into a travel blog to recount my memories from a trip I took to the great Pacific Northwest, because the end of April seems as good a time as any to publish stories from my late January travels.

I spent the majority of the time in Seattle, and maybe just one day I'll write about that, but let's get to Vancouver.

I had never been to Canada, but its awesomely harmless reputation as a country that puts out hockey players, dope basketball podcasts and Steve Nash has intrigued me my whole life and by whole life I mean the portion of my life that occurred after I was exposed to Nash and The Basketball Jones.

And this life goal was achieved because I had a week off between transitioning jobs, I got a cheap ticket from NYC to Seattle and decided Monday, January 24 would be the day I got on a shitty Greyhound bus and left a dreary Seattle for an even more dreary Vancouver. The day before I booked a ridiculously-nice-looking apartment at on airbnb.com, I had used this site often at my former job, where I would waste countless hours of my life planning trips I did not have the time or money for.

But now it was finally go time, I actually needed a place and a kind woman on airbnb was offering her apartment in downtown Vancouver for only $50 a night, which was a bit more than I was looking to spend, but the apartment had floor-to-ceiling windows in every room that overlooked the entire city, my bedroom had a balcony from which you could see the BC Place Stadium, which hosted the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2010 Olympics, the apartment building also featured a jacuzzi, gym, sauna and steam room, so I figured I'd get my $50 worth.

Airbnb itself is an awesome, but weird site that works on the premise that human beings are good people. Creating a profile was as simples as providing a name and valid e-mail address. Then I wrote a short message to the woman hosting the lavish apartment with some vague generalities about myself and my travel plans. She accepted and just like that I had a place to stay and a host in Vancouver, even though all she knew about me was that my name was Justin, I lived in NYC, and this would be my first time in Canada. She said she would be in class when I was scheduled to arrive so she would leave a key to her place with the doorman of her building.

I was very impressed with her faith in humanity as I could have been a killer, thief, sexual predator or the kind of sick fuck who would delete unwatched episodes of House Hunters off her DVR.

Backing up to international voyage, I had an interesting encounter at the Canadian customs. Having lived most my life in a state where border issues involve an all-out drug war on top of a million other issues, I figured the Canadian border would much more relaxed, and as a result I got in a very weird mood and decided to lie with every word I said to the Canadian border patrol agent. I really don't know what provoked this as I don't lie much and I tend not to enjoy people who lie, but the following conversation was had:

Border Patrol Agent Woman: Where do you live now?

Me: Arizona.

Her: What do you do there?

Me: I work for a magazine.

Her: Who are you visting in Canada?

Me: A friend from college.

Her: What does she do in Vancouver.

Me: She works for a bank.

This banter continued for a little bit as I kept fabricating a simple story as I assumed the issue of me living in a different place than my passport indicated would blow her mind and cause more confusion then if I made up a simple story. Although every other person on our bus was able to quickly get back on the bus, the agent must have seen my eyes darting in many directions, so she put me aside. Then she went in a back room with my passport to analyze my information further or maybe update her Twitter on what a dumbass I was. I really don't know what she did back there, but the whole time I was sitting there thinking that this is going to be awkward as I have to fess up to why I lied about everything.

Finally she returned, handed me my passport and told me I was good to go. Little did she know I was leading a double life as a job-transitioning New Yorker. Got her.

Part II will come tomorrow...maybe.