a reason to celebrate and get absolutely sloshed today

my two homes b-town and LA celebrate the 40-year anniversary of their glorious city partnership today. and i do think that many other relationships, especially between humans, could also get to that mark if they just stayed an ocean apart from each other. anyway, i decided to come up with a list of great things specific to each town. and as it's a very personally colored list, feel free to add your own stuff in the comments section!

LA:

the hills and the ever-present opportunity to crawl up one of them and get an instant view of the mayhem beneath. the classier alternative for a view is from the observatory, of course. and the laziest of people can always take the elevator up to the top of the arclight cinema parking structure. but it doesn't really matter where you do it, but when. and the best time is between 6 and 8 pm when the lowering sun wraps the city into a golden light. never seen a light like that anywhere else. maybe it's filtered by the smog?

i'm also still rolling around in my bed every night panically shouting: joe... joe... where are you, joe? where's my beloved trader joe's? which is german-owned by the way and still nobody has ever complained of a german supermarket invading the american market. but even the most beautiful trader joe's couldn't compare to the hollywood farmers' market on selma and ivar. it's got fruit and veggies, cheese, cut flowers and handmade gift articles. the soundtrack is delivered by some jazz musicians. and the best of all is that it never stinks. no fishy smell or else. which could be caused by the absence of fresh fish on the market or maybe it's just all absorbed by the smog?

the fairfax farmer's market.

great sushi. everywhere. the breakfast quesadilla at backdoor cafe. the mishmosh at canter's. the burrito ultimo w/ shrimp at baja fresh. any ice cream at mashti malone's. the pad thai at natalee's. yum...

old movie theaters like the egyptian or the mann's chinese. in places like those you can always take the risk of a movie turning out to be boring. after all, you can always admire the amazing ceiling for two hours.

nightly pool parties.

the LA times, especially the sunday edition. it's not a paper. it's a book. it takes you two hours to dig through and i can't imagine a better way of relaxing. plus, it's got an amazing calender section, the steve lopez column and dear abby. which is probably the best place to learn about the pitfalls of being a human being.

also, i do miss Us Weekly. the german edition of In Touch just doesn't cut it.

forever 21. urban outfitter t-shirts.

the buzz of the oscar season. well, i pretty much lived on the red carpet for the past 5 years. so besides shaking my head about the campaigns and banging my head on the coffee table by the end of the show-marathon, i also got to see the physical build-up. first it's just the bleachers. they usually arrive ten day early. then they lay out the carpet and arrange the flowers. the big statues follow about five days before the show. this is usually also the time that you get really angry at nicole, reese and denzel for taking over your hood and causing you to miss the bus every morning due to not knowing where the bus station moved to. but all of that is forgotten by the sight of the TV reporters on the day of the show. all dressed up in tuxedos or glittery gowns - at 8am. and of course, as a resident of the area you pretty much have an all-access pass with security. "here's my ID, sir. see that? cherokee 1733... thank you and keep up the good work." if there was just something that could be done about the swarm of daily helicopters over the house. like the smog will devour them.

amoeba records. it's got cute boys. and of course, you feel automatically cool when you enter.

ucla. i had a teacher that had worked with marilyn, audrey and judy garland. can't top that. oh, wait. there was the other teacher that told us about liz taylor and how she would only show up on set every morning if she was given a gift. a purple git.

the movie history in general.

wasting countless hours, reading in the aisles of Borders.

sneaking into hotel pools. which of course is so much easier when you've got an accent. but let's talk openly here. i've had been swimming at the roosevelt hotel way before lindsay discovered it. actually i would add the roosevelt hotel here on the list, but it was so much cooler before they renovated it and put a pool table into the lobby. like greta garbo would approve of that...

non-judgmental people. when somebody in LA speaks about his dreams, he's actually encouraged to do so. nobody says: "you can't do that." of course, people might encourage and then crush that person later on. but that's another story.

target. ultimately the greatest thing about LA.



part 2 with my observations about b-town follows underneath.

more great stuff

a shout-out to LA from the berlin zoo. that means, you guys over there are only about 6460 miles away from knut...







b-town:

ice cream at karademir. especially the sour cream-honey-sesame. lecker!

the in-LA-impossible-but-oh-so-encouraging sight of a rather mediocre-looking girl with a really good-looking boyfriend.

the public transportation is a dream. there's the subway, the street cars and the tram which is a cute small yellow train from the GDR era. and then there's the endless stream of double-decker busses. they truly never stop. (unless you're standing at the station at 1 am and hail corns as big as a small finger nail hit the ground to your left and right.) and then there's of course the soundtrack. it pretty much seems impossible to take the subway or else without being accompanied by the sound of a violin or accordion. it's all quite melancholy really.

it's flat, so it's great for riding bikes. though it's not so great for pedestrians that are run over by bikes.

being able to go grocery-shopping at supermarkets that i've been practically raised on. there's some sense of comfort in getting my food at lidl or kaufland again. i've been eating it through all of my childhood and teenage years, so i've established a level of trust in their products. which i will never have in campbell's soup or sara lee cake.

no smog.

there's knut, of course. enough has been said about him, but here's an update. he's still kinda fluffy though he weighs about 60 pounds by now. at least they estimate that as he apparently refuses to step on the scale. oh, those celebrities...

it's cheap.

beautiful churches. castles. buildings that are older than 100 years in general.

the libanese restaurant across the street from my apartment. not only is their food yummy, but actually they're originally from near my hometown. which begs the question if that makes me libanese?

the countless lakes and parks. the spree river with its many bridges. there are even real swans here. the only halfway living things floating on the LA river are probably people that have been killed and thrown in but aren't totally dead yet.

more ikea-stores than in LA.

the rich cultural life. the theaters. the museums (you know i do love them, just not their guards). the gorillas-improv group. the man that stands at the ku'damm street in front of the wertheim-department store and performs with a balcan-style violin player-puppet to the sounds of classical music. the boheme sauvage-20's parties. it's a good place for musicians. (apparently rufus wrainwright has found love here). the diverse bar and club scene. not having to go home at 2am.

surprisingly many great public pools and beach bars along the spree river. who needs the pacific?

karstadt department stores. to say it in the rather freely adapted words of truman capote:
when i get those horrible mean reds, the only thing that does any good is to jump onto the bus and go to karstadt. calms me down right away. the hustle and bustle and the commercial look of it, nothing very bad could ever happen to you there.

ready for my close-up

another update on my still-so-hot extra career.

for the past few days i've been doing this cool short movie that's being shot at film school as part of an all-european project about human rights. and it's not only cool and carrying an important message, but it will actually be shown at the next berlin film festival. which as you might know is one of the top three film festivals in the world. i've also been logging a lot of hours in make-up every day, as it's set in the late 40's. and not only did i wear a lovely dress and elegant hairdo, but they even aged me. which made me feel like nicole kidman donning that prosthetic schnooz for "the hours". it's so important to be able to sacrifice one's good looks for the sake of art, right?

also, i could have done another student project these days. but i didn't feel like the script was up to my level. i'm sure you understand that i gotta be careful about my choices at such a crucial time in my career. and of course i don't wanna be over-exposed by filling the background in every freakin' picture. but you gotta admit, i totally rock the business these days. especially if you consider how hollywood has refused to acknowledge me for all these years. which i really didn't understand. well, there's been my participation as audience member in a simulated episode of "deal or no deal" for the nbc executives. and i've been in the booty parlor training video as a guest at a sex toy party (you understand my concern about choosing appropriate projects in the future). but i'm the first to admit that i only got that part because of my company connections rather than talent. on the other hand there was that teacher a few years back that remarked what a great adrian i had been when we re-enacted a scene from "rocky" in class to analyze it. and of course there was that japanese student that followed me into the restroom stall during the break of that same class to tell me "how great my face had looked within the frame". they must have seen something that nobody else did.

another major obstacle on my road to now inevitable stardom had of course been the vicious attack on 9/11. i don't wanna shout here "i'm a victim too!" (which of course i am but you also know i'm humble as hell). but just a few days prior to the attack i was discovered in the most classy way by one of my customers in a restaurant who had asked me if i wanted to participate in her final project at film school. the part had just a few lines, but i would have spoken them with my german accent. of course it never came to be as my impending break-through was ultimately stopped by al-kaida. the movie shoot was delayed another month and took place at a time i was visiting germany :(

so i do wonder, how long it's gonna take those fuckers in hollywood to realize what got away. of course, everything could have turned out differently if they had just seen that 10th grade high school project about violence in which i played the naughty girl who steals the purse of an old lady.




look at me with my 40's hairdo. don't you think i look like ingrid bergman?

just a remark on the side... pretty redundant actually, but do feel free to read on

i think we all do agree on how awesome IKEA is, right?

but did you ever stand at the check-out with your new "furuhult" kitchen table or "leksvik" book shelf and realized that you might need to use the restroom pretty soon? and then of course you started to curse yourself for not going before you hit the store and filled that giant blue ikea bag with all kinds of stuff that you don't really need, but you took it anyway because it's cheap. and then you crossed your legs and paid your stuff and desperately hurried to the car to load it up and then you weren't so sure that you can still make it from the far end of the parking space back to the store and jumped into the car and drove off because you live just five minutes away anyway - just to be caught in traffic for another 20 minutes before you finally arrive at the safe harbor of your bathroom.

well, i've got good news. ikea not only has special restroom stalls for kids - which is already pretty amazing - but they apparently also designed their stalls to fit peoples' new furniture as well. i didn't actually do any studies yet on how much you could take in there and still comfortably pee and i seriously doubt that my "pax brevik" closet would fit. but i know for sure that that stall can hold

1 34x34 "lack" table
1 20x20 "lack" table
1 12x12 "agen" wicker basket
1 "dokument" paper holder
1 "alarm" alarm clock
1 "debut" candle holder

besides my purse and another full shopping bag. pretty impressive, huh?

and it's not that this is super-important or will save the world. but it does make the world a slightly better place to know that there are companies out there that are not only out for your money, but also treat you like human beings. including accommodating your needs. like peeing with an armload of furniture.

in summer the typical berliner loves to go for a dive

btw, this is a skeleton in an aquarium. but you saw that, right?

meryl, watch out ! AKA update on my rapidly rising extra career

i'm so totally freakin' hot.

and it's not only because it's been 90 degrees in b-town for weeks and humid as in the jungle. no, last night my career as an extra was marked by an important breakthrough. remember my post from april "side notes on my small screen debut"? it's only been six weeks that i had my first part in a german daily soap. and i didn't even get to ride a bike like the other more experienced extras.

but yesterday everything changed. first of all, i got hired for a real movie. big screen. it's a romantic comedy/musical (!). and it stars one of germany's hottest young female stars. and guess, who was chosen among all the extras to be the ueber-extra? the shoot was taking place in a restaurant. and while the other people had to be the restaurant guests and can call themselves lucky if more than the back of their head is noticeable in the movie, i got the part of the waitress. guess, five years of international serving experience finally paid off. i was the one serving the food to the two lead characters as they were having their first date. and i was good. as my hands were shaking when i set down their plates of pasta aioli (garlic on a first date? i bet that screenwriter is single.), it totally fit into the awkward mood of the date. you could actually say that i melted into the scene's atmosphere. and i know it's just the part of the waitress, but audrey hepburn's career started with a cameo as cigarette girl.

and the best of all was that i even got the whole make-up deal. and not only did i get that, but i actually got to share my time in the make-up trailer with the female star of the movie. and she and the male lead totally acknowledged me, eye contact and smile and all. and as if that wasn't enough, one of germany's biggest actors dropped by the shoot to hang out with the director for a bit. and since this shoot was so special and i will always remember it as my big break, i also stole a totally cute sheep from the easter decoration of the restaurant. it was just perfect. though the other extras must have been pissed, uselessly sitting around and having absolutely nothing to play with. but it's a tough business and there are only so many winners and lots of losers. just that since yesterday i'm not one of them.

still, i don't want to get too ambitious yet. you know how important it is to stay humble and not lose the ground under your feet (or the contact to less interesting people like you guys). but on the other hand, the town is abuzz with talk about the new bryan singer picture starring tom cruise. and i've been stalking them for a job behind the camera without success (fuckers!). so now i'm hoping for a call from my agency for that. because, where else could i go up now but hollywood???

hanging with the old fritz

the old fritz would be king frederick the great. of course he's already bitten the dust a long time ago. but that's essentially a good thing as i got to visit his old haunt of sanssouci last week and i'm pretty sure i wouldn't have gotten that far during his lifetime.

apparently sanssouci is considered one of the 1000 places to see before you die. at least i once read so. thus i had been pretty excited and must admit that my first impression was rather subdued. with my memory of visiting versailles fifteen years ago still vivid, i discreetly turned up my nose at sanssouci's size at first. it's just got twelve rooms. this proletarian princess grew up in a house of thirteen rooms (plus one closet and a guest wc).

and then i stepped inside. where i was promptly informed that this had of course only been fritz' weekend getaway. ah. actually he resided in another castle on the grounds. with 200 rooms. oh. and then i stepped further inside and... ooh...aah... is that real gold all over the room? ooh... aah.

i got to see the room that voltaire used to chill out in. apparently he and fritz were pretty close chums. and then there was the library with its more than 2000 books. and then there was the music room where fritz used to play his flute all day long. no pun intended. although it is to note that the castle doesn't include any rooms for mrs. fritz. after all, sanssouci means "without worries". makes one wonder if fritz might have been the original creator of "no woman no cry". ultimately i found no info on that, though i found a pop art portrait of fritz by andy warhol.

now this all seemed pretty suspicious to me. hanging out with voltaire all the time instead of the mrs., the warhol worshipping, his love of music and gardening. so upon the return to my very middle class 5-room-digs, i looked him up and got confirmation that he was indeed a homosexual. which also explains all that glittery room deco. also, he never wanted to be king and even tried to run off on a regular basis - sometimes in male company. desperate measures which his dad countered with sending the poor chap to prison. ah, the good old prussian discipline. also for sure is that it was fritz who was responsible for cultivating potatoes in germany. which causes my compatriots to lay down the lovely earth apples on his grave site.

but back to my visit. while wandering through the park, i eventually came upon two buildings that i couldn't identify at first. they seemed to be two smaller castles and i supposed that they were separate ball rooms or something like that. but one look at my map of the grounds and i learned that those were the staff quarters. which was the final blow. i admit sanssouci is impressive and the old fritz seems to have been a rather cool dude too. even though he probably never would have socialized with me.

one down. 999 places to go.


some side notes about my own humble or not so humble origins:

my dad's side of the family owns a family crest and apparently a castle somewhere in switzerland too. though i don't know how many rooms it's got. but it sounds pretty good, right? especially if you consider that my mom's family consists mostly of coal miners.

so recently my dad claimed that his family were wealthy land owners who apparently left switzerland for germany 250 years ago because of the decline in moral standards (!). i decided to do some research on that and it didn't take me long to dig up some of my ancestry online. and the emphasis here is on "digging up". instead of land owners, my ancestors' occupation was commonly described as field workers. the old fritz would not have been amused.

the fate of ernie

ernie was one of my most beloved childhood toys. and he wasn't just one of those very common ernie dolls. mine actually wore real jeans, had a dense head full of fuzzy hair and cool converse-like sneakers on. and then one day, he was gone.

it happened around the time i was about ten years old and my interest shifted from stuffed male buddies to the un-stuffed kind. his departure came suddenly and at the hands of my evil mom. at that time, the family living next to us had relatives living in the GDR. and when my brother and i had outgrown certain clothes or toys, my mom would give them to the neighbors so they could send them to their relatives. and so in one of those really cruel turns in life, one day i discovered that ernie was gone - sent to live with the communists! sure you can imagine that i was sick with worry at the thought of my beloved ernie falling into the clutches of an eastern regime.

my mom actually tried to make up for it by giving me an "ersatz" ernie for my 18th birthday. but he wasn't nearly as cool as the original one and the pain was still too big as that i could ever develop any deep feelings for this one. the closest i actually came to the original one again, was when my family vacationed near the border to the GDR very shortly before the wall came down. i still remember the high fence with the mine field and shooting towers behind (and i still remember my mom panically shouting: don't touch the fence!). there i was, sad-eyed and longing for my buddy on the other side. at that point i wasn't even sure if he was still alive or - being a symbol of a liberal western childhood - he had been confiscated by the greater powers.

so now after all those years, i finally decided to get some closure. i went on a valiant mission to look for ernie in berlin. this also led me to the GDR museum where one can look at all kinds of objects once used by the people "over there". in fact, the museum consists of cabinets in the form of plattenbau buildings that you can open up and inside you'll find stuff related to a certain area of eastern life. so there i was, standing at the childhood-themed plattenbau. my hands trembling, i opened it only to find some schlumpy teddy bear who had certainly seen better days. but no trace of my beloved ernie. i finally left, resigned to the uncomfortable truth that i might never get a confirmation on ernie's fate.

but then just a few days ago it happened. i had been on my way to my favorite ice cream parlor when i passed by a funky clothing store and suddenly spotted ernie in the shopping window. he was sitting on top of a wooden box among the clothing on display. and not only was he apparently making his living in a decent manner, but he looked as good as he ever had. no signs of torture or broken arms. and not only that, but i was truly comforted by the knowledge that he actually lives in my neighborhood.

and a long life he may have!