Category: Blog

Frankfurt Book Fair 2011

Yeah, baby. The book fair to woop all book fairs. It never ceases to amaze me each time I visit this fair how cordoned off the most significant part of it is (the most significant part to me, anyway). The fair is without a doubt huge. The human traffic here is also no less astonishing. People are everywhere and they’re all running around like little chickens with really big intellectual heads just waiting to be cut off. And then there are the dreams. Way beyond the comic section or the fantasy novel section or the section on utility books there is the section:

LitAG (pic of the section at book fair with literary agents.)

The literary agent section, baby. It is walled in. It is cordoned off. It is high security where there is one entrance – by invitation and/or appointment only. Where the real deals/dreams are made. I don’t know what it is that still stirs me about this part of the fair. I mean, I’ve long since given up on trying to get in. The industry and the host country of this fair have long since beaten me down. Game over, masochist boy. Just keep walking and attending and gettin’ the goosebumps. Maybe there is still a spark of hope (but not when you don’t write like you used to). I feel so small, so insignificant, in my place – as though being surround by the shear greatness of literary agents galore all in one huge multiple football field room could have any place for the likes of moi. No. Most certainly not. Here is where all the dreams of real-writers are made and not of worstwriters. Here is where it is determined whether or not you get famous or remain in the LOL part of wannabe-ness. Oh, how I wish the writers that are dealt with here all the success of the universe.

Rant on.

-tgs-

Before I continue with this post…

Thank you to those taking the time to read my writing/thoughts about Hacks and my German experience here in The Naked Classic Forum. Thanks also for your understanding that I don’t have any proof readers – and so you get the ALL of my poor American education. Although I don’t believe in stats, according to those provided by this forum software, my writing is getting some exposure. With that in mind, I have run into a small problem that may prohibit me from continuing here:

(Don’t worry – I don’t want your money!) I have run out of Hacks materiel to read. As a pseudo-starving artist and as WorstWriter I am on a tight budget with reading material. Is there anyone out there with Hacks material to give away? I don’t mind old and/or beat-up stuff. Keep in mind, if anyone does send me material I will not return it. The main reason for that is when I read I frantically write notes in the books. Sometimes I rip out pages of books and eat them. Some material becomes part of me – and so it will be soiled with sweat, mucus and, in extreme cases, Onan’s seed(s). Oh well, we all pay certain prices for this whacky experience called life, eh.

Feel free to contact me and I’ll provide a postal address. Thank you in advance for your consideration and/or charity. And thanks again for reading my work.

And now on with the (freak) show.

While reading Hacks the other night a simple stage direction popped out of one of his pages and flew across my bedroom ceiling. I have a very high bedroom ceiling and I hate high ceilings. Why so many Germans like really old apartments with high ceilings is a mystery to me. But then again, the older I get the more “romance” becomes a mystery to me, as well. As far as I’m concerned high ceilings suck because they can fall so much further to crush me.

Stage direction from Peter Hacks: A comet appears and flies across the stage/office.

Hacks is a great playwright, although sometimes his stage directions are a bit unrealistic. Why this guy is still ostracized in the German literary and theatrical landscape is beyond me. Is the anger he caused after the wall fell so deep seeded? Can’t Wessi publishers and theatre managers get over their misguided anger? (I know, theatre managers can’t make decisions anyway!) Isn’t it obvious, especially after the recent finance debacle stemming from Wall Street and the various skyscraper bank offices around the world (yes, even Frankfurt/Main), that the differences between Ossi and Wessi has been kind of blurred? At the least, being raised in the Anglo world and now living in the Germanic world – and reading Hacks – I am inspired by a few thoughts of how things are really the same.

Here an interesting quote from “Numa – A Play in Five Acts” by Peter Hacks. (Warning: this is a tommi-translation.)

“We aspire to equality and wealth. But how should wealth get along with equality? And how should equality not fight against wealth? We are forced to produce a vast quantity of goods; the thirst for privilege cannot otherwise be killed except to be drowned in abundance. Equal wealth, rich equality. But on the long road ahead which of the two will remain left behind? Equality or wealth? Or in case we are going in that direction, will both be left behind? If we don’t do something about the situation immediately then they will both turn against us: the wealthy and the equal.”

Perhaps the title of this play should be: Numa – Making Fun of the GDR. Or maybe it could be called: Numa – If Shakespeare Were a Communist. And while I’m on the subject…, after reading this play I got to thinkin’: why is it that the Germans (or the Huns or the Teutons) don’t have a Shakespeare? Could it be because German history was too busy inventing communism? It’s not as though Germans through out history didn’t write anything that is somewhat comparable to The Bard. Who knows – maybe the Germans have actually written so much more that all the sweet, poetic works have been drowned in abundance. No, that can’t be. Maybe it just boils down to the fact that while the Anglos were romanticizing with the written word, z’Germans were trying to figure out how to build their great city upon a hill where everybody is the same and ruled by a singular, authoritarian bureaucracy and blinded by the shine of really fancy cars.

(No! Goethe is not your Shakespeare! But maybe Schiller or Büchner could have been.)

Seriously. We (the world?) can’t blame the Germans for communism. It wasn’t their fault that they invented it. So much can come out of constantly asking the question while standing north or west of the Danube and/or Rhine: what does it all mean? At the least, so many losses over the last two centuries has pretty much put the Germans in their place – hence their Storm & Drang is now equal to well-dressed pot-belly drunks with too many choices of unaffordable cars or old apartments with ceilings that are waaaaay to high.

Yes, indeed, the German place in history is to be a pseudo-annexed, subservient arbitrator bulwark for The West – which is run by rival white Anglo men. (Except for Kissinger!) Certainly this is not an environment to propagate any historic and low-key rivalry, right? Yet even though so much German butt has been kicked it is still not clear if the Anglos have won the century’s long, almost forgotten, rivalry. Oh, I say/ask: where is the scoreboard of the match when the playing field is fogged out?

Peter Hacks invokes in me a desire to rekindle the rivalry – or at least move it beyond sporting events. And the main reason for that is: the Germans are missing their Shakespeare.

Give this a thought. Since the Anglos and Germans compete at almost every level, why isn’t the talk of “rivalry” part of public discourse? At first glance it seems that the rivalry has been set aside. Sixty years after their last major conflict the dynamics that once guided the players has obviously changed. Or has it? Yes, even after z’Germans lost so many nasty wars, I am really curious about what drives them today. I feel as though it’s my duty to put whatever effort I can into understanding my expatriate host country. With that in mind, even if the rivalry today has become stupefying with a Fußball, is it completely out of whack for me to compare it to the days post Marcus Auerilius? You know, when it was easy to tell the difference between a clean-cut Roman legion and a stinky mud-ridden barbarian carrying two wives by the hair in one hand and a crude form of a hammer-weapon in the other.

Yes. I think the rivalry is still alive – and it rests in the long, strong, callous hands of a bunch of hip, good looking, big fuckin’ Germans who have lost their literary booty.

Obviously the rivalry has transcended. Today it’s about things like manufacturing, banking and how much vacation time the worker bees can afford. Didn’t WWI start because the Germans were so much more productive with their smelting plants than the Brits? Basically the Germans threatened Anglo interests around the world with not just the ability to build bigger and better krapp but also acquire all the natural resources to do that building? After the Germans failed at acquiring free access to all the world’s production resources, even today they still make some of the world’s best mass produced cars – and boy can they afford to buy energy.

Of course my previous statement has to be qualified. In Germany cars are unaffordable and can only be bought if tax payers are granted access to them in the form of corporate subsidies. Modern German culture even has a name for this cute little corporate/government feed-the-masses trick. For one, they don’t even call them cars/Auto anymore. Instead they call them “Firmenwagen”. The last I heard something like 60% of all new luxury cars on the road at any given time, that is BMW 3, 5, 7, the Audi Ax series, Mercedes, etc. are all Firmenwagen. (If 60% is presented as an official statistic then the real number can only be higher because “statistics” are not here to inform but instead to misinform). I’ve been living among z’Germans for a long time. I’ve worked for a lot of big-shot companies in this country. The thing that gets me is that I have never met anyone that has actually bought a new luxury car in Germany. Anyway – the rivalry is obviously to be found elsewhere.

Almost a digression…

So z’Germans are good at building things. I guess, in a way, they are also good at inventing things. (The PC, otto-automobiles, Beate Uhse, etc.) What they are not good at is capitalizing on anything. That’s because in order to capitalize on something it would mean that individuality would somehow have to be nurtured. I am aware of no evidence from The West Sector of such nurturing. In fact, it is from The West that the heavy fog proceeds to clutter the view of the rivalry scoreboard. But maybe, just maybe if we turn to The East….

The problem is z’Germans have given up. And I tend to think it has something to do with Shakespeare. But before I get into any banal name-calling, let me mention one more Teuton fuck-up.

Did you know that z’Germans invented Barbie™? It’s true. But the Anglos are the ones that make all the money on her. The turn-little-girls-stupid doll was originally called Bild Lilli. To make this mishap even more interesting, the frickin’ doll has its origin in the infamous yellow newspaper Bild Zeitung. But, as usual, the Germans didn’t know what to make of little girls going “eeeww” and “aaahhh” all day long. And so, there you go: z’Germans lose the wars and they lose the revenue rights to stupid but extremely popular figurines. Oh, yet another point on the scoreboard for independently thinking, industrious Anglos.

Digress…

Looking to The East… After finally finishing a collection of Hacks’ classic plays, I couldn’t help but think a bit about German and Anglo rivalry. For me, the rivalry has long been decided – thanks to William Shakespeare. Of course, Shakespeare’s work is ultimately about language and it’s also about simple story telling. I suppose Schiller or Büchner is comparable and I won’t be so presumptuous to say that there is no other German or Hun or Teuton that doesn’t at least get some marks for trying to rival The Bard. I’ve simply concluded that the problem with z’Germans is the innate want/desire to be told what to do – instead of nurturing original, independent thought.

Come on! There’s good reason Gunter Grass is not known as a poet but instead as the voice of a broken soul. The man must be weaned from so much moral judgement – or? And Goethe! Don’t even get me started on him! Talk about missed (literary) opportunity. (Even though some of Faust II is pretty cool.)

And so… potentially… z’Germans can finally even-up the scoreboard with their version of z’Shakespeare. (Applause.) And all we have to do is look to what used to be Germany’s… better half? The only problem is in order to get some z’Shakespeare out of Peter Hacks you have to take a really large ideological leap and you will have to test your sympathies. It’s not a hard thing to do. Just keep staring stage left and he eventually will enter like a punch-drunk Macbeth or a mushroom intoxicated King Lear. I’m almost sure of it.

Hacks’ work – at least what I’ve read so far – is overwhelmingly about ideology. Yet it is cloaked in a freaky kind of classicism. In fact, Hacks uses historical figures to create somewhat twisted stories – that are ultimately about (his?) ideology. But there’s something else to Hacks. Something that makes me go back to read more of him. Is it because I think of Shakespeare the more I read him? I mean, I don’t like all of Shakespeare. I only like the so-called tragedies – except for Romeo & Juliet. I hate that play. And I also hate all his Histories.

I would never indulge in any sort of literary comparison between The Bard and The Hacks. In my opinion between language and ideology there is little room for imagination. Which is reason enough to hate Shakespeare’s Histories! Yet idealism doesn’t seem to be that important to William. It is everything to Peter. So why do I think of Shakespeare while reading Numa?

This is all I can come up with on the fly. Did you know that none of Shakespeare’s work (OK, at least very little of his work) is original? (Of course you knew that, you have an Arbitur.) Obviously, of his classic plays (Prexaspes, Seneca’s Death, Numa, etc.) none of them are original either. They are, indeed, regurgitated histories, born of the study of Kommunism 101 at Brezhnev University. You know, in some US universities, entire curriculum are based on researching the sources that Shakespeare steals from. With Hacks – who at times it feels like is trying to copy Shakespeare, albeit with a somewhat commi twist – all you need in understanding him is a copy of Das Capital and maybe access to wikipedia.

Yet I’m getting the feeling that Peter Hacks and his work has a place in history that is at some simple and minimalist level comparable to Shakespeare. Hacks has found a way to combine the nothingness of communist ideology with history. Where The Bard steals to create Hamlet, Hacks dabbles in the confines of the historically obscure – or the historically uninteresting. He takes historic figures and turns them into something anti-romantic and pro-working class. If more of Hacks’ work is like these few “classic” plays that I’ve read, then there must be a literary place in the history books (somewhere) for this dude.

Hacks takes Numa Pompilius out of either history or legend and zaps him into the Politburo of Rome. Characterization takes place, scenery is enabled, dramatic effect is fulfilled and there you have it: communist history is written – or rewritten. Would Stalin have liked Peter Hacks? At the least, Stalin would have had a laugh about the German Democratic Republic that Hacks so cleverly parodies in this play.

Numa was the second king of Rome. He must have been somewhat of an outcast, or, at the least, an unexpected ruler. Legend has it that Egaria, a nymph, not only became Numa’s second wife but also was, along with the teachings/writing of Plutarch, his teacher. Numa is accredited with quite a few achievements during his reign, the foremost being his ability to unite the rival tribes of early Rome.

Peter Hacks doesn’t bother much with the historical aspect of the second Roman King. His idea is to portray Numa as the mediator of domestic conflicts stemming out of an earlier, perhaps a somewhat more child-like form of the ultimate communist state. The conflict Hacks chooses for this story? A farmer fertilizes his farm and part of the fertilizer inevitably lands on a neighbours sunflower land. According to the plaintiff the sunflower farmer profits from this and the other farmer, the one that actually pays for the fertilizer, wants compensation. Yes. z’Shakespeare of The East meets Maschendrahtsound.

As this conflict is graciously, carefully and meticulously knitted through the story-line of the play, the reader (moi) never looses touch with the fact that the former GDR must have been a nightmare for those who believed with all their heart in the true doctrine of Marxism – which, of course, needed to include the principle of counter-revolution (ala Trotsky). Add to that how it must take a special mind to make all that mess funny.

As much as it pains me, the Germans might finally have their Shakespeare. This also means that all rivalries can continue anew.

On a little side-note, I found the following text quite amusing. But be warned. What you are about to read is tommi-translation (as previously mentioned). I make no claim of being a translator. I’m just a guy that landed in Germany one day (around 1989) and this big concrete wall practically fell on me as I got off the plane in Tempelhof. When I realized that the wall that fell on me wasn’t caused by the outrageous party that was taking place next to it, I got over my hangover and fucked a few German chicks. I’ve been caught in this Germanic vagina ever since – only to realize that learning German makes it even easier to fuck more German chicks.

Setup: One guy (Fauno) says that he wants to join the communist party. The party member (Klient) questions him and the following ensues:

Klient: The wish (to join the party) is commendable as long as it follows commendable reasons. Everyone is welcome, but none go unchecked.
Fauno: Sir, ask away. I won’t shy away from any test.
Klient: Name?
Fauno: Fauno.
Kleint: No, your birth name.
Fauno: My birth name? These communists. Oh! He wants my birth name. I’m not surprised. A bunch of stand-up collar communists, eh!
Klient: Your name!
Fauno: Waldteufel. (Forest devil)
Klient: Baptismal name?
Fauno: Fritz.
Klient: What is the driving force comrade Fritz Waldteufel for this grand step in your life?
Fauno: I live freely and I have read Marx.
Klient: We’ll deal with that.
Fauno: Living freely?
Klient: No: Marx. He who systematically faces the day is served much better by simply reading the newspaper. What’s your profession?
Fauno: In the morning I hunt. Evenings I fish. After supper I criticize. You see, I live as Marx prescribes.
Klient: Where did you read that?
Fauno: Marx.
Klient: The “criticise” part as well?
Fauno: It’s in the young Marx. I read it myself.
Klient: Young Marx?
Fauno: Right there.
Klient: Well, then, that’s the wrong one. Young Marx was a dissenter.
Fauno: Dissenter? From who?
Klient: From the old Marx.
Fauno: From the old Marx? Aren’t they the same?
Klient: The young one was the son of the old one.
Fauno: Really?
Klient: Dum question. Should the old Marx be the son of the young one?
Fauno: No, of course not. How foolish of me, really, a bad thought. But the young Marx – what happened to him?
Klient: Nothing good, I’m afraid. Nothing good comes from the young. A great man lives a great life for our new class struggle. And what do his children do? They go out and become students – or something. A sad game, indeed.

Rant on, baby. Discover your z’Shakespeare. German-Anglo rivalries rule.

-tgs-

Finally some thoughts about Hacks’ play Die Fische. You’re patience regarding all the other thoughts is appreciated.

Living in Europe as an American is kind of funny. I don’t mean funny in the pure comedic sense – as in the stuff that makes you laugh out loud. It’s more like funny in the odd-ball sense – perhaps comparable to slapstick or something. I suppose if one were to look at it as long as I have, then one could also see the funny I’m talking about as macabre.

Bear with me…

Let me try to put it another way. Take for example the term culture. I think everyone would agree that in America “culture” is different than in Europe. For example, Fussball would not necessarily be considered as part of European culture. Unless, of course, there was some threat of losing money – at which time Europe would gladly, albeit while gritting its teeth, admit that kicking a ball around a really large field of grass could have something attributable to culture.

It’s not quite the same in the new country. In America the sheer multitude of sports available on TV means something more than it being a country full of no-brainers that kick, throw and run really fast. Baseball, for one, is definitely part of American culture. I’d go as far as to say that baseball, at a cultural phenomenon level, is equal to Jazz. In fact, baseball is an American past-time – which makes it something like THE national sport. Is there a national sport in Europe/Germany?

(One of my coaches (when I was young athlete in high school) used to say this about soccer: “Only communists play sports where you can’t use your hands!” Isn’t there something cultivated in that thought?)

(No?)

Unfortunately – and this a great regret of mine – I didn’t play much baseball when I was young. I played other sports like football, tennis and lacrosse. And because of all that running around, it took till something like my twenty-third year (of life) to actually sit down and read a book. Does that make me uncultivated?

Let me tell you, if you want to really understand the true nature of sportsmanship – or being American – you should play baseball. Or at least try to learn the rules governing it.

For those that don’t know it, one thing about baseball that makes it unique to America is that it is one of the best examples of how an individual can have such an overwhelming effect on the whole. Individualism is a trademark of (being) America(n). I don’t expect most Europeans to understand that. I mean, Europe is, if nothing else, the most successful example of high-end automaton-living on the planet at this time. Even if Europeans started playing baseball it wouldn’t make a difference. Europe would still remain a place of monotony where out-dated aristocracy can still dream of ruling the world and as long as that isn’t possible it can claim ownership of the Mona-fucking-Lisa.

Of course, don’t get me wrong. It’s quite obvious that not everybody plays baseball in America. Does that mean that – as opposed to Europe – “diversity” is also part of American culture? This may come as a surprise to many of you, but I don’t know the answer to that. What I do know is that there is one other activity that may be included in this pseudo-examination of transatlantic differences and what actually constitutes culture – or the like.

Digress 1. (Don’t worry. I’m getting to Die Fische.)

When I was a boy I enjoyed fishing and if I had the chance I would have done a lot more of it. Fishing is a great outdoor activity and is perfect for fatherless youth. In a way, fishing – and playing other sports – helped me stay out of trouble. For those unaware: trouble is yet another part of American culture. In fact, and this is kind of a secret regarding America, trouble stems out of the differences that make up America… (Sorry. I can’t reveal anymore or I’ll have to kill you.)

There’s really not much to fishing. You just need a bit of equipment and some patience. In fact, the first time I ever experienced anything like “karma” was when I was bass fishing on Virginia river shores.

Bass fishing on swampy river shores and inlets is almost like the fishing seen in the film “The River Runs Through It”. That film, based on the Novella by Norman Maclean, was about a different type of fishing called fly fishing. Bass fishing usually employs a small boat and our rivers didn’t move as quickly. Also, we used spinning rods instead of fly rods – and we considered the whole thing more like hunting. To say the least, there is nothing finer than hunting and catching a big mouth bass!

If you knew where to go and how to get there you could also bass fish/hunt from river/swamp shores – which is great if you’re young and can’t afford the boat. (Yours truly!) The biggest hurdle to this kind of fishing, beyond figuring out location, is learning how to caste. Casting a lure requires some pretty unique skills. I knew a guy that could caste a lure with a spin rod thirty or so yards and hit a penny lying on the ground – while he was standing in a boat on the river. Yeah, finding Karma requires some precision and skill and the ability to caste a lure between the half-sunken roots of trees lining river inlets where bass like to hide.

Now, I don’t know about you, but is there “culture” in anything mentioned above?

I really miss the idea that was/is my homeland, I really miss the/my geography. But could I go back to that culture?

Digress 2. (Yes. We’re getting to Die Fische.)

Unfortunately life moves on. And I made the grand mistake of “moving on” to Germany – where fishing is treated like another bureaucratic, consuming, state-sponsored activity and people are clueless to the simple beauty of baseball or fishing. As we all know bureaucracy rules everything in Germany. It even rules culture. The US has its bureaucracy, too, but I can say that it has nothing to do with fishing – or throwing a ball around. Yes, I guess one can say that I learned about bureaucracy the hard way: I went across the pond (the Atlantic) to actually swim in it.

During the early phase of my frustrating move to Germany, probably in the mid 90s, I thought about the possibility of going fishing. I mean, there are a lot of rivers in Germany. I even saw old men, mostly Ausländer, sitting on the banks of rivers with fishing poles and Styrofoam buckets at their side. Since I was becoming desperate regarding the error of my ways I thought I might be able to save my sanity and fish again.

I went to a German version of a Tackle Shop. The place had fishing poles and lures and… All the equipment I would need. Then I asked Herr Arrogance (the guy who inherited the store, of course) if there is anything I need to know about the rules. Typical of Euro sour-pusses, he acknowledged that I was different and then proceeded to tell me, with a sinister grin, that Germany loves its bureaucracy – because it does nothing more than protect his and everyone else’s claim to inheriting it.

Naturally, I’ve given up on fishing because bureaucracy has beaten me down to a pulp since moving to Germany. I also let the reality of mistakes settle into my soul and now I live in the grand cage that is oh-so golden. Trust me when I say that one can get used to such a cage. Yet sometimes I am reminded of things past and a lone tear falls from my left eye (because it’s the weakest one) and I think back to the days when life breathed inside me, to the day when I didn’t run away, to the day when it all wasn’t about feeding the machine that Europeans lie to themselves by screaming the world “culture” – and the state beats them to it screaming louder “bureaucracy”.

Such reminders stick with me and provide a spark that leads to a memory. The newest of which comes from the play Die Fische, by Peter Hacks. Even though this play has nothing to do with baseball, it reminded me of it. Even though this play has nothing to do with fishing, it reminded me of those swampy river banks in Virginia. And, yes, this play reminds me whole heartily of my newest love in this golden cage: cultivation.

Stop the presses! OK. Maybe the play Die Fische does have something to do with fishing…

I can no longer fish and I’m too old for sports. And now I thoroughly enjoy the only thing I’ve learned while living in Europe: cultivation. Cultivation is no different than learning how to fish or playing baseball. But it is not learning how to play soccer.

Digress 3.

Of the plays I’ve read so far this play is the most exciting – and not because it should be categorized as “macabre”. Die Fische takes place in May, 1866, in the mountains of Rio Frio, Mexico. This is during the French intervention under Napoleon III who also wants to install Maximillian (Hapsburg) as monarch. Supposedly Napoleon has sent Professor Simon, a scientist, to research an important discovery having to deal with the existence of “homo pisciforme” – or the fish-man.

Now, this play has quite a complex plot – and perhaps here lies the/my connection to American culture as listed above. One of the complexities in this plot is the underlying conflict between imperialist Europe and struggling republican Mexico with the duly elected Benito Juarez. Even deeper in the underlining plot is the fact that by 1866 the American civil war was over. With that mind, by the end of the play it’s not clear who the soldiers all worked for – as the concept of spying may be taken to a new level by Mr. Hacks.

The main conflict of the play is between the commanding soldier Goyon and Professor Simon. Goyon is preparing to leave Mexico and return to Europe because they (Europeans) have lost the conflict. Simon wants to stay and, according to the hand-written letter from Napoleon, Goyon has to follow his orders. Goyon thinks militarily about the situation because Juarez rebels are threatening him and easily questions not just Simon and his letter but the legitimacy of Simon’s research. And that’s where the macabre enters.

Homo Pisciforme is used in this play to describe a creature that is some kind of a hybrid between a fish and a man. Simon thinks he has finally found this hybrid, which will lead to the greatest scientific discovery of the century. But the only way to get this creature is to fish for it, which Simon is doing throughout the play. The thing that prevents him from making any kind of discovery, though, is the political conflict affecting their world and the fact that at the beginning of the play soldiers ate the first catch.

So there’s also a little bit of cannibalism in the play as it begins with three soldiers eating one of the caught fish. When they learn what they have eaten they want to kill Simon. To say the least, Hacks has created quite a comedic character in Prof. Simon and an adequate character of authority in Goyo. Unfortunately time is not on Simon’s side and the scientific discovery must continue to wait. As usual, authority always wins – even if you don’t quite know where it’s coming from.

I won’t spoil the play any more here because I recommend that everyone read this play. My only question is, when one considers all the boring plays available on German corporate subsidized theatres these days, why is this exciting play no where to be seen? It really is a cool play and unlike that krapp from Botho Strauß or Moritz Rinke, it’s not a play about being German. Thank goodness!

Rant on.

-tgs-

Obviously in my last two posts I failed at writing about the most recent play that I read by Hacks. In fact, it was my intention to write about Die Fische but I never quite got around to it. That shouldn’t be understood as any kind of conclusion regarding the play. It is a play that I actually enjoyed reading. I guess, to put it another way, I’ve reached a kind of wall regarding Hacks.

Well maybe the word “wall” isn’t quite right. Perhaps I should term it: dilemma. And my … dilemma isn’t about actually writing about Peter Hacks. In fact, give me pen & paper or a lowly old typewriter and I could write about anything. I am WorstWriter! (http://wurstwriter.com/) With that in mind, the stuff I write doesn’t make much sense, but who really needs to make any sense in this day & age of gluttonous, superficial nothingness where “worst” should prefix almost everything?

I confronted the publisher of this forum about my meaningless little dilemma because, well, I thought I might need some motivating to continue. The publisher’s advice was to simply write about something else, which I did. And then I turn around and he’s no longer running the Peter-Hacks.de website. Has he run out of stuff to say about Hacks?

Anywho.

I might get to Peter Hacks’ Die Fische in my next post. Until then… Get this…

In America we have various sayings and euphemism for the misery-happiness that is life. Naturally this is subjective but if one were to take the time and analyze it then it might be somewhat clearer that if America and the American Way of Life could be summed up in a few words those words just might be these: Chip on Shoulder.

The words are used something like this: Wow, that guy has a chip on his shoulder. Or you might have heard it used like this: Tom, you need to get that chip off your shoulder. The connotation here is that the person with the chip on his/her shoulder has a grievance or is somehow angry about life and/or his/her situation. That maybe true but…

I think the meaning of Chip on Shoulder is completely misunderstood. The reason it is misunderstood is simple. We no longer live in a world where achievement (chip?) can actually be measured. Hence, this is also the reason that I believe (in)human genetic coding has evolved to include the Chip on Shoulder. That’s right: we’re all now born with it. Since the advent of the 20th century and the success of The West the “chip” is like a non-opposing thumb that is always under our skin. When I was young there were actually people that still had to go out to acquire the chip. Boy, evolution is tricky, eh.

Facing truths.

Way, way, way, way, way back… in a time before marketing, service-industry-employment and pop-culture replaced the actual making of things in the so-called First World, the saying “he has a chip on his shoulder” didn’t mean that someone had a problem and therefore blamed the world for his/her problem. Instead, the whole idea of the “chip” was literally a way for a man to confront another man that something is wrong (in the game of life).

It worked like this. A man would put a piece of wood (chip) on his shoulder and walk up to another man and say: I dare you to knock it off. Of course, what we’re dealing with here is violence. I think by and large, this is one of those rare acceptable forms of violence – you know, as is the case with some sporting events. In order to control the violence, though, there should be a law/rule that says you can’t kill someone – no matter what. If the challenge was accepted then, in a way, the score (the conflict) would/could be equalled and the game (of life) could continue.

Duelling.

The fact is the “chip” was a fairly decent way of replacing the duel where someone usually would die. I mean, how can a man really face his problems in the days of rampant individual arms-collecting? Remember, we do live in a world where the only possible and yet irrational measurement for achievement is material gain. Today Chip on Shoulder has been relegated to meaning that a man simply has a problem and he blames the whole world for it. I guess it’s no wonder that so many people pick up guns these days and take so many out with them since they have no game to play anymore. Yeah, running amok is a one-sided duel!

Fairness and justice.

In a world where economics and politics is driven by people who in order to survive must consume it has become fairly easy to blur the truth of justice. In fact, if you ask me, this is one of the reasons “democracy” has failed and will continue to fail until it is removed. I’m really sorry to bust your bubbles out there but 50%-50% politics isn’t democracy. Even 49-51 or 52-48 politics isn’t democratic. What it really is – is this: collectivism. I suppose The West’s failure is comparable to the theory of phase-cancellation but I won’t get into that here. Everyone has a problem on both sides of the so-called democratic process. Yet voting solves no problems.

The good thing about using the old Chip on Shoulder as a way to solve problems is that if the challenge is/was done right, usually in the public domain, the conflict between the two men/parties could be addressed because after the fight the core of the problem is revealed. Here, of course, is the difference to a duel. A duel would usually kill one side of the challenge. But more importantly, in a duel the person who survives has killed the truth. Remember, there was a time when a death in a duel was considered “fair”. With the whole Chip on Shoulder thing no one has to die – including the truth. Perhaps that’s the reason so many people today mix up fairness and justice?

Is there really a financial crisis right now?

Unless you believe that bears shit in toilets there is really no financial crisis in the world right now. But there is a great example of how Chip on Shoulder is finally being taken away as a chance to even the score. In fact, we’re living in that example. If anyone wants to truly understand the current financial crisis taking place in my Grand United Mistakes and the world, then give this a thought.

As you may or may not know, Dubya (G.W. Bush) and A L L his neo-con cronies are very successful failures. We in America have created a new term for these people. These are not people that achieve anything with their lives and/or the things they do. Yet they seem to “succeed”. But it’s not really success that they share amongst themselves, now is it? Hence we call them and what they do: failing upwards.

The reality is the entire request in United Mistakes Congress for $700 billion dollars to bail out “Wall Street” is a really good joke – if you understand that kind of humour. It has nothing do with bailing out anything – nor does it have anything to do with the financial situation of the United Mistakes or the world. What the request from the United Mistakes Secretary of the Treasury (crony) and Dubya’s administration is, is nothing more than a last-ditch effort to secure the cherry that has been floating atop the cream that they’ve already horded for the past thirty (or so, i.e. since Ronal Regan) years. So for you numb-nuts out there, the $700 billion isn’t about socialism taking over capitalism. Nor is it about capitalism failing. It is simply a continuation of something that so many refuse to even look at because they/you are so obsessed with measuring “achievements” that do not even exist. Bush & Company are laughing their asses off!

Although I don’t care to actually explain what I’m writing (or thinking) I will put the above paragraph another way: Failing upwards is nothing new. In fact, the people that have failed upwards are the ones that built our world. More to the point: these people are nothing more than robber-barons. Any numb-nuts out there know that term? They do not care what happens to “Wall Street” nor do they care about America or the world. And this is really the saddest part of the whole Dubya debacle over the last eight years: the American people and the world deserve every bit that’s coming to them. The American people and the entire “Western” world put Bush right where he is and have enjoyed it to the hilt – and now that their/your masters want a chunk more (before their term ends) everyone thinks that DAS VOLK is being screwed.

I’m laughing my ass-off too.

Again, 50%-50% politicking doesn’t quite get anything done, does it? Germans should know this well from their silly multiple-party corporate government. No one can maintain a clear political mandate in Germany in order to make a difference for the participants or DAS VOLK. The fact is, if there are people out there that were/are against Dubya and this type of “capitalism” then where are the chips on their shoulders!

It doesn’t matter on what side of the Atlantic you live. The game is over. Robber barons will be quite happy with just the cream! But I suppose, since I live in Germany, I should give some credit where it’s due. Thank goodness Fr. Merkel got on the TV this week to announce that the/her robber-barons should get their fair cut. But then again, I’ve yet to meet in all my travels a PHD that’s much brighter than her.

The interesting thing about Dubya and his world is that he is probably the first (in)human that has been able to take advantage of the evolution of the Chip On Shoulder. You see, by moving to Europe and living amongst a bunch of perverted socialists that have perfected the Grand Masquerade Ball also known as “society”, I have been able to see through the divide that is the Atlantic. My conclusion is that there really is no difference. With that in mind, I think it’s time to walk tall, carry a big stick and say: come on, I dare you. It’s time to start standing up for something…

Rant on.

-tgs-

As previously stated, I enjoy reading plays. The tiny, very dark yet alert place in my head is the perfect venue for my own personal theatrical showcase. I’d even go as far as to say that reading a play is my idea of fun, a good time, perhaps even comparable to paying for sex. For those who don’t/can’t understand the pleasure of paying for sex, then you can also compare my pleasure to taking care of your/a Schrebergärten. Of course, reading a play isn’t as easy as hoping in your car and driving to the theatre to see it. Yes, being able to go see a play is the only result I can come up from all the wasted welfare funds channelled into Germany’s support of “culture”.

Whoopee.

You might be asking the question: why do I pick on subsidies and culture? The federal corporate government of Germany has the right to piss away tax Euros as well as any nation. But, beyond the fact that I believe A L L authority must be questioned, there is the simple premise that “culture” should be a dynamic constant and not a static one. That’s why today, after living in Europe for almost twenty years, I laugh at all the corporate Americans visiting Europe and saying things to me like: Wow, there’s so much culture here. I usually ungracefully correct them by stating: Sorry, dude, but that old shit you’re gawking at is dead history; it’s a bunch of dusty stuff at a standstill; culture is something that (should be) alive and well.

Which brings me back to the question alluded to in Part 1: with all the subsidy money dumped into German theatre, what’s come of it?

Keep in mind that there are basically three pillars on which theatre stands. This is pretty basic stuff so you don’t need a compulsive college degree (or Abitur?) to understand it. The three pillars are: acting, directing and writing. That’s it. I mean, come on, one should ask: why is it that western culture began writing stories in the form of dialogue and not in the form of narrative? I don’t really know what the answer to that question is. But I’ll bet it has something to do with simplicity. Another simplistic thought is this: in order to make three a crowd, two have to become a horde.

The biggest hurdle I had when it came to writing for the stage – beyond being (worst)writer – was the fact that the directors (and theatre management) and actors have, over time, delegated the writer to being the weakest link in the triad. The two have horded together because, by default, they are the ones that occupy the stage. This, my worst-reading friends, is one of the reasons that Peer Fucking Gynt and Woycek and King Lear eat up so much subsidy money each year and Germany produces no new playwrights.

Hell, I’d go even further. The triad mentioned above applies to a lot more. Lo & behold, there’s even a current example. The anticipated film The Baader Meinhof Complex is about to be released. My reaction to the movie is the same as my reaction to so many other movies released under the German flag: Oh boy, the same producer, the same director and the same fucking (made for TV) actors. The German film/theatre scene is so monotonous that I feel like cutting off one of my ears – or stabbing out one of my eyes? Add to that the repetitiveness of writing/producing a movie ABOUT a part of West Germany’s recent history instead of using that history as a springboard to something creative…

Well, I’ve already mentioned how creativity has been stifled by the wealth of welfare. There’s no need for Bernd Eichinger to produce movies like Name of the Rose or The House of the Spirits (Geisterhaus) anymore, right? He’s made enough money and position in Hollywood to be his own judge, jury and audience when it comes to creative work.

Right?

The good news is: in a welfare state all failed playwrights and writers like me are able to find some vindication. It is in the form of a simple question. Where are the writers that didn’t make all the errors that I/we made? Where are the writers that wooed all the thinking-actors out there – you know, the actors that could probably write “it” better? And the directors, born out of the waste that is/was Heiner Müller’s inability to write something original and instead regurgitate the work of others in the name of populism (and not creativity)?

Have I mentioned fuck you yet in this post?

Well, I guess, if I can’t be the/a playwright created out of the nurturing of creativity via taxed Euros, then who should it be? I suppose I might have answered that question in Part 1. Or at least I provided some fodder from which an answer could be derived. Yet I still stand by my hugely rude and pretentious assumption that Germany is unable to produce a playwright for the world stage even though it spends more tax money on theatre (movies?) than any other country in the entire galaxy – because it is indigenously lacking in creativity.

Enter stage left a 20th century dead communist writer. Should he be granted status as the new German playwright deserving of all the subsidy praise – even though he doesn’t breathe anymore? My selfish answer is yes. Peter Hacks is dead; but long live Peter Hacks the playwright. At the least, he is one of the first writers to prove that subsidies can actually produce a good writer.

Isn’t Peter Hacks, in affect, a new German playwright? For one, I find it astonishing that someone could write so much and do it almost solely in the name of politics – and yet still not bore me to death – as is the case with Heiner Müller, Bertold Brecht and, goodness forbid, Botho Strauß. (You’re off the hook this time M. Rinke!) I mean – what a waste of writing talent those guys are! I can’t help but ask: who the hell did they write for? Was it for an audience? Was it for the critics? What about writing for the next guy that can spell or formulate a complex sentence? OK. Maybe they all wrote for themselves. Yeah. That must be it. All German writers writing for themselves and they are the cream of the crop…?

Of course, Hacks was a student of Bertolt Brecht. Dare I complain about Brecht’s work being idealistic krapp and boring! After reading Hacks’ and, perhaps, seeing through his ideological façade, I have come to this (for me) misconstrued but standard question about playwriting:

– Is there room anymore for theatrical effectiveness vs. literary value?

Now, I’m no student of theatre science. In fact, I’m no student of nothin’. What I am is a failed playwright that, according to my bookshelves, has read a play or two. One thing I can say as a failed, well-read playwright is that theatrical effectiveness and literary value are not necessarily what determines if a play is actually good. To me the thing that makes a play good is simple: creativity. Hacks writes with impeccable skill underneath which might be a hidden creative agenda the likes of which Brecht only dreamt of. Unfortunately, Hacks’ creative prowess might have been hindered by the politburo. Still, compared to the various aforementioned German playwrights, Hacks is in every way as good. The simple fact is, compared to Botho Strauß, Hacks’ work is readable to someone that does not want to become German to understand it. That’s also an indication that his work transcends. That is, you could actually produce any of Hacks’ classic plays outside of Germany. I think that’s neat!

I may be wrong. Or, at the least, I’m just confused. Reading Hacks has taken me back to the days when I battled with reading plays written between ancient Greece and the end of the 19th century. For the longest time I could never understand why no one challenged why all of that krapp is required “study”? Then I started reading authors like Ionesco and Beckett. Not only did “study” turn fun, but theatrical naturalism, reality and most importantly, absurdity was fruit to my soul. In fact, it was so good that I began to emulate it. Yes, absurdity became a way of life for me. I loved it even more as long as I could properly get it down on paper. Obviously, I failed.

Yet the hope/dream lived on. And suddenly I’m thrown in to a situation that I have to read a communist writer. I hate communism. What a bunch of nothingness! And then, all of the sudden, I’m thinking, how does one come up with the idea of writing about one of Goethe’s chicks as though she were a woman scantily admitting to the fact that women aren’t the de facto harbourers of love? The only way a man can come up something like that is if he writes with his hands tied behind his back. Or?

And with the play I just finished, Die Fische (The Fish), I kept yelling as I read through it: man eats himself, man eats himself! Yes. There is a beauty to writing when an author sets the scene in the middle of kings and noblemen fighting for land rights and in the middle of the battle is a whacked out scientist trying to discover a hybrid human that may bridge the gap to man’s current state of mind and the lost thoughts of evolution.

Will Hacks eventually get the recognition he deserves? To me he is one of the only writers I’ve ever encountered that has bridged the gap between the classic and the absurd. What a great thought, eh? I know, due to his political position, that such recognition will be a hard pill for western publishers/critics/theatre managers to swallow. But who knows? I’m sure the world will do much better if it stops the compulsive learning of classic literature and starts impulsively learning … something else.

I’ll be the first to admit that what killed off playwriting were the writers themselves. I mean, as previously mentioned, they don’t really write for an audience. I’ll even go as far as to say that while audiences were advancing, playwrights were heeding the calls of their pocket books and/or the whims of the pocket books of their producers, publishers and theatre managers – to no avail. Sure, so much practice gave us perfectly skilled writers like Brecht, Botho Strauß but who has ever heard of a perfectly skilled creator?

I actually tried to explain this whacky pseudo-theory about the death of playwriting to someone once after we drank too much Italian red wine. It’s come back to me now since discovering again the pleasure of reading plays. Obviously I didn’t get very far with my theory – which is the case for many thinking non-academics. But that’s neither here nor there.

Really Helpful Person: Tom, you’ve written so many plays and none of them have had any success. Why don’t you take a course or something?
Me: A course?
Really Helpful Person: Yeah, you know, in creative writing.
Me: Sounds like a contradiction.
Really Helpful Person: You see, Tom, that’s part of your problem. You don’t understand that you can actually learn to write.
Me: Oh yeah.
Really Helpful Person: Yeah. Maybe then you can write some plays that people want to see.
Me: Oh, right….
Really Helpful Person: And then all that writing you do won’t go to waste.
Me: Will they teach me how to be creative, too?
Really Helpful Person: Huh? Tom, you are so difficult and you’re a snob.
Me: Oh, that’s the best thing you’ve said to me all night.
(Gulp, gulp, gulp.)

So who stood up one morning in a bad mood and declared that playwriting had to be… I don’t know… thorough? Was it those that subsidize culture? Perhaps it has something to do with compulsion that we call life these days. Nothing is done on a whim anymore because anything worth doing cost too much, right? Yeah. Everything costs too much except reading – and maybe even writing – a play.

At this point I can only assume that Peter Hacks wrote his classics because, well, the/his politburo, in one way or the other, told him or allowed him to do so. He didn’t only write some great plays but I think he also outsmarted the censors. One can’t even get close to saying the same thing about other German playwrights whose names are bigger and supposedly faced no politburo.

It’s not enough for me that Hacks’ plays have literary value. And at this point in my own failed attempt at becoming a playwright, I don’t actually care if Hacks’ work is theatrically effective either. The only thing I do care about when reading a play is if the author can take me to that perfect place that is between his imagination and mine. It looks like I have found a communist with that ability.

Yes. Indeed. I have reached a new low in trying to understand the art of playwriting. But I suppose that doesn’t matter: playwriting is dead.

Rant on.

-tgs-

Before I get into the whole seeking absurdity thing and why Peter Hacks isn’t an absurd playwright but should be, I’d like to rant a little about something that will eventually cause my death or might just linger in my soul like a bad bowel movement. Oh yeah, and before I forget. This rant might also finally get me deported. But I’ll try to post part-2 before that happens. Now. Before I get into explaining everything, let’s first have a quick English language course on the expression “fuck you”.

“Fuck you” is an interjection. According to most sources an interjection can be a figure of speech or a word that expresses emotion. With that in mind, “fuck you” is a derogatory emotional expression that is said because something bothersome motivated a speaker to say it. Now, if that bothersome thing is only one sided, that is, only one side is bothered, that means whoever receives the “fuck you” cannot simply throw it back. I mean, come on, there has to be rules out there, right? Otherwise all we’d have in this world is a bunch really smart, well earning career people out there saying nothing but fuck you to each other all day.

Moving on….

I enjoy reading plays. In fact, I enjoy reading them more than actually seeing them performed. Call me a fuddy-duddy or even uncooperative, but I’m usually disappointed when I go to German theatre and watch a bunch of compulsive addicts put on a play. The attitude I have is in part due to living in Germany and attending so many (too many!) German state subsidized play productions over the past twenty years. Add to that the bitterness I have of being rejected by German theatre houses because… Well, I guess they reject me even today because I’m (worst)writer.

Needless to say, I’ve given up on German theatre for basically two reasons (beyond the one already mentioned). German theatre, like an incorporated radio or TV station, is completely unoriginal and uses economics as an excuse for the products its sells. (Yes, theatres do sell products other than sweets and 1,- Euro coat hanging services.) With that said, how many fucking times can Peer Gynt, Woycek or King Lear, etc., etc., be produced? I’ve got nothing against these plays. They are great. But who gave them free-reign to occupy German stages as though they were post WW2 GIs? (And fuck all those theatre subscribers!) In fact, for every production of one of them so-called classic plays there should also be a production of a new, original play. Is that asking for too much? You bet your knickers it’s asking for too much. Just try and have a rational conversation with a German literary manager (Dramaturg) or, goodness forbid, a Theatre Manager (Intendant) about seeing something original on a major stage. You’ll be rewarded with a birds-eye-view of how theatre tussies think economically. Oh boy…

Me: Excuse me, Mr. P-H-D Intendant, I have a question.
P-H-D Intendant: Jaaaaaaaaaaa.
Me: why don’t you perform an entire season of original plays with all the money you get from my taxes?
P-H-D Intendant: Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. H. Cough. Choke. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. (Walking away). Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. (Even further away; farting.) Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. (Fade out.)

Anywho. When I want to see “theatre” and my partner and I can afford it, we go to London or NYC to see theatre. At least in those places there is SOME originality! Other than that, as I said before, I read plays.

And while I’m on the subject.

Did you know that Germany sticks billions of Euros a year into theatres? Seriously. They do. It’s obviously such an attractive undertaking that German politicians think that they somehow really should support the dramatic arts because, well, it has something to do with “culture”. The German corporate government seems to treat theatre as though it were an aside, perhaps even an entertainment park – at the least the corporate government of Germanland treats theatre as a pseudo adult Disney place, I guess, less Micky & Donald and Uncle Scrooge (Dagobert), where the dead souls of Beamten-Ärsche can rest their heads as though they actually deserve no eternal shame. I mean, those fancy and very old German theatre houses are certainly the perfect place for overworked corporate servants to fall asleep for a few hours. Right?

I’m not against the tax money being put into these houses, you know. I’m just against the lack of creativity that comes out of it all. But who today is really interested in creativity?

Perhaps the question is: what the fuck else you going to do with all those historic buildings that have so many comfy seats that perfectly scratch your asshole if you allow your hips to dance in them? Sarcasm aside, if theatre in Germany is really about art or culture or creativity, shouldn’t there be a result from the German corporate subsidies? I mean a result that is somehow measurable or at least definable? No? OK. Forget measuring anything. That would probably be too complicated. Just go to a play…

The fact is, Germany subsidizes what it calls culture. And I don’t think that’s good – especially because it has nothing to show for it. For me it is nothing more than Arbeitbeschaffungsmassnahmen (a work procurement program). I mean come on, the whole Arbeitbeschaffungsmassnahmen works well for the Autobahns or Hospitals or ditch-digging. The only problem is, with Autobahns, there is at least a result from all that spending. That’s right. I can drive as fast as I want at 3a.m. But where are the results from the work procurement program that is German theatre? What? Oh, Peer fucking Gynt is playing. Gee, I’d rather drive the Autobahn free of traffic in the wee-hours and forget about the last time I heard King Lear in German!

My biggest gripe with German theatre – after experiencing it since the late 1980s – is basically that Germany, with so much subsidy-wealth, has not produced a playwright worth mentioning on the world stage. OK. Playwriting is a dying art-form. Today “writers” work for TV or corporations in need of some fictional dialogging to fill their shareholder meetings. Can anyone counter me here? No?

Let’s see. Is Botho Strauß a playwright that has earned world-wide recognition? What about Moritz Rinke? Has anyone ever heard of Christina Kettering? No. Sorry. None of them are worth a hoot because their plays, unlike really good plays, do NOT transcend that whole German-ness thing – a subject which has enough coverage in recent history, I’d say. (But I actually do like Kettering – she’s kind of hot for a writer-chick!)

Here more about what I think of German theatre.

Almost moving on…

German theatre is nothing more than a dead-end, non-creative bureaucratic and compulsive vassal comparable only to two things. One is the corporate government running the whole show, i.e. the giver of subsidies. The other thing is a kind of pussified, bohemian mafia that adheres to the idea that culture is about displaying stuff and not about creating it – just go talk to the people who run the theatres, they’ll give you an ear-full on theatrical economics! What a shame, really. It’s all even more a shame when one considers the answer I give to those who bother to ask.

Those who bother to ask: Tom, what brought you to Germany in the first place?
Me: Well, are you sure you want to know?
Those who bother to ask: Of course.
Me: Beer and easy pussy.
Those who bother to ask: Ha. Ha. Ha.
Me: Just kidding. Ok. You asked. (Short pause.) I came to Germany because I tried to be strategic about my future. You see, I had this dream of writing for the stage. When I was in America I tried to go to small-time theatres but no one would talk to me. That’s just the way theatre is, you know. When the reality of young adulthood hit, I realized that my dream of working in theatre required a different approach. One does have to earn money, right? To make a long story short, I visited Germany in the mid 80s. The one thing that surprised me was the fact that there was/is no place in the world with so many theatres in such a small area. You need a fucking counting machine to count all the theatres between Hamburg and Munich. After that summer in Germany my plan was to go back to America, pack up everything and somehow, somehow, somehow find a way to live in New York City and work in theatre. But then I met someone that knew someone and the next thing I know, I got a job offer to work in Germany.
Those who bother to ask: Wow. So you were able to get a job in a theatre in Germany?
Me: Fuck No! German theatres are as stuck-up as American theatres. The job offer I got was for a firm that required someone to look up library resources using computers.
Those who bother to ask: So you got a job working with computers and that’s what brought you to Germany?
Me: Shut the fuck up you Krautsalat and pay attention.
Those who bother to ask: Jawohl.
Me: Dude, this was the biggest miscalculation of my life. Choosing this path sucks. And it sucks because I thought – at the time – that this might be a “different” thing to do. Go to Germany – where I could actually have a job – and then try to work my way into theatre from there. There’s like a gazillion theatres in Germany. I’ll even be able to finally learn German. I’m young enough. There’s plenty of time to go to New York… Blah. Blah. Blah.

I worked during the day and wrote plays at night. I sent plays here and there and everywhere. No one and I mean no one from any theatre EVER in Germany even talked to me about my work. For more than twenty years I tried to get some attention from a state subsidized German theatre. There weren’t even people there who would bother to listen. And so eventually I was forced to say…

Fick Dich ins Knie, Du Scheiß-Wichser!

Beyond that, after all these years, I don’t give a fuck what anyone says about my playwriting. Maybe my writing does suck. Maybe I am the worst fucking playwright ever. But the one thing today, after so many failed years, that keeps me going as a writer is the fact that ALL the plays I’ve seen on arrogant and non-creative German stages are no better than my work. Fuck you Moritz Rinke! And that piss-head Botho Strauss can kiss my ass, as well. All you fucks born in Germany, under the pacified hat of your comfy German welfare state, can kiss my ass. At least I can claim that my work transcends, it goes beyond borders and beyond a mentality that is stupid enough to believe that capitalism is sustenance for socialism. (The first is about economics and the latter about politics; two completely different things! But who’s interested in such social political details in a country like Germany where people think it’s their right to have vacations.)

But what does any of that matter? I played my cards and lost. So fuck me, too, eh?

In part-2 I might address the play “Die Fische” (The Fish) by Peter Hacks and why I think at least this play should be on as many stages as Peer fucking Gynt or King shit Lear.

Rant on.

-tgs-

There are two things that I’ve grown afraid of since living in Europe/Germany. One of those things is Beamtentum. It’s more of a concept and, perhaps, a way of life then it is just a word. It translates to something like authoritarianism in the form of officialdom. I guess, in a way, it’s like civil-servant-hood – but with a touch of royalty. Without Beamtentum there would be no Germany, certainly there would be no Bratwurst or Roasted Chickens at Oktoberfest. Beyond that, Beamtentum is comparable to communism and so Germans uniquely cloak it under a veil of what they call “Social Market Economics”. With that in mind, The Federal Republic of Germany is the last bastion of communism in the West. And you can quote me on that.

The second thing that scares me is cynicism – that is: popular cynicism. In other words, Europe is full of a newly defined cynicism that panders to pop culture. The French have it and the British have it, too. But the difference to the Germans having it is that the other two are actually comical with it. That is, their cynicism is believable because it can be easily connected to satire or irony or sarcasm. Those are tough things to bring across in the orderly German language. It all coincides perfectly with the fact that Germans are not funny people.

To try to be a bit more clear, here a few definitions of cynicism:

1) Cynicism originally comprised the various philosophies of a group of ancient Greeks called the Cynics, founded by Antisthenes in about the 4th century BC. The Cynics rejected all conventions, whether of religion, manners, housing, dress, or decency, advocating the pursuit of virtue in a simple and non-materialistic lifestyle.

2) In pop culture, the word cynicism generally describes the opinions of those who see self-interest as the primary motive of human behaviour, and who disincline to rely upon sincerity, human virtue, or altruism as motivations.

3) On the other hand, the Oxford English Dictionary suggests as the usual modern definition (per cynic): showing “a disposition to disbelieve in the sincerity or goodness of human motives and actions” and a tendency “to express this by sneers and sarcasms”.
(Source of all the above: Wikipedia.)

To me a REAL Cynic is someone that thinks and by doing so “deconstructs”. The original Cynics sought answers through the craft of dialogue and debate. The point to their endeavours was never to simply find right or wrong. Instead it was about the process. Of course, today in this burgeoning new authoritarian world that so many people subject themselves to in the name of “careers” and/or “family”, this process is long gone. Although we all do things like talk a lot (and some of us write too much), what is said equates to nothing more than the passing of time. (I write so much because I like the sound of my fingers dancing on a keyboard.)

But is the idea left to us from Cynics really gone? In fact, I’ll go as far as to claim that real Cynics are once again among us – but they are not what you might think. Much of what can or should be deconstructed in order to find answers are very comical – but not in the conventional “comedic” sense. For example, the late Bill Hicks was a great Cynic and if you listen to any of his stand-up (look him up on YouTube!) you might agree. Another might be Robin Williams. Moving beyond America, for you international folk out there, how about the late, great Peter Sellers? To me, one of the greatest cynics of all time was Stanley Kubrik. Am I the only one to have understood the Devine-like comedy AND Masonic message that was his movie 2001: A Space Odyssey? And let me not even get into talking about Dr. Strangelove.

There are, of course, many other examples of REAL Cynics among us, and thus far in my reading of him, I’m starting to think that Peter Hacks might also be one of them. Who knows, eventually he might just make my international list of great Cynics. On the other hand …on the other very sad hand, there is another side to this idea of being a cynic (accentuate the word not being capitalized, please).

The motivation to address the issues of cynicism and Beamtentum (i.e. West German Communism) derives in part from reading Peter Hacks. After reading Hacks’ so-called “classic” works, I thought it time to expand my horizons and try to read something other than a play. Of course, he’s written a huge body of work. Even though I plan on reading a lot of it I wasn’t sure where to turn. So, in my search to find something new and interesting, I started asking around.

Unfortunately, it took almost two weeks and visiting various books stores before I could find someone that even knew Mr. Hacks. But I did find someone, and I think I got lucky. “Oh, yeah, Peter Hacks,” he said. “He’s that religiously Marxist guy.” Oh, I thought, that’s an interesting way to put it. He said that he hadn’t read much of his work but that he recalled the controversy that ensued after The Wall fell and Hacks basically rejected the idea that it was the fault of “communism” that caused it. Eventually this guy recommended the anecdotal story “DieDinge in Buta” (The Thing s in Buta). This particular printing of the text is combined with the beautiful drawings of Rudi Hurzlmeier. It’s a kind of picture book, albeit for adults. Now, after reading this very short story, on the last page of the book are blurbs of the author and the artist. Since I am already well informed regarding the author, I went straight to the artist. And this is where the bad daydreams of Beamtentum and cynicism compelled me to rant a bit.

You see, I think I might be starting to idolize Hacks. That’s right. A guy like me, as far away from anything Marxist as you’ll ever get, is starting to choke-up when I read his work. I mean, I really like the way this guy writes and, with the way things are going in the West right now, it’s kind of neat to be reading someone that is basically undiscovered and whose work can be applied to the newly forming authoritarianism that will soon become our world – post Stalinist/Marxist communism and post Sept. 11. I mean, get this. Here is a question Peter Hacks asked of someone (as printed in one of his published letter collections):

“Where is the Politburo in Washington, D.C?”

What a fuckin’ great question! I’m not sure but I think the question was asked close to Hacks’ death – which means he could have asked it after Sept. 11, 2001, which in turn makes the question significant. Of course, if he asked the question before nine-eleven then the question moves from significance to clairvoyance.

OK, I’m starting to think that Hacks is a cynical genius in the classic sense, you know, as defined by 1. In a political sense he’s a bit of a turd blossom. And because I perceive him through such contradictory glasses, I want to somehow, at least in my own mind, protect him. I want to protect him because of what happened after reading “Die Dinge in Buta”. On the back cover of the book there is a simple blurb on the artist Rudi Hurzlmeier, who drew the pictures in the book. And guess who Rudi works for? Oh boy. Start the drum roll. He works for Titanic, the infamous German “satirical” magazine.

Here is a Wiki link in English about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanic_(magazine).

The first thing I thought: Oh, shit! Maybe my German isn’t good enough. Maybe because I miss this verb here or that noun there or because I almost suffocate while trying to read long-winded German sentences without breathing (which interferes with my ability to concentrate), I don’t really understand Peter Hacks. But if a guy who works for a magazine like Titanic understands him…? I know, I’m over doing it. But like I said at the beginning of this rant: there are some things about Germany that scare the beejeebees out of me.

What I do understand is that Titanic is NOT a “satirical” magazine. Indeed, it is a great example of pop-culture cynicism gone amok, as defined by 2 or 3 above. Although it’s been quite a few years since I purchased a copy, the one thing I remember about the magazine is that it is atypically West German – that is: a lot of talk and no action. I mean, it’s quite popular and the voice it uses must speak for such populism. Or?

Seriously, after living in Germany all these years, I have met a lot of big mouths that, if required, couldn’t find their way out of paper bag – unless the United States instructed them on how to do so. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not against things being critical – especially of politics or society – which a magazine like Titanic is. But for how long can making fun at the personal expense of others be funny? Obviously, a lot of Germans love this magazine. But you also have to keep in mind that idiots like Oliver Pocher are also very popular in this country. Although I’m no a fan of anything G.W. Bush or of American neo-con politics, there is a simple way of looking at life that comes out of conservative America and it goes like this: if you can talk it you should be able to walk it. For whatever sad reason Germans just love shitting on people just for the sake of doing it. Maybe that’s why they created Schadenfreude. Maybe that’s why there are no Cynics in this country – nor is Titanic JUST a satirical magazine.

So… have I made a mistake about Peter Hacks? Should I even like him? Should I stop reading him? I certainly gave up reading Titanic once I learned that it had nothing to do with satire but more to do with destructive personal attacks and taking advantage of something or someone just because you can. Also reason to give up on German TV hosts that are incorrectly called “comedians” – but that’s another rant.

I came to this country with blind hopes, which is obviously a mistake that I have to deal with. Beyond that, whenever you move somewhere else it takes a long time before you actually see beyond that grass that you thought could be greener. I’ve been through a lot with Germany since early 1989. A lot of stuff has been positive but most of it has been VERY negative. Like the sour-puss faces and bad attitudes, or living amongst a people that are completely incapable of thinking and acting individually. And what about all the negativity and complaining that is the German national past-time? It seems to all come together for me while reading Peter Hacks and being reminded of the disgusting addiction to cynicism and Beamtentum – by a sinking ship! If anyone should be a disgusting and destructive cynic – it should be me!

Ironically there is hope for Germans. And that hope might be in the form of Peter Hacks. But in order for that to happen it must be prevented that Hacks’ work fall into the wrong hands. Religious Marxist or not, Hacks seems to know all about the deal that we now face. That is, he was well versed in the dealings of authoritarian government. At the least, it is a major theme in the works of his I’ve read thus far. And while the authoritarian part of Marxism is being adopted by the West right now, it’s important that a writer like Hacks does not fall into the hands of a bunch of big-mouth, do-nothing smart-asses – who get a kick out of sinking ships.

But what do I know? I probably haven’t understood a word of what I’ve read. And all these years of living in Europe – the Disneyland for perverted adults – has not played well on my sanity. But I did like the dirty pictures by Rudi Hurzlmeier. If only he’d work for a different magazine….

Now I’m off to read “Numa” and “Die Fische”.

May all Germans with a job and a nice income live long and prosper under the veil of their Beamtentum!

God Bless America, too.

Rant on.
-tgs-

Who was Seneca? My over educated girlfriend kind of remembered him. I called another Abiturient and he could only provide a vague explanation of who the man was. Then I went to my elderly German neighbor who lives above me and asked if he knew who Seneca was. He stared at me for a long, dull moment. Waiting for an answer, I listened to the Altbau house crack and creak as I stood in his doorway; a bird whistled something outside the stairwell window and my dog, Samuel Beckett, was barking that I return home to feed him. Finally my neighbor broke down and said:
“Yeah, I know who he is. Give me some of that rum that you gave me the last time you wanted to know something and I’ll tell you more.”
Hiccup.
“I’m writing this pseudo-essay about Seneca’s Tod (Seneca’s Death) by Peter Hacks. It’s a three act play,” I explained to my aging neighbor.
“Peter … who?”
“Peter Hacks. Never heard of him?”
“Uh…”
I jogged down the stairs and grabbed a bottle of rum and my dog who was chewing on a Steiff zebra that we named Godot and went back to my neighbor. Sitting on his couch in the living room my neighbor showed-off his ambidextrous abilities. With one hand he poured the rum into two glasses, with the other hand he petted Beckett. I starred at the pictures of his girlfriend and family on the wall. He’d been with the same woman without marrying for over forty years. Between all the black & white pictures of his true love were the shots of his father in Wehrmacht uniforms, a few shots of his dead dog “Smiley” and his mother.
Gulp.
My neighbor filled me in on all he knew about Seneca and by three 3 pm I was wasted and my neighbor was just getting started.
“Do you want to know more about Stoicism,” my neighbor asked.
Gulp. Gulp.
“Maybe,” I said. “Is there anything exciting about Stoicism?”
“Exciting?” he said.
Disappointed and wobbling I grabbed Samuel Beckett and headed back to my apartment. Then I searched through some of my old papers, I mean really old papers, and found “The Pumpkinification of Claudius.” Yeah, I thought. I totally forgot about that. Seneca wasn’t just a boring, opportunistic dip from two thousand years ago. He was actually a pretty funny guy. Alone the title: The Pumpkinification of Claudius. Isn’t that hilarious…
Hiccup.

After reading Senecas Tod (Seneca’s Death) by Peter Hacks there was only one thing I wanted to know about the play. How accurate was Hacks regarding the events portrayed? In certain literary circles it seems like a sport to interpret the life and death of the stoic philosopher Seneca. But was Hacks a sports writer? My drink-like-a-fish neighbor didn’t offer much more than I already knew about Seneca. But I liked to go to him about historical questions and he was great source for getting rid of the booze that I have grown scared to drink. He is the type of guy that knows a great deal about history and things – but, he isn’t, like most other Germans, over-educated. That is, he doesn’t have an Abitur, he’s just well read. Unfortunately, the only thing my neighbor helped me with this time was to acquire yet another headache.

Call me a stickler for things redundant. After reading Ein Gespräch im Hause Stein…, Adam & Eve, Prexaspes, I was starting to feel what we call in America “gun-shy” about reading another Hacks play. I thought: I need a break from this communist krapp. Didn’t this guy write anything other than propaganda? Doesn’t he have expanded horizons or something? I also thought that reading another play by Hacks might awaken (anti) communist nightmares embedded in my subconscious. Like when I was in seventh grade at John Hancock Middle School. Even today when a certain bell rings I get down on the floor, put my head under a desk and pray that if the Russkies arrive they don’t torture me into communist submission.

Putting the communist stuff aside, and as I’ve mentioned in a previous post(s), Hacks is a great writer, but there seems to be an issue (for me) regarding his choice of subject(s). With this play I feel more comfortable than ever asking the question: As a twentieth century “classic” writer can Hacks write with any historical accuracy? The thing is, if he doesn’t write accurately, that is, with a bit of concern regarding historical fact, then, as a courtesy, he should at least let us know that what he’s writing is something attributable to… I don’t know… free interpretation?

Hacks’ Seneca is a strange play, indeed. I can’t figure out exactly what this play is supposed to be about. Is it a play about death? Is it a play about a philosopher and his reasoning of death? Is it about Hacks proving how well he can write? Is it about a middle-class, bourgeois Klugscheißer (smart-ass) Greco-Roman whose luck has run out? I don’t know.

Although it doesn’t have it in the subtitle, I think this play is the best example yet of one of Hacks’ classic plays being a comedy. I’m starting to wonder if the publisher/printer of this collection of plays I have made a mistake by subtitling Adam & Eve a comedy. I didn’t think that was a comedy, at all. Of course, this could also be Hacks’ style. I mean, funny dialog doesn’t make a play a comedy. Or? Although I found Seneca to be as difficult to read as Prexaspes (damn German classic rhyme!) it was less difficult to follow but at least there are puns on philosophy throughout.

There is something missing for me in this play. Like some of the intrigue and frivolity of Seneca’s life. Here’s a little of what I know about Seneca. He was probably one of the best examples ever of a philosopher who was a pig-headed, spoiled rotten, failed political opportunist. He was nothing more than a born in the right place, over-educated, Klugscheißer, and if it weren’t for his rhetorical abilities he’d be an honest-to-goodness miracle simply because of how long he was able to talk his way out of death. And Peter Hacks almost captures that in this play. Almost!

(Keep in mind: the following translated text is what will be known as Tommi-translation. In other words, take it with a grain of salt.)

Seneca: So it is ordered. I want the evening cheerful. Bet it works? Two guests, no more, each guest desired.
Nikodrom (Seneca’s chamberlain): It is not two guests, it’s three and one is undesirable.
Seneca: Who is the third you mean?
Nikodrom: Death.
Seneca: With that one the wise man is never in touch. He may search where he’s welcome but not with me.
Nikodrom: And when he arrives uninvited?
Seneca: I go.

Go where?

I don’t know what it is. My only guess is that sometimes authors, by rewriting stuff, forget things. Either that or in order to make something theatrical they have to leave a lot of the good stuff out. In this play Hacks leaves out a lot of the really good stuff regarding Seneca. Sure, the play is beautifully written but… Why not have great writing AND a great story? (I’m trying to stay away from blaming communism here. That’s right: the communists don’t want Hacks writing the real story behind Seneca’s Death.)

For example, Seneca had his first run-in with a death sentence during the reign of Caligula. And do you know how he got out of that? Get this! He weaseled his way out of death by faking an illness. Caligula thought he was going to die anyway. Talk about a Klugscheißer! And it doesn’t stop there. If Seneca was such a smart guy – you know, with being a “philosopher” and all that – then I’m sure he was able to talk his way out of Nero thinking he partook in the Pisonian conspiracy? Actually, do we really know for a fact that that’s why Nero condemned Seneca to death?

Another bit of juice that is missing from Hacks’ free interpretation of Seneca is that Seneca was Nero’s teacher when Nero was young. Wouldn’t there have been some kind of personal connect that Nero had to Seneca? There are numerous accounts of Seneca politically saving-face for Nero throughout his reign. Oh, and what about the volunteering of Seneca’s wife to join her husband in death? Nero nipped that idea in the bud. Why?

So what is the real reason Seneca died the way he did? Here’s where Hacks seems to get the story right. Based on historical facts, Seneca was ordered by Nero but failed at killing himself by simply slicing open his veins. He was too old and his blood didn’t flow. So he put himself in a hot vat of water thinking that would help the blood flow. The reality is a hot bath does the opposite. Seneca eventually died after a long and horrible, asphyxiating death. Yet Hacks has Seneca battle rhetorically with his publisher regarding the fees of his new book. And that’s pretty comedic! I guess.

OK. Hacks is a cynic. And why not be a cynic when you are restricted in what you can and cannot write. Of course, if I had the opportunity I’d be a cynic about Seneca, as well. The guy was most likely nothing more than a jerk. In fact, when I was first reading about him it was at the time when Joschka Fischer’s star was rising on the German political horizon. Of course I didn’t compare the two as philosophers; instead I compared them as opportunists. Yes. May opportunity blossom for all of us! (Btw, at the time I was also comparing Fischer to Diogenes who prayed to dog shit and lived in a bucket.)

Obviously my expectations were high when I started reading this play. I was hoping to learn something new about Seneca. Ironically, the most interesting character in this play was the “Maurer” (a mason or bricklayer). He only has a few lines of text in each scene, yet I couldn’t help but focus on him. Throughout the play this character confronts, intellectually, a “philosopher” and he does so while pushing a wheelbarrow, either empty or full, right through the scenery and/or Seneca’s living room. The metaphor behind this is obvious. As the Maurer constantly interrupts, Seneca asks why he doesn’t go around the house. The Maurer uses a kind of working man’s logic to argue with Seneca that such a thing wouldn’t be logical. I thought that was hilarious. But this isn’t a comedy, right? It’s just a drama about a guy who kills himself in a tub. I guess.

In closing (this pseudo-essay) and for those interested, here’s my theory of why Seneca had to die. This is part of the plot-premise I wanted to use when I wanted to write a play about Seneca so many years ago. Btw, I was highly motivated by “The Pumpkinification of Claudius”.

Seneca was sentenced to death because of Christianity. It was Christianity that would put the fire under Nero’s belt and make him turn against his teacher. Some even believe that Seneca corresponded with St. Paul. But I like the idea that Seneca was actually converted by St. Paul. At the least, the opportunistic “stoicism” practiced by Seneca certainly fits well with the materialist values of Christianity. On top of that, if Paul did get to Seneca then Seneca, knowing what he knew about Nero, might have believed he was living under the rule of the anti-Christ, which many early Christian scholars believed was Nero.

Oh well…

Rant on.

-tgs-

PS Keep in mind that if anyone steels my premise above and writes a play using it, VAT publishing is going to come and break your legs with a baseball bat. ;-)

Mr. Hacks has a knack for taking me waaaaay back. In the last play of his that I read he took me back to a time that I’d rather forget, and although I was a bit critical of it, I enjoyed reading “Adam and Eve”. But what about Hacks’ ability to make me think of things more directly connected to my/our past? Does this mean that I’m actually starting to like him? Could I like someone that so obviously represented something that I also despise? Or, could this all be a puberty-like love/hate fest? There are moments where I’m pulling my hair (I don’t even have any) out regarding Hacks – despite his political stance. I keep thinking: is he a great writer on the one hand or a mediocre writer who makes bad subject matter choices on the other hand?

I get all these opposing/contradictory thoughts while reading Hacks. I’m sure to a large extent it has to do with my prejudices. I’m especially prejudice against understanding the origin of man. What an unworthy subject – yet Hacks tickled my fancy with Adam and Eve. But then again, Hacks wasn’t (quite) writing about the origin of man. Or?

Based on the last two plays I’ve read, I’m sure Hacks would disagree with almost everything I say. No, he would go further than a simple disagreement. He would probably say that the origin of man is complex and full of mystery and waiting to be tamed – just like man. If I said to Hacks that creation is presupposed by man’s demise, would he even bat an eyelash? Probably not. He would turn away and mumble something condescending as only a Prussian can and then go about his business of writing something where he skillfully hides (his) ideology.

With that in mind, and since I’m not a fan of ideology, I suppose I should say something about the origin of man – simply because Hacks makes me think. I guess. (Here’s the advantage of being an independent, freelance writer.)

Why do some people still think that evolution has something to do with the origin of man? Why not change gears a bit and move beyond what we THINK we KNOW? Has there ever been a paradigm change in humanity since, I don’t know, since some whacked-out tyrant started thinking about what’s best for those who don’t think? I guess, what I’m getting at is, man should finally move beyond being reactionary dunces and try to be something that is a step ahead of the earthly animal kingdom’s most successful predator. And he should do so with the utmost openness and transparency. (So much for Tommi pseudo ideology!)

And it doesn’t stop there. Hacks makes me think of more. Like… how about a paradigm shift regarding human behavior that would require man to be liable for his/her doings? Such a happening would require an awakening of consciousness regarding the ills that surround everything. Right? If the smartest, the richest, the luckiest of society are unable to see through their/our own egocentric ways what’s left for the rest of us? That is, what’s left for those of us who cannot afford our egos?

I’ll tell you what’s left. Fun. Entertainment. Show reels. Naked breasts. Technology. The willingness to subject ones self to the whims of social and political systems that consistently perform contrary to the best interests of … man. Etc., etc.

So why, in the creative thunderstorm that is real/true writing – which Peter Hacks absolutely possesses – would he regurgitate what’s already been done? The GDR didn’t ban all of Shakespeare, did it? And what about other Euro classics from Büchner to Schiller, from Voltaire to Moliere? Was there some personal vendetta Hacks had to prove that he could write with the best of them? I don’t think so. I think… Mr. Hacks saw a niche where he could cheat his way into spreading the/his message.

The thing I’m really starting to like about Peter Hacks is that, after only reading a few of his plays, I feel confident that my presumption, before even having read any of his work – just knowing/hearing about who/what he was – was correct. I could/can see through his facade based on media driven hearsay. Even if he goes down in history as only an interesting (pseudo)communist writer, at the least he deserves to be accredited as one of the greatest propagandists that ever put ideology to paper.

On the one hand, Peter Hacks writes in a kind of classic style that reminds me of other classics. Then, on the other hand, right in the middle of a scene, he throws in all these words and phrases that don’t quite fit that classic style (more on that in a sec) – or they don’t fit into the time that this play is taking place. Talk about being thrown for the proverbial loop. Remember, I’m a failed playwright. If there’s anything that I possess as a failure, it is the ability to see through the intentions of others. Just because one is a failure doesn’t mean that one doesn’t have the same experience as the winners. In fact, failure enables one to see quite a bit further and with much more focus regarding what “winning” is about. Or?

Reading Hacks is not helped by my knowledge of z’ Germans. Hacks, for one, was a Prussian. For those unaware, it was the Prussians that created/enabled the German obsession with Ordnung – a burden that Germans will probably never be rid of. It was the Prussians that enabled/created the/a military the world admired – at least up to the Wiemar experiment. And it was the Prussians that created the sour-puss faces that almost all Germans today wear as they walk down the streets of luxury-misery-ville which is lined with too many state subsidized company cars, high life-style expectations and too much paid vacation. I guess, in a strange kind of way, it is also the legacy of the Prussians that keep unoriginal German industry in business and the third (fourth?) largest economy in the world blind to the realities of what Globalization is really about.

I suppose I should stop reading Hacks. I seem to know what each play is about even before I finish the first act. Yet something motivates me to keep on reading. Perhaps it has more to do with my obsession of hating communists and communism – because ultimately that seems to be where Hacks takes me. (Yes. He takes me to the Hate. And I use the word “hate” rather loosely. Hate should be used for flesh hungry tigers or sharks that try to eat you. Tame and weakly communist don’t quite deserve the word hate. In fact, they deserve as little attention as possible. Still, I apologize for not finding the right word(s).)

What’s becoming more and more obvious about Hacks is that he might have been the former East Germany’s greatest propagandist writer. If Soviet communism would have made it and if it would have had some form of industrialized advertising (like the west currently has), then I’m sure Hacks would have gone down in (that) history as something like a god. In fact, he might have been the entire Soviet block’s greatest propagandist. When I recently heard on the German news about the success of the “Links” party in the West I didn’t cringe like I usually do. Instead I laughed and felt Hacks turning over in his grave. At the same time I was right in the middle of reading Prexaspes, a classic play written in the 20th century that could easily be compared to works from the 15th, 16th or 17th century, but with a slight and heavy twist of all things idealistic.

Yes. A play set in a comfortable time prior to Jesus but with enough connect to justify it as being more than a mystically driven copy of a Greek or renaissance drama. The justifying connect? The Order of The Magi. You remember the Magi, don’t you? Those whacked-out dudes who traveled only by night in search of the one born under a certain star that would lead mankind out of tyranny? In fact, the Magi are so important to our history that it’s no wonder in a world that strives for ever higher forms of intellectual and industrial superficiality that we’ve taken what we are told about them for granted. Or at least we’ve forgotten about them beyond their slight mention in biblical text. I mean, come on, do you really believe that there were only three of them that visited/sought-out the Christ child?

Hacks has the Magi rule Persia in his play. It’s around 522 before the birth of Jesus. There is a faction of Persia that wants to overthrow the Magi. The faction wants to replace the Magi with something more… Well, I’ll just go ahead and say it. The faction wants to replace the Magi (capitalism) with the/a collective (communism). Of course, Hacks doesn’t write that specifically. And, thank goodness, ultimately, at the end of the play, those fucking commies fail. But if you read the text closely, if you don’t pay attention to the drops of Gin or Vodka falling on your chin as you read it, you will see as I did that Hacks pulls out another trick from his bag of ideological- expression. Ironically, in this play, which I think was written before 1970, his ideology doesn’t win. In fact, it clearly loses and I wonder if the timing of this play has anything to do with the “election” of Eric Honecker. This play could be Hacks admitting that, no matter what, when it comes to things idealistic, there is only failure.

The plot of the play Prexaspes is atypical Shakespearean or Greek: kings/rulers maintaining their power via the weaving of family/friend intrigue. Hacks’ classic style of writing is so convincing that at times I even thought about how much I disliked having to read King Lear over a single weekend and then producing a ten thousand word review for Eng 400 before Monday afternoon. You see, that’s another way that hacks takes me waaaay back. At least I don’t HAVE to produce 10k words on this play.

As mentioned above, there was something else that caught my well-trained eye while reading this text. Out of nowhere, suddenly, either right in the middle of a classically written speech or other stimulating dialog, Hacks uses terminology that didn’t quite fit into the time in which this play takes place. But who am I to judge? Hacks is a “writer” and so he writes. Right? But do the examples below really fit into 522 B.C?
1)“Volk von Persien, in diesem Augenblick, da du ohne König bist, bist du selbst König.” (People of Persia, at this moment when you are without a king, you are your own king.)
2)“Vertrauen des Pöbels verwandeln wir unsere Schwäche in Stärke.” (Trust from (underclasses) changes our weaknesses to our strengths.)
3)“Genossenschaftsfelder.” (The fields, as in farming, that are worked by “comrades”.)

Examples like the above are all over this play – and yet one must constantly remember that it takes place prior to Jesus Christ – who was/could have been the first communist. Right? If such writing doesn’t ring of Soviet propaganda… I don’t know what does? I suppose to make it more obvious, Hacks could have put some directions at the beginning of the play besides the minimalist and/or obligatory time setting of when it takes place. He could have put stage and costume direction that included black & white imagery of a hammer and sickle or farmers standing above perfectly manicured lands producing mega tons of grain. My only question is: what would/could Hacks really write if he weren’t obliged to submit his creative talents to a predestined failed ideology?

As brilliant as he writes, in my mind, Peter Hacks is a failed writer. And that is why I will continue to read him. I am beginning to adore him for exactly such failure. I’m not afraid to admit that I adore failure. The world we are forced to live in certainly can use more of it. I’m not talking about the status quo fail-upwards that is rewarded so graciously these days in the form of career or inheritance. Nor am I referring to the compulsive labor force that labels what it does “work”. No. I’m talking about the honest-to-goodness failure from which Man has never been able to rise above and is perpetuated simply because it is more profitable.

I am able to identify with Peter Hacks at this level of failure. And let me reiterate: it’s not his writing, per se, that is a failure. It is his choice of subject matter that is a failure. Obviously, today, we can look back at the results of Marx and Stalin and judge it all. I cannot help but feel that as a writer, as an artist – someone who by the merit of “work” was/is different than the norm – that Hacks should have seen and accepted the coming of the end. But then again maybe he did see it coming – and yet he still wrote on in the affirmative, he stayed in that krapp hole of nothingness known as the GDR, and he wrote for and about the ideology that was its/his substance. I kind of admire that. It’s as though I’ve discovered a new tangent in the/my world of failure.

I suppose for some – you know, like Gregor Gysi, Lafontaine, most of those tree hugging suckers known as The Greens – that what I’m trying to say here about the Soviet’s greatest propagandist is that there is no hiding failure. You can publish “success” just about anywhere and get away with it. As the west is currently doing. But real failure…? You have to create huge amounts of fiction around failure to make it last. And Das Volk loves it. You have to shinny it up and stick fancy car labels on it or make it all seem digitally virtual. At the least, like his beliefs or not, the world needs more of Peter Hacks.

Continuing on the failure theme and also allowing a bit of writing indulgence on my part, I’d like to say a few more things about my beloved topic. The thing that contradicts me with Hacks is how I embrace failure. Obviously Hacks was unable to accept his (ideological) failure. I even read in an article that Hacks thought that “force” should have been used to stop the uproar that lead to the fall of the Berlin wall. Is that just the craziest thing you’ve ever heard? Why would anyone in their right mind wish harm to others. I’ll go even further with that thought. I don’t believe that there is a justification in history for the harming of human life in the name of anything. That’s what animals and nature were put here for. (Take that you Green suckers!) Yeah. Ruin nature and the animals first. Yes! Burn it all to hell…

Anywho. I’m in the early stages of developing something like a theory regarding failure. It goes something like this. (Please, all derogatory comments about this should be emailed to the publisher of this site. As author of this, I’m just a puppet – albeit a relatively free one with too much babble time on my hands.)

Failure is something I like to refer to as a mirror-shadow. As a mirror you can’t use it to blow-dry your hair. As a shadow you can’t use it to hide behind. Instead it is something that enables you to turn away from reality. It’s like an ersatz consciousness. As you progress through the dumbing down of modern education, you become one with your mirror-shadow. In adulthood society becomes the beautiful frame in which you carry your mirror-shadow. The mirror-shadow becomes such the/a perfect version of who you are intended to be that most can never break free of its luster. The mirror-shadow makes Narcissus seem like a silly little toddler who loves the discotheque and too much ecstasy.

Yeah, stick that tomorrow morning in front of you while you shave or do your hair.

In the plays I’ve read so far Mr. Hacks reflects a great deal on his belief in something. Very subtle usage of innuendo and metaphor seem to be his tricks in selling something. In my opinion, only great writers can pull off such trickery. But I’ve yet to read a writer that can pull it off like Hacks.

Rant on.

-tgs-

How much of the Bible have you read? I mean truly read? Most non-(worst)writing-mortals sit down with a Bible at least once or thrice in life and later say: I’ve read the Bible. Hypocrisy aside, let me be clear here: I’ve not only read the Bible but it’s so much a part of my life that if – goodness forbid – you were to actually visit me without much prior knowledge of who/what I am, you might quickly put one and three together and assume that my American accent, along with living in Germany, would equate with some kind of clandestine evangelical plan to rid pagan Germania of the confusion that is both sides of the Rhine River.

You’ll really be confused when you see that I’ve got a few copies of the Koran and the Torah, as well.

FYI, I have numerous copies of the Bible strategically positioned around my apartment. These are all usually copies that I’ve received from priests, nuns or other clergy who have thrown me out of their churches.
“Here, go read it!” they would say/yell.
“How dare you! That’s blasphemous,” others would say.

Almost all the copies of Bibles around my apartment have the stamp “Do Not Remove”. Obviously, in more ways than one, I am unable to control myself when it comes to authority. Not unlike the Beamten (civil servants) at the Ausländeramt (where I get my German visa), all the clergy from Münster to Heidelberg know me – and like the Germans, they don’t like me. I am the foreign Nervensäge (pain in the ass) who questions both Biblical authority and the ignorance that is the pseudo-Kommunist Federal Republic.

Digression. Part 1.

Did you know that twenty to thirty year old Bible paper is great for cleaning? It’s both sturdy AND absorbent. It comes in perfectly sized pieces and was from a manufacturing era that could care less about fucking trees. It’s perfect window cleaning stuff, too. If needed it even makes good nose tissue. But you have to crumple the pages a bit in advance to work out the rough edges. I’m sure that most Kommunists are very familiar with this as they did the same thing with newspaper for most of their pitiful lives.

With Bible paper you can either use a page to blow your nose or, along with some Aldi-Glas-Reiniger, you can use it to perfectly clean the windows of your car. Seriously – no streaks. I don’t know what the secret is, but I’ve certainly wasted a few nights on the subject of other uses of Bible paper. There are so many practical household uses of Bible paper – the most printed book in history – that I even wondered if there was a way I could get rich on it.

Please. No emails about how you want to join in making millions.

One night after spilling a bottle of wonderful Chianti Reserve I also learned that Bible paper can save your expensive Persian carpet. You see, while contemplating the meaning of it all, trying to find answers in one of the newest Bibles added to my collection – after being thrown out of a really big and fancy church in Cologne – I ripped out pages of Genesis and laid them on top of my soiled Persian rug. There was no particular order to the pages, I just ripped them out – perhaps motivated by Beethoven or Brahms blaring from the stereo – and randomly placed them, albeit perfectly aligned, on top of the carpet. As the pages soaked up the wine, I then tried to kill two birds with one stone and grabbed my telescope and used the lens of Copernicus to find answers in the pages below. After an hour or so of searching, clumsily, I ended up spilling more wine.

Old Bible paper can save you.

It must be the mix of aged paper, aged ink and forever young hypocrisy in the pages of Bibles that somehow makes the windows of your car clearer, the shine of your Persian rug shinier and – believe it or not – your nose so clean that, along with a good diet… I haven’t had a head cold since I started using crumpled-up old Bible paper – and not just on my nose.

Digression. Part 2. Did I mention my fixation with knowledge AND telescopes?

Peter Hacks’ play “Adam and Eve – A Comedy in Three Acts and a Prelude” reminded me of the days when I had a telescope and thought a lot about the meaning of it all. (The telescope has since been confiscated by German authorities; I guess one of my neighbors complained.) I enjoy it when authors regurgitate things Biblical. There is so much literary fun reading/studying the Bible that, at times, I’m actually considering breaking that German court-order and buying me a new telescope. How dare the Germans assume that I was using the device to peak at the sexual antics of others. I was using it to search out, from great distances – not unlike Peter Hacks? – the tiny little secrets that are embedded in (human) dogma. What’s so wrong about that? Is it my fault that so many “neighbors” have bibles near their beds? The judge laughed until I let her know about my theory that The Fall of Man had nothing to do with “temptation”.

Enter Peter Hacks. He’s the Biblical interpreter that Tommi-(Worst)Writer will never be.

Here is where Mr. Hacks shines with this cute little play. Not only did he beat me to it, to say the least, his telescope was/is much better than mine. He saw through the lie that was labeled temptation that caused the infringement on the Tree of Knowledge – as initialized in Genesis 2:16. Mr. Hacks quite convincingly shows, by searching deep into the universe-like space of Biblical and/or historical texts, that it could have been something quite different that has lead Mankind thus far down this dusty road of…

It was Manipulation!

Not temptation but instead manipulation by God and His worker-bee Angels was the real cause of Man’s Fall – if you believe in that sort of thing. Quite a fitting premise, I would think, for an author stuck under the ignorance of Godless and brainless Honecker goons. Yes. The Fall of man was about Godly manipulation – and nothing more. They only used temptation all this time because that was/is much easier to understand, to grasp, to digest along with Bratwurst, curry sauce and the fact that the working classes of Germany (Adams and Eves) are being tempted – and have long since bit the apple of social market economic ignorance. Nothing more, nothing less. Yet how can one explain the manipulation behind all the useless, compulsive labor that Germans today call “Arbeit”? (Work?) Hacks knew the answer – and not because he was viewing it all from the East.

Digression. Part 3. Who cares? I just want to see Eve on stage.

I don’t want to interpret this play. It’s too basic. On the other hand, I can’t wait to someday see this play on a stage. Even if you’re not into Biblical (or political) interpretation this play might still appeal. For one, the actors playing Adam and Eve have to be butt naked up till the end of the play when they finally get them fig leaves. And that, along with my telescope, is what I’m thinking about now instead of just interpreting it. So in case your interested, here my picks of who should play Eve:

– My first choice would be that Feldbusch tussy that married the prick who inherited too much money and has since lost most of it because he’s a dipshit. Of course, Feldbusch would be better if they could get her before she had a kid. Plus, since Eve doesn’t have many lines in the play, comparatively speaking, we won’t have to listen to her dipshit voice. I hate her and her voice – but she is my type.
– Or how about Barbara Schöneberger? If that ain’t a pony I’d like to have a go with – even if it means only watching her butt naked on stage. All them German parts of hers moving around… But she gets the role only after she loses a few pounds. She could even sing a few of Eve’s lines – I’ve heard that Barbara likes to sing. And the way she moved on that couch when she hosted that dipshit interview show on TV…
– Then there’s Veronica Ferres. She could actually be given a speaking role in this play. To have her once again stretch that hot Germanic body like she did on the big screen in Schtonk… Yeah.Veronica. Let me be your Ferres-wheel.

Because I’m (un)comfortably heterosexual, I don’t give a hoot who they pick for Adam.

Back to Hacks. I guess.

The thing about reading Peter Hacks’ “Adam and Eve”, beyond the fact that it’s written in some weird kind of non-rhyming German verse (because God, according to Hacks, doesn’t like things that rhyme), is that Hacks’ does a great job interpreting but a bad job executing. Was he hung up on something when he wrote it? Was this play commissioned by some Kommunist thug? I mean, what’s the point of re-writing a story that almost everyone, to a certain level, already knows? The only thing I can come up with is the butt naked thing. Seriously. Hacks was a pervert. He had the hots for some Kommunist bimbo who wouldn’t put-out and so he wrote her a play where at least he could see her naked. No? Don’t like that theory? I know, all Kommunist bimbos put-out.

Does the thing with Gabriel hurt or work?

Still, of the plays I’ve read thus far by Hacks this one goes in the column under mediocre. So much could be done with the idea that it wasn’t (really) Adam & Eve’s fault. Yet all Hacks delivers is a free interpretation of Genesis 2 and 3, probably coercively influenced by anti-capitalist ideology. (Isn’t that what all Kommunists wrote about?) Interestingly enough, Hacks adds the Archangel Gabriel to the story, which reminds me of Paradise Lost – as that too has Gabriel as part of the beginning of man. Gabriel is not in Genesis – at least there’s no mention of him during the time of Adam and Eve. But I guess that doesn’t matter. Hacks needed a third “being” to fill any gaps there might be between God and Satan. Gabriel brings a cute little touch to the play as the three heavenly beings are almost like goofy CEO, COO and CFO of a major corporation that is on the verge of… (Ooops. I guess that would be part of my interpretation if I were given the task of directing this play. Hint. Hint.)

Can this play be called a comedy?

If this is supposed to be in anyway, shape or form a comedy, I didn’t get it. Could that be because of the old adage that Germans simply are not funny? At least there a few funny lines here and there in the play – but not enough to save it nor give one cause to call it a comedy. For example, here are parts of the text that I marked with “ha, ha, ha”:

(The following are Tommi’s free translations of the text. I do not follow the German rhythm that Hacks uses – and that’s probably due to the fact that I don’t understand that rhythm. But hey, this is dramatic literature, understanding is neither here nor there.)

Adam and Eve are arguing like a good couple should.
Eve (nonchalant): Adam. You have another rib.
Adam (frustrated manhood): What?
Eve: Ask God. He’ll make you another.
Adam (the first big baby): But I don’t want another. You’re my woman.

Eve is being manipulated by Satan.
Satan (coquettishly): I’m looking at the apple, that’s all.
Eve: That one, the one that’s not good to eat?
Satan: That one, the one that’s good to look at.
Eve: How does it look?
Satan: As though it was good to eat.

Gabriel is questioning why/how God made the earth.
Gabriel: Sir, your work is wonderful, but did you have to…
God: Yes?
Gabriel: Of all things…
God: What?
Gabriel: Work with material?
God (to audience): That is the degree that man comprehends. Oh, workers, never hire heavenly bodies …
Exit Gabriel. God then proceeds with a long monologue. At the end of the monologue he again faces the audience.
God (to audience): I hope you understand by now why you hold God’s majesty so high. You have to listen to his monologues.

Boy, as a director I would have a field day with that kind of text – especially if the main characters were butt naked! So much for wishful thinking.

There are a few other funny lines in the play but all they really did was remind me of what I consider to be funny Biblical (or at least Biblically related) text. An example of what I mean you can find on the Interwebnets. Or see link to vid below.

Even if I don’t really like this play, I admire someone like Hacks for attacking it, churning it, perhaps chewing it and yet leaving the original story intact. That’s quite an achievement for a man/writer who subjected himself to so much non-belief. As I (think I) said in a previous post in this forum, the thing that finally killed Soviet Kommunism wasn’t just the fact that it was bankrupt. What killed it was the fact that there was nothing (NOTHING!) to believe in.

At least with this play all the Kommunists got a chance to see a butt naked Eve. That would even be good enough for this capitalist pig.

(The link is an external link. If the link doesn’t work then go to any Internet video source and search for “The Devil’s Advocate John Milton’s speech”.)

Rant on.

-tgs-

Can a poem be inspirational?

The inspiration addressed here is not what you think. In fact, I’m a little embarrassed to even write this down. And that’s not because I don’t actually care much for poetry. I mean, I like things that are poetic but “poems”…? My adversity to poetry has something to do with it having been forced down my throat by silly college professors whose only interest was tenure – or Marie Anne Willingness, the college-attending Hooters girl that never missed a class of Eng 101. The catalyst in my hate of poetry was the study of the poem The Red Wheelbarrow, by William Carlos Williams (1883-1963). Do any Germans out there know this poem? No? Since I was only “matriculated” (we in the States use easier words like “registered”) at a German University for about a year I can make no claim to knowing anything about what it is you Germans actually study when it comes to Anglistic. So I’ll just assume here for posterity’s sake that at least one or two Germans know this poem. Or am I way off base here? No matter. The poem that turned me off to poetry went something like this:

so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens

Be assured. There are so many U.S. college papers falsely written about this poem that if the clock could be turned back and the trees replaced I’m sure that the likes of Jürgen (kiss my ass) Trittin would celebrate on account his dimwit Greens would have one less thing to blame for the lie that is “global warming”. And maybe then I might even get to drink cola out of can again.

Having said that, will Hacks’ poetry (for me) rise above the rest? At the least I can say this: Unlike Williams’ poem, one of Peter Hacks’ poems was recently sung by a bunch of drunk New Yorkers – in German.

Since that’s such a hard thing to picture, let me put this whole thing about poetry another way…

Krapp.

I manage every once a once to read a poem. Due to my commitment to Hacks, though, I think that after my recent vacation I have easily met my yearly quota of poetry for 2008, 2009 and perhaps 2010. Luckily it was a krapp vacation – and krapp is a great way to pass the time.

Yes. My vacation was krapp. It all started with the hinflug (departure) and nasty German Lufthansa employees who think that service is spelled with a ‘K’ – you know, as in Kommunism. After fighting and cursing with LH check-in counter idiots at Frankfurt, we finally got our Mile & More tickets. Steaming and sweaty and hating the German corporate world that just barely copies and betters the American corporate world… We boarded that flight hoping that there weren’t too many spiteful LH employees that would radio their colleagues abroad to tell them to make our return flight just as difficult. (And do you think that one LH arrogant employee misfit warned us about the impending strike? Of course we knew about it via the news but that’s not the point. These morons should stand up for the silly little games they play in a world of diminishing returns and unspoken population control. Of course, we did eventually get on the plane. Like Germany itself, there was plenty of beer and wine, no elbow room and each seat had its own video monitor. So much technology and industrial prowess and so little to show for it. Yeah, let’s all watch TV on our flights to Neverland – the country that has annexed us all.)

I won’t bore you with the details of my vacation. Let’s just leave it to the fact that I am a partner in a relationship. I live with a German who has a career. Said German wanted to go shopping (in NYC) so, since I don’t (really) have a “career”, and since I’ve been delegated to expatriation because of a few bad choices when I was young, I’m something like a (worst)writing luggage career. Life would/could be good as a luggage carrier if it weren’t for bad-mood, sour-puss Germans working for Lufthansa. Yes. They even made our return flight krappy!

Anyway. Traveling across the Atlantic on a Lufthansa 747 that was on “strike” is not a good beginning or end to a krapp vacation. Seriously. I mean everything about this vacation was krapp. Visiting my friends was krapp, visiting my parents was krapp, and the visit to my sister was even more krapp. The whole idea about this short and intense visit across the Atlantic also included a bit of free-time and relaxation for my partner. But my partner was totally stressed out because, well, everything was krapp. And since all of that was krapp let’s just end it all with a flight home to a place that is full of a bunch of krappy pseudo-Kommunists with sour-puss faces and too much Green politicking – who all think that, along with state-sponsored vacations, strikes are a fucking birthright.

Oh yeah. The Poetry.

Yet, not all was lost. While a bunch of sour-puss German stewardesses and stewards spitefully served non-LH catered food, I was able to get in some good reading on the plane. As the deteriorating flight service corresponded perfectly with the rise and fall of our altitude, I thought to myself: I kind of like Hacks’ poetry. It reminds me of something between Bukowski’s work and the worn-out leather shoes a convicted rapist uncle of mine gave me when my German mother’s third mistaken husband took me to a West Virginia jail to meet his brother. So I read and read and allowed the multi-culti striking Kommunist crew of LH403 fill my tummy with red wine. (At least they’re good for something, eh? I think it was a French Merlot.) Then I enjoyed the vegetarian Italian noodles that the crew apologetically said were made in the USA and were left over from the previous flight. (The best “strike” noodles I’ve ever had!) After all the trash was finally collected I continued reading from the books that – thank Allah! – US airport authorities haven’t decided to forbid for carry-on. My reading agenda for the flight was a book about the origin of earthly hydrocarbons in the context of geopolitical power mongering and Peter Hacks’ pocket-sized book of poems: “Diesem Vaterland Nicht Meine Knochen”.

And so… I discovered the poem: “Couplets Der Verdammten Könige”.

But…

I had to ask my German Abitur educated partner sitting next to me on LH403: what the fuck does “Couplets” mean? I hate it when I come across German words I don’t know and there’s no Duden around. (Usually these kind of words aren’t originally German.) I guess that’s why I have a partner with an Abitur (and an MBA)! Seriously, a German partner with Abitur is easier to carry on a flight than one of them thick, yellow Duden books.

Don’t get me wrong. Even with all my bitchin’ & moanin’ about Germany, I like reading German. In fact, I can’t get enough of it. I think it’s almost fun. It’s especially fun when I’m in my home country and people think it’s part of their good-citizen duty to question other people reading something in a foreign language. Seriously. Would you believe that there are signs around NYC telling people to “Be on the look-out”. But the signs don’t really tell people what to be on the look-out for. So I guess we all have to just guess.

Anyway. Here’s a transcript of me conversing with someone while visiting New York City and reading Peter Hacks’ poetry:

Scene: sitting outside of a New York City bar in cheap wannabe garden chairs. It’s a hot July afternoon and we just finished shopping after discovering that you can almost get stuff for free because most NYC retailers get a kick out of people toting Euros. (The exchange rate hit €1 = $1.57!!!) I am sitting with partner who is checking Blackberry. I’m reading from a small red book with bright yellow letters on the cover. New York Person, probably a Wall Street broker, sits down at the table next to me and after a pause questions what I’m reading because he’s on the look out for terrorists and/or sex.

New York Person: “… So, you think German is a fun language, uh? You’d better be careful. Sounds kind of Arabic.”
Me Person: “Really?”
New York Person: “Didn’t some of those 9/11 guys come from Germany?”
Me Person: “No, they came from Saudi Arabia and Egypt. But just like me, they were able to matriculate in a German university.”
New York Person: “Ma-trick-you… what?”
Me Person: “Sorry. That’s just another way of saying that one is enrolled as a student at a University.”
New York Person: “Oh. You know, you sound like an American.”
Me Person: “That’s because I am one.”
New York Person: “Then why are you reading Arabic?”
Me Person: “I’m reading German, sir.”
New York Person: “Say. Didn’t we kick Germany’s ass twice in a war or something?”
Me Person: “Indeed, we did. And ever since we haven’t quite figured out what do with all the oil that we won.”

I ended up reading Couplets Der Verdammten Könige out loud to this guy. Eventually a couple of his broker friends, all in fancy suits, joined in and they all bought me and my partner more alcohol – to prove that their dollars were actually worth something – and perhaps with the hopes that I would invite them to Oktoberfest. When I explained what the poem was about – and the fact that it was actually a “song” they got excited and wanted to sing it. So we did. They all churned up what remained from Germ101 at college and off we went. Really. It was the best part of the whole vacation. It almost made me (us) forget about the upcoming return flight on Kommunist serviced Lufthansa.

Rant on.

Tommi

Berliner Novelle, by Peter Hacks

Let me begin with a not-so-well-known German poem/song that will, as of today, always be part of my experience in reading Peter Hacks. The following text was written by Hoffmann von Fallersleben (what a name,eh). For those who don’t know, he’s the dude that gave the world the lyrics of the anthem chestnut-full-of-fun that Haydn put to music and the Nazis ruined: “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles”.

(A short English summary of this poem follows.)

Der Frühling kommt hernieder,
der Winter muß entfliehen,
und Frühling wird es wieder
sogar auch in Berlin.

Im milden sonnigen Wetter
kann man spazieren gehen,
und Kräuter und grüne Blätter
im Tiergarten wieder sehen.

Den Gruß des Frühlings singen
die Vögel in jede Brust,
und alle Welt muß ringen
nach Freude und Frühlingslust.

Der Eckensteher Nante
blieb lebensmüde und matt;
weil er das Leben kannte,
hatte er es herzlich satt.

Er geht zum Tiergarten traurig,
er geht und hängt sich auf.
Im Tiergarten – o wie schaurig!
Beschließt er den Lebenslauf.

Das gibt ein eigenes Rauschen
im grünen Busch am Bach,
und Leute, die da lauschen,
die gehen dem Geräusche nach.

Gendarmen und Polizisten,
mit Rettungsmedaillen geziert,
und viele gute Christen,
die kommen herbei spaziert.

Sie schneiden ihn ab vom Baume,
sie reiben ihn, bis er lebt,
und Nante wie im Träume
denkt, daß er im Himmel schwebt.

Allmächtiger, hab Erbarmen!”
So spricht er, “was seh´ ich hier?
Im Himmel auch Gendarmen?
Nun ist es aus mit mir!”
(Er stirbt)

The poem is about a dude named “Der Eckensteher Nante”. (This is hard to translate; means something like “The Corner Standing Nante”; but it is also used to describe a certain trait in some Berliners.) Obviously, Nante is not a man of much success. In fact, he’s had it with life, politics and, perhaps, Berlin. So he goes to a park and commits suicide by hanging himself. Unfortunately, probably like the compulsive and non-creative life in Berlin today, he doesn’t have much success at that either. After some people, including the police, save him, he awakes in the soothing arms of what he thinks is heaven and says: “Oh my, there are Gendarmes in heaven? Well, that’s it for me!” Then he really dies.

Yeah, that pretty much summarizes my experience in Germany, as well, although I haven’t quite made it to the hanging part (yet). And if you’re asking what this poem has to do with Peter Hacks’ play…? All I can say thus far is that it’s in the title. Fallersleben’s poem is also called “Berliner Novelle”. Am I the only one out there that smells literary conspiracy here? Two works about the misery of being German and I am alone in seeing the connection? What? You don’t think these pieces are connected? Nor are they worth any kind of (worstwriter) scrutiny? OK. You win. I’ll just have another Hefeweizen while reading a play.

Here’s a Tommi summary of Berliner Novelle (the play) in English. Keep in mind this play is only about sixty pages long. Also, Eulenspiegel Verlag and/or Peter Hacks calls it a Dramolett.

A one-legged American professor, Dr. Andrew Di Verona, is visiting East Germany during “the advanced 90s of the twentieth century”. Dr. Dietmar Schiller, a former and now de-frocked East German university professor and his family are providing the American with a bed for the night because the organizers of the event that brought the American forgot to consider that he couldn’t make it up the stairs of the town’s only available hotel. All other hotels in town are booked because of another event. (You would think that East Berlin, after the fall of the wall, was a busy place, eh?) Those participating in this ad hoc hosting situation include Schiller’s family, which consist of his wife, Irmtraut (what a name, eh), and his daughter Herta – who is “an ugly girl of 2,10 meters”. Mr. Jamal, “a businessman”, rounds up the cast of characters.

The play has some family squabbling, the presentation of anger management issues by Schiller’s socially depraved wife, and a sexual turn of events that would make anyone studying the characteristics of Euro incest cringe. (The late part of the first decade of the 21sts century would tell any theatre manager in Austria NOT to touch this play!) What the play is trying to portray, though – the dysfunction caused by capitalism induction – doesn’t get lost in the odd twist of events that Hacks writes about. The reality that faced (faces?) the former Eastern States of Germany is picturesque in this play – if you can stand a stage with an ugly girl of 2,10 meters that likes to romp regularly with her dad.

Getting back to the poem connection.

One thing that got me thinking while reading Peter Hacks’ play had to do with Fallersleben’s poem. As mentioned, Hacks’ play is about dysfunction – which includes Berlin. In a different kind of way, Fallersleben’s poem is about the same thing – in Berlin. The thing is, good authors are tricky. It’s no wonder that Hacks might have had something else in mind – not with his play but with the title. And I think I might have seen through his cleaver disguise.

Here’s my run-away theory about this play and poem. And please, take this with a grain of salt while sleeping in your salt bed…

The title “Berliner Novelle” is something like a code. It is a code known only to a few writers of truth. The reason it is code is because, even if we are told that the Stasi is gone, some writers just cannot get tyrannical conditioning out of their system. Since I’m not a very smart writer – like Hacks – all I propose at this point about the codification of “Berliner Novelle” is that Berlin = dysfunction and Novelle = short. Simple enough, eh? It even works for Fallersleben’s poem. I could get somewhat more complex and say that “Berlin” = the centre of all things wrong about being German. (Munich does too but who wants to actually write about that stuck-up hole in the ground?) But I wouldn’t want to over do it.

Or? Part 1.

Berliner Novelle is really a great little play – and it definitely goes beyond just providing losers like me fodder for making fun of the country I have to live in. With that in mind, why isn’t it being performed somewhere right now? I would actually put effort into seeing this play. Knowing what I know, I would make fun of the missing American leg and yell at the stage: “Is your missing leg a metaphor for Detlev Karsten Rohwedder? What about Alfred Herrhausen?”

If I were a student of literary sciences I could have a field-day analyzing Berliner Novelle. Seriously. I would leave out the leg metaphor thing and put some effort into comparing it to Fallersleben’s poem. I would also have a bit of fun getting down & dirty in the text and picking out all the detailed innuendo, metaphors and other literary trickery that Hacks employs to show his disgust of what has become nothing more than an annexed nation-state (of the US) that speaks too much German.

Or? Part 2.

Even though I find Hacks’ play hilarious, there is an underlying sadness about it that warrants some serious theatrical attention. It is a play that portrays a country in the middle of a tyrannical metamorphosis. The moment of change that relieved the world of the former German Democratic Republic – obnoxiously loved by so many – has nothing to do with the integration and annihilation of one sovereign nation but instead is about the all-exclusiveness of another sovereign nation and its consuming and excreting habits. How ironic when one considers that Peter Hacks literally ran away from the very same system in the 1950s that eventually would gobble him up anyway. Perhaps that’s why this play is so short and yet misses nothing!

I might have found the/a artistic work that I’ve been searching for ever since the early 90s – and it goes well with the time it takes to down a glass of German beer (a half litre play, indeed). It is certainly not a definitive work – about German unification – but when one considers what (west) Germany has produced about this historical period of (in)humanity up to this point… Well, there is still hope that works of art containing substance may yet be found hidden in former East German desks.

With that in mind, I say leave all the nonsense produced up to now about unification to the lost generation of (West German) Steppenwolf readers and writers spoiled by their Wirtschaftswunder inheritance. They are all too preoccupied with the extras of their new state-subsidized company cars or how they will look on global TV during the next World Cup. We can also leave all the Ossie stuff produced on ARD/ZDF in the same bin that we should throw the €2B German theatre landscape – that in my opinion has yet to produce any real works of art regarding Unification.

The thing is, I thought to myself before embarking on the journey of reading this play: what a boring title. I have since learned that there is a great deal to be found in something as small as a title.

Rant on.

Tommi

The short play “Der Parteitag” (The Party Convention) by Peter Hacks begins with one of the first words I remember learning after I moved to West Germany. The word? Genossen. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not a believer in hate – but I hate that word. It’s like the word Auspuff. When said, no matter what it is supposed to mean, it just sounds stupid.

Thinking about Genosse takes me back to a time prior to moving to Germany in 1989. As an American, my association with Germany is/was unavoidable due to my German born mother (she’s no longer a German citizen) and a few Prussian relatives with hearts of gold. Needless to say, my curiosity was always high regarding Germany and Europe. Quickly after moving here, though, my curiosity was dampened. The European Union was in full motion, communism was dying, people had positive bank accounts and vacation time and pseudo-laissez-faire politics ruled everything. With that said, I was/am a non-believer in the European Union experiment (it will never succeed), socialism/welfare is as bad as communism, and the only thing Europe has to offer the world, other than money, is its past and some seriously hot, promiscuously feminist, emancipated women. Thank goodness that a great deal of my personal interest lies in the reading and writing of plays, eh.

Since I’m on the subject of moi…

As a young fellow curious about culture, history, languages and unshaven German girls, I thought it appropriate to visit the east Germany. During a summer visit to West Germany in 1986 I made arrangements to go to the other side. Remember, in order to see anything outside of east Berlin you had to have something like a host and/or sponsor. Luckily I knew someone in the west who knew someone in the east and one thing lead to another and I eventually got my papers and crossed Check-Point-Charlie and beyond. Tickled to death, I suddenly found myself among (real?) communists. I had no idea they could be such fun. What a blast we had! I traveled all around east Berlin, of course, and then went to places like Sanssouci and the Spreewald forest. As a good western tourist I bought cheaply printed versions of The Communist Manifesto for all my friends back home. Oh, and I laughed the first time I had to wipe my ass with crumpled-up newspaper. Subsequently I wanted to visit the east every time I visited the west. But before I could do that, that damn wall fell. I will always equate the falling of the Berlin wall with: the party is over.

The meaning of comrade.

The word Genosse means “comrade”. The word comrade means something like “friends” – I think. Where I come from the word had/has various associations. You know, communism, Brezhnev, Fidel Castro, dysfunction, etc., etc. Since I was never known for being a social butterfly or having many friends, the word comrade was useful as I tried to play the The American Dream game. At the height of the Ronald Regan assault on Evil Empires, I would joke around as any anti-authority American would and call people comrade. Comrade may mean friends but it has nothing to do with making them.

Fun in America included complaining about it. But there is no place in America where such complaints can be heard. In America you either go with the flow or make your own little Microsoft. There is no convergence of extremes. There is no shared road. Life in America was/is nothing but a measurement stick of externally determined, move the goal-post to suit the outcome of the game, dead dreams. One can only ask how such a place won the cold war. It must have something to do with humor as much as never used precision weaponry.

Rebellion and bad mouthing your country.

I’m not ashamed to admit that while cursing the American system in my youth I was also spitefully waving a Cuban flag. Seriously. If I had to make a list of people I’d like to meet, Fidel Castro would be on that list. But don’t misunderstand. I hate “communism”. I don’t hate it because of the Soviet Union, the GDR, Cuba or even China. I hate communism because anything humans try to collectively organize – as history has shown – fails. So the only real thing to do in a world where the collective tries to run everything (ironically it doesn’t matter if the collective is capitalist or communist) is to rebel against it. For me, that’s what Fidel was all about. To hell with his communist-dictating bullshit. Fidel Castro was/is nothing but a big whiny baby that successfully told papa-bear to go shove it. I think that’s cool.

The great thing I remember about communism is that you could easily make fun of it and still have fun in it. Forget all that Stasi krapp or KGB nonsense. If the commies knew how to do anything it was do nothing and having fun at it. I always wondered why the American way of life couldn’t be as tolerant. Let’s face it, if anything has come out of the fight between opposing political ideologies of the 20th century then it must be that the winner doesn’t just take ALL but he also thinks a bit to high of himself.

Stage Direction: Enter Peter Hacks from radical stage left.

After reading Der Parteitag – and Hacks reminding me of some of the things I rebelled against when I was young – I couldn’t help but ask when and where Peter Hacks wrote it. Even though the play farcically portrays a system that he obviously wishes to scorn, it does so in a way that makes you (me?) ask: Could he have come up with a better plot? How about a few more intriguing characters? Or how about a little change of scenery?

Well, if he did all that then it wouldn’t be a Dramolette, would it?

So here are a few guesses regarding the questions I have about this play based on my (limited) experience with communists. Mr. Hacks either wrote Der Parteitag while angered out of his mind from bureaucracy or he wrote it while contemplating how things – political or not – never change. At the least, he does a pretty good job of continuing the tradition of making fun of the dunces that called themselves communists – and in reality were nothing but a bunch of under-achieving thugs.

The main characters in this play are not just die-heard communists but also (aghast!) women-comrades. What could a man intend to say in a politically motivated play that borders on the absurd while portraying communist leaders as women? Was Hacks going through a kind of Lysistrata phase? Your guess is as good mine. Hacks goes so far as to intellectually over-indulge while trying to strive for new ideological and/or literary heights. I think. For example: one of the issues to be discussed at The Party Convention deal with the two competing political platforms. One of the platforms has to be chosen in order to lead the party into the future. Does he name one of the platforms “right” and the other “left”? No. He calls one “Sozialvisionäre Wiedergeburt“. He calls the other “Pragmatischen Utopismus”. That is, Social Visionary Reincarnation or Pragmatic Utopianism. Ugh.

Is it me or do others when they hear such things feel Marx turning in his grave?

And it doesn’t stop there. I caught myself laughing as I read that a political party (according to Hacks) doesn’t require two wings to fly. Such an assumption reminded me of the current political system in the United States where capitalism is definitely a one winged beast – that simply never had a wall that could be brought down. (That’s right. It only builds tall buildings that can be brought down.) But I didn’t only think of my beloved United Mistakes while reading this cute little play. Hacks also made me think about how life really is in this (west) German golden cage that to me is the last bastion of communism in the west.

I digress.

At this stage in my quest to get to know Peter Hacks I’m not sure if he was/is a writer of the absurd. But this play smells dearly of absurdity. I may be wrong but my guess is he wrote this play after the fall of the Berlin wall, which also could mean that he wrote with a unique kind of compulsive skill. It is the skill of writing what one truly thinks but doing so in disguise. Who knows, maybe this is a kind of a theatrical stream of consciousness thing – even though I’m not sure if that actually exists.

Unfortunately, the book in which this play is published doesn’t give any information regarding its time-line. I’m not sure I want to research it either. The idea that Hacks wrote such a short but meaningful play about humanities most interesting failed experiment is good enough for me. It puts him on my bookshelf with Vaclav Havel and Milan Kundera. Hacks is not just portraying the downfall of communism but something that transcends political ideology. As I was reading the play for the second time I kept imagining superimposing early 21st century capitalism in the text. It would probably work without any rewriting. I think that’s a pretty cool achievement.

Rant on.

-tgs-

When I was growing up (in America) I was told that life and all it entails would be determined by environment. That included not just the land and trees and waters and smog but also each and every person that I would encounter. As with any other society or country, the environment I was forced to grow up in was a disarray of hierarchical microcosms, pyramid structures and endless peer groups and clicks. Before having much guidance or knowledge, I went about daily life never really knowing what the hell was going on. After all these years of unwilling expatriation, I’m sure growing up in Germany wouldn’t have been much different.

It’s ironic that today “environment” has become more of a crutch on which most individuals make a political stand. More than ever before, and thanks to corporatism and compulsive behavior replacing labor/work, the merit of having achieved something as an individual has become null & void. Individuals have no environment. And so go the Americanisms: you are a/the product of (your) environment, you are what you eat, take care in the company you keep, etc., etc.

Naturally, very few people are successful at self-determining their environment and doing it in a way that isn’t obvious. Even those with big and fancy cars, nice houses and neat-o-torpedo consumables are so unaware of where exactly they are in this/their environment that it is impossible to notice that everything around them is going to hell in a hand basket. Buying stuff is the new ideology. Blind consumerism is, in fact, a new deity – and it conveniently includes codified religion that controls walk-on-the-earth politics. To add to the flame, blind consumerism is the messianic monarchy with the perfect family full of beautiful princes and princesses – and no inbreeding. Ain’t that neat.

Seriously – Part 1.

With that in mind, all hope is not lost. There are still a few trying to find their own way – with or without environments. In fact, I hope I am one of them. (Stop laughing!) And I’m almost sure that Peter Hacks was one of them. Now that I’ve read a few more pages of his work, and even though he’s dead, it’s kind of a good feeling to know that “environment” transcends individual life and there are examples of those who made it beyond all of the nothingness that rules everything today. I mean, come on, what is “environment”?

We are all so sympathetic to the likes of Al Gore and Jurgen (kiss my ass) Trittin and any other high-brow jerk-off that thinks the problems in our air, land and water are because of the hydro-carbons we burn and hence, require governmental (Messianic?) intervention? I say/scream: bullshit. Environment is a state of mind, not a place of being. But I could be way off track.

Seriously – Part 2.

With that nonsense in mind, I will continue reading Hacks and asking the same question over and over and over: why the hell did he go to the GDR? What, up to that point in his life, put “communism” on such an ideological pedestal? Was it uncle Adolf, Brother Mussolini, Genghis Khan, Snow-frickin’-White, that drove him to the land of relinquished individuality and zero environment?

Sure, the beginning of the 20th century must have been a nightmare for those who thought philosophically about anything. But to think that one man (Marx?) could actually establish a framework that would make societies function better… Well, I guess I have the advantage of time AND the Declaration of Independence and US Constitution.

Whether you call it Stalinism, Marxism, Maoism, or what-ever-ism, time has proven why it all has failed miserably – and will continue to fail. (Please, no remarks about China.) When everyone finally woke up to what was happening in the late 80s, early 90s – including Peter Hacks? – there were two things that were missing: belief (in something) and environment. For all it’s failures, so-called capitalism enables belief in almost anything. And now that “environment” as been defined anew… Well, you can buy/politicize something to fix that. (Ain’t that right, Al Gore and Jurgin – let’s rid the world of cans – Trittin?)

Seriously – Last Part.

But I’m not here to argue political ideals. I’m here to state vaguely and without much empirical evidence that even though Hacks obviously made the wrong decision to give up individuality for the collective, it doesn’t matter because he has long since transcended being just another button in/on the machine. He seems to me to be one of the few that was able to determine his own environment. And I’m diggin’ that.

I just finished reading his “Dramolette” (it’s something like a novella but for the stage) Phraates. Did Hacks have delusions of Shakespearean grandeur, or what? If he did, I think that’s cool. At the least, by reading this little play, I learned something about one of the kings of Parthien – which prior to reading this I didn’t even know existed. The play even reminded me of the wackiness of Shakespeare’s Troilius and Cressida and, maybe even a bit of King Lear. Obviously, dealing with his “environment” as best he could, Hacks was able to emulate one of the greatest writers in history. If this keeps up, I’m gonna burn my collection of Brecht paperbacks.

Oh. Below is a cute little poem by Hacks with Tommi translation. I really dig short poems. Short poems have been been a slight obsession of mine ever since those tyrannical professors made me explain The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams.

EIN ANGESTRENGTER AUTOR
Er müht sich Jahre, bis er überhaupt
Verstanden wird. Und wann wird ihm geglaubt?

THE STRAINED AUTHOR
His efforts take years, until he’s actually
Understood. And when is he believed?

Rant on you lovers of the communist,

-tgs-

PS Please don’t send me any money for the above translation otherwise the publisher might see to my deportation on the grounds of mis-using German.

Some thoughts on my first read of anything Peter Hacks.

“Der Staat ist ohne Minister, der Hof ohne Spielmeister, das Theater ohne Direktor, das Land ohne seinen großen Mann.” (The state is without its minister, the courtyard is without its master, the theater is without its director, the country is without its best man.)

And so lingers the word “ohne” (without) as my eyes dabble across the pages of Hacks’ monologue “Ein Gespräch im Hause Stein über den abwesenden Herrn von Goethe” (A Discussion in the House of Stein Absent of Mr. Goethe). Along with those words my “ohne” continues the task of trying to get along with the Germans. Have I found someone to help me in my task? Not only do I wonder who this “großen Mann” (best man) is that Hacks writes about through the eyes and thoughts of a woman, but I think: I probably shouldn’t have begun my Hacks journey with this play.

Well, I guess it’s a play. At the least, it is a monologue, right? The thing is, I don’t really like monologues. A monologue within a play is OK. You know, to-be-or-not-to-be. Or what about Monologuing? Where would James Bond be if the villains didn’t explain so much about their deeds and hence provide enough time & space for the world’s favorite secret agent to think of a way out. There are also comic monologues but – as much as this pains others – comedy just doesn’t work in German.

So where did Hacks get the urge to write something that one actress would have to perform all-by-her-lonesome for what seems to be umpteen hours? Oh yeah. I almost forgot. This “großen Mann” is Goethe. Right?

“Goethe beleidigt, indem er ist.” (Goethe insults because he is.)

Prior to this I never gave the relationship between Goethe and Charlotte Albertine Ernestine von Stein any thought. In a titillating kind of way, it was always more interesting to think about Johanna Christiana Sophie Vulpius or the other Charlotte in Goethe’s life – Charlotte Buff. But Hacks got me thinking.

What starts out to be almost a seething criticism of her ex-lover, ends up being a soothing of her own soul. Hacks makes it clear – at least to me he does – that Charlotte Stein can go right on and forgive herself for what happened because Goethe was nothing more than an old typical genius male who had his way with the ladies. Or something like that.

You know, some people compare Goethe to Shakespeare. I suppose from a literary point of view the two were… dramatists. But such a comparison never really worked for me. For one, I think Goethe has been – much to his own making – misunderstood. Secondly, I don’t think Goethe was even meant to be a “writer”. And if he should be compared to anyone, that would have to be: Leonardo Da Vinci.

Goethe had two problems, only one of which is partly addressed by Hacks. One, Goethe was/is the last living polymath. Secondly, unlike Da Vinci, Goethe was a slave to the German world of mediocrity and status-quo that reared him. Come on, this was a time in history when America was going independent, the jugulars of Robespierre and Danton were beginning to thump, and the passion that could have been Sturm & Drang got caught up in the Order & Virtue of all things (that would become) German. Is that an environment where great literature can spawn? Sure, why not. It worked pretty good for Schiller – if you ask me. Unfortunately, there’s also a bunch of wordy, boring krapp (from Goethe) that motivated me to spend more time on, among others, Greek classics and philosophical works by men that actually did find their calling.

Thank goodness there was Schiller in that whole Sturm & Drang thingy…

“Nun, Goethe ist dieser Mensch; denn er ist Gott. Wenn Gott morgens an Schläfrigkeit leidet, freilich, dann kann ja doch die Sonne nicht aufgehn” (Well, Goethe is this man; he is a God. If God suffers mornings in somnolence then certainly the sun cannot rise).

It’s been more than ten years since I touched anything of Goethe other than the only work that I really dig: “Die Leiden des jungen Werthers” (The Sorrows of Young Werther). With that in mind, I must ask: where is/was Hacks going with this monologue? Is the story Frau Stein tells interesting? Do we learn anything about their relationship that is new? Are the joyous and sad themes of love presented motivate us to go on reading… a frickin’ monologue? The answer is: This isn’t a monologue. It is a “Solospiel” (monodrama). And with that revelation you can move beyond the ideology of story telling and on to the ideology of political remorse. This is, in fact, a monodrama with huge metaphorical implications. At least that’s what I got out of my first Hacks read.

As mentioned, monologues work best if they are somehow part of the/a story. At the least, a monologue should give something away in order to help the reader/audience. I like to refer to it as a trick. A trick in the form of an anecdote or metaphor that highlights threads of the story-quilt. I’m thinking of the monologue by Eddy towards the end of “Fool for Love” by Sam Shepard. Eddy explains the history of misguided love between half siblings and this leads to a fire and hence the potential of the rising of the love-Phoenix (metaphor). Then there’s the monologue by Lucky in Samuel Beckett’s Godot which shows how man is so easily and willingly controlled. But a whole monologue about a misunderstood love affair, from the point of view of a WOMAN! – even if that affair includes the greatest monologue writer that ever was? I don’t think so. So what was Hacks intention?

In this case, Peter Hacks has tricked us (me). And he’s done so with brilliance. This Solospiel is, in fact, a political statement at a time when such things weren’t allowed. I don’t know how long he worked on it nor do I know anything else about how he wrote it. I’m just guessing here based on what Hacks churned inside me as I read it/him for the first time. You see, I’ve been battling with these Germans for the majority of my adult life. This has something to do with the other half of who I am – or could be. And let me tell you: German literature hasn’t helped in my quest to figure it out.

Until (maybe!) now. I don’t know why and I might be way of base with this, but my guess is that this is a pretty good example of a monodrama that wants to be something else. Perhaps it’s a criticism that goes beyond the misunderstanding of Goethe? Or is it praise for the Weiber (chicks) that have molded great German men(*)? Then there’s the perverse thought that maybe Hacks just wanted to get into the head of a woman who cheated on her husband – since, by the early seventies and the introduction of Honecker in his world – what else could a lost idealist write about? Obviously, I am clueless to what exactly Hacks was trying to say with this play – but I enjoyed reading it because it opened up something new regarding Goethe – who I have lazily left to collect dust on my bookshelves.

If, on the other hand, I were asked to go out on limb and try to say something about what I think this monodrama is about. Then I think I’d say: Goethe is the state, Frau Stein is Das Volk (the people), and once the conflict is over, all that is left is the regret and the shame of both having missed their calling.

So much for “Das Land ohne Seinen Großen Mann” (The country without its best man).

-tgs-

*Kaiser Wilhelm: “Give me a woman who drinks beer and I will conquer the world.”

Yes. I’ve been complaining more than usual these past few months. No. Wait. That’s not true. I reckon I’ve been complaining like this for-almost-ever. Not making it in life has its quirks, indeed. But I will never complain about the parts of this life that I’ve been privileged (worstwriter can write “I’ve been privileged!) to experience and has been part of my own personal enlightenment. Allow me an example or two. Experiencing live philharmonic Beethoven. I have seen Don Giovanni twice. King Lear on Saturday night in Düsseldorf. MacBeth on Sunday night in Hamburg. Flew to San Francisco once on a whim and saw Jerry Lewis play the devil on stage. And what about the fine food I’ve become accustomed to eat? My culinary experience spans Thailand to Italy, Tex-Mex to Rheingau. Oh yes, life indeed is a bouquet of fun, games and hacking around – and now  it’s time to get ready to die. I guess. So is life to short for bad wine to go with it all? No, it’s not. Life is too long to feed the greed-mongers of hoarded grapes and whored vineyards and so the world should smarten up and boycott wine.

Or maybe not. Obviously, I didn’t grow up in a world of cultivation. In order to be where I am today I had to first pick the path in life that was not meant for me. In short, that boils down to being an American immigrant. That is, as an American, I’ve chosen to live elsewhere (well, perhaps the word “chosen” is not quite right; but I won’t get into that chestnut here, dear worst-reader.) The fact is, if it weren’t for the wrong choices I’ve made, I’d still be in redneckville fiddling with all my guns and drinking beer out of cans. That’s right. I just said ”guns” and beer. Luckily those guns are still back home – hopefully locked up safe. As far as drinking too much out of cans, well, I now live in a place that makes the best beer in the friggin world and sometimes driving it out of cans is almost better than drinking it back home (if that makes any sense). And with such a big and grand move, I’ve been able to move beyond guns and beer to the luxury of wine, preferably red (on account Jesus never drank white). I’ve even acquired such a taste for wine that I’m not afraid to admit how drinking it makes me passive – just like Jesus.

A glass of fine red wine on a regular basis helps me deal with a whole bunch of this fucked-up world. If it weren’t for red wine – and all the reading I’ve done over the years to accompany it – who knows what would have become me. Of course, drinking a fine wine effects people in different ways. Just listen to some of the dips out there trying to figure out bouquets and tannins and structures. (Which, btw, reminds me of the film Sideways. Honestly, I don’t know why the writer of that film picked on Merlot so much.) Which brings me slowly but surely to the topic at hand.

But before I continue on with my worstwriting ramblings, let me get a sentence out regarding the subject of this post: Good wine is gettin’ too expensive. And I think that sucks. Even now, so many years after leaving my redneck ways, the smell of a fine wine brings back memories, which I’ll try and avoid writing about here. Yet there are some very confusing bouquets, if you will, that I can’t help that they remind me of something. A psychologist told me once that these are memories attached to my smells. Seriously. She said that to me. Anywho.

Now here’s the thing that might throw you for a loop. The smell that grabs me the most after I’ve drank too much fine red wine is the smell of guns. Here I’ll cease in the use of French vernacular. Yeah, the smell of a gun, fired or not, is quite the opposite of a fine wine. And don’t opposites attract? In a way, what I’m trying to get at here is the luscious Kilgore smell that motivates and accelerates the forgetting of every little murder one ever committed.

Kilgore: I love the smell of napalm in the morning. (You know, to motivate them to surf.)

Worstwriter: I love the smell of Tuscan red wine in the early or late afternoon. (To stop thinking altogether.)

Naturally I yearn for the smell of guns and what they do – those guns are part of what made me who I am today. And when the urge grasps me, when it tugs at my pant leg and causes my scrotum to itch, instead of reaching for the gun cleaning oil (my European substitute), I reach for a cork screw and a bottle with a DOCG label. (Btw, gun cleaning oil is a good substitute for getting that smell; you can buy the oil almost anywhere in Europe; all you have to do is sniff it; thank goodness you can’t buy the guns as easily.)

Oh, the smell. The smells that remind me… Like some stranded spider that bathes in chocolate and raspberry; the spider has been too often caught in a storm after being plucked from fresh olive oil soil; the spider is now waving through the hellish atmosphere and threatened by the carbon dioxide that seems to be the only thing humans can produce at the beginning of this/a new century – other than guns.

Yes. Wine. Perhaps the most severe addiction I’ve had to deal with ever. And now I have been given reason to give it up. But this reason is so unlike the reason I gave up the guns. What is the reason, you ask. It is not voluntary. And why is that? Well. It’s finally come full circle. Last year was probably the last year – most likely – that I will be able to visit the Tuscany region of Northern Italy to buy my habit. It used to be relatively easy – a matter of filling up the trunk of whoever’s car I stole – or informally borrowed. I then would drive back to Germany and proceed to hide the wine from those who would steal it from me. So much is this nice, fancy, comfortable but greedy life we live, eh. But the reality of years, just like the reality of the Karl Marx’s globalization complot, have caught up to me. (Am I alone?) That’s right. It’s no longer worth making the 1000+ kilometer drive to buy wine. The reality of move-over-rover economies has reached the regular folk of the once rich working west.

So… why did Jesus turn water to wine? Could it be because wine has always been too expensive? Hey! I might have just solved a mystery.

The thing is, as a failed artist, I can see through most human trickery as though it were both sides of my crystalline, mystic, immaculately conceived hand. I know that most of you (puppets) can’t see much – and I forgive you for that. But the time has finally arrived to remind you of your responsibilities as shitters and eaters. If failed artists like me can’t get to the wine or our other procrastinating habits – and we have to resort back to the gun oil – and the things it oils – then history is bound to repeat itself. Do you need to be reminded of the last failed artist that couldn’t afford (regularly) a drink?

What is Globalization anyway?

Ultimately the whole Globalization thing, no matter what the status quo tries to tell you, i.e. Wikipedia, is about redistribution. What’s being redistributed is probably a better question to ask. Ironically, the East Europeans, particularly Russians that I’ve met, were the first ones that introduced me to the word globalization. They used it to describe how the Soviet government was hanging on to Stalinism even as all their satellites were failing and/or trying to exit their union. But there no sense in clogging to many minds. It’s hard to see things that you can or should – with much less effort – avoid, eh?

Globalization – Wine = prolific literary violence. I think.

Moving beyond the fact that a bottle of Brunello purchased at the vineyard, or a bottle of Chianti Classico Reserve purchased at a local store in Northern Italy, rose ca. five Euros each year that I drove to Tuscany after 2003. Seriously. Inflation is something that can be countered. The real problem is this: Stalin-Soviet style redistribution under the mantle of economic changes that, according to Bill Clinton, cannot be reversed. I mean, come on, where and what is whatever being redistributed? Btw, the Spanish make a great alternative wine in their Rioja Reserve but after going their twice I can already tell that it’s gonna be two expensive real soon.

The joke about wine is that those who actually go to expensive restaurants and pay outrageous amounts for a bottle of wine deserve what they get. Which basically amounts to a show. The problem with great wine is that the good stuff is kept for the inner circles or the privileged buyers. Would you, if you had a standardized kind of demand for your product, turn out the best of what you can make to everyone? Of course not. We’re talking human free-will here. We’re talking Stalin Mafia here.

Enter the nouveau riche and the creation of “markets” (that were obviously not there previously).

How can Tuscany wine makers meet the crazed demand springing out of all this Globalized redistribution? In the article that I link to above, they say that the largest taker of Brunello wines are the Americans. That may be so – I’ve ran into quite a few during my stays in Tuscany. But I think the Italians see another wave of purchasers on the horizon and they (Italians) have to get their shit together to prepare for it. The great thing about wine producers is, in this new redistributed world, the consumer is no longer a participant in the scheme – as it used to be when Supply & Demand ruled and Keynes wasn’t necessarily evil. Today it’s all about purchasing power alone – which is interdependent of your geographic position. In other words, there is more to Globalization than Naomi Klein can shake a stick at and my guess is it has something to do with the chronic masturbation suffered by lonely careerists that have to travel… much.

Right. So what can inheritance rich wineries do to get richer and not be so embarrassed by the ones they leave behind?

Think tricks anew

If you think that the recent scandal in Tuscany is about wineries cheating on their bottles of wine then you might want to reconsider. Get this: the wine scandal currently in northern Italy is NOT about wine makers manipulating regulated wine in order to make a buck; nor is it about a supply or quality problem; then there’s the idea that some of the wineries had/have to cheat because, well, they had a bad year. (DOCG Brunello can’t be sold unless it’s been aged at least four years. There ain’t no such thing as just-in-time here.) This is an expensive wine to make. But that’s not the problem. The fact is, Tuscany is as great an example as any of Globalization finally catching up to the old money of the west. Yeah, you Euro baby-boomers, Globalizers are starting to eat their own.

The economic ticks & tricks over the past thirty or so years have been basically about ridding the market from the burdens of concepts such as Supply & Demand. A great example of this is the dot-com fiasco. Or did ”demand” for technology just decide to go away? Another is the current energy problem. Or does someone out there have definitive, empiracal evidence that this earth does not have the capacity to meet human energy demands?

At the least, we have a lot of things to both worry about and tap ourselves on the shoulder over. But should that cause a crisis in one of the best and productive wine regions there is? Would things be like they are these days if there was no demise of the Soviet Empire? Coincidentally, how ’bout our new & improved notion of fear?

Watchoutforthe… TERRORISTS!!!

If you ask me – and I don’t recommend you do. The question here about the recent Brunello scandal is easy: How do those who were rich before Globalization maintain their riches now that the shit is starting to hit the fan?

For the winery business in Europe – the answer is easy. Obviously you can’t readily burn down your vineyards (to wipe out debts and collect insurance) and you can’t just buy up all that ”nationalized” grape soil and move it to Indochina. Trust me when I say: a good glass of red wine is far from a Nike shoe. Remember, there’s no such thing as a free market anymore – there’s just people who are freer than others. The key to winning in the new Globalized market for players that can’t move out of their cost-problems is to raise prices. But raising prices is VERY bad for business. (Unfortunately that is one of the things Globalization has’t been able to get rid of.)

Nouveau Riche vs. Old Euro Money

How do you manage business when you have to drastically raise prices to take advantage of the nouveau riche? As the/your western (old) buyers start gettin’ rude regarding your un-justifiable prices and you shove the fact that their money ain’t as good as other money into their faces- you take in the moment. You breath deeply. You quickly realize that you have become a microcosm of Globalization. A good feeling, indeed. If it works for entire economies, and geo-political regions, why can’t it work for Guido, the killer wine maker in northern Italy?

Well, the Tuscan wineries have figured out a way to get around the PR aspect of raising prices. First, you create a scandal that exposes cheating. In turn you create sympathy because it makes consumers think their suppliers really do have supply problems. Such a scandal will also expose players and there will plenty of reason to cry foul. The market then starts to correct itself – in the form of government agency/agencies getting rid of the cheaters (players). (Yeah, right, in Italy.) And then there’s the subtext of the drama: It’s time for the wine industry to take care of its own – and anyone don’t like it… then let them eat cake!

Yes. I am obsessed withe Maria Antoinette and dream of her becoming Vito Corleone.

At the least, the scandal in Tuscany is not about juicing up bottles of fancy wine and breaking the rules regarding what goes into a bottle of Chianti. It’s about finding a way to drastically raise prises over or during the shortest economic cycles in history.

Winny Wine Maker That Inherits: I no make good money anymore!

Person He Is Trying To Impress To Fuck: But I want diamond first.

Winny Wine Maker That Inherits: We had too much rain (this/that) year.

Person He Is Trying To Impress To Fuck: To much rain? Change the weather – my Italian Stallion!

I will cherish the remaining bottles of Brunello I have in my cellar. And I will enjoy them when/if I have to drink them in a drastic moment when Europe once again falls into the rut of self-annhilation – from a Styrofoam cup.

Links:

• Brunellopoli – Wiki
• Apocalypse Now – Wiki
  The crazy man played by Duvall in…
• Denominazione di origine controllata – Wiki
• Dot-com bubble – Wiki
• Nouveau riche – Wiki
• Globalization – Wiki

 

Rant on.

-tgs-